Ed Lacy - The Men From the Boys

I sneezed, a hell of a sneeze that shook my toes, near tore Bill's little office apart. He jumped back, ran a hand over his face. “You pig. Told you my girl was sick. Why don't you cover your mouth?”

I was on my way to the door. “Be grateful for that sneeze. It rattled my brains—could be the break in the Anderson case.”

Bill's long face seemed to sag as he touched my arm, said, “Marty, why don't you see a doctor?”

“I already have. Be good and maybe I'll give you Cocky Anderson's killer all bound up in pink handcuffs,” I said, walking out.

In the old days when a case broke it was like being on a drinking jag, the same high feeling. Now it didn't do a thing to me except amaze me how a little thing always trips a big deal.

I didn't have proof yet, but the way the pieces were falling into place, I knew it had to be the link. The secret of police work is digging into every fact—and Bill had overlooked a couple of small ones, just as I had. And of course, you got to have luck—like my chewing the fat with Bill and him breaking things right over my head, without knowing it.

It took me a couple of dimes and a quart of sweat in a phone booth to get ahold of the guy at Immigration again. He said he'd check and call me back at the Grover after lunch.

I had time to kill and because it was on my list of “last things,” I took a cab to the Battery and the ferry to Staten Island, the cheapest and most interesting voyage in the country.

In Staten Island I went into a spaghetti joint and had a pizza pie and a couple of glasses of beer. There were a dozen or so guys eating in the joint and I wondered if my tail was among them. But it didn't matter; I had him on a string and he'd jump whenever I yanked it.

I was back in the Grover by one and Lawson told me, “I wish you would stay around to take care of your personal business, Bond. A Dr. Dupre has been calling you every hour. And a rather striking-looking woman was here, left this number for you to call. She claimed she was your ex-wife.”

I crumbled the paper with Flo's number. “What do you mean, claimed?”

“How a gorgeous woman would ever fall for you is beyond my ken.”

“Your what? Look, Nancy, don't let it worry you—you'll never get within fondling distance of anything like Flo, and if you did, you wouldn't know what to do. I'm expecting a call—put it right through to my room.”

“Mr. King is in the office.”

“Who cares!”

I was feeling so good I overdid it—in my room I knocked off a big slug of rye for no reason and my belly began acting up, as if to remind me of the reason I was in the deal.

Shortly before two Barbara dropped into my room and when I asked why she was at work so early, she said, “I never went home last night. Gee, Marty, you shouldn't have cut Harold's hair. He thinks you're sore at me and if I'd gone home last night he would have whipped the hide off me.”

“Going home tonight?”

“Maybe,” she said, pouring herself a small one.

“Look, you take one of the rooms here—permanently—and if that fat punk tries to ...” I stopped talking. I wouldn't be around much longer to take care of Harold, or anybody else. It was an odd feeling, like somebody had pulled me up short.

Barbara finished the drink. “Thanks for worrying, but it will be okay when I go home tonight with two days' dough. With Harold, I always got to build him up—he has to be the big I-am. And money is the best builderupper. I did swell last night—a ten-buck tip. Nice-dressed guy—asked about you.”

“About...? What did he ask?”

“Nothing exactly, but a whole lot. I pegged him for a racket-fellow. I think he was casing the setup here, but then he got off on you—how long had you been here, you have any side jobs, any dough? Lot of questions that didn't add up. He knew about you being on the force. You know me, I knew from nothing.”

“What did he look like?”

“Big, hard body, out-of-towner with a twang. Sort of good looking in a ...”

“Look like Dick Tracy?”

She stretched all her lipstick in a large grin. “Say, I kept thinking he reminded me of somebody and that's it—Dick Tracy, all them sharp features, hat low on his head.”

“What time was all this?”

“Oh... about one, two. Why you so interested?”

“Why didn't you call me, or tell me?”

“Marty, you toss Harold out and he tells me to stay away from you. And you been so grouchy these days and I figured you were asleep. Anyway, the guy wasn't tough or nothing, very friendly and casual like.”

“He use the word bastid? Not bas-tard but...?”

Barbara stiffened. “Please, what kind of conversation you think we were having?”

She wasn't kidding, so I let it drop. “Dewey see him come in?”

“How do I know? But that wino was off last night, stinking, and I know Kenny had to run the elevator and cover for him most of the night. Gee, Marty, so a guy asked about you—all friendly-like. What's so important about all this?”

“Nothing.” That had been a slip on my part, not alerting Kenny. Dewey, the damn lush! And last night, Smith probably didn't know about the store being broken into, so he was just looking around. Must be puzzled as hell about me sticking my nose in things.

“Marty, you angry with me?” Barbara asked, playing coy, coming over and putting her hand on my shirt, making it stick to my damp skin.

“No, honey. Wait here for a couple of minutes. I'll be back.”

“Mind if I take a shower? I smell like a couple of other gals.”

“Take a brace of showers,” I said, going out. I called Sam from the desk, asked what his most expensive perfume cost. It was twenty-seven bucks with taxes and I told him to send over a bottle right away.

Lawson was on the elevator with King keeping an eye on the desk. He came out of the office, told me, “Mr. Bond, it's time we had a little talk. You have not only been impertinent, but also negligent in your duties as a...”

I went over to him. His skin was waxy and drawn tight over his bony puss. “Why don't you change your record? You're an old man and I guess you want to live longer, although I can't figure why or...”

“You can't bully me!” He actually made his little hands into fists.

“Yes, I can, King. I can bully you all I want because if I feel like it, I'll belt that funny-looking chin of yours, bust all the bones, including your store choppers. I can do that with one punch, one good ...”

“Roughneck!” He almost screamed the word at me as he retreated into his office.

I don't know what it was, maybe the hatred in his eyes, but it was like looking into a crystal ball, seeing my life, and that one word, “roughneck,” summed it up. Roughneck, lout, bully... they covered the years, my lousy stupid life, all of it. It made me feel crummy.

King got courage, and some color back in his face, stuck his stickpin head out of the office door. “You think you can push me around because you're all muscles. Well, there will be an accounting soon that will...!”

“All right, don't crowd your luck with a roughneck,” I growled, and walked to the front of the small lobby, sat down, wondering why the cockroach had upset me—and he had. I sat there for maybe ten minutes, thinking of nothing, almost wanting to bawl.

Sam came over himself and I paid him for a bottle that looked like a watch charm, it was that small, but Sam wasn't the kind to gyp me. He asked if my cold was better, told me to drop over for some more pills.

Back in my room I found Barbara dressing. I placed the tiny box in her hands as she pulled on her dress, asked, “What's this?”

“A time bomb—what does it look like?”

She unwrapped it and stared at the little bottle, then up at me, and began to cry a little. “Lord, Marty, this is Arpege!”

“Sure is,” I said, as if I knew what she was talking about.

“I've bought the toilet water but... this is the perfume!”

She came over and gave me a sloppy kiss, whispered, “Hon, it's been a long time for us.”

“Sure, but you just took a shower, no sense getting sweated up. Some other time.”

She pulled away, rubbed her nose with the bottle. “You're a funny one—lately. Before you were so tough and ...”

“Being tough is a lot of crap,” I said, slapping her hips.

“... and now you're sentimental.”

“You bet I am. We've had some good times together. And being sentimental over a whore is getting down to the tacks of life.”

“Why did you have to use that word, Marty?”

“Why not? We never kidded ourselves. Let old poppa Marty tell you what I've learned the last few days—this is a whoring world and it makes us all whores in one way or another.”

Barbara slipped me the coy look again. “I suppose what you said is awful deep or something; I'll have to think about it. Marty, was the girl asking for you this morning really your wife?”

“Yeah.”

“She looks like what I used to dream about when I was a kid—being real big-time, real beautiful.”

“You should have seen her eight or nine years ago.”

“No, she looks beautiful now because she knows she isn't any kid and still she has it—what a figure.”

“Maybe she was too pretty.”

“How come you let something like that go?”

I slapped Barbara's hips again. “Something like that let me go. But by then it didn't matter. Flo was like a pug in training—all the time. Couldn't do this or that because it might spoil her figure, surf casting roughened her skin... all that. Now she wants me back and she has a swell setup.”

“No wonder you've been fluffing the duff here—you're going back to her.”

“No, it's too late for that.” I was suddenly bored with all the small talk. “Honey, want to take a walk, or something? I need some shut-eye.”

“Okay. Thanks for the perfume. Guess it is too muggy to do anything but sleep.”

When she left I sat on the bed, wondering how to kill the afternoon—my last afternoon. Be good to get drunk, but with my gut it might spoil things for tonight—and it was going to be tonight. Jones Beach was too much effort and ...

The phone rang—my boy in Immigration. He told me what I expected, and of course it fitted, as I knew it would. There it was, all wrapped up. I could pull the string now by merely calling Bill—they'd make him a captain at least for this—only there was my own very special angle, the only thing that mattered for me.

I still had the rest of the afternoon and my room depressed me. I went out and Lawson asked, “Where you going, Bond?”

“I'm going to break your nosy head!” I said, making for the desk.

He backed into the office. “I'm only asking in case you get any calls.”

“Tell them I'm out counting the pansies in Washington Square,” I said, turning toward the door.

I walked over to Seventh Avenue, stopped for pie and iced coffee. I was still being tailed. I decided to tell Lawrence good-by.

The doc wasn't happy to see me, said, “Mr. Bond, you upset him badly the last time you were here. I'll find out if he wants to see you.”

He returned in a few minutes to tell me I could go in. “But please make it brief and be careful what you say—no arguments.”

The same cop was on the door and he gave me a hard look as I went in. The boy was in a wheel chair, tape over his nose, the top of his head bandaged. He was bare to his waist although most of his ribs were taped. I said, “Well, kid, you're coming along fine.”

“That's what they tell me.” His eyes seemed to be studying me. “Glad you came by, Marty. I've thought over what you told me—I'm still going to become a cop—at least try to. I'll be a good cop if for no other reason because I'll stop any other Marty Bonds from abusing their authority.”