He was just about to accost her when he saw the hands of the wall clock standing at ten and without taking his eyes from hers at all, he dialed Papa Menes’ private number, waited until he heard the old man’s voice and said, “It’s ten o’clock, Papa.”
The old man let a laugh ripple out of his mouth. “Figure it out yet, shithead?”
“You’re acting senile, Papa. This call is only a courtesy now.”
“Is it, Marcus?”
“Not as long as you believe I was behind all the trouble, punk.”
A cold chill ran down Shelby’s neck. “Why would I believe that?”
“Because,” Papa told him, “I was almost stupid enough to think you were. Then I sat down and ran it all through my mind until I was sure you never did have the guts or the brains to pull it off. You just waited behind the scenery and let it all happen. It wasn’t what you planned, but as long as it happened you let it alone, then even helped it a little bit. Only like I said, you forgot something.”
“Papa, listen . . .”
“Lay off the shit, punk. I know it wasn’t me and I know it wasn’t you. What you forgot was that someplace the one who started it all is still out there waiting and we both got to be on his list ... and you’re in a tight spot.”
“I’m . . .”
“Don’t shit me, Marcus. You’re not at home, you’re not in the office, so you’re someplace where you can be tagged real easy. You see, I’m smarter than you, shithead. I’m holed up tight in a safe place with twenty guns all around me and I can wait it out for a year if I have to. By then you’ll be dead anyway.” He chuckled again and added, “Besides, if you ain’t dead, you’ll be doing one hell of a lot of hard time. That cop Burke was back around the pawnshop again. He was looking for some blond tramp. He won’t have much luck because she’s long dead, but he sure as hell might figure something else out.”
The phone was dead in his hand with the old man’s laugh still ringing in his ears. When Helga smiled with phony sweetness and asked him if everything was all right his stomach churned up into his throat and stifled the scream he let out as he threw his fist into her unprotected face and knocked her sprawling back against the couch. There was no stopping the madness that made him tear into her, his knuckles grinding into her ribs and head, his feet kicking huge welts into her skin until she was a bloody, discolored mess on the floor.
When he finished he was a breathless, disheveled figure with wild eyes and skinned fingers and all he could say came out in a panting hiss. “Lousy, stinking bitch. You’re waiting for a guy. You fuckin’ two-timing whore, you won’t be any good to any man again. You’re going to be dead, you and him both. I’m coming back and you’re going to be dead.”
Shelby would have waited, but there was something more important he had to do, then he’d kill them both. The insane fear that one single guy could blow up his entire scheme was so staggering that he even forgot what Papa Menes had told him.
He was back on the street when he remembered, but by then it was too late to change his mind. He flagged down a cab, told the driver where he wanted to go and sat back.
Maybe luck was on his side again. To help it along he changed cabs three times until he reached his destination, certain now that he wasn’t being followed.
The fear had ebbed out of him, and now he was at his deadly best, ready to kill again from ambush.
Gill Burke parked the car a block away and sat there with Helen and Bill Long. The rain had turned into a fine mist, greasing the streets and throwing halos around the street lights. They looked up the empty block where only a few stores still waited for late business.
Burke said, “I’m going to lay out the background for you, Bill. It isn’t a big story and after we check it out you’ll find nothing but circumstantial evidence . . . except for one critical piece.”
“I’m waiting.”
“We go back to Mark Shelby again.”
“You’re kidding yourself, Gill.”
“Am I? Let’s see if you think so.”
“Okay, go ahead.” There was no confidence in his voice at all.
Burke said, “Think of it this way . . . Shelby was in a position to know everything about everybody, the workings of the business, personal details ... everything. He always had been an ambitious guy, but he kept it hidden pretty damn well because the syndicate didn’t like ambitious people in sensitive places.
“Shelby didn’t want to be a target, either. He was planning the ultimate takeover and wanted to make sure he stayed covered, so besides gathering all the data on the organization, he had evidence on everybody inside it that could keep them out of circulation permanently.
“Hell, it’s not an old scheme, Bill, but he was able to make his work. He couldn’t keep reams of paper around, so he found a couple of unknown and unscrupulous photographers to microfilm his collection. Unfortunately, one or both were a little too unscrupulous and realized what he had. They tried to hold him up for a little blackmail and Shelby killed them on the spot. He had probably stayed on the spot while they did the filming, but one of those guys could do a duplicate of something to hold over his head. The poor slob didn’t realize who he was playing around with and that was it. Shelby picked up the dupes and walked the hell out.
“It was a sleazy neighborhood and he probably never expected to be recognized, but one guy spotted him ... even spoke to him. He was a lucky kid. When they put the heat to him he wasn’t about to talk . . . and he still won’t . . . but it put Shelby in a position of not being able to take any chances. He could have ditched the gun, but he wanted those two kills solved fast and to everybody’s satisfaction. After that, whatever the kid said wouldn’t matter anyway.
“He found a perfect patsy, an alcoholic named Ted Proctor. He made up a story the guy believed, probably about finding a gun and how Proctor could pawn it for twenty bucks and they’d split the loot for some booze. So Proctor walked into the trap, all juiced up with happiness.”
Long felt it coming and his voice was like ice. “Don’t give me any crap about Jimmy Corrigan being part of the scheme, buddy.”
“He didn’t know he was,” Burke said quietly. “He was suckered too.” He took a breath, lit up a cigarette and stared down the street again. “Just before that Shelby got some of his supposedly clean front men to hand over their wallets. He had them planted in Proctor’s room to make Proctor look like a regular heist artist. Then he roped in some hooker to do a stalling act in case the timing wasn’t just right.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Something Corrigan remembered that wasn’t in his report because it didn’t seem to be part of it.”
“He’ll confirm it?”
“Sure, but you won’t find the dame, that’s for sure.”
“Go ahead.”
“Shelby knew Corrigan’s routine and about what time he’d go by Turley’s pawnshop. Corrigan was a little late, but the hooker stalled him nicely while Proctor went ahead into the pawnshop. Finally Corrigan got away from the broad and walked toward the shop where Turley was discussing buying the gun from Proctor and just as the cop came by, Turley threw up his hands like he was being robbed. Corrigan spotted him, came in with his hands up and when Proctor turned around with the gun in his mitt Corrigan thought the guy was going to let him have it and he fired first.”
Bill Long stared at him in disgust. “There’s one hell of a hole in the story, Gill.”
“There is?” Gill was smiling now because he knew what Long was going to say.”
“Yeah, a big one. It was night out. There was no way for Turley to spot the cop coming up through the window. It’s completely covered with all those pawned items.”
Burke nodded. “It sure is.”
“Well?”
“Remember me telling you it was Helen here who put me on to it.”
She looked at him strangely.
“You were waiting in the car for me outside. The windows that flank his doorway reflected you and the car perfectly when you stand in the right position, and that’s exactly where Turley was . . . not behind the counter where he usually transacted business. He was able to spot Corrigan and go into his act with no trouble at all.”
“Damn,” Bill Long said. There was no ice in his voice this time. He could sense the logic behind, the clever reasoning, but what dug into him most of all was the way they had used the beat cop for a gun hand.
“The gun Shelby used was a hot one and it worked out beautifully for him. We traced it to a couple of other ills and there it was, laid out perfectly and everybody fell for it.” He stopped for a minute, then looked at Long again. “Not everybody, though. Corrigan never did like the picture, but he couldn’t deny it. Something had been bothering him all this time and he could never figure out what it was.”
“Oh?”
“I found out what it was,” Gill said.
Long waited. “The fingerprints.”
A frown creased the cop’s forehead. “They were all Proctor’s on that gun.”
“Yeah, too many of them. There was no print at all on the trigger where his forefinger should have been. That print was on the plastic butt grip. Proctor didn’t even know how to handle a gun. He had his entire hand wrapped around the butt.”
“How the hell did we miss . . .”
“Easy, pal. It was all too easy to look for any roadblocks.”
Long shifted in his seat, his mind working. “If you’re right, we still have Turley.”
“They might have so much heat on him he’d never talk.”
“They can’t even begin to lay heat on him like we can though.”
“Then let’s try it.”
“Okay, you smart son of a bitch. I just hope you’re right.”
“I am. But do me one favor.”
“Name it.”
“I make the initial approach on the guy. He knows me now and I want him to know me better. I want to be the one who loosens him up for the big shove.”
“Listen, Gill, your department . . .”
Burke was flat and hard when he said it. “I’m the one they did it to, pal. It’s still my department.”
“Your department,” Long finally agreed.
Burke turned the key on and pulled away from the curb. Up ahead another car turned the comer, disgorged a passenger and drove on. Burke parked and cut his lights.
There was no spit left in Mark Shelby’s mouth. The heat of violent rage and fear had dried it up and his lips were like parchment. The broken knuckles in his hand ached as he clamped them around the gun and he could feel something knotting his intestines like a tangled line.
He saw the lone figure get out of the car opposite him and go in the pawnshop and the impatience grew in him like a cancer. For a few minutes he stayed in the shadow of the old panel truck, waiting, but the guy didn’t come out and he looked across the street again. He couldn’t see too clearly through the rain-frosted glass door, but there was something familiar about the way the man stood, the way his shoulders were set and the motion of his hand when he pushed his hat back.
Then he knew who he was and the vomit hit his throat so fast he almost gagged and his eyes began to water as he made his last, mad dash across the empty street with the little gun ready to take out the two monstrous obstacles to all his years of planning and working and when he rammed the door open a hoarse shout grated from his mouth and he saw Turley’s eyes widen with horror and he triggered the automatic into a wicked blast aimed for Burke’s back.
But Burke had seen Turley’s eyes too and dropped with the instinctive agility of a cat and the shot caught Turley flush in the chest and left him dead before he could hit the floor.
He almost had Burke, who was still clawing for the gun at his belt but before he could pull the trigger again he heard the roaring thunder behind him and felt the mighty hammer of a slug drive into his spine and on through his heart and a huge gout of blood spewed through his lips drenching the very spot he fell in.
Outside Helen was screaming her head off and Burke looked up into a pair of eyes so filled with hate he thought Long was going to pick him off right there.
He almost did, but the years of training took hold and he holstered the .38 and waited until Burke got to his feet. “You dirty bastard,” Bill Long said. “You miserable, dirty bastard.”
Burke looked at him, saying nothing.
“You made a patsy out of me. You did the same thing to me that they did to Corrigan. You set it all up and let me play gun for you.”
Burke’s eyes didn’t falter. They were as flat and cold as the cop’s were and his voice was there to match. “You said there weren’t coincidence in this business, Bill. Now you just saw one.”
“No old buddy.” Long’s voice had a tired quality to it now. He sounded old and disappointed. “You’re a bastard, Gill, a rotten, dirty bastard and I had it figured right all along and didn’t know it.”
“Suppose I prove it to you.”
“You can make the try, Gill, but you won’t prove anything to me.” He glanced at him with begrudging admiration. “You’re clever, man. Damn clever.”