Invitation to Violence (10 page)

    Slaughter cursed.

    "This second car the police yak about? How about that? Did Jake see any second car?"

    "He saw nothing. Nothing but the cops, shooting at him. There was no second car, not that Jake saw anyway."

    Slaughter downed his drink in a gulp and again cursed. "I just don't get it," he said. "Of course the newspapers could be wrong. They could have got a bum steer from the cops. But it don't sound like it. The kid had to make a getaway somehow and a second car makes sense as far as that goes. The thing is, he would have had to have it planned and I know damned well that young punk didn't have the brains to be a double-crosser. Nobody could have reached him. He wasn't smart enough. No, I just can't buy that second car thing. On the other hand, where the hell is he? Why hasn't he made a contact?"

    "Maybe the cops got him. Maybe…"

    "Don't you believe it," Slaughter said. "Don't you believe it for a minute. Not that they aren't capable of something like that. The papers said they checked the kid sister, but that was only natural. They knew Dunne hung around with Dommie. But they didn't get him. It would have leaked out somehow. No, the insurance company is making too big a stink about the jewels. If they'd have got him, they'd have got the loot."

    "Maybe the cops just glommed onto…"

    "Even the cops aren't that stupid. Money-yes. It could happen. But not hot ice. No, the kid got away somehow."

    "Well, then maybe he just powdered. Figures on fencing the stuff himself."

    Slaughter slowly shook his head.

    "I can't see it," he said. "Not that kid. Hell, I know the sister; I know what kind of punk he was. Just smart enough to know that he'd never be able to unload without connections and he had no connections. Somebody else, yes. But not the Dunne kid."

    Steinberg shrugged.

    "All right, Fred," he said, "then you name it. What
did
happen to the stuff and where
is
the kid?"

    "It could be that the rumble just plain threw him into a frenzy; scared him half silly and he's hiding out someplace. With Riddle and Dommie gone, he may just…"

    "He's got my number," Steinberg said. "That's the one thing we know he's got. Jake drilled it into him; told him if anything happened the first thing he should do is call my office. He wouldn't be afraid to call his lawyer. No, something…"

    "There's nothing to do but sit tight. Sooner or later he's got to call. You got someone on the phones, just in case…"

    "Twenty-four hours a day," Steinberg said. "And the office knows where I am. They'll contact me the very second there's word."

    "All right then," Slaughter said. He looked down at his wrist watch.

    "Seven-thirty," he said. "Solly's on his way up. Hang around and we'll have some food sent in. We can play a few hands of pinochle and just sit tight and wait it out for a while. There ain't nothing else to do. It just may be that that call will come in."

    

    

    The police were nice about it. They brought Sue home in a squad car on Sunday morning and it was just as well that they did. She was dead on her feet.

    It wasn't that they were rough with her, or pushed her around or anything like that. They didn't even raise their voices when they questioned her. They were very reasonable about the whole thing. Merely the questions. Only the trouble was the questions went on all Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. It was all quite legal; she was formally held on a short affidavit and they saw to it that there was a matron present at all times while they talked to her.

    It wasn't merely that she was Vince Dunne's sister and that Vince was missing. Somehow or other they'd turned up a witness who had seen Vince and Dommie and Jake in the tavern at the same time. It was enough for them.

    A representative of the insurance company which covered the loss was present part of the time and he was even worse than the police. He did everything but accuse Sue of being in on the thing. The police themselves didn't harp that angle; they concentrated on trying to find out where the boy could have gone, who he knew, who had he been hanging around with. They were sure that Vince had the jewels and that there was a fourth man in on the robbery. They wanted to learn the name of this fourth man.

    By the time the police were ready to call it quits and let her go, they were convinced that she knew nothing; that she was completely guiltless.

    The trouble was, that by then Sue knew a great deal.
She
knew that Vince had been in on the robbery; she knew that he was guilty.

    This was no juvenile prank, no simple matter of a stolen car used for a joy ride. It wasn't even a matter of a mere robbery. This was murder. They made it quite clear to her; it didn't matter whether Vince himself had pulled the trigger of the gun which had killed a policeman. He would be equally guilty in any case.

    Vince Dunne, nineteen years old, was a murderer. Police throughout the country had been alerted and it would be just a case of time. Sooner or later they would get him and when they did, he would go to the electric chair. They didn't have to draw a diagram for Sue. She knew what happened to cop killers.

    And so they sent her home at last in a squad car and she climbed out in front of her apartment house and slowly entered the building. Her feet felt like lead as she walked through the lobby to the self-service elevator. She wanted to cry, but she had no more tears. She'd already used them up during those long hours at the police station between the questioning sessions.

    There was a broad-shouldered, dour-faced man standing near the elevator and he carefully avoided looking at her as she waited for it to answer her ring. She knew that he was a detective, waiting there in case Vince should show up. By this time she'd seen enough detectives to spot one a block away. She'd seen enough detectives to last her a lifetime.

    She wasn't hungry, but she knew that she must eat something. They'd offered her food at the station house, but she'd been unable to swallow.

    Once in the apartment, she listlessly prepared a pot of coffee and soft-boiled a couple of eggs. She knew that she would have to eat; knew that life would have to go on. There was nothing else, nothing now but her job and her career. She tried to blame herself, but even this she was unable to do. She'd done everything for Vince that she could do. It was no longer in her hands.

    The police had been bitter about it, bitter and hard and angry. Could she blame them? No, in all fairness she couldn't. She felt bitter and hard and angry herself. Not about Vince. Vince was nothing but a child. A rather weak child who had been too easily led astray. No, the ones Sue felt angry about were the men who had influenced him, the ones who had brought him in on the thing.

    She was glad that Dommie had been killed. He was better off dead. And the other one, the man she knew as Jake. He was supposed to be dying and Sue found herself wishing that he'd live. Live so that he could go to the electric chair. She wondered what kind of man he could be. They'd told her he had a boy of his own, a boy only a few years younger than Vince.

    She couldn't understand how a family man and father could have taken boys like Dommie and Vince in on a thing like this. And there were others. The fourth man. The police seemed to feel that in back of the whole thing was an organized mob, a tough, vicious, underworld gang. These were the ones they wanted. Wanted as much as they wanted Vince.

    Well, she would never be able to do anything to help them find Vince, but she'd give anything and everything to help them find those others. The men who had brought her brother in on the job and had made a thief and a killer out of him.

    There was just one way to find out who they were. Sooner or later Vince would get in touch with her. Of this she was morally certain. No matter where he was or with whom he was hiding out, he was bound to try and reach her sometime or other. And once he did, she knew exactly what she would do. She would find out the names of the people in back of the thing. She wanted to see them brought to justice; wanted it more than anything else in the world. More than her career and even more than she wanted Vince to escape the justice she realized he fully deserved.

    There was only one thing to do. Vince would be too smart to try and reach her at the apartment. He would know by now that the police were seeking him. No, if he tried at all, it would be while she was working at the cafeteria. That was the place, the key to the whole thing. It had been through the hangers-on at the place that Vince had met his new companions, met the men who had involved him. And it was there that he'd try and reach her.

    Tired and sick as she was, she was determined to go to the place as usual that night to work. That night and every night. And sooner or later some man would come up to the counter and whisper a word or two and she would know where he was and be able to reach him. Be able to learn what she had to find out.

    She had no more than climbed into the uniform she wore when the manager of the place came over and spoke to her.

    "Mr. Slaughter is in his office," the man said. "He'd like to have a few words with you. I'll take the cash box while you're gone."

    He watched her coldly for a moment as she turned to leave the counter.

    "You could have at least called and told us you weren't coming in last night," he said, his voice resentful.

    Sue felt a sudden sense of relief as she walked to the back of the long building where Slaughter maintained a small private office. Her first thought, when the manager had spoken to her, was that Slaughter must somehow or other have learned about Vince. That he, like the police, would start the series of incessant questions.

    But no, it wasn't that. She'd been absent Saturday night and had failed to notify the restaurant. That was what he wanted her for. He'd be sore about it and she'd have to give him some sort of story. She didn't want to tell him the reason she hadn't called was because she was in the police station being questioned about her brother-who was wanted for murder.

    If he had paid slightly less for his clothes, and purchased them in either good department stores or from tailors on the east side of Fifth Avenue, Fred Slaughter might very easily have passed for a gentleman. As it was, the handmade shirts were just a trifle too sheer, the gray-worsted suit was cut a trifle too wide in the shoulders and the shoes, although imported and expensive, were not the type to be worn with a business suit.

    His clothes were like his jewelry. The watch should have been gold rather than platinum and like the cuff links and rings which he wore on each hand, there was just too much of it. The clothes were like the man; a little too good and a little too ostentatious.

    In his late forties, Slaughter had the figure of a college athlete. He took exceptionally good care of himself, visiting his barber daily for a shave and a trim as well as a manicure. His dark hair was always perfectly groomed and no matter what time of the day or night, there was always the faint trace of after-shaving powder on his lean, olive jaw.

    His manners, at least in public, were polished. But the giveaway was the voice. He had a voice like gravel and even his over-precision in the choice of words and phrases merely served to emphasize the effort he made to sound like a gentleman.

    Any smart cop would have spotted his background in a second. Slaughter was strictly East Side scum; a one-time mobster who'd made money fast and ostensibly turned legitimate. He didn't actually fool anybody and certainly he didn't fool the riffraff with whom he hung out and whom he patronized.

    His sharp eyes looked up as Sue entered the office and he smiled thinly.

    "Close the door, Sue," he said. "Close the door and come on in and sit down. I want to talk with you."

    Sue took the chair next to the desk.

    "If it's about last night…" she began.

    He nodded and half raised a hand to interrupt her.

    "Yes," he said, "about last night. You were off. What was it, kid? Vince? Was it about Vince?"

    She felt herself go pale. How did he know? Why did he go at once to Vince. Of course he would have read about the robbery, would have learned about Jake, whom he knew. But why did he bring Vince into it?

    He was quick to see the way her mind was working.

    "I know all about it, kid," he said. "You know I have connections. So the law is looking for your brother. Well, you have to expect that. I guess you know what happened. Know about Dommie and Jake Riddle. The police figure Vince was a pal of theirs and that he might have been mixed up in the thing. I guess you can't blame them for thinking that, can you?"

    She stared at him and nodded dumbly.

    "Where is Vince?" he said.

    She dropped her eyes and slowly shook her head.

    "I only wish I knew, Mr. Slaughter," she said. "He left the house on Friday night, around ten o'clock. Said he was going to a movie. And he hasn't been back since."

    Slaughter looked at her closely.

    "And you haven't seen him? Haven't heard from him?"

    "No."

    "Have the police been around?"

    Sue nodded.

    "Yes," she said. "They've been around. That's where I was last night. All night. They questioned me until…"

    "What did you tell them?"

    She looked up at him, startled by the suddenness of the question and the hard, cold note in his voice.

    "Tell them?"

    "Yeah. That's what I said. What did you tell them. Come on…"

    "Why I didn't tell them anything," Sue said. "What could I tell them? He didn't come home; I don't know where he is and…"