Invitation to Violence (9 page)

    "But you didn't go up, huh?" Finn interrupted.

    "Now, Harry," Lieutenant Hopper said. "All right, did you go up?"

    "No. When I woke up this morning I had a splitting headache. So I called my fiancee and told her I thought I'd skip it this week."

    "Want to give me her name and address and phone number?"

    Gerald gave it to him. For several minutes after Hopper wrote it down in his book, he sat staring at the note paper and saying nothing. At last he again looked at Gerald.

    "So, as near as you can remember you got home some time after midnight. You can't say exactly when. Now, did you notice anything, anything at all out of the way while you were driving home? Say during the time you were driving along Northern Boulevard?"

    "Nothing-no, nothing that I can recall," Gerald said. "Say, maybe you can tell me what this is all about? After all, I…"

    "You didn't loan your car to anybody after you got home?"

    "Certainly not."

    "Anyone else got keys to it? Some friend maybe…"

    "No, I have the only keys. I had an extra set, that came with the car when I bought it, but I wouldn't have the faintest idea where they are now."

    Hopper nodded.

    "All right," he said. "Now tell me, if you didn't go up to Connecticut this morning, well then, just what did you do?"

    "Got up rather late, and made breakfast. Telephoned my fiancee, as I have already explained. Then went for a ride, driving into New York, where I did a little window shopping."

    Gerald went on to explain that he had taken the Sanderson's car and why he took it. Explained that they had asked him to use it now and then while they were away so that the battery wouldn't run down.

    Hopper asked him how he happened to go into town if he'd been feeling bad, and he explained that around midmorning his head began to clear up. So he'd decided to go into New York and shop. He gave them the address of the parking lot where he'd left the car and he was relieved when neither officer marked it down.

    He said that he'd gotten back in the middle of the afternoon and had just been laying around the house taking it easy since.

    He was still explaining when Finn again suddenly interrupted.

    "When did you see Jake last?" he said.

    Gerald looked at him, baffled.

    "Jake. That's right," Finn said.

    "I don't know anyone named Jake," Gerald said.

    "How about Dommie-Dommie Petri, or maybe Vince Dunne-you know either of those boys, maybe?"

    Gerald still looked baffled as he slowly shook his head. But his mind was racing. There was no question about it now. No question at all. Jake would be the Jake Riddle mentioned in the papers. And Dommie would be the one who had been killed by the police bullets. But Dunne-who was Dunne?

    Suddenly he remembered the single paragraph in one of the afternoon papers. The one which had mentioned that police were questioning a girl named Sue Dunne. This Vince must be some relative and he must have been the third member of the gang. The one whose body Gerald had left beside the road.

    "Dommie," Gerald said. "Dommie Petri. The name seems to ring some sort of bell. But I don't know just why. I can't remember ever meeting or knowing anyone with that name, but still…"

    Lieutenant Hopper stood up, looking tired and just a little bored.

    "Let's take a look at the Chevvie," he said. "Don't mind, do you?"

    "Of course not."

    The lieutenant followed him out of the room and down the inside stairs to the garage. It wasn't until they had entered the concrete room that Gerald noticed that Finn, his partner, remained upstairs.

    Lieutenant Hopper must have been acutely sensitive or perhaps a little psychic.

    "He wanted to make a phone call," he said, vaguely waving at the rafters above his head. "Hope you don't mind. Had to call his wife about something or other."

    Gerald said he didn't mind. But he didn't believe the wife story. Finn would be calling to check on the poker game. Well, that was fine. He wouldn't have had it any other way.

    Hopper walked over to the Chevvie and Gerald saw him quickly look at the license plate.

    "This yours, eh?"

    "That's it."

    Hopper nodded. He walked slowly around the car, not touching it.

    "Leave your keys in it overnight?" he asked.

    Gerald instinctively reached for his pocket and then blushed.

    "Why yes," he said. "Sometimes I do. The fact is-" he leaned over to look at the dashboard of the car "-the fact is I did last night. I see they're still in the ignition."

    "How about the garage door? That locked?"

    "Sometimes, when I think of it. Mostly, though, it's left unlocked. No one around here ever bothers anything."

    "I see. Then someone might have taken the car out last night after you got home, used it, and brought it back, assuming the door was left unlocked. It could have happened that way. Right?"

    Gerald smiled, a little patronizingly.

    "I doubt it," he said. "I doubt it very much. I'm not a very heavy sleeper and I would certainly have heard the car starting. I'd have heard them when they returned. No, I don't think there is much chance…"

    "But it could have happened."

    "Well, yes. It's possible. But I certainly don't…"

    "You drink much during that poker session last night?"

    "Not much. A couple of beers-maybe three or four."

    "Any liquor?"

    "One shot of Scotch, early in the evening."

    "And nothing after you got home?"

    "Nothing."

    Hopper grunted. He walked over and opened the door of the car and looked inside. He didn't take long, but Gerald was aware that his eyes missed nothing. He pulled the front seat cushion up and checked under it and then replaced it. He slammed the door and went to the rear of the car and opened the trunk, which was unlocked. There was nothing there but the spare tire and tools for making a road change.

    Gerald noticed that he completely ignored the windshield.

    They spent a few minutes more as Hopper asked a number of additional questions, none of which seemed to have significance. And then, finally, they returned upstairs.

    Finn was seated on the couch and he had removed his hat. He was smoking a cigar and it smelled vile.

    "Well, sorry to have bothered you," Lieutenant Hopper said, reaching for his own hat where he had placed it carefully on a side table before going down to the garage. "But you see how it is. As I told you downstairs, we're looking for a Chevvie with New York plates which end with the number '3'. You just happen to have one. And we have to check everybody. Sorry to have taken up your time."

    The fat man slowly got up from the couch. He spoke without removing the cigar from the corner of his heavy mouth.

    "You always get all the New York newspapers?" he asked.

    He didn't wait for an answer, but went to the door and opened it.

    The lieutenant followed him out, also without waiting for Gerald to say anything. He closed the door after himself.

    

    

    Neither of the officers said a word until they were in the black, unmarked police cruiser which they had left at the curb. Lieutenant Hopper started the engine and Finn slumped back on the cushions.

    "Well, what do you think?"

    The fat man shrugged.

    "Who knows?" he said. "There was nothing at all around the place. Except a big pile of today's newspapers. Nothing else. I got that Baxter guy on the phone and the poker game thing is on the up and up. Of course we'll check with the others, but his story certainly seems to be O.K. Should be easy to check that part out. Only thing is, the game ended a little later than he said. But I guess it's easy enough to miss up on the time, especially during a card game. And when you got no wife home waiting to beat your brains out."

    He took the cigar butt from his mouth, looked at it with an expression of mild disgust and then replaced it and scratched a match and relighted it.

    "Seems like a clean-cut lad," he said. "How was the car?"

    "Windshield O.K.," Hopper said. He hesitated a minute and then released the clutch and pulled away from the curb.

    "It's a damned funny coincidence though," he said. "Two Chevvies, both with New York plates ending in '3' and both out there on Northern Boulevard around the same time of night. Of course, Hardy could have been wrong about the number on the plates. A guy who's filled with lead…"

    "Hardy could be right, too, and Hanna still be in the clear," Finn said. "He's not the type for this sort of caper. These clean-cut boys-Sunday school boys-hell, they go in for rape and an occasional murder. That's their dish. No, if his background checks out, he won't be our pigeon. We're after someone who's tied in with Riddle and Petri. Dunne's the lad, for my money. And Dunne has disappeared."

    "Case of time," Lieutenant Hopper said. "Just a case of time. Punks like Dunne don't stay disappeared for very long."

    "They don't stay out of jail very long, either, thank God."

    "Only long enough to kill a cop or two," Hopper said, his voice bitter.

    

    

    The little man in the horn-rimmed glasses leaned away from the table and carefully capped his fountain pen before joining it with half a dozen others in his inside breast pocket. He pushed his chair out and stretched and then spoke in a garrulous voice.

    "That's it, Mr. Slaughter," he said. "Your total worth is exactly $348,675.4."

    Slaughter grunted, reaching for the glass which held the Scotch and water. The ice cube had melted and the glass was still half full.

    "And?"

    "And outside of sixty-two thousand in back taxes, seventeen thousand in withholding taxes, your debts are a little more than three hundred and ten thousand."

    Irving Wiener took a certain amount of quiet satisfaction in quoting the figures. He liked to be right, exactly right. It gave him a certain feeling of real superiority and he couldn't resist a little shrug of self-complacency as he finished speaking. He was nothing, nothing more or less than a servant to a man like Slaughter.
His
total net worth stood at a mere $4,000-but at least he had no debts. Men like Slaughter, these big shots, well…

    "Your bar is making money," Wiener said. "The cafeteria breaks even and most of your concessions are all right. But that night club…" he threw up his hands.

    "The night club is new. It'll pan out," Slaughter said.

    "That well may be," Wiener replied. "But these other items-these things which you have listed as a's and b's and c's and so forth. I just can't understand."

    "You're not supposed to understand," Slaughter said. "It isn't your business to understand. All I want from you is to know where I stand."

    Once more Irving Wiener shrugged.

    "It's very simple," he said. "You need money. At once-or at least within the next thirty days. If the tax people take out a lien, and they will, along with the creditors who are beginning to act…"

    "Yeah, I know. I know all about it. So I'll get money. Don't worry about it. I'll get money."

    "There's nothing in these figures," Wiener waved at the papers stretched out on the table, "nothing here that tells me where. I certainly wouldn't know…"

    "There's a hell of a lot you wouldn't know," Slaughter said. "A hell of a lot you wouldn't even want to know. Just you do the work I'm paying you for and don't even think about anything else. I'll do all the thinking that's necessary."

    He started to push the papers away and as he did the phone on the desk rang and he quickly reached for it. For a moment he listened and then spoke into it quickly.

    "Five minutes," he said. "I'll be clear-in just five minutes."

    Wiener took the hint. Standing up, he reached for his hat.

    "Have to be going now," he said. "But you had better start…"

    "Yeah, yeah," Slaughter said. "Just snap the lock so the door is open as you leave. I'm expecting someone."

    He didn't bother to stand or to say good-by.

    By the time Slaughter had gone to the portable bar and mixed himself a fresh drink, Steinberg had slunk into the apartment noiselessly, relocking the door after himself. Slaughter asked him if he wanted a drink, purposely holding back his impatience.

    Steinberg shook his head.

    "It's good and bad," he said. He looked around the apartment and sat down nervously. "This place, Fred," he said. "Makes me nervous. How can you tell that it might not be bugged?"

    "Don't be a damned fool," Slaughter said. "Who" the hell's going to bug me? Nobody's got…"

    "They bug everyone nowadays. Why even…"

    "Just stop worrying," Slaughter said. "Let's have it. You saw-Jake?"

    "That's the good part," the lawyer said. "He's dying. Can't last more than a few more hours. And he hasn't talked, He won't talk."

    "I know that," Slaughter said, "Of course he won't talk. Good God, Jake's got that kid of his and he knows. Knows what would happen if he talked. I never worried about Jake. But did he talk to you? What's with the punk? Did he…"

    "Nothing," Steinberg said. "Absolutely nothing. He didn't know a thing."

    "Was he conscious; was he able to make sense. Hell, he has to know."

    "He was conscious all right. Weak and could hardly speak, but he understood me. The only thing he remembers is the rumble and getting shot. Saw the kid for just a bare moment and the kid had the stuff. He was climbing into the car. That's all he knows. Everything."