Lady, Go Die! (18 page)

“A gazebo.”

“I guess that’s what it’s called. Anyway, it’s mostly just a roof over a little padded bench. Kind of a romantic-looking thing. Lovey dovey, sort of. And I was walking hand-in-hand with my date... jealous yet, Mike?”

“Boiling. Go on.”

“Well, I noticed Dekkert sitting out there with her. With Sharron. They were having a conversation. It was very serious. Serious how, I couldn’t say. But he might... I can’t be sure, Mike, but he might have been holding her hand.”

“
Not
employer/employee stuff.”

“No. Not hardly. But listen, I didn’t see him kiss her or anything. And he sure didn’t pull her into the bushes.”

“Maybe you taught him a lesson that other time.”

“Maybe. I’ve been known to teach men lessons.”

“Yeah. I had one of those earlier.”

“Was it so bad?”

“Terrible. Humiliating. I really should spank you.”

“Promise?”

The phone rang on her nightstand and she gave it a crinkle-nosed frown.

“Forget it,” she said. “I’m busy. I don’t want to be reached.”

“No! Get that. It might be Louie.”

She gave me a dirty look, but got it and it was Louie, all right.

“Mike,” Louie said, “that poker game, it’s a still goin’. It’s at the Waldorf-Astoria. Pretty fancy, huh?”

“You got a room number for me, Louie?”

“I sure do,” he said, and gave it to me.

“And are Bill Evans and Miami Bull still in the game?” I asked.

“They sure are,” he said.

Round three would have to wait.

Thanks to Marion Ruston’s hijinx, my suit was still damp as a dishrag. That meant a stopover at the cave in that modern cliff on the East Side that I called home. My best suit waited in the closet, tweeds custom-made to conceal my shoulder-slung .45, and perfect for where I’d be heading next—you can’t walk into the Waldorf-Astoria like so much riff-raff.

But this was turning into a long day, and that cute little twist had tired me out. A hot and cold shower gave me a new lease on life, and I climbed into the dry threads feeling refreshed. Before I slipped the rod into its leather womb, I took time to shoot a few drops of oil in the slide mechanism, checked the clip, grabbed an extra one for my side suit coat pocket, then wiped down the weapon and tucked it under my arm.

I felt right at home moving through the mosaic-floored, marble-columned Waldorf-Astoria lobby. I might have been some swell dropping by the Wedgewood Room or a business executive from Philly on his way to an important conference. Instead I was a private eye looking for a poker game.

Maybe the Waldorf seems an unlikely place for such a lowbrow,
illegal activity. But the kind of high stakes game involved made the setting just right. I wandered around overstuffed chairs and potted plants till I detected the bank of elevators. I told the attendant where I wanted to go and he took me there, halfway up the hotel’s fifty floors.

Nobody was outside Suite 2525, no watchdogs in or out of coats cut for underarm armory. I didn’t knock—bad form. This was the kind of hotel suite where you rang the bell.

The lug who cracked the door had confidence—he wasn’t bothering with a night-latch. I didn’t know this character but he was bigger than me, and I’m big enough. The half a bashed nose and single cauliflower ear showing said he was an ex-pug, though not on any circuit around this part of the universe.

“It’s closed,” the doorman rumbled.

Whether that meant the table was not open to the uninvited or that the tourney was at a late stage where additional players were not welcome, I had no clue.

I said, “I need a word with Bill Evans and Miami Bull.”

“Both of them?”

“Well, one of them anyway.”

“They’re busy.”

I flashed the badge that comes with a New York State investigator’s license. Do it fast enough, it can fool people.

Not the ex-pug. “That’s a private badge, bud. Shove off.”

He started to close the door but I gave it the kind of straight-arm a lineman gives a blitzing linebacker, and it opened, all right, the slapping hand of it sending the gatekeeper stumbling backward.

I shut the door quietly behind me and had a good look at what I was dealing with.

He was even burlier when you saw all of him, and both ears were cauliflower. He was well-groomed for a thug, clean-shaven and in a suit almost as nice as my tweeds. But he was still just a thug, with a punch-drunk patina and no discernible weapon, and when he started at me with both fists ready, I took out the .45 the way I would a match to light a cigarette, and let him look down the barrel.

There was nothing down that dark hole that you could call comforting.

“See, I did have an invitation,” I said.

He started to say something, and I thought maybe he was going to yell a warning. He probably figured this was a robbery, and that made sense because there would be plenty of cash on hand. If not on the table, near it, where the dealer played banker with the chips.

But I clamped my hand over his mouth and shoved the .45 snout in his belly and shook my head sternly, like a father to a misbehaving child.

Quietly I said, “It’s not a heist, friend. I really am here just to talk to Bill Evans or maybe Miami Bull, between hands. This is a friendly call... so far.”

We were in an entryway and beyond us was a marble-floored, white-throw-carpeted living room where two decorative dames sat on opposing couches over by a fireplace that this time of year was also strictly decorative. One doll was a bright-eyed blonde chewing gum and filing her nails, the other a redhead reading a fashion magazine. The redhead had her back to me and
might have been naked, since all I could see was the well-coifed shoulder-length hair and bare freckled shoulders. The blonde had on a white halter top with matching bolero pants and little white heels, a creamy little cutie. Neither had picked up on the little melodrama at the entryway.

The poker game would be to the left of this tableau, in the dining room. I’d been in Waldorf suites before and the layout was always the same.

The ex-pug in the nice suit was backing up slow, his sausage-fingered mitts raised about chest high. I was pressing forward with the .45 in my right hand and the forefinger of my left hand raised to my lips, shushing him. We were pretty deep into the living room before the two dames noticed us.

The blonde yiped like a puppy with its tail stepped on and I gave her a nasty glance that shut her up. The redhead, who had green eyes and a dress and heels to match, did not seem impressed. She barely looked up from her
Vogue
.

I motioned with a finger twirl for the ex-pug to turn around and he did. With my gun in his back, I walked him through the open archway into the dining room, which had been converted for poker play. Somehow the standard multi-leaf dining room table had gone away and a big, round, green-felt table with compartments for poker chips and drinks had taken its place.

The men around the table under the cut-glass chandelier had the look of expectant fathers in a waiting room when everybody’s wife was in her thirty-second hour of labor. There were six of them, serious-faced men with loosened ties and suspenders and faces that hadn’t been shaved lately. On the periphery several
other bodyguard types sat, reacting to our entry with professional alarm but knowing enough to keep their butts planted. Another doll—nice-looking, in a French maid get-up—was there to provide drinks when asked. From the way she slumped in her chair, next to a buffet with a silver tray on it, she hadn’t been asked for a while.

The ex-pug and I just stood there till they finished the hand. I was behind him, so nobody knew about the .45 except the poor bastard with its nose nudging his back, but I couldn’t see being impolite. No cash was on the table, though the pot was a couple shovelfuls of a pile of mostly blue chips.

I only made three of the faces, but one belonged to Bill Evans. Sitting across from him was Miami Bull, who I only knew by reputation, though I was confident that was him. The big slump-shouldered guy’s wide beezer and his massive neck explained his nickname, though he was pale enough to have never set foot in Miami.

Evans won the big pot with three tens. Nobody made a comment as he hauled the chips in with two hands. I doubted much talking had gone on for some time now.

The ex-pug cleared his throat and finally everybody noticed us. They weren’t any more impressed than the redhead. Of course, they couldn’t see the gun.

“This guy wants to talk to Mr. Evans or maybe Mr. Peters.”

Mr. Peters was Miami Bull.

“We’re not on a break,” the dealer said. He was a small mustached man who talked tough but looked like he’d break like a matchstick.

I edged out a little from behind the pug, still keeping the rod concealed. “Hiya, Bill. Been a while.”

Evans broke focus enough to smile a little. “Well, hi Mike.” He was stacking the chips he’d just won. That would take a while. “Guys, this is Mike Hammer. He’s that crazy private eye that makes the papers all the time.”

I touched the tip of my hat with my left hand. My right still had the .45 in the ex-pug’s spine, which remained our little secret.

“I just need a couple of minutes with Bill,” I said. “And maybe Miami Bull.” To the latter, I added: “Excuse the informality. I know we’ve never met.”

Miami Bull replied in a nasal drone, “I ain’t much on formalities,” and scooted his chair back and stood. He stretched and buttons almost popped on a protuberant belly. “I could use a piss, anyhow. I’ll catch you on the way back, Mike.”

Everybody took that opportunity to do their own stretching, and several followed Miami Bull into the kitchen, which apparently provided passage to the nearest john.

I patted the doorman on the shoulder and said, “You can go now,” and he scooted, fast enough for most of the players to notice me shoving the .45 back under my arm. No reaction from this bunch, just the poker faces you’d expect.

Bill walked over, working his neck, popping vertebrae. “I wish you’d gone into chiropractic and not policing, Mike. What can I do for you? You got more than one favor coming, after that night in Chicago you ran those Outfit wops off my tail.”

“I don’t need a favor, Bill. Just a word.”

“Lead the way.”

We left the dining room and went through the living room out onto the terrace with its view on the black-and-white checkerboard skyline where the Empire State Building hogged attention.

Bill was one of those medium guys—medium build, medium height, medium weight, with the kind of face they build crowds out of. But after hour upon hour of poker, he was way past medium into well-done—his eyes bloodshot, his stubble making his face look dirty, and his dark blond hair as greasy as bacon at a one-arm joint.

“You’re a mess, pal,” I said.

“No I’m not,” he said with a sly half grin. “I’m winning. Glad to have an excuse to slow things down. I want this game over with so I can gather my loot and get on with my life.”

“On to the next game, you mean.”

He shrugged, grinned bigger. “You live the life you choose, right, Mike?”

“Right. And I sure picked a doozy, huh? Have you heard about the Sharron Wesley killing?”

He had. He knew all about her gambling set-up, too, and had been out there several times. The stakes were high. Oh, there were smaller-stakes attractions for the suckers, from slots to faro. But the poker tables were for serious play.

I said, “Sharron Wesley was no Vassar girl. She was no dope, either, but we’re still talking a chorus-gal cupcake who parlayed a nice build into a rich husband.”

Bill smirked. “A rich husband they say she bumped.”

“I’ll lay odds that’s more than a rumor. But my point is, there is no way in hell that ocean-side casino was her private operation.
She
had
to have a silent partner.”

He nodded. “You bet she did. Is that what you’re trying to find out? Don’t the cops know?”

“My in is with Captain Chambers of Homicide. I don’t know the vice boys that well.”

“Well, if you had a contact there, maybe you wouldn’t have to go around breaking up friendly card games slinging around Old Ironsides there.” He nodded to where I’d stowed the rod.

“I’ll keep that in mind. So illuminate me.”

“There are only a handful of really big-ticket gambling czars in this town. There’s a guy who is probably not number one, but he’s in the top three and he’s moving up. Expanding out of the city onto the Island is part of that move. Ever hear of Johnny C?”

“Johnny Casanova?”

“That’s the one.”

His name was actually Casanove, but he was a pretty boy who attracted dames like flies to sugar, and the lover-man nickname had been around as long as he’d been on the scene.

“This game here?” Bill said, with a head bob back toward the dining room. “This is Johnny C’s action. He was around the first few hours the first day, pressing the flesh, then made himself scarce. He doesn’t gamble himself. He’s too smart for that.”

“That was
his
casino, outside Sidon?”

“Yes it was.”

“But the Wesley dame inherited big dough. Why would she let a syndicate type like Casanova take over her private mansion, and keep her on to play hostess?”

Bill shrugged. “Word is Johnny C had something on her. Maybe
proof she bumped off her rich hubby. Who knows?”

“Could she have been Casanova’s mistress? If she was gone on the guy, she might hand him the keys to that mansion.”

“I can’t answer that. But I’ve sat in a couple of games in the last six months or so where Sharron Wesley was hanging around. She’d show all dolled up, and seem like she was part of the entertainment committee...” He jerked a thumb toward the blonde and redhead sitting in the living room nearby. “...but those two in there? Anybody at the table who wants to grab one by the arm, on a break, is free to do so.”

“Free to do what?”

“What I said! Grab her by the arm. Haul her in that bedroom. But not Sharron. She sat around looking pretty, flirted with players, held onto their arms, cheered winners on, that sort of thing. But she never went off into the bedroom with anybody but Johnny C. And then not for long.”