The Deep (19 page)

“Please ... hurry. I don't want to be here with ... that.”

“Wait out in the vestibule. I'll only be a minute.”

The phone was on a table beside a corner chair. I called Wilson Batten and asked him if Cat had called in. He said he had and gave me a number to call. When he hung up I found the directory, looked up Hymie's Delicatessen and asked for Roscoe to come to the phone.

“Yeah, Tate here.”

“Deep, friend. I have a story for you.”

“Don't do me any favors.”

“You'll appreciate this one. Benny-from-Brooklyn has been killed. I'm at his place now.”

Incredulously, he asked, “
You
, Deep?”

“Don't be an idiot. I found him this way.”

Roscoe's excitement mounted. “It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. They all fall sooner or later when you come around. Hurd'll be happy to hear about this. I don't suppose you called him?”

“No, and I wouldn't either if I were you. Irish is here with me and unless you want the heat on her you'll play this one real cool.”

“You miserable bastard,” he said.

“Save it.”

“Okay, let's hear your suggestion. I know you have one.”

“Natch. We need the body discovered. You can say you came to get a statement from Benny and found him this way. Don't worry, nobody will spot us. And you keep your big mouth shut.”

Roscoe cut the connection without another word.

I wiped the phone clean, checked the floor where I had rolled and had shoved Helen, saw nothing that could possibly have identified us and went out to Helen.

The street was quiet now, the crew finished for the day. The first edge of darkness was folding in around the city and as though nothing at all had happened, Helen and I went down the steps, turned west to Third and walked six blocks before I flagged down a cab.

Helen couldn't stop shaking. She fought to control it but couldn't get the thought of Benny lying there dead and the guy shooting at us out of the darkness of the room out of her head. I tapped the cabbie, gave Helen's address to him and got back to the building.

Upstairs I made her take a couple of aspirins and lie down and told her to stay there until I called. I threw a blanket over her, kissed her lightly and ran my fingers through the black silk of her hair.

Half chokingly she said, “Please, Deep ... don't do ... anything.”

“Don't worry, kid.”

“No matter what you do ... it can spoil things.”

“I'll be careful.”

Her hair tumbled about her face when she shook her head with easy desperation. “Do nothing at all. Please, Deep. We have so much now. Don't go spoil it for us. Don't ruin it all. We can get out of this place ... if you'll only do nothing.”

“Honey ...”

She could read the expression on my face. “All you need is a gun in your hand and you'll use it. We'll both be finished then. You know that, don't you?”

There wasn't anything I could say.

She said, “You have something in mind, haven't you?”

“Yes. The whole thing's tied up in the damn K.O. Club.”

“Can't you ... leave it to the police.”

Some things you can't explain to women. I didn't try now. I told her I'd call or come back when I had a few more answers and would know then how I'd handle the situation.

At least it satisfied her. She let go my hand reluctantly and turned her face into the pillow.

I called the number Cat had given Batten and the receiver was lifted after a partial ring. I asked, “Cat?”

Cat seemed to be half out of breath. “Jeez, Deep, where you been?”

“Pretty busy. Where are you calling from?”

“You know the Welshman's Bar?”

I said I did. It was a midblock spot on Lexington in the Forties.

“I been waiting, man. You want Lew James, you better get down here.”

“Where'd you find him, Cat?” I sensed the edge in my voice now.

“Wasn't me. Charlie Bizz ran him down. You put a big hole through the muscle where the neck joins the shoulder and he had to get to a doc. Charlie Bizz got the word out and found out who. It was Anders. You remember Anders? Doc Anders. He's the one they tried to nail a narcotics rap on five years ago and couldn't make it stick.”

“I know who you mean.”

“Well, he was guilty, all right. He was strictly a syndicate man. So Lew James knew who to go to and you know what that means?”

“Yeah, a syndicate hit. It's big. Where is he now?”

“Right around the corner in a rooming house. Number two twenty-four. He came right from Doc Anders' place to here so it must be a joint Anders keeps handy for something like this. Bizz stayed behind him all the way and I took it up after we made contact. You get down here and we'll take the guy.”

“Give me twenty minutes. And listen ... things are popping fast. Benny Mattick has been knocked off.”

“Benny?” He couldn't believe it. “Jeez, Deep, who ...”

“It looks like mob action now. Benny couldn't make his bluff work when he tried to take over the club. It makes sense now, at least in some ways. Remember the meet in Bimmy's? You know who those boys were.”

“Sure. Them's the big ones. Front men for the organization.”

“Chances are Benny was trying to pull a power play. He still could have convinced them, then we came in. When Benny crapped out there he had it.”

On the other end Cat let out a chuckle. “Can't say we don't go all the way. No more kid stuff. Right to the top. Jeez, Deep, when I think of all the times we scrounged apples off pushcarts ... and now this.” He laughed right out and rasped into a cough. When it subsided he said, “If I live through this it'll be somethin'.”

“Lay off the butts and you'll make it. Now hang on, I'll be there as fast as I can. I won't even stop off to pick up my rod, so play it cool, understand?”

 

The bartender said yes, he saw the guy I described, all right. He kept coming in and going out, having a small beer each time and looking like he was waiting for somebody. But he had gone out ten minutes ago and hadn't come back yet.

I knew what had happened. Cat was keeping a running check on the rooming house to make sure it just wasn't a blind where Lew James might have switched to another track. I'd give him another five minutes anyway.

But even then he didn't show.

I could smell it again. The wrongness. Something got screwed up and you could feel it in the air. I threw a buck on the bar for the beer and didn't wait for any change. Two twenty-four he had said, a rooming house right around the corner.

Which comer, damn it!

South was closest and I tried that and there was no two twenty-four close by. I ran, retracing my steps, feeling the eyes of the curious follow me. I rounded the comer, followed the numbers down but I was on the wrong side of the street. Two twenty-four was directly across from me, a faceless house in a faceless neighborhood. There was a pale yellow glow coming from a front basement window and the vague outline of a woman reading a paper showed through the curtains. Upstairs was blacked out.

Nowhere could I see Cat. The only thing I could think of was that Lew James had left and Cat had followed him. But I had to be sure. I had to check. I took the six porch steps in one bound, stopped in the outside foyer and knew that inside something was going hot.

Cat's shoes were there by the door, side by side.

Then the shots tore the night apart and a man's scream was cut off in the middle.

I went through the door with no attempt at being quiet. I let out a hoarsely shouted,
“Cat!”
and from upstairs he answered, “Here, Deep!”

Something smashed against the wall above me and splintered. Glass shattered with an exploding sound and then there was a single shot as I reached the landing and dove into the darkness of the doorway in front of me.

He moaned softly from a few feet away. I said, “Cat?”

“Up on ... the roof. Back way. Get ... him, Deep.”

I mouthed some wild kind of curse and rammed through the rooms. I caught a table across my thighs and threw it into kindling against a chair. My eyes were adjusted to what little light there was and I spotted the open door that led to the stairway. Most houses had only one staircase, but this had ben renovated. I went up the last flight and paused in the doorway. Nobody was making a sucker of me on a rooftop. I peeled off my coat, threw it through and as I did a shot boomed out from one side and the coat was hit in midair.

That's all I gave him time for. I went out the kiosk, cut to the left and stopped where I was covered by a corner of the exit and listened.

Downstairs somebody was yelling his head off, but up here it was dead quiet. I slipped my shoes off and put them down, then circled behind the sloping back of the rooftop exit. The gravel bit into the soles of my feet like small knives but I was past feeling it.

I stayed in the deepest shadows and when I found the position I wanted, squatted down until my eyes were level with the dividers that separated the buildings. In the background the far lights of midtown Manhattan winked at me, rows and rows of lights unbroken in their pattern.

Then the pattern broke. Just the slightest motion blurred the lowest row of lights in the Lever Building and I grinned and followed the shadows to the divider, bellied across and got behind him. He couldn't afford to be too patient. Time was running out on him too. Those shots had been heard and he only had minutes to make his break in, but even then, minutes are enough.

I came up fast, but I wasn't any Cat. He heard me when I was ten feet away, gasped, swung and fired in the same motion and the slug crackled past my head and ricocheted off something behind me. He never had time for a second shot because I dove in under his gun hand and slammed him against the parapet with every bit of my weight and strength. I saw his gun go up and over to the street and heard him swear as he clawed at me with a crazy determination and for a second he almost broke away.

My foot kicked his legs out from under him and we came up at the same time. The guy was good. He didn't rush. He let me come in, feinted and threw a fast right into my head. I deliberately dropped my guard, started to bring back my right for a roundhouse and he thought he had me. He started a jab that would have taken my head off, only my head wasn't there. It went over me and I came up with a jolting upper-cut that lifted him to his toes. I had the other one ready, but he grappled, hung on, and laid his face almost against mine.

I knew him then. His right name was Artie Hull and he was an enforcer for the syndicate and the pieces began dropping into the right slots.

Before he could recover I shoved him away, cocked my hand, but the tricky bastard brought his shoe down on my foot, I went to my knees and without trying for the kill he spun and ran for the parapet to jump the four-foot air shaft to the other building.

Somebody had left an antenna wire stretched out right by the edge. His foot caught it, he tumbled three stories down too surprised to even scream.

I got my shoes back on, picked up my coat and climbed back into it as I ran down the stairs. No sirens yet, but they could come up quietly. This time I found a lamp and snapped it on.

Cat looked up at me from the floor, smiling. “You ... get him?” “He's dead. What happened?”

He nodded toward the doorway on the other side of the room. I looked in, flicked the light on and off quickly. The guy on the bed had a bandaged neck and two fresh holes in his chest.

Cat didn't want me to touch him. He held his hands across him and his breath came in burbling gasps. I said, “I'll get a doctor, kid.”

“No.”

“Nuts, you'll be all right.”

He stopped me with a feeble gesture. “I had it. Why fight it. You ... scram, Deep.”

“Tell me, what happened?”

“I was watching ... saw this guy come right up ... go inside. I knew ... who he was. Mob boy. Torpedo.”

“Artie Hull. I made him too.”

“Syndicate ... you know?”

I nodded.

He coughed, the pain of it racking his body. Flecks of blood spewed from his mouth; he choked, got it up and a steady trickle flowed down his chin. “Tried to ... stop him only I ain't the same old ... Cat.” It hurt him to do it, but he grinned.

“Deep ...”

“Here, kid.”

“See clerk ... Westhampton ... Morrie called ...”

“Don't talk, Cat. I get it.”

Like a cold wind in the eaves, the sirens whined up the street. Cat heard it too. “Beat it, Deep. Roof ... like old times. Scram.”

“I hate to do it.”

“'S okay.” He smiled once more. “I know. Real ... blood brothers, us. Old Knight ... Owls. K.O. Really wasn't so ... much fun. Alla time trouble. Still ... that way. Now no more trouble.”

He did a funny little thing with his fingers I hadn't thought of for twenty-five years. He gave me the old K.O. high sign. I grinned and gave it back. “You sentimental jerk you,” I said.

“Blow, joe.”

We gripped hands once. It was enough. It was what he wanted.

The sirens were turning the comer and time had run out. I went back to the roof, falling into old-time patterns and thoughts and the run was as if I had never left the rooftops at all. It was like being a kid again.