The Peddler (13 page)

Mrs. Nelson licked her lips, then jerked her head toward the door. Tony whirled around, but nobody was there. Then he heard it: the distant, nerve-tingling wail of sirens. At the same moment Frame ran in, closely followed by Kelly.

“Cops,” he said. “Hear ‘em? They might not feel like talkin’.”

Tony knew what he meant. They might be “wrong” cops who’d haul them all down to the can, or there might even be shooting.

Frame went on, “Next door’s all shut up. Nobody there. Must have beat it when the noise started.”

Tony swore softly. “Get out back,” he said. “Rock’s got the car there.”

They ran toward the back as the sirens screamed closer. Tony paused only long enough to say, “You pigs are out of business—come see me if you want to work. You can find me. And you damn well better.”

He was talking disjointedly, in a kind of crazy way, he knew, but the jumping excitement in him was like little explosions in his blood. He was all charged up, as if he’d been sucking on reefers. He glanced once around the room then ran to the back door. The car was waiting, motor idling. He jumped in and said, “Step on it.” The sirens were almost upon them now. “Get this heap moving.”

Tony let himself into his apartment. It was nearly midnight. They’d taken Rock to a doctor after they got out of the alley barely ahead of the coppers.

Tony went inside, and headed for the bar in his front room. The lights were still on. He poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass and was squirting soda into it when Maria came in from the bedroom. She was still fully clothed, in a green silk dress.

“Tony,” she said, “what’s the matter? Angelo’s called half a dozen times. What did you have to go out for tonight?”

“Angelo? What’d he want?”

“He wants you to call him. Tony, you look funny. You look sick. You all right?” Her face was worried, drawn with strain. “I been going crazy, honey.” She walked around beside him, hugged his arm.

“I’m O.K. I better call Angelo.”

“Tony, what happened?”

“I’ll tell you later.” He walked over to the phone and dialed Angelo’s office number. When he answered, Tony said, “This is Tony. Maria says you called here.”

“You idiot. You know who you killed? A cop. A goddamn cop. The whole town’s going crazy. You’ve really got the heat on now. Get up here.”

Frame and Kelly were with Angelo when Tony arrived at the office. Tony shut the door behind him and walked over to the desk behind which Angelo was sitting. Angelo looked up at Tony with his yellowish eyes hard.

“You fixed things good, Romero.”

Tony leaned forward, his hands flat on the desk top. “What’s the matter with you? That trigger-happy yentzer tossed a pill at me. I’m supposed to catch it in my teeth? Hell, he just got through plugging Rock. I didn’t go there to shoot the guy; it just happened.”

“All right, all right. I know, Romero. Frame and Kelly told me about it. But there’s hell to pay now.”

“He was running the house. His pals on the force will find that out soon enough. When that hits the papers—”

Angelo laughed. Then he stopped laughing abruptly and dug into his desk for a cigar. “His pals on the force,” he mimicked. “I keep forgetting how innocent you are underneath, Romero. The morning papers will say that a noble, fearless, honest officer of the vice squad was shot in cold blood by a hoodlum. There’ll be references to houses of ill fame and intimations that the fearless Sergeant Jorgensen was investigating undercover vice, killed in the line of duty.” Angelo stuck the unlighted cigar in his mouth and chewed on it viciously. “Every preacher in town is going to start screaming about White Slavers and the poor, innocent girls forced into lives of shame.

“And listen, Romero.” Angelo’s voice dropped lower as he leaned forward across the desk, looking seriously at Tony. “No matter what kind of slimy, no-good bastard Jorgensen was, he was still a cop. All cops are pure—when they get killed. Jorgensen is the next name on the Honor Roll of the San Francisco Police Department; you can depend on

that. And the one crime cops have to solve is a cop kill. If they didn’t, cops would get knocked off like ordinary citizens. So … Jorgensen’s fellow police officers must get his killer. It’s simple self-defense.”

Tony ground his teeth together. He was mad, furious, but he didn’t really know what to be mad at. Angelo? The cops? The lousy world? Himself? The mess was even worse than he’d figured, even if he hadn’t been able to think about it much yet.

“O.K.,” he said. “What’s next, then? I’m not gonna go down and say, ‘I did it; beat the hell out of me.’ So what happens?”

“You get out of town. Tonight. I know how these things work, Tony.” Angelo’s voice was a little calmer. “They’ll get the killer; and he’ll probably be convicted, sentenced, maybe even sent to the gas chamber. But, Tony, it doesn’t have to be you.”

Tony fished in his pockets, nervously got out a cigarette and lit up. “It better not be me,” he said.

Angelo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You leave tonight. This is the situation, Tony. While you’re out of town, you’re no good to me here. But we always need new girls for the houses. Particularly now that you’ve done such a good job of picking up business. I’ve been meaning to compliment you on that, Tony. Out of town, you should be able to find many girls who’d be glad to start life anew, shall we say, in the big city.”

Tony frowned. The guy wanted him to go out pandering, procuring fresh babes for the houses.

Angelo noted the frown and asked, “Something troubling you? You don’t have any moral scruples about it, do you?”

“It’s not that. I never done it; maybe I wouldn’t be much good.”

Angelo said matter of factly, “You’re good-looking, Tony, and you’ve got a big car, plenty of money. You don’t need anything else. You know that most of the girls we get come to us of their own free will, because they want to make more money than they make picking berries or milking cows or whatever such creatures do. You’ve shown your initiative and intelligence already, Tony. I have confidence in you.”

That was great. Angelo had confidence in him. Angelo wasn’t the guy that had to work on the dames. But what the hell; there wasn’t much choice.

“O.K.,” Tony said. “I’ll check out tonight. But, dammit, things were just goin’ good here. I hate to blow.”

They talked another half hour, then Tony left. Angelo figured the heat would die down in a couple months, maybe sooner if the cops caught their killer. In the meantime Tony was to recruit what girls he could and send them to Frisco. They’d get in touch with Leo, who was taking over in Tony’s enforced absence. That part Tony didn’t like at all, but Leo was to stay on his own salary, and Tony would continue to get his one-tenth cut of the organization’s fifty percent of the gross. It would be, in many ways, like a vacation with pay. And, Tony thought, he could use a month or two to relax in. He’d been pushing himself pretty hard.

By the time he got back to his apartment, he was feeling pretty good about it.

Maria was sitting up in the front room, a drink in her hand. Maria; she might not like this angle.

She got up and came to him. “How … how is it?”

“O.K. I told you it’d be O.K., didn’t I?”

“Really, Tony? You wouldn’t kid me?”

“Straight goods. It’s gonna be all right.”

Relief washed over her face. “Oh, I’m glad!” She held up the drink, smiling. “Look. I had to do something; I was going to get blind. I was worried sick. I had four drinks, can’t feel a one.” Her face brightened. “Tony, let’s just you and me get drunk. Right here in the apartment. Like old times, when we first seen each other again.”

“Hell, baby. I’d like to. Really I would. But I can’t. I told you everything’ll be O.K.—and it will—but I got to skip town a while. Till the heat’s off. Honey, the panic is really on; you’d think I pooped Li’l Abner.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “You have to leave? Leave town?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But Tony, what about me?”

“Hell, it won’t be for long, sweetheart. Maybe a month.”

“Can I go with you?”

“Well … it wouldn’t work. I’ll be movin’ around a lot. I’ll be callin’ you all the time; maybe I can sneak into town.”

She bit her lip and stared at him curiously. “I don’t think you want me with you.”

“What the hell kind of talk’s that? Sure I want you with me. Ain’t I wanted you with me for two years and more?

But I got to lie low, be free to move. I didn’t mention it, but the guy the trouble’s about is a cop. Was.”

Her shoulders slumped. “You don’t want me with you.” “Well, Jesus Christ. Didn’t you hear me? I said I shot a cop.”

“I hear you.” She went to the bar and began mixing a drink. “You want one?”

“Yeah, I could stand one. Don’t put no poison in it.” “Sometimes, Tony, just for a little minute, I think I’d like to. Something slow and awful.” She turned around with the two drinks and smiled slightly. “Well, here’s to … to success, Tony.” She gave him his drink.

Napa’s best hotel, Tony thought ruefully, wasn’t much like the St. Francis or the Mark Hopkins. Napa was a quiet, peaceful little town—and there wasn’t much for the girls to do in a place like this. Except, of course, what girls do everywhere. He had driven straight here from San Francisco, arriving about three o’clock in the morning. He’d chosen Napa because it was close to Frisco, and a good spot to spend a couple days while he planned his next moves. Napa was a famous wine-growing country, too, and many of Tony’s fellow Italians lived here and in the nearby towns.

Angelo, in that last talk with Tony had said, “Hit the smaller cities where there’s some unemployment, or where the pay is poor; go to the dull, dead spots where the girls get bored and maybe dream about the big city. You’ll do best among the poor and the ignorant, girls that are hard up for money, or men—or love, Tony. Find the girls that aren’t happy at home, don’t get along with their folks, and you’ve got a shipment.” Angelo paused, then went on in a businesslike manner, “You’ll have to handle it your own way, naturally, but don’t be afraid to flash your roll —keep a big roll handy. And, one other thing, the younger they are, the better.”

Tony was thinking about that now in his “suite” at the Plaza Hotel, the suite consisting of a sitting room, bedroom, and bath. The younger the better, huh? Might as well get started, he thought. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

He had coffee in two cafes. Neither the coffee or the waitresses were any good. In the third spot, the coffee was lousy, but the waitress was a sharp little gal with bold eyes. Built, too, thought Tony, letting his eyes roam over her breasts and waist and hips as she stood in front of him. She was young, but she looked wise.

“Coffee’,” he said.

“That all?” He nodded, and she said, “Big spender, huh?”

She walked down to the gleaming coffee urn and filled a heavy white porcelain cup, brought it back. “Here’s your coffee, sport.” There was only one other customer in the small spot at this hour. The cafe itself was only a counter with eight stools, and three tables along the opposite wall. The girl leaned against the counter and looked at him.

“Why aren’t you in school, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Listen to him. Sweetheart. You sure ain’t from this town, are you?”

“No. I’m from… out of town.”

“I don’t go to school. I graduated.”

Tony had parked his Buick convertible, gleaming from a fresh polish job, directly in front of the cafe window. She glanced casually at it, then back at him. “That yours?”

“Yeah.”

“Some boat.”

“Year old now. Figure on gettin’ a new one. Maybe you’ll help me pick it out. I’m a stranger in town.”

She moistened her lips. “Maybe.”

Tony took one swallow of his coffee and got up. He carried his money in his pants pocket now; a lot of the Frisco sharpies did that. He pulled the thick roll, held together with a rubber band, from his pocket, snapped off the band and pulled a five from the inside of the roll. He tossed it on the counter, snapped the rubber back on the bills and thrust them carelessly into his pocket.

She said, “Coffee no good?”

“Terrible. Well, I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

She walked to the cash register at the end of the counter. “I’m cashier, too.” She rang up ten cents, then said, “Here’s your change.”

“Keep it. Look, honey, what’s a guy do in this dump for amusement?” He paused by the cash register.

“Keep all the change?”

“Sure. Anything on in town?”

She stared at him. “Well … ain’t much to do. There’s a dance in Hall’s Hall tonight. Not much, but it’s something.”

“Want to go?”

“With you?”

“No, by yourself. Hell, yes, with me.”

“I got a date.”

“Can’t you break it?”

“Well …” She glanced out at the Buick, then at Tony’s face. “O.K.”

“Tell this Joe I’m an old friend. From Frisco.” He grinned at her.

“That’s funny; that’s his name, Joe,” she said.

“Where’ll I pick you up?”

She frowned. “Why’nt I meet you downtown?”

“Sure.” Tony thought about it a minute. What the hell, he might as well press his luck. “Listen, sweetheart,” he said, “I just pulled in here last night; not much sleep. I’m gonna take a nap first—so I’ll be fresh tonight. When you get off here?”

“Five.”

“I’m at the Plaza. Number twenty-four. Why don’t you come up? We can take off from there.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know.”

He squinted at her. “Oh, I get it. That’s a sin in a hick town, huh?” He laughed. i “What’s so funny? O.K., I’ll see you later.”

“Twenty-four. Just come on up.” He went out. Maybe she wouldn’t show. So what? And maybe she would.

Promptly at seven o’clock she knocked on the door. Tony was showered and shaved, dressed except for his shirt. He opened the door and stood bare-chested, looking out at her. “Hi, sweetheart. Come on in. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

She walked by him and he pointed to the couch. “Sit down.” She was wearing a blue crepe dress that fit her tightly and buttoned down the front. It was a cheesy dress, Tony thought, and there was too much makeup on her face, but she looked good. “Say,” he said, “you really look beautiful. You’re gonna knock their eyes out tonight.”