“Where did Zucker come in?”
She sighed. “It happened less than a year ago. We came to New York. Part business and part pleasure. Dad bought his supplies in New York and liked to get into town once or twice a year to check out new items. It was better than waiting for the salesman to come to him. We were at a nightclub, a cheap joint on West Third Street, and the busboy asked Dad if he was looking for action. Poker, craps, that kind of thing. He said he wouldn’t mind a poker game and the busboy gave him a room number of a Broadway hotel. I went back to the place where we were staying and Dad went to the game.”
Billie’s last record ended and the juke went silent. I was tired of wasting quarters—and we didn’t need music.
“He told me about it later,” Rhona said, “when he got back to our room. He said he sat down and played two hands, and by that time he knew the game was rigged. He was going to get up and leave, he said, but they were so sloppy it made him mad. So he beat them at their own game, Ed. He played tight on the hands unless he was dealing, and on his deal he made sure things went his way.
“He was careful about it. He threw every trick in the book at them and they never caught on. It was a big game, Ed. Table stakes with a heavy takeout. Dad walked out of the game with twenty thousand dollars of their money.”
I whistled. The rigged games are usually pretty small—when you get in the high brackets, nobody trusts anybody and the games are generally honest. It’s easier to rake cheap suckers over the coals than to pick the big-money boys.
“Who played in the game?”
“Two or three of the sharps. And Dad. And some oil and cattlemen.”
It figured. Texans with too much money and too much faith.
“Even the oilmen didn’t do badly,” she said. “Dad took the money straight from the crooks. He had the time of his life. And then…then they must have figured out what happened. For a few weeks everything was fine. Then we got a note in the mail. It wasn’t signed. It said Jack Blake better give back the twenty grand he won or he would get what was coming to him. He just laughed it off, Ed. He said he was surprised they had figured it out but he wasn’t going to let it worry him.”
“And then they killed him?”
“Yes.” She finished her drink. “I was over at a friend’s house. I got home and found him lying on the living-room floor. There was blood all over. I went to him and touched him and…and he was still warm—”
I picked up her hand and held on to it. Her skin was white. She took a quick breath and squeezed my hand. “I’m all right, Ed.”
“Sure.”
We sat there. It was pushing 4:30 and the bar was starting to draw lushes. A tough little dyke in tight slacks strode over to the jukebox and played something noisy. I looked at Rhona again.
“How do you fit in?” I asked.
“They want to kill me.”
“Why?”
“They want their money back.”
I shook my head. “I won’t buy it. You’re in New York, not Cleveland. You were busy paying off a blackmailer who caught a load of lead in Canarsie. I don’t buy it at all, Rhona. They wouldn’t chase you that hard just because your father took them with a few fancy cuts and shuffles. They might run him down and kill him, but they wouldn’t bother you.”
“It’s true, Ed.”
“It is like hell. Where does the blackmailer fit?”
“He was blackmailing me. I told you.”
“How? Why? With what?”
She thought about it. The juke was still too noisy and the bar was filling up. I was beginning to dislike the place.
She said: “All right.”
I waited.
“I’m Jack Blake’s daughter,” she said. “I’m not a weeper and I don’t throw in the towel when somebody hits me. I’m pretty tough, Ed.”
I could believe it. She looked the part. Her green eyes were warm enough to throw sparks now.
“I came to New York to get them,” she said. “They killed my father, Ed. Those rotten bastards killed him. They beat him and he died, and I’m not the kind of girl who can sit on her behind in Cleveland and write it off to profit and loss. I flew to New York to get something good on Abe Zucker, something good enough to put him on death row at Sing Sing. That’s why they want me out of the way, Ed. Because they know I won’t give up unless they kill me.”
“And the blackmailer?” I asked. “How did he fit in?”
“Klugsman,” she corrected. “Milton Klugsman. He got in touch with me, told me he could prove that Zucker had my dad killed. I…I guess I let you think he was blackmailing me just to make things simpler. He called me and told me he had evidence to sell. The price was five grand.”
“He might have been conning you, Rhona.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think I thought of that? He could have been looking for some easy money or he could have been setting me up for Zucker. That’s why I wouldn’t meet him myself, why I hired you. I decided it was worth risking five grand, Ed. Five grand was just an ante in a game this size—”
She stopped, shrugged. “I guess Klugsman was telling the truth. Whatever he had, I won’t get it now. He’s dead. They killed him, and now they want to kill me. If I had any sense I’d get out of town until they forgot all about me.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because I’m Jack Blake’s daughter. Because I’m a stubborn girl. I always have been. Well, where do we go from here, Ed?”
I put a dollar on the table for the barmaid. “For a starter,” I said, “we get the hell out of here.”
FIVE
We took my Chevy. I drove uptown on Eighth Avenue as far as Twentieth, then cut east. There was a parking spot in front of a swanky five-story brick building on Gramercy Park. I coaxed the Chevy into it, with a Caddy in front of us and a Lincoln behind. The Chevy felt outclassed. We got out of the car, walked past a stiff doorman and into a self-service elevator.
“I didn’t want a hotel room,” she said as we entered her place. “I thought it would be too easy for them to find me. This apartment was listed in the Times. It’s a sublet, all furnished and ready. It costs a lot of money but it’s worth it.”
“What name did you rent it under?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “Not mine.”
She said there was scotch if I wanted a drink. I didn’t. I wandered around the living room, a brazenly modern room. Rhona sat down on an orange couch and crossed her legs.
“What do we do next, Ed?”
“Go back to Cleveland.”
“And forget about it?”
“Uh-huh.”
She looked away. I studied her legs, then let my eyes move slowly up her body. I remembered last afternoon, in my apartment, in my bedroom. I took a quick breath, then crammed some tobacco into a pipe and scratched a match on a box.
“He was my father, Ed.”
“I know.”
“I can’t quit.”
“Hell,” I said, “you absolutely can’t do anything else. You know how Zucker took care of your father? Zucker didn’t go there himself, Rhona. He picked up a telephone—or he hired somebody to pick up a phone. And then a bunch of hired muscle from Detroit or Chicago or Vegas got on a plane to Cleveland and beat your father to death and flew back on the next plane. You couldn’t pin something like that to Zucker in a hundred years. All you can do is take a gun and shoot a hole in his head.”
“That’s not such a bad idea, is it?”
I didn’t answer her.
“No,” she said finally. “You’re wrong, Ed. Why is he scared of me? Why can’t he just ignore me? He had this lawyer offer you ten thousand dollars? If he’s in the clear, why am I worth that kind of money to him?”
“You must have him scared.”
She swung a small fist into the palm of her other hand. A startling gesture from a girl, especially a feminine one like her. “You are goddamned right. I’ve got him scared,” she said. “I’ve got the son of a bitch turning gr
een. And there has to be evidence, Ed. Klugsman had evidence.”
“Unless he was conning you.”
“Then why did they kill him?”
She was right. Abe Zucker was in enough trouble to work up a sweat, enough to make him spray Canarsie with machine-gun slugs and paper Manhattan with ten-grand rewards. It didn’t quite mesh yet. Something was wrong somewhere, something didn’t ring true. But for the time being she was right and I had to ride with her.
I drew on my pipe. “What do you know about Klugsman?”
“Nothing but his name. And that he’s dead.”
“You never met him?”
“No.”
“You know where he lives?”
She shook her head. “He called me on the phone, Ed. He said his name was Milton Klugsman and he told me he had the information I needed. He said he could prove who killed my father. He didn’t give his address or his phone number or anything.”
“The phone. Is it in your name?”
“No, it’s in the name of the people I’m subletting from.”
“Then how did he reach you?”
“I have no idea.”
We kept running into walls and up blind alleys. I wondered if she was lying to me. So far she’d fed me enough nonsense to earn her a Pathological Liar Merit Badge, but the latest version had a plausible ring to it.
“Somebody knew you were in town. Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Phillip Carr showed me a picture of you. Any idea where he got it?”
“None.”
“It was a head-and-shoulder shot, Rhona. You had your hair swept back and you were smiling, but not too broadly.”
Her face clouded. “That…sounds like a picture Dad carried in his wallet. They could have stolen it when they killed him.” She bit her lip. “But that doesn’t make sense, does it?”
It didn’t. I poked at my memory, brushed the snapshot away, and brought a different picture into focus. A face I’d seen a day ago in Canarsie. I described Klugsman as well as I could, told her how tall he was and what kind of a face he had and what clothes he was wearing. The description rang no bells for her.
I stood up, leaned over to knock the dottle from my pipe, and walked over to her. “We have to start with Klugsman,” I said. “Klugsman may have had some evidence. Without it we’re nowhere. I can try getting a line on him. Maybe I can find out who he was, where he lived, and who his friends were. If he had anything around the house, it’s probably gone by now. But maybe he’s got a friend or a relative who knows something. It’s worth a try.”
“You’re going now?”
She seemed sad about it. She was standing just a few feet from me, her hands at her sides, her shoulders back, her breasts in sharp relief against the front of her dress. Her mouth was pouting a little and her eyes were unhappy. I looked at her and didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay awhile.
“I’d better get going,” I said.
“Wait a few minutes, Ed.”
The voice was soft as a pillow. Her eyes were moist. She took a short step toward me, stopped. I put out my hands and caught her shoulders and she pressed against me, hard.
“Ed—”
I kissed her. Her mouth tasted of Rob Roys and cigarettes and she put her arms around me and clung to me like a morning glory on a wire fence. Her body was on fire. I kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her throat.
“I’m all alone,” she said. “All alone and afraid. Stay with me, Ed.”
“Sure,” I said, leading her into the bedroom, decorated in various shades of green. She stood there like a statue, but who likes statues dressed? I took off her clothes and ran my hands over her body. She vibrated like a tuning fork, purred like a kitten.
The mattress was firm. I put a pillow under her head and spread that ash blond hair over it. I touched her, kissed her. She breathed jaggedly and her eyes were wild.
“Ed—”
To hell with Klugsman. He was dead. He could wait awhile…
I LEFT HER IN BED, face pressed to pillow, eyes closed, body curled like a fetus. I told her not to leave the apartment, not to answer the door, not to pick up the telephone unless it rang once, stopped, then rang again. That would be my signal.
“One if by land,” she mumbled. “Two if by sea.”
I kissed her cheek. She smiled like a Cheshire cat, happy and contented. I dressed and left her apartment.
The first stop was my own apartment. I got on the phone, cursed myself once, quietly, and called the Continental Detective Agency in Cleveland. The voice that answered sounded two years out of an expensive college. I told him to run a brief check on a man named Jack Blake, supposed to be a homicide victim within the past couple of months, and to ring me back on it.
It was simple stuff and it only took him half an hour. Jack Blake, he revealed, was a card sharp who ran a magic shop on Euclid Avenue, got beaten to death in his own home, and had a daughter named Rhona. It was she who reported all this to the police. So far it was unsolved. Did I want to know more?
I didn’t. I told him to bill me and got off the phone. I’m sorry, Rhona, I said softly. This time I should have believed you. I’m sorry.
Then I got out of there and headed for the Senator, a cafeteria on Broadway at 96th, downstairs from Manny Hess’s pool hall and across the street from a Ping-Pong emporium. They serve good food and run a clean place, and every small-time operator on Upper Broadway drops in for coffee-and. I went inside and got a cup of coffee and carried it to the table where Herbie Wills was sitting.
Wills, a small, gray man of forty-five, was eating yogurt and buttered whole wheat toast. There was a glass of milk standing on the table.
“Ulcers,” he said. “I went to this doctor because of my stomach, he said I have ulcers. I have this very sensitive stomach, Mr. London. There are certain foods I can’t eat. They disagree with me, you know.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Now,” he said, spooning in a teaspoon of yogurt. “Can I help you, Mr. London?”
“I need some information.”
“Sure, Mr. London.”
Information was Herbie’s livelihood. He wasn’t exactly a stool pigeon, just a little man who kept his ears open and filed away everything into separate compartments of his mind. When the information market was weak he ran errands for bookies. He was a hanger-on, living in a clean but shabby room in a 98th Street hotel.
“Milton Klugsman,” I said.
Herbie pursed his bloodless lips, tapped three times on the table with his index finger. “So far,” he said, “nothing. More?”
I gave him a quick description. “I make him in Canarsie, Herbie. At least he’s familiar with the area out there. A Brooklyn or Queens boy, then. Any help?”
“Miltie,” he said. I looked at him. “Miltie Klugsman, Mr. London. This is what throws me for a moment; you said Milton Klugsman, I start thinking in terms of Milton or Milt. But I knew a Miltie Klugsman. This is all he gets called. Miltie.”
“Go on.”
Another spoon of yogurt, bite of toast, deliberate sip of milk. I watched him and hoped I would never get ulcers. He wiped his mouth again and shrugged.
“I do not know much,” he said carefully. “Miltie Klugsman. I think he works for himself, Mr. London. I think maybe selling things, like a fence. But this is just a guess because I hardly know him at all.”
“Who are his friends?”
Herbie shrugged. “This I don’t know. As a matter of fact, I hardly know Miltie Klugsman at all. You were right about Brooklyn. He lives somewhere in East New York near the Queens line.”
“Married?”
“He could be. I see him once with a dark-haired girl. She was wearing a mink stole. But this doesn’t mean she is his wife, Mr. London.”
That sounded logical enough. “I have to find Miltie,” I said. “Where does he hang out?”
He thought about it, through another spoon of yogurt, bites of toast, two sips of milk. “Now wait a min
ute,” he said. “Sure.”
“What?”
“A diner in Brooklyn!” he said. “On Livonia Avenue near Avenue K. I don’t know Brooklyn too well. The diner is one of those old trolley cars but like remodeled. I don’t know the name.”
“Probably something like ‘Diner’.”
“That might be it,” he said seriously. “Try there, ask around. You might even find Miltie himself.”
I doubted it. Miltie Klugsman wouldn’t be there unless they had plastered him under the basement floor. But I didn’t tell this to Herbie.
He was a stool pigeon with a conscience. He wouldn’t take the ten I gave him, insisting it was too much for the sort of information he had given me. I gave him a five finally and got out of there.
I went back to the Chevy. Some juvenile delinquent had relieved me of my radio aerial—in the morning he would go to shop class and make a zip gun out of it. Deprived of music, I headed dolefully for Brooklyn.
SIX
Livonia Avenue was filled with people. I parked two blocks from the diner—which was named Diner after all—and stopped in a drugstore to see if Miltie Klugsman had had a phone. He did, plus an address on Ashford Street. The pharmacist told me how to get to Ashford Street. I started in that direction, then decided to try the diner first.
It wasn’t much. A ferret-faced counterman was pressing a hamburger down on a greasy grill. He turned to look at me when I walked in. An antique whore sat at the counter near the door drinking coffee with cream.
I took a stool halfway between the old girl and a trio of young punks in snap-brim hats, all of them trying to look like latter-day Kid Twists. I was in Reles country, Murder Inc.’s old stamping grounds not far from the heart of Brownsville.