Can Ladies Kill?, page 8
He sorta shrugs his shoulders. “Listen, Caution,” he says, “I just wouldn’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I never heard of you before you come here to-night an’ why I should want anybody to bump you I don’t know. You gotta realise that my business is runnin’ this club for Jack Rocca. I ain’t interested in arrangin’ for Federals to get the heat. It ain’t healthy. That’s all I’ve gotta say.”
“I get it,” I tell him. “Clever stuff, hey? Maybe you never heard of a guy called Joe Mitzler. Maybe you don’t even know some blonde dame who gets around with him?”
He looks up.
“You bet I do,” he says, “but that don’t prove anything. Has that fine pair been tellin’ you some fairy stories about me?”
“So you know ’em all right,” I say.
“You bet I do,” he says. “I hired Joe Mitzler as a bouncer in this place. He worked here for two months. He was the guy who chucked fellers out when they got too fresh. O.K. After he’d been here a coupla weeks he pulled some sob story on me about this blonde dame of his an’ I give her a job in the women’s cloakroom, an’ a couple weeks after that I find that this pair are pinchin’ everything they can lay their hands on, so I chuck ’em both out.”
He moves his cigarette over to his left hand, grabs another one outa the case an’ lights it from the stub of the first one. While he is doin’ this he is still lookin’ at me. I see that his hands are well-kept an’ nicely manicured.
“So you see,” he goes on, “if these two have been pullin’ some story on you about me it looks as if it might be a lotta hooey, don’t it? Neither of those two like me very much.”
I grin at him. “I’m not surprised,” I tell him. “I don’t like you very much either. Listen, Spigla,” I go on, “did you hear that some dame called Marella Thorensen was pulled outa the ditch last night by the harbour squad? I suppose you wouldn’t know anythin’ about that?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I heard about it. Why shouldn’t I? I don’t know this dame, but she is the wife of Thorensen who looks after the big boy’s affairs for him.”
“The big boy bein’ Jack Rocca?” I say.
He nods. “That’s the idea,” he says. “Say listen, I gotta lot of work to do around here, an’ whilst I don’t mind answerin’ questions any time it looks important to you, that is providin’ that they are sensible sorta questions, I haven’t got a lotta time to stick around now.” He gets up.
“Look,” he says, “if you wanta ask questions why don’t you ask somebody who knows something about it. All you guys are the same. Somethin’ happens an’ you never know anythin’ about it, so you just get around shootin’ off your mouth, standin’ up people where you can, just in the hope that you might find somethin’ out.”
I reckon I’m goin’ to keep my temper with this baby, although I feel like givin’ him a swell bust in the puss.
“O.K., Spigla,” I tell him. “You’re feelin’ pretty good, ain’t you? So good that you think you can get fresh. Where’s this boss of yours—Rocca?”
He yawns. “He’s around,” he says, “but just where he is right now I wouldn’t know.”
I look at him. “Well,” I tell him, “I’m goin’ to give you just five minutes to find out. If you ain’t back here in five minutes’ time so’s you can let me know where Rocca is right now you’re goin’ down to the Precinct an’ you’re goin’ to cool your heels for a few days in a cell. Maybe while you’re down there we can find somethin’ to hold you on.”
I grin. “I reckon you’re one of them guys,” I tell him, “with a record. I reckon that maybe you have slipped up somewhere durin’ that sweet life of yours, an’ it might pay me to find out about it. Another thing,” I go on, “I’m not in the habit of takin’ apple sauce from cheap dance-room sissies like you, so if you don’t wanta get grievin’ go an’ get busy.”
He don’t say anythin’. He just goes off. I see him cross the floor an’ go up the stairs that lead to the club offices. About five minutes later a waiter comes over an’ says that Mr. Spigla sends his compliments an’ that Mr. Rocca will be down at the Club at one o’clock an’ will be very glad to see Mr. Caution.
I get up an’ follow the wop across the floor, pickin’ my way through a huddle of cheek-to-cheek dancers who are tryin’ to solve the problem of how to combine a whole lotta neckin’ with as little legitimate dancin’ as possible.
On the other side of the floor we go up the stairs, through the swing doors that Rudy Spigla came through an’ along another passage. The carpets on the floors are swell an’ it looks as if plenty money has been spent on this dump.
At the end of the passage there is a lift. I get in an’ the waiter shuts the door. The lift starts goin’ up on its own without any help from me, so it looks as if they can run to trick lifts as well around here.
After a few seconds the lift stops, the door opens an’ I see Rudy waitin’ for me outside. He has got that lousy grin on his face that I don’t like an’ I have a little bet with myself that before I am through with this bozo I am goin’ to smack that happy smile off his pan, because this hombre makes me feel sick in the stomach.
Rudy is one of them smart guys that you meet with when you are gettin’ around with the mobs. He is the second man, the lieutenant, the guy who does what the big boy says an’ likes it. He is feelin’ pretty good an’ safe all the time because he is always thinkin’ that if somethin’ bad breaks the boss will take care of it an’ him, that he will get away with everything an’ that even if the balloon goes go up a bit too high one day an’ somebody gets pinched for somethin’ then he still thinks that it will be the boss, an’ that he can be clever enough to beat the rap somehow.
I have met plenty fellers like Rudy an’ I reckon that they are just pure poison. But I have got to admit that there is something about this guy that is somehow attractive. Whether it is the way he walks or looks, or whether it is something inside him that I sorta can’t put my finger on I just don’t know, but I do know that there are a whole flock of dames who would go for Rudy in a big way just because he has got that little thing that women always fall for with a bump. You can call it sex-appeal or anything you like, but it’s there all right.
Somehow, durin’ that moment while I am gettin’ out of the lift an’ lookin’ at this hero, my mind goes back to blondie. I wonder whether this Rudy had got that blonde baby stringin’ along after him. Maybe she was just one of the crowd that usta think he was the whole world. An’ if this surmise is correct then it would explain her bein’ on the lookout outside the morgue when I went down to take a look at Marella. It would also explain why she was in the Chevrolet with the boys who tried to rub me out, an’ it would also support the theory that I have got kickin’ around in my head that it was Rocca who staged that business with the ice blocks down at the morgue, and that it was some of Rocca’s boys who gave Marella the works and threw her in the ditch just because she knew a bit too much.
“This way, Mr. Caution,” he says sorta polite, an’ leads off down the red an’ gold passage.
Down on the left is a door. Rudy knocks on this an’ when somebody says to come in he pushes it open an’ lets me go in. I step ahead. I hear the door close behind me, so it looks as if Rudy has scrammed an’ that this is goin’ to be a strictly private interview.
Right opposite the door, on the other side of the big room is a helluva big desk. I reckon that this is one of the biggest desks ever, an’ sittin’ on the other side of it with a pleasant smile on his face, an’ a big cigar stuck in his mouth is a helluva big guy.
He has got a big body an’ a big head. He has got a jowl made through good livin’ that is hangin’ over the side of his silk shirt-collar. His hair is black an’ wavy an’ kept very nicely—it’s a funny thing but mobsters always look after their hair properly, I reckon they musta made fortunes for hairdressers in their time—an’ I can see that his chin is powdered so I reckon he has just got up an’ been shaved.
He is wearin’ a very good tweed suit that cost some dough an’ he is restin’ his chin on one hand lookin’ at me with a sorta pleasant smile like I was an old friend who had blown inta town after bein’ away for a coupla years.
I take a quick peek around the room. Everything is swell. The furniture looks like a Metro-Goldwyn set when they was shootin’ the palace scene an’ the carpets are very pleasant to the soles of the feet. Altogether the set-up is pretty good an’ mighta belonged to a millionaire instead of a double-crossin’ son of a she-dog like Jack Rocca.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Caution,” he says. “Sit down. Have a cigar,”
I pull up a chair. “Thanks a lot, Rocca,” I say, “but I reckon that I will stick to cigarettes.”
I sit down. He still sits there lookin’ at me smilin’ very nicely. He looks like the cat that has swallowed the canary.
He says: “I’ll be very glad to do anything I can to help you, because I have always found out that it is a very good thing to render assistance to Federal guys when they are stickin’ around lookin’ for trouble.”
“Like hell you have, Rocca,” I tell him. “An’ I will also tell you something else an’ that is that you can turn that stuff off right away. I have already had plenty apple sauce from that Spigla guy of yours. I don’t allow to stand for any more, so supposin’ you stop bein’ funny an’ just keep them windscreens you call ears flappin’ an’ listen.”
“Sure, Mr. Caution,” he says, “but you don’t have to take any notice of Rudy Spigla, that’s just his way. He’s O.K. only he sounds sorta fresh. He don’t mean a thing.
“You’re tellin’ me,” I crack. “I’ll bet he don’t—not any more than that bunch of guys you stuck up against a garage wall in Chicago six years ago an’ riddled with a tommy gun till they looked like something that the cat had found down a drain. I’m wise to you, Rocca.”
“What the hell,” he says. “All that stuff is over an’ done with. Me, I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Stop makin’ me cry,” I tell him. “In a minute you’ll be tellin’ me that you’re just a big boy tryin’ to work your way through college an’ keep your old mother in comfort.”
He grins. This guy has got a sorta big open grin an’ in spite of the fact that he has got a record as long as my leg there is somethin’ pleasant about him, which, maybe, is the reason that he is still alive an’ not full of bullet holes in a bronze casket like most of his friends and colleagues.
This Rocca is just another of them contradictory guys who will smile at you an’ make you feel as if you couldn’t annoy ’em even if you bit a large lump outa their favourite wife’s neck, an’ who will, with exactly the same friendly grin, soak your underclothes in petrol an’ set fire to ’em, which is just what this guy did to a small-time mobster up Detroit way—an’ got away with it too.
“Look, Rocca,” I tell him. “There is one or two things I wanta ask you, and if I was you I’d be good an’ careful to talk the truth.”
“Sure,” he cays, “anything you want.”
“All right,” I tell him. “What do you know about Berenice Lee Sam?”
He spreads his hands.
“What the hell?” he says. “What should I know about Berenice except that she is old Lee Sam’s daughter? Don’t I look after his truckin’ business? She is a nice dame. I have only seen her once or twice, an’ I don’t know a thing else.”
“O.K.,” I tell him. “Well, maybe you’d like to know that this Berenice shoots off her mouth last night down at the Precinct an’ she sorta suggests that old man Lee Sam has been runnin’ silk, an’ she sorta suggests that you are the guy who has been carryin’ it. What have you gotta say about that?”
He grins some more.
“I ain’t goin’ to say nothin’ except it looks like a whole lotta hooey to me. Maybe the dame’s gone nuts. What do I want with runnin’ silk?” He laughs.
“Runnin’ silk ain’t part of my organisation. It don’t have to be. Anybody will tellya that I am a straight business man, that I make plenty dough outa my truckin’ business, that I have got property around this town an’ that I don’t have to do anything that is illegal.”
I nod. “Right,” I tell him, “so Berenice was just talkin’ outa her ear. She was just makin’ it up. Listen, Rocca,” I go on, “what do you know about this Marella Thorensen bump off? Who do you think killed that dame? Have you heard about it?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I heard about it, who ain’t? But what should I know about that?”
He leans over the table.
“It’s a screwy business,” he says. “I can’t sorta understand this killin’. That dame was a nice dame, quiet an’ classy. She never got within a hundred miles of a mobster in her life, an’ she wasn’t mixed up with anythin’ screwy. How that dame comes to get the heat I just don’t know.”
“Maybe not,” I say, “but maybe you can make a guess. After all she was Aylmar Thorensen’s wife, wasn’t she, an’ as far as I can make out it was Aylmar Thorensen who has been lookin’ after you an’ Lee Sam any time when it looked as if the law might get its hook on you.”
He grins some more.
“So what?” he says. “Listen, Caution. You got this thing all wrong. Me an’ Lee Sam ain’t ever got inta any trouble around here. I don’t mind tellin’ you that we’ve been runnin’ some number rackets around here in Chinatown. You never met a Chink who didn’t wanta gamble, did you? Well, everybody is runnin’ number rackets everywhere. There’s nothin’ extraordinary in that. It’s an offence, but what copper ever takes any notice of it? Thorensen just used to straighten out any little bit of trouble that started; but if you’re meanin’ to suggest that because he looked after Lee Sam’s legal affairs there was some reason why somebody should wanta bump his wife off you’ve got the whole thing wrong. That dame never came inta the picture any time.”
“Well, she’s come inta it all right this time, an’ gone out of it,” I tell him. “Say listen, Rocca, do you meanta tell me that you’re shootin’ straight when you say that you don’t know nothin’ about this killin’—nothin’ at all? Do you mean that you ain’t got any ideas?”
He looks at me across the desk. He looks straight in my eyes an’ believe it or not for a moment I almost get the idea that this bozo is tellin’ the truth, because he has got such a swell personality that he makes you think he wouldn’t string you along.
“I don’t know a thing,” he says, “but you can take it from me that I’m a durned sight too wise to have anythin’ to do with any killin’ around here.”
I grin back at him. “You don’t know nothing about the guys in the Chevrolet car who tried to get rid of me last night either, I suppose?” I say.
He looks at me sorta bland. “To tell you the truth,” he says, “that’s the first I heard about it.”
We sit there lookin’ at each other, an’ it looks to me like I am wastin’ my time. I get up.
“O.K., Rocca,” I tell him. “I think you an’ me understand each other pretty well. Maybe before I am through with you you’ll decide to talk plenty. I’ll be seein’ you.”
I walk outa the room. He watches me go. I walk down the corridor an’ open the lift door an’ get in. I get out at the floor beneath an’ walk back onta the dance floor. Way over on the balcony on the other side of the room I can see Rudy Spigla talkin’ to some dame. It looks to me like I cannot do any good around this place, but I have got two or three rather swell ideas sizzlin’ in my head, an’ I think I will blow.
I start walkin’ around the balcony so as to get over the other side an’ out by the entrance where I have left my hat, when sittin’ way down at the table where she was before I see the Chinese girl—the one I saw when I come in. She looks at me an’ she slips me a very fast wink. Then she looks at the chair on the other side of the table sorta suggestin’ that I should sit down there. As I get to the table I drop in the chair.
“Well, baby,” I tell her. “What is it? If you’re lookin’ for a sugar daddy you got the wrong guy. What’s on your mind?”
She looks outa the corner of her eye over towards where Spigla is standin’.
“You pletend you having a dlink with me,” she says nice an’ quiet. “I like to talk. I got something to tell.”
I signal the waiter. I order two highballs an’ we wait till he brings them. Whilst we are waitin’ she don’t say nothin’, but when the waiter has brought the drinks she motions with her head towards where Spigla is standin’. I look across an’ see that he has seen where I am an’ that he is beckonin’ to me. I say excuse me an’ I get up an’ I go over.
“What’s eatin’ you, Spigla?” I ask him. “You discovered you got somethin’ you wanta talk about?”
He smiles. This guy is still pretty fresh.
“No,” he says. “I wanted to ask you how you got along with Rocca. I wanted to ask you if the big boy has been able to be any help.”
“Ain’t that too nice of you?” I tell him. “The next time I want you to ask me something I’ll let you know.”
I turn around, an’ I go back to the table. I sit down and drink the highball. It tastes lousy.
“Well what is it, baby?” I ask the dame.
She looks across at me an’ smiles. She is a pretty kid an’ her hair is done very nice. In spite of the fact that this baby is Chinese, she has still got something.
“Mlister Caution,” she says. “I think it would be a very good thing if you don’t go back to your hotel. Maybe it not be so good for you.”
“Aw nuts,” I tell her. “Say listen, what is this? Has Mr. Rocca got you on to tryin’ some sorta psychological stunt on me to get me nervous? You try somethin’ else, baby.”
