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Loren Collingswood and his daughter were in the room where I’d last seen them arguing, only this time they had a card table set up next to the fireplace and were playing two-handed bridge.
“It’s not the ideal way to play, but we enjoy it.” Lucille patted her father’s hand. He smiled in return.
“I’m afraid we haven’t had a game in ages. Things like yesterday make you realize you ought to appreciate what you have. Frank offered to mind the shop today so I could stay home. The outfit that was flying in for the meeting called me here this morning and asked to postpone it, so that pressure’s off for a bit. Have you brought news?”
“Dribs and drabs.”
Shedding my coat so as not to overheat in the warm room, I leaned against the mantlepiece. They watched me expectantly.
“I’m curious. Is Mr. Tremain a bridge player?”
“We tried to interest him a few times, but he said it just didn’t appeal to him.”
“What about poker? Did that ever appeal to him?”
“Poker!” Collingswood seemed taken aback at the mere thought.
Lucille burst out laughing.
“He was too polite to say so to Father, but Gil thinks card games are a colossal waste of time. Poor Eve begged him to play Rook with her one day when it was raining. He didn’t even last half a game.”
“What about dice? Did they interest him?”
“You mean gambling with them? Trying to roll certain numbers? Good heavens no.”
“These are very odd questions,” frowned Collingswood. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m trying to find out how he might have known a man who owed money to loan sharks.”
***
Nico Caras knew Walt Benning. Benning had played cards with Scott. Scott worked with Tremain. The problem, I reflected as I walked to my car, was the lack of a connection between Tremain and anyone else.
Tremain was at the center of things. Viewed from another angle, he was at one end of a chain. Maybe I should take a look at the other end. Maybe I should try to talk to Nico Caras.
Good sense and my knotted stomach told me that was a very bad idea. I told Good Sense to scram.
Getting in touch with Caras would be tricky, though. The only other time I’d had cause to try, I’d contacted someone who contacted someone who contacted who-knows-how-many other someones to set up a meeting. Today, with routines disrupted and people jittery, no telling how long it would take. Meanwhile, if Gil Tremain was still alive, and his disappearance had something to do with the high-stakes meeting that had now been canceled, he had now become more a liability than an asset.
That pest Good Sense tugged at my sleeve, reminding me there was one other place I hadn’t checked for the link I needed to put my chain together: The bartender at the watering hole Jolene had told me about yesterday.
Keeping one eye peeled for a tag-along I drove to Fifth and found a parking space. The coffee shop I’d sat in the first day was open, but the newsy waitress wasn’t there. The music store was closed. Ever alert to the possibilities of disaster, the insurance place was open. I passed The Pompeii and turned into the brick walkway. Down a bit, about where Sixth ought to be, I found Revels.
It was bigger than I’d expected, plain looking but clean. Behind the bar, a good-sized fellow with dark hair polished glasses. A single customer, who sat with his elbows propped on the bar, looked around at the sound of the door opening. It was blue-eyed Steve Lapinski. He recognized me.
“You didn’t give me your phone number,” he complained in wounded tones.
“You’re better off.”
The bartender listened with interest.
“Beer.” I slid onto the neighboring stool. “The darkest you’ve got. Get him another of whatever he’s drinking.”
Lapinski debated and then nodded thanks. He knocked back the remnants of what appeared to be whiskey and soda.
“Are you Barney?”
“Except when the bill collector comes calling.” The bartender flashed me a grin.
“A man who used to work here says you’re okay. He thought you’d be willing to talk to me, let me know if you’ve seen someone I’m looking for.”
I slid him one of my cards as he set down our drinks. Barney whistled.
“You tried to make time with a gumshoe, Lap? You’re lucky she didn’t feed you your hat.”
Lapinski had read the card as it passed.
“You even lied about your name!”
“Mr. Lapinski has his charms.” I figured I owed him that much.
“You must be a good detective to find any.” Barney snapped his bar rag at the man beside me. “He’s been coming in ever since I’ve been here, and I’ve never noticed ‘em.”
Men talk more freely when I get them joshing with me, and with each other. I let the two of them go on for a minute. When they began to run down, I brought out my picture of Gil Tremain and did my routine.
Barney held the photograph up in front of him and gave it thoughtful study.
“Nope. Haven’t seen anyone looked like him come in. Only ones I recall other than regulars these last few weeks were a pair of fellows who came in a few times. They were older than the one you’re looking for, or maybe just harder. I might not have noticed them except they always came in late, maybe half an hour before closing. That and they argued one night.”
“About what?”
“Don’t know. I heard one of them say they weren’t getting paid enough.”
The mention of two men had caught my attention. Thugs or gangsters? I’d encountered one pair; heard reports of the other.
“Suits?” I asked.
“No.” The bartender made no bones about his curiosity. “Why?”
Lapinski had turned on one elbow to listen.
“Because,” I said, “a pair who work for a man named Nico Caras may be hunting him too.” I heard a sharply drawn breath. “Or they could be looking for Walter Benning, who ran the lamp shop around the corner. Those two wear suits, though.”
I swiveled so I was looking directly at Lapinski.
“How does it happen you recognized the name Nico Caras?”
He shrugged.
“Like I told you, I also have an office north of the river. I grew up there. Nico and some other men used to hang out at a place over there, a little dump of a Greek joint on Herman just off Main. People gave them a wide margin. When I was in high school and thought I knew just about everything there was to know, my pop cautioned me to steer clear of the place – not to get within two blocks, he said.”
“And did you? Steer clear?”
Lapinski chuckled and took a good swig of whiskey. By the sound of his words, he’d already had a couple before I came in.
“Yeah, mostly,” he said. “Might’ve gone past once so I could brag I’d seen the place.”
“The two who came in here.” I swiveled back to face Barney. “What can you tell me about them?”
He folded his arms and leaned back against the counter under the shelves that held his bottles of liquor. Whether to aid his memory or because of his dearth of customers, he pulled himself a beer and sipped.
“Always came in late, an hour or so before closing. The first one would order two drinks. Then when the second one came–”
“They didn’t come in together?”
“Nope. More like they were meeting. Anyway, the bigger one always came in first. Then his friend would turn up. Sometimes they’d talk for a while – like when they had the argument – other times it was only a couple of minutes. The one who came first would knock back his drink and then leave. The other one generally stuck around and took his time finishing.”
Maybe just two pals meeting up after work, I thought. Except I couldn’t think of anything close that would be running a night shift. Otterbein Press was a few blocks north, and farther still, in opposite directions, the two newspapers. This was awfully far for someone working at those places to stop for an after work drink.
“Any sort of factory or warehouse around here with people getting off work around that time?”
“None I can think of. You, Lap?”
Lapinski shook his head.
“Used to be a warehouse over toward Main, but it finally went under ‘38, ‘39. Been sitting vacant ever since.”
“When was the last time they came in?”
Barney rubbed his chin.
“Saturday, must have been. This place was dead as a tomb last night. I closed early. “Say!” His fingers snapped. “One night the two of them had just started jawing when another guy joined them. He tore into both of them, and he had a suit on.”
“Can you describe them? What did they look like?”
“Didn’t really notice the one in the suit. As soon as he’d lambasted them he left, and the one who came first trotted out after him. The one in the suit was older than Lap here, I think. Can’t remember him being a blond or a redhead, so his hair must have been dark.”
“What about the other two?”
“One had a beak on him that looked like it might have been broken a time or two. The other one ...” The bartender made a face. “The other one was wearing the most God-awful blue muffler I’ve ever seen.”