The punk’s nose was entirely covered in bandages, held on with strips of white tape that went halfway across his face. He glared venom at me through bloodshot eyes. I didn’t smile, but I wanted to.
“You and me are gonna settle up for this, Caine,” he spat at me. If he thought being hit in the nose hurt, he might want to see what it feels like to be hit in a broken nose. That’s a whole new world of pain. They walked me around the corner and into an alley where I stood for another frisk. Vinnie took out my Colt, thumbing out the magazine and dropping it into his pocket. He made sure to yank the slide back and send the bullet from the chamber flying down the alley before handing me back the empty gun.
“Those magazines cost money,” I said, slipping the empty Colt into my jacket. “So do the bullets.”
“Things is tough all over,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Getting picked up again so soon didn’t faze me. I was expecting it. Draymore couldn’t really buy me a week away from these guys, for the simple reason that I was supposed to be working for Trianna against Draymore. But had Draymore done what I’d asked him? Told Trianna he was setting me up? Or had the two of them worked out their own arrangement? I’d know soon enough.
We walked back out of the alley and climbed into their car parked at the curbside. Same drill as last time: Vinnie and I in back, the punk driving. We headed south for a few blocks, turning onto Twelfth Street and eventually pulling into the parking lot of the Italian Gardens. Inside, Joe Trianna was sitting at a corner table. He saw us enter the restaurant and dismissed the three men with him, all of whom quickly got up and took their plates to another table. Trianna waved me to the chair on his right. I sat with my back to the wall, Vinnie flanking me on the right and the punk in the chair across from me, boxing me in. The table was laden with steaming dishes of food and the smell was almost good enough to take the knots out of my stomach.
“Devlin Caine, good to see you. You hungry?” Trianna was working leisurely through a plate of oysters.
“I could eat.” I helped myself to a saucer of olive oil and a piece of bread. Vinnie had already loaded up a plate for himself of pretty much everything on the table, and wasted no time getting started.
“Get home okay the other night?” Trianna looked sideways at the punk.
“I managed okay.”
“So,” Trianna said, chewing up another oyster, “it’s been what, three days? What’s the good word? I got my end ready to go.” He took a fat envelope from his inner pocket and placed it on the table.
“I’ve made some headway,” I admitted.
“Ain’t paying you for headway, Caine.”
“Draymore definitely has the notebook,” I told him. “He showed it to me.”
“What’s it look like?” Trianna was no dummy. He shot the right kind of questions and he shot them fast. I couldn’t hesitate, but I’d better damned well stay alert.
“Maybe six inches long, black cover, elastic band around it, writing inside in red and black ink.”
“He opened it for you?” Damn, too much detail! Wake up, Caine, you’re not getting a second chance with this guy.
“Not intentionally. He dropped it on the floor at one point. It flipped open for a second.”
“Kind of a butterfingers, that guy.” Trianna had his easy, movie-star smile in place along with mocking eyes that looked like they never believed anybody. I shrugged.
“I don’t think he’d make much of a stage magician.”
“What about you? You couldn’t make that notebook disappear under his nose, reappear for me?” Trianna really liked the back and forth, but just because he wasn’t as skilled at it as he liked to believe, he could still catch a lie fast enough. And one would be enough to sink me.
“He had friends in the room, Mr. Trianna. I didn’t.”
“Uh huh. So what’s your plan?”
“Find out where he keeps it when it’s not on him. I need a few days to do that.”
“You don’t know where he keeps it but you know you can find it?”
“Draymore trusts me,” I explained. “Enough, anyway. He thinks I’m working for him. That gets me close, but at the same time I have to be careful so he doesn’t get wise.” I chewed another piece of oil-soaked bread and washed it down with a sip of the table wine.
“How do I know you’re not telling Draymore the same thing about me?” he asked.
“Of course I’m telling him the same thing. How else could I gain his confidence?”
I scooped some baked lasagna onto a plate, making sure my movements were calm and nonchalant. Trianna picked up his glass and swirled the wine inside, his eyes never leaving my face.
“I talked to Draymore yesterday on the telephone,” he said casually. “He says you’re not working for him at all. He still says you’re the one who’s got the notebook.” His smile was tight.
I swallowed and nodded.
“That’s what we agreed he should tell you. If he admits he has it, he can’t really put you off any longer, can he? If he admits he hired me, he knows you won’t tell me anything or listen to anything I have to say.”
“If Draymore has the notebook, what did he hire you for?”
“To do exactly what he thinks I’m doing: to stall you while he sets up the real deal he wants to make.”
“What real deal?”
“You know Ronald Graham?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Pardon me for saying so, Mr. Trianna, but I believe you have. Ronald Graham hired me a couple of weeks ago to check out Craig Carlton. He told me you introduced Carlton to him. He also told me you gave Carlton the notebook to use as leverage, to force Graham to take Carlton on as a business partner.”
“This Ronald Graham sure likes to shoot his mouth off,” Trianna groused, but he didn’t seem surprised at what I’d thrown at him, and he didn’t deny any of it, either. “He tell you what was in the notebook?”
“He said it was trade secrets, which doesn’t tell me much. But I figure I don’t need to know much for my part in this.”
“You figure right, Caine. Let me guess, Graham hired you to find this notebook, too?”
I nodded. “Yesterday.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“Told him I’d look into it.”
Trianna laughed and clapped his hands together at that.
“So you figure to peel some lettuce off Draymore and Graham, then come to me to collect a cool five gees?”
“I figure to bring you the notebook for the price we agreed on,” I said, casting a wistful glance at the fat envelope on the table. “If I see a chance to flay Graham and Draymore a little in the process, hell, they won’t miss some of their money.” Trianna looked at me with an odd mixture of mistrust and admiration. Maybe not such an odd mixture for him, though.
“You here to stall me, Caine?”
I smiled. “That’s what Draymore thinks.”
He looked at me a minute. “I think maybe we should go some place private, talk about this. You, me, and a few of the boys. ’Cause I think you’re lying to me, Caine.”
“’Course he’s lyin’!” the punk broke in. “This guy’s a slimy rat, boss. Look what he done to me while my back was turned.” The punk hooked a thumb toward his bandaged nose. Trianna cuffed him a sharp one on the ear, his Brooklyn accent coming out stronger with his temper.
“An’ what was you doin’ with your back to him an’ you was supposed to be watchin’ him? You got what you deserved, Gino.”
Vinnie’s face had been in his plate this whole time. No one had spoken to him and his name hadn’t come up, and he must have figured the food wasn’t getting any warmer sitting there.
“Finish up and let’s go,” Trianna said to Vinnie, then looked coldly at me. “We got business with this guy.”
“Now hold it just a minute,” I said, thinking fast. “Mr. Trianna, if you want to take me to your warehouse and have your boys work me over, there isn’t much I can do to stop you. All you’ll hear is what I’ve been telling you, nothing more, only with more begging and screaming thrown in. But you should keep this in mind: I can’t get this notebook away from Draymore if I’m lying in a hospital for the next two weeks.”
Trianna let out a heavy sigh and ran a hand across the back of his neck, then tapped his ring against the tabletop a few times.
“I need a reason to believe you, Caine. More important, you need a reason for me to believe you. And it better be a good one.”
I took a long drink of water and a deep breath. It didn’t matter if I didn’t appear quite so calm while I addressed this next point. In fact, it might help my case considerably if I didn’t. I set the glass down and put my hands on the table.
“Mr. Trianna,” I began, glancing again at the envelope lying on the checkered tablecloth, “there’s five thousand dollars cash right in front of my face. If I had this notebook, I’d slap it down on the table this minute and walk out with my money. I’d go back to sleeping easy at night, no more looking over my shoulder for Vinnie and Gino. I’m not trying to hold out for the highest bidder here, and I’ll tell you why:
“One person has this notebook. Two more people want it. But here’s the thing: you all come from very different places. I do something for Graham or Draymore, I get my money and they forget about me, whereas a man of honor such as yourself, you wouldn’t forget that a guy helped you out with something important. Looking at the other side, sure, Graham and Draymore are rich men, maybe richer than you even. Either one of them could afford to have me bumped off with his walking around money. But you, well, I know what you do to people who cross you, and it wouldn’t just be a quick bullet in the brainpan, would it?”
He shook his head slowly. “Bank on it.”
“I know that. Whatever you’d do, it’d make whatever Draymore or Graham might do seem like a walk in the park. I know that, and you know I know that.”
Never spend too long trying to sell this kind of con. It’s one thing if you’re hustling out-of-towners with promises of loose women nearby or selling phony life insurance policies to middle-class home owners. In those cases, you want to keep the patter going so they don’t have time to think, with lots of lulling repetition sprinkled into your grift. In a situation like I was in now, you want to sell one point and you want to sell it clear and solid, no distractions. Because if your one point fails, all the fast-talking you can manage isn’t going to buy you beans. I’d tried to put just the right amount of flattery in there, and that “you know I know” business at the end, which I hoped would appeal to his love of verbal complexity. I held his eye level while I waited.
Trianna pulled out his gold case and fitted a cigarette into his onyx holder, then pulled out his gold lighter and snapped out a flame. He took a meditative puff and leaned back in his chair.
“I think you’re dancing, Caine. I think you’re dancing hard and dancing fast, and if you’re not careful, you’re gonna fall right off the stage and break your goddamn neck.” He took another drag, keeping me waiting. I hoped that was a good sign.
“You got a week, Caine. One week. This time next Friday, either I’m holding that notebook in my hand or I’m holding your liver.”
Trianna nodded at Vinnie. I wasn’t sure how Vinnie could see him, his face buried in his plate like that, but he immediately dropped his fork and stood up. Maybe I’d been a little harsh about Vinnie’s table manners. After all, he never knew how long a meeting like this was going to last. He might only get a few hot bites down before he was on the move again.
Vinnie and Gino walked me back out to the car and dropped me off in front of my office. I stepped out onto the curb and just before the car took off, something flew out of the rear window, clattering on the sidewalk at my feet. It was the magazine to my Colt. That Vinnie was all heart. I bent down to pick it up, then walked around the corner and into the alley to look for my stray bullet. Or maybe just to breathe some fresh air and stop the spasms in my gut.
Had Draymore been in touch with Graham lately? Had Trianna? Safe to assume they were all talking to each other, but I had one thing working in my favor: Trianna, Graham, and Draymore were three big boats in this town that, in a situation like this, drew roughly the same water. If Trianna tried to muscle the other two, well, they were in tight enough with Boss Tom that Trianna could suddenly find his illegal gambling and prostitution houses getting raided on a nightly basis, maybe even closed down. If Graham tried to push Trianna, Trianna might just blow up Graham’s house with Graham in it. Same went for Draymore. I figured Graham and Draymore each had enough dirt after all these years to keep the other at bay. The point was, none of them had sufficient muscle to force the hands of the other two over this notebook. If they did they wouldn’t need me. Sure, they may be talking back and forth, the three of them, making what threats they could and struggling to come to terms (and everyone insisting he didn’t have the notebook!), but each wanted me in his corner as a backup. Strange as it seemed, for the moment they were all willing to believe me over the other two. How long could I keep that going?
I had something else going for me as well: Trianna had given me one week. He hadn’t pulled that number out of his hat; Draymore was playing in my court for now.
I found the bullet and scooped it up. The few bites of lasagna and bread had already burned off, and I was feeling hungry again now that I wasn’t waiting to find out if I’d be taken to some blood-spattered back room and given the lead pipes. I grabbed a hot dog and a soda at a nearby lunch counter, then walked back behind my office building, climbed into my car, and drove over to the library. I’d been thinking about Draymore while I was eating. When I saw him in the hotel room the night Benny tried to set me up, I recognized him as the man I’d seen with Carlton at the Liberty Memorial. I’d forgotten until now that he looked familiar to me even then, though I was sure I’d never seen him face to face. I could only think I must have seen a photograph of him somewhere, either a particularly memorable one or one I’d seen recently.
I stopped in my tracks for half a second when I walked into the library. Phyllis was standing behind the counter wearing a bright yellow sweater. Pretty damned cheerful for a girl who usually favored the more somber hues, but she was wearing something even more surprising: a smile. I strolled up to the counter.
“Someone’s looking good today.”
“What’s new, Dev?” she asked brightly.
“Just working, honey. How’ve you been?” Her green eyes practically sparkled through the lenses at me.
“If you’re here for a date, forget it. I found me a nice man.”
I wanted to smile and tell her that was great, but I could tell she was hoping it would sting a little, so I let my face fall before asking: “Oh, is that so?”
“You know it. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, goes to church on Sunday.” Her mom was a pretty strict Catholic, I remembered, so that couldn’t hurt things.
“Well, I’m…I’m happy for you, Phyllis, I really am.” I tried to sound like I wasn’t, then told her I had some work to do and shuffled listlessly off to the reference section.
I found Draymore in the Marquis Who’s Who, and his story read pretty similar to Graham’s. He’d been born into money, married into more money (now widowed), and then made more money on top of that. He’d be the type who thought of himself as a self-made man for starting out rich and getting richer. Most of his money was in railroads and cattle, but he’d been a heavy hitter in the development of the downtown area since the Teens. I didn’t find too many articles about Draymore, and damned few photographs. Apparently, he didn’t enjoy playing the socialite the way Graham did.
I went to the periodicals. It took me over an hour, trying to retrace my steps from a week ago Monday when I was brushing up on Ronald Graham, but I found it: the newspaper photo of Graham and two other men sharing a shovel at a groundbreaking ceremony. I glanced at the top of the paper and noted that it was from four years ago. The man on Graham’s left was Harold Draymore, of course. Now I knew why he’d looked familiar to me the first time I saw him in person. The man in the photo to Graham’s right was a wiry old bird with a big smile. The caption identified him as Judge Ennis Quinn. I read the accompanying article. The groundbreaking was for the Fidelity National Bank and Trust Building on Walnut. The architects had also designed the Kansas City Power and Light Building on Baltimore, which had broken ground the same year. I didn’t get much else, but I had a new name and face, and if it was someone connected to Graham’s construction endeavors, however tenuous that connection, I decided it was worth trying to talk to him.
I went back to the Who’s Who and found a short entry on Quinn. He was a federal circuit judge, retired from the bench as of late last year. I grabbed a telephone directory, found his home address, and headed that way.
It was just after three-thirty when I pulled up in front of a clean, white, two-story house in a nice neighborhood just south of the city limits. The house was no Casa Graham, but Judge Quinn had little enough to complain about for a retired federal worker. The lawn was well-kept, and the picket fence bordering the front sidewalk sported a fresh coat of paint. I opened the tiny gate, closed it behind me, went up the narrow walk to the front porch, and rang the doorbell. I gave my name and a card to the colored maid who answered, telling her I’d like to see Judge Quinn if he was in. She reappeared a few moments later and led me to a small sun room built onto the rear of the house.
Judge Quinn stood up from his reading chair and gave me a firm, dry handshake. He was in his late sixties, trim and wiry as he’d appeared in the photograph. He was dressed in cotton duck trousers and a cardigan over a shirt that was open at the neck, and he struck me as a typical Missourian, standing straight-backed and looking me in the eye with a friendly smile. I could picture him sitting behind a courtroom bench in a black robe, the kind of justice-tempered-with-mercy jasper who could dispense rulings with a fair, even hand and maybe a little country wisdom and folksy charm mixed in. He asked the maid to bring us some refreshment and offered me a seat in the wicker chair across from him.
“You’re a private detective, Mr. Caine?” he asked, glancing at the card in his left hand.
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“I’m a widower, Mr. Caine. Don’t tell me my late wife Lynne is having me shadowed from behind the grave?”
I pushed out a polite laugh. Lynne Quinn? Christ, what had her maiden name been?
“Nothing like that, sir. I’m working on a case right now – just doing some research, really – and I thought you might be able to help me out a bit.”
“I’m happy to if I can, young fellow,” he answered. The maid brought in a tray bearing a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses already filled. She set the tray down and Quinn divvied up the glasses.
“Hope you’re okay with lemonade,” Quinn said. “It’s more of a summer drink, I know, but I tend to drink it year round.”
“I like lemonade just fine,” I told him, taking a sip. I usually don’t, but this wasn’t bad. Just sweet enough to quell the acid from the citrus.
“Well then, what can I do for you, Mr. Caine?”
“I’m researching a will for a client,” I lied. “The inheritors are squabbling over it. Those who have been left out are trying to get themselves cut in. Those who are in are either trying to protect their share or increase it. It’s all fairly convoluted, of course, and I’m trying to verify ownership of certain properties, income from businesses, that kind of thing.”
“Well now, I’m afraid I haven’t practiced law in a good many years,” he told me. “Sounds to me like you’d want the advice of someone who specializes in estate law.”
“Oh, I didn’t come for free legal advice, Judge Quinn,” I grinned. “We have plenty of attorneys in this dogpile already. No, sir, like I was saying, I’m trying to dig up some details on a few of the businesses, some of which are construction, and, well, I came across your name recently.”
“Oh?” His tone and face expressed nothing but polite interest.
“Yes, sir. Specifically,” and here I pulled out my brown notebook and consulted it, “the Fidelity Bank and Trust Building.” Pulling out the notebook was just for show. I wanted to play this down so if it turned out to be something important, Quinn wouldn’t think I had any inkling it was. “You were at the groundbreaking ceremony four years ago,” I prodded gently.
“Yes, I recall that.” The man had a wonderful habit of giving short, plain answers and following them up with an expectant gaze. He was here to help.
“You broke the first layer of dirt, along with Ronald Graham and Harold Draymore.”
“Three grown men trying to share one shovel,” he nodded, remembering. “I gave them the heavy end,” he winked, and I laughed politely.
“May I ask what your involvement was in the project, sir?” I took another drink of lemonade so I wasn’t staring him down.
“My involvement?” he asked, smiling. “You just stated my involvement, Mr. Caine. I held a shovel with two other men.”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed, giving an embarrassed smile. “What I mean, Judge, is: was there a particular reason you were selected for this honor?”
“It’s called money,” he laughed. “I’d made a few charitable contributions to our city’s civic improvements over the years. I guess it finally came my turn to cut the ribbon or some such.” He sat perfectly relaxed, all ready to answer my next question. Just a friendly, pensioned widower with time on his hands. Maybe it wasn’t a tactic; maybe there just wasn’t anything more to this than he was telling me.
“Were you contacted by Mr. Draymore or Mr. Graham about participating in that ceremony?”
“I think it was Draymore, but it might have been Graham.” Another short, friendly, useless answer. Damn the man.
“Had you had dealings with either of these men prior to this event, Judge Quinn?” I didn’t have much left in the bait box at this point.
“Dealings? Well, I’m not sure I’d put it that way,” he chuckled. “I’d met Ronald Graham several times over the years at various social functions. Fundraisers, charity auctions, that kind of thing. He gets around, you know,” which I took to imply: “He’s a big wheel in this city, you chowderhead! Of course I’d already met him!”
“And Harold Draymore?”
“Same thing, only less so. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve spoken with him directly.”
“I see.” I thought I’d try using his own tactic on him: a polite, meaningless response and an expectant gaze. He wasn’t having any.
“Does that suffice regarding my personal histories with these two men, Mr. Caine, or do I need to see about getting myself an attorney?” He could have been genuinely amused, or politely reminding me of my manners.
“I do apologize, Judge Quinn. I’m really just trying to dot a few i’s and cross a few t’s here, and, well, sir, the fact is,” I clasped my hands in my lap and gave him a sincere look, “I’m not really sure what I’m doing right at this moment.” I laughed and he joined in sympathetically.
“I admire a man who admits it. So few of us have the courage. Can you tell me who your client is, Mr. Caine?”
I spread my hands in a gesture of apology.
“I’m sorry, sir, but—”
He stopped me with a raised palm. “No need to apologize, young man. The client’s expectation of privacy must always be respected.” I thanked him for his understanding. We chatted a bit about the weather while we finished our lemonade. I waited for that interval between rudely ducking out and rudely loitering before excusing myself, and the judge saw me to the door personally. We shook hands and I turned to go, turning right back and asking him quite offhandedly whether he’d ever met Craig Carlton. He pushed out his lower lip and slowly shook his head.
“Name doesn’t ring any bells. Wait a minute. Craig Carlton. Isn’t that the fellow who got himself shot to death in his hotel room last week?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, I never met the man, and I don’t suppose I stand much chance of making his acquaintance now. Leastways, not anytime soon, I hope.”
I thanked him again and headed back down the walk to the little white gate. A dead end. I’d seen enough of them in my day; they comprise a lot of the thankless legwork in this profession that the dime novels and the picture shows are always so careful to leave out. And if you’re not careful, you can find yourself seeing things that aren’t really there just to avoid the frustrating reality of them.
He’s a retired widower, I told myself. Naturally he has time to read the paper more thoroughly than the rest of us. And the man was a judge, bound to have a first-class memory for detail. But the thought kept nagging at me all the way back to my car: Did Quinn really make it a point to remember the name of every visiting gangster who gets himself rubbed in this city?