CHAPTER 9

Dom the Tailor

A hunchback named Frank Yett ran an untidy candy store just off First Avenue in the fifties. He dealt in pop, comic books, ice cream and novelties, and he took horse race bets on the side. Since this was the kind of neighborhood in which the police liked to keep track of neighborhood gossip, they let Yett make book as long as he took bets from adults only and passed on to them whatever he learned of police interest. Recently he had reported that a teen-age gang war was about to break out.

There was also a man who dealt in used cardboard cartons, lived in East Sixty-third Street and had been missing for two days. His car had been identified as one that ran down a pedestrian and then sped on along Bruckner Boulevard. On this night Jablonski and Ryan had been told to cruise the area where the teen-age war might break out and also to drive past the carton-dealer’s apartment occasionally.

It was not cold for November. But it was so foggily humid that the black asphalt was streaked with damp sheen under the street lights and the motor of the well-traveled police sedan responded under Ryan’s foot with unwonted power and quiet. They had had a couple of minor runs, but by three-thirty they sensed this would be a quiet night and so they might as well eat leisurely. There was a place on Third near Fifty-eighth Street that served hot sandwiches made with Italian sausage fried in onions and peppers.

At a quarter of four Ryan emerged from it carrying three sandwiches and two cartons of coffee. They pulled into a side street, switched off the lights and with even the radio quiet ate in aromatic silence for a few minutes, sharing the third sandwich.

Jablonski sighed contentedly. Tomorrow night would be his last tour of duty. He did not feel any sentimental twinges. All he could think of was taking it easy for a couple weeks. But something Ryan had mentioned earlier still bothered him. He sloshed his coffee around in the cardboard cup to stir up the sugar in it, drank, made a switching sound with his tongue against a bad tooth and drew a cellophane-sheathed cigar from his vest pocket.

“Well, did this guy offer any proof his brother was riding around in that truck?” he asked as though they had been talking about it for the last half hour.

But each knew what had been in the other’s mind.

“No. He just said—”

“He didn’t say why Harry’d do a thing like that?”

“Well, he needed help with these two heavy pieces like I said, and Harry needed the dough. He got the helper’s check, I guess.”

“But he didn’t say that anyone saw Harry in the truck—anyone but himself, I mean?”

“That’s right.”

Jablonski crumpled the cellophane and threw it contemptuously to the floor mat. “He’s not even a good liar.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s just trying to help Harry, that’s all.” He lighted the cigar and growled through jets of smoke. “Maybe that damned lawyer… I wouldn’t put anything past Farragut.”

“But why does this Ken Derby know so much about the dust on the jacket? If Harry didn’t tell him—well, why does Ken say if he knew how it got on the jacket he could prove Harry innocent? I don’t get it, Jabby. He—he sounded so damned sure.” Ryan knew he was sounding like a rookie, but he couldn’t help it.

Jablonski laughed a short, bitter laugh. “I’ll tell you why. Because he’s trying to shake your testimony, that’s why. Farragut put him up to that, I’ll bet you anything. He’s trying to make you less certain. Yup, the more I think of it…”

“Yes, but…”

“The Regal’s closing.”

Ryan started the car and drove it slowly, lights out, to the cross street and parked. The Regal, a bar and grill across the wide avenue, closed at four a.m. The proprietor usually locked up and left by himself with the night’s receipts. Ryan and Jablonski could watch his block-long walk to the subway entrance from here.

The sedan filled with cigar smoke. Ryan twisted his window down a little.

“Don’t forget these guys are brothers, Neill.”

“Oh sure, I realize that.”

“Probably Harry does ride with him occasionally in that truck,” Jablonski mused. “Probably cases joints that way.”

“I don’t know about that. I think Ken’s honest. He wouldn’t let—”

“You think, huh? Personally I wouldn’t trust any Derby.”

“The younger one hasn’t any record,” said Ryan. “I checked.”

“There he goes.”

The interior of the Regal had gone dark. Now its big sign blinked out. A man came away from the doorway’s shadow and walked hurriedly down the street. They waited until he disappeared down a subway kiosk.

But Ryan did not start the motor. He had been steeling himself. Now with his hand on the switch, looking straight ahead, he said, “Jabby, do you think there’s a chance he’s innocent?”

Jablonski removed the wet cigar from his mouth and turned his head to look at Ryan. Ryan uneasily stepped on the starter and slipped the transmission into first.

“Wasn’t it you that took the C-note out of his wallet?” asked Jablonski at length. “Innocent, for God’s sake!”

“I know, but—” Ryan was doggedly determined to get it all out. “Like his goddamned brother said. That dust is the one thing that convicts him for sure. And we know how that got there.”

“God awmighty, Neill. You’re getting nuts. If you’re serious—I can’t believe it, but if you are, check on that alibi and see for yourself. Why, that’s the most—and don’t forget Derby himself told us he was home sleeping. He didn’t say nothing about a truck ride. If I ain’t right, you can come out to my new place and—and eat all you want on the house for a month.”

Ryan grinned. For the moment at least, Jablonski’s hearty disbelief reassured him. “I’m glad the deal went through, Jabby. The Green Lantern Inn, eh?”

“That’s it, and you’re welcome any time.”

The radio said it was four ten a.m. Ryan wondered if he might catch Gee Gee if he called the club, but he did not like Jablonski to know he was calling her. Jablonski said. “Coast back to Sixty-third Street again and see if the guy’s come home.”

Ryan complied. He felt better for having talked about it. But he still felt a little wordless uneasiness that was like the gnawing of a grave worm.

* * * *

The office of the Triple-A Delivery Corporation was a glassed-in room in the corner of a grimy garage that by mid-morning contained only a few immaculate black vans. An old-fashioned iron stove kept the office overheated and the sagging chair in which the proprietor, a heavy man named Nichols, sat sprawled, scented the hot air with the stink of rotting leather. The wall behind Nichols was papered with calendars old and new, all depicting long-legged girls in advanced stages of undress. Ryan flipped the badge on his wallet toward Nichols.

“It’s a routine matter,” he said, “so for the present we’d prefer that no one knows anything about it. Especially the people involved.” He looked down at Nichols. “That’s important,” he said.

Nichols’ thyroid-bulged eyes, big as olives, looked up under thick lids. “I understand.”

“You have a driver named Kenneth Derby. On November seventh he’s supposed to have had a run that required a helper.”

“Could be.”

“Do you keep any records that’d prove whether he did or not—and would they show who the helper was?”

“November seventh?” Reaching behind him, Nichols took one of half a dozen clipboards hanging from worn brass hooks and began riffling the long yellow sheets on it with a wetted thumb.

Ryan looked up at the girls. One had flowing coppery hair. Nuts to that! She’d never pose that way.

“Derby,” said Nichols. “November seven. Sure. Here it is. Yeah, he had a helper. Dom. Dom the Tailor.”

“Who?”

Nichols grinned a fat-lipped grin.

“Dominic D’Tela, his real name is,” he said. “Dom the Tailor, they call him. He’s a little dago who part-times for me.”

“You sure that’s who it was? Is it possible someone else might have substituted for this Dom? Say Derby’s brother Harry, who’s a—well, a sort of—”

“I know Harry.” The heavy lids narrowed calculatingly. “But Dom’s the man I paid. I remember now—and I remember Harry was around that night, too. They left together. Maybe he was waiting for Ken to come in. Anyway, I can tell from this, that Dom went out in the morning with Henderson—he’s my downtown man. And with Derby in the afternoon.”

But Ryan’s heart had suffered a sinking spell. Harry had been around that night, all right. Nichols remembered it.

Nichols was saying, “Derby is usually my uptown east guy. And according to this, he drew a full day’s check, fourteen fifty.”

“Can you tell me where Dom lives?”

“Sure. It’s just off Houston Street.” Like all downtowners Nichols pronounced it Howse-ton.

“Think he’d be home now?”

“That’s hard to say. He jobs around. He’s a good strong man.”

“Big? Tall?”

“Oh, no. He’s a little fellow. Big shoulders, though. Good-natured. And very reliable.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Nichols.”

Once again outside in the bright cold street he paused. He was tired. But he was also tired of uncertainty.

Better finish it up. Then he’d know.

* * * *

Dominic D’Tela’s midday meal, lasagna, bread and coffee, lay spread before him on an oil-clothed table in the tenement parlor.

“Have some coffee?” he asked cordially.

“No, thanks.” But the cheese-laden steam from the lasagna made Ryan hungry.

D’Tela turned a strong face to him and said, “What’s on your mind?” then returned to his food.

“Do you remember last November seventh? It was a Friday.”

“I’ll say it was a Friday.”

“You remember it?”

“I’ll say I remember it. That’s the day Cannon Cracker came in at Jamaica and paid twenty-eight bucks—twenty-eight eighty, to be exact.”

“And you were on him?”

“Was I on him!” The memory made D’Tela stop eating. “Ten bucks on the nose. I come home with over a hundred and fifty bucks that night. I worked that day too.”

“What was the job?”

The thick cup came down, revealing a suspicious frown. “You checking on me or something?”

“Not on you. On someone else. And it doesn’t have anything to do with horse bets. All I want to know is what you did on the job that day.”

“Well, let’s see.” He reverted to the lasagna and chewed thoughtfully. “I was working for old man Nichols that day. Yeah, I remember. In the morning I went out with Henderson and in the afternoon with Derby. Kenny Derby.”

“You were with Derby all afternoon?”

“Sure.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, let’s see. Yeah, that was an easy afternoon—lucky day all round.” He grinned. “There were only two big pieces he needed help with. Of course I jumped off with lots of the little ones, too, when we got to a neighborhood where there were quite a few deliveries. I always do my share on a job. Besides, Derby was feeling a little tough.”

“What was his trouble?”

“You know how it is. He said something about needing some dough for a friend of his, and he’d had a few drinks at lunch—tell you the truth, I figured he had a broad in trouble. Of course, now I figure he wanted the dough for his brother. But it’s odd, sort of.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, he needed money and I told him about this horse I was going to bet, see? He was interested, too. But when I called in to get down on the horse just before post time—around five, if was—he said the hell with it. I just wonder what it might have done for him if he’d given me a ten to bet for him. Maybe his brother wouldn’t have bumped the old lady, huh?”

“By that time she was dead,” said Ryan shortly. “Let’s get back to what you did that day. You said there were two big pieces. Where’d you deliver them?”

“Well, the reefer went to an address in Harlem. The gas range went to a new house up in the Bronx.”

“Who’d you see at the new house?”

“No one, especially. There were some painters or carpenters working inside. We just set the range down on the porch and left.”

“I see. Now look. This is the important part—this is why I’m here. Was there anyone else along on this trip? In other words was there another man on the truck that afternoon besides you and Derby?”

“Of course not.” D’Tela looked surprised.

“At no time did another man ride with you?”

“That’s right.”

“And you were with the truck all the time?”

“Sure—except when I left it to run packages in. Oh, yes, and…uh…we made a stop so I could pick up that dough I won.” He looked uneasily at Ryan.

But Ryan was not interested in handbooks at the moment. He said, “Then you didn’t see anything of Derby’s brother Harry that day? On the truck or anywhere?”

Surprise opened D’Tela’s eyes. “Sure I did. Now that you mention it. He was around the office when we got back, after six. Surly and tough-looking as usual, too. Waiting for Ken. I guess.”

“But at no time was he on the truck. You’d swear to that?”

“Sure, for God’s sake.”

Ryan got up. He knew the truth when he heard it. “Thanks, Mr. D’Tela. You’ll probably never hear any more of this, and I’d appreciate it—if you don’t mention what you told me to anyone. Especially anyone around the Triple-A Delivery Company.”

“Sure. Sure thing, you bet,” said D’Tela good-humoredly.

The flights of tenement stairs were dark and noisome, but as Ryan went down them they looked as good as a red-carpeted movie set. That lousy lying Ken Derby! Jabby had been right, all right. They had just been trying to shake his nerve and his testimony. They knew what he and Jabby had done with the dust, of course, and they hoped to make a scared and uncertain witness out of him—the rookie! And they had almost succeeded.

When he thought of what a fool he had made of himself talking to Jablonski in the car Ryan felt his cheeks redden. But it was all right now. He could go home and sleep, and forget the whole thing. Tonight was the party. Everything was okay.