Inspector Coates leaned back in his swivel chair, hands behind his head. He was a little man with a bony-bald head with just a few patches of gray fluff above the ears. His head and face had an alarming yellow-brown color, giving him the look of a jaundice case who’d had too much sun. It was his year-round color. Some people claimed he cultivated it with a quick-tan cream, others said he used a sun-lamp winter and fall and sunned himself on his roof in warmer weather. No one knew for sure. The only thing anyone knew for certain about Coates was that he was one of the most brilliant all-around detectives the New York Police Department had ever called its own.
Coates smiled at me. That is, his face stretched a little and he showed the tips of his long, yellow teeth. Nothing much happened to his face. You could never say that Coates was glum or happy or angry or anything else—there was no way of telling. He was just Coates. And that was more than enough.
“Thanks for coming along,” he said in a near-monotone.
I nodded towards Bagley, who stood near the door, quietly enjoying himself. Not that Bagley showed his emotions to any degree. Coates felt that “emotional people” didn’t belong in the police department.
I said, “Your man Bagley saw to it that I got here post haste.”
Coates nodded, sent his pale gray eyes in Bagley’s direction. “Paul.”
Bagley snapped to attention, damn near clicked his heels. “Sir!”
“Help Townsend with those file cards.”
“Yes, sir!”
Bagley whirled around, let himself out.
“He’d have made a good Nazi officer,” I said.
“He does his job.”
“I’m sure he does. You wouldn’t have him near you for ten minutes if he didn’t.”
Coates flicked a glance at me that plainly said he was immune to compliments, even subtle ones. Then he let the swivel chair take him forward, said, “The Mafia.”
“Hm?”
“The Mafia,” he repeated crisply.
“What about the Mafia?”
He got to his feet. His cold, dead-looking eyes were at least six inches below the level of mine. It was a mystery how he’d ever passed the police department physical. Suddenly he pushed away some papers on his desk, came up with a photograph, looked at it briefly, turned it around on his desk, tapped it with an index finger.
“Look at this man, Kent.”
I walked closer. It was a photo of the big ape who’d been with Brink. The room had been dimly lit, but I was sure of it.
“Well?” Coates prompted.
“I don’t know him,” I said.
“Have you ever seen him?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“No games, Kent.”
“Is he Mafia?”
“A muscle man.”
“Then what was he doing with Brink?”
Coates’ face went into its parody of a smile. “That’s better.” The smile flashed off. “But it’s only a start.”
“I don’t know his name.”
“It’s Ernie Trillo.”
“Trillo ... That’s a new one.”
“He worked out of Milwaukee. They must have sent him here to New York because they figured he wouldn’t be known.”
“How come you’re onto him, Inspector?”
The smile returned for a moment. “That’s not the way it goes, Kent.”
“Well, I thought one hand might wash the other.”
Coates moved his bald head back and forth, slowly. “If I think I should tell you something, I’ll tell you. I’m a cop and you’re a private detective. All the ammunition is on my side. I’m sure you don’t want me to spell it out any further than that.”
“You make yourself quite plain, Inspector.”
“That’s just fine and dandy. Now talk.”
Something told me that he already knew most of what I was going to tell him. But even if he didn’t, maybe it was better to get it into the hands of the police. The main thing was to find Eleanor, either alive and well or ... I swallowed hard.
“You look kind of sick all of a sudden,” Coates said.
“Have you ever heard of a girl named Eleanor Gesualdi, Inspector?”
“That’s not the way we’re playing this game. I ask, you tell.”
“I think you know about her. She’s waiting for a divorce from Stanley Brink. And Ernie Trillo, the Mafia muscle man whose photo you just showed me, was with Brink a couple of hours ago—in Eleanor’s apartment.”
Coates sat down. “Go on.”
I told him all of it, starting with the phone call I’d received from Eleanor in London. He listened impassively, looking away from me. When I was finished his eyes met mine.
“You haven’t left anything out, have you?”
“Nothing.”
He got to his feet, walked around the desk. “You say Trillo slugged you in the back of the head, eh?”
I turned and pointed to the place. I felt his hand move up the nape of my neck, touch the contact spot. It was still a little sore.
“Swollen,” Coates murmured. “Didn’t break the skin, though.” His hand left me. “I’m not surprised. Trillo’s been at it for a long time: Tell me something, Kent.”
I turned to face him.
“How long have you known this girl?”
“About a year.”
“What do you know about her background?”
“Why?”
“I’m still asking the questions.”
I lit a cigarette, used the time to think.
“If you want us to help you find her, I think you should tell us everything you know,” Coates said.
That did it. “She lived in Oakland, California, until maybe three years ago, when she met Brink. They were married out on the Coast and moved to St. Louis, then Brink’s headquarters. As you probably know, he’s in the clothing and real estate business.”
“Yes.”
“A little over a year ago, Brink moved his headquarters here to New York. I met them soon after they got here.”
“Someone introduce you?”
“Yes. At a bar.”
“Who?”
“No one in particular.”
“Give him a name, Kent.”
“Danny Walgreen.”
“Uh-huh.” Coates scratched at his small hook of a nose. “I suppose you know that Walgreen is now serving time for a big real estate swindle in Long Island.”
“So?”
Coates raised his skinny shoulders, let them drop. “I take it you got pretty friendly with this girl?”
I took a drag on my cigarette. “That’s my business, isn’t it?”
“You just answered my question. How much do you know about her family background?”
“About as much as she knows about mine. Nothing.”
“I see.” Coates selected a pipe from four on a rack on his desk, hit the bowl against his palm. “Getting back to the Mafia ... You were on their kill list about a year ago, correct?”
“You know I was, Inspector.”
“Yes.” He put the pipe in his mouth, blew through it. The pipe had a small bowl and a long, curved stem; it gave him the look of a rather surly gnome. “Yes, Kent, I certainly do know about your troubles with the Syndicate. It’s not often that a man makes their kill list and has his name, removed—at least, not while he’s still alive. Do you remember how that came about?”
“The newspapers, TV and radio did it. Newsmen let the whole country know that the Mafia was out to get me. That made me a little too hot to handle.”
Coates pushed the pipe into a humidor, began to fill the bowl. “We had something to do with that, too, you know. We fed information to the news media. And we had you watched day and night. I know because I handled the operation.”
“Maybe I should say thanks.”
“No need to.” He struck a match, held the yellow flame to the pipe bowl, puffed small clouds of evil-smelling smoke. “There was nothing personal in it. The way we saw it, the law would look pretty sick if the Syndicate got to you. We were concerned about our image.”
He puffed hard but no smoke came, so he lit another match and this time he took longer getting the pipe alight. “However ...” Clouds of smoke followed the word. “The fact is, we got the job done. You were taken off the list.”
“I think I’ve repaid my debt to the police force,” I said.
Coates nodded. “You’ve done a few things for us.” More smoke. “You’ve also been troublesome at times.” He looked into my eyes, paused. “I hope you don’t get troublesome again.”
“Does that have a special meaning, Inspector?”
“I have a suggestion for you, Kent. Why don’t you go away for a while?”
“Why?”
“Because …” This time he gave it a long pause. “... because I think they want you on the list again.”
Fear was a sudden jab of pain in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t breathe for a few moments. Coates looked away, as though he understood and was giving me time to recover.
“Is that based on fact?” I asked.
Coates moved the pipe around in a small circle. “I’ve had indications.”
“Care to be more specific?”
“Not at the moment.”
The pain in my stomach was gone now, but I could feel clammy sweat at the sides of my forehead. I said, “You’re not being logical.”
“Oh?”
“You tell me that Ernie Trillo is a Syndicate man. Well, just a couple of hours ago I was unconscious at his feet. But here I am. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes.” Coates scratched at the side of his beak with the stem of the pipe. “I’ve taken that into consideration. However, my information is from a reliable source.” He was thoughtful for a while. “You know how the Syndicate does things. Kills are by contract. Trillo is a muscle man, not an assassin. The Syndicate doesn’t let its membership know about kills—there’s the risk of infiltration. It could be that you just walked into something.”
“I didn’t ‘walk in.’ Brink opened that door. There’s a one-way peephole. He must have known it was me.”
“Well, Brink has a personal grudge against you. He thinks you’ve been playing around with his wife.”
“That doesn’t explain Trillo. What was a Syndicate ape doing with Brink?”
Coates clamped his teeth on the pipe and sucked in smoke. I stared at him. He smoked away in silence, looking at the wall.
“Look,” I said, “that girl means a lot to me.”
Coates’ bald head went up and down.
“Inspector, I want to know what’s going on.” He kept his eyes away. I walked to his desk, made a fist and slammed it down. “Do you hear me?”
His dead eyes moved to meet my gaze. “I hear you,” he said quietly.
“Then keep listening. I’ve told you all I know. I’ve laid it on the line.”
“I made no promises.”
“I want to know what kind of danger that girl’s in. I think you can tell me. Damn it, Inspector, I’m bleeding!”
I pounded his desk hard, then harder. But he just looked at me. Desk-pounding was useless. So were words. I unclenched my fist and put my hand in my pocket.
“That’s right,” he said. “Don’t push.”
I was calm now. “I’ll do what I have to do.”
He grunted. “You have got it bad, haven’t you?” He rose, leaned on the desk, leered at me. “She must be real good in the bedroom.”
My hand came out of my pocket and was a fist again. “Why, you scrawny little—” I took a step towards him.
But he was smiling. It was a real smile this time. “Come now, Kent, you wouldn’t hit a man you outweigh by seventy or eighty pounds, would you? Think of your reputation.”
I let my hand drop to my side.
Coates sat down. “Besides, belting a cop wouldn’t do your future any good.”
“You baited me,” I said.
“I wanted to know how you really felt.”
“Does it matter?”
“I like to get a full picture when I’m working on a case.” He leaned back and drew on the pipe. It was out again. He muttered something under his breath, took the pipe from his mouth, looked at the bowl accusingly and said, “I know it’s hard to believe, but I can understand human feelings.”
I jumped on the cue. “Then tell me what you know about Eleanor.”
“I can’t.”
“At least tell me if she’s alive!”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“Is she in danger?”
“I don’t know.” He let the swivel chair take his light frame forward, then he placed the pipe in its rack. “Tell you what, Kent. I’ll think about this. Maybe I’ll be in touch with you one of these days.” His eyes held mine. “Maybe,” he repeated. “That’s the best I can do. Thanks again for coming along.”
“Oh, it was a real pleasure, Inspector.”
As I closed the door behind me, I thought I heard Coates chuckle, but I couldn’t be sure.
I was tired when the cab let me out at my apartment building. My bones ached with weariness and there was a dull throbbing in my head. I climbed the stairs slowly. I figured I’d have a few Irish whiskies, get maybe three hours of sleep and then catch Kitty Simpson’s act at the Colony Club in the Village.
I reached the landing, pulled out my keys, stepped up to the door. I was inserting the key in the lock when I heard a sound that came from the dark end of the hallway.
“Continue the action,” a low voice said.
“Yes,” another voice said.
Each voice belonged to a man who held a gun, and each man looked like he didn’t need much excuse to use it. They walked towards me, taking slow, careful steps. A pair of professionals. Men with closed faces and sharp eyes. They were almost a matched pair. Tall, slender, swarthy. One wore a gray suit, the other was in brown. Behind them, at the end of the hall, I noticed movement in the shadows.
I turned the key in the lock and there was a loud click.
“Push in the door easily,” said the man in brown. “Then step back a little.”
I did as ordered. The man in gray went past me, entered the apartment, flicked on the wall switch.
“Inside,” said the man in brown. He followed me in. The other fellow stood in the middle of my living room, his gun trained on my stomach. There was a chip in his black silencer, showing the white metal beneath the paint. Somehow this made his gun look particularly obscene.
“Walk to the wall,” said the man in brown. I did. “Hands over your head and flat against the wall, palms down.”
When he was satisfied with my position he appeared four or five feet to the side of me, lifted his gun slowly, held it steady when the hole in the silencer was pointed at my temple. Then I heard the steps of the second man and, a moment later his hands moved expertly over my body, from the ankles up. He reached around me, lifted the .45 from my shoulder holster.
“Okay now?” I said.
“Shut up,” said the searcher. He was thorough. He found the two-shot derringer wrist gun, forced it free, kept frisking until he’d covered every possible hiding place.
“You should have been a doctor,” I said. The crack earned me a vicious jab of the silencer against my rib cage.
“And you should have been a comic, funny man.”
“That’ll do,” said the man in brown. “All right, Kent, go over to that red chair and sit down.”
I lowered my hands, turned. They were professionals, all right. Each was to the side of me, making me the point of a triangle so they wouldn’t get in the line of fire if they had to start shooting. I walked to the chair, dropped into it. The man in brown backed to the front door, opened it.
And the big boy entered the apartment.
Raphael Lagusta, member of the board of directors of the Mafia.