Authors: Whit Masterson
It was Holt’s cue to fall in with his boss, to close ranks and dismiss the matter forever. And again he was tempted and again he declined. “Does that mean that I’m being told to shut up and be a good boy?”
Adair put his palms flat on his desk. “Since you force me to lay it right on the line, it means this. You are to drop the theory we were discussing, now and completely. You are to stay away from Farnum. You are not to use office personnel to pursue your private fancies. Your vacation commences now. Go down to Mexico and forget these wild ideas. That’s that.”
Holt got up and looked from Adair’s angry expression to Gould’s smug smile. “All right,” he said slowly. “So I’m on vacation. But I’m not going to Mexico. I can do what I please on my own time. And that includes pursuing fancies.”
He left without slamming the door, although it was an effort. Gould had not succeeded in angering him, but Adair had. He wondered why he had ever assumed there was an ounce of boldness in his boss. He couldn’t remember now a single instance when Adair had taken a firm stand on anything except protecting and perpetuating his job. And Gould had shown the boss, if Adair hadn’t already subconsciously felt it, that Holt constituted a potential menace to his security.
As he passed the secretary’s desk, he heard Adair’s voice issuing from the intercom box: “Get me Mr. Rackmill on the phone.”
Adair wasn’t wasting any time. Rackmill was chairman of the party’s county central committee.
O
N
the city street maps, the thoroughfare was labelled Plaza Boulevard but it was known as Glass Alley. It was hard to know which sobriquet had the greatest acceptance from the public at large. It was a street which, for some unknown reason, had become the headquarters for the city’s tavern and night club operations; in the three blocks where Plaza Boulevard intersected the central business district, scarcely another type of enterprise existed. Whether the bars huddled together for profit or protection no one was quite sure. But at night the three blocks that composed Glass Alley were impressive, a pulsing, glowing tunnel of neon and mirrors and frenetic noise.
By day, Glass Alley resembled most of its habitues on the morning after. Its neon extinguished and its gaiety fled, Glass Alley had a shabby and furtive appearance at eleven o’clock in the morning. Some of the bars were open but only as if to prove that their owners had nothing better to do, since there were no patrons.
From the case he had concluded a few days before, Holt knew which of the cocktail lounges were operated by the Buccio family. It was nearly a majority. Holt parked his car at one end of Glass Alley, locked it and put two nickels in the meter. He didn’t know how long this would take.
With the dethroning of Emil Buccio, the mantle of leadership had fallen upon his brother, Dan. Holt inquired at three bars before he found him and by that time Holt was sure that Dan Buccio knew he was coming. The Glass Alley grapevine worked well, as it would have to for men who operated close to the edge of the law, and sometimes on the other side of it.
Dan Buccio was waiting for him at the Hi-Lo Club, a strategically located bar in the centre of the night club strip. Buccio was playing table shuffleboard with a younger man and, aside from the bartender chipping ice for his set-ups, they were alone in the darkened lounge. Buccio didn’t pay any attention to Holt’s arrival for a moment but concentrated on sending one of the metal discs sliding along the smooth wood to drive his opponent’s piece crashing into the gutter.
“Rack it up,” said Buccio in a guttural voice. He was a short squat man whose gay vest of tattersall plaid made him look like a decorated barrel. He wore no coat and his shirt sleeves were hitched up with frilly arm bands. But despite his attire there was nothing foppish about him. Holt knew him, from long hours on the witness stand, as a tough and determined man. “Well, Holt, what’s the beef this time?”
“No beef. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Uh-huh.” Buccio watched as, from the other end of the table, the younger man slid a blue-rimmed disc down the wood toward him. It stopped just short of the edge of the table. “Not bad, Junior. Okay, Holt — go ahead and talk.”
Holt sat down on one of the bar stools. He shook his head at the bartender’s inquiring look. “You read the papers this morning?”
“I didn’t have to. Your friends the cops were around to see me last night. Somebody take a shot at you, huh?”
“Surprise you?”
“Nothing surprises me any more. Including the fact that the Buccios seem to be getting the blame for everything that happens in this town.” Dan Buccio walked down the table to take his turn. Over his shoulder, he said, “You’re working the wrong side of the street, Holt. Find yourself another fall guy this time. See you around.”
Holt walked over to the table. As Buccio slid his red-rimmed counter down the wood, he put out his hand and stopped it. Holt said, “Did you do it, Dan?”
The younger man took an angry step forward. “Look here, buddy — ” but Dan Buccio elbowed him back. He walked slowly down the table and when he got near Holt he began to grin. He said, “You’re mad, aren’t you, Holt? Don’t like being a target, huh? Well, maybe I don’t like it either.”
“Did you do it?” Holt repeated.
“I wouldn’t waste the buckshot,” Buccio informed him calmly. “What sort of a rig are you people working on down at city hall, anyway? Wasn’t it enough for you to put the collar on Emil? Do you have to get me and Junior and Mama and all of us Buccios before you’re satisfied?”
“I have to be sure,” Holt said. “I can’t afford to be wrong.”
Buccio eyed him, a little puzzled. “I don’t know where you’re pointed, exactly, bracing me like this. But I’ll tell you just what I told the cops last night. The Buccios didn’t have anything to do with what happened to you. And we can prove it. We were having a big family dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf last night, every last one of us.” He snorted mirthfully. “That an alibi, Holt, what do you think of that?”
“You could have hired somebody. It’s been done.”
“Boy, are you a dreamer! I should go to that much expense? Look, Holt, don’t get such a big opinion of yourself. You’re nothing to me, one way or the other. Sure, you soaked Emil good. But you don’t see me putting my neck in a noose for him or anybody else. Now get lost.”
Holt believed him; he had only wished to be certain before risking his own neck. He put the metal disc back on the table. “I wanted to hear you say it. Thanks.”
Buccio had ordered him out but now he held up a hand to detain him. Curiously, he said, “I don’t get it. You taking a bead on me or not?”
“Not this time. But keep your nose clean, Dan.”
“I always do. It’s you reformers who make the trouble. I’m just a businessman trying to get along. Sure, it’s the liquor business but that’s legitimate in this state. I’m no hood, so quit trying to measure me for it, will you?”
“It wasn’t my idea, sending the police to see you,” Holt told him. “I knew it wasn’t you.”
“Well, make sure they know it, too. I don’t like that kind of reputation. It’s bad for business. First thing you know they’ll be calling me up before some stinking committee just because it makes good headlines.”
“My family just wants to be let alone,” said the young man called Junior. He was either Dan Buccio’s son or nephew; the family was so homogeneous in looks that Holt couldn’t be sure.
“That’s all we want,” Holt agreed. “But sometimes it isn’t possible.”
“Look, Holt, I can guess how you feel. Somebody take a shot at me and my wife. I’d be blowing a fuse, too. But maybe I can help.”
“You already have.”
“I’m just as anxious to get this thing cleared up as you. Well, almost as anxious, anyway. Like I said, I got my reputation to think of. Now, I’m pretty well connected around town. I could pass the word, maybe pick up a rumble or two and — ”
“No,” said Holt sharply. “Let’s understand each other, Dan. I’m not trying to pin anything on you but that doesn’t mean we’re on the same side. Maybe you’re not a gangster but you’re too close to it to do anything for me. I’ve got my reputation, too — right now, that’s about all I do have. So stay away from me.”
“Just trying to be a friend.”
“I don’t need it. Count your blessings, Dan. This hasn’t got anything to do with you. If you mix in, I promise you that you’ll be sorry.”
“Then play it your way, tough guy,” murmured Buccio. “And maybe I’ll be reading some more about you in the papers. I couldn’t care less.” He turned back to the shuffleboard table. “Come on, Junior, let’s finish this massacre.”
Holt went back along Glass Alley to the spot where he had parked his car. He was still angry but not at the Buccios. His anger was directed at his real enemies, at McCoy and Quinlan — and the frightened, stupid men who were determined to protect them. He had learned what he had come to Glass Alley to learn and now he could proceed in a straight line toward the objective, with no backward wondering glances.
“Now that’s funny,” he muttered as he put his key in the car door. “I thought I locked it.” Thought? He knew he had locked the automobile because he had left his brief case on the seat and …
The brief case! Hastily, Holt threw open the door and plunged into the car, although he could already see through the window that the front seat was completely bare. The windwing swung loosely with the movement of the door, wobbling where it had been pried off its pivot.
His brief case — and all the laboriously compiled material it contained, extracts of a score of murder trials — were gone!
S
INCE
the brief case contained no original material, nothing that was not already a matter of public record, it had been a useless theft. But the thief hadn’t known this.
Holt sat for a few minutes in his parked car, perspiring coldly. The theft didn’t matter greatly; the girls had made carbons and filed them some place. What mattered was the frightening fact that he did not walk alone. He was being watched. He glanced around instinctively but saw only the ordinary cars on the street, the ordinary innocent citizens passing on the sidewalk.
No sign of McCoy or Quinlan. The remains of his logic told him he wouldn’t be trailed by Quinlan in the day time, anyway. The limping sergeant had a job to maintain at police headquarters. No, it was McCoy on his trail today, McCoy who was retired and had all the time in the world.
Holt wiped his forehead and his mouth and started his car. If they were trying to throw a scare into him, they had certainly succeeded. For all the bright sunlight, it was eerie to be watched secretly, realize your every move was someone’s else’s business. He had no hope of catching McCoy at it. His tracker had thirty years’ practice as a manhunter; Holt was up against an expert, a man who never let anybody escape. He felt immobilized, as if he were prey already stung by the spider and could do nothing but wait to be eaten.
Then he swore at himself and jerked his car out into the street. He set out on an errand that he considered every bit as useless as the theft. He drove down to police headquarters and reported the incident to the desk sergeant. He was assured that an investigation would be made. Holt didn’t doubt it. He wondered what Chief Gould would try to read into this latest mishap.
It was nearly noon. The theft of his brief case had put him somewhat behind schedule but he did not change his plans because of it. From the police station he followed the freeway around the bend of the harbour to the dock and warehouse area. The naval supply depot was the largest building there, but Young & Fenn, wholesale foodstuffs, ran a close second. Holt had no current business with the navy. But Douglas Fenn was foreman of the county grand jury.
Fenn’s secretary gave him that don’t-you-know-it’s-lunch-time? look, but carried his name in to her employer. When she returned, she was polite but cold. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Holt, but Mr. Fenn has a previous engagement and won’t be able to see you right now. If you’d care to make an appointment …”
“I’ll come back after lunch.”
He did, but to the same reception. By now, Holt felt reasonably sure that the grand jury foreman had been alerted to Holt’s lone wolf status and didn’t intend to get involved. Just the same, because he could be wrong, Holt waited all afternoon. He wasn’t wrong; he didn’t even catch a glimpse of his man, and Fenn finally left by another door about four o’clock. Holt learned this at four-thirty from Fenn’s secretary.
“Look, Mr. Holt,” she said with weary candour, “why don’t you take a hint?”
Holt considered. “I guess I’m just stubborn.”
As if to prove his words, he returned again to the police headquarters, an establishment that worked around the clock. He didn’t expect that his pistol permit would be ready and it wasn’t. The woman clerk he had talked to before didn’t seem to remember him and couldn’t even find his application. Sergeant Quinlan was absent. “I’ll ask the sergeant first thing in the morning, though,” she promised. “You know how these things are sometimes.”
Holt did. Inexorably, the stultifying effects of the day were pressing down on him, like a vice slowly closing, and he was alone and puny. As he left, he was hailed by the desk sergeant who told him that Chief Gould wanted to see him. Half expecting to be arrested for some unknown violation of some obscure law, Holt entered the chief’s office.
However, he was greeted in an expansive fashion. The reason soon became apparent. Gould wanted to brag. “Hear you had your brief case stolen from your car this morning, Holt.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I know you don’t think that this department is worth two hoots in hell, but here you are.” From beside his chair, Gould lifted a familiar worn leather shape and shoved it across the desk to Holt. “This it? It was brought in less than an hour after you reported the theft. Tried to get you all afternoon but couldn’t locate you. How’s that for efficiency?”
“Who brought it in? McCoy or Quinlan?”
“What’re you talking about? The beat cop found it stuck in a storm drain at the corner of Plaza and Broadway. Kind of dirty, of course.”
The brief case was more than dirty; it was ruined. The leather casing had been slashed and ripped in a crosshatch pattern by a sharp knife until it was fit only for the trash heap. The contents were missing, of course. Holt studied the brief case silently, turning it over in his hands and feeling a little sick. That someone should be so filled with hatred that he would wreak senseless vengeance on an inanimate possession frightened Holt more than had the shot the previous night.