The Men From the Boys Read online

  I walked over and he put the knife down, motioned for me to cut myself a hunk. I slapped him on one fat cheek, knocking him halfway across the store. A loud stinging slap will scare a joker more than a solid punch that might put him away. Get slapped right and you think they've pulled the world down around your ears.

  “Willie, this ain't a picnic, a time for sandwiches and...”

  Lande let out a shrill scream of fear. I'd made a mistake; I'd knocked him near the door and he turned over, got to his feet, ran outside. It seemed only a second later when he returned with two cops, yelling, “Get that—him—out of here!”

  Through the open door I saw a radio car at the curb as one of the cops gripped his night stick, asked, “What you doing in here, Mac?”

  “Slicing liverwurst with Lande.”

  “He's a cop and he threatened me, punched me!” Willie shrilled; he was on full steam, ready to explode.

  “Got a shield?” one of the cops asked me.

  I didn't answer.

  The other cop said, “Impersonating a policeman, that's a...”

  They were both young cops, probably on the force less than half a dozen years. I said, “Get the hay out of your ears, boys. I'm an ex-cop, retired. I never told Willie I was a cop. Ask him if I ever said I was a cop. Come on, Willie, tell them you don't want no trouble because you and I know it might be big trouble, awful big.”

  Lande swayed on his feet, face flushed, trying to think— think hard. He sort of gasped, “Yah, we were kidding around over a hunk of liverwurst, then he hit me.”

  “Just slapped him,” I added.

  “I think he's drunk,” Willie said.

  “Did he claim he was a cop?”

  “I ain't making no charges,” Willie said quickly. “Please, all I want is for him to get out of here, leave me alone!”

  “Did he say he was a cop?”

  “Tell him I never said nothing,” I said.

  One of the cops turned to me. “Close your kisser, let him talk.”

  “No, he never... said... no,” Lande said.

  The first cop turned to me. “What's your name?”

  “Marty Bond.” I didn't make the mistake of reaching for my wallet-to prove it. I could see the cop trying to recall where he'd heard the name before. Then he asked, “That tin-badge cop they sapped up yesterday—that your boy?”

  I nodded.

  He motioned to his partner and they had a whispered conference for a moment as Willie wailed, “Cops, cops, all I get in my store is —”

  “Now take it slow,” the cop said. “Where's your phone?”

  Lande nodded at his office. One cop called in while the other leaned against the door, wiped his sweaty face with his free hand. Willie whispered to me. “Please, mister, leave me alone! I'm a sick man! I don't know what you want... but leave me alone!”

  “That's right, Willie, all this might give you another stroke —or a bullet in your back.”

  The flush in his face got deeper, then sheet-white as he grabbed at the meat block and crumpled to the floor. The cop at the door said, “Heat's got him!” and started for the sink. He stopped, told me, “You! Go over and get him a glass of water.”

  He was a smart cop.

  I got a glass of water and let Lande have it on the puss. The other cop came out of the office as Willie opened his eyes, shook his head like a groggy fighter. The cop asked, “Want to go to the hospital?”

  Lande sat up, struggled to his feet. “No. No. I'll see my own doctor. I have these attacks and ...”

  I asked, “Who's your doctor?”

  “Shut up!” the smart cop told me. He turned to Willie, “you feel okay?”

  “Yah, yah. I'm fine. I'll go home now and rest.” Willie looked around. “You boys want some liverwurst?”

  “No wonder you passed out—that stuff will kayo you in this heat,” the cop who phoned said. He jerked his thumb at me. “Come on, Lieutenant Ash wants to see you at the station house.”

  “You mean you're taking me in?”

  “Cut the clowning, Bond. You're not under arrest—I only have orders to bring you in.”

  “I suppose it beats walking.”

  The three of us went out to the radio car and I looked back and Wilhelm wasn't in the doorway—I wondered who he was phoning.

  One of the cops got behind the wheel, then I got in, and the other cop turned his gun belt around so it wasn't next to me, and squeezed in. He was pretty good, only forgot one thing—he should have frisked me.

  It was a short ride to the station house and nobody talked. The desk officer motioned toward the stairs and when one of the radio cops started walking back with me, the desk said, “That's all, get back to your car.”

  Bill looked like he'd missed a lot of sleep and for the first time since I'd known him he was wearing a dirty shirt. I sat down as he shut the door, and walking back to his desk he asked, “For the love of tears, Marty, you gone nuts?”

  “Forget me—for a moment. I been trying to see you. What are you doing about Lawrence besides sticking a guard outside the hospital room?”

  “We're getting these volunteer cops out, stupid ever having them here. I told them...”

  “Forget the volunteer cops, what about Lawrence?”

  “I have a detective out checking on his friends. Usual routine.”

  “That all?”

  “That all? What do you expect me to do, Marty? Put out a dragnet because some drunk or an old buddy of the kid's finally catches up with him? I got troubles with my own kid —Margie says she had a hundred and four fever all night. Lousy doctors, when they don't know what it is it becomes a 'virus.' And on this goddam Anderson mess, I'm running into enough blank walls to build a damn house.”

  “Things sure have changed—when I was on the force if a cop in uniform was slugged we'd turn the town upside down. No matter whether he was wearing a phony uniform or not, whoever slugged the kid thought he was a cop. I bet you haven't even questioned the boy yet.”

  “The docs said he couldn't be talked to till this afternoon. Marty, I been up all night, out with five men, checking on Cocky Anderson's pals. Marty, Marty, I know he's your son —stepson—but for the love of tears don't make a big thing out of this. What do you expect me to do?”

  “I want you to forget Cocky Anderson for a few minutes and listen to me. I talked to Lawrence early this morning. Somebody called him into a hallway and ...”

  “Hell, I know the details. It's one of those ritzy small apartment houses—most of the people were out. Nobody heard anything, saw anything, till an ad man who lives on the third floor came home and found the kid. We've checked the tenants; none of them knew the kid. They're all big shots, not the criminal type.”

  “While you're checking, look right around here. Somebody in this station house must have tipped off whoever did it that Lawrence was coming in for some extra patrol work.”

  “Maybe the kid was followed, maybe it was one of those things where the guy happened to see him and let him have it. Marty, these CD cops have their own setup. The guy in charge here is some retired West Pointer, a big society buddy —he wouldn't have any part in a beating. Don't start turning my precinct on its head with a lot of wild ideas.”

  “I got some wilder ones. Listen to me: all Lawrence remembers is dimly seeing a guy that looked like Dick Tracy and...”

  “Dick Tracy? For the love of...!”

  “Bill, listen. I think that Dick Tracy stuff is a good make. He also heard the guy cursing him before he blacked out. The guy kept saying, 'Bastid! Bastid'—like a growl. I think it was Bob 'Hilly' Smith!”

  Ash stood up, kicked the table. “Between the brass, the reporters and you, I'll be ready for a strait jacket! Why would a top operator like Smith go around slugging a tin cop?”

  “I don't know the why, for now, only that there's a lot of loose ends to this thing. The kid was worked over by a professional, and Bob is the best in the business. Remember what Bob was known as before he became so b
ig? 'Pretty Boy' Smith they called him. He has those over-clean-cut features, the strong face of a Dick Tracy. Finally, he came up from the tobacco road, a mountain boy, and don't talk so good. I remember his favorite word was bastid. Never bastard but bastid.”

  “Damn it, Marty, all the booze you've lapped up has softened what few brains you ever had,” Bill said, his voice snotty, like he was talking to a lunkhead. “There's a million so-called clean-cut-looking punks. There's also about four million people in Brooklyn alone who use the word bastid. As for it being a professional going-over, that's bunk. A maniac can do a better job than any paid hood.”

  “No, he can't—and remember me, I'm an authority on how to beat up a guy. All right, a nut may kill faster than a professional, but this wasn't a killing—this was a beating, a warning. The doc at the hospital says Lawrence was beaten in a matter of seconds; the guy didn't waste a blow—that's a pro muscleman. Maybe it's wacky, but I think the kid stepped into something with this nutty butcher, something big enough to make a Bob Smith scare him off. This Wilhelm Lande is phony, he never had a stroke—or he would have had one just now. And he's scared, real scared.”

  Ash walked around the tiny drab room. His pants were wrinkled, his shoes unshined. “Marty, hold up a minute, don't go off the deep end on this. I like the kid too, I'm not sloughing this off. But think what you're saying—Hilly Smith is the top syndicate cop. Even if he wanted to slug a CD rookie, he wouldn't do it himself. And he isn't walking the streets. We've been looking for him, routine pickup on Anderson, and Smith can't be found. As for that butcher mess, Marty, do you realize what you're saying? For the love of tears the guy wasn't robbed to start with—there's no charge —and now you want me to believe a lousy little butcher hired the best muscleman in the rackets to beat up an auxiliary police kid who was horsing around with a robbery that never was!”

  I shrugged. “All right, I'm not saying this is the blueprint, and I know it's a wild hair, but I think it's worth looking into. Or is Bob Smith so big and protected you're afraid to touch him on a minor case?”

  “Cut that kind of wind. There's nothing I'd like better than to get that muscle rat—on anything. Marty, you know me, I'm no hero but I never side-stepped anything because of the angles. I got a man working on Lawrence's case, and with this Anderson thing all over town, it's hard to spare a man. What you forget is there can be a hundred reasons why the kid was slugged—a drunk, a cop-hater, a nut, and maybe something in the kid's background neither of us know about.”

  “Don't cover me with it, Bill, it's up to my shoes now.”

  He stopped walking and came over to me. “What makes you so all fire sure, Marty? This is the first time you've seen Lawrence in ten years, maybe longer. You don't know a damn thing about him. I think he's a good kid and I'm not saying he's mixed up in anything, you understand. But neither am I dropping everything and buying a crazy yarn about a two-bit butcher and a top racket man being interested in beating up a cop-happy kid, who wasn't on duty, wasn't even empowered to act as a peace officer. He was just an ordinary citizen who got into a fight, and because I happen to know the kid, I'm doing more than I should to find who walloped him!”

  I got up. “So long, Bill.”

  “I got more to tell you, Marty. Close the door for a second.”

  I shut the door, leaned against it, my stomach rumbling.

  Ash glanced down at his dirty shirt, as if realizing for the first time that he'd been up all night. Then he looked at me and tried to smile as he said, “Marty, this is tough to say because in our own way we've been pals for a long time. I know you got a lousy temper, fly off the handle. Maybe your toughness was a kite and I was the tail when you were flying high. Marty, I try never to kid myself. I know I've been lucky and therefore ...”

  “Too hot for a speech—what you want to say, Bill?”

  “Just that you're no longer a cop, Marty. You can't go busting into people's places, question them—slap them around. In short, you can't take the law into your own hands. It wasn't exactly legal when you had a badge—now you haven't any badge. You have a burr up your prat about the kid, I understand that, but... Hell, Marty, for your own good I'm telling you this in front—don't make me run you in; this is my precinct and I'm dancing on enough hot coals now —if I catch you playing cop again, I'll have to throw you in the can.”

  “The gold on your badge is making your eyes bloodshot, Bill. There's an angle you don't know here. This means a lot more to me than getting hunk for a badge-happy kid, especially if it is Hilly Smith. You and me, we've made a lot of collars, some good scores, but always the two-bit punks, the small-time hustlers, the little operators. For once I want to nail down a big boy, a top apple. Maybe to make up for all the slobs I've pushed around.”

  Ash stared at me, then his tight face relaxed and he burst out laughing. “This is a new one—never thought I'd see the day your conscience would be bothering you—I thought it was made of pig-iron. Marty, I'm not being the big cop with you because I like the idea, but I haven't time for anything till this Anderson deal is...”

  “Cocky's death is just another headline to me, another dead crook.”

  Bill sighed. “Okay, Marty, Cocky's death is my job and I got to get back to it. But remember, I'm warning you to stop playing cop.”

  “Let's both of us play this warning game. Keep out of my way, Bill, or you'll get hurt.” I walked out of his office. Downstairs I stopped at the desk, asked, “Where's the guy in charge of the auxiliary police unit here?”

  “Colonel Flatts is downtown, arranging about the transfer of his men out of here.”

  “Flatts—what's his first name?”

  “F. Frank Flatts. All f's—his mother must have had that on her mind.”

  I went out into the morning heat, got a couple of packages of mints and an ice-cream soda, took a bus downtown to the license bureau. I was lucky—one of the old-timers I knew hadn't gone out to lunch yet and I took him out for a fat sandwich and a couple of beers, listened to the details of his wife's fallen womb, gave him the list of Lande's customers, and told him I would call later to get the names of the real owners.

  Then I taxied up to a couple of gin mills off Broadway, asked around for two good stoolies I used to own. But “used to” was a half a dozen years ago and they'd disappeared. Then I called a detective in the midtown area to have him check on Lou Franconi's record—only to find the sonofabitch had retired four months before.

  I phoned Dot, asked, “Where can I find this girl Lawrence was running around with?”

  “She works in the office of a lawyer named Lampkin, near Chambers Street. Why do you want to see her?” There was more life in Dot's voice.

  “Routine stuff, can't overlook anything—the trouble is there should be six of me to handle all the details. You been to the hospital this morning?”

  “I called. Lawrence is sleeping comfortably, went to sleep as soon as he talked to you, the doctor said. Marty, I was a little hysterical last night, but I really appreciate this.”

  “All right. As usual I have my own reasons for looking into this. Dot, was the kid mixed up in anything? I know he isn't the type, but with kids these days... He wasn't in any gangs, stuff like that?” It was a wasted question to ask a mother.

  “Of course not. And Lawrence isn't a kid—he's a man.”

  “You bet. Look, what's the name of his babe?”

  “Helen Samuels.”

  “Can't you talk him out of marrying a Jew-girl, Dot?”

  I heard her sigh over the phone. “Marty, will you ever grow up?”

  “Honey, I'm way past the growing stage. Maybe I'll see you at the hospital.”

  I took the subway down to Chambers Street, looked up this Lampkin in the phone book. He shared a suite of offices with a football team of other lawyers. A pretty, big-eyed girl, with a solid bosom, was at the reception desk. When she asked what I wanted, I said, “Are you Helen Samuels?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes got that wary look most citizens
get when anybody “official looking” asks for them.

  “I'm Marty Bond, Lawrence's stepfather.”

  “He's talked about you often.”

  “Can we chatter for a couple of minutes? Here? Or will it get you in a jam?”

  “We can talk here. I just called the hospital. Larry is much better.”

  “Look, Helen, you know about me—I'm an ex-cop. I'm on my own and trying to find who beat up Lawrence. I have to narrow down any and all leads, so I'm going to ask you a couple of questions that may sound silly, but give me the truth.”

  “I understand. What do you wish to know, Mr. Bond?”

  “How long have you known Lawrence?”