The Mike Hammer Collection

“Somewhat,” Cavello said. “We’ve had him down to the precinct a few times. Twice on wife beating and another when he was picked up in a raid on a card game. This is kind of a chintzy joint. Local bums hang out here because the drinks are cheap. But that’s all they sell anyway, cheap booze. We’ve had a few complaints about some fights in here but nothing ever happened. You know, the usual garbage that goes with these slop chutes.”

Pat said, “I had Nelson and Kiley over here doing a rundown on Basil Levitt. You hear about it?”

“Yeah, Lew Nelson checked in with me right after it happened. He saw the body. It was the guy he spoke to all right. I asked around but nobody here seemed to know Levitt.”

“How about the bartender?” I said.

Cavello shook his head. “Nothing there. He does the day work and nothing more. When the boss came on, he went off. He doesn’t know the night crowd at all.”

“He live around here?”

“Red Hook. Not his neighborhood here and he couldn’t care less.”

While Pat went over the details of what the police picked up I wandered back to the end of the bar. There was a back room used as a storeroom and a place for the food locker with a doorway to one side that opened into the cellar. The lights were on downstairs and I went down to the spot behind the stairs where the chalk marks outlined the position of the body. They were half on the floor and half on the wall, so the guy was found in a sitting position.

Back upstairs Cavello had taken Pat to the end of the bar and I got back in on the conversation. Cavello said, “Near as we could figure it out, this guy Thomas Kline closed the bar earlier than usual, making the few customers he had leave. It was something he had never done before apparently. He’d stick it out if there was a dime in the joint left to be spent. This time he bitched about a headache, closed up, and shut off the lights. That was it. We spoke to the ones who were here then, but they all went off to another place and closed it down much later, then went home. Clean alibis. All working men for a change. No records.

“We think he met somebody here for some purpose. Come here.” He led the way to a table in one corner and pointed to the floor. A small stain showed against the oiled wood. “Blood. It matched the victim’s. Here’s where he was shot. The killer took the body downstairs, dumped it behind the staircase where it couldn’t be seen very easily, then left. The door locks by simply closing it so it was simple enough to do. One block down he’s in traffic, and anyplace along the Avenue he could have picked up a cab if he didn’t have his own car. We’re checking all the cabbies’ sheets now.”

But I had stopped listening to him about then. I was looking at the back corner of the wall. I tapped Pat on the arm and pointed. “You remember the call you got from someone inquiring about Levitt?”

“Yeah,” he said.

There was an open pay phone on the wall about four feet away from a jukebox.

Pat walked over to it, looked at the records on the juke, but who could tell rock and roll from the titles? He said to Cavello, “Many places got these open phones?”

“Sure,” Cavello told him, “most of the spots that haven’t got room for a booth. Mean anything?”

“I don’t know. It could.”

“Anything I could help with?”

Pat explained the situation and Cavello said he’d try to find anyone who saw Kline making a phone call about that time. He didn’t expect much luck though. People in that neighborhood didn’t talk too freely to the police. It was more likely that they wouldn’t remember anything rather than get themselves involved.

Another plainclothes officer came in then, said hello to Pat, and he introduced me to Lew Nelson. He didn’t have anything to add to the story and so far that day hadn’t found anybody who knew much about Levitt at all.

I tapped his shoulder and said, “How did Kline react when you showed him Levitt’s photo?”

“Well, he jumped a little. He said he couldn’t be sure and I figured he was lying. I got the same reaction from others besides him. That Levitt was a mean son and I don’t think anybody wanted to mess around with him. He wanted to know what he was wanted for and I wouldn’t say anything except that he was dead and he seemed pretty satisfied at that.

“Tell you one thing. That guy was thinking of something. He studied that photo until he was sure he knew him and then told me he never saw him before. Maybe he thought he had an angle somewhere.”

There wasn’t much left there for us. Pat left a few instructions, sent Nelson back on the streets again, and started outside. He stopped for a final word to Cavello so I went on alone and stood on the sidewalk beside the cop on guard there. It wasn’t until he went to answer the radio in the squad car that I saw the thing his position had obscured.

In the window of the bar was a campaign poster and on it a full-face picture of a smiling Torrence, who was running in the primaries for governor, and under it was the slogan, WIN WITH SIM.

CHAPTER 9