Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 5, May 1957

“I don’t want to earn any bucks, Kiddy.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“I want to pull you out of a deal, Kiddy. You’re a dead man, Kiddy. You know that. Down deep, you know that. We’re old friends, Kiddy. You’re just sitting here waiting to get killed, maybe trying to shoot your way through, but getting killed in the end anyway.”

He stared at me for a long time. Then, without any change in expression, he began to cry. The tears came out of the inner corners of his eyes and ran down his nose. He made no effort to wipe them. He sniffed, once.

“Okay, Betty,” he said. “Get out of here.”

She stood up and smiled at me.

“I hope you’re really a friend,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”

“Yes,” I said, “he’s a good guy.”

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll go to sleep now.”

“Yeah, go to sleep, baby,” Kiddy said. “The stuff you got in you, you’ll sleep real good, real good. Good night, baby.”

She went away, and I watched her going away, and I enjoyed watching her go away. She closed the door of the other room behind her.

“Give,” Kiddy said. “Let’s hear.”

“We start at the start,” I said, then I threw in a threat. “What I know — the cops know. I may fling a guess here and there — but the cops, they’ve got it all nice and clean.”

“Talk, baby. Kiddy’s listening.”

I drew a deep breath. “You and Mousie,” I said, “came into town to set up the Nirvana. Sweet deal too. Package stuff, passed through some of the smart chicks, at a hundred bucks a throw.”

His eyes widened, but he nodded. He was mystified but he was approving of me.

“Steve Pedi was in on the pitch...” I threw it and let it lie. He smiled, nodding.

I had it all. It was complete.

“Steve Pedi,” I said, “was in on the pitch, although he would deny it if it ever shaped up trouble. He just didn’t know a thing that was happening to his girls, if it shaped up trouble. Like that, the most that could happen to him would be a revocation of his dance hall license. But it didn’t figure to shape up trouble. That was his end — the local end. With a little political pressure, a little gelt passed in the right places — this thing could run and run. You guys were here to set it up, to get it running, and it was just beginning to go — when a crazy dame butts her nose in. Vivian Frayne. Somehow, she got wind of what was cooking — maybe one of the chicks there let it bleed a little — and this Frayne is nuts in the mother-hen department. She gets to Steve and threatens to blow the whistle unless the operation is cut off quick.”

“Crazy dame, huh? Boy, how some dames is crazy.”

“Stevie-boy fast-talks her, but she’s a dead pigeon from the moment she opened up. Here’s a crazy dame that’s do-gooding on an operation that can gross millions of bucks. All right. So Stevie calls you guys in. You’ve got to pop her, and pop her quick. No sense calling in anybody else, because anybody else only widens out a murder clique. Keep it close, figures Stevie-boy, because Stevie-boy is a pretty smart fella. So you guys are going to pop her, and pop her quick, although you’re kind of out of practice, you’re big shots now. How’m I doing?”

“Keep punching, pal.” In his own way, Kiddy was being proud of me.

“He rigged it,” I said, “to make it look like a mugging killing, but it got scrambled and he was boiling. He had to move very fast after that, because if she began to think about it, she might get the angle, and then it would be the whistle. So he made the move himself. Now I’ll be telling you things you don’t know.”

“Tell me, boy,” Kiddy said. “You’re a brain-guy, I always said so.”

“Steve Pedi used to be married to Vivian Frayne. He still had the key to the apartment. He also knew there was a gun in that apartment that belonged to a guy called Phelps who had a grudge against her because she was trying to pull some black dough out of him. That set it up pretty good, if he could lay his hands on the gun. So he goes to her apartment, rings the bell and she’s not home. He uses his key and goes in. He finds the gun and he hides out, probably on the terrace, until she comes home. She gets into her lounging clothes, he comes out, and pops her with Phelps’ gun, which he leaves there. He reminds himself that she must have the marriage certificate, also the divorce decree — because they were married and divorced. He figures if he can hunt that up and get rid of it, he won’t be tied in at all, there’d be no idea that he might have a key. So he gives the place a search and he doesn’t find either document. Okay. That’s not fatal. So if the stuff is found, he gets tied in a little, but it doesn’t mean a thing — unless it gets tied tighter, and there are only two guys in the world who can tie it tighter. Get it, pal?”

“I get it, pal.”

“You and Mousie.”

“I get it, pal.”

“Am I giving you any new stuff?” I said.

“A little,” he said.