Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 4, September 1971

“Wait a minute. Here’s an address, over on the east side. A girl named Marge Morgan. He was living with her, last I knew. But that was before he testified and got in trouble with the mob.”

“Thanks.” He accepted the slip of paper.

“You don’t need to feel sorry,” Tony Ancona’s brother said again as he left.

Marge Morgan worked as a cocktail waitress in a little downtown lounge, and it was there that Walt finally found her, wearing white hip-hugger pants and a short blouse that left her tanned midriff exposed.

“Sure,” she told him immediately. “You look just like on TV. I watched you the other night.”

Neary sipped a beer and said, “I understand from Tony’s brother that he was living with you.”

She tossed her blonde head. “That was six months ago. I hadn’t seen him lately.”

“Who had?”

“Why’d you want to know?”

Could he really explain it? “If there’s someone suffering because of what I did, I’d like to help out. He had no family I could give money to, but perhaps a girl friend—”

“Mister, you can lay that money right here! I need it worse than she does!”

“She? Who’s that?”

“The latest one. The last one, as it turned out. He met her right here in this joint too! I was watching the whole thing. A lonely gal looking for excitement, and she found him!”

“How long ago was that?”

“Just before the trial. After that, he laid low. I guess he knew there was a price on his head.”

“What was the girl’s name?”

She was suddenly sly. “Don’t know her name.”

“Does she still come in here?”

“No. Haven’t seen her in months.”

“Well, was Tony living with her?”

“No, nothing like that. He was holed up somewhere, and he just went to see her when he could.”

Walt Neary sighed and sipped his beer. It seemed to be a dead end. He watched Marge Morgan move away to wait on another table. Well, she didn’t need the money, and it was doubtful if the other one did, either. Maybe this whole search had only been an effort at salving his own conscience. Maybe he really wanted to keep the two thousand dollars.

After a few moments Marge returned to his table. “What’s it worth to you to find this girl?” she asked.

“Well, I hadn’t...”

“A hundred bucks?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I can reach her.”

“I thought you didn’t know her name.”

“I just remembered it.”

He thought about that. “Can you call her?”

“Sure.”

“All right. Let me listen to the call and then I’ll give you the hundred dollars.”

She led the way to a pay phone in an alcove off the lounge, and looked up a number in the book, careful not to let him see it. Then she dialed the number.

“Hello, honey? You don’t know me, but this is Marge, one of the waitresses at the Sunnyside Lounge. Look, honey, I’ve got something important to tell you about. I know you were Tony Ancona’s girl before he got killed. I saw him pick you up in here one night last spring. He told me he was seeing you— What? No, no, I don’t want no money. I just want to see you down here. You can’t?” She covered the mouthpiece and turned to Walt. “She can’t come today. Her husband’s due home.”

“Then give me her address.”

“No.” She turned back to the phone. “Honey, could you come here tomorrow? During the day? Fine. That will be fine. Three o’clock.” She hung up.

“She’s coming?”

“Tomorrow at three. Where’s my money?”

Walt Neary took out the envelope and counted five twenty-dollar bills. “Here. I hope you’re telling the truth.”

Marge Morgan took the money and smiled. “You just be here at three tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Neary.”

Walt Neary was just parking his car in his driveway when the dark-haired young man appeared at his side window. He’d obviously been waiting nearby, watching for his return home.

“What now?” Neary asked, wondering if he could reach the pistol in the glove compartment if he had to. “Another envelope for me?”

The man leaned on the car door, his face very close to Walt’s. “You been asking questions. You went to see Tony’s brother today. What for?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“We paid you for killing Tony. It concerns us.”

“Look, I didn’t ask to be paid! I don’t even want your damned blood money! I didn’t kill Ancona for you!”

The young man leaned closer. “Why did you go see Tony’s brother?” he asked again.

“I was trying to find out if he had any family, anyone close that I could help. I feel some responsibility, after all!”

The man nodded. “All right. Just keep your nose clean, Mr. Neary.”

He faded back into the shadows, and for some minutes Neary sat gripping the steering wheel. Did he really fear the dark-haired young man that much? Why hadn’t he flung the money back in his face and been done with it? What was he doing now, arranging to meet some woman he didn’t even know and bestow upon her a gift of two thousand dollars? Nineteen hundred, he corrected mentally, subtracting the hundred he’d already paid to Marge Morgan.

Presently he went into the house and found Ellen waiting for him. She seemed hardly less nervous than he did.

“What is it, Walt?” she asked. “You’re so white!”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. How was your day?”