A Private Party Read online

  "You sound like you were expecting me."

  "I'm intuitive," said the musician. "Shoot."

  "Well," said Dane, "I've been listening to you rehearse, and frankly, I'm a little puzzled . . ."

  Raye held up his hand. "Say no more," he told Dane. Then, turning, "Take fifteen, gang." He put his hand on Dane's elbow and edged him toward the door. "Let's have a cup of coffee while I tell you all about it," he said and the two men exited like old friends.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was anything but friendly on Pier 109. On the street side, in the shadow of the elevated West Side Highway, was a shining blue 1953 Chrysler, looking offensively incongruous in this shabby working district. Some yards from the car, perched atop a packing case, was Nick Mayer, and grouped in front of him, their attitude ranging from boredom to outright hostility, was a group of thirty men in work pants and leather jackets. On the ground with them, but standing directly beside the makeshift platform was a short, squat man with his hands thrust into his pockets and his feet planted apart. Like the others, he wore working clothes, but his were newly bought and curiously clean.

  ". . . and that's what your executive committee has voted," Mayer was telling them. "All the boys on all our piers are being assessed twenty-five bucks. The money is for a fund to get the guy who killed Al Stanzyck—"

  "That's seventy-five hundred dollars," said a voice from the group.

  "Who said that?"

  "I said it. Joe Riker." The speaker, a broad-shouldered, square-jawed man in his thirties, edged to the front of the semicircle. "There's three hundred guys in this union. At twenty-five a head we're kicking in seventy-five hundred bucks."

  "You're a real professor, Riker," Mayer told him coldly. "Maybe you got too much education for us working men."

  "When's the last load you carried?" asked Riker belligerently. He was backed by an angry murmur from a part of the crowd.

  Mayer's eyes scanned them, estimating that Riker had about ten sympathizers. Then, at a nod of his head, a picked group of six began filtering casually toward the dissenter.

  "You're a troublemaker, Riker," Mayer shouted. "A big-mouth agitator."

  "I'm a working man, Mayer! And I'm damned if I'm going to be picked clean of my wages by the likes of you and your hoodlums."

  "You tell ‘em, Joe!" came another voice.

  "When do we have an open meeting of this union?" Riker demanded belligerently. "What's happened to those bylaws?"

  "You lousy scab!" Mayer snarled. "Turn in your check and get the hell off this dock!"

  "You come down and take my check, if you're man enough!"

  Mayer leaped from the packing case and charged toward Riker, the squat man at his heels. Riker squared away, his hands up in ready fists—but just as Mayer reached him he was struck a paralyzingly sharp blow behind the knee. His right leg collapsed under him and as he fell away Nick Mayer's fist crashed into his face. He was stunned, but he held his feet. Mayer lashed out again and blood spurted from Riker's broken nose. Riker drew his own arm back to strike to find it held by an unseen hand at his back. Mayer drove both hands into the man's unprotected face and as he slumped forward lifted his knee deep into Riker's groin. With a retching moan, the dissenter pitched forward. It had taken twenty seconds, and when it was over only Mayer, Riker and the thugs who had surrounded him knew how it had come about.

  "Let's have your check," Nick Mayer said softly, and when Riker didn't move he dug the toe of his pointed shoe into the other man's bleeding face.

  "For Godsakes, let him be!" said someone, trying to get to Riker but being hemmed in.

  "You want some, too?" Mayer asked the new one.

  "All I want to do is work," was the answer. "I got a family to feed."

  "Then don't be a loudmouth, like this punk." Mayer turned his head to the group and raised his voice. "What we all want is a good, strong union—right?" He waited for a halfhearted assent. "Everybody pulling together—right?" He waved his arm. "Okay, then. To show you how I feel, I'm letting Riker keep his work check. Bygones are bygones." Pointing to Riker's friend, he said, "You straighten him out. Tell him to keep in line and don't try to bust this union from now on." The man was let through and he helped Riker to his feet. "Okay," shouted Mayer. "Back to work. The assessment will be taken out of tonight's envelope. Anybody who needs dough can come down to the office and borrow it." The group broke away, heading for a line of trucks that had been patiently waiting to be unloaded for the past half hour. Mayer moved up to the squat man.

  "Augie," he said, "that guy Riker is no damn good at all. Pick him up tonight and give him a good working over. I don't want him around here any more."

  "It'll cost you, Nick," said Augie in a rasping voice.

  "How much?"

  Augie smiled. "About four of them assessments," he said.

  Mayer scowled. "Your prices are way out of line," he .complained.

  "So are your jobs."

  “Okay. But fix him good." Mayer turned away, got into the Chrysler and drove off. He felt good, he decided. Slugging that Riker had been just what he needed—just what all those bums needed to see who was running things now. Running things! Hadn't Stanzyck made the union his own personal racket as treasurer and business agent? But Nick Mayer was even better off; he didn't need that mealy-mouthed bastard of a lawyer. He laughed aloud as he remembered Bert Hill's threat. In a week the setup would be reversed. It would be Mayer and King then, with Hill getting the skids put under him. Augie would handle that—and scare King so bad while he was doing it that there'd be no more trouble ever.

  The car slipped through a red light on Ninth Avenue, and almost as though it had a mind of its own swung south toward the Forties. Mayer looked up at the passing street signs with the realization he was hurrying toward Forty-third Street, toward Roxy's apartment. He felt good, he decided again. And when he got his hands on that beautiful redhead he was going to feel even better. He pulled the car beside the NO PARKING AT ANYTIME sign, slipped the doorman a five-dollar bill and went up, unannounced, to her apartment.

  The door was opened by an unsmiling Roxanne.

  "Well? Aren't you going to ask me in?" Mayer asked.

  "The maid is still here," she said.

  "So what?" he asked, stepping through the doorway, brushing past her.

  "Do you think it's very bright, coming here like this?"

  "What are you worried about?"

  "I'm worried about me. You were supposed to be Al's best friend."

  "You were supposed to be his girl."

  "That was a one-way arrangement," she said, turning from him and entering the living room.

  He came up behind her. "And what about us, gorgeous?" He turned her around roughly, pressed her to him with his arms.

  "Don't, Nick."

  His hands moved over her. "I like to," he said, his lips close to her ear.

  "You're messing my hair."

  "The hell with your hair!" he said, his voice suddenly changed to a snarl. He took a handful of her hair in his hand and bent her head back. "Don't tell me you're cooling off, baby. Don't tell me that."

  "Stop!" Her face was tight with pain.

  "Stop? I haven't even started. The trouble with you, you've been spoiled . . ."

  Her hands reached up to claw at his face but he pulled her away from him by twisting her hair and struck out savagely with his open palm. The blow against her cheek sounded like a pistol shot and he let her fall in a heap to the rug. A frightened maid ran into the room.

  "You get the hell out of here," Mayer shouted and the woman moved past them and out the door.

  "You louse," Roxanne breathed, covering her thighs where the housecoat had come parted and then getting slowly to her feet. "Woman beater," she said scornfully, her eyes blazing with hatred.

  "You want more?" He began closing in on her, a cruel, menacing smile on his face.

  "Get away from me. Get away from me for good."

  He laughed at her. "That's not what I'
ve got in mind right now, baby." He stopped within arm's reach. "Come here," he ordered.

  "I'm through," Roxy said. "Through with the tough guys. I've had my fill of you and every rotten gangster like, you—"

  "I said come here!"

  "Cheap, swaggering hoodlums. Grifters, cheats, wise-money bums . . ." She spoke tonelessly, as though as much to herself as to Mayer. "Take what you want from a woman with your fists, take what you want from a man with a gun. Yellow, every one of you—"

  She must have seen his arm move, but she gave no sign, only stood there motionless as his hand jarred her head back.

  "Coward," she accused him, her face defiant. "Try that on a man sometime . . ."

  "Shut up!" His face was white, his eyes wild. A nerve jumped frantically in his cheek. Suddenly his arm seized her shoulder, ripping the cloth, and the fingers of his other hand clamped beneath her upturned chin. He threw his lips down to hers. The girl was limp in his embrace, her own lips slack and unresponsive. But when his hand dropped from her chin to slide beneath the robe she broke from him violently.

  "I don't want your filthy hands on me!" she cried at him. "Get out. I'm through!"

  He stood with his body bent curiously forward, his arms at his side, his eyes staring at her angry face. The only sound between them was his labored breathing. Then he said: "You're not through with me, Roxy. Not now."

  "Especially now. I can't stand the sight of you . . ."

  "Since when? You gave me the green light, baby. Remember? No dame blows hot and cold with me."

  "Something's happened."

  “What do you mean, something's happened?" Mayer demanded.

  "I want out," she said. "I want to start a new page."

  "You're on a new page," he said viciously. "Al is dead. Dead and gone."

  "I know." She put her hand to the side of her face as though it had just begun to pain her now. "Al is dead," she said tensely. "That newspaperman is dead. The witnesses are dead." Her eyes raised to his face. "And I'm scared. Scared, and tired, and disgusted with you and everything you do . . ." She looked beyond him to the opening door and he whirled in that direction.

  The doorman and the elevator operator stood there. Behind them was the maid.

  "Everything all right, Miss Garde?" the doorman asked.

  "Make him get out of here," she said.

  "That the way you really want it, Roxy?" Mayer asked.

  "That's the way I really want it. Tell Bert I'll help him if I can—but after that I'm through."

  "So that's what happened?"

  "What?" she said, her eyes puzzled.

  "Bert Hill."

  "Don't be crazy”

  He gazed at her steadily.

  "Don't be crazy," she said again.

  "I'll be seeing you, baby," he told her and left the apartment.

  CHAPTER 11

  Dane raised his head from the papers spread across his desk, looked at his clock, found that it was five p.m., stuffed the papers into the briefcase, rose from the swivel and left the office. Twenty minutes later he was in the squadroom of the West Twentieth Street station and asking to see Lieutenant Bannerman. The stenographer returned to tell him to go on inside.

  Bannerman did not rise, but sat stolidly in his chair with his eyes intent on the private detective's face. Dana had the uncomfortable sensation that his head was being nailed to the wall, and he stood uncertainly just inside the room.

  "Sit down," said the policeman icily. "Make yourself at home." He reached over and depressed a key on the intercom. "Send Stern in here," he bellowed.

  "Why Stern?"

  Bannerman smiled. "So you'll have a witness. Didn't your pal Bert Hill warn you about us cops?"

  Dane eased into a seat near the desk. "As a matter of fact, he did." He tossed the briefcase on Bannerman's ancient desk. "But I never had to watch myself with a cop, Lieutenant."

  "You'd better start. What's this supposed to be," he asked, his eyes regarding the briefcase sarcastically, "the solution of the Stanzyck case?"

  The door opened and closed behind Dane and he felt, without having to see, the hostile presence of Stern in the room.

  "From what I can see," said Dane, "there are two Stanzyck cases."

  "One of which is closed."

  "Not quite. Unless you don't care who knocked off those two witnesses of yours." Bannerman's head snapped forward and he heard Stern's swift intake of breath. But when the lieutenant spoke to him his voice was calm to the point of disinterest.

  "You really think you've got something that would interest me?"

  "It isn't much," said Dane. "But I think I've got a record of the pay-off to the killer."

  "In there?"

  "Open it. You'll find a financial statement of Stanzyck's union. It seems to cover the period when you had him in the City Prison."

  "You open it," said Bannerman.

  Dane sighed and unlocked the leather case. He withdrew the sheets, laid them out on the desk and came to stand beside the policeman.

  "So what?" said Bannerman after a quick glance at the crowd of figures.

  Dane laid his finger on the first page. "Income is here on the left," he said. "Dues, loan repayments, assessments, charges against the loading company, and that old standby, miscellaneous. Outgo is over here." His finger trailed the numbers. "Salaries, office, rent, electricity—" The finger paused abruptly. "But what's this?"

  Bannerman bent over, as did Stern who was on the opposite side. "It says five thousand dollars, but it doesn't say what for."

  "Look at the date," said Dane.

  "Hell," Stern breathed. "The day after Lane was killed."

  "That doesn't mean anything," said Bannerman skeptically.

  "Right. But let's keep going." The first page was finished and all three pairs of eyes trailed the figures on the next one. "The same stuff, more or less. Same income, same expenses." He turned that page aside. "But look," he said. "Another five thousand paid out."

  "Yeah," said Bannerman. "Another unidentified expense. And two days after Abe Kline was shot down." He raised his face to Dane's. "But answer me this. Why would them jackals suddenly be so stupid as to put a thing like this in black and white?"

  "Because this was the report they showed Al Stanzyck the night he was released. There was a meeting of Stanzyck, Hill, King and Mayer during that private party. One of the things Big Al would want to know was how the treasury stood. So somebody, probably Mayer, made out this statement for him, and him alone, to see."

  "Then how come you got it?"

  "It strayed, Lieutenant. The three of them left Stanzyck in this meeting room alone. Sometime after that he left it and walked down the hall to get killed. And while he was on his way somebody broke into the room from the roof and picked up the briefcase."

  "Who's the somebody?"

  "Just a guy. He was fired by Stanzyck that night and figured to get even. He thought the case was stacked with cash."

  "Why couldn't this guy have knocked Stanzyck off?"

  Dane shook his head. "Not this guy. I talked to him. The worst problem he's got is a traffic ticket."

  "There's something that still bothers me, Dane. How come you bring a thing like this to me?"

  "Why shouldn't I bring it to you? I don't say it won't lead up a blind alley, but it's a lead . . ."

  "That isn't what I mean. How come you pick me—why not Captain Galetta?"

  "Or go right down to Leonard Street," Dane added for him. "I brought it here because I thought this used to be your case."

  Bannerman looked away from the freelance man and seemed to study a spot on the wall across the room. Then he swung to Stern.

  "All right, Mike. Run it down. See if you can pick up any talk around Stanzyck's piers about somebody who's suddenly come into dough. About ten grand worth."

  Stern nodded and prepared to leave the office. Dane's voice halted him at the door.

  "Before you go," he said, "could you tell me where your partner is right now?" />
  The detective turned around slowly to face Dane. Bannerman sat perfectly still, his own eyes glued to the private detective's mouth.

  "My partner?" asked Stern.

  "Man name of Weir. William Weir."

  "What do you want with him?"

  "A small talk."

  "What about?" Bannerman asked.

  "I'd like to know what he was doing prowling around the place where Stanzyck was shot."

  "Who says he was?"

  "I think he was, Lieutenant," Dane answered. "That's why I'd like to talk to him."

  "Well, you think wrong."

  "A car was there that night with three digits in the license that are the same three as the car issued to Stern and Weir. The guy who drove the car was a big man that somebody said looked like a cop." Dane looked directly at Mike Stern. "That lets you out. Now I want to talk to your partner."

  "Weir wasn't anywhere near Stanzyck," said Stern, walking back to Bannerman's desk. "He says so right here.” Before Bannerman could reach out a hand to stop him, the detective had lifted a sheaf of papers from the corner of the desk.

  "Can I see where he says he was?" asked Dane.

  "No, you can't," snapped Bannerman. "These are confidential."

  The telephone on the desk jangled.

  "Bannerman," he said into it. Then, "Where'd you say it happened?" He turned to Stern. "Is Pier 109 one of the docks Stanzyck's union has a contract for?"

  Stern nodded.

  "Thanks for the call, DeLuca," said Bannerman into the phone. "I'm on my way." As he spoke he rose from the desk and, with his eyes on Stern, expertly flipped the receiver two feet onto its cradle. "A loader name of Riker's been beaten up on Pier 109. DeLuca of the 16th had him removed to Bellevue. The docs think he's bleeding to death internally and DeLuca wants us to take over in case he does." Bannerman grabbed a battered hat from a hook and slammed it on his head. "I'm going to the hospital. You and Weir beat it down to Pier 109 and see what you can see. It'll give you a good excuse to ask questions about anybody with an extra ten grand."

  Stern started out of the door with his boss at his heels. Suddenly Bannerman stopped short and whirled around.