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“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well, what else do you want?”

For a moment I sat there thinking. “Torrence is a pretty big wheel now, isn’t he?”

“As big as they get without being in office.”

“Okay, he said repeated threats were made on him by guys he helped put away.”

“Ah, they all get that.”

“They all don’t have a mess like this either.”

“So what?”

“This, Hy . . . I’d like a rundown on his big cases, on everyone who ever laid a threat on him. You ought to have that much in your morgue.”

Hy shrugged and grinned at me. “I suppose you want it tonight.” “Why not?”

“So we’ll finish the party in my office. Come on.”

Hy’s file on Sim Torrence was a thick one composed of hundreds of clippings. We all took a handful and found desk space to look them over. A little after one we had everything classified and cross-indexed. Joey had four cases of threats on Sim’s life, Cindy had six, Velda and I both had three, and Hy one. He put all the clips in a Thermofax machine, pulled copies, handed them over, and put the files back.

“Now can we go home?” he said.

Joey wanted to go on with it until Cindy gave him a poke in the ribs.

“So let’s all go home,” I told him.

We said so-long downstairs and Velda and I headed back toward the Stem. In the lower Forties I checked both of us into a hotel, kissed her at the door, and went down to my room. She didn’t like it, but I still had work to do.

After a shower I sat on the bed and started through the clips. One by one I threw them all down until I had four left. All the rest who had threatened Sim Torrence were either dead or back in prison. Four were free, three on parole, and one having served a life sentence of thirty years.

Life.

Thirty years.

He was forty-two when he went in, seventy-two when he came out. His name was Sonny Motley and there was a picture of him in a shoe repair shop he ran on Amsterdam Avenue. I put the clips in the discard pile and looked at the others.

Sherman Buff, a two-time loser that Sim had put the screws to in court so that he caught a big fall. He threatened everybody including the judge, but Torrence in particular.

Arnold Goodwin who liked to be called Stud. Sex artist. Rapist. He put the full blame for his fall on Torrence, who not only prosecuted his case but processed it from the first complaint until his capture. No known address, but his parole officer could supply that.

Nicholas Beckhaus, burglar with a record who wound up cutting a cop during his capture. He and two others broke out of a police van during a routine transfer and it was Sim Torrence’s office who ran him down until he was trapped in a rooming house. He shot a cop in that capture too. He promised to kill Torrence on sight when he got out. Address unknown, but he would have a parole officer too.

I folded the clips, put three in my pants pocket, and leaned back on the bed. Then there was a knock on the door.

I had the .45 in my hand, threw the bolt back, and moved to the side. Velda walked in grinning, closed the door, and stood there with her back against it. “Going to shoot me, Mike?”

“You crazy?”

“Uh-uh.”

“What do you want?”

“You don’t know?”

I reached out and pulled her in close, kissed her hair, then felt the fire of her mouth again. She leaned against me, her breasts firm and insistent against my naked chest, her body forming itself to mine.

“I’m going to treat you rough, my love . . . until you break down.”

“You’re going back to bed.”

“To bed, yes, but not back.” She smiled, pulled away, and walked to my sack. Little by little, slowly, every motion a time-honored motion, she took off her clothes. Then she stood there naked and smiling a moment before sliding into the bed where she lay there waiting.

“Let’s see who’s the roughest,” I said, and lay down beside her. I punched out the light, got between the top sheet and the cover, turned on my side and closed my eyes.

“You big bastard,” she said softly. “If I didn’t love you I’d kill you.”

CHAPTER 5

I was up and dressed