The Mike Hammer Collection - Mickey Spillane [113]
“Ma’am?”
“They ever catch him?”
“Who’s that?”
“The one who ran off with all that money. A whole lot of money. Sally’s old boyfriend.”
I called Joey back in and shut the door. “A lot of money?”
“Indeed. Three million dollars. Conley, I think his name was. Blackie Conley. He was a mean one. He was the meanest of them all. They ever catch him?”
“No, they never did.”
With her eyes still closed she shook her head. “Never thought they would. He was a thinker. Even heard where he was going after they stole it.”
“Where, Miss Lee?” I asked softly.
She didn’t answer. She was asleep.
“Damn,” I said.
The picture was suddenly getting a sharp outline.
I dropped Joey at his AGVA office and went back to my own where Velda was waiting. She had compiled a report on Del Penner for me and from what it looked like he was in solidly now, a natural inheritor of Kid Hand’s old territory. It was a step up and he was ready for it, taking advantage of an occupational hazard. Nothing was solidified yet, but he was there and holding on.
When I finished it I got Pat on the phone, asked him if he could pull a package on Blackie Conley from the file, then told Velda to run over and pick it up. When she left I sat back in my chair and swung around so I could stare out the window at the concrete escarpment that was New York.
It was getting dark out and a mist was closing in. Another hour and it would be raining again. The multicolor neons of the city were bursting against the gray overcast like summer heat lightning and someplace across town a siren wailed. Another followed it.
Trouble out there. Trouble all over, but trouble out there all the time. Someplace was a guy with a slug in him and a gun in his hand. Someplace was Marv Kania, hurting like hell, waiting for me to show up so he could put one in my gut too. It was Levitt who had done it, but me in his mind. I was the living one, so I did it. Screw him. Let him hurt.
Three million dollars. That could bring trouble to a city. That could bring a man back to power and buy muscle. That was big starter money and a prize for anybody.
Sim Torrence thought Blackie Conley could have made it. Okay, suppose he did. Suppose he sat on that three million all these years, afraid to spend it, not wanting to convert it because of the loss he’d take in the transaction. He just sat on it. It was power to him. Brother, he sure waited for the heat to cool, but it happens like that sometimes. Harmony Brothers sat on a million and a half for forty-one years and only told where it was on his deathbed. Frankie Boyle kept seventy thousand in his mattress for sixteen years, sleeping happily on it every night without ever touching it, then went out of his mind when the rooming house was burned down along with his unspent fortune.
So Blackie Conley got away and sat on three million for thirty years. In the last of his life he gets a power complex and wants to buy his way back in. He’d know how to do it all right. If he could stay undercover thirty years he could still do it.
Blackie Conley! Mr. Dickerson.
A big, fat possible.
Question: Why try to knock off Sue Devon?
Answer: A cute possible here too. If Blackie was in love with Sally, and IF Sally had a child by another man, there might be enough hatred to want the child destroyed.
There was only one thing wrong with the premise. Too many people wanted Sue dead. Basil Levitt was trying for it when Kid Hand and Marv Kania came in.
But there was an answer to that one too, a money answer. Sue was a target with a price on her head and if it was big enough the shooters would fight each other for a crack at her. Kid Hand could use the dough and make himself a big one in somebody’s eyes at the same time. That could explain why Levitt came in so fast after I got there. He thought I was after head money too.
Blackie Conley, Mr. Dickerson, three million bucks. And the vultures.
Velda came in then and laid the package on my desk. Inside the folder was a picture of Conley. I had seen one like it not too long before