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But I had stopped listening to him about then. I was looking at the back corner of the wall. I tapped Pat on the arm and pointed. “You remember the call you got from someone inquiring about Levitt?”

“Yeah,” he said.

There was an open pay phone on the wall about four feet away from a jukebox.

Pat walked over to it, looked at the records on the juke, but who could tell rock and roll from the titles? He said to Cavello, “Many places got these open phones?”

“Sure,” Cavello told him, “most of the spots that haven’t got room for a booth. Mean anything?”

“I don’t know. It could.”

“Anything I could help with?”

Pat explained the situation and Cavello said he’d try to find anyone who saw Kline making a phone call about that time. He didn’t expect much luck though. People in that neighborhood didn’t talk too freely to the police. It was more likely that they wouldn’t remember anything rather than get themselves involved.

Another plainclothes officer came in then, said hello to Pat, and he introduced me to Lew Nelson. He didn’t have anything to add to the story and so far that day hadn’t found anybody who knew much about Levitt at all.

I tapped his shoulder and said, “How did Kline react when you showed him Levitt’s photo?”

“Well, he jumped a little. He said he couldn’t be sure and I figured he was lying. I got the same reaction from others besides him. That Levitt was a mean son and I don’t think anybody wanted to mess around with him. He wanted to know what he was wanted for and I wouldn’t say anything except that he was dead and he seemed pretty satisfied at that.

“Tell you one thing. That guy was thinking of something. He studied that photo until he was sure he knew him and then told me he never saw him before. Maybe he thought he had an angle somewhere.”

There wasn’t much left there for us. Pat left a few instructions, sent Nelson back on the streets again, and started outside. He stopped for a final word to Cavello so I went on alone and stood on the sidewalk beside the cop on guard there. It wasn’t until he went to answer the radio in the squad car that I saw the thing his position had obscured.

In the window of the bar was a campaign poster and on it a full-face picture of a smiling Torrence, who was running in the primaries for governor, and under it was the slogan, WIN WITH SIM.

CHAPTER 9

I made the call from the drugstore on the corner. I dialed the Torrence estate and waited while the phone rang a half-dozen times, each time feeling the cold go through me deeper and deeper.

Damn, it couldn’t be too late!

Then a sleepy voice said, “Yes?” and there was no worry in it at all.

“Geraldine?”

“Mike, you thing you.”

“Look . . .”

“Why did you leave me? How could you leave me?”

“I’ll tell you later. Has Torrence come home yet?”

My voice startled her into wakefulness. “But . . . no, he’s due here in an hour though. He called this morning from Albany to tell me when he’d be home.”

“Good, now listen. Is Sue all right?”

“Yes . . . she’s still in bed. I gave her another sedative.”

“Well, get her out of it. Both of you hop in a car and get out of there. Now . . . not later, now.”

“But, Mike . . .”

“Damn it, shut up and do what I say. There’s going to be trouble I can’t explain.”

“Where can we go? Mike, I don’t . . .”

I gave her my new address and added, “Go right there and stay there. The super has the key and will let you in. Don’t open that door for anybody until you’re sure it’s me, understand? I can’t tell you any more except that your neck and Sue’s neck are out a mile. We have another dead man on our hands and we don’t need any more. You got that?”

She knew I wasn’t kidding. There was too much stark urgency in my voice. She said she’d leave in a few minutes and when she did I could sense the fear that touched her.

I tapped the receiver cradle down, broke the connection, dropped in a dime, and dialed my own number. Velda came on after the first ring with a guarded hello.

I said,