Complete works of peter.., p.68
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 68
Lookin' back this case has been screwy from the start. It was a mysterious sorta letter that Marella wrote to the Director in the first place, the sorta letter that a dame would write if she was gettin' the jitters about somethin' that concerned her husband an' didn't want him to know what she was gettin' up to. I start wonderin' if Marella wrote that letter because she was frightened; because she thought that things would be comin' to a head on or about the 10th January an' that it would be a good thing if there was a "G" man hangin' around even if he didn't know what he was hangin' around for.
Even if he didn't know what he was hangin' around for! Boy, is that an idea or is it?
Looky, supposin' for the sake of the argument that Marella is havin' one helluva row with her husband or somebody, an' she tells 'em that she is fed up with something or other an' that unless something stops she is goin' to inform the Federal Government. Well, if she says that they can stop her, can't they? They just take her for a ride or bump her nice an' quiet. That's sense ain't it? Then she can't talk.
But supposin' instead of sayin' anything at all she just writes a letter to the Bureau askin' for an operative to be sent down but not sayin' for what. Well, then she's in a strong position, ain't she? She can then do a bit of threatenin' herself. She can say to all concerned that she has written a letter to the Bureau; that she has spilled all the beans an' that if anything happens to her the Bureau will know who has done it. What she don't say is that although she has written the letter she has only suggested that something or other is goin' on; she hasn't spilled anything that matters.
So it looks to me that Marella was hopin' that something would happen between the time she wrote that letter an' the 10th January. Then, if the thing she wants happens, she just don't say a word to the Federal operative when he turns up. She says that she has made a mistake an' that she was wrong in supposin' that any Federal offence has been committed. The "G" man is goin' to be sore but that's all he can be. He just goes back to Washington an' says she is nuts.
But supposin' the thing she wants to happen don't happen, why then she can carry out the threat she has made an' shoot the whole works to the "G" man who will be stickin' around to protect her if anybody tries to start somethin' with her.
So it looks to me that by writin' that letter in the way she did Marella was tryin' to have it both ways at once, which is a thing that you cannot very often get away with an' which she certainly didn't get away with. All she got was what was comin' to her.
I am just in the middle of these deep thoughts when the door busts open an' O'Halloran comes in. He is lookin' plenty pleased with himself.
"Hi'yah, Lemmy?" he says. "You heard the good news, bozo? The Chief says you're to be top-sergeant in this Marella Thorensen business, an' Brendy an' I are goin' to be side-kickers for you. Did you get my note about Nellie the cook?"
I tell him yes, an' I ask him to tell me what happened last night when he got old man Lee Sam an' Berenice down to the Precinct Office. I don't say a word about the attempt that the three guys in the Chevrolet made to rub me out, or anythin' about blondie or any of that stuff, because I have always found it a very good thing not to say too much to guys who are helpin' you, otherwise these guys will know as much as you do, which is often very bad for them.
Terry parks himself in a lounge chair an' brings out a pipe that he fills up an' lights. By the smell of this pipe you would think he was smokin' a dead squirrel.
"Here's the way it is, Lemmy," he says. "Last night at the time you said I sent a police car up to Nob Hill. I told the sergeant that I sent up there to grab old Lee Sam an' the girl an' to bring them straight down, so's not to give 'em a chance to tell anybody anything, in case they get sorta suspicious that we was goin' to pull somethin'. O.K. Well, he brings 'em down."
He takes his pipe outa his mouth.
"Say, feller," he says, "is this Berenice a honey or is she? I'm tellin' you that when that dame came inta the Precinct Office I nearly had a coupla fits, an' I've seen ritzy dames before. Has that dame got class? Listen," he goes on, leanin' back in the chair an' lettin' his ideas run easy, "she was wearin' a black lace evenin' gown that looked like she'd been poured inta it, an' she had on a chinchilla cape that woulda kept a soft drink bar goin' in straight whisky all the while prohibition was on. She was wearin' some jewels that woulda knocked your eye out. I've seen some ice in my time but the rocks that jane was showin' was an eyeful. An' has she got personality? Boy, that dame coulda shot a coupla wicked looks at a ninety year old miser an' he woulda give out one big shriek an' started rushin' around lookin' for the key of the safe deposit."
"So what," I tell him. "Listen, Terry, has this dame got you bulldozed? Why don't you keep your mind on your business an' when swell dolls get around just think of your wife?"
"What the hell," he says. "Me, I'm always thinkin' of my wife, but there ain't any law against hopin', is there? He settles down to business.
"O.K." he says. "Well, I start askin' 'em a lotta phoney questions that I've made up about this Marella Thorensen business. I just go on talkin' plenty so as to keep 'em down there like you said. Well, Lee Sam don't say anything at all. He just sits there in a chair with his arms folded across his chest lookin' like a Chinese idol. Whenever I look at him he just nods. I reckon this old bird is a pretty deep guy, an'
reckon that behind that face of his is a helluva brain.
"I go on talkin' plenty. Then I close down, an' I ask Berenice if she would like to make a statement about anything. She says no. She ain't got any statements to make, but that she has been havin' a conversation with her father this evenin' an' that he has asked her to say a few words about something not connected with this case that he thinks the law officers around here oughta know.
"Right then she stops talkin' to me an' she turns around to the old boy an' says something to him in Chinese. Believe it or not I never thought that language was so pretty. The way she spoke it it sounded like spillin' cream on a velvet bed-spread. When they've finished this pow-wow she turns around to me an' says here's the thing: She says that Lee Sam feels that the Customs Officers in the port of San Francisco oughta know that during the last year or so he has been doin' a little bit of quiet smugglin'.
"Well, this don't surprise me any, Lemmy, because you know as well as I do that there's plenty silk importers around here who try to slip a fast one across the Customs now an' then. It's human nature, ain't it? However, I make out that I am very interested in this an' I start makin' notes. I ask her to tell me about this smugglm'.
"She then says that besides the usual regular cargoes of silk that is delivered an' that goes properly through the Customs before they go into Lee Sam's warehouses on the other side of the slot, bales of swell Chinese silks have been dropped overboard at night from some of the smaller boats; picked up in row boats an' landed way down along the Embarcadero, so it looks as if they got some night watchman grafted down there.
"After this stuff has been landed it is taken around by car to Lee Sam's warehouses.
"I get a bright idea. I get the idea that maybe whoever it is does Lee Sam's truckin' for him is the same guy who is pickin' up the silk from the waterfront. So I ask her who this is an' she tells me that Lee Sam's truckin' contractor is a guy named Jack Rocca.
"Now I get a kick outa this, because I know plenty about this Jack Rocca, but I don't say nothin'. I just make a note of the name. Now take a look at this because I reckon it is goin' to interest you."
He gets up an' he brings over to me a typewritten foolscap sheet which I can see is a police report on Jack Rocca, an' believe me it's a honey. This guy was one of the original mobsters who went from Chicago to New York an' back again during the tough days that followed the prohibition. Rocca has done everythin'. He's been a beer runner an' high-jacker. He was in the snatch game. There isn't anythin' he hasn't had a cut at an' he's done all his business in a big way too.
Besides which this guy is clever. He keeps his nose clean. The police suspected him of plenty includin' bein' concerned in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, but they ain't got anythin' on this baby. He just gets away with everything.
Two years ago the report says Rocca comes inta San Francisco. I suppose he thinks that New York an' Chicago are gettin' a bit too hot for him. The San Francisco cops suspect him of bein' behind two or three protection rackets that was goin' on at that time. Finally it looks as if Rocca decides to behave himself a bit. He starts a big truckin' business, an' eventually he gets the Lee Sam contract to truck, silk which believe me is a pretty big one.
I give the paper back to Terry. "Very interestin'," I tell him.
"That's what I think," he says, "an' I'll tellya somethin' else I think, Lemmy. Why is it that this dame wants to blow this stuff about Lee Sam havin' done a bitta smugglin'? Wasn't that a funny thing for her to do?"
"Not so strange, bozo," I tell him. "Listen. Maybe Berenice thought that if she shoots the works about this smugglin', it is goin' to take our minds off the connection between herself, Lee Sam an' the Marella Thorensen murder. Another thing," I go on, "is that this dame is tryin' a very deep an' very fast one on us. See the idea? She knows durn well that if she says Lee Sam has been doin' a bitta smugglin' an' tells you that the stuff was landed on the Embarcadero, one of the first things we're goin' to try an' find out is who it was carried that stuff from the waterfront to the warehouses. This is goin' to bring us to Rocca, ain't it? So it looks to me like Berenice was bein' very clever an' tryin' to concentrate our attention on Rocca somehow. What else do you know about this guy Rocca, Terry?" I ask him.
"He's a nice guy, Lemmy," he says. "He's a big laughin' feller an' the guys who work for him seem satisfied. He owns a lotta property in San Francisco, two or three night clubs, a bunch of flop houses, an' he's also been runnin' a number racket in Chinatown in conjunction with Lee Sam. That's breakin' the law too, but who worries about that? If the Chinks don't gamble one way they'll do it another."
He goes on to say that once or twice during the last year or so there's been a bit of trouble complaints from Chinese eats houses that Rocca has been screwin' dough outa them for protection an' stuff like that, but he says that every time somethin' like this has come out it ain't ever got to court, because Thorensen, who is the Lee Sam lawyer, gets hold of the job an' squares the complaints before they ever get near the Hall of Justice.
Altogether; judgin' by what Terry says, this Rocca is a nice clever feller who is plenty tough, an' who is tryin' not to be tough in San Francisco, but runnin' his business nice an' sweet an' keepin' his nose clean with the help of Aylmar Thorensen.
"You see, Lemmy," says O'Halloran, "it would be durned easy for Rocca to make plenty dough in Chinatown, These Chinks stick together. They all know Lee Sam an' they all like him. He's one of the first guys to contribute to Chinese charities. So the fact that the Chinks know that Rocca is workin' in with Lee Sam is goin' to make Rocca tops with them all the time, so I reckon if they wanta gamble an' if they wanta pay for protection, an' if they wanta do anything that ain't strictly legal, they're goin' to do it through Rocca, ain't they, because if things don't go quite right they can always go an' grouse to Lee Sam."
"O.K." I tell him. "So what then, Terry?"
"Well," he says, "I write all this stuff down, an' it looks to me as if you've had plenty time to do what you want, so I say I will report this business to the Chief, an' that if they ain't got anythin' further to tell me about this Marella Thorensen business they can scram back home, but they've both got to hold themselves in readiness to be brought down to the Hall of Justice if anybody wants to ask 'em any more questions.
"After which," he says, "Berenice gives me a sweet smile an' says good mornin'. She also asks if they can be taken back in the police car, otherwise perhaps somebody will telephone up for one of their own, an' when I say this ain't necessary they go off. The sergeant drops them back at this place on Nob Hill, an' that's that."
"Swell, Terry," I tell him. "Say, did you see anythin' of Thorensen last night?"
"Yeah," he says, "he came into the Precinct Office. He was lookin' all shot to hell. He said that you'd been up to his place an' had an interview with him; that he'd told you he was scrammin' outa San Francisco an' transferrin' his head office to Los Angeles an' that you said that was O.K. but that he was to leave his address at the Precinct. So he just left it an' scrammed. Was that O.K.?"
"Swell, Terry," I tell him. "Say listen, I suppose this guy Rocca has got two three fellers who help him with his organisation, ain't he. The truckin' business an' the night club business they're things that gotta have a feller to look after 'em. You get around an' let me know who these guys are, an' if you can ring through some time this evenin' I'll be glad."
He says O.K. He says he'll start doin' some leg work an' will try an' let me know who the guys are who are playin' along with Rocca. He also tells me that Brendy is makin' a check-up of all the guys whose guns have been tested out as havin' fired bullets taken outa stiffs during the last year. He then bids me a fond farewell an' scrams.
Maybe you are wise as to why I have asked him to check up on the guys who are helpin' Rocca. I wanta see if I can get any line on this Spigla guy, the guy who blondie told me last night was runnin' The Two Moons Club, because the way I look at it is this. Supposin' for the sake of argument that this guy Spigla is workin' for Rocca. Well then the whole thing would match up just like this:
Berenice Lee Sam when she goes down to the Precinct house an' starts spillin' a lotta stuff about old Lee Sam havin' done a bit of smugglin', knows very well that the police will start worryin' about who carried the stuff. That dame is a wise dame an' she probably thinks that by doin' this she is goin' to concentrate attention on Rocco without actually sayin' anything about him. In other words the police will start gettin' after Rocca from an entirely new angle independent of the Marella Thorensen killin'.
Swell. Well, supposin', for the sake of argument that, like blondie said, it was Spigla who got those guys to try an' rub me out, then Spigla might have got his instructions from Rocca. But Rocca don't know me, so then again it looks as if Rocca was tipped off by somebody in the Lee Sam house or maybe by Berenice herself that it would be a good thing to get me outa the way. Having done this she is clever enough to concentrate attention on this guy Rocca in connection with a Federal offence smuggling.
By doin' this maybe she thinks she is puttin' inta my head the idea that what Marella Thorensen wanted to talk to me about the Federal offences that she mentioned when she wrote to the Director of the Bureau was this smugglin' business. Maybe this Berenice baby thinks that once I get this idea in my head I will come to the conclusion that it was Rocca who was responsible for bumpin' off Marella, just because she was goin' to blow the works on the smugglin' racket.
Which business if you follow me closely will show you just how clever this dame can be.
I have met up with plenty dames in my time, an' I have found that quite a lot of 'em are inclined to get jumpy when somethin' breaks or when some copper starts stickin' his nose inta their private affairs. But it ain't like this with Berenice. That baby is as cool as a couple of icebergs.
Figure it out for yourself. Here is a dame mixed up in a killin', who, for all she knows, may be facin' a murder rap any time from now on. That letter Marella wrote to her husband, the one I read up in Berenice's bedroom, would make a fine motive for bumpin' Marella. Any District Attorney would pull her in on that letter an' there's plenty janes gone to the chair or got themselves stuck in the cooler for life on less evidence than that.
But still Berenice don't get steamed up. She just sticks around lookin' like a million dollars, bein' fresh in a quiet sorta way an' yet all the time goin' on with some scheme she has got in her head.
Me, I respect a jane who is like this because she don't get excited an' she is likely to hand you out a nice swell kick in the pants at any moment without notice.
I am very fond of dames. They have got something that is very attractive. I like the way they walk an' I can go nuts about a doll who is as swell-lookin' as Berenice is, but I still got enough sense to allow that a jane can have brains too, an' I have found that it is the quiet, cool an' polite ones who produce grief for all concerned at a moment's notice.
When I was over in Mexico after a dago who shot up a mail cart in Arizona I was stickin' around at his place waitin' for him to show up.
His wife was a nice woman. She was smart, smilin' an' very polite. She told me that she would be very glad if somebody would pinch her husband an' either cut his head off right away or lock him up for ever. She said that this guy was so bad that every time she went to bed she expected to wake up dead.
After which she gave me a sweet smile an' went upstairs to turn down my bed because she said she sorta liked the way I talked about things, an' she liked to look after her guests properly.
An' if I hadn't seen the whip snake she stuck in the bed before I got inta it I should be playin' a harp in the place where "G" men go with a couple snake punctures followin' me around all day. Which shows you somethin', don't it?
After these great thoughts I finish tyin' my tie an' I think I will try a fast one.
I ring down to the desk an' ask 'em if they will get me Mr. Lee Sam's house on Nob Hill. Five minutes afterwards I am through to this dump. Some guy a Chinese house-boy I should think answers the telephone an' I tell him that I am Mr. Caution an' that I would like to have a few words with Miss Lee Sam. He tells me to hang on an' after a minute he comes back an' says that he is puttin' me through to her. I can imagine this dame pickin' up the ivory telephone receiver that I saw up in that bedroom of hers, with her brain workin' as fast as a rip-saw, wonderin' what I am goin' to say to her an' what she is goin' to say back. I hear her say hulloa.
"Good-evenin'," I tell her. "I hope you wasn't inconvenienced last night by havin' to go down to the Precinct an' answer a few questions. How'ya feelin' this afternoon?"
She gives a little soft laugh.
Even if he didn't know what he was hangin' around for! Boy, is that an idea or is it?
Looky, supposin' for the sake of the argument that Marella is havin' one helluva row with her husband or somebody, an' she tells 'em that she is fed up with something or other an' that unless something stops she is goin' to inform the Federal Government. Well, if she says that they can stop her, can't they? They just take her for a ride or bump her nice an' quiet. That's sense ain't it? Then she can't talk.
But supposin' instead of sayin' anything at all she just writes a letter to the Bureau askin' for an operative to be sent down but not sayin' for what. Well, then she's in a strong position, ain't she? She can then do a bit of threatenin' herself. She can say to all concerned that she has written a letter to the Bureau; that she has spilled all the beans an' that if anything happens to her the Bureau will know who has done it. What she don't say is that although she has written the letter she has only suggested that something or other is goin' on; she hasn't spilled anything that matters.
So it looks to me that Marella was hopin' that something would happen between the time she wrote that letter an' the 10th January. Then, if the thing she wants happens, she just don't say a word to the Federal operative when he turns up. She says that she has made a mistake an' that she was wrong in supposin' that any Federal offence has been committed. The "G" man is goin' to be sore but that's all he can be. He just goes back to Washington an' says she is nuts.
But supposin' the thing she wants to happen don't happen, why then she can carry out the threat she has made an' shoot the whole works to the "G" man who will be stickin' around to protect her if anybody tries to start somethin' with her.
So it looks to me that by writin' that letter in the way she did Marella was tryin' to have it both ways at once, which is a thing that you cannot very often get away with an' which she certainly didn't get away with. All she got was what was comin' to her.
I am just in the middle of these deep thoughts when the door busts open an' O'Halloran comes in. He is lookin' plenty pleased with himself.
"Hi'yah, Lemmy?" he says. "You heard the good news, bozo? The Chief says you're to be top-sergeant in this Marella Thorensen business, an' Brendy an' I are goin' to be side-kickers for you. Did you get my note about Nellie the cook?"
I tell him yes, an' I ask him to tell me what happened last night when he got old man Lee Sam an' Berenice down to the Precinct Office. I don't say a word about the attempt that the three guys in the Chevrolet made to rub me out, or anythin' about blondie or any of that stuff, because I have always found it a very good thing not to say too much to guys who are helpin' you, otherwise these guys will know as much as you do, which is often very bad for them.
Terry parks himself in a lounge chair an' brings out a pipe that he fills up an' lights. By the smell of this pipe you would think he was smokin' a dead squirrel.
"Here's the way it is, Lemmy," he says. "Last night at the time you said I sent a police car up to Nob Hill. I told the sergeant that I sent up there to grab old Lee Sam an' the girl an' to bring them straight down, so's not to give 'em a chance to tell anybody anything, in case they get sorta suspicious that we was goin' to pull somethin'. O.K. Well, he brings 'em down."
He takes his pipe outa his mouth.
"Say, feller," he says, "is this Berenice a honey or is she? I'm tellin' you that when that dame came inta the Precinct Office I nearly had a coupla fits, an' I've seen ritzy dames before. Has that dame got class? Listen," he goes on, leanin' back in the chair an' lettin' his ideas run easy, "she was wearin' a black lace evenin' gown that looked like she'd been poured inta it, an' she had on a chinchilla cape that woulda kept a soft drink bar goin' in straight whisky all the while prohibition was on. She was wearin' some jewels that woulda knocked your eye out. I've seen some ice in my time but the rocks that jane was showin' was an eyeful. An' has she got personality? Boy, that dame coulda shot a coupla wicked looks at a ninety year old miser an' he woulda give out one big shriek an' started rushin' around lookin' for the key of the safe deposit."
"So what," I tell him. "Listen, Terry, has this dame got you bulldozed? Why don't you keep your mind on your business an' when swell dolls get around just think of your wife?"
"What the hell," he says. "Me, I'm always thinkin' of my wife, but there ain't any law against hopin', is there? He settles down to business.
"O.K." he says. "Well, I start askin' 'em a lotta phoney questions that I've made up about this Marella Thorensen business. I just go on talkin' plenty so as to keep 'em down there like you said. Well, Lee Sam don't say anything at all. He just sits there in a chair with his arms folded across his chest lookin' like a Chinese idol. Whenever I look at him he just nods. I reckon this old bird is a pretty deep guy, an'
reckon that behind that face of his is a helluva brain.
"I go on talkin' plenty. Then I close down, an' I ask Berenice if she would like to make a statement about anything. She says no. She ain't got any statements to make, but that she has been havin' a conversation with her father this evenin' an' that he has asked her to say a few words about something not connected with this case that he thinks the law officers around here oughta know.
"Right then she stops talkin' to me an' she turns around to the old boy an' says something to him in Chinese. Believe it or not I never thought that language was so pretty. The way she spoke it it sounded like spillin' cream on a velvet bed-spread. When they've finished this pow-wow she turns around to me an' says here's the thing: She says that Lee Sam feels that the Customs Officers in the port of San Francisco oughta know that during the last year or so he has been doin' a little bit of quiet smugglin'.
"Well, this don't surprise me any, Lemmy, because you know as well as I do that there's plenty silk importers around here who try to slip a fast one across the Customs now an' then. It's human nature, ain't it? However, I make out that I am very interested in this an' I start makin' notes. I ask her to tell me about this smugglm'.
"She then says that besides the usual regular cargoes of silk that is delivered an' that goes properly through the Customs before they go into Lee Sam's warehouses on the other side of the slot, bales of swell Chinese silks have been dropped overboard at night from some of the smaller boats; picked up in row boats an' landed way down along the Embarcadero, so it looks as if they got some night watchman grafted down there.
"After this stuff has been landed it is taken around by car to Lee Sam's warehouses.
"I get a bright idea. I get the idea that maybe whoever it is does Lee Sam's truckin' for him is the same guy who is pickin' up the silk from the waterfront. So I ask her who this is an' she tells me that Lee Sam's truckin' contractor is a guy named Jack Rocca.
"Now I get a kick outa this, because I know plenty about this Jack Rocca, but I don't say nothin'. I just make a note of the name. Now take a look at this because I reckon it is goin' to interest you."
He gets up an' he brings over to me a typewritten foolscap sheet which I can see is a police report on Jack Rocca, an' believe me it's a honey. This guy was one of the original mobsters who went from Chicago to New York an' back again during the tough days that followed the prohibition. Rocca has done everythin'. He's been a beer runner an' high-jacker. He was in the snatch game. There isn't anythin' he hasn't had a cut at an' he's done all his business in a big way too.
Besides which this guy is clever. He keeps his nose clean. The police suspected him of plenty includin' bein' concerned in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, but they ain't got anythin' on this baby. He just gets away with everything.
Two years ago the report says Rocca comes inta San Francisco. I suppose he thinks that New York an' Chicago are gettin' a bit too hot for him. The San Francisco cops suspect him of bein' behind two or three protection rackets that was goin' on at that time. Finally it looks as if Rocca decides to behave himself a bit. He starts a big truckin' business, an' eventually he gets the Lee Sam contract to truck, silk which believe me is a pretty big one.
I give the paper back to Terry. "Very interestin'," I tell him.
"That's what I think," he says, "an' I'll tellya somethin' else I think, Lemmy. Why is it that this dame wants to blow this stuff about Lee Sam havin' done a bitta smugglin'? Wasn't that a funny thing for her to do?"
"Not so strange, bozo," I tell him. "Listen. Maybe Berenice thought that if she shoots the works about this smugglin', it is goin' to take our minds off the connection between herself, Lee Sam an' the Marella Thorensen murder. Another thing," I go on, "is that this dame is tryin' a very deep an' very fast one on us. See the idea? She knows durn well that if she says Lee Sam has been doin' a bitta smugglin' an' tells you that the stuff was landed on the Embarcadero, one of the first things we're goin' to try an' find out is who it was carried that stuff from the waterfront to the warehouses. This is goin' to bring us to Rocca, ain't it? So it looks to me like Berenice was bein' very clever an' tryin' to concentrate our attention on Rocca somehow. What else do you know about this guy Rocca, Terry?" I ask him.
"He's a nice guy, Lemmy," he says. "He's a big laughin' feller an' the guys who work for him seem satisfied. He owns a lotta property in San Francisco, two or three night clubs, a bunch of flop houses, an' he's also been runnin' a number racket in Chinatown in conjunction with Lee Sam. That's breakin' the law too, but who worries about that? If the Chinks don't gamble one way they'll do it another."
He goes on to say that once or twice during the last year or so there's been a bit of trouble complaints from Chinese eats houses that Rocca has been screwin' dough outa them for protection an' stuff like that, but he says that every time somethin' like this has come out it ain't ever got to court, because Thorensen, who is the Lee Sam lawyer, gets hold of the job an' squares the complaints before they ever get near the Hall of Justice.
Altogether; judgin' by what Terry says, this Rocca is a nice clever feller who is plenty tough, an' who is tryin' not to be tough in San Francisco, but runnin' his business nice an' sweet an' keepin' his nose clean with the help of Aylmar Thorensen.
"You see, Lemmy," says O'Halloran, "it would be durned easy for Rocca to make plenty dough in Chinatown, These Chinks stick together. They all know Lee Sam an' they all like him. He's one of the first guys to contribute to Chinese charities. So the fact that the Chinks know that Rocca is workin' in with Lee Sam is goin' to make Rocca tops with them all the time, so I reckon if they wanta gamble an' if they wanta pay for protection, an' if they wanta do anything that ain't strictly legal, they're goin' to do it through Rocca, ain't they, because if things don't go quite right they can always go an' grouse to Lee Sam."
"O.K." I tell him. "So what then, Terry?"
"Well," he says, "I write all this stuff down, an' it looks to me as if you've had plenty time to do what you want, so I say I will report this business to the Chief, an' that if they ain't got anythin' further to tell me about this Marella Thorensen business they can scram back home, but they've both got to hold themselves in readiness to be brought down to the Hall of Justice if anybody wants to ask 'em any more questions.
"After which," he says, "Berenice gives me a sweet smile an' says good mornin'. She also asks if they can be taken back in the police car, otherwise perhaps somebody will telephone up for one of their own, an' when I say this ain't necessary they go off. The sergeant drops them back at this place on Nob Hill, an' that's that."
"Swell, Terry," I tell him. "Say, did you see anythin' of Thorensen last night?"
"Yeah," he says, "he came into the Precinct Office. He was lookin' all shot to hell. He said that you'd been up to his place an' had an interview with him; that he'd told you he was scrammin' outa San Francisco an' transferrin' his head office to Los Angeles an' that you said that was O.K. but that he was to leave his address at the Precinct. So he just left it an' scrammed. Was that O.K.?"
"Swell, Terry," I tell him. "Say listen, I suppose this guy Rocca has got two three fellers who help him with his organisation, ain't he. The truckin' business an' the night club business they're things that gotta have a feller to look after 'em. You get around an' let me know who these guys are, an' if you can ring through some time this evenin' I'll be glad."
He says O.K. He says he'll start doin' some leg work an' will try an' let me know who the guys are who are playin' along with Rocca. He also tells me that Brendy is makin' a check-up of all the guys whose guns have been tested out as havin' fired bullets taken outa stiffs during the last year. He then bids me a fond farewell an' scrams.
Maybe you are wise as to why I have asked him to check up on the guys who are helpin' Rocca. I wanta see if I can get any line on this Spigla guy, the guy who blondie told me last night was runnin' The Two Moons Club, because the way I look at it is this. Supposin' for the sake of argument that this guy Spigla is workin' for Rocca. Well then the whole thing would match up just like this:
Berenice Lee Sam when she goes down to the Precinct house an' starts spillin' a lotta stuff about old Lee Sam havin' done a bit of smugglin', knows very well that the police will start worryin' about who carried the stuff. That dame is a wise dame an' she probably thinks that by doin' this she is goin' to concentrate attention on Rocco without actually sayin' anything about him. In other words the police will start gettin' after Rocca from an entirely new angle independent of the Marella Thorensen killin'.
Swell. Well, supposin', for the sake of argument that, like blondie said, it was Spigla who got those guys to try an' rub me out, then Spigla might have got his instructions from Rocca. But Rocca don't know me, so then again it looks as if Rocca was tipped off by somebody in the Lee Sam house or maybe by Berenice herself that it would be a good thing to get me outa the way. Having done this she is clever enough to concentrate attention on this guy Rocca in connection with a Federal offence smuggling.
By doin' this maybe she thinks she is puttin' inta my head the idea that what Marella Thorensen wanted to talk to me about the Federal offences that she mentioned when she wrote to the Director of the Bureau was this smugglin' business. Maybe this Berenice baby thinks that once I get this idea in my head I will come to the conclusion that it was Rocca who was responsible for bumpin' off Marella, just because she was goin' to blow the works on the smugglin' racket.
Which business if you follow me closely will show you just how clever this dame can be.
I have met up with plenty dames in my time, an' I have found that quite a lot of 'em are inclined to get jumpy when somethin' breaks or when some copper starts stickin' his nose inta their private affairs. But it ain't like this with Berenice. That baby is as cool as a couple of icebergs.
Figure it out for yourself. Here is a dame mixed up in a killin', who, for all she knows, may be facin' a murder rap any time from now on. That letter Marella wrote to her husband, the one I read up in Berenice's bedroom, would make a fine motive for bumpin' Marella. Any District Attorney would pull her in on that letter an' there's plenty janes gone to the chair or got themselves stuck in the cooler for life on less evidence than that.
But still Berenice don't get steamed up. She just sticks around lookin' like a million dollars, bein' fresh in a quiet sorta way an' yet all the time goin' on with some scheme she has got in her head.
Me, I respect a jane who is like this because she don't get excited an' she is likely to hand you out a nice swell kick in the pants at any moment without notice.
I am very fond of dames. They have got something that is very attractive. I like the way they walk an' I can go nuts about a doll who is as swell-lookin' as Berenice is, but I still got enough sense to allow that a jane can have brains too, an' I have found that it is the quiet, cool an' polite ones who produce grief for all concerned at a moment's notice.
When I was over in Mexico after a dago who shot up a mail cart in Arizona I was stickin' around at his place waitin' for him to show up.
His wife was a nice woman. She was smart, smilin' an' very polite. She told me that she would be very glad if somebody would pinch her husband an' either cut his head off right away or lock him up for ever. She said that this guy was so bad that every time she went to bed she expected to wake up dead.
After which she gave me a sweet smile an' went upstairs to turn down my bed because she said she sorta liked the way I talked about things, an' she liked to look after her guests properly.
An' if I hadn't seen the whip snake she stuck in the bed before I got inta it I should be playin' a harp in the place where "G" men go with a couple snake punctures followin' me around all day. Which shows you somethin', don't it?
After these great thoughts I finish tyin' my tie an' I think I will try a fast one.
I ring down to the desk an' ask 'em if they will get me Mr. Lee Sam's house on Nob Hill. Five minutes afterwards I am through to this dump. Some guy a Chinese house-boy I should think answers the telephone an' I tell him that I am Mr. Caution an' that I would like to have a few words with Miss Lee Sam. He tells me to hang on an' after a minute he comes back an' says that he is puttin' me through to her. I can imagine this dame pickin' up the ivory telephone receiver that I saw up in that bedroom of hers, with her brain workin' as fast as a rip-saw, wonderin' what I am goin' to say to her an' what she is goin' to say back. I hear her say hulloa.
"Good-evenin'," I tell her. "I hope you wasn't inconvenienced last night by havin' to go down to the Precinct an' answer a few questions. How'ya feelin' this afternoon?"
She gives a little soft laugh.
