H ammett lit his fifth cigarette of the day and flopped open the newspaper that Moms had slammed down on the counter in front of him. His hand stopped moving with his first cup of coffee halfway to his mouth.
BOOTLEGGER SHOT — GUNNED ON STREET WHILE LEAVING SPEAKEASY
Gunfire rocked the foot of Mission Street last night. Dominic Pronzini, 32, owner of the Cote d’Or Club (popularly known as Dom’s Dump), died in the 3 A.M. blasts by an unknown assassin.
He was skipping down the story when his eyes were caught by a boldface box announcement.
LATE DEVELOPMENT
Mayor Brendan McKenna has called a meeting of press reporters at 10 o’clock this morning for what his office termed ‘an important announcement.’
‘They’re trying to bring their gang warfare to San Francisco,’ thundered McKenna in his marvelous orator’s voice. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’m here to tell you it isn’t going to succeed!’
The red-carpeted reception room was jammed with reporters crowding the mayor’s huge cherry-wood desk. Hammett hung back on the fringes. He’d tried to get Jimmy Wright at the Townsend Hotel and had failed; it was a good bet he’d be here to listen to the mayor.
‘Are you stating as a fact, Mr Mayor,’ demanded a reporter from the Examiner, ‘that Dominic Pronzini’s death was a gangland slaying?’
‘Both the district attorney and I feel this is the case.’ McKenna began dramatically marking off his points with his fingers. ‘Dominic Pronzini was murdered with a shotgun. The shotgun is a classical gangland weapon. Less than twenty-four hours ago, a woman and her son were murdered up in Marin County with a shotgun. Less than two weeks ago, a rumrunner in Dominic Pronzini’s employ, named Egan Tokzek, was slain in a gun battle with police. That woman murdered in Marin was’ — he paused to tighten the suspense — ‘Egan Tokzek’s sister, gentlemen.’
The newsmen began frantically scribbling in their notebooks. Hammett felt his sleeve tugged. He and the fat little op, Jimmy Wright, worked their way from the crowd toward the door. Behind them, McKenna was overriding the reporters’ questions.
Hammett closed the door on the oratory. He and Wright had the hallway to themselves.
‘Your little plot didn’t come off too well,’ said the op.
‘It worked in my story.’
‘Yeah.’ He looked thoughtfully at Hammett. ‘Only this ain’t a story.’
But Hammett had realized there was an ill-concealed excitement in the stocky detective which owed nothing to the botched events on the other side of the Golden Gate.
‘You’ve got something else for me?’
‘Boyd Mulligan made some calls after you left his office.’
‘Gimme,’ said Hammett.
Owen Lynch was dressed in a conservative three-button silk-stripe worsted with a white neckband shirt and a fresh dressy Norfolk collar. The links of his gold watch chain glittered across his vest.
‘I gather you don’t think much of Bren’s theory concerning the killings.’
‘It stinks. Better get him in here, so I only have to say it once,’ said Hammett.
He smoked quietly in his chair after Lynch departed, his face keeping his secrets.
McKenna came through the door first, his jaw rather belligerent and his breath rich with brandy. Only his eyes betrayed the anxiety apparent in the worried face of Lynch behind him.
‘Hammett,’ said the mayor coolly.
The detective stood up.
The mayor said, ‘I understand you disagree with me about the mobs trying to move into our city.’
‘I don’t. The facts do. When I talked with Molly Farr last Sunday, I was convinced that-’
‘Molly Farr! But she… the DA is looking all over for…’
‘He’s looking. I found.’ Hammett stopped at an ashtray to stub out his cigarette butt. He rousted his pockets for the pack, and stuck a new one, unlit, in his mouth. ‘I’m not saying just where because I know my investigators aren’t going to get any cooperation at all from the police department, only as much cooperation from the DA as the reform committee can pressure him into giving, and exactly as much backing from this office as it cares to give. Therefore-’
‘I told you we were with you all the way on this investigation.’
Hammett jerked a thumb at the mayor. ‘Did you tell him?’
He went on before either man could speak.
‘Those highbinders who busted up Pronzini’s place were my boys — which shoots hell out of part of your gangster scenario, Mr Mayor.’ Hammett’s grin was tight, almost unpleasant. ‘They scared Pronzini enough so he spilled some things. Enough so I now believe Vic died in Pronzini’s back room, and that the man who killed him went there through the Mulligans. So I threw a scare into Boyd-’
‘What good would that do?’ asked Lynch.
‘Jimmy Wright’s boys now have a tap on the Mulligan phone. Griff would be smart enough to expect this, but not Boyd. I wanted to see who he called for help when his uncle wasn’t around. In light of the fact that Pronzini was rubbed last night, that phone call gets damned important.’
He paused to light a cigarette. The pause grew. McKenna tossed off his brandy in a single convulsive gesture. Hammett handed to Lynch the transcript carbon Jimmy Wright had given him.
June 5, 1:04 p.m. — Out — Mulligan Bros. Boyd Mulligan.
WOMAN: Hello?
BOYD: Hello? Is your husband there?
WOMAN: No. I’m sorry…
BOYD: At work?
WOMAN: Yes. Is there any message?
BOYD: No. No message. I’ll catch him there.
June 5, 1:09 p.m. — Out — Mulligan Bros. Boyd Mulligan.
MAN: Detective Bureau.
BOYD: (voice muffled): Is the Preacher there?
MAN: Huh?
BOYD: (voice clearer): The Preacher. Is he there?
MAN: Oh. Wait a sec. I’ll see.
LAVERTY: Hello?
BOYD: Boyd Mulligan, Preacher. I want to see you.
LAVERY: There’s only one place I want to see you, Mulligan. Looking out from behind bars…
BOYD: I know all about the way Parelli really died.
LAVERTY (after a long pause): Griff told me that’d never be used. He said he didn’t blame me for…
BOYD: It won’t be used, Preacher. If you help me.
LAVERTY: (after a long pause): All right. West Broadway by the Presidio wall. Twenty minutes.
Lynch folded the paper with exaggerated care, making sure all the creases were sharp and square.
Hammett asked, ‘Who was Parelli?’
Lynch looked up, his face dazed. ‘A cheap hood found beaten to death in Jessie Street a few years ago. Pistolwhipped. A young girl claimed he’d been molesting her, trying to drag her into his apartment building when another man stopped him. He ran. The second man caught him and systematically beat him to death. First she said she would never forget the second man’s face, then said she had forgotten it. Then she left town.’
‘Yeah,’ said Hammett softly. ‘If Mulligan got her to change her story and then got her to leave…’
‘Dan’s always had that black Irish temper. If it got away from him then the way it did with that Egan Tokzek-’
‘I think he came around to tell me about it a couple of days ago,’ said Hammett. ‘After his talk with Boyd Mulligan. He was waiting outside my apartment building to talk to me, only he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He knew I’d brought in the hatchet men to wreck Pronzini’s joint, and he knew why I did it. Only Mulligan could have told him those things. I think Mulligan wanted him to pry out of me how much I really knew, and I think he wouldn’t play along. But you can see why I have to know where he was the night Vic was killed, and where he was last night when Pronzini got it.’
‘You can’t think that Preacher would-’
Hammett jerked his shoulders irritably at Lynch.
‘I’m not saying I think he did anything, I’m saying I have to find out. If he had something to do with Vic’s death, then he might have killed Pronzini to protect himself. Or if the Mulligans do have their claws into him, he might have killed Pronzini because they forced him into it.’
McKenna spoke for the first time since reading the transcript. ‘But what about the woman and her son up in Marin? What sort of threat could they pose to Dan Laverty?’
‘I don’t know. But there’s a lot I don’t know. Why was he out south of the park the night Tokzek was killed? Why did he chase-’
‘That I can tell you, at least.’ Lynch massaged his eyelids with blunt fingers. ‘Dan got a phone call, at home, telling him that in a few minutes a stolen car would be-’
‘There!’ exclaimed McKenna triumphantly. ‘That proves-’
‘Nothing at all, Bren,’ said his secretary in a tired voice. ‘It’s only what Dan told me himself. There’s no corroboration.’
‘Merciful God in heaven!’ burst out McKenna. He was at the sideboard again, his features pinched and drawn.
Lynch’s eyes were losing their dazed look, as if his mind had begun to function once more concerning the political realities.
‘You’re willing to let us handle this for the moment?’
‘I told Jimmy Wright to put a tail on Laverty.’
McKenna began, ‘That isn’t necessary-’
‘I think it is. But I’m willing to lay back apart from that. For the moment. But if I don’t get the answers I need — straight answers, and quick — I’m going to the grand jury with what I’ve got so they can ask the questions.’