Police precinct
“Can I see Officer MacDougal?”
The counterman looked up, and cocked a crooked grin. “Hey it’s the private Dick! What’s cooking, PI, you need real investigators to do your job for you?”
I smiled politely and told the desk Sergeant to send his mother my regards. A door behind him—Mac’s—opened, and the detective waved me in. I graciously accepted, with a hat tip to the steaming sentry.
Mac was a big, Irish man, but not in the stereotypical, too much corned beef and Guinness way. Sure, the hair was white, the nose was red, and the breath smelled of whiskey, beef, and potatoes, but the man was six-three and 165 lbs with two rolls of quarters in his pocket. He shut the door, and turned around. “What can I do for you?”
“Mac, tell me what you know about the kid they fished out of the East River.”
“What’s it to you?”
“It might be someone I’m looking for.”
“Really? I doubt that. He was a no one, from nowhere. Far as we can tell, nothing special about him in the slightest. He had a few bucks in his sock, a pretty girl in his pocket, and a nose that looked like it had taken a few knocks.”
“Was he shot first, then dumped, or did he take a mouthful of water?”
“Good guess... the former. He was shot twice, in the chest.” He glanced down at the open file, which lay at the top of a stack on his desk. “Only clue we have was the boy’s suit, a pin stripe number from DH Holmes.”
“Mac, do you have any idea where DH Holmes is from?”
“I got a man working on it now.”
“You can call him back in because I can tell you: New Orleans.”
“Interesting.”
“So you’ve got an out-of-towner with a hole or two in his chest, and a few ten spots in his shoe. That means it wasn’t a robbery. If it was, they’d have pulled off the shoes before dumping, and have found the money.”
Mac chimed in. “And if it was over that girl, there’d have been more action than a clean shot. He must have been some low level bum from New Orleans thinking he could play with the big boys. People forget the New Yorker is always the biggest kid on the block.”
“Who’s guarding the playground these days?”
“The big kids around town? We’ve been getting a lot of noise about an outfit out of lower Manhattan. One of the Marizzano brothers.” I knew the name: nice, medium-level syndicate, with a small but comfortable piece of turf. They run some booze, some dope, and some women, defend it well, but nothing too major. “The Marizzano brothers know to leave the Chicago boys alone, leave the Brooklyn and Jersey boys alone, and tread lightly anywhere past the Park. I am sure this kid just didn’t read the bus map, got off on the wrong block, planted his flag, dropped his booze, and—”
I finished his thought. “And got taken out.” Mac nodded with tight lips, and closed the file.
“That’s very interesting, Mac.” I’d come across a few of the Marizzano boys here and there. Good enough guys—never done me no harm—but if they knocked off my lady’s man, she had a right to know who was responsible. She seemed like the kind of chick who needed a name and face to focus her hatred. The name Marizzano, and the image of a greasy, pimped-out and pencil-thin hit man, seemed to be good enough.
Mac pressed a skinny finger onto the file folder. “You really think this is your guy?”
“Yeah, amazingly enough, I do, and I’m not complaining. It would be nice for me to get an easy one. Where’d you put the body?”
“He is either still at the City Morgue or on his way to Hart, to meet all the other John Does that have dropped in the last fifty years.”
“Thanks Mac.” I rose, and made for the door. “And hey, if it is my guy, can you help me get him off the no-name list?”
“What, now you want to give him a proper burial?” He put his hand to his heart. “Wow, look at you being sentimental.” I sneered and reached for the knob, until he called me back. “You want the body? Sure, why the hell not?” He scrawled a few notes across an official-looking form, then handed it to me. “This will get you on the boat from City, and will probably get the overseer out there to listen to you. If he’s in any sort of good mood, he’ll let you look around, and if you’re so lucky as to find you lover boy out there, they deliver.”
I’d have to put the search on ice for the night—it was getting close to quitting time, and I had somewhere to be at the five o’clock whistle—but I tucked the slip into my pocket and saw myself out.
