Act of Fear (2 page)

‘Yeh.’

He seemed to think he had painted a picture of great clarity. Maybe he had.

‘You mean that you and Jo-Jo were doing your work on the motorbike at Schmidt’s Garage?’

‘Yeh. Jo-Jo he works by Schmidt’s. I mean, he works there regular, ‘n the last couple months we been workin’ on the new bike there.’

What Pete Vitanza was trying to tell me, in the inarticulate manner of Chelsea, was this: Jo-Jo Olsen was missing when he had no reason to be missing that Pete knew, and every reason to not be missing; Patrolman Stettin had been mugged near where Jo-Jo Olsen worked; and Jo-Jo did his fade-out the morning after Stettin had been attacked. It could be something. It could be nothing.

‘Did Jo-Jo need money? The cycle must have cost,’ I said.

‘Jo-Jo stashed his loot. He’s a good mechanic. Schmidt pays him good, ‘n he don’t got to give money home.’

‘Did he need a pistol? Maybe he was going into business.’

‘Hell, no!’ Petey said quickly. ‘Anyway, his old man got guns. He could of got a gun.’

‘Did he ever have any trouble upstairs? Psycho? Any time on the funny farm?’

‘No,’ Pete said.

The day was too hot. It was a thousand-to-one that there was no connection between a kid missing a lousy four days, and the mugging of Stettin. But a thousand-to-one is still only odds. It is far from an impossibility. Jo-Jo did not sound like a bad kid, but, then, Pete Vitanza was his friend. Jo-Jo did not sound like a boy with any reason to do a rabbit act. He sounded like a hardworking, ambitious kid. He even sounded a little too good for Chelsea right then and there.

‘On the day Stettin was hit, last Thursday,’ I said, ‘were you and Jo-Jo at the garage all the time?’

‘Up to maybe six o’clock.’

I did not know the exact time of Stettin’s mugging, but from the rumours it figured to be between 5.30 and 7.30 p.m.

‘You were together the whole time?’

Pete Vitanza’s Adam’s apple worked again. ‘We took turns riding the bike. I mean, we was testing it, working it. Maybe we’d be gone ten, fifteen minutes sometimes.’

‘Out of sight?’

‘Yeh.’

‘You think he saw something he shouldn’t have?’

His Adam’s apple did a dance. ‘I don’ know, Mr Fortune. Only I know he wouldn’t of faded this week-end for nothin’ except some bad trouble. When I seen him Friday mornin’ he was scared, you know? I mean, he said he couldn’t work none, he had some business.’ And the scrawny kid looked at me out of those dark eyes. ‘Maybe he needs some help, Mr Fortune. I mean, you got to help him, find him. I can pay.’

I like to think I had decided to help Petey before he said that. Like most men who despise money, I always need some. But I know I wasn’t considering the money angle at that point. How much could a slum kid have anyway? No, I had already decided to help, I know I had. I had nothing better to do, and I was pretty sure then that it was all nothing. Jo-Jo was on a binge. Maybe away in the hay with some juvenile Jezebel. Boys don’t tell each other everything. But it was important to Pete; he was sweating in his chair. As my cases go it was no worse than usual. A boy wanted to help his friend. It was better than most of my cases, and I could always use money.

‘I’ll check it out,’ I said. ‘How much can you pay?’

‘Would fifty bucks be okay? I mean, for a start?’

I get five dollars for a summons and two dollars an hour for guard work. Industrial snooping pays better, plus expenses. For just about anything else I get what the traffic will bear up to maybe twenty-five dollars a day. Chelsea is not a haven of the rich. The kid surprised me by having fifty dollars. I didn’t think that there would be more.

‘Tell me more about Jo-Jo. Other friends?’

‘We ain’t got a lot of friends. Jo-Jo he’s kind of a loner, you know? We works mostly on motors. I asked around some.’

‘I’ll start from scratch,’ I said. ‘Girls?’

‘Nothin’ special. Maybe some I don’ know about.’

‘You mentioned a Driscoll?’

‘Nancy Driscoll. She’s older like. Only she ain’t a real girl friend. I mean, she chased him, you know?’

‘Where do I find her?’

‘I don’ know. I ain’t seen her in a while. I figure Jo-Jo been keepin’ her under wraps from me, you know?’

‘Where did he play cards, shoot dice, drink, have his fun?’

‘Jo-Jo don’t gamble. He likes movies. He drinks a lot o’ places. Maybe by Fugazy. He goes to dances by Polish Hall. He goes to the Y. He goes by the Y alone; I don’ swim.’

‘Give me a list; anyone and anywhere. His home address. You got a picture?’

‘I figured you’d want that,’ Pete said.

He handed me a small snapshot. It was poor, but it showed Pete with a motorbike and a tall, blond, good-looking boy of the same age. It would have to do. After Pete gave me the list of names and places, I sent him home.

I called Marty. I had fifty dollars and first things first, right? She was friendly but busy.

‘New girls at the club, baby, I have to rehearse,’ Marty said, ‘I’ll see you at five, okay? Don’t spend the fifty.’

It left me with a free afternoon. There was nothing to do but go to work. I was not anxious. A boy missing for four days was hardly a hot case. But I was on my way out when the phone rang.

‘Fortune,’ I said. I waited. ‘This is Dan Fortune.’

Silence.

But not quite silence. There was something like heavy breathing. I waited. Nothing but the breathing. I hung up. I suppose I should have sensed something then and there. I did stare at that telephone. But that kind of call happens to someone every day in New York. We’ve got a lot of cranks.

I went out and walked to the precinct station. That’s always the first stop. They had no record on Jo-Jo Olsen, but Lieutenant Marx seemed interested. I wondered some about a kid who had reached nineteen in Chelsea without even a juvenile record of any kind. Not even a prank arrest. It made this Jo-Jo sound even more special. I also wondered why Lieutenant Marx seemed interested. I asked him if Jo-Jo Olsen mean something to him, record or no record. Marx said no. He offered no other comment. The police do not give out free information.

I saw the big man when I came out of the precinct into the hot sun.

He was across the street. He was very interested in the window of a bookstore. Which is one of the things that caught my eye. He did not look like a man who read books, and I was pretty sure the level of his eyes and the angle at which he stood showed that he was not looking at the books at all. He was watching the station-house in the window.

The second thing that caught my eye was his shoes. He had the smallest feet I ever saw on such a big man, and the shoes were those old-fashioned, pointed, two-tone brown and beige the sports wore in the twenties.

I started across the street. He walked away fast. I watched him go and thought about the silent telephone call.

Chapter 3

Tommy Pucci was on the bar at Fugazy’s. I drank two beers before I started the questions. That is protocol. In Chelsea protocol is as rigid as it is at the Court of St. James, maybe more rigid. With my third beer I asked the question. Tommy wiped the bar.

‘I ain’t seen Olsen,’ Tommy said.

‘For the record or for real?’ I said. ‘Jo-Jo is clean. A friend just wants to find him.’

Pucci thought. It must have seemed safe. ‘I ain’t seen him in a couple days. I told Vitanza.’

‘Tell me something you didn’t tell Pete. Any friends, girls, Pete doesn’t know about.’

Tommy thought. ‘Maybe the Rukowski pig.’

‘A girl?’

‘Jenny Rukowski. I seen Jo-Jo go out with her sometimes. I never seen Vitanza near her.’ Tommy grinned. ‘I figure Jo-Jo is maybe ashamed he’s seen with Rukowski. I know how he feels.’

‘Where do I find her?’

‘Wait around. Only she don’t come in that much.’

Tommy went to tend to business. Rukowski had to be Polish. Polish meant Roman Catholic. I dropped money and a buck for Tommy and walked a couple of blocks to St. Ignatius (Polish) Roman Catholic Church: Father Martinius Reski.

Father Reski turned out to be an old man who knew Jenny Rukowski all right – a no-good girl who never came to mass. When I told him that I was a cop of sorts, he gladly gave me her address. I think he hoped that Jenny, the tragedy of her poor mother’s life, was about to be punished for her wickedness.

The address was near the church. It was the usual shabby tenement. The Rukowskis lived on the third floor. The girl who finally answered my knock was tall and big all round. She looked like she was sleeping off a hippo of a hangover when I knocked.

‘Jo-Jo Olsen!’ she said when I asked. As if it was a dirty word.

‘You do know him?’

Her hair was a dirty blonde and thick. It needed a comb. She was not pretty. She was heavy and ugly and her eyes had a tendency to blink even in the dark hallway. She did not ask me in.

‘Put-put-put,’
she said. ‘Those damned bikes.
Put-put-put,
crap! No kicks. I mean, that creeper never turned on, you know?’

‘But he was a boyfriend of yours?’

She giggled. ‘You’re a sweet one. Hell, man, he was a creep I made it with sometimes before I knew he was a creep. I ain’t got boyfriends, if you read me.’

‘I read you,’ I said. She seemed to have no interest in making it with me even before she knew I was a ‘creeper’. I did not know whether to be flattered or hurt. About then I had gotten the message. Jenny Rukowski spent most of her time on Cloud Ninety-seven, and not from whiskey. Whiskey did not reach as high as she lived.

‘You know where Jo-Jo went, Jenny?’ I asked.

‘Went?’

‘He seems to be missing, vanished, gone,’ I spelled out.

She blinked. ‘You’re puttin’ me on, mister! Jo-Jo? You got to be kiddin’! Jo-Jo a rabbit? Christ, he wouldn’t never leave that monkey job. Like he sleeps in the grease pit.’ Then she brightened. ‘Hey, maybe he got with it, yeh? Maybe he turned on. Turn on, tune in, drop out.’

‘How about a girl,’ I tried. ‘Some girl give him a bad time?’

‘Jo-Jo?’ She kept saying the name as if not sure just who we were talking about. ‘He had his bike,
put-put-put.’

She seemed to think that sound was very funny. I watched her blink. ‘There was a square broad. Old, too. Maybe twenny-five! Only it was the broad was after Jo-Jo, yeh.’

‘Does she have a name?’

‘Who got a name? Hell, maybe he joined the Vikings.’

‘Vikings?’ I said. ‘A street gang?’

‘Man, like you got no education. The Vikings, them old-time guys, you know? I mean, Jo-Jo was hipped on them. Horns on their heads ‘n all. Beards ‘n horns.’

‘The Vikings,’ I said. I think I stared. In Chelsea no one cares about the past, not even yesterday. ‘He was interested in history?’

But I had lost her again. ‘Hey, one arm! Crazy!’

She had spotted my missing arm. Her eyes dilated as she stared at my pinned sleeve.

‘Who else knew Jo-Jo good?’ I asked.

‘One arm!’ she said. ‘Like crazy.’

‘You can count,’ I said. ‘Now tell me more about Jo-Jo.’

‘Beards’n horns. Crazy.’

She was gone. I left her dreaming of beards and horns and one-armed men. She had her troubles. She was big and ugly and her home was a sinkhole. Maybe she made a lot of her own troubles, but don’t we all when you come down to it? I went down and out into the heat and sun.

I walked across town to Water Street and Schmidt’s Garage. Schmidt wasn’t there. The garage office was locked. Schmidt had not replaced Jo-Jo. I studied my list. Both the YMCA and Automotive Institute were up on Twenty-Third Street. My feet hurt already. I took a taxi.

The Automotive Institute was closest to the river, and the cab reached it first. I went in and asked about Jo-Jo Olsen. They handed me over to a thin, pale man who wore glasses and a snarl and was called an instructor.

‘No, I haven’t seen Olsen! He had an important exam on Friday. He didn’t come. He had shop on Saturday. He missed it!’

He was annoyed as hell about Jo-Jo. He seemed to think that it all made him look bad. He took it personally. He acted like a man who would enjoy kicking a student out.

‘Do you know anyone who might know about Jo-Jo?’ I asked. ‘Some student, maybe? A special friend?’

‘Rhys-Smith,’ the instructor said. ‘He might know what Olsen was up to. Not that I don’t know what Olsen is kicking around.’

I perked up my ears. ‘You know?’

‘Who doesn’t? They’re all the same. I try to teach them how to be useful. All they want is some floozie. I know Olsen.’

I sighed. Everyone has a hobby horse in his brain. The instructor spent too many hours trying to teach kids who really only wanted to grow up fast and be big men. The instructor was discouraged by too many years of failure. He was bitter. A teacher who had learned that no one wanted to be taught; they just wanted an easy road to easy money.

‘What about this Rhys-Smith?’ I said. ‘Who is he and where do I find him?’