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We sat in silence until he started to reach inside his coat.
“Ah, ah, ah.” My finger was on the trigger.
He froze. “May I smoke?”
“Why not? But reach very slowly.”
He carefully removed a cigar from his coat pocket and bit off the end.
“If you spit that on my carpet, I’ll shoot you.”
He let it fall in his palm, dropped it in the ashtray, then lit the cigar with a match, a long circular motion until the tip was red as a smelter. As if my dream had foreshadowed this moment, Greenbaum looked at me like a rottweiler assessing how easily he could rip out my throat.
“What brings you to my humble lodgings, Mr. Greenbaum?”
“Gus,” he instructed. “May I call you Gene?”
I didn’t see why not.
“You have me all wrong, Gene. Your pal Barry Goldwater has a very active imagination. In reality, I’m a businessman, serving a need with the latest technology. You and Barry may imagine that I’m taking over this town with a Chicago typewriter, but that’s silly. Phoenix has welcomed me with open arms. Goldwater and Rosenzweig have opened doors. I’m welcome at the chamber of commerce. This is a great place for my new service’s Southwest operations.” He tapped his finger and an inch of spent cigar embers dropped into the ashtray. “All my relationships are transactional, see? The power of money will outdo the power of a Tommy gun any day.”
“You’re a pretty good lock picker.”
He smiled. “An old trade I learned many years ago. I’m sure you can do it, too.”
That much was true, even though we were on different sides of the law.
“So why pick my lock?”
After savoring his Cuban, he spoke. “I didn’t expect to find you at home. I supposed you were off with your girlfriend. See, I have a problem. I foolishly got involved with a girl who got herself killed. She went by Cynthia, but I learned her name was really Carrie Dell. I gave her a loan to help get her business started, and she paid me back in more ways than one. But something went wrong and she was murdered. A little birdie at police headquarters told me you were investigating that killing, even though you’re officially off the force. I assumed you might have some of her records that might be embarrassing to me.”
I set the .45 beside me and lit a nail. “That might implicate you as her killer?”
“Not at all. Killing is bad for business, especially the way the poor girl was sawed apart.”
I had to admit the Dell homicide was more like a lust murder, like the University Park Strangler, than an organized crime hit.
I said, “Maybe I can help if I know what you’re looking for?”
He chuckled. “You’d like to help put me in the gallows for killing her. Nevertheless, Carrie might have written down my name and phone number. I’d prefer that not become public record.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’m enjoying becoming part of respectable Phoenix. I like this little city. It’s going places. The truth is I was going to find this information and pilfer it.”
“Is that so, Big Cat?”
He looked confused enough that I knew he was not Big Cat.
I said, “My problem, Gus, is that somebody set off a smoke bomb below my office and used that distraction to steal the records I found from Carrie.” I lied about his phone number in the list from the answering service. “So whatever worries you was taken. My expectation is that whoever took it has already stuck it in an incinerator. I don’t think they’re going to give it to the newspapers, and what if they did? Carrie is still classified as a suspicious death, not a homicide.”
“Or they’re going to try to blackmail me. Look, Gene, I’m a married man. A divorce lawyer could make sure my wife could take half of what I own. I don’t need that distraction. And I answer to people in Chicago who wouldn’t like it at all.”
It was such a prosaic answer that I almost believed it. “A guy like you could arrange an ‘accident’ to eliminate your wife. Otherwise, I expect you know how to handle blackmail, Gus. But if you hear from someone in that racket trying to lean on you, let me know. I can help.”
He set the cigar in the ashtray.
“I expect you could.” He leaned forward. “Now, if you won’t plug me, I’d like to stand and leave and thank you for the conversation.”
