Dirty Harry 09 - The Killing Connection Read Online Free PDF Page B

law,” Devlin reminded him when Harry rejoined his partner in a room in the building next door.
    “I’m not collecting evidence,” Harry replied. “I’m just getting information.”
    “The D.A. would come down on you like the Hindenburg if he knew you were doing this,” Fatso went on apathetically.
    “I’m not interested in making a case for Rothko,” Harry countered. “I just want to know what I can expect of the Bender. Besides,” he mused, turning to his partner, who was still stuffing corned beef into his face. “Who’s going to tell him?”
    His mouth full, Devlin looked up, made a wide, cheeky smile and put an onion ring over his head to serve as a halo. “Nobody here but us kosher chickens, boss,” he said.
    So it was that Harry saw Bender pass by a man in Lafayette Park who expertly handed off an envelope to him. Harry stuck with the hitman while sending Devlin after the messenger. The partners reconnoitered after the assassin returned to his hotel digs, and Devlin reported.
    “High class stock boy for investment firm.”
    “Who owns it?” Harry asked.
    “Already called it in and got the word,” Devlin replied. “Theodore Comstock, alias Teddy Tuccio.”
    Callahan listened with satisfaction. When somebody of Bender’s tightly wound egotism joined forces with someone of Tuccio’s slimey stupidity, sparks were destined to fly.
    “That little hood is certainly coming up in the world, isn’t he?” Harry suggested.
    Fatso shook his head sadly while returning to his post at the window overlooking the Commodore’s entrance. “ ’Tis a pity when one has to sink so low to be so rotten,” he said in a soft brogue. “Who do you suppose he wants to be rid of?”
    “Anybody in his way,” Harry replied, returning his attention to the earphones and tape recorder.
    “Bender must be pretty desperate to take money from a rat like Tuccio,” Devlin figured.
    “If I know our little Teddy,” Callahan said, “Bender probably hasn’t gotten the money yet. He’ll keep the hitman on the string for as long as he can get away with it.”
    A light flashed on the bugging console indicating the phone in Bender’s room was ringing. Brown Bender sounded incredulous when he picked up the receiver and heard the voice of “Theodore Comstock” on the other end.
    “I can’t get you the money yet,” Tuccio said.
    “What?” Bender boomed. “Are you crazy, man?”
    “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Tuccio said easily. “I’ve got an ‘in’ at the station. No tap has been set up at your hotel. If it had I’d know about it.”
    Callahan smiled.
    “Hey, honkey, I don’t much care about your ‘ins.’ Nobody calls Brown Bender and says they can’t pay. I can make all your ‘ins’ ‘outs.’ You understand me, fool?”
    The hitman sounded plenty mad, Harry thought. He didn’t return to the vernacular of the Negro streets unless he was sufficiently riled.
    “Listen, be cool,” Tuccio said with conviction. “That’s the only reason I’m calling personally, you see? I’m real busy with this deal I’m making, OK, so I just can’t make the appointment we set up initially. But don’t worry. I put an anti-bugging device on this end and called you to set up another meeting, right?”
    Callahan shook his head in disbelief. Tuccio had been lying so long he wouldn’t have known the truth if it came up and put its fist through his face.
    “You just tell me where and when,” the hitman growled threateningly.
    “Seven A.M. at the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market,” the businessman said. “Between the Southern Freeway and the railroad tracks near the corner of Oakdale and Silver Avenue, OK?”
    “I’ll be there,” Bender said. “You just make sure you’re there too, and with the money. I don’t let anybody pull something like this on me twice.”
    Brown Bender was a monster who had bashed his way out of his middle-class roots to buy as much repectability as he could while he graduated