Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (12 page)

“I’m a private cop. I work for a salary. I get a bonus on big jobs I turn. Crosby’s uncle offered to pay the Agency ten thousand dollars. I get the bonus by getting to the core of things before the cops do. That’s the whole shebang in a nut-shell.”

She considered him for a moment. Then she said, “The trouble is, you don’t believe I loved Crosby.”

“All right…. I’ll believe you loved him.”

“You say that easily.”

“Maybe I’ll be able to say it easier after you’ve told me things.”

She sighed brokenly, moistened her lips. She looked at the ceiling and said, “I did love him. He loved me. I met him on the boat train from Paris to Cherbourg. Alfred and I were traveling as brother and sister. We were only two days out when Robert told me he loved me. Alfred never loved me. We weren’t like that to each other. We just—traveled together, for reasons.

“Alfred was bringing home a diamond he’d lifted from a woman at Cannes. It was worth about seventy thousand dollars. It was set in a platinum medallion, a pendant sort of thing. We got to Paris with it. We got the stone out of the platinum medallion, threw everything away but the stone.

“When we were three days out of Cherbourg, Alfred began to get one of his hunches. He was sure the Customs would pick it up. He browbeat me into planting it on Robert. I did. I didn’t want to, though. I told Alfred how I felt about Robert, and he scoffed—just as you’ve been scoffing. He threatened to expose me if I didn’t do as he said. I was afraid of the inevitable. I planted it on Robert. I worked it into one of his paint tubes, one that had been half used, with the bottom rolled up like you roll up a tube of toothpaste. I unrolled it, slit it, worked the diamond up into the paint and then re-rolled it.”

“Where does Babe Delaney come in?”

“Oh… Babe.” She sighed. “He was Robert’s bootlegger. The first day Robert was home he called Babe up, and Babe went down to see him. He saw a photograph of me lying on the table there—one Robert had taken on board ship. Robert remarked it was a picture of Leone Tenquist. Babe said nothing to him. He came to me and asked what my racket was. I told him it wasn’t anything. He said maybe I’d tell him or he’d tell Robert how things stood. Alfred and I had to let Babe in. We promised him ten thousand on sale of the diamond.

“Robert gave me a key to his flat. He said he’d be busy for a few days but that I could drop in any old time. I went down and looked for the tube of paint. I couldn’t find it. I told Alfred I couldn’t find it. He accused me of a double-cross. I swore I was telling the truth. Then Babe came, and when he heard the story he accused both of us. I told both of them the exact description of the tube of paint.

“Babe went down last night to look himself. He was tearing the place apart when Robert came in. Babe must have picked the lock. He did a two year stretch ten years ago for picking locks. He turned out the lights, but Robert went after him in the dark. Robert was pretty strong. Babe had to use a claspknife.

“Alfred stole the key I had to Robert’s flat. He went down. He was there when you arrived. I went down when I’d discovered my key was gone. It’s the truth, the God’s honest truth! I couldn’t get out of the racket. I tried to. I meant to after I’d gotten the diamond. I was going to let Alfred and Babe split. I was crazy about Robert.”

“And what happened to the diamond?”

“Gone. Robert had cleaned up, thrown out a lot of rubbish. The diamond went that way. Nobody got it.”

Donahue began untying the straps that held Irene’s feet. “You have nice little feet,” he said.

“Please—don’t ridicule me!”

He said, “Irene, that’s a swell story and it rings true. I’ll repeat it word for word to the bulls. You were a girl trying to go straight, but they had you in the toils of sin. Great?… Sure! I’ll boost your story fifty per cent by saying that it was you put me on the trail of Babe Delaney.”

She gasped, “Oh… not that!”

“Irene,” he said, untying her hands, “you want to save your skin. Babe Delaney muscled in. He was a punk. You want a fresh start in life—”

“You’re ridiculing me!”

“I promise you the sweetest sob story ever told, Irene. You may even get a run in vaudeville… but you’ve got to tell the cops that Babe Delaney carved Crosby. That’s your big and only way—out into God’s country…. But why did Alfred smoke the Babe?”

“He was sure that if he didn’t Babe would get him.”

Donahue stood up, smiled down at Irene. “Crosby knew a looker when he saw one, honey.”

Irene started to cry into her hands.

Donahue went towards the telephone saying, “Well, it’s the least I can do for Roper.”

When the door opened Roper stood there with his dour face and his lazy big eyes.

Donahue said, grinning, “You must come in.”

Roper walked in hunching his shoulders in his threadbare coat. He looked at Irene. She was standing with her back to the bureau. She looked very small and very lovely in a black dress that clung snugly to neat hips. Donahue closed the door and Roper stared at Irene with his big dispassionate eyes.

He said dully, “So you’re the moll in the case.”

“I wouldn’t call her a moll,” Donahue said.

Roper did not look around at Donahue but he said, “Keep your oar out of it, Donahue.”

Then he walked heavily to the bureau, gripped Irene’s arm.

“You look like the kind,” he said. “You look like the kind I like to get nasty with.”

Donahue put in, “Why, Roper, because a good-looking jane would never give you a tumble?”

Roper turned somberly. “You looking for a punch in the jaw?”

Donahue snarled, “Ah, grow up, copper. Keep that stuff for the coked wops you’re used to slapping. I gave you a break. This little pinch is yours but you’ve got to handle it right. This girl steered me onto Babe Delaney for the Crosby kill. You’ve got the guy killed him. Why pick on the ladies?”

Roper looked at Irene. “You say Babe killed Crosby?”

She faltered, “Ye-es.”

He shook her arm brutally. “Why the hell didn’t you come to the police?”

Donahue said, “She thought I was a real copper, Roper. When I told her dick—I didn’t say private. She and Crosby were in love. She’s sidestepped a bit, but she was trying for a straight and these bums got in her way. You can see she’s a good woman.”

“Don’t kid me, Donahue.”

“I wouldn’t kid you, Roper.”

Roper dropped Irene’s arm. His eyes hung somberly on Donahue. He said, after a minute. “Okey, Irish. You’re a fast worker. If I was a younger cop, and ambitious, I might get God-awful sore. But I’m retiring soon. I’m used to routine.” He turned to Irene. “Get your things on, sister.”

Irene put on her mole coat and the dark cloche hat. Roper opened the door and waited in the hall. Irene went out. Donahue went out, snapped off the lights, closed and locked the door. He gave the key to Irene.

They were silent going down in the elevator. When they passed out into Broadway Roper said:

“We’ll take a cab down if you’ll pay the fare, Donahue.”

Tough dick Donahue takes up the trail of a gang’s sweet racket.

Donahue put down the whiskey-sour when he heard the muffled shot and looked at himself blank-faced in the mirror for the space of ten seconds. The bartender stopped his bar-rag half way through a leisurely stroke and put his round bald head attentively on one shoulder.

A drunk at the end of the bar stirred and hiccoughed and then made his face more comfortable in the crook of his elbow.

Roper, the precinct dick, stopped picking his teeth and scowled sourly over his shoulder at the door.

A girl sitting at a wall-table asked, “Was—was that a shot?”

“Was it?” the man with her said.

Far away, a police whistle….

Roper turned, hunched his wide bony shoulders in his threadbare dark gray coat and rapped his heels hard on his way out. Donahue followed.

Grove Street below Sheridan Square was a gloomy street walled in by low dark-faced houses and punctuated at infrequent intervals by small yellow lights indicating speakeasies.

Roper was a gaunt, lunging figure seen for a split-moment beneath one of these lights. Donahue was a slower figure six paces behind.

Northeast on Grove was a small group of people—shapes, shadows in the glow of an ineffectual street light. A shiny visored cap and metal buttons flashed beneath the light. A woman was chattering in a high, strident voice, and there was the sound of windows grating open. Heavy heels rapped the cold winter pavement and more metal buttons passed beneath the street light.

Donahue came up behind Roper. Roper had his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets, a misshapen weathered hat yanked over his eyebrows. A fresh cigar jutted from a corner of his mouth.

“You, Klein?”

“Yeah. You, Roper?”

“Yeah…. ’Lo, Mahoney.”

“’Lo.”

“Guy got it, Roper,” Klein said, bending over a crumpled figure in the gutter.

“Cold?”

“No foolin’. Smack through the chest… right here.”

Mahoney was waving his hand. “You guys get back. Come on, everybody get back. You—I mean you too—”

“Ah, no you don’t,” Donahue said, laconic.

“Listen, baby—”

“Forget it, rookie.”

“That’s Donahue,” Roper threw in. “Private dick. A pest… but what the hell.”

“Well,” Mahoney grumbled; then turned on the others. “Come on, get back! Give the guy air!”

“Ah, hell, he’s dead,” Klein said.

“Come on, get back….” Mahoney’s shield flashed as he rocked back and forth with great importance.

The high, strident voice proclaimed, “It’s murder! Oh, a man’s been murdered!”

Roper half-turned with his dull long dour face. “Who’s making all the noise?”

Mahoney strode towards the cluster of people and repeated the question with added emphasis. An old woman was clawing at a black shawl she wore around her shoulders.

“I saw it!” she cried breathlessly. “I saw it!”

Roper slouched over and asked, “What’d you see?”

“Him—murdered!”

“Yeah?… Where were you?”

“I was comin’ down from the Square. I saw two men kind of close like. I thought first they were drunk. Then there was a shot. I heard the shot. And there was a burst of flame. I saw it. I heard the shot. This here man fell down.”

“Get a look at the other guy?”

“It was dark. How could I see him? I just saw him. I mean I didn’t see his face. He ran off, quick. He ran off down Bedford Street.”

“Big or little?”

“He looked bigger than this one. It was hard to tell but he looked bigger. I’m sure he was bigger. He ran down Bedford Street.”

Roper turned. “Anyhow, Mahoney, hike down Bedford Street and around kind of and see if any guy saw any guy running. Klein, pop up the Square and report. Tell ’em I’m here too. Tell ’em to shoot over the morgue bus.”

The two patrolmen started off on the double-quick.

Roper slouched back to the inert form, knelt down and fumbled in his own pockets.

Donahue knelt down beside Roper, drew a match from his pocket and scraped it against the curb. He cupped the flame over the dead man’s face. Legs of the man were on the sidewalk, the rest of him twisted down into the gutter, thin hair rumpled and moving in the winter wind.

Roper squinted and leaned closer, his long bony jaw stretching. “Hell,” he muttered.

“Familiar face?”

“Kinda.”

“What I thought.”

Roper said, “Yeah, I’ve seen the man before.”

Roper looked up slantwise with his dour eyes. His gaunt face was dully inquisitive.

As the match went out Donahue said, “Adler’s his name.” He struck another match and held it cupped over the dead man’s face. “Yeah, Roper…. Adler.”

“Adler, eh?… Why, yeah. Why, sure. Adler… sure. That house over in Waverly Place where this guy, this what’s-his-name… Crosby—yeah, Crosby. Where Crosby was rubbed out a couple of months ago by Babe Delaney. That’s right. Funny.”

He went through the dead man’s pockets. He took out pipe, tobacco pouch, keys, pen-knife, forty-two cents, a worn wallet containing eighteen dollars, a theatre ticket stub for a Fourteenth Street burlesque house, business cards of a coal dealer, a milk company, a radio store.

“No robbery,” Roper sighed. “Nope. No robbery. No smell of booze around, either. No lush job…. Adler, eh?”

The crowd had grown in numbers and had edged nearer, restless, curious.

Roper stood up, raising his gaunt nose beneath the yellow street light. “Anybody else see this?”

“I was comin’ down from the Square—”

“I mean anybody else?” Roper broke in.

Here and there—“No.” “No, Officer.” “No, not me,” in various degrees of hushed breathlessness.

Roper’s wide bony shoulders sagged. He took a limp cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between his loose wide lips. He fumbled in his pockets.

Donahue said, “Here,” lighting a match, and Roper shoved out his long jaw and put the end of the cigarette into the blowing flame. He looked over the flame with his dour eyes.

“Got a smell?”

“You?” Donahue smiled.

“I asked.”

Donahue snapped away the match and his chuckle was low and amused in the gloom.

“Hell,” he said, “I only find smells when my boss sends me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know that hooey, too. There was always something queer about that Crosby case. Something queer about the murder and that jane and the way the diamond disappeared and never showed up again.”

“The State wanted the killer of Crosby. It got him.”

“Yeah. It got him. And the ice that all the noise was about…just disappeared.” He looked hard at Donahue. “Sure you ain’t got a smell?”

“Nothing you haven’t got. You’re the big master-mind around this neighborhood. And you ask—me?”

“Ah, can it.”

“Okey.” Donahue shrugged.

The morgue bus came and went away bearing old Adler’s shattered body. One by one the crowd broke up, vanished. Mahoney came back and shook his head.

“Nobody saw nobody, Roper. The mutt pulled a neat fade-away, that’s a cinch.”

Donahue stood on the curb looking intently around on the street, up and down the gutter.