Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (31 page)

Donahue crept to the end of the hall, climbed out to a fire-escape, swung to the kitchen window. Bishoff saw his shadow, swivelled. Donahue fired across the woman on the floor. Bishoff’s bullet struck the upraised window; glass rained down on Donahue as he fired again. Bishoff fell back against the wall, grimacing, trying to raise his gun.

Donahue jumped through the window, stepped over the woman. Bishoff cursed him, still tried to raise the gun. He groaned. The gun went off and a bullet banged into the floor. He couldn’t raise the gun. He fell down, belching.

The woman was creeping towards the door. Donahue laid his gun down, tore open Bishoff’s coat, plunged his hand into Bishoff’s pocket. He drew out a thick sheaf of bills held together by an elastic band. He transferred them to his own pocket.

As he stood up he heard heavy shoes rapping up the stairs, hard voices exclaiming. Tom Brannigan loomed in the doorway, his gun leveled.

“Hands up!”

“Your eyesight bad, Tom?”

“Jeeze, it’s Donahue! What you been—Jeeze you got him!” Brannigan tramped across the room. “I told you, Donny, to save him for us! Watcha want to go and—Say, I would ha’ had that baby. I got tipped off an hour ago it was him was runnin’ with Louie Brown. Louie, we find, is wanted in Denver. He cleared outta there six months ago after knifin’ a woman!”

Half a dozen cops crowded in.

Brannigan bent over Bishoff. “Well, you wiper! Well—Hey, he’s dead! Well, c’n you tie that!” He turned to Donahue. “How come you meet up with him?”

“Well, Tom, I was strolling up Broadway in the Twenties, when I saw him. He saw me at the same time. I said to myself: ‘I’ll tail him and hole him up somewhere and then call Tom Brannigan.’ I tried to, Tom. But he got loose with his gun. He got me in the arm. I—I’ve got to get to a hospital, Tom. Look me up there.” He put his gun away. “You’re not sore, are you, Tom?”

“Well”—Brannigan scowled—“what’s the use o’ gettin’ sore. I’ll okey this, Donny.” He jerked his head. “Beat it to the hospital before you get infection. I’ll see you there later.”

Donahue went downstairs, pushed through the curious mob, found a taxicab. He climbed in, fell back, called out the Agency’s address. He got white on the way downtown. Getting out of the cab in Park Row, he staggered.

He walked stiff-legged into Hinkle’s office. Hinkle shoved his chair back.

“My——! Donny, what’s the matter!”

Donahue flopped to a chair, drew out the sheaf of bills.

“Count them, Asa.”

“But you—you—you’re sick.”

Donahue licked his lip. “Upset stomach, I guess. Count them, Asa.”

Hinkle pulled off the rubber bands, began counting. As he counted, his eyes grew wider. Donahue sighed in the chair, dropping his chin to his chest.

Asa said: “Exactly twenty thousand!”

“Good. He must have been afraid to spend any of it so soon. See that gets back to Mrs. Jennifer, Asa. Do it now. And tell her to forget about it. I’m pretty sure I’ve burned all my bridges behind me. Tell Mike Mueck to come over to the hospital to see me sometime, if he’s not busy.”

He stood up. His right hand was red. The blood had come down his sleeve. He took a handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand.

Hinkle said, jumping up: “Why didn’t you tell me you were wounded, you idiot?”

Donahue went towards the door. “It’s not much, Asa. The punk just gave me a little something to remember him by.”

Asa heaved towards the clothes-tree. “I’ll go with you.”

“You’ll take that money right up to Mrs. Jennifer, that’s what you’ll do!”

He went out alone.

Tough dick Donahue crashes the murder trail of a band of red-hots

When Donahue heard the dull thump against the door he twisted around in bed and listened, pipe in one hand, magazine in the other.

The cylindrical brass reading lamp, clipped to the head of the bed, sprayed light on his neck, past his ears, picked out rumpled twists of black hair and left his face mostly in shadow.

Half a minute passed without a recurrence of sound. The tenth story room was intimately quiet.

Donahue looked at the clock on the little bed-table. It was twelve-thirty. He shrugged, pyramided the coverlet with his knees, took a drag at his briar and resumed reading.

Then another sound reached his ears: a scraping, like cat’s claws on wood. Then a definite thump. Donahue sat up slowly, laid aside the magazine, reached over and placed his pipe on the bed-table. He shoved big, strong feet out of bed and stood up in gray silk pajamas. He scowled at the door, a little annoyed, a little curious.

He took a flat black automatic pistol from the bed-table drawer and released the safety. He held the gun negligently, like one accustomed to guns, and moved slowly on bare feet towards the door. Silently he threw the catch. His left hand closed over the knob, he turned it as far as it would go, then yanked the door inward and stepped back.

A man fell flat on his face across the threshold. He had been kneeling by the door. He went down so fast that Donahue did not see his face. Donahue stood motionless, covering the man.

“Well, get up,” he said.

The man did not move. A muffled phlegmatic groan reached Donahue’s ears. He took a step across the man and looked up and down the hall; saw no one. He stepped back in, bent down, gripped the man’s shoulder and turned him over on his back. He couldn’t see the face clearly, so he switched on the ceiling light.

There was a thread of blood lying from one corner of the stranger’s mouth down across his jaw. The lips were pursed tightly, the face muscles taut; in the glazed eyes was a fierce white look, blind and unseeing but awesome in its fixed intensity on space.

Donahue closed the automatic’s safety, knelt down, unbuttoned the blue topcoat, unbuttoned the vest. There was a wet splotch of crimson on a white shirt. Hoarse, spasmodic breathing pumped through the nostrils and the lips twitched but remained resolutely pursed.

Donahue said nothing. He somehow knew—because of the look in the eyes—that it would be futile to say anything. He stood up, ran his hand through his hair, took three long steps and picked up the telephone.

“A doctor—quick. A man’s dying…. Now, now, sweetheart, never mind. Get a doctor up.”

He hung up and slipped the receiver quietly into the hook. He went quickly into the bathroom, drew a glass of water and came back. He knelt down, looking at the eyes. He shrugged. He tried to get the man to drink. The man wouldn’t. He wouldn’t budge those lips.

Donahue set the glass down, remained kneeling on one knee, leaning with his elbow on the other. He reached down and patted the man’s shoulder. But he didn’t say anything. His face was somber, his brown eyes troubled.

The elevator door banged open and quick footsteps came down the hall. Donahue looked up and saw Mason, the chief night clerk—Mason, white-faced and breathless, eyes popping.

“The operator said—”

“Did she get a doctor?”

“He’ll be up—he’ll be right up. I called Monahan too. Good grief! What happened—what happened?”

“Ask me another,” Donahue muttered, still looking at the tortured face on the floor.

“Did you do anything? Did you—is he?…”

“Keep your pants on, Mason. What can I do? He’s been shot in the belly. He was lying against my door. I guess he couldn’t make his own. Know him?”

“He’s—why, he’s Mr. Larrimore! My——! he’s Mr. Larrimore!”

“Who’s Larrimore?”

“You know—you know. That—that column in the Press-Examiner: The Awful Truth.”

“Oh,” said Donahue dully; but his brown eyes brightened. He said, “Get that doctor, Mason. He doesn’t have to comb his hair. Tell him he doesn’t have to comb his hair.”

“Yes—yes.”

Mason ran down the hall.

Donahue leaned close to the tortured face, tried to lock his glance with the man’s.

“Larrimore. Larrimore, who got you? Why? I’m Donahue, Larrimore—Donahue of the Interstate Detective Agency. If you can talk, Larrimore, spill it. Listen, Larrimore—Donahue, you must have heard of Donahue. Who shot you, Larrimore?”

He gave it up. He heard the elevator door open. Mason and the house doctor appeared, followed by Monahan, the house officer.

“Get him inside,” Monahan said. “We don’t want to wake the hotel up…. Hello, Donahue.”

They dragged Larrimore in and Mason came last, closing the door. The doctor changed spectacles and knelt down. He felt the pulse, shook his head; unbuttoned the shirt, pulled up the undershirt. He looked quickly at the man’s face. He remained thus—looking at the face. Then he looked at his watch.

“Twelve-thirty-seven,” he said; rose, adding: “He’s dead—quite dead.”

“Good grief!” choked Mason. “And we’ve never had a scandal—”

Donahue rasped, “That’s all you’re thinking about!”

The three men looked at him. He shrugged and went across and picked up his pipe, tamped it down. Monahan, a short, round-bodied man with a bald head, went to the telephone.

“Get Police Headquarters, Miss McGillicuddy. Detective-Sergeant Kelly McPard. Tell him to come right over. Mention my name…. Yes—yes, he died. And don’t forget to mention my name.”

He hung up and looked importantly at Donahue. “You don’t happen to know anything about this, do you?”

“Not a thing.”

Monahan picked up Donahue’s gun, smelled the muzzle, drew out the clip. The gun was fully loaded—six in the magazine, one in the chamber. Monahan shoved back the magazine and laid the gun down.

Donahue, sitting on the bed, said: “You opened the safety, Monahan. When you monkey around with my gun leave it the way you found it.”

Kelly McPard was a big fat man with a neat, sandy mustache and rosy cheeks. His eyes were bright blue, whimsical, and he smiled easily, though a man with any sense at all could see the wiliness behind his good humor. He dressed in the height of fashion, and he drifted in through the door smoking a cork-tipped cigarette and looking like a million dollars.

“Hello, Monahan. Why, hello there, Donahue. Hello, Dr. Stress…. Well, well, this is not so nice. Did you shoot him, Donahue?”

“Yeah. Twice in the belly.”

McPard chuckled and laid down his hat. His hair fell back in silken, shiny waves, without a part.

“Who is he?”

“He’s—Mr. Larrimore,” Mason said. “He lives down the hall in 1010. You know him—I mean, that column in the Press-Examiner.”

“A.B. Larrimore,” nodded McPard. “H’m.”

“Shot twice in the stomach,” Dr. Stress said. “He died a moment after I arrived here. There was nothing I could do.”

Mason said: “The elevator boy said he thought Mr. Larrimore was—well, you know, a little drunk—the way he walked, I mean. He sort of staggered into the elevator, with his coat collar up. He didn’t say anything. The elevator boy knew the floor.”

“He never made his room,” Donahue said. “He fell against my door, sank there. I heard the thump. I was reading in bed.”

Mason yammered: “He wasn’t shot in the hotel. I saw him come in the front, kind of staggering, his chin in his collar. He was like that a lot. But if he was shot like that, why did he come here to die?”

“He was out on his feet,” Donahue said. “A man gets like that and he steers for home. Or maybe he didn’t think he was hurt so bad. Some guys don’t like to slobber all over in public.”

“Might call that dying manners,” McPard said.

“You were the guy told Scotch jokes at an Irish wake one night, weren’t you?” Donahue said.

McPard had a velvet chuckle. He pulled up his trouser-legs by the knees before kneeling down. He wore sheer silk socks, starched cuffs with gold links. He pawed Larrimore’s pockets casually, whistling absent-mindedly in a whisper.

“H’m—right in the guts—side by side…. See it, Donny? Tsk, tsk!… No powder burns on the coat. No hand shake kill. I think I’ll have a look at the bullets anyhow. So you might call the morgue, Monahan. Thanks…. H’m, thirty-three dollars, sixty cents. And—isn’t this a good-looking cigarette case?” He wrapped it carefully in a silk handkerchief. “You never know,” he sighed.

There was a furious pounding on the door. Monahan swore, stuck out his jaw and yanked it open. Libbey, of the City Press, reeled in, turned around once and flopped down in a chair.

“My——! He’s shot too!” Mason cried.

“Plastered,” Libbey said. “Bacardi cocktails again. Hello, Donny, you big tramp. Hello, Sarge…. So Larrimore got it. Where? When? Come on, Sarge, whom do you suspect? There has got to be a suspect. Come on. I got the tip from H.Q. and I gave three other news-hawks a phony address, I think it was a lying-in hospital or a hotel for Lithuanian immigrant girls. Hello, Monahan, how’s the keyhole business these nights?”

“Should I put this bum out?” Monahan said.

“You and what other two Swedes?” Libbey laughed.

“Leave him be,” McPard said, still pawing Larrimore’s pockets. “Only shut up, Libbey.”

Donahue brought Libbey a drink and that shut him up.

McPard said: “Well, he has nothing on him worthwhile. If he walked here, he couldn’t have been shot far away. Else he came in a cab. I’ll find if he came in a cab. Was he drinking, Doc?”

“There was a faint smell of liquor. Not very distinct, however.”