Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (35 page)

He could see that many of the windows were lighted now in the small apartment house. He saw a couple of men out front. He saw a policeman twirling his stick and listening, and then he saw Monahan. He did not slow down. He kept right on walking until he reached the group and then he stopped. He stopped and he eyed Monahan with a withering hard look.

“Hello, Monahan,” he said dully.

One of the men in the doorway said: “That’s the man!”

The cop wheeled, gripped his stick hard. “Hey, you!”

Donahue overlooked him. He kept looking at Monahan. His face was stony, his eyes cutting, and there was a bitter twist to his mouth. He looked angry—angry and filled with loathing.

“So you did tail me after all, Monahan,” he said.

“Now be reasonable, Donahue—”

“Be reasonable your sweet aunt’s eye! And just like you, you went and balled up the whole shooting match. You copied every move I made, you dirty poacher. So it was you was hiding out here. Why didn’t you give me a hand when there was action?”

“Jeeze, Donahue, I was in that car—”

“You were in that car too, I suppose, when you saw me look at that stiff in the street. But you didn’t come out. You thought there might be more fireworks. You let me go and then you sneaked back here to try to steal a march on me. A poacher, Monahan—that’s you all over your dirty face.”

“Now look here, jazzbo,” the cop broke in.

“And you,” Donahue snapped. “I don’t like that word jazzbo from any harness bull. Keep your jaw out of this.”

“He was the man that struck us,” repeated the man in the doorway.

Donahue looked up at him. “Oh, go inside and put your pants on.”

“Did you bust these people?” snarled the cop.

“Sure I did. I had a red-hot in my hands and they jumped me. The result of that is all the banging you hear up on Eighteenth Street. Now don’t take yourself serious, officer. I was on a hot tail. I had it sewed up, only this thick mick Monahan got his fingers in the pie. When the cops up on Eighteenth Street finish with the wipers they’re after they won’t know what all the shooting’s about. I had it sewed up—get me? Sewed up! Until this”—he looked at Monahan—“until this—Oh, what the hell’s the use!”

“Hell, Donahue,” Monahan complained, “don’t blame me. I was only trying to do my duty—”

“Duty? Why, you two-faced so-and-so, you were after the same thing I was. A pinch, to make a reputation and to get a probable reward. Don’t tell any fairy stories, Monahan. It doesn’t fit you at all.”

The cop poked him with his nightstick. “Now cut out the arguing. What I want to know is, what was all this about? Never mind any beefing. Just spring a little information. We’re trying to find out where the hell in this place the trouble started.”

Donahue knocked the nightstick aside, “Don’t get free with that, copper. Not on me. I’m touchy.”

Monahan was nervous. “Donahue, be reasonable. We can all share—”

Donahue, his nerves raw, his temper at its peak, took one step and made a furious swing at Monahan. Monahan ducked so fast that he fell down. The cop gripped Donahue and spun him around.

“One more break like that, Donahue, and I’ll crown you!”

“I never saw,” Monahan said, “such a guy!”

Donahue glared at the cop. “Call Headquarters,” he said. “Tell Detective-Sergeant Kelly McPard to come over.”

“Why?”

Donahue said: “Grab hold of that guy Monahan and hold him!”

“Look here, Donahue!” Monahan cried.

“Grab him!” Donahue shouted.

The cop cursed and grabbed Monahan, saying: “I didn’t like your story in the first place!”

They went inside to an apartment on the first floor. Monahan couldn’t speak. He was flabbergasted. Far away the sounds of shooting were beginning to diminish. Baffled and angry, the cop used a telephone. He asked for Kelly McPard. Kelly McPard was over at the morgue. He called the morgue.

“Sergeant McPard?… This is Patrolman Swansen.”

While he spoke Donahue looked out into the corridor. He stepped out casually, moved towards the staircase, then began climbing. When he reached the first landing he looked down. Then he went on, swiftly—climbed the next staircase two steps at a time. Listened again. Then he went down the corridor and stopped before the door at the left. He tried the knob cautiously. The door was locked. He looked around. Halfway down the hall a door stood open, the occupant of the apartment was downstairs.

Donahue stepped back, gathered his strength and rushed his shoulder against the door. He smashed the lock and burst into the living-room.

Beryl was standing in the middle of the room, holding the .25 Webley. It barked as Donahue lunged, holding out his left hand. The bullet pierced his hand, was deflected, and glanced off his cheek, leaving a silver-like streak. He crashed into the woman, grabbing her gun hand. A second and third shot thudded into the floor. He ripped the gun from her hand with his bloody left hand. He grabbed her with his right and hauled her out of the room, down the hall, into the vacated apartment. He slammed the door, locked it, turned on her and backed her across the room. He set her down in an overstuffed chair.

He took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around his wounded hand. He picked up the telephone and called the City Press. He asked for Libbey. He waited half a minute.

“Libbey?… This is Donny, you old soak. Hang on and get your pencil poised. I’ve got a red-hot here. Hang on.”

He set the phone down on the oblong library table. He pulled a chair up to it. He looked at the woman.

“Sit down there,” he said.

Her eyes looked green, glazed, murderous. Her red hair stood on end. She didn’t move. Donahue pulled her up and shoved her into the chair, pushed it closer to the table so that she faced the telephone. Then he went around to the other side of the table, sat down on another chair and drew out both guns.

“Get it out,” he said. “As I came in the door you fired and wounded me in the hand. I grabbed you and took the gun away from you.”

She began to laugh hysterically, in a cracked, mad voice.

“You fool—you fool! I took poison—just before you came. I saw the knob turning. I took poison. A double overdose of veronal. Laugh that off! In a few minutes I’ll be out of all this. I’ll never burn, damn you!”

She seemed not to notice the telephone. She stared at Donahue with green burning hatred.

Donahue spoke in a low whisper. “You took the easy way out, but I can make it harder.” He moved his guns. “I can make it messy and harder—with these.”

Her eyes widened, staring at the black muzzles.

“You’re a killer, Beryl. I can see it in your eyes. You killed Larrimore.”

“In a few minutes—”

“I can still cut the time short with—these.”

The whites of her eyes shone. Suddenly she screamed. “Yes, I killed Larrimore! I killed him—killed him—killed him!”

“You killed him.”

“I said I killed him!” she screamed. “Yes, and meant to. What does it mean now? I fooled you. I’ll not burn. Larrimore thought he was smart—smart. And I—showed him.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“You mean what was he trying to do! The snooper. I put him on the spot.”

“Why?”

Down below there were shouts and men running around, yelling up and down the stairways, trying doors.

Donahue said: “Tony and the rest just got smoked out. You heard the shooting. The cops got them.”

“Tony!” she cried, with bitter scorn. “He ran out on me. I asked him to stay—pleaded with him. The lousy bum had to go down the stairs. He said he would be back. He didn’t come back. And he left without paying me.”

“Paying you?”

“Yes, you fool! Do you think I would have shot Larrimore for love? I was paid. You never heard of a jane yet who got a guy on the spot, did you? Well, you’re hearing one now!”

She picked up a book and flung it on the floor.

“Larrimore was just a nosy newspaperman,” she rattled on. “He got some dope and he tailed it down. Tony, the bum, was a pay-off man for that vice ring the cops have been trying to run down. Larrimore began to nose around the Venetian Cellar. He had brains, that guy. It was tough I had to smoke him—but the dough looked good.”

Men were in the hall outside now.

Donahue urged: “Keep it up, keep it up.”

“What will you get out of it? I can feel the heart now…. So this guy Larrimore hangs around Tony’s for a few nights. But Tony didn’t know who he was then. Larrimore was getting the lay of the land all the time. Every night he was there he picked up one of Tony’s janes. He never picked the same one twice. After the janes began to compare notes it comes out that Larrimore would do nothing but take them to swell night-clubs and then send them away in a taxi. He always called himself Jack. He used to get them tight and then send them away so drunk they couldn’t remember what they’d said.

“Tony began to get worried. So then one little dame comes back after one of those sessions with a stroke of conscience. She used to be a friend of Magistrate Paglioni—”

“Who?”

“The boss of the vice ring. Magistrate Paglioni. Or he was a magistrate till last month. He resigned because the vice ring takes most of his time and there’s more money in it. He lives in class now.

“This little dame says she can’t remember whether she bragged about her playmate days with Paglioni, but she thought she did. She said Larrimore got her pretty drunk. But she did remember—she did remember that some guy slapped Larrimore on the back in one of those night-clubs and called him—Larrimore.

“Tony got a line on him. Get it? Larrimore, the newspaperman. The guy that’s been exposing things for the last year. Tony went to the boss. Paglioni went crazy—almost. I’ll tell it. Didn’t Paglioni give me the air once? I’ll tell it. Paglioni tells Tony to get rid of Larrimore.

“So I’m called in. How do you like that? I’m called in and Tony says it’s worth five thousand to bump off Larrimore. I angled so that Larrimore picked me up. He picked me up in Tony’s.”

Fists pounded on the door.

“Keep going,” Donahue said.

“We hung around and drank and then he said we should go somewhere else. To a ritzy place. I said sure. See, he never figured there would be any danger from a jane. He never figured that I packed a rod. I had it, baby, in my purse. We had the cab all ready. The guy who came in and took you out before—he drove it. It was parked outside, waiting.

“Larrimore and I got in and we drove off. We went over to Third Avenue and started north. I was a little tight and nervous, because I hadn’t bumped off a guy in a year and I was using a new gun. I heard an Elevated train coming up. I thought quick. I told Larrimore I would like some bourbon and pointed to a door where I said he could get some. Mike pulled up to the curb.

“Larrimore backed out, but he was suspicious. He looked it anyhow. He stood on the curb as the Elevated roared by overhead and then I let him have it. He dropped like a log. I was sure I’d finished him. I told Mike to drive off.”

Donahue heard the fists pounding at the door. He heard a key grating and withdrawn. But he was transfixed by the woman. Age had crept upon her. She looked haggard and vicious and dissipated. She was no longer the superb actress she had been earlier in the morning. Donahue, who had seen crime in its many strata, looked upon a gunwoman for the first time.

“Open this door or I’ll break it down!”

Green-eyed, the woman clutched at her breast. “Say, let’s have a gun. Let me blow those cops apart when they break in. Give me a break—before—I go.”

Donahue, who had a stomach for nasty sights, shuddered and began to wear a sickly look. Blindly, the woman flung herself across the desk, tried to grab one of his guns. He had no difficulty preventing her. She whimpered and lay on the table.

Donahue pocketed his guns, rose, picked up the telephone. “Hello, Libbey…. The name? Downstairs on the door it says Miss Beryl Mercine…. No, not mercy—M-e-r-c-i-n-e…. That’s right…. She’s lying on the desk now, dead, I believe…. She says veronal. I wouldn’t know…. Will that make the daylight editions?… Just, eh? Good…. Oh, that noise you hear is a hot-headed cop about to break in…. Now remember, sweetheart, the Interstate Detective Agency nabbed this case, with Donahue, if you please, to be credited. Don’t by any chance slip in any such name as Monahan—Just a minute, Libbey. Hang on.”

The door had burst inward. The patrolman loomed there with his gun drawn. A man in plain-clothes held a gun. Behind them, looking over their heads, was rosy-cheeked Kelly McPard, and farther back, Monahan.

The patrolman stamped in, red-faced, angry. “What the hell’s the idea? I’ve been looking all over this dump for you!”

Monahan yapped: “It was a trick! See! He’s got a woman!”

Kelly McPard came in, wearing his fixed cherubic smile. He crossed to the woman, took hold of her hair, lifted her head, looked at her face and let the head down again. Then he looked at Donahue, who was sitting on the desk, holding the phone in both hands and dangling one foot.

“Well, well, Donny, everybody is mad at you,” he said. “I see your hand is all messed up. Tsk! Tsk! What’s all the noise, and who’s the woman?”

“Beryl Mercine, who murdered one A. B. Larrimore and then died by her own hand.”

Kelly McPard almost lost his smile. But not quite. “I feel downhearted, Donny. I’m just after finding a woman’s fingerprints on that cigarette case I picked up, you remember. But it was a woman who was supposed to be out in Akron now. Bernice Marks. Also Barbara Markall. Also”—he nodded towards the woman on the desk—“this woman. Good, good work, Donny.”

“But, Sarge,” said the patrolman, “he went and—”

“And,” broke in Monahan, “he said I was mixed up in it. I want an apology!”

Wearily, Donahue spoke into the telephone. “Libbey… Say that Detective-Sergeant Kelly McPard was on the scene ten minutes after I was shot by the woman. He took full command in a very aggressive and thorough manner…. That’s right. And also—also, Libbey, mention Monahan’s name…. Yeah, good old Monahan. Mention the fact that I saved Monahan from being taken for a ride. He was already in the car. I shot the gunmen smack out of the car. Monahan has just asked me to apologize. I hereby apologize.”