Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (36 page)

Kelly McPard laughed.

Monahan said: “I’m going. I see I can’t depend on any of my friends any more.” He glared at McPard.

McPard said nothing, only winked at Monahan good-naturedly, and Monahan, bristling at the wink, turned and stamped out.

Donahue said: “Monahan… on the way down the stairs, Monahan, please fall and break your neck.”

“Tough Dick” Donahue objects to having his dates murdered and doesn’t care who pulls the strings.

Donahue went down four steps into the shadow ridden areaway, turned left and stopped before a wrought-iron gate. He pressed a button, stood humming Sweet and Lovely while drawing off yellow pigskins.

An inner door opened. A girl came and pressed her face to the wrought-iron bars and Donahue, saying: “Greetings, Carmen,” snapped her familiarly under the chin.

“Oh, it ees you, señor!”

The bolt clanged as it was thrown back. The door swung inward and Donahue followed it, a rangy tall man in a camel’s hair topcoat and a brown Homburg.

“You have been away a long time, señor.”

“Been slumming in the Village for weeks…. Let me.” He swung the heavy gate shut, slammed home the bolt, flicked a kiss off the girl’s cheek and laughed good-humoredly when she chided him. They went into the hall way, closed the inner door, and Donahue gave her his hat and topcoat.

“Listen, beautiful,” he said. “A lady’ll be here tonight. She’ll ask for me.”

“Si, señor.”

The Spanish atmosphere ended there. Going down the corridor and through a swing-door into a small luxurious bar, the scene was made Levantine by the barman, who swung a large nose towards Donahue and grinned, waved.

“Donny, as I live and breathe!”

Donahue hooked a heel on the polished rail and plucked a potato chip from a silver bowl. “Martini—dry, Maxie.”

“So where you been—where you been?”

“Oh, hither and yon…. Hello, Walter. How’s the kid?”

Walter Nass, the proprietor of the place, came across past a large hors d’ oeuvres table, gripped Donahue’s right hand with his right and felt Donahue’s biceps with his left.

He smiled. “Keeping fit, huhn, Donny?”

Donahue nodded past Nass’s square shoulder. “That Klay?”

“Yeah.”

Donahue turned back to the bar, planted elbows on it and lifted his Martini without taking an elbow off the bar. He drank and then suddenly turned and said: “I thought Klay was over on the West Side.”

Walter Nass shrugged, lifted his well-packed face and blew out a horizontal streamer of smoke. He changed the subject, saying: “Eating tonight or just on the way through?”

“I’ll want a table in one of your private rooms. There’ll be a jane along later…. I thought Klay was over on the West Side?”

Walter Nass shrugged. “What am I going to do about that?”

He turned and walked towards the headwaiter, who was beckoning from the dining-room entrance. Donahue turned to look after Nass, and Klay, eating at one of the bar tables against the back wall, looked up and waved his fork. Donahue moved his chin upward in acknowledgment, turned back to the bar and ordered another Martini.

Klay got up and came over, carrying his napkin with him and rubbing his chin free of salad oil. He wore his clothes with a theatrical elegance, carried himself erect. His cornsilk hair was brushed back in a pompadour. His face had been shaven very closely and powdered profusely, so that now it had a gray-white look. His eyes were mouse-colored, flat, and when he smiled he showed false upper teeth that made his face masklike.

“Imagine meeting you here, Donahue,” he drawled in a slow crusty voice.

“That calls for no imagination, Klay.”

“I’ve just started the meat course. Join me?”

“No, thanks.”

Klay’s eyelashes were almost white. “What’s going on at the District Attorney’s office these days?” he asked.

Donahue half-turned and looked over his cocktail at Klay. “I’m a private dick, Klay. What the hell do I know about the District Attorney’s office?”

Klay laughed softly. “Yeah, I get you; I get you.”

Donahue’s brown eyes were frankly disapproving of the plain-clothes man. Klay nodded mockingly, drew one corner of his mouth down, turned and drifted back to his table.

Donahue finished his second cocktail and went upstairs to a telephone booth. He dialed and while waiting for the connection scowled at his wrist-watch. He crowded the transmitter with his mouth.

“Get Mr. Castleman…. Donahue.” He tapped his foot for a long minute; stopped tapping it and dipped his head. “Frank?… This’s Donny…. Say, I don’t feel right. There’s a fluke here somewhere or else old man coincidence is on the job…. Well, Klay; he’s downstairs wolfing grub now…. Well, if it is coincidence I don’t give a damn, but if something leaked out and this crackpot is playing me ring-around-the-rosie—… I know, I know, but I’ve got a date with this jane and I don’t like to have Klay pulling a Dracula around here all night. If somebody in your office got loose-mouthed, it might be just too bad…. Okey, Frank. Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you all right. S’ long.”

He pronged the receiver, shoved out of the booth and went downstairs to the bar. He had two vertical creases between his black eyebrows. Lights gleamed on his high cheekbones and light moved back and forth in his brown eyes, and his wide lips were a little tight beneath his long, straight nose.

He leaned on the bar, shook his head when Maxie reached for his empty glass. Walter Nass appeared in the dining-room entrance, looked at his back and then turned his troubled stare on Klay. Nass came over to the bar and rubbed his elbow against Donahue’s.

“What’s up, Donny?”

Donahue crackled a potato chip between long hard teeth. “Do me a favor, Walt. Tell Carmen when the jane comes to send her up by the front stairway.”

“Jane?”

“I’m meeting a jane here. I’ll go up and meet her in the room, then.”

Walter Nass looked puzzled. “Cripes, Donny, I’d hate to have anything happen here. What’s Klay doing here?”

“Search me.”

“There’s something wrong somewhere.”

Donahue growled. “Don’t be an old woman—” He broke off because Carmen was beckoning from the corridor door.

“A chauffeur says the lady wishes you should see her in the car,” Carmen explained when Donahue reached her.

“Yeah?”

She nodded.

He said: “Get my hat and coat.”

Walter Nass was at his elbow, saying: “What now, Donny?”

Donahue said nothing. He went down the hall behind Carmen. She helped him into his coat in the shadow of the stairwell, and he was slapping on his hat when Walter Nass touched him again.

Donahue said: “I don’t know. I’m going upstairs and then down and out the back way.”

Nass looked worried. “Cripes, I thought—”

“Keep your pants on, Walter. I may be goofy but I’m not taking a chance…. Carmen, you stay in here…. Okey, Walter; you want to let me out?”

Nass pushed past Donahue giving him a sidelong look and then climbed the carpeted staircase. Donahue followed, watching Nass’s shiny heels. They went halfway down the corridor above, took a rear stairway that grounded back of the kitchen. Nass dangled keys and his face was genuinely concerned.

“Honest, Donny—I think you ought to watch your step.”

Donahue prodded him. “I’ll watch it, kid.”

Nass let him out into a dark alley, stood hovering in the doorway while Donahue groped his way rearwards. Donahue reached the street that paralleled the one in which Nass’s place stood. He turned left and walked a half block to a main north-and-south artery.

He turned south, the big collar of his overcoat up around his ears, the brim of his hat snapped down low over his eyes. He reached the corner and went close to the window of a cigar store. There was a man standing on the corner looking down the dark side street. He wore a blue overcoat with the collar upturned, and he was hatless. He had blonde close-cropped hair.

Donahue entered the cigar store, bought a packet of cigarettes and killed a few minutes opening it and watching the corner. The man kept looking into the side street and tapping a foot on the curb. Presently Donahue walked out, retraced his steps north and took the first right turn. He followed the side street to the next north-and-south artery and did not stop until he reached the first corner.

He entered the street, walking west; took a flat black automatic pistol from an armpit-holster and shoved it into his coat pocket. He also left his hand in the pocket. The houses here were gray stone with high stoops and areaways beneath. When he got halfway up the block he could see the hatless man standing on the corner beyond.

Nass’s place was near the west end of the block. There was a sedan parked in front of it, its taillight a red eye in the darkness. Donahue walked close to the curb, and when he came abreast of the sedan he crowded his body close against it.

Nothing happened. He saw no other car nearby, heard no idling engine. But he saw the hatless man turn and cross the main drag beyond and disappear behind a fleet of moving cars. Donahue opened the tonneau door and saw the woman sitting in the corner.

“What’s the idea?” he said.

She did not answer. She did not move.

His head went down between his shoulders and his gun came halfway out of his pocket. He flung a look about, up and down the street; returned it to the tonneau. He reached in with his left hand and grabbed the woman’s arm. She fell sidewise—softly—and lay quietly on the seat.

He had tried to stop the fall of her body. Failing, he drew his hand back, rubbed his fingers together and then looked at them. They were smudged.

He stepped back to the curb and stood very erect. His brown eyes flashed, marble-hard, and a whispered oath slipped out of a corner of his mouth. He was suddenly warm and he pulled down the collar of his coat, drew a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his fingers.

He turned away and went down into the areaway. He rang the bell and before its echo died Carmen came out, as though she had been waiting for the sound. He saw her white, round-lipped face floating towards him in the shadows.

He said nothing. She opened the wrought-iron gate and he went past her long-legged, with a swish to his overcoat. He ran into Walter Nass in the corridor and Nass’s face was a white question mark.

“Klay,” Donahue said, and went down the corridor.

Klay put down a pony of brandy and laid his long, prehensile fingers on the white napery. Donahue stopped in front of the table and Klay looked at him peculiarly with half-shuttered eyes, his white eyelashes filming his stare.

Donahue said: “There’s a dead woman outside.”

“H’m,” Klay said and stood up quietly. His glance flicked Donahue and he wiped his flat lips with a napkin, dropped it and came around the table, square-shouldered and erect. “How’d it happen?”

“Shot.”

“I didn’t hear a shot.”

“She was shot elsewhere and some kind-hearted son-of-a-so-and-so delivered her at the door.”

Klay brushed his hair back of his ears with his hands, swung on his heel and strode swiftly out of the bar, up the corridor. Donahue followed slowly and Walter Nass met him in the hallway. Nass was patting his forehead with a handkerchief and Carmen was holding her hands together just inside the door and looking round-eyed.

“——! Donny, what happened?”

Donahue grabbed his arm roughly. “Take it standing, Walt. It didn’t happen here.”

Donahue seemed to have grown taller, darker. His teeth bared when he spoke and there was a growling huskiness in his throat. Sparks seemed to be crackling in his eyes.

“Who was she, Donny?”

Donahue did not reply. He crossed to Carmen and muttered: “What makes you think that guy was a chauffeur?”

“He—he wore a cap like a chauffeur, señor.”

“Okey. I get that too.”

He heaved past her and opened the iron gate, climbed out of the areaway and saw Klay half in the tonneau, with the car’s dome light on. Donahue stood on the sidewalk and waited until Klay backed out.

Klay was casual, undisturbed. “How’d you find this?”

“A guy came to the door here and said she wanted to see me.”

“Where’s the guy?”

“How the hell do I know?”

Klay nodded to the car. “You expecting her?”

“I was, yes. Check those plates. It’s not her car.”

“Who is she?”

“You know as well as I do.”

Klay squinted at him. “What are you getting hot about?”

“What do you expect me to do—light a Murad?”

Klay lifted his cleft chin. “Don’t get snotty, Donahue.” He tried to put beef into the words but they snagged over his teeth and sounded somewhat hollow. The tonsorial pallor of his face was heightened by a glassy look that came suddenly to his eyes and as suddenly departed. He licked his dry flat lips and ducked down into the areaway.

Donahue reached into the sedan and turned out the dome light. He closed the tonneau door, looked sourly up and down the street and went down into the areaway vestibule. Klay was using a wall telephone near the checkroom and Carmen was twisting a handkerchief round and round. Walter Nass was watching Klay at the telephone but when Donahue came in Nass turned towards him and shrugged.

Through the partly open door at the end of the corridor Donahue saw three men drinking at the bar. A dozen or more people were in the dining-room. But nobody knew yet that anything was wrong—none but Nass and Donahue, Carmen and Klay and Maxie the bar man.

Klay hung up and turned from the phone. His hair shone like platinum and his gray-white face looked long and hollow in the cheeks. His nape was straight, his tailored shoulders square.

“This ain’t so sweet.” He looked at Donahue when he said it, then turned and walked to the iron gate, climbed to the sidewalk.

Donahue came up behind him and got in front of him. “What’s the idea of a crack like that?”

“You’re out of diapers, aren’t you?”

“What’s the idea of a crack like that?” I asked.

Klay nodded to the sedan. “Having dates with Cherry Bliss, weren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Donahue said, “I’m not the only guy’s had dates with Cherry Bliss.”