Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (38 page)

He hung up, slipped out of the booth, left the door open and bought a late paper. Ten minutes later the phone in the booth rang and he got the call.

“That’s not so hot, Frank, but even so it may work…. I’ll tell you tomorrow morning. Can I see you at eight?… Swell.”

He paused outside the booth to write an address beneath the phone number he had put down on the slip of paper. He went into the street and out of the tail of his eye saw a man move behind the corner building opposite. He turned casually east and moved down the dark side street. He did not look back until he reached the next corner; turning north, he thought he saw a figure moving in the shadows up the side street. He turned west at the next block, walked fast and when he had gone about two hundred yards ducked down, into an areaway. He stood motionless and quiet.

A few minutes later he heard approaching footfalls. He saw a man drift by. He rose out of the areaway and had taken six steps before the man spun.

“You wouldn’t by any chance be tailing me, would you?” Donahue said.

Klay’s gray-white face remained expressionless. “Oh, it’s you, Donahue?”

“Maybe you thought it was four Hawaiians.” His voice had a brittle edge.

Klay was stiff, straight. “Guilty conscience?”

“I know when I’m being tailed, Klay. I thought this was your night off?”

“It is. I’m walking off a heavy supper.”

“I thought maybe you were walking off the guilty conscience you seem to think I have.”

“Be funny.”

“How can I, when you offer such swell competition?”

Klay said quietly: “There’s something about you I don’t like, Donahue.”

“There’s a lot of things about you I don’t like and they wouldn’t bear repeating in nice company. I don’t know which way you’re headed tonight, but whatever it is, I’m going in the opposite direction. Now get started.”

“I’m going crosstown.”

“Fine. You look better from the back than the front.”

Klay chuckled dryly, swung easily on his heel and sauntered east. Donahue watched him for a moment, then turned around and retraced his steps.

Castleman was one of those men who look ruddy and well slept in the morning; His beaver-brown suit was nicely aged and had an air about it of having been leisurely draped to his body. He was eating breakfast alone in a nook overlooking the Park when Donahue came in.

“Sit down, Donny…. Jenny, if I want you I’ll ring.” The elderly maid vanished. Castleman nodded to the door and Donahue closed it, then crossed the little room and leaned near one of the French windows.

“This egg,” he said, “phoned last night and wants ten thousand for a list of names, a few letters and a few cancelled checks that he says ought to interest you.”

Castleman set down his knife and dabbed his mustache with a napkin, looked sharply at Donahue. “What did you say?”

“I said he was mistaken in thinking that you were my client. I added, though, that I’d approach you. That was stalling for time.”

“Think it’s in connection with that killing last night?”

“What else?”

Castleman stuck a cigarette between his lips. He pried in his pockets for a match, but Donahue came across with a patent lighter and put flame to the cigarette. Castleman sucked in while staring intently across the table. He started, and as an after-thought said: “Thanks,” nodding to the lighter.

“Klay was playing hide-and-go-seek with me, too, last night.”

Castleman was absorbed by his own thoughts and he said: “I’d pay ten thousand if it’s the real goods.” He looked up. “I can get ten thousand by noon.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you this last night.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want you to get big-hearted with dough right away.”

Castleman, perplexed, seemed unable to marshal a prompt reply; and in the meantime Donahue sat down and began talking fast: “There’s something screwy somewhere, but I can’t lay my finger on it. If Cherry Bliss was rubbed out because some mugs were afraid she was going to spring a story, why then is some guy calling up and offering dope for ten thousand berries? Look. You’ll pay the ten thousand. You’ll get names and general dirt you’ve been looking for. You’ll use it in court to clamp the lid down on some big operators and no doubt several guys on the vice squad. You’ll naturally—or kick me if you don’t—you’ll naturally have occasion to use Cherry Bliss’s name. Okey. What kind of legerdemain will you use when the defense asks where you got your dope? You got it from Cherry Bliss. Whether you admit that or not, they’ll know it. Then what? Then who killed Cherry Bliss to get the information she had? Answer: our eminent District Attorney was in collusion with a gang of heels. He went to drastic measures to get information. He used criminal methods himself to bring evidence against criminals. This isn’t extemporaneous, Frank. I thought it over in bed last night.”

Castleman toyed with a mouthful of smoke, then shot it through his nose. “You think of things, Donny. Then what about this guy who called up?”

“I’m going after him. There’s no proof yet that I’m working for you. I’m going after this guy and see what he’s got. Klay’s mixed up in this, but I don’t know how. I’ve got him worrying and if I keep him worrying long enough he’ll take a header.”

Castleman broke out in a concerned grimace. “Hell, Donny, it sounds dangerous for you.”

“My eye, dangerous! Only if this guy tries to approach you before I get to him, act dumb. Under no circumstances offer to pay for information. Okey?”

“I see what you mean. Sure.” He stood up, came around the table cracking a ruddy smile. “You’re doing a lot for me, Donny.”

“You’re paying for it, aren’t you?”

Castleman chuckled. “Not for these added attractions you stage—at your own expense.” His jaw tightened. “But if the worse comes to the worst, old man, I’m behind you—to the last ditch.”

Donahue’s rough low laugh was not unpleasantly ironic. “Get dramatic, now, Frank; get dramatic! And I’ll break down and yell, ‘To the death for dear old alma mater!’ Or am I thinking of something else?… Be seeing you—or phoning you anonymously. Marmalade on your chin, Frank!”

He went down in the elevator, took a side exit out and strode long-legged southward along the Park. When he had gone a matter of five blocks he motioned to a taxi, climbed in and gave an address. He got off ten minutes later on the East Side, near the railroad terminal, and walked south three blocks. An Elevated train was threshing by overhead when he entered a drug-store that specialized in books, stationery and cold drinks.

He walked on spic-and-span white tiles to the rear and found a bank of four telephone booths. He entered them and copied down the number of each. Then he called his hotel.

“Good morning, Miss Tracy. This is Donahue…. I’m fine. If anybody calls me at nine tell them to call Alexandria 4677…. Thank you!”

He was in the end booth on the left and he stayed there behind the closed door, his hat yanked down over his eyes. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. Men and women entered the adjacent booths; bells rang; doors opened and closed. Donahue watched the men who came to the booths. When his wrist-watch said nine o’clock the phone in his booth rang. He removed the receiver and let it hang.

He stepped out of the booth. In the next booth a girl was talking. In the next a fat old man was yelling in Yiddish. Donahue pressed close to this door, then turned about and went around back of the booths and on to the one at the extreme right. He pressed his ear to the back panel. He heard a man’s voice.

“I tell you, I’ve been cut off…. Alexandria 4677.” There was a moment of silence. “The hell you’re ringing ’em!… I tell you, a party’s expecting my call…. Oh, all right—all right!”

There followed the sound of a receiver being slammed into its prongs.

Donahue stepped across behind a pyramid of books. He saw the man come out of the booth; a large man in a fawn-colored fedora and a belted tweed overcoat. The man strode towards the front door, went outside and stood on the corner, lighting a cigarette with his head bent into the wind. Donahue remained in the store, watching him; and when the man swung around and headed down the side street, Donahue walked out and spotted him.

When a half dozen pedestrians, headed in the same direction, got between him and the man in the belted coat, Donahue started. They walked three blocks, until finally the man turned right and climbed a flight of stone steps between iron handrails. Donahue quickened his pace. He saw the man draw a ring of keys from his pocket, insert one in the hall door, open it. The man swung the door wide, entered; and the door began swinging shut against a pneumatic pressure. Donahue took the steps two at a time and caught the door before it quite closed.

He entered with his head down, and saw the man halfway up the staircase. He reached the foot of it and had his gun out, leveled.

“Steady, brother!”

He climbed the stairs rapidly until he was but two beneath the man, then said: “Now we’ll go up to where you are going. Hands away from sides, like a nice boy.”

The man stared dully at him, his lower lip beginning to protrude.

“Up—up,” Donahue said.

“Who the hell are you?”

“We had a phone date, but I thought I’d call in person. Donahue’s the name, you’ll remember. You’re blocking traffic, you tramp. Shove up!”

The man turned and went on upward, and he was careful about keeping his hands clear of his pockets. They climbed another flight and at the top Donahue stopped him.

“Anybody else in your place?”

“No.”

“If there is, honeybunch, you’ll get it smack in the back, no fooling.”

The big man scowled and went down the hall slowly, dangling his keys. He opened a door at the rear, and Donahue was close behind him with the gun in the back of the tweed coat. They entered an apartment and Donahue kicked the door shut. The man turned with his broad heavy chin down on his chest, his mutinous eyes staring from beneath shaggy red brows.

“You’re a sweet mutt, ain’t you?”

“I don’t want dialogue from you. I had a date with Cherry Bliss last night and it’s the first time a jane’s turned up dead on me. I’m not used to it.”

“Gunning for the D.A., huhn?”

“No.”

“Hell, fella. I didn’t kill Cherry Bliss.”

Donahue laughed harshly. “Maybe you think shooting people is a new kind of light entertainment…. I’m after something, mister—several things; and I intend to bail out of this thing with my hands clean.”

“And mine dirty, I suppose.”

Donahue lifted his chin. “Before we go into any more bright back-chat, suppose you fork over.”

The man’s voice was deepening. “Suppose I don’t.”

Donahue took three quick steps and jammed the muzzle of his automatic hard against the big man’s midriff. His eyes got very dark and his lips very straight, tight.

“If you think I’m a bluff, you haven’t been around much.” He caught hold of a lapel of the tweed coat, ripped it open savagely. Three buttons fell to the floor. “Those hands, kid—watch ’em!” He crowded the big man against the wall. “Try clowning and I’ll let you have it!”

“Jeeze, I was only—”

“You were only trying to bring that knee up,” Donahue snapped. His left hand moved quickly, drew a .38 from beneath the man’s left armpit, shoved it into his own pocket.

“Listen, Donahue. Listen, I got to get something out of this. I got to—”

“The only time I bargain with a hood is when I have to save my own skin.”

He ripped a wrinkled brown envelope from the big man’s inside pocket, stepped back and said: “Turn and face the wall, with your hands way up and palms against the wall.”

The man did this and Donahue backed across the room until he came to a table. He kept his gun leveled across the room with his right hand. With his left he emptied the contents of the envelope on to the table. He did not bend over. He remained erect, groped with his left hand and raised at random a check to the level of his face, so that he could look at it and at the same time watch the man against the wall.

It was a canceled check, made out to Kenneth Klay, signed by Geraldine Bliss. He groped again and picked up a letter. It was quite wrinkled, written in the slanting hand sometimes noticed in the writing of left-handed persons. It was addressed to Cherry and signed by Ken. Its keynote was one of money. There was another check made out to a magistrate who at present was up for questioning before a board headed by District Attorney Frank Castleman. There were other checks and other letters relative to the once famous vice queen’s dealings with men in the pay of the municipal government.

“This is sweet,” Donahue said. Still using only his left hand, he slipped the lot back into the envelope, tucked the envelope away in an inner pocket.

The big man dared to turn around. His face looked white and peculiarly bloated and there was a glassy look in his eyes.

“For cripes’ sake, Donahue, give me a break!”

“Why didn’t you give Cherry a break?”

The big man stretched his neck as though finding it hard to speak. “She was going dippy, no kidding. She was going to turn all that info over free of charge. She was broke. She was out of the business and she was broke. I tried to talk her out of it. I told her she’d be flat on her back after this if she didn’t promote some cash. But she was dippy. She said, ‘Nix. I’m clearing out of this racket kosher.’ I got mad, Donahue. Honest, it wasn’t planned.”

“So then you got the swell idea of dropping her in front of a place where she had a date last night.”

The big man turned red. “That was Louie’s idea. He figured it would chuck suspicion the other way. He figured everybody’d think she was done in by the mob she was turnin’ up.”

“All right. Why didn’t you make a pass at the guys that were named in these letters and checks?”

“Jeeze, don’t you see? Them guys are on the carpet now, most o’ them. They ain’t got no strings to pull. We figured the D.A.’d go far to get this junk and we’d get a clean ticket out. Listen—” He started away from the wall.

“Back, get back!”

The big man groaned. “Gawd, you don’t need us! That stuff there’ll incriminate enough guys to last a lifetime and put the D.A. in line for mayor for next election. At heart I’m a good guy. I didn’t mean wrong. Things just happened—”