Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (59 page)

“Huh? What’s up, Donny?”

“Listen, boy,” Donahue said in a low, quick voice. “Suppose you take Margaret out of here and beat it home.”

“Why? Ain’t we having a swell time?”

“Listen….” Donahue got very close to Harrigan and told him the recent happenings, something of his talk with McPard. He spoke in a low, rapid-fire tone. He concluded: “King Padden and his boys are in town. So watch yourself. Remember, when you neglected to chuck that last fight, you lost Padden three hundred grand.”

The champ spat, curled his lip. “Look here, Donny. I’ll bust that guy in the kisser if he tries—”

“You’ll bust hell in the kisser!” He was silent for an instant, narrowing his eyes shrewdly. “Listen. Have you seen Token lately?”

“Me? Nah.”

Donahue gripped him. “That’s on the up and up?”

Harrigan flushed. “Sure it’s on the up and up.”

“Okey,” Donahue clipped. “Kelly’s here and he’s going to run Arnholt to Headquarters. I’m going out after Token. Take Margaret and get out of here. Take her home. And you go home.”

“Ah, listen, Donny—”

“You listen!” Donahue barked. “There’s something rotten brewing and I want you off the streets till we can get it straight. D’ you hear?” He shoved Harrigan towards the door, clipped: “Go on, now. For once in my life do as I ask you.”

Big Harrigan pouted, “Jeeze, it’s like I was a kid in diapers or something.”

“You’re not so far wrong at that.”

Donahue cut ahead of him and went over to Margaret. “I just talked to your big he-mans,” he said. “See that he gets home, will you?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Enough.” He paused, dropped his voice earnestly: “I wish, Margaret—I do wish you’d marry this kid and take him away somewhere—anywhere, faraway. Only take him off my hands. When I took this case for the Boxing Commish I started a song and dance and my legs are getting tired and I—”

He stopped, turned, saw Kelly McPard and Arnholt on the way to the door. He said in undertone: “Get him out of here, Margaret,” and strode to the check room, got his hat and overcoat. He saw Kelly McPard and Arnholt go out.

The jazzband was playing a rumba.

At half-past eleven Donahue got out of a taxi in front of the Hotel Eden, off Fifth Avenue. He crossed the sidewalk, opened the heavy glass door and entered the quiet, luxurious lobby. The lights were dim, hidden in glass-enclosed crevices, and the man on duty at the desk was amusing himself with a small radio which he had tuned very low.

Donahue did not stop at the desk. He made his way to the elevator bank, found one car open. Entering, he said, “Six,” and leaned back against the rear wall. The car rose quietly, stopped gently. Donahue got out and walked down the sixth floor corridor. He stopped before a door marked 606 and knocked. Waiting, he drummed with the toe of his shoe on the carpet. He knocked again, listened; and when no response came he knocked a third time.

Three minutes later he turned and retraced his steps up the corridor. He rang for the elevator, was taken to the lobby. He went across to the desk and said:

“Is Miss Token Moore in?”

The clerk turned from the dial of the radio. “Why, she isn’t staying here any more.”

Donahue frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She left.” The clerk returned to the radio.

“When?”

“About an hour ago?”

“Where’d she go?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“How about her baggage?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I mean,” Donahue said, “didn’t she leave an address for her baggage?”

“She took it with her, I believe, in a taxi.”

“And left no forwarding address?”

The clerk snapped: “I told you she left no forwarding address, didn’t I?”

Donahue looked at him. “Keep your shirt on. Do they pay you to take care of this desk or fiddle around with that radio?”

The clerk reddened.

“As a class,” Donahue said, “you desk wallopers burn me up.”

He swiveled and strode out of the hotel, stood for a moment in the windy street, letting the wind hammer him, balloon the skirt of his long camel’s hair. He cursed under his breath and headed for Fifth Avenue. Reaching the Avenue, he stood there for several minutes, wasted six matches lighting a cigarette, and then burned the cigarette up the side, cursed and tossed it away.

“Taxi!” he barked.

Brakes squealed and a cab pulled up alongside the curb. Donahue climbed in, banged the door shut and slid down to the small of his back.

“Hotel Elsinore.”

The Elsinore was only ten blocks distant. Donahue climbed out of the cab, pushed through the revolving doors and went swinging his legs across the large lobby to the desk.

“Mr. Harrigan come in yet?”

“About five minutes ago. Who shall I say—”

“Never mind.”

He took an elevator to the seventh floor and a minute later he was knocking at the door of Harrigan’s apartment. He had to knock several times before the door opened and Harrigan shoved his head out.

“Huh? What’s up now?”

Donahue shoved in and walked to the center of the living-room before saying: “Token’s disappeared.” He turned and put his dark, fretful eyes on Harrigan. “She get in touch with you?”

Harrigan looked concerned. “Me? No. Where’d she go?”

“If I knew where she went—” He broke off with a disgusted groan, then said: “Please don’t start asking profound questions. Got a drink?”

“Yeah. Over there.”

Donahue walked to a table, picked up a glass, a bottle. He said as he poured: “I thought you don’t drink.”

“I don’t.”

“So I imagine.”

Harrigan colored. “Oh, that—that—” He laughed, nodding to a half-drained highball. “I—I just took a snifter.”

Donahue was eying him crookedly. “Token didn’t get in touch with you, huh?”

“I said she didn’t!” Harrigan growled. Donahue drank, still eying Harrigan.

“What the hell you looking at?” Harrigan demanded.

Donahue shrugged, sauntered into the bedroom, came out again, his eyes roving around the living-room as he took sip after slow sip.

Harrigan blurted: “I’m getting sick and tired o’ having my personal life busted into!”

“Maybe you think I’m not sick and tired of busting into it. Calm yourself, champion…. Mind if I look around?”

“Yes I do!”

Donahue squinted.

Harrigan came over to face him. “I ain’t gonna have you or anybody else telling me what to do! I ain’t going to have you crashing in here anytime you feel like it! I don’t care if the Boxing Commish did hire you! I ain’t no kid. I can take care of myself and, by——! I want to be left alone!”

Donahue said wryly: “There’s no liquor on your breath.”

Donahue was a big man, but he suddenly felt himself lifted and rushed to the door.

“Get out,” Harrigan rasped.

Donahue’s face had darkened. He showed his teeth. “Why, you dirty big tramp—”

“Get out!”

Donahue turned, whipped the door open. He looked Harrigan up and down contemptuously. He said with quiet deadliness: “Okey, boy. I’m going out now. And I hope you get what’s coming to you—right smack in your thick neck!”

He stepped back into the hall, gripped the door knob, banged the door shut He strode swiftly up the corridor, his cheeks burning, his eyes humid. He was through, he told himself. Job or no job, he was through dry-nursing Harrigan.

Next morning the ringing of the telephone bell roused him at eight. He turned over on his side and regarded it sleepily, and when it kept on ringing, rasping on his nerves, he made a violent pass at it and swept it over to the bed.

He barked: “Hello!” And then, dropping his voice: “Oh, hello, Margaret…. You did, eh? And then what?” Listening, he scowled, his lips tightened and he said: “Listen, Margaret I’m through with that potato. He may be the moon and the stars to you, but to me he’s an accident that should have happened at birth. I’m through with him, washed up. He’s one of my sour memories. He—” He swung his feet off the bed, shook his head, worked his lips, stamped his foot, rolled his eyes. “No. Listen, Margaret. I feel sorry for you. But it ends there. Call Kelly McPard. Kelly knew him when he was a kid and is still soft on him. Call Kelly. Me, I’m through.”

He hung up, rose and set the instrument down on the table. He went to the windows, snapped up the shades and went yawning and growling into the bathroom. He showered hot, then cold; rubbed himself dry with a big Turkish towel. The sun was bright, the air cool and crisp, fresh-smelling, blowing in through two open windows, kiting the curtains.

He dressed and was on his way to the door when the telephone rang. He sighed, pick it up.

“Hello, Kelly…. What about?” He looked down at the mouthpiece, dropped his voice: “Okey. Maybe in an hour.”

He went down to the hotel dining-room, drank half a pint of tomato juice, ate two lamb chops, four pieces of toast, and drank three cups of coffee. Outside, he climbed into a taxi and said:

“Police Headquarters.”

He found Kelly McPard in his office. McPard was freshly shaved, his linen was clean, crisp, and his clothes were, as always, well pressed. He had just begun a long, dappled panetela.

“Margaret called me up,” he said.

Donahue flopped into a chair. “Me, too.”

McPard said: “She’s worried. She phoned Danny at 7:30 this morning and found he wasn’t in. Nobody at the hotel knew where he was. So I phoned and asked them to send someone up. His apartment looked all right, but he wasn’t there. But he’d slept there.”

Donahue stood up, bowed. “I see you got me down here to talk about that dumb-bell Harrigan. Well, I’m through with him. Good-day, Kel.”

“Wait.”

Donahue turned at the door. “Go on.”

“Look here, Donny. For——sake, don’t get your Irish up. The champ’s a good lad—”

“Listen.” Donahue came back to the desk, laid his fist on it. “I went up there last night after I found Token had disappeared. Harrigan put on a swell act. Listen.” He thumped the desk. “Token was there, too.”

“How do you know?”

“There was a half-drunk highball on the table. Harrigan doesn’t drink. When I wanted to search the apartment he wouldn’t let me. He got nasty. Gave me the bum’s rush. I don’t take a bum’s rush from anybody and like it!”

“Donny, hold on.” McPard stood up, trying to spread calm with his hands. “You can’t chuck this now, Donny. We held Arnholt over night and couldn’t get anything out of him. I got King Padden down here, and his boys, but”—he shook his head—“it’s a dead end there. There’s a murder on our hands, but there’s Danny, too. He’s good. He’s just hot-headed. And there’s Token. And take ’em all together, there’s a hook-up somewhere.”

Donahue went to the door. “Okey. You find it.”

McPard grinned, crossed the office and took hold of Donahue’s arm. “Donny, you’re getting temperamental as a chorus girl. How do you know Token was there last night? Maybe Danny was just sore. He had a right to be—”

Donahue lashed in: “And I’ve got a right to be told things that this mug insists on hiding!”

McPard looked down at his fingernails. “Suppose Token was there? You don’t mean to stand there and hint around that he went off with her—leaving Margaret?”

Donahue was finding it hard to breathe. “Listen, Kel. Nothing that guy would do would ever surprise me. He ought to hire a small boy to tell him the time and tell him when it’s day and when it’s night.”

McPard’s smile was persuasive. “Anyhow, Donny, agreeing with all you say, you can’t slide out of this. It’s not right.”

Donahue opened the door. “I’m sliding, Kel. I know Padden and Albino Will Olsen from my St. Louis days, and I’d like to go up against them—but Harrigan sticks in my throat. Happy days, Kelly.”

Kelly grabbed his arm. “Donny, if I asked you to hang on, what about it? Me, I’m asking you. Forget about Harrigan. I’m asking you personally, Donny.”

Donahue sighed and stared at the floor. He stared a long time, chewing on his lip. Then he looked up at McPard, and he didn’t smile.

But he said: “So I guess you win, you heel.”

By noon there was still no word of Harrigan. Donahue learned this by phoning McPard from a booth near Sheridan Square. He also got in touch with Margaret, frankly apologized for the way he had talked to her over the phone that morning, and wound up by telling her to stay in her hotel room.

He took a West Side subway to Times Square, where he got off and boarded a crosstown shuttle for Grand Central. He walked down Lexington, entered his hotel lobby and asked at the desk if any message had been left for him. None had been left. He went up to his apartment and found an oldish maid cleaning up. He intended eating downstairs in the dining-room, but first he mixed himself a Dry Martini in his small pantry. The maid went out, saying she would return with fresh towels, and Donahue stood in the center of his living-room sipping the Dry Martini. He drank down two and was pouring a third when there was a knock on his door.

He said: “Come in,” and emptied the cocktail shaker.

It was not, as he had supposed, the maid. The Albino came in first, with both hands in the pockets of his coat and his cap slanted over one eyebrow. With him came two other men. They were well-dressed, neat, and cleanshaven; the one short and muscular, dressed in a fashionable raglan coat and a brown Fedora, the other taller, though not quite as tall as the Albino, but dressed with equal care. This man, coming in last, closed the door and locked it.

Donahue put his cocktail glass to his lips, sipped, ran his tongue back and forth between his lips and said, not pleasantly: “I thought it was somebody else. The gate for you.”

The Albino was smiling politely, his emaciated face a little on one side. The other two men separated, taking up strategic positions and showing a keen but silent interest. The Albino looked from one to the other, nodded, and removed his hands from his overcoat pockets.

He said: “We were waiting for you to come in, Donahue.”

“Why didn’t you bring Padden along, too?”

“He’s got a kinda bilious attack this morning.” The Albino smiled softly, almost sweetly; then he arched his eyebrows, put his lips sweetly together, said: “You know, we’re looking for Token Moore.”