Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (60 page)

“Swell. So am I. Let’s get together on it.”

The Albino again smiled sweetly, folded his long, fragile hands primly against his chest. “We are together, ain’t we now?” From his manner, his lips, you expected him to speak precise English; he did speak precisely, but there it ended. “We think you know where she disappeared to.”

Donahue shook his head. “Not me, Olsen.”

The Albino sauntered across the room, turned on the radio. He let it warm up, and when the first sounds came, he increased the volume. Smiling daintily, he went very close to Donahue and said with a precise movement of his lips:

“We ain’t, you know, kidding.”

“Neither am I. I don’t know where she is.”

The two other men caught Donahue from behind; each grabbed one of Donahue’s arms and he dropped glass and cocktail shaker to the floor. Back of him, the radio thundered. The Albino drew a blackjack from his pocket, smiled, and struck Donahue on the head. Donahue jerked at the two men who held him.

Donahue’s eyes flashed. “I told you I don’t know. I’ve been looking for her myself.”

The Albino struck again. Donahue sagged, grimaced, while the Albino craned his swanlike neck and looked on with a brightly clinical interest.

“I’ll hurt next time,” he said.

Donahue began tussling violently, swinging the two men about the room with him. They all went down in a heap, arms and legs flying. The Albino stepped nimbly, raised his blackjack, struck. Donahue straightened out on the floor, put his hands to his head. The two men jumped up, dusted themselves briskly. Donahue took his hands from his head but did not move his body. Fury and anger were in his eyes, and his face was gray, his lips curved wolflike over his clenched teeth.

The three men stood looking down at him, down into his face. They did not see the door open, did not see the oldish maid standing on the threshold with a pass key in her hand. Her eyes popped and her jaw fell. Only Donahue, looking between the archway of the Albino’s legs, saw her.

He yelled: “Run! Call the police! Run!”

The Albino whirled in time to see the maid pitching away from the doorway.

She screamed: “Help! Police!”

The Albino snapped: “Beat it!”

The two men turned and darted into the hall. The Albino, his pink eyes suddenly furious, waited a moment to kick Donahue’s head, ribs, and then his head again. And then he, too, turned and sped into the corridor.

Donahue lay with his hands pressed against his face, groaning. After a minute, he turned over, got to his knees, then to his feet. He took off his coat and vest, ripped off his shirt. He went heavy-footed into the bathroom, turned on the cold shower and held his head beneath it. Bits of red color mixed with the water in the tub.

He pulled his head out of the shower, ripped off his blood-stained undershirt, looked at himself in the mirror. Water still poured down his face from his soaked hair. He spat it from his lips, cursing.

Barron Yerkes looked at the card which his secretary placed on the glass top of his flat-topped desk. He ran a forefinger slowly across his lower lip, leaned back, put his fingertips together and shook his head.

“I’m not in,” he said.

The girl picked up the card, returned to her outer office. Barron Yerkes took a cigarette from a red lacquer humidor, placed it between his lips. There was a rattle at the door. The door whipped open and Donahue strode in. Yerkes looked up, smiled, lighted his cigarette.

“I thought you wouldn’t be in,” Donahue said. He banged shut the door. There were several black and blue marks on his face and a neat strip of adhesive tape on his right cheekbone. He came slowly across the office and stopped by the desk, his hands in his overcoat pockets, his eyes boring down at the attorney.

Yerkes cleared his throat, smiled. “You look rather worked up, Donahue.”

“Lay off the jokes. I’m sore. These lousy hoodlums you represent came around to my place and played house, with me on the receiving end.”

“I’m genuinely sorry, Donahue.”

“You look all broken up. Listen, Yerkes.” He knuckled the desk sharply. “If you don’t want to get hurt, you’d better break with that crowd.”

“H-m-m. It was unfortunate.”

“And another thing.” Donahue dropped his voice way down. “Where the hell is Token Moore?”

Yerkes raised his palms. “I certainly wish I knew. Don’t you know?”

“So now you’re going to start in. No, I don’t know. And I don’t know where Harrigan is. But this I do know—I do know that if you play along with this case you’re going to get hurt and I’m going to hurt you. No dirty St. Louis bum can sail into this town and play kick-the-wicket with me.”

“Donahue—” Yerkes stood up. “I’m genuinely sorry this happened. Something went wrong somewhere, but I assure you I had nothing to do with that beating and I don’t know where Token Moore is. Times are hard, and it looked like easy money. I regret I took the case, and I hereby tell you that I’m dropping it—now—this minute.”

Donahue laughed. “Yeah—I’d like to believe that.”

“Believe it or not.”

“All right. Then why do you think she disappeared?”

“It’s possible that Token and Harrigan made up and went away together. That’s the only answer I can find.”

Donahue said: “The answer’s so simple that I don’t believe it. Not that I think Harrigan wouldn’t be dope enough. But the lay of the whole thing doesn’t seem right.” He looked steadily at Yerkes. “And remember, stay out of it. Or you’ll get hurt.”

He went uptown to the Hotel Elsinore, and found the clerk beaming.

“Mr. Harrigan is in.”

Donahue stood back on his heels, then settled. “Don’t bother ringing.”

By the time he reached the elevator he was worked up. By the time he reached the seventh floor he was cursing to himself. His jaw was set, and dark lights moved in his eyes. He strode long-legged down the corridor and worked the knocker on 707 violently, stood simmering, impatient, licking his lips. He knocked again and then beat upon the door with his fist. Several minutes passed before he heard the click of the lock. The door opened and Harrigan stood swaying back and forth in the foyer.

Donahue stepped in quickly, closed the door, narrowed down one eye and said vindictively. “What the hell happened to you?”

Harrigan turned and went leaden-footed into the living-room. He dropped to the divan, stretched out and planked a wet towel down on his face. He groaned. His collar and tie were in rags. Several buttons had been ripped off his vest and one pocket of his coat was torn.

“Oh! Oh!” he groaned.

“Listen, Harrigan—”

“Oh! Oh!”

“Listen, will you?”

“Yeah. What?”

Donahue bent over. “What happened to you?”

“What’s it look like? I was hit with the Chrysler Building.”

“Where?”

“All over.”

“I mean, where did it happen?”

“In here. Oh! Oh!”

“In here!”

Harrigan removed the towel. “Listen, Donahue. Go wet this again, will you?”

Donahue took the towel into the bathroom, soaked it, wrung it out and carried it back to the divan. Harrigan placed it on his face again and sighed, “Ah, ah!”

“Listen, Harrigan. Who did it? Cut out acting like a baby. Who did it?”

“Three guys. They used blackjacks. I come in here, and then I heard a knock and I opened the door and there they were. First they held me up, and then they landed on me with blackjacks.”

“Why’d they use blackjacks?”

“They wanted to know where Token was.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Listen, Harrigan. Where the hell were you all day?”

“I got up early. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up early and went for a walk. I walked up to Central Park and sat down and fell asleep there.”

“Harrigan,” Donahue said hotly, “I think you’re a damned liar. You know where Token is.”

“Gawd, now you’re picking on me! I tell you I don’t. I don’t give a damn where she is. Lemme alone, will you!… Oh, my head!”

“Damn your head!”

Donahue walked violently around the room. From a far corner of it he said testily: “I’m getting sick and tired of you, Champ. You’re not on the level. You’ve made up with Token and you’re going to skin out with her. You’re a sap and a blockhead. Here Kelly and I worry our nuts off about you, and what do you do? Sleep in Central Park? Bah!”

Harrigan sat up, flung the wet towel to the floor. “To hell with you! You think I care what you think about me? Well, I don’t! Get out o’ here and leave me alone!”

Donahue shook a finger at him. “You can yell all you want, Harrigan. But there’s one thing you won’t do—you won’t run away with Token Moore. I promise you that.”

Harrigan’s face reddened. He stood up. He held out his hands, palms up. “Listen, Donahue. I ain’t. I swear I ain’t.”

“Then where is she?” Donahue crossed the room swiftly and stopped in front of Harrigan. “Where is she?”

Harrigan’s jaw set. “I don’t know,” he ground out.

The two men measured each other for a long moment. Then Harrigan ducked his head, turned and barged into the bathroom. He banged shut the door, locked it.

Donahue’s lips moved in silent oaths. He pivoted, went to the foyer door, opened it and passed into the corridor. He rang for the elevator and stood waiting, wrapped in thought. Presently the doors opened, and he stepped in, was dropped to the lobby. As he stepped out he ran into Margaret.

“Oh, Mr. Donahue.”

He took hold of her arm, walked her to a quiet corner of the lobby and motioned to a chair. She sat down, wide eyed, and he pulled up another chair and sat down facing her.

She gasped: “Danny—”

“He’s all right.”

She slumped. “Thank God!”

“Listen,” he said in a low husky voice. “You love that guy, don’t you?”

“But of course! Why, what makes you—”

“Never mind. Listen to me. When are you going to get married?”

“We haven’t set a date.”

“You’ve talked about marriage, though, huh?”

“Ye-es.”

He tapped her knee. “Look here, Margaret. I wish you’d go upstairs, take that big overgrown kid and marry him right now.”

“Oh, but—”

“I know, I know. But never mind what’s proper and what isn’t. Marry him and get out of this city with him tonight.”

“But why?”

“Because there’s a few mugs running around this town that don’t like him. Because if you love him, you’ll do as I say. Take care of him. He needs someone to look after him. I’m getting tired of it…. Do that, will you? For his sake, for your own sake—and, yes, for my sake. Drag him down to City Hall, put him over the jumps and haul him out of town tonight. I’m serious, Margaret. He needs a girl like you. By himself, he just can’t stay out of trouble. Go up now, will you? I’ll wait down here and see how you make it.”

She was a little white-faced now. “All right,” she said quietly, and stood up.

He walked with her to the elevator, saw her in, then strode to the newsstand, bought a newspaper and sat down in a lobby chair. He liked Harrigan, as everyone liked Harrigan, but he was becoming fed up; Harrigan’s inability to handle his own personal affairs was beginning to exasperate Donahue beyond endurance. Donahue knew that Harrigan had a fatal weakness for women, and he knew that Token Moore had a way with men of Harrigan’s type.

Fifteen minutes later he saw Margaret come out of the elevator. He rose and headed her off. She had her chin in the air.

“Hey,” he said in a low voice.

She did not stop walking, but she looked at him and said: “I guess I’m not wanted.” She went on swiftly, her high heels clicking rapidly on the tiles.

Donahue stopped, watched her disappear through the door. He took a coin from his pocket, tossed it in the air, caught it. He sighed, wagged his head, thrust the coin back into his pocket and strode out to the street.

“The stuff,” he muttered ironically, “of which champions are made!”

Kelly McPard was eating an early dinner in Englehoffer’s Brauhaus when Donahue walked in. Kelly looked benign, cheerful, and on good terms with the world at large. He was radiating good nature. “Well,” he said, “I see Danny’s back again. I got him on the phone and he said he went for a walk this morning and fell asleep in the Park.”

Donahue sat down, said to the waiter: “A mug of beer, August, a couple of sausages, cabbage and two boiled potatoes.” And then to Kelly McPard: “Harrigan makes me sick, and you don’t act as an antidote yourself.”

“Tush, tush, Donny,” Kelly McPard said. “Little food will make you feel better.”

Donahue began talking with restrained viciousness: “Listen, Kelly. He may be a swell guy, a fine guy, good to his mother and with a kind face. He may have a heart of gold and you may have known him since he was kid. But to me, Kelly, he’s a wash-out, a honk-out, a boob and a moron. I don’t think he knows his elbow from a hole in the ground, and he knows less about women than the thousands of infants that will be born in this country between tonight and tomorrow. I can like a boob for a while, if I don’t have to be around him too much; but when I’m around him too much I start to feel homicidal. Right now, I wouldn’t care if Harrigan was bumped off.”

“Tush, tush! Of course you would.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Tush, tush!” Kelly took a long swallow of beer, sighed pleasurably. “What’s eating you now, Donny?”

“I put Margaret up to ask him to marry her this afternoon, and the flat-footed bum turned her down.”

“H’m!” Kelly put down his knife and fork. “This is getting serious, Donny.”

“And if you ask me,” Donahue went on, “he didn’t go for a walk this morning and he didn’t sleep in the Park. This wench Token Moore has got her finger into him again and he’s falling like a ton of brick!”

Kelly McPard began to frown. “Donny, I’m beginning to think maybe you’re right.”

Donahue bowed deeply. “Thank you so much.”

“No kidding. You finish your dinner and then we’ll go up and I’ll talk to Danny like a Dutch uncle.”

“You can go, Kelly. But me”—he held up hands, shook his head—“not me. I’m through with that guy. Washed up. I hope she takes him for his whole roll so I can walk up to him some day and say, ‘Well, I told you so.’”