Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (71 page)

Flannigan looked at him with scared, jigging eyes, with his jaw shot tremulously over to one side.

Donahue stood up straight and held his arms out from his sides. “And now I’m beginning to get in a spot. With the home office on my neck, with the police and the D. A.’s office and the press waltzing around me, I, Mr. Flannigan, am beginning to be in a spot. I’ve got to know why he came here, and you”—he dropped his voice to a note of finality—“can tell me.”

Flannigan’s chubby jaw shivered. He jumped up and cried in a stricken voice, “I had nothing to do with this! I don’t see why you should—you should—” He broke off, tried to harden his jaw, make his stare bold. “I—must get—to—work!” He lunged towards the door.

Donahue said: “Okey. I’ll have to turn your name over to the cops.”

Flannigan’s hand fell on the doorknob, but he did not turn it. His round body wilted heavily. He turned and came dragging his blunt feet back to the desk, and there was twisted anguish in his chubby face, a childlike fear in his eyes.

“You’re being very cruel, Mr. Donahue.”

“I don’t mean to be. But I’ve got to know.”

“If I tell you, you’ll tell the police anyhow.”

“Not if you’re innocent of any complicity in connection with the death of Bickford.”

“Bickford! I never saw the man!”

“Or the death of Rathbun.”

“Rathbun!…”

“He was found dead a few hours ago in a cheap rooming house near the river. Apparently a suicide.”

Flannigan’s eyes shimmered. “What a blow, what a blow this is!” He placed a hand against the side of his head.

“Under the circumstances”—Donahue moved several articles about on his desk—“the cops might get very tough.”

“My Lord, man, I—I had nothing to to do with it!”

Donahue sat down in his swivel-chair, put his elbows on its arms and built a pyramidal fretwork of his fingers, “If that’s the truth, then there doesn’t seem to be any reason why you should hold out on me.”

“No—no—no. It’s not the crime I’m afraid of. I can prove I had nothing to do with either of those crimes. It’s not that. Not that at all. It’s”—he swallowed—“something else.”

“What else, Mr. Flannigan.”

Flannigan stared at him with quaking eyes. “If you tell—if it becomes known that he came here to see me—the talk about the money and all—I’ll be ruined. I’m in debt as it is. Sickness. Stocks. My wife and four kids.” He put his head far back, as if he found it difficult to breathe.

Donahue said in a deep, sincere voice: “If that has nothing to do with these crimes, Mr. Flannigan, you can trust me to say nothing about it to anyone.”

“But it hasn’t! I swear it hasn’t!”

Donahue leaned back. “What business did Rathbun come here on?”

Flannigan slumped in his chair and when he spoke his voice was dull, miserable: “Rathbun was a director of the Centaur International Engineering Company. Well, I’m with Midwest Structural, in the president’s office. Years ago I worked with Rathbun and we always wrote letters afterwards, from time to time. He was a fine man, a great businessman, and he usually got what he wanted.

“Well, maybe you’ve heard about this new Blue River Dam that’s going to be built. A tremendous job, and a lot of money in it. Sealed bids were asked for it, and the general opinion is that either Centaur or Midwest will do the job. There are a few others bidding, but they couldn’t hope to compete successfully.

“I think I’ve been treated pretty badly by the company I work for. Maybe I haven’t. But I think I have. I’ve taken cuts, demotions, and so on, and what with my expenses and all, I guess I took these things more bitterly than I would have otherwise. I needed money badly. I knew Centaur wanted this job and I knew it was worried about Midwest’s bid, the same as Midwest was worried about their bid. I knew what our bid would be. I offered to sell out to Centaur. When a man’s desperate, I guess he’ll do anything.

“I wrote Rathbun about it and he said I should not write again but that he would come here and talk it over with me. So he came out, informing me beforehand that he would travel as Henry W. Loftman and that as soon as he arrived here he would send me a special delivery letter telling me where he was staying.

“I went to see him at the Coronet and we talked it over and I guess I began to feel a bit shaky, and guilty too. Rathbun was the same as ever. He offered me twenty thousand dollars and took out his checkbook. I said I couldn’t accept a check, not because I didn’t think it was good but because checks can sometimes be traced. Then he said that he would get me cash. He didn’t want to wire for it because as Loftman he had no identification and he didn’t want to use his real name. But he said he would get it to me somehow. Then I asked him to wait a little while. I was shaky. He said that was all right and I went home and thought and thought and thought. Then the news of his disappearance—and I haven’t slept a wink since. That’s all—that’s all. For God’s sake, don’t betray me, Mr. Donahue. I had nothing to do with those deaths.”

“Did he express any fear of being watched?”

“None. None at all. While he was congressman he was rarely if ever photographed. He won a reputation for that.”

“The police say he was seen in that rooming house with a woman.”

Flannigan shook his head wearily. “I can’t understand that. He was never the kind. I can’t understand anything. It all seems unreal. There doesn’t seem to be any connection anywhere.” He looked forlornly at Donahue. “Is there anything else you want?”

Donahue stood up. “No. That’s all, Mr. Flannigan. Thank you very much.”

Flannigan walked to the door in a half daze, groped for the knob. “I’ll never get over this, I’ll never get over this,” he mumbled. “And now I’ll have more sleepless nights, wondering if you’ll tell the police.”

“It’s under the hat, Mr. Flannigan—unless your story breaks up.”

“God knows I’ve told the truth.”

When Flannigan had gone, Donahue stood at his desk tapping the ends of his fingers on it. His eyes were bright, intense with thought, and one corner of his mouth was sucked in against his teeth. He let it go with a slight popping sound, sat down and looked up Bethia Samson’s telephone number. Fern Chester answered.

“This is Donahue,” he said. “You’d better run down and see me…. At the office, yes…. Say in an hour….  Plenty!”

He pronged the receiver, rose and put on his hat and overcoat. On his way out, he said to Miss Laidlaw, “I’m going around the corner for a shave. Be back in half an hour.”

Twenty minutes later he was returning up the corridor towards his office, humming to himself, when he saw vague silhouettes wafting back and forth on the soapy glass panel of the agency door. Sunlight would be streaming slantwise through the general office window and on to the glass panel of the door. Drawing nearer, he squinted, put his hand on the knob but waited. He heard scuffling sounds beyond the door. He turned the knob very slowly and discovered the snaplock was fast. He drew his keys from his pocket, and with the same hand took out his gun, while his other hand still held the knob turned full to the left. With the gun gripped in the crotch between thumb and forefinger, he was able to handle the keys with the remaining fingers of his right hand. He turned the lock and went in fast.

One man was struggling with Miss Laidlaw, another with Louie, the office boy. The man struggling with Louie was nearer and Donahue struck him behind the ear with a hard left fist. The man went down like a felled tree as Donahue swung his gun on the man breaking clear of Miss Laidlaw. Miss Laidlaw sat suddenly down in her chair white with terror. Louie fell violently on the felled man.

The other was darting a hand towards his coat pocket. “No you don’t, punk,” Donahue said. “Up.”

Miss Laidlaw’s assailant raised his hands.

Miss Laidlaw panted, “Ugh, ugh.”

The young man facing Donahue smirked.

Donahue smacked him on the side of the face and said: “What’s so funny?” And to the office boy, “Got it Louie?”

“Yeah, yes, Mr. Donahue. Gee whiz!” Louie stood up with the gun he had taken from the man on the floor.

Both were young, hardly twenty, and the one on the floor wore a cheap camel’s hair coat and spats. The other wore dark, close-fitting clothes and a derby. His skin was swart and his hair was long, black.

“Spill it, Louie,” Donahue said.

“Wuh-well, about five minutes after you went out, about five minutes, they walked in. The gink in the yellow coat held a gun on us while this other gink began going through our card indexes. Then he went through our file boxes and letter files, and when he couldn’t find what he wanted, he turned on Miss Laidlaw and wanted to know where the dope was on somebody named Loftman. Miss Laidlaw said there wasn’t any and then he began twisting her wrists. So I took a swing at him and then the other gink jumped on me and Miss Laidlaw began struggling with that one there and then you came in.”

Donahue stared balefully at the two youths. He said to the one on the floor, “Get up,” in a low, chopped voice.

The youth got to his feet and stood rubbing the back of his neck.

“Who sent you birds?” Donahue demanded.

“A man,” said the youth in the dark clothes.

“That’s a help, isn’t it? Who sent you, I said?”

The two looked warily at each other.

Donahue pointed a long forefinger at them. “His name and you bums walk out of here. No name and you get a couple of cops on your neck. Well, snap on it!”

The dark-clothed youth said haltingly, “A man with—with red hair. We don’t know his name. Honest, we don’t. He just come up and talked to us.”

“Where?”

“Poolroom over in Fifth.”

“Snappy dresser? About your size?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Have you two ever been up before?”

“Uh, no. That is, just for little things. Petty, once. And once I got potted and by mistake drove a guy’s car off.”

Donahue nodded to the desk. “Okey. See that stamp-pad over there? Well, both you bums place the fingers of your right hand on that pad and then place them on a sheet of paper there.”

“That ain’t fair, mister.”

“Do what I tell you!”

They shuffled reluctantly over to the desk, and when each had placed his fingerprints on a sheet of paper, Donahue nodded to the door. “Now beat it. Take a tip and steer clear of that red head. If he runs across you, say you couldn’t get in here. And if I run across you again—Go on. Out!”

They slouched out.

Miss Laidlaw said: “You—you let them go, Mr. Donahue?”

He picked up the two sheets of paper. “I got these, didn’t I?… Louie, run over to Police Headquarters and go down the Bureau of Criminal Identification. Ask Sergeant Bauer to check up on these and mark down the records beneath each set of prints. Be careful you don’t smudge them. Miss Laidlaw, take a note. When Collins comes on duty, have him make photographs of those prints…. Did that egg hurt you very much?”

“No, sir; I guess not.”

“You hurt, Louie?”

“No, sir; I’m not hurt none.”

“Swell.”

Fern Chester remained sitting motionless in the chair for a long interval after Donahue told her of Marcus Rathbun’s death. Her face was very white, and this made her eyes seem darker, deeper, and brought out the color of her lips, a warm rose-pink. Donahue lounged with a lanky leg thrown over an arm of his chair, his chin mashing the knot of his tie, his face long, brown, hollowed out beneath the high, strong cheekbones.

She murmured in a remote voice, “What will be the end of it?”

“It’s a sticker,” he muttered.

“Now his wife will have to be notified.”

“I faked a message to the police—anonymous. They should know by now his name isn’t Loftman. No use concealing that any longer. The thing is”—he gave her an up-from-under look—“they say he went there with a woman.”

She looked at him.

“I know it was the night you were at the Casa Caliente,” he said. “You might have to prove you were there. You like this Judge Emmett’s son?”

“Well—sort of. Nothing serious. Ralph’s professed—oh, well, he’s an ardent boy, very intense. But”—her eyes widened—“surely we won’t have to drag Ralph in. The family’s so—strait-laced.” Her face clouded. “Or maybe you’ve told about me?”

“No, no; nothing like that. But there’s no telling where this thing may lead to, who’ll get dragged into it. Kelly McPard and his partner Lankford are a couple of swell cops, but they’re cops, and you can’t blame them for that. Then there’s this Red Phalen, the legman—a glutton for news, especially where decent names are involved. And Stratford, of the District Attorney’s office.”

“Such a mess, such a miserable mess,” she cried, grimacing. “But this woman angle—I can’t believe it. He was so straight about things like that and there seems to be no reason for the woman. It’s all beginning to look a little mad. Where’s the reason for everything?… Oh, I can see the lurid headlines already.” She stared straight ahead, her breast beginning to rise and fall rapidly. “And I know, I’m sure they’ll be untrue, utter falsehoods.”

She leaned forward and placed her hand on the desk and said in a sunken voice: “Should I go to the police after all? Should I tell them everything? Everything I’ve told you? About the memo I saw, about how I knew all along his name wasn’t Loftman? I’ll do it, I’ll do it. And I’ll tell them that all this lurid stuff about Mr. Rathbun can’t be true, can’t possibly be true.”

He sat up straight, his fingers raised. “No.” He leaned on his elbows, his eyes dark, fastened on the effigy of Jack Dempsey. “You’ll get in for a lot of unpleasant notoriety, you may even be charged with withholding vital evidence from the police. The kick-back will hit me—the agency. And that’s not all.” He made a fist, remembering Flannigan: he’d struck a bargain with Flannigan.

She opened her handbag. It was oblong, of black patent leather, and had a leather flap with the large initials FC attached in chromium plate. Taking out a small handkerchief, she said: “You would never have become involved so deeply if it hadn’t been for me.”

He made a brusque gesture. “Probably would have. I seem to have a talent for it.”

Miss Laidlaw brought in a telegram. It said: