Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  Mike looked at his watch. “Make it nine,” he said. “The old lady’s havin’ company, and she’ll want me around for a bit.”

  “Run along,” said Flaherty bitterly. “They oughta put married coppers on desk duty, with aprons and bibs. I’ll bet you look sweet with a baby blue dishtowel spread on that belly of yours. What do you use to make your wash so white, Mr. Martin?”

  “Honest to gawd,” Mike scowled, “some day, Flaherty, I’m gonna lay you like a rug.”

  The long vertical sign threw a rush of dirty yellow light across the pavement. The lettering winked on and off rapidly: Esplanade—Dancing 25 c.

  Two dusty, fly-spattered doors gave into a hallway with shabbily carpeted stairs leading up. A quick rush of music, undertoned by voices and sudden, whirled-away gusts of laughter, swept against his ears as Flaherty stepped in, holding the door back for Mike Martin. Flaherty was neat and slender in a brown suit and wine-colored tie; behind him Mike was in gray, unpressed and shiny. His tie was crooked and his soft collar folded up in clumsy flabs.

  Flaherty gritted his teeth. “You’re the type, fella; watch the girls fightin’ for you when we get upstairs. By a blind man miles off could tell you were a copper.”

  “They could,” said Mike. “The old man mighta wanted a cop on the job as well as a jig—gollo. If I’d had my good suit back from the tailor’s—”

  “Yeh,” said Flaherty. “I’ll work inside. Stick by the door, Mike, and try to hide behind a cuspidor. Come on.”

  Mike followed slowly up behind his partner’s quick legs. At the stairhead Flaherty tossed a quarter to a girl in a window, and was passed through the turnstile by a tall, pimply faced man with glasses. A small anteroom, lit dimly by wall clusters of frosted red bulbs, and furnished with stuffed lounges and wood-backed settees, opened before him; past this the larger space of the ballroom spread from side to side of the building.

  Flaherty pushed his way slowly along the side, looking over the crowd. He came back to the door, went around a second time, a third. After he smoked a cigarette and danced once with a plump brunette he walked out to where Mike was waiting in a chair near the door.

  “No luck,” he said. “Johnny and the Jigger aren’t showing. Maybe they will be in later. We’d better stick.”

  Mike nodded. Time passed slowly. Now and again men came up the stairs and pushed through the turnstile, greeting the pimply faced guardian as they passed. Flaherty grew restless, lit one cigarette from another, took a few quick puffs and quenched them in the sand bowl at his feet.

  They had been waiting almost an hour when a little sallow-faced man came up the stairs and went past them to the men’s room. Mike jerked his head.

  “Joey Helton, Flaherty. We can give him a try.”

  Flaherty nodded and followed him across the room to the door. Inside, the little man was washing his hands at the sink. He didn’t turn as they entered but jumped quickly when Mike said: “Hello, Joey.” The sharp rat’s eyes flickered from one to the other, narrowed and beady.

  Flaherty said, smiling thinly: “Hello, Joey. We got some news for Johnny the Greek. Seen him lately?”

  “I ain’t,” said the little man. “What’s the news?”

  “He’s been left a dirty pair of socks,” said Flaherty. “We wanta see him about washin’ them up. Try to remember, Joey.”

  The little man snarled suddenly. “To hell with you!” He stepped by them with a quick twist of his body for the door.

  Flaherty’s arm yanked him back, thrust the small body against the sink. “Easy, Joey. Three months without a sniff would soften you up.”

  Joey glanced at Mike’s stony face, licked his lips weakly. He said: “All right. I don’t know nothin’ about the Greek; he’s been comin’ here pretty often, and hangin’ out with that Polish skirt. That’s all I see.”

  “That’s all I want,” said Flaherty. “You’re a good boy, Joey. When you go out step up to the Polack and say something. But nothin’ about this. Got it?”

  “Yeh,” said Joey. He straightened his tie sullenly and went out. A second later they followed.

  Flaherty reached the edge of the dance-floor a yard behind the little man. He watched him thread a way through the crowd, stop before a tall blonde girl near the front. She nodded, turned away, and Joey went on again.

  Flaherty went back to Mike. “I’m gonna call Devine,” he said. “Stick here.”

  “Okey,” said Mike. “I’ll wait.

  Flaherty went past the ticket-taker to a phone booth at one side. He thumbed through the book, got his number, dropped a nickel in the box. When he announced himself a man’s voice said: “Just a moment, sir.” He was trying to get a cigarette from his pack with one hand when a quick, staccato voice broke metallically in the earpiece.

  “Mr. Flaherty?” Flaherty grinned a little; there was no eh stuff this time. Devine’s voice quivered and ran up swiftly, like a child’s. “I’ve got another message—by phone. They threaten to kill me tonight. They found out about you. My! You must get out here at once. If they—”

  Flaherty got out his cigarette and scraped a match against the side of the booth. He said: “Don’t get excited. We’ll have some men out there in ten minutes, maybe less. They’re trying to scare you into it. Don’t worry.”

  He hung up. Scared as hell now, but tough enough this afternoon when the steam wasn’t on. No guts, that kind . . . .

  Mike was waiting for him. “Wanta hop out to Devine’s?” Flaherty said. “Pick up a man on your way. He’s got the jitters—thinks they’re gonna spot him tonight. I’ll stick here; maybe I can get something from the Greek’s girl. Call me when you get there.”

  Mike said: “Okey,” and went out towards the stairs. Flaherty stepped on to the dance-floor and looked about. The girl Joey Helton had spoken to was off at one side, in a row of chairs reserved for hostesses. Flaherty walked across the floor and stopped before her. “Dancing this one?” he asked.

  She nodded, looked up without interest. When the music started they glided out to the floor. She was as tall almost as Flaherty, with blonde, short-clipped hair, and a heavy sensuous mouth. Her eyes were dark blue, thick-lidded.

  They danced on without speaking. When the number was over, Flaherty said: “Thanks. You can step, sweetheart. Have the next?”

  She responded with a faint shrug of her bared shoulders. The lights dimmed down and a young man in the band laid aside his instrument, began to croon in a sleepy voice through a small megaphone.

  She had a firm, supple curved body. She kept her head turned, eyes over his shoulder. He shifted, tightened his hold.

  “You’re nice,” he said. “Me, I think so. Too nice to waste your time on greaseballs.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment; then she spoke from the side of her mouth, not turning her head. “Greaseballs?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Flaherty. “You know who I mean. The little ginny I saw you dancing with last night.”

  Her face swung up to his, whiffing with it a cheap reek of perfume across his nostrils. There was a faint mocking gleam under her mascaraed lashes.

  “I was not here last night.” Her voice was low, husky, with a thin blur of accent.

  Flaherty laughed. “Musta been the night before. I see you with him a lot. Steady?”

  She shrugged, humming the song the band played, deep in her throat.

  “I get breaks like that,” Flaherty said. “Any chance of ditchin’ him for dinner tonight?”

  “No,” she said. “I got a sick mother.”

  “I know the song,” Flaherty answered. “The old man ain’t so well and you’re keepin’ the kid sister in a convent. All right, girlie; I’ll see you again.”

  When the music was over he let her go back to her seat. She was meeting someone, probably; he’d have to take a chance on that being Johnny Greco. He resigned himself to wait, looking at his watch. Twenty minutes past ten; Mike’s call would be due now.

  He walked out to the anteroom and
smoked a cigarette. When the phone in the booth tinkled he went across and into it before the pimply faced man could turn.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Flaherty?” Under Mike Martin’s furred voice pulsed a ripple of excitement. “Better get out here quick, boy. Someone laid a pineapple in Devine’s car. The chauffeur and him was blown to hell not five minutes ago.”

  Flaherty got a taxi at the corner and stared tense-eyed into the darkness during the ten-minute ride. What was coming off? Johnny Greco was no fool; neither was Jigger Burns. Bumping a guy was a dough job—they weren’t in it for fun. Devine hadn’t come through—they didn’t give him time. Force of example, so that the next heavy man they touched wouldn’t squawk? That, maybe. He wondered what Mike had seen.

  The cab swung into the quiet darkness of Magnolia Avenue. Three blocks farther on, a knot of people huddled together under the pale glint of a street lamp. Lights gleamed from houses all about; hastily clad people grouped in doorways, called to each other in shrill tones from window to window.

  Flaherty got out and paid the driver. “Wait ten minutes,” he said.

  Devine’s house was set back from the road on a low terrace. Flaherty saw it as a large three-story building, with a curve of graveled driveway leading whitely up across the dark lawn. A thick hedge banked it on the street side; when Flaherty cut in through this on the driveway a uniformed figure stepped out before him. He was fishing for his badge when Mike Martin came out from the shadows.

  “All right, Smith,” he said. “Get the crowd away. It’s up here, Flaherty.”

  They went up in silence to the top of the hill. Lights poured from the ground-floor windows, sending a flood of illumination across grass and shrubbery. Ragged curtain ends fluttered out through the smashed panes; the stoop to the porch sagged drunkenly, half of it toppled on its side and resting on the earth. The porch itself had been a Colonial affair, tall, white, with slim pillars and a curved portico. Three of the pillars were snapped off in the center, and at the right end a segment of roof hung down like a misshapen curtain.

  The car squatted before the house, a foot away from the stoop. In the light it was a twisted and charred mass of grayish metal. The top was blown off, and fragments of glass from its windows littered the ground with little silver shreds of light. At the side nearest Flaherty the metal warped outward in a great hole.

  “It’s a morgue job,” said Mike. “You couldn’t identify either of them with a microscope.”

  Flaherty bent and looked inside. When he straightened, his face was grayish. “Cripes!” he said.

  “Yes,” said Mike. “Messy, hah?”

  “Did you see it go up?”

  Mike spat and nodded. “We’d just got here,” he said. “I grabbed Smith at the station and we came out in the flivver. I didn’t see anybody in the street. I told Smith to wait and crossed over. Then I saw a little guy in a top hat come down the stoop and get into the car.”

  Flaherty scowled at his feet. “Devine,” he said. “I thought the damn’ fool would know enough to stick inside.”

  “I heard the starter begin to purr—just for a second. Then I felt the pineapple bust loose. I didn’t see anything—it slammed me back through the bushes like I was a laundry bag. When I got up here it was all over.”

  Flaherty lit a cigarette and tossed the match in the grass. For a second the flame scooped his lean, sharp face out of the shadow.

  “They might have had it wired to the motor. But then why the hell didn’t it blast out comin’ from the garage? What was the chauffeur doin’? Did he leave the bus at all after bringin’ it out?”

  “I don’t know,” Mike answered. “I haven’t had time to talk to the servants. They’re so scared they’re blubberin’. They got an English butler in there you should see, Flaherty. Gawd! He’ll give the laundry a job this week.”

  “See what the chauffeur was doin’.” Flaherty said. “You might get a tip questionin’ the people around here. I’m goin’ back for Johnny Greco and the Jigger. This is where the nitro came in, Mike.”

  Blocks distant a siren screamed. Flaherty tossed aside his cigarette.

  “That’s probably the old man. Devine was a big shot in this burg; he’ll wanta know how come. I’ll leave you get the Congrats, Mike. So-long. I’ll phone you at headquarters later.”

  Mike cursed bitterly. “You yella——” he said. “The old man will save some for you. I’ll see to that.”

  At the corner Flaherty’s taxi swerved to avoid the police car, then straightened out along Magnolia Avenue. They made good time; it was ten minutes past eleven by Flaherty’s watch when they pulled up before the Esplanade.

  The crowd inside was thicker, gayer, noisier. Flaherty sifted through the mob, passed to the anteroom, came back to the dance-floor. The blonde was nowhere in sight. He went out to the gate; to the pimply faced man on duty he said: “Where’d the tall blonde go? That Polack girl—”

  The man shrugged. “She left ten minutes ago.”

  Flaherty cursed. “Where does she live?” he snapped.

  “I’m not runnin’ that kind of place,” pimply face said. Behind the lenses his eyes were small and guarded. “There’s plenty of blondes in there, guy.”

  Flaherty yanked him around; he said, hard-eyed: “Where does she live?”

  Pimply face licked his lips uncertainly and then shot out his jaw. “What you lookin’ for, guy? Trouble? I told you—”

  “Yeh,” said Flaherty. “I heard you the first time. I guess you ain’t got the records. You’re in a spot, fella. You know the regulations on joints like this.”

  Pimply face tried to hold his stare and failed. He said sullenly: “Sure I got the records. Wait a minute. I’ll see.”

  He went across to the window, spoke to the girl inside, and came back with a small white filing slip in his hand. “Anna Brinski—213 Ailing-ton Place,” he said, raising his eyes furtively to Flaherty’s. “What’s the trouble? Any—”

  Flaherty let his words drift out without answering. He took the stairs three at a step and turned left at the door. Four blocks over, Ailing-ton Place emptied into the avenue: a narrow, darkly lit thoroughfare, with two parallel rows of cheap brownstone tenements leading down. He found 213 by counting off six houses from the corner; the numbers over the door, faded by time and weather, were indistinguishable in the gloom.

  In the vestibule he struck a match, passing the flame over the bells. He read near the end: Anna Brinski, Apt. 43. The door swung back at his touch, admitting him to a narrow hall, palely lit.

  He went up on his toes, two steps at a time, without sound. A radio moaned harshly in one of the flats, squawked with a sudden inrush of static as he passed; he caught fragments of voices, snores, the lingering thick odor of fried fish.

  At the top of the flight a single bulb glowed weakly, shedding a wan light over the apartment doors. There were six on each floor; the one numbered three was in an angle near the front. When he got to the fourth landing Flaherty stopped and listened; he could hear nothing but the high querulous voice of a drunken woman below.

  His footsteps patted on the oilcloth, slid off into the darkness with low echoes. He rapped sharply, twice, on the door of 43—there was no bell.

  After a minute of quietness someone said inside: “Who’s there?”

  Flaherty said hoarsely: “Anna? Johnny sent me over. He can’t meet you tonight. He’s bein’ tailed.”

  She said something short, bitterly. Flaherty grinned. When the door opened a crack he laid his body against it and pushed.

  The room inside was brightly lit. There was a day-bed at one end, not yet made up, a messy dressing-table across from it, a tall floor-lamp with a torn shade near the window. The air was drenched with the brassy smell of burnt out cigarettes. Clothes littered the couch, poured over on to the floor; an open suitcase lay on the small center-table.

  “So you’re goin’ away,” said Flaherty, leaning against the door. “You shoulda let me know, Anna.”

>   Her hair was down, stuck with curlers; she was wearing a sleazy dressing-gown. She smiled softly, but her eyes kept the same.

  “The cheap bull,” she said. “Where do you think?”

  “No fun,” said Flaherty. “I’m asking, Anna.”

  He locked the door behind him and went across to the hall at one end that led into the tiny kitchenette and bath. Both were empty.

  He grinned coming back. “So Joey Helton squeaked to you after all. We’ll have to mark him up a point.”

  She sat down on the couch and picked a cigarette from the heavy bronze smoking-stand at the side. “What do you want?” she said.

  “Nothin’ much,” said Flaherty. “Where were you gonna meet Johnny Greco?”

  She shrugged. Her gown slipped down and she pulled it up, lazily, with one hand. “I don’t know him—this Johnny.”

  Flaherty’s eyes narrowed. “You’re wastin’ your time on that stuff, sister. Where were you to meet him?”

  She stared down at the cigarette in her hand without answering. Flaherty turned away from her and walked over to the suitcase. He thumbed through the flap in the top. He picked up the garments one by one, felt them through, dropped them to the floor. Her eyes changed color, darkened, in the cone of light from the lamp. She spat out something that Flaherty couldn’t understand.

  He stared at her for a second. “Don’t say it in English,” he said. “I’m the kind of guy that hasn’t got any chivalry.”

  When the bag was empty he went over to the couch and reached down for the pocket-book she had tried to hide with her back. As he bent for it she was on him like a tigress, without warning. He snapped his elbow up under her chin, felt the jarring click of teeth coming together as her knee shot up viciously to his stomach, stabbing him with pain. He grabbed her wrist; his grasp tightened, twisted until she moaned suddenly and went soft in his arms. He dropped her roughly to the couch and picked up the bag.

  “Any more?” he asked.

  She lay staring up at him, her eyes blazing. After a minute Flaherty turned his attention to the bag. Two folded pink strips of paper were on top; he shook them out, dropping his eyes along the lines. “Los Angeles!” He whistled. “Gettin’ out far, weren’t you? The other one for Johnny—” He put them in his pocket. “Get dressed, kid; I’m gonna take you for a little ride downtown. I know a couple of guys there that have the knack of getting’ questions answered.”