by Jerry eBooks
Stamp shook his head on that. Slug didn’t have the brains or the guts to manage a city-wide racket. Somebody had to do his thinking for him. Which, Stamp decided, definitely brought the senator back into the puzzle.
Stamp walked up steps to Senator Millerand’s front door, pushed a button. The soft tones of an alhambra chime sounded somewhere inside. The door opened, a mulatto butler looked out.
“I’m Detective Olsen. Headquarters. I want to see Senator Millerand,” Stamp said.
He noticed the strained, scared look in the butler’s eyes. He asked: “What’s wrong?”
The servant struggled a moment in obvious indecision, finally blurted: “Senator Millerand, suh. He done went out, said he got to kill a man.”
Olsen pushed inside, closed the door, stood in a wide hall.
“What’re you talking about?”
“He’s been up all night, suh, waitin’ fo’ Miss Ruth. He say he scared to call the police. He grab the telephone when it rung, listened an’ hung up. He say: ‘They got Miss Ruth.’
“He put on his overcoat an’ hat, catch up his gun, say, ‘I got to do somethin’ I ain’t never did befo’. I got to kill a man,’ climb in his car an’ left.”
As he plowed recklessly through the lifting fog, Stamp swore at himself for not going straight to Slug O’Ryan’s hangout instead of to the senator’s home.
Those few minutes he had spent there might have prevented a murder.
The car plunged across Broad Street, hit a green light at Boulevard, turned right, pulled in opposite a fire plug. He wrote something on a card, tucked it into the horn button, ran half a square to a one-way side street and turned in.
Midway down the block was a door. On either side, two men, short, slim, cigarettes drooping from their lips, lounged.
Stamp started in past them. They caught his arms. One said: “Just a minute, pal.”
Olsen swung. Two long, looping, vicious rights that caught the men flush on their jaws, cracked their heads against the brick building. They slumped to the sidewalk.
Olsen went in the door, up a dark flight of stairs. At a second floor landing he saw nothing. He mounted to the third floor. He heard voices, spotted an anteroom at the rear of the hall through which light seeped. He moved toward it.
A voice there said: “Jeez, Cokie, I thought the boss told you to—”
He never finished. Stamp’s fingers were around his throat, closing tighter, tighter. The man tried to get at his gun, couldn’t, gradually went limp in Olsen’s hands. Stamp eased him to the hall floor.
PAUSING at an inner door around which the artificial light shone, Stamp listened.
“Get this straight, senator,” a heavy voice droned. “Your chips are all cashed an’ you’re leavin’ the game, see?”
Olsen recognized Senator Millerand’s round tones: “You’re wasting time, Slug. I don’t bluff.”
“You’re quitting, or your kid gets the works.”
“And you get the chair.”
“Oh, no, I don’t. You can’t pin it on me. I got influence.”
“The only influence you have ever had was mine.” There was silence before the senator added: “I guessed somebody had put you up to this.
“Well, what I told you last week holds. I argued against fighting the Deacon with violence. Your new employer has evidently advised differently. So you’ve framed Deacon Cole’s nephew, the radio just flashed word you’ve killed the Deacon. You’ve kidnaped my daughter, threatened her bodily harm if I don’t surrender my gambling franchises to you.
“I’m willing to shut all gambling down, Slug. Shut it down tight. But I won’t be frozen out by you or your master mind. I don’t bluff.”
Olsen heard movement, heard O’Ryan say: “Neither does this.”
“Put that gun away, Slug.”
Stamp tensed, revolver forward, left hand poised over the doorknob. “I’m going to put you away, senator. My boys are out now to get your kid and that dumb dick, Olsen. And with you gone—”
“For heaven’s sake—”
Olsen clamped the doorknob, turned it, slammed his shoulder against the door, fell to a knee, all in one motion.
Slug’s face was numbed from surprise. Then he caught his mental balance, swung his automatic and pressed the trigger.
Stamp fired at the same time, creased O’Ryan’s face. He fired again, got Slug’s shoulder, spun him howling backward.
There was a noise behind Olsen, from the hallway door. He turned, saw the man he had throttled weaving to his knees, pawing for his gun. Stamp dived at him, dragged him to his feet, removed the gun, sent him catapulting across a table to fall beside the wounded O’Ryan.
Olsen went over, half lifted Slug. He was a short, squat man with puff adder jaws and a great shock of black hair.
“Okay, Slug. Spill it. Who’s muscling into Millerand’s racket?”
O’Ryan clutched his shoulder, said nothing.
“I can tell it for him,” Senator Millerand said. “He listened to somebody else promise a bigger cut than I was giving him, turned rat on me, started playing with the other side.
“They killed young Rayfield because he knew the plot, framed Deacon Cole’s nephew to make it look like my doing. Cole and his men were set to raise hell, so the Deacon disappeared. To make certain I wouldn’t balk at this pressure, they kidnaped my daughter. It was devilish clever.”
“But who did the master-minding?” Stamp asked.
“Only one man could—” the senator began when Stamp saw it. A door to his left inching open, a hand sneaking out, toward a wall light button.
Olsen got to his feet, leaped at the door.
The light went out. The outflung door caught him on the forehead, he sprawled sidewise against the legs of a man, held on.
He felt blows on the top of his head, lunged, threw the other to the floor. They rolled over and over, swinging viciously, wildly. A shoe caught Stamp under the chin, sudden pressure thrust him bodily backward.
The shade ripped from the open window. A tall figure stood outlined against the swirling fog before toppling headlong to the street below.
THE LIGHT switched on under Senator Millerand’s finger. The four men in the room looked blankly at each other.
The senator shook his head. “The profit,” he said, “wasn’t worth it.”
Slug was ready to talk. Oddly, no one much wanted to listen. They all moved slowly downstairs.
“It was his idea, I tell you,” Slug whined. “The vice stink in the papers was a swell blind an’ plenty hot to turn the heat on the senator. Rayfield was a rat, an’ framin’ young Cole would make the public sore at the senator. He even knocked off the next guy, phoned it in to Mr. Olsen himself so there’d be no muffing the name.”
The senator nodded, said: “With Deacon Cole officially dead, it was made to order for the papers and his own plans.”
On the sidewalk below, a cop was handcuffing the two lookouts Stamp had kayoed. The cop said: “I got your note in the horn button, Olsen.”
Stamp said, “Yeah,” led the rest around the corner of the building.
A dark object sprawled half in the gutter, half on the sidewalk. Fog eddied around it.
They grouped silently about the body.
Then Stamp said slowly, sadly, “It’s the Deacon, all right.”
FIVE CENTS A LIFE
Maitland Scott
A man’s life is worth what he can get for it. Tight-spot Andrews figured his was worth at least a nickel.
John “Tight-Spot” Andrews of The Daily Dial wandered aimlessly into the Red Parrot, second-rate night club, and sat down at an inconspicuous table in the rear. The Red Parrot’s owner, Ernie Trauber, darted a narrowed gaze at the tall form of the lanky reporter. Trouble, serious trouble, too often happened where Andrews turned up. For more than one reason the big, florid-faced Trauber wondered if the newshawk’s aimless attitude might not be only pretence.
Gracie, the cigarette girl, started off toward Andr
ews’ table the minute she spotted him, a bright, glad smile on her crimson lips—there was something in the young-old eyes of the newspaper man that attracted women. Trauber watched narrowly, saw her nod as the newshawk held up three fingers, questioningly. The night-club owner’s heavy jowls tightened, and a deep, slow flush of anger crept up his thick neck.
That was it, he concluded. Sure, Grade had been near when he’d told the doorman to signal him the minute any of Mike Malone’s hoods showed up. She’d tipped off the news monkey that three of them were coming. Well, Mike had said that his cannons were making only a nice, friendly visit.
But big Ernie Trauber was worried. Suppose Mike, growing racket boss, had changed his mind since he’d argued him out of making the Red Parrot pay tribute? He and Mike had been pals in the old days, but Mike’s night-club protection racket had grown—and Mike Malone, the big boss, was getting greedier by the day . . . Anyhow, that smart dame Grade had no business blowing off to Andrews. It might all mean nothing, bat he didn’t like to have the bad-luck scribbler around on a night like this. And did Mike have to send three hoods?
Across the smoky dub Trauber’s gaze met the reporter’s, and the latter saw that his three-finger questioning had been observed.
Grade circulated among the tables, silken tights gleaming against the soft curves of her nimble legs. Trauber went to his small office on the main floor, there to have her sent to him. He’d teach that dame a thing or two . . .
Ernie Trauber rang for one of his floormen, told him to send Gracie in. But Gracie didn’t come. Instead, the floorman returned with a note from “Tight-spot” Andrews. Trauber cursed and dug into his desk for a special bottle when he read the newshawk’s three-word note:
I wouldn’t, Trauber.
Andrews
A couple of years ago Ernie Trauber had beaten up a check-room girl. She had been afraid to bring charges for fear Trauber would see to it that she got plenty from a hired strong-arm thug or two. Ernie Trauber did things that way.
Tight-spot Andrews lolled boredly at his table, apparently too lazy to even touch his highball. Andrews was worth his weight in gold to his paper. It was good for circulation to have a star reporter who often figured more in sensational headlines than did the police themselves.
The newshawk had made an extensive and detailed study of every known criminal that he could in his five years of reporting since he’d left college. He claimed that complete knowledge of their personal lives was invaluable, but it seemed miraculous to even his city editor how he managed to be on the scene of so many shootings. And nearly always Andrews got into a spot from which it seemed humanly impossible to escape; hence the nickname.
Tonight, however, Tight-spot Andrews was unarmed. In the recent cleanup of a desperate narcotic ring, too many narcotic peddlers had been found dead—with bullets from Andrews’ pistol in them. His license had been recalled by a cantankerous official, who maintained that the newshawk was gaining a killer’s reputation and that legitimate killing should be left entirely to the police.
Andrews had recently dropped in at Malone’s “front,” a medium-sized ice plant, and chatted with the racketeer on whom the police were aching to pin a heavy rap. Andrews wasn’t sure, but he thought—from Malone’s growing pretentiousness—that he was about ready to spread his reign of tribute-collections, even as far as his ol’ pal Ernie Trauber.
Andrews figured that Trauber might be stubborn, relying on his past friendship with Malone to get out of paying tribute money. There might, just possibly might, be something hot doing—if Malone decided to bump off Trauber as an example to other night-club owners. Such things had been done before. And Andrews wanted proof few: his paper. He wished that tonight he were armed. He shrugged finally. It had always been his boasted theory that no matter how tight a spot a man got into, there was always some possible way he could think himself out of it . . .
Joe Sauchelli was the first of Mike Malone’s henchmen to enter the nearly empty Red Parrot, and Andrews drew back a bit into the semi-shelter of his booth-table. It might not do to be seen. If something really were to come off tonight, Malone’s outfit wouldn’t want a witness running around loose. The few remaining patrons of the early morning didn’t matter: half tipsy and unobserving, and obviously not of the type to recognize underworld characters.
But John Andrews of the Dial knew the Malone outfit, and the Malone outfit knew him.
Tight-spot Andrews watched Joe Sauchelli, saw the racket thug wander slowly by Ernie Trauber. The two spoke briefly, and then Sauchelli seated himself at a table near a center part of the small dance floor. Andrews studied the man’s face and then drew back farther into his booth and reviewed the main characteristic of Sauchelli—thirst for vengeance.
A year ago Sauchelli’s brother, Luigi, had been found murdered in his apartment. Joe had been trying to find his killer with all the intentness of an emotional Latin nature. Joe had never been either pleasant or unpleasant, but since his brother had been murdered—with some heavy blunt object, and no clue of the killer found—his lean, olive-complexioned face had become a dull, saturnine mask from which vicious little eyes gleamed, questioningly, ever searchingly. He was a small man, physically, but stocky and tough.
A few more customers reeled out of the Red Parrot, homeward bound, and then Tony De Carlo came in. A big, lumbering man with heavy features, he repeated the wandering perambulations of Sauchelli, ending up at the table with his racketeer pal.
Andrews could see that Ernie Trauber was becoming perceivably nervous.
In fact, Trauber wondered for a moment or two if he should not have hired a few hoods for the night, just in case. But he quickly reasoned that he could argue Mike Malone’s organization out of making him hand over a cut from his profits. Sure, he could argue his way out of it again. Hell, hadn’t he and Mike been old-time pals.
The third Malone henchman, Frank Adamo, a catlike, light-stepping gunman whose mouth twitched nervously, came in when the place was almost deserted. With scarcely a word to Trauber, he joined the first two.
Tight-spot Andrews suddenly realized that something was doing. The three men were obviously waiting for the night club to become entirely empty. Andrews was about to formulate a plan of leaving the place and returning, somehow, through a window, to watch, when Sauchelli suddenly turned and peered in his direction. Tight-spot drew back farther into the shadows of his booth. But then he saw that it was too late—he had been spotted.
The three gunmen talked together for a minute or two out of tight, scarcely moving lips. Then De Carlo lifted his rumbling weight from his chair and walked carelessly to the newshawk’s booth. With feigned surprise he pretended to discover suddenly the reporter from the Dial.
“Well, if it isn’t our great big newspaper hero. Come on over and have a drink with us. The boys’ll be glad to see you tonight.”
“No, thanks, De Carlo,” Andrews replied lazily, then added: “I’m leaving soon, anyway.”
The gunman’s heavy face was rutted with smiles, but his hand slipped slowly toward a lapel of his coat as he returned slowly, heavily: “Oh—no, you’re not—big boy. We—like your company.”
For a moment the reporter did not move. Things were beginning to look bad. He should have gone out earlier, as he’d contemplated, and returned from the rear some way to watch from a safe, hidden vantage point.
“Oh, all right,” he said finally, shrugging, “since it will please the boys so much.”
Adamo greeted Andrews with mock heartiness, but the gimlet-eyed Sauchelli merely nodded coldly and gestured toward a chair. Andrews sat down. De Carlo filled a glass for him from a bottle in the center of the table.
“What’s up, boys?” the reporter asked after several long, silent moments.
The three eyed him slowly, and then De Carlo said: “Nothing—nothing at all, Tight-spot. Just takin’ it easy, having a few drinks. Why, we like to have you with us tonight.” He paused, then added: “Besides, what if something is up? Ain�
��t you Tight-spot Andrews, who says he can always figger a way out?”
Andrews made no reply, but he was thinking swiftly, desperately—and finding no way out. He felt sure that there was something up, and that since he had seen and recognized the three, something else would be up: his own number. After whatever was coming off came off, or even just before it, his life wouldn’t be worth a wooden nickel.
Gracie, the cigarette girl, passed by, dressed for the street. But Andrews saw by her face that she was entirely unaware of the situation. He could hope for no help from her. She had given him the steer for which he had asked her. She obviously thought he wanted the present situation. With a brief smile she was gone.
John Andrews’ heart sank. He hadn’t thought any way out of this spot—yet. He smiled slightly, cynically, and thought: “Tight-spot Andrews—huh, what a swan song!”
Adamo saw the smile and asked: “Enjoyin’ yourself at last, eh, Tight-spot?”
“No!” Andrews flared back, angrily. Then he was on his feet, starting out of tie place.
Sauchelli and Adamo glanced swiftly around, hands darting gunward, noticing that although Trauber was just shooing out the last of his tipsy customers, waiters and bus boys were still working around the place. Then De Carlo had the reporter’s arm in a viselike grip.
“Now—be a sport, Tight-spot,” De Carlo was saying. “The party ain’t finished yet. We gotta finish this bottle. Sit down and I’ll show you a little trick, make a little bet with you.”
John Andrews allowed himself to be slowly shoved down on his chair, realizing that the gang didn’t want to give him the works with any witnesses around. Just what the works would be—he wondered.
Silent until now, but watchful, Sauchelli suddenly called out: “Come here, Trauber, we want you in on this party, too—until the joint is cleared.”
Ernie Trauber came over to the table, his big frame, which dwarfed even De Carlo’s size, moving stiffly. He stopped the nervous tightening of his heavy jowls with an effort. Before he could speak, Sauchelli added: