by Jerry eBooks
There was a sudden movement behind me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the girl making a dive for the door. Henderson swung away from me, grabbed her arm, and flung her back. She hit the wall and slumped down to the floor and kind of huddled there, holding her hands to her face. Her dress was pulled up and I saw a narrow strip of white flesh between the hem of her dress and the tops of her stockings. And then the digging pain in the middle of my back got sharper, and the little guy said, “Steady, sir.”
Henderson turned back to me. Without warning he flicked his gun around in a vicious arc. The muzzle dragged across my cheek. My face was numb for an instant and then I felt the slow drops of blood oozing out. To hell with this, I thought. I’d taken enough from these two bums.
I lunged forward and sideways, away from the knife, and as I lunged I flung my right at Henderson’s mouth. He sidestepped and my knuckles scraped against his ear. In the same instant his arm came around and the flat side of his automatic smashed against the side of my head over my ear. I went down to the carpet, and before my face hit the floor he smacked me again. The floor felt soft and restful and I remember stretching slowly out, as if I were going to sleep. As from a great distance I heard Baggy Pants giggle, a kind of a hissing sound. “Sssso nice, Albert. Sssso nice.” And then a roaring blackness blotted out all sound.
When I opened my eyes I was lying on the floor and I felt terrible. For a minute I had a hard time remembering where I was and what had happened. I got to my feet feeling pretty groggy, and my head hurt bad. The first thing I did was feel for my dough. It was gone—about three hundred bucks. And my watch, too. They did leave me my cigarette lighter, though, and about two bucks in change in my pants pocket.
I looked around, but I didn’t see any bathroom, so I picked up my hat and went out into the hall. Down at the end I saw a door marked “Men,” and I went in. In the cracked and dirty mirror I looked at myself and wondered if I felt as bad as I looked, or the other way around. The cold water felt good. I washed off the blood, soaked my head in the water, and combed my hair. There was a bump as big around as a four-bit piece above my ear. I had to slant my hat on the other side of my head. I tightened my belt, pulled down my vest, and went out. When I got down to the sidewalk I was surprised to see that the afternoon was almost gone. Traffic was thick, and people were hurrying past me. The sun was low and yellow over beyond the Empire State building. The air was cooler, though, and as I started down the street I began to feel a lot better.
About a block away I turned into a dinky bar and had two slugs of rye. I lit a cigarette then and went back to a telephone booth in the corner and called Sergeant Dan Coppus. He was working on the desk and he and I had done each other a number of good turns off and on during the past ten years.
“Listen, Dan,” I said. “This is Pete. Have you got anything on a big good-looking bird who calls himself Albert Henderson and a little dried up mugg who hangs around with him answering to the moniker of Dr. Aterbury?”
“Pete,” said Dan, “I thought you had died. The missus was asking about you the other day. When you coming over to the house? How about tonight? I got plenty beer—”
“Look, Dan,” I said, “I’ve got to get back to the place. I’ll be over, but not tonight. How about those two guys? I want to know. They just beat hell out of me.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” asked Dan. “Where are you? I’ll call you back.”
I told him that I was going back to the club and that he should call me there in about twenty minutes. Then I went out and snagged a taxi. When I got back to the place everything was pretty quiet. Harry was sitting behind his desk reading the evening papers. He looked up when I walked in.
Harry said, “What in hell happened to you? You look like you been hit by a truck.”
I began to tell him all about what happened and while I was talking the phone rang. It was Coppus.
“Pete,” he said, “we ain’t got a thing on either of those two monkeys. What other names they got?”
“Plenty, I suppose,” I said. “But I don’t know what they are?”
“Give me their descriptions,” he said, “and where last seen. I’ll broadcast it. What else did they do beside beat you up?”
I told him the story and gave him the girl’s description, too.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll charge them with assault and battery, robbery, and carrying concealed weapons. What about the girl?”
“The girl?” I said. I had been thinking a lot about her, and I figured that I wasn’t the only sucker that she had had up to her room “for tea.” No wonder she hadn’t accepted the hundred and twenty bucks I had offered her. That made her act all the better. “The girl?” I repeated. “That’s easy.
Accomplice. Aiding and abetting. Bait, lure, the worm on the hook.”
Coppus laughed. “Pete,” he said, “I thought you knew all the angles. You must be getting old and silly. Black hair, blue eyes, nice legs—”
“Go to hell, flatfoot,” I said. “Let me know if you find out anything.”
“Sure Pete. How about tonight? Bring Harry along and we’ll play some pinochle.”
“Not tonight,” I said. “Let me know if you pick up any of them.” And I hung up.
The buzzer on Harry’s desk let loose. Harry took the receiver off the hook, said, “All right. Right away.”
He looked up at me. “The boss is upstairs. He heard about the ruckus this afternoon. He wants to see you. Now.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I was afraid of that. Don’t forget about that deadline bell. We’re using it from now on.”
Harry grunted. “Never should have stopped using it.”
I went up the back stairway to the boss’ apartment on the second floor. When I knocked he yelled for me to come in. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was mad. I was right. He gave me merry hell.
I shaved, took a shower, fixed up my face and went back downstairs for something to eat.
While I was eating at a table in the corner a guy walked in and went up to Harry and said, “Who is in charge here?”
Harry nodded at me and the guy walked over. I got up and looked him over. I guessed him to be about forty-five years old. He was well-dressed in a gray chalk-stripe suit and a gray Homburg, and he carried a cane. He was a nice-looking guy with a smooth ruddy complexion and neat gray mustache, He wore rimless eye glasses and his hair was gray at the temples. He looked like the pictures you sometimes see in the advertisements of guys supposed to be Big Business, or the Boss behind a polished desk saying “No” to some poor bird with halitosis or B.O. He stood in front of me, smiled pleasantly and said, “Good evening,” and handed me a card. The card was engraved and it said, Mr. Preston Rowden, and gave an address in Westchester. The name didn’t mean a thing to me.
I put the card in my pocket, said, “My name’s Allen. What can I do for you?”
He looked around, said, “May we talk privately, Mr. Allen?”
“Sure,” I said. “Sit down.”
We both sat down and he hung his cane over the edge of the table and took off his hat. His hair was beginning to thin a little. It was parted on the side, and I could see the comb marks in it, very neat. He was freshly shaven and he had a clean scrubbed and polished look about him.
“Mr. Allen,” he began, “rather unusual circumstances—I might say painful and unfortunate circumstances—prompted this visit. I hope I can rely on your discretion?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering what he was leading up to. “It’s just between you and me.”
“Thank you,” he said, smiling. “I feel that you mean that. I’ll put what I have to tell you quite bluntly. Maybe you can help me. Four days ago my stepdaughter left home. I won’t go into details as to why she left home, except to say that she is an impetuous, headstrong person and that she resented certain parental restrictions which her mother and I felt should be imposed on her for her own good. Her father has been dead for a number of years, and as is often true i
n such cases, her mother has found it increasingly difficult to discipline her. When her mother and I married we both hoped that perhaps with my added support we could do something with her. But”—Rowden smiled ruefully—“it didn’t work out that way. She seemed to like me, but I have no more control over her than her mother has.”
“So,” I said, “she finally left home. You’ve been looking for her yourself because you don’t want to call the cops because of the publicity. Right?”
He nodded. “Yes. That’s about it. Only this—she didn’t have much money when she left. One of the things we have tried to restrain her from is gambling. She had a passion for betting on the horses. Her mother and I both thought that the first thing she would do would be to try to make more money—she didn’t have much with her when she left—the only way she knows how. That’s why I am here. Your place is better known than the other places in town. I came here first. She’s about five feet four, black hair, blue eyes—”
“Would she call herself Rose Vaughn?” I asked. Rowden looked excited. “Yes—yes, she would.
Vaughn was her mother’s maiden name. Have you seen her? Was she in here?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s been in here every afternoon for the last four days.”
“Well,” he said. “This is certainly luck. Then you think she’ll probably be in here again?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think she will.”
He looked startled. “You don’t? Why not?”
I told him, then, all I knew about Rose Vaughn, and what had happened that afternoon. Before I had finished telling him he began to frown and drum on the tabletop with his manicured fingers. He took out a thin silver cigarette case, lit a cigarette, put the case back in his pocket, took it out again and offered it to me. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Smoke?”
I took one, said, “Thanks. Do you know anything about this Henderson or Aterbury?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know Henderson. I don’t like him. He has been out to the house several times. I warned him to stay away. He may have been part of the reason she went away.”
“A friend of hers?” I asked. “Yes, I’m sorry to say.”
“She didn’t act very friendly towards him,” I said. “Was that part of her act, too.”
“I don’t like to believe it,” he said, “but I’m afraid it was. She is incorrigible. If it weren’t for her mother, I would be inclined to wash my hands of the whole affair.”
I was thinking, trying to figure out the setup. A lot of things didn’t tie in. Did they pick on me especially for their little game, or did I just happen to be the one who fell for it? But if the girl was in with Henderson and Aterbury, why did she tell me about their shortwave radio racket? To get further into my confidence, to put me off guard because she knew that they couldn’t work their game in the boss’s place again anyway?
But this Rowden sure looked worried, and I didn’t envy him the spot he was in. I could picture his wife nagging at him and driving him to look for her no-good daughter, when he was convinced that she wasn’t worth the effort. After all, she wasn’t his daughter but it kind of put him on the spot. I felt a little sorry for him but it was nothing to me, although I would have liked to have had my dough and watch back. And I would have liked to have gotten a crack at Henderson and his weasel-faced pal. When I thought about them I began to burn. The tape on my face and the bump over my ear reminded me of them—and the girl. I don’t go in for beating women but I felt as though I would enjoy slapping her a few times where it would do the most good.
“Well, Mr. Rowden,” I said, “I guess it’s out of your hands. I’ve already told the cops. They are looking for your stepdaughter and her two pals right now.”
He looked at me, startled. “You notified the police? You shouldn’t have done that. What right have you—?”
“Listen,” I said. “They beat me up, took my watch and three hundred bucks.”
He leaned back in his chair, began drumming on the table again. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “I’m sorry. You were within your rights. Only it puts me in a rather awkward position. Mrs. Rowden, you know—”
The telephone on Harry’s desk rang. Harry answered it, said, “Just a minute,” and called across the room to me. “Pete. It’s for you.”
I went over, picked up the phone. It was Dan Coppus. “Pete,” he said, “we got the girl.”
I looked over at Rowden, said into the mouthpiece. “Nice going. Where did you pick her up?” Rowden got to his feet, picked up his hat and cane, and kept looking at me.
“At her room, the place where you said they rolled you. She came back there about an hour ago. I had a man watching the place. We got her down here at the station.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll be right down.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and her stepdad,” I said, and hung up. Rowden walked up to me. I said, “The cops have got her. I’ll have to go along with you to get her out.”
Rowden said, “I’m not going.”
I looked at him, surprised. “You want to take her home, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. But I don’t want to appear at the police station. You know—reporters, publicity. That is one thing Mrs. Rowden and I have been trying to avoid in this matter.”
“Now look,” I said. “She is your problem, not mine. All I want is my watch and my three hundred bucks. What am I supposed to do with her?”
“Withdraw your charges. Get her out. Bring her over to her room and I will meet you there. I think that will be better. I will reimburse you for your trouble and your loss.”
I shrugged. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”
He asked, “What is the address of the place where she is staying?”
I told him, and he said he would meet me there. He went out and I went upstairs and got out my old .38. I didn’t think I would need it, but I wasn’t going back into that neighborhood again without it. When I went back downstairs the evening trade was just starting to come in and I went over to Harry and told him to take care of things until I got back.
He said, “The boss won’t like it.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “If he wants me, tell him I went down to the corner for an ice cream soda.” I went outside, got hold of a taxi and went over to the station.
When I went in, Dan grinned at me. “I don’t blame you, Pete,” he said. “She’s sure a swell looker.”
“Cut it out,” I said. “Where is she?”
Dan got up and yelled at somebody in another room and in a couple of minutes they brought her out. She didn’t look very good. Her eyes looked tired and she didn’t have any makeup on. She had combed her hair, though, and her clothes were neat.
I said, “Hello, Rose.”
She looked at me, not smiling. She said, “I’m sorry for what happened this afternoon.”
“Sure, sure,” I said. “Where’s my watch and money?”
“They have it. I couldn’t stop them.”
“Where are they now?”
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded tired. “After they left this afternoon, I went out. When I came back, you were gone.”
“I should have stuck around,” I said. “I see that. What did you go out for?”
A little color came into her pale cheeks. “You were hurt. I walked to a drugstore to get some gauze and things.”
“Well, well,” I said. “That was real nice of you. What was your cut out of my three hundred bucks?”
She looked at me with steady eyes. “I told you that I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“All right,” I said. “Okay. Come on. I’ll take you home.” I turned to Dan. He had been an interested listener to our conversation. “It’s all right. I’ll take care of her.”
“I’ll bet,” Dan said grinning. “How about her two pals?”
“Keep on looking. And let me know as soon as you pick them up.�
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Dan shrugged. “You’re the doctor. And if it ain’t too much trouble, stop around some time and tell me what this is all about.”
The girl was watching me, but she didn’t say anything. I guess she couldn’t figure it out, either, my springing her that way. But she went outside with me. Her room wasn’t very far from the station, so we walked. And besides, I thought that if we walked it would give her more time to talk to me—if there was anything she wanted to tell me. But she didn’t say much, and neither did I. I figured if I told her about Rowden waiting for her she wouldn’t want to go. And anyhow, I told myself, all I wanted was to get her off my hands and get my dough and watch back.
When we were almost to her building she said suddenly: “You don’t believe me, do you?”
I said, “No,” and guided her into the building and up the stairs. I kept looking around but I didn’t see anything of Rowden. I figured that maybe he was waiting up in the hall. But when we got up there he wasn’t there, either. She unlocked her door, opened it and stood looking at me. “Thank you,” she said, “for bringing me home. I don’t know why you are doing this for me—after what happened—but I’m very grateful.” She looked down at the ragged carpet. “And I hope you get your money back.”
“I hope so, too,” I said, making talk and wondering where in hell Rowden was. He had plenty of time to get there. I didn’t want to leave her alone—I felt kind of responsible for her—and yet I didn’t know exactly how to work it so that I could stay there until Rowden came. So I said, “How about giving me that tea that I didn’t get this afternoon?”
She looked up quickly at me, and I knew that I had said the wrong thing. And I began to wonder about her again. For a second she stood there in the doorway with the dark room behind her, looking at me. Then she pushed the door open wider, said, “Of course. Come in.” Her voice was suddenly flat, toneless. She pressed the light switch beside the door. The lights came on and she walked into the room. I followed her. I didn’t touch the door, but I heard it shut behind me. Too late I whirled around.