by Jerry eBooks
He snapped on his flash and sprayed the interior of the closet with its beam. The kid certainly was not here. He exhaled slowly, snapped off the flash, then turned it on again. He had only half-noticed the two large traveling bags, but something sticking out of one of them attracted him. He blinked several times, for what he saw was rapidly becoming the bane of his existence. A woman’s stocking dangled limply alongside the suitcase.
Carmel got the door open finally, pulled out the two suitcases and opened them. He whistled shrilly, for both were stuffed with brand-new nylons. He couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how many pair were there. They were packed in thin boxes, each one bearing the trade name of “Ultrasheer.”
Carmel hurried into the next room and dialed Headquarters. He asked one question.
“What was the trade name of those nylons which were hijacked last week upstate?”
His memory was not slipping. These stockings in a dead man’s apartment were the same brand as those thousands of pairs stolen from a truck many miles from the city. He sat down slowly, trying to think. Trying to associate facts.
Graham had not been a crook—not to Carmel’s knowledge. But then, he didn’t know every thief or bandit. These suitcases might be jammed with part of the loot from that hijack job in which the truck driver had been mercilessly shot to death.
Carmel shoved both suitcases under the bed. Whatever they meant, he could investigate later. Right now he had to find a crazy kid with a gun. A cop’s gun. His gun! Nothing seemed more important than that.
The kid hadn’t swiped the gun just for the sake of stealing something. It had been with a purpose. Graham had been his father’s bitter enemy, but Graham was dead and the kid knew it. So whom did he think he had to go hunting for?
McKinney, the owner of the trucking firm where Kirby had worked and been fired the day he had encountered Graham and killed him? Discharged through the efforts of Graham. Maybe the kid had some crazy idea that McKinney was responsible, too.
Carmel headed for the North River side of town, hunted up McKinney’s warehouse and garage and went inside. McKinney was big-time, operating a fleet of more than a hundred big trucks and contracting for all sorts of long-distance haulage.
THERE was a modern and well-fitted office in the warehouse. Two men, dressed like truck drivers, were lounging about. Carmel eyed a door marked “Private” and asked for McKinney.
“Who wants to see him?” one of the men demanded.
“Carmel—Homicide,” the detective said. “And snap into it. Where is he? I have reason to think he’s in danger.”
One man disappeared into the other office. The second blocked Carmel, and looked as if he would get tough. McKinney came to the door of his private office.
“You’re a detective?” he asked. “And I’m supposed to be in some sort of danger?”
Carmel shoved the driver aside and walked up to the owner of the business. McKinney was fifty-five or so, heavily jowled, with sparse hair and a fairly benevolent expression. He was dressed as if he owned the biggest bank in town, but then Carmel reasoned, there was probably a lot of money in this business.
“Have you seen anything of a kid?” Carmel said. “About twelve years old? Jack Kirby’s son.”
“Why, no,” McKinney said. “Should I have?”
“The kid stole a gun,” Carmel explained “My gun, if you want it cold. He swiped it for a purpose. You fired his father and started the ball rolling which ended in Andy Graham’s murder. The kid may blame you.”
McKinney gulped and looked around anxiously.
“Pete,” he ordered one man, “get outside and watch for the kid. Any kid.” He turned to Carmel. “Sergeant, what kind of a police force do we have where a twelve-year-old boy can steal a detective’s gun? Certainly he’s after me, and you can’t reason with a child like that. I don’t mind telling you, I’m frightened. He may hide anywhere, pop out and start shooting. Even if he can’t shoot straight, there is a chance I’ll be hit.”
“My advice is to stay under cover, Mr. McKinney,” Carmel said. “And about the boy’s father. You did fire him, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. In the first place he was taking lists of my customers, intending to get their business when he had enough money to go in on his own. I suspect he stole freight off one of my trucks. Furthermore, when I discovered he was subject to spells where he became a virtual maniac, I knew he had to go. Imagine what would happen if he was driving one of my ten-wheelers and had one of those spells? He might kill a lot of people.”
“You’re right,” Carmel admitted. “Just for the records, it was Graham who told you all this?”
“Yes. He thought it his duty to tell me. I had no idea Kirby was as bad as he turned out to be. He demanded to know where I’d received this information and I told him. I fired him the same day that Graham passed on his information. Now he’s killed Graham, and his son is running loose with a gun. Of course he’s after me.”
“I’ll keep hunting,” Carmel said. “If I find him, I’ll let you know.”
He left the warehouse and went back to where his car was parked. He drove rapidly away, with one eye on the rear view mirror. He wasn’t being tailed. He stopped in front of Graham’s apartment house again and went up to the dead man’s suite. He opened the door and left it open a crack, but he didn’t go inside. He moved down the hallway to the fire stairs and concealed himself there.
He didn’t have to wait long. A pair of well-known guerrillas appeared and went straight to the apartment. They eyed the open door suspiciously. One went in, the other remained outside with a hand dug into his pocket until the first man called him.
Carmel tiptoed up to the door and stepped inside. He suddenly realized he was not armed. He stuck a hand into his coat pocket and barged toward the bedroom. The pair of crooks were busy hauling out the two suitcases from beneath the bed.
“Freeze!” Carmel snapped. “Stay down that way and keep your hands right on top of those suitcases.”
He was praying that they wouldn’t detect the fact that he was bluffing. He approached them warily. The first thing to do was disarm the pair. Then he would feel safer.
“Hey!” one of the men suddenly shouted. “This cop ain’t got a gun!”
Both of them jumped to their feet. Carmel rushed them, but he had timed it a fraction of a second too late. He did send one man flat on the floor, but the other was on his feet and had drawn a gun. He used it as a club. Carmel was half stunned by the impact of the first blow, but he fought on.
The course of battle brought him close to the living room door. He gave the man nearest him a hard shove, backed through the door and slammed it. He managed to twist the key before the pair attacked.
CARMEL was as brave as the next detective, but he didn’t believe in committing suicide. He knew they would shoot the lock off that door in a matter of seconds. He picked up the phone in the hall, dialed the operator and spoke tersely.
“This is Sergeant Carmel—Police! I want a flock of radio cars and the Emergency Squad. Fast! The address is Twenty-two-fifty-nine Waverly Avenue.” If the operator was in any manner doubtful as to the authenticity of the call, her doubts must have been punctured by the sound of guns. The lock flew out of the door and Carmel went sprinting for the one service elevator. If he could reach it, if it was still on the floor, he would have those men trapped long enough for some portion of the help he had demanded to reach him.
The elevator was there. As the car dropped, a bullet smashed through the door. Then he was going down slowly, but much faster than anyone could descend the steps.
By the time he reached the curb, a radio car howled along the street. It stopped and Carmel borrowed a gun from one patrolman. He sent both of them to guard the rear door. More cars arrived, then the Emergency truck along with Captain Burke’s official sedan.
A search of the whole building began. Carmel stayed on the street explaining things.
“I’ve been working on the hijack case,
” he explained, carefully saying nothing about Al Kirby and the missing service pistol. “Acting on certain information I investigated the apartment of Andy Graham, the guy who was knifed the other night. Sure enough, I found two suitcases full of nylons. Same brand as those which were stolen.”
“Good work,” Burke complimented him. “You couldn’t have gone wrong on the nylons. None with that trade name had been released for sale as yet. . . . Now, what about the boy who stole your gun?”
“Nothing but a prank,” Carmel said. “You know how kids are. I—ah—I’ll get him later. The tip on Graham was more important.”
“Very well, Sergeant. But see that you get your gun back. It’s bad enough when a criminal takes it away from a policeman, but a twelve-year-old boy—that’s something!”
Carmel ducked, entered the building, and helped with a search that proved vain. The two gunmen had raced to the roof and got away. With them had gone the two suitcases of nylons.
Carmel decided it might not be wise to encounter Captain Burke at this particular moment. He departed via the back door.
Fifteen minutes later he was at Kirby’s house again, but on the first floor this time and ringing the landlady’s doorbell. She was a hefty, somewhat bedraggled specimen with a strong smell of whisky on her breath, and a slight weave in her walk.
“There is a little girl living in this building,” Carmel explained. “Ten, maybe eleven years old. Pigtails, thin, and wearing nylon stockings that she must have swiped somewhere.”
“Ain’t seen her.” The door began to close. Carmel shoved his foot into it.
“Lady, I’m the police,” he said.
She regarded him stonily for a moment. “Lots of kids around here who look like that. How do I know which one you mean?”
Suddenly it came back to Carmel. The little girl said she lived here with her grandmother who, she had explained with the frankness of extreme youth, drank. This woman fitted the description well. She was old enough to be a grandmother, and she certainly drank.
“I’m coming in,” Carmel said. “Don’t try to stop me or it will mean a pinch.”
The woman turned her head suddenly. “Marybelle—run. Run!”
A door slammed somewhere. Carmel raced for the porch, down it and around to the alley. He encountered the pigtailed girl almost head-on. She wasn’t running, and a look of intense worry on her face faded to serenity when she saw him.
“Now,” he said, “suppose we have a little talk. Why didn’t your grandma want me to find you?”
“She don’t like cops.”
Carmel grinned. “That, I realized two seconds after I saw her. Al Kirby told you to send me to Graham’s house, didn’t he?”
“Nope. He just said he was going there.” She was shifting her weight from one foot to the other and seemed ready to make a sprint for it.
“What does your grandma do for a living, Marybelle?”
“She takes in boarders, when she gets any. That ain’t often.”
“Suppose you tell me where Al Kirby is now, eh?”
“Wasn’t he over at Mr. Graham’s?” she blurted.
“No—and I don’t believe he went there at all. But he wanted me to go there.
Why?”
“He didn’t tell me nothing, mister. Please, if I keep talking to you, my grandma will tan me good.”
SERGEANT CARMEL glanced down at her thin legs. She wasn’t wearing the nylons now. “All right,” he said. “You can run along. And here—a dollar for you. I’ll bet that’s more than Mr. Graham gave you.”
“No, it ain’t,” she retorted. “He gave me five dollars to get him a lot of stuff he needed. And some stockings too.”
“Well, Mr. Graham was much richer than I am,” Carmel acknowledged. “Run along now. I’ll see you later on.”
Carmel returned to his car, got in, and drove straight to McKinney’s warehouse. He was instantly admitted this time. McKinney regarded him sourly.
“Well, did you get him, or must I stay locked up here for the entire night?”
“He’s a smart one,” Carmel said. “But I figure you are his target and he’s bound to come here sooner or later, so I’m going to stick around. I’m sure you’ll be glad to have somebody here to stop the slugs if the kid does open fire.”
Carmel sat down and lit a cigarette. He leaned back comfortably as if he intended to stay a while. McKinney growled something, bent over the papers on his desk, and fiddled with them. He may have looked as if he was at work, but Carmel knew very well that McKinney’s mind was on far more serious things.
Finally he looked up. “I can’t stay here all night,” he said. “If you intend to act as my bodyguard, come along with me. I’m going home.”
“No,” Carmel said. “Not until you produce the kid. And keep your hands flat on the desk, McKinney. If you reach into the drawer, I’ll let you have it. I’m armed now. You might tell that to the boys you told all about the fact that I wasn’t carrying a gun a little while ago.”
“What do you mean by that?” McKinney demanded. “What’s this all about?”
“Three things. Hijacking, murder and kidnapping. The first one will get you ten years, the second the chair, and the third life. I wouldn’t want to face the prospect of being charged with three such crimes, Mr. McKinney. Where is the boy?”
“How do I know? And I think you’re as crazy as that lunatic Kirby.”
“Fine. I’ll be content with that.
Because Kirby isn’t crazy at all. Furthermore, he did not kill Graham. You did—or had it done. . . . The hands, McKinney. Remember?”
McKinney brought his right hand into view again. Carmel’s gun was centered on the man’s chest.
“Lift the phone and ask somebody to bring the boy in here. If he has been hurt, I’ll personally beat the stuffing out of you. If he’s dead, you’re dead. Get on the phone.”
“But he isn’t here. You’re making a terrible mistake!”
“Not now. My mistake was made when I believed that Kirby had killed Graham. The fact is, Graham helped to hijack a truck upstate. Only he pinched some of the stuff and you found out about it. You started a hunt for him and he holed up in the same tenement house where Kirby lived. Oh, you found him all right. You probably even convinced him that he was forgiven. He went to a cafe, escorted by one of your boys. Kirby was there. You saw to that. And Kirby had been given the works just before. Called a thief, a maniac, and fired. You knew he’d get drunk. He always did when things went sour. You knew he’d go berserk at the sight of Graham.”
“Now see here—” McKinney said, blusteringly.
“Keep quiet,” barked Carmel. “Kirby acted just as you were so sure he would. He went to beat up Graham. It all happened in a booth where nobody could see much. Your boy, with Graham, just hauled out a knife, stabbed Graham, and saw that the knife got into Kirby’s possession. Kirby thought he’d killed Graham. You were having murder done neatly. A man would even admit he’d killed Graham because Kirby never realized what he was doing when he was in one of those spells.”
McKinney said nothing, but he was careful not to move his hands. “The kid, McKinney,” Carmel said. “Now!”
McKinney slowly reached for the phone. He dialed a single number.
“Bring the kid in here,” he ordered.
“You’re being smart,” Carmel said.
McKinney shrugged. “You wouldn’t be fool enough to come here alone. The whole place is probably covered. Yes, I have the boy. I was going to beat him until he understood that stealing and playing with guns is not for children. The rest of what you say is all nonsense, and I’ll stand pat on that.”
“Sure,” Carmel arose, and backed toward the door. He stood where he would be shielded when it opened. “Stand pat on it and see how far you get.”
“There is absolutely no evidence to prove a word of that insane story,” McKinney insisted. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Someone tapped on the door. McKinney called a command and th
e door opened. A husky man in a truck driver’s cap led Al Kirby into the room. Led him through the door, and then shoved him hard. The boy lost his balance and fell.
CARMEL kicked the door shut. The truck driver was trying to figure out what was wrong with McKinney, but when he heard the door close, he guessed and spun around. Carmel clipped him on the jaw with his left fist.
“I’ll use the barrel of the gun next time,” he warned. “Stand over against the wall. McKinney, get up and join him. Both of you face the wall, and don’t move . . . Al, come here.”
The boy showed signs of having been beaten. He clung to Carmel’s arm tightly. “Al, you got me into this,” Carmel said. “You knew all along that McKinney was a liar when he said Graham had told him about your father.”
“Yes,” the boy said meekly. “But I ain’t saying anything else, because I ain’t a snitch. I won’t say anything else.”
“You don’t have to, Al. Not another word. Now walk over to the telephone on that desk and dial the operator. Tell her that you want a lot of policemen to come here fast.”
McKinney blurted something and started to turn. Carmel waved the gun.
“Stay put,” he warned. “I did come alone, McKinney. I was afraid you’d do something to the boy. And that you’d get rid of the nylons you had hijacked. So just stand pretty, and it would be too bad if any of your boys happened to blunder in here because I’d have to shoot you first. You and your pal.”
Carmel, with one arm around the boy’s shoulder, told the whole story to Captain Burke a few moments later.
“I figured the kid knew more than he’d told me. You see Graham had chiseled on the hijack job. He learned that McKinney had found it out, and Graham went into hiding—downstairs in the same house where Kirby lived. The kid knew it. He also knew that Graham’s hadn’t been out of the house for days, hadn’t used a phone because there isn’t any, and therefore he couldn’t have told McKinney about Kirby. McKinney only said that Graham had told him, so Kirby would get sore at Graham and provide the motive for the kill.