Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  Smitty glanced at him oddly. “Yes, Mark, that’s that.”

  There was nothing overt in his voice or manner. But Mark knew a line had been drawn between him and Dave Fiest’s death. And beyond that line he wouldn’t be welcome.

  Chapter Three

  NEELAN THOUGHT ABOUT THE REPORT AS HE drove through the light rain to his rooming-house in West Philadelphia. Ramussen would raise hell of course; but that didn’t matter. He felt the unfamiliar bulge of money in his pocket, and the windshield reflected his small smile.

  There was just one thing: The mythical sucker he’d invented for the reporter’s benefit. That had been a snap decision, and now he wondered if it had been a wise one. He was stuck with the story that Fiest had been taking a bet from someone at the time of the arrest. Well, so what? It was a good safe angle. That sucker would never turn up—that was certain.

  Neelan didn’t like Brewster, and thinking about him brought a frown to his face. Mark Brewster, was another of those damn superior college kids who thought they had the world by the tail.

  He found a marking place a few doors down from his rooming-house. It was two o’clock then, and his date with Linda was at three. He cut the motor and sat for a moment enjoying the deep unmoving silence. There wasn’t anything that could go wrong, he decided. Everything was perfect.

  The rain was coming down a bit harder, so he turned up his collar and hurried across the sidewalk and up the steps of the three-story frame house in which he lived. He let himself cautiously into the dusty-smelling hallway and tiptoed up to his room.

  Something was wrong with the overhead light. He snapped the switch up and down a few times, and then crossed the room and turned on his bedside lamp.

  “Damn lazy slob,” he muttered, thinking of his landlady. He went into the bathroom for a tumbler and then poured himself a drink from the bottle on the dresser.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, reflecting that there was nothing to be mad about now. He took the roll of bills from his pocket and got up and locked the door. Then he returned to the bed and began to count the money. He hadn’t any exact idea of how much there would be, but he knew that Dave Fiest, like all bookies, carried his assets in a liquid form and close at hand.

  The money was in two sheafs, and in the first there was sixty-three hundred dollars. Neelan grinned. This was better than he’d hoped for. He had figured Dave for about three or four thousand. The second roll of money was held flat by a silver clip made in the shape of a horseshoe. Neelan removed it and straightened out the bills; and then his heart began to pump a little harder. They were grand notes. He went through them, with fingers that were suddenly stiff and clumsy. Twenty-five. Twenty-five thousand dollars!

  Neelan stood up and walked around in an aimless circle, holding the money limply in his hands. Something was wrong. That twenty-five thousand didn’t belong to Dave Fiest. It was pay-off money, the pay-off on a big bet. He remembered then what Dave Fiest had said: that he was on his way to see Mike Espizito, and that Mike didn’t like to be kept waiting by people who owed him money. Mike Espizito!

  “Judas Priest!” Neelan said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. This was a fine note. Espizito was probably sitting out in South Philly right now waiting for his money, and getting more annoyed every minute. Neelan stood up and walked around aimlessly again, trying to decide what to do about the money and Espizito. Mike wouldn’t care that he’d killed Dave Fiest, of course. All he’d want was the twenty-five grand.

  And then he felt the stirrings of anger. This was the kind of lousy break he always got. Just when things seemed to be going all right, a monkey-wrench came flying into the works from somewhere. “To hell with the wop,” he said aloud, and shoved the money down into his pocket. “It’s mine now. Let him go find some more.”

  Half an hour later, shaved and wearing a clean shirt, he went downstairs to his car. The rain had stopped, and the night was slightly cooler, he noticed, as he drove back to the center of the city. He parked near Broad and Market, and walked to the Simba, a fashionable night-club with an elegantly dressed doorman and a green-and-white-canopy that extended from the club’s double glass doors to the street.

  Inside Neelan gave his hat to a pretty girl wearing a white blouse and a blue velvet skirt, and turned into a small barroom that was adjacent to the dance-floor and main dining-room.

  The bartender, a sleek young man in an immaculate white jacket, said: “Good evening, Mr. Neelan.”

  Neelan nodded and sat down on an upholstered stool.

  “Whisky,” he said, and was going to ask for a beer chaser, but remembered that Linda was always amused by that combination. “With water,” he said, and put two dollar bills from his wallet on the bar.

  His drink was served and the change returned suggestively on a silver tray. Neelan stared resentfully at the half-dollar and quarter. Where he was raised, a bartender would be quite likely to slug you with a bung-starter for leaving a tip. They weren’t shoeshine boys, or porters; they were solid merchants. But not in these joints.

  “Keep it,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir.” The bartender slid the coins dexterously from the tray into his palm. “Miss Wade should be on soon now.”

  “Yeah,” Neelan said. He glanced through the archway of the bar into the main dining-room and saw several magistrates, a couple of judges, a District Attorney, some bookies and promoters, and quite a few people who were just people. It made him feel good to be a part of this rich, important world. He belonged to it, and he had the money to stay in it.

  The band played a fanfare and the chubby smiling m.c. trotted out and, after a few jokes, introduced Linda.

  LINDA WADE was a slim, graceful girl, with dark brown hair worn in a shining page-boy bob, and candid gray eyes. There was a quality of good-humored friendliness in her face, and in her smile, and she sang her songs in a clear sweet voice. She didn’t seem to take herself or her songs very seriously, and that was probably the simple secret of her appeal. Actually she worked very hard for her seemingly casual effects.

  Neelan watched her and forgot about everything else. Sometimes when he sat like this at the softly lighted bar, it seemed as if she were singing to him alone. And moments like that made him feel as if he had the world right in the palm of his hand.

  Now his thoughts ran back, comfortably and idly, to the time when they had first met. Four months ago, almost to the day. He had been transferred downtown from Germantown just a short while before that, and had been in a foul, confused mood. Everybody had money, but there wasn’t a chance for him to get at it. He had lived on the fringes of a set that enjoyed easy money, easy living, and easy women. Neelan had seen all that, but none of it ever came his way. He had gone along as usual on forty-eight dollars a week: and as usual, the smart people had written him off as another dumb cop.

  And then one night a loss had been reported at the Simba, and Odell had told him to check it.

  That was the night he met Linda.

  She had been standing in her dressing-room with Jim Evans, the club manager, when Neelan arrived. Someone had stolen a few pieces of jewelry from her dressing-table, it seemed. They weren’t of any value, she had said somewhat apologetically to Neelan, but one of the pieces, a brooch, she treasured because it had been given to her by her lather.

  “Sure, I understand,” Neelan said.

  Jim Evans had patted his shoulder, smiled at Linda. “Barny will take good care of you, baby. I’m going out front now. Barny, stop at the bar and have a drink with me on the way out. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Fine.” Jim Evans had smiled again at both of them and hurried out.

  “Please sit down,” Linda had said.

  “Okay.” Neelan had taken out his notebook and pencil, but he had trouble concentrating on anything but the girl. She was wearing a white net gown with a billowing skirt, and her finely molded shoulders were bare. Her skin was lightly tanned, and he had never seen anyone in his life who looked so shini
ng and lovely and clean.

  “I left them right here on the dressing-table while I was doing a number,” she’d said, crossing her legs.

  “And when you came back, they were gone?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t want to bother the police about it, but Jim insisted.” She laughed. “I was afraid you’d just come over and scold me for being careless.”

  “Jim was right,” Neelan had said heavily.

  She was swinging one sandaled foot idly, and he noticed the fine slim bones of her ankle and the brightly polished nails. He pretended to write something in his notebook, but his fingers were stiff and awkward.

  She told him then that she had discharged a maid a Jew days ago, and gave him her name and address. Neelan made a note of that, and then got a description of the jewelry.

  She had put out her hand and smiled when he stood up. “Thanks so much for bothering about this. It’s really my fault, I know, but I’d still love to get my brooch back.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he had said.

  He had stood there a moment, holding her slim warm hand, and returning her smile awkwardly; and he had been conscious of his unpressed clothes and stained tie.

  Later that night he had called her from the District. His heart had pounded a bit harder when he heard her voice.

  “This is Neelan, Barny Neelan, the detective who was over to see you awhile back. I was wondering, could you have a cup of coffee with me when you finish up tonight?”

  “Well—” She had hesitated a moment. “Is it about the jewelry?”

  “No, it’s not.” He had cursed himself for saying that; but there had been nothing to do but plunge on. “No, I just wanted to see you again,” he said.

  Neelan had thought that a bumbling, stupid approach. He had no way of knowing it was a perfect one.

  “Why, yes, of course,” she’d said, a trifle surprised. “Supposing you meet me in the little bar about three-thirty. Will that be all right?”

  “Fine, that will be fine.”

  HE had met her, and they had gone to Benny the Bum’s for a late steak, and when he had looked across the table at her and listened to her chatting cheerfully about her work, he was almost unable to believe that this was actually happening.

  And that was how it had begun. There had been more late dinners, a few drives through the park, and eventually Neelan had faced the delightful fact that she liked him. She must, he had reasoned, or she wouldn’t pay any attention to him at all. She had known from the start that he was just a cop, but that hadn’t made any difference.

  He had chased down her brooch for her, by trailing the discharged maid to Baltimore on his day off; and when he had tossed it onto the table one night when they were having dinner, she had let out a cry of delight and hugged his hand in both of hers.

  Then Neelan had run into the brute laws of economics. There was fifteen dollars’ alimony, living expenses, and Linda, to be taken care of on forty-eight dollars a week. No matter how he sliced it, it wasn’t enough.

  He had begun to stew over that problem most of his waking moments. There were detectives and patrolmen, he knew, who managed side jobs, and some even had their own businesses. One owned a gas station, another a bar, and some peddled jewelry or made-to-order clothes. But Neelan didn’t want to get involved with something that would take up all his time. He needed money, in a healthy lump sum, and fast.

  His resentment toward politicians and racketmen had grown violently during that time. He saw them, night after night, sitting around night-clubs and taprooms, heard them talking about big days at the track, watched them pick up fifty-dollar dinner checks, listened to their stories of money, women, vacations.

  One night he had got drunk and slugged a bookie who had offered to buy him a drink. That was all he’d ever got: a drink, a pat on the back. He had jerked the little man off the floor, and slapped him across the face with the back of his hand.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he yelled, and stormed out the door.

  He could have got into trouble over that if the bookie had lodged a complaint. But the man had wanted no trouble with cops, and particularly with a wild cop like Neelan. Neelan wasn’t aware of it, but he was regarded with a curious respect by certain elements in town. They thought him honest, for one thing, because he never had his hand out; but their respect was based on his record, which was bloody and vicious. No one wanted to bother a man as potentially explosive as Barny Neelan.

  THE Simba’s immaculate bartender cleared his throat gently.

  “Another drink, Mr. Neelan?”

  Neelan glanced at him, coming back to the present unwillingly. “Yeah, I’ll have another,” he said.

  He sipped that drink and watched Linda now singing her last song. She stood with her hands at her sides, her small head tipped slightly back, and sang casually, carelessly, and even the waiters stopped moving around and listened.

  Neelan smiled at her, savoring the drink and the moment. And then his thoughts plunged off on a tangent—to Dave Fiest. Because of Linda, he had killed Dave. And seeing Linda reminded him of that, made him think of Dave . . .

  He’d met Dave Fiest at a bar in Camden, New Jersey, about two months ago. Dave had been fanning himself with a Panama hat; he’d nodded to Neelan and bought him a drink. Neelan remembered the suit Dave had worn, a beautiful, lightweight gabardine with hand-stitched lapels, and when Dave had waved for drinks, he’d seen the flash of gold cuff-links and a diamond ring.

  “I understand you’re working downtown now,” Dave had said. “Like it better being dose to the money?”

  “It makes no difference to me.”

  “Don’t be a humorist. Berle’s got that racket tied up.” Dave had said that as he’d paid for the drinks. He had noticed Neelan’s eyes on his roll. He had held it up, grinning: “My favorite shade of green, Barny me boy.”

  “You travel loaded, don’t you?”

  “Well, I need capital close at hand. Five thousand’s about the minimum I need to keep in business.”

  They’d had one more drink and Dave had drifted off Neelan watched Linda again, frowning. That had been when he decided to kill Dave Fiest. Neelan knew nothing about making money, but he knew a lot about killing. He had been killing people for quite some time now, and there were no moral hurdles to take in deciding to kill Dave Fiest.

  And so in his stolid and unimaginative way he had prepared a plan. It had no fancy stuff in it, no triggered alibis, no involved time-table. All he’d done was wait outside a certain taproom a few nights in a row, until Dave Fiest had walked out alone . . .

  Linda finished her last song and the applause was generous and genuine. She smiled her thanks and left the stage. Neelan ordered another drink and watched her make her way through the tables toward the small barroom.

  A tall young man in a dinner jacket stood up and said something to her and smiled. He had a blond crew-cut, and his teeth were very white in his tanned face.

  “I just wanted to tell you how much I liked your songs,” he said.

  “Thank you very much.”

  They were close enough for Neelan to hear their conversation; and it brought an angry flush to his face. Who did these punks think they were? They went to Princeton or Penn, and because they kicked a football around and had money, they felt they owned the world.

  He walked to Linda’s side, ignoring the young man. “Ready?” he said.

  “Oh, Barny!” She turned to him, smiling. “Barny, this is Toddy Glenmore, and he liked my song. Toddy, this is Mr. Neelan.”

  “How do you do, sir?” the young man said, putting out a strong hand. He was a pleasant-looking boy, scrubbed and polite, and he wore his dinner clothes with easy assurance. Everything about him infuriated Neelan.

  “I’m just dandy,” he said, ignoring the outstretched hand. “Come on, Linda.” He walked toward the bar, but not before he heard the young man say, “Perhaps I could call you sometime?”

  He didn’t hear Linda’s answer. She joined
him a moment later. He said: “I ordered you a drink.”

  “I don’t care for it, thanks. Would you like to drive me home?”

  She hadn’t sat down, and he knew she was angry. He got to his feet, his own anger flowing out of him.

  “Sure, Linda. Sorry, I didn’t mean to act that way.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Barny, sometimes you behave like the heavy-handed father in a melodrama. I don’t need a guardian, really. These kids are a pretty nice bunch, you know.”

  “Okay, I’ll stop acting like your father,” he said, bitterly. He drank his drink down, unaware that his hand was trembling.

  “Now, Barny,” she said and patted his arm. She knew she had hurt him, but she didn’t quite understand how. “Don’t be so touchy, please.”

  “Let’s go; I’ll take you home.”

  She sighed. “All right. I’ll get my coat.”

  WAITING for her, Neelan stared at his empty glass, confused and angry. What the devil was he blowing his top about? She hadn’t meant anything.

  A man came in and sat at the bar a few stools away. Neelan turned his head and saw that it was Mark Brewster from the Call-Bulletin. He wondered if the reporter were following him; and that thought added to his anger.

  “Well, what do you want?” he said.

  Brewster glanced at him, and appeared surprised. “Hello, Neelan,” he said. “At the moment I want a drink. Make it rye with soda, Joe,” he said to the bartender.

  “Sure thing, Mark.”

  The drink was served, and Neelan noticed that Brewster’s change was placed on the bar in a respectable pile, instead of being returned suggestively on a silver tray.

  “You come in here a lot?” he said.

  “Occasionally.” Mark turned to him, smiling easily. “You too, eh?”

  Neelan signaled for another drink, and didn’t answer. He felt an illogical animosity toward Brewster. Glancing at him, he noted the reporter’s lean good-humored features, his steady eyes and careless clothes, and tried to decide why he disliked the man.