by Paul Cain
Someone knocked. Gay crossed swiftly and opened the door a little. It was Nagel.
Gay said: “I thought I told you to wait downstairs.”
Nagel edged in past him. “Sure—only I wanted to tell you the lobby is full of leg-men. Maybe somebody’s been tipped off… .”
Mulhearn stopped pacing to snap: “We’ve had reporters in our hair all afternoon. They’re after the marriage story and pictures. They know we intended to sail on the Ile at midnight, but they can’t know anything about this… .”
Gay said, “You’re sure you didn’t tell Decker what you wanted me about?”
“’No. I told him I wanted you an’ I made it strong—that’s all.” Mulhearn shook his head impatiently.
Gay crossed to one of the tall narrow windows and stared out into the darkness. It had started to rain and thin wind-swept sheets whipped across the panes, made Fifth Avenue a black and yellow blur. Gay’s face was a cold implacable mask but there was deep pain in his eyes—the shadow of tearing anxiety.
Nagel was reading the yellow paper. He whistled softly and fumbled self-consciously with the small camera which he always carried.
“Maybe I’d better get a shot of this now,” he said.
Gay turned slowly and Nagel took one look at his face and slipped the camera back into his pocket.
Mulhearn put his hands flat on the table, leaned forward and squinted at Gay.
“Who’d know about you and Pamela, Johnnie?” he asked. “Who’d call and say they were calling for you and that you needed her?”
Gay shook his head slowly. “Lots of people know about us,” he said. “But I don’t know one who’d fake a call from me and expect her to come… .”
Mulhearn said: “There’s where you’re wrong, my lad.” He glanced quickly at Sanin, went on to Gay: “This is a desperate situation an’ no time to spare people’s feelings. There’s many the time Pamela herself hasn’t been at any pains to hide the way she felt about you. I’ll stake my life she would’ve come any time you sent for her… .” There was something very suggestive of tears in the little man’s eyes. “It’s the likes of me that’s to blame for things like this—driving her away from the things she wanted, making a career for her, making her a Princess! …”
He sat down. “We got her a career,” he went on forlornly. “In less than a year she was the biggest box-office name in pictures—an’ she was almost a Princess… . And now what good is it?”
It was entirely silent for a moment except for the sound of rain lashing against the windows. Gay was staring at Mulhearn as if he had just awakened from a bad dream, Sanin was gazing expressionlessly at the table, and Nagel stood restlessly near the door.
Then Sanin stood up so swiftly that his chair toppled over and crashed to the floor. He turned his green-white face to Gay.
They were all looking at him. A strange expression twisted Mulhearn’s chubby face and he spoke as if to himself: “Who could have known that that would get her?”
Sanin almost screamed: “Well—say it! And it’s true, it’s true—I did it, I’m to blame, but I didn’t know it would turn out like this… .”
He stood very straight, his face itching convulsively, went on in a metallic sing-song monotone: “This afternoon she told me she couldn’t go through with it, that she wouldn’t sail tonight. I was desperate—insane with grief—I love her and it was like the end of my life… . My one idea was that if I could get her aboard that ship—away from this country—it would all be all right. I called a friend of mine, a countryman, and told him to call her and say you needed her, to come to his place. I knew she’d go. Then he was to take her aboard the ship just before it sailed… .”
Sanin’s voice had again almost risen to a scream: “It was crazy, crazy—but I was a crazy man!” His knees buckled suddenly and he sank down to the floor with his arms and head and the upper part of his body on the table, buried his face in his arms, sobbed brokenly: “I love her… .”
Mulhearn had risen. They were all staring at Sanin and there was no sound.
Then Gay was beside Sanin, shaking his shoulder. He said softly, swiftly: “Who was the man? Where does he live?”
Sanin didn’t answer for a moment and Mulhearn shouted: “Speak, man—there’s no time to lose!”
Sanin said hoarsely: “Drovna—he lives at 411 East 39th—I’ve called him a dozen times but there’s no answer… .”
Gay snapped: “Wait here, Mulhearn—I’ll call you.”
He darted to the door, out; Nagel a step behind him.
Sanin moaned: “Drovna was my good friend. I cannot understand… .”
Mulhearn glared down at him and his pale blue eyes narrowed slowly, his jaw set. He very methodically unbuttoned his coat and vest and took them off, rolled up his sleeves.
Traffic was heavy, it was nearly ten when the cab pulled up in front of four-eleven and Gay and Nagel jumped out into driving, slashing rain.
Gay told the driver to wait and they ran across the sidewalk, ducked under the awning of the delicatessen that occupied the ground floor of the narrow four-story building.
Nagel grumbled: “I don’t know what good comin’ here is—they’ll be long gone by now… .”
Gay didn’t answer.
They went into the shallow hallway next to the delicatessen and Gay lit a match and looked at the mailboxes.
“Third,” he said, and they went swiftly up two flights of stairs.
They listened carefully, with their ears close to the door; then Gay twisted the knob, pushed, hammered on the heavy panel. No one answered; there was no sound from inside. He went as far back from the door as he could in the narrow hall and crashed his shoulder against the heavy oak but it stood. The second time it gave a little, and the third; the fourth time, it flew open and he stumbled to his knees on the threshold of a small brightly lighted room.
There was a slight swarthy man lying on his side on the floor near an overturned card table. His eyes were closed and his legs were drawn up, and the tan carpet beneath him was darkly stained.
Gay got up, crossed swiftly and knelt beside him. Nagel turned in the open bedroom doorway, said: “Nobody else.”
“Get a doctor,” Gay spoke over his shoulder. “I think there’s one on the second floor.”
Nagel trotted out of the room.
The swarthy man had been stabbed several times. Gay found a bottle of brandy in the kitchen and poured some of it between his lips; he moaned and tried to put his hands up to his face.
Gay leaned close, whispered: “Take it easy… .” Then: “What happened? Where’s Miss Arno?”
The man opened his eyes and stared up at him glassily. “They took her away… .”
“Who?”
The man moaned again and tried to roll over on his back. Gay cradled his head on his arm.
“Frank,” he murmured, “and another man. I had them to help if she was hard to handle—I thought they were all right. I told her about David getting me to do it—she thought it was funny—she took it all right… .”
His face was suddenly old with agony, he gasped: “Everything was fine until about eight o’clock. We played cards—the four of us… . She didn’t try to get away. Then Frank’s friend stuck a knife in me—she screamed and they gagged her—they stabbed me again. I—”
He had risen to one elbow and he went limp suddenly, there was blood on his mouth.
Nagel came in followed by a short bespectacled man in a plaid dressing gown carrying an instrument case. The short man shook his head, clucked, said: “Drovna again! Vun day it’s a cold in d’ haad—naxt day it’s gollstones… .”
He squatted beside Drovna, put down his case and made a hurried examination.
“This time”—he raised his eyebrows significantly—“it’s sahmthing!”
Gay watched anxiously as he ripped off D
rovna’s shirt. Asked: “Do you think he’ll be all right”—he glanced at his watch—“in a little while?”
The doctor shook his head slightly without looking up.
Gay turned to Nagel. “I’m going over to Eleventh Avenue,” he said. “I want you to stay here until I call you.” He crossed to the telephone and scribbled the number on the back of an envelope. “I’ll tell you to bring it to a certain place. Never mind what I say—as soon as I call, leave the receiver down, and get to another phone and trace the call; then come there and come as fast as you can. You can bring the US Marines if you want to but make it fast… .”
Nagel’s face was a pink diagram of disapproval. He said: “Johnnie—you’ll never make it. These guys are out for blood. Let’s call copper… .”
“Can’t.” Gay picked up the instrument case, held it at arm’s length and examined it critically. “If they think there’s anyone with me they won’t pick me up. The Law’d be a cinch to show out of turn.”
He tipped the case suddenly and dumped its contents gently on the floor. The doctor lifted his eyebrows to twin questioning V’s.
Gay smiled at him. “Hope you won’t mind my using this,” he said. “I’m meeting some gentlemen who expect me to have a hundred thousand dollars in currency—this’ll make it look possible.”
The doctor stuck out his lips. “That’s a lot of money… .” He shrugged slightly, bent again over Drovna.
Gay went swiftly to the door, turned to Nagel. “Stand by that phone,” he said emphatically.
The doctor spoke without looking up: “See you gat my case back—it’s my Sunday vun …”
Nagel said: “Don’t do it, Johnnie. If you had the dough it’d be tough enough, but without the dough it’s murder. You haven’t got a Chinaman’s chance… .”
Gay had gone.
A ferry whistle tooted far out on the Hudson.
Gay stood in the partial shelter of a warehouse and turned his back to the wind and rain. It was twenty minutes to eleven; several cars had passed him but none had stopped. He stood close against the building and lit a cigarette.
Then, across the wide deserted expanse of Eleventh Avenue, a car without lights swung suddenly out of the pitch darkness between two wharves. It swerved diagonally between pillars of the viaduct, slid to a stop at the curb.
Gay picked up the case and crossed the sidewalk. There were three men in the car—the driver, and two in the tonneau.
One said: “Got it?”
Gay nodded.
“Get in.”
The driver leaned back and opened the door of the tonneau, Gay climbed in and sat between the two men. He could not see their faces in the darkness. One of them searched him swiftly.
The man on his left said: “Go on quick, Tony.” The car lurched forward. The other man was fumbling with the case; he opened it, a small flashlight flared. He growled:
“Say!—What the hell is this? It’s empty!”
Gay laughed. “Do you think anybody’d be sap enough to turn over the money before they saw that Miss Arno was all right?”
The man on his left said wearily: “Stop the car.”
The brakes screamed shrilly. The man jammed the muzzle of a big automatic against Gay’s side, hard. “We ain’t playing, Mister,” he said. “Where’s the money?”
“It’s where I can call for it as soon as I know she’s all right—as soon as you turn her over to me… .”
The man snorted noisily. “An’ how are we supposed to get it?”
Gay said: “That’s simple. As soon as I see Miss Arno I’ll call and have the money sent any place you say. You can send a man to pick it up—or a hundred men if you want to. As soon as he gets it he can call and say it’s okay—you’ll have your dough and I’ll have Miss Arno.”
The driver spoke for the first time in a guttural stage-whisper: “That sounds all right… .”
“Shut up!” The man with the automatic was silent a moment, then he put the gun between his knees and took out a heavy silk handkerchief and bound it tightly around Gay’s eyes.
He said, “Go on,” and then he leaned close to Gay and said: “One wrong move an’ you an’ the girl both get it—don’t forget it.”
Gay nodded. The car was moving forward swiftly. They turned a half-dozen corners, drove for almost ten minutes. They stopped twice to make sure they weren’t being followed; the first time, the driver jabbered about a bakery truck that he was sure he’d seen when they turned off Thirty-fourth Street but the truck passed and didn’t show up again.
They finally stopped, Gay was pulled out of the car and led through the rain for a hundred feet or so. Then they were out of the rain and someone pounded on a door and there was a great deal of whispering; they went down two short flights of stairs.
Pamela’s voice said, “Johnnie!” breathlessly.
Gay jerked his arm away from the man on his right and tore the handkerchief from his eyes.
She was sitting on a small rickety folding chair with her hands tied together behind the back of it, her ankles bound to the lower crosspiece. Her honey-colored hair hung in awry curlycues about her shoulders and her large delicately shadowed eyes were wide with excitement and a kind of exultation. Gay hadn’t seen her for nearly a year; he was sure she’d never been so beautiful.
He said: “Darling… . Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’m all right now… . I’ve been practically scared to death… .” Her lips curved to a smile. “But now—I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy… .”
Gay looked about. They were in a fairly large basement. There was a worn pool table and there were four or five more folding chairs; against one wall, a neatly made-up cot with a drop light over it and a small table at its head loaded with magazines, bottles, and a telephone. There was one small dingy window high above the cot.
There were four men. All of them wore masks. The one who had done the talking in the car was a heavily built blond man in a neat blue serge suit. He said: “Get on the phone.”
Gay went over and sat down on the cot; he remembered Drovna’s number without looking at the envelope, picked up the phone and dialed it. The big blond man was leaning over his shoulder watching; the dial buzzed back from the fourth number and he reached over suddenly and knocked the phone out of Gay’s hands.
“That’s Drovna’s number,” he shouted. “What are you trying to do?”
Gay said gently: “My partner’s there, waiting for my call—with the money.”
“What about Drovna?”
“Drovna was dead when we got there.”
The blond man pursed his thick lips, looked at the others. “Okay,” he said. “Go on an’ call, but we’re not going to wait here for the call to be traced and the Law to move in on us. Tell your man to be at the top of Mitchell Place where it runs up from First Avenue in fifteen minutes. We’ve got two cars; two of us’ll go in one and two of us’ll take you and her nibs”—he jerked his head towards Pamela—“in the other. When your man pays off they can signal us from the first car and we’ll let you out. If he ain’t there, or if he don’t pay off, you’re both going to take a nice long ride… .”
Gay felt like all of his insides had turned to water. He’d told Nagel not to pay any attention to what he said on the phone, to leave it and get to another phone and trace the call. Now it was no good tracing the call; there’d be no one there.
He picked up the phone. He’d have to make Nagel listen some way. He dialed the number again and waited. He could hear the phone ringing evenly but there was no answer.
He smiled as reassuringly as he could at Pamela, waited.
The phone buzzed on and on. He hung up and dialed again. It was the same as before; there was no one there.
With the receiver clamped tightly against his ear, he spoke suddenly into the transmitter as if there’d finally b
een an answer:
“Where you been?—the phone’s been ringing for two minutes! Listen—be at the end of Mitchell Place above First Avenue in fifteen minutes. Bring the money… . Yeah, she’s all right… .”
The phone buzzed rhythmically. He had to stall for time—to think.
“Yeah—we’ll be in another car,” he went on. “When you give ’em the money they’ll signal our car and we’ll be turned loose… . Okay… .”
He hung up, crossed and knelt beside Pamela.
She said: “It is all right?”
He nodded, smiled. “I hope so,” he whispered.
“Let’s get going.” The blond man, who had followed him across to Pamela, squatted and fumbled with the thin rope that bound her hands.
Gay untied her ankles. She stood up, stretched; then she turned and very simply, very quietly, went into his arms. They held each other tightly, did not speak.
The blond man said: “Never mind the love scenes—let’s go.”
A fifth man, without a mask, came swiftly down the stairs and advanced two or three paces into the light. He was holding his hands carefully above his head. He said:
“This guy”—he nodded at Gay—“didn’t call anybody. I was on the extension upstairs and there wasn’t any answer.” His face twisted to a hard smile.
No one moved for a moment; then the blond man took the big automatic out of a shoulder holster. “What the hell you holding your hands up for?”
The smiling man said: “Because there’s a copper behind me with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at the middle of my back.”
There was a crash and the tinkle of falling glass; Nagel’s voice piped up suddenly from the opposite side of the basement: “Hold it, everybody… .”
There was a blinding flash. Gay saw Nagel’s head and shoulders framed in the squat window; he was holding a camera and a burnt-out flashlight bulb, grinning happily. There was a uniformed man beside him with a leveled automatic rifle.
Then everything happened at once. The blond man swung his gun towards the window and Gay aimed a blow at his jaw. The man slumped, his pistol dropping; the lights went out and the world was full of flailing arms and legs and blue flares and roar—and darkness.