The Hardboiled Mystery Megapack

by John Roeburt

  Devereaux glanced over the check. One thousand dollars, signed Nina Troy. Nina smiled brightly, “A retainer. I believe that’s the word?” She took the check from his hand, folded it in half, and thrust it into his pocket. Now there was the smallest catch in her voice. “To want to befriend me, and even carry the costs. It’s…something sensational, Johnny!”

  Devereaux rose, as if to a signal. They were closer than the space between them. She stood high on her platform slippers, and the detective felt oddly lower than his real height. Her bosom was in his eye, heaving with the cry that lay muted in her throat. It was white and full, and it grew in his eye until he felt the swell touch him.

  She had kissed him, and there was a flame on his lips.

  “What for,” he said.

  “You’re lonely, Johnny. A lonely man. Lonely people touch me.”

  It was less than he’d wished for, but the fires were hotly fit and the swell was engulfing him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Part 1.

  The bandages were off the skull and face, and Devereaux had his first actual look at the man. They were sitting on a screened pavilion entered from the private hospital room.

  What Devereaux saw, he liked. There were no mannerisms or vanities. Brett Carter was unaffected, real, and direct. He was the newspaperman of hoary myth, in face and in speech. The face was spare, and the chin tapered abortively almost to a point. The teeth were bad, yellow and eroded, too large for the mouth. The pale eyes had a fixed look, like marine agates. But the manner was animated, with a vibrant excitement that held the listener, and the face, chin, teeth and eyes, were somehow integral to the symphony of speech.

  “Who slugged me, I don’t know, Devereaux. Whistle along a dark street, and you don’t think to have a camera eye.”

  Devereaux said, “What was the weapon used?”

  “Can’t say. All of a sudden, my head was sailing into outer gravity. I was unconscious for twelve hours. I came to moaning ‘they’re after me.’ I kept the cry for forty-eight hours, the medics tell me. How’s that for a persecution complex?”

  A finger described Carter’s face. “I’m getting a new nose, when I can find the five hundred bucks.” The finger moved again. “And an acousticon, if I keep on finding money.”

  Devereaux’s face asked the question, and the newspaperman said, “My right ear. The drum’s punctured or something.” A cheerful grin began at the corners of his lips. “Some people take pride in their work. I got a first-class going over. Nothing omitted.”

  Devereaux smiled grimly. “To foreclose your curiosity about The Tiger Man. Scare you off the assignment.” Carter’s teeth skimmed his underlip. “I’ll say yes to that, with a small qualification. Said qualification being that I’m a chump right out of the comic strips. Flash Gordon. I read Frank Merriwell at fourteen, and Lincoln Steffens at sixteen. I’ve been on the kick ever since. Muckraking; I’m a dedicated crusader. I come by it on my mother’s side. I had a grandmother who carried the axe for Carrie Nation. I never pass a garbage can without raising the lid. It’s become a monomania. I never meet a guy that I don’t automatically think how I’m going to expose him. I said think, but it’s practically a reflex. It’s one of the reasons I never got married. I’d only write a piece on indecent exposure, naming names, the morning after my wedding night. Now what bride wouldn’t walk out after that?”

  When his laughter was done, Devereaux said, “Your point being, you’ve got enemies.”

  Carter held a hand up, fingers parted. “I can count my friends.” His face drew seriously. “That’s why I cannot say yes, positively, I was beaten because of my interest in what happened to The Tiger Man. I receive daily telephone threats. I’ve got a stack of unsigned letters. I’ve had police guards assigned to me twenty times in the last ten years.”

  Devereaux said, “Nina Troy was assaulted. And I was too. That makes three of us, Carter. Three assaults, one motive. One assailant.”

  Carter nodded, “Okay, I’ll buy the simplification.” He looked wisely at Devereaux. “You’re here to ask me how far I got.”

  Devereaux nodded, and Carter said, “I’m a black pessimist by nature. A man disappears, I look for parcels floating in the North River. I rummage through cellars, sniffing for quicklime. Nobody just goes away, I figure. No solid citizen anyhow. They can’t. Habit’s got them, routine’s got them. They’re all snarled up in social red tape. They’re snafued.”

  Devereaux interrupted. “You assumed that The Tiger Man was murdered.”

  “And proceeding from that premise, I dredged up two suspects for myself.”

  Carter grinned at Devereaux’s avid interest, and then continued, “Mind you, I’m not a cop. I’m not even a respecter of evidence. I’m a constitutional headline hunter. The headline for its own sake. I say suspects, but I might be slandering nice people. That’s all right in journalism, not so good in law.”

  “Who are the two?” Devereaux asked.

  “One of them is a family called Regan. That’s Mamie Regan and all her brothers. Six of them, I think. Rough boys, with truckdriver mentalities. If I’m slandering truck-drivers, mind you it’s intentional. Anyhow, the Regan boys do odd jobs in the cool of the evening, for certain political nabobs on the Jersey side of the Hudson…”

  Devereaux waited impatiently. Carter was a man of many words. But suffer the style; each man to his own joy.

  Carter continued, “The Regan Freres once formed a posse. To rope and hang a particular wop bastard. Wop bastard is an unedited quote. They stormed Manhattan, and their quarry took cover. The lynching never came off. But don’t ask me why not. I never found out.”

  “The Regans were after Rocky Star?”

  “After Rocco Starziani. That’s what they preferred to call him. The Tiger Man’s own name fueled their hatred, kept it going. Maybe even justified it nicely, the way some Irish feel about some Italians.”

  “Their motive against Rocky Star?”

  “A fighter named Kid Coogan. A lad as Irish as The Ould Sod. Coogan was past his prime, but hanging on for the eats. He had a wife and two kids on and off the public relief rolls. He was matched with The Tiger Man, to make a dull season duller. The Tiger Man carried the Kid for six rounds, until the irate customers began to tear up the seats. In the seventh The Tiger Man decided to liven things up a little. He hit Coogan and killed him.”

  Carter met Devereaux’s gaze solemnly, “The Kid never recovered consciousness. A brain hemorrhage.”

  Devereaux said, “Mamie Regan was Mrs. Kid Coogan.”

  Carter nodded. “The Kid had six brothers-in-law named Regan.”

  “Where is Mamie Regan now?”

  “A gas station in East Paterson. You’ll find her in overalls, running the place.”

  “Your other suspect, Carter?”

  Carter said, “Take hold of your chair. It will be a jolt. Damon Marco. Or better put: Damon Marco and Company. Have I said enough?”

  Devereaux let the name repeat in his brain. Damon Marco. Damon Marco and Company. Company signifying the gangs; the ambitious novices and the fat cats basking in the suns of seniority. A shadow empire, and somewhere in the ruling council of hierarchs, sat Damon Marco.

  Devereaux said soberly, “Quite an imposing addition to the cast. But where does he fit?”

  The sprightly manner was gone now. It was as if Carter was in some awe of his own findings. “Rocco Starziani had fame in his fists. But he didn’t hold his own destiny in those same fists. Kids in the Ghetto, or Little Italy, or Little Gehenna, never do. Or do I have to tell you?”

  Devereaux said, “It’s a long walk away from the tenement. The road’s a little crooked.”

  Carter said, “A Marco sees you fight. In the rear of a pool hall, or in the Amateurs. He buys you a suit of clothes and a steak dinner. He owns you forever. Marco likes owning people. It’s food for his soul. And the Discovery doesn’t mind being owned. For a time, anyhow. It means better purses, the build-up, main events. His kayo record
is arranged in conference, not in the prize ring. And soon, he’s up there, he’s champion of the world.”

  Devereaux said, “Hobie Grimes is the manager of record.”

  “Marco kept in the background. The puppet master always does, no? Besides, Marco’s kind shuns the limelight. It’s good policy to. You can understand that, Devereaux. You’re a cop.”

  Devereaux nodded. He knew Marco, the fable of Marco. He’d encountered the man, very often in the course of his twenty years as a policeman. And in each encounter, he had known the grinding futility that all men, all men of law, felt in the company of Marco. The man was flawlessly polite, soft-voiced, and obsequious. A small man with a quiet taste in dress that scorned ornamentation. Marco was the good neighbor next door, the mousey bookkeeper, the Sunday gardener and tender of the hollyhocks, a self-effacing and faceless John Doe. The fearful whisperings of narcotics and white slavery, of bribery and game machines, of murder by contract, seemed grotesque slanders. The man to his face was the spotless personification of the Golden Rule.

  Carter said, “The theory I was working up, was that there was some falling-out between Marco and Rocky Star. Something serious enough to put The Tiger Man on a spot.”

  Devereaux nodded, and Carter continued, “Where I live, there’s a trunk under my bed. I’ve got notes. Stacks of stuff that amplify what I’ve told you here. The paper represents the work of months. It’s all yours to keep, with my compliments.”

  The detective looked closely at the newspaperman. “I’m a battle casualty, Devereaux. Maybe even a wiser man. A beating brings you closer to God. I barely wriggled out of His clutch. Too early for me to die, Devereaux. Not that I’m a coward so much. I just haven’t had enough laughs yet to be ready to go. Or kicks. Or even credits. I’ve got a big book yet to write. I want The New York Times Obituary to say ‘author.’ I want my loss felt, and not only by relatives. I want tears, a public display, a long line around my coffin. I’m an egoist.”

  Carter grinned at Devereaux, a sober grin. “The case is all yours, Cop. Don’t even consult me about it anymore. Or look me up to talk it over. Somebody might think I’m still a belligerent, and that would be too bad. Too bad for me.”

  Devereaux said, “I’ve got an operative assigned to you. Protection, until I wrap things up.”

  “Take him off. I’ll feel safer. Freer. The guard might be misinterpreted by somebody. Like I’ve got an ace, and now they’ve got to play trump. Boom, boom. Two shots. I’m under your operative, nicely hidden and snug. Only we’re both dead!” Carter shook his head firmly. “Take him off, Devereaux. I’m screaming it at you.”

  Devereaux got up to go. They shook hands and Carter said, “Good luck. Good luck all around.”

  Devereaux looked at the newspaperman sharply. There was more in the last speech than its text, more intent, more meaning.

  Carter said, “With Nina Troy, I mean. You’re hell for leather for the same reasons I had. You’re on the make. Nina. Gorgeous Nina—Love that girl! Why else would a man knock himself out, get knocked on the head. I dreamed of the payoff, the big cinch. But now I won’t make it. I’ll just go on dreaming. It’s the love story of my life, Mister Devereaux. Empty arms.”

  Devereaux said nothing. He’d held Nina Troy in his arms, in a full circle. He could understand Carter’s feeling of loss.

  Devereaux quit the pavilion, and crossed the hospital room to the elevator in swift stride.

  Part 2.

  It was a night like another night on the street outside the hospital. A white round moon in jeweled skies, and the cemetery quiet of the untraversed street in the East Sixties.

  Devereaux took his short walk warily, unlike that other night. His senses were keyed and fretful, as if an alarm was sounding subtly inside him. A style of attack, unvaried and repetitious, a second time and even a third. Devereaux nodded to himself surely. There could be a repeat performance. The criminal mind was unimaginatively shackled to its own clichés.

  He was aware of two new sounds simultaneously. A hum, like the drone of an exhaust. And a flap, flap, striking the asphalt smartly, like paper adhered to a spinning cylinder. His senses quickly translated the figure. An automobile with oversized tires, moving very slowly, at a stalking pace.

  He was on the ground, flat with the surfacing, when the sounds overtook him. The sudden flash of flame was far overhead, but he could see the cloth texture of his coat sleeve in the quick illumination.

  He was back on his feet, watching the car hurtle to the corner and vanish in a careening right turn. An old car, more than five years old, and heavy make. It was the most picture Devereaux could achieve. And oversized tires, he quickly reminded himself. Oversized tires; the best clue of all.

  He wiped his palms dry of sweat, then slapped the dust off his trousers and coat. He was thinking: the criminal mind unimaginatively shackled to its own clichés. The same circumstances, the same street. Only the smallest variation. A gun for a bludgeon.

  Soon, in his own automobile, Devereaux had another thought. The shot had been aimed high, far higher than his head even if he had been a standing target. Was it bad marksmanship, or purpose, he wondered. A warning only, one more in the series. Nerve warfare by a foe yet averse to the outright kill?

  He threw the clutch, and the Buick nosed toward the midtown hub. He was due at Sam Solowey’s for a review and report.

  Part 3.

  His big toe showed through a hole in his sock. Solowey moved it and watched it wriggle, as if some of the answers to the riddle of Man lay in this simple thing. He said briefly, “You were right about Hobie Grimes, Devereaux.”

  Devereaux’s brow darkened. “He’s skipped, huh.”

  “Without a trace. Motive?—We can only hazard. Guilt, or a sudden penchant for the Azores…” Solowey elevated his toe a notch. “Or perchance, the unholy fear of Devereaux.”

  Devereaux said, “Stop making love to your toe, and take notes.” He waited until Solowey was poised to write. “Get me the address of the ex-trainer, Max Toller, or the garage he hacks out of—Or both. And keep after that psychiatric transcript. I still want to know the medical slant, before my brush with Toller. Keep a man on Aldo Starziani, and on Nina Troy. Ditto on Brett Carter. But very discreetly there. Carter must not know.”

  Solowey looked his question and Devereaux said, “Carter’s in a kind of funk. The beating made its point with him.” He thought for a moment and then continued, “And check into The Tiger Man’s assets. Property, bank accounts, stuff. It’s hard to do, I know, but give it a really big try. And insurance; be very curious about insurance. And twice as inquisitive about beneficiaries.”

  Solowey worked his pencil with the studious diligence of a greengrocer. Some moments later, he referred to scribblings in his notebook, and began his report.

  “Gold brings golden results.” The portly detective’s eyes creased at the corners. “I have scattered your largesse with the fine abandon of a Monte Cristo emerged from the Pit. My purchases?…” Solowey glanced briefly at a page. “Item: one Mamie Regan…”

  Devereaux said, “I already know about Mamie Regan.”

  Solowey’s brows raised slightly. “Then another purchase at prodigal cost. Item: one Damon Marco…”

  Devereaux said, “I already know about Damon Marco.”

  Solowey’s face fell, and Devereaux laughed. “It happens, old man. Duplicating information. Forget it.”

  Solowey said, “I stand mid-air. A whimsical exhibit not worth your cost.”

  “Enjoyable show,” Devereaux said.

  “One miserable act, when you can endow a circus?” Solowey shook his head. “I suddenly feel my bones. Sixty-year old bones, Devereaux. They clatter; they sound in my soul.”

  Devereaux said, “A new side to you, this…” Solowey looked inquiringly. “Self-criticism.”

  Solowey said, “An old secret side of me. But today, I have lost the secret. My reserve has been breached.”

  “You bought information I already got
for free.”

  Solowey said wincingly, “The sting of the lash. Mine ego lies bleeding to death.”

  Devereaux let the levity die. Knowing Solowey, he knew the comedic frame of their talk was a thin screen. Behind the screen, stood a discomfited Solowey. A Solowey who smarted under a small defeat. At sixty, achievement was a restoration of youth, and failure the confirmation of age. For this moment Solowey, even the wise and durable Solowey, stood full in the shadow of his calendar, at once a small boy and an old man, both of them together.

  Soon Solowey said, “Item: Police memoranda in these years of The Tiger Man’s disappearance. He has been seen in places various and remote. I give you a random sampling: On a houseboat anchored in the Mississippi Delta; pelting muskrats in the Canadian Wilds; wenching in Cuernavaca; counting the sands of time in the Great American Desert; riding a sampan on the China Seas; operating a motel in the reaches of Yellowstone Park…”

  Devereaux said, “The usual reports and wild rumors that trickle in to confuse a confused situation.”

  Solowey nodded, “And reports too, of a grimmer sort. The Tiger Man has been found and tentatively identified, some fourteen times.”

  Devereaux smiled knowingly, “A skeleton in the Wisconsin Woods, dug up by an Eagle Scout.”

  Solowey said, “And a corpse in a tar pit in Louisiana. Also a torso sans extremities moldering in a New Orleans sewer… But enough.” The portly detective sighed, “I see I have neither informed nor diverted you.”

  The big toe raised, and Solowey resumed his omniscient scrutiny of it.

  Devereaux stared out the window that looked over Bryant Park. The park was still, with a postcard look, and the City stood massed around. In the night shadows, a block of skyscrapers fused into a single form. Window lights went off, and some on, in a criss-cross too complex for the eye’s scope, and the illusion the form gave was a giant pinball machine.

  The detective closed his eyes wearily, and the City vanished into a blue infinity like an obliteration.

  But his mind worked steadily, with inner sight, like a factory of the blind.