The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Otto Penzler

  Another thing was certain. McBride would have to be rescued very quickly. There wasn’t one chance in a hundred that he would be let free, even if he talked, and I remembered that set jaw of his, the determined eyes. Oh, it may have knocked him to see another killed, shot down before his eyes, as I had shot down the lad the night we were moving Giovoni to the private sanitarium—and it may have unnerved him to think that Toney and Giovoni, whom he wished to protect, met their death, but I didn’t think he’d talk, and I knew what that would mean for him.

  With this important thing on my mind I was going to consult my lawyer, Rudolph Myer? That’s right. That’s exactly what I was going to do. As I drove down town and through Greenwich Village to Rudolph Myer’s house, I thought upon, and even enlarged upon, if that could be done, the sufferings that Colonel McBride was to be put through, was now going through, or had been put through. Not nice thoughts? No, decidedly not. Nevertheless, I had them, and I held them, for they stirred a hate and a passion, and perhaps even a lust to kill. Bad business? Maybe. But my business tonight was bad business.

  There was no guard at Rudolph Myer’s house, and I’m not sure if there was a light, though I think one shone beneath the second story window shade, that overlooked the side alley. Side alley? That’s right. For I was looking the place over. Rudolph Myer and I were good friends. Had been so for a good many years. He was my lawyer in many instances, and a mighty good one, if a high priced one. But I never begrudged him a cent I paid him.

  Now, I guessed that I knew Rudolph well enough to play a practical joke on him. Sort of slip in and surprise him. And surprise him I certainly would. He was alone in that house. The only servant he had left each night. There was nothing for him to fear. He was the friend of the unfortunate, the criminal. The finest fixer in the city of New York.

  I went to the back, crossed the stone court, carefully up-ended an ash can, stood upon it and rapped myself a little hole in the window pane. No feeling for electric burglar alarm wires. No need of that. I had been in that room too often not to know. Rudolph Myer knew crooks. He was a firm believer in that saying that any crook who wanted “in” got “in"—if he wanted “in” bad enough.

  Well, I’m no crook, but I wanted “in” bad enough. I just stuck my fingers through the hole, snapped back the window lock, lifted it carefully, slowly, silently, and stepped into the room. My rubber soled shoes made no noise across the linoleum of the kitchen and even less noise as I crossed the thick rug of the dining room, through to the hall and onto the wooden stairs. I picked the front stairs because, well, they were less likely to make noise—had no door bottom and top— and besides which, they would bring me up to the hall and close to that door, the door of the room from which I thought that tiny light had peeped.

  All stairs are creaky, of course, no exception to this old outfit. But I had luck, in a way. Some one was moving around up stairs—some one was moving quickly, furtively, quietly back and forth, back and forth across the floor.

  I made the upper hall, took a couple of quick steps down it, guided by a light from a partly open door, and stopped dead before that door as the quickly moving feet inside ceased, and some one seemed to listen.

  Then it wasn’t “seemed” any more. Some one was listening. For the person in that room had held his breath, and then let it go again in a sort of whistling sound.

  Finally the feet crossed to the door, paused, fingers reached to the side of the door and pushed it open wider, and I stepped through the opening and faced Rudolph Myer.

  Certainly he was surprised. Maybe even shocked. He rubbed his hands across his eyes as if he wasn’t sure, then half straightened his bent shoulders and tried playing at the corners of his mouth with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He was fully dressed, and a hat and top coat lay over the end of the bed.

  “Surprise!” I said, closed the door behind me and spun the key in the lock. Then I looked around the room as he backed away from me. One suitcase already packed stood shut by the bed. It had heavy straps around it. The other was a big affair and needed another shirt or a couple of socks before locking. There was little doubt that Rudolph intended to go bye-bye. Five minutes later and—. But I hadn’t been five minutes later. Why dwell on that?

  And Rudolph Myer spoke first.

  “Race, Race Williams. How did you get in? And why?”

  “And the answer is—Who cares? I won’t waste time, Myer.” I backed him across the room, my eyes on him. “You two-timing skunk! After all these years you sell me out. You left the house of Colonel McBride tonight with McBride. You trapped him into the hands of the Gorgons. You two-timed him as you did me.”

  “I didn’t,” he cried out. “It’s a lie. Before God I swear I didn’t.”

  And I had him by the throat, forced him to his knees.

  “Don’t try to lie out of it. My boy, Jerry, was down the block and saw you. They’re torturing McBride,” I told him, and my voice shook. “You know me, Myer. I don’t have to threaten you. You’ve kidded me about my shooting, for I’ve paid you well. Now, you double-crossed me and I’m going to kill you, kill you.” I squeezed his throat tighter, saw his eyes bulge, watched his tongue protrude, then I thrust him from me. Disgusted? Maybe. Through with him? Not me.

  Rudolph Myer stretched a hand, let it slip into his open suitcase and half pulled out an automatic. I liked that. He couldn’t possibly believe he had a chance against me with a gun, yet he tried to get one. Why? Because he was afraid. He read the truth in my blazing eyes.

  I didn’t fire. I simply leaned over and rapped his knuckles with the nose of my forty-four. Then I kicked his gun under the bed and told him what was on my chest.

  “Listen, Myer.” And I didn’t have to do any acting to get my part over. “Understand this. I’ve come here tonight for the purpose of killing you.”

  “That would be—murder.” He half lay, half knelt on the floor.

  “You can’t murder a rat,” I told him. “Anyway, what difference does the name it goes by matter to you, or to me either? No one saw me come here. No one will see me go. And don’t be thinking up wise cracks. Let me tell you what I know.

  “You got me into this Gorgon case, because the Gorgons knew I was coming in anyway. You found out that McBride was coming on, to help the Commissioner. You knew that O’Rourke had been after the Gorgons for years. Michelle Gorgon probably told you. He has a way of hearing things, through crooked officials, and crooked, shyster lawyers, like you.

  “You knew where McBride planned to take Giovoni, to Elrod’s Sanitarium. You told Gorgon and he had him murdered. And it was you who told me The Flame wanted to see me at her rooms, and you, alone, who knew I was going to meet The Flame there. Then you told the Gorgons, or at least, Eddie Gorgon, and you let Eddie think that The Flame sent the message. I don’t know why, I don’t care why, but you did it again at Maria’s Cafe, and Eddie Gorgon died. You somehow got McBride out of his house tonight and into the Gorgon trap. I don’t know how you did it, why you did it, though I guess you were paid for it.”

  “No, no. Not then, Race. It was The Flame. I wanted her. I loved her. I thought—”

  “The Flame? You!” I had to laugh.

  “Why not?” And Rudolph Myer’s beady eyes snapped back to life. “Many have, others have. Am I any different? I’m not so young, but neither is Michelle Gorgon. I’m not so, not—. Don’t you see, Race? What she did to others she did to me. And, Race, she led me on. I swear she did. I’ve done business for Michelle Gorgon. She got it out of me, all out of me. She sucked me dry of every bit of information, then laughed in my face and—”

  He read it in my eyes. He clutched at my coat now, kneeling there at my feet.

  “Don’t kill me, don’t. I know you can get away with it. I know the man-made laws can’t touch you. But you’ve never done that. Never gone in for murder, Race. Never—. You’ve lived clean. There’s other laws beside those of man. There’s God’s.”

  “There’s the laws of God a
nd the laws of man, Myer. And there’s the law of death, for the rat, for the stoolie, for the two-timer. You sent Giovoni to his death. You sent Colonel McBride to worse than death. You tried to send me to death, and—By God! you’ve got to pay the price.” I half raised my gun.

  Was I going to kill him then? I don’t know, so you don’t know. But certainly Rudolph Myer thought he knew. He screamed out as he clutched at my knees and begged for life.

  “I’ll tell you where McBride is if you let me go. Don’t you see? It was The Flame, The Girl with the Criminal Mind. Am I made of different stuff than other men? Isn’t there blood in my body too? And she laughed at me and told me she loved you, and you only. And, and—. God! Race, I was mad, mad. I wanted you dead. I thought, if you were—if you—. Don’t, don’t kill me. It’ll be death for McBride. Death for The Flame.”

  Was it to save McBride that my finger didn’t close on that trigger, or was it because of The Flame? What Rudolph Myer said might easily be true, for I guess most any man would fall a victim to The Flame. Most any would, and many had. Or was it simply that I couldn’t get up the guts to press that trigger and snap out Myer’s life? Or—? But I did say:

  “You, you wouldn’t know where McBride is.”

  “Yes, I do. I do! Promise, give me your word that you won’t—won’t kill me if I tell you.”

  “If I save McBride, you can go free,” I told him. “But I’ll know if you lie about him. I know more than you think. To begin with, I know that you fled down that street, stopped in a telephone booth in a drug store and made two telephone calls. One to me, the other to—”

  “To Michelle Gorgon,” he told me, and I believed him. Then he gave me his story.

  “Michelle Gorgon found out that Colonel McBride was coming to the city by the request of the Police Commissioner, through the Deputy Commissioner. He had me worm my way into McBride’s confidence by telling him things about the Gorgons—things that O’Rourke had already unearthed, but were not evidence. McBride told me about this Giovoni, but no more than his name and that he had arrived in New York, and was taken sick. He didn’t tell me where he was, nor where he was going to take him. That was the night before I met you. I watched McBride’s house and saw him go to Doctor Elrod’s Sanitarium the following morning. So I knew that would be where he’d take Giovoni. I was working, alone, for Michelle Gorgon. Joe or Eddie knew nothing about my connection with Michelle. Michelle Gorgon liked to play without his brothers once in a while. It strengthened his hold over them.”

  “Did Michelle have you notify Eddie when The Flame had you date me up for her, both those times?”

  “No. I did it myself. I let Eddie think it came from The Flame. I wanted you—. I, I loved The Flame.”

  That was a funny one, maybe—but easy to believe.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE POLICE HORN IN

  I looked at my watch. The “whys” the “wherefores” of the thing were not as important as knowing where McBride was. I told Myer to talk, and quickly. He did. He said:

  “I went to see Colonel McBride. He expected me and left the kitchen door open, as he didn’t want the police to know I was there. He was telephoning, up stairs. I whistled up to him from the kitchen door. I was nervous. I thought I heard some one in one of the front rooms, so I kept in the dark. I thought it might be the police. Colonel McBride came down to me. I pretended excitement. I told him I had some one in a car on the street behind, who would tell him all about Rose Marie, and how she was murdered. I told him the person wouldn’t come in, for him to come out. He said he was expecting you, Race, but he came with me when I said it would only take a minute. He—” Myer had the good grace to gulp, anyway, “He trusted me. Joe Gorgon was out in the car, with some others and—. I didn’t know they intended to torture him. That’s the truth.”

  “And they told you where they were going to take him?”

  “No,” he said, “they didn’t. But I had a—a colleague around the corner with a car to follow them. I—well—I like to have information of my own if things go wrong, like now.” He looked at my gun and tried to smile.

  I nodded at that. It would be like Myer. Slippery—never trusting any one. Always with a card up his sleeve. Yes—I believed him.

  Then he gave me the address where Joe Gorgon and his racketeers had taken Colonel McBride. Ricorro’s garage. A notorious, all night garage, where the front doors never closed. I had a hunch Myer was speaking the truth. Somehow, at such times you KNOW.

  One more question I couldn’t help. I had always looked on Myer as a straight shooter to the one who paid him, if crooked every other way, and certainly not in the cesspool of the city’s rackets.

  “What made you double-cross McBride, Myer?” I asked. “Did Michelle Gorgon hold something over your head?”

  “Not in the sense of blackmail, if you mean that.” Rudolph Myer had recovered quickly and was on his feet now, lighting a cigarette with a shaky hand. “I don’t think any one could ever get anything on me again. No, Michelle Gorgon’s methods are much simpler and much more direct. He came to me, Race, and pounded a long finger against my chest. ‘I need you, Myer,’ he said. ‘Come come, we won’t quibble. I’ll pay you well to act for me. I always do. It’s not for you to decide, but for me to decide. You’re in with me now, till I’m through with you—or you’re dead by morning.’ That was all he said, Race. That was all he needed to say. I know my city. I know my law, and know too what little protection it could offer me. I’d have felt safer hearing my sentence of death passed by a judge in court. For law or no law, I knew as well, or even better than any man, that Michelle Gorgon is above the law. And—and I wanted very much to live.”

  And the worst of it was, it was true.

  But I didn’t kill any more time. And I didn’t listen to Rudolph Myer’s protestations when I took those straps from the bag and a couple of bathrobe cords from the closet and trussed him up.

  “I daresay you can work yourself free of those straps, but not these,” I said, as I jerked out my irons and fastened them about his ankles. “I’ll come back and release you as soon as Colonel McBride is free. Now, anything else to tell me? For your life depends on my success.”

  He could take that any way he liked—but he talked. He said:

  “Joe Gorgon’11 be there tonight, not Michelle though. How many Joe will have with him I don’t know, but he won’t trust many in this— this, I don’t think.”

  And I gagged him. But his eyes bothered me. They were watching that bag, the closed bag. I wondered why, tried to open the bag and found it locked, started to take the gag out of Myer’s mouth, saw the excitement in his eyes and tried his vest pocket—and there was the key, attached to the generous watch chain.

  I snapped open that bag and got a jar. No wonder Myer was interested in that bag. He was afraid to tell me about it, and was afraid not to. The bag was full of money. Crisp, new bills of large denominations. Rudolph Myer, then, had been leaving the city for an extended visit. I didn’t have to count it. But I closed the bag, carried it to the closet and chucked it behind a lot of clothes.

  “I don’t blame you, worrying,” I told him. “That’s a lot of jack. But it’ll be safe there until I return.”

  There were many things I wanted to ask him. Each one perhaps more important than the other. But there wasn’t time. Not long now before dawn, and the life of Colonel McBride at stake. Who was Rose Marie? Why did she cry out for vengeance? Did Myer know whose voice on the phone so upset Michelle Gorgon? I didn’t wait for that information. I only stopped long enough down stairs to put through a call to O’Rourke.

  “Hop a subway,” I told him, “and I’ll pick you up at The Bridge. Don’t argue. I’ve got a line on McBride. The time for chin-chin is passed. Snap into it.”

  Well, I had used my brains for once, as The Flame had suggested, but I hadn’t used them until Jerry told me that Rudolph Myer was the man who escaped down the street after the attack and abduction of Colonel McBride. Then, maybe i
t wasn’t much thinking. I just got a kaleidoscope picture of past events and knew that Rudolph Myer was my meat.

  I met O’Rourke and I told him what was on my chest.

  “They’ll kill McBride if we come in force, yet we can’t chance an attack alone. Just one man may be guarding that garage and maybe ten. Here’s the ticket. I know Ricorro’s. It’s an all-night garage. The big front doors are always open. It would look bad if they closed them now. I’m for betting they’ll be open.”

  “Ricorro’s Garage!” O’Rourke stroked his chin. “Well, it’s got a bad enough name, though we’ve never really pinned a thing on Ricorro. And you don’t know if McBride is in the basement below or on the floor above.”

  “I don’t know even if he’s there at all. But dying men are supposed to speak the truth. And I’m telling you, O’Rourke, Rudolph Myer was as near death as any man who ever peeped a final message. But I’m strong for the basement. Here’s the lay. There may be a way out that we don’t know of. You get a raiding squad and cover the block, but not till I’m inside.”

  “You and me inside,” O’Rourke horned in.

  “No. Just me. This is my racket. If I’m discovered, they may think I’m alone, and not kill McBride. I work alone. If you’re with me—but you have a wife and kid.”

  O’Rourke laughed.

  “I’ve been reported killed so many times, and given up by the ambulance surgeon so many times, that the old lady wouldn’t even get a bad turn. Besides which, what has the old lady got to do with police business? As for my kid, well, he’s going to be a copper, Race—a real copper.” And suddenly bursting out on me, “Where do you get the stuff that you’re the only living man in New York with any guts, any eye—and any gun hand? I’ll be a—”