The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Otto Penzler

  His own face was a mask, grim and carven, the eyes dark and close-lidded. Home, he put her into the hands of their mother. No one spoke. Glances, gestures, conveyed far more. For a long while he sat alone, motionless and thoughtful. The funeral was over, but the dread pall of it still lingered. Even the house seemed to take on a personality of mourning—quiet and hollow and reverent.

  A week later Cardigan sat in a speakeasy on the outer circle of Richmond City’s theatrical district. He was sipping a dry Martini when Kennedy of the Free Press drifted in and joined him.

  “What’s the idea of shaking your job, Cardigan?”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “Or were you told to resign?”

  “Maybe.”

  Kennedy chuckled. “Sounds more like it. What you get for bringing in Clark. Lord, that was a joke! His lawyer was a sharp egg. Clark played the dope all through. Bet his lawyer spent nights drilling him how to act. Clark was just a hired chauffeur. How did he know the plates were stolen? He was hired a week before the mess out on Webster Road to drive a car. They gave him a car to drive. The whole thing was a joke, and the presenting attorney gave the defense every possible opening. What are you doing now?”

  “Nothing. Taking life easy.”

  “Don’t make me laugh!”

  “Well, have it your way.”

  “Listen, Cardigan,” said Kennedy. “You know a lot. The Free Press would sell its shirt to get some straight dope from you. That’s no boloney. I mean it. I’ve got the whole thing figured out, but what we need is a story where we can omit the ‘alleged’ crap. Man, you can clean up!”

  “Yeah?” Cardigan laughed softly. “Be yourself, Kennedy. Run along. You’re wasting time on me.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Then learn.”

  Kennedy had a highball and went on his way. Alone, Cardigan took another drink, and looked at his watch. It was half-past eight at night. He looked across at the telephone on the wall. He drained his glass and lit a cigarette.

  The telephone rang. He got up and beat the owner to it. “This is for me,” he said, and took off the receiver. “You, Pete? … O.K. Be right over.”

  He hung up, paid for his drinks and shrugged into his dark overcoat. Outside, it was damp and cold, and automobiles hissed by over slushy pavements.

  Cardigan did not walk toward the bright glow that marked the beginning of the theatrical district. He bored deeper into the heart of Jockey Street. Where it was dirtiest and darkest, he swung in toward a short flight of broken stone steps, reached a large, ancient door, groped for a bell-button and pressed it. It was opened a moment later by a huge, beetle-browed negro.

  “Pete Fink,” said Cardigan. “He expects me.”

  “Who yuh are?” asked the negro.

  “None of your damned business.”

  “I’ll get Fink,” said the negro and slammed the door in Cardigan’s face.

  “Takes no chances,” muttered Cardigan. “Well, that’s good.”

  Fink opened the door this time, while the negro hovered behind him, his face like shining ebony under the single gas-jet.

  “Take a good look, big boy,” Cardigan said, as he passed in.

  And the negro said, “Got yuh, boss.”

  Fink led the way up a flight of crooked stairs that creaked under their footfalls. They reached the upper landing. Cardigan placed six doors in a row. One of these Fink opened, and they entered a large, square room, furnished cheaply with odd bits of furniture, no two pieces the same in make or design.

  Cardigan stood with his hands in his coat pockets, idly running his eyes about the room.

  Fink was leaning against the door he had closed. He was a big, rangy man, with one of his shoulders higher than the other. His nose was a twisted knot; a tawny mustache sagged over his mouth. He had a jaw like a snowplow, and eyes like ice—cold and steady and enigmatic. His hands were big and red and bony. He wore brown corduroy trousers, a blue flannel shirt, a wide belt with an enormous brass buckle. He looked like a tough egg. He wasn’t a soft one.

  Cardigan sighed and poured himself a drink. He downed it neat, rasped his throat, and looked at the empty glass.

  “Good stuff, Pete.”

  “Cavallo sells the same.”

  They faced each other. Their eyes met and held and bored one into the other. At last Fink grinned and rocked away from the door, sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. Cardigan sat down opposite him, opened his overcoat and helped himself to one of Fink’s cigarettes.

  “Well, Pete? …”

  Fink leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, his butt jutting from one corner of his mouth and an eye squinted against the smoke that curled upward.

  “Six,” he said. “I got six.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Chip Slade, Gats Gilman, Luke Kern, Ben-nie Levy, Chuck Ward and Bat Johnson. All good guns.”

  “Yeah, I know. How do they feel about it?”

  “Cripes, they’re ripe!”

  “They want to know who’s behind you?”

  “I said a big guy—somebody big, who’s in the know.”

  Cardigan chuckled. “Remember, Pete, it stays that way. I’m—it sounds like a joke—the mystery man in this. The master mind!” He chuckled again, amusedly, then grew serious. “To come out in the open would be to shoot the whole works. I’m too well known as a gumshoe. But I’ll manage this, Pete, and supply the first funds. I’ve got a measly two thousand saved up, but it’s a starter. And I’m out to flop on the bums that got Hanley, my buddy. If everybody holds up his end, you’ll all make money and Cavallo and his crowd will get washed out.”

  “You say the word, Jack. I’m takin’ orders from you. The rest take orders from me and no questions asked.”

  “Good. I’ll give you five hundred bucks to buy a second-hand car. Get a big touring. To hell with the looks of it; buy it for the motor— for speed. Buy half-a-dozen high-powered rifles and plenty of ammunition. Pick up some grenades if you can. How about a storehouse?”

  “Got one picked—an old farmhouse out on Farmingville Turnpike.”

  “Sounds good. Rent it for a month.”

  “It’s way out in the sticks,” added Fink. “Off the main pike, way in on a lane, and no other house inside of a quarter mile. I can get it for fifty bucks a month.”

  “Get it. We’ve got to watch out for tapped wires, though. Here, I’m staying at the Adler House. You know that number. If things get hot and you’ve got to talk a lot, just call me up and say, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ I’ll hang up and run down to the drug-store on the corner. There’s a booth there and I’ll get you the number. We’ll choose booths all over the city where we can make calls, and we’ll get the numbers.”

  “O.K.”

  “How about the dinge downstairs?”

  “He owns a dump. Sees a lot and says nothin’.”

  Cardigan ground out his cigarette. “Then it’s all set. Get me straight, Fink. Leave the cops alone. Tell your boys that. We’re after Cavallo and his rats—not the cops. If the cops show up, run. I’ve got a grudge against that wop and the crowd he runs with. I’m playing my grudge to a showdown. If I make some jack out of it, all right. But I’m after rats first—not jack. You and your guns can clean up sweet in this racket, if you use your head and move how I tell you.”

  “I got you, Jack,” nodded Fink.

  “All right. Let me know when you’re all set and I’ll map out our first move. Get the rifles, ammunition, grenades. Get a fast car and see that the tires are good.” He drew a wad of bills from his pocket. “There’s a thousand as a starter.”

  Fink shoved the money into his pocket and poured another brace of drinks.

  “You got guts, Jack,” he said, “to chuck the Department—for this.”

  “Guts, my eye!” clipped Cardigan. “I’ve got a grudge, Pete, a whale of a grudge—against the dirty, rotten bums that killed the best friend I ever had.” He raised his glass.
“Down the hatch.”

  On that they drank.

  IV

  Two days later Cardigan was sitting in his room at the Adler House, when the telephone rang. It was the desk, and he said, “Send him up.” Then he settled back again in his over-stuffed easy-chair. It was ten in the morning and he was still in pajamas and bathrobe. On a settee beside him was a detailed map of Richmond City and its suburbs. Here and there he had marked x’s, or made penciled notations.

  There was a knock on the door and he called, “Come in, Steve.”

  MacBride came in, closed the door and stood there stroking his chin and regarding Cardigan seriously.

  “Sit down,” said Cardigan. “Take the load off your feet, Steve. You’ll find cigars in the box on the table. How’s tricks?”

  MacBride took a cigar and eased himself down on a divan. “My day off and I thought I’d drop in and see you.”

  “Is that all you came for, Steve?”

  MacBride lit up and took a couple of puffs before replying. “Not exactly, Jack.”

  “Spill it.”

  “Oh, it’s not much. Only I was worrying. You still thinking of butting in on Cavallo’s racket?”

  “What a question! Why’d you suppose I left the Department?”

  “M-m-m,” droned MacBride. “I wish you hadn’t, Jack. You were the best man I had, and, Jack, old boy, you can’t buck that crowd. It’s madness. You’ll get in trouble, and if you make a bad step, you’ll get the Department on your neck. You haven’t got politics behind you. You’d be out of luck. That’s straight. How do you think I’d feel if it came to the point where you faced me as a prisoner?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Steve,” admitted Cardigan. “It’s the one thing I’d hate.”

  “No more than I would.” MacBride licked a loose wrapper back into place on his cigar. “Kennedy’s been in to see me again. That guy’s so nosey and so clever it hurts. Look out for him. He’s got an idea you’re up to something.”

  “I know. That bird’s so sharp he’s going to cut himself some day.”

  “Made any moves yet—I mean, you?”

  “Some—getting things ready.”

  “What’s up your sleeve anyway?”

  “Steve—” Cardigan paused the flex his lips. “Steve, we’ve been mighty good friends. We are yet. But I can’t tell you. I’m playing a game that can’t have any air-holes. You understand?”

  MacBride nodded. “I guess so. But I’m worrying, Jack. I’ve got a hunch you’re going to get in wrong and somebody’s going to nail you.”

  “Don’t worry. Forget it. If I pull a bone I’ll take the consequence. But I’m not counting on pulling a bone. This town is going to shake. Somebody’s going to get hurt, and, Steve, before long some pretty high departmental offices are liable to be vacated so damned fast—”

  “I’d go easy, Jack.”

  “I am—feeling my way.”

  MacBride shrugged and got up. They shook, and the captain went out, a little mournfully and reluctantly.

  Ten minutes later the phone rang and Fink asked, “How soon can you come out?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “I’ll pick you up at Main and Anderson in the car.”

  Cardigan hung up and snapped into his clothes. Five minutes later he shot down in the elevator, strode through the lobby and out on to Main Street. Two blocks south was Anderson. He saw the big touring car idling along—the one that Fink had bought for five-fifty; five years old, but it could do seventy-five an hour. The curtains were on, all of them.

  The door opened and he hopped in, settled down beside Fink. They pounded down Main Street, swung into a side street to avoid a traffic stop, and cut north until they struck Farm-ingville Turnpike.

  Then Cardigan said, “Well?”

  “I got the rifles and ammunition and some grenades,” said Fink. “I want to show you the farmhouse. The boys are ripe to go, soon as you say the word.”

  It took them half an hour to reach the ramshackle farmhouse. It was quite some distance from the hub of the city. It stood well off the main highway, hidden behind an arm of woods and reached by a narrow lane where the snow still lay. Fink pulled up into the yard and they got out. He had keys and opened the kitchen door. They entered and Cardigan looked it over. Two big rooms and a kitchen downstairs. Three bed-rooms upstairs. Dust, the dust of long neglect, covered the floor. The windows were small and set with many little squares of glass. The place was old, years old. The walls were lined with brick, a relic of days when houses were built to last for more than one generation.

  “Just the thing,” nodded Cardigan. “Maybe we’ll use it tonight.”

  “Huh?”

  “Tonight. Cavallo keeps a lot of his booze on North Street. Know the old milk stables?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the place. There are three in a row, all joined together. The one in the middle is our meat. It has sliding doors, and there’s always a reserve truck inside.”

  “How do you know all this, Jack?”

  “What do you suppose the Department does, sleep all the time?”

  “Oh…. I gotcha. Yeah, sure.”

  “Get your map out.”

  Fink dived into his pocket, came out with a folder that opened to large dimensions. Cardigan also had his out.

  “I’ve figured out the route you’re to take,” he said. “Mark these down now, so there’ll be no slip up. The truck is a type governed to do thirty-five per and no more. Four speeds ahead. All right.” And he proceeded to give Fink precise directions to follow, street by street to Black Hill Road which leads into Farmingville Turnpike. “Got the route all marked?” he asked, as he finished.

  “Yeah, all marked.”

  “Who’ll drive the truck?”

  “Bat Johnson and—”

  “No—Bat’s enough. The rest of you drift along ahead in the touring car and lead the way. One man on a truck ‘11 cause no suspicion. More might. And get this. Maple Road runs parallel with North Street—behind the stables. You park on Maple Road and watch across the lots till you see three blinks from a flashlight. That will mean to come on and take things over. When Bat takes the truck out you boys beat it back across the lots, into the car and fall in ahead of the truck on Avenue C.”

  “Who’s goin’ to blink the lights?”

  “I am.”

  “Huh?” Fink seemed incredulous.

  “That’s what I said. I’m going ahead to see if the road’s clear. I’ll take care of the watchman. If there’s more there—the gang, I mean—we’ll give up for the night. And mind this, if you don’t see any flashes by ten o’clock, breeze. Be on Maple Road at exactly nine fifty, no sooner or later. If everything turns out all right, if you get the booze out to the farmhouse and away safe, call me up and just say, ‘Jake’; that’s all. And about the truck. Drive it back and abandon it on Black Hill Road.”

  “But, hell, Jack, why can’t me and the boys bust in the stables and crash the place proper?”

  “You would say that, Pete. That’s just the way to ball up the whole works. We’re not out to butcher our way if we can help it. That’s the trouble with you guys. You don’t use your head. That’s the main reason why Cavallo and his rats are going to blow up. They’re too damned free with their gats.”

  “Um—I guess you’re right there, Jack.”

  “All right, then. Come on, let’s breeze. Drive me to the bus line and drop me off.”

  An hour later Cardigan was eating lunch at his favorite haunt in Jockey Street, with a bottle of Sauterne on the side. It was one of fifteen restaurants circulated throughout the city and owned by a syndicate of brokers that paid a fat sum monthly to the authorities for the privilege. Four were in the financial district, six in the theatrical district, the rest scattered. More would open for business in time. You didn’t need a card. The places were wide, wide open. Where the syndicate got the liquor, was nobody’s business.

  The Jockey Street place was managed by
an ex-saloon keeper named Maloney. Cardigan had been a frequent visitor there since his resignation from the force, and they got on well. This day he called Maloney over and asked him to sit down.

  He asked, “Between you and me, what does your outfit pay for good Scotch?”

  “That’s our business, buddy, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean. Come on, I’m talking business.”

  “You in the game?”

  “I know somebody who is.”

  Maloney thought hard. “Sixty-five bucks a case.”

  Cardigan nodded. “You can get it for fifty-five. Work the deal with your boss and you’ll get a rake-off of five bucks on the case.”

  “Your friend must be hard up.”

  “He’s just starting in business.”

  “Oh. We’ll have to sample it first.”

  “Sure. But are you on?”

  “It sounds good. How—how many cases?”

  “Maybe two hundred.”

  “Cripes!”

  “Think it over. Speak to your boss. I’ll see you again in a day or so.”

  He left ten minutes later, pretty certain that he had paved the way nicely. To kill the afternoon, he dropped in at a vaudeville theatre, and ate dinner at the hotel. Later he sat in his room smoking a cigar and going over his plan step by step, searching for a loop-hole. He couldn’t see any. Tonight would start the ball rolling. His vengeance would be under way. They’d murdered Joe Hanley. Now they’d pay—pound for pound. It was law of his own making, a hard, raw law—fighting rats on their own ground with their own tactics. Yet he had one advantage; a reasoning, calculating mind, thanks to his service in the Department; strategy first, guns—if it should come to that means—later.

  He had a hard crew under him. Pete Fink, a product of the bootleg age—one time in the prize ring, once a sailor. Cardigan knew that he was a tough customer, and he also knew that he could rely on him. The other guns; he relied on Fink to take care of them. He’d arrested Bat Johnson only a year ago for petty larceny. Chip Slade had once felt the rap of his blackjack.