by Otto Penzler
“I put Gats in with the boys, and then I went out and hid in the bushes by the road. An hour later I see a big tourin’ car stop down the road and a guy get out. It was Monkey Burns. I run back to the house and plan a trap. I pull down the shades and leave a light lit. Then me and the boys skin out and hide in the bushes with our rifles.
“Little later the bums sneak up. Monkey and Cavallo and Bert Geer and six others. They creep up on the house, and Monkey tries a door. It’s open. He turns to his guns and whispers and they all bunch. Then they crash the door and go in shootin’. Before they know what’s what, Gats busts loose with his gun and gets the last mutt goin’ in. They see they’re trapped and they slam the door.
“We surround the place. Then I explain things to the boys. Then I drive off in the car, get to a booth and call Police Headquarters and tell ‘em a gunfight’s goin’ on out there. Then I drive back and park up the road a bit. The boys was takin’ pot-shots at the winders now and then. I tell ‘em what I done and then run back to the road. When I see a mob o’ cars whoopin’ down, I whistle and the boys beat it through the woods. We sit in the car until we hear guns goin’. Then we know the cops is at it, and Cavallo and his bums still thinkin’ it’s us. Then we drive off, and the boys scatter in the city. Just like that.”
Cardigan regarded Fink for a long moment. Then he wagged his head. “Pete, you’ve got a sight more brains than I ever gave you credit for. Every man in that house was killed.”
“Humph. What ammunition we saved. So the cops got ‘em after all. Well, who has more right than the cops?”
Cardigan went back to his hotel with a light heart. He turned in, slept well, and got the whole thing in the morning extras. At ten MacBride came in to see him. The captain looked full of news.
“Well, you know it all by this time, eh, Jack?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.” MacBride sat down and took off his hat. “There’s a big shake-up. Cavallo and all his rats were wiped out last night. But Cavallo’s brother-in-law, Diorio, president of the Hard Club, goes wild this morning. He got in an argument with Pozzo, his friend, the alderman, and blamed him for it all. Claimed Cavallo was framed because he knew too much—framed by Pozzo and Mulroy. It wound up by Pozzo getting shot. Pozzo passed the buck and drew in State’s Attorney Mulroy. Kennedy, that wiseacre reporter, crashed in on the row and got the whole story. What dirt they raked up! It’s something nobody can hush. Diorio was pinched and he sprung the whole rotten story of graft and quashed criminal cases. Pozzo threatened to have him sent up for twenty years, but Pozzo can’t do a thing. He’s in the net. So is Mulroy. The governor’s wires have been buzzing, and in a short time we’re going to see a new state’s attorney and a new alderman. It’s the biggest shake-up in the history of the city. And you, Jack, in your own little way, caused it, thank God!”
Cardigan smiled. “Not me, Steve—exactly.”
“Who, then?”
Cardigan shrugged. “Well, let it drop. A lucky break—and a certain friend of mine.” He grew grave. “Now I’m satisfied. Joe Hanley, my buddy, is vindicated. I swore he would be. I was counting on some good breaks. For a while it looked like I was wrong. But the good ones came in the end.”
MacBride nodded. “It’s funny, there wasn’t a trace of the gang that was riding Cavallo and his guns—not a trace.”
Cardigan grinned. “I hoped there wouldn’t be.”
“M-m-m,” mused MacBride. “Well, what are you going to do now?”
“That’s a question,” replied Cardigan. “I was thinking of starting a detective agency. I know the ropes, and I’m through with the Department, and I know where I can get a good right-hand man.”
“Who’s that?”
Cardigan chuckled. “You may meet him some day, Steve.”
He was thinking of Pete Fink.
Dog Eat Dog
Frederick Nebel
A city where crime and politics are organized as one business; an honest,
hard-fighting Police Captain who is bucking the crowd of graft-takers and their
gunmen when his own daughter is caught in the slimy mesh
I
WHEN CAPTAIN MacBRIDE was suddenly transferred from the Second Precinct to the Fifth, an undercurrent of whispered speculations trickled through the Department, buzzed in newspaper circles, and traveled along the underworld grapevine.
It was a significant move, for MacBride, besides being the youngest captain in the Department—he was barely forty—was known throughout Richmond City as a holy terror against the criminal element. He was a lank, rangy man, with a square jaw and windy blue eyes. He was brusque, talked straight from the shoulder, and was hard-boiled as a five-minute egg. Now the Second Precinct is in the very heart of Richmond City’s night-life, hence an important and busy station. The Fifth is out on the frontier, in a suburb called Grove Manor, and carries the somewhat humorous sobriquet of the Old Man’s Home. Plenty of reasons, then, why MacBride’s transfer should have been made matter for conjecture.
MacBride said nothing. He merely tightened his hard jaw a little harder, packed up and moved. To his successor, Captain O’Leary, he made one rather ironic remark: “Well, I’ll be nearer home, anyhow.” He had a bungalow, a wife and an eighteen-year-old daughter in an elm-shaded street in Grove Manor.
He landed in the Fifth in the latter part of August. It was a quiet, peaceful station, with a desk sergeant who played solitaire to pass the time away and a lieutenant who used his office and the Department’s time to tinker around a radio set which he had made and which still called for lots of improvement. MacBride’s predecessor, retired, had spent most of his time working out crossword puzzles. All the patrolmen, and three of the four detectives, were local men, and well on in years. The fourth detective had just been shifted from harness to plain-clothes. Ted Kerr was his name; twenty-eight, sandy-haired, and a dynamo of energy and good-humor. He was ambitious, too, and cursed the luck that had placed him in the Fifth.
“Gee, Cap, it sure is a shock to see you out here,” he said.
MacBride could remember when Kerr wore short pants. He grinned in his hard, tight way. “Forget it, Ted. Now that I’m here, though, I’m going to clean out a lot of the cobwebs. They say time hangs heavy on a man here. Too bad I haven’t got a hobby.”
“Why did they shift you, Cap?”
“Why?” MacBride creaked his swivel chair and bent over some reports on the desk, tacitly dismissing the subject.
A month dragged by, and the hard captain found ennui enveloping him. He was lounging in his tipped back chair one night, with his heels hooked on the desk, reading the newspaper account of a brutal night-club murder in his old district, when an old acquaintance dropped in— Kennedy, of the city Free Press.
“Oh, you,” grumbled MacBride.
Kennedy helped himself to a seat. “Yeah, me. Gone to seed yet, Mac?”
“Won’t be long now.”
“What a tough break you got,” chuckled Kennedy.
“Go ahead, rub it in. Pull ahorse laugh, go on.”
“I’ll bet Duke Manola’s laughing up his sleeve.”
“That pup!”
Kennedy shrugged. “Serves you right for taking the law in your own hands. You birds can shake down a common sneak thief or a wandering wop that goes off on a gun spree coked to the eyebrows. But, Mac, you can’t beat organized crime. You can’t beat it when it’s financed by silent partners—and those silent partners"—he arched a knowing eyebrow— ”on the inside, too.”
“Man, oh, man, I’m going to get that grease-ball yet!” MacBride’s lip curled and his windy eyes glittered.
“Still got him on the brain, eh?” Kennedy lit a cigarette and spun the match out through the open window. “He’s fire to fool with, Mac. He’ll burn you surer than hell. Anyhow, you’re out here in the sticks keeping the frogs and the crickets company, and you’re not worrying Duke much. He’s planted you where you’ll do no harm. Oh, I know, Mac. There
’s a lot I know that the paper can’t afford to print. When you raided the Nick Nack Club you stepped on Duke’s toes. Not only his—but his silent partner’s.”
“Easy, Kennedy!”
“Easy, hell! This is just a heart-to-heart talk, Mac. Forget your loyalty to the badge when I’m around. You’ve kept a stiff upper lip, and you’ll continue to. But just keep in the mind that here’s one bird who knows his tricks. I know—see?—I know that Judge Haggerty is the Duke’s silent partner in those three night-clubs he runs. Haggerty’s aiming for Supreme Court Justice, and he needs lots of jack for his campaign. And he’s not going to let a tough nut of a police captain get in his way.”
MacBride bit the reporter with a keen, hard eye. After a long moment he swung his feet down from the desk and pulled open a drawer.
“Have a drink, Kennedy.”
He drew out a bottle and a glass and set them down. Kennedy poured himself a stiff three fingers and downed it neat, rasped his throat.
“Good stuff, Mac,” he said.
“Have another.”
“Thanks.”
Kennedy measured off another three fingers and swallowed the contents at a gulp, stared meditatively at the empty glass, then set it down quietly.
“Now, Mac,” he said, looking up obliquely, while the ghost of a smile played around his lips. “I’ll tell you what I came here for.”
“Came to razz me, I thought.”
“No. That’s just my roundabout way of getting at things. One reason why I got kicked off the city desk.”
MacBride felt that something important was in the wind. Sometimes he liked Kennedy; other times, he felt like wringing the news-hound’s neck. Clever, this Kennedy, sharp as a steep trap.
“Well,” he said, leaning back, “shoot.”
“Just this, Mac. Maybe you’re going to run up against Duke again.”
“Go ahead.”
Kennedy’s smile was thin, almost mocking. “Duke’s bought that old brewery out off Farm-ingville Turnpike.”
MacBride’s chair creaked once, and then remained silent. His stare bored into the lazy, whimsical eyes of the reporter. A sardonic twist pulled down one corner of his mouth.
“What’s that wop up to?” he growled, deep in his throat.
“I’ve got a hunch, Mac. He’s getting crowded in the city. He’s going to make beer there—the real stuff, I mean. And gin. And—” he leaned forward— ”he’s going to rub it in—on you.”
“He is, eh?” MacBride’s voice hardened. “He’ll take one step too many. He’s getting cocky now. I never saw a wop yet who didn’t overstep himself. Riding on my tail, eh? Well, we’ll see, Kennedy. Let him move out of turn and I’ll jump him. That wop can’t kick me in the slats and get away with it. The booze I don’t give a damn about. I wouldn’t have cared how many speakeasies he ran in the city. But when he ran stud games in the back rooms and reached out for soused suckers I got sore. That’s why I broke the Nick Nack Club. It was three in the morning, and among the bums in the back room were two guns from Chicago.”
Kennedy chuckled. “That was when Captain Stephen MacBride pulled one of the biggest bones in his career. What a beautiful swan song that was! Hot diggity!”
MacBride rose to his lean, rangy height and cracked fist into palm.
“Boy, but I’m aching to meet that dago! I hope to hell he does make a bum move!”
“He put you out in the sticks; out,” added Kennedy whimsically, “in the Old Man’s Home. And you’re sore, Mac. I can foresee some hot stuff on the frontier, and Grove Manor on the map.”
MacBride swung to face him, his feet spread wide. “Just that, Kennedy—just that. They shoved me out here to cool off and grow stale. But I’m not the guy to grow stale. Duke’s cracking wise. Maybe he thinks that the transfer has shut me up. Maybe he thinks he can ride me and get away with it. Let him—that’s all—just let him!”
There was a knock at the door, and then Sergeant Haley looked in, his beefy face flushed with excitement.
“Carlson’s on the wire, Cap’n. There’s been a smash-up out on Old Stone Road. Carlson was riding along in the patrol flivver when he saw a big touring car tangled up against a tree half in the bushes. There’s a dead man in the car but Carlson can’t get him out ‘count of the wreckage.”
MacBride snorted. “Is Carlson so hard up for company that he has to call up about a wreck?”
“No, but he says he thinks there’s something fluky about it. He says there’s a woman’s footprints near the car, but he didn’t see no woman.”
“Maybe she walked home,” put in Kennedy. “Lot of that going on these days.”
“I’ll speak to him,” clipped MacBride, and sat down at his desk.
Sergeant Haley went out and switched over the call and it took MacBride only a minute to get the details. Then he hung up and, pouring himself a drink, corked the bottle and dropped it back into the drawer.
“The ride will do me good,” he remarked as he slapped on his cap.
“Me, too,” added Kennedy.
MacBride looked at him. “You’re out of your territory, aren’t you?”
“What the hell!”
On the way out MacBride told the sergeant, “When Kelly and Kerr drift in—God knows where they are now—tell ‘em to hang around. Call up the nearest garage and tell ‘em to send a wreckage crew out to Old Stone Road, about a mile north of Pine Tree Park. Buzz the morgue and tell ‘em to send the bus to the same place. Tell ‘em tonight, not sometime next week. When Lieutenant Miller gets fed up on monkeying with his radio, ask him to kindly take care of things till I get back. When you work out your present game of solitaire, I’d appreciate your getting those delinquent reports as near up to date as you’re able. I won’t be long.”
Outside, he stopped on the curb to light a fresh cigar. Then he followed Kennedy into the police car, and said, “Shoot, Donnegan,” to the man at the wheel.
II
Out of the hub of town, the car struck Old Stone Road and followed it past neat, new bungalows and later, past fields and intermittent groves of piney woods. Once through Pine Tree Park, the road became darker, lined by heavier woods, with not even an occasional house to relieve the gloom.
Donnegan, at the wheel, pointed to a pair of headlights far up the road, and when they drew nearer, MacBride saw a small two-seater flivver parked on the side and a policeman in uniform spreading his arms to stop them. Kennedy hopped out and MacBride followed him.
“There it is,” said Carlson, and pointed to a tangled heap of wreckage against a tree alongside the highway. MacBride strode over, and Carlson followed, snapped on a flashlight and played its white beam over the ruined car.
“Three thousand bucks shot to hell,” observed Kennedy. “And still insurance companies make money.” He sniffed. “Who’s the stiff?”
“Don’t know,” muttered MacBride and made a gesture which indicated that the man was so deeply buried beneath the wreck that they could not get him. He turned to Carlson. “You said something about footprints.”
“Yeah, Cap. See?” He swung his flash down to the soft earth around the car. “Sure, a woman’s.”
MacBride nodded, then said, “But she never got out of this car after it struck.”
The wreck offered mute evidence to that statement. Its radiator was caved in half the length of the long, streamlined hood, and the cowl and part of the hood were crushed up through the windshield frame. Beneath this, and wedged in by the left side of the car, lay the man who had been at the wheel, face downward, the steering-wheel broken and twisted around his chest.
“I been wonderin’ where the woman could have went,” ventured Carlson.
“Whoever she was, she must have walked away,” said MacBride. “Her footprints wouldn’t show on the macadam.” He added, after a moment, “At any rate, I’ll bet my hat she wasn’t in the car when it socked that tree.”
Donnegan called out, “Guess this is the wrecker.”
It was. The wre
cking outfit from the garage rolled up, and two men in overalls got out.
“Hello, boys,” greeted MacBride. “Before you haul this piece of junk away, there’s a dead man inside. See if you can chop away some of the wreck.”
The two men pulled axes from their car and set to work and hacked away at the snarled mass of metal. MacBride stood at one side, sucking on his cigar, offering no suggestion to men who knew their business and were doing the best they could. Presently he saw them lay down their axes, and he stepped over to help.
Bit by bit they hauled out the broken, bloodstained body, and laid it down on the ground. MacBride bent down on one knee and taking Carlson’s flashlight, snapped on the switch. He grimaced, but gritted his teeth. A swarthy young face, the face of a boy in his early twenties.
“Hot diggity!” exclaimed Kennedy.
MacBride looked up. “What’s eating you?
“Don’t you know him?” cried Kennedy, his usually tired eyes alight with interest.
“Frankly, I don’t.”
Kennedy slapped his knee. “Duke Manola’s kid brother!”
“Hell!” grunted MacBride, and took a swift look at the discolored face.
“He was always a sheik with the ladies.”
“I’ve heard of him,” nodded MacBride. “Now what the cripes kind of a stunt did he try to pull?”
“Simple,” shrugged Kennedy. “Got fresh with some broad probably.”
“But how did the broad shake the wreck? I still say she wasn’t in the car when it hit. Man alive, there’d been no chance of her walking after that!”
“The crack reporter of the Free Press agrees with the astute captain’s common sense remark. But wait till Duke gets wind of it. You know these wops. Tweak the nose of a forty-eighth cousin and the whole shooting-match sharpens up their stilettos. Boy, don’t I know!”
“Well, if he started playing around it’s his tough luck. The trouble with a lot of these sheiks is that they’re so used to the yes-girls that when they meet another kind they get sore—and nasty.”