by Otto Penzler
“Poking around.”
“I mean—really, Mac.”
“Trailing a clue. Hear about that truck smash-up?”
“Sure. Tough, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t know the half of it. And that’s why I’m up here, Hen.”
Hen’s eyes widened perplexedly. He started to say something, but the drinks arrived, and he licked his lips instead. The waiter went out, and the two men regarded each other.
MacBride jerked his head toward the door. “How long has that guy been working here? What’s his name?”
“A month. Mike Bannon.”
“He serves all the drinks?”
“Ye-es.”
“All the truck drivers stop in this room, I guess?”
“Sure.”
MacBride took a drink and let it sink in. “Good stuff,” he nodded, and then leaned across the table. “You’re a white guy, Hen, and you’re sensible. Fire that man.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Fire him tomorrow. If he gets sore, tell him the cops are tightening down on you, and you’re cutting out the hooch for a month or more. I’m doing you a turn, Hen. You want to keep your hands clean, don’t you?”
“Cripes, yes, Mac!”
“Then bounce him—tomorrow at noon.”
“Okey, Mac.”
MacBride was back in the precinct at seven. He picked up Rigallo and Doran and they all went over the Headquarters and sought out the Bureau of Criminal Identification. This was a vast place, lined with rows of card-indexes, and on the wall were several huge metal books, attached by their backs, so that a man could swing the metal pages back and forth and scan the photographs of those men who, having stepped outside the law, were recorded therein, with further details of their crimes recorded in the surrounding files. MacBride, turning page after page, suddenly grunted and pointed.
“There’s the guy, boys,” he said.
He noted the number, gave it to the attendant, and while waiting, said to his prizes, “Working at the Owl’s Nest.”
The attendant reappeared with a card and handed it to MacBride. MacBride scrutinized it. “H’m. Michael Shane, arrested for criminal assault against Rosie Horovitz, June 12, 1924. Indicted, June 13th. Acquitted July 2nd. Lack of evidence. And again: Arrested October 5, 1925. Charge, felonious assault with attempt to rob. Charge preferred by Sven Runstrom. Indicted October 6th. Sentenced October 15th, sixty days, hard labor.”
“Let’s go out and nab him,” said Rigallo.
“No,” said MacBride. “He’s working as Mike Bannon. Come on.”
They returned to the precinct, and in the privacy of his office, MacBride said, “This guy poisoned Saunders’ liquor, but I’m after bigger game. He’s a tough nut, and he’ll hold his tongue until some shyster, retained by the gang, gets him out of our hands on a writ. What we want to know is, who’s the boss of the gang, the mayor’s right-hand man. That is the guy we want. We’ve got more to do than apprehend the actual murderer of Saunders. We’ve got to grab the mob and their boss, and prevent further killings, and when we do this we’ll have the mayor against the wall. Shane is a stoical bum, and a rubber hose wouldn’t work him. We’ve got to get the big guy—the one with the most brains and the least guts.”
“What’s your idea?” asked Rigallo.
“Just this. At tomorrow noon Shane gets his walking papers from Hen Meloy. You go out there tomorrow morning in a hired flivver, and when this guy gets a bus headed for town, tail him. He’ll head for his boss, to report. Tail him that far and then give me a ring.”
MacBride went home early that night, slept well, and was back on the job at nine next morning. He took the cigar box from the desk in the central room, went into his office, and counted out forty-two dollars and fifty cents. This he shoved into an envelope, with the brief message, “From the bunch at the Second Police Precinct.” He called in a reserve, gave him the envelope and the Haggerty Alley address, and then, sitting back with a sigh, started his first cigar of the day.
Kennedy dropped in on his way to Headquarters, and said, “The municipal inspectors condemned two more Colonial trucks. Said Saunders death was caused by a faulty steering gear. Nobody knows the details? What did the morgue say, Mac?”
“Run along, Kennedy.”
“Keeping it under your hat, eh? It’s all right, Mac. I can wait. Here’s another tip. The Colonial people aren’t dumb, and there’s a guard riding on all their night trucks now. They’re die-hards, Mac. These guys liked Saunders, and they’re primed to start shooting first chance they get.”
Kennedy went out, and MacBride cursed him in one breath and complimented him in the next.
At two o’clock the telephone rang and MacBride grabbed it.
“Cap? Rigallo.”
“Shoot, Riggy.”
“Tailed him okey. Two-ten Jockey Street. I’m waiting in the cigar store on the corner. Come heeled.”
MacBride hung up, slapped on his visored cap, and strode into the central room. “Six reserves, Sergeant! Ready, Doran!”
A windy look was in his eyes, and his jaw squared.
IV
OCKEY Street is hell’s own playground. You enter it from the theatrical center, and all is glittering, blatant and intensely alive. But as you bore deeper, riverward, the street lights become further apart, the chop suey joints disappear, and the houses, losing height, likewise lose color.
It was cold that afternoon, and fog smoked in from the river, damp and chill. The din of upper Jockey Street died to a murmur, and on its lower reaches few men were afield. Here or there you heard footsteps, and soon, dimly at first, then clearer, a pedestrian materialized out of the fog, swished by and gradually disappeared again, trailing his footsteps. Up the man-made causeway came the muffled rhythmic tolling of a pierhead fog bell.
Down it rolled a black, inconspicuous touring car, with drawn side-curtains. Nearing a side street, the door to the tonneau opened, and MacBride leaped out. The car rolled on, was swallowed up by the wet gray clouds.
MacBride strode toward a cigar-store. Rigallo came out, smoking a cigarette, looking unconcerned. They fell in step and strolled down the side street, leisurely.
“He hasn’t come out, Riggy?”
“No. Came on the bus to Main and Farm-ingville. Took a taxi from there. Got off at Main and Jockey. Walked. I left the car there and walked, too. Saw him go in 210. There’s a gray touring car parked outside—powerful boat.”
“I’ll crash the joint.”
“They’ll never open the door. Bet you need signals.”
“Try my way.”
They circumnavigated the block, and came out upon Jockey Street a block nearer the river. Here the police car was parked, the men still hidden inside. MacBride stood on the edge of the curb, spoke to the curtains.
“I’m aiming to get in 210. Two minutes after I leave here you boys get out and surround this block. It may be messy.”
“Okey,” came Doran’s low voice.
MacBride said, “Come on, Rigallo,” and they walked up the street. He explained. “We’ll both climb the steps to the door. I’ll knock. Somebody will come, but if he doesn’t get the proper signals, he won’t open. But he’ll listen. Then you walk down the steps, hard as you can, and walk away. He may open then and peek out. I’ll crash it.”
“What then?”
“Hell knows!” MacBride’s fists clenched. “Just let me get in that dump!”
They reached the four stone steps that led to the door of 210. They mounted them, and MacBride, one hand on the gun in his pocket, knocked with the other.
They waited, looking at each other. Presently they heard the padding of footsteps, then silence. MacBride knocked again, insistently. No, that wasn’t the signal. He nodded to Rigallo. Rigallo nodded back, stamped heavily down the steps and walked off.
MacBride flattened against the doorframe, breath bated, gun half-drawn. The latch clicked. A hinge creaked. The door moved an inch, another inch. A nose appeared. Then two beady e
yes, and a pasty, pinched face.
MacBride cannoned against the door, and knocked the look-out sprawling. The door, working on a spring, slammed shut. The captain was bent over the prostrate, speechless form, with the muzzle of his gun screwed into a sunken chest.
“Chirp and I’ll bust you!”
The man writhed under the firm pressure of the gun. His mouth worked, gasping. His eyes popped.
“Cripes!” he moaned.
“Pipe down! Quick, now. What’s the lay? Where’s the gang?”
“Cripes!”
“Spill it!
“Cripes!”
Desperate, MacBride rapped his jaw with the gun barrel.
“Ouch!”
“Then talk!”
“Second floor, door t’ back o’ the hall. Cripes!”
“Open?”
“Uh—yup.”
“How many?”
“Tuh—ten.”
“Get up!”
MacBride hauled the runt to his feet, dragged him to the front door, opened it. Rigallo was on the curb. MacBride motioned to him, and Rigallo skipped up.
“Take this, Riggy!”
Rigallo grabbed the look-out, clapped on manacles. “Should I get the boys?”
“No. I’ll start the ball. There are ten guys upstairs, and I feel ambitious. Besides, if we all crash it, it will be a mix-up and the boys might get hurt. One man can crash a room better than six. I’ll blow when I need you. You hang here, and then blow for the boys.”
“It’s a long chance, Cap!”
“I carry heavy insurance. Don’t let this door close.”
MacBride turned and re-entered the hall. Gun drawn, he went up the stairway, paused at the first landing, listened, and then ascended the next flight. He was wary, alert, dangerous. There were captains on the Force who directed operations from the outside, smoking cigars on street corners, at a safe distance. MacBride was a man who never sent his men into a trap before first examining the trap himself. One reason why his wife lay awake nights, thinking.
Door in the rear. He stood at the stair-head, muscles tense, gun pointing toward the door. He advanced straight, light-footed, primed to go off. He stood before the door, the muzzle of his gun an inch from the panel.
His left hand started out, closed gently, carefully, over the knob. Some said you should turn a knob slow, bit by bit, until you could not turn it any more; then heave and rush. But sometimes you never got that far. A knob might creak. A wandering gaze on the other side might see it turning.
Turn, heave and rush all at once—that was it. MacBride did it. The door whanged open and he crouched on the threshold, poised and deadly.
A woman, alone, looked up from the depths of an overstuffed chair. She had been trimming her fingernails with a steel file, and she sat there, apparently unperturbed, the file, in her right hand, poised over the thumb of her left. She wore a negligee, pink and sheer. Her hair was peroxide treated, bobbed and fuzzy.
MacBride reached back and closed the door. The woman, with a shrug, went on trimming her nails, and said, in an offhand manner,
“Got your nerve, Cap, busting in on a lady.”
“What’s wrong with that sentence, Gertie?”
“Well, rub it in.”
“Get dressed.”
“I’m not going out.”
“No?” He leaned back. “I’m waiting.”
She rose, running her hands down her sides and lodging them on her hips, thumbs forward.
“Suppose I yell?”
“You’ll be the first woman I ever killed.”
“You would?”
“I sure would.”
They stood staring at each other, the lynx and the lion.
“Think I can get dressed with you in the room?”
“I’m not particular. If you’re too modest, put on that fur coat.”
“I’m not modest. Particular, guy.”
“Put on the coat.”
She tilted her chin, cut MacBride with a brassy, withering look. Then she sauntered over to the coat, picked it up and slipped into it. She thrust her hand into a pocket.
“Careful!” warned MacBride.
She laughed, drew out a handkerchief, touched her nose and then shoved the handkerchief back into her pocket. A split second later flame and smoke burst through the fur, and hot lead ran up MacBride’s gun arm. His gun clattered to the floor.
The woman leaped for the switch, threw off the lights. With his left hand MacBride, gritting his teeth with pain, recovered the gun. Another burst of flame slashed through the darkness, and a shot whanged by his ear. He dived, headlong, collided with the woman and knocked her over. Again her gun went off, wildly, and the shot banged through the ceiling.
With his wounded hand MacBride groped for hers—found it, wrenched away her gun, groaned with the pain of it. He heaved up, rushed to the door, shot home the bolt. Then he dived for the light switch, snapped it, and a dazzling radiance flooded the room.
The woman, on her feet, flung a Chinese vase. MacBride ducked and the vase crashed through a mirror. She crouched, quivering in every muscle, her breath pumping fiercely from her lungs, eyes wide and storming with anger.
“You—lousy—bum!” she cried.
“Pipe down!”
Fists hammered on the door, feet kicked it. Voices snarled.
The woman laughed hysterically. “The Gang! The Gang! They’ll riddle you! They’ll cut your dirty heart out!”
“Will they?”
MacBride drew his whistle, blew it.
V
BRUPTLY, the scuffling and pounding stopped. A moment of silence, then retreating footsteps.
MacBride stood with his cap tilted over one ear and a slab of hair down over one eyebrow. His right arm hung down, blood weaving a red tracery on his hand, then dropping to the floor. His hand felt heavy as lead, dragging at wounded muscles. A thought struck him, and he shoved the hand into his coat pocket.
Footfalls sounded again, hammering up the stairs. Cops’ shoes—heavy-soled, thick-heeled. Now they were out in the hall, moving about, whispering hoarsely. MacBride backed against the door, unbolted it, pulled it open.
Rigallo came in. “Hell, Gertie!” he chuckled, sarcastically.
Gertie thumbed her nose and wiggled her fingers.
“You trollop!” snapped Rigallo.
“Pst, Riggy,” said MacBride. “Where’s the look-out?”
“Doran’s got him in the machine.”
“Jake!” He looked into the hall. Six cops out there and two closed doors. They had the doors covered. “Take her downstairs, Riggy.”
“Who’s her boy friend?”
“That’s what we’ll find out. She’s not talkative just now. Grab a dress, sister, and take it along.”
“If you think I’ll spill the boy friend’s name, MacBride, you’re all wet,” she snapped.
“Take her, Riggy.”
Rigallo grabbed a dress from a hanger and flung it at her. It draped across her shoulder. She left it there.
“Get out,” he jerked.
She put one hand on her hip and sauntered leisurely. Rigallo took a quick step, gripped her by the arm and propelled her out not too gently. She cursed and added something relative to his maternity. He trotted her down the stairs.
MacBride joined his cops. “Let’s bust this door.”
Seven guns boomed, and seven shots shattered the doorknob and crashed through the lock. Patrolman Grosskopf, one-time leader of a German mudgutter band, hurled his two hundred and twenty pounds of beef against the door and almost ripped it from its hinges.
MacBride waved his men back and stepped in. The room was empty. His right hand was still in his pocket. His men did not know he was wounded. He came out in the hall and nodded at the other door.
Bang! Seven shots sounded as one.
“Now, Grosskopf.”
Grosskopf catapulted, and the door capitulated.
The room yawned empty. It showed signs of some having made
a hasty departure. Bureau drawers were pulled out, a chair was overturned. Glasses, some of them still containing liquor, stood on the table. A chair, also, stood on the table.
“Up there,” said MacBride, pointing to a skylight. “To table, to chair, to roof.”
He led the way up to the roof, and they prowled around, from one roof to another. Wind, fog, and emptiness. They came to a fire-escape in the rear.
“They skipped,” he said. “Come on back.”
Below, in the hall, they found Rigallo and the woman, Doran and the look-out. MacBride looked at the woman but addressed his men. “We’ve got an ace-in-the-hole now. Let’s go.”
They went out into the foggy street, and MacBride said to the look-out, “Thought you tricked me, eh? Ten men in the back room!”
The woman laughed. “Ten! That’s headquarters, Cap, not the barracks. What a joke! There was only three—in the front.”
Rigallo said to the look-out, “Boy Scout, we will entertain you a while at the precinct. I have a nice new piece of rubber hose.”
They piled into the police car. Its motor roared. It turned about and purred up Jockey Street, and at Main Rigallo got out and picked up his flivver, and the two cars proceeded toward the Second.
The prisoners were locked up in separate cells. Then MacBride, alone, went out and walked several blocks and entered a door above which was a small sign bearing the legend, Dr. O. F. Blumm, M.D.
“Oh, hello, Mac.”
“Hello, Doc. Fix this.” He drew his blood-soaked hand from his pocket, and the doctor frowned, murmured, “H’m,” and added, “Take off the coat, shirt.”
The bullet had struck just above the wrist, sliced open three inches of the forearm and lodged in the hard flesh just short of the elbow. MacBride, teeth clamped, his eyes closed, shed streams of sweat while the doctor probed for the bullet and finally removed it. Then MacBride sank back, a little pale, very grim.
“It might have been worse,” remarked the doctor.
“Sure,” said MacBride, and breathed quietly while the wound was cauterized, stitched and bandaged.
“Most men take a little dope for this, Mac.”
“Uh!” grunted MacBride through tight lips.
Through the fog, he returned to the station-house, his hand concealed in his pocket, his wound throbbing.