Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask

by Frederick Nebel

  Stein picked up a paper cutter and probed beneath a thumb nail. “What are you after?”

  “Let that slide,” said Donahue. “If I get in Dutch I’ll tell you.”

  Stein shrugged. He scaled the paper cutter back on the desk, picked up the telephone and called a number. When he had the connection he said, “You, Luke?… Say, listen, I’ve got a friend here from New York. I want you to treat him right…. Sure, he’s okey. Where can you meet him?… Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s okey. When?… In an hour…. What?… Of course. If he wasn’t I wouldn’t tell you…. Okey, then. In an hour.”

  He hung up and said, “Luke Cross. Plain-clothes. He’ll meet you in Constantine’s. That’s a Greek joint in Sixth Street.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Well, when you go out of this building, turn to the right and walk three blocks. Then you’re at Sixth. Turn left and walk four blocks and you’ll see the sign. Go in and tell the Greek you’re waiting for Luke Cross.”

  “That’s jake. I’m staying at the Braddock. I’ll be seeing you.”

  Donahue got up, put on his straw hat and went out through an office where a stenographer punished a typewriter. He descended in an elevator, passed through a lobby into the broiling street, and turned to the right He crossed the street and turned south into Sixth. He stopped at Market against traffic, took off his hat, wiped the sweaty band, wiped his forehead, glowered at nothing and crossed the street putting on his hat when the traffic cleared. Opposite a parking lot he saw a green board sign with the word Constantine’s on it. He crossed the cobbled street, pushed open a glass door with green curtains, and entered a long, narrow room with a lot of porcelain-topped tables. At the right was a counter with a cash register and a cigar case. A fat swart man stood behind the counter smoking a cigar.

  Donahue said, “I’m waiting for Luke Cross,” and went on to a table in a corner farthest from the counter.

  The Greek followed him and grinned and said, “You wait for Luke Cross?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s friend of me.”

  “Yeah.”

  The Greek wiped the table with a soiled napkin and said, “Warm, ain’t it?”

  “Hot as hell.”

  “You like a bottle beer?”

  Donahue looked up at him, half grinned. “Got one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s see it.” Donahue put his hat crown down on the table, blew out a breath, squirmed in his coat, ran a finger around his muscled neck beneath his collar band. He stood up and took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. His shirt was dark with dampness. He sat down, pulled at his trousers until the cuffs were up to the tops of his socks. The Greek brought a bottle of beer, poured a glassful, grinned, and Donahue raised the glass, said, “How,” and emptied half of it.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  “’S very good,” smiled the Greek. “You want paper?”

  “Yeah, got one?”

  The Greek went over to the counter, brought back a copy of the Globe-Democrat. Donahue thanked him. It was all out of order; fell open at the editorial page, and Donahue scanned the editorials, the daily column, then came to H.L. Phillips and chuckled between draughts of beer. He was finishing up the funnies when the door opened and a man came in. The man was short and fat, dressed in a shiny alpaca suit that was open revealing a round paunch and a blue-striped shirt. A narrow-brimmed hat of soft brown straw was tilted over his forehead. His face was chubby with red cheeks, a bulbous nose and little blue eyes that looked across the room at Donahue. Donahue said:

  “Hello, Cross.”

  The man said nothing but thumped slowly across the room, pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Donahue. He took a toothpick from a glass on the table, put it between his fat lips and said:

  “Donahue?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, how do you like St. Louis?”

  Donahue said, “How about a bottle?”

  “Sure.”

  “Flag the Greek.”

  But the Greek was on the way over and Donahue ordered two bottles. He lit a cigarette, exhaled sharply, eyed Cross with blunt eyes hard like round brown marbles.

  “Stein says you’re okey, Cross, so let’s talk business.”

  Cross picked his teeth. “I’m listening.” He did not look at Donahue. His small blue eyes wandered back and forth across the table absently. When the Greek brought the two bottles and poured out two glasses, Cross picked up his with a fat reddish hand, grunted and drank noisily. He set the glass down but kept his hand around it, looking at the glass with his small blue vacant eyes.

  “Like this,” said Donahue, placing both elbows on the table. His voice was low, throaty, earnest. “I’m looking for a guy named Mickey Shane. I tailed him from New York to Cleveland and Indianapolis. Shane’s an alias he’s been using and he may be laying up in this burg under the name of Shannon. Shannon’s his real name, but he cuts it up into Shane, or Hannon, or O’Shane. It’s been Shane on the way West.”

  “What’s your racket?”

  “Racket? Don’t make me laugh! Say, Cross, I’m just a working guy like yourself. I used to be on the cops—yeah, for two years. New York, sure. But I got canned. I raided the wrong gambling joint one night and wounded a guy that tried to kick me in the belly. He was a Mick too—like myself. Well, Cross, I’m a private dick now—these last four unholy years. Interstate Agency.”

  “Oh, them guys.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well.” Cross continued to stare at his glass.

  “Well, what do you say, Cross? I’ve got a hunch that this guy Shane is laying up here because he bought a ticket to St. Louis with stop-over privileges, and he’s been stopping over. You know the joints and you ought to have an idea where a gun would lay up if he came here. This guy is a gun and no fooling.”

  “What you want him for?”

  Donahue grinned broadly and his dark eyes sparkled. “Come on, Cross, why be a guy like that? I just want to get this guy where I can talk to him.” He reached back into the inside pocket of his coat, took out a soiled large envelope, and laid a photograph on the table. “That’s the guy.”

  Cross’s face, for all its red chubbiness, was about as animated as dough. His small blank eyes passed over the picture.

  Donahue hammered home his argument—“Stein will fix you up, Cross. Our outfit retains him, and if I get in Dutch he’ll fix that too. But I won’t get in Dutch. And you and I don’t have to be seen together. Just get me a line on this guy, you’ve got stoolies of your own, and give me a ring at the Braddock Hotel. You’ll be clean, Cross.”

  “Well.” Cross picked up the photograph, stared at it, then threw it back on the table. Then he drained his glass of beer, wiped his fat lips with a fat hand. He said, “Well,” again and shoved back from the table. He laid his palms on the table, looked at them dully, as if in phlegmatic indecision. Then he cleared his throat and rose, saying, “Well, I got to get back on the job.”

  He shifted his straw hat to the back of his head, took a handful of toothpicks, said, “Braddock Hotel.”

  “Yeah,” said Donahue

  Cross turned and moved towards the door, his big fat body rolling from side to side on short fat legs. The Greek called, “S’long, Luke.” Cross muttered, “Um,” and went out through the door.

  Donahue was chuckling to himself.

  Chapter II

  The room had two windows over-looking Locust Street. The windows were open and there were screens of fine mesh, more a bulwark against coal dust than insects. An electric fan on the wall swung slowly in something less than a half circle and droned monotonously. The room was green; bed, desk, carpet, chairs were green. The drapes in which the windows were framed hung motionless. A bar of hot sunlight slanted obliquely through both windows. The corridor door was open, but there was another door with horizontal blinds, fastened by a hook, intended to stimulate circulation. It was August in St Louis. It was eighty-eight Fahrenheit in the room�
��worse in the street.

  Donahue lay on the bed, stripped but for a pair of blue trunks. Around him were spread the Post-Dispatch, Judge, The New Yorker, Time and the New York Sun. On the desk which he had drawn up beside the bed were two bottles of Perrier, three-fourths of a bottle of bourbon, a couple of glasses and a bowl of cracked ice. Donahue lay motionless on propped up pillows, hands behind head. It was his third day in St Louis, the third day of an insufferable heat wave in a city whose summers are never clement. His black hair was rumpled, and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. He stared meditatively at the blank green field of the ceiling. Even the motor horns in the street below sounded hot and muffled.

  When the phone rang Donahue merely blinked, did not budge a muscle. The bell stopped. Donahue watched the shimmering disc of the electric fan. When the phone rang again Donahue made a face. He turned his face towards the phone, regarded it with a scowl. It rang boisterously, insistently.

  “Hell,” muttered Donahue, and reached for it. Into the mouthpiece he said, “Hello.”

  “Donahue?”

  “Yup.”

  “Stein. I’m coming up.”

  Donahue frowned, then said, “Come on.” He hung up, his face a little puzzled. He rose and walked over to unhook the door with the horizontal blinds. He went back to the bed, sat down on the edge of it, picked up a rumpled packet of cigarettes from the desk, took one out and put it between his lips. He tore a paper match from a book of matches, struck it, lit the cigarette and lay sidewise on one elbow.

  When Stein knocked he said, “Come in.”

  Stein came in, small and thin and neat in a suit of Palm Beach cloth and a broad-brimmed Panama hat. He let the door close behind him and stood looking at Donahue. His thin face with the shiny horn-rimmed glasses looked grave and portentous.

  “Well,” he said, “what do you think happened?”

  “Sit down,” said Donahue.

  “Cross got bumped off.” Donahue finished taking a drag on his cigarette and let the smoke lazily from his nostrils.

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing in the papers.”

  “He was found about two hours ago in an alley down by the river. He must have been bumped off last night.”

  “That’s tough.”

  Stein took off his hat, walked to a chair and sat down. He stared levelly at Donahue. “Now what the hell are you after?”

  “What’s that got to do with Cross?”

  Stein’s glasses flashed. “Listen to me, Donahue. That cheap outfit you work for has retained me in this city to help out any of its operatives who might need help here. I’ve a right to know what you’re after. You’re primed to get in Dutch, so I might just as well know. Play ball.”

  “I told Cross to get a line on a guy named Micky Shane, alias Shannon, alias Hannon, alias O’Shane.”

  “All right. Why?”

  “I’m looking for Micky Shane.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  Donahue got up, poured some bourbon into a glass, threw in some cracked ice, made the glass half-full with Perrier. He half-turned.

  “Want a drink?”

  “No!”

  Donahue sat down on the bed with the drink, looked at Stein, began to smile and then grinned.

  He said, “How the hell will I get in Dutch?”

  “That Greek Constantine was a friend of Cross’s. You met Cross there, didn’t you? The gumshoes will poke around to all the joints and the Greek might remember that you and Cross had a talk the other day. If I’m going to be your lawyer, I want facts or you and the whole damned Interstate can go to hell.”

  “Calm yourself, Stein—calm yourself! On a hot day like this! I get hot watching you. Don’t worry about me, old-timer. I can find my way after dark. Calm yourself! Think of your temperature!”

  “I don’t feel like joking, Donahue, so cut it out!”

  Donahue took a drink. “When I get in Dutch, Stein, I’ll tell you about it. But just now I’m all right. If you think Hinkle will tell you more, there’s the telephone. Ask for long distance. The number is Beekman double-o-six-o.”

  Stein stood up, slapped on his Panama. He pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his face. He regarded Donahue with sharp eyes behind large glasses.

  “Just a bull-headed Mick, eh?”

  “Don’t get sore, Stein. Have a drink.”

  Stein said, “Go to hell,” and strode out.

  Chapter III

  At Police Headquarters in Clark Avenue Detective Hocheimer sat at a battered desk and gnawed at the stem of a corncob pipe. He sat in shirtsleeves, bald head splotched with red heat-spots and high blood-pressure, white hair above the ears damp, thick jowls hanging over a soiled stiff collar, big round eyes bleary.

  A head poked in the door, “Guy wants to see the guy on the Cross job.”

  Hocheimer erupted to say, “Well, ain’t I the guy?”

  “What I said.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Dunno. Want to see him?”

  “Well… well, send him in.”

  The head disappeared. A little later Donahue came in, fanning himself with his straw hat

  “Hot, ain’t it?” he remarked.

  “You’re about the tenth guy’s asked me that. What you want? Who are you?”

  Donahue pulled a swivel-chair around and sat down. He laid his hat on the table, took time off to wipe his face and neck with a damp handkerchief.

  Hocheimer looked like some modernized fat Buddha, sitting there hunched in his chair, with fat hairy arms dangling towards the floor, and big round eyes drooping biliously from their sockets.

  His voice was rough, asthmatic. “Well, well—who are you? What do you want?”

  Donahue took out his wallet, took from it a card, passed the card to Hocheimer. Hocheimer glared at the card, glared at Donahue, pulled in his lower lip and let it go with a wet smacking sound.

  “Yeah. Well?”

  “I knew Cross.”

  “Yeah, yuh did?”

  “Yeah. I had a few drinks with him the other day in a Greek speak in Sixth Street.”

  “I know the place. The Greek says Luke met a guy there. So you’re the guy.”

  “I’m the guy. I’d met Cross a couple times before when I was in this burg, and I called him up and made a date. I thought he could help me out.”

  “And what are you here for?”

  “I’m looking for a guy. I thought Cross could give me a steer. He was a good egg.”

  “What guy? What do you want him for?”

  Donahue pulled his chair six inches closer to Hocheimer. He tapped Hocheimer’s knee. “Not so fast. Listen. I may be able to give you a break if you give me one. I’m not going to go into detail, so get that straight.”

  “You might be in a tough spot, buddy.”

  “Not at all. I haven’t done anything except ask Cross to give me a steer on a guy I was tailing. There’s nothing to show that he got bumped off because of that, and even if he did, it’s no fault of mine. Have you had a line-up yet?”

  “No. We’re picking up a lot of guys and we’ll go over them in the morning.”

  “Good,” said Donahue. “Now if the guy I’m after is in that line-up, I’ll tip you off, provided—provided—you give me an hour alone with him before you get your hooks in him.”

  Hocheimer sat farther back in his chair. He raised his fat hairy arms and laid them across his bulging thighs. He lowered his head and his jowls lay almost against his shoulders. His thick, shapeless mouth twisted.

  “You trying to bargain with me, Donahue?”

  “What’s it sound like?”

  Hocheimer sat up straight, put his elbows on the arms of the chair, thrust his huge face forward.

  “You got a hell of a nerve, Donahue!”

  “My eye! I’m giving you a break!”

  “Suppose,” said Hocheimer with a gentleness that did not fit his voice or bulk, “I lock you up on genera
l principles.”

  Donahue’s eyes darkened, but he shrugged. “You wouldn’t be such a fool.”

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, maybe you would be a fool. Try it.”

  There was a long moment of silence during which Hocheimer bulged motionless in his chair, his fat wet eyes sliding back and forth across Donahue’s brown muscled face, his breath wheezing in his throat behind a lower lip that hung loose and shiny and revealed his lower teeth. Donahue’s brown clear eyes never wavered. They did not squint. They regarded the fat mass of Hocheimer’s face with blunt, bold frankness. About his neat wide mouth was the vaguest spectre of a droll smile.

  “Wouldn’t I?” croaked Hocheimer thickly.

  “Try it. The Interstate has lots of money behind it. You haven’t got a leg to stand on except suspicion, and I’d be out inside of eight hours, and just for spite I’d let you try finding this guy yourself.”.

  “Yeah?”

  Donahue suddenly made an impatient gesture. “You hick cops are the berries, believe me! Well, what are you going to do, pinch me? If you are, go to it. Or if you want to get a break, play ball.”

  “Who is the guy?”

  “If he’s in the line-up you’ll find out.”

  “And if he ain’t?”

  “Hell, we’ll both be out of luck.”

  Hocheimer creaked in his chair, put fat palms together and massaged them. “If he ain’t, Donahue, you and me will have a long talk. I got no use for private dicks that come out here from New York and cause a lot of trouble. If he ain’t, remember, you’re going to spring your whole story.”

  Donahue laughed. “But a hell of a lot of good that will do you!”

  “Remember,” said Hocheimer hoarsely, “if he ain’t.”

  Donahue said, “Be your age, Hocheimer!” and grinned with all his straight hard teeth.

  Chapter IV

  Summer rain….

  Donahue stood by the window watching the sheets of rain thrash against the glass. Clark Avenue was barely visible through the smeared panes. Thunder rumbled afar, drawing nearer, and rapiers of lightning impaled the wet gloomy murk, and automobile horns complained in a half-dozen different tones.