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

by Frederick Nebel

  “Night-club, eh?”

  “Yeah. De nigger band. Yeah. Like dat. Make whatcha call whoopee.”

  Donahue laughed. “Well, I feel like making whoopee.”

  “She’s open only de night. De women”—he grimaced and shook his head—“no good. Tony tell me.” He grinned, patted Donahue’s arm. “Good-lookin’ guy like you no play around women like those.”

  “Never can tell.” Donahue took another drink.

  A waiter yelled, “Cash!” and the Greek made a bee-line for the cash register.

  Donahue went down to the Show Boat Club that night

  It crouched in a slanting cobbled alley a couple of blocks from the river. A damp warm mist had come up from the Mississippi. It hung motionless in the cobbled alley. Street lights were few and far between, and brick houses, dark-windowed, stood irregularly along the alley, and a blue glow hung over the doorway before which a taxi deposited Donahue. The blue glow revealed a square board sign with the words Show Boat Club painted in large letters. There were a half-dozen cars parked in the alley, and a man in a wrinkled white duck suit stood leaning outside the doorway.

  Donahue had no trouble getting in. The place was wide open. A man inside took his hat and gave him a check. Another led him down a musty hallway where blue lights glowed. This man opened a big door and led him into a large room on the walls of which were painted a hazy idea of a show boat and some plantation scenes. The tables were rough board, without covers, and lined three walls. Against the fourth wall was a raised platform that was supposed to look like the stern of a show boat. Negro musicians sat there and mopped shiny black faces. Four wooden propellers thrashed beneath the ceiling and stirred the second-hand atmosphere.

  As Donahue sat down at a table he muttered to himself, “Joint.”

  The waiter said, “What?”

  Donahue looked at him. “Tony Nesella around?”

  “No.”

  “Off?”

  “He don’t work here.”

  “He did.”

  The waiter looked at the table. “What you want?”

  “Pleasant guy, ain’t you?”

  “What you want?”

  “Well, give me what you’ve got. It’s probably new bourbon or bath-tub gin, but I’ll take a Brody. And some Canada Dry.”

  The waiter walked away.

  The jazz band cut loose. Couples got up. Some looked like clerks and their girl friends out to paint the town. Others looked as night-club patrons look. All perspired and danced. The floor was not waxed. It was just a floor and feet scraped harshly against it. At a table near the jazz band sat two girls. One had had things done to her hair and it was now blonde. The other had hair black as jet that fitted her head like a helmet, showing the lower half of each ear and running around her forehead in severe bangs. Her cheeks were a bad paint job.

  Donahue got up and went over and asked her to dance. She had nice teeth and used them. They stepped around. She danced formally, or what might have been her idea of dancing formally—breast high, stomach in, chin up, eyelids lowered.

  Donahue said, “Call that dancing, kid?”

  She laughed with her teeth together. When the round was over Donahue steered her to his table. She sat down and waved a handkerchief in her face. Sweat stood out on Donahue’s face. He grinned through it.

  “You’re pretty good, kid,” he said.

  “Oh, you think so?”

  “Yeah. Take some nourishment. Hey, waiter!”

  When the waiter had come and gone she said, “You can step yourself, big boy.”

  “I admit it.”

  “That sounds Irish.”

  “I admit that too.”

  She laughed. “Now I can expect a line.”

  “Not unless you want it.”

  The waiter brought her drink and she looked at Donahue and said, “Here’s how.”

  He drank with her and set down the glass, scowled at it. “Mouth wash! When Tony Nesella was here a guy could get a drink.”

  She took another drink and said nothing.

  Donahue said, “Where is Tony?” and threw a packet of cigarettes on the table.

  She took one and Donahue struck a match for her. She said with a puff of smoke, “Tony? I guess he left.”

  “That’s too bad. He was a nice guy. I’d like to see him.”

  Out of the side of his eye Donahue saw a big rangy man standing in the doorway with the waiter who had brought the drinks. The big rangy man had fuzzy red hair. Donahue thought he saw him raise a hand and move a finger.

  Donahue looked down at his drink. After a minute the girl said, “Excuse me, big boy,” and went out through the door.

  Donahue did not send his eyes after her, did not rise. He leaned on his elbows and moved his glass back and forth over a wet smear on the table. The jazz band exploded again. Couples grew on the floor. One couple reeled against Donahue’s table. He caught a whiff of perfume saturated with perspiration. He watched the contents of his glass creep sinuously across the table. A youth’s loose face leered down at him over a girl’s red hair.

  “Sore, bud—sore?”

  Donahue looked up. “Sore?… No.”

  “Was gonna bust you if you were.”

  The girl said, “Billy… Billy!…”

  Donahue laughed. “I’m licked, bud.”

  The couple reeled off among other reeling couples. The trombone booed. Feet threshed the floor.

  The girl with the black tight hair and the bad paint job came back to Donahue’s table and sat down showing her teeth in an intimate grin. Donahue ordered more drinks. He put his hand on the girl’s hand and squeezed it. He smiled at her.

  “I’m going to like you,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Sure. You’re the berries, kid, no fooling.”

  The waiter brought their drinks.

  Donahue said, “I think I’ll get tight. Want to get tight?”

  “Do you want to get tight?”

  “Yeah. I’m on a spree. I feel like making hey-hey, and I’ve got the jack to make it on.”

  She rubbed her palm over the knuckles of his hand. “You’re nice, big shot—you’re sure nice.”

  They danced again. The big man with the fuzzy hair came to look in through the door. He had pale glassy eyes beneath beetling brows. He wore a white silk shirt with purple arm garters, white flannels, black-and-white shoes.

  Donahue and the girl went back to the table after the dance and ordered more drinks. She said her name was Eva. Donahue drank in big gulps. He drank two and sometimes three glasses to the girl’s one. He ran his hand through his hair until it became disheveled. His dark face became shiny with sweat. When, at the end of an hour, they danced again he staggered, and they returned to the table before the end of the number.

  He lounged back in his chair. His eyelids drooped and he gazed around the room blearily. The big man with the fuzzy hair appeared in the doorway again and looked at him. The girl Eva looked at the man in the doorway and raised her eyebrows. The man in the doorway nodded.

  Donahue groaned and put his head down on the table. The girl put a hand on his wet hair and said:

  “Maybe the heat’s getting you in here, honey. There’s a cooler room upstairs, on top. Want to rest up?”

  Donahue mumbled, “Yeah…. You’re a good kid, Eva.”

  “Well, come on, hon.”

  Donahue got up, looking very drunk, very wilted. The girl took his arm and steered him through the door into the blue-lit hallway. Donahue walked with his head hanging, his feet lagging.

  “Here’s the stairs, hon.”

  “Yeah.”

  He climbed the stairs in fits and starts, hanging to the banister. He reached the top and stood swaying in the hall there.

  “This way,” said the girl.

  He stumbled after her to the rear of the hall. He stopped and waited while she opened a door. As she entered a dark room he lunged in after her, caught the door, fell back with it, shut it with a bang,
remained leaning with his back against it, his hands behind him.

  The girl found the switch and turned on the light. The bedroom contained a single bed, a wash-stand, a small table, and two chairs. Donahue lurched across the room and stopped with arms braced against the sill of the one window. He put his head out and looked down. They were on the second story.

  The girl was tugging at his arm. “Come on, hon, lay down on the bed and rest. Take your coat off.”

  He turned around slowly and blinked sleepily at her. He grinned. He put his arms around her and hugged her. She smiled up into his sweaty brown face.

  “You’re some dame, Eva.”

  “Glad you think so big boy…. Come on, lay down.”

  She urged him towards the bed. He dragged his feet towards it and when his knees touched the edge of it he half-twisted and sank down. But he dragged the girl with him. She protested.

  “Please, honey—”

  He swung her down on the bed with sudden violence and a low curse. One big hand smacked across her mouth and stifled a cry and he heaved up to bend his leg and plant the lower part of it across her legs. Her eyes sprang open with sudden terror.

  He laughed bluntly. “Well, you little——, I didn’t think they were so dumb as this even in the sticks.”

  With his free hand he drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket, bent over her, forced it beneath the hand that stifled her mouth and then gradually forced the handkerchief into her mouth. She heaved and writhed and gagged, but he got all of the handkerchief into her mouth. Then he rolled her over, yanked her hands behind her back, took a pair of manacles from a hip pocket and snapped them on her wrists. Then he rolled her on her back and stood up.

  He drew a key from his pocket and held it up and said, “Didn’t you hear me lock the door as we came in?… So you think that a quart of bath-tub gin can get a good man tight? Well, sister!”

  He laughed heartily, lifted her from the bed and laid her on the floor. Her face worked as she tried to yell, but not a sound came from her gagged mouth. He pulled a counterpane and two sheets from the bed and tied them together. The end of one sheet he tied to the bed. The end of the counterpane he lashed around the girl’s waist. He moved quickly, surely.

  He carried the girl to the window, shoved her out, and gradually lowered her to a dark yard below. When the tension on the improvised line lessened, he stood up. He went back to the door and inserted the key but did not turn it. As he was moving towards the window a fist rapped loudly on the door. He looked back once but kept on towards the window. He swung a leg out, then another, then grabbed the line and lowered himself to the yard, where the girl lay.

  Bending down, he untied her and hauled her to her feet. He unlocked the manacles and put them in his pocket. He dragged her over two fences and five minutes later came into a dark, mist-ridden street. Here he paused to draw the handkerchief from her mouth. She whirled on him.

  He shoved the muzzle of his automatic against her stomach. “Sister, this rod will be in my pocket. You’re going places with me, and if you let out a chirp I’ll let you have it. Come on.”

  “You——!”

  “Such language!”

  He yanked her through the dark street.

  Chapter VII

  The electric fan in the room in the Hotel Braddock had a subdued drone.

  The girl lay on the bed sobbing, an arm across her face. Donahue stood at the foot of the bed, holding a tall glass of ice water, and looking darkly at the girl. He had taken off his coat and tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

  He growled, “Cut out that bawling!”

  She took her arm from across her face and sniffled. Her face was red as a beet and the rouge had run. Strands of black hair were pasted wetly on her forehead.

  “What—what do you want me for?”

  “I want Tony Nesella.”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “You’re a damned liar! Why did you want to get me in that room?”

  She broke out crying again and put her hands to her face. Donahue cursed, slammed his glass down on the desk, sat on the edge of the bed, grabbed her hands and pulled them from her face. He leaned over her, spreading her arms until the hands were at either side of the bed. He glared down into her wide terrified eyes with hard round brown ones.

  “You listen to me, sister! I saw all that by-play of yours with that big mutt in the doorway. When I mentioned Nesella’s name to that flat-mugged waiter he shut up like a clam. When you first came over to my table, I saw the big mutt give you the high-sign and you went out. Nesella’s name spelled trouble there and getting me in that room was a frame. Now get this: You come across to me and you’ll walk out of this room as you are. You tighten up and I’ll call in the police.”

  “You—you’re hurting my wrists!”

  “I’ll hurt more than your wrists. Who was Tony Nesella?”

  “A waiter at the—”

  “I mean, outside of that.”

  “God, I tell you I don’t know!” Her breath was hoarse in her throat, pumping out of an open mouth. “You—you can’t do this to me!”

  “Who’s going to stop me?”

  “Please… let me go!”

  “You’ll go, baby, as soon as you give me a line on what’s behind all this damned monkey business. I mean it. Now cut out this sob stuff and use your head, because you’re in a tough spot.”

  “Please—”

  “Stop saying please! Get it into your nut that I mean business! Why did my mentioning Nesella’s name start things?” He shook her. “Why did it? You hear me—why did it?”

  “Oh … it’s so hot! Stop. I—I’ll pass out—”

  “And I’ll give you a bath to bring you back. Come on, sister. Play ball.”

  She looked haggard, miserable. She shook her head slowly. “No… I don’t know a thing… a thing.”

  He kept at her for an hour, mercilessly. And at the end of the hour he was perspiring as much as she.

  And she said, “Not a thing…. I don’t know….”

  He got up from the bed, walked over and stood beneath the fan. His face was almost sullen. He pulled off his shirt and threw it across the room. He rubbed his hands down his arms. He went into the bath-room, got a towel and rubbed that down his arms, around his neck, down his chest beneath his undershirt. He went back into the bath-room with the towel, drew a glass of ice-water, carried it to the bed.

  “Here’s a drink,” he said.

  She said, “I don’t want it.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, put an arm around the back of her neck, made her sit up and held the glass against her lips. Then she drank, draining it. He got up and let her fall back.

  “I’m damned if you’ll pass out,” he growled.

  She closed her eyes and groaned. Donahue walked around the room aimlessly, flung black looks at her, stopped at the foot of the bed and said:

  “Will you come across?”

  “I don’t know—anything—anything.”

  He put his hands to his head and said, “My God!” and then went to the telephone. He called a number. The girl on the bed turned her face and looked at him. She bit her lip.

  “You’ve still got time,” he said.

  She went on biting her lip.

  “Hello,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Hocheimer there?… Yeah, put him on.”

  He leaned towards the girl. “How about it, sister?”

  She was still biting her lip.

  Donahue came back to the mouthpiece. “Hello, Hocheimer. This is Donahue…. I’m all right, sure. But get a load of this. You know that Show Boat joint down near the river…. No, I didn’t say a show boat was on the river. That joint, I mean—that so-called night-club…. Yeah, that’s it. Well, listen. I’ve just been down there and I’ve got something hot. I was poking around on that Cross killing, and on a tip—went down there looking for a guy named Tony Nesella…. What right have I to poke around? Be your age, Hochie. I got the hunch that maybe Shane di
dn’t kill Cross…. Well, I know you have, but if Shane’s innocent, why hang him?… Oh, shut up and listen.

  “When I got down to this club I asked a waiter for Tony, thinking that Tony was a waiter there too. Well, he used to be, but no more. But after I’d mentioned his name the waiter acted dumb. Then a broad shared nourishment with me, and I mentioned Tony’s name again. A big frowzy-haired guy high-signed her into the hall. She came back to my table and I began to act tight. After a while she got me to go upstairs to a room. I tell you, they were scared stiff about me. But I got out of the room. Yeah, and I took the broad with me, but she won’t spring…. Where am I? Down in my hotel room with the broad…. No, don’t come over here. Go down to the Show Boat Club and pinch that frowzy-headed bum that framed me…. Yeah, I’m listening.” He leaned back in the chair, nodded, said, “Um,” or, “Yes,” and finally, “All right, Hocheimer. I’ll bring her over.”

  He slipped the receiver quietly into the hook, put his hands on his knees, and grinned broadly at the girl.

  He said, “Little Eva, you might have gotten out of this by telling me that Tony was a stoolie of Luke Cross’s. Hocheimer of Headquarters is going down to see Brennan, that big bum of a friend of yours. Primp up, chicken, while I put on a shirt.”

  She had not moved since Donahue finished talking with Hocheimer. Her eyes were round as saucers, her lower lips drawn in between her teeth. A pallor was creeping through the flush on her face, and her hands were fists, white-knuckled. Her eyes followed Donahue as he crossed the room whistling and pulled open a dresser drawer.

  Then she spat, “You—!”

  Donahue, still whistling, looked around at her as he lifted a shirt from the drawer. He shoved long brown arms into crisp clean sleeves, began singing in a low voice the chorus of the song he had just whistled.

  She sat up and cried, “I hope they kill you, cut your dirty heart out!”

  Donahue buttoned his shirt, bowed gently, and switched back to whistling as he put on a tie.

  She rasped, “You dirty Irish—”

  Donahue wagged a finger at her. “Naughty—naughty! Papa spank!”

  In blind fury she swept the heavy glass water pitcher from the table beside the bed and hurled it at Donahue. He caught it neatly with both hands, set it down on the dresser, crossed swiftly to the bed, grabbed her by both arms and swung her to her feet on the floor. Then he rushed her towards the bathroom.