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

by Frederick Nebel

  Donahue leaned forward and said, “Shoot down to Twenty-third Street.”

  “Listen, boss—”

  “No fireworks—honest, buddy,” Donahue said.

  Taxi sped southward between steel Elevated pillars. Train sped southward overhead. At Twenty-third Street the Elevated swings east for a block, then south again on First Avenue. Between Second and First Avenues is the Twenty-third Street station. Donahue’s taxi reached it four blocks ahead of the train. Donahue got out, paid up, climbed the staircase and stood behind a partition at the platform exit.

  The train pulled in slowly after having made the turn. It was pretty empty. Train gates opened—closed. Quick footsteps sounded on the platform. Alfred appeared, strode past the partition behind which Donahue crouched. Donahue took a fast step after him and said:

  “All right, Alfred—quiet, now!”

  Alfred stopped short when Donahue poked a gun muzzle against Alfred’s back.

  “Hands out of pockets,” Donahue said.

  Alfred took his hands from his pockets. Donahue frisked with his left hand, said, “Turn around.” Alfred turned around, his small face white and breathless. Donahue reached inside Alfred’s ulster, drew a pistol from the ulster’s inside pocket. There was a silencer attached. Donahue shoved gun and silencer into his own inside pocket. His mouth was tight, a windy look was in his eyes.

  “Now, you—we’ll go places,” he said.

  “Listen, Donahue—”

  “Down those steps, sweet man—and a wisecrack out of you and I’ll break your jaw. Get!”

  He grabbed Alfred’s arm, walked him rapidly down the staircase. Alfred was like a man in a daze. He kept on trying to say things but somehow he seemed unable to utter a word.

  But finally he said, “Where—are we going?”

  “Ever hear of a dick named Roper?”

  Alfred winced. “You mean—Bat Roper?”

  “They tell me he bats hell out of guys.”

  Alfred dragged to a stop. “Cripes, Donahue—”

  “You’re such a red-hot, though, that maybe he won’t have to bat you. Quit stalling! Come on!”

  Alfred hung back, setting his small mouth firmly. Three men were coming up Second Avenue.

  Donahue rough-housed Alfred. “Damn you—”

  Alfred leaped at Donahue yelling, “Help! Help!”

  “You—!” Donahue snapped.

  Alfred clawed at him, yelling for help, struggling frantically. The three men broke into a run, shouting. They were big men—East Siders. Donahue clouted Alfred on the head with his gun. Alfred screamed. The three men came up yelling.

  Donahue shouted, “Stay off, you guys!”

  Alfred buried his teeth in Donahue’s arm. Donahue kicked Alfred’s shins. The three men landed on Donahue and whaled him with hard fists. Alfred broke away, raced down Second Avenue.

  Donahue shouted, “You fools, that’s a killer! I’m a cop!”

  “Yeah, you’re a cop!”

  “Damn your souls, clear out!” Donahue roared. He whipped his gun back and forth, laying open a cheek; plunged through the men, streaked off after Alfred. Alfred swung west into Twenty-first Street. Donahue took the corner wide, saw Alfred speeding towards Gramercy Park.

  He yelled, “Stop, you! I tell you, stop!”

  Alfred did not stop. He was swift for a small man. But Donahue stopped, clicking his teeth together. He raised his gun, looked down it, pulled the trigger. Flame and smoke burst from the muzzle. The street boomed. Alfred reeled sidewise, fell, slid on his side into the gutter.

  When Donahue came running up Alfred was crawling on his side, moaning hysterically. He was dragging his left leg. When Donahue reached down Alfred screamed like a maniac. Windows were grating open. Lights were springing to life. Alfred screamed till his voice broke—and then he coughed, choked—but kept on crawling, leaving a thin trail of blood. Donahue reached down again, grabbed Alfred’s shoulder.

  “A guy would think you had places to go,” he said. “Snap out of it, dumb bell.”

  Alfred stopped crawling but screamed again until his voice broke, banged his head on the pavement and swept the air with his hands.

  Donahue knelt down and grabbed him by the throat. “And you’re not going to bang your brains out!”

  Running footsteps came down the street. Metal buttons and a shield gleamed, and a gun shone dully as a policeman passed beneath a street light.

  A bull voice yelled, “Hey, you!”

  Donahue looked up saying, “Come on, copper. There’s a red-hot here.”

  The policeman slowed to a heavy-soled walk. He was broad, stocky, young, with his cap raked over one ear.

  “What the hell’s this?” he growled.

  “This guy smoked out a bird up in Thirty-seventh Street. I’ve been tailing him. I nailed him on the Twenty-third Street L station, but he got wise and tried a break.”

  “Yeah? And who the hell are you?”

  “Don’t get tough, coppy. I’m an Interstate boy. This gun’s mixed up in the Crosby kill.”

  “That job down in Waverly Place tonight?”

  “Yeah…. Better phone an ambulance. I potted him in the left leg.”

  “Where’s his rod?”

  “I’ve got it here—in my pocket.”

  “How’d you happen to get it?”

  Donahue stood up. “For crying out loud, don’t be a rookie, copper. I asked him if he’d mind giving it to me. He said he’d be tickled.”

  “You’re a wise guy, ain’t you?”

  “Nah, I’m not a wise guy. I hate wise guys…. Do you telephone or do you want me to?”

  “I’ll telephone. Just don’t get wise—don’t get wise.”

  Half a dozen persons had come out of doorways and were edging nearer. The policeman strode towards them saying, “I want a phone.” Somebody said, “Right here, officer. What happened?” The policeman didn’t say what happened, and hurried through an open doorway.

  Alfred was gibbering now. He began to bang his head against the pavement again screaming, “Mother o’ God!” in a frenzied voice.

  A woman’s voice quavered, “Oh… the poor man.”

  Donahue dropped to his knees and held Alfred’s head locked in his arm.

  He said, “No, you don’t, Alfred. No, you don’t.”

  Alfred groaned, “Why didn’t you finish me—why the hell didn’t you finish me?”

  “I should do favors for you!” Donahue said; chuckled, added, “Yes, I should!” He was running his right hand through Alfred’s pockets. Something clinked in his fingers.

  Chapter VIII

  When Donahue was striding past the hospital desk Roper came in huddled in his threadbare coat and stepped side-wise so that he blocked Donahue. Donahue stopped, smiled amiably and said:

  “Hello, Roper.”

  The dour-faced precinct bull said, “Hello,” dully. He spoke very slowly, way down in his throat. His big lazy eyes were expressionless. His lantern-jawed, muddy brown face was inanimate—and because of that, somehow threatening.

  Donahue said, “They’re upstairs swabbing out the little guy’s wound. They tell me Babe Delaney got it in the belly. It’s funny… he’s in a room next to Alfred Poore.”

  Roper never changed the expression on his face, but after a pendant interval he said monotonously, “You been going places and doing things tonight, ain’t you?”

  “I’ve been getting around.”

  “And seeing people.”

  Donahue thinned his eyes. “Well, what’s eating you, master mind?”

  “There’s a jane in the show. You know so much. Where’s the jane?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Alfred’s a secretive little guy. He got tougher too when he heard Babe wasn’t dead.”

  Roper’s lips opened slowly. “Secretive like you, eh? You knew a hell of a lot more than you told me.”

  “I gave you a straight story, Roper. Adler, the houseman, was there to check up…. Hell, do you suppose I’m going to let
you in on a brainstorm I get?”

  “Remember, Irish, it don’t pay to crack bright with the precinct boys.”

  Donahue placed a forefinger against Roper’s chest. “Remember, Roper, it doesn’t pay to get tough on a guy was in on the ground floor. Alfred and this Babe guy are tight-mouthed.”

  “There’s always the rubber-hose short-cut.”

  Donahue grinned. “Be seeing you, Roper.”

  Roper gripped Donahue’s arm. “Suppose we sit down and you tell me the story from beginning to end.”

  Donahue reached around his right hand and closed it on Roper’s wrist. “Suppose,” he said, “you go over to the Twenty-first Precinct and read the blotter.” He threw down Roper’s hand.

  Roper’s face remained inanimate, but he said, “Someday you’ll be sorry, Irish.”

  Donahue walked past him saying, “That sounds like the words to a song I once heard.” He kept on walking, went out through the hospital door.

  He walked a block west on Twenty-sixth Street and hailed a taxi that was drifting north on Second Avenue. He said, “Run me over to Broadway and Thirty-second Street.” When he settled in the seat he yawned, stretched arms and legs, looked at the illuminated dial of his strap watch. It was three a.m.

  Broadway was a deserted canyon when he alighted. Herald Square, by day a seething whirlpool of traffic, was empty and silent now. Donahue walked south, his footfalls clear-cut on the pavement. Dirty snow lay in the gutters.

  He turned into the lobby of the Hotel Breton Arms. His heels rang on the tiled floor. A small bald man leaned on the ornate desk reading a paper. Donahue walked to the elevators. A sleepy Negro in a red uniform got up and walked into the elevator behind Donahue. When the elevator started Donahue said, “Ten.” The Negro snapped gum with tongue and teeth. Donahue got out at the tenth floor, turned left, looked at numbers on doors. He drew a key with a brass tag from his pocket. It clinked in his hand. The oval-shaped tag said:

  T

  O E

  H L

  BRETON

  ARMS

  1046

  He walked on smooth green carpets, turned left, walked a matter of ten yards and stopped before a door on which the number 1046 was printed in dull gold. He stepped back and looked up at a wooden transom that was open about six inches. No light issued.

  Donahue inserted the key quietly, turned it quietly, then gripped the knob and turned it slowly to the right. Presently the door gave inward. He opened it wide, so that the light from the corridor spread into the room, revealed the corner of a green carpet and the legs of a chair. He found a button on the wall inside the door frame. He pressed it and the room lit up.

  Irene lay on the bed in canary yellow pajamas. Her legs were spread, each foot tied to a corner of the bed by means of narrow but strong luggage straps. Her arms were tied similarly to the posts at the head of the bed, and a towel was fastened around her mouth.

  Donahue said, “Well!” jocularly, closed the door, unbuttoned his raglan and came over to sit on the side of the bed. Irene’s eyes were wide, frightened. She moved her head from side to side. Wrinkles appeared and disappeared on her forehead.

  Donahue chuckled, reached around to the back of her neck and unfastened the towel. When he took that off there was a rag stuffed in Irene’s mouth. He drew that out and threw it on the floor.

  Irene exhaled, “Whew!”

  Donahue said, “Nice pajamas you wear, Irene.”

  “Oh, God!” she moaned, straining at the luggage straps. “Get these things off! They hurt.”

  “They won’t hurt if you lie still. Besides, I remember that clout on the head…. Irene, you and I are going to have a very short conversation. First, let me tell you that Babe Delaney is in the hospital with a bullet in his guts. Alfred, that nice-faced little doggie, is in the same hospital with a bullet in his leg. Alfred got Babe. I got Alfred.”

  She grimaced, showing her white small teeth.

  Donahue went on, “The bulls have Alfred for the Delaney shoot and it won’t be long before they pin the Crosby kill on one of them…. It wasn’t very nice, Irene, the way you helped put Babe on the spot.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Ah—ah!” Donahue held up his forefinger, shook it. “I happened to be listening in when you telephoned him.”

  She cried, “I was made to do it! Alfred stood right there with a razor held under my throat. I had to, Donahue—I swear to God I had to!”

  “You little double-crosser, you were playing both ends against the middle! You were jockeying both Alfred and Babe!”

  She closed her eyes, bit her lip, whimpered, “Oh… God!”

  Donahue leaned across the bed, braced on two rigid arms, one on either side of Irene’s waist. His brown eyes smoldered.

  “You don’t have to act around me, Irene,” he said. “You’ll get on better by coming across. The bulls have Babe and Alfred, and they’re both red-hots. The houseman down in Waverly Place saw Babe come in. I saw Alfred there and I saw you there. I’m the only one knows where you are. I want the whole story from you.”

  “What good would that do?”

  He said quietly, “It will help you a lot. You’ve got looks. I’ve got a pull in the city, and the tabloids can run you up on the sob stuff. If you don’t play ball with me, I’ll land on you like a ton of brick.”

  “Oh, I’ve been a fool!”

  “If you only wouldn’t pull those stock lines, Irene!”

  Her voice throbbed when she cried, “I mean it!”

  “Bah! You laid the trap for Crosby—”

  “That’s a lie!” she shouted.

  Donahue rose, crossed to the door and closed the transom. He came back to the bed eying her whimsically. “Then are you going to tell me why it’s a lie?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How do I know you can give me a break?”

  “You can find out by not telling me things.”

  “Why—why do you want to know?”

  “I’m a private cop. I work for a salary. I get a bonus on big jobs I turn. Crosby’s uncle offered to pay the Agency ten thousand dollars. I get the bonus by getting to the core of things before the cops do. That’s the whole shebang in a nut-shell.”

  She considered him for a moment. Then she said, “The trouble is, you don’t believe I loved Crosby.”

  “All right…. I’ll believe you loved him.”

  “You say that easily.”

  “Maybe I’ll be able to say it easier after you’ve told me things.”

  She sighed brokenly, moistened her lips. She looked at the ceiling and said, “I did love him. He loved me. I met him on the boat train from Paris to Cherbourg. Alfred and I were traveling as brother and sister. We were only two days out when Robert told me he loved me. Alfred never loved me. We weren’t like that to each other. We just—traveled together, for reasons.

  “Alfred was bringing home a diamond he’d lifted from a woman at Cannes. It was worth about seventy thousand dollars. It was set in a platinum medallion, a pendant sort of thing. We got to Paris with it. We got the stone out of the platinum medallion, threw everything away but the stone.

  “When we were three days out of Cherbourg, Alfred began to get one of his hunches. He was sure the Customs would pick it up. He browbeat me into planting it on Robert. I did. I didn’t want to, though. I told Alfred how I felt about Robert, and he scoffed—just as you’ve been scoffing. He threatened to expose me if I didn’t do as he said. I was afraid of the inevitable. I planted it on Robert. I worked it into one of his paint tubes, one that had been half used, with the bottom rolled up like you roll up a tube of toothpaste. I unrolled it, slit it, worked the diamond up into the paint and then re-rolled it.”

  “Where does Babe Delaney come in?”

  “Oh… Babe.” She sighed. “He was Robert’s bootlegger. The first day Robert was home he called Babe up, and Babe went down to see him. He saw a photograph of me lying on the table there—one Robert had taken on board ship. Robert remarked it wa
s a picture of Leone Tenquist. Babe said nothing to him. He came to me and asked what my racket was. I told him it wasn’t anything. He said maybe I’d tell him or he’d tell Robert how things stood. Alfred and I had to let Babe in. We promised him ten thousand on sale of the diamond.

  “Robert gave me a key to his flat. He said he’d be busy for a few days but that I could drop in any old time. I went down and looked for the tube of paint. I couldn’t find it. I told Alfred I couldn’t find it. He accused me of a double-cross. I swore I was telling the truth. Then Babe came, and when he heard the story he accused both of us. I told both of them the exact description of the tube of paint.

  “Babe went down last night to look himself. He was tearing the place apart when Robert came in. Babe must have picked the lock. He did a two year stretch ten years ago for picking locks. He turned out the lights, but Robert went after him in the dark. Robert was pretty strong. Babe had to use a claspknife.

  “Alfred stole the key I had to Robert’s flat. He went down. He was there when you arrived. I went down when I’d discovered my key was gone. It’s the truth, the God’s honest truth! I couldn’t get out of the racket. I tried to. I meant to after I’d gotten the diamond. I was going to let Alfred and Babe split. I was crazy about Robert.”

  “And what happened to the diamond?”

  “Gone. Robert had cleaned up, thrown out a lot of rubbish. The diamond went that way. Nobody got it.”

  Donahue began untying the straps that held Irene’s feet. “You have nice little feet,” he said.

  “Please—don’t ridicule me!”

  He said, “Irene, that’s a swell story and it rings true. I’ll repeat it word for word to the bulls. You were a girl trying to go straight, but they had you in the toils of sin. Great?… Sure! I’ll boost your story fifty per cent by saying that it was you put me on the trail of Babe Delaney.”