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

by Frederick Nebel

  She gasped, “Oh… not that!”

  “Irene,” he said, untying her hands, “you want to save your skin. Babe Delaney muscled in. He was a punk. You want a fresh start in life—”

  “You’re ridiculing me!”

  “I promise you the sweetest sob story ever told, Irene. You may even get a run in vaudeville… but you’ve got to tell the cops that Babe Delaney carved Crosby. That’s your big and only way—out into God’s country…. But why did Alfred smoke the Babe?”

  “He was sure that if he didn’t Babe would get him.”

  Donahue stood up, smiled down at Irene. “Crosby knew a looker when he saw one, honey.”

  Irene started to cry into her hands.

  Donahue went towards the telephone saying, “Well, it’s the least I can do for Roper.”

  Chapter IX

  When the door opened Roper stood there with his dour face and his lazy big eyes.

  Donahue said, grinning, “You must come in.”

  Roper walked in hunching his shoulders in his threadbare coat. He looked at Irene. She was standing with her back to the bureau. She looked very small and very lovely in a black dress that clung snugly to neat hips. Donahue closed the door and Roper stared at Irene with his big dispassionate eyes.

  He said dully, “So you’re the moll in the case.”

  “I wouldn’t call her a moll,” Donahue said.

  Roper did not look around at Donahue but he said, “Keep your oar out of it, Donahue.”

  Then he walked heavily to the bureau, gripped Irene’s arm.

  “You look like the kind,” he said. “You look like the kind I like to get nasty with.”

  Donahue put in, “Why, Roper, because a good-looking jane would never give you a tumble?”

  Roper turned somberly. “You looking for a punch in the jaw?”

  Donahue snarled, “Ah, grow up, copper. Keep that stuff for the coked wops you’re used to slapping. I gave you a break. This little pinch is yours but you’ve got to handle it right. This girl steered me onto Babe Delaney for the Crosby kill. You’ve got the guy killed him. Why pick on the ladies?”

  Roper looked at Irene. “You say Babe killed Crosby?”

  She faltered, “Ye-es.”

  He shook her arm brutally. “Why the hell didn’t you come to the police?”

  Donahue said, “She thought I was a real copper, Roper. When I told her dick—I didn’t say private. She and Crosby were in love. She’s sidestepped a bit, but she was trying for a straight and these bums got in her way. You can see she’s a good woman.”

  “Don’t kid me, Donahue.”

  “I wouldn’t kid you, Roper.”

  Roper dropped Irene’s arm. His eyes hung somberly on Donahue. He said, after a minute. “Okey, Irish. You’re a fast worker. If I was a younger cop, and ambitious, I might get God-awful sore. But I’m retiring soon. I’m used to routine.” He turned to Irene. “Get your things on, sister.”

  Irene put on her mole coat and the dark cloche hat. Roper opened the door and waited in the hall. Irene went out. Donahue went out, snapped off the lights, closed and locked the door. He gave the key to Irene.

  They were silent going down in the elevator. When they passed out into Broadway Roper said:

  “We’ll take a cab down if you’ll pay the fare, Donahue.”

  Gun Thunder

  Tough dick Donahue takes up the trail of a gang’s sweet racket.

  Chapter I

  Donahue put down the whiskey-sour when he heard the muffled shot and looked at himself blank-faced in the mirror for the space of ten seconds. The bartender stopped his bar-rag half way through a leisurely stroke and put his round bald head attentively on one shoulder.

  A drunk at the end of the bar stirred and hiccoughed and then made his face more comfortable in the crook of his elbow.

  Roper, the precinct dick, stopped picking his teeth and scowled sourly over his shoulder at the door.

  A girl sitting at a wall-table asked, “Was—was that a shot?”

  “Was it?” the man with her said.

  Far away, a police whistle….

  Roper turned, hunched his wide bony shoulders in his threadbare dark gray coat and rapped his heels hard on his way out. Donahue followed.

  Grove Street below Sheridan Square was a gloomy street walled in by low dark-faced houses and punctuated at infrequent intervals by small yellow lights indicating speakeasies.

  Roper was a gaunt, lunging figure seen for a split-moment beneath one of these lights. Donahue was a slower figure six paces behind.

  Northeast on Grove was a small group of people—shapes, shadows in the glow of an ineffectual street light. A shiny visored cap and metal buttons flashed beneath the light. A woman was chattering in a high, strident voice, and there was the sound of windows grating open. Heavy heels rapped the cold winter pavement and more metal buttons passed beneath the street light.

  Donahue came up behind Roper. Roper had his hands thrust in his overcoat pockets, a misshapen weathered hat yanked over his eyebrows. A fresh cigar jutted from a corner of his mouth.

  “You, Klein?”

  “Yeah. You, Roper?”

  “Yeah…. ’Lo, Mahoney.”

  “’Lo.”

  “Guy got it, Roper,” Klein said, bending over a crumpled figure in the gutter.

  “Cold?”

  “No foolin’. Smack through the chest… right here.”

  Mahoney was waving his hand. “You guys get back. Come on, everybody get back. You—I mean you too—”

  “Ah, no you don’t,” Donahue said, laconic.

  “Listen, baby—”

  “Forget it, rookie.”

  “That’s Donahue,” Roper threw in. “Private dick. A pest… but what the hell.”

  “Well,” Mahoney grumbled; then turned on the others. “Come on, get back! Give the guy air!”

  “Ah, hell, he’s dead,” Klein said.

  “Come on, get back….” Mahoney’s shield flashed as he rocked back and forth with great importance.

  The high, strident voice proclaimed, “It’s murder! Oh, a man’s been murdered!”

  Roper half-turned with his dull long dour face. “Who’s making all the noise?”

  Mahoney strode towards the cluster of people and repeated the question with added emphasis. An old woman was clawing at a black shawl she wore around her shoulders.

  “I saw it!” she cried breathlessly. “I saw it!”

  Roper slouched over and asked, “What’d you see?”

  “Him—murdered!”

  “Yeah?… Where were you?”

  “I was comin’ down from the Square. I saw two men kind of close like. I thought first they were drunk. Then there was a shot. I heard the shot. And there was a burst of flame. I saw it. I heard the shot. This here man fell down.”

  “Get a look at the other guy?”

  “It was dark. How could I see him? I just saw him. I mean I didn’t see his face. He ran off, quick. He ran off down Bedford Street.”

  “Big or little?”

  “He looked bigger than this one. It was hard to tell but he looked bigger. I’m sure he was bigger. He ran down Bedford Street.”

  Roper turned. “Anyhow, Mahoney, hike down Bedford Street and around kind of and see if any guy saw any guy running. Klein, pop up the Square and report. Tell ’em I’m here too. Tell ’em to shoot over the morgue bus.”

  The two patrolmen started off on the double-quick.

  Roper slouched back to the inert form, knelt down and fumbled in his own pockets.

  Donahue knelt down beside Roper, drew a match from his pocket and scraped it against the curb. He cupped the flame over the dead man’s face. Legs of the man were on the sidewalk, the rest of him twisted down into the gutter, thin hair rumpled and moving in the winter wind.

  Roper squinted and leaned closer, his long bony jaw stretching. “Hell,” he muttered.

  “Familiar face?”

  “Kinda.”

  “What
I thought.”

  Roper said, “Yeah, I’ve seen the man before.”

  Roper looked up slantwise with his dour eyes. His gaunt face was dully inquisitive.

  As the match went out Donahue said, “Adler’s his name.” He struck another match and held it cupped over the dead man’s face. “Yeah, Roper…. Adler.”

  “Adler, eh?… Why, yeah. Why, sure. Adler… sure. That house over in Waverly Place where this guy, this what’s-his-name… Crosby—yeah, Crosby. Where Crosby was rubbed out a couple of months ago by Babe Delaney. That’s right. Funny.”

  He went through the dead man’s pockets. He took out pipe, tobacco pouch, keys, pen-knife, forty-two cents, a worn wallet containing eighteen dollars, a theatre ticket stub for a Fourteenth Street burlesque house, business cards of a coal dealer, a milk company, a radio store.

  “No robbery,” Roper sighed. “Nope. No robbery. No smell of booze around, either. No lush job…. Adler, eh?”

  The crowd had grown in numbers and had edged nearer, restless, curious.

  Roper stood up, raising his gaunt nose beneath the yellow street light. “Anybody else see this?”

  “I was comin’ down from the Square—”

  “I mean anybody else?” Roper broke in.

  Here and there—“No.” “No, Officer.” “No, not me,” in various degrees of hushed breathlessness.

  Roper’s wide bony shoulders sagged. He took a limp cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between his loose wide lips. He fumbled in his pockets.

  Donahue said, “Here,” lighting a match, and Roper shoved out his long jaw and put the end of the cigarette into the blowing flame. He looked over the flame with his dour eyes.

  “Got a smell?”

  “You?” Donahue smiled.

  “I asked.”

  Donahue snapped away the match and his chuckle was low and amused in the gloom.

  “Hell,” he said, “I only find smells when my boss sends me.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know that hooey, too. There was always something queer about that Crosby case. Something queer about the murder and that jane and the way the diamond disappeared and never showed up again.”

  “The State wanted the killer of Crosby. It got him.”

  “Yeah. It got him. And the ice that all the noise was about…just disappeared.” He looked hard at Donahue. “Sure you ain’t got a smell?”

  “Nothing you haven’t got. You’re the big master-mind around this neighborhood. And you ask—me?”

  “Ah, can it.”

  “Okey.” Donahue shrugged.

  The morgue bus came and went away bearing old Adler’s shattered body. One by one the crowd broke up, vanished. Mahoney came back and shook his head.

  “Nobody saw nobody, Roper. The mutt pulled a neat fade-away, that’s a cinch.”

  Donahue stood on the curb looking intently around on the street, up and down the gutter.

  Roper came over and assumed a rough intimate tone. “Have a drink before I shoot over the house.”

  “Can’t, Roper. Thanks. Got a date.”

  Roper gripped his arm. “How about that smell?”

  “Ah, grow up, copper!” Donahue pried loose and went away walking towards Sheridan Square.

  Chapter II

  Adler… poor slob. Old Adler, janitor and resident manager of the three-story graystone in Waverly Place, where Crosby, that artist, had been carved by Babe Delaney because Crosby was supposed to have brought in a diamond which Irene Saffarrans had planted on him en route from Europe.

  And that boy friend of Irene’s…. Alfred Poore, that nice-faced rat who had come over with her. Irene had planted the diamond in a half-used tube of Crosby’s paint, and Crosby, all unknowing, had smuggled it in.

  He’d gone kind of nuts on Irene.

  Babe Delaney had got wise to the stunt Irene and Alfred were up to. Saw her picture in Crosby’s flat when he came down to deliver some liquor. He’d been Crosby’s bootlegger before the artist went abroad. Said nothing to Crosby but hiked around to Irene and Alfred, got the story, and wanted a split.

  Then things had happened… one suspecting the other of a double-cross in the series of confounding incidents that followed. And Crosby… killed in the rush.

  The big rub lay in the fact that when Crosby got home from the European trip he threw out a lot of rubbish, among which was the half-used tube of paint. Adler himself had remembered throwing it out.

  Now the Babe was marking time in the death house and Alfred was doing a ten-year hitch. Irene got clear. She had looks and pathos in her make-up. And Donahue, by this and that, had helped manipulate her freedom, with the tabloids back of her. Well, Irene had given him the story about Babe and Alfred and the whole scheme. And the Interstate Agency had harvested a fat sum from Crosby’s moneyed uncle….

  Asa Hinkle, the Interstate in person, said, “Murder, then—raw and unadorned.”

  “Cheap murder,” Donahue nodded.

  Hinkle was a large benign Jew, with white hair, diplomatic pince-nez, and a large, firm jaw. He held an excellent perfecto between white, strong fingers.

  “After I got rid of Roper last night,” Donahue said, “I chased around the alleys as far as McDougal Street, looked in ash-cans, gutters, everywhere. I asked some questions, but nobody saw a guy running. It’s funny how guys run and nobody sees them.”

  “And you didn’t find it?”

  “No.”

  Hinkle took a slow, meditative drag. “And you think Roper never paid any attention to the fact that it was gone?”

  “I don’t think he did. He might have. But I don’t think so.”

  “Odd.”

  Donahue scowled. “Some fine day I’m going to paste Roper. I’m going to get him off in a corner and push his dirty——dam’ face in. He’s a punk, that guy—a leech. He’s the lousiest cop on the Force. When I think of a good guy like Ames, who used to cruise that precinct; and then this guy Roper—cripes, I see red. No fooling. He’s a louse—a stink. He never crashed any job on his own. I gave him the Delaney job—gave him the broad. And does he appreciate it? Hell, that guy would rubber-hose a ten-year-old kid if he thought he could beat something out of him!”

  “Grudge against him, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, you said it. I hate having a bad smell around me all the time.”

  Hinkle leaned forward on his flat-topped desk, “Well, Donny, make a stab at this. Play around a while and see what turns up. If that diamond is still in circulation we may get it. If guys do murder for it, it must be worth something… and very likely its rightful owner may crop up one day. Uh—and don’t be too rough on Roper. He has—you know—his uses.”

  “Yeah. I’ll be la-de-da with him. Sure I will!”

  Hinkle sighed. “You get notions, Donny….” He bent over some letters, puffed serenely on his cigar.

  Donahue went out like a gust of wind. He took the elevator down to the lobby, walked out into Park Row, into a brisk winter wind and bright winter sunlight. He walked west on Chambers Street, past City Hall, crossed Broadway, and continued west until he reached Sixth Avenue, when he entered a subway kiosk. He boarded a northbound local, watched three stations go by, and got off when the fourth station said Christopher Street and Sheridan Square. The wide square was windy. A big cop stood in the middle directing traffic.

  Donahue struck Grove Street, turned into Waverly Place and walked past Gay Street. He remembered the gray-faced house, the wet, snowy night he had walked in and found Crosby dead on the floor. Now he climbed the stone steps, entered the open vestibule, rang a bell button beside the inner door.

  After a while a short, stocky man opened the door and looked out with vacant, big eyes.

  “You the new manager?” Donahue asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m Donahue, of the Interstate Detective Agency. I knew Mr. Adler pretty well. We worked together, kind of, on the Crosby murder here, two months ago…. Mind if I look at Adler’s things?”

  “Well, I
don’t think I can say… me being new here. Mr. Roper, another detective, was here this morning.”

  “Yes, I know Roper. I don’t want anything. Just like to poke around, and you can poke around with me.” He was fingering a five-dollar bill. The man looked at it, then looked away as though he had not seen it.

  “Maybe… I guess….”

  Donahue entered, and the short, stocky man led him downstairs to a room next to the furnace room. Here old Adler had lived his bachelor’s life—with his books, his magazines, his pipe.

  “Ten years, wasn’t he—here?” Donahue said.

  “Yes, sir—ten years. The owners are giving him burial, and his sister is on the way from Rochester to get what things he left. These…. I been packing his clothes.” He nodded to a battered old trunk. “I had them all packed, but Mr. Roper dumped them all out, so I just been packing them again.”

  Donahue pulled over a chair beside the trunk, sat down, and drew out the garments one by one. There were some shirts with Regent Street, London, labels. There were two soft hats; one had a Jermyn Street label. There was a sweater from the Burlington Arcade.

  The new manager said, “I used to know Adler. He said Mr. Crosby used to give him a lot of second-hand clothes.”

  “Yes, he told me that too.”

  When Donahue had finished searching the trunk he sat back.

  The manager nodded to the table. “These here are bills and things he had in his tin box.”

  Donahue went to the table and ran through a sheaf of receipted bills—grocer’s, butcher’s, tailor’s. He looked at one that was headed: “Hats Cleaned, Blocked.” There was one item on it. A hat that had been cleaned and blocked. It was dated March third—four days ago. Donahue looked at other bills, shuffled the lot together and replaced the clip which he had taken off.

  “Did Detective Roper find anything?”

  “He didn’t seem to. He asked me a lot of questions about Adler. Of course, I didn’t know much.”

  “H’m. Adler never said he’d been bothered after the Crosby kill?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Homer’s my name.”

  “All right, Mr. Homer.” He withdrew the five-dollar bill from his pocket, laid it on the table. “I’ll be going. May see you again sometime.”