Castleman toyed with a mouthful of smoke, then shot it through his nose. “You think of things, Donny. Then what about this guy who called up?”
“I’m going after him. There’s no proof yet that I’m working for you. I’m going after this guy and see what he’s got. Klay’s mixed up in this, but I don’t know how. I’ve got him worrying and if I keep him worrying long enough he’ll take a header.”
Castleman broke out in a concerned grimace. “Hell, Donny, it sounds dangerous for you.”
“My eye, dangerous! Only if this guy tries to approach you before I get to him, act dumb. Under no circumstances offer to pay for information. Okey?”
“I see what you mean. Sure.” He stood up, came around the table cracking a ruddy smile. “You’re doing a lot for me, Donny.”
“You’re paying for it, aren’t you?”
Castleman chuckled. “Not for these added attractions you stage—at your own expense.” His jaw tightened. “But if the worse comes to the worst, old man, I’m behind you—to the last ditch.”
Donahue’s rough low laugh was not unpleasantly ironic. “Get dramatic, now, Frank; get dramatic! And I’ll break down and yell, ‘To the death for dear old alma mater!’ Or am I thinking of something else?… Be seeing you—or phoning you anonymously. Marmalade on your chin, Frank!”
He went down in the elevator, took a side exit out and strode long-legged southward along the Park. When he had gone a matter of five blocks he motioned to a taxi, climbed in and gave an address. He got off ten minutes later on the East Side, near the railroad terminal, and walked south three blocks. An Elevated train was threshing by overhead when he entered a drug-store that specialized in books, stationery and cold drinks.
He walked on spic-and-span white tiles to the rear and found a bank of four telephone booths. He entered them and copied down the number of each. Then he called his hotel.
“Good morning, Miss Tracy. This is Donahue…. I’m fine. If anybody calls me at nine tell them to call Alexandria 4677…. Thank you!”
He was in the end booth on the left and he stayed there behind the closed door, his hat yanked down over his eyes. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. Men and women entered the adjacent booths; bells rang; doors opened and closed. Donahue watched the men who came to the booths. When his wrist-watch said nine o’clock the phone in his booth rang. He removed the receiver and let it hang.
He stepped out of the booth. In the next booth a girl was talking. In the next a fat old man was yelling in Yiddish. Donahue pressed close to this door, then turned about and went around back of the booths and on to the one at the extreme right. He pressed his ear to the back panel. He heard a man’s voice.
“I tell you, I’ve been cut off…. Alexandria 4677.” There was a moment of silence. “The hell you’re ringing ’em!… I tell you, a party’s expecting my call…. Oh, all right—all right!”
There followed the sound of a receiver being slammed into its prongs.
Donahue stepped across behind a pyramid of books. He saw the man come out of the booth; a large man in a fawn-colored fedora and a belted tweed overcoat. The man strode towards the front door, went outside and stood on the corner, lighting a cigarette with his head bent into the wind. Donahue remained in the store, watching him; and when the man swung around and headed down the side street, Donahue walked out and spotted him.
When a half dozen pedestrians, headed in the same direction, got between him and the man in the belted coat, Donahue started. They walked three blocks, until finally the man turned right and climbed a flight of stone steps between iron handrails. Donahue quickened his pace. He saw the man draw a ring of keys from his pocket, insert one in the hall door, open it. The man swung the door wide, entered; and the door began swinging shut against a pneumatic pressure. Donahue took the steps two at a time and caught the door before it quite closed.
He entered with his head down, and saw the man halfway up the staircase. He reached the foot of it and had his gun out, leveled.
“Steady, brother!”
He climbed the stairs rapidly until he was but two beneath the man, then said: “Now we’ll go up to where you are going. Hands away from sides, like a nice boy.”
The man stared dully at him, his lower lip beginning to protrude.
“Up—up,” Donahue said.
“Who the hell are you?”
“We had a phone date, but I thought I’d call in person. Donahue’s the name, you’ll remember. You’re blocking traffic, you tramp. Shove up!”
The man turned and went on upward, and he was careful about keeping his hands clear of his pockets. They climbed another flight and at the top Donahue stopped him.
“Anybody else in your place?”
“No.”
“If there is, honeybunch, you’ll get it smack in the back, no fooling.”
The big man scowled and went down the hall slowly, dangling his keys. He opened a door at the rear, and Donahue was close behind him with the gun in the back of the tweed coat. They entered an apartment and Donahue kicked the door shut. The man turned with his broad heavy chin down on his chest, his mutinous eyes staring from beneath shaggy red brows.
“You’re a sweet mutt, ain’t you?”
“I don’t want dialogue from you. I had a date with Cherry Bliss last night and it’s the first time a jane’s turned up dead on me. I’m not used to it.”
“Gunning for the D.A., huhn?”
“No.”
“Hell, fella. I didn’t kill Cherry Bliss.”
Donahue laughed harshly. “Maybe you think shooting people is a new kind of light entertainment…. I’m after something, mister—several things; and I intend to bail out of this thing with my hands clean.”
“And mine dirty, I suppose.”
Donahue lifted his chin. “Before we go into any more bright back-chat, suppose you fork over.”
The man’s voice was deepening. “Suppose I don’t.”
Donahue took three quick steps and jammed the muzzle of his automatic hard against the big man’s midriff. His eyes got very dark and his lips very straight, tight.
“If you think I’m a bluff, you haven’t been around much.” He caught hold of a lapel of the tweed coat, ripped it open savagely. Three buttons fell to the floor. “Those hands, kid—watch ’em!” He crowded the big man against the wall. “Try clowning and I’ll let you have it!”
“Jeeze, I was only—”
“You were only trying to bring that knee up,” Donahue snapped. His left hand moved quickly, drew a .38 from beneath the man’s left armpit, shoved it into his own pocket.
“Listen, Donahue. Listen, I got to get something out of this. I got to—”
“The only time I bargain with a hood is when I have to save my own skin.”
He ripped a wrinkled brown envelope from the big man’s inside pocket, stepped back and said: “Turn and face the wall, with your hands way up and palms against the wall.”
The man did this and Donahue backed across the room until he came to a table. He kept his gun leveled across the room with his right hand. With his left he emptied the contents of the envelope on to the table. He did not bend over. He remained erect, groped with his left hand and raised at random a check to the level of his face, so that he could look at it and at the same time watch the man against the wall.
It was a canceled check, made out to Kenneth Klay, signed by Geraldine Bliss. He groped again and picked up a letter. It was quite wrinkled, written in the slanting hand sometimes noticed in the writing of left-handed persons. It was addressed to Cherry and signed by Ken. Its keynote was one of money. There was another check made out to a magistrate who at present was up for questioning before a board headed by District Attorney Frank Castleman. There were other checks and other letters relative to the once famous vice queen’s dealings with men in the pay of the municipal government.
“This is sweet,” Donahue said. Still using only his left hand, he slipped the lot back into the envelope
, tucked the envelope away in an inner pocket.
The big man dared to turn around. His face looked white and peculiarly bloated and there was a glassy look in his eyes.
“For cripes’ sake, Donahue, give me a break!”
“Why didn’t you give Cherry a break?”
The big man stretched his neck as though finding it hard to speak. “She was going dippy, no kidding. She was going to turn all that info over free of charge. She was broke. She was out of the business and she was broke. I tried to talk her out of it. I told her she’d be flat on her back after this if she didn’t promote some cash. But she was dippy. She said, ‘Nix. I’m clearing out of this racket kosher.’ I got mad, Donahue. Honest, it wasn’t planned.”
“So then you got the swell idea of dropping her in front of a place where she had a date last night.”
The big man turned red. “That was Louie’s idea. He figured it would chuck suspicion the other way. He figured everybody’d think she was done in by the mob she was turnin’ up.”
“All right. Why didn’t you make a pass at the guys that were named in these letters and checks?”
“Jeeze, don’t you see? Them guys are on the carpet now, most o’ them. They ain’t got no strings to pull. We figured the D.A.’d go far to get this junk and we’d get a clean ticket out. Listen—” He started away from the wall.
“Back, get back!”
The big man groaned. “Gawd, you don’t need us! That stuff there’ll incriminate enough guys to last a lifetime and put the D.A. in line for mayor for next election. At heart I’m a good guy. I didn’t mean wrong. Things just happened—”
“Boy, do I hate your guts! At heart you’re a dirty heel, that’s what you are. And I’m not going to run myself into a jam by letting you go! Do I look dumb or something?”
The big man held his throat with one hand, stretched out the other towards Donahue. “Listen. Get in touch with the D.A. Tell him how things stand. I don’t want no dough, honest. Just tell him how things stand and see if he don’t give me a clean ticket out. You got there what he wants, what he’s been looking for. Why pick on a poor guy—”
“You must have been dropped on your head when very young if you stand there and think I’m going to talk you up to the D.A. This is a pinch, sweetheart. Now shut up a minute.”
Donahue went across to another table and lifted a Continental telephone, called a number. “Hello, Kelly there?” He waited a moment, eyes and gun trained on the big man. “Hello, Kelly. This is Donahue. I’ve got a nice pinch for you.” He gave the street and number; added: “Snap on it, Kelly, before this mug gets ideas.”
Chapter VII
Donahue said to the big man: “Now turn around and face the wall again.”
“Gawd ’lmighty—”
“Turn around.”
Handcuffs dangled, snapped shut, locking the big man’s hands together behind his back.
“‘Now sit down in that chair there…. Smoke?”
There came the click of a lock. The door opened and a young man with blonde, close-cropped hair breezed in; stopped short and almost fell over.
“All right, goldilocks,” Donahue said. “Do setting-up exercises.”
“I—I—”
“You—you—up, baby!”
“Well, for the love o’ cripes—Buck!”
“Yeah—yeah,” panted the big man. “Lookit me!”
The blonde young man had a flippant smile. “Ain’t this just too bad?”
Buck groaned. “Jeeze, Louie, don’t crack wise like that. This guy’s Donahue. He’s got them papers and the cops is coming over any minute.”
Louie’s eyes shimmered. “Oh, so he’s a police nose, huhn?”
“I’m the little boy scout,” Donahue said, “who saw you up near Walter Nass’s last night, after you parked the car in front.”
“The hell you saw me!”
“Standing on the corner with your hat off. I was only ten yards behind you. Cute, aren’t you?”
Louie’s flippant smile faded slowly and then he snapped at Buck: “What the hell did you want to let this guy put you in a jam like this for?”
“Gawd, Louie, he went and framed me! In good faith I offered him the whole dope—”
“In good faith!” mocked Donahue. “My, my, don’t you see yourself through rose-colored glasses!… Hey, you, Louie, kick that door shut and keep your hands up.”
Behind Louie, Klay stepped through the doorway, with his service revolver drawn and his gray-white face passionless. His gun stopped against Louie’s back. In a split moment he had the manacles on. He shoved Louie, and the latter stumbling, complained: “I never seen things happen so fast!”
Klay ignored him because his interest was bent on Donahue, and also his gun. “Heel against heel,” he said; added: “Huhn?” His false teeth had a flat gray-white surface not unlike his face. “So, what’s your newest fable in slang, Donahue?”
“Here’s something, and it’s not a fable: you stink.”
Louie began walking up and down with the mature irritation of the very young. “Damn it, damn it, is this an act or something? Is this an act? I’m beginning to burn up! First one thing, then—”
“Louie, for cripes’ sake!” Buck groaned.
“Why should I? Who are these eggs? I ain’t gonna—”
Klay turned back his lapel, revealed his police shield.
Louie stopped pacing and stared. “Then why the hell didn’t you say so?” He turned and stared hard at Donahue, pointed: “And him?”
Klay smiled. “I’ll take care of him. Now you get over there by your boy friend and keep that loud mouth of yours shut till I ask you something.”
Donahue had lowered his gun because Klay’s was pointing at him. “All right,” he said. “You can take these eggs in, Klay. I’ll breeze.”
“Wait. Why should I take these eggs in?”
“The big one bumped off Cherry Bliss. She had a lot of dope on a lot of big poobahs in this man’s city and she was going to turn it over. So he bumped her off. Then he got the dope.”
“Where’s the dope?”
Donahue said: “I’ve got to get along. Come on, we’ll both take these eggs over to the precinct.”
“Wait, you.” Klay’s gun stopped Donahue and Klay said without turning his head: “You guys, where’s the dope this bird’s talking about?”
Buck took heart. “He’s got it! Him! He took it away from me. I was trying to get in touch with the right party but he frisked it off me. He’s got it, mister; and he’s gonna cash in himself on it.”
Klay looked thinly at Donahue. “Shake-down, huhn?”
“Shake-up, Klay—if you get what I mean.”
“Let me have it.”
Donahue laughed shortly in Klay’s face. “Boy, you’re the berries—bowls and bowls of them.”
“He’s got them papers,” Buck rushed on. “He’s going to use ’em against a lot of guys. Your name’s in there too, now I remember. He’s going to cash in on ’em. Me—he double-crossed me! I thought he was representing the right guys, and then when he gets ’em he turns on me and laughs. That’s the kind of a jazzbo that guy is.”
Donahue made a sharp right turn, took six long steps and smacked Buck in the mouth. Klay sped after him and spun him around.
“Never mind that, Donahue. Hand over what you took from this guy and do it fast.” His face was becoming livid, his eyes very pale and hard.
Donahue was steaming up. “Not on your natural. I’ve got those papers, right in here”—he tapped his breast pocket—“and I know who I’m going to hand them over to. And it’s not you.”
Klay made a left-handed pass at Donahue’s pocket. Donahue caught his arm and flung it down savagely.
“Don’t try it, Klay!”
Louie began snarling: “Listen, Klay, there’s stuff in those papers that means you’re done for if it gets out. Me and Buck’s in a jam and we got to spring out of it. We know what’s in them papers. Unlock these cuffs and we�
�ll take this guy. If them papers get in the wrong hands it’s bad news for you and a lot of other guys. Like Buck said, we were tryin’ to do right by you but this egg double-crossed us.”
Klay’s gun was pressing hard against Donahue’s stomach, his eyes were narrowed down whitely. “Donahue, I want those papers. I want to see them.”
“You heard me the first time, copper. You’ve double-crossed a lot of women in your day and got away with it, but you’re not getting away with this.”
Buck cried: “He called up another cop! He called him Kelly. The cop’s on the way over. You better step on it, Klay!”
Klay’s nape stiffened. For an instant his hand shook.
“Donahue,” he said, “you’re going to turn over those papers or you’re going to regret it.”
“If you’ve got the nerve, Klay, reach in my pocket and get them.”
Klay stepped back, tossed a key to the floor. “Buck, unlock your boy friend’s cuffs.”
Buck let out a joyous grunt, fell to the floor and picked up the key. He unlocked Louie’s manacles and Louie smacked his hands together.
Klay said: “Get behind this guy. Take his gun…. Don’t move, Donahue, or you’ll get it!”
Louie whistled cheerfully as he took the gun from Donahue’s hands, tapped his pockets and took also the gun which Donahue had taken from Buck, and the key to Buck’s manacles. He pressed both guns against Donahue’s back and went on whistling. Donahue didn’t move.
Klay took the brown envelope from Donahue’s pocket and backed away. Louie went over and unlocked Buck’s manacles and gave him back his gun. Buck let out a vast breath and beamed.
Klay was slipping fingers into the envelope when Louie, nodding to Buck, stepped swiftly and jabbed his gun against Klay’s back. Buck took the cue and trained his gun on Donahue and Louie reached over Klay’s shoulder and took the brown envelope.
Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask Page 31