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

by Frederick Nebel

  “Maybe I could arrange it.”

  “Fifteen?”

  “Okey, fifteen. But that’s the limit.”

  Donahue laughed shortly. “Now scram. I just wanted to know how much you were holding out.”

  “But—”

  Donahue’s voice snapped. “You deaf? Slide out!”

  Hinkley colored. “That’s a lousy trick, fella!”

  Donahue took his arm, escorted him to the door. “Thanks for dropping around, Hinkley. You must come in again some time. Come in for a drink some time. Bring your own liquor.”

  “I hate wiseguys!”

  “So do I—when they go flat.” He opened the door. “And do you know why the Sporting Sphere can’t bribe me?”

  Hinkley made no reply.

  “I’ll tell you,” Donahue said. “Because I happen to know—and I’m one of the few guys who know it—I happen to know that Consadine dough is behind it. And I can guess—don’t break down, Hinkley—I can guess that it wasn’t your editor who sent you here. Should I tell you now who sent you here?”

  Hinkley rasped: “Things happen to guys like you!” He swung out, strode swiftly down the corridor.

  Donahue called after him: “Consadine sent you, dope!”

  Chapter IV

  The Hotel Chancellor lifted its pale, severe beauty into the cold winter starlight. Traffic moved sparsely on Park Avenue, slipping out of the ramp that hurtled Forty-second Street and wound its way among the cluster of skyscrapers. The outward serenity of the Hotel Chancellor was massive, overwhelming.

  In the lobby, shaped like a tremendous bell, deftly lighted by radiance that seemed to float beneath the high-domed ceiling, a page boy moved swiftly, vanished down one of many corridors. The chief hotel clerk spoke quickly into a telephone; he was hunched over the instrument, his eyes intent. The liveried doorman, who should have gone off duty at twelve—it was ten past twelve—lingered beneath the heart-shaped marquee, blowing white breath into the cold, tapping cold heels on the sidewalk.

  A man came out of a door in a corridor on the main-floor. He was buttoning his vest. He had combed his hair quickly, and a slab of it, at the crown, sprouted upward like a recalcitrant weed. His face was puffed from sleep. He poked irritably at his sleep-drugged eyes, wheezed. He headed for the lobby, and gradually, as he walked, he straightened, squared his shoulders. He was Adolph Elms, the resident managing director.

  Before he attained the lobby he ran into a short, rotund, bald man. Both men stopped, regarded each other. The bald man sighed, spread his palms. The managing director grunted irritably. Both men fell in step, reached the lobby, where they were joined by a third man who looked as if he had seen a ghost. The three men marched towards the elevator bank, vanished in a car.

  The lobby door opened and two men headed across the lobby, paused at the desk. As they went towards the elevators, they were joined by several uniformed policemen. All entered an elevator and were whisked upward.

  The lobby was vacant, then. Two drunks staggered in, singing. They wore top hats. They fell into an elevator car. A man came in with a lot of baggage, signed the register. The operator was telling room so-and-so that the hotel did not supply liquor.

  Donahue entered swathed in a belted camel’s-hair coat, his lean face riding beneath a brown felt. He was slapping pigskin gloves against his thigh as he reached the desk.

  “Where’s the trouble?”

  “I’m sorry. Press not allowed—”

  “I’m not the press. Sergeant McPard phoned me.”

  “Oh. It’s 1406.”

  Donahue found a waiting car. It carried him silently to the fourteenth floor, and stepping out he swung his legs down a wide corridor that smelled remarkably of fresh air. He turned several corners, came to a door that had 1406 inscribed in bronze on its dark panel.

  A cop opened the door, said: “What do you want?”

  “Kelly called me.”

  He stepped into a spacious foyer. To his left was a Lancet arch. Beyond was a large, luxurious room, almost baronial in size; at the farther side was a narrow mezzanine. Many lights were sprinkled about. There was no glare, yet there was sufficient light. Bluecoats were standing about. Several hotel officials, jabbering. Kelly McPard, spic and span, working his provocative smile, his eyes wandering but his mind—Donahue knew—certainly at work.

  “Thanks, Donny,” McPard called.

  Spengler, his assistant, came in through a French window. He had been wandering about on the broad terrace that overlooked Park Avenue and the East River. He was a roughneck, badly dressed, good-humored, loud, who regarded his job as a joyous hobby.

  He yelled: “Hello, Irish!”

  The hotel officials looked up in unison, a little shocked. But Spengler was never self-conscious. He banged the windows shut with great gusto, smacked his big hands together.

  “What do you think, Donny?” he bawled on good-naturedly. “Somebody give Giles Consadine the works. Ain’t it just like life, though? There’s a mug with everything to live for—swell joint here—nice flower garden out front—”

  McPard broke in quietly: “Okey, Dutch.”

  Spengler was expansive: “Okey, Kel. Excuse it.”

  Kelly McPard beckoned to Donahue. They climbed to the mezzanine, and McPard pushed in a door that had been standing slightly ajar. He leaned in the doorway, jerked his chin.

  “A honey, eh, Donny?”

  Donahue stood beside him, looked down at the body of Giles Consadine. It lay on the floor, in front of a huge canopied bed. Clad in gray silk pajamas, it lay on one side, head pillowed on arm.

  McPard’s voice was low, almost confidential: “Two slugs smack in the chest.”

  “Anybody hear the shots?”

  “No. Radio was going loud.”

  “How’d they find out?”

  “They knew he was in. He’d told the operator he was expecting a long-distance call from Chicago. When it came, she got no answer. She sent a hop up. He knocked hard. No answer. And he heard the radio playing. So he got a clerk with a pass key. Found him at exactly midnight. It was eleven when he came home.”

  “Between eleven and twelve, huh? Any ideas?”

  McPard looked vacantly at the body on the floor, spoke in a detached manner: “Yeah. My first idea, I suppose, was to ask you over.”

  “What am I going to turn out to be now—a strange interlude?”

  McPard rarely became angry, rarely raised his voice. “I guess you were one of the last men to see him alive. He never came down to the Suwanee. Took the Arena service entrance out and went straight to his hotel.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That elevator boy at the Arena saw him leave at 10:45. It’d take about fifteen minutes, traveling fast.”

  “He come in alone?”

  McPard nodded. “The clerk said…. Look here, Donny. Consadine wanted to see you earlier tonight. Pretty bad. Or he’d not have paged you in the bar. What did he want?”

  “Wanted to know if I’d won any dough on the fight.”

  McPard chuckled faintly. “Quit kidding.”

  “All right; you tell me what he wanted.”

  McPard fooled with a button on Donahue’s overcoat. “He hired you for something, didn’t he?”

  Donahue walked six paces away, turned, laughed and wagged his head. “That sure panics me!”

  McPard grinned, showing small pearly teeth. His eyes twinkled, radiated. You could never tell what was going on behind that smiling, cherubic face. Kelly McPard should have been an actor; he had all the qualifications.

  “Honest, Donny, I’ve got to know.”

  Donahue came back to face McPard and said, seriously: “Consadine couldn’t have hired me for a million.”

  “That sounds nice and big and strong, kid, but I’d hate to’ve had him wave the million in front of your face.”

  Donahue smiled, shrugged. “All right, Kel; I exaggerated. But get this: he didn’t hire me.”

  “Was he scared?”


  “I didn’t ask him.”

  McPard sighed. “What a pal!” Then he was suddenly grave, his voice low and quiet: “I’ve got to know, Donny.”

  “I told you.”

  “Listen, kid.” He touched Donahue’s arm. “You know the champ—you know Danny Harrigan…. I used to, well—you know, I kind of brought him up. In a way, I mean. I mean when he was a kid I used to steer him clear of the hoodlums. When I was a roundsman. Once I let him have his picture taken wearing my hat and shield…. Listen, kid; this is no song and dance, no soft soap. Listen, Donny”—his voice dropped lower—“the champ was here tonight.”

  “Go on.”

  “He was here. The kid runs the hotel elevator—he couldn’t help recognizing him. Danny was here. Came here between eleven and half-past—nearer half-past. Came out again in about ten minutes.” He withdrew his hand from his overcoat pocket. A .32-calibre revolver lay in his palm. “Danny’s gun.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I helped him get a license to carry it—six months ago, when he had an idea some mugs were trying to kidnap him. See the chip on the butt?… Danny’s gun.”

  Donahue was silent for a moment, eying McPard steadily. Then he said: “What am I supposed to do? If it’s Harrigan’s gun, what’s the matter with getting Harrigan?”

  “I phoned his hotel. He checked out at 11:15. He must have taken his bags and checked them at the station. Then he came here.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know whether I’d like to know or not—but I don’t know. I want to know if Consadine hired you. I want to know if he was afraid of Harrigan—or anybody else.”

  Donahue said: “Consadine didn’t hire me.”

  “Did he try to?”

  “No.”

  McPard sighed. “I’m not going to like it—pinching that kid.”

  “Hey, Kel,” Spengler shouted. “The camera guy from H.Q. is here. He wants to mug the stiff. Ask the stiff if it’s okey.”

  Donahue said to McPard: “I imagine Spengler’s comedy goes over big with the hotel help.”

  “Spengler’s all right at heart…. Listen, Donny—”

  Donahue held up his palms. “Nix, Kel. We’ve been all over that. Consadine didn’t hire me.”

  Chapter V

  Donahue walked north. Park Avenue was wide, empty, in the winter starlight. Even in the dark its smartness was obvious, insistent. The purr of a passing automobile’s tires made a loud sound in the wide, windowed canyon.

  Donahue cut east to Lexington Avenue, entered a drug-store and pushed into a telephone booth. He thumbed a directory, dialed a number, made a whistling mouth but no sound. The operator at the Hotel Eden answered and Donahue said:

  “I want to speak to Miss Moore in apartment 44.”

  “We have no Miss Moore in apartment 44.”

  “You must have. Look it up.”

  There was a pause and then the operator said: “I’m sorry, sir; we have no Miss Moore in apartment 44. The only Moore we have is in apartment 606.”

  “I must have made a mistake,” Donahue said. “Pardon me.”

  He hung up, whistled his way out of the booth and bought a malted milk at the counter. He drank only half of it, left the drug-store and walked north on Lexington, then west to Fifth. In a nearby side-street he entered the small, chic Hotel Eden, crossed to the open elevator car and mentioned the sixth floor. The operator yawned on the way up.

  Donahue hummed on his way down the sixth floor corridor, bowed before 606, listening, and then rippled his knuckles down the panel. He seemed quite satisfied with himself, teetering back and forth from heel to toe.

  A breathless voice broke on the other side of the door: “Who’s there?”

  “Is Harrigan in there?”

  “No!”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “He’s not here!”

  “I heard him in there.”

  “You didn’t! Who are you?”

  “A detective. Harrigan’s in there.”

  “He isn’t!”

  “You’ve got to prove it.”

  A lock grated. The door was flung open. Token Moore was not so sleek as she had been at the fight; but she was no less beautiful. She looked stunning in a black sheer peignoir, black pajamas beneath. She was flushed, her auburn hair rumpled, and her eyes bloodshot. And she was drunk.

  Donahue shouldered in, shouldered the door shut and snapped the lock. He passed her where she stood swaying, went into the living-room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the closets. He reappeared to find Token flip-flopping her way across to a divan. She made a peculiarly pathetic spectacle. Changing her mind about the divan, she brought up in the center of the floor, rubber-kneed, dabbing at loose ends of hair.

  “What you want?”

  She hadn’t a bad voice; there was nothing particularly coarse about it; but liquor made her tongue thick, her lips clumsy. She bounced from one foot to the other, her arms darting out at eccentric angles in an effort to strike a balance.

  Donahue said: “Where’s Harrigan?”

  “Don’t know.”

  She made a headlong dive for the coffee table, grabbed at a bottle of gin, raised the bottle to her lips. She had had more than enough. Donahue knew it. But he didn’t move, he didn’t offer advice. She gagged and slammed the bottle down and went dizzily around the room holding her throat. He seemed keenly, clinically interested in her haywire maneuvers. Suddenly she wound up in a heap, on the divan, and lay there shaking violently, panting hoarsely.

  Donahue sauntered over, sat down beside her, ran his big hand familiarly through her hair.

  “Little girl shouldn’t drink gin that way—!”

  She slapped at his arm and went spinning to the floor.

  He sighed. “The things I walk into.” He picked her up and stood holding her in his arms. She was small, pliable, and he liked the feel of her in his arms. He sighed again. “Business, though, is business,” he remarked as he dropped her to the divan.

  She crouched there, staring up at him out of wide-open eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck. He sat down beside her and she shrank back farther, tugging her peignoir across her small breasts.

  “Listen,” he said. “What kind of a deal was made on that fight? You’re in the know. You’d know. Was Harrigan supposed to lose that fight or what? What went wrong?”

  She gave an agonized groan, sprang from the divan and went hurtling across the room. She carried down a tea-table, sprawled with it, her legs flying.

  Donahue said: “Tsk, tsk!”

  She scrambled up and ran crazily into the bedroom. He followed her. He found her hiding beneath the bed. Pulling her out by one leg, he lifted her to her feet, held her erect. She looked horror-stricken.

  He shook her. “Pull yourself together.”

  Her teeth began chattering and her face became so white that Donahue was uneasy. He was annoyed, irritated. He laid her on the bed and she buried her face in a pillow and began sobbing and moaning.

  He thought she might be out of her mind.

  He went into the living-room and walked round and round, angry one moment, puzzled the next. Her moaning was unpleasant to hear. He was standing in the middle of the room, cogitating, when she came stealthily out of the bedroom and crept across the living-room. Fascinated, he watched her. She appeared to be unaware of his presence and kept creeping towards the hall door. Finally he jumped, caught her as she was about to open the door.

  Her voice was hoarse: “Lemme out!”

  “Listen—”

  “Lemme—” She tussled, kicked, clawed in sudden fury.

  “Now, Token, take it easy!”

  She tore away from him, fell on the doorknob, managed to unlock the catch. But he grabbed her by the arms, lifted her, swung her about and whisked her across the living-room, into the bedroom. Her feet did not once touch the floor. He dropped her to the bed, his shirt cuffs protruding, his hair rumpled and several bloody scratches on his face.

>   He rasped: “Cut out this damned nonsense!”

  She tried to heave off the bed, but he caught her, flattened her on the bed, held her down.

  “Listen,” he said earnestly, “I’m not going to hurt you. See? You understand? I want to know what happened to Consadine. I want to know where Harrigan is. I want to know if that fight was framed. I want—Wait a minute. Stay here. Stay on this bed. I want to lock that door.”

  He rose, swung into the living-room. He stopped short. Two men were coming across it towards him and both had guns leveled. They were young men, impeccably dressed. One was tall, handsome and hard in a pale-faced, red-lipped way. The other was small, anaemic, and the .45 automatic he held looked huge in his skinny little hand. They were bent on business.

  “Back up, you,” the tall man said.

  “Wait a second—”

  “Back up!”

  The two men crowded Donahue, and he backed into the bedroom. The smaller of the two had a nervous affliction; his upper lip kept twitching while the rest of his face remained cold, stony. His eyes were as cold as a lizard’s.

  The tall man snapped: “There she is!” He leaped after Token Moore as she staggered towards the bathroom.

  The small man kept Donahue covered.

  The tall man, rough-housing Token across the room, said: “Where’s Harrigan, brat?”

  “Oh, my—!” she moaned.

  “Where’s Harrigan?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  He held her up with his left hand. With his right he slapped her face. She choked and groaned and he backed her up, slapping her hard, first on one cheek, then on the other. Meanwhile he wore a hard, tight smile. He stopped slapping her, took hold of her left arm and bent it behind her back. She grimaced. Her eyeballs bulged, rolled, showed the whites as she bent backward. Her knees gave way and she slumped. He let her fall to the floor.

  Donahue offered: “She’s just drunk.”

  The tall man spun on him. “You’re Donahue,” he rasped.

  “Okey.”

  The tall man took one step, one swing. Donahue crashed against the wall. His eyes blazed.

  “What the hell’s the idea of that?” he exploded.