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

by Frederick Nebel

  “Taxi!” he barked.

  Brakes squealed and a cab pulled up alongside the curb. Donahue climbed in, banged the door shut and slid down to the small of his back.

  “Hotel Elsinore.”

  The Elsinore was only ten blocks distant. Donahue climbed out of the cab, pushed through the revolving doors and went swinging his legs across the large lobby to the desk.

  “Mr. Harrigan come in yet?”

  “About five minutes ago. Who shall I say—”

  “Never mind.”

  He took an elevator to the seventh floor and a minute later he was knocking at the door of Harrigan’s apartment. He had to knock several times before the door opened and Harrigan shoved his head out.

  “Huh? What’s up now?”

  Donahue shoved in and walked to the center of the living-room before saying: “Token’s disappeared.” He turned and put his dark, fretful eyes on Harrigan. “She get in touch with you?”

  Harrigan looked concerned. “Me? No. Where’d she go?”

  “If I knew where she went—” He broke off with a disgusted groan, then said: “Please don’t start asking profound questions. Got a drink?”

  “Yeah. Over there.”

  Donahue walked to a table, picked up a glass, a bottle. He said as he poured: “I thought you don’t drink.”

  “I don’t.”

  “So I imagine.”

  Harrigan colored. “Oh, that—that—” He laughed, nodding to a half-drained highball. “I—I just took a snifter.”

  Donahue was eying him crookedly. “Token didn’t get in touch with you, huh?”

  “I said she didn’t!” Harrigan growled. Donahue drank, still eying Harrigan.

  “What the hell you looking at?” Harrigan demanded.

  Donahue shrugged, sauntered into the bedroom, came out again, his eyes roving around the living-room as he took sip after slow sip.

  Harrigan blurted: “I’m getting sick and tired o’ having my personal life busted into!”

  “Maybe you think I’m not sick and tired of busting into it. Calm yourself, champion…. Mind if I look around?”

  “Yes I do!”

  Donahue squinted.

  Harrigan came over to face him. “I ain’t gonna have you or anybody else telling me what to do! I ain’t going to have you crashing in here anytime you feel like it! I don’t care if the Boxing Commish did hire you! I ain’t no kid. I can take care of myself and, by——! I want to be left alone!”

  Donahue said wryly: “There’s no liquor on your breath.”

  Donahue was a big man, but he suddenly felt himself lifted and rushed to the door.

  “Get out,” Harrigan rasped.

  Donahue’s face had darkened. He showed his teeth. “Why, you dirty big tramp—”

  “Get out!”

  Donahue turned, whipped the door open. He looked Harrigan up and down contemptuously. He said with quiet deadliness: “Okey, boy. I’m going out now. And I hope you get what’s coming to you—right smack in your thick neck!”

  He stepped back into the hall, gripped the door knob, banged the door shut He strode swiftly up the corridor, his cheeks burning, his eyes humid. He was through, he told himself. Job or no job, he was through dry-nursing Harrigan.

  Next morning the ringing of the telephone bell roused him at eight. He turned over on his side and regarded it sleepily, and when it kept on ringing, rasping on his nerves, he made a violent pass at it and swept it over to the bed.

  He barked: “Hello!” And then, dropping his voice: “Oh, hello, Margaret…. You did, eh? And then what?” Listening, he scowled, his lips tightened and he said: “Listen, Margaret I’m through with that potato. He may be the moon and the stars to you, but to me he’s an accident that should have happened at birth. I’m through with him, washed up. He’s one of my sour memories. He—” He swung his feet off the bed, shook his head, worked his lips, stamped his foot, rolled his eyes. “No. Listen, Margaret. I feel sorry for you. But it ends there. Call Kelly McPard. Kelly knew him when he was a kid and is still soft on him. Call Kelly. Me, I’m through.”

  He hung up, rose and set the instrument down on the table. He went to the windows, snapped up the shades and went yawning and growling into the bathroom. He showered hot, then cold; rubbed himself dry with a big Turkish towel. The sun was bright, the air cool and crisp, fresh-smelling, blowing in through two open windows, kiting the curtains.

  He dressed and was on his way to the door when the telephone rang. He sighed, pick it up.

  “Hello, Kelly…. What about?” He looked down at the mouthpiece, dropped his voice: “Okey. Maybe in an hour.”

  He went down to the hotel dining-room, drank half a pint of tomato juice, ate two lamb chops, four pieces of toast, and drank three cups of coffee. Outside, he climbed into a taxi and said:

  “Police Headquarters.”

  He found Kelly McPard in his office. McPard was freshly shaved, his linen was clean, crisp, and his clothes were, as always, well pressed. He had just begun a long, dappled panetela.

  “Margaret called me up,” he said.

  Donahue flopped into a chair. “Me, too.”

  McPard said: “She’s worried. She phoned Danny at 7:30 this morning and found he wasn’t in. Nobody at the hotel knew where he was. So I phoned and asked them to send someone up. His apartment looked all right, but he wasn’t there. But he’d slept there.”

  Donahue stood up, bowed. “I see you got me down here to talk about that dumb-bell Harrigan. Well, I’m through with him. Good-day, Kel.”

  “Wait.”

  Donahue turned at the door. “Go on.”

  “Look here, Donny. For——sake, don’t get your Irish up. The champ’s a good lad—”

  “Listen.” Donahue came back to the desk, laid his fist on it. “I went up there last night after I found Token had disappeared. Harrigan put on a swell act. Listen.” He thumped the desk. “Token was there, too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There was a half-drunk highball on the table. Harrigan doesn’t drink. When I wanted to search the apartment he wouldn’t let me. He got nasty. Gave me the bum’s rush. I don’t take a bum’s rush from anybody and like it!”

  “Donny, hold on.” McPard stood up, trying to spread calm with his hands. “You can’t chuck this now, Donny. We held Arnholt over night and couldn’t get anything out of him. I got King Padden down here, and his boys, but”—he shook his head—“it’s a dead end there. There’s a murder on our hands, but there’s Danny, too. He’s good. He’s just hot-headed. And there’s Token. And take ’em all together, there’s a hook-up somewhere.”

  Donahue went to the door. “Okey. You find it.”

  McPard grinned, crossed the office and took hold of Donahue’s arm. “Donny, you’re getting temperamental as a chorus girl. How do you know Token was there last night? Maybe Danny was just sore. He had a right to be—”

  Donahue lashed in: “And I’ve got a right to be told things that this mug insists on hiding!”

  McPard looked down at his fingernails. “Suppose Token was there? You don’t mean to stand there and hint around that he went off with her—leaving Margaret?”

  Donahue was finding it hard to breathe. “Listen, Kel. Nothing that guy would do would ever surprise me. He ought to hire a small boy to tell him the time and tell him when it’s day and when it’s night.”

  McPard’s smile was persuasive. “Anyhow, Donny, agreeing with all you say, you can’t slide out of this. It’s not right.”

  Donahue opened the door. “I’m sliding, Kel. I know Padden and Albino Will Olsen from my St. Louis days, and I’d like to go up against them—but Harrigan sticks in my throat. Happy days, Kelly.”

  Kelly grabbed his arm. “Donny, if I asked you to hang on, what about it? Me, I’m asking you. Forget about Harrigan. I’m asking you personally, Donny.”

  Donahue sighed and stared at the floor. He stared a long time, chewing on his lip. Then he looked up at McPard, and he didn’t
smile.

  But he said: “So I guess you win, you heel.”

  Chapter V

  By noon there was still no word of Harrigan. Donahue learned this by phoning McPard from a booth near Sheridan Square. He also got in touch with Margaret, frankly apologized for the way he had talked to her over the phone that morning, and wound up by telling her to stay in her hotel room.

  He took a West Side subway to Times Square, where he got off and boarded a crosstown shuttle for Grand Central. He walked down Lexington, entered his hotel lobby and asked at the desk if any message had been left for him. None had been left. He went up to his apartment and found an oldish maid cleaning up. He intended eating downstairs in the dining-room, but first he mixed himself a Dry Martini in his small pantry. The maid went out, saying she would return with fresh towels, and Donahue stood in the center of his living-room sipping the Dry Martini. He drank down two and was pouring a third when there was a knock on his door.

  He said: “Come in,” and emptied the cocktail shaker.

  It was not, as he had supposed, the maid. The Albino came in first, with both hands in the pockets of his coat and his cap slanted over one eyebrow. With him came two other men. They were well-dressed, neat, and cleanshaven; the one short and muscular, dressed in a fashionable raglan coat and a brown Fedora, the other taller, though not quite as tall as the Albino, but dressed with equal care. This man, coming in last, closed the door and locked it.

  Donahue put his cocktail glass to his lips, sipped, ran his tongue back and forth between his lips and said, not pleasantly: “I thought it was somebody else. The gate for you.”

  The Albino was smiling politely, his emaciated face a little on one side. The other two men separated, taking up strategic positions and showing a keen but silent interest. The Albino looked from one to the other, nodded, and removed his hands from his overcoat pockets.

  He said: “We were waiting for you to come in, Donahue.”

  “Why didn’t you bring Padden along, too?”

  “He’s got a kinda bilious attack this morning.” The Albino smiled softly, almost sweetly; then he arched his eyebrows, put his lips sweetly together, said: “You know, we’re looking for Token Moore.”

  “Swell. So am I. Let’s get together on it.”

  The Albino again smiled sweetly, folded his long, fragile hands primly against his chest. “We are together, ain’t we now?” From his manner, his lips, you expected him to speak precise English; he did speak precisely, but there it ended. “We think you know where she disappeared to.”

  Donahue shook his head. “Not me, Olsen.”

  The Albino sauntered across the room, turned on the radio. He let it warm up, and when the first sounds came, he increased the volume. Smiling daintily, he went very close to Donahue and said with a precise movement of his lips:

  “We ain’t, you know, kidding.”

  “Neither am I. I don’t know where she is.”

  The two other men caught Donahue from behind; each grabbed one of Donahue’s arms and he dropped glass and cocktail shaker to the floor. Back of him, the radio thundered. The Albino drew a blackjack from his pocket, smiled, and struck Donahue on the head. Donahue jerked at the two men who held him.

  Donahue’s eyes flashed. “I told you I don’t know. I’ve been looking for her myself.”

  The Albino struck again. Donahue sagged, grimaced, while the Albino craned his swanlike neck and looked on with a brightly clinical interest.

  “I’ll hurt next time,” he said.

  Donahue began tussling violently, swinging the two men about the room with him. They all went down in a heap, arms and legs flying. The Albino stepped nimbly, raised his blackjack, struck. Donahue straightened out on the floor, put his hands to his head. The two men jumped up, dusted themselves briskly. Donahue took his hands from his head but did not move his body. Fury and anger were in his eyes, and his face was gray, his lips curved wolflike over his clenched teeth.

  The three men stood looking down at him, down into his face. They did not see the door open, did not see the oldish maid standing on the threshold with a pass key in her hand. Her eyes popped and her jaw fell. Only Donahue, looking between the archway of the Albino’s legs, saw her.

  He yelled: “Run! Call the police! Run!”

  The Albino whirled in time to see the maid pitching away from the doorway.

  She screamed: “Help! Police!”

  The Albino snapped: “Beat it!”

  The two men turned and darted into the hall. The Albino, his pink eyes suddenly furious, waited a moment to kick Donahue’s head, ribs, and then his head again. And then he, too, turned and sped into the corridor.

  Donahue lay with his hands pressed against his face, groaning. After a minute, he turned over, got to his knees, then to his feet. He took off his coat and vest, ripped off his shirt. He went heavy-footed into the bathroom, turned on the cold shower and held his head beneath it. Bits of red color mixed with the water in the tub.

  He pulled his head out of the shower, ripped off his blood-stained undershirt, looked at himself in the mirror. Water still poured down his face from his soaked hair. He spat it from his lips, cursing.

  Chapter VI

  Barron Yerkes looked at the card which his secretary placed on the glass top of his flat-topped desk. He ran a forefinger slowly across his lower lip, leaned back, put his fingertips together and shook his head.

  “I’m not in,” he said.

  The girl picked up the card, returned to her outer office. Barron Yerkes took a cigarette from a red lacquer humidor, placed it between his lips. There was a rattle at the door. The door whipped open and Donahue strode in. Yerkes looked up, smiled, lighted his cigarette.

  “I thought you wouldn’t be in,” Donahue said. He banged shut the door. There were several black and blue marks on his face and a neat strip of adhesive tape on his right cheekbone. He came slowly across the office and stopped by the desk, his hands in his overcoat pockets, his eyes boring down at the attorney.

  Yerkes cleared his throat, smiled. “You look rather worked up, Donahue.”

  “Lay off the jokes. I’m sore. These lousy hoodlums you represent came around to my place and played house, with me on the receiving end.”

  “I’m genuinely sorry, Donahue.”

  “You look all broken up. Listen, Yerkes.” He knuckled the desk sharply. “If you don’t want to get hurt, you’d better break with that crowd.”

  “H-m-m. It was unfortunate.”

  “And another thing.” Donahue dropped his voice way down. “Where the hell is Token Moore?”

  Yerkes raised his palms. “I certainly wish I knew. Don’t you know?”

  “So now you’re going to start in. No, I don’t know. And I don’t know where Harrigan is. But this I do know—I do know that if you play along with this case you’re going to get hurt and I’m going to hurt you. No dirty St. Louis bum can sail into this town and play kick-the-wicket with me.”

  “Donahue—” Yerkes stood up. “I’m genuinely sorry this happened. Something went wrong somewhere, but I assure you I had nothing to do with that beating and I don’t know where Token Moore is. Times are hard, and it looked like easy money. I regret I took the case, and I hereby tell you that I’m dropping it—now—this minute.”

  Donahue laughed. “Yeah—I’d like to believe that.”

  “Believe it or not.”

  “All right. Then why do you think she disappeared?”

  “It’s possible that Token and Harrigan made up and went away together. That’s the only answer I can find.”

  Donahue said: “The answer’s so simple that I don’t believe it. Not that I think Harrigan wouldn’t be dope enough. But the lay of the whole thing doesn’t seem right.” He looked steadily at Yerkes. “And remember, stay out of it. Or you’ll get hurt.”

  He went uptown to the Hotel Elsinore, and found the clerk beaming.

  “Mr. Harrigan is in.”

  Donahue stood back on his heels, then set
tled. “Don’t bother ringing.”

  By the time he reached the elevator he was worked up. By the time he reached the seventh floor he was cursing to himself. His jaw was set, and dark lights moved in his eyes. He strode long-legged down the corridor and worked the knocker on 707 violently, stood simmering, impatient, licking his lips. He knocked again and then beat upon the door with his fist. Several minutes passed before he heard the click of the lock. The door opened and Harrigan stood swaying back and forth in the foyer.

  Donahue stepped in quickly, closed the door, narrowed down one eye and said vindictively. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Harrigan turned and went leaden-footed into the living-room. He dropped to the divan, stretched out and planked a wet towel down on his face. He groaned. His collar and tie were in rags. Several buttons had been ripped off his vest and one pocket of his coat was torn.

  “Oh! Oh!” he groaned.

  “Listen, Harrigan—”

  “Oh! Oh!”

  “Listen, will you?”

  “Yeah. What?”

  Donahue bent over. “What happened to you?”

  “What’s it look like? I was hit with the Chrysler Building.”

  “Where?”

  “All over.”

  “I mean, where did it happen?”

  “In here. Oh! Oh!”

  “In here!”

  Harrigan removed the towel. “Listen, Donahue. Go wet this again, will you?”

  Donahue took the towel into the bathroom, soaked it, wrung it out and carried it back to the divan. Harrigan placed it on his face again and sighed, “Ah, ah!”

  “Listen, Harrigan. Who did it? Cut out acting like a baby. Who did it?”

  “Three guys. They used blackjacks. I come in here, and then I heard a knock and I opened the door and there they were. First they held me up, and then they landed on me with blackjacks.”

  “Why’d they use blackjacks?”

  “They wanted to know where Token was.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, Harrigan. Where the hell were you all day?”