Dick Tracy

by Max Allan Collins

  “Maybe I oughta come along for this one,” the boy said.

  “I can handle myself,” Tracy said.

  The Kid laughed humorlessly. “Sure. Putty, I tell ya.”

  The detective said nothing more as he walked the boy in and up the stairs to the office.

  Even with the Bug and his bugging devices pulled from the conference room, Big Boy was taking no chances; he sat parked in his limousine, on a dark, quiet side-street, conferring with 88 Keys.

  The gangster sat thoughtfully smoking a big Havana. “You tell this ‘Blank’ character I accept his offer—only there’s no down payment. He has to deliver.”

  Keys, in street clothes, his cap snugged down on his high forehead, was lighting up a cigarette; he nodded.

  “He puts Tracy out of commission,” Big Boy continued, “without any suspicion comin’ back to me, I’ll give ’im his hundred thousand bucks, and kiss him on the lips, if he has any.”

  “You’ve been using force,” Keys said calmly. “The Blank’s gonna use finesse.”

  “I don’t care what he uses. If he wants to play bridge, that’s okay with me. Just so Tracy’s out, and I ain’t incriminated.”

  Keys blew smoke. “The price has gone up, Big Boy.”

  “What?”

  “It’s ten percent, now. Ten percent of your business.”

  Big Boy’s eyes popped. “Is he kidding? Who does this no-faced—”

  Keys gestured in the air. “What have you been getting lately? Besides one hundred percent of nothin’. Your money’s been going straight into Tracy’s evidence lockers for days now. You think he’s gonna let up?”

  Big Boy scowled.

  Keys continued. “The Blank gets rid of the cop, and you’re left smellin’ like a rose . . . plus the boys on the inside know you got the Blank workin’ out on the fringes as a secret enforcer. So nobody ever gets outta line again.”

  Big Boy’s eyes bulged with thought; he puffed the Havana like a train engine burning coal uphill. “Ten percent is a lot of dough.”

  “You only pay if Tracy’s out of the picture and you’re not implicated. What can you lose?”

  “Okay,” Big Boy said impulsively. “Okay, piano player. Tell no-face we got a deal.”

  On an otherwise empty dock, Tracy stood and studied the city’s skyline. The dark clouds had skipped town as suddenly as a thief on the lam. Now the moon glowed yellowly, and the stars had made a late, dramatic appearance, a surprise witness in the courtroom of the night. The buildings of the city against the sky looked flat, like cutout cardboard; the occasional lights of buildings made irregular black-and-white checkerboards of their rectangular shapes. The harbor lights and the belated moonbeams shimmered on the dark water, streaks of white relieving the blackness.

  He heard her car pull in and turned to watch as she moved from the sleek lavender sports car, hugging her black mink to her, and somehow he knew she was shielding herself from more than just the cold.

  She stood and looked at him and her expression was one he’d never seen on her before. She was just as beautiful, but her eyes were troubled. The strong woman was revealing an unexpected vulnerability.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  All the masks seemed to have been dropped; her voice had a quiet, lonely quality in the stillness of the night, as water lapped gently against the pier, no other sounds intruding. They were two people isolated, alone in the world, for this one moment.

  “Why?” Tracy asked. “Does Big Boy know we’ve talked?

  “It’s not Big Boy.” She shuddered. “It’s this man with no face . . .”

  Tracy smiled faintly. “I can handle him.”

  “I don’t think so. Dick, I hear things I’m not supposed to hear. I listen. I observe. And he’s out to get you.”

  “Big Boy?”

  “Both of them. Big Boy and the faceless one.”

  “Breathless . . .”

  She touched his shoulder. “Tracy . . . Dick. Get out of town before they kill you. And take me with you.”

  “To that desert island?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “Breathless. There’s only one thing I want from you . . .”

  She looked at him expectantly; she moved closer, lips wet and parted. “Yes?”

  “I want to know,” he said, “if you’re ready to testify against Caprice.”

  That seemed to hurt her; it was as if he’d slapped her. “Tracy . . . please . . .”

  “If you’re not going to testify against him, this is the last time we’re going to meet.”

  She looked at him with desperation in her lovely eyes. “Tracy, trust me. You have to leave town. Trust me . . . I’m the only one you can trust in this town.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You know why.”

  He shook his head. “I’m in love with someone else.”

  She looked into his eyes, hard and deep.

  And then her eyes welled with tears.

  He touched her arm, but there was no passion in it—just compassion.

  “You do, don’t you?” she said, as if confirming a dark fear. “You do love her . . .”

  She turned and left.

  He didn’t watch her go. He couldn’t quite bear to.

  He stood for a while and watched the reflection of the city, and the moon, on the water.

  Then he drove back to headquarters. There was much left to do tonight.

  The decision to leave had taken time.

  Tess had spent hours mulling the matter over, torturing herself over it. Despite what she’d told Dick, she knew it wasn’t just the long hours he put in, or even the danger of the streets that had sent her away. Machine-gun bullets in front of her own apartment house had not been the last straw.

  The woman had.

  And neither of them had been open enough, or brave enough, to mention it—much less admit it.

  She blamed herself for that. Dick was the shy one, after all, where affairs of the heart were concerned. She should have been straightforward enough, honest enough, to tell him how much a certain Miss Breathless Mahoney had to do with her decision to leave the city and stay at her mother’s.

  Then maybe they would have gotten it all out in the open and talked it out. Maybe he would have told her his side of it, assuming he had a side.

  On the drive to her mother’s in Homewood, she’d had a sudden thought, a thought that planted some doubt about her decision to leave. A calming solitude had settled on her as she drove in darkness, the whirl of her thoughts slowing, her emotions ceasing to churn. And in that solitude, that darkness, it occurred to her that as reticent about romance as Tracy was, it was highly unlikely he’d initiated anything romantic between himself and that woman.

  Tess had been around the city’s most celebrated detective long enough to pick up on a few of the finer points of deduction. And looking at the facts like a detective gave Tess a fresh perspective.

  Anything that had happened between Tracy and that Breathless Mahoney would’ve had to have been the woman’s doing. That lipstick on Dick’s face was evidence only that he had been kissed; not that he’d done any kissing. After all, Tracy hardly would have invited Breathless to his apartment for an amorous liaison, with Tess and the boy due back momentarily.

  The only verdict that could reasonably be reached was that Tracy was not the kind of man who would run around on a girl.

  So doubts about her decision to leave were already nagging Tess when she arrived at her mother’s house. And an evening with her mother had served to further undermine her resolve.

  Her mother, helping her unpack, told her how glad she was to have her “little girl back home” (even though Tess had only lived in this house briefly, before moving back to the city).

  “You can stay right here in your old room,” her mother had said, as if Tess had lived there since childhood and not just a few months. “I think you’ve done the right thing. That city is getting more and more dangerous to live in.”


  Such an attitude was understandable coming from the widow of a small businessman shot down in his own store.

  But Tess was less understanding of her mother turning against Dick.

  “That man could be President of the United States,” Mrs. Trueheart huffed, removing a tin of muffins from the oven, “and he’d consider it a desk job. He’s like a child who’s never going to grow up.”

  Tess bit her tongue as she sat at the kitchen table, stirring cream into her coffee.

  “He’ll never take that position as Chief of Police,” Mrs. Trueheart said, emptying the muffins from their pan. “He’s the kind of man who always has to be on the line of fire.”

  “Mother,” Tess said stiffly, “how can you say those things? How can you be critical of Dick? You’re talking about the man who’s devoted his life to bringing Papa’s killers to justice.”

  “I know,” she said, somewhat guiltily. She sat at the table and shook her head. “I know, and no one thinks more highly of that boy than I do.”

  “Well, you don’t sound like it.”

  Mrs. Trueheart touched her daughter’s hand. “Dear . . . it’s just that I don’t want you to go through what I did.”

  “What do you mean, Mama?”

  “To lose the man you love. To lose him to . . . violence. Like I did.” Mrs. Trueheart swallowed; behind her wire-rimmed glasses her eyes were moist. “Your Dick Tracy is a hero, dear. A real hero.”

  “I know he is.”

  The older woman sighed. “Yes. And real heroes always run out of luck.”

  “What . . . what did you say, Mama?”

  “Real heroes always run out of luck, dear.”

  Tess looked at her mother long and hard. “Mama—those muffins smell wonderful. You know, Dick always loved your cooking.”

  Mrs. Trueheart smiled sadly and nodded.

  “Can I take some of your prize-winning baked goods with me?” Tess asked.

  “When you drive into work tomorrow morning? Certainly.”

  “No. I mean right now.”

  “Right now?”

  “I’m going back tonight, Mama. This minute. Those muffins of yours will be a kind of peace offering.”

  Mrs. Trueheart’s face registered shock, then dismay; but as she studied her daughter’s face, the older woman’s expression softened into a knowing smile.

  “I’ll get a brown paper bag,” her mother said.

  Now that brown paper bag was in Tess’s hand as she entered the greenhouse. She had stopped impulsively, passing the florist’s on her way into the city. It was well after business hours, but her boss, Mr. Rewolf, wouldn’t mind if she used her key to slip inside and pick up a few fresh calla lilies to brighten up Dick’s apartment.

  She entered and began to gather the lilies, humming pleasantly to herself, anxious to see Dick, to make up with him; anxious to see the Kid, too, whom she felt she’d virtually abandoned. She would make it up to them both.

  She was so absorbed in her floral selection that she didn’t hear the figure at first. And when she finally did, and turned, it was too late.

  The knife was at her throat.

  And the face under the slouch hat was not a face at all.

  Nor was the voice like any human voice—rather, it was a rasping moan.

  “I knew you’d come back,” the nonvoice said.

  The faceless one touched her face with a gloved hand; the touch was a caressing one, but sinisterly so. It was as if the man with no face envied her for having features.

  “I’m working for Big Boy,” the Blank said. “He wants you . . .”

  Tracy was afraid.

  Being afraid was nothing new in his job; any cop, like any soldier in any war, knew fear. But he would have much rather been shooting it out with some hood than doing what he was about to do now: drive across town to the greenhouse and face Tess Trueheart.

  Ironic that after so much triumph—arrests by night, arraignments by day, accompanied by interviews to a glowingly supportive press contingent—he should hit such a personal low. Congratulatory phone calls from the Mayor and the Governor meant nothing at all when the woman Tracy loved had left him.

  Even defeating Big Boy would be an empty victory if he lost Tess. If he lost her, he lost everything.

  Not that defeating Big Boy was a fait accompli. Not now that Bug Bailey had been found out and removed from his roost above Big Boy’s chamber—although, thank God, at least the Bug had not been squashed. But the inside line on what Big Boy was up to was closed.

  And the reporters had got wind of the faceless gunman intervening for him at the Southside Warehouse, which had already changed the tone of the press coverage. On the street in front of headquarters, when he’d finally gotten back to the station from his harborside meeting with Breathless, Tracy had passed a newsie hawking the late edition of the Chronicle, the headline on which was TRACY SAVED BY FACELESS AIDE. The newsie was calling out, “Tracy in league with mystery man! Read all about it . . .”

  All of this had gotten to him. At HQ, he’d been uncharacteristically ill-tempered to his staff, barking commands to Patton and Catchem, demanding sketches of the mystery gunman be worked up.

  “What exactly is there to draw, Tracy?” Catchem had asked, his hands spread.

  “The shape of the head,” Tracy said, “the shape of the ears!”

  “We’re circulating photos of Frank Redrum,” Patton said proudly. “Sam and I think he’s your best suspect . . .”

  “That’s not good enough!” Tracy said. He took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “And could we get some fresh coffee around here? How can we expect to nail Big Boy if we can’t track down a lousy cup of coffee?”

  It had gone on like that for some time. Reflecting on it now, as he drove across the city, Tracy was embarrassed. He’d even handled the Kid dismissively, when the subject of the orphanage came up. He shook his head.

  What had snapped him out of his blue funk was the arrival of a long yellow cardboard box tied with an attractive red ribbon.

  Inside had been flowers—lilies—and a note in a flowing feminine hand: “Dear Dick—We really should talk this out. Please come over to the greenhouse right away.” There was no signature, but he knew who it was from.

  “Not every day a cop gets flowers,” Catchem had said with a friendly smirk, cigarette drooping.

  Tracy was relieved Tess had changed her mind, but he was apprehensive. What could he tell her? That he’d quit his job for her? She’d already said she didn’t want that of him. What if she asked him about Breathless? Would she believe him if he told her that the woman’s kiss had been meaningless? Did he believe that himself?

  The florist’s shop was dark, but the front door was open, and a few lights were on in the greenhouse. He went in, wandering among the flowers, breathing in their pleasant, heady fragrance.

  “Tess?” he called.

  She must be here because a radio was on; appropriately enough, “Love in Bloom” was playing, an instrumental version heavy on the violins. Nice.

  But the scent of the flowers seemed almost overpowering. His legs felt weak. Had it been that long and hard a day? He found a chair and sat, to wait for Tess.

  Then he saw them: the muffins spilled from the brown paper sack onto the cement floor.

  And he knew at once Tess had been here, and there had been trouble. A wave of guilt flooded him, nauseating him even more than the overpowering floral scent. It wasn’t bad enough that he’d hurt Tess emotionally; now she was suffering physical peril because she’d had the bad sense to be his girl.

  He tried to stand, but his legs were too wobbly, and he tumbled to his knees.

  When he looked up, a bright light hit him in the face; a spotlight!

  He tried to cover his eyes, but he was too weak to do so, and the light was so all-pervasive he couldn’t block it out. What was this, the third-degree treatment?

  He was trying to make his hand reach inside his coat for his gun, but his fingers weren’t responsi
ve; he felt dizzy as a kid on an out-of-control carousel.

  And then, abruptly, the dance music on the radio ended in a burst of static, and was replaced by a weirdly filtered voice: “Relax, Tracy.”

  “Who . . . what . . . ?”

  “Relax,” the voice from the radio speaker said.

  “If you’ve hurt Tess, you son of a . . .”

  “Relax, I said.” Breathy—distorted. “Do what your girl always wanted you to.”

  “What are you . . .”

  “Take a little time out to smell the roses . . .”

  Only it wasn’t roses.

  It was gas.

  A sickeningly sweet gas that was already filling the room and Tracy’s lungs. And somebody had turned it up. Jets of the stuff shot out and around the surrounding flowers, the force of it ruffling Tracy’s clothes as he tried to get on his feet. As weak as he was from the effect of the stuff, he might as well have been trying to stand up in a wind tunnel.

  The distorted voice was almost soothing as it said, “It won’t hurt. It won’t even kill you. Just relax. Go to sleep.”

  “Go to blazes!” Tracy shouted defiantly, and he’d won, he’d made it to his feet! Next stop, the door. “If you’re working for Big Boy, you’re both making a big mistake!”

  And with that, Dick Tracy fell on his face, unconscious.

  A figure in a yellow trench coat and matching fedora burst through the front doors into the dingy, shabby lobby of the Midway Hotel. The hotel was a fleabag on the corner of Conway Avenue and Byrd Boulevard, in a seedy section that was just a step up from skid row—and not much of a step. Half a century ago it had been the lavish Marschall Arms—now, it was the Midway, a graveyard for dying potted plants and threadbare armchairs and sofas that were losing their stuffing.

  The clerk behind the check-in desk looked up crankily from the crime pulp magazine he was reading; he had several strands of white hair combed haphazardly across a sickly pink skull, his thin white shirt spotted with tobacco juice about the same color brown as his suspenders.

  “Shut the door!” the clerk yelled at the figure in the yellow topcoat.

  An old guy in a derby and a red plaid coat, who lived at the Midway, was sitting in the lobby reading a racing form; he felt the cold night come in the open door and looked up irritably as the figure in the yellow topcoat moved quickly by, ignoring the clerk’s request, going up the garishly blue-painted stairs against the side wall, two steps at a time.