by A. A. Glynn
“Why, home. My parents live out at Woodstock.”
I thought about that for a while. Woodstock was close to Chicago and Shelmerdine’s hired hands might track the girl out there.
“Does Shelmerdine and his crowd know you hail from the Chicago area?”
“Yes, but nobody at Shelmerdine’s country house knows my home address and they think my name is Maybelle Jones.”
“But they’ll probably figure you’ll head for Chicago, since that’s your hometown.
“It’s my guess that our friends who had the mishap in the sedan were chasing you because they realised you’d blown with something out of the safe, and they wanted you back—and whatever you’d taken—before Shelmerdine got back from his trip. It was desperate and ham-fisted. That business of opening fire on a state highway proves it. Shelmerdine left that sort of stuff behind him with prohibition. When he wants shooting done in public, he hires gutter-rats like those who killed your brother to do it; his kind of smooth mobster doesn’t allow those who are close to him to charge around the country blasting away with heaters—it’s bringing the dirt too close to his own doorstep. The real chase, girlie, the top-shelf subtle stuff, will come when big shot Athelstan gets back and finds out just what’s missing from the safe.”
She tried to stifle a sneeze by pressing a slender forefinger to her top lip. It escaped her clutches.
The sneeze decided me on a half-formed plan that had been floating about my mind.
“Listen,” I told her. “You’ve been soaked to the skin and you’ve had a rough time. You need rest and dry clothing. I’m on my way to visit some old friends in South Bend and you stay right with me. These folk are great—an old army pal and his wife—they’ll fix you a place for the night and the strong-arm hoodlums will never think of looking for you in South Bend. Tomorrow, we’ll push on to Chicago. Meantime, I’ll get in touch with my branch in Chicago to stand by for some action. World Wide Investigations will back you up, girlie. You deserve somebody on your side and, besides, I have an interest in this fight—those bums fired bullets into my car. Deal?”
She nodded her approval while stifling another sneeze.
So, we drove into South Bend and into the realisation that it was Saturday night. I jockeyed the car along the wide sweep of Michigan Street with its bright sky-signs and its trees. The movies were disgorging their patrons at that hour. There was a bustle of activity on the street, still glossed by recent rain.
I drove steadily through the mass of cars. It was my first time in South Bend for some years, but I remembered my way around. On the way up from the south, I had reflected pleasantly on how surprised Jack and Beth Kay would be at my unexpected visit. Now I was calling on them with a total stranger but, what the heck, Jack and Beth were friendly, happy-go-lucky people, they’d make us both welcome.
I could book a couple of rooms at a hotel, but the Kays would be highly insulted if I stayed in South Bend without making use of their high, wide, and handsome hospitality. That’s the kind of folk Jack and Beth were. Good folk.
It’s comforting to think that the world holds more of their kind than the other species.
Cautiously, I drove along Michigan with its bright lights and glittering theatre awnings, waited dutifully at the intersection of Munroe Street until the traffic cop signalled me across. I took the coupe easily though the tangle of crossings at mid-Michigan Street and on up to the bridge spanning the St. Joseph River, then over the river to Leeper Avenue.
It was quiet and residential. The buildings of the University of Notre Dame stood not too far away, a stately group against the summer night sky with a church spire and a great golden dome dominant.
I glanced at Joanne Kilvert. She had been very quiet for a long time.
She was sound asleep. Just like a kid.
I drove along steadily with one eye on the neat painted houses. I remembered Jack’s place vaguely, but recognised the house as soon as the headlight beams picked it out. A pang of something, maybe envy, hit me as I saw the trim house and its neat lawn.
It looked like it belonged to somebody and somebody belonged to it.
Why the hell didn’t I have a comfortable house, a nice wife, and a nine-to-six job? Settling down would be great.
I hit the brakes, shaking off the feeling with the action.
I had no squawks coming. I had wanted to be a private dick. From starting out in a back room, I’d wound up with a worldwide investigation outfit. I didn’t want to be another solid citizen. I already was what I wanted to be—a shamus, but a shamus par excellence, I hoped.
The jerk of the brakes wakened Joanne. She sat up quickly and looked about in slight alarm.
“Relax. You’re with friends,” I told her as I stepped out of the car.
The sidewalk was still wet after the rain. There was a fresh scent from the nearby trees.
I walked up the pathway, mounted the three or four steps to the Kays’ porch, and hit the doorbell. Deep in the soul of the house there was a buzz which ceased when I took my thumb from the bell-push.
Through the frosted glass of the door I saw a bloom of light as someone opened a door in the interior of the house. The bulk of a figure loomed against the light and a light illuminated the hallway as a switch snapped. The door opened and Jack Kay stood there, blocky, with a crew-cut, and wearing the kind of clothes a man can loaf around in. There were house slippers on his feet.
“Tear yourself away from that television set, you’re entertaining tonight,” I said. There was a hollowness to the words, the joviality was forced. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing in bringing Joanne here.
Jack Kay’s features settled into a wide grin of surprise and he hit me a playful blow in the stomach.
“Lantry, you old scoundrel! Come in!”
I jerked my thumb towards the coupe standing at the kerb.
“I have somebody with me—a girl.”
Jack put his hands on his hips and looked at me steadily.
“I detect a certain furtive tone,” he said. “Can it be that you finally got married and are suffering from henpeck malady? Or are you eloping with somebody?”
I grinned at Jack’s easy-going joshing. This was him all over.
“Look, Jack, this is to do with a case,” I confided. “It’s something I got into by accident when I was driving up from Florida. I was on my way to see you anyway, but I gave this kid a ride and found she’s on the run from Athelstan Shelmerdine’s mob. She wasn’t one of his crowd—don’t get that idea; she’s been doing some slick detective work on her own. She’s the sister of Kilvert, the guy who was killed in Chicago some time back.”
“Arthur Kilvert, the trade union guy?”
I nodded.
“She has something on the Shelmerdine crowd that can break them for keeps, that’s why she’s on the lam.” I went on to give him a quick outline of the story behind Joanne Kilvert. Jack gave a low whistle of surprise. “Right now, she’s about all in. Maybe a spell with decent folks in respectable surroundings will help her along. She’s got guts and she’s held out well, but she’s weary and she’s been soaked to the skin.”
“Well, bring her in,” he invited. “You know us. Our friends and friends of our friends always welcome,” he turned towards the hallway and bellowed: “Hey, Beth. It’s Mike Lantry and a friend. Break out the coffee-pot!”
I heard a squeak of surprise from Beth, somewhere deep in the house, as I walked down the pathway towards the car.
I brought Joanne Kilvert back along the walk. Beth Kay, slim and dark, was standing in the doorway with her husband.
“Long time no see,” she called cheerfully to me.
Joanne Kilvert was shy and self-conscious, trying to smooth out the creases in her rain-stained skirt, and straighten the crumpled jacket of her summer costume.
Also, she had the sniffles.
I introduced everybody. Joanne was still a little troubled. I guess Jack must have given Beth a very brief and whispered outline of
the set-up while I was helping the girl out of the car, for she put Joanne at ease at once in her matter-of-fact way.
“Cold coming,” she observed. “Hot bath is what you need, honey, then some hot coffee. Finest cure in the world.” Beth put her arm around Joanne’s waist and shepherded her into the house. I was glad to see the girl afforded this womanish tenderness; it would help a lot after my own ham-fisted way of dealing with the damsel in distress.
Jack ushered me into the lounge while the two disappeared upstairs. He settled me on the davenport, produced scotch and glasses, and fisted a generous drink into my hand.
“So you’re fighting the Shelmerdine organisation,” he murmured as he seated himself in an easy chair. “It’s a big team to lick, Mike.”
“I know it,” I replied. “I got into this by accident, Jack, but if ever anyone needed backing up, it’s that kid. I’ll stick close by her until I can get her to safety where the Shelmerdine crowd can’t hurt her or her folks. I’m putting my Chicago office on to this Shelmerdine guy—we’ll get those papers into the hands of the Crime Commission, and I’m sticking around the Midwest until we do.”
“Where do you intend sending the girl?” he asked. “Anywhere within a big radius of Chicago will hardly be safe with the Shelmerdine organisation on her tail.”
“I half thought of New York—yes, I think I’ll put her on a train for New York tomorrow and phone Lucy, my secretary, to meet her and look after her for a while. In fact, I’ll put a call through from here to Lucy’s apartment and one to Walt Toland, my Chicago agency chief. I’ll tip Walton off about this set-up, and put those papers the girl took in the mail to him as soon as I can. I guess the U.S. Mail is as safe a place as anywhere for documents as red hot as those.”
Jack’s face clouded. He shook his head gloomily.
“Sorry about the phone—it’s kaput. We had a freak storm here this evening and lightning hit the power-line for this whole neighbourhood, I guess every phone in this section of the city is out of action.”
I grunted.
“I guess it’ll keep until tomorrow, I’ll use a public telephone somewhere around the city.”
Beth came into the room.
“Your protégée is wallowing in hot water…,” she began.
“You can say that again,” I cut in with an attempt at humour.
“Scat!” said Beth. “She’s wallowing in hot water and she tells me she has a change of dress in her grip out in the car. Don’t sit around drinking whisky, go get her grip—and put your car in the garage while you’re about it.”
I jumped, remembering the grip with those incriminating papers out in the car. Although Joanne had clutched hold of that grip as though it owed her money previously, I guessed her good manners jibbed at walking into the house of total strangers with it in her hand.
I went out quickly, took the car into Jack’s garage and removed my own grip from the trunk, taking it back to the house with Joanne Kilvert’s.
Beth took the girl’s baggage and hastened upstairs with it.
I joined Jack again and finished my drink.
Beth reappeared, ducked into the kitchen and, in a remarkably short time, was hollering for us to come and get it.
Jack and I settled ourselves down at a laden table that looked and smelled pretty good. I’d forgotten how hungry I was.
Joanne appeared in the doorway, shyly. She was wearing a wide-skirted summer dress, her hair had been smoothed neatly. There were no lines of bitterness on her face now, and her gently moulded features were touched with a judicious amount of cosmetic.
She looked mighty good.
In spite of her sniffles.
“Wade into supper,” invited Beth, “and we’ll be in time to catch the late night epic on TV.”
I stretched lazily.
“Ah, civilised American life,” I said.
CHAPTER THREE
Beth settled Joanne into the spare bedroom right after the TV show.
Jack did something to a hidden button on the davenport and it promptly turned into a bed.
“For putting up folk when you’re overcrowded,” he explained. Beth came from somewhere or other with an armful of blankets and pillows. She began clothing the nakedness of the newly created bed in her matter-of-fact way.
“This is where you sleep, Lantry,” she informed me. “You’re nearest the kitchen, so you make coffee for everyone first thing in the morning.”
And I did.
* * * *
The sun was shining brightly and South Bend’s church bells reminded me it was Sunday morning. I pottered around the electric cooker, making coffee, listening to the distant bells and a nearer one clanging across from the University campus.
Just being there, I felt that nag of something again. Was it envy?
With the coffee made, I progressed to the foot of the stairs.
“Coffee ready,” I bellowed. “Come down and get—I’m not bringing it up!”
A disgruntled remark in Jack’s tones floated down.
He was the first to appear, unshaven and very much the average man on Sunday morning. The girls came down after we’d finished off two cups of coffee and a cigarette each. Neither of them would show herself before going through the rituals that would remove the first-thing-in-the-morning appearance.
We breakfasted and I shaved, then we held a council as to what should be done with Joanne. Without any trouble at all, I sold her the idea that she would be safe with Lucy in New York, and I decided on going out to find out what time there was a train for New York that day, also to find a telephone in working order to call Walt Toland in Chicago and Lucy in New York.
Jack offered to drive me to the Union Depot, but I settled for his instructions on how to reach it.
I took the car out of the garage after examining the bullet-holes in the back. Two of them close together, near to the right rear wing. Those hoods must have been aiming for the tyre and they came damned near to hitting it.
I took it easy driving down into the centre of the city. One or two Sunday drivers were just getting started, but there was no appreciable rush of traffic on the roads.
There was a nice feeling of this being a city on its day off. People came out of churches; people stood talking at street corners; the factory smokestacks over to the south of the city were lifeless.
I found West South Street and the Union Depot without much trouble, parked the coupe, and made enquiries. There was a train for New York that very afternoon, which was great. There was a telephone booth on the station, which was also great.
I called Walt Toland, using his home number, knowing he would not be at the agency on Sunday.
“Hi, Walt. Lantry.”
A gurgle of surprise came from Walt’s end; maybe he was taking the call from his bed.
“I’m in South Bend, Walt, with something pretty big. I have some papers here that mean curtains for the Athelstan Shelmerdine organisation once they get into the hands of the Crime Commission. I’m putting them in the mail for you first thing tomorrow. This being Sunday, the post offices are all closed and I want to put this package in express delivery.”
“But, if you’re only in South Bend, why not bring them up here today? You can be in Chicago in a couple of hours.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll trust the mail. I’m sticking around Indiana for a while.”
The truth was, I had already decided to do some mooching around the vicinity of Shelmerdine’s country mansion and Rollinsville, once I had put the girl safely on the New York train.
Put it down to my being toned up too high a degree after my Florida vacation; or put it down to the Lantry weakness for sticking his neck out.
“Okay,” agreed Walt’s voice. “You want me to give these papers to the Crime Commission as soon as I get them?”
“As soon as you get them, Walt. I’ll address the package to you personally. This is hush-hush, understand? There’s nothing in this for anybody’s eyes but World Wide’s and the Crime Commis
sion’s. No tip-offs for the newspapers. Keep it hushed up and it’ll go off like a hydrogen bomb, shaking all kinds of bribed big shots from their money-lined rat holes.”
“Right, chief,” said Walt. He must have sensed I was about to stick my neck out, he added: “Luck!”
“Luck to you,” I said. Which concluded the call.
Next I called Lucy’s apartment, after waiting for quite a time while the long-distance call was put through.
Lucy answered the phone grouchily, as though I had disrupted her late Sunday breakfast, but she brightened when she heard who the caller was.
I told her what time to meet the train and gave a description of Joanne.
“Make her at home for a while,” I told her. “If she’s bored, she can give you a hand at the office. She’s a secretary and this is one who is really efficient.”
An indignant splutter came from Lucy’s end.
“Relax, Lucy,” I grinned. “Your pedestal isn’t in danger. But, seriously, look after the kid, huh?”
“Certainly, Mr. Lantry. Depend on me.”
“Good girl. See you around.”
I walked out of the booth and out to the street, climbed in the coupe, and started back for the Kays’ place. It was still a pleasant Sunday morning and I enjoyed the drive.
Joanne was giving Beth a hand with lunch when I arrived and Jack was knee-deep in the Sunday editions. It was all so cosy and family-ish that I had to guard like all hell against that feeling of envy that was so good at getting through the chinks in my armour.
I told Joanne there was a train that afternoon and that her future for the next few weeks would be a bright one. She went upstairs and returned with her ready-packed grip in one hand and a small package wrapped in brown paper in the other.
She handed me the package. Such a small thing, but so damned important it was like taking hold of radium.
“Just handing it over to someone is like taking a heavy weight off my back,” Joanne admitted.
I stowed the package inside my jacket. In doing so, my jacket flipped open a little too wide, revealing the shoulder holster and the 9mm Browning I had strapped on that morning.