Murder Your Darlings

by J. J. Murphy

  Next to the white car—and directly in front of the police sedan—was a rickety coal truck. Small bursts of flame erupted in the open cargo bed as the bullets struck.

  “They’re shooting into the coal truck,” O’Rannigan shouted. “It’s catching fire!”

  Pockets of flame now dotted the truck’s load of black coal.

  One of Finn’s henchmen stuck his head and arm out of the window of the car. He reached forward, the top half of his body now struggling toward the tailgate of the coal truck.

  In an instant, Church released the siren and clutched a snub-nosed pistol. Quickly, he rolled down his window—but not quickly enough.

  The man grabbed the tailgate’s latch and opened it. The tailgate disappeared under an avalanche of flaming coal that poured into the street, directly in front of the police sedan.

  O’Rannigan wrestled with the wheel, but there was nowhere to go. To the left was a series of upright girders that supported the elevated train platform overhead. To the right was a milk wagon pulled by a horse.

  At the sight of the oncoming pile of flaming coal, the horse reared in fright. The driver of the milk wagon held on for dear life.

  O’Rannigan slammed the brakes. The car skidded on the first few chunks of coal. The oncoming pile was only thirty feet in front of them.

  “The milk!” Dorothy shouted.

  “What?” O’Rannigan yelled.

  But Church understood immediately. He flung open his door and swung his wooden peg leg out into open space. He pivoted and, with dead accuracy, shot his leg out sideways like a bolt. It broke the pole that connected the horse’s harness to the wagon. The driver released the reins. The horse ran free. But the wagon tilted on two wheels. It turned sharply—as Dorothy and Church saw it would—directly into the sedan’s path.

  The police car rammed straight into the broad side of the wagon, smashing the wooden cart to pieces. Pint-sized and quart-sized milk bottles exploded everywhere like fluid fireworks, spattering the sedan’s windshield with a cataract of creamy liquid, white foam and chunks of glass.

  Then the car smashed into the pile of coal like a fist pounding into a mound of sand, and lurched to a stop. Lumps of coal thunked and smudged the cracked, white-painted windshield, which shattered under the hailstorm of coal. Through the open window, they could see that the sedan’s hood was buried nose deep in the heaping pile of wet coal. The milk had extinguished most of the flames.

  They looked at one another, as if surprised to be alive.

  “Hey, you lunatics!”

  They turned to see the wagon driver shaking an angry fist. “You wrecked my wagon, spooked my horse and nearly killed me!”

  “Ah, piffle,” she said. “It’s no use crying over spilled—oh, never mind. Let’s clear out of here.”

  The paddy wagon screeched to a stop right behind the sedan. They clambered out of the car, stumbling and tripping over the lumps of wet coal.

  “No room up front. Get in the back,” O’Rannigan commanded Dorothy and Benchley, pointing to the prisoner compartment of the paddy wagon. The detective raced around and opened the back doors, clutching his small derby to his big head.

  “Won’t be the last time I ride in one of these, I’m sure,” she said, and climbed in. Benchley, Church and O’Rannigan followed.

  Chapter 40

  In the back of the speeding paddy wagon, Dorothy—with her eyes squeezed shut—caught the scent of baking bread. She had read that this smell was the last thing you sense before dying. Was she now about to die? She could smell it. The rich, yeasty, sweet aroma of . . . cookies?

  Her eyes popped open. Benchley wore his usual merry smile.

  “Smell that?” He breathed in deeply. “Must be fattening to live in this neighborhood.”

  She glanced out the small window at the hulking red-brick North American Biscuit factory.

  “Fig Newtons, I think,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Who gives a fig?”

  “Officer!” Church yelled through the small window to the driver’s cabin. “Do you have them in sight?”

  “Yes, sir! About a block ahead. We’re closing the distance.”

  “Faster, Officer. Faster!”

  “Sir!”

  Benchley leaned forward, a perplexed look on his face. He had to shout over the siren and the roar of the engine. “So, Captain, can you please explain something? If you had intended to use our lunch meeting today as bait for your trap, why did you come around to the party last night and tell us to call it off?”

  “We have our methods,” Church said.

  O’Rannigan wore a self-satisfied smile. “Ain’t you never heard of reverse psychology? We know how you smart alecks think. We tell you not to do something, and you go ahead and do it. We tell you to do something, you don’t do it. So we wanted to make sure you went ahead with your cuckoo plan.”

  “You’re a regular Dr. Freud,” Benchley said drily.

  “I’d say he’s Jung at heart,” she muttered.

  Church ignored them. “Officer! Have you caught up yet?”

  “Closing in, sir!”

  Against her better judgment, Dorothy leaned forward again over Church’s shoulder to peer through the little mesh window. She could see the white sedan just a short distance ahead and, beyond it, the long white limousine.

  An intersection approached. The limo sped heedlessly through the tangle of traffic; the sedan followed.

  She saw the elevated train tracks above the intersection. This must have been Greenwich Street again, where the Ninth Avenue El continued into Greenwich Village. The street fell into shadow under the train tracks as the paddy wagon sped into the intersection.

  The police driver jumped in his seat. “Holy sh—”

  Suddenly, a large white flash appeared directly in front of the paddy wagon. Dorothy saw the terrified eye and heard the frantic whinny. She and Church were jolted forward against the small window as the paddy wagon slammed hard, as if it had hit a wall.

  Chapter 41

  The paddy wagon stopped. The whinny turned intoa keening wail, more shrill and earsplitting than the siren’s wail. People screamed. Cars screeched to a halt.

  “God, no!” Dorothy cried. “Was that a horse?”

  The police driver looked back, horror-struck. “Came out of nowhere! I c-couldn’t stop in time.”

  Church spoke calmly, almost coldly. “Never mind. Go around it. Continue after Finnegan.”

  The paddy wagon was still rocking up and down.

  “Th-the horse is in the way. We’re stuck. God, it’s flailing!”

  The other officer in the passenger seat looked back. “It’s flopping around like a fish, Captain. It’s nearly crushed.”

  O’Rannigan got up, withdrawing his large police pistol. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Dorothy grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t you dare—”

  He didn’t look at her. He shook his arm free and kicked open the back doors of the paddy wagon. He jumped out.

  They couldn’t see where he went, but they could imagine it. A stomach-churning moment passed, until the echoing gunshot ended the horse’s wailing. The paddy wagon stopped rocking.

  She buried her face in her hands.

  The detective pulled himself back in. He closed the doors and sat down. “Let’s go, Officer.”

  The paddy wagon lurched into reverse, disentangled itself from the body of the horse, then rolled forward haltingly.

  “Can’t you move this thing any faster?” O’Rannigan barked as the paddy wagon limped along.

  “The whole front end is smashed in,” the driver said. “We’re lucky we’re moving at all.”

  “Detective O’Rannigan?” Benchley said.

  The detective didn’t respond.

  Benchley leaned forward, speaking louder. “Detective O’Rannigan?”

  The detective didn’t seem to hear him. “You’re never gonna believe this,” O’Rannigan said, his gaze and his voice distant. “It was the horse from the m
ilk wagon. Must have kept running down Ninth, then took the dogleg at Greenwich. Damned thing was nearly in two pieces when I shot it.”

  Dorothy cringed.

  “Detective O’Rannigan?” Benchley said tentatively.

  The detective turned sharply. “Did you just call me O’Rannigan? Not O’Tannenbaum? Or Orangutan? Or Orient Express?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Okay, Mr. Benchley. What?”

  “I do believe you were right from the start,” he said. “We should have taken Seventh Avenue.”

  Captain Church grimaced. “Officer,” he snapped at the driver, “faster, now, faster!”

  The paddy wagon hobbled forward without gaining much speed.

  “What’s the use?” Dorothy slumped in her seat. “There’s no chance we can catch up now. Either by Battersby or by Finn, Billy’s goose is cooked.”

  “Not so fast, Dottie.” Benchley took her hand, which made her stomach—already upset—tremble. “Billy’s resourceful. He’s smart. And despite what you may wish to think, he’s not a helpless little puppy. Furthermore, he wouldn’t give up on you. So let’s not yet give up on him, shall we?”

  She sat up. His optimism, as always, took the edge off her despair. It didn’t dispel it but made it somehow surmountable.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Certainly. Billy probably gave Battersby the slip, and at this very moment he’s likely waiting at a bus stop somewhere to get back to the Algonquin. We’ll all have a good laugh and a drink together when this is cleared up. You’ll see.”

  “Nah.”

  “No?”

  “He’s got no bus fare. He’s probably hitchhiking.”

  “See?” Benchley said, grinning. “What a resourceful fellow he is.”

  She suppressed a smile. Damned Benchley. Always ruining her bad moods.

  She turned and peeked out the tiny back window. They were moving into the industrial part of town now. They puttered by an icehouse, small factories, warehouses, stables and a couple tumbledown hotels. Eventually, the paddy wagon turned onto a cobblestone street.

  “There it is,” the driver said.

  On the left was the enormous St. John’s Freight Terminal. The printing plant was on the right.

  Finn’s white limo and white sedan were parked half in the street, half on the sidewalk. Most of the car doors were still open—Finn and his men had been in a hurry.

  “Go around the corner—to the loading dock,” O’Rannigan ordered. “We’ll sneak in the back door.”

  Around the corner, at the loading dock, stood a line of big trucks emblazoned with NEW AMSTERDAM SUPPLY CATALOGUES AND CALENDARS, INC.

  A smaller truck was also haphazardly parked there. Its front end was severely dented in, and its front doors had been left open hurriedly, too. Printed on the side of the truck: NEW CANAAN BIBLE CO.

  “So it was Battersby who tried to run us down,” Benchley said.

  The driver said over his shoulder, “That truck was parked behind the Algonquin Hotel today.”

  “It was?” O’Rannigan snapped. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I-I didn’t think anything of it. How was I to know?”

  O’Rannigan fumed but didn’t have an answer. “Stop the car. Let’s go!”

  The paddy wagon skidded to a stop. They jumped out onto the cobblestone street. The two officers took the lead, O’Rannigan and Church next, followed by Dorothy and Benchley. They ran up the concrete steps to the loading dock.

  O’Rannigan cursed. “Where the hell are the men from the Fourteenth Precinct?”

  As if on cue, sirens sounded nearby.

  O’Rannigan and Church, their guns drawn, paused to listen. The sirens came closer. Then they seemed to come to a stop around the corner, where Finn’s cars were parked.

  “Good,” said Church. “Those officers will secure the front of the building. We have the rear. No one can escape.”

  “Let’s go!” O’Rannigan roared, his pistol clutched in his meaty fist. He ran into the only open bay on the loading dock. The officers and the police captain followed him.

  Dorothy and Benchley peered into the darkness through the open bay door. They could hear the loud locomotivelike chugging of the printing press.

  Benchley raised his eyebrows. “Once more unto the breach, dear friend?”

  She shrugged. “Lay on, MacDuff.”

  They turned and went inside.

  Chapter 42

  The large room was dark, but Dorothy and Benchley were able to make out the outlines of thick bundles of newspapers piled into six-foot-high mounds, ready to be loaded onto the trucks outside.

  Ahead, they could see the figures of the policemen, shouting and running into the wide doorway that led to the printing floor. From that direction came the chugging of the enormous printing presses.

  She tugged Benchley’s sleeve. “The cops and the gangsters will keep each other busy. We have to find Billy and Battersby.”

  “Certainly. But where?”

  “The boilers, of course. Let’s find the stairs to the cellars.”

  Instead of following the policemen, they circled around the edge of the room, looking for a stairway. Finally, as they neared the wide doorway that opened to the printing room, they spotted a darkened stairway. Trotting down the dark stairs, they nearly collided with a portly figure.

  “By Jupiter!” the man shrieked.

  “Woollcott!” she yelled. “You just about scared the pants off us!”

  Woollcott, in his silken Oriental pajamas, was nearly shaking.

  “And it looks like someone scared the pants off you,” Benchley said.

  Woollcott composed himself quickly. “Those brigands. Those bootlegging fiends. Kidnapping a man out of his bed—”

  “My bed, you mean,” she said.

  He ignored her. His tone changed from indignant to joyous. “But what loyal friends you are to come to my rescue! How can I repay you?”

  “How?” she said, moving down the stairs. “You can stay here. We’re looking for Billy. Have you seen him?”

  “Well, no.”

  They turned and left him openmouthed at the top of the stairs and continued down into the darkness.

  At the bottom of the stairs, they could smell rather than see the furnaces somewhere to their left. Someone was coming toward them. They heard the sound of pounding feet and heavy breathing. Benchley reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches, lighting one quickly with his thumbnail.

  Three burly men, covered head to toe in soot, charged out of the darkness. Dorothy and Benchley flattened themselves against the wall. The three coal scuttlers grunted as they ran by, not even slowing down.

  “Let’s go,” she said after they passed. “Battersby and Billy can’t be far.”

  As they neared the end of the corridor, they could see the flicker of flames coming from the infernolike boiler furnaces. When they turned the corner, the heat hit them like a wave.

  Ahead, silhouetted by the flickering light of the three boilers, the figure of Battersby pulled on the arm of Faulkner, who lay on the ground.

  “Bud Battersby! Enough!” she yelled.

  Battersby looked up. Then he turned away toward the boiler. He grabbed something—a shovelful of yellow hot coals. Twisting back around, he flung it—shovel and coals together—at her and Benchley. They jumped back into the corridor. The shovel landed at their feet with a clang. The glowing coals skittered across the floor.

  After a moment’s pause, she and Benchley peeked around the corner. Both Battersby and Faulkner were gone.

  “Is he—” Benchley said. But Dorothy was already running for the nearest furnace. She was relieved she couldn’t see Billy inside. She glanced at the floor.

  “Look,” she said. Something had been dragged away in the coal dust. “This way.”

  They ran ahead and soon came to the open door of the large newsroom. The room was empty. Two sets of dusty footprints went off in the direction of th
e executive offices at the far end of the room. They followed the footprints, which ended at the doorway to Battersby’s spartan office.

  An electric whirr came from the back wall. There was a small metal door set into the wall at about waist level. It looked like a tiny elevator.

  “A dumbwaiter,” she said, moving toward it. “It’s going up.”

  On the floor, directly below the dumbwaiter, were a few scraps of paper.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “Typesetter’s instructions,” Benchley said. “You suppose they somehow took this dumbwaiter up to the typesetting room?”

  “So it would seem,” she said. “Should we wait for this one to return, or take the stairs?”

  They turned around and took the stairs.

  Back up on the printing floor, the thunderous noise from the printing presses battered their ears. Looking around, they saw a knot of men at the far end of the gigantic room: Captain Church and several policemen stood guard over a few of Mickey Finn’s men. But Finn himself, as well as Lucy Goosey, was noticeably absent.

  As Dorothy and Benchley ascended the wooden staircase to the typesetting room, they noticed that the three enormous printing presses were going full steam, yet there were no workers tending to the great machines. Likely the police had evacuated them from the building.

  So, it was a surprise to find the typesetters still working busily in the glass-enclosed room that overlooked the printing floor. The half dozen typesetters—speedily punching keys on the Linotype machines or filling up the printing plates—seemed unaware of, or unconcerned about, the mayhem going on below.

  Benchley scanned the room to locate the dumbwaiter; then he tapped the shoulder of the nearest man, who turned with a start.

  “Your boss?” Benchley enunciated loudly and slowly. “Mr. Battersby?” He pointed to the dumbwaiter.

  The man frowned, seemingly annoyed by the interruption.

  Dorothy grabbed some of the lead letters from the table and quickly put them in order. She waved to get the man’s attention, then pointed at what she had spelled: BatTerSby.