Ginger’s big, slack mouth opened in a guffaw. “Not much chance o’ that. Ha-ha! Ho-ho!”
THE office was luxurious. The thick black rug dwarfed the Marquis’ modest figure, as he strolled in. A huge, soft domelight overhead put shine on his round, weather-ruddied cheeks.
Frankie May rose from behind a vast walnut desk whose top contained nothing but gloss and black desk-fixtures. He was over six feet, lithe, spare, thin-hipped, swarthy.
“The Marquis,” he exclaimed, in a tone of pleasure, and waited.
Under oiled curls, his face was too long, as if someone had grasped the point of his chin and pulled it down, then turned it up a little—or, as if he had exhibited his profile too often. His eyes were dark, large, and his teeth a little too prominent. The black crayon-line of mustache failed to do more than give him a wooden aspect. Yet, he was undoubtedly handsome, suave.
The Marquis’ eyes went speculatively from the single dark pearl that glowed in his dress-shirt to the star sapphire on one bony brown hand. “Jerry Lyle was beaten up again tonight,” the Marquis said.
May’s forehead wrinkled. He sat down slowly, his forehead knit, as if in concentration. He stayed crouched over, to fumble a box of cigars from the desk-drawer. “Pshaw, is that so?” He put the box on the blotter in front of him, still frowning deeply at it. He put up one finger. “Wait, now. Jerry Lyle. Lyle…. Lyle?”
“He’s the youngster that’s carrying a license around in his pocket to marry Dorinne Wilson. You remember her. She dances at Nick Tarkas’ place. Thanks, I don’t smoke.”
Frankie May kept his eyes on the box, while he selected a cigar slowly. He put the box away. “I seem to remember now.” He stared at the end of the cigar in his thin fingers, then leaned back and looked, heavy-lidded, across the desk.
“The Broadway squad must be having it quiet,” he observed. “A cheap band-leader in a third-rate taxi-drop—isn’t that the boy’s line—gets the personal attention of the lieutenant. My, my, Marty.”
“One of my hobbies, Frankie. Lots of square youngsters take it on the chin around this part of town, you might say, from tough guys—but not always. Not if we catch on. We kind of seem to have caught on, in this instance.”
May locked hands behind his head and looked dull. “So?”
“I left a little message here for you, with Ginger, last week.”
“The—” May’s chair creaked as he sat up. His eyebrows rose. “You did?” He jabbed under the desk.
The door opened, and the green-eyed, red-haired Ginger came in, buttoning his extreme dinner-coat.
“Marty says he left a message for me last week with you. What the hell’s the idea of not delivering it?”
Ginger looked downcast, snapped his fingers. “Gosh. Forgot all about it, chief. I’m sorry, chief—”
“It’ll cost you two Gs, you fat-head. Go and get it from the safe.”
The Marquis shook his head and said: “We ought to be able to eliminate the vaudeville, at this point.”
THERE was a second’s silence. May turned to Ginger, and Ginger looked at May. Their faces were completely sober. “He says ‘no,’ ” May said.
Ginger withdrew.
The Marquis’ round jaw moved faintly. There’s a lot of ambitious lads would like to step into your shoes, Frankie.”
“I had a feeling. I heard of that.”
“You’re sitting nice—a nice place, in the heart of the Stem, your tables packed with yokel trade. You get by with this and that, on those tables—percentages and such.”
“You think I’m not paying my way? Sit down, will you?”
“I’m just here for a minute. About paying your way—that’s all over my head. I wouldn’t know. But here’s a thought for you. Most of the hot-shots in this town went sour over some dame. You know—they do a little too well, in a business way, and that makes the old head swell up. They forget they’re still Avenue A gutter-pups and think they can run their personal affairs as if they amounted to something. I’d hate to see you go like that, Frankie.”
Nothing in May’s expression changed, but two faint spots of color bloomed on his drawn cheeks. He put his hands again behind his head. “You don’t think it’s kind of funny—this sort of talk, Marty?” Then he added, “From a lieutenant?”
“Tack ‘of the Broadway Squad’ after that, and see how it sounds.”
“Screwy,” May said, after a minute, amiably, “still screwy. But what the hell? We’re not going to spoil a friendship over a matter as simple as that?”
“You relieve me, Frankie. A person tried to tell me that you were feverish about this girl—enough so to go looking for trouble. Even—this is very funny—that you offered the boy—this Lyle—a ticket out of town, or else. A hot one, eh?”
They both grinned.
“You’ve been taking some kidding,” May said.
“I’ll have to hunt that party up and have Johnny bop him one. He really had me going. You know how I am, Frankie. She’s a tough old street and she can’t be anything else, I guess. Yet, when a couple of clean kids come along—I like to go along with them. That’s me—just a sentimental little Irisher. But don’t mistake this—I’m a peace-loving man, Frankie. Maybe, too much so. And I know people do make mistakes. I don’t hold it against them, when they reverse the field. You follow me? Sure you do. I see these kids, hungry for each other, and playing it right up to the hilt, and along comes this idea that some hot-shot’s turning a business organization loose on them. Hell, I go all mussy, Frankie. I like to see them let alone.
“However, what’s in the past is in the past. That’s one thing I had to learn, years ago, about running a district like this. A man’s got to compromise all over the place—got to take the will for the deed, as the fellow says, a lot of times.”
May looked at his hands. “It’s a damn shame you’re only a lieutenant, Marty. If you were, now, an inspector—you could run the place right, and you’d have the weight to back up what you said. Instead of, maybe, having that tin yanked off of you, do you get in somebody’s hair—somebody say, with the right connections.”
The grin did not fade an atom from the Marquis’ pleasant round face. “I manage, Frankie—one way or another. An inspector, now—he has to sit at a desk and plan out in advance, send out men to carry out the plans. That wouldn’t do me. I find it best to just keep circulating—keep on the spot and use the old head when I can. Too many shrewd lads around here these days to make it sensible to try and out-think them in advance.”
He hesitated. “It’s a system that seems to work, somehow. I’ve been getting by here for twenty years, you know. I can usually think up some weight to lay behind what I say. Hell, I have to, with a job like mine. You can imagine.”
May looked down at the desk and there were lines in his face. “Yeah, sure.” He, in turn, hesitated, a long minute. “You know I can figure where that rumor started, Marty. I took the kid out once or twice.”
“I heard—as though that meant anything.”
MAY’S face was solid. “Marty, I’m not one of these guys that fancies himself, like. You know that. But I been around a little, and—well, to be frank with you, Marty—that kid may have gone for me more than I suspected. Like you say, she’s got talent. If she should come around—I like her enough to give her a break or two. I haven’t got harelip, you know, and I’m not an old man—yet. If it should be that she—”
“You’re safe there, Frankie. She told me, personally, that she was all out for this young Lyle.” He looked at his watch, clucked his tongue. “Tsk—tsk. Now I’m late for an appointment. I—”
“Even the jane might be ribbing you about that, you know, Marty. Dames—who can explain them? If—”
With his hand on the knob, the Marquis shook his head. “Not a chance, Frankie. Not at my age. You can depend on what I say—on everything I say.”
For a second, May’s eyes got hot and restless, but he veiled them, dropped into his swivel chair and reached for his still
unlit cigar. “I always used to think so,” he growled.
The Marquis shrugged the Chesterfield higher on his shoulders. “I’m telling you,” he said softly. “For the last time.”
May jumped up suddenly. “So you’re telling me. What of it?”
The Marquis blinked slowly. “I see,” he said finally. “Well, that’s all I wanted to know. You’re a sick man, Frankie—with that old Broadway sickness.” He shook his head concernedly, seemed about to speak but didn’t. He went out slowly, comfortably, regarded the busy tables in the outer room, for a few minutes, made his way slowly downstairs and out again onto Broadway.
HE WALKED slowly south. Packed snow squeaked under his feet. He moved down Broadway, nodding, returning a greeting at every ten paces, till he rounded into Longacre Square. His face was thoughtful.
Coming from Seventh Avenue, big Johnny Berthold nearly collided with him.
The big man jumped back, his six-feet-two of burly, bruising frame ludicrous as he stumbled off balance. His wild mop of blond hair, surmounted by a gray fedora that curled up all around and seemed too small for him—which any hat did—was shaggy, uncut. He looked incredibly awkward. He was not awkward. He was the most feared strong-arm man on the New York police force.
“Uh—gosh, chief. Sorry. I—”
“Write me a letter,” the Marquis said, “I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.”
They sought a bench, in the Square.
In silence, the Marquis’ china-blue eyes rested softly on the running, blinking toothpaste advertisement above them. Johnny Berthold sat fiddling with his hands, looking from the corner of his eyes at the Marquis, envying the smaller man’s neat, poised polish. That polish, of all the qualities of the Marquis, was the least natural. He was a mugg—an Avenue A mugg. He would always be a mugg, far underneath the surface, no matter how fine a polish he might master. He was carefully tailored, erect, quiet, a dapper little man. He had carefully and painfully acquired taste. It was his secret pleasure to be mistaken for one of the graying, vehement little vice-presidents who argued all afternoon behind the tall, plate-glass windows of the Union League Club on Fifth. His bachelor apartment on Central Park West was conservative, done in proper old oak and leather. He was toying with the idea of acquiring a Jap.
He was, by depression standards, comfortably fixed. A widowed mother and two sisters lived in Brooklyn. He supported them and visited them once a month. They hadn’t much to say to him. They were in awe of what they thought was his salary, his silent polish, his slightly grim—even when it reached their ears—reputation.
Twenty years on Broadway had curled his soul at the edges. He would ruefully admit the place as cheap, noisy, bawdy, cruel, sordid, counterfeit—but he did not, in his heart of hearts, believe it. After twenty years integrated into it, how could he? His concept of crime was practical, geographical. He fought only viciousness, not lawlessness. If he fought it obscurely, he certainly did so quietly. No scandal of his making had ever bothered the department. If his methods were utterly unfathomable, unofficial, he kept order—a mammoth task.
His prestige, in an unspoken way, was immense. No one knew just how far he would go, now that it had been won, to maintain it. He had always been more than ready to go just as far as was necessary. He had a hatful of department medals—but only Fallon had saved him from facing a murder trial. No superior or subordinate knew more than a tiny fraction of his business—or his power. Perforce, he was uncommunicative—a lonely man, if he thought of it, with a hundred thousand acquaintances. Lieutenant Martin Marquis, of the Broadway Squad—or, the Marquis of Broadway.
Presently he said, “I guess he put it up to me. And it’s a terrible time for the district to have trouble.”
Berthold broke out: “May—you mean Frankie May? How can you avoid trouble with that lizard? You got no choice now, Marty—you got to cut him down.”
“How reach him? His business is here, but his pull is in the river wards. He turned three of them in, solid, the last four elections. He has his finger on the mayor. He’s above pinching.”
“Let me get him in an alley. Let me—”
“And have us both lose our shields? You’re talking nonsense.”
“You can’t take it lying down.”
“I’d be willing to, I think, if he calls ‘quits’ right now.”
“Did he say he would?”
The Marquis looked at his neat, black gloves. “No. He didn’t.” He got up, put his hands in the flat, tight pockets of his coat. He looked at the snow on the sidewalk. “Be around, Johnny. I’ll call you, one place or another.”
“Where you going?”
“I thought I’d see that girl.”
TURNING West from Broadway’s roaring glow, a few blocks north, he was a trim, neat figure, head bent against the finely sifting snow. The modest marquee of Nikki’s glowed orange, a block and a half ahead. Between the street-level door of the club and the canvas walls of the striped marquee, were a few feet of brilliantly lighted space—the sidewalk.
He got as far as fifty yards from it, when a bareheaded girl in a dark, high-collared evening coat, hurried out of the door, turned to take a small overnight bag from someone inside the glass doors, almost ran through the marquee and into a cab. The mournful, roly-poly figure of Nick Tarkas, proprietor of Nikki’s, followed out, stood watching, his swart face, with its blob of black mustache, plain in the bath of light.
The Marquis stopped where he was. He moved over to the curb, stood watchful. His blue eyes suddenly became dark, as he reached the end of a chain of thought.
When the cab, getting under way, came abreast of him, he peered sharply into the driver’s seat and called: “Wait a minute, Red.”
The taxi braked in its own length, backed up. A carrot head, under a peaked cap, protruded from the cab. “I got a fare, Marquis. I—”
“I know,” the Marquis said, and opened the rear door. Enough light from the nearby marquee slanted into the back window of the cab to make the girl darkly visible. She was tiny, terribly young. Black, shiny curls were piled on top of her head. Her features were small, delicately rounded. Her eyes were velvet-brown, though there was desperation in them now. She huddled in the corner of the cab, as if trying to draw as far as possible away from the Marquis.
“Sorry to stop you. Just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”
“Talking to you hasn’t helped us any.” Her voice was husky, frantic. “I won’t talk to you. Let me go!”
“Where are you going? Don’t you work here?”
“It’s none of your business. I don’t work here—no. I’ve got—got a better job.”
The Marquis blinked, dull-eyed. “At Frankie May’s spot?”
“What if it is? It’s none of your business, is it?”
The Marquis turned his head over his shoulder toward Tarkas. The Greek was coming across the sidewalk like a cautious tortoise, lapels turned up to protect his stiff shirt.
“When did this girl quit working for you?”
“Huh? Oh, that you, Marty? Well, about ten minutes ago.”
“Anything happen—any phone call or anything?”
“Why, yeah. Somebody called her up.”
The Marquis asked the girl: “Who?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I wish it weren’t,” the Marquis said regretfully, and turned to look toward Eighth Avenue. He put fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly, shortly.
A uniformed patrolman came around the corner, peering. The Marquis beckoned impatiently. As they waited, Nick Tarkas put in hesitantly: “The inspector phoned here, Marty, asking for you. Said to tell you—to tell you to call him, right away.”
The Marquis stopped dead, his eyes getting suddenly thin. “That makes it interesting. You haven’t seen me Nick.”
The Greek nodded, as the patrolman arrived on the run.
The Marquis nodded at the cab. “Jug this jane,” he told the cop. “Suspicion.”
“S
uspicion of what, Marty?”
“Good God, haven’t you any suspicions you can use?”
The girl cried out: “You can’t. You can’t arrest me—”
“Take her downtown,” the Marquis said.
He hailed another passing cab and left them there. He told his driver: “The precinct station.”
THERE was red in his forehead and a blaze far back in his dark-blue eyes, as he trotted up the steps between the twin green globes.
The lieutenant on desk duty looked up. “Oh, Marty! The inspector called and—”
“You haven’t seen me yet. I left a kid here unconscious in the locker-room. Is he still back there?”
“Lyle? No. He just went out. Didn’t you see him as you came—”
The Marquis swung away, went back outside, stared down the darkish street, not so dark as usual because of the packed snow. Three or four muffled figures were beating against the fine fall of snow, heading away from him along the long block.
The two nearest him were a man and a woman of middle age, apparently together. Fifty yards beyond them, a cripple limped along. Another sixty feet ahead was the dejected, boyish figure of Jerry Lyle, sagging, plodding hopelessly. The Marquis started in pursuit.
A car, parked at the curb, halfway between the Marquis and the boy’s unsteady figure, abruptly moved out from the curb, spurted.
The Marquis’ eyes jerked. The sedan suddenly swung in beside the boy. Two men jumped out. There was the flash of metal. The boy backed away, hands going up.
As if worked on a spring, the middle-aged man and woman suddenly turned and ran across the street, running away from the vicinity of the car. The cripple, floundering, tried to do likewise. He darted out into the slippery street, fell down. The Marquis pulled a gun from a hip pocket, aimed carefully and shot one of the two gunmen in the head. Even at sixty yards, the force of the Police Special knocked him from his feet as if hit with a baseball bat.
The second gunman whirled. Flame winked in his hand.
The Marquis moved swiftly to tighten himself against a building, fired again. He called, “Down, Jerry,” and threw another shot, as the boy dropped. It was a clean miss.
The Complete Cases of the Marquis of Broadway, Volume 1 Page 2