Silence flowed into the room. The faint ticking of a clock became audible. Tracy glanced leisurely about him. He looked at Korner’s henchmen. There were four of them. All on their feet and watching him. He knew them all. Besides Sid he saw Tubby Cohen, Al Carmody and sleek little Willie Frisco. Frisco’s wrinkled face was the color of gray parchment; his eyes were dull with a sullen and vindictive hate.
“Frisk him, Willie,” Korner breathed.
Willie’s gat came out of his pocket. He moved forward with alacrity. “Up!” he snarled briefly. With his free hand he gave the columnist a quick overhaul. “Nope.” He stepped back and Tracy lowered his arms. Tracy ignored the henchmen and walked over to the desk. He stood there, staring down at Korner.
“Okey, kid,” the racketeer said softly. His voice purred. “I’m a rat and the pal stuff is out. You’re here and I’m listening.”
“Just why,” Tracy asked him, “did you order that mummy-faced little —— Frisco to push lead at me tonight?”
“Well, well, well,” Korner said smoothly. “Ain’t the little Broadway garbage man tough tonight? And all by himself, too!” His voice changed suddenly. “Or is he all by himself?”
Jerry smiled mirthlessly. “Do you think I’m a sucker?” he asked flatly. “Did you think I’d come here alone? Put myself on the spot for a murdering heel like you? Be yourself, Korner!”
The Dutchman glanced towards the front room. “Take a look, Sid.”
Sid’s mouth was nasty when he came back.
“Yeah. Harry Wilkie’s outside, Chief. The big stiff’s parked across the street in a car. He’s the only one I could see.”
“In other words,” Tracy said, “I never walk on one-way streets. I walked in here and I’m going to walk out. And if I don’t walk out pretty —— damned soon, there’ll be a committee of nosey cops ringing your doorbell to find out why.”
Willie Frisco’s lips snarled: “Let’s smoke the louse and take a chance on the break.”
Korner said: “Shut up, Willie. I’ll do the talking.”
“Willie did his talking earlier tonight,” Tracy said. He leaned over the desk with his face close to the gangster. “Now it’s your turn, Otto. Suppose you talk! Whatever made you think I’d take hot lead and like it? I’m still asking.”
“Oh, you’re askin’, are yuh?”
The Dutchman’s heavy fist shot out and caught Jerry flush on the jaw. The little columnist sprawled backward on the floor.
He was on his feet again in a moment, his face grim. There was a red mark on his jawbone just below the corner of his mouth.
Before he could say a word, Korner said: “How did it feel to be hit by a man—you lousy little blabber-mouth?” How do yuh like it—you dirty yeller little newspaper spy!”
The words died away as he saw the look on Tracy’s face. There was a long silence. Then Tracy spoke. His voice was low, hard:
“Okey, Korner. … I know what’s on your mind now. Well, let me tell you something … That little item you’re referring to was blue-penciled, get me? It was out—in the basket—I was actually giving you a break … Well, all right! A minute ago I asked for it—and you handed it to me. Now you’re asking for it; and by ——! you’re gonna get it!”
He picked up the telephone from Korner’s desk. He began dialing a number. Willie Frisco bounded forward. Korner growled and waved the killer back. There was a queer look on the Dutchman’s fleshy face.
“Nix, Willie! Let him talk. I want hear him talk.”
Tracy’s nasal voice cut in with staccato speed. “City desk, child. … Hello—Fielding? Tracy calling. That’s right; Mrs. Tracy’s headstrong little boy. … Last minute change, Fred! I blue-penciled an item this morning on Otto ‘O.K.’ Korner. Yeah, the big Dutch professor with the A.B. degree from Oshkosh—Alcohol Baron … Right; that’s the yarn, Freddie. Rip a hole for it and shove it in big. As is. Just as I wrote it. And Fred—listen to this!”
His chuckle was as mellifluous as strained honey.
“Here’s a laugh for the dramatic department. I’m telling you over Korner’s own phone. … The hell I’m kidding! His smiling face is just about six inches away from mine and—Why, Fred, you skeptical old journalist! … Right; shove it in, commas and all. S’long.”
He hung up.
“That, Otto my friend, is that.”
“If that thing is printed,” Korner said slowly, “you’ll take six in the gut. Not from Frisco. Me. If it’s the last thing on earth I do.”
Tracy gave him a long level stare, turned his back on him and walked to the door. He said to Frisco: “Open up, lousy. I don’t like the air in here.”
“Let him out,” Korner said thickly.
Frisco hesitated. His raging eyes fell before the Dutchman’s. He unlocked the door. As Tracy passed into the hall Korner’s husky voice drifted out after him. “Remember! If that crack gets out on the streets—it’s either you or me!”
Detective Wilkie put his watch away as Jerry climbed into the parked automobile. The big plain-clothesman was shivering with the cold.
“Fourteen minutes!” he growled. “I might have known you’d keep me out of it!”
Jerry took the wheel and drove off in silence. Wilkie continued to stare at him belligerently.
“You’re a crazy little —— to go jamming in there like that. What good did it do? Will you please tell me what in hell it got you?”
“Self-respect,” said the somber voice behind the wheel.
It was less than an hour after Jerry had returned to his penthouse when the doorbell rang. He rose jerkily from the deep leather chair and picked up a gun. He stood tensely for a second; then the bell buzzed twice again. He sighed faintly, laid down the gun and walked towards the foyer.
He heard McNulty’s bedroom door open and the pattering of slippered feet. The Chinese butler was in a weird-looking Oriental nightrobe; but there was no sleepiness in the almond eyes. His hands were concealed in wide flowing sleeves.
“Me go,” he said quickly.
“The hell you will!” Tracy snapped. He elbowed the old fellow aside and answered the ring himself.
The night elevator man was outside with a fresh folded newspaper. Tracy took it and went back to the living-room. McNulty was there, pretending not to see the gun on the table. The newspaperman turned the pages of the smudgy Planet, ran his eye down the column. He read the thing with a detached professional stare. It was there, all right; Fielding hadn’t muffed a comma. Mechanically, he read it a second time.
The Chinese said gravely: “Why hell you no go bed, Boss? You no tired, hey?”
“I’m not tired. I’m staying up a while. I won’t need you, old boy. Scram back to bed.”
McNulty shook his head. “Me stay.”
“You—what!” Anger snapped into Tracy’s voice. He tossed the Planet aside. “Listen, Bum, when I—”
The phone rang. He walked over and picked it up. He said, dryly: “Tracy. Yeah … ” And in an even dryer voice: “Talk slower, Korner. I can’t understand you the way you’re shouting. … You telling me? I just read it this minute, sweetheart.”
His smile wavered but he added steadily: “You a betting man, Otto? I’ll bet you an even grand that Manny Gross’ brother figures it out and pots you in three days. What do you think?”
“I think,” the voice on the wire screamed, “that you’re a dirty, double-crossin’ little ——!” It bubbled into a thick barrage of profanity. Korner sounded well liquored. “I’m gonna fix you for that—an’ I’m tellin’ you right now I don’t give a damn—”
“Why should you, sweetheart? You’re washed up in this town no matter what you do—and I’m the guy that did it.”
Deliberately Tracy egged him on, explained in mocking detail just what the squib would do to Otto, to his leadership. Jerry smiled with a grim satisfaction. He could hear Korner bellowing with rage at the other end of the wire.
Jerry cut in. His voice was thin, steely.
“What are
you going to do about it, Tough Guy?” Deliberately he parroted the scornful challenge that Korner had hurled at him earlier in the evening. “How does it feel to take it from a man, Korner? A newspaperman! How does it feel to take it on the chin from a lousy little blabber-mouth? Maybe you’d like to change your mind now about yeller little scandalmongers.”
Korner’s frenzied roar vibrated in the receiver. Again Jerry cut in icily.
“Well, what are you going to do about it? Just roar like an ape with the bellyache?”
“I’ll tell yuh what I’m gonna do!” Otto howled. “I’m comin’ over there an’ I’m gonna spill your guts! I’m gonna tear yuh apart, yuh little rat!”
“I don’t think you will,” Jerry jerked. “You’re not man enough to.” His eyes narrowed to mere slits. He heard the receiver slam at the other end of the wire. He smiled a little breathlessly and hung up.
McNulty was watching him, his yellow face expressionless. Tracy had an idea there was probably something cold and sharp concealed somewhere in those wide flowing sleeves. He said gently: “Go to bed, Kid.”
He threw an affectionate arm around the old man’s shoulder and walked him to the door of his bedroom.
“In, old fella. Fireworks are over. … Savvy?”
McNulty’s slant eyes flickered. He touched Jerry’s arm for a moment. He went into his room and shut the door after him.
Tracy poured himself a stiff drink. He took another. Two—that was enough. … Running a column—a fearless column—was no fun. Put up or shut up. Knuckle down to Korner or anybody else and you stopped being Jerry Tracy. You became two other fellas—and both of ’em were yeller. A soft snicker would roll from the Battery to Bronx Park. …
He lit a cigarette. His hand was a little trembly. He walked about, eyed the quiet magnificence of the big modernistic living-room; opened the French windows and stared across the stone terrace at the faint powdering of stars. Getting hazy over the East River; dawn pretty soon. …
He felt pretty good about the way he had handled the Dutchman. But there was a strong undercurrent of uneasiness to his pleasure. Korner’s threats were never idle—and Korner had been ferociously specific about what he intended to do. He was going to spill Jerry’s guts! No mistake about that; he meant it. Some time, some place—from that moment on it would be watch your step, Jerry! Keep alert, Jerry! The finger on you from now on! Tracy sweated and the clock ticked slow time.
Abruptly the house phone trilled. Its sound brought the columnist up tense and trembling. Cursing his jangled nerves, he answered it.
“Who? Oh, he won’t give his name, eh? I see.”
Damned right, he saw!
He said carefully into the instrument: “Is he a fat, hammered-down fella? Big shoulders? Little gray eyes? Uh-huh. … A bit drunk, you say? Yeah, I guess I know him. … Stall him for a second, Looie.”
He hesitated. Korner downstairs! Liquored. A gun on him without any doubt at all. Call the police? Jerry knew instantly he couldn’t do that. That was out. It was strictly up to J. Tracy, Esq. This deadly stew was a personal dish to eat all by yourself. A two-man quarrel. Either Jerry quit—or Korner did. “If I crawl,” Jerry thought, “I’m through in this town forever. By ——! I can’t crawl! I’ve got to see it through. … ”
He eyed his shaking hand grimly. “Am I yeller or not?” he thought.
“Send him up,” he said into the telephone.
He slipped his own gun into his pocket, opened the front door of his apartment and stepped outside.
His movements were quick and silent.
He shut the door and left it unlocked. There were three penthouse doors fronting on the rectangular public hall—A, B and C. Tracy’s was marked “B.” A few feet away was an angle in the wall leading to the head of the fire-tower and the enclosed descent of fireproof stairs required by law.
Tracy melted out of sight like a ghost.
The elevator door clanged. “Penthouse B, sir,” said Looie’s voice. Another clang and a faint diminishing whir like wind in a knothole as the car went down.
Otto “O.K.” Korner tiptoed across the corridor. He took off his overcoat, balled it up and threw it in a corner. Then he drew a squat black automatic. For a moment he stood there, his eyes veering cautiously. They were red-rimmed eyes. Shiny. Like water.
He crouched for a moment at the door marked “B.” Then he straightened up and examined the hall carefully.
Getting the lay of the place, Jerry thought to himself. He could almost see the alcohol-whipped brain working laboriously behind those little eyes. Jerry wondered how the Dutchman was going to crash the door. To his surprise, Korner turned suddenly and tiptoed towards the entrance to the fire-tower where the columnist was crouching.
The answer flashed through Tracy’s mind. Korner was looking for the fire exit leading from the roof. A wise guy! He’d step out on the terrace, locate the columnist’s apartment and calmly pot his victim through a window.
Jerry stiffened. As the big Dutchman turned the corner, the columnist’s plunging weight pinned him off balance against the fireproof door. Jerry’s gun was a grim, ramming pressure on Korner’s spine. The fingers of his free hand were clamped steel hooks on the killer’s extended wrist.
Korner whirled halfway round, carrying Jerry with him. The columnist’s chin was sunk in the fat shoulder.
“Drop it!” he gasped. “Drop it or I’ll blow you wide open!”
There was death in that clipped cry of his—the crackle of a grim hysteria. Korner sensed hair-trigger death in the voice. His body went instantly limp. He let go of his gun and it clicked on the floor.
The Dutchman cursed obscenely and kicked the fallen weapon away. Tracy prodded his spine and marched him grimly to the door marked “B.” He was afraid to try to recover the kicked gun; Korner was too deadly a customer to take chances with. It was like holding a tiger by the tail. Better get him inside quickly!
“Open up,” Tracy whispered. “It’s unlocked. Push it wide open. Take six steps into the foyer and stop. Whoa!”
He shut his door and locked it. Every light in the penthouse was ablaze. Korner’s face looked greenish, drained of all humanity. So did Tracy’s.
He said: “In, Korner. Straight ahead.”
They marched into the living-room and Tracy laughed a little.
“Six in the gut. That’s what you said I’d get, Otto. Six in the belly for a yeller little Broadway scavenger.”
Korner leaped at him like a flash of light, his fingers clutching for the gun. Tracy was barely able to wrench it free and swing it awkwardly against the Dutchman’s skull. Korner stumbled backward but only for an instant. He was on Jerry like a landslide before the columnist could point the weapon.
They wrestled in a silent primeval struggle for its possession. Korner’s strength was enormous. His thick fingers were twisting the muzzle—slowly, relentlessly—so that it strained inch by inch towards the columnist’s arched belly.
Suddenly Jerry’s face ducked desperately and he sank his teeth into the fleshy hand of his foe. Otto let go instantly with a shrill, bestial yelp. The convulsive heave of his big body threw Jerry off balance and he dropped the gun.
There was no chance to retrieve it—Korner’s fingers were already diving greedily towards the floor. Tracy took the one slim recourse left to him and he kicked at the weapon with all his strength. It flew through the open doorway of the living-room and skidded out of sight down the polished wood floor of the long foyer.
The racketeer cursed and swung a terrific blow at the columnist. Tracy bobbed swiftly away and drove his own fist into Korner’s mouth. The gun was utterly forgotten now—it had never existed—they were ape-men, snarling breast to breast in an ancient jungle. They swayed toe to toe, grunting and smashing at each other’s bodies. Tracy laughed pantingly, tauntingly. He was a smaller man, infinitely more agile.
No one on Broadway would have recognized Tracy’s taut, dead-white face. He was a sneering madman. And as he fough
t—he taunted.
“Who’s the yeller belly, Otto? I’m a little Broadway heel—half your size. … My wind is rotten with cigarettes—I’m soft with liquor. … But I’m gonna beat hell outta you—and put that in the paper, too!”
They fought up and down the room. Jerry was a circling gadfly—his jabs carried a sting like fire. He kept weaving in and out, dodging the smashing attack of the heavier man. Korner fought to get at close quarters. Once he almost had him, but Jerry’s desperate straight-arm blow snapped Korner’s head back with blood bubbling from his nose.
They stumbled against a floor-lamp and it went over with a crash and the sharp pop of an exploded bulb.
The columnist danced swiftly in at his foe. A left—dodge and duck—another left! He was cutting Korner to ribbons but he couldn’t hold him off. The ponderous rushes were driving the smaller man up and down the room. Tracy’s mouth was wide open; he breathed with quick, noisy gasps. Once upon a time he had been a fair lightweight boxer on a college squad, but that was a long time ago. And still Korner came at him, bloody, ponderous—and clutching, always clutching for the tight hold, the wrestler’s embrace.
They reeled into a table and Tracy grabbed for a bronze statuette—and missed it—as table and contents went flying. His heels caught in the wreck and he went over backwards. He managed to roll away from Korner’s kick; but before he could get to his knees Korner was on him with a thump.
The big man’s very eagerness made him clumsy. Jerry squirmed away like an eel. He shut his eyes to the blows hammering at him and his threshing fingers closed on the coldness of the fallen statuette.
He swung it like a bronze club at the face above him. Swung it relentlessly till the face screamed and pulled away.
He was on his feet again somehow, but the club was gone. He had lost it as he dodged past an upturned table leg that bruised him like a sharpened stake.
In a daze he saw Korner close to him with an upswung chair in his hands. The light glinted on the modernistic metal as the chair came at him. Jerry felt the wind of it pass his ear as he leaped aside. The movement cleared his head somewhat. The Dutchman was thrown off balance by the weight of the metal chair and Jerry’s fists lashed out at him viciously. Both men were panting heavily.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 15