He marshaled his theory in parade formation as the taxi jounced uptown. Jimmy Earle of the Planet working on his Famous Unsolved Crimes of Manhattan rehash; digging into odd corners, nosing around old smells. Then Jimmy Earle meets a little dancing baloney named Dot West and gets chummy. The West woman knows—or knew—Benny Griffin; in fact, Earle boasts to Nino that he yanked her away from him. Griffin is a smoothly vicious gunman with a swell political pull and a record of plenty arrests and no convictions. Griffin is also head man and bodyguard for Jackie Herzog, the biggest card-and-dice czar in Manhattan since the unfortunate death of Solly Arnstein.
Tracy smiled like a wolf. Three years ago—come next July—the unfortunate Arnstein had staggered stoically out of the Rex Hotel and died silently on the sidewalk with bullets in his entrails. His death had ripped open one of the city’s biggest scandals in years; had revealed a stew of corrupt politics, crooked bets, sordid vice graft. But Arnstein’s murderer was never found. The case passed into the cynical folk-lore of a cynical town. “Famous Unsolved Mysteries of Manhattan,” by James K. Earle. …
And the man who had wept the loudest and offered the biggest cash reward was Jackie Herzog. … The fat little gambling kingpin, whose henchman was tough Benny Griffin, who knew Dot West, who knew Jimmy Earle, who discovered a front-page sensation, who got himself snatched—by a couple of rats—”
“—that lived in the house that Jack built!” Tracy growled softly. He leaned forward in the cab. “Okey, Bud! Stop at the next corner.”
He walked over to Seventh Avenue, entered a crumbling red-brick dump and interviewed Moe, the greasy little dime-down agent who knew all the N. T. G. rejects, the Loew tryouts, the audition hopefuls.
Twenty minutes later and a half mile south of 41st, Tracy rapped on a six-dollar-a-week door and pushed in when it opened.
Dot West was smaller than he expected; dark hair, grayish eyes, a bit plump for a dancer. Her voice was tough but that didn’t fool him; her eyes were scared. She looked like a trapped pigeon watching a tomcat.
“Outside!” she snapped.
“No. Inside.”
“What’s the idea pushing in like that? Who do you think you are?”
“The idea was to say hello. And I think I’m Jerry Tracy. I run a newspaper column and I’m as famous as hell. … Uh-huh! She’s heard of me! That’s fame!” His cocky smile made her taut lips relax momentarily. “I’m the man who knows all. F’rinstance: you’re Dot West and I hear you’re a swell little dancer.”
She stared at him suspiciously. She smiled faintly.
“Somebody’s been kidding you, Mr. Tracy.”
“I don’t think so, babe. Jimmy’s not the guy that kids when he praises people.”
“Jimmy?” Her eyes blinked. Panic spilled back into them.
“Sure. Jimmy Earle. Pal of mine. He works on the Planet.”
“Never heard of him,” she quavered.
“That’s too bad. I was looking for him. He dropped out of sight today for some reason or other. Did I tell you—I’m a damned good friend of Jimmy’s.”
“Why tell me?” she said faintly. The color drained slowly from her face. She reached for the back of a chair and sat down heavily.
Tracy studied her for a moment with a shrewd eye. This kid was decent; she was on the up-and-up! She must be actually in love with the Earle tramp! Imagine that! Abruptly he changed his plan of attack. He’d shoot her the brutal truth! He did.
“Listen, Dot. A big sedan slowed up alongside of Jimmy Earle on 52nd Street this afternoon. A couple of gorillas hopped out and put the snatch on him. Kidnaped him, get me? Earle’s due to be bumped because he’s got the goods on a lousy murderer and he’s too good a reporter to be bought off. … Got that? All right; now take this! I was lying when I told you he was a good friend of mine. Let’s be sensible. Neither of us two gives a damn whether they bump Jimmy Earle or not. I don’t know what you want. All I want is to find him and get his exclusive story before they slice into his heart. Know where he is?”
“No,” she whispered. She was waxen with a stiff horror.
“What about Benny Griffin? Don’t lie. Where’s Griffin’s hideout?”
“I don’t—know—any Griffin.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Craftily Tracy went off on another tack. The kid was scared stiff; afraid to talk. All right; he’d get her sore! He dangled the bait with a smile that was deliberately nasty.
“Listen, Dot. Let’s be business men. How would you like to break into big-time dancing? How would you like to see ‘DOT WEST’ up in the lights? You know my rep, kid; slip me the dope and I can do it. To hell with Earle. Gimme Benny Griffin’s number and I’ll put you over with a bang. I’ll ease you into a top-spot in the Apex Theatre. Why, I can—”
“You dirty, lousy heel!”
Her words flew at him in an incoherent torrent. He grabbed both her shoulders and shook the hysteria out of her.
“When did you see Jimmy Earle last? Come on! Hurry up!”
“This morning,” she moaned. “We had a date for this afternoon but he never showed up. I thought he was giving me the gate. I never dreamed for a minute— Oh —— I love him, I—”
“Sure you do,” Tracy said. “Did you think I was blind?”
“Don’t let them kill him! It’s my fault. I got him into it. Benny Griffin used to take me out a lot—I played him for meals and drinks like a lot of other hungry dames without a dime. I didn’t know who he was, then. And he got drunk one night and boasted about the Arnstein killing—honest to gawd, I was afraid to listen to him—and I told Jimmy Earle—”
The Planet columnist’s laugh was short and harsh, like the bark of a dog.
“Jimmy dragged it outta you, huh? Then he went snooping. He’s busted the Arnstein murder wide open or I’m a liar! Who did Griffin say was the killer? Don’t lie to me; if you don’t know, say so. Was it Jack Herzog himself?”
“I—I think so. Yes.”
“Hot ziggedy!” His notebook flew out and his fountain pen point poised over the paper. “Gimme the address!”
“You mean Herzog?” She looked stupidly at him.
“Herzog, hell! I want the hired man—the body snatcher—Griffin! Where’s his hangout?”
He jotted it down and started for the door. With one hand on the knob he turned. The girl was swaying in the middle of the room, staring at him. She had a twisted old-woman look on her face. Tracy had seen that same funny look once before: a nineteen-year-old wife with a face wrinkled like a senile old lady, sitting in the warden’s office at Sing Sing and watching the clock, while out in the death house they were burning a twenty-year-old kid who happened to be her husband.
“Don’t let them kill Jimmy!” the dancer was croaking.
Tracy shrugged and opened the door of the room.
“Sit tight and keep your mouth shut, I’ll see what I can do about the boy friend.”
One of the weather-beaten planks in the back fence was split jaggedly along the grain and the spry little columnist applied an eye to the opening. He studied the shadowy yard and the rear of the building. The place was an old-fashioned relic of the brownstone Nineties. Basement and three stories, with a one-story outhouse leading to the yard. Up on the second floor there was a flicker of yellow light under the bottom of a drawn shade—looked like the Kicker from a gas-jet. The rest of the house was black and formless.
Tracy swung himself over the fence and dropped carefully into the yard. He wished to hell Butch was with him, but there was no sense in wishing. This job called for speed, stealth and silencer—mostly speed. Two men would double the risk; they’d only get under each other’s feet.
Tracy glanced guardedly at the illuminated dial of his watch. Pretty late already. The managing editor of the Planet was probably still in the shop, biting his nails and watching the clock himself. Jerry shoved both hands in his pockets and felt better. There was a short-barreled .38 detective special in one pocket; a slim fountain-pen flashlig
ht in the other.
He stared at the dark house and a ridiculous tune stirred under his scalp, Made him grin. “Somebody stole my pal!”
He tiptoed along the yard.
The outhouse door was locked. Tracy got to the top of the side fence; and from the fence to the shed roof. He stepped carefully, feeling for beams pith his feet—damned roof was like paper!
He tried the window carefully. Locked. Jerry detached a gold pen-knife from the chain that swung across his vest. The sash was badly warped and he had no difficulty forcing back the old-fashioned catch. He replaced the knife methodically and braced his feet solidly over two adjacent beams. He lifted the window with agonized care for an inch or two.
He slid his arm through the opening and let the shade up as high as he could reach. The thin pencil gleam of his torch showed him an old-fashioned back parlor, closed double sliding-doors dividing off a front room and a smaller sliding-door that should lead to a hall.
Squatting outside on the shed roof like a shadowy gnome, he forced the window slowly up, pushing with a stiff, even pressure of his whole body. He was grinning with satisfaction when the squeak came. E-eeeeee! The shrill sound galvanized him into action. He jammed the window recklessly up and jumped into the room.
He could hear feet pounding on stairs. Like a ghost he flitted across the inky parlor and squatted behind an armchair near the closed double-doors.
The hall door opened. Two figures sprang in. A voice hissed: “The damn’ window’s open! Some mugg’s been tryin’ to git in from the shed!”
The window framed his bent back. “There’s the ——! Down in the yard—by the back corner there!”
“Whereabouts?” The second voice was throaty. “You’re nuts, Izzy. That’s shadow.”
Tracy’s muscles cringed but he made himself rise. With his heart in his throat the Planet’s dapper columnist slid from his cramped covert and tiptoed through the darkness towards the hall door. Six slow steps of icy fear.
The shrill voice at the window said: “Shadow, hell! There’s somethin’ movin’ down there. I’ll smoke it a couple an’ see.”
“I’ll smoke you!” the throaty voice snarled. “Yuh wanna blow up the whole neighborhood, you dumb cluck?”
Jerry Tracy melted down the black hallway, feeling out with his left hand for the banisters. He hoped there’d be a carpet-runner on the staircase leading aloft. There wasn’t—his fingertips felt bare wood.
He climbed warily in the darkness, trying to hold most of his weight on the rear foot. And on the sixth step—he lifted desperately at the last second—eeeeeeeeek!
He heard a yelp from the back parlor. He sped helter-skelter to the top of the flight and threw himself flat on the landing. The stairs curved inward at the top. Lying flat on his side with his legs stiffly extended, he could peer down through the banisters. The darkness had expanded his pupils; he could see better.
Two cursing figures came racing up the stairs. Tracy saw the ghostly gleam of a gun barrel. He squeezed carefully—twice—and the double roar of his .38 made his ears sing. The banister below him seemed to swell outward for an instant. A falling body crashed into the lower hall.
The second thug was invisible. Jerry could hear a faint moaning in the darkness; no other sound.
Behind the columnist’s prone body a door banged open. A yellow band of light from the doorway fell across Tracy’s extended feet; the rest of his body was in darkness.
A man with a gun twitching in his clenched grip came forward a step or two along the hall. He cried out harshly: “What the hell’s wrong?”
Then he saw Jerry’s feet. “——! That you, Izzy?”
The peering eyes widened suddenly and the muzzle of the gun swung. A bullet thwacked into the floor beside the columnist’s knee.
Tracy jerked at the trigger of his .38. He fired again. Limp flesh tumbled on top of him. He rolled the body off and leaped, catlike, to his trembling feet.
Jerry sprang into the lighted room. A long jagged flame burned from an open gas-jet on a wall bracket. The room was empty; his glaring eyes saw no sign of the missing Jimmy Earle. There was a cupboard-lined passage leading to a front room and he raced through, gun in hand.
The gas was turned low in the front room. A cot with a stained mattress was alongside one wall. A fully dressed man lay face downward on the cot, with one hand trailing on the floor.
Jerry rolled him over. It was Earle.
The feature man was bloody and battered and unconscious. He had been systematically and horribly beaten. His face was swollen and oozy. His breathing sounded queer; like the sharp catch of whooping-cough.
Jerry Tracy whirled grimly away from him and sped upstairs to the top floor, satisfied himself that there was no one aloft. He listened again in the hall. The moaning below had ceased; the ancient dwelling was like a tomb. It ought to be, Tracy thought harshly, as the reek of powder fumes stung his nostrils; he’d used up four well-aimed slugs!
There was no drinking glass in the tiny washroom. Jerry let the dirty brown water spurt from the faucet into the crown of his hat. He sloshed it over Earle’s head.
Earle’s eyes stayed shut. Jerry got an arm braced and lifted him partly. The battered reporter fell off the bed. Jerry let go of him with an oath. The guy was out cold.
Tracy began to swear shrilly—then he checked himself, choked off the wave of hysteria. A phone! There must be a phone in the old dump somewhere—maybe downstairs!
He clicked a beam out of his toy flashlight and ran back along the hall. He stepped over the body at the head of the stairs, another one at the foot. It didn’t faze him; he was beyond horror. He grinned mechanically as his torch swept across a dusty hatrack and showed him a coin-box phone on the grimy wallpaper. Must have been a furnished-room house not so long ago!
Swiftly he fished for change and found—a half dollar and three pennies. … The old Tracy would never have done it but this Tracy did: he rolled the corpse swiftly and fished through the pockets. No luck. He tried the guy that had gone over the banisters. Two nickels and a dime.
Tracy leaped to the phone and called Butch.
“You know the voice? Shut up! Listen! Grab a cab—some hacker you can trust—see if Shultz is on the corner—take this address—park at the curb I and ring the front doorbell—tell Shultz to wait—I’ll be here. … ”
Bang! He hung up and called Information.
“I want the phone number of Marvin’s Turkish Baths. Oh, for—M-A-R-V-I-N! West 4th and Dyker. … I know perfectly well that it’s in the book, sister, but I haven’t got one here. … Thanks. Gimme the operator! Hello? Paddy Marvin? Tracy—Tracy!”
He peered sidewise at his watch.
“I got a guy with me that’s out cold, Paddy. Can you slap him awake and make him talk sense—I mean in a hurry?”
The old retired wrestler sounded insulted. “Jerry, they ain’t no souse on earth that I couldn’t—”
“Shut up, Paddy, and listen! This guy’s been beaten up. Gone over pretty thoroughly by yeggs that know how. He’s got a few busted ribs, I think. Can you do it?”
“Bring him down. Walk him in the side door on Dyker Street.”
Tracy hung up with a trembling hand. He let the torch go out and wiped sweat from his hot forehead. His knees felt like cooked spaghetti.
Abruptly they steadied. He backed against the wallpaper in the darkness.
There was someone outside in the vestibule; a shadow on the pale blur of frosted glass. Couldn’t be Butch—Jerry had only just called him up! He snaked his gun out. Waited quietly in the velvet darkness.
A key grated in the lock. The street door opened and closed. A voice mumbled unintelligibly, grumbling fretfully at the absence of gas-light. Jerry heard the footfalls approach, pass him—stumble suddenly at the foot of the stairs where one of the bodies lay.
“——!” said a clipped whisper.
Silence again. Slow, endless, stark. Then a match spurted light. The man’s back was towards Tracy. H
e stared down at the thing he had fallen over. He squealed—like a terrified pig—and the flame of the match twitched.
“Hold it!” Tracy growled. “Don’t let that match go out or I’ll blow your spine apart! Light the gas-jet and keep your hands up.”
Fweeeeep! went the gas. It burned wanly, like a crooked yellow fang, with dust flicks dancing at its tip. There was no gun on the pudgy intruder. Tracy turned him around. It was Jack Herzog, the shrewd, paunchy gambler—Arnstein’s foxy murderer—meat for the unconscious claws of poor battered Jimmy Earle upstairs. …
The columnist had to grit his teeth to stop a silly cackle of laughter. It was so damn’ funny. … He kept his gun steady. Herzog didn’t say a single word; just stood there.
They both jumped when the doorbell rang. Tracy said harshly: “I’d just as soon kill four as three, fella. Don’t move.”
He admitted Butch with a turn of his left wrist. Butch took one incredulous look at the place and said: “Jeeze!” His eyes swung from Tracy’s .38 to the body in the entry, to the dead man under the banisters, to the dangling feet at the top of the stair curve.
Butch’s voice got dry: “Yuh’ll hafta cut that stuff out, Boss. First thing yuh know yuh’ll be gettin’ a tough rep aroun’ town.” He stared at Herzog without any interest whatever. “What do I do?”
“Upstairs!” the Planet’s columnist told Herzog. “Got something up there I want to show you.”
Herzog cleared his throat. “You got me wrong,” he said, thickly. “I never been here before.” He looked green, cheese-like.
“Where’d you get the key?” Jerry grated. “I s’pose a little bird flew over and dropped it in your hand.”
“Don’t be that way. A—a dame gave it to me. Told me to meet her here. You—you know how it is. I—I—”
“Upstairs!” Tracy said evenly.
Jimmy Earle was still unconscious on the floor. He looked pretty bad. Tracy grabbed him by the hair and jerked his face up.
“Know this guy, Herzog?”
“Why, sure. Sure I know him.” Herzog was getting his nerve back. “One of your bum reporter friends, ain’t it? What’s he gotta do with me?”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 17