Tracy felt a mild curiosity about the guy. He made talk.
“Strike still on?”
“S’posed to be over. Some o’ the Bolshies are still out making plenty trouble. They toined over a cab on Eighth and 54th a little while ago. You scared about it?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither. … Wanna hear the radio?”
“Nope. The hell with it.”
“Most people like to listen. It ain’t a bad set.”
The cab whirled round a corner, pelting the frozen sidewalk with a spray of snow from the slap-slap of its chains.
“Not worrying about strikers, eh?” Tracy said.
“I ain’t thinkin’ about ’em at all.”
A red light bloomed down the avenue and the driver braked. Suddenly Tracy heard him swear softly.
Two shadowy figures were racing out of the shelter of a dark doorway. They ran pell-mell into the street towards the motionless cab. The foremost man carried a short length of pipe. The second was palming a knife; he moved warily towards the right front tire. The hi-jacker with the pipe jumped to the running-board of the taxi. His teeth were chattering with the cold. His breath made quick little puffs of vapor.
“Git rid o’ yer fare, you chisellin’ —— and go hunt yourself a garage!”
“Okey,” said the hackman. His hand appeared swiftly and the startled gorilla gasped and jumped backward. The fellow at the front tire saw the stubby automatic swing towards him and he swerved away so hastily that he slipped on the packed snow and went awkwardly to one knee.
“I gotta mind to hand it to you both in the belly,” said the hackman bitterly.
“Scram! I got no time for ——s like you!”
The traffic light had clicked green. The cab rolled. Profanity dwindled in the icy air. The dim avenue rushed backward past the speeding taxi with a sighing, tinkling sound.
Tracy found himself more and more interested in this driver who gunned strikers away so casually.
“Nice work,” he suggested.
“Yeah.”
“Kinda cold tonight.”
“Yeah.”
“Run into much of that strong-arm stuff?”
“Nope. Yeah. I ain’t thinkin’ about it.”
“What does a guy like you think about?” Tracy persisted.
“You wouldn’t know.”
“Would five bucks help me to know?”
The muffled face of the driver swung abruptly sidewise. A gloved hand touched the edge of the glass panel. “Save your five bucks, pal, and buy a racehorse.” The frosted panel slammed shut with a bang.
The ace columnist of the Daily Planet sat back with an amused grunt. He glanced at the illuminated hack license. Joseph Antonelli. The usual taxi face. Sullen eyes. Wooden expression.
Jerry Tracy shrugged, shut his eyes and dismissed taxis and wop chauffeurs from his mind. He began to think about Clarkson, the bald-headed ghost writer, and his screwy tip about Sam Volga. Screwy tip, hell! Volga was blazing under the floor-boards; no doubt about it. Jerry’s sensitive nose had detected the thin, acrid stink of love smoke. And it wasn’t whiffing from the gal, either. There was no fire there. She was scared about something.
Yow-suh! The fire bells were ringing for Sam Volga at last! Maybe that was why Flip was so scared. She oughtn’t to be, by all the rules. In a four-alarm fire a wise gal could do herself plenty good. But Flip wouldn’t angle the business that way. Flip was umday. Tracy thought of that frying-pan voice coming out of her soft white throat and grinned crookedly. If Volga could stand that, the ice-cold big shot was sure softening up. Maybe soft enough to pluck. Inspector Burch would be interested in that angle.
Tracy’s mind switched automatically to the inspector. Volga’s political pull had shoved Danny Burch into Staten Island in the stock market days when a square cop had no friends. Now there was a new guy in the seat with funny ideas about decency—and Burch of the grizzled gray skull and alert blue eyes wasn’t riding ferry-boats to work any more. He was a deputy inspector with a grand old record and a new broom in his honest old paws. And on more than one occasion the dapper little columnist of the Daily Planet had helped Danny to sweep up dirt.
But that was off the record. …
2
WHEN THE TAXICAB STOPPED before the huge stone hive that housed Tracy’s expensive roof castle, the columnist added a crisp five-spot to the taxi fare showing on the meter.
“I won’t need it. I got a racehorse,” he told the hacker.
“Okey by me, Bud.” The eyes were still sullen, unsmiling.
“Do you always carry a gat, friend?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I might need it.”
“I getcha.”
“The hell yuh do,” the hacker clicked out grimly, with a harsh venom in his voice.
He meshed gears and rolled, his exhaust spurting like a pale gush of steam in the freezing air. Tracy stared after the ruddy tail-light for a second or two. Then his teeth began to click together and he shrugged and hurried into the warm lobby.
“Gone down two more, Mr. Tracy,” said the elevator man cheerfully. “Fourteen below zero. A record, what I mean. I looked at the thermometer a minute ago.”
“Why?”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Nerts,” the columnist snapped.
In the penthouse foyer McNulty, China’s greatest gift to man, took Tracy’s hat and coat with deft speed and a complete lack of interest. His Chinese face was plump and serenely yellow like a harvest moon.
“Got any idea what the exact temperature is outside?” Tracy growled.
The almond eyes blinked. “Me no give dam’,” said McNulty with grave courtesy.
“You and me both. I knew I could trust you. … Got anything good?”
“Mebbe so. You want um?”
“Me want um dam’ quick like hell. Me belly freeze. Me cold.”
“Can do,” McNulty said.
He brought a dressing-gown and a tall glass of pale amber refreshment that steamed pleasantly and was hot to hold. Tracy yanked a chair over to the crackling sizzle of the fireplace and sat down with a pile of the late news-papers. He sipped lovingly at the drink and looked through the papers, tearing out items here and there, throwing each newspaper carelessly aside as he finished with it.
Over his shoulder he called: “Fix me up a hot bath, keed.”
He was in the tub, pink and parboiled and drowsy, when McNulty walked in.
“Lady come. Want see you.”
“Goody, goody. I was afraid of that. Does the husband look sore?”
“She come alone.”
“That’s a point in her favor.”
Broadway’s favorite columnist lifted his right foot above the water and watched the steam rising comfortably from his naked wet toes.
“The hell with her, aged servitor. Tell her to come back in July. What’s her name?”
“No tell um. She velly excite. Make funny noise. She cly a little, I t’ink.”
“That’s a point against her. Tell her I’ve got soap all over my character. Tell her to scram.”
McNulty padded away.
Tracy sat scowling in his bath for possibly ten seconds. He said “Hell!” in a petulant voice and swished suddenly out of the tub. He toweled his lean body with three quick lunges and pulled on his robe.
McNulty was talking into the apartment telephone with perfect courtesy:
“You go way, plizz. You come back next July. He sleepy.”
“Hey, wait a minute, dope!” Tracy called. “Tell her okey. Tell her I’ll see her.”
“You come up, plizz. He no sleepy now. He see you.”
The girl came in hesitantly. Tracy grinned with interest as he recognized her. He drawled lazily from his armchair: “Well, well! Pretty showgirl makes early morning call on noted Broadway maestro. … Hello, Flip!”
He saw instantly that something was wrong. The girl was overwrought, trembling jerkily. Her eyes w
ere wide with fear. She was crawling with it. Her voice was a croak. She couldn’t talk intelligible words.
Tracy said, “Whoa, mama!” in a crisp murmur, and came alertly out of his chair. He put a hand lightly on her shoulder and steadied her with an insistent pressure of his muscular left arm. “Easy, Babe! Slow down for crossings. What seems to be the diffugilty?”
“I—I hadda come. You said to look you up. You’re an important guy. I—”
“Sure, sure. Take it easy. Plenty of time.”
She twisted to face him and talk came from her in panicky spurts.
“It happened tonight. On the way home. After you left. He’ll kill Fred! I know he will. Fred hit him in the face. He hit him awful hard. His face bounced. Oh, Gawd A’mighty, Mr. Tracy, don’t let him hoit Fred! Don’t let him kill him. I couldn’t bear to live if he—”
An Oriental voice said imperturbably: “You want um drink, mebbe?”
Jerry craned his neck. “Yeah. That’s fine. Put ’em on the small table and take a boat-trip somewhere. … Wait a minute—grab these things first.”
He relieved Flip of hat, coat and gloves with a suave persuasion. McNulty vanished.
“Sit down, keed. Over here by the fire. Your fingers are, freezing.” He handed her a tall glass, brimming with McNulty’s pale amber masterpiece that steamed faintly. “ ‘Drink, pretty creature, drink.’ A guy named Wordsworth said that once. A poet, sez me. Who cares, sez you.”
Her hand twitched. Some of the liquor slopped into her lap. She struggled to speak.
“Shud-dup! Sip it, Babe. It’s hot.”
Twice she began to talk and twice he shut her off with brusque wise-crack comedy that was as insistent as a steel padlock. He made her drain the glass. He took back the empty. Sweat showed under the tendrils of hair at her temples.
“Gawd, that was good,” she whispered.
“You telling me, sweet? Now let’s hear about things—and if you gallop words at me again, I’ll slap you down, Big Eyes. … Whose face bounced? Volga’s?”
She nodded faintly.
“By a guy named Fred, you said. I think I like Fred. Who is he? Boy friend?”
“Yeah. Him an’ me—we both—” Her voice broke fiercely. “I’d go to hell for him in a bucket, Mister!”
“Okey, okey. … Say, you have got big eyes, sister. Stop winking water and let’s hear the dime novel.”
It came out bit by bit under his shrewd questioning. Fred was Fred Bundermann. The swellest looking young master plumber up on Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. Fred nuts about Flip and vice versa. Both of ’em working like mad to save dough because Fred was an old-fashioned guy who wanted a wife, not a toe-dancer in a hot spot on West 51st. Fred had his eye on a two-story frame with a backyard and an honest job of solid brass plumbing. And Flip kinda liked the idea of having kids with Fred’s eyes and Fred’s sandy hair. So …
Volga had crashed into the picture three weeks ago. He heated up the first time he saw Flip. Made a play and was thrown for a loss. After that he was hotter but he changed his tactics. Respectful, no hands under the table, the real thing. That made it tough for Flip because she could have handled a wise guy on the make. This guy wasn’t on the make. He began to talk marriage—fierce, crazy talk that scared her sick. She knew all about Volga’s ice-cold rep and his unproved murder record; and what she didn’t know the other gals in the floor show whispered to her. She was in a tough spot. Straddled on a razor blade.
She tried to stall Volga but he couldn’t be stalled. He was like velvet. Suave, insistent, low voiced; but the voice was a hot, whispering flame and the eyes were adamant and eager. She lied to him about Fred, said there was no one else. Volga took her out places and was icy and careful with her in public, except for the hot coals in his veiled eyes. And she made excuses to Fred and stalled him on dates because Fred was a big guy with hard fists and he wouldn’t understand if he saw her with Sam Volga. On the other hand, if Volga ever heard about Fred and the two-story frame and the four kids Flip figured on—two boys and two girls—and a dog, maybe a Scottie, they weren’t sure. …
In three agonized weeks Flip had reached the hysterical pitch where she’d lie in bed nights with her hands clenched in the darkness and think fiercely of different ways she might kill Volga; kill him dead, quiet and harmless; kill him craftily and safely and get away from the rustle of the big shot’s whispering desire. … Get back, somehow, to Fred.
“I gather that Fred got wise to the competition tonight,” Tracy said grimly.
“Yeah. It was my night off and Fred wanted a date, but Volga pinned me down this aft’noon an’ I phoned Fred and told him I hadda work. He mustta come downtown anyways; because he steps outta the late Newsreel show just as our cab stops alongside the curb on a red light. I was lookin’ out an’ he seen me. He got awful white but he didn’t say nothin’. He quick yanked open the door, reached over me an’ hit Volga in the face with all his might. Volga fell over sideways, kinda stunned. Fred called me a—a doity rotten name an’ slammed the door. An’ the light changed then an’ the chauffeur looked kinda scared an’ funny an’ we rolled an’ left Fred standin’ there.”
Flip gulped miserably and began to cry.
“Quit that stuff. Bawling gets you nowhere. What happened then?”
“I—he—Volga come out of his daze a block or two away. He wiped the blood off his lip an’ he started cursin’ to himself low an’ terrible, like he was tearin’ the oaths outta his stummick. He made the driver toin around an’ go back; an’ we cruised along lookin’ for Fred. Volga had a gun out, down between us, on the seat. But, thank Gawd, Fred was gone. Volga asked me who the guy was. He only asked me once. I was cryin’. I didn’t say anything. An’ Volga says low, like he was embarrassed: ‘Okey, sweet. Forget it. Cut out the weeps, Babe. I’ll find out about the mugg myself.’ An’ then he dropped me off home—an’ I come over here soon as I got noive up. Gawd, Mr. Tracy, I dunno where to toin or what to do. An’ I’m licked with Fred. I—I just know it! His face was like marble an’ he called me a doity little ——!”
It was a curt, nasty word. Her mouth whispered the ugly epithet with a sick, unbelieving horror. Tracy’s metallic voice cut into her hysteria and steadied her.
“All right, big eyes. Let’s talk sense. First, let’s get Sam Volga straight. Remember what I told you at the table tonight: Stick to Volga and you’d land slap in an ashcan. That’s literally true. Devore was one of his gals. Dot Devore dropped eight long stories and broke her back on a sidewalk ashcan. Volga did that for her—even though she took the jump of her own free will. She was a sweet little fluff but you couldn’t tell her a thing. She had to find out for herself. I could tell you others. Sam Volga is poisoned ice-water for dames, keed. And I won’t tell you how many murder raps he’s beaten because that’s neither here nor there. Tell me one thing: is he really dead nuts about you? I mean the real thing. Don’t try to kid yourself. You know what I mean, Flip.”
She said in a low voice: “You mean does he just wanta be my sugar? It’s more than that with Volga. I’m sure of it. I—No—I’m not sure. I’m afraid. … ”
“Thanks, Flip. You’re a sweet little number. … Plenty gals have gone soft on Volga, but Volga never melted before in his whole icicle career. If he’s melting now he’s easier to handle. He’s gonna do something stupid and silly—or I never wrote a hotcha column. … Cigarette, keed?”
She said no and he lit one for himself.
“Can you warn Fred?” she asked him shakily. “Protect him, somehow?”
“Forget Fred. Lemme try and dope this thing out. … We don’t want Fred to gum up the works. Don’t go near him; don’t call him up. Take my word for it, Fred won’t be apt to run into Volga again if you let him alone. He’ll go through hell for two or three days. He’ll think of a million logical reasons how you could be in that taxi-cab with Volga and still be perfectly innocent. And he’ll remember the name he called you. He’ll pick up the phone a hundred times and lay it do
wn again and he’ll sweat blood. He’ll wait for you to call. Give him three days or so for his pride to crack. In three days, maybe, I can slant Volga properly.”
He mashed his cigarette butt and stood up, looking curiously small and wizened in the voluminous and gaily colored robe. He grinned at her and made a wry grimace.
“Scram, keed. G’wan home and hit the hay or I might make a pass at you myself. There’s enough of the heel in me not to make that crack funny. … Hey, McNulty! Cloak and suit for the lady!”
In the foyer he thought of something. He laughed suddenly.
“I always like to guess right, Flip. That Flip stuff is profesh, isn’t it? What’s the real monicker?”
“Matilda Gunsdorf.”
“Wow! Did you pick the Flip stuff yourself?”
She giggled faintly.
“No. That was Katzman, the dance director. I had a swell name—Gloria La Fontaine. Katzman said nuts to that, it was too long. I ask him how about Vera Van Teasdale but he kinda choked an’ cursed; so I says go ahead and flip a kern, big boy, I’ll leave it to you. An’ then Katzman roars out laffin’ and slaps me on the—on the back. He says oke—Flip Kern is oke.”
Her dark eyes looked puzzled.
“What’s so funny about flipping a kern?”
“I’ll never be the one to tell you, dumb cluck. Beat it. Tell the guy downstairs to hunt a cab for you till he finds one. And listen. Remember this. If Sam Volga gets in touch with you, play along with him for the next coupla days. I don’t think he’ll ask you any more about Fred. If he does, clamp the lips. Wait—gimme your address and phone number. … Okey. S’long.”
“I’ll never forget what you’re doing for me.”
“You?” His voice hardened. “My angle is Sam Volga, baby.”
He went back to his big armchair and watched the dying embers in the fireplace for a long time. The gray smoke tendrils seemed to fascinate him. He watched the ascending smoke, found hidden amusement in it. Smoke! He chuckled briefly. There was no amusement in the sound he made.
DEPUTY INSPECTOR DANNY BURCH had a small and secluded office where he transacted private and confidential business. It was to this small cubby, bare of blue-coated secretaries and file clerks, that Tracy went privately to talk with the big fella. Tracy’s visits to Danny were not frequent but they were always confidential. The two men understood, trusted and respected each other.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 19