He flapped jauntily out of the living-room, started for the door—then changed his mind. He went back to the kitchen. This time he got down on his hands and knees to look at the linoleum. He examined particularly the edge of it along the wall. When he got up, he was smiling. He picked a tiny sliver of glass from his cut forefinger, sucked the small cut clean and dusted off his smeared trouser knees with his good hand.
He murmured, cryptically, to himself: “ ‘No’ is a bum word; but sometimes it’s almost as good as ‘yes.’ ”
He let himself out of the apartment, grinned cheerily at the familiar face of the bluecoat on duty outside.
“Hello, Tom. You’re looking more like meat and potatoes every day. Did you ever get rid of the wife’s mother from Bridgeport?”
“Did I?” The patrolman beamed all over his face with a happy recollection.
“How did you do it?”
“Ye’ll never find out from me, Mr. Tracy,” he guffawed. “The wife would moider me if she knew the trick I pulled. But if ever ye git caught wid a mother-in-law on your hands, call me up. My method is a darb!”
He was still chuckling windily as Tracy vanished nimbly into a taxi.
The columnist made a beeline for his own shabby little hideaway in the Times Square sector. Resolutely he dismissed the pudgy figure of Morris Fink from his mind. He forgot about leaky refrigerators and stabbed bodies with startled eyes. Long time, no work!
He leaned back in the jouncing taxi-cab, drawing material from recesses of his memory for his next column set-up, framing wisecracks to fit each separate item while the cab droned through Central Park.
He was in high good humor when he reached his dusty office. Even the fact that Butch had on the rumpled pink shirt that he persisted in wearing, in spite of all arguments to the contrary, failed to ruffle Tracy’s spirits.
“ ’Lo, Boss,” Butch mumbled.
Tracy sailed his hat at a peg—missed it—laid a losers quarter in Butch’s palm. Pink sleeve-garters, too! Damn the guy!
“Scram, sweetheart,” he said briskly. “We gotta work.”
Butch didn’t move. He hovered uneasily in the inner office like a tethered dirigible.
“I’m good and sore,” Butch mumbled. “On account of I couldn’t do nothin’ about it. No kiddin’, I am sore.”
“Sore about what?”
“Aw, nuts. You know. About what you told me.”
He laid a square cream-colored envelope in Tracy’s palm and the columnist stiffened and got very quiet around the eyes.
“When, Butch?”
“Jist about ten minutes ago.”
“How?”
“Right here, Boss. Jeeze, it makes me so mad, on account of I promised yuh that I’d—”
“Phooie! I oughta smack you on the skull, you ape! Where did you find this thing?” Tracy kept staring at the square envelope in his palm, his slow words trickling upward at Butch. “Didn’t you see anything? Didn’t you hear anything?”
“I’m tellin’ yuh I hoid nuttin’. Just plain nuttin’. I was readin’ something, see?—and when I looked up, there’s the dam’ thing on the floor stickin’ inside the door. Somebuddy musta shoved it under, I figure. I mean, that’s what I figure, see?”
Tracy was still looking vacantly at that envelope in his palm. The echo of Inspector Fitzgerald’s voice made sudden sound in his mind: “I wish to God that tipster of yours would come through again with the real McCoy!”
“Outside, helpmate!” Tracy snapped,
He inserted a lean forefinger inside the flap and burst the envelope with a quick jerk. Cream notepaper inside. Same old cheap stuff. Five-and-dime. No sense trying that angle!
A typed message. Underwood portable, as usual. Same two letters out of alignment. ‘R’ and ‘Y.’ Always so glaringly noticeable because of the combination of letters that formed his own name, Jerry Tracy.
He had already read the note while his mind bubbled foolishly with these stale old guesses and surmises. Now he read it again:
Morris Fink was at the St. Nicholas Avenue apartment last night. Both Fink and Sam Ritter had keys to the joint. They met there once a week regularly. Maybe you know why. That’s all I know now. God bless you, Jerry. You’re a good guy.
Tracy nodded over the message for a while like a wrinkled little gnome. Finally, he went to the telephone and called Inspector Fitzgerald.
“I’m playing fair, Fitz. As fair as I can. Fink was at the St. Nicholas Avenue apartment last night. … Yeah. No doubt about it. … Uh-huh. As deeply involved as Ritter in that numbers thing, apparently. Has a key to the joint—or maybe he got rid of it by this time. And I still say—don’t throw him in the can. How can you trap a guy when you’ve got him locked in a cell, dope?”
“What did you do with the tip? Tip, wasn’t it?”
“I burned it up, sweetheart. Are you mad?”
“You’re a liar,” the inspector said very softly over the wire. “But let that pass. We’re both playing fair, Jerry. The tip angle is your own exclusive. But I still think you’re an awful sucker not to try and trace your informant. If it was me, Jerry, I’d regard that person as a pretty good friend of mine. Or look at the thing this way: that informant of yours is going to get into one hell of a jam about these tips, sooner or later. If you knew exactly who the person is—well, you might be able to step in some time and stop a killing that I, personally, would sure hate to see happen. So much so, that any time you need cops to save your informant from a mess—I’ll turn out the whole damn’ homicide squad! And, remember, I’m just thinking about the police angle—and nothing else. … ”
“Too late,” Jerry said steadily into the transmitter. “I burned the thing right after I read it.”
He hung up with a wooden face. Scratched a match and held the flame near a corner of the cream-colored paper. He watched the slow, sooty smoke curl upward from the flame of the poised match. Suddenly, the stubbornly wooden look went out of his eyes. He threw the match on the floor, ground it under his heel. Carefully he folded the notepaper and locked it away in a drawer of his desk.
His soft black pencil made a hurried crayon-scrawl on a desk pad:
Who killed Sam Ritter, suave undercover czar of the city’s biggest racket? Who had a key to the murder apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue? Who was there before or during the time that Ritter was stabbed through the heart? Who has an alibi that won’t hold water? Who is going to be arrested and convicted and burned to death for a planned murder committed last night?
“Nice,” Tracy said softly.
Again he scooped up his telephone.
He called the office of the Daily Planet.
He talked with a very important personage, gave him the item slowly, word by word.
“Cut anything you like,” he said. “I don’t care apples for what you cut. Run it spaced, with wide margins. Top of the column.”
The very important personage on the other end of the wire said something that made Jerry Tracy laugh suddenly. For a moment the tired lines about his mouth relaxed.
“How would you like to go to hell?” he said, and hung up.
At that precise moment the world-famous columnist might have sat for-the portrait of a pleased eight-year-old boy. His eyes puckered impishly at the frayed old calendar on his wall.
“I’ll bet,” he whispered gleefully to the calendar, “that I’m the only guy in the world that can tell him that—and get away with it!”
Long hours later, the electric light in Tracy’s untidy little office seemed suddenly hard and yellow and intolerable. He leaned back in his chair with a tired grunt, closed his eyes, relaxed gratefully. He had been working at top speed for a busy afternoon and evening, cleaning up a hundred little details of fact and rumor with staccato efficiency. That brain of his was like the sharp flick at the end of a slave-driver’s lash; a perpetual goad to his own easygoing inclinations. He didn’t like to work, but somehow—if he laid off the column, even for a dull week-end party—aw, nuts. �
��
Butch had long since donned his oversize derby and left the office. Below Tracy’s window, Broadway was a bright, glittering slash of raw color. A bedlam of beating noise that, to Tracy, wasn’t noise at all but a kind of magnificent symphony; taxi horns, traffic whistles, crosstown gongs, the drone of movie barkers, an occasional siren, a brrrrp-brrrrp of a police motorcycle. … Point and counterpoint in that music, Tracy thought behind his tired eyelids; an intricate symphony that never grew stale. The challenge of stone and cement and car-tracks to seven million pretty smart humans, clustered together like flies at a pie-counter: “How old are you, Big Boy? Too tough for you, Girlie? What d’yuh say? Can you take it?”
Jerry Tracy opened his eyes, glanced at his watch, knew suddenly that he was hungry. Ten after nine! Hadn’t eaten a morsel since that alleged breakfast up in Scarsdale! He slammed his desk shut, clicked out the lights and dozed downward to the street in the night elevator.
To the taxi-driver he snarled irritably: “How do I know where? Wait a minute and lemme think.”
“Okey, Mr. Tracy,” the hackman replied. That pleased the little guy. He liked people to know him, liked to be recognized wherever he went.
“Better make it Calligans,” he grinned, his irritation gone.
Calligan’s joint was a nice place for a little guy with a lot on his mind. Soft Irish music from a five-piece orchestra, hard Irish waiters who were apt to be pleasantly familiar and palsie-walsie in their manner—but that was all right, too! After two Bacardi cocktails Jerry felt a lot more human. He asked for a scow-load of corned beef and cabbage—and pretty near got it. Faces began to focus; people nodded to him and smiled from nearby tables.
A big dark guy’s lips said, inaudibly: “How’s tricks, keedo?” The girl sitting with him mouthed: “Hello, Jerry!”
Tracy waved a hospitable fork at them and the dark guy got up. The girl’s hair was henna now; it used to be black. She followed her husband’s broad shoulders to the columnist’s table.
“Hello, Ralph. Alma, you’re looking swell. … Some more chairs, wait-ter! And make it three on the B & S. I’ve had enough corned beef to last me till next groundhog day. … Well, well!”
He grinned at the pair, but mostly at Alma.
“S’matter, kids? What do you mean by eating out? Afraid of the menu in your own garbage emporium?”
Alma giggled. “Where’s the fun in owning a restaurant—if you can’t eat somewhere else?”
The brandy was swell. They sipped it and Tracy said: “How’s married life, Alma?”
Alma giggled again. “You ask me—and you keep looking at Ralph. Is that nice?”
It was sure great to be married, Ralph admitted. A full year, keedo, and Alma hadn’t thrown a dishpan at him yet! Big, nicely modeled head; strong, meaty shoulders; a laugh like a bass clarinet. Good-looking guy, for a Greek! But then, Tracy thought, what was so funny about that—weren’t people always talking about guys like Greek gods?
Alma looked fondly at Ralph and giggled some more. She hadn’t used to giggle like that. The henna hair wasn’t doing her any good, either. Made him kind of sorry. Alma was a sweet little scout.
“How’s the hash biz?” he asked.
“Grand,” Ralph boomed. “Pretty good, keedo.”
“It’s okey,” said Alma. “Why don’t you come over some time and sample? You’ll like the ketchup.”
“It’s a date. Maybe later tonight, huh?” Tracy waved his hand like an emperor. “I wouldn’t care a bit, kids, if you passed the word around that I was dropping in for a snifter or two. I mean, if it’ll help in any way to move some of that bum hash off your shelves.”
“Well, Jeeze, that’s sure nice of you, keedo,” Ralph said.
Alma’s eyes misted suddenly. Nice eyes. And that henna hair wasn’t so bad—not when Alma smiled and went soft around the mouth.
“You’re sweet, Jerry,” she whispered.
“Ssssh. … Keep it under the hat or you’ll lose me all my column customers.” He grinned wanly. “When you call me sweet in public, always spell it r-a-t! See you later—and folks—that ketchup had better be good!” He paid the check and spilled aimlessly alone up Broadway. Not so crowded at this hour. Last movie showing well under way. Nut shoppes and pineapple juiceries waiting stolidly for the brisk midnight pickup. The big billion-watt toothpaste ad a little gloomy-looking.
At 49th a taxi-driver was arguing shrilly with a disgruntled fare.
“Why don’t the bums mix it, for
Gawd’s sake,” a voice muttered at Tracy’s elbow. “Just a bunch of woids!”
“Words, my friend, properly bunched, have their value,” Tracy murmured.
“I don’t getcha.”
“No?” The columnist shrugged and—stood suddenly quite still. “Yeah,” said the voice. The steady pressure of something invisible was hurting Jerry’s ribs. He became conscious of a lot of things. Two guys, both of them damned casual. The worst kind—youngsters. The fella with the concealed gun got Jerry walking westward without any fuss. The other guy dropped back as they came abreast of him and sauntered along behind. He had straw-colored eyebrows and a long chin like a spade.
Jerry Tracy’s mouth felt dryish and cottony.
“A couple of Morris Fink’s boys,” he thought. “Fink saw that tip in the column, figures I know too much—and gets busy. Am I a dope! That soft-butter little partner of Sam Ritter is just scared enough to have my top blown! And I’m the dope who advised Fitzgerald not to have that fake little cloak-and-suiter tossed into the tank!”
The car was at the curb, halfway up the block. Engine idling smoothly. The spadechinned kid took the wheel. Tracy preceded the gunner to the rear seat. His light topcoat was unbuttoned, flapping wide open. He stuck out his legs and relaxed—or pretended to, for the kid’s benefit. With the most natural air in the world he slid his hands deeply into his side trousers pockets.
The gunner tautened like a coiled spring. “Be nice, buddy—or take it right now!”
“I am nice.” His hands stayed put.
“What’s in them pants pockets?”
“A handkerchief and a small gold-plated penknife. Scared?”
“Yeah. Scared to death, Mister.” He laughed with a brief, sneering wheeze. “A little dude like you wouldn’t carry a gun—but I made sure about it when I slapped you on the sidewalk.”
“The knife,” Tracy said in a humorous, mincing voice, “is gold-plated. A gift from a dear old aunt, whose money I hope to inherit some day. I wouldn’t want to lose it. It has one blade, an inch and a quarter long, but I promise I won’t try to stab you. No kidding, that’s a promise.”
“You’re a darb,” the kid chuckled.
“You mean I’m a dub, don’t you?”
They laughed about that, too. Tracy kept his hands in his pockets and worked up a nice chummy atmosphere. He said nothing at all about Morris Fink, nothing about the speeding car’s destination. Just a screwy wiseguy, kidding aimlessly in a tired drawl, making those dull, ratty eyes beside him crinkle with a sneer of stupid amusement.
His abductors made no effort to hide the route they were taking. Straight southward, then across town. West. Through the dark, somnolent Thirties, past the black carcasses of department stores and furniture warehouses. Over towards the Hudson, towards the strings of rickety and condemned tenements that only a cycle of depression years had saved from the pickaxes and rubbish-chutes of the house-wreckers. Tracy knew the section well, knew what his fate would probably be. A sordid and very quiet assassination, followed by a leisurely disposal of his damaged remains in the clammy Hudson …
The car halted suddenly. The gunner’s voice got businesslike and practical. “Out, buddy. Me first, this time. And don’t get noisy. I want this thing to look good.”
A slatternly brick tenement. Yellow light flickering through torn window-shades. Kids who should have been in bed hours before, playing a vicious whispering game on a crumbling stone stoop. A dingy grocery store, with a f
ew apathetic loafers leaning against the greasy plate-glass.
None of the loafers said anything to either of Tracy’s companions; just stared. Were the two killers strangers in this very clannish old neighborhood? Tracy’s forehead beaded with sweat as he hoped fiercely that they were. He had only two slim chances to rely on; intelligent co-operation and the magic of his name.
He walked slowly past the loafers, a companion hedging him on either side. He didn’t mind it when the fellow with the spade chin growled in his ear: “Make it snappy, buddy. Think we got all night?” He loved these two dumb killers for their alert watching of his face. While they watched his face they couldn’t see anything else.
They shoved him along faster, but it didn’t make any difference now! Through a shabby vestibule door—boooomp! Up uncarpeted wooden stairs—crick, crack, crick! A key making quick, nervous rustlings in a lock. Door open, door shut. Squueeeeee; from a long purplish flame on a gas bracket.
“Sit down, stupid!” one of them snarled.
“On that sofa!” Spade Chin ordered. His fist helped Tracy sit down and made his nose bleed. Jerry made no effort to quench the crimson trickle.
In the gaslight they looked wolfish, without a shred of humanity. No chummy stuff, now. No grins and chuckles. Two youthful chillers on a paid job. Nothing in their eyes, now, but the dregs of a dull, unclean joy for the imminent kill. A kill, Jerry thought with a frightened shudder, that could bring them nothing better than the few greasy dollars they needed to buy dope—and disease.
“What are you boys going to do?” Jerry asked them unevenly.
The one over at the window pulled the shade down across the glass before he answered.
“What do you think, Mister?”
“How about listening to a little reason?”
“How about keeping your wise trap shut? Or would you like another bump on the schnozzle?”
“Let me go and I’ll hand you more dough than you ever had before in your lives.”
“You like to talk, don’t you?” He walked deliberately across and drove Tracy’s head back against the wall with a right swing. He grinned at Spade Chin. “How am I doing, Steve?”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 32