The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35

by Frederick Nebel

  Barney Corday showed up within the hour. He was a young man, well groomed, with yellow hair and a boyish, good-natured grin. A couple of years out of college, he still had that carefree air about him that, in some instances, was a valuable asset to the Cosmos Agency. He came in wearing a gray slicker.

  “Sit, down, Barney,” Cardigan said. “We’ve got a job to do that won’t go on the record.” He told him the story he had told Pat, then leaned forward on his elbows. “You’re to go to the Razzle Dazzle tonight,” he went on. “Dress up. Act like a guy on the loose. You’ll take forty one-dollar bills and one yellowback with you. Keep the yellowback on the outside of the roll and flash it. You’re a guy with potatoes, see, and you’re out for a good time. They’ve got quite a few dames floating around there for the express purpose of entertaining solo drunks. So circulate and percolate. The idea is, you see, that you once met a sweet girl there named Josie. You can’t remember her last name, but you’d like to see her again. Pump a waiter now and then, or even a barman. They usually get a cut from a girl they steer a guy to. I don’t know who’s dead—whether it’s a girl or somebody else. You try to get the girl’s address, then go to the address and see if she’s there. If she is, clown around. If she isn’t—maybe Larry Briggs’ll have to take more headache powders.”

  “If she’s there, should I try to get any dope?”

  “Absolutely not. Play around a while and then leave and give me a ring at my apartment. Whether she’s there or not, give me a ring. I’ll be waiting for it. The main thing I want to know right now is—is this girl Josie alive.” He stood up. “Come around to the bank with me and we’ll get the sugar.”

  Chapter Two

  Undercover Man

  CARDIGAN came out of the pantry of his California Street apartment about midnight, carrying a hot toddy. Shoes O’Riley, a stocky man with a turnip head and—at this time—a woebegone expression on his granite-colored face, sat wrapped in a bathrobe in an old Morris chair. In the pantry, above a gas stove his clothes were being dried.

  Cardigan handed him the hot toddy. “Jam this under your belt, you pest. If I never see you again, Shoes, it’ll be too soon.”

  Shoes O’Riley gulped gratefully at the steaming liquid, his round, mournful eyes blinking up occasionally at Cardigan with a guilty look. He finished the drink without stopping once, said, “Ah, um, ah, um,” and pulled the borrowed bathrobe tighter about him. He explained: “It’s guys like me that look hard as rock that has the most delicate constitutions. I guess—Geeze, I guess I git it from me mother. She was a delicate lady, like a flower. And me, I’m the same, Jack.”

  “Like a flower, huh?” said Cardigan. Chuckling he snatched the empty glass from Shoes O’Riley’s hand and carried it back into the pantry.

  He returned with a jigger of Scotch and said angrily: “I’ve told you before, Shoes, to stay the hell away from here! I know, I know—we played duck-on-the-rock when we were kids and once you saved me from drowning—after kicking me overboard in the first place—but I can’t have you waltzing in this place all the time!” He downed the Scotch, rasped his throat and planked the jigger down on the table. “I’m a private cop and you’re an egg with a record as long as a round-the-world cruise and I suppose now you’re going to tell me you got soaked to the skin standing outside all day waiting to see a rainbow.”

  Shoes O’Riley looked penitently down at his bare feet. “Geeze, Jack, I give you me word o’ honor I ain’t been picked up in three months. Leadin’ the life of a recluse and improvin’ me mind. Just tonight I was headed over here to git your idea on a job I’m plannin’ and I was takin’ a short-cut through back alleys and I hopped a board fence and comin’ down the other side I land kerplunk in a rainbarrel.”

  Cardigan growled: “Coming down a fire-escape probably from a second story!”

  “Cross me heart, Jack. It happened like I said. I’m writin’ a book on me past experiences and callin’ it The Memories of a Real Good Egg. About me life, see? All the things I did. Like back in Twenty-six when me and Goo-Goo Felderhaus pulled that big bank job in Billings, Montana, that they ain’t ever solved yet.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to put that in the book, eh?”

  “Yop. I’m gonna—”

  “You’re going to tell the world what a lot of fat-heads the Billings cops were because they never ran down Shoes O’Riley. So what do you think the Billings cops will do then?”

  Shoes O’Riley knotted his brows together. “On second thought, maybe I’d better leave that one out. It’s just that I was wonderin’ if you’d write an introduction to the book sayin’ what a swell, upstandin’ guy I am—”

  Cardigan blasted him to silence with, “Calm yourself, Shoes. Take it easy. You must think I look like a fat-head! First you want to join my agency, and when I put the kibosh on that you want me to write an introduction to a—”

  The telephone bell jangled and Cardigan broke off, took four long, eager strides and picked up the instrument. “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” said a man’s voice, “is this Sunset Two-o-two-X?”

  “Right.”

  “Is this Mr. Blaine?”

  “No.”

  “Is Mr. Blaine there?”

  “I think you’ve got a wrong number.”

  “This is Sunset Two-o-two-X, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sure, but—”

  “Quit kidding, Charley. This is Al.”

  Cardigan laughed. “No, Al. Wrong number. The name here is Cardigan.” He hung up and pointing to Shoes O’Riley said: “As soon as your duds are dry you dress up and scram out of here and take a tip and forget about that book. You’ll write yourself into a twenty-year stretch sure as hell.”

  Shoes O’Riley looked very mournful. “Geeze, and I had me heart set on it.” He sighed hugely. “Well, you turn in any time you want, Jack. Soon’s they’re dry I’ll git dressed and scram.”

  “I’m not turning in. I’m waiting for a phone call.”

  HE TOOK a magazine and lay down on the divan and read for ten minutes. Then his eyes wandered, his brows came together. He looked at the telephone. He sat up, still looking at the telephone, and then he rose, scowled down his nose, ran his hand over his head and down the back of his neck.

  “What’s up, Jack?” Shoes asked.

  “That phone call—” Cardigan broke off, muttered: “Nothing.”

  He sat down and read for half an hour but his eyes kept wandering every now and then to the telephone, and finally he scaled the magazine onto the divan, rose and strode into the bedroom. He put on vest and coat, took hat and overcoat from a radiator, where they had dried, and put them on.

  When he reappeared in the living room he said, “Make yourself useful. You stay here, understand. I’m going out. If a fellow by the name of Barney Corday calls up ask him for a phone number where I can get him. Write it down. I’ll be calling you from outside somewhere—maybe several times. You got that straight?”

  “Absolute, Jack. You c’n depend on Shoes O’Riley. Say, is it O.K. if I take another drink?”

  “Help yourself—but stay sober for that phone call.”

  Downstairs, Cardigan stood in the vestibule doorway watching the rain driving heavily into the street, wrapping a wet veil round the street lights. He couldn’t get the telephone call out of his head. The man at the other end of the wire had been certain he had the right number. Cardigan left the vestibule and bounded down the street, keeping his eye peeled for a taxi. He ran three blocks before he found one, and crowding into it he gave the address of the Razzle Dazzle Club. As he leaned forward in the seat, a stream of water poured from the crown of his hat to the floor of the cab. The windows were streaked with rain and he saw nothing but blurred lights sweeping past.

  When the cab drew up before the Razzle Dazzle, sliding into the curb, a doorman with a large umbrella escorted Cardigan to the entrance of the club.

  Inside a girl took his hat and overcoat and Plant, the owner, wandered out of a doo
rway, took a drag at an oval-shaped cigarette and said: “Rain drive you in, Cardigan?”

  “Hello, Luke. What do you wear on your hair?”

  “My hat, when I feel like it.”

  “I mean the shine—if you stepped outside with a hairshine like that the raindrops’d break their necks sliding.”

  “I thought at first you were the new garbage collector and I was going to say the service entrance is in the rear.”

  “The service entrance I want is”—Cardigan nodded toward a wide door—“straight ahead. Come on up to the bar, Luke, and let’s have a drink on you.”

  Luke Plant was a dour, wooden-faced man with flat, steady gray eyes and a rattrap of a mouth. His shoulders sloped heavily and he put one of them casually in Cardigan’s way, said: “If you’re just going in for a drink, Jack, that’s O.K. If you want somebody”—he jerked his head toward the street door—“you can wait outside.”

  “What, in the rain?”

  “I don’t give a damn where you wait outside,” Plant said dispassionately, “but you don’t go inside and play cowboys-and-Indians.”

  Cardigan laughed good-humoredly. “Don’t let it worry you, Luke; I’ll break clean,” he said. He pushed past Plant, took a short corridor into the barroom, slid a foot on the rail and ordered a Scotch and soda. While it was being served, he wandered over to the wide archway and leaned there, running his eyes over the diners and dancers. There was a big crowd, pretty noisy. The band was hot and some fellow with a long neck was singing a song but you couldn’t hear a word of it. Cardigan didn’t catch sight of Barney Corday.

  HE RETURNED to the bar, picked up his drink and stood way back on his heels to drink it. The glass was empty when he put it down.

  “It’s got a taste like Scotch,” he said to the barman. “Do it again and I’ll tell you for sure.”

  “It’s real Scotch.”

  “Try a right-handed bottle this time,” Cardigan said, and returned to the archway. He searched systematically this time, dropping his eyes first on the table in the far corner to the right, then working them down that aisle of tables. When he returned to the bar again he was sure that Barney was not among those dining or dancing. He tried the second drink. It was better and he drank only a quarter of it, then made his way into the telephone booth and called his apartment. He heard the operator ringing the number. She said, “No answer, sir,” and he asked her to try again and she tried again, ringing a long time, but there was no answer. Cardigan whanged the receiver into the hook and muttered: “The tramp, I should have tossed him out in the first place!”

  He returned to the bar with angry shadows lying between his brows. He had counted on Shoes O’Riley remaining in the apartment to attend to any telephone calls. It was clear that Barney was not here at the Razzle Dazzle, which meant that doubtless he had made a connection and left. Cardigan knew that he himself could not ask any questions of Plant or anybody else in the club. It was this that handicapped him so greatly. There was no telling what had happened last night on Larry Briggs’ bender and Cardigan had to be very careful not to get the Cosmos Agency involved in anything that might backfire on it. Besides, Barney Corday was valuable only insofar as no one realized that he was a member of the agency. Therefore Cardigan felt he could not ask Plant or the barman if a fellow by the name of Barney Corday had been around. So he finished his drink, paid up and went back to the foyer.

  Plant said: “Sorry I misunderstood you, Cardigan.”

  “That’s all right, Luke. Hold your breath, though. There’s no telling when I may drop around to play cowboys-and-Indians.”

  “I’ll be the first Indian to put an arrow in your pants, cowboy.”

  “Adios, mug.”

  “Happy days, kid.”

  CARDIGAN took a cab back to his California Street address. When he entered his apartment all the lights were burning. The bathrobe he had lent Shoes O’Riley was shapeless in the Morris chair. The bottle of Scotch—which had been three quarters full—was now empty.

  Cardigan’s face grew dark red with anger. He slammed the bottle down and it broke. He was game to bet on long odds that while he was out Barney had called. It took a few minutes for his anger to subside. He knew there was nothing to do but wait until Barney called again. He undressed, put a bathrobe on and lay down on the divan, near the telephone.

  He was roused by a knocking. Sitting up, he listened, thinking that perhaps he had dreamed. But the knocking came again, slow and methodical. He got up and went to the door, unlocked and opened it and looked down into the broad, healthy face of Detective August Hunerkopf.

  “It’s a shame to wake you up, Mr. Cardigan, it’s a shame,” said Hunerkopf. “Take me—whenever I’m woke up it takes me almost an hour to get awake. I mean it used to till I found a way of getting awake quick. Some folks of course jump in a cold shower but I figure that’s kind of a shock, sort of. Me, I take a good long glass of ice-cold orange juice, if I have any ice-cold orange juice.”

  “I’m awake,” Cardigan said, peering steadily at Hunerkopf. He looked at his wrist watch. It was three in the morning. “What’s ailing you?”

  “Nothing’s ailing me, Mr. Cardigan. There was a fellow knocked off over in Stockton Street a little while ago and Mac figured you ought to come over.”

  “Why me?”

  “Well, this fellow he was in a taxi when he was knocked off. Some guys lolloped along in another car and let him have what-for. The taxi driver got scared and clumb over the curb. He says he was taking the passenger to this number on California Street. So Mac remembered it was your address.”

  Cardigan clipped: “Wait’ll I put some clothes on.”

  He dressed in five minutes and went down to the street with Hunerkopf. The rain had turned into a fine drizzle, noiseless but cold and penetrating. A police flivver was parked at the curb. Hunerkopf climbed into it and got behind the wheel and Cardigan crowded in beside him and they started off.

  “Your lights aren’t on,” Cardigan said.

  “Nope,” nodded Hunerkopf. “We been meaning to get new bulbs for three days now but somehow we never got around to it, we never got. You just have to sort of feel your way along. See the front right mudguard there, the way it’s dented? We got that last night. We were rolling along and Mac was driving and I says, ‘Mac, ain’t that a car parked ahead in the street?’ And Mac says, ‘Nah, that’s a shadow.’ So it wasn’t a shadow, it was a truck. Mac got very mad at the truck driver. He was going to run him in for having no tail-light when I nudged him and reminded him we had no headlights on.”

  There was a cluster of foggy lights in Stockton Street. Shapes of men stood or moved around in the thick pall of the drizzle. The black raincoats of two patrolmen glinted like black metal and beneath their visored caps their faces shone ruddy and wet. A police ambulance was drawn up, the white-trousered legs of the interne showing beneath a dark slicker. Hunerkopf parked the flivver and climbed out with an umbrella, which he opened.

  SERGEANT McGOVERN was sucking smoke through a rain-wet cigarette. He stood in the smudge of light between the ambulance and the flivver, a bony-faced dark man beneath a sodden hat, his hands jammed in the pockets of a sodden overcoat.

  “Hello, Cardigan,” his hoarse voice rasped. “We just shoved him in the ambulance. Take a look at him.”

  Cardigan walked over to the back of the ambulance. It was lighted inside. He looked down at the white lifeless face of his undercover man Barney Corday. Cigarette smoke floated past his nostrils and he turned and found McGovern at his elbow.

  “Know him?” McGovern asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is he?”

  “His name’s Barney Corday.”

  “He was shot twice in the neck and once in the chest,” McGovern said. “Any bright ideas?”

  “No, Mac.”

  He saw how handicapped he was again. He could not tell McGovern the truth because if he did the backwash might engulf Larry Briggs. This job was not on the record.
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br />   McGovern was saying: “The taxi driver said he picked him up on Jackson near Stockton. The guy was running and when the cab came along he hailed it and jumped in, out of breath, and they went only a couple of blocks when the sedan whooped down on them and let ’em have it. Their lights were doused and the taxi driver didn’t get any license number.”

  Cardigan was staring at the dead face of Barney Corday.

  McGovern said: “He was bound for your address. Why?”

  “I wish I knew, Mac,” Cardigan said.

  “Well, can’t you guess at something?”

  Cardigan saw there would be nothing gained now by holding back the fact that Corday had been one of his undercover men. But the rest would have to be kept secret.

  He said: “I can’t even guess, Mac. Barney worked for me on the q.t. You know, he was an undercover man. I can’t imagine what he got into, but it must have been hot or he wouldn’t have been heading for my place at this late hour.”

  “Oh, so he worked for you!”

  “Yes—On the q.t. Anything wrong about that?”

  “No, not at all. But it must have been hot all right and I wouldn’t be surprised if you knew where the heat lays.”

  “You going to start being that way again?”

  McGovern croaked out a hoarse chuckle. “What do you mean ‘start’? Have I ever stopped? Trouble with you, Cardigan, is you run that agency of yours like a school girl running a diary—under lock and key.”

  “O.K. if we shoot along?” the interne interrupted.

  “O.K., doc,” McGovern said. “Run it over to the morgue. We’ll want those bullets out. The guy’s a pal of Cardigan here. Do you know Cardigan? They say he’s one of the best private dicks in the country but I’m a guy can always take a joke.”

  “You sure can,” Cardigan nodded. “You’ve been taking yourself for years, Mac, but it must be tough on your wife.”