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

by Frederick Nebel

  “Eleven grand to you and eleven for me, huh?”

  “That’s right. That’s a clean break, isn’t it?”

  “That’s pretty clean, McQueene.”

  McQueene stuck his stumpy thumbs into his lower vest pockets, grinned broadly, jovially, showing two buck teeth, slightly yellow. “I knew you’d come around to sensible talk, Cardigan. We’re both in a tough game, underpaid, and when a little cash is found laying around loose, why—” He shrugged, spread his palms.

  “Sure,” nodded Cardigan.

  “Absolutely,” nodded McQueene. “I often thought that you and me, with an agency of our own—”

  “Could clean up.”

  “Positively!” agreed McQueene. “Why, Cardigan, this town is wide open for a man of enterprise—two men of enterprise—”

  Cardigan opened his desk drawer and withdrew a box, flipped it open. “Have a cigar, McQueene.”

  “Why, thanks. I don’t mind if I do.”

  McQueene stuck the cigar in his mouth and Cardigan struck a match and held it up. McQueene leaned forward, touching one end of the cigar to the flame, sucking on the other. Cardigan used his free hand to reach in beneath McQueene’s left arm and snap his gun from its shoulder holster. The gun he pressed against the man’s soft big belly. The cigar fell from McQueene’s mouth.

  Cardigan said: “I always wondered, McQueene, just why you were a tenth-rate dick. I know now.” He backed up McQueene, side-stepped to the window, closed it. Then he crossed to a steel cupboard, opened it and took out a towel. He wrapped the towel around the gun and the hand that held the gun. He said: “This makes a pretty good silencer, McQueene.”

  McQUEENE’S lips flapped like loose rubber, his pulpy lids crushed upward, revealing wet wide eyes, stark with a growing horror. His jowls jounced. “My God, Cardigan!” he croaked.

  “Another reason why you’re a tenth-rate dick: you can’t take it. Well, maybe you can talk. How did you find out Trent had twenty-two grand on him?”

  “Honest, Cardigan,” the fat lips blubbered, “it was a chance I took. Just a long chance.”

  “Don’t try talking yourself up. You never took a long chance in your life. Yes, you did—one. But it was a mistake. You over-reached yourself. You thought you could carioca in here and chisel your way into a small estate of eleven grand. Even thinking of that long chance, McQueene, ought to give you heart failure. And by the way, how is your heart?”

  McQueene held his arms out before him, fat palms toward Cardigan, fat lips jogging. “S-so help me, Cardigan—”

  “Douse it. What I want to know is, where’d you find out Trent was packing twenty-two grand when I took him home; and if you don’t tell me I’m going puncture that spare tire around your belly and I hope to hell you don’t bleed all over my carpet.”

  Sweat had sprung out on McQueene’s forehead. “Don’t! Put that gun down, Cardigan! I made a mistake! I’ll admit it—”

  “You talk too much. You heard what I asked you.”

  McQueene pawed at his throat. “I—I was hired, Cardigan. Honest to cripes, I was hired! It’s no doing of my own. I was hired to—”

  “Who hired you?”

  “Listen, Cardigan, you know yourself a private detective is like a lawyer—he shouldn’t reveal his client’s identity—”

  Cardigan snarled: “You fat-head! Do you think I give a damn about a lot of noise like that! You walked into something here, McQueene, and so help me you’re going to spill over or I’ll open you wide!”

  McQueene staggered backward, his upper lip fluttering and revealing his two buck teeth. “Beckels—Beckels!” he gagged.

  “That’s not enough. Who’s Beckels?”

  “He—he runs a place up the street from the Dynamite Bar.”

  “What kind of a place?”

  “You—you know—cards—roulette—chuck-a-luck.”

  “And Beckels sent you after me?”

  “Look, Cardigan. Look now! Trent hit there early last night and took the roulette wheel for a ride. He damn near broke the bank. He ran five hundred bucks up to twenty-two grand! When Beckels read the papers this afternoon—read how you convinced the cops Trent’s death was an accident—”

  “He hired you to proposition me.”

  “Yeah—yes!”

  “You sure he didn’t want the whole twenty-two grand back?”

  McQueene’s eyes rolled.

  Cardigan snapped: “Of course he did! And he offered you a commission of—say—a thousand bucks. And you thought you’d be wise. You thought you’d get eleven grand out of me easier than twenty-two—and then skip with the eleven grand.”

  McQueene was pressing his back against the wall, guilt written starkly all over his flabby face. He gibbered: “D-don’t tell Beckels! For God’s sake, don’t t-tell Beckels!”

  “Get out,” Cardigan muttered.

  “Listen—please—d-don’t tell—”

  “Out, McQueene!”

  McQueene stumbled ingloriously into the outer office, turned around, croaking: “Promise me you won’t t-tell Beck—”

  “I’ll promise you a kick in the teeth if you don’t get out!”

  McQueene rushed out blindly, choking, spitting.

  Chapter Three

  Cardigan Bums a Butt

  THE lad with the broken nose was dribbling his fingers up and down the ivories in a dusky, lazy song about a man who done a gal wrong. It was a slow hour—ten—in the Dynamite Bar, and only a few of the blue-checkered tablecloths were occupied by elbows. In a corner a fat girl with bangs was taking the delta song to heart and sniffling into a rye highball while her escort, a flat-headed tall man, was patting her hand. There was a lazy, sleepy atmosphere about the place, and Miles O’Mara was absent-mindedly rolling dice all by himself at the bar, while the barman looked on dully.

  Cardigan came down the winding stairway with his big feet making a lot of noise. The buttons of his overcoat were in the wrong buttonholes, the crown of his old hat looked like a relief map of a mountain range. He came up to the bar as Miles O’Mara rolled out a natural.

  “Nice night out, eh, Jack?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Miles; I’m a stranger in town. Come in the back room a minute.” Cardigan did not wait but swung away from the bar, ducked his big head as he went into the rear room. He swiveled, crackled a match to life on a thumb nail and was puffing the end of a cigarette red when O’Mara came in.

  O’Mara said: “You act like a guy with things on his mind,” and sat down on the settee, shooting his legs out and crossing them at the ankles.

  “Plenty, kid,” Cardigan nodded, bending a keen glance on him and keeping it there. “What would you say if I said Trent was floating around town last night with twenty-odd grand in his pockets?”

  O’Mara looked up at him, said nothing for a minute, then said: “Am I supposed to bite hard or just nibble?”

  “Take a good hard bite.”

  “O.K. What’s it to me?”

  Cardigan took a couple of slow, ruminative puffs, his hard stare still fixed speculatively on O’Mara. He said at length: “Trent spent some time in this back room, Miles.”

  O’Mara stood up, stretched. “So I rolled a lush, huh?” His smile was thin, crooked.

  Cardigan said: “You know, Miles, there was something damned screwy about the whole thing. Are you sure you weren’t the one put the idea about a guard into Trent’s head so that I would be the fall-guy?”

  O’Mara reflected aloud: “You were, so far as anyone knows, the last to see him alive, weren’t you? What do the cops say to the new angle?”

  “The cops don’t know about the new angle. I thought maybe you knew about it all along.”

  O’Mara crossed the room and looked at himself in a mirror. “I don’t look a hell of a lot like a rat. Maybe I am one, though.” He turned, his smile lopsided. “I don’t know whether to bust out laughing or cave in your kisser.”

  “Cave in whose kisser?” Cardigan mocked him, then chuckled, said:
“You’d have to whittle me way down first, Miles.”

  O’Mara took three steps and one swing and the swing stopped against Cardigan’s jaw and Cardigan sat down on the settee. He blinked, shook his head, rubbed his jaw; for an instant there was a glassy look in his eyes, but then it faded.

  O’Mara was grimacing, biting his lip. He ripped out: “You big sap, why’d you egg me on? Are you all right? Did I hurt you? You want a drink?” He swept a bottle from the table, poured a stiff jigger. “Here, Jack.”

  Cardigan downed it, smacked his lips. “O.K., Miles. I asked for it, didn’t I? I always thought you were a right guy, Miles, and I guess you are. But somebody got that twenty-odd grand.”

  O’Mara’s fists curled up again.

  “Uh-uh,” Cardigan said, shaking his head. “Ten to one you didn’t get it. What do you know about Beckels’ place up the street?”

  “I’ve won a couple of bucks there, lost a couple, now and then.” He squinted. “Why?”

  “It’s a spot I never heard of, and I never heard of Beckels.”

  O’Mara said: “I think he comes from Reno. They say his games are on the level. I don’t know much about him. I’ve had a couple of drinks with him over the bar.”

  “How does he stand in with the cops?”

  “He doesn’t.”

  Cardigan said: “Trent took his roulette wheel for a long ride last night and—”

  “Stop!” O’Mara cut in, his eyes widening, his index finger pressing against Cardigan’s chest. “Let me think. Now let me think. It comes to me now. About ten minutes after Trent came in here last night a guy came in and took one of the tables over the other side of the bar. Just after you left with Trent, this guy went in the phone booth alongside the bar. He was in there, well, I don’t know how long—just long enough to make a call. Then he came out and had a drink at the bar, taking his time. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, and maybe there’s nothing to it now. But I remember I’d never seen the guy before. He was a little fellow, well dressed, with a blond mustache. Wait a second. I’ll call Angelo.”

  HE summoned one of the waiters, a hunchbacked Italian with a bald head and a big nose. He said: “D’you remember the little guy with the blond mustache at that table behind the post last night, about the time the funny drunk was in here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Was he ever in here before?”

  “I never seen him.”

  “Did he ask you any questions?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nothing, huh?”

  “Nope. Only when Mr. Cardigan came in, the fella kind of grinned and said, ‘That guy smells like a copper. Is this a raid?’ So I said, ‘No. That’s just Mr. Cardigan, the private detective. He’s taking the stewed gentleman home.’ That’s all. The guy just laughed and bought another drink and asked for some nickels.”

  O’Mara said, “O.K., Angelo,” and the waiter returned to the bar. O’Mara dropped his voice. “Think there’s a tie-up?”

  “Like this maybe. Trent was tailed here by two guys. One parked himself in a store across the street near a telephone. The other came in here, to keep his eye on the prize. When the prize left, the one in here phoned his pal in the store across the street, or down the street, or maybe around the corner. The pal took up the trail.”

  “Except this: how could anybody’ve got in through that big lock?”

  “No one could’ve, Miles—but if I stop to worry my nut off over that I’ll get muscle-bound. The way it stands now, the only guy who could have rolled Trent in his apartment was me. And I didn’t. They’re the words and I’ve got to write music to them.” He strode to the door, paused to pivot and say: “Is there any gag about getting in Beckels’ place?”

  “Hell, man. I imagine Beckels’d welcome you with open arms!”

  Cardigan chuckled roughly, swung aside the curtain and passed through the doorway. McQueene turned sidewise away from the bar and blocked him. McQueene’s rubbery lower lip hung loosely; his face looked sweaty and greasy and there was about him the hot stench of too much whisky. Whisky made his voice husky when he croaked: “Where you going, Cardigan?”

  “Hello, McQueene,” Cardigan said, his eyes dropping to the bulge in McQueene’s overcoat pocket. McQueene’s hand was in that pocket but his hand alone did not make the bulge. Cardigan leaned sidewise against the bar. “Have a drink, McQueene.”

  The big lips hung motionless but McQueene was saying, “Where you going?” in a dull, sunken voice.

  “I suppose you’ve been tailing me all evening, huh?”

  “Where you going, Cardigan?”

  “You’re plastered, McQueene. Use your head.”

  McQueene murmured: “You’re going to Beckels.” His lips shook and there was a dull, sodden look in his pinched eyes. Cardigan could see the bulge moving. He knew what the dull look meant. It was far more deadly than if McQueene’s eyes had blazed. The barman was down at the other end of the bar, paying no attention. O’Mara was still in the back room. The people at the tables were absorbed with their own interests. The broken-nosed piano player was hunting through his sheet music.

  McQueene shook his head. A slow, crazy leer drew his lips apart, revealing his two buck teeth. “No you’re not going to Beckels,” he said thickly.

  Cardigan said gravely: “I’m sorry for you, McQueene. You’re not doing this because you’ve got guts. You’re yellow. I’m sorry as hell for you. When you come after me again, sweetheart, come stark sober.”

  He swung upward with his left, crashed it into McQueene’s mouth. McQueene staggered backward, dragging out his gun. Cardigan’s right hand swept a bottle off the bar. He chopped with it. It slammed against McQueene’s head. People jumped up, knocking over tables. McQueene flopped around on his feet like a piece of jelly, the gun dangling in his hand, his eyes rolling. Cardigan hit him in the mouth and McQueene went down, lay motionless on the floor.

  O’Mara came out of the back room like a shot, stopped short.

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Cardigan, jerking a thumb toward McQueene. “I think he thought I was somebody else. Nice guy, but impulsive. Be seeing you, Miles.”

  He went out.

  THE woman who let Cardigan in the house up the street looked to be about thirty. She had black hair, cut short, smooth as a boy’s, and her ears were bare.

  The entrance hall was quiet, deserted. At the left was a wide, open doorway leading into a large, comfortable living room, and this was empty but for a young man in a tuxedo who sat facing the doorway, turning the pages of a magazine. The whole thing looked innocent enough. It looked like a comfortable home, quiet, well ordered.

  “Nice, nice,” Cardigan said to the woman. “Tell Beckels I want to see him?”

  “Beckels?” She looked curiously at him.

  “My name is Cardigan,” he said.

  Her eyes steadied, her lips tightened.

  He smiled. “Don’t let the name get you down.”

  It seemed she did not know what to do. Her eyes fluttered for an instant, her breast rose, fell.

  The man in the other room got up, tossed the magazine onto a table and came out into the entrance hall lighting a cigarette. He was young, lean. He said indolently: “What do you want to see Beckels for?”

  “I’ll tell that to Beckels.”

  The young man looked at him steadily with dry, expressionless eyes, then said: “Come on up. Leave your things.”

  Cardigan gave his hat and overcoat to the woman and followed the young man up the stairs. In the upper hall were several wall lights, one of which was out. The young man screwed the bulb until it was lighted; then he unscrewed it again. Down the hall, a door opened and a small, dark-faced man looked out.

  “O.K., Sam,” Cardigan’s companion said, and they passed into a small room furnished with two high-backed chairs. There was a door beyond, which Cardigan’s companion opened, stepped aside to let him pass.

  Cardigan stepped into a room where half a dozen people were standing a
round a crap table. At the other side of the room was a chuck-a-luck layout being patronized by two women and a man. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Beyond, there was an open doorway; beyond the doorway a larger room, a large group of men and women hemming in a roulette table.

  “Nice, nice,” smiled Cardigan.

  His companion did not smile. The man seemed to have no lips at all. He paused, looked around, went over to speak with a man who stood against the wall. Then he came back, motioned Cardigan to follow him and so led the way through another room where five men in evening clothes were playing stud poker. He knocked on a door. The door was opened and the man gestured Cardigan in.

  The room was a sitting room, small but luxuriously furnished. Inside, Cardigan stopped, measured a tall, barrel-chested man who stood holding a drink in his hand. The man wore evening clothes. He had a round, solid, heavy jaw, rusty hair, a narrow bony forehead and big-knuckled rusty hands. He chuckled. “Cardigan, eh?”

  Cardigan said: “What was the idea of sending around a guy with a lot of ham in him to try to scare me?”

  Beckels took a drink. “Where is McQueene, by the way?”

  “I gave him a bottle and rocked him to sleep. He gets underfoot a lot, like an old rug. What gave you the notion that a tenth-rate wind-broken dick like McQueene could get to first base with me?”

  Beckels was unperturbed in a heavy manner. “McQueene’s been working nights for me here since I opened the spot. I pay him fifteen bucks a night for keeping out mugs that oughtn’t to come in. I’m practically a stranger here. He’s been in the detective business a long time and knows the hot numbers by heart.”

  “Why did you send him after me?”

  “Why go over all that, Cardigan? Trent hit the bank for twenty-two grand and a few hundred last night and you took him home and he was found conked this morning and there wasn’t anything said about the dough being on him. I called McQueene in today and we talked it over. I sent him after you. I figured you’d rolled the guy and since the money was loose I wanted to get back what I’d lost. What’s wrong about that? I offered McQueene ten per cent of the take—a couple of grand. What did you expect me to do, run to the cops, get myself in a jam for running a blind spot and at the same time get kicked around headquarters on a charge of having connived to roll the lush of what he’d won off me?”