Double in Trouble (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I took a deep breath, held it a bit, let it out. I said, “Don’t wet your pants, Ragen. You can’t jerk my card or toss me off a job, so quit trying to scare me. If you’re clean on the Braun thing, I’ll be off your back. If not—”

  “Can’t you get it through your dumb head I didn’t have no reason to do nothing to that punk?”

  I’d had all there was going to be of this guy’s lip. I stood up suddenly. Ragen’s hand jerked, then stopped. It moved little more than an inch before he held it motionless, slowly moved it back to touch the other one. Maybe he thought I’d missed it, but I hadn’t.

  I had, however, missed the partly open drawer in the middle of his desk, close to his hand. Ragen didn’t carry a gun; he let his boys handle that. But it didn’t make sense that he’d be sitting here needling me unless he had a gun handy. It was, almost surely, in that partly open drawer. And why was he needling me in the first place? Not just for fun, and not merely so I’d sock him—which I was about to do. Uneasiness rippled through me.

  In fact, it didn’t make sense that he would let his boys go at all, especially with me here. They wouldn’t take off on their own, either. He’d sent them somewhere.

  Uneasiness grew in me. The thing that had seemed to jar Ragen earlier had been—I thought back over our conversation. It had been when he was wondering how I knew about Braun’s breaking in here.

  Ragen had said Braun must have phoned me, words to that effect. Then he’d said, “Or phoned that sister of his—” and that was when he’d stopped, when the tension in the room had seemed to leap up. So it had been when he’d mentioned Kelly, when he’d thought of Kelly.

  Uneasiness was turning into alarm. Why hadn’t Ragen said Braun might have gone to see Kelly? Why had he said phoned her? There was one good answer. Ragen knew Braun hadn’t seen her. I glanced at Ragen and he was watching me, silently. Rhythmically he traced a finger over that scar on his lip. I pulled my thoughts together. The only way Ragen could have known Braun hadn’t seen Kelly was if he’d staked out Kelly’s home after the theft, watched Kelly.

  And the thing for sure that had jarred Ragen had been his thought of Kelly. Soon after that he’d taken his two musclemen outside, sent them—somewhere. He must have sent them to Kelly’s. Mink and Candy would be on their way, almost there by this time.

  A pulse started beating in my temples. I said to Ragen, “You’re sure the stuff Braun took wasn’t important to you, huh? It doesn’t really make any difference whether you get it back or not.”

  “That’s right.”

  While my attention had been away from Ragen for those few seconds, he had moved a little. His hand was in that desk drawer now. And I knew damned well it was on a gun.

  I said casually, “That was Mink and Candy leaving, wasn’t it, Ragen?” I turned, without any sudden movement, walked to the window and pulled the drapes aside. I could see my Cad and Ragen’s. The Lincoln, of course, gone.

  “Nobody else here, Scott,” Ragen said. His voice was very soft.

  I walked back to the heavy chair I’d been sitting in, leaned easily over its back as I said, “I was hoping they’d stick around a little longer.” While I spoke I slid my hands down to the arms of the chair. It would be heavy. But not too heavy. As my fingers closed around the arms I said, “Maybe there’ll be another—”

  And then I clamped my fingers on the chair and yanked it up, jumping toward Ragen and hurling the chair ahead of me. He had a gun, all right. It went off with a sound like a cannon, but the slug hit the chair. I saw it jerk just before it cracked into him. I shoved hard on the floor with one foot and went clear over the desk at him, spread out in the air as the chair bounced off him and he swung back toward me, snapping the gun around.

  But then I slammed into him. He let out a yell and reeled backward, falling. I landed half on top of him, slid to the floor, slapped my left hand back as he tried to bring the gun around again. My fingers hit the metal and closed on it. I got a knee against the floor, balled my right fist and pivoted awkwardly, slamming the fist forward. It bounced off the side of his face and I pulled it back, clubbed him hard the second time.

  He flopped over. I threw the gun across the room and jumped to the phone, dialed Kelly’s number. Maybe there was time. The phone rang ... and rang.

  There were scrabbling sounds from the floor. I looked at Ragen, as the phone rang, unanswered. Ragen swore softly, filthily, dull dark eyes wild, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “You sonofabitch,” he whispered at me. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, you bastard, I’ll kill—”

  But I was on my way out by then, phone still clattering as it fell on the desk, toppled over the desk’s side. I slammed through the door, running toward my Cad, with two names filling my mind: Mink and Candy.

  And then just one name: Kelly.

  THE GOONS BEAT DRUM

  Washington, D.C., 8:00 P.M., Monday, December 14

  The Veterans’ Cab garage held down half a block on New Jersey Avenue, close to the big Naval gun factory on the Anacostia River.

  I parked and locked the car near the big vehicular entrance—locked it because this was that kind of neighborhood, a neighborhood of factories and warehouses and skid-row sidewalks, with an occasional gin-mill offering its neon and alcoholic restorative to tired, bitter men riding the long skids down.

  The dispatcher sat at a cluttered desk in a glass-enclosed cubicle inside the garage. He was a plump man, as bald as a discarded taxi tire. He was smoking a fat cigar. If the sour look on his face meant anything, he wasn’t enjoying it.

  When I knocked, he welcomed me in with a jerk of his round head. “Just a second, mac,” he said, and spoke into the mike of a two-way radio. “Got you, Seven. Out.” He looked up. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m trying to find a Veterans’ Cab that made a pickup at Washington National Airport around seven o’clock.”

  “Trying to find it why?”

  “It’s pretty important.”

  He smiled sourly at his cigar and put it down in a big copper ashtray. “Important for you or for the cab company?” he said.

  “Some luggage was left in the cab. I came for it.”

  “Ain’t had any luggage left at the garage tonight, mac. Call back in the morning, huh?”

  “I’d rather wait. How many cars went out there late this afternoon?”

  He glanced up sharply. “You law?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I got me an ear for it. You sound like law.”

  “I’m a private detective.”

  That kindled his curiosity. He checked his routing sheet with a forefinger as blunt as his cigar. “We had three cabs at the airport this afternoon. Two brand new jobs.”

  “It wasn’t a new car.”

  “And a four-year-old Dodge, Hank Cambria driving.”

  “That’s probably my baby.”

  The sharp, suspicious look came back to his face. “Jesus, that’s funny,” he said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Cambria. He ain’t reported in for half an hour or so.”

  He spoke into the mike. “Dispatcher to Car Thirteen. Over. Dispatcher to Car Thirteen. Hey, wake up, Hank!” He looked back at me. “Funny. He don’t answer.”

  “When was his last report?” I asked.

  “Lemme see ... six-fifty-four, airport. Single fare. To the Statler.”

  “You got a home address for Hank Cambria?”

  “Sure I got one.”

  His stare had become smug. I put a fin on the desk. His hand ate it. “Two-four-eight North Capitol Street,” he said.

  Just as I turned to go, his radio began to squawk. “Charlie, this is Stan in Three. We got trouble.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Car on Mt. Vernon Memorial Parkway. Cops there.”

  “You stop?” Charlie grunted into the mike.

  “I couldn’t. Got a fare.”

  “Car damaged?”

  “I don’t think so. It looked like the
four-year-old Dodge. Just north of the RR bridge, Charlie.”

  “Okay, I’ll check it out.”

  “Cambria’s cab?” I asked Charlie.

  “Yeah. If that bastard tied into one on the road—” He lunged to his feet, opened the door, shouted, “Hey, Solly! Take the board, will ya please? I got an out call.”

  A tall thin guy in a windbreaker came in munching a sandwich. “A night like this, the pleasure’s all yours,” he said.

  “I’ll drive you,” I told Charlie.

  “You will? That must be some suitcase.”

  We went outside together. The snow was coming down harder.

  Soon after crossing the Potomac to Mt. Vernon Memorial Parkway, we saw the blinking red dome-light of a State Police car. It was parked near the cab. Behind it a long white ambulance was also parked on the shoulder of the road. A hundred yards south I could just make out the railroad bridge through the falling snow, which made this the spot where I had run Glasses and the guy in the trench-coat off the road. But their car was gone.

  We parked near the police car and got out. “Keep moving,” a burly cop told us. “This isn’t a sideshow.”

  “Veterans’ Cab,” Charlie said, holding out identification. “What happened?”

  “One of your drivers got beat up on, mister.”

  Two other cops were talking. One of them was saying, “...car right around here. See the tread marks? And over here,” he squatted and pointed, “is where the tow-truck took them off.”

  “Beat up on?” Charlie said, his face suddenly vacated by all expression. “He hurt bad?”

  “They got him in the ambulance. He’s dying, mister.”

  “Jesus. Hank Cambria. I was just talking to him this afternoon.”

  We went over to the ambulance. The driver was just shutting the double rear doors. The aid-man was crouched over the stretcher inside.

  “...swear to God, Mr. Abbamonte,” a voice cried out, “I’ll get the dough...”

  “Easy,” the aid-man said.

  “Lemme see him,” Charlie said.

  The driver looked at the burly cop, who nodded. Charlie climbed into the ambulance and came out again in a hurry. “Did you see his face? Did you see his face?” he said over and over, his voice a hoarse croak. “Did you see his goddam face?”

  The driver shut the doors and went around to the front of the ambulance.

  “Can I drive the hack to the garage?” Charlie asked the burly cop.

  “Not tonight you can’t. She goes to the police garage in Alexandria first. I’ll give you a receipt. Did this man Cambria have any enemies? A grudge, maybe?”

  “A thing like that on a grudge?”

  The cop wrote out his receipt. “You can clear out, I guess. We’ll send a man to Washington tomorrow to see your manager.”

  “A grudge?” Charlie said again, then added abruptly, “I’ll tell you this, the poor slob had money troubles.”

  “What kind of money troubles?”

  “Search me, but he needed dough. I think he played the nags. He hit me for a touch a couple of times.”

  “How much was Cambria into you for?” the burly cop asked.

  “A sawbuck, that’s all.”

  “But you think he had other debts?”

  Snow melting on Charlie’s bare bald head was running down his face like tears. “Me and my big mouth. I talk too much.”

  “You think he had other debts?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Do you guess or do you know?”

  Charlie sighed. “Abbamonte,” he said. “The six-for-fiver with the National Brotherhood of Truckers. Cambria used to be a trucker.” He clutched the cop’s overcoat. “You say where that came from, you’ll fish me out of the Potomac wearing cement boots.”

  “Relax and go on home. We can respect a confidence.”

  The ambulance began to roll. Charlie and I got back into my car. “Abbamonte,” he said. “I ought to have my head examined.”

  I started driving. Charlie was quiet until we crossed the Potomac. “It looks like you don’t get the luggage, mac,” he said finally.

  “It looks that way.”

  “How’ll I know where to reach you, just in case they don’t impound it?”

  “You won’t. I’ll contact you.”

  I let Charlie off at the garage. The snow was coming down harder now, and just beginning to stick.

  Two-forty-eight North Capitol Street was a shabby frame house that had been subdivided into four apartments, two upstairs and two down. Hank Cambria had the upstairs rear.

  When I knocked, a woman’s voice called from inside, “You forget your key again. Hank? Why dontcha put it on the ring with your car keys like I said?”

  She opened the door and started to shut it again almost at once when she saw me. I got a shoe in the way. “What do you want, mister? Hank ain’t home yet.”

  Her question was a good one. But I knew Abacus Abbamonte, the National Brotherhood of Truckers’ loan-shark, by reputation. If Abbamonte was into you for money, the debt could skyrocket astronomically. A six-for-fiver, Abbamonte charged twenty per cent interest per week. Compounded, that could turn a hundred-buck touch into a two-hundred buck debt in a month.

  Figure Abbamonte was into Hank Cambria. Figure Cambria, desperate because he couldn’t meet the six-for-five payment, had agreed to do a job for Abbamonte. Which meant a job for Mike Sand, who held the National Brotherhood of Truckers in a fist as hard as a crankcase. Such as to help set up the phony snatch, for reasons unknown except that a guy named Holt was going to pull the Sir Galahad act....

  Holt. The name hadn’t meant anything before, but it’s a common enough name and I had no reason to tie it to the Brotherhood. Now, with Abbamonte in the picture, I did. And a man named Townsend Holt handled public relations for the National Brotherhood of Truckers. He was up to his ears in public relations gone sour these days, could barely keep his head afloat, because the Senate Labor Investigating Committee had set the stage for public hearings on the Brotherhood and on Mike Sand’s crankcase of a fist.

  “Hank ain’t home yet,” the woman said again.

  “Can I come in, Mrs. Cambria? I’d like to talk to you.”

  She opened the door without enthusiasm. She looked scared. She was a slightly overweight but surprisingly pretty woman in her mid-twenties. Long dark hair tied in a ponytail, wide dark Latin eyes, thick, moistly red lips and a lush figure straining at the floral pattern of her cheap housecoat. She shut the door behind me and leaned against it for a moment, as if trying to keep trouble out with the weight of her body.

  It was a small living room furnished with the detritus of a dozen rummage sales—a tired, sagging sofa, two heavy wing chairs, their backs stained with hair oil, a couple of scarred end-tables, an early TV set with one of those post-card-sized screens. On it, to the sound of saccharin music, a man was making aseptically passionate love to a well-dressed woman. Mrs. Cambria shut the set off, consigning the lovers to electronic eternity.

  “Listen,” she said before I could say anything, “I swear Hank’s gonna make good. You can tell Mr. Abbamonte.”

  “What makes you think Abbamonte sent me?”

  “Didn’t he?” She took in my open topcoat, the gray flannel under it, the button-down collar and the tie. “We don’t get no visitors here.”

  I rode along with her conviction, not feeling good about it. “How does Mr. Abbamonte know Hank’s going to make good? Don’t you think he’s heard that song before?”

  “What do you want us to do, mister? Get down on our knees and beg? Hank’s got a regular job, steady, pushing a hack. He’s gonna pay. You want us to get down and beg?”

  “There are other ways,” I said, trying to draw her out.

  “Look, I know how it is with Hank and the ponies. When he drove a truck he used to borrow from Mr. Abbamonte to put money with the union book, then borrow all over again. But he ain’t gonna—” Desperation made her voice break huskily.

&nbs
p; “What’s your name?” I said.

  “Marie.”

  “Don’t you think there are other ways, Marie?” I wanted to get her to talk about any deals her husband had made with Abbamonte, but she misunderstood me.

  “What do you want, mister?” She unbelted her housecoat suddenly and parted it. Under it she wore a pink bra and panties. Her skin was dark, her flesh firm. “This? If this is what you want, why don’t you say so?” She stared at me steadily, questioningly, her dark eyes bright. But her lips were trembling. “I’ll do anything I hafta, for Hank. Just leave him be.”

  “You’ve got me wrong, Marie,” I said. “I don’t work for Abbamonte.”

  Her eyes went blank with confusion. Her arm dropped to her side, but she didn’t belt the housecoat. “What do you want from us then?” The back of one hand flew to her mouth in an exaggerated gesture of fear she had learned from the TV screen as, for the second time tonight, I got taken for a cop. “Are you the police? All the time I been telling you...”

  Just then the phone rang. That would be the police, I thought. She reached it on the second shrill ring, got it off the end-table and said, “Hello?” into the receiver.

  “What? Yes, this is Mrs. Cambria. Who? You what? What did you ... oh no, Jesus God, no no no...”

  She let the receiver drop. It hit the bare floor, the wire dangling. I hung it up for her.

  She belted the housecoat. She was shaking. “He’s dead,” she said. “Hank’s dead. You knew that all the time, didn’t you? Didn’t you? For a lousy hundred bucks they killed him.”

  “Is there anybody you can call, Marie?”

  “No, I ... there’s no one. Just leave me alone.”

  “I’ll stay with you if you want.”

  “Go away. Leave me be. Go on, get out! All the time you knew. Letting me make a fool ... get out!” she screamed. “Just get out of here and leave me alone, coming here when he was dying like that. Get out, get out, get out!”

  I went outside and downstairs, and drove home knowing her grief had bought me another piece of the case more surely than a client’s retainer could have.

  The blonde who had lost her luggage stared up at me alongside my morning coffee.