The second time I awakened the room light was on. When I opened my eyes, the glare of the naked bulb hit them so painfully I squeezed them shut again. The blinding pain in my head had now reduced to a dull throbbing ache, I was glad to discover. After a moment I let my eyes open to slits, and as they gradually adjusted to the light, I just as gradually let them open wide.
My bed partner had disappeared. Only one other person was in the room. Buzz Thurmond sat in the chair where Sherman Bremmer had previously slept, an automatic lying in his lap and his eyes studying me broodingly.
“Decided to join the party, eh?” he said.
When I tried to sit up, I discovered my hands were lashed behind my back. They felt as though they were asleep. I only made it to a half sitting position, because when the pain in my head grew sharper the moment I moved it, I collapsed back on my side again.
“What time is it?” I asked in a croaking voice I hardly recognized.
“Eleven o’clock. You been sleeping seven and a half hours.”
The inconsequential thought passed through my mind that Fausta was going to be madder than a scalded cat. I’d had a date with her two hours ago.
“Where’s Bremmer and Limpy Alfred?” I asked.
“The boss is lying down with an icebag on his head. Limpy’s on an errand.”
Thurmond’s tone was an unfriendly growl, but his answers were civil enough in content. As long as he was being so congenial, I decided to get all the information I could out of him.
“What are your plans for me?”
He stopped being congenial. “Why don’t you shut up and stop asking questions before I come over there and pay you back for that bat on the chin.”
So I shut up and stopped asking questions. Instead I examined my jailer with a mixture of pessimism and pride. The pride was due to the large bump on his forehead, where I had thrown a strike with the tumbler, and the smaller lump on his oversized jaw.
A few minutes later the door opened and Sherman Bremmer came in. His normally sooty white complexion was even sootier than usual and his eyes possessed the slightly glazed look of a man with a terrific hangover. Apparently he still had a headache, because when the sight of me distorted his face into a snarl, he winced and smoothed out his facial muscles again.
“Isn’t Limpy back yet?” he asked Thurmond in a heavy voice.
The big man shook his head.
Then we all looked toward the door as dragging footsteps sounded in the hall. In a moment the door opened and Limpy Alfred moved stiffly into the room. He handed Bremmer a leather key case which even across the room I recognized as my own.
“He wasn’t there,” the gray-haired man said. “What now?”
Bremmer frowned and rubbed his forehead as though it hurt him. Crossing to the bed, he glared down at me.
“Where’d you hide that kid, Moon?”
When I merely looked up at him silently, he started to bend forward with the apparent intention of slapping me across the face, but the instant his head lowered he winced and straightened up again.
“Get out of him where he put the kid,” he ordered Thurmond.
Rising, Buzz Thurmond walked over to the bed, grabbed me by the shirt front and jerked me to a seated position. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, closed my eyes until my head adjusted to its new position and the searing pain reduced to a mere ache, then looked up at him.
“Where’d you put him?” Buzz asked.
“He’s in jail,” I said. “He was describing you to the cops, and they arrested him for indecent language.”
He swung a roundhouse slap at my head from a point straight behind him. With his two hundred and fifty pounds behind it, probably it would have knocked me silly if it had landed. But it took so long to arrive, I decided not to wait.
Dropping flat on my back, I brought up both feet, stuck them in his stomach and shoved. He trotted backward across the room, crashed into the door with such force the whole room shook, and let out a roar like an enraged gorilla.
As he started back at me, Bremmer said, “Hold it!”
Buzz stopped to glower at him and Bremmer said, “Not so much noise. For cripes sake, can’t you do it quietly?”
His petulant tone convinced me it wasn’t concern for the tenants which brought on this request, but merely his splitting headache.
Buzz continued his advance in silence. Carefully avoiding my feet, he jerked me completely off the bed to a standing position, held me up with one hand and methodically slapped me both forehand and backhand until my ears were ringing.
Then he threw me back on the bed.
I said thickly, “If that’s the best you can do, you big ape, you ought to get a different job. You’re a washout as a torturer.”
Buzz growled deep in his throat. Leaning over me, he grasped my shoulders and dug a thumb into the joint on each side. When he found the nerves he wanted, he pressed until I had to bite my lips to keep from screaming.
Eventually he let up and asked, “Where’s the kid?”
I had to wait a minute for the pain to subside before I could speak. Then I asked thickly, “Have you tried his home?”
With an exasperated expression on his face, Buzz started to dig in his thumbs again.
“This time I’ll probably scream my head off,” I said tightly. “You’ll give the hotel a hell of a reputation.”
When his thumbs only bored deeper, I did scream. I’m not an expert screamer, but as Thurmond’s face was only inches from mine, it startled him enough to make him release me and straighten up.
Thurmond said to Bremmer, “Get something to gag him with.”
“That’s no good either,” I pointed out. “If you gag me, I can’t tell you what you want to know.”
Buzz studied me broodingly before turning back to Bremmer. “Do we have to listen to this all night?” he asked in a fretful voice. “Why don’t we just bump him and hunt for the kid later?”
Bremmer was again rubbing his aching head. “He’s got a point,” he said. “We can’t have him letting out screams like that in the hotel.”
Limpy Alfred said, “We ought to call in Sam Polito. He could make anybody talk.”
The hotel proprietor’s face brightened. “Yeah. Maybe that’s an idea.” For a few moments he cogitated. “Just hold things up until I get back,” he said finally. “I want to make a couple of phone calls.”
He left the room and was gone about ten minutes. In the interim the two men chain-smoked cigarettes and I lay on the bed wishing I had a cigar.
When Bremmer returned he was all brisk efficiency.
“Take him over to Harry Krebb’s place,” he ordered. “His house, not the garage. He’s got a basement that’s almost soundproof, and there isn’t anybody else living in that block. It’s all business and they’ll be closed now. I’ll pick up Sam Polito and meet you over there.”
Again Buzz jerked me to my feet. But this time instead of slapping me silly, he shoved me toward the door. Since my hands were tied behind my back, I had to wait for somebody else to open it. Limpy Alfred performed the service.
We went downstairs in single file, Limpy Alfred first, me second, Buzz with a gun in his hand third, and the fat hotel owner bringing up the rear. At the first floor landing the rest of us waited while Limpy Alfred checked the lobby alone.
When he reappeared at the foot of the stairs, he climbed up to us again instead of motioning us down.
“There’s a guy sitting in the lobby,” he said.
“Anybody you know?” Bremmer asked.
The little man shook his head. “Just a guy. Probably waiting for one of the girls. Kind of stupid-looking cluck.”
Bremmer considered. “Untie his wrists,” he finally decided. “Buzz, stick your gun in your pocket, but keep it on his back. While the three of you are walking out, I’ll go over to say something to this guy and stand in front of him to block off the view.”
A knife appeared in Limpy Alfred’s hand and he told me to turn ar
ound. A moment later the severed rope fell to the floor. I rubbed my wrists to restore circulation.
Then we were moving down the stairs again, this time Bremmer in the vanguard, Limpy Alfred in second place and Buzz behind me as usual. Limpy held the rest of us back until Bremmer had time to reach the lobby and cross to the stranger. Then we moved on quickly.
As we started across the lobby, I saw Bremmer standing in front of one of the couches, his body blocking everything but the thick legs of the man he was talking to. As we passed, I heard him saying, “My name is Bremmer, sir. I’m the manager here. If there’s anything …” Then we were beyond them at the front door and I couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence.
Just before we went outdoors I risked a quick glance back. This got me a scowl from Buzz Thurmond, but didn’t prevent me from getting a profile view of the man Bremmer was talking to.
To my complete amazement I saw it was Mouldy Greene.
23
THE hotel parking lot was across the street from the Bremmer Hotel. My two captors hustled me across to a Buick sedan parked on the lot. Not more than a half dozen other cars were parked on the lot, and one of them was my Plymouth. Another, I noted, was Mouldy Greene’s long yellow convertible, which in that neighborhood stuck out like a Cadillac would in the Bowery.
I sat in the back under Buzz Thurmond’s gun while Limpy Alfred drove. It was only about twelve blocks to Seventh and Lucas, and the trip took no more than five minutes. Limpy parked in the alley behind the darkened repair garage.
With Thurmond’s gun still in my back, we crossed a back yard to the house in front of the repair garage. The only lights in the house came from the basement windows. Buzz and I waited while Limpy Alfred went down some cellar steps and rapped on the basement door. When it opened, he gestured us down too.
The rear part of the basement seemed to be a furnace and laundry room. When Buzz and I entered, Limpy Alfred was already disappearing through a door at its far end. Buzz prodded me after him and I walked into a neatly decorated game room.
The room was about fifteen by twenty feet, with a fireplace at one end and a small bar at the other. The walls were of plaster, painted light blue, and the ceiling was white acoustic board. A pool table stood in the center of the room, a wicker sofa sat in front of the fireplace and two small round cocktail tables were near the bar.
It was Harry Krebb who had opened the door to Limpy Alfred’s knock. After looking about the room I said to him, “The bandit business must be pretty good.”
“Hey!” the auto-repair man said with an air of discovery. “This guy brought his car into my garage!”
Buzz Thurmond said without concern, “He’s been sticking his nose in a lot of places.”
The only other door in the room aside from the entrance, apparently a rest room, opened and my pool-shark acquaintance, Art Cooney, strolled out.
Both Buzz Thurmond’s and Limpy Alfred’s gaze jerked to him.
“What you doing here?” Buzz asked.
“Harry and I was shooting a little pool when Bremmer phoned. I thought I’d stick around.” His eyes touched me indifferently, then recognition dawned. “Hey, I shot a game over at the pool hall with this guy the other night!”
“Three games,” I said.
“He’s been nosing into the whole setup,” Buzz explained. “Don’t worry about it. He ain’t going to tell anybody whatever he found out.”
He was a little late, since I’d already passed on to Warren Day everything I knew, but I didn’t see any point in enlightening him.
Nearly ten minutes passed before footsteps sounded in the laundry room and Bremmer entered with Sam Polito following him.
The barber took one look at me and said, “This man. I shampoo his head one evening.”
Buzz gave me an irritated look. “My you were a busy little bee.” To Bremmer he said, “Moon must have been casing everybody Stub Carlson told him about. He got to Harry’s garage and to Art Cooney here too.”
Bremmer asked quickly, “Any of you let anything drop?”
Harry Krebb said, “He didn’t ask anything,” Art Cooney said, “All we talked about was pool,” and Sam Polito shook his head.
Bremmer seemed to dismiss it. Turning to Polito he said, “What we want is to find out where Moon here hid out Stub Carlson. The kid’s not at home and he’s not at Moon’s flat. It’s your baby.”
The swarthy barber merely nodded.
“You lock the basement door when you came in?” Krebb asked.
Bremmer said, “No. You better lock it.”
Krebb walked out into the laundry room, pulling the door to the game room shut behind him.
“Lay him out on the pool table,” Bremmer ordered the others. “Strip him to the waist first.”
As Buzz closed in on me from one side and Art Cooney from the other, I held up one hand.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll do it myself.”
Shrugging out of my coat, I hung it over one of the chairs at one of the two cocktail tables. I draped my tie across it, folded my shirt neatly and laid it on top, then pulled off my undershirt. Then I climbed up on the pool table, lay on my back and folded my hands across my stomach.
Sam Polito reached in his pocket, brought something out, there was a sharp click and a thin blade with a razor edge jumped from his fist. At a signal from Bremmer, Thurmond grabbed one of my arms, Cooney grabbed the other and Limpy Alfred clasped his arms around my legs.
The barber came nearer and held the knife next to my nose so that I could examine it carefully.
“Sam doesn’t like to talk much, so I’ll explain things for him,” Bremmer said. “Sam’s so expert with that thing, he can peel off skin a square inch at a time without even cutting the tissue underneath. According to Sam, a man can live until two thirds of his skin has been cut away. But I imagine he’d stop wanting to long before that. Now I don’t enjoy this sort of thing, Mr. Moon, and I’d just as soon dispense with it. Why don’t you tell us where the kid is and save both us and yourself trouble?”
I examined Sam Polito. There was nothing sadistic in his sullen face. His expression was simply unfeeling. He had a job to do and he’d do it efficiently, but he didn’t really care one way or the other whether he had to do it or not.
This unnerved me more than if he had done a little gloating. The man impressed me as little more than an animal, standing there holding his knife and patiently waiting for an order to begin. I felt sweat pop out on my forehead and roll off the side of my face.
I made an effort to say something heroic, then decided the hell with it. Everybody there knew I was scared, including myself, and some smart crack wasn’t going to convince them any differently. I just clamped my mouth shut and looked at Polito’s knife.
Bremmer gave a resigned nod and the point dipped toward my chest.
I brought my legs up, shot them forward again and hurled Limpy Alfred halfway across the room. The knife retreated and the barber said unemotionally, “Such a little man cannot hold his legs alone.”
“You can say that again,” Limpy Alfred said as he got up and dusted himself off. He looked around. “Where the hell’s Harry?”
The rest of them looked around too. Finally Bremmer went to the door and jerked it open.
He opened it just as a figure reached for the knob on the other side. But the man wasn’t Harry Krebb. When the doorknob receded from his seeking grasp, Mouldy Greene changed the direction of his grab and instead gathered a handful of Bremmer’s shirt front.
Pushing the hotel man before him, Mouldy came all the way into the room, gave me a friendly wave with his free hand and said, “Hi, sarge.”
Both my arms were released as both Thurmond and Cooney simultaneously decided to straighten up and draw guns. Mouldy picked all two hundred pounds of Sherman Bremmer off the floor and tossed him at Buzz Thurmond like a medicine ball.
I didn’t see what else happened, because I was rolling on my side and clamping one hand across the cylin
der of Art Cooney’s revolver as it appeared. I clamped down tight, preventing the cylinder from rotating and consequently making it impossible to fire. At the same time I swung my left leg around, got my foot under his armpit and pushed.
Cooney let loose of the gun and staggered across the room to crash into the bar.
When I turned my attention back to the rest of the room, Mouldy was nimbly leaping aside to let Sam Polito’s knife whistle past him and sink into the door jamb. As I scrambled off the pool table Mouldy stepped forward and landed a six-inch jab on the barber’s chin. Polito made a complete spin and collapsed on his face.
Catching the fat hotel proprietor in his stomach had knocked Buzz Thurmond down and jarred the gun from his hand. I scooped it up and turned to cover the room with both guns as Mouldy went past me toward Thurmond.
Art Cooney backed against the bar and put up his hands. Sherman Bremmer, seated spraddle-legged on the floor, looked at me ruefully and followed suit. Sam Polito couldn’t because he was unconscious. Only Buzz Thurmond still showed a little fight.
When Mouldy jerked him to his feet and clamped a big hand around his right bicep, Buzz took a swing at him with his left. He probably weighed a few pounds more than Mouldy, but some of his weight was fat. None of Mouldy’s was. Mouldy simply deflected the blow with his palm and gave him a casual backhand slap which made his eyes cross.
Buzz persisted by attempting to bring up a knee. This seemed to make Mouldy impatient, for he placed his fist about two inches from Buzz’s jaw and gave it a sharp rap. Buzz’s knees folded and when Mouldy released his arm, he slid to the floor out cold.
Mouldy looked down at him in astonishment.
“He has a glass jaw,” I informed him. “What brought you rolling in like the Marines?”
“Me? Oh, I spotted the little guy coming out of your flat and followed him.”
He gestured toward one of the cocktail tables and I saw Limpy Alfred peacefully sleeping beneath it. In the confusion of the last few moments, I had completely forgotten the little man, but now I realized he must have ended up under the cocktail table during the few seconds I was wresting Art Cooney’s gun from him. Apparently Mouldy had given him one of his gentle taps immediately after hurling Bremmer at Buzz Thurmond.
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