Green Ice

by Raoul Whitfield

Three raps on the door brought the red-haired one. I let her have a shock in a hurry.

  “Hello, Miss Donner—you look great this morning.”

  She didn’t look great, but she did look surprised. I stuck my left hand inside my light coat’s left pocket and made a pack of cigarettes shape something like the muzzle of a gun. Then I walked in past her.

  The room had two beds. One was made up, but Virgie Beers occupied the other. Her face was pale. She tried to smile, and it made her look worse than ever.

  “Sorry I’m not up,” she said in a flat voice. “I feel like the devil.”

  I nodded, tossed my hat on the dressing table, hauled a chair over to the window, and faced it toward the beds and the door. Then I sat down. The Donner woman came in and stood near the foot of Virgie’s bed. There were scattered sheets of morning papers on the floor near the bed.

  “You had a close go,” I stated. “The late Mr. Butman was anxious to see you both.”

  Virgie Beers did something that looked like a shiver. The red-haired woman smiled coldly. I sat back in the chair and asked a question. “Come through, Virgie—who carved the Widow?”

  She sat up and swore at me. The Donner woman frowned. I tried something else. It was a blind guess.

  “You’re lying to me part of the way, Virgie. Somebody’s after something, but it isn’t a hundred grand. It isn’t fifty grand. It isn’t any grand. Maybe it’s stones.”

  I had a smile on my face, and I had to fight to keep it on. Virgie Beers showed fear in her eyes. The redhead sucked in her breath and went into a coughing spell. I whistled softly.

  “Well, well,” I said cheerfully. “Now what sort of stones do you think they are?”

  Virgie dropped her head back on the pillow again and muttered something I didn’t get. The Donner woman kept on coughing.

  “Water’s good for that,” I told her. “Or maybe you’ve got something better.”

  She turned her back on me. I looked at Virgie.

  “Better be good,” I suggested. “I got you out of a bad mess last night.”

  “Or maybe you got me into one last night,” she said grimly. “I had some dreams last night, as I said before. You didn’t figure so good in them, Mal.”

  I grinned. The “Mal” sounded too good to be worth anything much.

  “If you believe in dreams you probably do think Cherulli was playing with a hundred grand when he got the works.”

  She just frowned. “Babe Mullens says he was playing with two hundred grand,” she said.

  I nodded. “There isn’t that much money in the world. You just read there is.”

  The Donner woman had finished coughing. She faced me and made a speech.

  “Lay off Virgie, Mal. She isn’t doing anyone dirt. You’re just out from behind the iron—and the bulls’ll be watching you. Go back to New York and tell ’em what you know.”

  I told her to sit down and take some weight off her big feet. I said that I’d do as I wanted to do, and I’d do as I wanted to do the way I wanted to do it.

  “Yeah?” she came back. “Maybe.”

  I didn’t like that. But it was a cinch that Virgie had been on the receiving end of some talk. She wasn’t so upset as she’d been last night in Duquesne. And she wasn’t so friendly. I began to think that the Donner woman figured in things.

  “Wirt didn’t speak of you much, up the river,” I told her. “He did talk about Virgie, here—but not by name. He wasn’t mixed up with a mob, before he went up. He didn’t have to change his name to Ross. What was he worried about?”

  The red-haired one laughed. It was a hard, metallic laugh.

  “You don’t know, eh?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t.”

  She muttered something that sounded like “liar” and went back toward the door. I lifted up the left-hand pocket of my coat and told her to stick inside the room. She turned around and got sore.

  “You and Herb!” she raved. “You pick on women to go for the dirty end of—”

  “Shut up, Red!” Virgie cut in sharply.

  I sat back and grinned. “You talk too much,” I told her. “You’re going to get shoved out, I can see that. And you know about the stones—”

  Fear was showing in her eyes. Her body was tense. I’d used the stone gag the second time and I was more sure than ever that it wasn’t a blind trail. Virgie spoke up.

  “Sit down, Carrie—for God’s sake sit down.”

  The red-haired one sat down on the made-up bed. She kept her eyes on me; they were narrowed and there was a lot of hatred in them.

  “Here’s a Ripley,” I told them both. “Wirt Donner and I were going after the big guns in the mob that was using up a lot of underdog crooks. We were going to use my coin and go after ’em hard. But they got him before I got to him. If you two tell me things—it’ll make it easier.”

  Virgie Beers got rid of something that was almost a sneer.

  “Easier for you,” she stated.

  “And for you,” I said.

  Carrie Donner laughed harshly. But there wasn’t a hysterical note in it.

  “That’s a Ripley all right,” she agreed. “Believe it, Virgie?”

  Virgie propped herself up against a pillow and looked worried.

  “You know more than you’re telling,” she told me.

  I nodded. “That makes me even with you,” I told her. “But look—I could talk a little and the Duquesne bulls would be grabbing you for a conference.”

  Her eyes got wide. “What for?” she asked.

  “For passing the stuff to the Widow,” I said.

  Her lips parted—her body stiffened up. Carrie Donner swore huskily. Virgie rolled over on her stomach, buried her face in the pillows, and started to cry. It wasn’t pleasant to hear, but there wasn’t much else to do. I watched Red—she was keeping her eyes narrowed on mine. After a while Virgie stopped crying and Carrie spoke.

  “You got ’em?” she asked.

  I was getting somewhere, but there was no telling just where. I shook my head.

  “Butman got ’em,” I told her. “But he didn’t keep ’em. If you talk sense we may be able to do something.”

  Virgie Beers sat up and wiped her face with a scented handkerchief. She looked pretty bad.

  “I wish to God I was on a boat going somewhere!” she wished.

  I nodded. “So did Dot Ellis, just before she got her dose,” I said. “That isn’t even original.”

  There was a little silence and I tried to figure what it was that Carrie Donner had thought I might have, and that I had said Butman had. Stones—I was pretty sure of that. Maybe diamonds, maybe not.

  Carrie Donner got up from the bed, came over and stood in front of me. She said that she could talk better if I’d take my left hand out of my coat pocket. Virgie Beers said that I wasn’t left-handed, anyway. I got the hand in sight.

  “Come clean with us—and we’ll play with you,” Carrie said. “Maybe you were going straight with Wirt—maybe you weren’t.”

  I smiled at her. “I’m not trying to appear virtuous,” I said, “but I didn’t do that stretch for being a crook. I did it because I fed a woman too much booze, and she got driving the car I was in carelesslike.”

  The red-haired one nodded. “She was a crook, even before you fed her the booze,” she stated.

  I said that it was a possibility, but I hadn’t been aware of it. Virgie laughed. Carrie Donner swore.

  “The thing is,” she said, “she went up to frame you—she had the stuff with her. It didn’t work. Ben Garren got her—and the stuff. After that it dropped out of sight.”

  I lighted cigarettes for both women, blew out the match, lighted a fresh one for myself. The way things were going there was no use taking any chances.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Where’d she get the stuff?”

  Carrie Donner smiled nastily. “In case you don’t know,” she said sarcastically, “I’ll give you a big surprise. From Angel. And I suppose you don’t
know where he got the green ice?”

  I inhaled and let that sink in. Carrie was telling me things, but she didn’t think that she was. Emeralds—green ice. And she figured that Dot Ellis had got them from Angel Cherulli and had tried to hand them over to me. She figured that Ben Garren had got them, after doing in Dot, and she wanted me to believe that after he’d grabbed them they had dropped out of sight.

  “All right, Carrie,” I said softly. “I almost believe you. I was in the Big House when the first part of this deal was working out. Where’d Angel get the green ice?”

  She looked at Virgie, who nodded her streaked face.

  “You’re gabbing,” she said. “Go the limit.”

  The red-haired one frowned. “I hate to tell humans stuff they already know,” she said.

  I smiled. “Sometimes it sounds better the second time.”

  She sat down near the foot of Virgie’s bed. Her eyes were half closed.

  “That South American—Malendez. He was lousy with them. Does business in some damn town in Colombia, down there in South America. Porto Colombia, or something like that.”

  “Puerto Colombia,” I corrected, using a lot of accent.

  “You’re smart as hell!” She pulled on her cigarette. “Well, as I said, this Malendez came up with them. Babe Mullens met him, through Angel. He was at Angel’s club, drinking. He got sweet on Babe—and told her she could pick out a hunk of green ice. She did. And then Malendez is hauled out of the East River, all busted up from tug propellers. There’s a fuss down in South America and the bulls in New York run around in circles. But nothing happens. It never does.”

  I got up, knocked some cigarette ashes from my trousers, sat down again.

  “I heard about that, up the river,” I told her. “All right—Angel’s got the emeralds. Why does Dot Ellis come up with them—to plant them on me?”

  Virgie Beers swore. “Angel wasn’t running the mob he was in. He was just one of the boys. The green ice was worth maybe a hundred grand. The big boys wanted it. Angel had to get rid of it.”

  I nodded. “He was on the outs with Dot Ellis—and yet he gave the stuff to her.”

  Carrie nodded. “That was why,” she said. “They went for Babe Mullens. They rolled her, up in her flat. She was dry.”

  Virgie looked at me. “You got ’em, Mal?” she asked. “I just want to know so that I can go somewhere else if you have.”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t got ’em, and I haven’t seen ’em,” I said quietly and deliberately. “I didn’t get in the cab with Dot, up at Ossining. She drove off in a mad. She was sore as hell. I traced Ben Garren, through a cab driver who’d seen him. So he got the green stuff, eh?”

  No one answered. I looked at Virgie. She was getting a little nervous as I kept it up.

  “What’s wrong?” she muttered, and then her voice went up a few octaves. “You don’t think I got ’em—”

  “You went over to see Ben, after Wirt got the dose,” I cut in.

  Carrie Donner spoke quietly. “Virgie didn’t even get her peepers on ’em,” she said.

  I nodded. “All right. There’s no rush. What about the Widow?”

  “That was something else,” Virgie said. “I swear to God it was.”

  I got up. “As you girlies speak your pieces,” I said, “I’m to understand that Angel and Babe Mullens worked Malendez loose from a flock of green stones. And then, because Angel was a little guy and didn’t have the right to be a crook for himself, things got hot. A lot of guys quit breathing. They’re still doing it—and the green ice is still out of sight.”

  Virgie Beers scratched her blond head noisily.

  “That’s close, Mal,” she said.

  Carrie Donner knocked ashes from her cigarette on the faded carpet.

  “Goddam close,” she stated flatly.

  I looked at her. “You’re wise to a lot of things,” I said. “That’s a bad spot, Carrie.”

  The red-haired one shrugged her shoulders.

  “They tried to suck Wirt in, and he talked to me,” she said. “Jeez—I had to listen, didn’t I? That’s a woman’s job—that and producing brats.”

  I grinned. “You don’t look like a family lady,” I said.

  She swore. “It’s because I’m careful,” she replied. “What next?”

  I moved toward the door. “Use your own judgment,” I advised. “If I were you, I’d stick inside this room for a day or so. And if I were Virgie I’d do the same thing.”

  Virgie Beers watched me get fingers on the knob of the room door. She spoke in a shaky voice.

  “You said Butman got the stones, Mal. You said he didn’t keep them.”

  I smiled. “Did I? You said the Widow’s carving up was something different, Virgie. That makes us even—we were both lying.”

  I went out and closed the door. I heard Virgie Beers swear and Carrie Donner laugh harshly. The laugh bothered me. I commenced to feel that the Donner woman was as dangerous as Virgie, perhaps more dangerous. I remembered that she’d hooked me up with Herb Steiner—“You pick on women to go for the dirty end.” That was something to think about.

  Downstairs I looked at the clerk’s shiny, blue serge suit, got him away from the card register, and handed him a twenty-dollar bill.

  “That’s for you,” I said. “I’m not a crook, and all I want is to be treated kindly. This is what I want.”

  While I was telling him, the desk phone rang and he told a red-faced bellhop that Room 303 wanted orange juice and cracked ice. Then he came over near me and listened some more.

  9

  ROOM 651

  Ore dust from the blast furnaces not far from the city had drifted over and stained the curtains of the two windows facing on the court a dirty reddish color. Room 336 wasn’t much of a suite, but it had a location I liked. The court was a small one—almost directly opposite was room 303. The shades were up in my room, with the lights off. In the other room the lights were on, and the shade of the one window was down. I couldn’t see much, but if there was any particular racket I could probably hear. And if the lights were on, maybe someone was inside.

  It was dark, but it had only been dark a half hour or so. I flopped on the bed, smoked a pill, and thought things over. I’d spent an hour talking to a jeweler—about emeralds. I’d spent two hours in the morgue of the Post-Dispatch, going through old papers and reading up on the Malendez case.

  The Malendez case had been just one of those things. He’d been an exporter of emeralds, a gambler, a great guy with the lady-folk. He’d been unmarried. He’d come up on a trip, from South America, but it was not known that he’d had jewels with him. He’d played the high and low spots in New York. His body had been hooked out of the East River. A few sticks of follow-up and he’d dropped out of the papers. He hadn’t been rated as a millionaire, and though the police suspected foul play, there had been no proof.

  I closed my eyes, grunted, blew smoke at the ceiling, and tried to figure things.

  One thing was pretty certain, Virgie and Carrie Donner were trying to carry me along. They weren’t telling me anything they didn’t think I knew. They were a couple of feeders—but they picked their food.

  Emeralds weren’t jewels for crooks, I knew that. They didn’t have demand, and that meant they were more difficult to dispose of, among other things. Over on Olive Street I’d learned some other things. The green ice was an “expert’s” stone. A lot of humans could tell diamond from glass. A lot of humans couldn’t tell emerald from glass. The Germans had a neat trick of working in the imperfections found in the finest grade real article. Fences knew all this and would be careful about handling the rich, green stones. Crooks knew it and wouldn’t take a chance.

  I lighted a fresh pill from an old one, rolled over on my right side and looked toward the dirty curtains.

  Just the same, green ice was a money stone. Compared to a diamond of the same size and perfection of stone and cutting, the emerald was more valuable. A hundred grand was a hundr
ed grand, and Angel Cherulli hadn’t had to work hard to grab the load. That was my guess. Not with the Mullens mulatto smoothing things for him.

  And there was the principle of the thing. Cherulli had been a little guy, and he’d tried to work a fast one. There had been a sudden stop. And Virgie and her red-haired friend wanted me to believe that the stones had got themselves lost somewhere. I wasn’t so sure about that.

  The phone bell rang and the clerk told me that Mr. Jackson wanted to see Mr. Evans. I told him send Mr. Jackson up. I got up, pulled down the shades, turned on the lights, got some ice in two glasses, put the gin near the ice. After a while there was a knock, and I snapped the lock, walked around where I couldn’t see the corridor, called: “All right” in a wheezy voice, and watched Mr. Jackson come in.

  He shut the door behind him, snapped the lock, looked around the room, and spotted me. He smiled, but he didn’t speak. He was middle-aged, with a mild, gentle face. His eyes were blue and sort of twinkling; he had nice teeth and a slightly gray mustache. He was medium in size.

  I designated a chair. He went over and used it, placing rather slender hands on the dark cloth of his lightweight coat. He kept his eyes twinkling and on mine.

  “Phil Dobe, over at the Post-Dispatch, said you might not be busy,” I said. “I need a little help. But it has to be very quiet help.”

  He nodded. His voice was thin but not unpleasant. Two fingers of his right hand kept tapping the cloth of his coat.

  “The agency is a small one,” he said. “Just Callarson and myself. Callarson’s in Detroit, and I’m not busy at the moment. Everything is strictly confidential—and quiet. And expensive.”

  I nodded. “That’s all right. But this isn’t a worried husband job. I’ve been sort of sticking with it for a few days, and there have been some kills. There may be some more.”

  He kept on smiling. “It will be expensive,” he said again. “My life-insurance premiums have always been high.”

  I offered him a cigarette, which he refused.

  “If anything happens along the way—you don’t know me,” I said. “It’s a tailing job—I just want to be kept informed on the movements of one person. The job may only last a day—it may last a week. How much?”