“There’s the patient,” she said, and worked a mechanical smile.
I thanked her, moved around the screen. The bull came around and looked at me. Herb was lying with his back to me. He didn’t move.
I smiled at the harness gent. “Reever said it would be all right,” I told him. “Donelly wired from New York. Want to listen in?”
He shook his head and went away. Herb moved his head a little. He let his woman eyes rest on mine. They looked hurt and sad. His skin was soft and white. His lips were white.
“Hello, Herb,” I said. “Sorry about it.”
His woman tones were pretty faint. There was no expression to his voice.
“Like hell you are.”
I smiled. “Let’s let it ride that way,” I said. “It’s bad—when you get it in the stomach. How long you got?”
Hatred flamed in his eyes, then died. He mouthed nasty words, weakly, brokenly. His lips had no color. He looked bad—very bad.
“I’ll get—over this,” he muttered, after a while.
I shook my head. “Not in this crook’s world you won’t,” I said. “You look bad, fence.”
His eyes burned a little, back in their sockets. He was hating hard.
“You’re through,” I said grimly. “And the big guys are turning up Virgie.”
It got him. He cried out, tried to pull himself up. Red splotched the white of his face. He was a crook—and I kept at it.
“She’ll get life—maybe she isn’t good enough on looks to beat the chair,” I said. “They’re turning her up for the Malendez kill.”
He called me names. He was twisting around on the bed. The nurse wasn’t in sight, but the harness bull came over. He frowned at me.
“What in hell you doing?” he demanded. “I got orders—”
“Virgie didn’t—get him!” Herb Steiner was gritting out the words. He was fighting to get them out. “They’re framing—her—”
I chuckled. It wasn’t easy to do—not with the woman-faced fence dying on the bed. Even though Steiner was a rat—it wasn’t easy.
“Yeah?” I said. “You can’t help that any. You tried to frame me. You got into my bag. Maybe Virgie didn’t get him—maybe I know she didn’t. Hell’d freeze over before I’d give anything of yours a break.”
He sank back on the pillow. He coughed. The harness bull grabbed me by the left arm.
“You gotta come away,” he said. “I gotta have a written order—”
I smiled down at Steiner. “You’re going away,” I said slowly. “I’ll give you a break. I’m after the guy who got Wirt Donner. Give me the name—and I’ll keep off Virgie.”
The harness bull gave me a jerk. Herb Steiner swore at him.
“Let him—alone,” he breathed weakly. “He ain’t a copper. Lay off, you bastard—”
The copper was dumb; he couldn’t make up his mind what to do. I bent over Steiner.
“Who got Wirt Donner?” I muttered. “Who’s got the Malendez stuff—the real stuff?”
His eyes were staring. The fingers of his left hand plucked at the edges of a sheet—then relaxed, spread. His face was white again, ghastly. His lips parted.
“Virgie—” he murmured, very weakly.
He started to cry. It was pretty bad. He reminded me of Ben Garren. His eyes were getting misted, colorless. He said again: “Virgie—”
I told the harness bull to get the nurse. He didn’t want to leave me. My right hand was near the bed, and Steiner got a grip on it. Not much of a grip. The harness bull ducked around back of the screen.
I said: “It’s all right, Herb—it’s all right. Take it easy.”
He stopped crying. I could hear the nurse hurrying along between the rows of beds. Her rubber soles made a light patter.
Steiner said very weakly: “The goddam—women—”
I tried a grin. He smiled a little. I guessed that he was thinking of Carrie Donner’s rotten aim. His grip on my fingers relaxed. The smile went out of his face. His eyes were opened. His face looked like a woman’s. He said: “Virgie—”
The nurse slipped around the screen, frowned at me, looked down at him. She touched his forehead, tried his pulse. She said: “He’s dead.”
I went away from the screen, and the harness bull followed me.
“I’ll catch hell,” he said. “If the chief didn’t tell you it was all right—”
“What’ll you catch hell for?” I asked. “Did he say anything?”
He was thinking that over when I walked out. I went down in the elevator, got out in another cold drizzle. I started walking toward the center of town. There was a choice; I could figure that Steiner had been answering my question when he’d used Virgie’s name, or I could figure that he was strong for the blonde and was thinking about her last of all. She’d been in the boardinghouse when Donner had got the dose. She knew things. Maybe she’d liked Steiner.
I smoked three cigarettes on the way to Liberty Street. My hunch was getting stronger. Malendez had been taken for a lot of stuff. I had fourteen chunks of green ice—and Oval Face had at least one chunk. But it was small stuff. Between ten and fifteen grand. Dot Ellis, Angel Cherulli, Wirt Donner, and Carrie Donner. They hadn’t been shoved out just because. Steiner had got it accidentally. Ben Garren had made a mistake. I couldn’t figure the Widow and Butman. But the first four counted. Virgie Beers, the girl with the oval face—Christenson—they were still doing things.
The big guys? The girl who had given her name as Jeanette Ramone—she had brains. She had poise. Maybe she was one of them. Christenson or whatever his name was, maybe he was one. I didn’t think so. But they were sitting in.
I couldn’t decide what to do next. Coffee and pie didn’t help much. I kept thinking about the girl at the Schenley. After a while I decided to get it over with, took a cab out, and went into the hotel.
It was nice inside. She had a room on the third floor, and when I used the room phone she answered it.
“This is Uncle Mal,” I said. “Just a social call. Can I come up?”
She said: “You may—Christy’s here.”
I told her that was all right, hung up, got into an elevator. She’d acted almost as though she’d been expecting me. I got out of the elevator and went down the corridor whistling shakily. The nearer I got to the room, the worse I felt. There was something about the oval-faced girl that jiggled my nerves. She was terribly sure of things.
2
Christenson opened the door. He gave me a gentle smile, gestured toward the far side of the room. A table light was on, but the place was dark. I went in, spotted the girl taking it easy on a divan between two curtained windows. She was in negligee, but it was a perfectly modest one. A rich black. She smiled at me.
“Hello, Mal,” she said. “We were rather looking for you.”
I picked out a chair that faced the divan. The girl’s face was pale; her lips were almost colorless. I guessed that she was in her twenties, but couldn’t be sure. She looked more like a Benda mask than she had hours ago. But her eyes hadn’t enough color. She wasn’t beautiful.
“I dropped over to tell you three things,” I said. “The first is that your story about the brother who erred was touching but silly.”
Christenson came in from the small corridor that was almost a part of the room, crossed to a chair about ten feet from the divan and almost opposite mine, and sat down. His face was expressionless.
The girl said: “And the second?”
I smiled. “I mentioned it over the phone last night. The dicks looked around nicely, but the green stuff wasn’t there.”
She nodded, a little smile playing about her lips.
“It was there, but they didn’t find it,” she corrected. “All right, Mal. And the third?”
“Herb Steiner just went out, up at the hospital. He told me things.”
She took her head off the pillow—sat up jerkily, got her right hand part of the way to her throat, let it fall back to her side again. She dropped her
head to the pillow. Christenson leaned forward in his chair.
“He was a dirty fence,” he said slowly and almost tonelessly. “Too bad, Ourney—you can take the drop for that.”
I shook my head. “I don’t carry a rod,” I said. “And I used a cloth on the one Virgie tried to plant.”
The girl was breathing a little heavily. She spoke in a low voice.
“Just the same—you can go through for it, Mal.”
I shook my head again. “It would be tough,” I replied. “Might make it a family affair.”
Christenson got up from his chair, walked around the room, went back and sat down again. He touched his mustache nervously with one finger.
“Just the same,” he said carefully, “it’s a bad spot for you.”
I looked at the girl. “Supposing I were getting a little worried,” I said. “Can you suggest an out?”
She kept her dark eyes on mine for a few seconds, turned her head and looked at Christenson, looked back at me.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “You can come clean with the money stones.”
I shook my head once more. “The only emeralds I’ve got are the ones you planted on me, and that’s straight. If you didn’t know that, I can’t figure why you wanted me to take a pinch. The bulls would have got the big stones.”
She smiled. “I didn’t say you had what we want,” she said. “I said you could come clean with the stuff.”
Christenson swore softly. “You worked me as though you knew what you were doing, Ourney,” he said. “Maybe you weren’t satisfied with what you got. Maybe you wanted the small ones, too. Well, you got ’em.”
I sat back in the chair. The girl with the oval face pursed her lips. After a few seconds she parted them.
“They won’t do you much good, Mal,” she stated softly. “Honest to God, they won’t.”
“Better dig ’em up,” Christenson advised quietly. “We’re beginning to attract a little attention.”
I laughed at that. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but it got by.
“You’re too damn clever for that,” I said. “When a cheap crook goes out it never attracts much attention.”
The girl sat up abruptly. She leaned forward.
“Steiner was no—”
“Shut up!” Christenson snapped.
His voice was soft, suave again. He smiled toward me.
“We’ll talk straight, Ourney,” he said. “A lot of honest guys think it’s all right to grab coin from a crook. Maybe you’re no exception. Miss Ramone feels that she can do something for the weaklings, say—by getting at the big fellows. You have the same idea. Perhaps Miss Ramone is better able to succeed. Perhaps you have swayed slightly from your purpose. Cherulli was hardly a crook. With some feminine help he made a big killing. In emeralds. You were lucky. But as things developed you became a bit unlucky. Fifty thousand dollars is a good sum of money. We will pay that—for the stones we are anxious to locate. A trip around the world—”
“I get seasick,” I cut in. “I thought you said we’d talk straight.”
The girl sat up, swung her feet to the floor. They were small feet. Her body was a little tense.
“I’ll talk sense,” she said sharply. “Cherulli and the Mullens mulatto got Malendez for all he had. They doped him and got him into the East River. They figured on a getaway, but it got too late. Cherulli was getting scared. The nigger went back on him. She got religion, or something damn close to it. He slipped the stuff to Dot Ellis, told her to get it to you without your knowing what it was. Just something to keep for her. He figured with you just coming out of stir the green ice would be safe. Maybe she talked—she was doped up a lot of the time. Ben Garren gave her the works, got the stones. Then you came along. You let some of the smaller stones slip away—and played that you were trying to trace the guy that got Wirt Donner. You figured that would put you in the clear, when the hunt got tight. You figured wrong.”
She stopped. Christenson nodded his head. I smiled at the girl.
“It’s a nice story,” I said. “Even if it didn’t happen that way.”
Christenson got up and stood near his chair. His eyes were narrowed on mine; his face was twisted nastily. He started to sway.
The girl said: “Sit down, Christy—we’re just talking.”
I kept my eyes on him, nodding.
“Sure,” I said. “Just talking.”
“I could choke it out of him!” he gritted.
“That’s wrong,” I returned. “You know damn well you couldn’t.”
He got a sneering smile on his face, stopped swaying, sat down. I looked at the girl.
“Get on with the story,” I suggested. “What happened next?”
She smiled back at me. There was a little color in her lips now.
“Underground got working,” she said. “Garren got word that Wirt Donner and you were going straight and then some. You were going to do some cleaning up. Virgie Beers was his girl. He told her to get Donner. She refused. So Herb Steiner did the job. Did it and went over the roofs. That was before you got to Garren and the stones.”
I nodded. “What next?” I asked.
She straightened on the edge of the divan. Her oval face had a nasty twist to it.
“It won’t hurt you any to know what isn’t news,” she said. “I’ll play with you, Mal. It’s all right.”
“It’s for your brother’s sake,” I reminded.
She nodded. “For dear old Jerry’s sake,” she said. She sighed theatrically. “He was so damned innocent.”
Christenson muttered something under his breath. The girl got her dark eyes on mine again.
“Carrie Donner and Virgie headed for Pittsburgh—Duquesne,” she went on. “You traced them—and acted damn smart by pretending you were tailing them to find out things. You knew things—and you had things. But it was nice, Mal.”
I nodded, “I thought so,” I said.
She looked at Christenson, then back at me. Her tone was expressionless.
“You planted the little stones on Carrie, figuring the big guys might be close. They were. They drummed out Carrie, and you played along by grabbing one stone and acting as if you had something important. You took that city editor in—that was a good bet. That brings it up to date, Mal.”
I laughed at her. “You’re skipping,” I said. “How about Chief Butman and the Widow, in Duquesne? How about Red Salmon, in New York? And how’d you get the stones you say I planted on Carrie Donner?”
“Easy. Salmon was framed by Herb. Butman and the Widow—that was something else again. He carved her up, tried to steer the reporters off because he was yellow. Some of her hunky pals got organized and quieted him.”
I nodded again. “And the stones you traded?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I got them from Carrie before she was spotted out,” she said. “Better come through, Mal.”
I stood up, pulled my overcoat around, sat down again.
“It’s a nice story, Miss Ramone,” I told her. “Some of it’s true. You do it pretty well. In the right spot it’s a bad story for me. I guess you know the right spot. But the only stones I’ve got are the ones you tried to frame me with. If that had worked—where was your out?”
She wasn’t smiling. “For the tip on the big stuff we’d have got you off with a ten stretch,” she said.
Christenson shifted in his chair. He smiled at me.
“Fifty grand’ll keep you in socks, Ourney,” he said. “The stuff is hard to handle. You’ve done one stretch. Better be good.”
I looked at the girl. “I’m sorry—but you’ve tailed the wrong gent,” I told her. “For your brother’s sake I’d like to see you get the stuff and grab off the big guys. But I’m helpless.”
Christenson stood up again. The girl got up, too. Her lips were twitching. She motioned toward an alcove. Christenson smiled at me, moved something around in the right pocket of his dark-colored suit, came over close to me.
“With certai
n changes—the story Miss Ramone told you is the one the New York D.A.’ll get,” he said. “Better be good.”
I swore softly. “There was a harness bull listening in on Steiner’s last chat,” I told him. “Don’t rush things.”
“Just—easy like,” he muttered, and took his right hand out of the pocket.
The first blow caught me under the left ear. While I was on the way down he used the blackjack twice, hard enough.
I heard Oval Face call out harshly. “For God’s sake—Chris—easy!”
I was on my knees when he hit the fourth time. It caught me just over the nape of the neck. The last thing I heard was the voice of the oval-faced girl.
“Jeez, Chris—go easy!”
14
BEDROOM STORY
She sat on the edge of the bed and patted my forehead gently with a towel that felt cold and good. I could see a portion of the room in which Christenson had blackjacked me down—but I couldn’t see Christenson. My head ached all over.
“Damn him!” she breathed fiercely. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
I smiled a little. “He shouldn’t,” I agreed shakily. “It won’t get him anywhere.”
Her oval face was pale in the faint light of what seemed to be an alcove bedroom. I lay motionlessly and watched her blink back some tears. She saw I was watching her, moved the towel over my eyes. Her fingers touched the skin of my face. They were soft, nice.
“He knew it wouldn’t—get him anything,” she said. “He just—got sore.”
I nodded. It didn’t help the pains in my head any.
“Smash me open much?” I asked.
She shook her head, taking the towel away from my eyes.
“He had it wrapped,” she said. “You’ve got some bumps—but they’re coming down. He just wanted to hurt.”
“He did,” I told her. “But not enough. You can’t tell what you don’t know.”
I saw that she didn’t believe that. Her eyes lost some of the sympathy they’d held—they held a hard expression.
“Better come through, Mal—” she warned.
Her voice trailed off. I sat up against the pressure of her right hand on my chest, felt better than I thought I’d feel. I braced myself with both hands, looked at her. In the dim light of the bedroom she was almost beautiful.
Green Ice Page 17