A Body for McHugh

by Jay Flynn

  “Harts is roaring mad. So is Loris. Why in hell don’t you ever let people know what you’re up to?”

  McHugh grinned. “I forget when I get drunk or beat on or both. Which is the case.”

  Chapman eased the yoke back, and the plane lifted itself from the ground. As it cleared a string of phone wires, he turned and studied McHugh’s face. “I can believe that. You got everything you need?

  “They took the bullets but left me my gun.”

  “Look in back.”

  McHugh twisted and found a large box on the rear seat. It held a Thompson submachine gun, a sawed-off shotgun and an assortment of sidearms. He checked them over, selected a Walther .38 and slipped it under his belt. He uncapped the bottle and passed it to Chapman as the plane leveled off and headed south over the Salinas Valley.

  Chapman drank and passed it back. “Better lay off the sauce. We’ll be there in about an hour.”

  McHugh drank again. “Tell me that in an hour.

  “You seem pretty confident. Think you’re going to just walk up and tap these characters on the shoulder? In a city of a couple of million?”

  McHugh shrugged and relaxed against the cushions. The throb of the motor made him sleepy. “Might just do that. They must have made some deal with Girolamo, which pins it down some.”

  “I don’t figure it.”

  “Not too tough. Carlotta and her bully boys went chasing around looking for a couple of suitcases. I guess Dant didn’t trust her too much, because he never told her where they were. But the only other contact he had was with the girl, Cece. She didn’t have ‘em. You figure it from there.” McHugh yawned again.

  “You haven’t told me much.”

  “Well, Dant was in a spot—otherwise, why work himself into a hole where he had to depend on a stranger? He left this box full of securities with her, and he was packing the keys to the lockers or whatever he’d put the suitcases in. Girolamo was already on his tail, wanting a bigger piece. He bought one of those little magnet boxes, put the keys in it and hung it on the frame of her car. Probably figured he could go back and get it when the heat was off. He got knifed, and that took care of that. Carlotta had a hell of a time finding them.”

  “So why should she cut Girolamo in at that late date?”

  “Not Carlotta. Her chums. Quesada, Real and Olivera. They’re coming in at the end of the play, really. They need a short cut. Dant didn’t have the pesos with him in San Fran; he didn’t even have them when he went ashore at Monterey. The Rosa made one stop before that—San Pedro. If anybody can help them find that dough, it’s Girolamo. He’s an old-timer. He’d know all the spots where a guy might stash something quick and safe.”

  “So we scamper around the waterfront.” Chapman picked the mike from its bracket. “I’ll put down at Long Beach and get the L. A. Harbor Patrol to stand by.”

  “Likewise invite the FBI.”

  McHugh closed his eyes and napped. He woke when the plane’s wheels screamed against the landing strip. A jeep escorted the plane to an isolated parking area where two cars were waiting. They were filled with FBI agents and Los Angeles cops. McHugh clutched his bottle, flimsily disguised by a paper bag, and acknowledged introductions, most of which he forgot immediately. He remembered that a Lieutenant Simmons, who wore a salt-encrusted yachting cap and heavy windbreaker, was in charge of the harbor detail, and an agent named Avery headed the FBI team.

  The FBI agents looked with visible disapproval at the bottle, and Avery demanded to see his identification.

  “Okay,” he said grudgingly. “You guys freewheel your own cases, but this one we do by the book. Understand?”

  “They must vaccinate all you guys with the same needle, McHugh grumbled. “Where do we stand? Any line on the six people we want?”

  “Just that they rented a car at International after their flight got in. It’s on the air, and every officer in L. A. County is looking for it,” Avery said.

  “Uh-huh.” McHugh rubbed his chin. “How many places around here rent lockers to sailors?”

  “There must be at least a hundred,” Simmons told him. “Some places do nothing else, but a lot of bars and poolrooms have a couple of dozen. What’s that sot to do with it?”

  These lockers are rented by the month sometimes?”

  “Day, month, year,” Simmons replied. “Whatever a swabbie wants. When his ship’s home port is here, he wants a place where he can keep his civvies handy ashore. But—”

  “I figure it this way,” McHugh said “When Girolamo brought his boat into Barney’s, this guy Dant stashed these two suitcases at a locker club somewhere. The people we want happen to have the keys, but they don’t know where the lockers are.”

  “All those outfits put their names on the keys,” Simmons said.

  “Well, the name wasn’t there. Just numbers, 5-12 and 5-13. Would that make one of the bigger places likely?”

  “The numbers don’t mean much of anything.”

  “So where do we start?”

  “By hitting every place,” Simmons said.

  “What if we do turn the right one up? It has to be just the right time. And it would take the rest of the night.” McHugh got a cigar going.

  Simmons reached into the police car and spoke to the radio dispatcher for several minutes. He signed off and said, “They’re going to work on it now. Every beat cop on the waterfront is getting the word. In half an hour we’ll at least know which places have lockers with those numbers.”

  Simmons got behind the wheel of the cruiser. “Might as well roll it. Get down where the action is likely to be.”

  The two cars sped away from the airport and followed the Pacific Coast Highway west to the Harbor Freeway ramp. The strong waterfront smells of San Pedro assailed McHugh’s nostrils. Simmons pulled up in front of the San Pedro police station, a block above Harbor Street. He led the way into the grim stone building.

  McHugh paused, surveying the street. He gathered it was a place with a lot of action. Every other business seemed to be a saloon or a bail bond brokerage. While he watched, a prowl car angled into the curb. Two cops got out and opened one of the rear doors. There was a flood of profanity. One of the cops reached into the car, hauled a man out, buried a billy in his gut and rapped him on the ear. The man fell, still cursing. The cops dragged him up the steps of the station house and slammed him down on a plain wooden bench opposite the sergeant’s desk. The man leaned forward and vomited between his legs.

  “This is a fun precinct,” Simmons growled. He ushered them down a dim, musty hallway to a barren room. “Back in a minute.”

  When he came back, he had a fistful of yellow flimsies. A motorcycle officer followed him, pulling his crash helmet off.

  “Nothing on the locker clubs so far,” Simmons said. “But do you have a picture of the Artellan woman?”

  McHugh produced one. Simmons handed it to the officer.

  “That’s the bimbo,” the man said. “She’s got a shiner and a fat mouth now, but I’m sure of it.”

  “Sure of what?” McHugh demanded.

  “She’s the one I saw going into a hotel with this Pastori character. About an hour ago. I didn’t know at the time he was hot.”

  “What hotel?” McHugh said.

  “The Port. It’s a fleabag a couple of blocks down.”

  Simmons was on the phone, issuing rapid orders. He slammed the phone down and said, “Let’s roll. There are men on the way to cover the place. They’ll have it bottled by the time we get there.”

  Chapman and McHugh loped down the hall after him. The FBI agents crowded behind them. The two cars skinned through the slow-moving traffic for three blocks. A uniformed cop was waiting at the entrance of the hotel.

  “Second floor back, last room on the right,” he told Simmons.

  The lobby was more of a wide hallway than anything else. A seedy-looking individual leaning on a scarred desk held out a key to Simmons.

  “No key,” McHugh snapped. “This guy would put
holes through the door before we could use it.”

  They went on. Simmons held up his hand at the foot of the spindly staircase. “Only a couple of us can go up. The corridor’s too narrow for any more if there’s trouble. This is my precinct, so I go.”

  “Me, too,” McHugh snapped. “This is my pigeon.”

  “Just a minute, McHugh,” Avery interrupted. “I don’t—”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “No...”

  “You need one,” McHugh growled. “I don’t” He turned to Chapman. “Bud, you stand by at the top of the stairs. Let’s go.”

  They moved lightly, keeping close to the wall. The noise of a radio being played somewhere on the floor covered the creaks of the stairs. They reached the door and drew their pistols. A strip of light showed at the bottom of the door.

  “We kick. You go right, I go left,” McHugh whispered. “Be ready to shoot.”

  The lieutenant nodded. They braced themselves against the opposite wall and kicked.

  The door splintered and broke from its hinges. They were into the room before it hit the floor.

  Carlotta Artellan lay on the sagging bed, her face turned to the wall. There were bruises on her arms and legs.

  Joe Pastori had been sitting in a lumpy chair, reading a newspaper. He dropped the paper and reached for his pocket.

  “Hold it, dago,” McHugh barked.

  Pastori was halfway out of the chair then, his right hand still moving.

  McHugh dropped into a crouch and fired once. The bullet took Pastori in the shoulder and slammed the man back against the chair. His scream of pain was lost in the echoes of the shot. McHugh landed on him, and the chair tipped on its back legs and spilled on its side. Mc-Hugh clubbed him twice with the barrel of the gun, laying his scalp open. Pastori groaned and lay without moving.

  Simmons cuffed his hands behind his back, and Mc-Hugh picked himself up. The woman stared at them and began to cry. McHugh, taking her arm, hoisted her from the bed.

  “Knock it off. You’ll live.” He urged her toward the door. Pastori was groaning between clenched teeth. McHugh saw a washbasin in a corner of the room. He turned the tap on, filled a glass and threw water in the hood’s face. Pastori blinked his eyes.

  “Get up, punk,” Simmons ordered. He caught Pastori by the neck and hoisted him to his feet. He spun him around, used his foot to help him out the door. The man cursed in Italian and stumbled down the corridor, bumping against the walls on either side.

  The two prisoners sat in sullen silence on the short ride back to the police station. They were taken to separate interrogation rooms. An intern came from the first-aid station in another part of the building.

  “Went through clean,” he said after a moment’s examination of the wound. “I’ll patch him, and you can keep him here.”

  “Good. We’ll be back in a minute,” Simmons said. He and McHugh left the room and walked down the corridor to where Carlotta Artellan was being held. “Mind telling me something? Just what am I supposed to charge this broad with?”

  McHugh rubbed his chin. “Just about anything. She’ll be taken off your hands in a day or so.”

  Avery intercepted them. “I haven’t had a chance to talk with the San Francisco office yet. Just what do you intend to do with the woman?”

  “Question her,” McHugh growled. “What the hell else?”

  “I’m not sure whether—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll leave plenty for the Bureau.”

  They went into the room. It was a depressing cubicle, with a couple of plain wooden chairs, a small table and no windows. There was a single overhead light and a pair of floodlights mounted on stands, facing one of the chairs.

  “It’s your show,” Simmons told McHugh.

  McHugh sat on the table, dangling his legs. He got a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  “Smoke, Carlotta?”

  “No. I want a lawyer.”

  “You’re entitled to one. But right now make it easy on yourself. Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

  “They hadn’t figured out where the lockers are?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” She sighed. “May I have that cigarette, please?”

  McHugh held a match for her. “Okay. Play it smart. You tried to pull a few fast ones, and it didn’t come off. Give us some help, and we’ll do what we can for you when the case comes up.”

  She blew smoke through the sullen, swollen mouth. “I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know where they went. I don’t know when they were coming back.”

  “But they were coming back?”

  “There’s a plain-clothes detail on the hotel,” Simmons whispered.

  “They were going to kill me. They just wanted to be sure they got the money first.”

  “Uh-huh.” McHugh crushed his cigarette out on the floor. “So you’ve got no reason to protect them. Now, what about that box of securities?”

  “I put them in a bank vault. At Salinas.” She puffed nervously on the cigarette. “I don’t mind telling you that.”

  “Except that you pulled a double cross. Tried to take both the securities and the pesos. And when your Cuban pals found out what went on, they dealt you out and dealt Girolamo in. They figure he could help them find the lockers?”

  She nodded. “He’s supposed to get my share.”

  McHugh laughed grimly. “Sister, once he gets his hands on that dough, he’ll want everybody’s share.”

  “But they wouldn’t let—”

  “How’re they going to stop him when they’re dead?”

  A uniformed officer rapped on the door and beckoned to Simmons. The lieutenant left the room for a moment. When he came back, he was scowling.

  “They found the lockers. Too late. The dough is gone and so are our people.”

  CHAPTER 15

  THE LOCKER-CLUB ATTENDANT WAS on the defensive. He looked nervously at McHugh and Simmons and the others.

  “Did the best I could to keep an eye out after your boys asked me to, Lieutenant, but I was watchin’ for these Cuban fellers. They never did come in. It was some chunky guy, kind of old. Eyetalian lookin’...came in while I was fixin’ a couple Navy boys up with lockers. Went out a little later with these two suitcases, looked like aluminum jobs. He looked like he coulda been a sailor, but I got to thinkin’ he went out wearin’ the same clothes he came in with. Can’t see those lockers from the desk here, so I went back. A feller with a locker in the same row happen to have seen him, and there was the keys to 5-12 and 5-13 stuck in the locks, and our name tags pulled off. I called right in.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Bim. You did the best you could,” Simmons said. “How long ago was this?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes, little more.”

  Simmons reached for the phone. He checked a small notebook, dialed and spoke softly into the mouthpiece. He swore when he hung up.

  “We’ve got a man on the hotel phone. He said there was a call about ten minutes ago for Pastori. Guy wanted a message delivered to his room.”

  “Oh?” McHugh said without much hope.

  “Yeah. Just tell Pastori to finish up there fast and meet him at the old place. Then he hung up.”

  “No time to trace,” McHugh said.

  “No time at all,” Simmons said. “But my man is a sharp one. He said he heard a juke box, the sound of a cash register being rung an airhorn and something that could have been a Pacific Electric interurban car pulling away from a stop. Let’s hit Harbor Street.”

  “How do you read it?” McHugh asked.

  “One of the bars on that street. In the block across from the Pacific Electric depot, probably. I’ll call the station and have squad cars standing by.”

  They ran from the locker club and drove five blocks. Simmons, McHugh, Chapman and a city detective were in one car, the FBI team in another. Simmons pulled into a gas station that was closed for the day. They waited for the radio message that would me
an the block was sealed off.

  McHugh studied the street. In the one block, he saw a dozen sailors’ bars, grimy 24-hour lunch counters, tattoo parlors, hockshops, bail-bond offices. Most of the upper floors of the buildings were dark. Roughly dressed men, some with seabags on their shoulders, passed in front of the car. There were women with short skirts and painted faces, men with wide lapels and slick hair.

  “Great place,” McHugh growled.

  “Good for a murder a week,” Simmons said. “Will this Girolamo have a gun?”

  “I imagine so,” McHugh replied. “I don’t know about the Cubans, but they were packing when I ran into them up north.”

  “Uh....Damn, I wish we could get them out on the street. These are shotgun saloons, go straight through the buildings to the back street. There’s a lot of alleyways. We could lose them again. And these joints will be crowded now. If any shooting starts, a lot of people could get hurt.” The radio crackled. Simmons picked up his mike, said, “Check,” and looked at the others. “All set.”

  “Hold it,” McHugh said. “How about driving them out?”

  “What do you mean?” Simmons asked.

  “Work it from the back end. Have men in uniform go in, start checking papers, putting on a little roust. If Girolamo is in one of those places, he isn’t about to wait around. He’ll move. Tell your men not to come near him or try to stop him if they get him spotted.”

  Simmons thought a moment. “It could work. Take a few minutes to set up.”

  “A few more won’t matter,” McHugh told him.

  Simmons used the radio again. Five minutes went by before it crackled its final response.

  “This is it. They’re starting from this end.”

  Across the broad street, a two-car interurban train moved up to the station and stopped with a hiss of air brakes. Simmons moved the car around the corner and parked with the lights off and motor running. He turned to the other city detective.

  “We’ll take the sidewalk. You stay with the car and move it along with us.” He unlocked the clamp that held an automatic shotgun to the dashboard. “Use this if you have to.”

  The roust began to show. From the wide doors of the first bar, people streamed, walking fast and trying to look as though they were just ambling along. McHugh and Simmons stood on either side of the doorway, scanning the faces, their hands resting on the butts of their guns. The parade lasted for several minutes before two of the biggest cops McHugh had ever seen came out.