A Body for McHugh

by Jay Flynn

  “Draw a blank, Lieutenant?” one of them asked. “We checked the crappers and all. Pretty much cleaned the joint out.”

  “Yeah. A blank,” Simmons agreed. “Hit the next one.”

  The cops went back the way they had come. The exodus from the next bar began. Some of the people had been in the first place, and there were angry grumbles. McHugh watched the last of them and shrugged. The cop who had taken Girolamo’s call could have guessed wrong. Or Girolamo could have moved out already.

  They strolled along, checked a small lunchroom and waited at the third bar.

  Chapman, hanging several paces back, leaned against the fender of a Chrysler hardtop as the third bar started emptying.

  Carlos Real was one of the first to come out.

  Involuntarily, McHugh took a step toward him. The Cuban turned his head, and his eyes widened for an instant. He shouted something over his shoulder and began to run, heading for the Chrysler.

  Bud Chapman put his bulk in motion. He stepped out, caught an arm, spun Real around and hit him square in the face.

  The Cuban dropped to the pavement without a sound as a woman screamed.

  McHugh and Simmons had taken their eyes from the door for an instant, watching. The woman’s voice brought them around again.

  She had dark hair and a face that was white with sudden alarm. Gino Girolamo had a heavy arm around her waist, and he spun her in front of him before McHugh and Simmons could bring their guns up.

  The Chrysler’s door swung open, and its motor throbbed with sudden life. Girolamo dragged the woman across the sidewalk, and he had a gun in his hand.

  “She gets it,” he shouted, and the gun was jabbed against the woman’s side.

  McHugh and Simmons and Chapman froze. The Chrysler was moving when Girolamo reached it. He threw the woman down and dove through the open door. It slammed closed as the car surged away from the curb.

  A police siren began to howl, and at the end of the block a black and white car angled across the intersection, its flasher glowing an angry red. McHugh saw the cops in it hit the street, guns drawn.

  The woman was still screaming, and there were police whistles and other sirens now.

  McHugh dropped to one knee and fired three quick shots at the careening car. Simmons and Chapman were shooting, too. Along the street, people were dropping to the ground, scurrying for the cover of doorways and crawling under parked cars.

  Tires screamed as the Chrysler leaned into a U-turn. It fishtailed around and screamed through the parking lot of the Pacific Electric station. The train that had been there a moment before was moving out now, gathering speed on the run to Los Angeles. The tracks paralleled the street, and a block ahead a wigwag signal began to flash. The sound of the electric car’s airhorns mingled with the barrage of shots. Another police car moved out of the Sixth Street intersection, heading to cut the Chrysler off.

  Simmons’ car pulled up, and the three men piled in before it could stop. The city detective cramped the wheel and put the gas hard down on the floor. The car rocked on its springs and left strips of rubber behind it.

  They could see flashes of orange as the cops in the cruiser car ahead fired at the oncoming Chrysler. The hardtop swerved then, cut over the shoulder of the road bumped across the curbing and rocked as it hit the cross street.

  It reached the crossing at the same time the interurban cars did. It skidded sideways and hit the first car broadside. There was a grinding of metal that could be heard over the shooting and the wailing sirens. The Chrysler, clinging to the train for a moment, was dragged across the road. It slammed into the steel and concrete support of the crossing signal and broke free of the train. The left-hand door snapped open, and two men sprawled out. One lay beside the wreckage, arms and legs moving feebly. The other picked himself up and began to run.

  The police cars converged and stopped. In the head-lights, McHugh saw the chunky figure of Gino Girolamo, legs pumping, his face contorted as he looked back over his shoulder. His hands were empty.

  Simmons took careful aim with his service revolver. McHugh knocked his hand up.

  “Want him alive. He hasn’t got a gun now.”

  McHugh ran, dodging between the cars that were clogging the street. The train had squealed to a stop, and Girolamo was across the tracks. McHugh plunged into the darkness that lay between the tracks and the channel that led to Terminal Island. Girolamo was a vague blur.

  He heard a thump and a curse, then saw Girolamo picking himself up. The Sicilian’s leg buckled, and he went down again. McHugh jumped for him and saw the glint of a knife blade barely in time to spin away from it. He landed heavily, and the Walther slipped from his fingers. He heard it splash into the channel. He rolled, getting his feet under him as Girolamo swung the knife.

  The point snagged on McHugh’s jacket. He twisted, caught the heavy wrist and bent it back. Girolamo screamed as the small bones in his hand shattered. The knife fell from his fingers, and McHugh kicked him in the stomach. Girolamo bent double, gasping, spitting Italian curses. McHugh twisted the broken wrist behind the man’s back and forced it up until he knew another pound of pressure would break the elbow or pop the shoulder from its socket.

  “Now. Just like this. Back the way we came.”

  “Kill me. Kill me, you sonofabitch,” Girolamo screamed.

  “Uh-uh. You’ve got a lot of talking to do, Don Girolamo. The State of California will take care of the rest of it.”

  He half-dragged, half-walked the man back to the police cars, A harness cop handcuffed Girolamo. The man who had driven the car was a stranger. He was locked in the back of a cruiser car.

  “Local talent,” Simmons said. “Just a wheelman. We nailed the other two Cubans just after it started. The pesos were in the back of the Chrysler. You want to take them back with you?”

  “I don’t even want to see the damned things. Let the Treasury crew take care of them.”

  “What about Girolamo?” the lieutenant asked.

  “I make you a gift of him. Free for nothing. The FBI will want him. So will Inspector Kline, San Francisco Homicide.” McHugh found a cigarette and got it going. “Thanks for everything, Lieutenant.”

  “Look,” Simmons said doubtfully, “where are you going? I’ll need statements for the reports on this thing.”

  “I’m going to get a bath, a bottle and a bed. Not necessarily in that order. I’ll check with you later on the paperwork.”

  “I’ll have a department car take you to a hotel.”

  “I’ve seen a glut of police cars. Think I’ll take a cab.” He motioned to Chapman. “Bud—time we moved out smartly.”

  A desk clerk, with obvious misgivings, finally allowed them to rent a couple of rooms in one of the big convention hotels at Long Beach. Room service supplied a bottle, which McHugh took with him into the bathtub. He immersed himself for two hours, and was feeling notably better when Chapman finally hammered on the door.

  “Go get your own jug,” McHugh shouted.

  “How’d you like to go to the French Riviera?”

  “No!”

  “Or Rome. That’s a nice place.”

  “No!” McHugh scowled as he hauled himself from the water and dripped his way to the door. “Go away.”

  “I hear the girls in Copenhagen turn you every way but loose. That might be fun.”

  “Dammit, I want to go home! San Francisco!” He flung the door open and glared at the grinning moon face of Bud Chapman. “If you’ve already talked to Harts and he has some wild idea of sending me—to hell with it. I’m going home!”

  “To Loris.”

  “Yes, to Loris.”

  “I would like to be there,” Chapman said ominously.

  Suddenly wary, McHugh spoke softly. “Why?”

  “While you were playing whale, I called Monterey. Just to let Loris know it’s all wrapped up and such. Took some time to run her down. She was at some mad pad in Carmel. An iniquitous place run by two guys known as H and The Guitar
. And, when I got to her, she had just finished up a female-type discussion with somebody called Cece. Now do you want to go some place? Siberia, maybe?”

  McHugh reached for the bottle that was waiting on the toilet seat. He uncapped it and drank.

  “I will think about it,” he said. “I will most definitely think about it.”

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