by Day Keene
No one, not even the toll taker on the bridge, paid any attention to the big black car carrying three men and a girl. Before leaving the cottage, Dix had allowed Brady to clean up as best he could and there was nothing about the wide strip of adhesive tape on his injured forehead to cause any undue curiosity. No one who saw him would have the slightest inkling that he and the slight light-haired girl beside him were on their way to die.
Brady rode in the back seat with Linda Lou, his right hand holding her hand, his left arm around her shoulders, grateful that no matter what happened when they reached Stamford they’d had the one night together. From time to time, when the opportunity presented itself, as in the two instances when they’d stopped to pay toll and when they had the tank of the car filled with gasoline, he had been tempted to call out or try to make a break but the gun he knew was resting in Dix’s lap restrained him. After all, he’d started this thing by not turning the money in when he found it. He didn’t want an innocent person’s death on his conscience. Turned sideways on the front seat so he could watch them at all times, his left arm resting on the back of the seat, Dix had warned him what would happen if he even tried to attract attention.
“Believe me, Brady,” the other man continued to warn him. “I’ve got nothing to lose if I don’t get that money back. So one peep out of you and Linda gets it. Right through her pretty little belly. Also you and anyone you try to tip.”
Between warnings, the old man spoke foulmouthed obscenities concerning the night just past and Brady’s relations with Linda Lou, phrasing his comments in lewd four-letter words, almost as if he was experiencing a vicarious satisfaction by commenting on the intimate pleasures the frightened girl in the back seat had refused him.
“Everything. I could have given you everything,” he reminded her.
Brady stopped the flow of lewd comments momentarily by remarking, “Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Dix asked.
“You figure that out,” Brady said.
For a moment, money or not, he thought Dix was going to shoot him. He didn’t. The old man merely scowled and continued to mouth obscenities.
Seemingly, Morgan was moderately familiar with Stamford. When he reached the outskirts of the village he turned corners and angled down side streets without having to ask how to get to 1134 E. Elm Street. Then when he reached the house, instead of parking at the curb in front he drove up the drive and into the attached garage.
They were barely inside when May opened the door leading from the garage to the kitchen. Instead of being dressed for her weekly bridge club her hair was still metallic with curlers and she was wearing an old cotton wrapper she frequently wore when she was working around the house.
“I see you found them,” she said dryly.
Morgan touched the brim of his hat, then got out of the car and closed the overhead door of the garage. “Thanks to you, Mrs. Brady. He was right where you told us he might be. Both him and Miss Larson.”
Brady fought down a desire to be sick on the floor of the car. He had no idea May hated him this much.
“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” he said bitterly.
“I don’t owe you a thing,” her voice was thin. “Not after what you did to my daughter. And when Officer Morgan and Captain Dix told me there was still another young girl involved, one of the secretaries at your office. I couldn’t imagine a better place for you to carry on your cheap assignation than the cottage we rented last summer. And I told them so. No wonder you’ve been acting so strangely lately.”
It took a moment for what she had said to penetrate Brady’s mind. May had called the two gangsters officer and captain and had implied that Linda Lou was one of the girls in the office. “Now wait just a minute,” he said. “There’s something very wrong here. Just what did these men tell you?’
Dix motioned him out of the car. “Stop yakking and get into the house. And don’t open your mouth again until I tell you to. If you do the girl is going to get it right here in the garage.”
Brady got out of the car and helped Linda Lou out. Her voice very small, she told him, “Don’t worry about me. You do what you think is best.”
May smiled a thin smile. “How touching. You must be more of a man than I realized. First Alice. Now this cheap little bitch.” She looked back at Dix. “Now you’ve found them, do I get the rest of the reward right away or do I have to wait until he’s indicted?”
“Right away,” Dix assured her. He cleared his throat. “Just as soon as Mr. Brady gives us a little additional information about the money he stole.”
“Reward? The money I stole?” Brady shouted. “What kind of a line did you hand my wife? Just what did you tell her?”
Morgan swung the barrel of his gun in a vicious arc that exploded against Brady’s cheek and knocked him to his knees on the kitchen floor. “Naughty, naughty,” he reproved him. “Captain Dix warned you to keep your mouth shut until you were told to talk.”
Brady tried to get to his feet and couldn’t until Linda Lou helped him. “You bastard,” she cursed Morgan. “You pain-loving bastard. Just how do you get your kicks? When you are beating on someone or when someone is beating on you?’
His face livid with anger, Morgan slapped her. “Shut up.”
The house, as usual when he was away, was overwarm. All the windows were tightly closed and May must have pushed the thermostat up as high as it would go. Still partially supported by Linda Lou, Brady stood gasping for air and shaking his head in an attempt to clear it.
Dix increased the pressure of the gun muzzle nudging his ribs. “The key to the locker, remember?”
Stalling to give his head time to clear and with Linda Lou still helping him, Brady walked down the short hall into the living room.
Her bare feet showing under her bath robe, her eyes red and puffed from crying, Alice was sitting hunched on the sofa hugging her knees. She gave Brady a quick glance, then looked away.
At least part of the picture was clear. “So you finally did, eh?” Brady asked the fifteen-year-old girl. “You finally told the nasty lie you said you’d tell. Well, I hope you’re satisfied.”
May explained to Dix. “I thought after what she told me and all that the child has been through it would be best if I kept her home from school today.”
“Sure. Sure,” Dix said impatiently. “That’s your business, Now we have a little business with your husband. Okay, Brady. Stop stalling. Where’s the key?”
Brady took a deep breath and held it a moment. This was it, one way or another. He’d stalled as long as he could. “In my bedroom,” he said. “I’ll go get it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Morgan said.
“Yeah,” Dix said. “And so will I. Get moving, Brady.”
With Dix close behind them, the hard muzzle of his gun prodding the small of Brady’s back, he and Linda Lou went into the bedroom. Brady walked across the room to the dresser. Everything would depend on the next few seconds. If he could get the drawer open and the gun out he might possibly be able to turn and kill at least one of them before they killed him. If he was lucky he might not even be killed. It was one thing to shoot an unarmed man. It was something else when the man was armed and able and willing to shoot back.
He was reaching for the drawer pull when May who had followed them into the room said, “If it’s a key you’re looking for, Captain Dix, he won’t find it in there. There’s nothing in that drawer but handkerchiefs and the automatic pistol he brought back from Korea.” Brady made a desperate attempt to open the drawer all the way and succeeded in opening it about an inch when Morgan slammed it shut and Dix took the gun from the small of his back and used the barrel in a series of vicious blows that chopped him to his knees for a second time.
Kneeling on both knees, clinging to Linda Lou’s legs, resting his bleeding head against her thighs, Brady heard the drawer open and Morgan say, “There’s a gun in there, all right. A .45 Colt automatic.”
“Don’t touch it,” Dix
warned him. “Leave it right where it is. And wipe off that drawer pull. We don’t want to leave any prints.”
Brady heard the drawer close again. Then May was speaking. Her voice sounded as though she was shaking her head.
“I just can’t understand what got into him. He was always such a steady man. But I suppose he realized that what he’d done to poor Alice was bound to come out sooner or later, because the poor child wouldn’t protect him forever, so he figured he’d take the money you say he stole and clear out and take another girl with him for good measure.” May sniffed. “I don’t know what it is about men, all of you. But if it’s young and still a virgin you’ve just got to have it.”
Morgan touched the brim of his hat again. “Yes, ma’am.”
Dix’s face was pale with anger as he pulled Brady to his feet. “That’s just a taste of what you’re going to get. The key. Give me the key.”
Linda Lou wiped the blood from Brady’s eyes with her fingers. Her voice was low and intense. “Please, Jim,” she begged. “Don’t let them hurt you any more. Give him the key. I’m not afraid to die.”
May was amused. “Listen to her. She’s not afraid to die. Aren’t you being rather melodramatic, young lady? You may be in the family way. I hope you are. But I doubt very much if you’ll die from what happened to you last night.”
Brady fumbled the change in his pocket and separated the locker key from his silver. As with the claim check, Morgan had overlooked it when he’d searched him. It might work. It might not. But if what he had in mind did work, it would give him a few more hours, a few more hours alone with one of them while the other drove into town and opened the locker and found only the new, empty brief case.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’m whipped.” He tossed the key on the dresser. “There.”
Morgan swore softly. “He had it on him.” He picked up the key and examined it. “He had it on him all the time.”
“I thought you searched him,” Dix said.
“I did.” Morgan defended himself. “But you were so anxious for me to tape his mouth so he couldn’t warn Linda before you got down to the shore of the lake to watch her standing naked in the water, I must have overlooked it.” He tossed the key on his palm. “Not that it matters now. Do you want me to drive in and get it?”
Dix dropped his gun into his pocket. “No. You stay here and keep an eye on things. I’ll drive in. And before I come back I’ll drop it off where it was supposed to be two days ago.”
“Whatever you say,” Morgan said. “You don’t even have to come if you don’t want to. Just give me a call and say everything is all right. I’ll be glad to take care of things out here.”
“I may do that,” Dix said.
He started for the door and stopped as May said, “Just a minute, Captain Dix.”
Dix turned and looked at her. “Yes—?”
“Am I to understand you think my husband hid the money he stole in a locker in Grand Central Station?”
“That’s right.”
“And if it’s there I’ll get the rest of the reward?”
Dix was amused. “Yeah. Sure. You’ll get everything that’s coming to you. That’s why I’m leaving Officer Morgan here.”
Brady said angrily, “What’s this Officer Morgan and Captain Dix bit?”
“You stay out of this, Jim,” May said. “You made your bed and you can damn well lie on it. I have to look after myself and Alice and Jimmy.” She looked back at Dix. “Then, while you are down at the station, if the money does not happen to be in the locker, if I were you, I’d check the parcel room. Because the other night when he was dressing to walk out on me, walk out on Alice, for this little piece of southern fluff, I saw him transfer—”
Brady tried to stop her. “No. Please, May. For God’s sake, you don’t know what you’re doing,”
“Go on, Mrs. Brady,” Dix said. “When you saw him dressing to walk out on you, you saw him transfer what?”
May told him. “A baggage claim check. From the watch pocket of the pants he’d worn to work to the watch pocket of the pants he’s wearing now. And when I asked him what it was for he said it was for his brief case, that it was filled with office correspondence and that rather than carry it around he’d checked it at the baggage counter.”
Morgan slapped Brady with his gun, then muscled him up against the wall beside the dresser and hooked his fingers in his watch pocket and pulled so hard the cloth tore and the paper claim check fluttered to the floor.
Dix picked up the piece of cardboard and said, “Not bad. Not bad at all, Brady.” He smiled at the claim check as if it were a last minute reprieve from the governor. “Sure. This is it. It can’t be for anything else.” He glanced at Morgan. “Now we can do what has to be done and both of us can go back to town.”
Brady almost felt sorry for May. She looked older than he’d ever seen her look. The crows feet around her mouth were more pronounced. Her neck muscles sagged. She looked much closer to forty than the thirty-four she claimed to be.
No longer as certain of herself as she’d been, she said, “You do that. And take Jim and his girl friend with you. I’ll swear out the warrant for statutory rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor at the local station.” She held out her hand. “But if you are certain the claim check will enable you to recover the money Jim stole from Harper, Nelson and Ferrel, before you go, I want the rest of the reward.”
“Lady,” Dix laughed at her. “You slay me.”
“Who did they tell you they were, May?” Brady persisted.
“Captain Dix and Officer Morgan of the Manhattan Bunko Detail.”
Brady shook his head. “Uh-uh. Dix is a big-shot Chicago hoodlum. And Morgan is his paid killer. And I didn’t steal any money. I found it. And because I did they’ve already killed one man, the taxi driver who was beaten to death. And now that you’ve gotten them off the hook, they’re going to kill us, too.”
May pressed her hand to her throat. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” Morgan said pleasantly. “But thanks very much for your co-operation, Mrs. Brady.”
Brady turned his back to the dresser and looked past the woman he’d married at the fifteen-year-old girl standing just inside the bedroom door. He didn’t care what May thought. He did value Linda Lou’s opinion. “Tell your mother the truth, Alice,” he said quietly.
Still sullen-eyed, the girl looked down at her bare feet. “I did,” she whispered.
“The truth,” Brady persisted. “Start with what happened the other night when you came into the living room without a stitch of clothes on. Tell her how you sat on my lap and tried to get me to be intimate with you. Tell her how close you came to being successful. Then tell her what you told me you would tell her if I continued to refuse to be intimate with you. Go ahead. Tell her, Alice. Then admit any wrongdoing between us has all been in your own sick mind.”
The girl raised her eyes to his, then turned and pressed her face to the wall and sobbed.
May broke the deep silence that followed. “You fool. You little fool. And I believed you.”
Dix kissed the claim check he was holding and put it carefully into the small change compartment of the same side coat pocket into which he’d dropped his gun. His good nature completely restored, he smiled, “Very interesting. But absolutely nothing to do with us.”
“What if the shots are heard?” Morgan asked him.
The old man shrugged. “They won’t be. Not with all the windows closed. No one will know a thing about it until the boy comes home from school.”
All the time he’d been directing attention to Alice, Brady, hands behind his back, ostensibly supporting his weight by gripping the flange of the dresser, had been frantically working at the drawer pull. He had the drawer open now and the feel of metal was good in his hands.
What followed was confused. Morgan was the first to see the gun. “You tricky bastard,” he gasped and fired, then dropped his gun and pressed both hands to his stomach a
nd screamed, “Shoot. Shoot him, you old fool.”
Dix tried but the metal sight of his gun caught in the lining of his pocket and there was a rip of cloth as he pulled hard without getting the gun completely free.
May and Alice were screaming now and Linda Lou was scrambling on the floor for the revolver that Morgan had dropped. His right shoulder numb from the one shot Morgan had managed, Brady transferred his gun to his left hand and the bullet he fired at Dix gouged a hole in the plastered wall.
Dix tried one last time to free his gun, then ran bleating out the bedroom door as Brady fired for a third time and missed him again. Before he could fire a fourth time, the old man was through the kitchen and into the garage.
Blood from the pistol whippings he’d taken dripped into Brady’s eyes and partially blinded him. He was sick from the pain in his shoulder. But when he heard the overhead door in the garage screech open he tried to stagger after Dix, only to trip over the now motionless Morgan.
Linda Lou helped him to his feet. “No,” she said. “Not wounded like you are. Let him go. Besides, he won’t get very far. And he won’t get what he’s after.” She held up the cardboard claim check. “This ripped out of his pocket when he tried to get his gun to kill you.”
A long silence followed. Alice continued to sob. Then, her thin lips working wetly, May said, “I don’t suppose there is anything I can say.”
“No,” Brady said, “There isn’t.”
EIGHTEEN
THE SEAT OF THE straight-backed chair was hard. The large outer office smelled of stale tobacco and fresh sweeping compound. Despite the lateness of the hour, while most of the city slept, here there was sound and color and motion. Telephones rang incessantly. There was a constant procession of plainclothesmen and uniformed officers entering and leaving the inner office. Brady glanced at the two detectives who’d brought him down from the detention cell. They looked like pretty good Joes. Most policemen were. They did a big job for small pay and smaller glory.