by Howard Fast
“You know, Larry,” Comaday said when they climbed into the back of his big black special Commissioner’s car, “I don’t need you around. I don’t even want you around. Seventh Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street,” he told the driver. “Make it quick. What was I saying?”
“You don’t even want me around,” Cohen told him.
“That’s right. What do you ever bring me but trouble? If you didn’t come around brown-nosing favors for your damn rich society friends—”
“Come off it. He’s the Governor of the state of New York.”
“All right. He’s still one of your rich society friends, and the whole lot of stick together like an Irish clan from the old country.”
“Why do you keep up that like about the old country?” the District Attorney asked tiredly. “None of you have been there since your great-grandfather. You went to Harvard, and you can’t digest corned beef and cabbage, and anyway, your mother was English.”
“All I am saying is that if you hadn’t come to me begging favors, this would have been a normal police routine matter. Now I am in it neck-deep. Oh, I am going to look great when the Governor finds out that we let that coat and bracelet slip out of our hands——”
“We never had it in our hands.”
“—because this is my fate, my destiny. That’s right. Nothing like this ever happened before. Twenty-six years I been on this force, twenty-six years a cop in this city, and no one ever lost a mink coat with a ninety-thousand-dollar diamond bracelet in the pocket. No one, and all those years this city had either a Democrat for a mayor or the Little Flower, who was no more a Republican than my aunt Mary O’Shea, who never set foot out of the Bronx or north of Tremont Avenue for all the ninety-four years of her life. Now, in my declining years, when there is even money on the line that this city could have a Republican mayor, I am damned and twice damned because I have loused up the trust of a Republican governor. Malignant.”
“What do you mean malignant?”
“Republicans are malignant.”
“You don’t mean malignant—you mean vengeful?”
“The hell with you! Driver, are you enjoying the drive? Where the devil is your siren?”
The air was split by a series of weird beeps that screamed with the real meaning of malignant.
“What is that?” Cohen demanded.
“New sirens.”
“That’s the old Gestapo siren.”
“Come on—there is nothing political about a siren.”
“There certainly is.”
They were still arguing about it when the Commissioner’s car pulled up in front of the building where Marvin Potnik conducted his business. Two police cars were already parked there, and as Comaday got out of his car Captain Bixbee strode out of the building.
“Well?” Comaday barked.
“We got a lead—the Plaza Hotel. But every second counts. Follow me, Commissioner.”
With that Bixbee bolted into one of the police cars, and Comaday got back into his car, muttering to Cohen, “What kind of idiot tells me to follow him to the Plaza? I don’t know the way myself. I just got into the city. I don’t know where the Plaza is. I got to have Bixbee to follow.”
II
“I need air. I always think better in the fresh air,” Hy Golden said. “That’s from my old football days. You ever practice Yoga?”
“Yoga? Are you crazy or something?”
“All I mean is the deep breathing. It clears your mind—helps you to think.”
“You?” Compton demanded. “You think?”
“What kind of a lousy crack is that? Of course I think. But I think better in the fresh air.”
“Then we go in the fresh air.” Compton nodded. “By all means.” He led the way out onto the broad stoop.
“Now it doesn’t mean,” Hy Golden said, breathing deep in the abdomen, the ribs, and the upper chest, “that just because he doesn’t blink he is dead.”
“No?”
“Sometimes I don’t blink.”
“For how long?”
“Well, we didn’t give him a chance.”
“Try not blinking.”
Hy Golden opened his large baby-blue eyes and stared blankly into the future.
“It’s damn hard.”
“You blinked.”
The doorman came over to them, nudged Compton, and said, “What is he trying to do, buddy?”
“Not blink.”
“Not blink, Jack?” the doorman asked.
“I blinked, but I am Yoga breathing.”
“You’re Yoga breathing, chief?”
Compton took out a five-dollar bill, folded it, and put it in the doorman’s hand.
“You want me to knock him over for you, Jack? I can’t. He’s too big. For five bucks I will strangle my mother. Can we settle for that?”
“All I want is your memory, Captain. Think of a girl named Margie——”
“Chief, this hotel is host to the girls of the world. How do you think about a girl named Margie?”
“You see, she looks like it. A skinny kid, but a doll. A living, breathing doll, but she’s inside of maybe the best mink coat that ever walked into this hotel.”
“Listen to me, Jack,” the doorman told Compton earnestly, “in this hotel you don’t talk about no best mink coat. You know they come up from Texas just to walk up these stairs into this hotel—and Texas is where they grow mink coats. It’s like talking about jewels on Forty-seventh Street or about wine at Jack and Charlie’s, or, wait a minute, is this doll wearing a diamond bracelet like a good, clear-day sunrise?”
“That’s it. More.”
“Dark mink almost black?”
“I hear you.”
“She’s with a couple of gorillas.”
“You mean hoodlums?”
“No, these are not stateside, some kind of foreign types.”
“How do you know?” Golden demanded.
“How do I know? Jack …” The doorman sighed. “They bundled her into this chauffeured car and they take off.”
“Where?”
“I can make a guess—the Dravinian Embassy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this was a DPL car and I know the numbers. I’m not just a doorman, chief. I’m at the nerve center of the status-diplomatic-Texas world.”
“All right. Where is the Embassy?”
“Nine-oh-three Fifth. Between Seventy and Seventy-first. You want a cab? You bought that too.”
He whistled in an empty cab, and Golden and Compton leaped in. As they turned left to Fifth Avenue Golden pointed out of the window. Two police cars and a black special were pulling lip to the Plaza.
“A large detachment of fuzz,” Golden reported. “What do you suppose?”
“What do you suppose?” Compton said.
III
There were the following! Lieutenant Rothschild of the local precinct, his driver and shield and pillar of strength, Sergeant Adrian Kelly, Detective Monroe Swanson, Captain Harold Bixbee, Police Commissioner John Comaday, and District Attorney (first Assistant) Larry Cohen. Also, Patrolman Ralph Contenso, on station in front of the Plaza, who stared with amazement at the assortment of high, low and medium police brass that poured out of three cars and formed impromptu and irregular ranks in front of the Fifty-ninth Street entrance to the Plaza.
Patrolman Contenso, of the rank and file of this army, presented himself for duty.
“Just stay with me,” Rothschild said sourly. Rothschild was late fortyish, ulcerated, and cynical. He was a very good policeman whom everyone hated with affection.
“This has to be for the arrival of the President,” the doorman decided, and began to head inside to pass the word around and to busy his brain with the reason for the switch from the Carlisle to the Plaza.
“Just stay where you are,” Rothschild snapped. “Hold the outside traffic until I tell you different.” Rothschild had topped the stairs by then, and one look through the glass doors set his memo
ry file in action. He whistled sharply, turned to Kelly, and told him softly and quickly:
“Joey Montoso, the Cleveland torpedo, is sitting right in there, facing the door. He’s poison and very quick with hardware. Now listen, Sarge, get around to the Plaza side and come down here inside. Come up next to the newsstand. The moment I see you, we go in. Take off.”
Kelly took off like a college sprinter. Rothschild had drawn his gun, and immediately an assortment of service revolvers faced the Plaza entrance, which left only Larry Cohen, who, minus even a penknife, felt extraordinarily naked at the moment.
A crowd of onlookers had already gathered, being held back by two efficient and officious doormen. People leaving the hotel slunk sidewise, leaving a corridor of truth, something any American who ever watched a Western on TV is acutely aware of.
Rothschild took command quickly and efficiently and therapeutically—therapeutically because it was only at moments like this that his ulcers no longer bothered him, his heartburn eased, and the assortment of pains in his chest ceased to needle him with the suspicion that he was getting a heart attack.
“Contenso!” calling upon the foot soldiers.
Patrolman Contenso nodded.
“Inside—a high-class contract man. So shoot to kill if he makes a suspicious move.”
Patrolman Contenso paled a bit, but his mouth tightened firmly and he nodded again.
“Go in on the right. Kelly covers the left from inside.”
“Yes, sir,” Contenso answered steadily.
“Captain!” to Bixbee. “We’ll go in the front, with Swanson between us. O.K.?”
“I read you,” Bixbee answered shortly, while Swanson nodded and narrowed his blue eyes with determination and quiet courage.
With the woeful look of the rejected and unappreciated, Commissioner Comaday stood by Larry Cohen. Service revolver in hand, the Commissioner managed to appear belligerent and bedraggled at the same time, but events were moving too fast for even a protest.
“Stay behind us, you and the D.A.,” Rothschild barked at him. No one had spoken to John Comaday like that for at least ten years, but the events pre-empted his anger. Rothschild saw Kelly come charging up to the newsstand, and he, Bixbee, and Swanson led their own charge through the center doors. The rank and file, in the person of Contenso, led a flanking attack from the right, and the Commissioner and the District Attorney led the rear guard and relief. When Comaday and Cohen entered the lobby Joey Montoso was already surrounded by a circle of five service revolvers in the hands of five courageous and efficient city policemen—a true and eloquent tribute to the department, for there were a patrolman, a sergeant, a plain-clothes detective, a precinct lieutenant, a captain of a detective division—and behind them, uncommitted reserves in the person of the Police Commissioner, armed, and the First Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan (N.Y.) County, unarmed.
Holding back, keeping that central corridor of life and death free and clear, the crowd swelled. The policemen were strung on tension, their guns trembling slightly in anticipation of Joey Montoso’s reputation, their lips dry—and Larry Cohen had just realized that Joey’s bright-blue eyes were not blinking.
“All right, Joey!” Rothschild barked. “Don’t make it worse for yourself! Don’t move! Don’t try anything! Make it easy! Put your hands up—slowly.”
Joey’s hands remained where they were.
Sergeant Kelly had a not undeserved reputation for cool courage. He walked up to Montoso and put the muzzle of his service revolver to Montoso’s cheek.
“Don’t move, Joey,” he said quietly.
Joey moved. His head rolled forward first, then the rest of his body followed, and he hit the carpet of the Plaza lobby face first and rolled over onto his side—his right side. A small but evidently efficient knife was sticking out of his left side.
IV
Between Seventieth and Seventy-first Street, on Fifth Avenue, the Dravinian Embassy and Delegation to the United Nations huddled between two tall and dignified apartment houses. The Dravinian Embassy was neither tall nor dignified, being twenty feet of gray-stone front, five stories high, blue and red flag, and thickly curtained windows. A policeman in uniform dawdled in front of it and watched with ordinary and professional suspicion as the two men paid off the driver and got out of the cab. But when, instead of proceeding to a destination, straight ahead to the Dravinians, or left to one apartment house, or right to the other, the two men simply stood there and whispered, the policeman’s interest became slightly more than ordinary.
“I don’t see any black limousine,” Golden said.
“Who said they had to come here?”
“Well …”
“You know, we should be put away, chasing after Margie like this. She must have gone willingly,” Compton said.
“You know, every time I like a girl, I find myself chasing after her. If once, just once, it would be the other way. No, sir. That’s the story of my life. You know when girls chase after me?”
“Come on, come on—use your head. Embassy car, Embassy—what are we so upset about?”
“Joey Montoso.”
“Now you’re talking. Now suppose——”
At this point the officer sauntered over and said, “Can I be of any help?”
“You were here the past ten minutes?” Golden asked.
“Right here.”
“Did you see a big black car pull up—and a girl get out—two big guys and a girl?”
“No.”
“No? No car at all?”
“No. Not much traffic here in the morning. Who was the girl?”
“Come on, come on,” Compton said, tugging at Golden’s sleeve. “Thank you, officer.”
Walking south of Fifth, Golden complained that the cop could have helped them.
“Sure. He would have busted down the door to the Embassy, so that we could search the place.”
“Well, maybe he wouldn’t go that far.”
“How far, Hy?”
“Well, all I am saying is what do we do now? All you got is eight or nine million people, and maybe a couple of them know where Margie is. So——”
Compton jabbed him in the ribs. They had crossed to the southeast corner of Sixty-eighth and Fifth, and there, in the middle of the block, directly in front of an ancient, shuttered, and bedraggled mansion, was a long black car.
“Look,” Compton said.
They walked slowly toward the car, Golden observing that it would be impossible to find a block on upper Fifth Avenue that did not have one or two or three long black chauffeur cars.
“With DPL plates?” Compton said.
“Maybe fifty percent of them,” Golden replied.
Compton turned and stared at the old mansion, number 874 Fifth Avenue.
“That’s the old Ridley house, isn’t it?”
“Been closed up as long as I remember.”
“Do you remember what the doorman said the license number was?”
“Me remember?” Golden protested. “Look, I’m nervous. Even when I am not nervous, I can’t remember my own license number. Anyway, I don’t think he ever gave us the number.”
Compton was prowling around the car now, and he said to Golden, “What color is that Dravinian flag? Can you see it from here?”
“Red lilies on blue—I think. The lilies might be trumpets.”
“No, they’re lilies. Come here.”
Golden went over to the car, and Compton pointed to a small coat of arms under the door handle, a blue shield, about an inch square, outlined with a thin white edge, and containing three red lilies in its blue field.
“That’s it,” Golden agreed.
“It’s here.”
“So they found parking space here. In this city you park where the space is.”
“Exactly,” Compton said. “And the space is there—right there in front of the Dravinian Embassy—not here.”
“Of course it’s here. The car is parked here, so there must be space
here. Otherwise you got to be a mystic or a science-fiction fan or something to get it parked here.”
“You know, you drive me crazy,” Compton said fiercely. “You know, some day you are going to get married, and then God help the dame you are going to marry.”
“That’s a real friendly thing to say.”
“Then don’t drive me nuts. All I said was that there was and is space in front of the Embassy.”
“But the car is here.”
“Exactly.”
“So what does that mean?” Compton said. “Where do we start? Margie’s in terrible trouble …”
“I don’t know. Maybe she is. Maybe she isn’t.”
“We got two apartment houses and a run-down mansion. I think we can begin by counting the mansion out.”
At that moment the door of the mansion opened, and from it emerged a large, fat man with a red, large face, enormous mustaches, popeyes, a pepper-and-salt suit with leather elbow patches and a leather gun rest, and an Alpine hat and a walking stick. He was followed by two tall, pale, heavy-set men whose dark suits were pricked out with white pin stripes, and they in turn were followed by a tall, heavy, dark man in a chauffeur’s uniform. The chauffeur closed the door to the old mansion, tried it to make certain that it was tightly closed, and then ran ahead of the three moving men to open the rear car door. The three got in. The chauffeur closed the door. Then he walked around the car to the street side and got in and started the motor. Then the big black car pulled out smoothly and drove away.
And through all of this they had ignored Compton and Golden completely. So far as they were concerned, Compton and Golden did not exist.
“Why didn’t you stop them?” Compton demanded as the car disappeared up Fifth Avenue.
“There were four of them,” Golden protested indignantly.
“You’re bigger.”
“I am not bigger than four of them.”
“We will not argue about it. Let’s get Margie and get out of here.”
“Get Margie? Where do we get Margie?”
Compton pointed to the shuttered mansion.
“Why?”
“Well, doesn’t it figure? They drove her here to the mansion and dumped her inside. She’s probably lying in a closet in there right this minute, bound, gagged—”