A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  The sergeant was fat, officious and had been used to scaring pickpockets and milk-bottle thieves half to death by glaring at them. I knew him and he knew me.

  “Hello, Halorhan.” I pushed him in the stomach. “The commissioner has let the ropes down, and you’re filling up the waist-line, eh?”

  “Now look here, Williams.” Sergeant Halorhan came into the room as if he expected guys to pull guns on him from behind every chair. “You can’t be doing this, you know—not so steadily on the public streets. I’ve got to—”

  “You’ve got to talk to O’Rourke.” I managed to roll him across to the phone, even lifted it and put it in his hand. The talk was one-sided. It went like this—

  “That’s right, O’Rourke. . . . No, I guess Williams admits the killing. . . . There was a Tommy gun in this hood’s hand. . . . Recognize him! Why, he hasn’t got any face.”

  There was more, but I wasn’t listening. I invited in the cops who stood in the doorway. Jerry was around by now and I had him get them a drink and saw Halorhan looking at the glasses and hurrying his talk with O’Rourke. At last he hung up the phone and when I didn’t say anything, asked point-blank for a “snort.” He was a “one-drink man” when on duty, but he made that drink go a long ways. It knocked hell out of a bottle.

  Now he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, smacked his lips and said partly sarcastic, partly humorous: “I wonder, Mr. Race Williams, if it would be asking too much to ask just how it happened. Sergeant O’Rourke seems to think that you’re too busy killing people to talk about it.”

  “No trouble at all.” I was affable. “I stepped out of a cab. This lad put a Tommy gun against my head, and I shot him.”

  “Then?” said Halorhan falling into the trap.

  “Why then he died,” I told him.

  The cops laughed, stopped at once as Halorhan moved toward the door. Then they were gone.

  The phone rang and it was Mary Morse. She talked before I could get started. “Race—you’re alive then! You’re all right? Armin Loring swore he’d kill you if I so much as talked to you. That’s why I ran away from you tonight. I thought they’d know, understand. I telephoned Armin that I’d never see you again if he spared you and—”

  “Spared me! That grease ball! Listen here, Mary—” And I damn near choked over the words. I thought I’d shown her enough to let her know I didn’t need any nursemaid. “Wherever did you get such an idea? You saw how I handled Raftner.”

  “I was told, Race—yes, told by your friend—to warn you to keep out of this affair, never to see me again or you’d be killed by Armin who can”—yes, her very words were—“who can shoot circles all around you. Don’t you see, Race—don’t you understand! It was your own assistant who told me.”

  “My assistant—Jerry?” I fairly gasped, before the truth struck me.

  “No, that woman. The one who helped you and me when we were prisoners. The woman with the queer name—the Flame.”

  The Flame. Sure, I saw what she meant then. The Flame had told her she was my assistant and I had never told Mary any different. At the time I’d kept silent, perhaps to protect the Flame. Later there was no need. Now—I just gasped, let the thing go, and asked her: “Where are you—home?”

  “No, I’ve been walking the streets. I don’t know what to do. I’ve got to see Armin or he’ll kill you.”

  Dumb? For a bright girl she was certainly dumb. Poor kid. No, she wasn’t dumb—except in one thing. How anyone above the age of seven who had seen me in action could think for a moment that Armin Loring would take away my appetite, I don’t know. But I told her simply: “Let me run things for a day or two. Go to some hotel, register under another name and—”

  “But I can’t. I telephoned Armin. I must go over and see him in half an hour. He said I must. I saw your assistant with him in the Green Room tonight. Does that mean—”

  I cut her off. “What’s Armin’s telephone number?” And when she hesitated, “I want to ring him up and tell him I won’t bother with you any more”—I gulped—“then he won’t want to kill me.”

  She gave me his telephone number at once. So her dumbness served me some purpose that time. But when I started to talk to her like a Dutch uncle she hung up on me.

  Mad? I was fit to be tied. Why should I wait around for Armin to have first shot at me? Wait to let Armin set the time and the place—murder by his watch? Just wait until he was ready—then try my luck against his. No, I had had enough of that. Two could play his game.

  I snapped up the phone and buzzed Armin’s number. It was early in the morning, yet he answered the phone almost at once. His voice was low and expectant—expectant of another voice maybe, a girl’s voice—but he got exactly what was on my mind.

  “Williams calling, Armin,” I told him. “You’ve broken that one-man record. There was an attempt on my life a few minutes ago. Friend of yours—nice boy.”

  “Yes?” There was interest in Armin’s voice, anxiety too, I thought. “What happened?”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “Spread all over the sidewalk, and I’ll have to talk to the district attorney early in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry you have to get up early, Race, but I’m sure the D.A. will be pleased.”

  “I won’t have to get up early,” I told him. “At least, I don’t think I will. I’ll already be up.”

  “Insomnia—conscience?” He laughed. “I don’t quite understand.”

  “Listen, Armin—about that promise of yours—or was it a threat? You know—any place, any time. Does it still go?”

  His laugh was light. “It got under your skin, eh Race? Well, when I talk like that and something like that machine-gun business comes off, it is unnerving. Yes, it still goes—maybe quicker than you think.”

  “That’s right.” I was very serious now. “Maybe quicker—much quicker—than even you think. I’m giving you a chance to withdraw that threat, Armin. I know you don’t bluff, and it does bother me.”

  “Any time, any place—the five-o’clock rush hour on Forty-Second Street. Do I make myself clear enough?”

  “O.K.” I got down to the point. “I’ll be leaving here in five minutes and I’m coming directly to your apartment. If you’re to make good on that threat, you’ve got to make good on it within the next twenty minutes.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I think he was a bit startled.

  “I mean,” I said, “some people have an idea that you’re faster with a gun than I am. In twenty minutes one of us will find out—but only one of us.”

  “Hell,” he said. “You can’t try that, not tonight.”

  “Listen, Armin. When you open your door, open it shooting or you’re never going to shoot again. I’m on the kill.”

  “No fooling, Race?” And something had gone out of his voice.

  “No fooling, Armin,” I said and hung up the phone. And I wasn’t fooling when I put on my hat and walked out the door. I know it doesn’t sound nice; doesn’t look nice in black and white. But it was the truth. Armin Loring had to make good within the next twenty minutes or I’d shoot him to death.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Flame

  I won’t say it was exactly pleasant walking up the stairs to Armin’s top-floor apartment, but I didn’t think he’d had time enough to call in any friends, and I didn’t think he’d show the yellow streak anyway—at least not to those friends.

  Nothing happened as I reached the fifth floor, went down the corridor, and stood there in the dim hall-light right smack before his door. Then I lifted both my guns from their holsters, shoved one against the bell-button and trained the other on the door.

  But the door didn’t open. Didn’t open, though I heard feet—a sort of soft pressure as if a body leaned against that door, maybe with an ear cocked to listen. I tapped lightly with my gun, moved the gun close to the lock, half tightened my finger on the trigger, then looked up and down the hall.

  I shrugged and shook my head. That wouldn’t
do at all. This was no secret mission on my part but still—I looked toward the flight of stairs that led to the roof, jerked back my gun and sped up them. No tricks there, no lock to shoot. I simply slipped the hook off the door and walked out onto the flat roof. I didn’t need the light in the window below to tell me which fire-escape led to Armin’s apartment.

  I don’t like to loiter and pussy-foot around. In less than two minutes after I left that apartment door, I was crouching on the fire-escape by the window. And what’s more the window was open a bit. A look-see under the shade did me no good. There was a window-seat, and beyond that heavy curtains. Well, I was there on business. I pushed the window quietly up, slipped onto that window-seat and parting the drapes, peered through just as the doorbell to the apartment rang. There was another visitor, then. Perhaps half a dozen of them. Armin wasn’t taking chances.

  I sat down on the window-seat behind those curtains, made sure that they were long enough to hide my feet, held a gun in each hand and waited; waited as I looked between those curtains at the man who stood in the center of that room. He stood there with a gun hanging in his hand, fear in his eyes, uncertainty in his manner, as he turned from the ringing bell to the curtains behind which I sat.

  It was my boy friend, Sam, of the Hotel York Terrace—the big mutton who had started out to be a tough guy and turned into a ballet-dancer. The bell rang once more. Sam stiffened and listened as he backed toward me. I took a silent laugh. He was backing to that window to escape me at the door! So Armin had run out on me.

  But I was listening just as Sam was listening. His hand was on the curtain when the key turned in the lock and the door to the apartment opened and closed. Feet came down the hall—light, tapping feet—the feet of a woman. Mary Morse, of course.

  And I was wrong. So wrong I damn near fell off the window-seat. Sam shot his gun into his shoulder holster and sighed with relief. It was the Flame, and if she had ever been the laughing happy young girl, you wouldn’t know it now. Her face was hard, set; her brown eyes, twin balls of ice. She squeezed her green handbag close in her two slender, ungloved hands and popped right out with, “Where’s Armin?”

  “He’s out. Got a message from this Williams guy and beat it along.” Sam shook his head. “This cheap dick was coming down to have it out with Armin. Armin hated to leave, but couldn’t afford a shoot-up here with things ready to move.”

  The Flame nodded, said: “Is it tonight?” And shaking her head, “It’s too early in the morning for that. Is the stuff to move tomorrow night, Sam?”

  I could see the man’s eyes narrow. “Don’t you know? You’re going to marry Armin and you don’t—”

  The Flame raised her head, sniffed at the air, said: “Where’s the woman. Did he leave her here?”

  “Why, there ain’t no woman here, Florence.”

  “Miss Drummond,” she snapped back at him. “Armin’s got an eye on that Morse girl for more than just the money in it. She’s been writing him letters.”

  “Naw.” Sam let his broad thick lips part. “And what of it, Florence. You’re a knock-out when you’re mad. Armin was always One Man Armin—not One Woman Armin.” He put a hand around her shoulders, drew her to him. “Let him run out with the dame if he wants. I’ll be around to make it up to you.” And suddenly grabbing her to him with both his arms, “Hell—the Flame—that’s the name for you.”

  Did I step out to protect the frail little body of the Flame from this giant. I did not. And I didn’t need to. Her arms moved like twin pistons, the hands on the ends of those arms flashing white. Just the crack, and the marks of fingers upon the man’s face. A curse as sharp pointed toes pounded against his legs.

  He dropped her, stepped back, muttered: “And I seen you going through Armin’s desk looking for letters from some moll and never peeped. He’d strangle you for that. You want to play rough, well I’ll play rough. You can’t talk—can’t tell Armin afterwards—or I’ll talk. There, don’t run. It won’t do you any good.”

  The Flame wasn’t running. She didn’t even step back, didn’t give an inch—just stood there clutching her green bag. This time as his hand shot out, her right hand came up and down. I saw the tiny gun, saw it turn in her hand, saw its sight rip down his face and the blood come. He raised his hand to his face, staggered slightly.

  The Flame watched him—calm. Her voice was even, steady, when she spoke. “Don’t be a fool, Sam,” she said. “I could have emptied the twenty-twos in this rod down your throat. There, that’s better. I’m giving orders here. Where’s that dame?”

  The man eyed her, lifted his hands twice, let them fall to his sides again, said finally: “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I swear it.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said bluntly. “You keep your mouth closed and so will I.” Her smile was not pleasant. “And it can happen again any time you want to be a fool. I always take care of myself.” As if dismissing the subject, she stretched up a hand, grabbed at the lapel of his coat. “Was Williams here?”

  “He was at the door and left.” Sam was willing to forgive and forget, too. There was a nasty dig in his face. “I begged Armin to let me meet Williams. I’d have killed him right there in the doorway as soon as—”

  The Flame laughed. “Race Williams would have shot your head right off your shoulders before you had time to tell him what a real dangerous man you are, Sam. About this dame, Mary Morse. Did she go with Armin or—”

  The Flame stopped; both listened. Someone was at the door. There was the click of metal against metal as if that someone were having trouble placing a key in a lock.

  “That’s the girl—the Morse girl.” The Flame just breathed the words. “Keep your face closed, Sam, or I’ll tell Armin the trouble you have with your hands. I’ll get her to go with me—say Williams sent me.”

  “You—you’d kill her?” He shrugged. “Well, it would save Armin the trouble.”

  “He was going to kill her tonight?”

  “Maybe. She knows too much. Armin’s afraid she’ll blow to Williams. He—”

  The door had opened and closed again. This time the feet were anything but steady. Mary Morse wobbled slightly as she stood in the doorway. Then she was speaking.

  “Armin sent for me—and I came. I can’t go through with it. I—I—” Her blue eyes grew even wider; the fear went out of them as they turned from Sam to the Flame. “You—you—Race’s assistant. Oh, God, I wish I had your courage now!” She ran to the Flame, clung to her sobbing. I saw the Flame look up over her shoulder, wink at Sam.

  I was tempted to step out then, but I didn’t. Here was a chance to get an earful. It didn’t seem like Armin was coming back.

  The Flame was saying: “Armin had to leave, my dear. I’m going to take you along with me.”

  “You—Yes, I can go any place with you. But I must see Mr. Williams—Race Williams. I must tell him everything. I know the truth. It mustn’t happen—mustn’t—”

  “I understand,” the Flame said quietly as she patted the girl’s head. “There, don’t cry. Race Williams will make things come out all right for you; he always has. Don’t shake like that—let me hold you.”

  If I wasn’t on to the show I would have believed it myself. Just an older woman who had seen a lot of life comforting a younger one who hadn’t. Yes, I’d have trusted the Flame, and I didn’t blame Mary Morse for trusting her. Besides, there was that first time when Mary had taken the Flame for my assistant and I had let her believe it. I should have told her the truth. And suddenly she did know the truth.

  It was the ballet-dancer, good old tactful Sam, who made his ugliest face when he spoke. “Why feed the kid baloney, sister. I think Armin may want her to live for a few days until he’s sure.”

  Mary Morse screamed as she jumped back from the Flame. “That man—what is he doing here?” And there was recognition in her eyes followed by terror. “He’s going to kill me—kill me before I can right my wrong.”

  She was running for
the hall when Sam grabbed her and swung her back. She was screaming, too, but her words were clear until Sam clapped a hand over her mouth. “It’s narcotics—drugs—not diamonds! I know it now!”

  The man’s left hand went over her face, tore her head back against his chest. His right hand shot awkwardly behind him, jerked a blackjack from a hip pocket. He was staggering under her weight, straightening, trying to regain his balance, his back almost against the curtain. Then his hand went up, the blackjack started down, and I parted the curtains slightly and struck—viciously, brutally. My gun bounced hard against his head—damn good and hard.

  Ballet-dancer or not, Sam didn’t trip the light fantastic this time. He just dropped his arm from around Mary Morse’s throat and hit the floor.

  As for me, I merely stepped over his body in time to strike with my gun again and knock the twenty-two from the Flame’s hand. I wasn’t any too gentle. Involuntarily her right hand went to her mouth, sucking suddenly at those fingers.

  “I’m sorry, Florence, if I hurt your fingers.” My apology was meant to be the height of sarcasm. “But it was that or shoot you to death.”

  She was a remarkable woman, all right. If she were surprised she gave no sign. Certainly, she was not struck with any terror. She said simply and as if she meant it: “It’s too bad I didn’t lift the gun. I’d like to know if you’d have—” And looking at the curtains behind me, “Well, throw out the body. I suppose Armin’s lying dead there.”

  “No such luck.” I shook my head as I helped Mary Morse to her feet. “You were playing the game pretty low on the kid here. Was it money or jealousy?” And as her brown eyes flashed, “It was money, then. You wouldn’t recognize jealousy. You wouldn’t recognize any other woman’s chance against you.”

  “That’s right.” She looked from me to Mary Morse, sobbing on my arm, and back to me. “Not even with you, Race. Your trouble is that you’re too sensational. Let her go, Race.”