A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  Moran was a bully who shook down petty crooks for a few bucks whenever he got the chance. But he left the big boys alone. He lacked the imagination to serve them and, consequently, he never got in on the important payoff. There would have been some dignity in being a big grafter, but Moran grubbed for his few extra dollars the hard way, the cheap way, the way that earned him nothing else but contempt.

  There was a streak of savage brutality in him that caused the underworld to mingle their contempt with a certain fear. Moran had killed six men in the line of duty, three of whom were unarmed at the time, and another who had died after Moran had worked him over with a sap for fourteen hours. The story of the men he’d killed wasn’t told because a corpse is an unsatisfactory witness. Moran knew this. He knew all about killing.

  Now, at two o’clock in the morning, in the cheap room of a cheap hotel, Moran was going to learn about murder. He had to commit a murder because of something new in his life, something that he had always sneered at in the lives of other men.

  Moran was in love. And he had learned that love, like anything else, costs money.

  He stood just inside the doorway of the room and watched the scrawny, thin-faced man who was staring at him from the bed. The man was Dinny Nelson, a small-time bookie who, Moran knew, carried all his assets in a hip wallet.

  Dinny brushed a hand over his sleep-dulled features and said, “What’s the pitch, Moran? You got no right busting in here.”

  Moran drew his gun and leveled it at Dinny. He knew what would happen with crystal clarity, not only to Dinny and the portions of his body hit by the heavy slugs, but after that, to Dinny’s corpse, to the police department and to himself, Moran. It was an old story to him. He had killed six men in the line of duty and he knew the way everything worked. No one would doubt his story.

  Dinny saw his fate in Moran’s face. He began to beg in a cracked voice. “No, no, you can’t,” he said. “There’s no reason to kill me—I ain’t done nothing. Don’t.”

  Moran fired three shots and they were very loud in the small, thin-walled room. Dinny’s body jack-knifed with the impact of the slugs, rolled from the bed to the floor. He didn’t live long. Moran watched expressionlessly as Dinny’s limbs twisted spasmodically, then became rigid and still. Underneath Dinny’s body the roses in the faded pattern of the rug bloomed again, bright and scarlet.

  There was two thousand, three hundred and thirty dollars in Dinny’s wallet. Moran left thirty. The money made a comfortable bulge against his leg as he sauntered to the phone . . .

  While the coroner did his work and two lab technicians went over the room, Moran told his story to Lieutenant Bill Pickerton, his immediate superior at Homicide.

  “Tonight I seen him taking bets in the lobby,” Moran said. “This was eleven. I started across to him but he seen me and ducked into the bar and then out to the street. So I drifted away. Around two I came back, came right up here to his room. I told him to get dressed but the fool went for me. I had to shoot him.”

  Lieutenant Pickerton rubbed his long jaw. “This stinks worse than your usual stuff, Moran. You could have handled him with your fists. He doesn’t have a gun.”

  Moran shrugged. “Why should I risk getting beat over the head with a chair or something?”

  Pickerton looked at him with active dislike. “Okay, turn in a written report tomorrow morning. The old man won’t like this, you know.”

  “To hell with the old man,” Moran said. “He wants us to bring ’em in with a butterfly net, I suppose.”

  “All right,” Pickerton said. He paid no more attention to Moran, but studied the body and the room with alert, careful eyes.

  Downstairs, Moran hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the Diamond Club. He stared out the window at the dark streets of the Loop, his impassive face hiding the mirth inside him.

  When Moran had realized that a night club singer couldn’t be impressed by a cop’s salary, he had looked around in his dull, unimaginative fashion for a way to get some money. Nothing had occurred to him for quite a while. Then the idea came, the idea that a cop could literally get away with murder.

  After he got that much, the rest was easy. He had picked Dinny because he wasn’t big-time, but big enough as far as money went. Now it was all over and he had the money. There would be a routine investigation of course, but there was no one to come forward with Dinny’s version of what had happened. Therefore, the department would have to accept Moran’s story. They might raise hell with him, threaten him some, but that didn’t matter.

  Moran’s hand touched the unfamiliar bulge of money in his pocket and a rare smile touched the corner of his mouth. It didn’t matter at all.

  He paid off the driver in front of the Diamond Club on Randolph Street and walked past the headwaiter with a familiar smile. The head-waiter smiled cordially, for Moran’s visits to the club had been frequent over the past two months, dating from the time Cherry Angela had joined the show.

  Moran found a corner table and watched the girl singing at the mike. This was Cherry Angela. The blue spot molded her silver evening dress to her slim, pliant body, revealing all the curving outlines. She wore her platinum hair loose, falling in soft waves to her shoulders, and her eyes and features were mocking as she sang an old, old story about a man and a woman.

  Moran forgot everything watching the girl. And there was an expression of sullen hunger on his face.

  She came to his table after the number and sat down with lithe grace. “Hi, copper,” she said, and her voice was amused. “Like my song?”

  “I liked it,” Moran said.

  Her lean face was mocking. “I should do a black-flip from sheer happiness, I suppose. Would a beer strain your budget?”

  “Go ahead,” Moran said, flushing. “I’ve spent plenty on you, baby.”

  “You tired of it?” she said lightly.

  Moran put his hands under the table so she wouldn’t see their trembling. She was in his blood like nothing else had ever been in his life. But he got nothing from her but mockery, or sarcasm that shriveled him up inside.

  He knew that she let him hang around for laughs, enjoying the spectacle of a forty-year-old flatfoot behaving like an adolescent before her charms. For just a second then he wanted to tell her what he had done tonight, and about the money in his pocket. He wanted to see her expression change, wanted to see respect for him in her eyes.

  But he resisted that impulse. Fools bragged. And got caught. Moran wasn’t getting caught.

  Some day he’d have her where he wanted. Helpless, crawling. That was what he wanted. It was a strange kind of love that had driven Moran to murder.

  He took her home that night but she left him at the doorway of her apartment. Sometimes, if he’d spent a lot of money, she let him come up for a nightcap, but tonight she was tired.

  Leaving her, Moran walked the five miles to his own apartment, hoping to tire himself out so that he could sleep without tormenting himself with visions of what she might be doing, or who she might be with.

  But once in bed, he knew the walk hadn’t helped. He was wide awake and strangely nervous. After half an hour of tossing he sat up and snapped on the bed lamp. It was five-thirty in the morning, and he had a report to make on the murder in about four hours. He needed sleep, he needed to be rested when he told his story, and thinking about that made sleep impossible.

  He picked the evening paper from the floor, glanced over the news. There was a murder on page one, not his, but somebody else’s. He thought about his murder then and realized with a slight shock of fear that it had been on his mind all the time. It was the thing keeping him from sleep. Not Cherry Angela.

  He frowned and stared out the window at the gray dawn. What was his trouble? This killing tonight was just like the others. And they hadn’t bothered him. There must be a difference somewhere, he decided. It came to him after a while. The others had been killings. This one was murder. And the difference was that murder made you think.

/>   Moran lay back in the bed, but he didn’t go to sleep. He kept thinking.

  At ten after eleven Moran had finished his report. He read it over twice, frowning with concentration, then took it down to Lieutenant Bill Pickerton’s office.

  There was someone with Pickerton, a young man with mild eyes and neatly combed hair. He was sitting beside Pickerton’s desk, and the two men were talking baseball.

  Pickerton nodded to Moran, said, “This is Don Linton from the commissioner’s office, Moran.”

  Moran shook hands with Linton and put his report before Pickerton. Pickerton handed it to Linton. Linton said, “Excuse me,” put on rimless glasses and bent his head to the report.

  Moran lit a cigarette and dropped the match in Pickerton’s ashtray. He guessed that Linton was here to look into the Dinny Nelson killing. His eyes were hot from his sleepless night and he was irritable.

  “Is that all you want?” he asked Pickerton.

  Linton answered. He said, “No. I’ve got a few questions. Have a chair, Sergeant.”

  Pickerton remained silent.

  Moran sat down, trying to control the heavy pounding of his heart. They had nothing on him. It was his word, the word of a cop, and it was the only word they’d get.

  “Okay, this seems clear,” Linton said. He put his glasses away, studied Moran directly. “I’m from the commissioner’s office, Moran. The commissioner wants me to ascertain that the shooting of Dinny Nelson was justified. Let’s start with this. You’re a homicide sergeant, assigned to roving duty in the Loop. Why did you make it your business to go to Nelson’s room to arrest him on a gambling charge?”

  Moran was ready for that one. He explained that he’d seen Dinny taking bets in the hotel lobby, that it seemed a pretty flagrant violation, so he’d decided to pick him up, even though it wasn’t his beat.

  Moran’s voice was steady as he talked. All of this was true. He had seen Dinny taking a bet, had tried to pick him up, and Dinny had given him the slip. On that ground Moran felt confident.

  “Okay,” Linton said casually. “Now according to our information Dinny Nelson usually carried a sizeable amount of cash with him. But there was just thirty dollars on his body after you shot him. Got any ideas about that, Sergeant?”

  “No,” Moran said.

  There was silence. Pickerton and Linton exchanged a glance. Then Linton put his fingertips together precisely and looked at Moran. “Did you leave the hotel room at any time after the shooting? I mean did you step out and leave the body alone?”

  “No,” Moran said. He wondered what Linton was getting at.

  “You see, there was a bellhop on the floor at the time. He had brought some aspirin up to a woman. He has a record for theft and it occurred to us that if you left the room for any length of time, he might have slipped in, stolen the money and left before you returned.”

  “I didn’t leave the room,” Moran said. He felt scared. They might be telling the truth, but he doubted it. They were setting a trap, leaving an opening for him to dive into. A man guilty and scared would grab any out. Moran wet his lips and kept quiet. Crooks who got caught got scared. They started lying, blundered, and hung themselves talking. That wouldn’t happen to him. They had his story.

  Linton asked him then why he hadn’t subdued Dinny with his fists. That was better. That was the sort of stuff he expected. Half an hour later Linton said he had enough, and Moran walked to the door. He was sweating. He was glad to get out. Linton might look like a law student, but his mind was sharp, strong like a trap.

  As he reached the door, Linton said, “By the way, you know Cherry Angela, don’t you?”

  Moran’s hand froze on the knob. He turned and his body was stiff and tense. “Yeah,” he said. His voice wasn’t steady.

  Linton looked pleasantly interested, that was all. “I’ve heard her sing,” he said. “And I heard you were a friend of hers.” He said nothing else, volunteered no other information, but continued to watch Moran with a polite expression.

  Moran stood uncertainly for a moment, then nodded quickly to the two men and went to the elevators. Waiting for a car, he wondered how Linton knew he was a friend of Cherry’s. They must already have done some checking into his activities. Moran lit a cigarette and wasn’t surprised to notice that his fingers were trembling . . .

  That day was hell. He couldn’t sleep, and food tasted like sawdust. Also, he kept thinking, turning everything over in his mind a thousand times. That made him tense and jumpy.

  That night Moran went to the Diamond Club for Cherry’s early show. When he walked through the archway he saw her sitting at a corner table with a man. There was a champagne bottle beside them in an ice bucket and they were talking very seriously. Moran felt a bitter anger and unconsciously his hands balled into fists.

  He started toward their table, moving deliberately. This is the time for a show-down, he thought. I’ll chase that punk out of here and have it out with her.

  Then he recognized the young man with her, and the shock of that recognition sent a cold tremor through his body.

  It was Linton, the investigator from the commissioner’s office.

  Moran’s face felt hot and stiff. He turned clumsily, hoping they hadn’t seen him, and went back across the room, forcing himself to walk casually.

  But splintered thoughts were flicking into his mind with frightening intensity. What was Linton doing here? What was Cherry telling him? More important, what was Linton asking her?

  Ignoring the headwaiter’s puzzled smile, Moran hurried out of the club. He walked a block quickly before his heart stopped hammering and he was able to think. He knew he had behaved foolishly. He should have gone to her table, said hello and sat down. Any change in his normal routine would look suspicious now.

  Lighting a cigarette, he realized that he must see Cherry tonight, find out what Linton had been after. He retraced his steps until he came to a doorway about fifty feet from the entrance of the Diamond Club. There he stopped and prepared to wait. For he had to be sure that Linton was gone before going in to see Cherry.

  It was a long wait.

  The last show ended, noisy customers streamed out, but still Linton had not appeared. Moran’s throat was dry from too many cigarettes, and his eyes burned from lack of sleep. But he waited, a deep shadow in the doorway.

  Then Linton appeared and Moran cursed bitterly under his breath. For Cherry was with him, bundled up in furs and chattering so that her voice carried along the street to him.

  The doorman went out in the street to hail them a cab. There were plenty of cabs out and that was a break. Linton and Cherry climbed into one, and Moran hurried down the block from the club and caught the next cruiser. He told the driver to follow Linton’s cab and it led them to Cherry’s apartment.

  Moran ordered his driver to stop half a block away. He watched while Cherry and Linton got out and went into her building. But their cab waited and in a few seconds Linton appeared again and drove away.

  Moran let out a relieved sigh. He paid off his cab and walked slowly along the darkened street until he came abreast of Cherry’s entrance. For a second he hesitated, wetting his lower lip uncertainly. It was stupid for him to barge in on Cherry now. It would look as if he were afraid, guilty.

  But he felt he had to know what Linton had wanted. That was the only way he could release the tight, aching feeling in his stomach. He made up his mind and turned into her entrance.

  She opened the door in answer to his knock, her eyes widening with surprise. “Well, it’s a small world,” she said. “I just left one of your buddies.”

  “I know,” Moran said, and stepped inside. She had changed into a green robe and as she turned he saw the flash of her legs, slim, smooth and bare. But they didn’t distract him now.

  “What did he want?” he said watching her closely.

  “The copper?” She shrugged and went to a table for a cigarette. “What does any copper want? Information.”

  He walked to h
er side and suddenly all the twisted feeling he had for her crystalized to hatred. She was so cool, so bored and indifferent, while he was ready to crack in pieces from the pressure inside him.

  Raising his thick hand he struck the cigarette from her mouth with brutal force. She staggered, face whitening with shock and anger. But he caught her shoulders and jerked her close to him.

  “Now,” he said, in a low hard voice. “You talk, baby. What did that guy want?”

  “You’re hurting me,” she said, breathing angrily. “He wanted to know about you. Now let me go.”

  “What did you tell him?” he asked hoarsely.

  She turned from him and sat down on the couch. “I didn’t tell him anything,” she said, rubbing her bruised shoulders. “Now you can get the hell out of here. No guy pushes me around, Moran.”

  “Forget that,” Moran said. “I didn’t mean to get rough. But I’m in a jam, baby. I had to shoot a guy last night and the old women in the commissioner’s office are on my tail. They’re trying to frame me, and that’s why that guy Linton was snooping around you.”

  Cherry’s lean face was interested. She said, “Did you kill the guy, Moran?”

  “I shot him. He went for me and I shot him, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” she said. She smiled. “You wouldn’t do anything original, I guess. Nothing that might put an extra buck in your pocket.”

  “I get along on my pay,” Moran said.

  “And your friends have to, too,” she said. “That’s why you haven’t got any, I suppose.”

  “I didn’t get anything out of shooting the guy,” Moran said. That was smart. Not talking, not bragging. Guys talked to dames, then the dames talked. That wasn’t for Moran.

  Cherry grinned ruefully and leaned back against the fat pillows on the couch. There was one light in the room, a lamp on an end table that caught lights in her loose blonde hair and accentuated the soft curves of her body. Yawning, she put her legs onto the couch. The green robe parted revealing her slim calves in the soft light. She didn’t seem to notice.