The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK

by Fletcher Flora

  He wished he could get a drink. He wanted a quick one at Happy Sam’s. But it wouldn’t do for a fighter to be bellying a bar the day before a fight. Loose-lipped characters liked to make something out of things like that. A guy already on the fat end of a fix had to be careful.

  Maybe another place. Maybe a little hole-in-the-wall where no one would recognize him. He could pick up a quick one and get on home to Peg. He’d been staying away from Peg as much as possible lately. It sort of hurt to look at her. He couldn’t get over the feeling that he soiled her somehow when he touched her. She’d noticed it, too. She’d been asking him what the matter was.

  He started walking and pretty soon he found the hole-in-the wall. Inside, he crawled onto a stool at the rear end of the bar and ordered a neat rye. Just one, he told himself. Just one, and then home to Peg. No need at all to feel like he did about Peg. No need at all to feel like a lousy tramp. Damn it, he was doing it for Peg. Damn it to hell, it was all for the place out on 66.

  A voice beside him said, “Well, well. This the way you train for a fight, champ?”

  Jackie slanted a look into the face at his shoulder. The face was thin and dark with a dimple in its chin. The eyes were amused, but they didn’t have any warmth. So was the mouth, and neither did it. Jackie looked away into the mirror behind the bar and saw with relief that the face was reduced to a blur with no discernible parts.

  He said, “I’m not champ, and I’ll train my own way.”

  The guy laughed, and the laugh was like the smile—shallow stuff with no warmth. “Sure, champ. You do it your way. The training, I mean. The actual fighting’s something else.”

  Inside, Jackie felt suddenly withered and old. He dumped the neat rye into the center of the feeling, but it didn’t have much effect.

  “What the hell you talking about?”

  “Let’s move back to a booth, champ. I’ll explain it.”

  “I like it here.”

  “You might like it even better in the booth.”

  It was then that Jackie felt the steel finger prodding his kidney. In his day, he’d taken a few in the kidneys from an inside brawler or two. Nothing, though, like this gentle prodding. Nothing ever that left him so internally cold, so vulnerable to what would follow. He slipped off the stool and moved toward the last booth in the rear of the joint. His feet had the incredible heaviness that they used to acquire in the days when he went fifteen.

  They sat across from each other in the booth, and the hood’s lips fashioned the shallow smile above the dimple. “It’s not like a fighter to train in a bar. Conscience bothering you?”

  Jackie made a fist in his lap under the table. He wondered how much shoulder he could get into one reaching out from a sitting position.

  “I’m not very bright,” he said. “You’ll have to keep it simple.”

  The shallow smile spread a little. “Sure, champ. You know Rudy Ryan?”

  The question was rhetorical. Everyone knew Rudy Ryan. Or about him. Another TV actor. Not a minor one, like Jay Paley. Big stuff. A real channel attraction.

  Jackie said, “Who doesn’t?”

  The hood across the booth lit a cigarette, the light of the gopher flaring up across his dark face. “Right. Who doesn’t? You’re lucky, champ. Rudy’s taking a personal interest in you. He sent me around to tell you so. He’s heard that Jay Paley’s laid a lot against you tomorrow night. He says to tell you he believes in you. He says to tell you he’s laying even more the other way. Your way. He says he’ll appreciate it if you do your best.”

  Jackie’s lips were stiff, dry, like parchment. When he moved them, he had the feeling that they were going to crack open in a dozen places. “You’re still being too fancy for me. Why the hell would Ryan be interested in a peanut stand like this brawl? It makes no sense.”

  The hood’s laugh was brittle, and he snapped it off before it was started good. “You’re pretty smart, champ. For a guy who’s been catching them as long as you, you’re real smart. Here it is on the line. Paley’s getting too cocky. He operates too much. He’s crossing too many lines. Like this fix. It doesn’t amount to much, but it’s the principle. For all Paley knows, Rudy might have laid a bundle the wrong way. Rudy doesn’t like that. He figures it’s time to cut Paley back. This is just a beginning.”

  “Oh, sure.” Jackie’s voice was harsh. “The beginning of the end for Paley and me both. It’s not hard to figure what would happen to me if I pulled a deal like this.”

  “No. You got no worry. Rudy said to tell you that. You don’t seem to get the big picture, champ. I said Paley was due to be cut back. That means way back. All the way.”

  “It’d still make me a louse. Nothing doing.”

  “I guess maybe you’re already a louse, champ, anyway you play it.” The hood slipped out of the booth. “You go home and think about it. Maybe you’ll see it different when you get home.”

  Turning his back, he walked out of the joint, his shoulders swinging lazily under expensive tailoring. Jackie sat in the booth for a few minutes longer, anger disturbing his viscera, making him half sick again. After a while, he got up and went home.

  He went upstairs to the apartment two at a time. His eagerness to see Peg had suddenly the strength of hunger. He was hungry to see her, feel her, smell the clean scent of her. He hadn’t felt this way in a long, long time. Not so desperately. He was, in a way, a kid running to his mother.

  But Peg wasn’t home. The living room was empty. So were the bedroom, bathroom, dining room, kitchen. He made the tour slowly, wondering where she could be. There wasn’t anything cooking in the kitchen, either. It wasn’t like Peg to be gone when he got home. Usually she was waiting for him. It was late now, too. Later than he ordinarily arrived.

  Back in the living room, he sprawled in a chair, thinking that it was a hell of a way for a guy to wind it up. Once, a long time ago, he’d had ideas of being champ. It hadn’t taken too long to learn that he’d never make it. There were too many guys around who were a little better. Too many guys a little faster, a little sharper, a little smarter. Maybe he hadn’t even been a strong contender. But he’d always been a good competitor. He’d taken them as he could get them, the good and the bad, and no one had ever been in the ring with him who hadn’t been in a fight.

  Now to end it with a fix. Now to wind it up in a dive for ten lousy G’s.

  He squirmed in the chair, swearing softly, and he was suddenly aware that the clock that Peg was so proud of was striking. Soft, musical strokes. Eight of them. Eight?

  He was on his feet in one unbroken motion, standing tense, almost in a fighting crouch. He said aloud, “Peg. Where the hell’s Peg?”

  Then at last with sluggish perception of significant relationships, he was back in the hole-in-the-wall with the hood’s voice in his ears. Maybe you’ll see it different when you get home. Whirling with a choked, gutteral cry, he lunged out into the hall and downstairs.

  On the street, he began to trot, arms up, knees lifting high, as if he were doing roadwork. Blocks along, at an intersection, a cab pulled up, stopped by a red light. Quickly, without thinking, he tore open the rear door on the near side and piled in. The driver twisted under the wheel, peering back.

  “In a hurry, Mac?”

  Jackie leaned back in the seat, relaxed a little by the exercise of muscles. “Rudy Ryan’s club,” he said.

  The driver threaded the cab through traffic, slicing across lanes, timing progress to hit green and slip through yellow. Over on glitter street, public playground number one, he pulled the cab to the curb in front of Ryan’s club. Jackie got out and passed a five and left without his change. Across the sidewalk, he ran into a doorman who appeared silently in the way.

  “Sorry, sir. Evening dress is required.”

  Jackie let his eyes drift down the black and white barrier
. The guy was big—big shoulders, big hands, big feet. His belly was big, too. Jackie thought he could probably bury an arm to the elbow in that belly.

  “To hell with evening dress,” he said. “I want to see Rudy Ryan.”

  The doorman’s face seemed to flatten, nostrils flaring, and he shifted his big feet to a stance that indicated a knowledge of basic principles.

  Behind him, a voice said, “It’s all right, Holly. Let Mr. Brand come in.”

  Still polite and friendly, just like he’d been in the hole-in-the-wall, he stood there casually with the shallow smile faintly present above the dimple that must have sent the dames. Just the same as he’d been earlier, except that now he’d qualified himself for the night with soup and fish.

  Jackie pushed past the doorman and said, “Where’s Peg? What the hell you done with Peg?”

  His voice skidded upward, acquiring volume, and a couple on stools at a small bar beyond an arch turned to stare. The faint smile on the hood’s face jelled a little, displaying a quality no smile should have.

  “Don’t be noisy, champ. You ask to see Mr. Ryan, and now you start yelling about someone named Peg. Make up your mind. You want to see Mr. Ryan or not?”

  Jackie spread his legs and lowered his chin onto his chest, struggling for control, knowing he was playing a contrived wheel.

  “That easy?” he said. “That easy to see the great Ryan?”

  The hood’s shoulders lifted. “Why not? Mr. Ryan’s democratic. He tries to see everybody.”

  He lead the way through the small bar and on into a hall that was cushioned against sound with a thick carpet and drapes and even a tapestry or two. They went upstairs into another hall and past a succession of rooms to a closed door. The dimpled hood knocked and pushed the door open.

  “Inside,” he said.

  The man Jackie found himself facing might have been, except for the evening clothes, a middle-class merchant watching the approach of a customer. He had a round, placid face under a naked skull rimmed by a gray fringe. Rimless glasses covered his eyes, reflecting the light in a way to give him an appearance of bright blindness. His mouth was small, like a child’s, and the lips were pink and tender and pleasantly bowed.

  The hood said, “This is Jackie Brand. He wants to know where Peg is. Me, I don’t even know who she is.”

  Eyebrows raised above rimless glass. “Peg?”

  “You know damned well who Peg is,” Jackie said. “And I know damned well you snatched her.”

  The placid pink face was not visibly affected. “Kidnapping is a serious charge, Mr. Brand. I’m sure you’ll want to retract it. Perhaps, if you’ll tell me precisely what’s on your mind, I can reassure you.”

  “Okay. I’ll play along for a minute. I’m going in a fixed fight tomorrow night with Emmet Darcy. You know that. A little while ago your errand boy served notice that I was to go for a win. You know that, too, because you sent him to tell me. I told him nix, and he told me I’d think different when I got home. At the time, I didn’t know what he meant. When I got home, I found out. Peg’s gone. My wife Peg, as if you didn’t know. Like I said, you snatched her to make sure I’d follow instructions.”

  Ryan laughed. “I suppose that’s the kind of reasoning one should expect from a punched-out pug. Let’s get this straight. I have a guarantee that you’ll win your fight tomorrow night. If that arrangement is violated, I’ll hold responsible the man who made the guarantee, not you. On the strength of the understanding I’ve invested a considerable amount with the bookies. Although the money is important, it is really incidental. The primary object is to discipline an upstart. I consider the arrangement adequate as it stands, and I’ve taken no steps to reinforce it. In brief, I don’t know where your wife is, and I don’t care.”

  Maybe, as Ryan suggested, you couldn’t expect much from the brain of a punched-out pug. But it could still solve elementary problems when someone gave it a hint. It could see, for instance, that the only person who could have dealt with Ryan was Spud Perkins. Nasty little pop-eyed Spud.

  But Spud wouldn’t have snatched Peg. Whatever else he might have done, he would never have touched Peg. Not for any reason whatever. Peg was the only person on earth that Spud gave a damn for.

  But he might have an idea about it. He’d been mixed in the business from the start, and he might have an idea. Inside all that deceptive thyroid ugliness, Spud had a brain that worked like a fine watch. Standing there in front of Ryan with rage and fear a riot in his entrails, Jackie was aware of a driving compulsion to find Spud right away. Without another word, he spun away to the door.

  * * * *

  Spud lived in a single room on the third floor of a dilapidated hotel on the south side of town. He sat slumped in a chair by a window that looked down into the dark well of an interior court. His shirt collar was open around his scarred and sunken throat. His lips were split and swollen, and every time he opened them his shrunken upper gum showed through. He looked old and sick, ready to die. But his eyes, looking up at Jackie, had the familiar expression that made Jackie want to smash his lower plate just the way he’d smashed the upper.

  “What the hell do you want, tramp?” he said.

  The words came out like mush, leaking air around their edges. Jackie closed his eyes and clenched his fists, cutting off the sight of Spud, fighting the effects of a tumultuous stirring of nausea and hate.

  “Peg’s gone,” he said.

  Spud just sat quietly in his chair for a minute, as if he were trying to comprehend what Jackie meant, and then he went crazy. He bounced out of the chair with a little squeal and grabbed Jackie by the lapels of his coat, twisting and jerking. His voice was shrill and frightened, like a woman’s.

  “Gone? What you mean, gone? Damn you to hell, what’s happened to Peg?”

  Seeing Spud go to pieces that way seemed to have a reverse effect on Jackie. He felt calmer and stronger, suddenly very sorry for the ugly little man. Looking down at the hand twisted in his lapels, he said nothing until the hand relaxed and dropped away.

  “I thought maybe you’d know.”

  “Me? You think I’d do Peg any harm?”

  “No. I just thought you might have an idea.”

  Spud turned and walked away. Across the room, he stood quietly, thinking, rubbing a finger along the hard edge of his upper gum.

  “Rudy Ryan sent a gunsel to see me today,” Jackie said. “The gunsel said Ryan wants me to win tomorrow night. Thanks to you, Ryan knows all about my deal with Benny Lester and Jay Paley. At first I thought Ryan might be holding Peg as insurance, but I went to see Ryan, and now I don’t think so. He says he’s got a guarantee that I’ll win and that’s all he needs. A guarantee from you. No one but you could have made a deal like that.”

  Spud turned back, and now there was no evidence of his brief insanity. His eyes smeared themselves all over Jackie, and his bruised lips curled back off his gums.

  “It’s what I get,” he said softly. “It’s what I get for playing nurse to a second-rate pug who should have been a plumber. You got no talent, you got no brains, you ought to drop dead. Sure, I made the deal with Ryan, all right. I knew Ryan was ripe to cut Jay Paley down, and I thought this would be a good time to begin. You know why I did it, tramp? But that’s a silly question. You wouldn’t know. You haven’t got the brains to know. I’ll tell you why I did it, but first of all I’ll tell you it wasn’t for you. For all I care, you could sell your stinking soul, and I wouldn’t lift a hand to stop you or spend a nickel to buy it back for you. It was for Peg I did it. It was for the only person on this sour earth I give a damn for. And she has to be married to you. Of all the guys available to a girl like her, for some damn reason no sane man could understand, she has to be married to you.”

  It was strange, but Jackie wasn’t mad at all. It was as if, at last, Spud had los
t the power to affect him. “You did a pretty good job,” he said. “I’ll have to win now. I’ll have to win to save your hide from Rudy Ryan. You made the guarantee, and I’ll have to keep it.”

  Spud began to laugh, a soft, hysterical quivering of his flabby body. “No. You won’t win. You won’t win for two reasons. The first reason is, you haven’t got the stuff. Emmet Darcy’s a tough kid coming up. A hard, fast boy headed for the top, if the lice he works for don’t wreck him before he makes it. He’ll cut you to shreds in six, eight rounds. You haven’t got a prayer. It’s a laugh, it’s a great big belly laugh, to think of Benny Lester and Jay Paley buying a fight that was already on ice.”

  “If I’ve got no chance, why this fat deal of yours? Why nudge Rudy Ryan into forcing me to go all out?”

  Spud hammered his forehead gently with the heel of one hand. “Stupid,” he said. “So damn stupid. It was just to make you try. It was just to keep you straight. You really think you could take a dive and make it look legitimate? Not in a million years. It’d stink. It’d stink like the rendering works. And right in the middle of the stink would be Peg. Realizing that you’d done it for her in the only way a dim wit like you could figure to do it. Blaming herself and breaking up in little pieces. I couldn’t let it happen. Not to Peg.”

  A trickle of saliva ran out of the corner of his mouth and down across his chin. He found a handkerchief and wiped it away, his lips twisting bitterly.