SSC (1950) Six Deadly Dames

by Frederick Nebel

  “Anything that burns on the way down.”

  At 11:40 Donahue breezed into the Hotel Whitestone, where he kept a small bachelor apartment. Hinkley, an assistant editor of the Sporting Sphere, rose from a straight-backed chair in the lobby. A scrawny, young-old little man, dressed in flashy clothes, a low-crowned derby, he always affected an unpleasant leer that was, obviously, intended for a smile.

  “Brother, can you spare a dime's worth o' your time?”

  Donahue said: “Oh, I mistook you for one of the potted plants,” and kept heading for the desk.

  “Frequently potted but never a plant. Say, kiddo...” He lolled languidly after Donahue.

  Donahue received several letters from the clerk, turned, moved towards the elevator. Hinkley fell in beside him, rose in the car with him and paced him down the fifth floor corridor. All the time Donahue was reading a letter. Reaching his door, he unlocked it, entered his small apartment and turned on the lights. Hinkley, lolling in, kicked the door shut with his heel.

  Donahue took off hat and overcoat, carried them into a closet, said from the closet: “Well, what's on your mind?”

  Hinkley helped himself to a cigar. He nipped off the end, said nothing.

  Donahue reappeared, saying: “Well, what's on your mind?”

  “I was up the Suwanee tonight. Kelly McPard said you had an interview with Consadine.”

  “Did he say interview?”

  “Call the italics mine.”

  Donahue went into the bathroom, washed his hands and reappeared carrying his tuxedo jacket over him arm.

  “What about Consadine?” Hinkley drawled from the depths of a wing chair.

  Donahue, sitting on the divan, removed his shoes, clamped in shoe-trees. He carried them into the bedroom, called out: “He likes me. He just wanted to shake my hand.” He appeared in the doorway clad only in shorts.

  “You better toddle, Hinkley.” He disappeared again.

  “The Sporting Sphere,” Hinkley said, “is aching to pay you a little cash for a little good turn.” There was a moment of silence, then Donahue came into the living-room buttoning his pajama coat, holding a pipe in his teeth. He crammed the pipe, lighted it while peering down keenly at the man in the wing chair. “About what?” he asked.

  Hinkley sent up a toy balloon of cigar smoke. “You've been tagging Consadine's fights for the past three months, Donny. That's common gossip. When one of the best private dicks in the city-and one of the best known-does that sort of thing, it's news in the bud. Catch on?”

  “No.”

  He puffed up. “Tell me some more.”

  “My sheet's interested. What have you got on Consadine?”

  “What's it worth?”

  “Anything within reason. We know you're not tagging his fights for the fun of it. Who's behind you? Who hired you?”

  “That goes in the deal, huh?”

  “Sure. We've got to know where we stand.”

  “What's your top price?”

  “How about ten thousand?”

  Donahue sat down and began chuckling, wagging his head. “This is rich,” he said. “Rich!”

  He stopped chuckling and his face began to darken. “That rag you work for, if it paid out ten thousand it'd go broke.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says I!”

  “Why get tough?”

  Donahue puffed, took the pipe from his mouth and sighted down the stem. “Hinkley, I'm so far ahead of you that it's a crime to take advantage of you. Listen, boy scout: I don't know a thing. I just follow the fights. I don't like bridge and I don't like jig-saw puzzles. So I follow the fights. Consadine's pugs put on some swell dances.” He made a brusque gesture. “Okey, Hinky-dink; take the air.” Hinkley stood up. “Listen, Donny-”

  “Peddle it where you've got an audience.” Rising, Donahue napped a hand. “I need some shut-eye. Skid out.”

  “Donny, look now...” He moistened his lips. “This is hot. Be a pal. The Sporting Sphere-Listen, kid; how about twelve thousand?” Donahue suddenly appeared thoughtful. “How about fifteen?”

  “Maybe I could arrange it.”

  “Fifteen?”

  “Okey, fifteen. But that's the limit.”

  Donahue laughed shortly. “Now scram. I just wanted to know how much you were holding out.”

  “But-”

  Donahue's voice snapped. “You deaf? Slide out!”

  Hinkley colored. “That's a lousy trick, fella!”

  Donahue took his arm, escorted him to the door. “Thanks for dropping around, Hinkley. You must come in again some time. Come in for a drink some time. Bring your own liquor.”

  “I hate wiseguys!”

  “So do I-when they go flat.” He opened the door. “And do you know why the Sporting Sphere can't bribe me?”

  Hinkley made no reply.

  “I'll tell you,” Donahue said. “Because I happen to know-and I'm one of the few guys who know it-I happen to know that Consadine dough is behind it. And I can guess-don't break down, Hinkley-I can guess that it wasn't your editor who sent you here. Should I tell you now who sent you here?”

  Hinkley rasped: “Things happen to guys like you!” He swung out, strode swiftly down the corridor.

  Donahue called after him: “Consadine sent you, dope!”

  IV

  THE HOTEL CHANCELLOR lifted its pale, severe beauty into the cold winter starlight. Traffic moved sparsely on Park Avenue, slipping out of the ramp that hurtled Forty-second, Street and wound its way among the cluster of skyscrapers. The outward serenity of the Hotel Chancellor was massive, overwhelming.

  In the lobby, shaped like a tremendous bell, deftly lighted by radiance that seemed to float beneath the high-domed ceiling, a page boy moved swiftly, vanished down one of many corridors. The chief hotel clerk spoke quickly into a telephone; he was hunched over the instrument, his eyes intent. The liveried doorman, who should have gone, off duty at twelve-it was ten past twelve-lingered beneath the heart-shaped marquee, blowing white breath into the cold, tanping cold heels on the sidewalk.

  A man came out of a door in a corridor on the main floor. He was buttoning his vest. He had combed his hair quickly, and a slab of it, at the crown, sprouted upward like a recalcitrant weed. His face was puffed from sleep. He poked irritably at his sleep-drugged eyes, wheezed. He headed for the lobby, and gradually, as he walked, he straightened, squared his shoulders. He was Adolph Elms, the resident managing director.

  Before he attained the lobby he ran into a short, rotund, bald man. Both men stopped, regarded each other. The bald man sighed, spread his palms. The managing director grunted irritably. Both men fell in step, reached the lobby, where they were joined by a third man who looked as if he had seen a ghost. The three men marched towards the elevator bank, vanished in a car.

  The lobby door opened and two men headed across the lobby, paused at the desk. As they went towards the elevators, they were joined by several uniformed policemen. All entered an elevator and were whisked upward.

  The lobby was vacant, then. Two drunks staggered in, singing. They wore top hats. They fell into an elevator car. A man came in with a lot of baggage, signed the register. The operator was telling room so-and-so that the hotel did not supply liquor.

  Donahue entered swathed in a belted camel's-hair coat, his lean face riding beneath a brown felt. He was slapping pigskin gloves against his thigh as he reached the desk. “Where's the trouble?”

  “I'm sorry. Press not allowed-”

  “I'm not the Press. Sergeant McPard phoned me.”

  “Oh. It's 1406.”

  Donahue found a waiting car. It carried him silently to the fourteenth floor, and stepping out he swung his legs down a wide corridor that smelled remarkably of fresh air. He turned several corners, came to a door that had 1406 inscribed in bronze on its dark panel.

  A cop opened the door, said: “What do you want?”

  “Kelly called me.”

  He stepped into a spacious foyer. To his l
eft was a Lancet arch. Beyond was a large, luxurious room, almost baronial in size; at the farther side was a narrow mezzanine. Many lights were sprinkled about. There was no glare, yet there was sufficient light. Bluecoats were standing about. Several hotel officials, jabbering. Kelly McPard, spic and span, working his provocative smile, his eyes wandering but his mind-Donahue knew-certainly at work.

  “Thanks, Donny,” McPard called.

  Spengler, his assistant, came in through a French window. He had been wandering about on the broad terrace that overlooked Park Avenue and the East River. He was a roughneck, badly dressed, good-humored, loud, who regarded his job as a joyous hobby.

  He yelled: “Hello, Irish!”

  The hotel officials looked up in unison, a little shocked.

  But Spengler was never self-conscious. He banged the windows shut with great gusto, smacked his big hands together.

  “What do you think, Donny?” he bawled on good-naturedly. “Somebody give Giles Consadine the works. Ain't is just like life, though? There's a mugg with everything to live for-swell joint here-nice flower garden out front-”

  McPard broke in quietly: “Okey, Dutch.”

  Spengler was expansive: “Okey, Kel. Excuse it.”

  Kelly McPard beckoned to Donahue. They climbed to the mezzanine, and McPard pushed in a door that had been standing slightly ajar. He leaned in the doorway, jerked his chin.

  “A honey, eh, Donny?” Donahue stood beside him, looked down at the body of Giles Consadine. It lay on the floor, in front of a huge canopied bed. Clad in gray silk pajamas, it lay on one side, head pillowed on arm.

  McPard's voice was low, almost confidential: “Two slugs smack in the chest.”

  “Anybody hear the shots?”

  “No. Radio was going loud.”

  “How'd they find out?”

  “They knew he was in. He'd told the operator he was expecting a long-distance call from Chicago. When it came, she got no answer. She sent a hop up. He knocked hard. No answer. And he heard the radio playing. So he got a clerk with a pass key. Found him at exactly midnight. It was eleven when he came home.”

  “Between eleven and twelve, huh? Any ideas?”

  McPard looked vacantly at the body on the floor, spoke in a detached manner: “Yeah. My first idea, I suppose, was to ask you over.”

  “What am I going to turn out to be now-a strange interlude?”

  McPard rarely became angry, rarely raised his voice. “I guess you were one of the last men to see him alive. He never came down to the Suwanee. Took the Arena service entrance out and went straight to his hotel.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That elevator boy at the Arena saw him leave at 10:45. It'd take about fifteen minutes, traveling fast.”

  “He come in alone?”

  McPard nodded. “The clerk said... Look here, Donny. Consadine wanted to see you earlier tonight. Pretty bad. Or he'd not have paged you, in the bar. What did he want?”

  “Wanted to know if I'd won any dough on the fight.”

  McPard chuckled faintly. “Quit kidding.”

  “All right; you tell me what he wanted.”

  McPard fooled with a button on Donahue's overcoat. “He hired you for something, didn't he?”

  Donahue walked six paces away, turned, laughed and wagged his head. “That sure panics me!”

  McPard grinned, showing small pearly teeth. His eyes twinkled, radiated. You could never tell what was going on behind that smiling, cherubic face. Kelly McPard should have been an actor; he had all the qualifications.

  “Honest, Donny, I've got to know.”

  Donahue came back to face McPard and said, seriously: “Consadine couldn't have hired me for a million.”

  “That sounds nice and big and strong, kid, but I'd hate to 've had him wave the million in front of your face.”

  Donahue smiled, shrugged. “All right, Kel; I exaggerated. But get this: he didn't hire me.”

  “Was he scared?”

  “I didn't ask him.”

  McPard sighed. “What a pal!” Then he was suddenly grave, his voice low and quiet: “I've got to know, Donny.”

  “I told you.”

  “Listen, kid.” He touched Donahue's arm. “You know the champ-you know Danny Harrigan....1 used to, well-you know, I kind of brought him up. In a way, I mean. I mean when he was a kid I used to steer him clear of the hoodlums. When I was a roundsman. Once I let him have his picture taken wearing my hat and shield.... Listen, kid; this is no song and dance, no soft soap. Listen, Donny”-his voice dropped lower-“the champ was here tonight.”

  “Go on.”

  “He was here. The kid runs the hotel elevator-he-couldn't help recognizing him. Danny was here. Came here between-eleven and half-past-nearer half-past. Came out again in about ten minutes.” He withdrew his hand from his overcoat pocket. A 32-calibre revolver lay in his palm. “Danny's gun.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I helped him get a license to carry it-six months ago, when he had an idea some muggs were trying to kidnap him. See the chip on the butt?... Danny's gun.”

  Donahue was silent for a moment, eyeing McPard steadily. Then he said: “What am I supposed to do? If it's Harrigan's gun, what's the matter with getting Harrigan?”

  “I phoned his hotel. He checked out at 11:15. He must have taken his bags and checked them at the station. Then he came here.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don't know whether I'd like to know or not-but I don't know. I want to know if Consadine hired you. I want to know if he was afraid of Harrigan-or anybody else.”

  Donahue said: “Consadine didn't hire me.”

  “Did he try to?”

  “No.”

  McPard sighed. “I'm not going to like it-pinching that kid.”

  “Hey, Kel,” Spengler shouted. “The camera guy from H.Q. is here. He wants to mug the stiff. Ask the stiff if it's okey.”

  Donahue said to McPard: “I imagine Spengler's comedy goes over big with the hotel help.”

  “Spengler's all right at heart.... Listen, Donny-”

  Donahue held up his palms. “Nix, Kel. We've been all over that. Consadine didn't hire me.”

  V

  DONAHUE walked north. Park Avenue was wide, empty, in the winter starlight. Even in the dark its smartness was obvious, insistent. The purr of a passing automobile's tires made a loud sound in the wide, windowed canyon.

  Donahue cut east to Lexington Avenue, entered a drugstore and pushed into a telephone booth. He thumbed a directory, dialed a number, made a whistling mouth but no sound. The operator at the Hotel Eden answered and Donahue said:

  “I want to speak to Miss Moore in apartment 44.”

  “We have no Miss Moore in apartment 44.”

  “You must have. Look it up.”

  There was a pause and then the operator said: “I'm sorry, sir; we have no Miss Moore in apartment 44. The only Moore we have is in apartment 606.”

  “I must have made a mistake.” Donahue said. “Pardon me.”

  He hung up, whistled his way out of the booth and bought a malted milk at the counter. He drank only half of it, left the drug-store and walked north on Lexington, then west to Fifth. In a nearby side-street he entered the small, chic Hotel Eden, crossed to the open elevator car and mentioned the sixth floor. The operator yawned on the way up.

  Donahue hummed on his way down the sixth floor corridor, bowed before 606, listening, and then rippled his knuckles down the panel. He seemed quite satisfied with himself, teetering back and forth from heel to toe.

  A breathless voice broke on the other side of the door:

  “Who's there?”

  “Is Harrigan in there?”

  “No!”

  “I don't believe it.”

  “He's not here!”

  “I heard him in there.”

  “You didn't! Who are you?”

  “A detective. Harrigan's in there.”

  “He isn't!”

&n
bsp; “You've got to prove it.”

  A lock grated. The door was flung open. Token Moore was not so sleek as she had been at the fight; but she was no less beautiful. She looked stunning in a black sheer peignoir, black pajamas beneath. She was flushed, her auburn hair rumpled, and her eyes bloodshot. And she was drunk.

  Donahue shouldered in, shouldered the door shut and snapped the lock. He passed her where she stood swaying, went into the living-room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the closets. He reappeared to find Token flip-flopping her way across to a divan. She made a peculiarly pathetic spectacle. Changing her mind about the divan, she brought up in the center of the floor, rubber-kneed, dabbing at loose ends of hair.

  “What you want?”

  She hadn't a bad voice; there was nothing particularly coarse about it; but liquor made her tongue thick, her lips clumsy. She bounced from one foot to the other, her arms darting out at eccentric angles in an effort to strike a balance.

  Donahue said: “Where's Harrigan?”

  “Don't know.”

  She made a headlong dive for the coffee table, grabbed at a bottle of gin, raised the bottle to her lips. She had had more than enough. Donahue knew it. But he didn't move, he didn't offer advice. She gagged and slammed the bottle down and went dizzily around the room holding her throat. He seemed keenly, clinically interested in her haywire maneuvers. Suddenly she wound up in a heap, on the divan, and lay there shaking violently, panting hoarsely.

  Donahue sauntered over, sat down beside her, ran his big hand familiarly through her hair.

  “Little girl shouldn't drink gin that way-!”

  She slapped at his arm and went spinning to the floor.

  He sighed. “The things I walk into.” He picked her up and stood holding her in his arms. She was small, pliable, and he liked the feel of her in his arms. He sighed again. “Business, though, is business,” he remarked as he dropped her to the divan.

  She crouched there, staring up at him out of wide-open eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck. He sat down beside her and she shrank back farther, tugging her peignoir across her small breasts.

  “Listen,” he said. “What kind of a deal was made on that fight? You're in the know. You'd know. Was Harrigan supposed to lose that fight or what? What went wrong?”

  She gave an agonized groan, sprang from the divan and went hurtling across the room. She carried down a tea-table, sprawled with it, her legs flying.