The Fall Guy

by Joe Barry

  In the living room he found the number of the Blue Eagle Bar in the. phone book and called it. He described Leslie to the voice that answered, and listened for a moment.

  “She was here for a while after you left. Then a guy comes in with a note for her and she goes out with him.”

  Rush asked for a description of the man. The description fitted the man he had called Slippy. The man he had met in Big Mick’s back room.

  That gave him pause. He had expected a move from Jago since Hope had been sent to keep him in his apartment for the night. Then he remembered how certain Jago had seemed of getting the emeralds. It was clear then. Jago had joined forces with Big Mick and they were moving tonight. Big Mick couldn’t move the emeralds in Chicago, but Jago had connections elsewhere.

  Rush descended to the ground floor and went to the garage attached to the apartment building. He called for his car, a convertible with a souped up engine that he kept there for emergencies. He preferred, in ordinary circumstances to use a cab, but now he wanted a conveyance handy if he found it necessary to leave in a hurry. And he figured he would have to leave where he was going in a hurry.

  On the street he gunned the engine and swept west toward Halstead. From the glove compartment he took a flat .38 automatic and checked the clip with one hand. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and added a pair of full clips. Into his hip pocket he put a slender, heavy blackjack. Where he was headed, the skulls were hard and needed persuasion.

  He parked the car a block from Big Mick’s place and looked down the street. The only light, besides the yellow street lamps, came from the window of Big Mick’s place, which threw a bright red glow on the sidewalk. He walked to the corner above Big Mick’s and counted floors. This was elementary criminal practice. He intended to enter Big Mick’s unnoticed, and the only way open was through the roof. He headed back to the alley and found a telephone pole with iron steps for linemen. Without hesitation, he mounted the pole and stepped lightly over onto the roof. He remembered the last time he had tried this gambit, and hoped this place would be as easy to enter as the Royal Hotel [The Third Degree]. He walked quickly but silently over the roofs, till he stood before a wall. He walked to the front of the roof and learned that it was the wall of Big Mick’s place which stood a floor higher than its neighbors. He examined the wall more carefully and found a window near the front. He peered closely and determined that it opened on an empty room. Without trying to open it, he felt his way back along the wall till he found another window. This one was different. A crack of light showed around closely drawn blinds. He plastered his eye to the crack and could see most of the room. In a chair against the far wall sat Jago, a cigar stuck in one corner of his mouth. He was looking at a point just to Rush’s left. Rush saw the back of a head that he recognized as Big Mick’s and for a moment he saw Wilmer, as he walked across the room toward the window. He stopped just short and to the left of the window. Rush strained to hear voices but only a low. indistinguishable rumble came through the glass. It was time, he decided, that he join the party.

  He entered it in a somewhat different manner than he had expected. He had only a second’s warning, as a shadow a few shades darker than the other shadows reared atop the wall above him. Instinctively he threw himself to one side but the shadow fell on him, throwing him against the glass of the window through which he had been peering. The glass shattered as Rush fell half into the room. The fall dazed him and he toppled slowly, falling through the broken glass into the room, his feet hanging out of the shattered window. Instinct warned him to play dead. He let his eyes flutter shut but his hands were active. They searched the floor beside him and closed on a razor-edged sliver of glass. Rough hands seized him, and as he was jerked roughly to his feet, he slipped the glass into a jacket pocket. He was thrown into a chair and moments later icy water was splashed in his face. He let himself come awake slowly, shaking his head, spluttering through the water. He opened his eyes and looked around him. They were all there. Jago, Wilmer, Big Mick, four of his men, and Leslie. Leslie was seated in a similar chair against the opposite wall. He noticed she looked bedraggled.

  “The boys play rough, don’t they?” he asked.

  Big Mick answered him.

  “Shut up, Henry. You’re in trouble. We was looking for you. I figured you’d try the roof if you came.

  I had a boy up there. Now just sit there and keep your trap shut. Frisk him and tie him up, boys.”

  Rush felt hands slap his pockets and extract the gun and clips from his jacket. They missed the blackjack and the sliver of glass. Two rope ends appeared and tied his hands behind his back. The same hands shoved him back into the chair. He sat quietly.

  Big Mick turned to Leslie.

  “Now, baby, give. We don’t want to hurt you. But we gotta know where you hid those rocks. We got Henry here now. He’s your last hope, so give.”

  “What emeralds?” asked Leslie.

  Big Mick looked at Wilmer. “I guess you’ll have to work on her some more,” he said.

  Wilmer licked his lips with the tip of a red tongue and walked noiselessly toward her on the balls of his feet. He stood in front of her and looked down, gloating. He drew back an arm and slapped her with the flat of his palm, hard. Her head snapped around and came back to look up at him.

  “What emeralds?” she said thickly.

  He slapped her again and again. Her head bobbed on her shoulders.

  “Hold it, Wilmer,” said Jago. “We want her conscious. We must be more subtle.” He walked over to her and nodded Wilmer aside. “You are quite fond of your lovely face, aren’t you, my dear?” he asked.

  Leslie looked at him dully.

  “It would be a shame to spoil such beauty. I hope you won’t force me to use this.” He held a glowing cigar end under her eyes. She shuddered and recoiled. Every eye in the room was on her and Rush twisted in his chair, reaching for his jacket pocket. Quietly he extracted the sliver of glass and brought it behind his back, working quickly to force it between the ropes and his wrist. It was blind work and he soon felt blood dripping down onto his hands. With the tips of his fingers he pushed the glass up and pulled it back, sawing desperately at the rope which bound his wrists. His eyes remained on Jago who now had brought the cigar end close to Leslie’s forehead. He could see her twisting in her chair, writhing to dodge the glowing coal. Jago nodded to Wilmer who stepped behind her and held her head in the vise of his arm. The cigar end moved again toward her forehead as Rush felt the ropes behind him give. He slipped the glass to the seat behind him and wiped his bloody hands on the tail of his coat. Then he reached for the blackjack the searcher had missed. With careful eyes he measured the distance between himself and Slippy who stood watching Jago, his gun held loosely at his side. Leslie screamed and in the silence that followed, Rush was across the room. His blackjack descended in a lashing blow at Slippy’s temple, his other hand grabbed for the gun, got it and held it at point. He backed away toward the wall.

  “Okay, Jago,” he said between his teeth. “Drop the cigar and turn around.” A henchman raised his gun.

  Rush let it lie there. There was nothing he could say to that. He headed the car toward the North Side and thirty minutes later deposited Leslie on her own doorstep. He snapped an abrupt goodbye at her and put the car in gear. Quite suddenly the thought of bed was overpowering. He stepped on the gas. Then he remembered that his bedroom was overpopulated. He slacked off the accelerator.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn women to hell.”

  19

  Rush opened the door of his apartment and stepped apprehensively inside. With caution he proceeded to the bedroom. The caution was wasted. A panel of the closet door had been battered through and the door was open. On the floor he found the weapon Hope had used to effect her exit. It was the thick, wooden shelf which had lain across the two cleats inside the closet. With it she had crashed through the thin paneling and unlocked the door from the outside. Rush stepped inside the closet and examine
d it more closely. Then he whistled low in surprise. There were tears and slashes in all of the clothes he could see. Hope had vented her spleen on his wardrobe. He sat on the edge of the bed and wondered if Germaine would stand for a new one on the expense account. He wondered where Hope had gone. He wished he knew, she was a key and he wanted to keep her around.

  Sleep dragged at his eyes but he forced himself to undress and wash his cut wrists, dousing them with disinfectant and bandaging them neatly. Then he. surrendered to the luxury of bed, his first sleep in bed for three nights.

  Rush was still asleep the next morning when the telephone shrilled in the living room. Sleepily he shook his head and dropped his feet over the edge of the bed, wriggling them into slippers. He scratched his head and mopped his face with his hands. The clock on his bedstand said ten o’clock. This would be Gertrude, he imagined, wondering if he were alive. He slip-slapped into the living room and picked up the phone cutting it off in mid-ring. His caller was not Gertrude. Paul Germaine, Sr.’s voice sounded, very taut and strained, in his ear.

  “Henry?”

  “Yes,” said Rush.

  “Can you come over right away?”

  Rush yawned. “Why, yes, I guess so. What’s up?”

  “Something has come up which I must discuss with you in private.”

  “Yes?” said Rush.

  “I’d rather not explain over the phone. When may I expect you?”

  “Give me a half hour,” said Rush. “I have to dress.”

  “Half an hour then,” said Germaine and the phone clicked in Rush’s ear. He looked for a moment at the instrument in his hand and then lowered it slowly to the cradle. There had been something a shade wrong with the timing of Germaine’s hang-up. It had come a fraction of a second soon, almost as if it would cut off his last word. Rush scratched his head again and dialed his office. He got Gertrude.

  “Look, my lovely,” he said. “Find Merwin. Tell him I’m on my way to Germaine’s. If I don’t check in before late this afternoon, have him get my car and come pick me up about Eve.”

  “Will do, boss,” said Gertrude.

  Rush hung up then and shaved and dressed. Fifteen minutes later, minus breakfast, he was in a cab on his way to the Germaine home. His cab rolled up the driveway less than a minute over his promised half hour. He dismissed the cab and strode up to the door. His knock was answered immediately. He stepped into the hallway and stepped into the point of a gun held at his stomach.

  “Good morning, Mr. Henry,” said Bernard Jago. “You’re just in time to make the party complete. Your man Merwin just joined us a mere five minutes ago.”

  “There goes my cover,” thought Rush. He was, he knew, on his own now.

  “Good morning, Jago,” he said. “This is a neat trick. Do you think you can make it stand up?”

  “Of course, my boy, it is standing up.” Jago was in excellent spirits. “Come. We’ll join the rest of them in the living room.”

  He motioned Rush ahead of him and followed, with his gun at point as they entered the room. It was a big room, paneled and beamed in oak with a long, low fireplace along one wall. It was filled with as conglomerate a human collection as it had ever seen. Everyone was there. Hope, glaring at Rush as he entered, her eyes shifting from his. Germaine, sitting very stiff in a straight chair beside the fireplace, his eyes staring across the room. Rush followed their sight line. Leslie was stretched on a divan, her eyes closed, a bruise on her cheekbone.

  “What’s the matter, Wilmer?” asked Jago.

  Big Mick who stood at the head of the divan answered him. “The punk hit her too hard. She passed out on us.”

  Jago crossed the room in mincing steps and felt her pulse.

  “She will be all right. Give her a little time.”

  Rush glanced around the room. Big Mick had called out the reserves. He counted six gorillas spaced around the room. Each either toyed with a gun in his hands or bulged in expected places. Merwin sat hunched on a footstool, his head in his hands. He looked up as Rush crossed the room. Merwin had a black eye and a thin trickle of blood had dried on his chin.

  “They mouse-trapped me, Rush. I couldn’t watch them all.”

  “I’ll vouch for your man, Henry,” said Jago. “He put up a magnificent fight. He was just outnumbered.”

  Rush looked around again and noticed that Mer-win was not wearing the only black eye. He grinned at Merwin.

  “Don’t let it worry you, Merwin. These guys are at the end of their ropes. This is the last play. If they don’t make it stick, they’re all done.”

  “Aptly put, Henry,” said Jago, “but we intend to make it stick, as you put it.”

  “Ten’ll get you fifty that you end in the jug, Jago. This is 1945. This play is strictly 1929 stuff.” Germaine spoke for the first time since Rush had entered the room. “I am sorry to have decoyed you here, Henry, but I had no choice.”

  Rush looked at Leslie. “I can see that is true,” he said. “Don’t worry, though, these thugs aren’t going to do any permanent harm.”

  “Quite right, Henry,” said Jago. “We will be most peaceable if Miss Germaine will just tell us where she hid the emeralds.”

  Rush looked at Leslie.

  “She doesn’t look to me as if she’ll be telling anybody anything for quite a time. You should caution Wilmer, ladies are different.”

  “Wilmer did become a little rough, I’m afraid, and I’m very angry at him for it.” He smiled indulgently. “However, while we are waiting for Miss Germaine to recover consciousness, there are things we can do. I propose to search the house. It’s big and the task will take some time. I think we had best get started now, in case Miss Germaine remains unconscious too long.” He turned to Big Mick. “Are your men competent to search?” he asked.

  Big Mick laughed. “If they’re here, they’ll find ‘em. These mugs has been searching places for years. They know all the tricks.” He raised his voice. “Okay, boys. Get to it. Case this joint like you never cased a spot before. You’re looking for a pair of green stones about half the size of eggs. Tear the place to pieces but find them.” He turned back to Jago. “How much help do you need watching these guys?”

  “Wilmer and I will do quite well. Hope can handle a gun, and my daughter is familiar with firearms. She is brewing coffee in the kitchen now. She’ll be in presently.”

  “Okay, boys, let’s go.”

  The herd tramped out and began on the third floor. Time passed and Rush dug a deck of cards out of a desk and played solitaire. Leslie stirred but no efforts could awaken her. Myrna Jago came in with coffee which Hope helped her pass. As the afternoon wore on dull poundings came from distant parts of the house. Occasionally there was a splintering as some over-ambitious searcher decided to tear something apart. Toward evening the noises came nearer and finally ceased. Big Mick came into the room.

  “This is the only place left,” he said. “We tore the place apart. We didn’t even find a key that didn’t fit a lock. The rest of the house is clean. Shall we try this room?”

  “Certainly, search it,” Jago commanded.

  The crew descended like a cloud of locusts. Not an article of furniture, a rug, a vase, remained untouched. Only the divan, on which Leslie lay, escaped. Upholstery was tom, walls pounded, the fireplace searched inside and out. It took almost an hour, and when they were through Jago was convinced. The emeralds were not hidden in the house.

  “Only one thing remains,” he said. “The persons of the various people involved. It is necessary now to search everybody.” He looked at Big Mick. “Shall we start with our own group?” He held up a hand to stop Big Mick’s protest. “The sum involved is enough to tempt any man. We are convinced that the emeralds are in this house somewhere. We will be on firmer ground as soon as we are certain that they are not in our own possession.”

  Big Mick muttered something under his breath, then turned to his men. “Okay, mugs. Line up. The fat guy and me’ll give you a once over. Of course I don’t
think you got the rocks but this’ll make everybody happy.”

  With much grumbling the men of Big Mick’s gang passed between Jago and the Big One. They were thoroughly searched. In spite of his assurance of belief in them, Big Mick made sure that they were clean. They found nothing. Then Jago turned to Big Mick.

  “Now, will you search Wilmer and myself, and I’ll search you. Then we’ll know exactly where we stand.”

  Rush checked his watch. It was seven-thirty. His eyes wandered from the searching to Leslie. Her eyes were open, watching the proceedings. He stood up and walked over to kneel beside her. Around the room heads turned to watch him. The searching trio continued after a backward glance. Leslie could wait now.

  “How do you feel?” Rush said, close to her ear.

  “I’m all right,” she whispered weakly. “I need a drink. Get me one from the cabinet. Creme de menthe, please, a big glassful.”

  Rush looked at her in surprise. Creme de menthe was far from his idea of a restorative. He stood up and walked to the liquor cabinet along one wall and found the decanter of creme de menthe. In a highball glass he poured several inches, and walked back to hand it to Leslie. She struggled weakly to prop herself on one elbow, then fell half back, lying on her side on the divan. Rush saw her hands fumbling at the neck of her dress and he moved slightly so that his body shielded her from the rest of the room. He looked around to see if his movement had been noticed. They were intent on the search. He turned back to Leslie and handed her the glass. She sipped it quickly and looked up at him gratefully. As his eyes met hers he noticed a movement of her hands as one passed briefly over the top of the glass. Leslie noticed his eyes and smiled at him mockingly. In the center of the room the search ended without success. Jago turned and spoke.

  “I see you are awake now, my dear. I hope you feel no ill effects from Wilmer’s unfortunate zealousness.” He took a step nearer her. “Would you reconsider now and save us all a lot of time and pain?”