He opened his eyes again and this time he was able to keep them open, gazing up at blackness that slowly resolved itself into a low, grimy ceiling from which hung trailing festoons of cobweb. By turning his head from side to side he could see, on one side of the place where he lay, two small oblong windows high up under the ceiling and, on the other, a flimsy, open stairway leading up. The room had no furniture and was littered with odds and ends of junk—a box or two, an old trunk, a discarded automobile tire; he decided that he was in a basement.
Tentative efforts at movement informed him that he was bound and gagged and that the job had been done with an expert and callous thoroughness; the strands that cut viciously into wrists and ankles at each movement were not rope but wire, and by looking down along his nose he could see the white gleam of the strips of adhesive tape that glued his mouth tight shut.
His mind, now functioning fully, went swiftly back over the events of the morning. How long had he lain here? Was it still the same day? It might have been a week, judging from the aching stiffness in back and shoulder muscles, but he did not believe that the injury to his throbbing head would have laid him out for more than a couple of hours, and his mind was clearing too rapidly for him to have been doped. It was the same day, then, and probably early afternoon, for the shaft of sunlight that straggled through the opaque, dirt-encrusted windows was nearly vertical. He cursed inwardly, thinking of Mayme and his own cocksure stupidity. Somehow she had reached Murdock, and Murdock had decided that this would be a good time to take a certain longshoreman named Jackson out of circulation—either that, or this was part of the same business as the elimination of poor Riorden. There were too many complications, and his head hurt too much to try following them. They all reached the same conclusion anyway. Murdock had finally lost patience with more subtle methods and was out to liquidate the union leadership via the good old gangster route. Jackson pondered the surprising fact that he was still alive. He winced, wondering what had happened to Whitey and whether he was still lying in those weeds at the bottom of the gully, injured or perhaps dead, with a gunman’s bullet through his head.
Jackson had no doubt about his assailants. He knew them for who and what they were—vicious, unscrupulous gutter rats to whom a murder or two was all in a day’s work. He held his breath and listened for noises overhead—for the opening of a door and the step on the stairs that would undoubtedly mean his finish. Yet if they intended to kill him why had they bothered to truss him up and bring him here?
Listen as he would, he could not hear a sound overhead, not so much as a whisper or the creaking of a board. The basement room in which he lay was deathly still, the only noise a half-heard buzzing of flies in the strip of sunlight. From without came a low, increasing hum, rising to a swish of sound and receding again into the distance. A car had passed the house so closely that he had seen its momentary shadow on the windows.
That meant that there was a road—a highway, for the car had been traveling fast—just beyond the windows. An idea began to take shape in his mind—a possibility of escape—if he could somehow attract the attention of one of those speeding cars.
Painfully he raised himself, first on one elbow and thence to a sitting position, and examined his surroundings with new interest. His eyes lighted as they fell on a number of bottles in a corner under the stairs. Lying down again, he started rolling over and over, the wires cutting deeper into his wrists with every move. Once his head came in sharp contact with the stone floor, and he almost lost consciousness and lay still fighting for breath through his dust-clogged nostrils. Then the process began again, a slow, lurching roll onto his stomach with neck bent back to keep his face off the floor, a painful hunching of the knees and another roll, this time onto his back, nearer to his objective by twice his body’s width. At the stairway another and even more difficult obstacle presented itself. The bottles were far back in the sharp angle formed by the floor and the descending stairs. Infinite exertion was required before he was able to wedge himself crabwise into the angle in order to bring the cramped fingers of one bound hand in contact with the smooth, cool glass of a bottle’s neck.
The slight clink of glass was like the pealing of alarm bells in his fear-sensitized ears, and he lay very still, listening. Then, when nothing happened, he edged himself out from under the stairs and into a sitting position. With his elbows as levers on the stair treads he finally achieved his feet, the bottle, its neck slippery with blood from his cut wrists, clutched tightly behind his back. He took one precarious hop, then another—like a sack racer at a country fair—to the center of the room and stood still, the breath whistling through his nose as he gauged the height and distance of the windows.
It was a desperate, an almost impossible chance. He had to hit the window the first time, for otherwise the bottle would crash against the wall, and the noise would bring his captors rushing down the stairs. But it was the only thing he could do—the only thing he could think of—and anything was better than lying here like a trussed chicken and waiting for someone to come and wring his neck. He edged around on his bound feet until he stood sidewise to one of the windows and in line with it. Hunching his shoulders, he swung his bound hands experimentally, wondering if he could throw the bottle high or far enough to hit the window. His wrists were numb now, and he hardly felt the wire that cut deeper and deeper into his flesh. He waited for the hum of an approaching car and when it had grown loud he hunched and swung his body, pivoting like a discus thrower as he released the bottle. Falling, his back to the window, he heard the crash of glass, but whether of bottle or window he did not know, and then a bomb exploded in his brain as he hit the cement floor, and for the second time that day he was completely out.
A vivid dream began to take shape in the void that had been left by the explosion of the bomb. Jackson saw himself lying in the middle of a broad avenue, without knowing how he got there. With a screech of tires and a grinding of brakes an ambulance came jarring to a halt alongside him, and Whitey Gordon and big John Melius, dressed as hospital interns, lifted him onto a stretcher. He wanted to ask Whitey if he had been hurt, too, but Jackson found that he could not talk, and just then someone whom he could not see struck him a stinging blow on the mouth. He could talk now and he began to swear, but an angelic vision that seemed to be a composite of a nurse, a night-club singer he had once known, and a remembered picture of his mother as a young girl put a cool hand on his head and said, “Quiet.” He stopped swearing only to begin again when John Melius produced a red-hot longshoreman’s hook and started burning his hands off at the wrists.
The pain of the hot iron caused him to open his eyes, and he saw that at least one part of the dream was real. His head was in her lap, and her face was turned from him so that he only saw one rounded cheek above the gentle swell of high, youthful breasts. The heavy mass of her black hair—how black he did not realize in the dim basement light—was cut page-boy fashion and swung forward from under a small black hat with a red feather, veiling rather than hiding the upward sweep of her white throat and the long curving line from ear to chin. As he stared at the vision she raised a white hand pushing the hair from her face and looked directly down at him.
He had just time to glimpse a small, firmly set red mouth and eyes of an undetermined color with black curving lashes when she said severely, “Shut your filthy mouth, or 111 tape it again.”
He gulped and went red with the realization that his mouth was open and that language was coming out of it totally unfit for a lady’s ears. He said defensively, “It hurts,” and, becoming uncomfortably conscious of the firm round thigh under his head, tried to sit up.
The girl put a hand on his chest and pushed him back unceremoniously. “Lie still,” she commanded and went on winding white bandage around his left wrist. A quiet, ministerial voice said surprisingly, “Let him swear, Blackie. Iodine in those cuts hurts like hell.”
Jackson forgot his embarrassment and looked at a little man with white hair, a hu
ge beaked nose, and a white goatee somewhat like the cartoons of Uncle Sam, who knelt at his feet on the side opposite the girl. The little man was dipping a swab stick with a large wad of cotton on the end into a black bottle. He took the stick out, said, “Lie still now, boy. This is going to hurt some more,” and applied the swab.
Jackson gasped and said, “Oww-woo,” as the fiery antiseptic came in contact with an open wound.
“All right,” said the little old man briskly, patting Jackson’s leg, “that’s all. Blackie, toss me another roll of bandage.”
He wound the bandage expertly around the ankle, fastened it with a strip of adhesive tape, and stood up.
“Let me have another look at that head.” He came forward to run his fingers over Jackson’s battered and now bandaged scalp. “That’ll do till we get him to a hospital,” he intoned through pursed lips. “Possible concussion, but no fracture, I think. Can you sit up, young man?”
“Sure.” Jackson raised himself with the aid of the old man’s surprisingly strong hands. Pain seared his eyeballs like twin bolts of lightning, and he closed his eyes and grunted. His head wobbled drunkenly.
“Easy, easy.” The old man’s strong, gentle hands steadied Jackson’s shoulders. “You’ve taken quite a licking, boy, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. We’ve got to get you out of here. Think you can walk?”
Realization swept over Jackson. “Those men upstairs! They’ll be back any minute. They won’t thank you for this.” He got to his feet, swaying but erect. “I’m okay,” he said, “come on.”
The old man smiled and nodded to the girl. “I guess he is, at that. Don’t worry,” he told Jackson. “This house has been empty for years. I don’t think your friends will be back for a while.” Jackson stubbornly refused further help and followed the girl’s trim ankles up the stairs. They passed through a bare front room and out a front door that stood open.
Jackson looked curiously at the open door, and the old man explained: “It was padlocked on the outside, but padlocks don’t stop Blackie when she’s mad.”
Jackson managed a grin. “I’ll bet. What was she mad about?”
“What was I mad about?” snapped the girl. “That!” She pointed to a car that stood off the road by the house. The front tire on the near side was flat and had a jagged rip in the casing. “You darn near wrecked us,” she accused, “and I was going to find out who threw that bottle and give them a piece of my mind if I had to tear the house down.”
She smiled suddenly. “You’re lucky you were in no condition to put up an argument when we found you.”
“I’m lucky in more ways than one,” Jackson told her seriously. “I’m sorry about the tire though.”
“It’s all right,” said the girl shortly. “Don’t stand here talking. Get in the car before you fall down.”
Jackson climbed stiffly into the rear of the car, and the old man hopped spryly into the front seat beside the girl.
“I’ll have to go easy until we get to the filling station down the road,” said the girl, starting the motor. “They’ll change the tire for me there if there’s any rim left to put a tire on.”
As the car bumped slowly over the road the old man turned to lean on the back of the seat and look at Jackson. His small eyes were full of sharp intelligence. “What are you, young man,” he asked, “a gangster?”
“I know all about him, Nunky,” said the girl before Jackson could answer. “His name is Christopher Jackson; he’s a water-front roustabout and belongs to the Independent Longshoremen’s Club, whatever that is. And,” she added triumphantly, “he’s wanted for two murders.”
“Heavenly days, how did you find out all that?”
“I looked in his pockets while you were patching his skull,” answered the girl brazenly. “And I read the early edition of the afternoon papers.” She indicated a newspaper on the seat beside her, and the old man picked it up and scanned the article. He looked from the paper to Jackson questioningly.
“He doesn’t look like a murderer.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said the girl. “I never saw a murderer close up.” She turned off the road in front of a gas station, set the brake, and opened the side door. “He certainly talks like one if language is any indication. Why don’t you ask him, Nunky?”
“Are you a murderer?” said the old man to Jackson.
Chris Jackson grinned. “I was framed,” he said.
“You too?” laughed the girl. She turned her back and spoke to the station attendant.
Jackson looked puzzled, and the old man explained. “I’m not sure but I suspect she means that all criminals claim to have been framed.”
Jackson thanked him gravely.
When the tire was changed and they were back on the road he asked to see the paper.
SHIPOWNER STRANGLED IN STUDY. UNION OFFICIAL SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING IN DOUBLE SLAYING.
Jackson’s eyes narrowed as he read the story. It told of Murdock’s murder, of the wrecked car, and the finding of Gordon. It also gave a resume of the Riorden killing and laid great stress on the discovery of Jackson’s bloodstained hook.
The shrewd eyes of the white-haired man were on him when he looked up. Jackson shrugged in an effort to overcome the daze in which the story had left him. “It’s a good story,” he said, “and some of it’s true. Why don’t you stop and turn me over to the cops before you get yourself in a jam for helping an escaped murderer?”
“I’m taking you in to town,” said the old man. “I have hospital facilities there, and that head of yours should be X-rayed at once. There’ll be time enough to notify the police afterwards.”
“But you can’t do that,” remonstrated Jackson. “Suppose they stop you and find me. Or even if they don’t, this last murder was committed on this side of the river, and you’re taking me out of the state.” He slid forward in his seat. “Better let me out here.”
“Where will you go if we let you out?” the old man asked gently.
“Go?” Jackson paused and put a hand to his bandaged head. “I don’t know. To the Union Hall first, I suppose, and then to the cops.” He looked the old man in the eye. “But I didn’t kill these men,” he said quietly.
The old man studied him for a moment. Without turning he said over his shoulder, “What do you think, Blackie?”
The girl kept her eyes on the road. “He has an honest face, even if he is very dirty and needs a shave.”
“Before this conversation goes any further,” the old man said gravely, “I think we had better introduce ourselves. I am Dr. Winthrop Stevenson and this”—he indicated the girl with a nod—“is Miss Maeve O’Callighan, daughter of an Irish king who had the dire misfortune to become my brother-in-law. Not being a romanticist myself, I call her Blackie both because of her coloring and her ancestry. I advise you to call her Miss O’Callighan.”
“Nunky,” said the girl. “Don’t be an old fool. O’Callighan is certainly no aid to conversation. You can call me Maeve,” she called to Jackson without turning. “Or Blackie, if you want to. And Nunky’s being modest. Whether you’ve heard of him or not, you can tell your grandchildren that you had your head bandaged by one of America’s great surgeons.”
“I like Maeve,” said Jackson to the back of her black head. “And now,” said the old man gravely, “that we know each other, tell us about it.”
There was something about this little white-haired man that compelled confidences—that inspired faith and trust. Jackson told them the story as simply and directly as he could, leaving out nothing of what he knew. He finished by saying: “Someone wanted to stop the union from striking enough to commit murder and someone wants to get me out of the way enough to try to frame me first and kidnap me afterwards. I believe this whole business is tied up with the spy in our union and since I read that newspaper story I think I know who the spy is but I can’t prove a thing, and before I get a chance to prove anything they’ll have me on a one-way trip up the river to the chair. I’ve seen union men framed b
efore and I know how it works.”
“You say you think you can identify the spy. Why not tell the police who he is? If you’re right they would certainly be able to find proof.”
“Don’t be naïve, Nunky,” said Maeve. “He can’t do that—that’s being a rat.”
Jackson looked appreciatively at the back of the sleek black head. “I’ve got nothing to tell the police,” he said, “even if I wanted to. I’m not sure myself that I’m right. The man’s my best friend.”
“Your best friend?” The doctor was a little shocked. “But surely——”
“Unfortunately that’s the way stool pigeons operate,” said Jackson. “They gain your confidence and then sell you out. When you’re looking for a labor spy you can’t afford to overlook anybody, no matter how well you know them.”
“Contemptible,” said the doctor. “To be forced to suspect one’s best friend. You think this man Murdock hired water-front gangsters—what did you call them?”
“Goons, Nunky,” said Maeve.
“Exactly,” said the doctor, “...hired some of these goons to run you and your friend off the road and kidnap you?”
Jackson nodded.
The girl asked: “Then who killed Mr. Murdock—assuming, of course, Mr. Jackson, that you didn’t?”
“Thank you for the assumption,” said Jackson dryly. “I didn’t kill him and I don’t know who did but I’ve got a hunch about it. The man who killed Riorden killed Murdock, because Murdock knew who he was and the murderer was afraid he’d turn him in. That’s just a hunch, and I may be wrong, but it’s my hunch, and I’ll stick with it”
“Isn’t that a bit like killing the goose that laid the golden eggs?” questioned the doctor shrewdly.
Death on the Waterfront Page 13