Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (2 page)

Yet the indefatigable Donahue again refused to perish. A final case straggled out in 1935. A close reading of “Ghost of a Chance” however, proves conclusively that this is a rejected Cardigan story. Donahue is said to be working for the Cosmos Detective Agency, not Interstate.

Fred Nebel continued the Kennedy and MacBride stories until Joe Shaw’s abrupt departure from
Black Mask
in August 1936. Ironically, Nebel’s final submission was rejected by
Black Mask
’s publisher over Shaw’s objections in these final months. Its title is unknown, but it could have been a last Donahue, one supposes.

Again demonstrating deep loyalty to Shaw, Nebel severed all relations with
Black Mask
. He was all but out of the pulps in 1937.

After that, Frederick Lewis Nebel was a slick man. He never looked back. Even when Joe Shaw assembled his historic
Hard-Boiled Omnibus
in 1946, Nebel steadfastly refused to allow one of his best Kennedy and MacBride stories to be reprinted in its pages, essentially stifling his own literary posterity. Essentially, he turned his back on the genre that made his name, and it likewise returned the favor.

In a letter dated December 8, 1945, Nebel gave his reasons:

The reason why I don’t want to see my old Black Mask stuff between boards is because I think it served its purpose well when it was first published but I honestly cannot see what purpose it would serve now. These times have moved fast. The stories, published between ten and fifteen years ago, seem now to be dated. The very sense of timeliness that made them good does not, I think, make them so good now. I can work up no enthusiasm.

Shaw pleaded with Nebel to reconsider:

I’m in one tough spot,” he wrote. “Simon & Schuster have asked me to write an introduction as to what made
Black Mask
and its recognized distinctive style click. Well, that’s the story of you and Dash, particularly, and Ray Chandler when he came along later. It isn’t my story—I never ‘discovered’ an author; he discovered himself. I never ‘made’ an author. He made himself. And you and Dash made that first distinctive style… How the hell am I going to tell about it if you are not there?

But Fred Nebel stood as firm as one of his pulp protagonists.

While Nebel later relented, permitting a half-dozen Donahue tales to be reprinted in the 1950 collection,
Six Deadly Dames
, he had already been left behind, a fading memory in the minds of his readers, while Hammett, Chandler and others went on to become celebrated, then legendary.

Fred Nebel belongs equally in that august pantheon. Joe Shaw put it this way in 1945: “Every worthwhile editor in the country knows you were one of the highlights in creating that distinctive type and style, along with Dash and Ray; a pretty good triumvirate in any man’s language.”

With this complete collection of “Tough Dick” Donahue’s cases, perhaps at last he will.

A hard-boiled, fighting dick trails his man through the dangerous by-ways of St. Louis’ underworld.

Donahue came in through the door from the outer office and stood with his hat in one hand, using the other hand to mop his face with a wrinkled handkerchief. He was a big lanky man with black hair, deep-set dark eyes, a long jaw and a long straight nose. He wore a lightweight dark gray suit, no vest, a white oxford shirt with soft collar attached, and a blue crepe tie. He looked hot and uncomfortable and there were two lines attesting to that between his rather wiry eyebrows.

“You Stein?” he asked with half a grumble.

The small dapper bald man behind the shiny oak desk nodded and the motion of his head made the daylight flash on his horn-rimmed spectacles in a way that for a moment hid his eyes.

“I’m Donahue.”

Stein said, “Oh, yes. I had a wire from Hinkle.”

“Here’s a letter,” said Donahue as he crossed to the desk.

He sat down in an arm-chair facing Stein while Stein tore open the letter and read a few lines.

Stein nodded and said, “Oh, yes.” He folded the letter, laid it on the desk and crossing his hands on the desk said, in a gentler tone, “Yes—yes, indeed.”

Donahue was fanning himself with his straw hat. He saw a water-cooler in a corner beyond Stein’s right shoulder. He said, “It’s hot,” and got up and went to the water-cooler. He drew out a glass of water, tasted it, carried the glass back to the chair and sat down again. He looked squarely at Stein, took a long draught, said, “Ah,” and put the glass down on the desk. He smacked his lips and said, “Ah, that’s good. St. Louis is not a burg for a cold-weather guy.” His tawny face, which had been lowering, gradually brightened, and suddenly he smiled, showing long hard teeth.

Stein smiled back at him. Stein’s smile was not spontaneous. It did not reveal his teeth because his lips did not part. It was a gentle, fixed, surface smile not particularly friendly.

Donahue said, leaning forward, “I suppose Hinkle just introduced me. He said you’d be a lot of help. We’ve got something hot, and of course you’ll be on hand if I get in trouble. But aside from that, he said you’d see I met the right guys.”

“Of course,” said Stein. “But just what sort of right guys do you want to meet?”

“A cop that can be smeared. A cop that knows this burg up, down and across—and”—he lowered his hard blunt voice—“a cop that’ll keep his jaw shut after he’s smeared and stay out of the way. No harness bull. A bigger guy.”

Stein said, “Anybody with you?”

“No. This is a lone tail and no small fry.”

“Did Hinkle say how much you’re to spend?”

Donahue shook his head. “No. He said you’d reason that out. If you spend too much, you’ll argue with him. All I want is a cop in the know, and he’s not going to know too much about what I’m after.”

Stein picked up a paper cutter and probed beneath a thumb nail. “What are you after?”

“Let that slide,” said Donahue. “If I get in Dutch I’ll tell you.”

Stein shrugged. He scaled the paper cutter back on the desk, picked up the telephone and called a number. When he had the connection he said, “You, Luke?… Say, listen, I’ve got a friend here from New York. I want you to treat him right…. Sure, he’s okey. Where can you meet him?… Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s okey. When?… In an hour…. What?… Of course. If he wasn’t I wouldn’t tell you…. Okey, then. In an hour.”

He hung up and said, “Luke Cross. Plain-clothes. He’ll meet you in Constantine’s. That’s a Greek joint in Sixth Street.”

“Where’s that?”

“Well, when you go out of this building, turn to the right and walk three blocks. Then you’re at Sixth. Turn left and walk four blocks and you’ll see the sign. Go in and tell the Greek you’re waiting for Luke Cross.”

“That’s jake. I’m staying at the Braddock. I’ll be seeing you.”

Donahue got up, put on his straw hat and went out through an office where a stenographer punished a typewriter. He descended in an elevator, passed through a lobby into the broiling street, and turned to the right He crossed the street and turned south into Sixth. He stopped at Market against traffic, took off his hat, wiped the sweaty band, wiped his forehead, glowered at nothing and crossed the street putting on his hat when the traffic cleared. Opposite a parking lot he saw a green board sign with the word Constantine’s on it. He crossed the cobbled street, pushed open a glass door with green curtains, and entered a long, narrow room with a lot of porcelain-topped tables. At the right was a counter with a cash register and a cigar case. A fat swart man stood behind the counter smoking a cigar.

Donahue said, “I’m waiting for Luke Cross,” and went on to a table in a corner farthest from the counter.

The Greek followed him and grinned and said, “You wait for Luke Cross?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s friend of me.”

“Yeah.”

The Greek wiped the table with a soiled napkin and said, “Warm, ain’t it?”

“Hot as hell.”

“You like a bottle beer?”

Donahue looked up at him, half grinned. “Got one?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s see it.” Donahue put his hat crown down on the table, blew out a breath, squirmed in his coat, ran a finger around his muscled neck beneath his collar band. He stood up and took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. His shirt was dark with dampness. He sat down, pulled at his trousers until the cuffs were up to the tops of his socks. The Greek brought a bottle of beer, poured a glassful, grinned, and Donahue raised the glass, said, “How,” and emptied half of it.

“Not bad,” he said.

“’S very good,” smiled the Greek. “You want paper?”

“Yeah, got one?”

The Greek went over to the counter, brought back a copy of the Globe-Democrat. Donahue thanked him. It was all out of order; fell open at the editorial page, and Donahue scanned the editorials, the daily column, then came to H.L. Phillips and chuckled between draughts of beer. He was finishing up the funnies when the door opened and a man came in. The man was short and fat, dressed in a shiny alpaca suit that was open revealing a round paunch and a blue-striped shirt. A narrow-brimmed hat of soft brown straw was tilted over his forehead. His face was chubby with red cheeks, a bulbous nose and little blue eyes that looked across the room at Donahue. Donahue said:

“Hello, Cross.”

The man said nothing but thumped slowly across the room, pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Donahue. He took a toothpick from a glass on the table, put it between his fat lips and said:

“Donahue?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how do you like St. Louis?”

Donahue said, “How about a bottle?”

“Sure.”

“Flag the Greek.”

But the Greek was on the way over and Donahue ordered two bottles. He lit a cigarette, exhaled sharply, eyed Cross with blunt eyes hard like round brown marbles.

“Stein says you’re okey, Cross, so let’s talk business.”

Cross picked his teeth. “I’m listening.” He did not look at Donahue. His small blue eyes wandered back and forth across the table absently. When the Greek brought the two bottles and poured out two glasses, Cross picked up his with a fat reddish hand, grunted and drank noisily. He set the glass down but kept his hand around it, looking at the glass with his small blue vacant eyes.

“Like this,” said Donahue, placing both elbows on the table. His voice was low, throaty, earnest. “I’m looking for a guy named Mickey Shane. I tailed him from New York to Cleveland and Indianapolis. Shane’s an alias he’s been using and he may be laying up in this burg under the name of Shannon. Shannon’s his real name, but he cuts it up into Shane, or Hannon, or O’Shane. It’s been Shane on the way West.”

“What’s your racket?”

“Racket? Don’t make me laugh! Say, Cross, I’m just a working guy like yourself. I used to be on the cops—yeah, for two years. New York, sure. But I got canned. I raided the wrong gambling joint one night and wounded a guy that tried to kick me in the belly. He was a Mick too—like myself. Well, Cross, I’m a private dick now—these last four unholy years. Interstate Agency.”

“Oh, them guys.”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” Cross continued to stare at his glass.

“Well, what do you say, Cross? I’ve got a hunch that this guy Shane is laying up here because he bought a ticket to St. Louis with stop-over privileges, and he’s been stopping over. You know the joints and you ought to have an idea where a gun would lay up if he came here. This guy is a gun and no fooling.”

“What you want him for?”

Donahue grinned broadly and his dark eyes sparkled. “Come on, Cross, why be a guy like that? I just want to get this guy where I can talk to him.” He reached back into the inside pocket of his coat, took out a soiled large envelope, and laid a photograph on the table. “That’s the guy.”

Cross’s face, for all its red chubbiness, was about as animated as dough. His small blank eyes passed over the picture.

Donahue hammered home his argument—“Stein will fix you up, Cross. Our outfit retains him, and if I get in Dutch he’ll fix that too. But I won’t get in Dutch. And you and I don’t have to be seen together. Just get me a line on this guy, you’ve got stoolies of your own, and give me a ring at the Braddock Hotel. You’ll be clean, Cross.”

“Well.” Cross picked up the photograph, stared at it, then threw it back on the table. Then he drained his glass of beer, wiped his fat lips with a fat hand. He said, “Well,” again and shoved back from the table. He laid his palms on the table, looked at them dully, as if in phlegmatic indecision. Then he cleared his throat and rose, saying, “Well, I got to get back on the job.”

He shifted his straw hat to the back of his head, took a handful of toothpicks, said, “Braddock Hotel.”

“Yeah,” said Donahue

Cross turned and moved towards the door, his big fat body rolling from side to side on short fat legs. The Greek called, “S’long, Luke.” Cross muttered, “Um,” and went out through the door.

Donahue was chuckling to himself.

The room had two windows over-looking Locust Street. The windows were open and there were screens of fine mesh, more a bulwark against coal dust than insects. An electric fan on the wall swung slowly in something less than a half circle and droned monotonously. The room was green; bed, desk, carpet, chairs were green. The drapes in which the windows were framed hung motionless. A bar of hot sunlight slanted obliquely through both windows. The corridor door was open, but there was another door with horizontal blinds, fastened by a hook, intended to stimulate circulation. It was August in St Louis. It was eighty-eight Fahrenheit in the room—worse in the street.

Donahue lay on the bed, stripped but for a pair of blue trunks. Around him were spread the Post-Dispatch, Judge, The New Yorker, Time and the New York Sun. On the desk which he had drawn up beside the bed were two bottles of Perrier, three-fourths of a bottle of bourbon, a couple of glasses and a bowl of cracked ice. Donahue lay motionless on propped up pillows, hands behind head. It was his third day in St Louis, the third day of an insufferable heat wave in a city whose summers are never clement. His black hair was rumpled, and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. He stared meditatively at the blank green field of the ceiling. Even the motor horns in the street below sounded hot and muffled.