Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (9 page)

“I still don’t know what right you have to ask all these questions?”

“When I mentioned that guy, I remember you kind of tightened up—as if you knew who I meant.” He lowered his voice, hardened it. “Listen to me, little girl, it’s all right if you were playing house with Crosby—that was his privilege and yours. But when a guy gets his throat carved and you act dumb when I shoot questions at you—” He shook his head. “That doesn’t go at all—not with this baby.”

She was trembling, but she put fire in her voice when she cried, “Who—who are you?”

“Just a private cop earning his salary…. You knew Crosby well. All right. He sent for a private cop. Now you ought to know why. We don’t know. He called up and said he’d explain when we sent a man down. So I went down. This smooth-faced guy let me in, saying he was Crosby’s room-mate. Then you drift in. Say, who was after Crosby—and why?”

She blew her nose and shook her head and said beneath her handkerchief in a panicky voice, “I don’t know! He didn’t tell me anything!”

Fury leaped in Donahue’s dark eyes. His hand shot out, caught the girl’s wrist and he heaved her close up against him.

He snarled, “I hope to tell you you’re a damned little liar!”

“Ow… you’re hurting!”

He released her abruptly and she fled backwards across the room. He chopped off an oath that did not quite get to his lips and scowled darkly at the girl.

“Don’t pull a song and dance on me!” he rapped out. “We can get along fine as long as you don’t play me for a jack-ass. Come on now, break clean. What kind of a racket are you in on?”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I said don’t song-and-dance!”

“I tell you—”

A knock on the corridor door stopped her. She flung a look at the door. She flung a look at Donahue. Donahue made a motion for her to open the door while his right hand went around to his hip-pocket and drew out a Colt’s .38 revolver with an abbreviated two-inch barrel. He took six backward steps into the bath-room, left the door open.

The girl had her hand on the knob of the corridor door, and all color had drained from her face.

She opened the door. Her body stiffened and her hands started towards her breast. She backed up as the small neat young man came in slowly and smiled with his agree-able white teeth. His right hand was significantly in the pocket of his ulster. He reached around back with his left hand, closed the door, stood with his back against it and turned the key in the lock.

He said in his pleasant lively voice, “Hello, Irene.”

The girl had backed up against one arm of the divan, and she sat tensely against it, hunched forward, in an awkward position that had about it something of breathlessness. Her brown eyes were fixed wide on the small neat young man. His rather dark luminous eyes twinkled.

He said, casually, “Babe didn’t get it.”

She scraped the side of the divan with clawing fingers. Fear began to distort her face, and she kept twisting her head from side to side. Her lips opened, her teeth opened, and she began to breathe hoarsely.

The small neat young man came forward, taking his time, smiling pleasantly. He said, “And I didn’t get it.”

She cringed, held her arms out, palms towards the man. She crouched behind the palms.

She choked, “Babe… you didn’t—”

“No, Irene. I didn’t. Not that. I just slugged him…. Aren’t you the two-timing little—?”

“For God’s sake, Alfred… go out!”

“Don’t try to kid me. Babe’s not here. Babe’s still in the land of nod, as the poets say…. And will it be poetic justice if I break your nice sweet jaw?”

“Alfred!…”

“I’m talking, Irene. What a jack I’ve been. I always knew you used to be sweet on Babe, nuts on him, but I thought that was all over—”

“I swear it is, Alfred!”

“Bah! You two-timed on me, but Babe didn’t get it. Maybe he did get it. But he didn’t have it. He passed it on to someone… to you.”

“No—no!”

Alfred drew out a very small but business-like automatic and leveled it at the girl’s breast.

He said quietly, “One of us has it. Babe hasn’t. I haven’t. You have!”

“Please… I swear!…”

He raised his left hand slowly and placed the fingers around the girl’s throat. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against her breast. He smiled at her.

“For two-timing, Irene, you ought to get a belly full of this. I may yet. But first I want to know who has it.”

“I—don’t know, Alfred! That’s God’s truth! Go out… come back later!”

He laughed leisurely, tightened his fingers on her throat until she gagged and raised her hands to grip the arm that held her. She teetered on the arm of the divan, lost her balance, fell backward on the divan kicking up white smooth legs.

Alfred took two steps and looked down at her where she lay panting and rubbing her throat. He leaned over a bit and slapped her face. She cried, “Ow!” and she meant it. Alfred slammed the pistol against her ribs and she screeched. He stood up, took two more steps, turned on a radio. A jazz band boomed into the room. He returned to the divan and struck the girl again—with the gun. He planted a knee on her stomach and went on striking her. He did not look mad, merely interested in his work.

Donahue stepped from the bathroom, walked across the carpet, stopped behind Alfred, and when Alfred’s gun hand rose, Donahue gripped it, twisted sharply and spun Alfred around to face him. Alfred’s gun was in Donahue’s left hand, and Donahue’s gun was in his own right hand. Dona-hue struck Alfred playfully on the head with Alfred’s gun, and when Alfred fell back grunting, Donahue grinned and said:

“Does hurt, doesn’t it?”

Alfred regained his poise, smiled and said, “Yes, a bit.”

The girl sat up, sobbing. She rose and burst out crying and stumbled to the bathroom.

Donahue eyed Alfred and said, “Turn off the radio.”

Alfred turned off the radio. He smoothed his collar, pushed back his black smooth hair and kept looking at Donahue with mild and polite interest.

“You’re a smooth——,” Donahue said drily.

Alfred smiled, said, “Association,” brightly.

Donahue said, “Well, I’m not smooth. And I don’t like smooth guys.”

“Do you mind if I light a cigarette?”

“Yes I mind.”

Alfred shrugged. “You’re uncommonly hard to get on with.”

“I’m damned hard to get on with.”

Alfred sighed. Then his face brightened. “Irene is a very temperamental soul.”

“We’ll discuss you right now. Never mind about Irene…. Listen, you—what the hell was the idea of handing me a line in Crosby’s apartment?”

“Must we go into that?”

“Oh, I think we ought to—since it’s very likely you carved the poor slob’s throat.”

Alfred laughed lightly. “Now, now, Mr. Holmes!”

Donahue took three hard steps and jammed his own gun so hard against Alfred’s chest that Alfred exploded, “Ugh!” and almost fell down.

Donahue clipped, “You’re not funny at all, bozo!”

Alfred got his breath back, laughed in confusion, shoved back his hair and said, “My, you’re like a regular New York cop.”

Donahue struck Alfred on the head and Alfred fell down on the floor, sat with his head in his hands and rocked back and forth groaning.

Donahue said, “I don’t like wisenheimers.”

He got down on one knee. He put Alfred’s gun in his pocket and used the hand that had held the gun to pull Alfred’s hands from his face. Alfred’s eyes were wet and he looked peeved.

“You don’t have to be so rough,” he said.

“You don’t have to make those musical comedy wise-cracks…. Listen to me, brother. You’re in a tough spot. Crosby was carved, and you were in his apartment when I got there. Crosby was murdered because he had some-thing that you guys wanted. You’re a red-hot—so is the jane… but you’re hotter than she is because she came there after the murder. She came in while I was there. We notified Crosby’s uncle that his nephew had got a dose, and the old boy’s coming into town like a bat out of hell—and he told us to carry on with the investigation. I’m carrying on—and you’re going to talk before I walk you into a pinch.”

Alfred became thoughtful. He said sadly, “Say, I am in a tough spot, ain’t I?”

“I wouldn’t fool you!”

The girl came back into the room sniffling and saying, “You dirty little rat, trying to link me with your dirty little schemes! I told you to stay away from me—to leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you. I’m sick and tired of being drawn into your schemes, and I’m sick and tired of seeing you.”

She picked up a heavy bronze book-end and hefted it. Hot scarlet overran her cheeks and her brown eyes blazed.

Alfred raised his hand. “Now don’t throw that, Irene.”

Donahue put in, “I thought it was Leone.”

She came over and stood quivering, the book-end in an upraised arm. “You’re a very small rat!” she cried.

Alfred said, “Now don’t, Irene—”

Donahue looked at Alfred and said, “Just for fun I ought to encourage her.”

The girl’s hand came down swiftly.

Donahue felt the book-end strike his head. He knew he was reeling. He knew blackness cascaded down upon him. There was another blow, a laugh—Alfred’s quiet laugh—and then there wasn’t anything.

Coming to at midnight, Donahue lay in the darkness for a few minutes feeling his head. When he touched a bump near the crown he said, “Ugh!” and then cursed. Then he sat up. He could see two windows, the night sky beyond them, some tattered star fragments. He fumbled in his pockets for a match, found one, struck a light and then moved towards the electric switch. He snapped on the lights.

He was still in the same apartment.

He said, “Hell and damn,” earnestly, and prowled around, wearing a brown predatory look. The bedroom was empty. Bureau drawers were open—empty; clothes closet was open—empty. He went around into the bath-room. It had been cleaned out except for a bottle with a little Listerine in it. Donahue poured it into a glass, added water, slushed his mouth out, spat noisily.

Alfred and the girl Irene had pulled a fade-away.

Donahue wet his hair, brushed it back with his fingers, washed face and hands and dried them. Returning to the living-room, he saw his gun lying on the divan. He picked it up, saw it was still loaded and replaced it in his over-coat pocket. His brown face was hard, sullen; he muttered diatribes in his throat behind his narrow clenched teeth. He went into the bedroom again, looked beneath twin beds, dumped out the contents of a waste basket.

He threw aside crumpled empty cigarette packets, a tooth-paste box, a copy of the Evening Sun, a theatre pro-gram of the Lyric showing Fifty Million Frenchmen, a Bascom ticket envelope, a passenger list of the S.S. Driatic, a dry cleaner’s bill, a colored cardboard box that had con-tained hairpins, an empty vanishing-cream jar, an empty rose-colored bottle that had contained fingernail polish.

Donahue reclaimed the passenger list of the S.S. Driatic. Under the C’s he found Robert C. Crosby. Under the T’s he found Alfred P. Tenquist; beneath this, Miss Leone Tenquist. He folded the booklet and thrust it into his pocket. His dark eyes glittered as he bent to throw the other ar-ticles back into the waste-basket.

He returned to the living-room, picked up his Borsalino, slapped it carelessly on his head and cringed, exploding, “Damn!” It was the bump on his head. He drew in a breath and went towards the door, making a sour face. He passed into the corridor, buzzed for an elevator. When one stopped he got in. When the doors slid open on the main floor, a man squeezed in as Donahue was going out, and as Dona-hue walked away he heard a bass voice say:

“I want A-455.”

Donahue stopped in his tracks, stood rooted but did not look around. Then he went on walking through the lobby, passed out into the street and turned south. Half a block away three taxis stood in a row at the curb. Donahue passed the first and walked up to the second. He handed the driver a dollar.

“This guy ahead of you may get a call any minute,” he said. “Maybe I’ll want you to follow him.”

The driver reached back an arm and opened the door. “Okey, chief.”

Donahue climbed in the back, lit a butt and watched the entrance of the Avalon-Plaza. About five minutes later a man came out. The doorman blew a whistle and the first taxi got into gear and drove up to the hotel entrance.

“Follow that guy,” Donahue said.

The driver started his motor, meshed gears but held the clutch out. When the first taxi pulled away from the curb the second did likewise.

The first taxi turned east on Seventy-ninth Street, south into Riverside Drive. Donahue’s man stayed half a block behind, but sped up when a Packard sport and a check-ered cab got in between him and the green cab he was trailing. He passed the Packard and the checkered job and followed the green taxi around the blinker into Seventy-second Street, then south on West End Avenue. At Fifty-ninth Street, West End Avenue becomes Eleventh and shoots south past railroad yards and switching engines; becomes a rough, shoddy and dark street without traffic stops, where trucks and taxis slam recklessly on their way.

The tail turned east into Fortieth Street, crossed Tenth Avenue, roared beneath the Ninth Avenue Elevated and started to slow down just west of Eighth Avenue. The green taxi was pulling into the curb; Donahue’s was a hundred yards behind, drifting leisurely. The green cab was stopped when Donahue’s rolled past, and the big man was getting out in front of a lighted doorway that was flush with the street.

Donahue leaned forward and said, “I’ll get out at Eighth.”

When he alighted he gave the driver another dollar, then walked west on Fortieth until he came to the lighted doorway. He walked into the open lobby, looked around for a button, saw none. He got on his toes and ran his fingers along the top of the door frame. He found a button there, pressed it. A minute later the door opened and Donahue walked in saying, “Hello, buddy.”

He walked on down a narrow low-ceiled corridor, passed a kitchen, entered a small bar beyond which was a dining-room where a slot gramophone was raising a lot of noise and dancing feet were shuffling.