The Talmage Powell Crime Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  “You think we ought to go there, boss?”

  “It’s a lead.” He didn’t say nothing more for awhile. Then he said, “You know, Willie, it’s all rather queer.”

  “What is?”

  “Joe Dance and Pete Lorentz are great pals—and they both work for Newell.”

  I said, “Uh huh.”

  Smith said, “Look at it this way. Droyster and Newell own a dog track together. Droyster is dead—suicide they say—and Lorentz has vanished. To top that, Dance breaks an appointment with us.”

  “Maybe we should hunt Dance, boss.”

  He laughed. “We shall, Willie. We shall call on a great number of people.”

  * * * *

  When we got uptown, the cab turned a corner beside the Jackson building. That’s where Smith’s office is. The boss was looking out the cab as we went around the corner. He sucked in his breath like he had been punched in the stomach.

  “Hold it!” he said. “We’ll get out here.”

  The hackie pulled over and the boss tossed a piece of folding money at him.

  I nearly had to sprint to keep up with him. “What in blazes, boss?”

  He didn’t say nothing. He just pointed up. I said, “Cripes!” There was a light in the boss’ office. And we sure as hell hadn’t left it burning.

  The elevators had quit for the night, but Smith likes to be close to the ground. So we only had four flights to go up.

  The boss must have thought it was time for a little road work, the way he took those stairs. We came to the fourth floor and I was winded. My tongue was hanging out, but Smith hadn’t even started to sweat.

  He whispered, “Keep those big feet quiet, Willie.” Then he motioned to me and started toward his office like we were creeping up on a punch-drunk guy in a ring.

  The light was still on. I began to get a tight, cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I filled my paw with the old equalizer. Smith got out his key.

  I had the room pretty well covered and he got the key in the lock without making a sound.

  He twisted the key and banged the door open hard. I was all set to start throwing lead.

  Then the air went out of me with a fizz. I put the gun back in my pocket and me and Smith looked at each other. Then we looked at the guy standing in the middle of the office.

  He was a big bruiser, taller than me and just as broad. He had on a shiny old suit and a hat that looked like he found it at a dogfight. He could be a nasty egg sometimes. He was a plainclothes dick. They called him Bedrock Hannrihan, mainly, I guess, because he always dug to bedrock on a case and he didn’t give a damn how he did the digging.

  “Hello, Smith,” he said, “this is more luck than I bargained for.”

  Me and Smith looked around the office. Hannrihan had been having fun. He had pulled the desk to one side, the big radio the boss loves away from the wall. He had even pulled the couch out in the middle of the room.

  But the boss kept his temper. He didn’t sound mad. “What do you want, Hannrihan?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does.”

  I said, “Have you got a warrant?”

  I thought for a minute Hannrihan was going to bite me. “Listen, ape,” he said, “I don’t like you. You’re a smart aleck. You talk too smart. Just because you could beat a few guys’ heads off a few years ago and have a couple of Broadway dolls around, you think you are a gent.”

  I took a step toward him. The boss said, “Easy, Willie.” He looked at Hannrihan. “Perhaps Willie is right. This sort of thing usually calls for a warrant.”

  “Now, now, Smith. You’re not going to be that way are you?”

  The boss looked at the mess Hannrihan had made. “Were you going to try the bookcase next? What the hell are you looking for anyway?”

  Hannrihan smiled. “A corpse. Somebody squealed on you, Smith, said I’d find Joe Dance’s body here.”

  My chin nearly hit my toes. “Joe Dance!”

  Smith sort of stiffened. “Whoever called you, Hannrihan, must have recently escaped from the insane asylum. Have you checked there?”

  Hannrihan said, “I’m not kidding, Smith. Now shall I get a warrant?”

  “Why get a warrant now?” I said. “You’ve just about covered the place. The boss won’t mind you finishing.” I was giving him plenty of the Bronx cheer in my tone. “Why don’t you look in that closet over there, you grinning ape? Maybe we killed Dance, for no reason at all, and stuffed his body in that closet.”

  Hannrihan’s face was about to gush blood. “I’ll do that, Mr. Aberstein,” he said soft-like. “I’ll look there.”

  He crossed the office and I couldn’t help it; I laughed until my head roared. The big dummy yanked the closet door open. The laugh choked up in my throat. I staggered back like I’d been punched with a hard left jab.

  There was a coat hanging in the closet, but I didn’t even see that. I couldn’t see anything but Joe Dance’s eyes. There were three of them, and the one in the middle of his forehead had spilled red down over his face. He’d never tell us anything about Droyster.

  I couldn’t move. I had to hang to the edge of the desk. Hannrihan started to turn around. But I couldn’t do a thing about it. It took the boss to do that.

  He swarmed all over the big cop. Hannrihan yelped, swung, but the boss hit him in the back of the neck with a rabbit punch.

  Hannrihan went stiff, bounced up on his toes. His eyes rolled back. The boss hit him again and the floor caught the big dick.

  I’d seen Smith do that before. His old man had wanted Smith to be a doctor; the boss knew every nerve center in a guy’s body. That’s what he had done to Hannrihan. I knew the big dick would be out ten or fifteen minutes until the nerves started working again.

  The boss bent and looked at Dance. “Probably a thirty-eight slug, Willie,” he said. “It’s parked in the middle of Joe’s brain—if he has one.”

  He closed the closet door. He took a look at me and laughed. “Feel sick?”

  I nodded.

  He stepped over Hannrihan. “Well, come along, Willie. We’ll snap you out of it. We’ve a very busy night ahead of us.”

  “You’re telling me!” I wobbled out the door.

  * * * *

  On the way to Newell’s place, which is some dump, the boss relaxed in the cab like he was coming home from a picture show. Me, I opened the window and poked my head out. I kept seeing Joe Dance and the cold air helped.

  “All we’ve got so far,” the boss muttered, “is Mark Droyster dead, a dog track now owned in its entirety by Al Newell, a widow who wants insurance, a bookie named Lorentz who had a fight with Droyster and made tracks, and the corpse of Joe Dance in the office of the Smith Agency.”

  “Yeah, and a big bull who saw the corpse.”

  The boss fired a smoke. I said, “Honest, boss, I was just making with sarcasm when I told Hannrihan to look in the closet. Cripes, I never dreamed that Joe Dance…”

  “I haven’t blamed you, have I?”

  “No, but still it makes me feel punk, me causing that ape to look in the closet.”

  “Oh, forget it, Willie. He would have looked sooner or later anyway.”

  “Well, that sort of makes me feel better.” Then I remembered those three eyes of Dance’s and had to get my head out of the window where the wind could hit it quick. It’s fine, the things cold air will do for you. It sort of knocked the grogginess out of my head.

  The boss laughed. “Feel better?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. Wonder what we’ll find at Newell’s?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Well, I guessed all the way down. I was sure we’d find plenty. But I was wrong. We didn’t find nothing. Newell’s apartment was as quiet as a graveyard. The boss kept buzzing the buzzer.

  After awhile I said, “Nobody’s going to answer, boss.”

  He looked at me kind of funny like. “That’s quite obvious,” he snapped. He tried the knob. The door was loc
ked. “I wonder if the fire escape—”

  He broke off when a door down the hall opened. We looked, and I could have hung around there awhile. The blonde standing in the doorway was some babe.

  “I heard you ringing,” she said. “If you’re looking for Mr. Newell, you won’t find him.”

  The boss gave her a million dollar smile. “Yes?” he said.

  She smiled back. Then she frowned a little. “Mr. Newell is in jail.”

  “Jail!” I said, and the boss gave me a dirty look.

  The blonde nodded. “I can’t understand it. He hardly knew my name and he looked like such a nice fellow, yet he burst into my apartment this afternoon. He was so drunk he could hardly walk. He seemed to think I was some woman named Susan. I got him in the bedroom, locked him in, and called the police.” She giggled.

  “What time was that?” the boss asked.

  “About four o’clock. I—”

  “Thanks very much, Susan.”

  “But I’m not Susan, I tell you. I…” But me and the boss were already on our way.

  * * * *

  Down in the street again, the boss took a quick gander about. There was no bulls around, so we started walking.

  I was sort of dizzy. I thought we’d come here and have a little fun choking the truth out of Newell about Joe Dance. But now…

  The boss said, “It would be a nice alibi, being in jail.”

  “Cripes, it would!”

  “But I’m not so sure, Willie.”

  “Well, I don’t know nothing, it seems like.” We walked on a little. There wasn’t many people out and we kept our eyes peeled for coppers.

  Then an idea popped into my mind. “Listen, boss,” I said, “I got an angle. That sawbones, the one who went to the funeral with the Droyster dame. And, say: What about Alicia Droyster herself?”

  “You mean Doctor Lawrence Jordan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s too weak, Willie. Lack of motive. And I think Mrs. Droyster is out. It would be too risky for her to call us if she…”

  “I’m not so sure, boss. People do the damndest things. Maybe she’s hoping we’ll pin it on somebody else. Maybe…”

  “Stop it, Willie. I didn’t hire you to play Sherlock.”

  “Aw, gee, boss. I was just trying to help.”

  He slapped me on the shoulder.

  “When I need you, I’ll whistle. Now come along, Willie, it suddenly occurs to me that I am a great lover of dogs.”

  “You what…?” But he didn’t answer.

  We walked a block, then turned into an alley that ran to the next street. It was a fairly wide alley and pretty dark.

  We passed a platform that was used for loading I guessed. It was all messed up with old crates and boxes and big sheets of paper.

  I knew we were headed for Droyster’s. It wasn’t far this way, taking short cuts. The boss didn’t want to use cabs much. Cops have a nasty habit of talking to cabbies.

  Thinking about cops was bad. Hannrihan was chasing all over town by this time. I laid myself four to one that me and the boss was being talked about plenty on the police short wave.

  I had to wipe my face with a handkerchief. What those cops would do if they caught us…

  I never had the chance to put the handkerchief back in my pocket. A car had turned in the alley at our backs. Its headlights made a lot of light in that alley.

  I turned around. The car was coming like a cannonball.

  “The end of the street, boss. We’re close. Let’s go!”

  He gave me a hard shove. “You fool! We’d never outrun them. Dive for that doorway over there!”

  I scrambled across the alley. The car wasn’t a prowl car because there was no siren.

  Whoever was in the car had a gun. He started using it. It sounded like a bowling alley with all the alleys full of guys making strikes. A bullet yanked at my coat sleeve.

  I hit concrete nearly head first, rolled into the doorway. I got Bessie out of my pocket. Bessie talked back to the birds in the car. But I’m better with my fists than a gun and all Bessie’s bullets missed.

  A bullet hit the steel door behind me. I heard the boss get his Spanish going. Somebody in the car yelped. The door behind me took another slug. Bessie roared again and I had the fun of busting a window out of the car.

  Then the car was gone and I got up. I had got a glimpse of the guy driving the car. I couldn’t be sure, but there isn’t two guys like that in this world. He was the guy me and the boss wanted to see—Al Newell.

  Percival Smith had been behind a steel garbage can. He got up, blew smoke out of his gun. He met me in the middle of the alley.

  I had lost my handkerchief. I had to wipe sweat on my coat sleeve. “Some fun, boss. Me getting over there was a good idea. It made a split target of us.”

  “Which surprised and rattled them,” Smith said, “and which enabled us to converge our fire on them from both flanks.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, quick-like. “It was okay.” Once he got started talking like that, he was hard to stop.

  My ticker was just getting back down in my chest where it belonged. We took a few steps and the old heart started doing tricks again. But you couldn’t blame it. Not with that harness bull’s whistle going like it was. He was around the corner somewhere and he must have been blowing himself blue in the face.

  The sound of the whistle got louder. I moaned, “They heard the shooting, boss.”

  “Yes, and this alley will be swarming with cops in two minutes.”

  He grabbed my arm, turned me around, and we started running back up the alley.

  The cop kept blowing his whistle.

  “That loading platform we passed,” the boss said. “We’ll shake them there.”

  Another whistle began blasting at the other end of the alley.

  “Oh, oh,” I said, “a cop at each end!”

  We got to the platform. It was about waist high. We climbed up.

  Those whistles were sure making a noise. Any second now the bulls would be coming in the alley—one from each end.

  I didn’t feel so hot. I remembered everything I had ever heard about the electric chair. It was like being in the ring with the other guy and the referee both punching you.

  I unlimbered Bessie. The boss made a nasty sound in his throat. He grabbed my wrist, squeezed, and I nearly yelled.

  “Aberstein, some day I’m going to fire you! Put that damn gun up!”

  I did what he said, but I couldn’t see any way out of this jam but to maybe kill a cop.

  Percival Smith shook my shoulder. “Get a move on, Willie!” He didn’t sound like any elegant guy now. He sounded tough.

  He talked fast, in a whisper. “There’s no chance of fighting our way out of this. There’s nothing we can do but hide. Quick, get under this paper.”

  He lifted a big sheet of the old wrapping paper that had been around some of the crates or boxes.

  I got it then. I dropped down, scooted up under the paper. I lay against the wall. The boss got in beside me. The paper covered us. I hoped he had fixed it to look like somebody had just thrown the paper there.

  The alley got quiet. That meant the coppers were sneaking along in the dark.

  It took a long time for the cops to meet down in front of the platform.

  It was ink black and hot under the paper. Somebody stepped up on the platform. He turned on a flashlight and light passed across the paper. I set my teeth to keep them from chattering.

  “Maybe they were all in the car,” one of the cops said.

  The other one didn’t answer. I heard him turn a crate over. He walked toward the paper that covered us. I reached slowly for the old equalizer. Smith felt my movement. He got his fingers around my wrist.

  Somebody else out in the alley said, “What’s up, Kelley?” The alley sounded full of cops.

  The bull on the platform said, “We’re not sure. There was a lot of shooting here in the alley a few minutes ago, but we don�
��t find anything now. Must have all been in the car that came tearing out the alley.”

  Smith and me lay like two store dummies, right where Kelley could have reached out and touched us. Then after awhile Kelley got off the platform. Lady Luck was riding with us for a few seconds.

  The boss wouldn’t let me move for a long time after they left. Just when I thought it was move or go crazy, the boss said, “All right, Willie. Take a look.”

  I pushed the paper back, raised my head. I sounded like I was choking on something. “They’re gone, boss.”

  We pushed the paper back and got up. Smith dusted himself off with his hands, wiped his hands on a handkerchief. He straightened his tie and we were ready to push off.

  We took it easy getting out of the alley. We came to the street, and Smith hailed a cab.

  He said, “Willie, this lark is becoming a bit too grim.”

  “You’re telling me!”

  “It will be most gratifying to meet the gentleman who is causing us this discomfiture.”

  He wasn’t kidding. It would be nice to get our hands on the gent who had put the corpse in the closet and us behind the old black ball.

  The cab turned a corner. Droyster’s house wasn’t far away.

  CHAPTER III

  We didn’t use the front entrance this time. We sneaked across the lawn. It was a little after eleven, but there was a light on in the front corner room. We went toward the light.

  We had to be careful getting close to the window. There was some dry shrubbery growing under the window and you could make a lot of noise walking in it.

  We got to where we could see into the room. There was a good-looking doll in the room—Alicia Droyster.

  She had on a fancy evening gown cut low in back. There was a guy with her I didn’t recognize. He was young, slim, and had a small mustache.

  They must have just come in from someplace. Alicia Droyster was mixing drinks. She handed the guy a glass that made my mouth water.

  They touched glasses, downed the drinks. Then this guy put his arms around her and they started getting mushy. My knees got weak just watching. I could have looked at that for awhile, but Smith had seen enough. He pulled me away by the arm.

  Out on the lawn, he said under his breath, “How very interesting!”