Big Shots Die Young

by Richard Deming

  A gentle knock sounded on the door. Setting my cigar on a tray, I pushed my hand under my coat to touch the butt of my little automatic. The knock came again, and when it got no reply, a key rasped in the lock and the door swung in slowly, as though hating to disturb us. I picked up my cigar again when I saw it was Abel Jordan, the house dick.

  Like everyone else, Abel showed no surprise at my glasses. This constituted the final discouragement, and I pulled them off and tossed them over on the second twin bed.

  Sleepy lids hid the shrewdness in Abel Jordan’s eyes from strangers, but I was no stranger, having known him since we were bunkmates in the state orphan asylum and spent our spare time gambling for small spheres of glass in a dirt ring. The only expression on his face was polite geniality, but under their drooping lids his eyes carefully inventoried the room.

  I said, “Evening, Abel.”

  He moved his head in ponderous acknowledgment of the greeting and his big mouth spread in a friendly smile. “Been reading about you in the papers, Manny.”

  I said, “Haven’t seen them since this morning. They offering a reward now?”

  He looked at me reproachfully, then let his gaze stray casually over to Tiny Tim. “Sick?”

  “Drunk. He’ll sleep it off.”

  He nodded agreeably. “Must have hit him fast. He was dead sober when he crossed the lobby fifteen minutes back.” He beamed at me, the picture of helpful friendliness.

  “Cut it out, Abel,” I said in a bored tone. “What’s on your mind?”

  His expression remained genial and his eyes friendly. “We feel a moral obligation to our guests, Manny. Makes us curious when they turn up unconscious.”

  “So?”

  “So I better call the house doc, don’t you think?”

  I said, “Listen, Abel. The guy isn’t hurt. He’ll come around in a minute, and I want to ask him some questions. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Of course. Manny. I like to co-operate with friends, but I’m paid to watch over guests and protect the hotel’s interests. That comes before friends.”

  “Why not go the whole way and try to take me?” I asked coldly. “I’m a wanted criminal.”

  Abel shook his head. “Nobody’s going to blame me for not arresting you all alone, after the chief of Homicide, the D.A., and two cops couldn’t manage it together. But I have to take care of Mr. Brenner and I’ll have to report you were here.”

  He moved over and picked up the telephone.

  Around my cigar I said, “Put it down, Abel,” and drew my little gun.

  With his eyes half-lidded, he said, “You get a ten minute start for friendship’s sake, Manny. After that I phone the cops.” Into the phone he said, “The house doctor, please.”

  “Put it down, Abel!”

  He let a slow grin form on his face. “I’m not being brave, Manny. You wouldn’t shoot me if I phoned the cops right now.”

  I rose slowly, put away my gun and dropped my half-finished cigar in the ash tray. “You win,” I said wearily. “When you phone the cops, tell them this guy is Tiny Tim Bullock. He’s wanted for questioning.”

  Without looking at him, I walked out and slammed the door. I wasn’t cut out to be a fugitive, because I can’t fight anyone legitimate.

  I was not particularly disappointed at being unable to question Tiny Tim, because I doubted that he possessed either the brains or the courage to engineer whatever it was happened in the alley next to the Cornwall Arms.

  My move against him had been primarily the result of not having any other leads. I felt so depressed about the whole thing, I began to wonder if I really had been the victim of an hallucination, and Wade had never fired at me.

  I knew that within a very few minutes a city-wide alarm would be broadcast about me, but in my present mood I didn’t care. With no attempt to be inconspicuous, I hailed a cab in front of the hotel and had it drive me to the Cornwall Arms.

  * * * *

  At the Cornwall I paid off the driver and walked to the mouth of the alley where the shooting had occurred. A light over the side entrance cast a bright glow clear back to the ashpit. The light had not been on the previous night. I tried the side door and found it locked.

  Thoughtfully I glanced up at the green-shaded light and for the first time began to get the glimmer of an idea. “Why had the light been off so conveniently the night before?”

  At the same time another thought occurred to me, something Beth McCauley had said that fitted too snugly with something else Rex Davidson had let drop. Beth had said Sam D’Arcy sent her home because he had a meeting at nine. And Davidson had mentioned Wade’s leaving for the meeting at eight-fifteen “since it’s a half-hour drive into town.” Why had Wade seemingly been invited to the meeting at nine, when I had been directed to show up at nine-thirty?

  From a drug store booth I phoned the city hospital and asked for Dr. Tom Halleran.

  “Manny Moon,” I said when he came to the phone.

  “Jeepers! You shouldn’t phone me here.” He sounded scared.

  “Take it easy, Doc. I won’t get you in trouble. All I want to know is did you personally do Wade’s autopsy?”

  “I helped.”

  “Are you sure Wade was killed by a bullet, or just sure he had a bullet in him?”

  Halleran was silent for a time. “Better ask that over again,” he said finally. “I don’t know what the hell you mean.”

  “I mean could he have been dead before he was shot?”

  “Of course not. Think we’re a bunch of idiots over here?”

  “I’m just asking,” I said soothingly. “If you found a bullet in his heart, wouldn’t you be likely to assume that the cause of death and not look any farther?”

  “We don’t assume anything. I’m not going to give you a medical course over the phone, but it’s a matter of coagulation. He was killed by a bullet.”

  “Then could he have been unconscious before he was shot?”

  Halleran was silent again for a moment. Then he asked, “Why would he be unconscious?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just feeling for an angle. Any evidence of dope in him?”

  For a third time he thought things over before speaking. “We didn’t look for any. When we find a guy died of a bullet, there isn’t much point in checking stomach contents.”

  “Then he might have been full of knockout drops and you wouldn’t have caught it?”

  “Possibly,” he admitted. “We only look for what the cops want to know. If they want a complete autopsy, we do it. But all Homicide wanted on Wade was the cause of death. They didn’t even ask for an estimate of time.”

  I felt a tingle of hope. “Can you still get to the body?”

  “Sure. But jeepers, fellow. I’ve taken enough chance.”

  “It’s worth another hundred.”

  “It’s not the money, Manny. I’d do it for friendship, but I just can’t afford the chance.”

  “Where’s the chance?” I asked. “Run your tests and I’ll phone for the results tomorrow. Who’s going to know?”

  After mulling it over a while he said reluctantly, “All right. Phone me after ten.”

  When I hung up I felt better about things. Not that I knew any more than I had previously, but just having something tangible to work on acted as a tonic…

  At ten the next morning I stood outside the same riverfront tavern from which I had originally phoned Jackie. The only customer had his back to the door and the bartender was reading a newspaper. I made the phone booth without either seeing me.

  Finding North Shore Club’s number in the book, I dropped a coin and dialed. The man who answered said the club didn’t open till noon and gave me Rex Davidson’s apartment number. When Davidson came to the phone, he sounded as though he had just gotten out of bed.

  “Moon,” I said.
“Wanted to catch you before you left town.”

  For a long time he didn’t say anything. Then he said, “You had lots of time. Changed my mind about leaving.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “That,” he said slowly, “is distinctly my own business.”

  It was my turn to be silent. “You’re braver over the phone,” I said finally.

  “Not at all. Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Moon. I have nothing against you, and I certainly don’t want you for an enemy. I don’t believe in making enemies unless there’s some profit in it. I’m even willing to answer any questions, if the answers don’t hurt me.”

  “But the answer to why you changed your mind might hurt you?”

  “Not necessarily. It just doesn’t happen to be anybody’s business but my own. What was it you wanted?”

  I said, “A check on something you said last night. Did you say Wade got a call from the D.A. at eight-fifteen and left immediately?”

  “I said about eight-fifteen. Five minutes one way or the other.”

  “Sure it was the D.A. phoned him?”

  He thought a minute. “Either that or someone for Mr. D’Arcy. Wade merely told me he was invited to a meeting at the district attorney’s apartment. He didn’t say who phoned.”

  “Did he mention what time the meeting was?”

  “No. Just said he had to leave at once.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and rang off.

  For a long time I stared thoughtfully at the telephone, trying to guess what had changed Davidson’s mind about leaving town. “It’ll be a mad scramble among morons,” he had said last night. “I don’t want any part of it.” But before that he had remarked that if Byron Wade had a responsible successor, he would stick around to help him organize. Had a successor of sufficient strength to impress Davidson suddenly appeared?

  I snapped out of my reverie to phone City Hospital.

  “You must be psychic,” Halleran told me. “Enough chloral hydrate in his stomach to knock him out, but not enough to kill him. Probably administered in an alcoholic drink.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll remember you Christmas.”

  Still standing in the booth, I thought things over some more. And gradually my thoughts took form until light began to break through the fog of conflicting evidence and the solution suddenly banged me over the head.

  I picked up the phone again and called Inspector Warren Day.

  “Good morning, sir,” I said in a sweet voice. “This is Manslaughter Moon.”

  “You!” he rasped, and I could visualize the tip of his nose slowly turning white. He seemed unable to voice more than that one word.

  “I’m tired of waiting for your Keystone Cops to catch me, so I’ve decided to turn in.”

  The inspector whispered, “I’m going to get you twenty years, Moon.”

  “Now, Inspector,” I said. “If you put me in jail, who’s going to unravel murders in this town? Of course I don’t claim to be the indispensable man, and if we had a Homicide Department that functioned…”

  I held the receiver away from my ear until Day’s reply descended to a shriek. Then I said, “Want to make a deal with you.”

  “I don’t deal with killers,” Day snarled.

  “Then I don’t turn in. Take your choice.”

  Unexpectedly his manner changed from belligerence to wheedling friendliness, a trick of the inspector’s which never failed to fascinate me, even though I knew it was a deliberate device.

  “Manny,” he said, “you know it hurts me to have you on the wrong side. Why I used to think of you almost as a son. Come on in, boy, and we’ll make the rap as light as we can.”

  “All right. Soon as we make the deal.”

  “Deal, hell!” the inspector yelled. “You get yourself in here fast!”

  I said, “Goodbye, Inspector.”

  “Wait, Manny,” he said quickly. “Don’t hang up. What’s the deal?”

  “Did you pick up Tim Bullock?”

  “Yeah. For about fifteen minutes.”

  “You mean you turned him loose again?”

  “Sure,” Day said. “We got nothing on him. All we wanted with him in the first place was to invite him out of town. Imagine he’s left by now. Had a ten-thirty plane reservation in his pocket when we brought him in.”

  I glanced at my wrist watch and saw it was 10:20. “You better phone the airport then, and have the flight held till you can pick him up.”

  Day asked, “Why?”

  “Because Tiny Tim is part of the deal. I want him at Sam D’Arcy’s apartment at two P.M., along with Rex Davidson and Sam’s girl, Beth McCauley.”

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Tell you when I get there. The rest of the deal is I get fifteen minutes to talk before you snap on the cuffs. Okay?”

  “Talk to who?” Day asked.

  “Everybody there. And ask questions if I feel like it.”

  “All right,” the inspector growled. “Fifteen minutes. Better be prepared to talk fast if you expect to get out of this one.”

  An indefinable note of relief concealed under his gruffness left me with the impression he actually held some hope I would be able to talk fast enough.

  Knowing how Warren Day’s mind operated, I got to the Cornwall Arms at 1:15, walked to the second floor landing and watched the street from a stairwell window.

  At 1:25 four squad cars dropped a dozen plain clothes men, who dispersed themselves in doorways both sides of the street. The squad cars drove off again.

  At 1:30 a police car parked in front to emit Day, Hannegan and two patrolmen. They entered the building together.

  Quietly I climbed the stairs until my eyes were level with the floor of the hall on third. The inspector and Hannegan got off the elevator alone, which meant they probably had posted one of the patrolmen on either side of the door just inside the street entrance.

  Day and Hannegan moved on down the hall toward Sam D’Arcy’s apartment, and I returned to my post on the second floor landing. During the next half hour two taxis and another squad car stopped. The taxis brought Beth McCauley and Rex Davidson and the police car Tiny Tim. By then it was 2:00 o’clock, so I mounted to third again.

  When I rang the bell at 313, Day himself came to the door.

  “Ha!” he said, peering at both sides of me, then thrusting out his skinny head to look both ways along the hall.

  “If you’re looking for the stooges who were supposed to bring me up in irons,” I said, “I tied them all together and rolled them away like a hoop.”

  I pushed on by him and looked around the room. Rex Davidson and Tiny Tim if sat primly on opposite sides of a couch.

  Sam D’Arcy stood behind an easy chair containing Beth McCauley, and Hannegan stood near the window. The lieutenant rubbed a black and blue mark on his jaw and grinned at me sourly.

  Day pushed the door closed, strutted around in front of me and drew out a heavy gold watch. “All right, Moon. You got fifteen minutes.”

  “It may take less,” I said. “Would it interest anybody here to know Byron Wade was full of chloral hydrate and was unconscious when he was shot?”

  Warren Day’s eyes narrowed and Hannegan looked interested. The others concealed whatever emotions they may have had.

  “This wasn’t manslaughter at all,” I told Day. “It was a planned murder and frame-up. Not planned very far ahead, but planned. Maybe I better sketch in the background though, before I touch on the murder.”

  “Maybe you better,” Day said. “Nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about so far.”

  I pointed to Tiny Tim. “This little mug wanted to expand his sucker business by taking over gambling here. But he needed a partner because his New Orleans setup requires his presence, and he couldn’t be both places at once. He tried me first, and when I tur
ned him down, he decided he had to knock me off to shut me up. His attempt flopped, so he made a deal with a third person. This third person was to be given the chance of heading the whole gambling setup around here, provided both Byron Wade and I were put out of the way. You can imagine what a temptation that would be to someone not too scrupulous, who liked money. The take from the North Shore Club and the bookshops together would run into millions over a period of years. It was like an office boy being offered the presidency provided he bumped off the treasurer and secretary.

  “The only catch to the proposition was this third person wasn’t in a position to take over active running of things, not being quite the type to rule an organization. A front man was required.”

  I paused to glance around the room. Tiny Tim and Rex Davidson were listening without expression, Sam D’Arcy was watching me puzzledly and Beth McCauley’s lips were parted and her face had paled.

  “Tiny Tim must have been deathly afraid I’d hunt him down immediately,” I went on. “He wanted action at once. He must have contacted the third person almost as soon as he stopped running from my apartment, for the whole thing was planned and executed within two hours of that time. And it was a smart plan for such quick thinking.”

  Day asked, “What plan?”

  “I’ll get to it,” I said. “The plan worked so well, Byron Wade ended up dead and you accused me of manslaughter. But there was still the question of front man for the organization. That’s where Rex Davidson came in.”

  Davidson said, “If you’re going to drag my name into this, I want a lawyer.”

  “Shut up!” Hannegan shot at him. “Last night I called on Davidson,” I continued, “and he was all set to leave town. Claimed no one smart enough to run things was still alive, and the only future he could see for local gambling was anarchy. But by this morning he’d changed his mind. The only reason a cautious character like Davidson would change his mind is because he’d been offered a fool-proof setup. A readymade organization of hoodlums furnished by Tiny Tim, and a boss with enough local influence to keep everybody out of jail. Some time last night either Tiny Tim or his new partner contacted Davidson and made the offer.”