With no speed let-up, the criminal charged into the street. Brakes squealed and tires skidded on pavement. The thwump of a speeding machine making contact with a human body dominated the intersection. The tinkle of glass sounded as the bank robber was hurtled over the hood, smashing an arm into the windshield; his body caromed over the top of the car, and splayed out on the pavement. The trailing car’s driver had to slam on his brakes and yank the wheel to avoid further injuring the fugitive.
Chet skidded to a halt, grabbing a street sign to avoid his own fatal brush with automotive death. Within seconds, the entire intersection had ground to a halt. In the middle of various vehicles and machines stalled or smashed lay the body of the bank robber.
In his line of work, Chet had seen dead bodies. There was no doubt in his mind that the man was already dead.
But the man’s head moved. More like lolled to the side, bringing his eyes in contact with Chet’s. The police detective vaulted the hood of a car and ran up to the man. The recent robber looked at Chet with a blank expression. Blood began to ooze out of his nose and mouth. The dying man gurgled something and Chet leaned down to better hear the words.
“What happened to me?” The bank robber coughed, spraying blood on Chet’s ear, and then his eyes fixed to the sky and saw no more.
Chapter II
Deep in the bowels of the Imperial City Police Department, a lone figure stood over a body. The corpse lay flat on a metal table, lamps hanging above cast day-like light into the room. The figure wore thick glasses that magnified his eyes out of proportion to his face. He looked up when Chet Martin entered the room.
“What have you got for me, Doc?” Chet called out.
The other man, whose name was Doctor Lester Gibson, looked up in frustration. “Detective Martin, I have only had the corpse for an hour. What do you expect?”
“Answers, Lester, answers.” Chet came to a halt opposite Gibson. “And?”
The doctor smirked. “I can tell you this man died of severe trauma to the skull.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Doc. He died right in front of me.” He wagged a finger at the coroner “You’re making a joke, right?”
“Not a good one obviously,” Lester said. He placed the clipboard on the table and gazed over his glasses at the detective. “Perhaps I need to get out more. Care to take a fellow officer of the law out on the town, show him some things he isn’t used to?”
“Sure thing. Tomorrow night, a few of us joes are gonna hear the Charles Hunt Orchestra. He plays a mean alto sax. You should join us.” He tapped the table. “What do you know about our friend here?”
“Not much besides the facts you already know. According to the contents of his wallet, Mickey Judd lived at 1915 Pierce Road, apartment 2B.” Lester angled his head to look at the detective over his glasses. “Or not 2B?”
“Funny. Anything else?”
“No place for Shakespearean humor in your life? More’s the pity. No, not much else. He had some coins in his pockets, the tabulations from the horse race last weekend, a stubby pencil and small notebook, and a card.” He indicated the debris laid out on a side table.
Chet walked over and read the card. It read: Feeling low and need a hand up? Your Guardian Angel is only a phone call away. Call Baldwin 6-2001. “What’s this about?”
“No idea.”
“Tested for drugs in his system?”
“I pulled a blood sample, but won’t know the results for a while. Maybe tomorrow? Why are you so keen on the drug angle?”
Chet pulled a cigarette out of his pack and slipped it between his lips but didn’t light it. “I can’t think of any reason why a man would knowingly jump in front of a car, thinking it not real. He must have been hopped up on the ju-ju.”
“Detective, I don’t think cannabis would have caused this man to do what you said. Marijuana is a calming drug that helps the body to relax.”
Chet arched an eyebrow. “You sound like you speak from experience.”
Lester cleared his throat. “I find it necessary, as part of my job, to expose myself to that which the ordinary criminal does. We have thugs who smoke this stuff and extol its benefits.” He shrugged. “I just want to know the symptoms of this particular drug.”
“And is that what caused this man to jump in front of a car?”
Lester shook his head. “Cannabis does many things to a person but making them see hallucinations isn't one of them. If this man was drugged, it was by something more powerful than ju-ju.”
Chapter III
Chet moseyed up to the ground floor and into the thick of the police station. Officers and detectives milled about, chatting with each other, guffawing at jokes only the men in blue could share amongst themselves. Imperial City’s police department, like all departments in big cities across the country, had its share of good guys and bad eggs. The thing was, depending on the situation, you often had a hard time distinguishing the difference.
While pouring himself a cup of joe from the machine, Sam Malone sauntered up. Sam was Chet’s partner and, for the life of him, Chet didn’t know what kind of rationale Captain Brad Wharton used when pairing detectives. Where Chet was big, burly, with big fists, big shoulders, and big feet, Sam Malone was thin, wiry, and bespectacled. There was a crispness about Sam. He always wore pressed shirts and pants with definite creases. That put Chet ill at ease. Chet was the type of man who bought clothes off the rank. If they fit well enough, so be it; if they didn’t, his bulk would stretch out the seams. It was not for nothing that some of the men in the department referred to Martin and Malone as the Laurel and Hardy of the I.C.P.D.
“Heard you had some action today,” Sam said. He refilled his cup and poured too much sugar into the dark brew.
“Yeah,” Chet said, looking away. “Can’t figure it out. Guy robs a bank, does an exchange, and then runs into traffic down on Elm just like the cars ain’t there. It wasn’t an accident. This guy really thought the cars couldn’t hurt him.”
Sam shrugged. “Well, case closed and all that.”
Chet rounded on him. “How you figure?”
“Oh, I dunno. Maybe seeing as how the man’s dead. Maybe also because it ain’t our case. Maybe because there was no murder. Things like that.”
Scrunching up his face, Chet said, “Since you’ve heard all this through the grapevine, did you hear the part about the robber handin’ off the bag o’ money? He had accomplices, at least two: the driver and the big galute who took the cash. Nah, there’s something there. I can feel it.”
Sam waited a moment. “Well, I feel as though we ought to get back on the Bancroft case. I’m still thinking his ex-wife was trying to bleed him of his cash and I’m sure she was behind it all.”
“Fine,” Chet said, pouring the rest of his coffee in the trash can, “you go look into that. I’m gonna see what turns up with this guy.”
Sam put his hand on Chet’s arm. “Chet, we’re partners, remember. We got a case. We have to follow it, see where it leads.”
“Sure thing,” Chet growled. “I’ll catch up with you in an hour or two. Gonna take a late lunch.” Chet Martin shrugged off the pipsqueak’s hand and marched out of the station.
He didn’t happen to notice the exchange of glances between his partner and Captain Wharton who stood in the doorway to his office. The captain raised his eyebrows in a question. Sam Malone nodded once.
Chapter IV
A quick check of the apartment houses at 1915 Pierce Road revealed that Mickey Judd had been evicted for non-payment of rent. The landlord didn’t know for sure where Judd went, but suggested a shanty town down under the elevated railroad. Chet knew the place. He had rousted more than a few grease balls from the area.
Since the Great Depression began, shanty towns like this one in Imperial City had sprung up across the country. Some had names, like Hooverville, named after the last president. Odd, Chet thought, that, since Roosevelt hadn’t actually cured the Depresh, no towns bore his name. This one
bore the name of the rail line roaring above it: Boardwalk.
Chet got out of his black 1936 Model 48 Ford and strolled around the area. Like most shanty towns, Boardwalk had small, dilapidated, wooden shacks that served as houses to out-of-work men, poor families, and garden variety bums. A few women, with children hanging on their legs, gave Chet a wary eye. He steered clear of them at first. He tipped his hat to them, the least he could do, to acknowledge their humanity and his own.
He found the area of Boardwalk where the poorest lived. This was the area where men hunkered down and braved the elements, not having enough spunk or wherewithal to build a shelter. Not knowing a thing about Mickey Judd, Chet started asking the men he found in this section. Most recognized the cop gait in Chet’s steps and were fearful. He reassured them he wasn’t there to roust them from their drunken stupors and throw them in the slammer. That had happened more than once. Even the citizens of Boardwalk had standards and the riff-raff were unwelcome.
Chet didn’t have a lot of change, but passed some nickels around to whoever would talk with him. Most of the men reeked of cheap booze and general uncleanliness. Chet did his best to breathe through his mouth when he interviewed them. He kept hitting dead ends. He was beginning to wonder if they were keeping things from him until he asked Isaiah Johnson.
Isaiah Johnson, a Negro, was also a veteran of the Great War. He stank and needed a bath, but wore the only clothes he had with pride: his old uniform.
“Yeah, I know Mickey,” the man said. He was missing a tooth and some of his words shushed out of his lips. “He and I were friends.”
Chet kneeled next to the veteran. “What can you tell me about him?”
“Only stuff I saw. He seemed lost around here. Some folks, they come here cuz they got’s nowheres else to go. Some make a home here, if you can believe that. Others just wanna get out as soon as possible. That was Mickey.”
“I have his address. He used to live in an apartment but got evicted. He lose his job?”
“Yessir,” Isaiah said. “Shore did. Worked at the sugar plant down yonder. Never said why, just that he did.”
“Was he a user of drugs?”
“Not that I could see. A’course, you need dough to buy booze or other stuff. Mickey used his money for food. He drank his fair share, mind you. Living here’ll do that to a man, make him want to escape in his mind if his body’s trapped here. Why you asking about Mickey? He gone and done something bad?”
“He’s gone and got himself killed,” Chet said. He watched the news hit Isaiah and the emotions flowed over the other man’s face. “Reason I ask about drugs is that Mickey ran into traffic and got hit.”
“That don’t seem like a smart thing to do.”
“Agreed. But he seemed to think the cars weren’t there. He called the cars ‘ghosts.’ He ever do anything strange like that before?”
“No, sir,” Isaiah said. “He’s just trying to get a helping hand like the rest of us. He even got a hand by the guardian angel.”
Chet frowned. “Who is the guardian angel?”
“I don’t’s know all the details as I ain’t ever seen him or been picked, but he’s a fella who likes to help folks like me and Mickey.”
“Picked? What do you mean ‘picked’?”
“You see, the angel comes around here every now and then, his friends select one of us bums. They take’em to a shelter, clean’em up real good, give’em a hot meal, and try an’ help’em better themselves. One feller, goes by the name of Chuck Causeway, came back to show us his new duds. Brand spanking new suit an’ everything. He even shaved and didn’t cut himself.”
Chet thought a moment. This was clearly getting him nowhere. Some do-gooder helping out bums was not the tree up which he needed to bark.
“I can’s see you don’t believe me, son, but you can ask the angel’s friends. They’re right over there.” The army veteran pointed a crooked finger.
Chet turned. Under a pillar of the elevated railroad, a gleaming sedan was parked. Two doors were open. Two men stood talking with one of the residents of Boardwalk.
Instant recognition struck Chet like lightening. One of the men was the very same man who had taken the cash from Mickey Judd.
Chapter V
“Hey!” Chet Martin stood. “You there.”
The two well-dressed men turned and looked at the sound of Chet’s voice. The man with the brown suit registered no reaction but the man in the blue suit did. He recognized Chet from earlier that morning.
The man in the blue suit said something to his partner who quickly got behind the wheel of the car.
“Stop!” Chet started running to intercept. “Police!”
Behind him, Isaiah Nelson, “Hey, don’t I get a dime or something?”
As Chet crossed the shanty town, the man in the blue suit turned and hustled the Boardwalk bum into the waiting automobile. He had just closed the door when Chet arrived.
The detective held up his badge. “What is going on here? Why are you taking this man?” He bent to look inside the car. “Sir, are these men taking you against your will?”
A fist slammed into the side of Chet’s face. Stunned, the stout detective stumbled, his legs getting tangled together, and landed on his back. Chet was defenseless to stop the vicious kick delivered to his ribs. The wind whooshed out of his lung like a punctured balloon. He coughed but he was not completely helpless. Not for nothing was Chet Martin known in the police department as a skilled fighter. His bulk often quieted a fight with crooks in short order, but he overcame more than his fair share of thugs in dark alleys.
Chet rolled once and got his knees under him. He opened his eyes and saw stars. He also saw the shoes of the man in the blue suit come near.
The detective swung out his left leg. He had hoped to knock his opponent to the ground and buy more time to recuperate. No dice. The blue-suited cretin stumbled and that was all the time Chet needed.
Chet got his feet under him and stood. He held up his fists in a traditional boxing stance that had won him a few rounds in the department’s contests. His body was angled away and he jabbed quickly with his left.
The massive fist connected with the blue-suited man’s jaw and sent him spinning. But his enemy also had training. He used the momentum of his spin as leverage and whipped a fist in Chet’s direction.
The policeman was surprised, but blocked most of the punch’s impact with a meaty forearm. He was about to assail the thug with the full force of his right hook when a gunshot rang out. Hot lead swished past Chet’s face by mere inches.
Instinctively, Chet crouched to the ground. In that moment, the man in the blue suit jumped into the car. The driver, still holding the pistol, gunned the engine. In a spray of dust and gravel that pelted Chet’s face and mouth, the sedan sped away. Chet remained the victor on the field of battle but with many more questions than answers.
Chapter VI
Detective Chet Martin stormed into the Imperial City police station with an ice bag on his face. Normally, Chet and his bulk didn’t need much in the way of attention-grabbing techniques but the bright red ice bag acted like a beacon. Officers and other detectives all gathered around, peppering him with questions. Chet, never one to shy away from attention, regaled his compatriots in blue with the story of the Fight at the Boardwalk.
No sooner had he finished than Captain Wharton ambled up and joined the ring. The captain, besting Chet’s six-foot height by four inches, loomed large in the station. His short brown hair was never out of place, his uniforms were always pressed, and the soft cologne beat back the body odor too many other men sported.
“Detective,” the captain said in his soft baritone voice that still pierced the din, “a word.” He moved away from the men in his command and stationed himself over by the coffee percolator.
Chet, like a reprimanded schoolboy, followed. He knew what was coming. But he had his own ace up his sleeve.
“You got yourself worked over,” Wharton said. He knew a
ny slight on his prowess got under Chet’s skin. “What assigned case were you following up on?”
Chet removed the bag from his face and placed it on the counter. The bruise was starting to appear. “It’s a new case, Captain. The one from this morning. The bank robbery and the man who got hit by the car.”
“You mean the case that’s closed?” Wharton’s reflection in the metal of the coffee machine appeared like a mirror in a fun house.
“Well, sir, it’s not entirely closed. If you remember, the robber handed the cash off to an accomplice and…”
“How would I know that?” Wharton interrupted. “There’s been no report filed.”
Smiling, Chet said, “I’m getting to that, but first I need to tie up a few loose ends. You see, the tough who gave me this bruise is the same one who took the cash this morning. And he wasn’t alone.”
The barest trace of interest entered Wharton’s eyes. Chet took the silence as permission.
“I went around looking for extra information about the dead man, an average joe named Judd. I traced his whereabouts to the Boardwalk shantytown. I met a guy who knew Judd, said Judd was taken away by some guardian angel. Nelson—that’s the guy I talked with—said this guardian angel takes bums, cleans them up, helps them find jobs and a nice place to live.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “What does it tell you that the goons that select the bums are the very same goons that got the stolen loot handed to them by a man who used to be a bum?”
The muscles in Wharton’s clean-shaven face worked underneath his skin. It was a war within the captain, the war between disciplining a subordinate who disobeyed orders and the apparent indication that foul play was afoot.
The foul play won.
“I think it’s interesting, to be sure,” Wharton murmured. “And I’m going to consider it part of an ongoing investigation.”
The Phantom Automobiles: A Gordon Gardner Investigation Page 12
