Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask

by Frederick Nebel

  At eight o’clock the telephone rang. Donahue threw aside the magazines, got up, yawning, and picked up the instrument. The voice at the desk said that Mr. Bonalino was calling.

  “Just send him up,” Donahue said.

  When a knock sounded on the door Donahue crossed the room and opened the door wide. But he did not look at Nick Bonalino. He looked at a tall, well-groomed young man who held a heavy automatic pistol in his hand.

  The man took a step in, said, “Back, you—and watch your hands.”

  Donahue stepped back. The man entered all the way, kicked the door shut with his heel. He had a white, well-packed face, yellow eyebrows, small hard, round eyes, and firm, thin mouth.

  “So you’re Donahue, eh?”

  “And you’re Bonalino?”

  “You ought to know.”

  “I know Bonalino.”

  The stranger eyed him shrewdly. “Know what I came here for?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Says you, baby. Get started. I want that hunk of ice.”

  Donahue smiled. “Aren’t you the presumptuous——?”

  “Get it!” the man snapped. “I didn’t come up here to have you make a lot of cracks.”

  “You came up for a hunk of ice.”

  “You said it.”

  “Okey,” Donahue said, nodding around the room. “Find it.”

  “That’s your job.”

  “Guess again, brother.”

  The man came closer, his hand tight on the butt of his gun. “You ever get lead in your belly, guy?”

  “Sure. Common occurrence.”

  He jammed the muzzle against Donahue’s stomach. “You get that hunk of ice, you wisenheimer, and get it fast!”

  “You want it, bozo. You get it.”

  The man gnawed his lip. Then—“Turn around.”

  Donahue turned around. The man felt his hip pocket. “Now stand right where you are.”

  “Sure.”

  The man went to the secretary. He was quick, and he kept an eye on Donahue while he pulled out all the drawers. He dumped their contents on the floor. Then he crossed to the bureau, pulled out all the bureau drawers, dumped their contents on the floor, knelt down and sifted with his fingers. He rose, cursing, and hauled all the clothes out of the closet. He searched every pocket. He searched two hand bags and a trunk. He turned finally and came towards Donahue.

  “It’s here. Where the hell is it?”

  “Did I say it was here?”

  “——you, cut out stalling!”

  “That’s just an idea you have.”

  The man whipped up his gun and laid it hard against Donahue’s head. Donahue wilted, tried to close with the man. The man stepped back after the manner of one used to such tactics.

  “Easy, Donahue!”

  Donahue stopped, looking at him beneath a corrugated forehead. A trickle of blood made its way from Donahue’s hair and down across his left temple.

  “Where is it?” the man asked coolly.

  “I haven’t got it!”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s not here. I don’t know where it is. I haven’t got it.”

  “Bonalino said you got it.”

  “He’s a damned liar!”

  The man came forward again, his white, hard face menacing. “I want that ice,” he said quietly, evenly. “I mean to get it. You’ve got it and you’re going to give it to me.”

  Donahue wore a twisted, humorless smile. “You can’t bump me off here, brother. You just can’t. It’s nine flights down to the lobby. The house dick is down there. Everybody’d hear the shot. You’d never get away.”

  “I’d shoot my way out.”

  “You don’t look like a common gun. A common gun would do that. No guy with brains would. I haven’t got the ice. I don’t know anything about it. It was just a bum steer that Bonalino gave you. He’d like to shove a knife in my ribs himself—if he had the guts. Lay off, brother. You’re wasting time here. Besides, you don’t buffalo me a bit. I know you wouldn’t be crazy enough to cut loose with that rod on the ninth floor of a hotel.”

  “You know a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been going to night school.”

  The man took one step, one sure swing. His gun banged against Donahue’s jaw. Donahue pitched backwards over a chair.

  “That’s for bright boys,” the man said, walking over.

  Donahue lay where he had fallen, his legs draped over the upturned chair, his back flat on the floor. Red color flooded his face, and his lips were flattened against his teeth, and blood was on his jaw. His eyes looked misty. Muscles alongside his mouth bulged. He braced an elbow against the floor, started to rise doggedly, desperately. The man leaned over and struck with the gun again.

  Donahue crumpled backward, crying out hoarsely. He folded his arms across his face. The man made another thorough search of the room while Donahue lay like one dead. After a while the man stopped in the center of the room, scowling. He crossed to Donahue, kicked him in the ribs. Donahue did not stir.

  The man put away his gun, adjusted his hat and coat, went to the door and walked out.

  Donahue came to an hour and a half later. He sat up and looked at the soggy blot of blood on the carpet. He ran his fingers across his jaw. His fingers came away stained. He looked white, his lips were hueless.

  He got up slowly and went into the bathroom. He looked at himself. Blood had caked from his hair down his cheek to the right jaw. Blood was still soft on the left jaw. He blinked. His hands shook.

  He ran warm water into the basin. He shoved his face and head into the water, left it there for the duration of a long breath. He lifted his head, blew his lips. He looked at himself. He ran the ensanguined water out of the bowl and refilled it. He washed his face again. He took a wad of cotton, soaked it with an antiseptic fluid and swabbed his jaw and head. He dried his face where it wasn’t cut. Then he took out a bottle of iodine, painted the cut on his jaw. He sucked in a breath, saying, “Cripes!” and closed his eyes hard. After a minute he parted his hair over the cut on his head, iodined it, wincing again, sucking in breath and blowing it out boisterously.

  He returned to the other room, poured two inches of Scotch into a water glass and downed it straight. He took off his bloodied shirt. His undershirt was stained too. He took it off. He had a lean-muscled torso, with lots of chest.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Donahue half-turned and stared dully at the door. Then he walked to the bureau, took his Colt’s .38 from the top. He went to the door with it, turned the knob.

  Nick Bonalino towered there, out of breath. He had a blackened eye and blue welts on his right cheek-bone.

  “God, Donahue!”

  “Get in. Quick!”

  Bonalino lunged in, and Donahue closed the door, locked it. Bonalino stood in the center of the floor, heaving up and down in an effort to get his breath. Donahue eyed him frigidly.

  “Well,” he said, “you got me into a nice jam.”

  Bonalino was looking around at the empty drawers on the floor, on the tangle of clothes, books, odds and ends.

  “Me! God… me! I—I been through hell myself. I didn’t tell him, Donahue! Holy Mother, I didn’t! He knocked me out, but I didn’t tell him. He got the card of yours you gave me. I came over soon as I could. I came in a taxi. I got off at the corner and I was coming towards the hotel here when I saw him come out and walk towards University Place. So instead of coming in I followed him. I figured if you was dead, what the hell could I do but follow him. And if you wasn’t dead—well, I could follow him too. So I did.”

  He paused for breath.

  Donahue’s eyes began to glitter darkly. “Good, Nick! By God, you’re good!”

  “So—so he took a taxi at University Place, and then I took one. And I followed him to Thirty-eighth Street. He went in a hotel—the Redfern—on Lexington. I didn’t go in. I just followed him there and came back. Jeeze… whew! Did I get a beating up?
Whew!”

  “He wanted the diamond, eh?”

  “Yeah. I acted dumb, but he started to haul off on me. I don’t know how he found me—”

  “Used his head. Went to the hat-cleaning place where you worked. Got your address. That’s the guy killed Adler. I’ll bet my shirt on it. He got Adler’s hat. No diamond in it. He saw it had been cleaned. He cruised the hat-cleaning places in the neighborhood. He—yes, he used his head, that guy. He’s no small tomatoes.”

  Nick went into the bathroom, came out again holding palms up and looking woebegone. “Look at me! Just when I’m starting to sing too! I can’t sing this way. Holy Mother, what a break!”

  “I’ll help you out till you lose the beauty spots, Nick. But I sure thought you two-timed on me. I sure did…. Take a tip. Stay away from the place where you’re living. Take a room somewhere in another neighborhood for a while. That guy may look you up again. I think I’ll take a room somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “The Redfern…. How’s to have a drink, Nick?”

  Chapter V

  Donahue took a bag and went over to the Redfern that night. He got a room on the fifth floor overlooking Lexington Avenue. At eight next morning he rose, shaved, went down to breakfast. At nine he called Hinkle and gave him the dope.

  Then he bought two newspapers, went into the lounge near the front entrance, and sat down, hat and overcoat on a nearby chair. He watched about two hundred persons go out and come in. At eleven o’clock he saw Irene Saffarrans pass through the lobby on her way out, and turn north on Lexington.

  He rose, put on hat and overcoat and went out. When he reached the street he saw Irene a block ahead. The morning was bright with sunlight. A wind blew down the avenue. Irene looked stunning in a mole coat, well-turned legs flashing gun-metal sheer stockings in the sunlight.

  She reached Forty-second Street, turned west and entered a drugstore. When she came out she carried several small packages. She walked east on Forty-second, crossed the street, and headed south on Lexington.

  When Irene swung into the entrance of the Redfern, Donahue was six paces behind her. When she reached the elevator he stepped in behind her. Turning, she saw him, and surprise sprang to her face.

  Donahue affected similar astonishment. “Well! Well, how do you do!”

  “Hel-lo,” she stammered.

  The elevator rose, stopped at the fourth floor. Donahue got out, smiling amiably. Irene got out, still at a loss for words. The elevator closed.

  “So you’re living here, too?” Donahue said.

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  She looked frightened. She had not yet recovered completely from the shock. She walked hesitantly down the corridor and stopped before a door. Donahue stepped back and slipped his hand into his overcoat pocket. The hand closed around a gun there.

  Irene opened the door, and Donahue’s eyes leaped into a small foyer, beyond into a large living-room. Irene shrugged and went in, and Donahue followed. There was a bedroom off the left of the living-room, a bathroom beyond the bedroom, door open. Donahue’s eyes darted about. He wandered into the bedroom, saying, “Swell, Irene! Swell place!” He looked in the bathroom, in the open clothes closet, round and round the bedroom.

  Irene came in, taking off her mole coat. She laid it on the bed and took off her hat. She was small, chic, good-looking.

  Donahue said, “Hell, you don’t seem happy to see me.”

  “Happy?” She laughed half-heartedly. “It all brings up old times—ugly times. I’ve tried to forget all that.”

  He followed her back into the living-room. She dropped to a divan, took a cigarette from an ivory humidor, lit up. Her face was pensive.

  Donahue stood in the center of the room eying her. “I’m not rubbing it in, sister—but you’re certainly high-hatting the guy who got you out of a bad jam.”

  She frowned, annoyed. “Oh, don’t be silly! I’m not high-hatting you. I’m just thinking. In a flash—seeing you—old times are back. I’ve been so happy lately.”

  He sat down and stuffed his pipe. “I know, I know. But try to forget, Irene. It’s all a rotten business. Why, only the other night that guy Adler was bumped off. Remember him?”

  She thinned her eyes against the smoke rising from her cigarette. “Yes, I remember him.”

  “Gunned out. In Grove Street. Some gangster’s job, I guess. But I don’t know. I don’t know much about it.”

  Her eyes became thinner. She puffed rapidly on her cigarette. Said nothing.

  Then she looked up at Donahue’s face. “You’ve been fighting?”

  “No. Taxi smash-up.”

  She looked down again. Two wrinkles appeared on her forehead. She looked worried.

  Donahue lit his pipe and puffed up contentedly. Then—“I can’t get over running into you! Just plain luck!”

  “Luck?” She laughed wearily.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Smoke dribbled from his nostrils. “Say, Irene, how about giving me a little inside dope?”

  Her eyes started. “On what?”

  “The guy who killed Adler.”

  Her hand trembled. She crushed the cigarette in a tray. Her eyes became suddenly furious. “There you go—dragging me back again into the past!”

  “How about it, Irene?”

  “Don’t be stupid! How should I know anything about who killed Adler? I’m living a quiet life here.”

  “Alone?”

  “Of course! Of course!” She sprang to her feet, her small white hands clenched. “Can’t you let me alone? Must you hound me? Can’t I ever live down the past? God knows, I’m trying to!” Her small, neat body trembled, her white throat throbbed. Anguish threshed across her face.

  Donahue wore an amused smile. “Irene. Irene, don’t act that way. Let’s be out and out.”

  “I tell you, I know nothing! How could I know anything? How could I?… Oh, you, you—the way you hound me! You’re a devil, Donahue—a smirking devil! Let me alone! I tell you I’m living a quiet life. I know no one. I’m actually a recluse. I have no friends—nobody. And you—you come here with your insinuations and questions!”

  She put her hands to her face and began to cry.

  Donahue looked ceilingwards and groaned, “Oh, Lord, get a load of this!”

  Irene dropped to the divan, buried her face in the pillow, sobbed. “How can—I—forget—when you—you—Go out! Don’t persecute me! Go out!”

  Donahue stood up, regarding her where she lay twisted on the divan.

  “You have nice ankles, Irene.”

  “Go! Please—please—go!”

  “You know, Irene—you’re nice. Neat to look at. Swell! I could get quite interested in you—if you didn’t have the bad habit of getting mixed up in murders.”

  She raised a tear-stained face. “Murder! What have I to do with murder?”

  “You are also,” he said, “the world’s best amateur actress.”

  “I—I—”

  “Shut up, Irene.” His voice hardened, his brown eyes narrowed.

  She cringed. “Now—now you’re trying to frame—”

  “Shut up! I want the man who murdered Adler! I want the man who caved in my mug!”

  “Please, Donahue, I tell you I know nothing. How could I when I’m living—”

  “The life of a recluse,” he mocked; then snapped. “Hooey, Irene! Bologney! No matter how you slice it, it’s all bologney to me…. Your playmate was tailed here last night. You can tell me where he is, or I can sit here and wait till he comes in. Makes no difference to me. Only you might be spared a little scene. Take it any way you want it, sister—but I’m going to get your sweet man.”

  “Oh!” she choked, and again, “Oh!”

  “You’re in this thing deep again, Irene. You—you couldn’t keep your fingers clean—”

  “I’m not! God’s truth, I’m not!”

  “You are. You are. I gave you a clean break after the Crosby kill. I believed all you told me about going straight. Yeah, a ha
rd-boiled baby like me—believing you! What a cripes-awful frost!… But now I’m going to park here. I’m going to watch that door. I’m going to wait for that guy to come in, and if he so much as goes for his rod I’ll blow his guts all over the room. So help me!… Unless you tell me where he is now.”

  She drew her legs up on the divan, curled up, tying herself in a huddled knot. All color had fled from her face. She was white—deathly white—and her eyes stood out like wet shiny coals. No woman ever looked more tragic.

  Donahue curled his lip. “You put it over nice… this heavy melodrama, Irene.”

  “Oh-o-o, please—please!…”

  “I couldn’t blame any guy for tumbling for you. I did. But now—it’s all over. You’re just a lousy little liar, Irene. A clever liar. Act all you want. But I’m going to get your daddy.”

  “You’re wrong! You can see nobody else lives here. Look around. I’m alone. Do you see anybody else’s clothes?”

  “No. Your daddy was wise enough to keep his own headquarters. But he came here last night. He was tailed here.”

  She got control of herself. She tilted her small square chin. “That’s a lie! I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m innocent, and if you don’t get out I’ll call the desk and have you thrown out!”

  “You wouldn’t do that, Irene.”

  She set her lips, rose and went to the telephone. She picked up the instrument. “Are you going out, or else?”

  “You wouldn’t, Irene.”

  She took off the receiver, said to the desk operator. “There is a man in my room annoying me. Please send up the house officer.” She hung up, turned and looked at Donahue with frigid eyes. “I tell you I’m innocent!”

  Donahue put his hands on his hips. He chuckled. “You’re rich, kid! By God, you’re rich!”

  When a knock sounded on the door, Irene crossed the room, turned the lock. A big man with polished pale hair looked in, bowed.

  “Where is the man, Miss Saffarrans?”

  She pointed haughtily. “There.”

  The house officer entered heavily, wearing a quizzical frown. He stopped before Donahue.