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

by Frederick Nebel

“What’s the idea, Helen?”

  Her lower lip trembled. She started a gesture with her hands that stopped halfway and then her hands dropped hopelessly to her sides and she went slowly, wearily across the room and sank into an old Morris chair. Quietly she began to cry—soundlessly.

  Donahue said nothing at first. He scaled his hat on to the bed, unbuttoned his overcoat and stood regarding her bowed head with dark, troubled eyes. A little grimace passed across his lips. He may have pictured her on the dance-floor of that academy, at ten cents a dance.

  “Thanks for the flowers,” he said. And when she made no reply, he took hold of a chair, dragged it across the worn carpet and planked it down in front of her. He sat down, sweeping back the skirt of his overcoat.

  He said: “Why’d you drop out of sight?”

  She shook her head. Her handkerchief hid half of her face.

  He went on: “I told you I wanted you to leave the city. A busybody of a cop is looking for you. A certain newspaperman is looking for you. They want to give you a lot of publicity.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Helen, you don’t know what it’s all about. Why did you go to work in that lousy dancehall?”

  She looked up, startled. “How did you know?”

  “Given time, I can find almost anybody.”

  She looked away. “I needed money. I went job-hunting. There was nothing I could do. At school I was taught to be a lady. A lot of help that is. But I can dance. I—I needed money.”

  “What was I around for?”

  “I—I didn’t want to ask you. You’d got yourself into enough trouble because of me. I didn’t want it to go on. There was no reason why you should have done all you did. I thought it was best I go my own way.”

  “And why’d you ditch the dance-hall?”

  She covered her eyes suddenly.

  He put out a big hand but did not touch her. “I’m sorry.”

  But she cried out: “I couldn’t stand it. The men—all the men. Especially those Filipinos. The things they said, the proposals they made. It was an awful place. Oh, most of the girls knew how to handle them. But I didn’t. How should I have known? I know nothing—nothing. And I couldn’t bear it any longer. I couldn’t.”

  He leaned back and let the emotion pass. Then he said: “Well, what now?”

  She held her handkerchief to her mouth, stared hard at the floor, then raised her eyes and met Donahue’s quizzical stare. “I’ve been thinking. All day I’ve been thinking. There is one way out. Mother must have left about ten thousand. I’ll go—claim it.”

  “What!”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Know what that will mean?” His eyes narrowed on her.

  “Yes.”

  He said: “Don’t be a fool! Here you’re Helen Thompson. You’ve been Helen Thompson for years. Not the daughter of Cherry Bliss, but Helen Thompson, with a good education, a swell chance in this world. Now you’ll chuck that, huhn? You’ll chuck all that for ten thousand dollars. You’ll go, identify yourself, claim the money and within twenty-four hours it’ll be in the papers. Headlines! Pictures! Cherry Bliss’s daughter!”

  “I’m not ashamed of that.”

  He said: “You’ll never live it down. I wouldn’t want you to be ashamed of it, but there’s no use broadcasting that to the world. Touch that money, Helen, and it’s dynamite. You’ll be hounded, persecuted, shamed, humiliated. You’re young—you’re a kid. Ten thousand won’t last you a lifetime. For——sake, don’t touch that money!”

  “I must. I need it.”

  His hand slashed the air. “You don’t need it as much as that! It won’t do you any good. What’s ten thousand dollars?” he demanded suddenly; and his right hand knotted, all but the forefinger and this he leveled at her. “The Williamson Committee is now holding its own court. The information your mother had and I finally got and turned over to the District Attorney is now the main exhibit. Through it a lot of heads are falling. If they found out you were Cherry Bliss’s daughter, they’d have you on the stand, too. It would ruin you! The sob-sisters would write columns of trash. The reporters would dog you to death. A dozen guys would be chasing you.”

  Her chin was up. She looked pale and beautiful. “I can stand all that. There’s nothing else for me. I’ve lost all the friends I made, anyhow. No, they didn’t leave me. But the curse of it is that I was brought up in private schools, among wealthy girls—and now I couldn’t keep up appearances. So I may as well come out and say who I am. What does it matter?” Her eyes watered and her voice squeaked pitifully: “What does it matter now?”

  He stood up. “Listen to me!” His voice hardened. “I can get you out of this. Our Agency has branches all over the country and I have some few close-mouthed friends here and there. I can get you a job—far away, say in Denver or Salt Lake or even ’Frisco. I’ll have it all arranged. You’ll go there, start over again.”

  “You’re good,” she said. “You’re so awfully good…. I’m tired now. Will you go?”

  He said, tight-lipped: “Will you leave this burg?”

  She looked at him levelly. “I can’t say—yet.”

  “Tomorrow will be too late, maybe.”

  A pulse throbbed in her throat. “Please—may I be alone now? I’m so very tired.”

  He regarded her suspiciously, with one eye cocked. She turned away and went to a dresser and moved things around pointlessly. It was a long minute before Donahue picked up his hat. He was still dubious, still reluctant to go; that was obviously told by the dark frown, the fretful lips.

  But finally: “All right. You’re tired.”

  He went to the door and she came over and gave him her hand. Her smile made a pale glow in her face that had no connection with happiness. Her hand trembled.

  In the street, he turned up his collar against the wind and walked away with long strides. There was something savage in his gait. He walked a matter of four blocks, stopped, found he had taken the wrong direction. And then he looked at a street light reflectively and said: “Hell, I forgot.”

  When he had gone—when, listening at the door, she heard his going-down footfalls become fainter and at last die away, she turned and went back to the dresser and looked at herself in the mirror. She began undressing, taking off one garment after another slowly, in deep thought. She was beautifully formed. She put on a blue silk nightgown and over this a dressing-gown of darker blue, heavier silk. Then she sat before the dresser and brushed her hair.

  The door, which she had neglected to lock, opened slowly, then swiftly, and a slim, dark youth came in. His face was dark and smooth and when he tossed off his hat, his hair was thick and black, combed straight back. He had slant eyes and he was handsome in a small, sleek, hard way. There were rings on his fingers, a watch on his wrist held there by a slave bracelet.

  “Hello, baby.”

  She said coolly: “Will you please leave this room?”

  He laughed softly. “Yeah, I know that crap, lovely. Boy, you’re a knock-out in that nightie. I do get a break, eh?”

  “Get out.”

  He gestured. “What’s the matter you don’t come around the dancehall? You’re the only jane ever made me fall. You dance like the berries and that ain’t all.”

  She stood up and faced him. “You paid for the dances and I danced with you. The price didn’t include this. You’re a very cheap little person. Will you please get out?”

  He grinned. His teeth were white, his grin bold and brazen. He sauntered over. “You wouldn’t high-hat me, would you? I’ve got dough, lovely. I’m no moocher. But I went nuts on you and I just had to find you…. Who’s the boyfriend just left?”

  There was no fear in her face. Only a lofty pallor and back of it, faintly, a look of loathing. “Please—go.”

  “I like them airs, lovely.” His smile was crooked, in certain strata it might have been called winning. In his dark eyes a slow fire burned, and her remoteness, her cool beauty had the odd effect of whipping that fire to a greater intensi
ty.

  “Gimme a kiss, lovely. Get human.”

  In a flash he caught her and she was in his arms and his lips hit her tight mouth. Her fingers struck his face and he ducked but still held on and mouthed an obscene phrase and then raised a hand, grabbed her hair and held her head back while he kissed her throat. Her hand settled on a coldcream jar. She struck with it and it stunned him. He flung back savagely and ripped her dressing-gown from her shoulders. There were no words on either side—no outcry. But the whiteness had left her, and the coolness, and now red color shame, overran her face and terror burst into her eyes.

  She said hoarsely: “The police will kill you for this!”

  “It’s worth it,” he said. He went towards her, on his toes, quietly, like an animal, with his hands extended. “I want you, lovely, and I’ll take the chance.”

  “Don’t! Don’t! Please, don’t! Please to God in heaven…!”

  The door made a sound as it opened swiftly.

  She sobbed: “Oh… Donahue!”

  The little dark man had wheeled and his hand flew to his hip.

  “Don’t,” said Donahue, his own gun drawn as he walked rapidly across the room. His gun stopped within a foot of the dark man’s chest.

  He said: “Who is he, Helen?”

  “I don’t know. One of the men who came to the dancing place.”

  “Did you ask him here?”

  “No. Of course not. He broke in.”

  “Get your hands up, louse.”

  The little man raised his hands.

  “Turn around.”

  He turned around.

  Donahue took a small automatic from his hip pocket and shoved it into his own. Then he spun the man around. Suddenly he put his big left hand across the man’s mouth, held the small dark face locked in his powerful fingers. He put away his own gun. With his right hand he began hitting that part of the face that his left did not cover. He closed the man’s eyes. He let the man go and the man fell to the floor.

  “Get up,” Donahue said.

  The little dark man got up and held his head in his hand. Donahue found his hat and slapped it on the rumpled hair. He steered the man to the door.

  “Try making love with that face,” he said.

  “Oh, oh,” the little man moaned.

  “Follow the banisters down.”

  Donahue stood in the doorway and watched him disappear down the stairway. He heard the fumbling footsteps, heard the man sobbing. But in a little while the sounds faded away. Donahue turned and faced the room, closed the door and looked at Helen where she stood, slender and transfixed, against the farther wall.

  He shook his head, frowned. “That’s something I shouldn’t have done.” He looked at his skinned knuckles, shook his head again. “No, I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have beaten him that way. Those guys know how to hate. They’re bad actors. And once they get their mind set on a certain woman….” He shook his head violently this time and made a rasping sound in his throat.

  “What would I have done, what would I have done?” she murmured. Then: “What brought you back?”

  “I thought,” he said, “you might be broke.”

  She settled into the Morris chair. “I’m afraid. Afraid of this house. I—I’m going to a hotel—now—tonight.”

  “Any dough—any money?”

  “A little. Ten dollars.”

  He looked around the room. “Get packed. Get your clothes on and I’ll wait downstairs.”

  “Yes. I’ll be down—in fifteen minutes.”

  He leaned against a lamp-post in front of the house. The wind showered sparks from his cigarette.

  Chapter IV

  Detective-Sergeant Kelly McPard was a stout, nicely groomed man with legs that tapered thinly downward to glossy, pointed shoes. His linen was crisp against his expensive blue suit. His rosy-cheeked face beamed good-naturedly in the doorway and he jangled loose change in his pants pocket. Back of the merry twinkle in his eyes was a wily look.

  Donahue said: “Now my breakfast is spoiled.”

  “Try a glass of hot water with a dash of lemon.”

  McPard closed the door, walked tranquilly to an open window and peered at the East River. Donahue pulled a long terry cloth robe over gray silk pajamas and crossing to the window, closed it.

  McPard said: “Look at Tudor City. I can remember when all that coast was a dump. And look at the Chrysler Building. That spire looks nice. I hear they have a swell club up on top there.”

  Donahue went into the bathroom, scrubbed his teeth and used a red liquid to rinse out his mouth. He combed his hair after running a rubber sponge over face and neck. Returning to the room, he said:

  “And the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga.”

  McPard grinned with vast pleasure and took a cigarette from a yellow ostrich skin case trimmed with gold. “Have one?”

  “Can’t smoke before breakfast.”

  “Can’t take it, huhn?”

  “Oh, I can take it.”

  McPard lit up. “Where is Zamboanga?”

  Donahue gave him a steady brown look “If this is a pleasure call, Kelly, you have bad manners. Or are breakfast calls the thing now in impolite society?”

  “Same old Donny. Pleasant as a burr in a man’s sock.”

  “Spill it.”

  McPard winked. “It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you’re wanted down at Headquarters for a little heart-to-heart talk. We like you down there, Donny. Always like to have you drop in.”

  “What now?

  “A funny thing happened last night. A cop picked up a guy with the blind staggers. He thought the guy was drunk, but it was something else. He couldn’t see very well out of his eyes. They were smeared. One ear was up like a balloon and his cheek was open to the bone.”

  “Were there fights at the Garden last night?”

  “You know who I mean. A guy named Manuel Christovão. A half-breed Filipino. I guess the other half is Portuguese or something. I didn’t think you ever picked on little guys.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  McPard nodded. “Sure, I knew you’d say that. How’s to get your pants on?”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “A jane invited him to her room last night. You sprang out from a closet, beat him up and took a hundred and fifty bucks from his pockets. Depression in the agency business?”

  Donahue said: “I’ll get my pants on.”

  They went into the elevator ten minutes later and McPard said: “Want to grab some breakfast? I’ll wait.”

  “I wouldn’t think of making you wait.”

  It was a clear, bright morning. They climbed into a cab out front beneath the marquee and it sped them downtown and across. There was a square, bright office into which McPard led the way. Libbey was sitting on the desk, draining a bottle of tomato juice.

  “I heard you socked a guy, Donny,” he said. “Good!”

  “Out a minute,” McPard said.

  There was no color in Libbey’s face and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked a wreck but his air was breezy.

  “Okey.” He grinned at Donahue. “What did you hit him with, Donny, the bed?”

  “Out,” McPard said.

  Libbey went out, blowing his nose boisterously.

  McPard made a phone call downstairs and then leaned back in a swivel-chair. He removed his hat and patted his silky hair gently into place. His hands were white, the fingernails pink and neat.

  “You see,” he said, “there’s always been something screwy about this business. Ever since Cherry Bliss was bumped off you’ve been doing a shadow dance. The department is looking for the woman who was seen by three citizens as she left that place where you and I were held up by those heels. They think she has some connection with them. Or with you. Anyhow, they want to make sure.”

  “What has this pipe dream got to do with that?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know a thing. I like you, Donahue. I admire you. W
e’ve always been friends. But when you come between me and my job, no matter how much I like you I’ve got to do my job. I hope there’s no hard feelings.”

  “No.”

  “I thought so.”

  “I’m just crazy about the way things stand. I’m tickled pink.”

  “I thought you would be.”

  “Would you mind going to hell?”

  There was a knock on the door and a uniformed cop came in leading Manuel Christovão. The little dark youth had a wad of cotton taped to his cheek and there was a bandage around his eyes. The cop eased him into a chair and McPard, tranquil, said:

  “Okey, Monahan. You can go now.”

  The cop went out and the little dark man sat quietly on the chair with his hands resting on his knees.

  “Christovão,” McPard said, “what was the man’s name who assaulted you last night?”

  “It was Dono-something. Donnelly or Donahue.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He had on a yellow overcoat and a dark hat—dark brown or gray. It happened fast. He was big and dark and he had dark eyes and black hair. He held my face with one hand, so I couldn’t yell or get away and he socked me half a dozen times. When I got out in the street I wanted to get a taxi but my money was gone.”

  “What did the girl look like?”

  “She had brownish kinda hair, maybe she was a inch taller than me. She was a good-looker. Her name was Mary Stone. That was the name she gave me. But he called her Helen.”

  “How’d you come to go to her room?”

  “She asked me. She worked at the Trianon Dance Palace and I danced with her a lot and she asked me to come to her room. She wasn’t dressed much when I got there. She kissed me and the man broke in—”

  “That’s a damned lie!” Donahue broke in. “I never saw this guy before.”

  McPard said: “That sound like him?”

  Christovão had stiffened. “Yes,” he said.

  “Come on, Donny,” McPard said. “Who’s the skirt? What’s the racket? Be sensible.”

  Donahue laughed harshly. “What do you take me for, a sap? I tell you I never saw this guy before. It’s just your bad mind that thought of me when he said the name was Dono-something.”