Tough Bullet

by Peter McCurtin

  I put the short barrel of the .45 under his chin and dug it into the pink fat. When I took it away you could see the round mark it made. “Talk soft, Paddy,” I warned him—Hindman’s voice was still yelling out of the telephone— “Keep it down and maybe I’ll let you live.”

  A man with white whiskers and red flannel long Johns ran to the head of the stairs on the second floor and looked down. The face was as white as the whiskers. The gun in my hand sent him running back to his room.

  Rainford started to say I was all wrong about him. To stop him I put the .45 back under his chin. The clerk didn’t want to come out of the office when I told him to. I told him I’d kill him if he didn’t. When he came out, I took the gun away from Rainford and cracked the clerk along the side of the head. To keep him asleep for a while was the idea; I hit him again before his knees bent enough to let him lie down.

  Hindman’s voice was asking for Rainford. It was loud and raspy, with fits of coughing mixed in. With the gun in Rainford’s fat face, I waltzed him over to the telephone.

  “Tell him what he wants to hear,” I said. “Say another thing and I’ll blow your spine out through your belly.”

  Rainford choked a bit before he got his voice working right. Except for the old geezer in the red flannels, nobody came to ask what the shooting was all about. Constance Street sure was noisy.

  “What in hell’s wrong with you, Paddy?” I could hear Hindman saying. “Talk, will you, man. Is the bastard dead?”

  The .45 dug into Rainford’s back.

  “He’s dead,” Rainford said. “The boys nailed him good.”

  More squawking came from Hindman’s end.

  “Sure, Corley,” Rainford said. “I’ll ring the police and tell them what happened. “Sure, Corley, the cowboy tried to rob …That’s it, sure. Me and Benny were too quick for him and … That’s good, Corley, I’ll tell the boys to get back right away.”

  Hindman’s voice said he was obliged to Rainford for his cooperation. There was a click. Rainford didn’t know what to do. He stayed there with his fat mouth pushed up against the telephone. A belt across the kidneys reminded him that the conversation was over.

  “Rip the telephone off the wall,” I ordered him. I guess he wasn’t thinking straight, because he didn’t do it. Another bang in the kidneys woke him up and made him try. Fear had turned his muscles to jelly and the telephone didn’t budge. I could have done it myself with one hand. Mean was the way I felt; I wanted him to do it.

  “Try harder, Paddy,” I said. “Because the next thing hits you is a bullet.”

  “Good man,” I praised him when the flabby bastard got that telephone dismantled. It looked like there wasn’t a man, black or white, I could count on in the whole city of New Orleans. I didn’t have to hit Rainford after he wrecked the telephone. Sure, I took the bad feeling out on him. I hit him, and it made me feel better. I hit him again, and then I got tired of it. The next time I hit him was business, to keep him from getting word back to Hindman that I was still alive. The way he lay, it looked as if he might never wake up, and I wasn’t one bit sorry for that.

  I got over to Claffey Street fast. It didn’t take more than five minutes, and I went around through the alley to Hindman’s back door. Hindman would be expecting his two killers about now. I didn’t even have to pull a bluff: Hindman opened the door on the first knock.

  Gordy’s old-man mouth began to dribble when he saw the gun and the man behind it.

  “That wasn’t friendly, Gordy,” I told him, waving him backward with the gun. “It wasn’t nice, and it wasn’t friendly. And it wasn’t smart.”

  Hindman went back behind the desk and sat down, and I didn’t tell him not to. There would be some kind of gun in the desk, but Hindman was too old to try for it.

  The old bastard tried on a grin. “It was smart enough,” he said. “Only it didn’t work out. Well, so be it, as the feller said.”

  Next he tried the soft soap. “Should of knowed I couldn’t get the better of you, Carmody. I always did say you ...”

  “You should have listened to yourself,” I said. “I mean, when you said I was too fast to be double-crossed by an old man and back-shot by city trash. But we’ll let that go for a while. Where’s Minnie?”

  “Can we deal, Carmody?”

  I said I might let him live if he told me. He knew it was the best offer he was likely to get.

  “She’s holed up in a hotel at the foot of Poydras Street, near the river,” Hindman said. “The Hotel Garreau. Registered in the name of Elizabeth Delgado. That’s the gospel truth, Carmody.”

  “That better be so, Gordy. You steer me wrong and I’ll be back. You know that.”

  Hindman looked surprised. “You mean you ain’t going to kill me?”

  I nodded.

  Hindman mopped his mouth. “Well, then, I’d better tell the truth. The whore’s at a hotel on Girod Street. Registered as Catherine Marais. The name of the hotel is the La Hache.”

  I didn’t know what to make of the old bastard. He was so crooked, I figured they’d have to screw him into the ground when he died—which might not be too far in the future, the way he was going. I told him to forget the eleven thousand. I said it wasn’t worth it. Not the way I’d kill him if he crossed me again.

  I went out the way I came in. Basso was going in the front door when I stepped out of the alley on to Claffey Street. Basso’s hard hat rode high on his bullet head; a thin line of bandage showed under the hat brim. The Captain was in right bad humor; a drunk got in his way and was knocked, puking, into the gutter. The way he hit the swinging doors threatened to knock them off the hinges.

  I had to move fast. A kid was going by in a spring wagon. “Hang on, mister,” he said when I waved a five dollar bill in his face and let him take it. He whipped up the horse and headed down Jackson Avenue toward the waterfront. The light delivery wagon bounced all over the cobblestones on the docks and with my weight I didn’t sit as light as the kid.

  The Hotel La Hache looked to be a hundred years old. About the same number of years had gone by since the paint on it was new. Two wooden buttresses were doing their best to keep the front wall from falling into the street. At least some of the windows on all four floors were broken and the ones with rags stuffed in the holes were the better rooms, I decided. I had seen worse looking rattraps than the Hotel La Hache, but I couldn’t remember them offhand.

  The fat man behind the desk was a Mexican or a Cuban, something like that. He looked dead, but he was only dead drunk. He filled the swivel chair he was in like an egg in an eggcup. Or maybe like jelly in a bowl, because some of the fat oozed over the arms of the chair. The smell he gave off wasn’t quite as bad as a dead horse left for a week in the sun.

  “Miss Marais’ room,” I said. “Wake up, Pancho.”

  A gold tooth made a dull glint in his dirty mouth. “Pancho?” he said, spreading his fat hands, palms up. “Is no Pancho here, gringo.”

  In maybe another five minutes Basso would be knocking down the front door of the Hotel La Hache. There was no one else in the smelly lobby. I took out the Smith & Wesson and cocked it. “It’s a real gun,” I told the fat man.

  “Room Nine, second floor,” he said, polite as only a scared fat man can be polite when he wants to be.

  “Is she there now?” I asked.

  The fat man showed me his palms again. “Who can say?” he said. “Sometimes I sleep.”

  “More sleep is what you need,” I said, going around behind the desk. I don’t know why he thought I wanted to kill him. But he did, and he tried to get his fat carcass out of the chair. I hit him where his neck bulged out behind. There was so much fat, I had to hit him again before his eyes closed and the fat bulk sagged back into the chair. I guess he was comfortable enough; he began to snore.

  The bottle he was drinking from was under the desk, still half full of tequila. After I wiped it off good, I took a drink and spilled what was left over the fat man’s shirt. I stuck the empty bottle
between his thick legs and left it there.

  A door behind the desk opened into a small room full of broken furniture. Boards were nailed over the window, and it was dark. With the door halfway open I waited for Basso.

  Chapter Seven

  A little man with a leather cap stuck on the back of his head came down the stairs and went out. The spring bell on the door was still jingling when Basso walked in. When Basso walked in anywhere the floor shook under his two hundred and fifty pounds, and he looked more like a bull than a man. A bull in a loud suit walking on its hind legs. The biggest and toughest bull in New Orleans.

  There was an old punch bell on the desk. Basso didn’t use it. He kicked the front of the desk with his double-soled boots. I could imagine some of the other things Basso kicked with those boots. When all the yelling didn’t wake up the clerk, Basso went behind the desk and rocked the fat man’s head with some pretty good slaps.

  I wanted to be sure. I didn’t tell Basso to put his hands up until he turned his back, and he sure as hell didn’t want to do it. I couldn’t see the red in his face, but the color ran around the sides of his bull’s neck.

  “Put your right hand behind your head, then drop your gun with the other hand,” I told him. “Don’t hurry—nice and slow. Then take off that coat and drop it. After that turn around all the way. Then take two giant steps toward the stairs.”

  It looked like this was my day for short-barreled Smith & Wessons. Basso carried it in a shoulder holster, and there were no other guns in sight when he took off the coat. His meaty face wasn’t just red when he turned around; it was close to purple. I guess it was kind of hard on him, the meanest bull in New Orleans, being taken twice in the same day, by the same man.

  Putting the boots to any kind of lawman is one thing I like to do. “We keep this up, chief, you’re going to run out of guns. I sure hope you don’t have to pay for them yourself.”

  The red stayed in Basso’s face, but his eyes were cold, his voice, too. “You better kill me now, Carmody,” he said. “Because if you don’t I’m going to rip out your guts.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the boys,” I said. “You think the whole world wets its pants when you walk by. Maybe you’re pretty good beating up sneak thieves and sick whores. Now me, I think you’re just a thief who doesn’t have the guts to do it out in the open. Like the rest of us thieves.”

  I didn’t expect Basso to grin. “That’s because I’m smarter than you are,” he said. “You aren’t smart at all, cowboy. Or you’d be long gone from New Orleans.”

  I grinned back at him, “Let’s go on up to Minnie’s room, and we’ll talk some more. Start climbing those stairs.”

  I kept well away from Basso. He didn’t like it when I wouldn’t let him get out of the way after he knocked on the door. Nobody shot through the door, and I told Basso to break it down. One kick from the double-soled boots did the trick.

  The room was dark and hot and the man lying on the floor with a knife in his chest wasn’t making any noise. The window shade wouldn’t go up. Basso ripped it down, scattering dust. Basso felt the side of the dead man’s neck and straightened up.

  “How long?” I asked him.

  “Hard to say, maybe an hour. Did you do it?”

  “Come on, Basso.”

  “All right,” Basso said. “I guess you didn’t do it.”

  “And I didn’t kill Gertie.”

  Basso looked at me. “That’s what you keep saying. If you didn’t, then who did?”

  “Maybe you did, Basso. You knew about me the minute I hit town. Got a telegram from Hot Springs describing me. Knew about the eleven thousand. Tipped off Gertie and got me robbed. Then you double-crossed Gertie, killed her or had her killed, and rigged it so the mountain would fall on me.”

  “You ought to be a detective,” Basso said. “A detective in the Ladies Auxiliary.”

  I kept the gun on him while he went through the dead man’s pockets. I knew it was George Verrier before Basso found a wallet and said that’s who it was. The face was dark, like Minnie’s, and the features were the same. George was wearing an old-fashioned ruffled shirt of the kind you hardly ever see any more. It hadn’t been washed lately, and the cuffs were frayed.

  “You know who he is?” Basso asked.

  “You’re off duty right now, officer. I’ll ask the questions.”

  Basso paid no mind to that. Acting tough was a habit hard to break. “For Christ’s sake, cowboy, do you know him or not.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “No reason to tell you.”

  I didn’t know whether to believe Basso when he said, “Maybe you didn’t kill Gertie. And, for Christ’s sake, don’t keep saying I did.”

  I asked him why not.

  Now Basso was hedging again. “Because if you killed Gertie, there was no reason not to kill me when you had the chance. They couldn’t hang you but once.”

  “Not good enough, Basso. Maybe that explains why I didn’t kill her. But what about you?”

  Basso gave up trying to fool me. Least I think he did. “No reason for me to kill Gertie,” he said. “None at all. I own Gertie’s—she just worked for me. We got along fine. I get along fine with everybody. A lot of people all over town work for me. We get along fine. That’s the way business should be, profitable and peaceful. No holding out, no double-dealing. Why, man, I get a cut of just about everything but the Sunday collections. I let that go; I’m not greedy. Why in hell should I risk everything to get a lousy eleven thousand dollars?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It sounds sensible enough the way you tell it. Supposing you’re out of it—what about Gertie? Maybe she got tired of working for wages?”

  Basso moved his strong brown teeth like grindstones. He was impatient, or acting that way. “Gertie worked for me for close to eleven years. She got a percentage of the take and never pulled down less than two thousand a month. Gertie was worth more than you stole in your whole life.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “What happens now?”

  Basso took his hands down. I told him to put them back where they were. I asked him the same question.

  “Nobody messes with Ned Basso,” he said. “That goes for you too, cowboy.”

  I sure as hell was messing with him, but I didn’t press the point.

  Basso said, “It took me fifteen years to get this town the way I want it. I run things my way, and when I say something I make it stick. Everybody’s got their hand out—the Mayor, the City Council, the Chief of Police. They got their business interests, and I got mine. Gertie was one of them, and I aim to do something about it. If I don’t the whole thing could fall to pieces.”

  “Which makes you an honest crook,” I said. “Business as usual is what you want?”

  Basso grinned. “Somebody’s got to pay for Gertie,” he said. “You would have done fine.”

  “You think Minnie Haha did it?” I asked him. “She did run away. And now there’s her brother.”

  “What brother?”

  “The dead man on the floor.”

  “Oh,” said Basso. “On the floor.”

  “Not on the ceiling, officer.”

  “You got a big mouth, cowboy,” Basso said. “Someday it’s going to get you in a lot of trouble.”

  I was thinking. “How did Gertie know who I was?”

  “Because I told her,” Basso answered. “On the telephone. I had a man watching you from the minute you got into town. He telephoned me and said you’d gone into Gertie’s place. I telephoned Gertie and told her you were a bad lad from out West. To knock you on the head—to kill you, if that didn’t work. I mean, if you tried to burn the place.”

  On the face of it, Basso’s story made some sense. Looking at him it was easy to believe he had a heavy interest in every dirty business in New Orleans. Of course, he’d listened to so many smooth stories in his time that making one up for me would be no trouble at all.

  Basso said, “I know what you’re thinking, Carmody. You’re thinking
you could ruin me with what I just told you. Don’t you believe it. What could you do—tell the Chief of Police? I got enough on the chief to hang him—and not just in a manner of speaking. Now you want to deal with me or not?”

  “Answer this first,” I told him. “I crippled a city detective, killed the black and two of Corley Harkins’ gunmen in the Fenian Hotel. All in self defense, naturally. Where does that leave me, even if I didn’t kill Gertie?”

  “Shooting that detective was bad business, Carmody. I guess he’ll be all right. The others— well, I’d say we can file it under Miscellaneous. Soon as the Gertie killing is cleared up you can get the hell out of my town.”

  “With my eleven thousand,” I reminded him.

  Basso was all crook. He grinned. “Filing things under Miscellaneous costs money, cowboy. Fifty-five hundred, to be exact about it. That’s the deal. The only one in town.”

  It was something to think about. There was only one thing that said maybe I should deal with Basso. Like him or not, and I didn’t, the man looked like a professional. A professional lawman and a professional crook. Most of the time you can’t trust lawmen with sticky fingers. In a pinch some of them turn out to be more lawman than thief. Or they get scared and try to double back and prove they were true-blue fellers after all.

  Basso wasn’t like that. He wasn’t just a crooked bull; he was a businessman. I like to do business with a man who knows his business and wants to protect it.

  “Here’s your gun back,” I said, tossing the second Smith & Wesson his way. He caught it easily with his left hand. Looking at me, he checked the loads and spun the chamber. He hefted the short-barreled .45, looking to see how I took it. Finally, the gun went into the shoulder holster.

  “Okay,” he said. “First you talk. Don’t hold back, cowboy. It wastes time. You want that money, and I want you gone from New Orleans. What about this dead man?”

  I told him about the letters I found in Minnie’s dresser. I said that George there on the floor was having trouble keeping his head above swamp water. Kept asking if Minnie could send money to save the family honor. And he wasn’t at home to receive my telegraph message.