Cougar growled, “I don’t like the way you talk, buster.”
“Then lump it,” Mac said indifferently.
The Strangler stiffened and the stem of his glass snapped between powerful fingers. The girl touched his arm, which kept him in his seat, but his eyes turned icily cruel.
“You are direct,” the girl said. “Where you from, Mac?”
“Out of town,” Mac said shortly.
“Hot?”
Mac shook his head. “I leave places before I get hot. The only thing any cop could pin on me is carrying a gun without a license.”
Nan Tracy’s eyes half closed and she regarded him contemplatively through the slits. She asked slowly, “What would you be willing to do with your gun for five hundred dollars a week?”
Mac looked at her expressionlessly for a long time before answering. “Depends,” he said finally. “In a safe setup—anything. In a risky one I didn’t like—nothing. And by risky, I mean gunning the law. I’ll go up against other guns, if the chance of a rap is slim enough.”
“Suppose we go up to my place and talk it over,” the girl suggested.
“What can I lose but my time,” Mac suggested.
Nan’s “place” turned out to be an apartment on the seventh floor of the exclusive Plaza Towers. Nan opened the door with a key, stepped in and then turned to face Mac with her hand out.
“I’ll take your hat,” she said, her face as still as usual, but her eyes smiling.
As Mac handed it to her, he heard the door click shut behind him and started to glance casually over his shoulder at Cougar, who had entered last. He stopped with his head half-turned when he felt hard metal press against his spine.
“Just don’t move,” said the girl, her eyes still smiling.
Mac stood motionless as her hand slid under his coat and removed his automatic. Efficiently she patted his pockets and hips for other weapons, then backed away, dropped Mac’s hat on an end table and seated herself in a soft chair.
She pointed Mac’s gun at him and said softly, “All right, Thomas. You may put it away, now.”
The pressure disappeared from Mac’s back and the Strangler carefully circled toward a sofa so that he did not pass between Mac and the automatic.
“What’s the pitch?” Mac growled.
“Sit down,” the girl suggested, motioning toward an easy chair directly opposite her own.
Mac sank into the chair, stretched his legs with an aplomb he did not feel and repeated, “What’s the pitch?”
“Just being careful,” Nan said. “Now tell me all about yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Cougar put in sulkily, “I’ll test my grip on your throat if you don’t.”
Mac glanced at the man’s mummified face, let his eyes drop to the long narrow fingers which were gently massaging each other, and hastily looked back at the girl.
“What do you want to know?”
Nan Tracy looked him over thoughtfully before replying. Her lovely face was strictly business. She said, “You can start by telling us your real name.”
“MacDowell,” Mac said. “Larry MacDowell. I told you I wasn’t hot, so why should I use a fake name?”
Nan glanced inquiringly over at Cougar, who said grudgingly:
“Sounds faintly familiar, but I can’t place where I heard it. A guy as fancy with a rod as this Joe, I ought to have heard of. I keep my ear pretty close to the grapevine. But he don’t ring a bell.”
Dissatisfaction showed in his expression and his tone became almost querulous. “You jumped at him too fast. Suppose he turns out to be a cop, or maybe a Fed? Now he knows something’s up, and you can’t just kick him out. So we got a body on our hands.”
Mac quirked his lips in what was meant to be an insolent grin, but which he feared more resembled a sickly one.
Nan’s voice developed an edge of ice. “Since you were let in on my next higher contact, you’ve begun to cultivate a bad habit, Thomas. I still do your thinking for you, and if you get too big for your boots, the boss may order you buried in them.”
Cougar’s already pale face turned even paler and he muttered something about only trying to be helpful. Mac’s mind sifted over the words, Next higher contact, and came to the tentative conclusion that more than one link in the organization of Homicide, Inc., existed above Nan. At the same time he experienced mild surprise that the emotionless Cougar exhibited such fear at mention of the boss. He mentally filed the knowledge for future reference.
Nan turned her attention back to Mac. “Who have you been connected with, Mac? Give us some references. Something we can check.”
Her eyes still seemed to be smiling, but her lips were a hard straight line. Mac felt a flood of thankfulness that he had briefed himself for just such an emergency, “John Hagen in New Orleans,” he said. “Jimmy Dow in L. A.”
“Hagen—” Cougar started to say, then stopped and looked at Nan apologetically.
“Go on, Thomas,” she said.
Encouraged, he swung his gaze back to Mac, and suspicion mixed in his eyes with the hostility already there. “Hagen’s dead and Dow’s at Alcatraz,” he said coldly.
Mac shrugged. “Barrel-Head Morgan in St. Louis.”
Nan’s expression showed interest. “We did some work for him once,” she said to Cougar. “Put in a call.”
The Strangler went into the hallway and they could hear him giving a St. Louis number to the operator. Five minutes passed while the girl’s grave eyes examined Mac without expression.
Mac employed the time to glance around the room, noting two of the doors leading off it seemed to lead to bedrooms.
Cougar came back and spat, “Morgan’s on a Mediterranean cruise. How many more guys who aren’t available can you dream up?” His expression had changed from suspicion to open disbelief.
Mac glanced at Nan’s face, noting something new there which was not exactly suspicion, but a kind of alertness. A bead of cold sweat trickled down his side, but he managed to say unconcernedly, “Those boys were before my time. Try my last boss, Dude Emory in Philly. He was alive and present a month ago.”
Cougar started to turn toward the hall again, but Nan said, “Wait, Thomas. I’ll call him myself.”
She waited while Cougar drew a revolver from beneath his arm and covered Mac, then lowered her own gun and went into the hall.
Again Mac sat quietly while the call went through, but this time his muscles were bunched to throw himself at Cougar at the first intimation that his masquerade had failed. For Dude Emory was his hole card, and unless he spoke the proper words, Mac knew he was as good as dead.
Only two weeks before, the FBI fingerprint department had identified as Larry MacDowell an unclaimed accident victim lying in a Brooklyn morgue. No news release had been made for the specific purpose of letting Mac use his name.
Their physical descriptions roughly tallied, but Mac was counting more on the psychology of his acting than on physical resemblance. Most persons in describing someone do not say something like, “A man weighing 240 pounds, light brown hair, gray eyes, freckles, a hook nose and a dimple in his chin.” Instead they say, “A big fellow with horn-rimmed glasses, who is always pursing his lips and talks about nothing but baseball.”
Mac hoped that Emory’s description would be something like, “A stocky guy of average height who sort of bounces when he moves. Wears his hat on the back of his head and always has a mocking grin, like he doesn’t give a damn about anything.”
There was a good possibility the stunt would work, but there was also a double risk. Possibly Larry MacDowell’s death had been gangland vengeance, rather than the accident it seemed, in which case Dude Emory undoubtedly would be aware of it through the underworld grapevine. And also Emory might mention the cheek
scar MacDowell bore, which MacDonald Sprague lacked. Mac found himself wishing Cougar had made the call instead of Nan for the alert light in her eyes warned him she would not be too easily fooled.
When Nan finally returned, Mac forced his gaze to meet hers, and immediately he knew he had won, for there was a faint touch of respect in her eyes.
* * * *
“Dude Emory seems to think you’re the devil on wheels with a gun, Mac.” She handed back his automatic butt first. “Sorry for the inconvenience, but we don’t take any chances.”
“That’s all right,” Mac said agreeably, concealing his flood of relief. “I prefer working for an outfit that doesn’t.”
He slipped the automatic back in its holster and stared pointedly at the revolver still in Cougar’s hand. Slowly the Strangler replaced it beneath his arm, but none of the hostility disappeared from his eyes, and very little of the suspicion, This guy is going to watch me, Mac told himself, and I better watch him if I want to stay alive.
Nan had returned to her chair and was eying Mac speculatively. “How would you like to work for Homicide, Incorporated?” she asked abruptly.
Mac sat up straight and forced a look of surprise on to his face. “Homicide, Inc.! I’ve heard of that, and it’s bigger than any of the guys I mentioned. Don’t tell me that outfit is run by a woman!”
“I won’t tell you anything,” she said in a suddenly cold voice. “Who runs it is none of your business. You’ll get your orders and your salary from me. Who I get them from is something you don’t have to know, and if you try to find out, Thomas will discourage the attempt by squeezing your throat until you stop breathing—permanently.”
“All right,” Mac said agreeably. “I won’t pry. Just so I get paid regularly, and know I’ll be taken care of if I get in a jam.”
“You’ll get five hundred a week, and if you get in a pinch, the best legal talent in the country will be retained to defend you.”
“You’ve got a new employee,” Mac said.
For the first time Nan almost smiled; but instead of being reassured, coldness crept along Mac’s spine.
She turned to Cougar and said, “You better run along now, Thomas. I want to talk to Mac for a while.”
The already tight skin seemed to tighten even more across the Strangler’s narrow face, and his eyes shot open hatred at Mac. But he rose obediently, muttered a good night and left.
As soon as the door closed behind Cougar, Nan’s brittle mask seemed to melt away. For a moment she stood staring at the door with a kind of uneasy relief, looking more like a bewildered young girl than a lieutenant in a murder organization. Again Mac experienced a sense of shock at the combination of sympathy and revulsion her two faceted character aroused in him.
“I hate him!” she said in a low voice. “I’ve wished him dead a thousand times!”
Mac looked at her with his mouth open, unable to correlate her obvious fear and detestation of Cougar with the cold and domineering manner in which she ordered him around. If she really wished the man dead, she was certainly in a position to get him that way. He wondered if for some obscure reason she was putting on an act, and resolved to guard his reactions carefully.
She shook herself like a kitten throwing off water, moved over to Mac’s chair, took his hand and led him to the sofa. Puzzledly he sat beside her while she continued to hold his hand tightly.
“I’m afraid,” she said simply. “I needed you badly.”
On guard, he examined her face, noting the wild excitement deep in her eyes. For a moment he thought the excitement was amorous, and wondered how he could duck such a squeamish situation, for he had no desire to make love to his brother’s murderess. But immediately he sensed it was something else—an uncertainty and something closely allied to terror.
She released his hand suddenly, clasped both of hers in her lap and looked up at him with a strange mixture of hope and wariness in her expression.
“I’m glad you’ve come in with me, Mac,” she said, then added quickly, “With us, I mean.”
A theory began to form in Mac’s mind, a theory that explained her dialogue with Cougar as well as her present action, which he half suspected was a deliberate act. The theory was that Nan was the real head of Homicide, Inc., and her talk of a “next higher contact” plus her present act was deliberate red herring.
At the same time she looked so frightened, so small and so defenseless, he automatically dropped a protective arm across her shoulders, one part of his mind half believing she really needed masculine protection, and the other part regarding himself with amazed disgust. Her head tilted upward, and in spite of his resolution, he kissed her. For a second he completely forgot himself.
* * * *
Her lips clung to his coolly. For a moment he completely forgot she was a murderess, forgot his mission, forgot everything but the soft outline of her mouth. Then recollection sent a wave of revulsion over him and he jerked back so suddenly, Nan’s eyes widened in surprise.
At the same moment the door opened quietly and a woman entered from the hall.
She was a slim, shy-appearing brunette of about twenty-eight, pretty in a delicate-featured, subdued sort of way, but the type that instinctively huddle in the background and are therefore overlooked.
She gave an embarrassed cough, and stood twisting the strap of her bag uncertainly.
“Why, Claire,” Nan said in a surprised voice. “Is it after five?”
“Five-thirty,” Claire said apologetically.
Mac rose and Nan said, “This is Mr. MacDowell, Claire. Claire D’Arcy, Mac. She shares the apartment with me.”
Nan’s air of defenselessness had vanished, and her eyes were again brittle and mocking. “Claire is a working girl. Chief file clerk for Argus Mutual. She toils from eight to five while I flit from cafe to cocktail lounge, and secretly she disapproves of me.”
“Why, I do no such thing!” Claire said, coloring.
Mac lowered his lids to conceal the flash of interest inspired by the name, Argus Mutual. But he made no attempt to slow his racing mind.
The leak at Argus was immediately obvious, yet so simple it was no wonder it worked. One look at Claire D’Arcy was enough to indicate that her company would regard her as above suspicion, as she probably was. Even if they knew of Nan, it would never occur to Argus that the attractive apartment-mate of their chief file clerk was part of Homicide, Inc. Nor would it occur to the shy girl, who undoubtedly was glad of a sympathetic audience to listen to her story of the day’s work, never suspecting she was furnishing information to the most ruthless murder gang in the country.
The simplicity and audacity of the plan almost shocked Mac into letting jubilation show on his face. Instead, he greeted the girl civilly and mumbled something about having to run along.
“Come take me to dinner tomorrow night,” Nan told him at the door. “Be here at six and I’ll make you a cocktail first.” She added in a lower voice, “We can’t talk in front of Claire.”
As Mac’s taxi pulled away from the Plaza Towers, Mac saw by a glance through the rear window that another cab a quarter block back pulled out a moment later.
“Union Hotel,” he told the driver. “And don’t bother trying to lose our tail.”
Startled, the cabbie glanced at his rear-view mirror, then shrugged and kept silent.
The other taxi went on by when Mac’s driver stopped in front of the Union Hotel’s main entrance. Without glancing at it, Mac paid off his driver and entered the hotel. From the corner of his eye he saw the second taxi park fifty yards down the street.
At the desk he got his key, then entered the elevator with several other passengers.
“Two,” he said to the operator.
Getting out at the second floor, he walked quickly to the stairs, descended a half-flight an
d peered over the banister into the lobby. Thomas Cougar and a gangling, freckle-faced man who seemed to be with him were talking to the desk clerk.
Something passed from Cougar’s hand to that of the clerk who glanced at it, grinned delightedly and began bobbing his head in eager subservience.
Mac drew back out of sight, mounted stairs to the third floor and let himself into his room. It was only six o’clock, and he stretched himself on the bed until it got dark.
When it had grown quite dark, he went into the bathroom, turned on the light and wrote a detailed report of the day’s events. Then without turning on the room light, he crossed his bedroom to the window, noiselessly raised it and carefully scanned the street below.
A window stick used for opening and closing the upper part of the window hung from a bracket on the wall. Mac rapped its brass head sharply against the ceiling three times. A moment later a tin can suspended from a string descended from the window above him and gently settled on the outer ledge. Mac stuffed his report into the can, and it immediately rose again.
Silently closing the window again, Mac slipped on his coat to go downstairs for dinner. As he pulled shut his door, he glanced along the hall casually, and saw what he expected to see. Diagonally across the hall from his room a door stood open about an inch, and the room beyond was dark. Apparently Thomas Cougar’s suspicions were far from allayed by the phone call to Dude Emory, and he intended to have every move Mac made watched.
Without glancing at the slightly ajar door again, Mac made straight for the elevator. A half hour later, when he came up again, his room had been expertly searched. So expertly that even though he had expected it, he himself had to look for ten minutes before he found evidence of the search in the form of a pair of socks replaced in an order different from the way he had memorized it.
* * * *
At exactly six the next evening Mac rang the buzzer of Nan’s apartment. But instead of Nan answering the door, it was opened by Claire D’Arcy, who wore a simple blue house dress.
The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 2
