The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

by Deming, Richard

  At the door she gave me a passionate goodbye kiss.

  When I rejoined Jud in the hotel lobby, he asked, “What’s the pitch, Sam? Don’t tell me some chippie is trying to operate out of an exclusive joint like this.”

  “Hardly,” I told him. “I was just making a personal call. Blonde I met last night.”

  “I met a blonde night before last,” he said reminiscently. “Wait till you meet her. She’ll make that gloomy face of yours light up like a neon sign.”

  The rest of that day was routine. We followed up a couple of tips on new houses that were supposed to be trying to open up, but drew blanks on both investigations. Late in the afternoon we cruised the bars along Sixth Street, Jud taking one side of the street and I taking the other. In one a girl of about sixteen made a pass at me, but she wasn’t a professional. Apparently she was just a kid looking for a little excitement, and after scaring the pants off her with a lecture, I let her go. Fortunately for the bar, she had only been drinking Coke, so all the bar keep got was a few harsh words about letting minors hang around his place.

  Jud didn’t run into anything.

  “We’ve got a pretty clean town for a city our size,” Jud remarked as we checked in at 404 just before going off duty. “I’d hate to see the syndicate get a hand hold on St. Louis and do to it what they’ve done to some other places.”

  I told him to wait for me while I had a conference with Lieutenant Boxer. From across the room he watched curiously as I handed the lieutenant the money I had received from Jacqueline and gave him a brief report of what had happened.

  When I joined Jud again, he asked, “What’s all this secret business between you and the head?”

  “A little undercover work I’m doing,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  But the opportunity never came up. Jud took me to the Statler for dinner, on the way to the dining room stopping at the desk and asking to speak to a Miss Maurine Hahn. He looked both disappointed and puzzled when the clerk informed him the woman had checked out the day before without leaving a forwarding address.

  “Your blonde?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He gave a small shrug. “Well, I guess she isn’t the only blonde in the world.”

  Then we ran into a man from the circuit attorney’s office Jud knew, and with his usual exuberance Jud talked him into joining our party. After dinner we hit a couple of clubs, Jud insisting on picking up all the checks because of his lucky horse hit, and by the time the bars closed at one-thirty we had added a reporter friend of Jud’s and two stray brunettes the reporter knew. Alone I can cruise from bar to bar all night without having anyone but an occasional hustler so much as speak to me, but when Jud celebrates he always accumulates a retinue before the evening is over.

  In the general confusion I never did get around to telling him what I had been doing for Lieutenant Boxer.

  The next morning in police court I put on my little act for Minnie Joy. Since she had no defense attorney, I spoke to the judge before trial and told him that for reasons of policy connected with another case, the morality squad wanted to quash the charge against Minnie.

  “Lieutenant Boxer approve this?” he wanted to know.

  “It’s his idea.”

  “All right,” he said, and dismissed the case.

  Minnie was so surprised, an attendant had to start her toward the door before she realized she was free. Apparently she had no inkling of Jacqueline’s efforts on her behalf.

  That evening, disregarding the blonde Jacqueline’s instructions to wait until I heard from her, I phoned the Jefferson.

  Miss Jacqueline Crosby had checked out without leaving a forwarding address, the desk informed me.

  Two days later she phoned me at headquarters.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “A friend loaned me an apartment,” she said, “so I moved from the hotel. Thanks for what you did for Minnie.”

  “Don’t mention it. You made it worthwhile.”

  “Busy tonight?”

  “No.”

  She reeled off an address on Lindell just west of Grand Avenue. “Apartment 3-C. Come about eight and we’ll spend a quiet evening at home.”

  Her soft voice was so loaded with promise, I very nearly decided to play it straight and forget reporting this development to the head of the morality squad. But after ten years of practice, it’s a little difficult to go against routine. Dutifully I went over to Lieutenant Boxer’s desk and told him about the phone call.

  His eyes narrowed when I mentioned the address. “Interesting,” he said. “You knew the chief was having Monk Cartelli covered, didn’t you?”

  “You mentioned he intended to.”

  “Well, for your information, the address for your date with your beautiful blonde is the same apartment where Cartelli is holed up.”

  In a way this made me even more eager to keep the date, but not for the same reason. It effectively killed any romantic aspirations I had developed because of the promise in Jacqueline’s tone.

  I suppose the normal thing for a man to do who has an assignation with a lovely blonde is to adjust his necktie a final time just before he rings the doorbell. Instead I loosened my Detective Special in its holster.

  Jacqueline opened the door. For a change she was attired merely in an ordinary dress, and not a particularly sexy one at that. She didn’t offer to kiss me either. However, she gave me an intimate smile as she held the door wide for me to enter.

  I wasn’t particularly surprised to find three other men in the room, but I managed to simulate surprise.

  I looked from Monk Cartelli, who stood with his back to an artificial fireplace, to the two mugs who sat side by side on the sofa. Both were strangers to me, one long and thin and the other squat and chunky, but they had two things in common. Each had the deadpan expression of the professional killer.

  The other thing they had in common was the .45 caliber automatic each leveled at my belt buckle. “What’s the gag?” I asked Jacqueline.

  “No gag,” Monk Cartelli smoothly answered for her. “Don’t let the guns worry you. They’re just insurance that you stay quiet until you hear what I have to say. We won’t even inconvenience you by disarming you, Sergeant. Just back against the wall there and keep your arms at your sides.”

  With my eyes on the nonchalantly-held .45’s, I did as ordered. Then we waited nearly ten minutes in complete silence. Once, when I started to ask what we were waiting for, Monk silenced me with an imperious gesture. All this time the two hoods watched me unblinkingly, and Jacqueline sat with her hands quietly folded in her lap, apparently perfectly at ease, though her gaze avoided mine.

  Finally the door buzzer sounded. Jacqueline rose, went to the door and ushered in my partner, Jud Harrison.

  Chapter 5

  Just as I had, Jud gaped at the other occupants of the apartment in surprise, but his surprise seemed genuine. A sick feeling grew inside of me as I realized something that I suppose, in a way, I’d known unconsciously all along—that Jud’s five hundred dollars had not come from a horse bet.

  “Is this your Maurine Hahn from the Statler?” I asked him cynically, nodding at Jacqueline.

  His eyes flicked at the blonde, then back to me. “Yeah. What the devil you doing here, Sam?”

  “The same thing you are, sucker. Only the name she gave me was Jacqueline Crosby and her supposed sister’s name was Minnie Joy. I suppose she told you that other hustler you got off in court the other day was her sister.”

  Cartelli broke up further conversation by ordering Jud to stand against the wall next to me.

  “I don’t want any violence, gentlemen,” he said. “As soon as you’ve listened to a couple of recordings and heard what I have to say, I’ll order my men to put up their guns. By that time I t
hink you will have sufficiently come around to my point of view so that they won’t be necessary. Meantime I prefer to prevent argument by keeping you under control.”

  Crossing to a small table containing a phonograph, Cartelli switched the machine on.

  For a few seconds there was only a dull scratching sound, then what was unmistakably my voice said, “About your sister.”

  “Minnie Joy?” Jacqueline’s voice said. “Will you really help her, Sam?”

  Relentlessly the record continued to reel off the conversation which had taken place between me and the blonde in her hotel suite until it reached the point where Jacqueline said, “No, Sam. It’s worth it to me. And you will be taking a risk, won’t you? I mean giving false testimony. You ought to have something for that. Take this five hundred. I can afford it.”

  Then Cartelli shut it off. Replacing the record with another, he turned on the machine again. This one played an almost identical scene, except that Jud’s voice was substituted for mine and the case the blonde was bribing him to fix involved a woman named Jean Darling instead of Minnie Joy.

  When Monk Cartelli shut off the second record, there was a long silence in the room.

  I broke it by asking without emotion, “How many other cops have you suckered into this deal?”

  “No cops,” the syndicate organizer said smugly. “We netted a young assistant in the circuit attorney’s office, though, plus a young fellow in the coroner’s office. We aren’t rushing things. We’re just lining up a few people at a time.”

  Next to me Jud said worriedly, “What is this deal, Sam?”

  “We’ve been set up,” I told him in a cold voice. “I guess we both thought we were making an easy and safe five hundred. But it was a trap. Those records mailed to the police commissioner not only would get us bounced off the force, they’d land us in jail. The chief thought the syndicate might be feeling around to see who’d be susceptible to bribery, but apparently plans were a little more definite than that. Cartelli here is lining up cops and other officials in strategic spots who will have to take orders from the syndicate. We’re hooked, Jud. We might as well face it.”

  Jud’s face was sweating. “Listen,” he said, “just because I agreed to get this blonde’s sister off the hook for a fee doesn’t mean I’m willing to play along with the syndicate.”

  “Rather go to jail?” Cartelli asked idly.

  Jud stared at him. The bitterness grew in me almost unbearably when I saw his face begin to go to pieces.

  “What do you want of us?” I asked Cartelli harshly.

  “Just your unquestioning future cooperation, for which you’ll be paid more than you ever earned before.”

  “Why us?” I demanded. “We’re just a couple of unimportant cops. Why didn’t you pick on a few division heads?”

  “We plan on both you men being division heads before we’re through, Sergeant. We’re just beginning to organize. When we have helped into office the officials we want, we’ll be in a position to dictate appointments and promotions in the police department. We plan long in advance, and we may not reach that point for several years. But when we do, we want men we know will cooperate. Both of you have everything to gain by being picked by the syndicate. A few years from now one of you will head the morality squad and the other will probably head one of the other squads. And what we pay you on the side will make your salaries look like peanuts.”

  Jud’s expression gradually grew calmer as the syndicate organizer spoke. When Cartelli stopped, Jud looked at me questioningly, and the mixture of thoughtfulness and cupidity in his eyes made me even sicker than his panic a while before.

  “You might as well tell your men to put their guns up,” I told Cartelli wearily.

  Monk looked from me to Jud in an estimating way, then nodded to the two hoods, who obediently thrust their guns under their arms.

  “I guess we’ll have to go along, won’t we, Sam?” Jud asked. “I mean, we haven’t much choice, have we?”

  “You haven’t,” I told him. “But I happen to be a plant. The department knows all about the bribe I took.”

  As I spoke I flashed my hand to my hip and came up with a cocked Detective Special.

  “You’re all under arrest,” I said in a brittle voice.

  Jud gaped at me. “You… you’re a department plant, Sam? But… but how about me?”

  “You should have thought of that before you took a bribe, Jud.”

  I said gently, “Get their guns.”

  “Listen,” he said. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

  “You took an oath when you became a cop,” I told him. “The minute you violated that oath, you stopped being my friend and became a crooked cop. I’m sorry, Jud, but you’re going in too.”

  His hand stole toward his hip.

  “Hold it,” I advised him, shifting my gun in his direction.

  With my attention momentarily on Jud, the two hoods decided to make a break. As their hands streaked toward their armpits, I started to swing back toward them.

  Jud’s shoulder caught me in the hip and sent me sprawling.

  All hell broke loose.

  Both gunmen’s .45’s roared simultaneously and plaster spewed from the wall. I took my time with two shots and knocked the squat man back to the couch with my first. The second caught the taller gunman in the forehead and he dropped like a stone.

  Monk Cartelli had crouched behind an overstuffed chair, and now a shot crashed from that direction. Jud, still on his feet, slammed back against the wall, slid to the floor and from a seated position sent five slugs at the chair. Cartelli jerked erect and pitched over on his back.

  Slowly I climbed to my feet and surveyed the damage.

  Both gunmen and Cartelli were dead. The blonde cowered in a corner, unharmed but green with fright. Ordering her to stay there, I looked at Jud.

  He had taken Cartelli’s single shot squarely in the chest. He was done and he knew it. Even as I watched, blood began to dribble from the corner of his mouth.

  “Sam,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Sam.” Then with an effort, “The record…”

  Crossing to the phonograph, I lifted the record which proved my partner a dishonest cop, broke it in my hands into a dozen pieces and tossed the pieces out the third-floor window into the street.

  “You can go out clean, Jud,” I said.

  He was dead before I finished the sentence.

  To the blonde I said harshly, “One charge of bribery is enough to take care of you. Would you like to mention my partner Jud to anybody, and get yourself an extra year?”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified.

  Then she said, “Sam, you liked me a lot that—that other, night. Can’t you—isn’t there some way you can give me a break?”

  I looked at her for a long minute before replying. “Sure, babe, sure,” I said finally. “I can give you a break. I’ll take you down to the can just the way you are, instead of stopping first to kick your teeth down your throat.” Then I pushed her away from me and went to the phone.

  HIT AND RUN

  Originally published in Manhunt, December 1954.

  CHAPTER 1

  At one o’clock in the morning the taverns along Sixth Street are usually full. But there aren’t many people on the street. With only a half hour left until curfew, most people don’t want to waste drinking time walking from one bar to another.

  When I stepped out of the Happy Hollow, the only other person in sight was an elderly and rather shabbily-dressed man who was just starting to cross the street. And the only moving vehicle in sight was the green Buick convertible which came streaking along Sixth just in time to catch the elderly man with its left front fender as he stepped from between two parked cars. The car was driving on the left side of the st
reet because Sixth is one-way at that point and either lane is legal.

  The old man flew back between the cars he had just walked between to land in a heap on the sidewalk. With a screech of brakes the green convertible swerved right clear across the street and sideswiped two parked cars.

  The crash was more terrific than the damage. Metal screamed in agony as a front fender was torn from the first parked car and a rear fender half ripped from the body of the second. The convertible caromed to the center of the street, hesitated for a moment, then gunned off like a scared rabbit.

  But not before I had seen all I needed to see. That section of Sixth is a solid bank of taverns and clubs, and neon signs make it as bright as day. With the convertible’s top down, I could see the occupants clearly.

  The driver was a woman, hatless and with raven black hair to her shoulders. I could see her only in profile, but I got an impression of evenly molded features and suntanned complexion. The man next to her I saw full face, for as the car shot away he stared back over his shoulder at the motionless figure on the sidewalk. He too was hatless, a blond, handsome man with a hairline mustache. I recognized him instantly.

  He was Harry Cushman, twice-married and twice-divorced cafe society playboy whose romantic entanglements regularly got him in the local gossip columns.

  Automatically I noted the license number of the Buick convertible was X-4 2-209-30.

  The crash brought people pouring from doorways all along the block. A yell of rage from across the street, followed by a steady stream of swearing, told me at least one of the damaged cars’ owners had arrived on the scene.

  “Anybody see it?” I heard someone near me ask.

  Then somebody discovered the man lying on the sidewalk. As a crowd began to gather around him, I crossed the street to look at the two damaged cars. Beyond a ruined fender on each, neither seemed particularly harmed. One was a Dodge and one a Ford, and I tried to file the license number of each in my mind along with the Buick’s.