Hard Case Crime: Fifty to One

by Ardai, Charles

  “Gentlemen,” she said, putting a little hip action into her stride as she approached, “may I buy you a drink?”

  “I didn’t know this establishment was high-class enough to maintain B-girls in the middle of the day,” one of the men said, a slightly chunky guy of maybe twenty with the beginnings of a beard ambitiously darkening his cheeks.

  “She’s not asking you to buy her a drink, Larry,” the other said. He was clean-shaven, slight, slightly older. “She’s offering to buy you one. And me one, I believe.”

  “Then I’m hopelessly confused. Miss, don’t you have it backwards?”

  Tricia hopped up on the stool beside them, put a dollar on the bar. The place, having just opened at noon, was empty aside from them and the bartender. “Not in the slightest. I do want you to help me out, but not by buying me drinks. I’ll supply the alcohol, if you’ll help me work through a problem I have in a book I’m writing for Charley Borden.”

  “A book!” Larry exclaimed, taking a beer from the bartender with a grateful nod. “Did you hear that, Don? This young lady is writing a book. We have an authoress in our midst. What sort of book is it, madam? Ah, no need to answer that. If Borden’s your publisher, it can only be one of two things: a crime novel or a sex novel. And I don’t picture a nice girl like you writing pornography.”

  “Pornography?” Tricia said. “I thought he only published Hard Case Crime.”

  “That’s all he writes on the window,” Don said, “and it’s what he shows off on his desk. One of these days you might ask him about the books he keeps in his desk drawer.”

  “By authors such as we,” Larry said. “Us? We or us?”

  “Us,” Don said.

  “Us,” Larry concurred. They clinked beer glasses.

  “So you’re not mystery writers?” she said, fighting to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “Oh, we’re that, too,” Larry said. “We’re every kind of writer.”

  “Except the well-paid kind,” Don said. “For five hundred dollars we’ll write mysteries, war stories, space operas, sex books. Hell, I wrote a travel guide to Berlin once for three hundred.”

  “And he’d never even been to Berlin,” Larry said.

  “Perfect,” Tricia said. “You see, I’m writing a book about a mobster and it’s supposed to be a true story. And I want to have him steal all the money out of his boss’ safe and get away with it. But you have to figure the safe would be guarded, and...well, I’ve seen you two at the office, I know you’ve written several books for Mr. Borden, and I just thought maybe you’d have some thoughts about how it could be done. Something nice and clever, but not too clever—it’s got to be plausible enough that readers could believe it really happened.”

  “And why,” Larry said, “should we come up with a perfectly good plot and hand it over to you, when we could get a book out of it ourselves?”

  “You’re forgetting,” Don said, “she’s supplying the alcohol.”

  “Ah, yes,” Larry said. “I was. That’s fine then.” He scratched at his beard. “Let’s see. A robbery. What can you tell us about the place this guy’s supposed to rob?”

  So Tricia told them, told them everything she could think of from her weeks working at the Sun—about the layout and the staff and the schedule, about the parts of the building she’d seen and the parts she hadn’t, everything she’d read in the newspapers—and bit by bit a picture emerged. She told them about Nicolazzo, the various charges against him, what she knew about his private life, his family. They peppered her with questions and tossed out one outlandish idea after another.

  “What about a hot air balloon?” Larry said. “Finney did that in Five Against The House.”

  “That’s idiotic,” Don said. “How about a submarine?”

  And so it went, for four days in a row, from ten past noon each day till the bar started filling up around three or four and the boys’ voices and their imaginations, no matter how well lubricated along the way, finally gave out. Tricia began to despair of getting anything for her money except slightly high from beer fumes. But at the end of the fourth afternoon, Don’s eyes lit up and he said, “I’ve got it!”

  And he really had.

  Tricia wrote as quickly as she could, typed till her fingers ached.

  Mornings, she slept in, recovering from the late-night activities of the prior night at the Sun and appreciating as she never had before the strain poor Coral had been laboring under all this time. At least you couldn’t hear garbage trucks in the morning from the side of the building the chateau was on; on the other hand, some of the girls were restless sleepers, snoring or moaning or talking in their sleep, and with a dozen in one room, silence was hard to come by, even in the wee hours.

  Afternoons, she worked on the book, sometimes getting so wrapped up in it that she had to race through her shower and jump into her clothes willy-nilly or she’d have been late for the first show at the club, which started at the supper hour. Evenings she spent at the club, usually staying till one or two AM, taking a late dinner in the kitchen with the waiters and musicians. Then there were her days off, when she sometimes didn’t get out of her nightgown, just sat at the desk banging away from the time she woke up till the other girls threw pillows at her back and begged her to stop the racket.

  In this way, her days passed, and her weeks, and eventually eight of them had gone by.

  She was surprised, at the end of the eighth week, when Charley Borden, having avoided paying back a penny of the debt he owed her along the way, invited her into his office and, beaming with pride and the goodwill of a man who’d recently been fortunate enough to cash a check, handed her two twenty-dollar bills. “Now, what do you have to say about that?” he asked her grandly. “What do you think my promises are worth now?”

  But she was not nearly as surprised by that as by the contents of the box she held tightly in her right hand, a stack of paper whose first page began with the words “Chapter 1” and whose last finished with “The End.” She dropped it on Borden’s desk.

  “I say thank you. And,” she said with a huge smile, “I say you owe me five hundred dollars more.”

  5.

  Two for the Money

  “This guy’s a gold mine,” Borden said, jabbing with the back of his pen at the newest book to grace his desk. Three months had passed since she’d turned the manuscript in. “He’s the genuine article. Gold Medal wishes they could find a guy like this.”

  The book was titled I Robbed the Mob! and was credited to that most prolific of authors, Anonymous, but Tricia was as proud of it as if her name had been plastered all over the cover. The illustration showed a man in a heavy overcoat, his face hidden in shadows, advancing on a buxom woman in a torn blouse. What that had to do with robbing the Mob, Tricia had no idea. But Borden said it would sell books.

  Beneath the title it said

  Torn From the Headlines!

  The Scandalous True Story of One Man’s

  LIFE in the UNDERWORLD!

  “You know what Casper Citron said about us on his program yesterday?” Borden said. “He called the book reprehensible. Said we glorified crime. That’s good for a thousand copies, easy.”

  “How many did you print?”

  “Seventy thousand. But we’re already going back to press. The thing’s selling, Trixie. You did good—you and this guy you found.” Borden grabbed his jacket from a hook on the back of the door, shrugged it on. “You think he really ripped off his boss?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” Tricia said.

  “Man,” Borden said. “The guy has guts. I tell you, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes the day someone hands Nicolazzo a copy of the book.”

  It was at that moment that the frosted glass pane in Borden’s door shattered.

  Shards fell on the floor with a clatter. A fist reached through the newly formed opening, groped for a moment, found the doorknob and turned it. The door swung open.

  T
here were two men at the door, but the first filled the doorway so thoroughly you could barely see the second standing behind him. The bigger of the men stood well north of six feet, Tricia judged, and the resemblance to Tor Johnson didn’t end there. His face was round and pink, with no hair on it except for a pair of dense eyebrows overhanging deep-set eye sockets. Each of his fists looked like half a cinderblock, and the bloody scratches across the knuckles of the one he’d just shoved through the glass didn’t seem to bother him at all. He wore a heavy overcoat. If his face had been in shadow, he’d have been a dead ringer for the man on the cover of the book.

  The other man was smaller, only an inch or two bigger than Borden, but with much the same look about him as his hulking companion. There was something of the brute in his eyes, and if his knuckles weren’t presently bleeding it was clear from all the pink scar tissue across them that they’d done their share of bleeding in the past.

  “You Charley Borden?” the smaller man said.

  “Me? Borden? No. Borden. No. Borden stepped out, just a moment ago.”

  “That’s funny,” the smaller man said, “there’s no one in the hallway.”

  “Well, it was more than a moment. What would you say, honey, five minutes?” Tricia nodded mutely. “Five minutes. Said he had to go downstairs. Said we should wait for him. So we’re, you know. Waiting.”

  The two men exchanged glances.

  “My wife here’s a painter,” Borden said, “isn’t that right, honey? And I’m a writer, and we came here to offer our services to Mr. Borden.” He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Robert Ste—um—”

  Damn it, Tricia thought. “Stephens,” she said, just as Borden said, “Stevenson.”

  “—son,” she said.

  Borden said, “That’s right, Robert Stevenson. And my wife. Louise. Say hello, Louise.”

  “Hello,” Tricia said, with a little wave.

  “You look like Borden,” the smaller man said.

  “Really? I don’t think so. Do you think I look like him, honey?”

  Tricia shrugged.

  “How do you know what he looks like anyway?” Borden said. “It’s not like he’s a famous fashion plate or anything like that, he’s just one of New York’s more promising young editors...”

  The big man took a creased photograph out of his coat pocket and unfolded it. It was a side-by-side mug shot, full-face on the left, profile on the right. In the photo, Borden’s hair was mussed and one of his eyes was swollen shut; the sign he was holding up in his hands said

  N.Y. COUNTY 013887

  BORDEN—4/28/1950

  “Oh, he was much younger then,” Borden said. “Practically a kid. Looks completely different now. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Absolutely,” Tricia said. “For one thing, he doesn’t have a black eye today. Yet.”

  “Oh, we’re not here to hurt him, miss,” the smaller man said, unconvincingly. “It’s not Borden we’re after. We’re here for the money.”

  “What money?” Borden said.

  “The money this fellow stole from us,” the smaller man said, and he nudged the other man with his elbow. “Show them the book.”

  The big man stowed the mug shot in his pocket and took out a well-thumbed copy of I Robbed the Mob!, its spine cracked, its pages dog-eared. It pained Tricia to see it in such condition.

  “This Mister Anonymous here,” the smaller man said, pronouncing it like it was two names, Ann an’ Amos, “is a turncoat and a rat. He took money that didn’t belong to him from a man who’d never done anything but help him, and we’re here to get it back.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Tricia said. “He’s not—”

  “He’s not what, miss? Not a thief? Read the book. He admits he’s been a thief all his life. Just this time he stole from the wrong person.”

  Tricia hadn’t been about to say that he wasn’t a thief. She’d been about to say he wasn’t real. Which of course meant he couldn’t have stolen anything from anyone. But in that case, what the hell were these two refugees from a Robert Mitchum picture doing here?

  “So, Borden,” the smaller man said, “you want to tell us who this guy is and where we can find him, and we’ll be on our way?”

  “I’d love to help you, gentlemen, but I’m really not Charley Borden. I’ll be glad to give him a message, though, if you’d like to leave one.”

  The smaller man snapped his fingers at the bigger one, who walked over to Borden’s desk, bent at the knees, tilted it forward slightly so he could get his fingers underneath and then turned it upside down. The telephone and the brass desk lamp went tumbling to the ground along with a pair of whiskey glasses and a rain of books. One of the drawers sprang open and more books spilled out. The one on top was titled Hot-House Honey and showed a lady wearing nothing but a gardenia behind one ear. She looked a lot like Rita.

  “O-ho,” the smaller man said, bending to pick it up. “You’re a naughty boy, Borden.”

  “Stevenson,” Borden said.

  “Hit him,” the smaller one said.

  The big guy shot out a fist and caught Borden’s lapels, pulled him close. He drew back his other fist like a piston.

  “Hey,” Erin said, “what’s going on here?”

  Tricia turned to see her standing in the doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Erin said.

  “We’re having a private conversation, miss,” the smaller man said. “Run along.”

  “Call the cops,” Borden shouted.

  “Oh, I already did that,” Erin said. “Soon as I heard the glass break. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” the smaller man said, looking murderously at Erin. “I suppose we’ll have to continue our conversation another time.”

  At a signal from his partner, the larger one released Borden’s jacket, patted down the crumpled fabric.

  “You’ll give Borden our message, right?” the smaller one said. “Tell him Mr. Nicolazzo won’t take no for an answer. Not twice.”

  Borden nodded. “I’ll tell him.”

  “You do that. And ladies,” the man said, “you might want to rethink the type of character you pal around with. It’s not always...safe.”

  He fixed Erin with a stare that was full of unsavory implications.

  “Hey,” Borden said. “What about the desk?”

  “What about it... Stevenson? You’re telling us it’s not your desk, what do you care?” The man tipped his hat at Tricia, his eyes narrowing for a moment as though he half recognized her; then he shook his head and backed out through the open door, slipping Hot-House Honey into his pocket on the way.

  The big guy patted Borden twice on the cheek. “Think about it,” he said, his voice like a gravel pit. He followed his partner out.

  6.

  The Confession

  “Did you really call the police?” Tricia asked.

  “Of course not,” Erin said. “I just said that to make them scram. Last thing we need here is police.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Never you mind,” Erin said. “What’d you do to make those guys so mad, Charley?”

  “They’re book reviewers,” he said. “The door-to-door variety.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Tricia said. “This is all my fault.”

  “Nonsense,” Borden said. “You mean because of the book? You just did what I told you to. If that weasel you got the story from ripped off Nicolazzo, how is that your fault? Look—” He fished around on the floor till he found a book with a toga-clad brunette on the cover, triremes sailing in the background. The title was The Bedroom Secrets of Helen of Troy. “You think Larry Block should apologize for the Trojan War? Or maybe Don Westlake should apologize to the Russkies.” He dropped Helen of Troy on top of a book called Communist Party Girls. “The guy could’ve kept his mouth shut. He didn’t have to talk to you. Now he’ll get what’s coming to him. It won’t be pretty, but you know what? Better him than us.” He bent and
tried to set his desk upright again but was unable to budge it. He gave up, slapped his palms together as if he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. “All we’ve got to do is give those two fellows the man’s name and they won’t bother us again.”

  “I can’t do that,” Tricia said.

  Borden looked over at Erin, gave her a nervous little smile. He turned back to Tricia. “What do you mean you ‘can’t do that’?”

  “I can’t,” Tricia said. “It isn’t that I don’t want to—I genuinely can’t.”

  “Honey,” Borden said, coming forward, “of course you can. You have to. Those guys weren’t playing a game. Next time it’ll be me they turn upside down and dump all over the floor.”

  “I know,” Tricia said. “And it’s all my fault.”

  “Forget about whose fault it is,” Borden said. “Just give them the man’s name.”

  “I told you, I can’t.”

  “Why? Are you afraid of him, what he’ll do to you? Or what—you feel bad being a snitch? Getting him in trouble? What?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Tricia said. “I mean, I would feel bad if someone had trusted me to keep his name secret and I...” She shook her head. “But that’s not the point. I can’t give you his name because he hasn’t got one. There’s no man. I made the whole thing up.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “Oh, come on,” Borden said.

  “I’m so sorry, I know you wanted a true story—”

  “Come on,” Borden said. “What do you take me for?”