This was not legal proof, but Honest John was concerned with justice, not law.
* * * *
And when the cops and newspaper men left, Carmody needed no proof that Iron Mike would drive through for a quick finish. He had to! Unless he doubted the existence of that picture. Warren, killed in an attempt to silence the detective, made that supposed portrait dynamite.
Carmody buckled on his gun. He sat there, waiting. The milk wagons were making deliveries when the phone rang. He was certain that the call could not be traced; there are ways of arranging such things by using bootleg relays. He was also certain that Iron Mike was speaking. Yet this had no legal force. Men have been hanged because of vocal identification, but only when big dough was up to bat against the speaker!
“Carmody,” that affable man said, “that reservation is waiting for you.”
Honest John countered. “The price of that picture has gone up a lot. Matches the mug of the guy I conked, and that guy was in your office.”
Iron Mike laughed good naturedly. “Warren can’t talk. So your deck is frozen, pic or no pic. You can’t fight. But you can travel.”
“Uh-huh,” Honest John slowly agreed. “How much to save the expense of knocking me off? After what I done so far, it’s going to take money to hire another torpedo.”
“For you, not a cent,” said Iron Mike. “But account of the girl, I’m leaving five grand to your credit at the airport. Damage suits will dry-clean her, but this makes a fresh start for both of you. Fair?”
“A couple more shootings and the smell will be too much for even you to hide, and you know it!” Honest John pleasantly agreed. “But with court judgments getting everything but her garters and her permanent wave, we sell out.”
Honest John hung up. He sat there, fingering his gat. The damage judgments were no bluff. He had, he was now certain, finished the men who had killed Anton Juras. Finally Iron Mike would prefer to have no more murders for a while. The biggest racketeer has to be tactful.
And five grand would give him and Alma a nice start. Yet something boiled and froze in Honest John as he drove hell bent to her ruined home.
Her black eyes were bitter as her mouth. He blurted it out, told her they had to leave, and why. He concluded, “You got to play it my way! Never mind how you don’t like me. I risked my neck, and you owe me a play.”
She blinked. Fresh tears spread the mascara stains already on her cheeks.
“I hated you like poison when I saw you and that filthy little tramp,” she faltered. “But what followed—I guess it proves—I put you on the spot, cracking off—and you were really—investigating—honey, I’m not sore. Don’t kiss me—not yet—please—”
“Get packed up. Yeah, it’s rotten, but do as I say.”
Half an hour later they left. They were nowhere near the San Francisco airport when the plane took off at noon. They were waiting for it in Sacramento, just in case Iron Mike had changed his mind. Honest John claimed the reservations and said, “Wire back for that express order I didn’t get at the Frisco air-express office.”
At Reno, Carmody and somber-eyed Alma took a stop over. When he got the five grand, he said, “It’s dirty money, baby. But Iron Mike’s a man of his word. So am I. One promise to keep. Now listen.”
She did. Her eyes widened to black saucers. “You can’t—”
“The dirty son likes redheads. One in his office. He sent another to nick me, showing that’s his favorite. It’ll work,” he persisted, stroking Alma’s blue-black curls. “It’s got to! It’s my hide, ain’t it?”
That thawed the frost that had chilled her ever since she had seen him and Mamie. She kicked over the barriers at one swoop; before he knew it, she was in his arms, mouth lifted to his.
“Darling, I’ll never think of that again—but don’t stick to your crazy plan! You’ll get killed, sure. Getting mugs is one thing. Nailing Iron Mike is something else.”
His glance caressed her silk shadowed loveliness, and he shook his head. “Baby, I kissed you too much lately to ever want to quit. But I owe you and myself something, and if I muff it, I won’t like your eyes. They’ll tell me things.”
When he left her he said, “Do exactly like I told you.”
* * * *
Iron Mike’s companion at the Royal Peacock had gleaming copper hair, sleek as a burnished helmet; her smooth shoulders were cream white, and the black of her gown accentuated the daring expanse of bare skin. It was sensational, even in the Peacock, and Iron Mike relished the subdued murmur as the shifting spotlight picked him, then blazed on her.
The town had forgotten Alma. Her hair, severely straightened, bleached and dyed, had more than changed her color scheme; the coiffeur had utterly altered her expression. Her champagne laugh and daring mouth were the final addition. But she was not drunk. There was not enough wine in town to crack the tension that gripped her, now that the passing weeks had completed the build-up.
She was sure of herself, and Iron Mike was sure of her. It was the thought of Honest John that made her throat tighten. His bulk was beyond any disguise. And the carefree racketeer had a hair-trigger gunner at the adjoining table; in his perfect dinner jacket, he seemed to be one of the polo playing set, toying with a liqueur.
“Looking for someone, toots?” wheedled Iron Mike.
She fought that deadly chill. Had he suspected? Had he noted some instinctive searching glance, directed from the alcove that gave his back a blank wall? Alma laughed gaily. “I was afraid someone was looking for me, darling.” There was honey in that voice, and he lapped it up. But red ants seemed to be crawling over her skin. It would soon be closing time. She’d be taking him to her apartment, and she only hoped Honest John was on the job.
Iron Mike was subtle about it all, but the open seclusion of the alcove advanced his unobtrusive caresses. Alma murmured faint protests, but leaned closer, just enough to tantalize him.
All evening she had known of the gat his skillfully tailored coat concealed. She knew what that meant, but she feigned surprise, drew back when his embrace became conspicuous.
“Oh—are you expecting trouble?” Her smooth brow puckered.
He laughed softly. “Beautiful, we’re going places where that young fellow can’t go.”
“But my apartment is safe—”
“No place is, unless it’s a surprise. I know where we’re going, and how.” Iron Mike was rising, reaching for her wrap. “We’ll leave my hat,” he said, smiling wisely. The angle of the alcove now hid them, and for a moment he held her close, fiercely kissed her. She went limp in his arms, sighed with feigned rapture, closed her eyes to mask the terror that must have flashed into them.
The young man at the nearest table caught his chief’s eye and nod. He rose, to pave the way for a private exit. Iron Mike nudged her elbow. There was an odd note in his soft voice as he said, “You’re shaking.”
His eyes proved his name, and so did that speculative smile. It was Alma’s move, and she did not know what to say, or think. But the spotlight saved her. It blazed into his face and hers, not misty blue and glamorous, but blinding; its heat lanced her skin. Iron Mike cursed. The searing beam shifted, picking the eyes of the armed escort.
That one touch left split seconds of red-shot blackness. Thus Alma did not see; she could only hear the familiar voice that suddenly rumbled from arm’s length: “You’re a sucker, Iron Mike, and your gunner can’t see!”
Honest John was on the job! Alma swallowed a scream. The racketeer moved fast. His snarl as he whirled, flinging her aside, was an inarticulate token of recognition. Perhaps his eyes had caught a blurred view of a bluff red puss. A gun blazed, and then another.
The bodyguard, dazzled split seconds later, was further from recovery. He fired blindly. Another blast answered, and all were drowned in the crash of china spilling from overturned tables.
Alma’s g
own had parted from her violent lurch and scramble. Iron Mike fell across her legs, pinned her to the floor as he jerked and bled. His face was a red blot. As she struggled clear, there was another tear. It was not the kind of dress for a scrimmage. Honest John, gun leveled and back to the wall, flickered one glance from the corner of his eye and yelled, “For the luva Mike, grab your coat!”
As she did so, she noted that he wore a white cap and apron. That explained his apparent absence the entire evening. And then he was explaining things to the cops who came plunging through the gaping spectators.
“He pulled a gun on me,” he said, and looked round-faced and blank. He blinked, and while the police were still wondering who was behind that bloody, upturned face, he added, “So did the other guy.
“Holy Mother!” sputtered the sergeant. “Iron Mike!”
“He should of pulled the bullet-proof shirt over his face,” said another cop, as they hustled Carmody to the wagon.
By the time the homicide section was weary of trying to figure out how a cluck of a private dick made two shots knock off a pair of gunners who had each fired a pair of slugs, Alma’s hysterics subsided. Honest John found her in her apartment. She demanded, still shaky, “You fool, why didn’t you tell me what you planned? I died a dozen times. He wasn’t going to my apartment. We were on the way to some place where you couldn’t have followed him—”
“Baby,” he answered, “you could not of stood it, waiting for that spotlight guy to do his stuff. You’d of been wondering if he’d get wise and back down. So I had to nail him where I could prove he pulled a gun on me. Ain’t it simple?” He blinked, sighed from his toes. “Try kissing me for a change, baby—Gawd, what a dress—”
She wriggled clear. “I’m so jittery, I won’t be fit to be kissed for a week.”
He eyed her lovingly. “I’ll spend that week just looking at you, then!”
MURDER SALVAGE
Originally published in Spicy Detective, April 1941.
Yvonne yawned, and that made her white arms stretch like lovely snakes; the blue robe rounded out over small, firm curves. The stretch made her slimmer at the waist, and her legs straightened in a long, silky reach.
“Don’t be tiresome,” she said. “The car is mine, and I’m keeping it. I didn’t tell Walt to dip into the till to buy it for me, and you can’t prove that—”
“Look here!” Honest John Carmody hitched the spindle-legged chair a little closer. His face was a bit redder, and the more he saw of Yvonne’s peep show, the redder his face became. “I know damn well we can’t prove a thing. If you had the actual cash stuffed in your sock—”
She lifted a fold of the robe, and exposed the picot edge of a honey-colored stocking. “I haven’t. It’d make too big a bulge.”
That display made Honest John stutter. “I ain’t browbeating you. I’m asking you, turn that bus over, it’s worth a thousand bucks as it stands, secondhand. The bonding company’s on Walt Crawford’s tail. If he begs, borrows, maybe he can make good, and without selling his house.”
“My dear man, I didn’t ask him to clean the till.”
Honest John growled, piled out of the chair, and stood there like an oversized cub bear in a shiny blue suit. He caught the glamor girl’s shoulder, and jerked her to her feet.
“I thought you weren’t browbeating me,” she snapped. “If that fool’s house is sold, that’s his business.”
Honest John made another quick move, and then Yvonne did yeep. He had the blue chiffon in his hand, and she stood there, peeled down to a bra and a bit of something about her hips.
“You fluff-witted dime’s-worth of white meat,” he boomed and shook the blue robe, “this and every other stitch in the house is what Walt Crawford bought you. You’re still way ahead, even if you give him back that car. Damn it, he’s got a wife.”
“He never acted like it. Now, let’s not wrangle,” she purred and came closer. “I’ve been out of work for months, and what’ll happen to me?”
She knew he was just another dick, a plug-ugly with half-soled shoes; but she threw her weight to make that bra stand out a little fuller, a little more alluring. She wanted him to go for her like every chump did. And she was succeeding. For a second, he did not know what to do or say. He dropped the blue robe.
She’d snuggle up and be sweet. Just sweet enough to follow up with a good laugh. Her big blue eyes, her drooping lashes told him that she was reading his face, and getting a kick out of her advertising campaign. “What’ll happen to me, John?” she cooed.
“This.”
He slapped her a hefty one. She landed smack on one of her best features. “I’ve seen some tramps that had a white streak in ’em,” he growled over his shoulder and slammed the door. “You ain’t one of ’em.”
* * * *
Honest John spent the next couple days in routine business: looking around hot spots for other chumps, hanging around race tracks for the same purpose. He was spotting tellers, cashiers, salesmen, assistant vice-presidents, all the white collar lads his bonding company covered. If they gutted the till, his company had to cough up and then try to recover as much loot as possible.
Throwing a man in the jug didn’t bring the dough back. The company would rather have the chump on the hoof, paying off, which he couldn’t do in jail. Sometimes, you can stop a fellow before he’s too far gone and make him snap out of it.
Honest John passed Yvonne’s apartment several times, but he did not go in. Appealing to her sense of decency wouldn’t work, she had none. And she was too smart to be scared. Or was she?
Then, driving up the Ocean Shore road from Half Moon Bay, Honest John met Yvonne, though at first, he didn’t know who the woman was. It’s dark and lonesome between roadhouses; artichoke patches and little farmhouses dot the heavy black earth.
When he tramped on the brake, not far from where the new highway branches from the snaky old Montara Mountain roller-coaster, he said, “Aw, hell, I’m seeing things, I still got that floor show on the brain. Or maybe it’s fog.”
But it was a woman his headlights had picked out. She was lying on her face, and her blond hair gleamed. Her hands were all muddy from clawing the black soft earth. But a lot of her was white and round and hard to miss; you had to slow down for that sharp turn.
When he stumbled through the knee-high reeds in the ditch she had crawled out of, he saw that she’d been peeled right down. Not even stockings. He squatted and got a look at the face. It was Yvonne Latour.
As nearly as he could tell, two slugs had drilled her back, and a third, her head, behind one ear. Small slugs that did not tear her up. Then he looked into the ditch and saw a new, flimsy gray blanket; it had blood on it. His headlights didn’t reach down, but a match made it all clear.
He was surprised that he could be sorry for Yvonne. Dumped into the ditch as dead, some lingering life had made her crawl toward the road. He made a move to get the blanket and thought better of that. He took off his coat, and laid it over the huddled corpse. She was cold, cold as the ocean mist, but he could not let her lie there utterly uncovered. Then he stamped away, snorting, “Dizzy—had it coming. Hah. Hope that fool of a Crawford didn’t do this. Wouldn’t blame him, though. She had it coming.”
As he hightailed back to the nearest roadhouse to phone the sheriff’s office, he began to understand a few details. Stripping Yvonne had been to prevent identification; hauling the corpse to San Mateo County would also help, though even in San Francisco, Yvonne was just another of a swarm of tramps playing the field when not taking turns at floor shows or hustling drinks. Finally, lying in the ditch in that lonely stretch, her weight would have carried her slowly into the mud.
All he reported was the actual discovery. He wanted to keep the inside track by letting the killer believe that there was no identification; also, he wanted to keep immediate suspicion from Walt Crawford. If the chump was guilty, t
urn him in. If he wasn’t, let him have what little chance there was at getting a fresh start. He was really a nice guy.
* * * *
Two hours later, Honest John was in San Francisco, where an unidentified corpse in San Mateo County would not get more than half an inch in the classified advertising. The drive took forty minutes; the rest of the time had been devoted to making his statement and saying to the sheriff, “Hell, even if she’d been dressed, I wouldn’t know her.”
He had a thin ribbon of spring steel and a few assorted keys which were routine in his job; also, his stumpy fingers had a surprisingly slick touch. It did not take him long to get into Yvonne’s apartment.
The feminine fragrance of the bedroom did not thrill his nostrils; he shivered a little, thinking of that dark ditch. Yvonne’s silver fox coat was not in the house. There was nothing else he could check. There were half a dozen handbags, but none had a driver’s license or keys. Honest John cursed bitterly and said half aloud, “She’s deader’n hell, probably got no folks except some she don’t keep track of. The public administrator’ll take that sweet little convertible; the chump hasn’t a chance at it now.”
Then he began frisking every cabinet and drawer in the place; he was looking for the certificate of registration. Morally, the chump had a right to the car. If Crawford faked Yvonne’s signature and peddled the bus he could make just that much more restitution. She was dead—who’d spill the beans?
But Honest John found no trace of any certificate. He found no evidence of a safe deposit box. Yvonne lived from chump to chump and didn’t salt anything down. Not even a checking account.
In the living room he found two glasses of Scotch, one with a lipstick smear, and empty; the other, half emptied and a clean edge. Both glasses had raffia jackets. Some of the cigarette butts wore smears matching Yvonne’s lip rouge. The others had been flicked out of a holder; a different brand. Some man had dropped in. He hoped it wasn’t Crawford.
E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives Page 17
