The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 4: 1935-37

by Frederick Nebel

  “Just because you add it. I’m leaving.”

  “Sit down,” he grunted.

  Her jaw shook as she stared at him.

  He said: “I told you—you’re heading for a police record. You can avoid it by coming clean with me. If you don’t, I turn you over to Dave Brice of the Chinatown Squad—now!” His palm slapped the table.

  She grimaced, shook her head. “No—no—don’t do that!”

  “Hell, do you think I want to?” he demanded. “If you’d stop giving me the run-around, I’d see you wouldn’t be touched. But I’m not going to finagle Dave Brice for a dame that won’t spring information to me.”

  Her shoulders were shaking. She said in a small, clogged voice: “Let me think….” From her purse she took a cigarette, slipped it between her lips and struck a match, lit up. She waved the match out and dropped it to a tray.

  Cardigan moved suddenly. His big feet dug against the floor and he heaved the table, knocking Mae to the floor, and threw himself sidewise and downward as the explosion of a gunshot mingled with the crash of shattered glass. He spun while kneeling, sprang to the next window, saw a dim flash of glass beneath the wooden awning across the street, as if a door had swung. Wind was whooping in through the broken window alongside the table.

  HE WENT down the staircase, four steps at a time, reached the street and sped across to the darkened shop. His left hand fell on the doorknob as his right whipped out his gun. The door opened as he turned the knob and he went in fast, bent way over, scraping his knees. His left hand groped upward, found a light switch, turned it. A center light sprang on, revealed a small curio shop. In the rear, a heavy bead curtain was swaying slightly, as if someone had recently brushed it aside in passing. Cardigan went toward it at an angle, came up on the left side of the doorway and gave the curtain a sweep with his left hand.

  Nothing happened. He could feel a cold draft pulling, and peering around the door-frame, through the bead curtain, he saw a door half open and beyond the door the indistinct dark outside. His big shoulders flayed the bead curtain on his way through to the small rear room. He stepped into the alley beyond, heard the drum of running feet, saw nothing. Moving farther into the alley, he strained his ears—took a chance and turned left, broke into a run. He reached Grant Avenue, stopped, knew he had lost his man. Turning, he tramped back down the alley, found the rear door of the shop and stepping in, saw a stocky Japanese dressed in a heavy silk robe, sandals and a nightcap. The man looked angry, surprised and puzzled all at once.

  “You own this place?” Cardigan said.

  “Yiss.”

  “Was your front door locked when you closed up and went upstairs?”

  The Oriental nodded, said: “Yiss. Yiss, sar.” He put a finger to his chest, then pointed to Cardigan and said: “You, sar, pol-eece?”

  Cardigan took a short-cut—he nodded.

  The other bowed. “So sorry.”

  Cardigan explained: “Man open your door. Man shoot. Man open your door. I chase. Anything stolen, you report.”

  The man giggled. “So sorry.”

  Cardigan gave it up. He went through the shop, out into Grant Avenue, and saw a crowd gathered across the street. The ground floor of the building housing the Pearl of Nanking Café was occupied by a provision shop, at this hour closed. Cardigan shoveled with his shoulders through the crowd, went up the inside stairway to the dining-room and saw the Chinese owner throwing a fit because of the broken window. Two uniformed cops were listening to him. The girl Mae Ling was not in sight. At Cardigan’s entrance one of the cops turned.

  Cardigan said, “Hi,” and went across to get his hat and overcoat.

  “Hey,” said the cop who had turned.

  “Yeah?” Cardigan said, bundling into his shabby ulster, slapping on his shapeless old fedora.

  “You was at that table with—”

  “A gal, yeah,” grinned Cardigan.

  “So what?”

  “So… what?”

  “Where’s the gal?”

  Cardigan chuckled roughly. “Hell, officer, I’d like to know.”

  The cop said: “A Chinese gal.”

  “Sure. And a looker, too.”

  “Say, are you trying to be funny?”

  “No.”

  The cop said: “Chin Fu here says a shot busted the window, you ran out, and the gal ran out after you.”

  “Right—except she didn’t follow me. She took a run-out powder on her own.”

  The Chinese was going on and on, almost weeping, about the broken window.

  “Who was the gal?” asked the cop.

  “I don’t know,” Cardigan said. “A pick-up. I picked her up on the corner of Grant and Pine. I didn’t know she had a gun-mad boyfriend. Well, nobody’s hurt, so I’ll be going.”

  The cop got in front of him. “Not so fast, mug. If it was just as simple as that, why’d you leave your hat and overcoat and the dame and line out of here?” He slapped Cardigan’s pockets and pulled out Cardigan’s gun. “Ah, a gat!”

  “Yeah. Now—look in the inside pocket and you’ll find a license to carry it.”

  The cop looked. He found the license and also Cardigan’s agency card. He handed them back, handed the gun back, and said: “All right, fella. If it don’t pan out, we’ll know where to find you.”

  His face showed that he was not quite satisfied with Cardigan’s explanation, and while he was still hovering over his own doubts, Cardigan said: “Well, goom-by, boys. School’s out.”

  Chapter Two

  The Punk in the Lobby

  WHEN Cardigan entered the Cosmos Agency office in Market Street it was ten to ten. Magruder, the night man, was standing in front of an olive-green steel filing-cabinet, thumbing through an index. A green eyeshade was askew on his forehead and a heavy curved pipe dangled from his teeth.

  Sam Chang was sitting on a desk, dangling a spatted foot and reading a letter. He was a compact man, about five foot ten, big-handed, wedge-jawed, with clipped black hair that stood up like the bristles of a hairbrush. His brown worsted suit, tan silk shirt, wine-colored tie blended nicely. He was neat, muscular, with close-lidded slant eyes above which were tufts of coarse black hair. He looked up, said, “Hello, Jack,” smiled, tapped the letter. “My wife left Shanghai. She’s on her way home. Ask me if I’m glad.”

  Cardigan grinned. “You glad, Sam?”

  Magruder spat, snorted. “Glad! The ape’s been carrying on like a two-year-old ever since he opened the letter.”

  Sam Chang, still smiling, folded the letter and put it away in his pocket. “Three months is a long time,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “She wants to be remembered to you, Jack.” He chuckled. “She says you should take care of me, see I don’t get hurt.”

  Magruder said: “Yah, stick around that Irish mug and you’ll wind up in so many pieces some day it’ll take an expert to put you together again.”

  “What’s eating you, sour puss?” gibed Cardigan.

  Sam Chang said: “He’s just Scotch, that’s all. He’s been sending away for free samples of tobacco for years—never bought any in his life—and he’s sore because one of the companies finally got wise.”

  “Yah!” snorted Magruder.

  Cardigan dropped down into a swivel chair, said: “Sam, I met Mae Ling.”

  Sam Chang looked down at him. “Yeah?”

  Cardigan told what had happened.

  Sam Chang’s face grew very grave. “Here’s something else, Jack. About half an hour ago I heard that Dave Brice picked up young Charley Sun. He’s a clerk in the office of the express company that contracted to move the throne-chair.”

  Cardigan squinted. “Why’d they pick him up?”

  “Because they found out that two hours before the truck was to pick up the chair, Charley Sun left the office for fifteen minutes. He went around the corner to a drug store. The clerk there remembered seeing him come in and go to a telephone booth. It’s a dial phone. They couldn’t trace the call and Charley
won’t tell ’em who he called.” Sam Chang stopped, but his manner indicated that there was more to tell.

  “What else?” Cardigan asked.

  Sam Chang didn’t look happy. “Last Saturday night I saw Charley at the Oriental Music Box with Mae Ling.”

  “Dave Brice know that?”

  “No. We’re the only ones know about Mae Ling. Jack, it’s tough about that gal. My wife ain’t going to like it if we get her slammed in the can for conspiracy. They went to school together and Anna always liked her.”

  Cardigan bent a stern eye on him. “That make any difference to you?”

  Sam Chang looked at the floor. “I’m working for you, Jack. That’s your answer.”

  “That’s all I want to know. Mae looks like a nice kid but it was Mae who put me on the spot tonight. When she lit a butt and then waved that match—that was a signal. When a gal, Chinese or any other, goes ga-ga over a guy, it don’t matter whether the guy’s a heel or not. Tom Gow’s a heel. Mae made that date with me because she was scared. She didn’t know how much I knew, and she was afraid of the cops. When she saw I meant business, when I told her I’d turn her over to the cops if she didn’t tell, she waved that match and the guy across the street took a shot at me. Charley Sun supplies the missing link—how those guys knew what truck was to make that transfer, and at what time.”

  “Charley Sun won’t talk.”

  “The gal will—the next time I lay hands on her. The insurance company that underwrote that chair has been a good client of ours for ten years. We can’t let ’em down. And,” he added, “Ludwig Balm is offering, on his own, two thousand bucks reward for the recovery of the chair. I got a sick buddy back east that was shot up in the war and ain’t ever been well since. He could use some of that dough. Come on—let’s go.”

  “Where?” said Sam Chang, getting off the desk.

  “Mae Ling’s place.”

  “She won’t be there.”

  “I want to give it another casing.”

  Sam Chang smiled. “Checking up on me?”

  “Don’t be an Airdale. Something new may have turned up since you cased it last night.”

  Magruder said: “Hey, you guys. On the way out, stop in the greasy spoon next door and tell the Greek to send up a milk bottle full of coffee and six lumps of sugar.”

  “Sweet tooth, huh?” said Cardigan.

  Sam Chang said: “He uses two lumps and takes the other four home. Then he tries to get a rebate on the milk bottle.”

  “You’re a liar,” rasped Magruder. “I take the six home. I don’t use sugar myself.”

  CARDIGAN opened the hall door, the wind at his back, flapping the loose skirt of his ulster. Sam Chang followed him in, closed the door and shut out the wind and the sound of it. The hall was warm. A light, amber-shaded, glowed from the ceiling. Sam Chang moved ahead of Cardigan, motioned with his chin and climbed a narrow, heavily carpeted stairway. In the hall above were half a dozen closed doors, all painted a glossy yellow. Wordless, Sam Chang went to one of the doors, knocked, listened. He peered through the keyhole, straightened and said: “Dark.”

  Cardigan nodded, gestured with his forefinger toward the keyhole. Sam Chang took out a ring of keys, chose a master key, worked with the lock for half a minute and then felt the key bite; turn. He opened the door, reached in and turned on a light.

  It was a small apartment of two small rooms—the smallest Cardigan had ever seen. He twisted among the pieces of furniture, picked up cushions, slapped them down again. He rolled down all the shades to see if anything had been rolled up in them; looked back of pictures on the wall. On a small oblong table stood the photograph of a young Chinese woman.

  “Your wife,” said Cardigan.

  Sam Chang nodded.

  Cardigan picked it up, said: “I’ll take it. No use getting her involved, if the cops land on this place.”

  He rifled a small knee-hole desk, swiftly, completely, closed all the drawers and got up and went into the tiny bedroom, turning on a light there. He looked under the pillows, the quilts, the sheets, the mattress. The bureau drawers were next, then in the small dressing-table; then the closet and the coats, the shoes, the dresses in it. It took him only two minutes to case the bathroom. Then he opened the windows, looked out to see if anything had been hung outside; closed them, and looked under the rugs.

  He stood up, his face red from having bent over, and said: “Well, nothing, Sam.” He stood looking around the room, took out papers and tobacco and began rolling a cigarette. “Now look, Sam. She may come back. You never can tell. I want you to stay here tonight. Turn the lights out, lock the door, and wait. If she comes in, don’t argue here. Just take her over to the agency office in a cab and give me a ring at my rooms and I’ll come over.”

  Sam Chang said: “What do you want me to do if the police should happen to come in?”

  “How can they? They don’t know about Mae.” He went to the door, turned to say: “If they do pile in, it’ll mean they do know something—so you’ll have to say you had a tip she was mixed up in it.”

  Sam Chang didn’t look very happy.

  CARDIGAN left the small apartment, clopped his big feet down the stairs and pushed out into the street. The wind slammed him and he turned up his ulster collar. He walked three blocks, stopped in a telephone booth to make a call, and then caught a taxi cab. He rode Kearny to Post, and Post to Mason, where he got off. He went into the wind up Mason until he came to the Tareyton Court, whose bronze-and-glass door he pushed open; crossed the deserted oval lobby and stood watching the elevator clock tick off floors. Presently the bronze shaft door opened and Cardigan entered the empty car, said: “Six.” The slick-haired Filipino boy tooled the car upward, cushioned it to a stop at the sixth.

  610 was five doors from the elevator and Ludwig Balm himself opened the door and said: “Thoughtful of you to phone first, Mr. Cardigan. Come in.”

  “I figured you might be out.”

  “I’d just come in, as a matter of fact. I’m having coffee and brandy. Will you have some? Leave your things right here.”

  Balm was fiftyish, a heavy, hard-bodied man with a big, pink-cheeked face, a large nose, plump jowls. His brown hair was thick and without a part, it flowed backward from a wide forehead. His eyes were large, sharp, alert behind rimless eyeglasses. The clothes he wore were dark, almost elegant. He put a hand out, palm upward, indicating the way to the living-room.

  A woman was bent over a small table, pouring coffee.

  Cardigan hesitated, said out of the side of his mouth to Balm: “Listen, I’m butting in….”

  “Not at all…. Marya, this is Mr. Cardigan. Marya Rutlov, Mr. Cardigan.”

  Cardigan nodded and the woman, in her late twenties, straightened, dipped her head and gave a V-shaped smile that showed small, incredibly white teeth.

  “This is an adventure,” she said. “How do you do.”

  “He’ll have some coffee, Marya. Do the honors.”

  “Half and half?” she asked, indicating the brandy bottle.

  Cardigan nodded. “Yeah—about.”

  She had hair the color of copper. It was pulled tight on her shapely head and rolled into a taut knot just below and back of her left ear. She wore a high-waisted blouse and a drape skirt and she was fairly tall, and built. Her eyes were dark, smiling, but seemed to wear a protective veil.

  “You have news?” Balm asked, bending an interested eye on Cardigan.

  “I got a man planted at an address that might turn up news.”

  “Here in the city?”

  “Chinatown.”

  Cardigan took a cup of coffee from Marya Rutlov, then took a glass of brandy and poured it into the coffee. He said to Balm: “I stopped by mainly to find out if you heard about the cops picking up Charley Sun, a Chinese lad from the express agency.”

  Balm looked surprised. “No, I’ve heard nothing.”

  “That’s what I wanted to know. It means they didn’t get anything out of him—yet.” />
  Marya Rutlov said: “You seem pleased.”

  “Maybe,” Cardigan said. “But I figure that reward’s as good in my pocket as anybody else’s. I’m not in this business because I like it.”

  Balm laughed, his jowls shaking. “I like your frankness, Mr. Cardigan. It’s refreshing.” He touched a corner of his mouth with his handkerchief. “But if the police have this—what’s his name?—Charley Sun, it seems as though they have an ace.”

  “There’s four aces in a deck,” Cardigan grinned, “and a queen kicking beats a jack.”

  “M’m,” mused Balm.

  Cardigan set down his empty cup. “I’ve got to beat it. I’ll report to you from time to time.”

  “Do that. But I am, by the way, taking a trip. However, I’ll post the reward at my bank. I’ve a reservation on the Honolulu Wing for tomorrow. Flying to Hawaii on business. I’ll be back in a fortnight. Luck, old man!”

  Marya’s eyes shimmered darkly as she smiled, raised her cup. “Luck, Mr. Cardigan.”

  “Thanks a million,” said Cardigan.

  HE GOT his hat and overcoat and went out into the corridor, down to the elevator bank. The marker showed that the car was at the top floor. Cardigan buzzed for it, waited a minute, and when the marker did not move, took the stairway down. As he walked across the lobby he saw a youth sitting on one of the divans reading a newspaper. Cardigan went on to the door, pushed against it, then stopped pushing and turned and went back into the lobby. His eyes were keen with thought as he went toward the divan. He sat down on the divan alongside the youth, who did not take his eyes off the paper.

  “Pinky Bellmont,” Cardigan said.

  The youth turned his head slowly, gave Cardigan a blank look, turned a page of his newspaper and went on reading. He was thin, of medium height, with bony white fingers, a bony sallow jaw, and pink cheeks. He weighed about a hundred and ten. Yellow silky hair showed beneath the brim of a green velours hat. His clothes were cheap, flashy, and he wore grain leather shoes and tan spats, pearl-buttoned.