“So you can’t get along without the cops after all.”
“I probably could—but I’m not taking the chance. I can’t afford to take the chance, with Sam Chang dying by inches. If you want to crow, Dave, crow. I can take that, too. I can take anything—so long as there’s a chance of saving Sam Chang.”
Dave Brice stared. Then he exploded: “By cripes I didn’t think it was in you! I didn’t think you had the guts ever to back down an inch!”
“Ah, sure you did,” chimed in Bodenmeyer. “Only a coupla hours ago you said it was tough you and Cardigan was both so bull-headed—that together, you two guys could—”
Brice barked: “I wish you’d lose your teeth for good! Give you a pair of teeth and—”
“You heard me, Charley Sun,” Cardigan was saying dully. “Who did you phone? We’ve got to know. We’ve got to know if Tom Gow and Berkman and Finger are really in this city. We’ve got to find Mae Ling. We’ve got to find the guy that fired that shot that wounded Sam Chang—or if it was Mae Ling, we want her. It’ll be murder if Sam Chang dies.”
Charley Sun groaned.
Cardigan added grimly: “And if he dies—there’ll be death to pay for it—you and Mae Ling and the others.”
“Not—Mae Ling,” panted Charley Sun. “I phoned—phoned—” He groaned, pressed his eyelids together and writhed in the chair. “Not Mae Ling!” he sobbed.
“Who?”
Charley Sun gritted out: “Marya… Rutlov….” He slumped in the chair, his mouth falling open loosely.
“H’m, he has passed out,” observed Bodenmeyer gravely.
Brice barked: “Who the hell is Marya Rutlov?”
“I know,” Cardigan said quietly.
“You know! It seems to me that you know an awful lot!”
Bodenmeyer got up. “Listen, we better bring Charley Sun to, so we can—”
“There’s a faster way, kid,” Cardigan broke in. “Put some clothes on, Dave.”
Brice snapped to it, flung at Bodenmeyer: “You stay here with Sun.”
Chapter Four
Button—Button—
IT WAS five past five in the morning when Cardigan knocked on Ludwig Balm’s door. Dave Brice, smoking a rank cigar paced up and down the corridor—six paces one way, six another—his baggy pants flopping around his knees.
When, a couple of minutes later, the door was opened, Brice stopped pacing and Cardigan said: “This is a screwy hour, Mr. Balm, but….”
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Balm asked, his face still dulled by sleep, his hands knotting the belt of his robe.
“Plenty,” said Brice.
“Must be, must be,” said Balm concernedly. “Come in, come in, please.” He rubbed his eyes as they walked in. “Gad, I must have been sleeping hard. I need an eye-opener. You men like one?”
They shook their heads and Balm, padding into the living-room, poured himself a tot of whiskey, downed it neat.
Cardigan said: “This Marya Rutlov—the woman I met here—where does she live?”
Balm’s eyes popped.
Dave Brice said: “Charley Sun made a phone call to her before that damned throne-chair was shipped.”
“Sam Chang,” said Cardigan, “an op of mine, was shot after midnight in a Chinese girl’s apartment. With a poisoned bullet. He’s paralyzed—can’t talk—and so far the doctors haven’t been able to name the poison. We’re working fast. Got to. If we don’t find out the poison, it means Sam Chang dies. That phone call was Charley Sun to the Rutlov woman.”
Balm, his face blank with amazement, sat down. “Excuse me, gentlemen—but this is a shock.”
“How long you know this woman?” Brice asked.
“Why, I’ve known Marya several years. It can’t possibly be true—what you say. The Chinese boy must be lying.”
“I don’t think so,” Cardigan said. “You pull a name like Mary Smith out of the air—but not one like Marya Rutlov. Where’s she live?”
Balm kept shaking his head as if unable to understand. Then he stood up, said angrily: “We will all see! I’ll go with you, gentlemen! I’ll be dressed in a few minutes. Excuse me.”
He spun and strode heavily, angrily across the living-room, disappeared in regions beyond. Four minutes later he reappeared putting on his overcoat.
“Let us go, gentlemen,” he said grimly.
They went down in the elevator and out into the windy street. A Bureau sedan was parked at the curb and Brice got in behind the wheel, Cardigan followed Balm into the rear and Balm said: “Telegraph Hill. Out Stockton and up Filbert. I still think there’s a mistake, gentlemen—but if there isn’t”—he hardened his voice—“I want to be in on the showdown.”
Brice opened the throttle wide and the sedan roared through the deserted streets. Turning into Filbert, he shifted back to second and then, as the grade stiffened, into first. Filbert dead-ends near the top of the hill and beyond that are many small frame houses and careening footwalks of wood. Brice cramped the car into the curb, braked and locked it. Balm was the first out, and smacking his gloved hands together said: “Now we climb.”
THEY climbed wooden steps, went along a level footwalk, then climbed some more, switch-backing. Soon they were on the very top and could see, far below, pier lights and harbor lights and the sweep of the Embarcadero. Balm took an off-shoot of one of the main foot-walks and his feet knocked onto a small porch. There was no light in the bungalow, but after he had knocked several times a light sprang on somewhere in the rear and a moment later another sprang on in front. The door was opened by Marya Rutlov. She had a black-and-red kimono wrapped around her and was pushing her hair back.
“What an hour!” she groaned.
Balm said: “Yes, my dear. What an hour. I have with me Sergeant Brice of the Chinatown Squad and Mr. Cardigan of the Cosmos Agency.”
“This must be interesting,” she said. “Come in and let me comb my hair.”
They went in and Cardigan said: “Better skip the hair-comb.”
“But, goodness, I look a mess!”
Balm said: “Marya, this is very serious. Sit down and listen to what they have to say.” He took a seat himself, folded his hands, pursed his lips and eyed her speculatively.
Cardigan said: “Miss Rutlov, the Chinese boy, Charley Sun, sprang. He said he made that phone call to you. Phoned you before the express-company truck was to pick up the throne-chair.”
She leaned back. “Ah, poor Charley—”
Balm leaned forward.
“Well?” demanded Dave Brice.
Marya Rutlov looked up at him, shrugged. “Well, if he told you, why should I go over it?”
“He fainted just after he mentioned your name,” Cardigan said. “We didn’t wait till he came to. Sam Chang’s dying by inches and we can’t lose a minute.”
She sat up, her eyes opening wide.
“What is this about Sam Chang?”
Cardigan told her.
She laughed. “You should have got the whole story from Charley Sun. Go back now and get the whole story from him.”
Dave Brice shook his head. “You tell us—and we’ll check up from him.”
She leaned back again, weary, a little bored. “Charley Sun is a young fool,” she said. “He did telephone me. Do you know why? I’ll tell you. It has nothing to do with all this. Now and then I do a little painting, and a Chinese girl named Mae Ling has posed for me. Charley Sun is in love with her. Sometimes he would come here with her. But he was afraid she was running around with bad people and it so happened that on the day before the robbery he came to me and said, ‘Miss Rutlov, you are a woman and maybe you can help me. I love Mae Ling but I am afraid she is seeing people who take advantage of her. She says no. But you are a woman and maybe you can find out, so that I can protect her.’ I said I would try and told him to call me next morning. Mae Ling would tell me nothing. I told him that on the phone and he thanked me and asked me please never to mention it to anybody. That is all. It’s very unfo
rtunate if Mae Ling has got in trouble, because Charley Sun loves her.”
Dave Brice crossed to the phone and called his office. “That you, Adolph?” he said. “Has Charley Sun come to?… What did he say?” Dave Brice listened, nodding, making faces, grunting. Finally he hung up, looked at the woman. “It checks,” he said. And to Cardigan, “Well, we’re back where we started, or maybe further back.”
Cardigan looked haggard. He was desperate. He thought of Pinky Bellmont, the punk he had seen sitting in the lobby of Balm’s apartment house. They might try to pick up Pinky. But just because you happen to see a punk sitting in an apartment-house lobby, you can’t call him guilty. However, he was desperate. No thought of the throne-chair entered his head. He was thinking only of Sam Chang, a quiet, able operative—and of Sam’s wife on the way home from China.
HE SAID: “Their stories check but, damn it, they shouldn’t! For those guys that swiped that throne-chair knew what truck was to pick it up, and at what time. Damn it to hell, Charley Sun was the clerk in the office—he knew. The guy at the museum knew. Mr. Balm knew, of course. Who else knew? Maybe a listening-in telephone operator.” He looked at the woman. “Maybe you knew.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t.”
“Mae Ling,” muttered Brice. “That’s the gal we want. We get her and we get the mob.”
Cardigan’s jaw was sticking out. “Take this woman to the station-house and make her face Charley Sun. She knows Charley Sun and she knows Mae Ling.”
Dave Brice said: “Don’t be a fool.”
Cardigan’s face was burning, his voice was hoarse, heavy. “Her story’s too pat. So is Charley Sun’s. And while I’m being a fool, let me go whole hog. Pick up Pinky Bellmont.”
“Pinky Bellmont ain’t in town,” Brice said.
“Pinky Bellmont was in the lobby of Mr. Balm’s apartment house last night. I figured him too small a punk to be mixed up in anything like this—but pick him up.”
Dave Brice said: “All right, we’ll pick up Pinky—but I’m not dragging this woman down to the station-house just because you’ve gone haywire. Come on. Let’s beat it.”
Balm stood up, shook his head, saying: “I’m afraid Mr. Cardigan is very upset.”
“Of course, I’ll go along,” said Marya Rutlov, “if I can be of any help.”
Brice said: “No, never mind. Just stick around town. We’ll give you a ring if we need you.” He grabbed Cardigan by the arm. “Out, big fella. Don’t let a bum steer get you down. Can we drop you off, Mr. Balm?”
“Yes, I wish you would,” Balm said. And to the woman, “I’m sorry, about this, Marya—but it had to be done.”
Cardigan would not be hurried. He rolled a cigarette, stuck it between his lips, picked up a book of matches that lay on one of the window sills and, lighting up, waved the match out and tossed it into a tray. He muttered: “O.K., Dave.”
Marya Rutlov said: “It’s silly to be mad. I have some brandy here. Won’t you have some brandy, all of you?”
“Well, that’s very nice,” said Dave Brice, grinning.
“Nix,” said Cardigan. “Come on, Dave—you wanted to go, now let’s go.”
Marya smiled and came over to take Cardigan by the arm. “Do sit down.”
“Lady, I got an op of mine dying—and I’m not sitting around swilling brandy meanwhile.”
Her voice chided: “Please—please, now, Mr. Cardigan.”
“Just one—come, come,” said Balm largely.
“Yeah, just a quickie,” Dave Brice said, “and then we’ll trot along.”
The woman was pressing on his arm. “Don’t be a child, Mr. Cardigan. A big man like you!”
Balm said, “Stuffy in here,” and opened the door, inhaled deeply, turned and said in a loud, laughing voice: “Don’t worry about your man, Cardigan. Everything will turn out all right. Yes, yes, indeed.”
Cardigan pushed the woman away. His thick brows forked above his nose, his eyes glittered. He lunged across the room, thrust Balm aside and dived out to the porch. In the dawn gloom he saw something move on the boardwalk about twenty yards away. He barked: “Hey, you!”
He heard the sudden flight of feet on wood. He set off at a bounding run, heard feet drumming on the wooden steps; heard the feet miss, clatter, struggle to regain their balance. Cardigan pulled his gun and yelled: “Freeze—or you get it!”
He ran into a man who chopped with a gun, kicked with a foot whose shoe glinted. The foot missed but the chopping blow landed on Cardigan’s head. Sparks seemed to burst inside his head and as he reeled he grabbed hold of the man and together they clattered down the steps to the first landing. The man was like an eel, fast and slippery. He squirmed free and leaped, but Cardigan, on his side, slapped at the man’s ankle, brought him down so hard that the wooden landing shook. He lost his gun as he fell on the man but instead of trying to recover it clubbed the man with his fist, banging his head back against the wood. The man’s hat flew off, he kicked upward with his knees. Cardigan slugged him again, ripped the gun from his hand.
DAVE BRICE was pounding along the footwalk. Another figure leaped over the edge of the footwalk and said: “Stop in your tracks, Brice.”
“Like this,” said Brice, firing. The newcomer fell against the railing, his knees wobbled, his gun fell. Dave Brice grabbed hold of him, held him up. He yelled: “You all right, Jackie?”
Cardigan was hauling his man to his feet. “Yeah,” he said, and slammed his man along the boardwalk, picked him up and dragged him onto the porch, flung him into the bungalow living-room.
“Goodness!” said Ludwig Balm.
Brice came with his man, walking him in, then let him go and watched him crumple to the floor.
Cardigan was breathing heavily. “You got Pinky Bellmont, Dave. And I got—”
“Tom Gow.”
The Chinese lay on the floor, his fingers clawing at the carpet, his breath beating through his lips. Marya Rutlov was backed against a wall, her eyes staring.
Cardigan leaned down, pulled up the cuff of Tom Gow’s left trouser leg. Tom Gow wore patent-leather shoes with cloth uppers, buttoned. One of the buttons was missing. Cardigan said: “Remember that button we found in Mae Ling’s room?”
“By cripes!” exploded Dave Brice.
Cardigan lifted Tom Gow to his feet, shoved him against the wall and said: “Quick, fella. You shot Sam Chang with a poisoned bullet. He’s dying. We’ve got to know the kind of poison, to save him.”
“I didn’t,” choked Tom Gow.
“Brother, I’m not going to monkey around long with you.” He hefted the gun in his hand. “This is your gun, Tom Gow. I’m going to test it on you if you don’t come across.”
Dave Brice snapped. “Spill it, Tom!” and went across and whacked him on the jaw. He whacked him again and said: “Spill it fast, baby!”
Cardigan grunted, “Look out, Dave,” and went up very close to Tom Gow, the gun leveled. “I’m not going to shoot you in the belly, Tom. I’m going to shoot you in the leg—a minor wound. Then we’ll see where you got the poison, what it is.”
Tom Gow gagged. His eyes bulged as he watched Cardigan move the muzzle of the gun downward for a leg shot. Tom Gow began to shake. Sweat beaded his face and his lips trembled. He pressed back against the wall, his arms out, his fingers scraping against the plaster.
Ludwig Balm cried: “Put your hands up, Cardigan—and you, Brice!”
Cardigan spun and fired at the same time and the small room seemed to bounce with the explosion. Balm stumbled and his gun went off three times, the bullets slamming into the floor at Cardigan’s feet. Tom Gow jumped and Dave Brice knocked him cold with a blow on the ear. The woman slumped sighing to the floor. Balm dropped his gun and fell face down on a divan, choking: “Get me a doctor—”
“What’s the poison?” muttered Cardigan.
“Get me—quick—a hospital. I’ll tell—doctor. Agony—will be awful in half—hour—sooner maybe—”
Brice
clipped: “Better not argue, Jackie. You gotta save him to save Sam Chang.”
“Right,” Cardigan grunted. “I’ll carry the bum.”
“I’ll stick till I can get some cops here,” Brice said. “How the hell’d you know those guys were outside?”
Cardigan, shouldering Balm, said: “I didn’t. But I accidentally waved a match by that window when I lit that butt. From that minute on the dame and Balm tried to hold us here. Balm must have phoned her or the heels, when he went to get dressed before at his apartment. I figure now she would’ve waved a match if we’d collared her, and the heels would have come in. We didn’t collar them, so no match—until I waved it by accident. Same signal as at the Pearl of Nanking Café.”
Chapter Five
One-Grand Taxi Fare
MAGRUDER was sitting on his desk in the Cosmos Agency office when Cardigan strode in, went to a mirror, looked at his left eye, which was slightly discolored, and said: “Well, thank God, Sam Chang’s out of danger. Balm knew the poison—he was the one poisoned the bullets. We got the throne-chair about half an hour ago. They’d lugged it aboard a fishing schooner, the Pacific Shark. Me and Brice and a dozen cops. Got Berkman and Finger there, too—and found Mae Ling there. They’d tied her right in the damn thing. Afraid she’d squeal, I guess, if she got away. I had to shoot a couple of the Chink crew that were guarding her.”
“Balm was plenty smart, I guess.”
“Plenty.” Cardigan nodded grimly. “It was neat work, most of it—and the whole thing might have come off O.K. if Tom Gow hadn’t fired that shot at me through the window of the Pearl of Nanking Café. Mae Ling hadn’t bargained on that. She did meet me because she was afraid but she didn’t bargain on gunfire. When Tom Gow came up from Los Angeles with Berkman and Finger he went right to see Mae Ling. They used to run around together but Tom Gow knew she was going with Charley Sun. He knew that the express company Charley Sun worked for always handled shipments to or from the Jerris Museum and he wanted Mae Ling to get Charley to tell her when the throne-chair would be moved next. She wouldn’t, of course. He left, but he came back later and said he’d made a deal with Charley Sun himself. She went and confronted Charley and he denied it, but Tom Gow told her Charley would have to deny it and that if she said anything to the cops, or to anybody, it’d be tough for Charley.
The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 4: 1935-37 Page 26
