Masters of Noir: Volume Two

by Various

  "At your service,” Malone said. “Remember I never lost a client yet."

  He bent down and picked the flowers out of the waste basket. The card was still attached to them: “Flowers to the Fair, From John J. Malone."

  "I know a young lady who will appreciate these,” Malone said, “Her mother lives in Monte Carlo."

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  DIE LIKE A DOG by DAVID ALEXANDER

  I want to get this written down on paper fast, while there's still some Sneaky Pete in the bottle, just in case my hand gets shaky and I need it. Not that I'm stooling, understand. When you're a wino on Skid Row you don't holler copper. But this is different from stealing the shoes off a mission stiff or jack-rolling a lush. This is murder.

  I want to have this all written down on paper with a date on it and somebody to witness it, then I'm going to seal it up in an envelope and leave it with a character I can trust. Maybe a Holy Joe at the Sally Ann—the Salvation Army—or the bartender at Grogan's gin mill on the Bowery. Just in case the cops get to smelling around with their big noses, understand. Because this is the first time that I was ever mixed up in a murder and I got to protect myself. I'm not really mixed up in it, I guess, but just kind of a witness. And I'm not even sure it's murder.

  Don't start laughing and thinking I'm going off into the rams or counting the lavender leopards on the ceiling just because I'm a wino. This happened. It happened just today. And by now maybe they got the old doll that was chilled in the top drawer of the ice box at the morgue on East Twenty-ninth Street.

  I'll take another snort of the sweet wine I got right here beside me in the cubbyhole at the Castle Rooms I just paid the man six bits to occupy until tomorrow morning. Then I'll begin at the beginning. There, that's better. Stuff warms up your insides, know what I mean?

  I woke up in this same flophouse this morning. Only I didn't wake up in a six-bit private room. I woke up in what they call the dormitory where a bed costs thirty-five cents. I didn't wake up until nine o'clock when they come around to fumigate the place. They run you out of here every day at nine so they can fumigate and you can't get back in until four in the afternoon.

  I felt awful, worse than I ever did feel before, but when the man started hollering to hit the deck I did all the usual things mechanically before I tried to get up. I felt for the Army shoes with the waterproof soles and they were tied around my neck like usual. I reached down inside the old gray sweatshirt and the little tobacco pouch where I keep what's left from the stakes I make by bracing guys was there, pinned to me, but it was empty. That didn't surprise me because I knew I'd spent my last cent on a pint of Sneaky to get up on. I felt my leg. I always tied the morning pint to my leg, inside my trousers, in a special way I had invented. I hadn't even opened the bottle the night before, but it wasn't there. Some mother-lover had split my trousers leg with a razor blade and got the pint while I was sleeping off my binge.

  I damn near blew my top right there. I had the green-paint horrors and I didn't have a cent and the brand new full pint that would have saved my life was poured down some mother-lover's gullet. I tried to get out of bed and I could hardly stand on my own two feet, I was shaking so. I didn't know what the hell to do. I'd be lucky to make the street without a shot the way I felt, and in order to brace enough of a stake for a drink I'd have to get off the Bowery. You can't bum from bums. Maybe I'd have to walk up Fourth Street all the way to Washington Square and I couldn't ever make it without a drink.

  I staggered into the lavatory and splashed some water on myself and looked around at the empties on the floor, hoping maybe some guy might have left even a few drops in a bottle. I'd been on Skid Row long enough to know better. Somehow or other I managed to get down the steps and out into the street. I kind of leaned against buildings until I was outside Grogan's Palace Bar about a block away. I'd been drinking there the night before. It's funny how they give Skid Row pads and wino traps such high-faluting names. The Castle and the Palace, for instance. And just a little further on there's a flea flop called the Berkshire Arms. The Bowery businessmen have got a funny kind of humor.

  All around me were little groups of guys pooling the change they'd saved from their bracing operations of the day before so they could make a crock. There's two kinds of winos on the Bowery. One kind tries to hold on to enough change overnight so they can get in a morning pool that's trying to make a crock to pass around. The other kind buys their pint or fifth the night before and tries to hang on to it till morning. I'm the second kind. I got something wrong with my throat and I can't take big swallows. Usually you only get one swallow at a crock when you're in a pool, so I always get gypped. Also, some of these pools buy Sweet Lucy, which is port, and I go for Sneaky Pete, which is sherry or muscatel. Not that it makes much difference. When I feel like I felt that morning, I'll drink anything, including kerosene.

  I shuffled into the Palace and I walked right into murder, although I didn't know it then and I was too fogged to think about murder or anything else, anyway. I said to the bartender, “Suds, some mother-loving bastard ripped my jeans and stole my life insurance, a whole pint of it. Suds, I got the heaves and jerks and I'm going off into the rams if I don't get one quick. You give me just one big-boy on the cuff, Suds, and I'll be in shape to brace a stake and pay you inside half an hour. I spent a lot in here last night. Almost three bucks, Suds."

  Suds just laughed like that was funny. He said, “You been around long enough to know better than ask for a cuff in Grogan's trap. Grogan wouldn't cuff his sweet old drunken grandmother. Fall down in the gutter and drool a little and maybe Kerrigan, the cop, will take you up to Bellevue. They got some stuff there called paraldehyde makes your eyeballs pop like the buttons on a fat man's vest."

  I was really shaking now and the sweat was rolling off me so hard it bounced on the bar. A guy at the bar was looking at me. He was just another Skid Row grifter, dirty as I was, needing a shave. But he had a kind of air about him like he'd seen better days. He had a big, fat purple goblet of vino in front of him that made my tongue hang out a foot, and he had a dog. It was the damned ugliest dog I ever saw in all my life. A kind of mongrel bull, I guess. It was so old it could hardly walk. It had nasty-looking sores and a swelling in its belly like a tumor. Its eyes were two big milky moonstones. Cataracts. The old dog was blind.

  The dog's owner had evidently been belting himself with the Pete for quite a spell because he was beginning to glow like a wino does when the stuff gets in his bloodstream. His cheeks were pink in his dirty-gray face. He kind of smiled at me and showed a set of jagged teeth stained purple-brown by wine. He waved a fan of dirty fingers at me and said to Suds, “This man is sick. I was a doctor once and I know. Alcohol is a strange element. It's the only poison that serves as its own antidote."

  Suds said, “So what you want that I should do? Give every sick creep that crawls through the door a shot of bonded bourbon on the house?"

  The man put money on the bar. He gulped the whole goblet of wine, then he said, “Refill my glass. Give our friend a blockbuster on me. He requires strong medicine."

  I almost started to laugh and cry at the same time. If you'd given me a choice between a million cash or the most beautiful broad in the world with all her clothes except her stockings off or a blockbuster, right then, I'd have taken the blockbuster. A blockbuster is a beer goblet full of sherry with a shot of cheap rye poured right into it. If that don't fix you up, it's time for the embalming needle.

  The guy who saved my life was a wino himself and he was smart enough not to talk any more until I got the blockbuster down. It took a little while because like I say I got something wrong with my throat and I got to kind of sip, but I held that goblet in two hands and I kept on sipping and didn't put it down till it was empty. I could feel the stuff flowing through me nice and warm every inch of the way. Down the hatch, into the lungs, out into the arms and hands, into the belly and right down to the groin and the legs and the numb feet. In thirty seconds by
the clock my hands that had been fluttering like the tassels on a strip-dancer's brassiere were steady.

  The man tugged at his old dog and dragged him up the bar toward me. The blind dog walked stiff like a zombie in one of those horror films they show at the all-night picture houses.

  "Feel better?” the man asked.

  I nodded. “Mister,” I said, “you ought to get the medal they hand out for lifesaving."

  He chuckled, or kind of cackled rather. He waved his dirty paw at the bartender, put money on the bar, said, “A bird can't fly on one wing. What's your name, son?"

  "Jack,” I told him. Nobody ever gives their right name on Skid Row and that was what they called me when they called me anything. As Suds filled up the glasses, I said, “You must have just come into an inheritance."

  "Not yet,” he said, “but I'm about to do so. Today, I think. A friend of mine is very ill. High blood-pressure. Heart disease. Partial paralysis. And it's all complicated by old age and chronic alcoholism. I've been watching her closely. I'm a doctor, you know, even though they took my license. The slightest shock will carry her off. I don't expect her to last the day.” He gulped at his wine and looked happy.

  A thousand guys you meet on Skid Row expect to inherit a fortune any given minute. I didn't take this character seriously. But I was hurting and he was buying, so I was willing to let him talk.

  "She leaving you her money?” I asked.

  He thought it over. “Well, not exactly,” he said. “She hasn't any money. I've kept her alive for a long while now. I'm a doctor, even if they took my license. I let people impose on me, you see. So now I live on city charity and an occasional handout from my brother. I never could refuse poor, suffering people who wanted prescriptions for sedatives—goof balls, you know. One girl killed herself with an overdose. And another girl talked me into performing an illegal operation. I almost went to jail. I was too softhearted to practice medicine. We may as well have another one. I just cashed my relief check. And if the old lady dies today I'll have plenty."

  Suds filled them up. The man said, “You can call me Doc, Jack. Doc Trevor, that's my name. This old woman's name is Marge. Marge Lorraine. It was a famous name once, but you wouldn't remember, you're too young. She was an actress. Booze and age and sickness got her. When she was still young enough she became a street-walker to get her booze. Then she hit Skid Row and the lousy bums would make her dance and kick her heels up so they could laugh at her. That's the only way she could get booze. And she was old then, Jack. Old enough to be a grandmother. To think that she'd been a fine actress once, with her name up there in lights."

  He couldn't stand the thought of it and drank down the wine in his goblet.

  "I used to see her in the joints, kicking her heels up for the stinking bums so she could get a drink to stop the hurting. I couldn't stand it. She was old enough to be my mother. I remembered how I used to worship her up there behind the footlights when I was a kid. One night I took her home with me to the coldwater flat I've got in a tenement on Hester Street. She's been there ever since, a couple of years now. I was interested in her complication of diseases. It's a miracle she's alive at all. I don't have money for the drugs she needs, but a little booze, a little food, what medicines I can buy, they've kept her alive. The main thing that's kept her alive, though, is this old dog here. His name is Pasteur. I found him when he was a pup. He was homeless, like the old woman was, so I took him to my flat. That was seventeen years ago. Most dogs don't live seventeen years. Pasteur's like the old woman. Old and sick and useless. Everything the matter with him but he keeps on living somehow. He gives the old woman courage. She figures so long as the dog can live, the shape he's in, she can live, too."

  He said, “It's what they call ‘Identification’ in psychology. She identifies herself with the dog, you see. You interested in psychology, Jack?"

  "I used to be,” I told him. “I used to be interested in lots of things. Right now I'm only interested in another drink."

  He waved his dirty hand and got the beakers refilled again. “Psychology,” he said. “If the booze or life or something hadn't got me a long time ago, I'd do a paper about the old woman and the dog for the medical society magazine. When Pasteur feels good and gets the idea he's a pup again and frisks a little, the old woman feels good, too. When he's sick and moping and whining, she's that way. High blood-pressure affects a person's eyesight. She isn't blind yet, but she can't see too well. Her eyes started going about the time the dog developed cataracts."

  "It's too bad he's blind like that, poor old dog,” I said.

  "He doesn't mind too much,” the doc replied. “Dogs don't go much by their eyes anyway. It's the nose with them. The nose and ears. Pasteur can still do tricks, even. Watch him.” He snapped his fingers. “Sit!” he said. “Sit up, Pasteur!"

  The old dog scrambled to his feet and tried to balance himself on his rump and you could tell it hurt him like hell. It was like an old man with rheumatism trying to do a handspring. The doc kept barking, “Sit! Sit up!” and he seemed to be enjoying himself because this old dog was the only thing on earth would take orders from him. The dog finally managed to sit up on his rump, kind of swaying. “Good boy,” said the doc. “Pasteur knows lots of tricks. The old woman claps her hands when she sees him do them. He's just learned a brand new trick. We're going to show the old woman when we get back, aren't we, Pasteur?"

  "Please don't make him do any more tricks for me,” I said. “He's too old for tricks. It hurts him, sitting up like that."

  "You don't understand the psychology of the old,” the doc answered. “Pasteur loves doing tricks. It makes him feel important. When the old cease to feel important, they know they're useless, and that's when they start to die."

  I didn't want him to make the old dog do any more tricks, so I tried to change the subject. I said, “If this old lady hasn't got any money, how you going to inherit any money when she dies?"

  "Insurance,” said the doc. “When I got her things from the place they'd put her out of before she moved in with me, I found an old insurance policy. It was made out to her daughter, the only policy she had that hadn't lapsed. The daughter walked out when Marge got to be a lush and Marge has never heard from her. Doesn't even know if she's alive. But one way or another, she'd kept the payments up right to the year before. It was an annual premium and it was due again. I got her to sign some papers from the insurance company making me the beneficiary and I've been paying the premium ever since."

  "Is it for a lot of money?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “Not much, or I couldn't pay the premium on it. But it's a lot for guys like you and me. Two grand."

  "What makes you think she's going to die today?” I asked.

  He was pretty drunk. He winked at me. “I'm a doctor,” he said. “I know. I know the signs.” Then he kind of bit his lips with his wine-stained teeth and said, “There's a friend of mine with the city relief agency. He always tips me off when investigators are coming around. They'd cut me off the relief rolls if they knew I had Marge up there with me. You're not allowed to keep another person in the place they rent for you. Up to now I've always got her out in time when the investigator was paying me a call. Parked her in a gin mill and hid what rags she's got and got rid of all the empties. But now she's going blind and almost paralyzed, I can't get her down the steps. And I've been tipped off the investigator is coming around tomorrow. I can't lose that relief.” He drew himself up straight, said, “I'm too much of a gentleman to brace men on the street for my flop and booze money."

  The blockbusters he'd bought had really busted inside me now and made me kind of cocky. Besides, it made me sore, him throwing off like that on guys who brace marks on the street. After all, he was just another wino himself. I should have strung him along, of course, since he was buying and I was needing. But I said, “Look here, Doc, you trying to tell me you're going to bump this old doll today so you can collect her insurance money and this investigator wo
n't find her in your pad?"

  "That's fantastic,” he replied. “I couldn't harm a hair of her poor old head. Why, I'm the one who's kept her alive as long as this. But I'm a doctor and I know she's dying, and since she's dying I might as well see the undertaker gets her out before the relief investigator arrives."

  He looked me full in the face. “That's only common sense,” he said. “And I'll give her a nice funeral on the insurance money, too."

  I was still talking against my own best interests, my best interests being for him to keep hanging around and buying me blockbusters. But I was getting tight and I said, “If you think she's dying why aren't you up there with her?"

  He said, very serious, “You've got a point. A telling point. Fact is, I don't want to be alone with her when she dies, Jack. I'm a drunk. I might get the horrors. You could do me a favor, Jack."

  Uh-uh, I thought, here it comes. I'm old enough to know guys don't buy you three blockbusters in a row without expecting something. Usually with guys like me who are big and young and kind of rough, it's the fags slumming on Skid Row who make the propositions. Sometimes they only want you to come up to their fancy Park Avenue apartments and beat the holy hell out of them. That's a funny kind of kick, you ask me. But this guy wasn't gay and he wasn't any slummer. He was a wino who belonged right where he was—on the Bowery.

  He was saying, “I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd come up with me, Jack. We can pick up some bottles of wine on the way. Enough to last all day. I'd like you to be there when she dies, just so I could have a little company. A man needs a friend at a time like that."

  It's funny the things an alky will do to get the stuff. I knew damned well he was framing me somehow and I thought he might be planning murder, but all I was thinking about was those bottles of wine he was going to buy.

  I said, “Well, maybe if I could have another blockbuster first. It's quite a walk."