It was a clean miss because the gunman, trying to jump aside, lost his footing on the slippery, packed snow and fell heavily on his side, as the Marquis’ gun spoke. And the jar of the fall tightened the hold-up man’s finger on his own trigger. Two spurts of fire jerked from his hand, unaimed.
The cripple, who had fallen in the middle of the road, had clawed and scrambled to his feet. The two wild slugs of the fallen gunman caught him—one in the cheek, the other under the ear—knocked him kicking, sliding, into the gutter on the far side of the street.
The car spurted away from the curb. The fallen gunman had a death grip on the running-board. The Marquis fired again and again. The gunman wriggled like an eel, pulled himself up to the running-board and the car zigzagged. The best the Marquis could do with the remaining shells in his clip was to explode the tail-light on the car, as it spurted around the corner and was gone.
A flood of bluecoats poured from the station-house, raced at the Marquis’ heels. He waved some of them to the dead cripple in the opposite gutter, himself ran on toward where the dead thug lay on the sidewalk.
THE boy was climbing to his feet wearily, his face white and sick, his eyes frightened. He looked down at the dead thug whose mouth was hanging far open, the jaw broken, still bleeding. As the Marquis hunched down to feel perfunctorily for the non-existent pulse, Lyle stumbled to the curb and was sick.
Prowl-cars started screaming, the street coming gruesomely alight with their red beams.
“What happened?” the Marquis asked Lyle. “Were they going to beat you again?”
The boy said they had ordered him to get into their car.
The street was already rising to a crescendo of pandemonium—men running and shouting, cars and curiously morbid spectators springing from nowhere. The Marquis rushed the boy back to the station-house.
He told the lieutenant on desk duty: “I’m using the skipper’s office. I want to talk to this kid, alone. Keep everyone out.”
The desk phone rang, and, before the Marquis reached the office in the rear, the lieutenant sang: “Marty—it’s the inspector for you.”
The Marquis’ round forehead was livid, the big vein standing out like a whipcord.
The inspector ground wearily over the wire: “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you want a two-weeks’ vacation out of town with pay, or do you want to go up on charges—suspension to start immediately?”
The Marquis said, tight-lipped: “Ben—they just threw in a murder. It was an accident, but it’s murder. For God’s sake, lay off me now.”
“Lay off, hell. Can you tie that murder to a certain party? Positively?”
“No, not yet. Give me time. It’ll come out—”
“It has come out. I’m not kidding you. My orders are to suspend you or send you on a vacation. You don’t think I thought this up myself?”
“What charges are they digging up this time?”
“Extortion.”
The Marquis was silent, breathing carefully.
“Suspend and be damned,” he said finally, and hung up.
He unpinned the badge from inside his coat and tossed it on the lieutenant’s desk without comment, passed to the rear.
IN THE captain’s office, the white-faced Lyle suddenly erupted. He stood with his hands clenched at his sides, white muzzle lines around his trembling mouth. The swelling on his eye had been reduced so that it was only vaguely lumpy. His expression was sick, desperate, contemptuous. His voice was husky, his lips twisting to shape the words.
“I’ve nothing more to say to you,” he blurted bitterly, “you—or this rotten skunk-hole of a town. Broadway—the amusement center of the world! The rotten, grafting sink-hole of all the rats in the world, more like it. One big racket—that’s what it is—and you and all the rest of the crooks in uniforms are part of it, taking orders from gunmen. I can’t have a gun to protect myself. I can’t do anything but get slugged and kicked and threatened and booted out of jobs because your damned headman wants my girl. A great town—a great street! Well, get this, copper—I’m going to look after myself—and Miss Wilson, too—without any help from you or your kind. Now, let me out of this hell-hole.”
The Marquis’ eyes were heavy, somber. His chin moved in its little circle. There was dull red in his temples. “You’ll have to take it easy, Lyle, for just a little while. Wait a minute. I’d gladly give you a gun, and let you do as you please—except that you’d be certain, then, of winding up in the morgue. A certain—as you say—rat, has slipped out of control. It happens, from time to time. Believe me, it means more to me than it does even to you. My position would be too hot to live in, if anyone ever got away with what May is doing now. As I say, others have tried it. I’ve been here twenty years—and I’m still here. Think that over.”
“Think it over, be damned. I’ve had all the thinking I want about you. If you’re not crooked, then you’re dumb and—”
“Could you identify the men that got away in that car?”
“You bet your damned life I could. I’ll never forget their faces as long, as I—”
The Marquis’ eyes were still somber as he took a step backward and opened the door behind him. He called: “Oh, Malloy.”
A couple of plainclothesmen came out of the locker-room and peered curiously.
“This boy saw the gunmen that killed that cripple. Turn him over to homicide for questioning and a look at the picture-gallery. Then hold him for me, if they don’t want him.”
One of the detectives said: “Well, we wouldn’t do this for every private citizen, Marty.”
SNOW sifted down on Longacre Park, on huddled bums on the benches there. The incandescent fork of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, swarming with black crowds and thick lines of traffic, was brilliant, blazing, thundering. The curious curtain of white flakes toned everything to a harmonious, glowing, glamorous fairyland, put thrilled, expectant looks on the jostling eager crowds. An acre of sheer pleasure and delight….
Johnny Berthold found the Marquis there, and reported to him.
“You were right,” he said. “The murder is clean. The kid can’t pick out anybody in the rogue’s gallery. The description he gives isn’t much use. It looks like May has gotten clean away with it. This is the pay-off, Marty—murder. And there doesn’t seem any possibility of ever laying it on his doorstep. By God—the district will run wild. Every killer in town will revise his ideas about Broadway being out of bounds. We’ll have—”
The Marquis got up and walked away. He walked across to the cigar-store on the corner of Forty-fourth and dialed a number. When the inspector answered, he said: “Am I too late to change my mind about that vacation? Have you put through my suspension yet?”
“No. I figured you’d come round when you cooled off. Listen, Marty—I know the tough spot you’re in. Anything I can do—anything at all—you know. What are you—”
“I’m leaving for Chicago on the midnight.”
He went back to Longacre square and talked for a long time to Johnny Berthold.
THE bellhop that, two night later, brought the can of olive-oil to the Marquis’ room at the Wortman Hotel, in Chicago, grinned as he set it down. “I guess you wouldn’t remember me, Lootenant—Charlie Andrews. Remember that poker game last time you was here?”
“Oh, sure, Charlie. How’s tricks?”
“Oke. Say—I saw Captain Crakas hoofing in the grill just a few minutes back. S’pose I—”
“I don’t want anybody to know I’m here, Charlie. Just looking the town over as a private citizen. Keep the lip buttoned, and I’ll appreciate it.”
That was all, for the first night.
The second night out, in Dink Lyman’s waterfront saloon, he found the “Spender.” The place was not strictly a waterfront saloon, though it fitted that description in every particular but one—it was not on the waterfront. It was within a block of the Loop in an odorous, dark little side-street that, at three in the morning, was swept icily bare.
The saloon—down three steps into a long dim room, thick with men, smoke, chatter—had little to distinguish it. A gray-painted swing-door at the rear evidently led to private cubicles beyond. The Marquis squirmed his way to the room-long bar, at the corner nearest the swing-door. He drank and smoked.
AFTER three hours, a head came along above the crowd—a grim man with wild, coal-black hair, a white fedora, a swarthy face and eyes like dancing jet-black specks of coal. He was three inches over six feet, wide-jawed, thin-lipped, in fine condition. He gave the impression of tremendous impatience, pent-up, burning energy that was a torture to him. He wore a gray overcoat and his striped silk shirt and purple tie, trapped by a gold collar-pin, were visible over the heads of the packed humanity at the bar.
He was making for the swing-doors at the rear, alone. The Marquis edged out to the very corner of the bar. When the man came abreast, he called in a surprised tone: “Hello, Spender.”
The jet eyes flickered down and side-wise, jerking across the Marquis’ face and back again. The man stopped. His eyebrows went up, and a thin smile curled his mouth. “Well, if it ain’t the Marquis.” He looked a quick question across at the bartender, and, receiving a negative answer, grinned down at the Marquis. “Come on back. I’ll buy a drink.”
Over a deal table in a cubicle, they drank and exchanged boisterous greetings.
Presently, the Marquis said: “Haven’t seen you in the big town in three years, Spender.”
The swarthy face crinkled. “Your memory’s bad, Marquis. You ran me out of your town—gave me a floater.”
“I did that? Well, you know how it was, at that time. Orders from way over my head to float out all the snatch-specialists.”
There was a puzzled gleam far back in the jet eyes. “How are things now?”
The Marquis shrugged. “Still bad for baby-takers.”
“I never had any of that.”
“I know you didn’t. I was sorry to have to chase you and one or two others like you. You didn’t hurt my feelings any when you put the bee on the occasional grifter for a few pennies—gamblers and such.”
The jet eyes were sharper, and the tall man said nothing.
The Marquis twirled his glass. “Your line has certainly gone dead now. Nobody around with the kind of reputation that makes an ‘or else’ mean something. I know of two operations that went sour in the last six months because the victim refused to pay and—believe it or not—the parties behind the snatch didn’t know anything else to do but turn the victim loose. No muscle. Oh, well, times are different, I guess, though I don’t know why they should be. Things good here?”
“Not bad; not good.”
The Marquis drank the second third of his drink. “One of your best pals is doing all right for himself.”
“My pals? I got no pals in New York.”
“Frankie May. You worked for him once, didn’t you?”
“I did a little election-slugging for him, but that don’t mean he’s no pal.”
“No? Well, he’s certainly making a fortune—so much he doesn’t know what to do with it. I don’t rate him very high, myself—I don’t think he has the heart of a rabbit—yet—he’s riding high. Maybe too high. I guess the trouble is that the Broadway Squad is just too damned good. We have the town so clean that there’s nobody to take small bites out of people like Frankie. It’s too bad. A bite now and then keeps a man’s head down to the size of his hat, don’t you think?”
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I guess those are your friends, Spender. Great to run into you. Look me up, if you ever get to the big town.”
There was a bewildered look in the Spender’s jet eyes. “Hell, not much chance o’ that—after you running the welcome off the mat.”
“So I did. I keep forgetting. I won’t be back for a couple of weeks, myself. Taking a little vacation.”
“Couple weeks, huh?”
“Yep. Well, two weeks soon passes.”
“Yeah.”
THE phone in the Marquis’ Central Park West apartment rang at four in the afternoon, on Tuesday. The Marquis reached a wine-silk-robed arm from the divan and picked it up. He listened.
Johnny Berthold said: “Spender and three uggsmay got in on a bus from Chi this A.M. Got a pencil?” He went on: “Spender registered at the Beveridge Hotel—right there on Times Square—alone, under the name of ‘Conrad.’ The three others went straight from the station out to Brooklyn, where men are men.
“They had the key to a little dump of a house on the edge of the swamps. They been ordering food and ice and such, taking care to keep their faces out of sight. A man from the phone company showed up a few minutes ago and went in. You know what this reminds me of?”
“No.”
“Remember when Spender—or, at least, we pegged Spender for it—snatched little Freddie Borg? He had them take him out in the wilds like this, and his pay-off man walked right in to Freddie’s wife and asked. The wife stalled. When the Spender didn’t get a phone call from his pay-off man, right on the dot, he simply walked out of the hotel. His hoods had instructions to put Freddie out of the way right on the minute of the deadline if they didn’t hear from him, and—well, you remember where we found Freddie.”
“Such talk. Nobody ever proved Spender did that. Better not tire out your brain with all that thought. You say they’re having a phone installed in a rush?”
“Yeah. The guy’s in there now. What do I do now?”
Stick around there till dark. As long as anybody’s in the house, you stick. Is Asa with you? Then, if anyone leaves, have Asa trail them.”
At six-thirty, Berthold called again. He said: “Two of them left and walked to the subway. Asa’s behind them.”
“Did you arrange with Mike to relieve you, in case nothing happens today?”
“No. From the looks of things, something damn well is going to happen today. And, anyway, you’re supposed to be in Chicago. I don’t see any use in letting anybody else in on the fact that you’re not. Mike’s a kind of mouthy guy and—hell, I’ll stick around.”
At midnight there came another call, that said, “They’re all three back again. They’ve got a secondhand sedan now. Asa called and said they shook him off in the subway, so I told him to go home and forget all about it.”
At two o’clock, Berthold called to say: “They’ve all three gone out in the sedan. Do I fan the joint?”
“Leave it alone.”
At four-thirty, Berthold’s call said: “The works. Big Casino. Game, set and rubber.”
“They’ve got him?”
“Not his brother Max.”
There was one more call, twenty minutes later, and Berthold reported: “A little Spick with a face like a cigar-store Indian, wearing a black-felt hat, left alone and walked to the subway. He had what looked like a letter in his hand. He was about an inch shorter than you.”
“You get a medal. Now, quit and go home.”
“Huh? What—what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to have a little talk with Ginger. Meet me around, if you like.”
GINGER, circulating among the dice-tables, spotted the Marquis the minute he appeared in the doorway. There was a big, noisy crowd in the vast, smoke-filled layout and more noise than the Marquis had ever heard in the place.
Ginger sauntered over, buttoning the one button of his trick Tuxedo and stared, green-eyed, at the Marquis’ tight black scarf. His face was doughy, flat, his green eyes thick. “What’s on your mind, Marty?”
“I hear Frankie’s out. Any idea where?”
“No.” Ginger conceded after a minute.
“Do you need him to run this joint?”
Ginger blinked dully. “What’s the gag?”
“I’m asking.”
The green eyes got irritated. “You’ve blown your top.”
“No. How would you and I get on, if you were the works?”
The green eyes went uneasy. “Tie it outside.”
&nb
sp; “Frankie’s made himself a lot of enemies. He can’t last forever.”
The white face became red. “Go and choke yourself, will you?”
The Marquis’ black-gloved hand caught him as he tried to swing away.
“You’re not a farmer, Ginger.”
Ginger’s lips were like paper. His green eyes wandered over the wall behind the Marquis. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any. I like things as they are, see? I been with Frankie four years. I ain’t went short yet. Him and me are pals, see? Real pals. Anybody says different is a liar.”
There was a second’s silence.
The Marquis said softly: “So he’s got that much on you.”
The reply was almost inaudible, as Ginger turned his head as if to survey the room. “Yeah.”
“With the right kind of friends, there’s lots of things could be fixed up.”
“It couldn’t be fixed.”
“What if Frankie sort of—didn’t come back?”
Ginger’s finger ran inside his collar, and his eyes were frightened. “Don’t horse around, copper. You heard me.”
“You ought to make a friend or two of your own. Frankie’s stirred himself up plenty of trouble in one direction or another—or both. Some sorehead’ll catch up to him one of these days. The cops will never know what hit him—or care much, I guess.”
Ginger’s jaw-points showed white. He licked dry, loose lips. “Why tell me all this?”
“Hell, I told you why.”
“Well, it don’t register, see?”
Now, worry was sharp in the Marquis’ china-blue eyes. “Come out of it, Ginger. You know he’s gone haywire about a girl. You know he’s slipping. Get yourself a soft landing-place. I didn’t expect this kind of talk from you.”
“It’s none of my business. Take that spearmint breath out of my puss, will you?”
“It is your business. If you had a brain in that thick head, you’d see it, and square yourself away. He’s got to go sometime.”
Ginger ran a finger again inside his collar. “I don’t want no part of this talk,” he said huskily, and turned away.
The Complete Cases of the Marquis of Broadway, Volume 1 Page 3
