The Complete Cases of the Marquis of Broadway, Volume 1

by John Lawrence

  There’s no sense to it. He hurries like mad, till he finds one of these places. Then he stands there, scared stiff, for maybe half an hour. He don’t speak to nobody—in fact, I haven’t seen him speak to nobody since he checked in to the Frontenac yesterday noon. Ask me, I’d say he’d been told not to open his yap, and is sure taking it literally. After he’s stood in front of these meat-shops for maybe half an hour or so, he suddenly beats it away, tears halfway across town—only to wind up in front of another. Another, I mean, of these undertakers named Green. They’re all named Green. Though we’re getting to the end of them. The classified directory says there’s only one more.

  I am sure now that the gent I mentioned in the loose black coat and black fedora is also tailing Rentz. He was waiting when Rentz come out of the hotel tonight, and he is still with us. I haven’t been able to get no better look at him yet. I got my hands full keeping up with the parade without being spotted by one of them. And unless we get out of these back-alley districts, I won’t be able to make no more phone reports—even if I want to. At this time of night, I can’t find no phones. I am writing this in the back seat of a hack and the cabby is going to take it down to you. Give him a finnif.

  That sounds like a report all right, I guess. Tell that to the client.

  Now I got something private to tell you. You know how I been all jittery and worried about things the last few months—about the business going to hell and all? Well, I ain’t no more. I was standing here, all tied up in knots, worryin’—and all of a sudden it come to me. This secret, I mean. I just stood and laughed till I thought I’d die. Of course I can’t tell nobody about it just yet.

  It’s wonderful. I was standing there, with this pain in my head near driving me wild—and then it come. All soft and pleasant—and all of a sudden I knew all about everything and how certain things got to be done, and all like that.

  I seen all about the agency and how you and all these others been fixing it so I wouldn’t get nowhere. I sure was dumb, eh Toni? It ain’t quite come to me what I should do about that yet.

  Two hundred bucks is a lot for tailing this little rabbit around for two days, even with two-hour reports ain’t it? Hey this job is fishier than hell. Tell that client—that Plummer—to leave his phone number so I can call him—or I’ll drop this mess right here. I ain’t going to fumble around no more and get myself bopped off for a voice over the phone and dough shoved under our door. It ain’t right. I forgot why it ain’t right, but it’ll come back to me. You sure fooled me on this one—sending me out and pretending you didn’t know what the job was all about. Of course I know now that this is what you been doing right along—on other jobs. I ain’t quite got the trick down yet of remembering all these things, and I had many a chuckle over it already but being smart is kind of new, and all. That pain keeps coming back yet, too, but

  George Mahaffey

  P.S. You slut.

  THE Marquis’ shaded blue eyes read to the end of the fantastic scrawl. The bronze-haired girl’s voice trembled huskily at his shoulder: “This—this is all the cabby brought. He swears it’s all George gave him. Maybe he lost the first page on the way down from a Hundred and Sixty-eighth. It doesn’t matter, Marty—the whole story’s there. I—I’m licked, Marty.”

  The Marquis looked up slowly from the desk at the extreme rear of McCreagh’s slot-like little Times Square Theater Ticket Agency. His deep-set eyes were queer, muddy, and his round, apple-cheeked small face wore a blank, disinterested expression. “Oh?”

  She rushed on desperately: “This came at ten o’clock. The client called in right after that and I told him—what George said. He hung up on me and everything suddenly stopped dead. George hasn’t called. The client hasn’t called. Nobody’s called. I’ve sat in dead silence in that office for five solid hours, till I’ve nearly gone crazy. I was afraid to wait any longer.

  “There—there isn’t any truth in what George intimates. I even tried to stop him taking this job. This Plummer called yesterday, talked to George. Money was shoved under our door an hour later. George went to the Frontenac yesterday, picked up this Rentz when he came out and followed him all over town till he went to bed. He got behind him again tonight at dusk—and was with him ever since. He phoned reports every two hours and the client phoned me to get them. That’s every scrap I know, Marty—that’s God’s truth!”

  The Marquis touched the black silk muffler tight at his throat, slid small, black-gloved fingers into the tight pockets of his tailored Chesterfield. His eyes went dully from her long-lashed, frantic deep-brown ones, over her bronze curls and wistful, small-featured face. An open polo coat showed dark-blue silk. Under it her sweetly curved, graceful figure was warm, electric.

  He looked at the milk-white skin of her throat and shoulders and said tiredly: “You’re looking fine, Toni. Fine.”

  Bewildered fear fogged her eyes. Her slender hands went to her hot cheeks. “Marty—my God—you—what…?” She cried wildly: “Do—do you mean you don’t believe me?”

  “What? Hell, I don’t know anything about it, Toni. Argue with him.”

  “Oh my God, Marty—you don’t think—don’t you see? We’re broke—finished—just hanging on till our creditors throw us out. The last six months he’s been half crazy. He—he’s inquired at the big agencies—looking for a job. They laugh at him. He was only a patrolman when he found that woman’s jewels in the street and got the reward money to set himself up. They don’t want him. Nobody wants him. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He’s desperate, frantic, trapped. Getting frightened on this job may have—may have got him too excited—may have made him go—go fuzzy—don’t you understand?”

  “Sure. Sure. At any rate, I’d call the Missing Persons Bureau if I were you. Get them right after him. Maybe they—”

  She stared, uncomprehending, frightened. “Marty! You—you’ve got to help us.”

  His eyes grew steady on hers, without losing their blankness. “I only run the Broadway Squad, Toni. Your office is below Forty-second. George apparently is wandering all over town. The only possible piece of it that’s mine is the Frontenac Hotel.”

  “Marty! You don’t—”

  “I’d tell Missing Persons exactly what you think. They ought to know all about it.”

  “Good God, Marty—do I have to draw you diagrams? They—if George—if George is wacky they’d hunt him down—shoot him down like a dog.”

  “And what do you think I’d do?”

  “Oh, Marty, you—you couldn’t do that. You don’t mean that because of George and me—no! You’ve known George since—”

  “Since we grew up together in Avenue A—sure. We pounded beat together—right. A nice, big, handsome Irisher—without the brains to blow him to hell, positively. My friend. Of course, when I pick myself a girl, he walks off with her, but what of that? Not that he had much trouble persuading her.”

  Her frightened eyes clung desperately. “Oh, Marty! He—you can’t say that. He wanted to marry me!”

  “Sure he did. You’ve been with him eight years—doing his thinking for him and his funny little agency. Where’s the ring?”

  SHE nursed her throat. “He didn’t know that he couldn’t get divorced from his wife. Truly he didn’t. And you—you fooled around with lots of girls in those days, Marty. We—he didn’t think you’d worry about me. I didn’t either—”

  “That’s why you’ve both kept clear of me for eight years? Crossed streets to avoid me—even kept your office out of my district?” His voice was casual, even, soft. “Until you jam up. Then I’m supposed to drop everything, no matter how urgent, and help you out. Sorry.”

  Her eyes were frantic. She flung a wild look toward the front of the slot-like, smoke-hazed store. A score of the Marquis’ men were huddled around ringing telephones. “It—oh, whatever’s happening can’t be too urgent for you to—”

  “Urgent to me.” For once the bite was audible under the softness of the Marquis’ voice. �
�Another of my Avenue A pals has first claim to my attention. Seems they all crop up sooner or later.”

  “Who?”

  “Angle Nate Heyworth. He lived in the same tenement as George and I did.”

  “I thought he was in Chicago.”

  “He was in lots of places. I guess he ran out of schemes and they all got too hot for him, so he sneaks back home. He was seen in my district yesterday afternoon.”

  Incredulous panic was in her stare. “You—you’d help him—a murderer—a gunman—and throw us—”

  “Help him? I’ll crucify the rat! I warned him off Broadway six months ago—before he turned wolf. He was riding high—a big-time gambler with half-a-dozen rackets. That they all collapsed and pitched him on his face into the gutter doesn’t change it. I set him a deadline—and he crossed it. Now if I ever expect to set another crook a deadline I’ve got to crack him so hard and so fast— Oh, hell, this wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “Oh, it does, it does! I know you’ve got to be God on Broadway and all that. But you’re not—you can’t—just because—Marty, you can’t just skip this.”

  “No?”

  “Oh, Marty—no!” Her voice broke in desperation.

  She started to go on, checked herself. Sudden hollow light came into her eyes and she caught her breath quickly. Her eyes shrank as she said huskily: “Marty—what you said—about picking a certain girl—wanting a certain girl—that’s all in the past, isn’t it?”

  The Marquis’ blank eyes did not change. She stumbled on, stammering out: “If—oh, Marty—if it isn’t—if you still want me that way—all you have to do is ask. If you knew how—there—there’s been nothing between George and me since that first year. I swear it. But don’t throw him down, Marty. He’s a helpless, overgrown, dumb adolescent. He worshipped the ground you walked on, Marty. He’s told me by the hour about you—how you have every crook in the country toeing the line when they come here. How you tell them exactly how far they can go and how you smash them without mercy when they disobey. He—that was part of why we never could really get together. He’s always been suspicious of me—about you—and he always would have given his right hand to be back—be friends with you again. And he knew he couldn’t because of me. You—he used to look to you, even as a kid. Now—if he’s sick—that’s all he is, Marty, sick— Remember I was a nurse— I know—I’ve seen.”

  “Toni, I tell you—get the Missing Persons.”

  “I can’t! I can’t! They’d just send out a general alarm—”

  “So what? Your guess about George may not be the story. He may have jammed up with this Rentz—or the unknown in the black hat—or even the client….”

  “He could have, but—”

  The Marquis’ breath finally whistled through his nose in badgered exasperation. “Oh, hell!” He set his teeth, swung his head toward the front of the slot-like shop. “Johnny!”

  THE big Newfoundland-like detective swung his battered face away from the phone, his too-small hat on the back of his shaggy blond mane. At the Marquis’ nod, he clipped a word to one of the standees, slid out of the chair and tramped back, light blue eyes obliquely on the girl’s luscious figure.

  The Marquis bit: “This is Miss O’Higgins. You’re going to George Mahaffey’s office and look after her. If George phones in, try and trace it and have him picked up. Same for a bird named Plummer and one for a guy called Rentz. There’ll be an alarm in for Rentz and George.”

  “George Maha—”

  “Oh, please, Marty—I don’t need anyone with me. I know you’ve only a few—please send them out after George.”

  “I’ll give the orders. What’s this Rentz look like?”

  “A little man—with a big head—reddish hair—thick spectacles—store clothes—blue—trousers end above his ankles—black overcoat—gray hat—high collar and a horse-shoe stickpin in his tie. You can’t miss him. But Marty—about me….”

  “Look! You’re not doing the master-minding for me.”

  WHEN they’d gone and he had phoned in a ‘for questioning’ alarm on the two men, he sat at the desk wondering if he were crazy. One half of his mind was mechanically sorting over the jumble, but the other half was sailing. He was a sucker—by any man’s standard—a triple-plated, steel-ribbed sucker. Lieutenant Martin Marquis, shrewd, wise little czar of Broadway, where every sucker-snare is baited with flesh, cooly sucked in by a girl. To top it—a girl who had once walked away from him for George Mahaffey. He cursed himself bitterly.

  He thought of the Frontenac Hotel—the only possible official excuse for touching the thing at all. Or was even it an excuse? He drummed thoughtfully with small, black-gloved fingertips, his jaw hard. The damnable part of it was that, he had the urge to do something. He could not make up his mind whether to run over and take a look round the hotel, or not. Whether it would be sappier to bog down, or to really try to find out….

  After a minute, he came silently out of the chair, slid flat fingers in the tight pockets of the Chesterfield and nodded an inquiring look at a detective in the front of the store. He was informed that the Squad’s current man-hunt was proceeding apace, with no developments as yet.

  Finally, he wandered out the back door of the shop, stepped through a short alley to the street. The Frontenac was less than six blocks distant—just off Broadway in the upper Forties. He could probably make it there and back under thirty minutes…. Yet why—why should he stick his nose into something that was absolutely none of his affair?

  He spotted a cab at the curb. After another long minute of squirming debate he tightened his lips, shrugged the Chesterfield taut on his blocky shoulders, walked—still uncertainly—over to the cab.

  He was so preoccupied that he had a hand on the handle of the door before he noticed that there was no driver. He turned irritably to see if he could spot the hacker in any nearby spot—and something caught his eye just before he turned. His head jerked back to the cab door before him.

  Through the glass he could see something lumpy and white, against the glass. He opened the door, peering curiously.

  The man inside had his fingers dug into the door handle. The Marquis’ pull jerked him off the edge of the seat, yanked him headlong at the door. The Marquis jumped back, startled. The door banged open and the man flopped limply on nothing. His fingers were wrenched from their hold by the sudden twist of his body and he whirled over once, crashed down on the pavement, a macabre bundle of arms and legs, heels and skull whacking the pavement. He shuddered once and lay still.

  The Marquis’ eyes jerked. He snatched out a pencil flashlight and splashed it on the inert figure. A dead man—not many minutes dead—lay at his feet. He had been horribly, frenziedly beaten. His gray hat had fallen off to show a blood-soaked, smashed skull. Blows had been rained on his face and cheeks—blows that had cut and bruised. His hands were hacked and swollen. His reddish hair was matted with purple and blood streaked his face, his shirt, his clothes. His eyes stared glassily, frantically into the Marquis’ flash. Buttons had ripped from his black overcoat to show his tight-fitting, cheap blue suit, his red washable tie with the horse-shoe stickpin still in it, his pockets inside out. Spectacle frames, glassless and twisted, dangled on a gold chain and if his collar had not been completely soaked in blood, it would have been stiff and absurdly high.

  For a minute, the Marquis’ head spun. This horror had not been done here. Murdered elsewhere, this man had come here to die. Why?

  Then the possible answer flashed on him. He stepped back quickly, his mind suddenly clear. The street, a moment before almost deserted and black, was suddenly sprouting a crowd. Figures poured out of the lighted cafeteria across the street, running toward the huddled corpse.

  THE Marquis swung away quickly just as Asa McGuire, chubby, red-headed camera-eye of the squad, burst out the alley entrance. There was no need to search the already-searched pockets of the dead man. There could be no possible doubt that everything of value had been removed. Nor co
uld there be any doubt that he was Rentz, the countryman whom George Mahaffey had been following for the unknown ‘Plummer.’

  And—the Marquis realized suddenly—there could be no possible doubt that he had now become pointedly and pressingly, the business of the Broadway Squad.

  He caught Asa McGuire’s chubby arm. For a moment his eyes were hot.

  McGuire asked: “What happened? What is it, Mart—”

  “Keep the crowd off that dead man.”

  “What dead man?”

  “By that hack. I think he was trying to get to us and died too quick.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  Two more detectives almost collided with the Marquis as he strode back through the back door. At one of them he bit: “There’s a hack with a missing driver out there. Go find me the hacker.” To the other he said: “Call Homicide. Murdered man just fell out of a cab outside there.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Who?” His hesitation was only split-second. “How should I know?”

  The Marquis was stony-faced, his deep-set blue eyes hard, as he slid into the chair at his desk. One hand on the phone, he sat motionless for three minutes. The others in the little shop did not disturb him, watched silently.

  He lifted the phone and called George Mahaffey’s office. Big Johnny’s rasping voice answered and the Marquis told him: “This may be for keeps now. Watch that girl and don’t let her answer the door or—”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Johnny cut in hastily. “She’s listening on an extens—”

  “Marty!” she cut in. “Have—have you found—what have you found?”

  “Rentz,” the Marquis said, and started to hang up.

  He could hear her voice crying, “Marty—what does he say?” as he aimed it at the cradle.

  “He doesn’t say anything,” the Marquis assured her grimly. “It may be George shook him down for all the information he had.”

  “Oh what—what are you talking about? Marty—please—I don’t need this gorilla here—”