by Otto Penzler
Nor was MacBride idle. He too, roamed the streets and made inquiries at lunch-rooms, speakeasies; and most of his roaming was done during the dark hours. He went alone, looking into the twenty-five-cent-a-night flophouses, conning the bread-lines in North Street.
There was no clue yet as to the whereabouts of Chibby and the three girls. And MacBride was eternally aware of the fact that Dominick’s life depended on who found him first. Tony kept calling constantly … but there was no news.
And in the middle of the next week there was an article in the papers relative to the fact that Antonio Maratelli had resigned as alderman. Of course, the political powers that be had asked him to resign—a request that was by way of being a threat. Tony made no kick. He was more interested in saving his son.
Kennedy said, “If you ask me, Cap, that young wise guy Dominick deserves to be bumped off. There his old man got a nice political job, and was kind of proud of it, and then this young pup pulls a song and dance that the old man has to pay for. The reward of virtue is most certainly a kick in the pants.”
MacBride tightened his jaw a little harder and continued to roam the streets….
There was a black cold night when he wandered into a dark windy street and saw a familiar green sign blinking seductively:
As he drew nearer, he could hear the uniformed doorman beating cold feet on the cold pavement.
MacBride came up in the shadow of the houses and the doorman reached back for the doorknob. He did not recognize MacBride until the captain’s foot was on the step, and then he seemed to hesitate in perplexed indecision.
MacBride looked at him and said, “Well?”
“Oh … hello, Cap. Didn’t recognize you.” He opened the door.
MacBride walked into the dim, stuffy anteroom and stood just inside the door and looked around. The coat-room girl came over but MacBride shook his head and she recognized him and bit her lip and retreated back into the gloom. A stiff white shirt-front came out of another corner of the gloom, and a voice said:
“Well, buddy?”
“I’m MacBride.”
“Oh … yeah.”
“Where’s Al?”
“I’m Patsy. It’s all right. What can I do for you?”
“Get me Al.”
“Well, he ain’t here right now.”
“Where is he?”
“I dunno. He went out about an hour ago. If you want to wait for him—there’s a little room off here.”
“I don’t want to wait for him.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Cap.”
Muffled was the racket of the jazz band.
MacBride turned and pulled open the door and stepped out and looked up and down the street.
The doorman was gone.
MacBride’s hands were in his pocket, and the hand in his right pocket closed over the butt of his gun. He moved towards the narrow alley that flanked one side of the building and led to the courtyard in the rear. He looked down it and he flexed his lips and then he entered the alley and walked lightly but rapidly.
He reached the courtyard in the rear. He saw a door and a lighted window, but the shade was drawn down. He moved towards the door and grasped the knob and turned it and the door gave and opened on a crack. He pushed it wide and stepped into a corridor that was dimly lighted by shaded wall lights. He had been in this corridor once before. He closed the door behind him.
From the door farthest away on the right he saw Dominick step out, and behind him the doorman and Al Vasilakos. He started to rap out a command, but Dominick, who was on the point of making for the rear door, saw him and spun and ran in the opposite direction.
“Hey, you!” shouted MacBride.
He barged down the corridor past Al and the doorman. Through the door at the end he burst into the noisy cabaret. The jazz band was hooting and people were dancing. Dominick was running alongside the tables and making for the front. MacBride sailed after him, and the jazz band petered off and the dancers stopped and stared with amazement. MacBride bowled over a drunk that teetered into his path and reached the door to the ante-room six jumps behind Dominick. The door banged in his face, and as he flung it open he saw the front door slam shut.
He streaked through the ante-room and cannoned out in the cold dark street. He heard running footsteps and saw Dominick heading for River Road. MacBride took up the chase and pulled his gun out of his pocket.
“Hey, you, Dominick!” he shouted.
But Dominick kept running.
They were nearing River Road when MacBride raised his gun and fired a high warning shot. He saw Dominick duck and run closer to the shadows of the houses. He fired another shot, bringing it closer but still reluctant to kill.
Suddenly beneath the arc-light that stood on the corner of Jockey Street and River Road, he saw a uniformed policeman appear. At the same time Dominick cut across to the opposite side of the street. The policeman crossed too, to head him off, and then Dominick swerved back into the center of the street and turned around, ran this way and that, and finally stopped and crouched.
MacBride reached him first and clipped, “Now put your hands up, kid!”
I—I’ll—”
“You’ll shut up! Is that you, Zeloff? Frisk him. I don’t think he’s got anything, but frisk him.”
Patrolman Zeloff went through Dominick quickly and deftly. “Naw, not a thing, Cap.”
MacBride took out manacles and locked Dominick’s hands behind his back. Then he shoved his gun back into his pocket. Dominick was shivering with the cold. He wore no overcoat.
MacBride said, “Zeloff, go back to the Club Naples and pinch Al and bring him to Headquarters. I’ll take this bird along in a cab.”
“Okey, Cap.”
“And close the joint.”
“Sure.”
MacBride grabbed Dominick’s arm and walked with him towards River Road.
“For cripes sake, Cap, listen. Al hasn’t done a thing—”
“Shut up. Hey, taxi!”
VIII
The light with the green shade hung over the shiny flat-topped desk and the light umbrellaed outward over the desk and included in its radiance Dominick and MacBride, who sat and faced each other across the desk.
Dominick was thin and a black stubble was on his face and black circles were beneath his eyes, but there was also black mutiny in his eyes. He had on a shirt beneath his thin coat, but no collar, and his black hair was rumpled but still a bit shiny from the last application of hair oil.
“You,” said MacBride, “you caused all this.”
“Well, why the hell bring it up?”
“I intend bringing it up and up. You’re just a wise guy who tried to run with big, bad boys. You worried hell out of your father and mother. Because of you your father’s house was blown up. Because of you your father lost his aldermanic job. Now what the hell kind of a break do you suppose you deserve?”
“Did I ask for a break? Did I?”
“Of course not. But you’re expecting one. What I want to know is, who killed Barjo?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean you don’t feel like telling me.”
“About that.”
MacBride leaned forward and put his elbows on the table and drew his brows close down until they almost met at the top of his nose. “Dom, my boy, you’re going to spring what you know.”
“Like hell I am.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Listen, you. I didn’t kill Barjo. You’ve got nothing on me—not a thing! I didn’t kill him.”
“Why did you drop out of sight?”
“That’s my business.”
“Why did you sneak home and hide away?”
“That’s my business too.”
MacBride put his voice down low. “We know of course that Chibby is after you.”
“You don’t know anything.”
MacBride snapped, “Listen to me, you little two-tongued dago! I’m giving your old man a break. I’m trying to give you a break—
not because I like you—but because I like your old man! As for you, I think you’re a lousy pup! But get this—get it!—I want Chibby or one of the broads was on that party the night Barjo got knifed. I don’t care what the hell one I get, I want one of them! And you—you’re going to play ball with me or, by cripes, I’ll whale hell out of you!”
“I’m not playing ball!” rasped Dominick. “I was on that party, I know that. But I didn’t do a thing to anybody. And I ain’t going to squeal!”
“You poor dumb slob!” MacBride half rose out of his chair and planted his palms on the desk. “Don’t you realize that Chibby wants to blow your head off? Don’t you realize that we’re the only guys can save you?”
Dominick was biting his lip and his black eyes were jerking back and forth across the desk. He shook his head. “I—I ain’t going to say a thing.”
The door opened and Patrolman Zeloff shoved in Al Vassilakos. “There he is, Cap.”
“Okey, Zeloff. Hello, Al. What the hell are you looking all hot and bothered about?”
“This—this is a dirty trick, Cap!”
“Is it? Listen to me, Al. I’ve given you all the breaks you’re going to get. You were harboring a fugitive from the law.”
“I wasn’t!” choked the Greek. “So help me, I wasn’t. This guy came to me and asked me to give him some jack so he could blow the town. He didn’t have no jack. I gave him hell for coming around.”
Dominick cut in, “He didn’t do anything, Cap. I went there and asked him for some jack, just like he said.”
“Sure,” said Al, waving his hand. “See?”
“All right, all right,” said MacBride. “I see. But you’ve always tried to kid me, Al, and you’ll warm your pants here a while. I don’t like your joint. You’re two-faced as hell. And I don’t like you. Zeloff, put this guy in the cooler for a while.”
“Okey, Cap.”
“Aw, say, Cap,” said Al, “give me a break.”
“Break? I’m through giving guys breaks.”
“Aw—”
“Come on, you!” snapped Zeloff, and pulled Al out into the hall.
MacBride swung around in his chair, sitting bolt upright, and threw his gaze across the desk like two penetrating beams of blue fire.
“You see the kind of a palooka you went to looking for help! The first yap out of him is to save his own face!”
“Well, d’ you see me yapping?”
“Dominick …” MacBride said the word with deadly softness as he leaned back. “Dominick, I warn you, you’re in for a beating if you don’t come across. I don’t care if you are Tony’s son. I’m trying to give you a break, but maybe I’ll have to break you first. You can be nice … or I can be—nasty. Do you get me?”
Dominick drew his face up tightly and pinched his brows down over his midnight eyes. “You can’t lay a hand on me!”
“I don’t—personally. I’ve got men who do it for me.”
“Yah, you’re just the bull-dozing cop I heard you were! Just a big flat-foot! Just a big, loudmouthed tough guy!”
“Just,” said MacBride, “that.”
Dominick jumped up, a lean shaft of vibrating dark fire. “You won’t beat me! You won’t! By God Almighty … you won’t”
“Unless you play ball.”
The telephone bell rang. MacBride picked up the instrument.
“Captain MacBride talking,” he said. “Yeah, Mory … What? … No, no; go ahead….” He listened, his eyes narrowing “What’s that address? … Yeah; 22 Rumford Street. Okey. I’ll shoot right down.”
He slammed the telephone back to the desk and went to the door and yelled down the corridor. A reserve came on the run.
“Shove this guy in a cell, Mike. I got a date with a good break.”
He piled into his overcoat, grabbed his hat and went out into the central room. He called Hogan, and Hogan ran out to get the police flivver. MacBride was waiting for him on the sidewalk.
IX
Rumford Street is on the northern frontier of the city. It is a hilly street, climbing up from Marble Road. A drab street, walled in by three- and four-story rooming-houses. Ordinarily a peaceful neighborhood.
The police flivver swung off Marble Road and labored up the grade. When it was halfway up MacBride saw an ambulance and a small group of people.
“That’s it, Hogan.”
“Yeah.”
The flivver drove up behind the ambulance, and MacBride got out and saw a patrolman and the patrolman saw him and saluted.
“Second floor, Cap.”
“Right.”
MacBride entered the hall door and climbed the dusty narrow staircase. On the second landing he saw light streaming out through a door, and a policeman was standing in the door. He saw MacBride and stepped aside, and MacBride went into a small living-room.
Kennedy was sitting on a chair with his feet on a table and his hands clasped behind his back. Cohen was walking back and forth taking quick drags on a cigarette.
“Hello, Cap,” he said, and jerked his head towards the next room.
But MacBride had caught sight of a doctor and a couple of uniformed patrolmen and Mori-arity standing beside a bed, and there was a pul-motor working. He caught sight, too, of a girl’s legs protruding from a nightgown, and then Moriarity turned around and saw him and shrugged and came out.
“It’s Bunny Dahl,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Gas.”
“What—suicide?”
“Dunno. Ike and me stopped in a speakeasy just around on Marble Road. Kennedy was there, and we were just about to start a card game when Patrolman Cronkheiser came busting in looking for a telephone. It seems he was walking his beat down Rumford Street when a woman ran out hollering for help. She lives next door. She’d smelt gas and got up and went out in the hall, and then when she knocked on this door and got no answer she ran out and hollered and Cronkheiser came up and busted in. Bunny was laying on the floor, by one of them gas heaters— there it is.”
“How is she?”
“Pretty rotten. They want to try the pulmo-tor because they think she may pass out before they reach the hospital.”
MacBride went in and looked at her and then came back into the other room.
“Queer,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Kennedy. “Looks as if she got cold feet.”
MacBride said nothing for a minute, and then he said, “I got Dominick.”
Kennedy’s feet fell down from the table. “Things come in bunches, like bananas, don’t they? Where’d you get him?”
“Club Naples. He was feeling Al for some jack when I wandered in. I got Al, too. I don’t like that two-faced Greek. I’m going to get something on him yet.”
“Did he say anything?” asked Moriarity.
“No. The kid’s got spirit. He won’t squeal. But—he’ll have to. Even if we have to beat him.”
MacBride turned and looked into the other room and then he rubbed his hand slowly across his jaw. The doctor looked over his shoulder and beckoned, and MacBride came in and stood beside the bed.
“She’s trying to say something, Captain.”
“What’s she trying to say?”
“About a chap named Chibby.”
“Oh … Chibby.”
MacBride sat down on the edge of the bed and took out a pencil and an old envelope. “Bunny,” he said. “What’s it all about, Bunny?”
“Chibby … did it…”
“How?”
“He got me drunk … then he tied a rag around my mouth … so I couldn’t yell… then he held my head down by the gas stove …”
“H’m.” One side of MacBride’s mouth drew down hard. He leaned closer. “Bunny, where is he?”
“I don’t know…. Al knows.”
“Why did he do this to you, Bunny?”
“Because I knew he …” Her voice trailed off.
The doctor said, “We’d better try getting her to the hospital. She hasn’t got much of a
chance.”
“Okey.” MacBride stood up. He went back into the other room and said, “Ike, I want you to go to the hospital with Bunny and hang around and see if she says anything more. Mory, you come with me to Headquarters. Al is in for hell.”
He went out into the hall and down the narrow dusty stairs. Moriarity followed him, and Kennedy trailed along behind. They all climbed into the flivver, and Hogan started the motor and they drove off.
X
MacBride had removed his hat, but his overcoat was still on and his hands were in his pockets. His face was gray and hard like granite, and his eyes were like blue cold ice, and he stood with his feet spread apart and his square jaw down close to his chest.
Kennedy sat on the desk with his feet on a chair and his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped. Moriarity stood with his back to the radiator and a dead cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth.
Al Vassilakos sat in the swivel-chair with the light streaming brightly into his white puffed face. It was a face that seemed to have been crudely molded out of dough. His knees were pressed together and his toes were turned in and pressed hard against the floor, and his pudgy hands gripped the arms of the swivel-chair.
MacBride said, “You know where Chibby is, Al.”
“So help me, Cap—”
“Shut up! You know where he is. I want to know where he is.”
“Uh—honest, Cap—”
“Shut up! There’s no time for stalling. You’ve been playing me for the fool and I’m sick of it. I want to know where Chibby is. I’ll give you one minute to come across.”
He took his left hand out of his pocket and crooked his arm and stared down at the watch on his wrist.
Al gripped the arms of the chair harder with his pudgy hands. His toes screwed against the floor. His white stiff shirt-front moved up and down jerkily. His lower lip, which had been caught under his teeth, flopped out and gleamed wet, and his nose wrinkled and his eyes bulged wildly. His breath was beginning to grate in his throat. His body was straining in the chair, and the chair creaked, and he was stretching his throat in his tight stiff collar, as if fighting for breath. Sweat burst out on his forehead and gleamed like globules of grease, and his whole face, that had been dead like dough, began to twitch and convulse as agitated nerve muscles raced around beneath his skin.
