The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s

by Otto Penzler

“Bower came down and got Nelson.”

  “Don’t I know it!”

  Kennedy chuckled. “Bower’s the Headquarters ‘yes’ man. Guess the Commissioner wanted to see Nelson, shake his hand, and tell him to go home.”

  “H’m.” MacBride stood up, put on his coat and strode out.

  Ten minutes later he entered Police Headquarters.

  Commissioner Stroble regarded him through a screen of excellent cigar smoke.

  “How about Nelson?” asked MacBride.

  “We let him go,” said the Commissioner.

  “Let him go!” echoed MacBride.

  “Why, certainly. No case at all, MacBride. We had a chap named Scoggins here, too. I weighed both testimonies. Scoggins was asleep. Nelson saw that one of the cables had slipped and was trying to fix it. Scoggins was vague. Don’t bother with such small change, MacBride.”

  “Small change!” MacBride curled his lip. “If it was so small, why did Bower take Nelson from the precinct, and why did you bother with it?”

  Stroble’s eyes narrowed. “Remember, MacBride, I took you out of the Fifth, gave you another chance. Don’t be a fool!”

  “You’re trying to make a fool out of me! I know the situation on the waterfront, and it’s not small change. That guy Nelson is guilty as hell. And the outfit he works for is a damned sight guiltier!”

  Stroble leaned forward, pursing his lips. “MacBride, I said it was small change. Now don’t hand me an argument. Go back to your roost and forget about it. This interview is over.”

  MacBride went out with a low growl. He walked back to the station-house, certain now that trouble was breeding on the river. Small change! He cursed under his breath. He was very near the end of his tether. Time and time again someone in the machinery of the city government had tried to balk him.

  In his office that day he had moments of black depression. He wondered if after all he were not beating his head against a stone wall. What was he? Only a common precinct captain, with strong ideas of his own. How could he hope to carry out his own straightforward plans when the Department sidetracked him?

  Yet there was the strain of the hard in his blood. To give up now, to fall in line with the long column of grafters, would be a tremendous blow to his conscience—and to his stubborn pride. Rigallo and Doran would razz him. And Kennedy! And a lot of other men who were aware of his single-handed struggle against graft and corruption.

  No, there was no backing out now. He had built a structure of two-fisted justice, escaped death, release from the Force, by the skin of his teeth. The game at this stage was far too interesting. He had wiped out some of the most notorious gangs in Richmond City, had made the political racketeers squirm, had driven some right out of office.

  But still he had not got to the roots. Had the Commissioner before his appointment, been the drive wheel in the racket? And now, being in a position of vital importance, would he rebuild all that MacBride had knocked down? How big was he? How far could MacBride push him? Why had he permitted Nelson’s release on such short notice?

  Small change! Hell!

  It was strange that a month should pass without an untoward murmur on the river. At times MacBride wondered if after all Nelson had been innocent. But then it wasn’t like Rigallo to make such a raw blunder. He was not a detective who usually went in for small game.

  An interesting and significant bit of news drifted in one morning. Kennedy, the inevitable, walked in on MacBride and said:

  “What do you think, Mac?”

  “What?”

  “A Tate & Tate barge sank last night. One of their oldest. Just foundered, so the report goes, off the coast. Sprung a leak. Went down with one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of copper wire. The barge captain was saved. The tug Annie Tate was towing, and saved him. Read what the News-Examiner says.”

  He scaled a newspaper on the table, and MacBride conned a terse editorial:

  Last night the Tate & Tate barge Number Two sank off the Capes. It is evident that this barge was sadly in need of repair. The sea was only moderately rough and the tug Annie Tate had good steerageway.

  A cargo valued as $100,000 was lost in fifty fathoms, and the barge captain, Olaf Bostad, is in the City Hospital suffering from exposure. It seems to us that there is a deplorable lack of efficiency somewhere. Why the Number Two, one of the first barges built for Tate & Tate, was allowed to go to sea, is beyond us.

  It seems incredible that a reputable company should place a man in jeopardy by sending him on a coastwise voyage in a barge of such ancient vintage. The company, of course, does not lose. The underwriters do. We no longer wonder why marine insurance is at such a premium, and why many underwriters refuse to insure coastwise barges.

  “H’m,” muttered MacBride.

  “I wonder who paid for that,” said Kennedy. “Tate & Tate are in hot water now, for sure. Watch the insurance company go into action!”

  “And the waterfront bust wide open,” said MacBride.

  Indeed, the first rumble came on the following day, when not a single tug or barge of Tate & Tate moved. Captain Bower, of Headquarters, boomed into the station-house with orders from the Commissioner.

  “MacBride, you’ve got to patrol the river,” he said. “Use all your available men. Two cops on each pier where there’s Tate & Tate shipping. The insurance company has refused to allow Tate & Tate to move until every barge and tug has been inspected. The city is also sending its own inspectors, and there’s a complete tie-up.”

  “All right,” nodded MacBride.

  He called on his reserves, dispatched them to six different piers, and himself went down to the Tate & Tate general offices.

  Young Hiram Tate was in high heat. “What do you think of this, MacBride? By God, can you beat it? That barge was overhauled only two months ago and the underwriters O.K.’d it. Now we’re tied up. Not a thing allowed to move. We’ve got thousands of dollars’ worth of freight that has to move—has to make trains, ships—and some of it’s perishable. Hell, we’ll go bankrupt!

  “What happens now? Consignees and consignors are bellowing. But we can’t move. We lose our contracts, and the movement of freight is taken over by other companies. And what company mainly? The Harbor Towing. God, what a blow below the belt this is!”

  “We’re putting men on the piers to prevent trouble,” said MacBride.

  But trouble broke. When a Harbor Towing tug and three lighters warped into Pier Eight to move perishable freight from a Tate & Tate shed, a fight started. Fists flew, and then stones and canthooks. The police joined, and shots rang out, and one man was wounded before the outbreak was quelled.

  But the feud had taken root and spread the length of the waterfront, and MacBride was here and there and everywhere, struggling for law and order.

  The Commissioner called him and said, “Clamp the lid, MacBride. It looks as if Tate & Tate employ a lot of hoodlums. This can’t go on. Pitch ‘em all in jail if you have to.”

  MacBride had been up most of that night, and he was weary. “If you’d get the inspectors on the job and make that insurance company snap on it, this would stop. I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Keep up the good work, MacBride!” was Stroble’s parting shot.

  MacBride slammed down the receiver, whirled and stared at Rigallo. “Now I know why I’ve been shifted here! I’m getting a beautiful kick in the slats! I’m told to ride Tate & Tate, and, Kennedy, way down in my heart I believe Tate & Tate is the goat!”

  “Mac, I’m with you, you know. So is Doran.”

  “Thanks, Riggy. It’s good to know.”

  Reports came in continually from the river. All the reserves were out. Fights occurred every few hours—uptown—downtown.

  MacBride slept at the station-house that afternoon, awoke at six, had hot coffee and a couple of hamburgers sent up, and prepared for another night. Tate & Tate were at the breaking point. The inspectors were taking their time, and the first barge that was looked over was held up for some minor
detail that was not yet settled among the inspectors.

  On the other hand, the Harbor Towing Company was reaping a harvest, taking over all the freight that Tate & Tate could not handle. And the Union men of the Harbor Towing, old enemies of the non-Union crowd of Tate & Tate, took every opportunity to bawl insults at the men whom circumstances had forced to a standstill.

  Hiram Tate called MacBride on the telephone and yelled, “Look here, MacBride! You’ve got a good name in this lousy burg. What am I going to do? These pups from the Harbor Towing are getting away with murder. You can’t blame my men for fighting. I’ve bailed twenty out already. If this keeps up, if my floating equipment isn’t allowed to move, we’ll go bankrupt. It’s dirty, MacBride. There’s some underhand work somewhere. I tell you, if it keeps up, I’m going out on the river myself and bust the first Harbor Towing bum that opens his jaw!”

  “Sit tight, Tate,” said MacBride. “I’ve got to maintain law and order.”

  “Law and order, hell!” exclaimed Tate, and hung up.

  Rigallo asked, “What’s the matter, Cap?”

  “Tate’s sore. Can you blame him?”

  “No.”

  “Riggy, this is getting worse. There’s big money in it, and between you and me it looks as if the Harbor Towing is trying to wipe out Tate & Tate, their biggest competitors. And how they’re doing it! That sunken barge was just what they needed. Graft all around. Ten to one the underwriters were bribed. The News-Examiner was bribed. The city is being bribed.”

  “D’ you ever stop to think, Cap, that the barge might have been monkeyed with?”

  “You know, I wonder!”

  The hours dragged by, with more reports coming in, and at midnight came a staggering report from one of the patrolmen stationed at Pier Fifteen.

  “We just found a stiff, Captain.”

  “Who?”

  “Guy named Nelson. We heard a shot and ran down the dock and found him dead in his barge. Right through the heart.”

  “Hold everything, Grosskopf. I’ll be over.”

  MacBride hung up and looked at Rigallo. “Riggy, somebody plugged Alf Nelson of the Harbor Towing.”

  “God help Tate & Tate!”

  “Let’s go!”

  IV

  FFICER TONOVITZ met MacBride and Rigallo at the entrance of Pier Fifteen.

  “Grosskopf’s on the barge,” he said.

  They strode down the covered pier, came out in the open, and saw Grosskopf standing outside the cabin door. MacBride and Rigallo jumped down to the barge. Nelson was lying on the floor, flat back, one arm flung across his chest, the other extended straight from his shoulder. A chair was overturned.

  “Fight,” ventured Rigallo. “Maybe not,” said MacBride. “He might have been sitting on the chair, and jerked up when he was hit.”

  “Door and windows were closed,” put in Grosskopf.

  “Didn’t find anything?”

  “No.”

  MacBride went out and up to the dock, and found a knot of men hovering nearby, expectantly.

  “You guys knew Nelson, didn’t you?”

  Most of them did.

  “See anybody around here tonight?”

  One replied, “I seen Gus Scoggins.”

  “Going or coming?”

  “He must ha’ been goin’ to the barge. I seen him on this dock. Was about nine o’clock. He said, ‘Hello, Joe.’ And I said, ‘Hello, Gus.’ “

  “You didn’t see him go back?”

  “Well, no. I didn’t hang around. I was on the way to my own barge when I saw Gus.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Harbor Towin’.”

  “Sure you’re not tryin’ to frame Scoggins?”

  “Who? Me? No. I’m a’ old timer. I know Gus for years. I don’t figger he did anything.”

  “He might have,” said another voice. “Him and Nelson ain’t been good friends since Scoggins claimed Alf tried to cut him loose.”

  MacBride left the group and called Grosskopf. “Ring the morgue and have them get Nelson. Tonovitz, you stay on this barge. Riggy, come with me.”

  MacBride and Rigallo went to the float dispatcher for Tate & Tate and got from him the position of Scoggins’ barge. It was at Pier four, and ten minutes later they found it. No lights shone. MacBride boarded, tried the door, found it padlocked from the outside.

  “He should be on board,” remarked Rigallo.

  “He should,” agreed MacBride. “Cripes, if Scoggins did this, Tate & Tate will be swamped!”

  They climbed back to the pier and accosted the patrolman on duty, O’Toole.

  “You know Scoggins? Have you seen him?”

  “Saw him about eight-thirty, Cap, leaving.”

  “When he comes back, hold him and ring the station-house. If he doesn’t show up by the time you leave, call me and tell your relief to watch for him, too.”

  “O.K.”

  MacBride and Rigallo shot back to the station-house. Rigallo went home, and MacBride hauled out a blanket and curled up on a cot in one of the spare rooms.

  By morning he had the medical examiner’s report. The bullet had gone through Nelson’s heart aslant and lodged in his spine. A thirty-two.

  O’Toole had rung in with no word of Scoggins. MacBride called the patrolman at Pier Four, and found that Scoggins was still absent. He hung up, went down to the pier, picked up the harbor master for Tate & Tate, and had him open the door to the little cabin. Everything was in order. Scoggins’ suitcase, clothes, and other odds and ends, were still there.

  MacBride went back to the pier, and found Hiram Tate, just arrived.

  “What do you think about this killing, MacBride?”

  “Looking for Scoggins. Somebody saw him around Nelson’s barge last night.”

  “This is a rotten break, MacBride! Do you think it was Scoggins?”

  “It looks as if it might be. He hasn’t showed up all night.”

  They walked back to the street, and then MacBride made for the barge that had been Nelson’s home. Officer Pallanzo was on duty, and he was having his hands full.

  “I can’t get rid of her, Cap,” he complained.

  MacBride stood with arms akimbo and stared at Hilda Yonson, who sat on the dock beside the barge. Her hands were clasped about her knees, and she was rocking back and forth and moaning. Her yellow hair blew in coarse wisps across her hueless face. Her hat was askew.

  “Alf…. Alf….”

  She was dazed. When MacBride spoke, it seemed she did not hear him. She rocked on— and on, staring with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Look here, Hilda,” MacBride said, bending down. “Come on. Don’t sit around here. I’ll take you home.”

  He shook her. She looked up, and her lips quivered. “You—you said you vass Alf’s friend. All de time you had Alf in de station-house.”

  “Forget that. I was doing my duty. Come on, Hilda, I want to get the man who killed Alf. I want you to help me get him.”

  “Ay vill keel him!” She doubled a fist and squared her jaw.

  “No, you leave that to me. Let’s go.” He took her arm, urged her.

  She rose and permitted MacBride to lead her from the barge. She walked with a steady, purposeful tread, her face grim.

  MacBride found a room at one corner of the warehouse, and they entered it, Rigallo close behind.

  “When did you last see Alf, Hilda?” asked MacBride.

  “Ay see Alf last night.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Ay didn’t talk. Ay go down by de dock und Ay see Alf iss playin’ cards vit two fal-lers. So Ay don’t go in. Ay go home.”

  “You know the men?”

  “No. Vun vass dressed like vat you call sheik. Ay looked in by de vindow. De odder vun vas dat fal-ler Scoggins.”

  “About what time?”

  “Vas maybe half-past nine.”

  MacBride turned to Rigallo. “This looks queer, Riggy—Nelson and Scoggins playing cards.”

  “With anot
her guy—yeah.”

  “Ay vill keel him, whoever it vass dat keeled Alf. O-o-o-o, my poor Alf!” she moaned, rocking on the chair.

  “Listen, Hilda,” put in Rigallo, “buck up. And don’t do any killing. Leave that to us. We’ll get this bum and he’ll burn for it.”

  “Ay vill bet it vass dat Scoggins.”

  They took her home, where she lived with an elder sister, and then went over to the station-house.

  “The Commissioner’s been calling you, Cap,” said Sergeant Flannery. “Wants to talk to you.”

  MacBride took the phone and called Headquarters, and the Commissioner said, “That Scoggins is a good lead, MacBride. Tail him and get him. He’s the guy we want, all right.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said MacBride.

  “Get him, MacBride. Grill young Tate. Maybe Tate knows a lot about it. Maybe he knows where Scoggins is.”

  Hanging up, MacBride swore softly. “Riggy, they’re sure out to crush Tate & Tate, and making no bones about it.”

  Sergeant Flannery knocked and came in. A little boy accompanied him.

  Flannery said, “Kid, just came in with a note.”

  MacBride took a rumpled piece of brown wrapping paper, and read:

  For Cap. MacBride, Second Police Precinct. I been took here and held. Looks like these guys are going to kill me or something. Get me out of it. I can’t write more now.

  GUS SCOGGINS.

  MacBride looked at the boy, who was standing on one foot, twisting a cap which he held in his hand.

  “Where’d you get this, son?”

  “I picked it up in the gutter on North Street.”

  “You know just where?”

  “Yes.”

  MacBride stood up and put on his overcoat. “Come on, Riggy. Where’s Doran?”

  Flannery said, “Playing poker with the reserves.”

  “Call him.”

  MacBride and Rigallo pushed out into the central room and a moment later Doran appeared and joined them.

  “We’re going places, Tim. You heeled?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then let’s go. Come on, sonny.”

  V

  acBRIDE flagged a taxi, and they all piled in. Ten minutes later they alighted and walked down North Street.