by Craig Rice
Leonora Penneyth dived past Bingo, pulled the girl away and slapped her, grabbed the boy and shook him, and said, “Shut up, both you brats.”
“He stole my letters from Mike,” the girl said sullenly, “and he said he’d give them to John unless I paid him my next week’s allowance.”
The boy giggled and said, “I will, too.” The girl screamed at him, and Leonora slapped her again.
“You don’t dare slap me” the boy said gloatingly, “or I’ll tell on you, too. And I could.” He caught Bingo’s eye and leered at him knowingly.
“Maybe she doesn’t dare,” Bingo said, “but I dare to poke you in the nose.” He did, too, and fast.
The boy began to bawl, loud and tearfully, and rushed down the hall. The girl said, “You’d better give him some money, Leonora, or he’ll make trouble.”
The efficient-looking young woman in the navy-blue dress came up the stairs, and Leonora told her to give both the children whatever money they wanted. Then she went back into the pale-wood and plate-glass room, closing the door, and said to Bingo, “Sorry for the interruption.” She looked as though she were a little grateful to him.
“Don’t mind us,” Bingo said, wiping off his hand with his lemon-yellow silk handkerchief. So that was a debutante, a glamour girl, that skinny little thing with the messy mascara. Dottie Fuller, aged seventeen, who got into fights in the Swan Club.
“Why don’t you beat them, ma’am?” Handsome said politely.
“I would,” she said, breathing hard, “but they aren’t mine.”
There was a second interruption. A discreet knock at the door, then it was opened, and a good-looking, slender, but not very young man came in. He had dark smooth hair, grayed slightly over the temples, hard gray eyes, and a deeply tanned face. He was dressed for tennis.
“Sorry to bother you, my dear,” he said smoothly, “but my check—”
“Madge has it, down in the office,” she said. She turned to Bingo and Handsome and said, “This is my husband, Fenley Gibbs Fuller.”
“Delighted,” the man murmured. His eyes inspected Bingo and Handsome, while his face remained impassive. “Clients of yours, dear?”
She laughed, a bit harshly. “I seem to be clients of theirs. None of your business, is it?”
“No,” he said mildly. He opened the door, paused, and said, “Someone seems to have annoyed Freddie. Struck him, in fact. Please see that it doesn’t happen again. And I’ll pick up my check in the office.” He bowed stiffly to Bingo and Handsome and went out.
Leonora Penneyth listened to the private elevator going down and said, “My home life!” Then she turned to Bingo. “Nine o’clock, tomorrow night. You can find the place all right. I’ll have the money, and you have Mr. Pigeon.” Before Bingo could speak, she screamed at him suddenly, “Go on, beat it. What are you waiting for?”
“Nothing, lady,” Bingo said hastily. He shoved Handsome out the door ahead of him and into the little elevator. They passed the office downstairs just in time to hear Fenley Gibbs Fuller whispering to the secretary, “If you’ll make the check out for an extra hundred, I’ll split it with you. She never looks at her statements.”
Bingo pushed the front door open and went on out into the street. The air was hot and smelled of gasoline, rubber, and old wastepaper, but it felt wonderful to him.
“Well,” Handsome said, in a funny, hollow voice. “I guess that fixes up everything.”
“That’s right,” Bingo said. “It fixes everything up swell.” Curiously, his own voice seemed to sound funny and hollow, as though it belonged to someone else, probably some perfect stranger.
They walked as far as the park in silence, and then Handsome said, “I guess when she gives us that dough tomorrow night we can get the other camera out of hock.” He didn’t sound terribly happy about it.
“Sure,” Bingo said. “And we’ll throw a swell party for Baby and Mr. Pigeon and Rinaldo.” He tried to put conviction into his voice, but he couldn’t quite make it.
They reached the Mall before Bingo said, “Maybe you think I’m gone goofy, but the one thing I want right now is a big bath, with a hell of a lot of soap.”
“I know what you mean,” Handsome said. He walked a few more steps before he said, “That poor dame.”
Bingo said nothing. He’d been thinking the same thing. The blonde babe, who must be very good in her line, if she could keep up a joint like that. Smart, and obviously a good businesswoman. And then marrying a dope like Fenley Gibbs Fuller and keeping him and his two badly behaved brats. Why? Well, she must have loved the son of a bitch. There wasn’t any other reason. And then he settled down to giving her a steady, polite, cool brush-off. “My check, dear.” “Someone has been annoying Freddie.”
Someone ought to annoy him, right into the middle of the East River. And annoy Freddie right into the same place.
And the blonde babe went on taking it, in public, and working to rake in the dough, and telling her secretary, “Give the children whatever money they want.” No wonder—
They’d reached Central Park West, and Handsome said suddenly, “I wonder if her brother was anything like her.”
Bingo stopped walking suddenly, looking at the tree ahead of him. The blonde babe had giggled something about her brother. “Bad family traits. M’brother’s worse, much worse.” And the brother had been the guy who’d stolen—well, married—Mr. Pigeon’s treasure.
It was all too much for him, he decided. Tomorrow night he’d collect the down payment on the big dough. He’d show Mr. Pigeon to Leonora Penneyth. And that was the wind-up, as far as he was concerned.
The day was hot. By the time they reached the rooming house he was dripping with sweat and plastered with dust. The light-blue suit was badly wrinkled.
Oh, well, a few minutes with a cold wet towel, and a little work on the suit with the electric iron, and he’d be as good as new again.
Someone honked a horn, loud. He turned around at the foot of the steps. There was a gray roadster parked in front of the house, and June Logan was at the wheel, waving at him frantically. He crossed the sidewalk to her, looked stern, and said, “Well?”
“Get in,” she said, “you and your partner both.” There was a strange, desperate note in her voice. “I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to tell you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I thought you’d never get here,” June Logan said. She turned the gray roadster into Riverside Drive, fast.
“Now, listen,” Bingo began.
“For the love of Mike,” she said, “get out of town, right now.”
She threaded the car over into the right-hand lane and began driving more slowly.
“Why should we?” Bingo said. “We like it here. And we got business here.”
“You crazy fools,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m doing this for you.”
“Neither do I,” Bingo said. “Why are you?”
He glanced at her admiringly out of the corner of his eye, wedged in as he was between her and Handsome in the front seat. Her bronze-black hair was mussed and her face was a chalky white under its make-up, and the navy-blue mascara was smudged a little, but she was still a very gorgeous girl to look at.
“Because I like you,” she said. “I’m damned if I know why, but I do.”
“That’s nice,” Bingo said. “We like you, too. We think you’re a lovely individual. And now, why should we get out of town fast?”
She turned the car into a side street, drove about half a block, and parked there. She lit a cigarette, slowly and deliberately. Then she pushed the hair back from her face.
“Tell me,” she said quietly, “what do you want to get?”
“Rich,” Bingo answered, promptly and truthfully.
“If you keep going at it this way,” she said, “you’d better hurry up and pick someone to leave your fortune to.”
“Look here, beautiful,” Bingo said. “Are you trying to scare us?”
“You don’t seem
to scare easy,” she admitted. “But then, neither did Marty.”
“Marty?” Bingo repeated. There was something in the tone of her voice that he didn’t like.
By way of answer she pulled a folded newspaper from behind the seat cushion and handed it to him. Marty Bucholtz had been released from jail that morning. The police had been forced to admit that he could not have been responsible for the sudden death of the gangster found propped against his door, since he’d indisputably been somewhere else at the time.
Then, about an hour later, as Marty Bucholtz had been crossing the sidewalk from a taxi to his apartment, someone had driven by in a fast car and slowed down just long enough to shoot him dead.
“Can you imagine that?” Bingo said. He hoped his voice wasn’t trembling.
Handsome looked at the photograph of the scene of the crime and said, “That picture’s no good. They should have took it toward the building.”
“Oh, a critic,” June said scornfully. “Well? Do you see what I mean? Bingo Riggs, you’re monkeying around with people who don’t fool.”
Bingo said, “We’re not fooling either. Who killed this guy, or do you know?”
“I can’t tell you the name and address of the man with the gun,” she said, “but I can tell you who hired him. The same guy who got that letter you sent to Harkness Penneyth. Lucky you didn’t have your address on it, but he’ll find you sooner or later.”
“I’d been wondering where that letter went,” Bingo said. He borrowed one of her cigarettes and lit it. Some miracle kept his hand steady. “Who is this guy, and how did he get it?”
She ignored the first half of his question, and said, “Art Frank and Marty Bucholtz had been set to watch Harkness Penneyth, in case he tried to take it on the lam. They turned the letter over to their boss.”
Bingo thought for a minute. “Then they were there when it came, and one of them called up and told us to come right over.”
“No,” she said.
This time, he thought for two minutes. “If they weren’t—then who was?”
“Look,” she said, almost desperately. “What do you care how he got your letter? He’s got it, and that’s enough. And, naturally, he’s as interested in this Mr. Pigeon as—as everybody else.” She laughed harshly. “He’s interested five hundred thousand dollars’ worth.”
“Whoever he is, he’s a pig,” Bingo said indignantly. “We only want half.”
June said, “But he’s got to split with a lot of people.” She frowned, bending over the wheel. “You saw what happened to Marty. Marty was going to sell out, and he got caught at it.”
“Who was he going to sell out to,” Bingo asked. “Us?”
“Don’t be silly,” June Logan said. “Leonora Penneyth.”
With all the people mixed up in this, you two amateurs have to chisel in. We may be amateurs, but we have Mr. Pigeon.
“This guy who has our letter,” Bingo began slowly, “is interested in the dough from the insurance company, yes?”
“You don’t think he’s interested in dough falling from heaven, do you?” she said.
“O.K. Stop me if I make any mistakes. Some of that dough is owed to him, and he figures he’ll not just collect it, but make a profit at the same time. He may have to pay out quite a hunk, but he’ll still make a profit. Right?”
“You should open up shop as a fortuneteller,” she said scornfully.
“And this Leonora Penneyth is interested in the same dough. She’s got a kind of expensive family to keep up. Am I still doing O.K.? I thought so. Well,” Bingo said, “neither of them can get a damned penny unless Mr. Pigeon is kept under cover. They may have an eye on the stakes, but we’re holding the ace.”
She started the car, drove back to Riverside Drive, and started slowly south. “I see there’s no use trying to tell you two fools anything. Well, it’s your funeral, and I do mean funeral.”
“Sure,” Bingo said. “You can tell us one thing, and we’d be very grateful for it. What’s the name of this guy who’s got our letter, and where can we find him?”
She nearly drove the gray roadster into the back of a bus. “Why do you want to know?”
“So we can go and call on him, of course,” Bingo said. “We want to get our letter back.”
There was a silence that lasted for several blocks. Then she glanced at Bingo out of the corner of one eye and said, “His name is Steve Stone, he owns the Swan Club, among other places, and he has an office right above it. You can find him there any evening, and I don’t give a damn what happens to you.”
“Thanks for the information,” Bingo said.
She turned off the Drive at Ninety-sixth Street, drove to Amsterdam Avenue, and turned south. Then she said coldly, “His office is completely soundproof, in case any trouble starts there, and he has an armed guard watching through a spyhole in the next room. There’s a back stairs to the Swan Club, and a car is always parked out in the areaway.”
“Thanks again,” Bingo said, “but if anybody gets carried out of that office, it won’t be us.” He felt brave again and almost a little gay. Mr. Steve Stone might have a soundproof office with armed guards, but he, Bingo Riggs, had Mr. Pigeon. “Tell me, sweetheart,” he said in his pleasant tone, “what do you expect to get out of this?”
“The same as you,” she said. “Rich.”
Bingo said, “You’re certainly doing it the hard way. Hard for you, anyway.”
“Now, Bingo,” Handsome said uneasily. “You got in a fight with her the last time you saw her.”
“We’re not going to have any fight,” Bingo said. “We’re just a couple of good friends, exchanging confidences.” He flipped his cigarette out into the street. “I can almost figure you, sweetheart, but not quite. I know you want a lot of dough, but I can’t figure what you want it for, because you’re not the type that goes for mink and jewelry, or just plain bankbooks. I know you work hard and spend a lot of time making yourself gorgeous-looking for your boy friends, and at the same time I know you don’t like to be kissed. You put on a very nice act of liking to be kissed, and it might fool a lot of people, but it didn’t fool me. You mix up with guys like this Steve Stone and take a lot of risks, and yet you don’t spend a lot of dough on yourself. Understand me, sweetheart, I’m not just curious, it’s because I like you.” He drew a long breath and said, “Well, what do you want?”
“I want to buy a house,” she said. “A house in Rock Island.”
Bingo glanced at her curiously. Her blue eyes were moist.
“Everybody to his own taste,” he said.
“I was born there,” June Logan said. “My old lady did house cleaning by the day. I went to school in other kids’ outgrown clothes, and the only boys who took me out did it on the sly. There’s a big house there that my old lady used to clean, and I want to buy it and live there. And,” she added almost fiercely, “be the town old maid.”
“It’s a terrible waste of good material, but I wish you luck,” Bingo said. He meant it.
They were a half block from the rooming house when she said suddenly, “Honest, why don’t you boys pull out of this while you’ve got your skins? I’d hate to see anything happen to you.” She stopped the car right in front of the steps.
“Nothing’ll happen to us,” Bingo said quickly and coldly. He almost shoved Handsome out the door and slammed it shut. “And thanks for taking us for another ride.”
He knew that she’d stared after them for a moment before she drove off.
“That was a very rude way to say good-by,” Handsome said, “and it was nice of her to warn us like that.”
“It would have been,” Bingo said, “if she’d meant it that way. If she hadn’t pulled the whole stunt just to get us away from here for a while.”
There had been a big sedan parked a little way down the street. The driver had been pretending to read a magazine when June Logan’s roadster had passed him, then he’d gotten out of the car and started sauntering up the street in the di
rection of the rooming house. Bingo had never seen him before, but he recognized the breed.
Ma met them in the downstairs hall. “Oh, Mr. Riggs. There was a gentleman came here a while ago to see you on business. He said he’d go upstairs to your place and wait. He said you were expecting him.” She started to add something about the rent, but Bingo was halfway up the first flight of stairs.
“Yes,” Bingo said breathlessly, “yes, I was expecting him.”
He raced up the remaining two flights, Handsome a step behind him, and flung open the door.
At first he thought the man on the floor was dead. Then he saw that he was only scared motionless and speechless. He was a thin, weasel-faced man with slick black hair and a bottle-green suit in, Bingo thought, the worst possible taste.
Rinaldo was sitting on the floor by the man’s head, his shiny little knife in his hand. He was explaining, in detail, just what could be done in the way of cutting someone into inch-long strips while that person was still (but not for long) alive. The stranger’s face was a sick-looking gray.
There was a small cut on Mr. Pigeon’s left hand. Baby was bathing it and putting on iodine, and saying, “I’m afraid this is going to hurt, but not for more’n a minute.”
“Well,” Bingo said. “Company.” He slammed the door shut.
The man on the floor looked up at Bingo as though imploring him to manage a quick rescue.
“Him!” Rinaldo said furiously. “He came here with a gun, and tried to steal my friend. Our friend.”
“Very bad manners,” Bingo said disapprovingly. “But maybe he didn’t know any better.”
“He had a gun,” Rinaldo said. “We took it from him.”
Baby sniffed, and said, “Mr. Pigeon scratched his hand on his tooth.”
“It’s nothing,” Mr. Pigeon said. “I’m afraid I hurt his tooth, though.”
“Please,” the man said, “lemme out of here.”
