“No? How are you going to hold him? The girl absolutely denies the assault. So does Grecco. So do I. The drunk saw nothing at all. You’re up a tree, Harry.”
He was grave, dead in earnest. Wilkie frowned and scratched his head.
“Tell you what, Harry,” said the columnist smoothly. “Walk him over with you to the precinct house, like a good fella.”
“Why, you dirty—” Grecco’s face was livid with fear. “What is this—a cross?”
Jerry grinned amiably. “Nope. Go on, Harry; take him over to the station. You ran into him somewhere and picked him up for routine questioning, see? Maybe he’s the guy that shot Lincoln. Hold him an hour or so and then kick him and turn him loose. I don’t want Lily worried when we go out.”
Detective Wilkie met the girl’s troubled gaze. He said grimly: “You ran into one hell of a good little guy, lady, when you bumped into Jerry Tracy!”
The columnist flushed. “Don’t talk so much, Harry! Go on home with your prize package!”
When the door closed behind the pair of them, Tracy gathered up the girl’s wraps hastily. He’d hurry her along before the reaction set in. She was getting shaky already.
She was pointing hysterically at the recumbent millionaire at the table. “Boots and Saddle” Hullen was swaying up on his elbows, mumbling foolishly. His eyes were glassy. His clumsy movement overturned the chair and he tripped and sat down on the floor heavily where he fumbled helplessly.
“Money in the wrong hands,” Tracy muttered. “Remember my sermon, Lily? Look at him! Back in his sty! That’s where his whole breed will be in one more generation. Back in its sty!”
He shrugged. “He’ll be all right in another five minutes. Cut out the weeps, honey. Come on!”
Lily didn’t let go till he got her in the cab. He stopped off at Stella Kahn’s home in East Fifty-third, pushed the kid into Stella’s capable arms. He stood around, scowling and worried, until Stella snapped: “You still here? Beat it, Jerry! Can’t you let the kid cry in peace? Gwan, beat it!”
He had time to think a bit on the way to his penthouse. His thinking was characteristic of Jerry Tracy, the pride of the Daily Planet.
When he got upstairs he went into his soundproof den, snapped on a droplight and pulled the cover off a portable.
There was a fresh sheet of paper in the cylinder and his fingers began picking at the keys. He wrote:
According to the latest chatter in underworld circles, a celebrated perfumer with pre-hen-sile fingers dropped two grand at the races and was forced to bum his way outta town. Tsk, tsk! These gamblers …
What celebrated amateur jockey and first-nighter took a mixed drink last night and slept right through the best show he’ll never see? …
Add prosperity signs: According to Department of Labor reports, the total number of stenographers from Pennsylvania with brown eyes, gainfully employed in industry, will be increased o-n-e in the current month. Or so I hear. …
He yanked the sheet out of the machine and flipped it into a drawer. He cocked both feet around the typewriter, leaned back comfortably and raised his voice in a shrill, ear-splitting yelp.
“Hey, McNulty! What the hell have we got to eat in this ——— dump? I’m hungry!”
HE ASKED FOR IT
Jerry Tracy goes to a lot of trouble to find if he is really yellow
JERRY TRACY, famous little wisecracker columnist on the Daily Planet, was in anything but a wisecracking humor as he emerged from the shabby entrance of the Club Picador. The flame of his pocket lighter jerked uncertainly as he held it against the end of his cigarette.
It wasn’t fear—nobody that knew Jerry would ever accuse him of being yellow. It was something more vague than fear, and for that very reason twice as uncomfortable and unpleasant. A sense of dread. It had been growing stronger all evening. No reason to it that he could fathom. A whisper in his blood without words and without sense.
“You’ve got the horrors,” he told himself jeeringly. “You’re not used to inhaling the Picador’s brand of paint.”
But he couldn’t kid himself. He hadn’t downed enough booze to give a pup the jitters. This was something different, something …
Tim, the doorman, was out at the curb making shrill music with his whistle. The hour was late; no sign of a taxi anywhere. Tim shrugged and tried again.
“Stick around,” said the warning voice in Tracy’s skull. “You’re in no hurry. Play safe. Wait for a cab.”
He swore suddenly. Squared his shoulders. He said grimly to the doorman: “Nevermind. Don’t bother. I’ll pick up one on the avenue. ’Night, Tim.”
“Good night, Mr. Tracy.”
The columnist turned up his coat collar against the bite of the night wind, balled both hands deep in his pockets and strode off. He walked down the dim length of the street with a brisk stride. And with every impact of his heels on the quiet sidewalk the warning whisper baited him with uneasiness.
To his annoyance his eyes kept veering sidewise as he walked. He was passing a huge automobile parking lot that ran clear through to the next block. Behind a low wire fence that paralleled the sidewalk were long rows of dark cars parked fender to fender. A yellow light burned dimly on a tall iron pole. The dark cars were like sleek headstones in a quiet graveyard.
Tracy found himself walking quietly, listening. And because he was listening he heard a faint sound that wasn’t the wind. The brief scraping crunch of a shoe on gravel.
He stopped short instantly and his face screwed around over his shoulder. He saw a dim peering face—saw the stretched arm—and threw himself headlong.
As he fell forward flame spurted from the parking lot. His hat flicked from his head. Bullets fanned above his shoulder. He dropped in his tracks as though struck by lightning.
He didn’t stir. His legs were stiffened awkwardly; one hand was still in his pocket. It hurt him to lie twisted on the pavement with his wrenched muscles held tense; but he didn’t move. His hat with its torn brim lay a scant six inches from the stiffened fingers of his free hand. He was flat on his face, his lips a taut grimace against the icy sidewalk.
The fear that had enveloped him all evening whipped from his brain like smoke. His heart was thudding savagely. This was real! This was deadly!
He heard again the faint crunch of gravel—that would be the gun punk making his quick sneak. A distant yelp and the sound of running feet—that would be Tim, the doorman of the Picador. Heavier feet, slap, slap, slap—that would be the cop on the beat. Or would it?
It was. The bluecoat’s gun was a dull glint in his big red fist. He was puffing as he bent over the prone columnist
“Did they get yuh, buddy? Where’d they go—through the lot?”
Tracy sat up. Stared at the oldtimer with a slow smile. “Hello, Riordan.”
“For —— sake! It’s Mr. Tracy! Are yuh hurt, sor?”
The columnist got to his feet and dusted himself off. He picked up his hat and held it with his fingers over the torn spot on the brim. The cop wheeled and ran towards the low wire fence of the parking area.
Tracy snapped at him: “Wait a minute, Riordan!” He said to the Picador’s doorman, who had reached him: “Hello, Tim. What’s all the excitement?”
“Jeeze, Mr. Tracy, I heard the shootin’ an’—”
“What shooting? Are you two guys both crazy?”
They stared at him queerly. Tim’s eyes became instantly wise and alert; the patrolman, Riordan, looked puzzled.
Tracy chuckled mildly. “Don’t be silly, boys. I’m sorry to disappoint you—but there wasn’t any shooting. What you boys heard was that Buick pulling out of the other entrance to the lot. Backfire, sweethearts.”
Tim didn’t say anything. The cop grunted slightly. “If it wasn’t shootin’ what th’ hell was yuh doin’ on the sidewalk?”
“I’m funny that way,” Tracy said. “I get dizzy spells. If you insist on it, I’ll take a little walk with you over to the cop-house and you can spill any charge against me
to Lieutenant Krantz. He’s in the night desk, isn’t he?”
“That’s right, sor.”
“By the way, Riordan, this is a pretty good beat you got along here. Pretty good precinct, too, I’ll bet.”
“It is that, sor.” Riordan looked faintly uneasy. His round eyes became slitted like Tim’s. He put his gun away.
“You’re an alert patrolman, Riordan. In other words, a wise cop. You wouldn’t be apt to mix up a shooting and a joke.”
Riordan grinned, muttered something and walked away. Tracy went back up the street with Tim.
“Mind sticking on the corner with me, fella? This time I think I’m going to wait for a taxi.”
“Who, me?” Tim said. “Sure thing.” His voice indicated that mountains would fall and rivers dry up before Tim would desert an open-handed gentleman of the caliber of Mr. Tracy. He didn’t say any more until Jerry was stepping into the cab. Then he leaned forward and his wise old eyes smiled.
“Didja get a flash of the punk’s mug, Mr. Tracy?” he whispered.
“I wouldn’t be a bit see-prised if it rained, Timothy.”
Tim chuckled. “If it does, I bet somebody gets drowned. Me, I don’t mind rain.”
“That’s because you don’t walk around with your mouth open. So long.”
The cab rolled. There was little traffic abroad on the dark windy avenue and in a few minutes’ time Jerry was ascending a thousand feet per minute towards his expensive penthouse apartment.
The names of two men were congealed in his mind in letters of ice. Otto Korner was one of them. The other was little Willie Frisco.
Willie Frisco was the guy who had gunned at Tracy from the lot. Jerry had had only that one lightning glance over his shoulder to make the guess. Guess, nothing! That wrinkled and bloodless phiz behind a leveled automatic was something to remember.
Willie Frisco was a little guy with an old man’s face on the body of a boy. He ran to tan shoes with perforated designs on the toes, skimpy suits with built-up shoulders, imported neckties like Turkish rugs. A handy little guy with a .38. He was on the Korner payroll.
Dutch Otto Korner—O.K. for short. That’s what the underworld called Otto—O.K. A fat hammered-down Dutchman from the Bronx, with eyes like gray marbles. Otto had moved down to Manhattan and made the grade by rubbing out Manny Gross. He had a big payroll now, a swell income and as nice a murder organization as you’d want to see. The police biography of Otto would fill a newspaper column with “charge dismissed” and “sentence suspended.” He had paid a ten-dollar fine once for parking near a hydrant. That was before he moved to Manhattan.
Cold rage burned in Tracy’s eyes as he stepped into his suite.
He snicked on the lights in his living-room, unlocked a modernistic chest of pale silvery wood. He took out a bulky book with lined pages and a lettered index. His hand was as steady as a rock as he picked up the telephone.
He called a number and said: “Hello, yourself. Get off the wire and tell Otto Korner I want to talk to him. Tell him the name is Jerry Tracy. If you like jokes tell him T as in Tag.”
He waited. Then: “That you, Korner?”
“Hello, Jerry. How’s the kid?” Laughter gurgled in the receiver like greasy bubbles floating on oil. “How’s my old pal, Jerry? What’s new?”
“Plenty, Korner. A little rat emptied an automatic at me a short while ago. I thought I’d tell you about it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I’m in a hurry, so talk fast. What the hell do you mean by handing Willie Frisco orders to bushwhack me with bullets? What’s the idea of trying to rub me out, you fat Dutch louse?”
Silence. More silence. Then the laughter on the wire bubbled again. From the ugly sound of it Jerry knew he had guessed right.
“You’re drunk, Jerry, old boy, old boy. It musta been two other fellas. Willie Frisco’s playin’ pinochle with me right now. He’s been here with me all evenin’. Take an aspirin an’ get back to bed. Call me up some time when you’re sober.”
“That’s your story, eh? I’m drunk and Frisco’s a pinochle player with a swell alibi.”
“Go to bed, laddie.” The voice hardened. “An’ listen, kid: a bit of free advice. Cut out that ‘Dutch louse’ stuff! You newspaper guys are all alike—feed ’em a drink or two an’ they turn snotty. First thing you know, you’ll be gettin’ me sore. … So long, kid; I’ll be seein’ yuh.”
“You’re damn’ right you’ll be seeing me,” Jerry told him curtly and hung up.
He stared at the instrument for a moment or two and then called up Harry Wilkie. Wilkie was a detective sergeant, a veteran flat foot who had climbed the rungs from patrolman to a plain-clothes tour and on to a soft daytime job at headquarters. A square dick with a straight spine. He was Tracy’s link with the police department and what’s more, he was Tracy’s loyal and unswerving friend. Each of them was deep in the other’s personal debt.
Tracy said to him: “Can you come over to my place right away, Harry?”
The columnist could hear the sound of Wilkie’s slow methodical breathing. He had a chronic impediment in his nose that made him snort faintly.
“Sure, I’ll come over—if it’s important.”
“It’s important to me.”
“Okey,” said Wilkie. Verbosity was not one of his faults.
The Planet’s columnist made a third and final call; this time to the garage where he kept his car—an imported thing with a bloated wheelbase, christened ruefully by himself after the first five hundred miles as The Gashouse.
He explained to Sam, the puzzled night man, that he didn’t want The Gashouse; what he wanted was a small car; a roadster or a convertible coupé. Sure, he knew it was a cold winter’s night and a chill gale blowing, but that’s what he wanted—an open car.
It appeared that Sam had a convertible of his own with a lousy paint job and a bum fender.
“Fine,” Tracy said. “Yank down the top, gas it up and get it over here right away. Park it at the curb outside and leave the key with the hallman.”
“Awright, Mr. Tracy. I guess you know what you’re doin’.”
“I guess I do, Sam. ’Night!”
He was midway through his first cigarette when the hallman’s sleepy voice: reported a coupé for Mr. Tracy at the curb. He was crushing out his third butt when Harry Wilkie arrived.
Wilkie gave him a keen glance. “Something?” he asked lazily.
Tracy tossed him the hat with its bullet-torn brim.
“Yeah, something. Sit down, Harry.”
The detective sergeant was a big maid When he grinned his mouth was pleasant, but when he stopped grinning his lips pulled tautly together as though they worked with a zipper. Plenty of meat between his breastbone and spine. It would take a strong breeze to blow Harry Wilkie over.
Tracy talked and the big man listened. At the end he nodded.
“Like that, eh? Otto Korner’s little boy Frisco tries to slip you the heat. Otto laughs it off. But a guy in your business can’t afford to have things like? that laughed off.”
“Right. The very minute I let anyone in New York—and by ——! I mean anyone!—put me on the run, I’m licked—I close up shop. Korner’s the first mugg to call my bluff with bullets. I’m not sure why, but I think I know. … I print what I — —— please! I’m no lousy little legman for a cheap tab. I’m Jerry Tracy, the million-dollar news buster. And I’m not taking any trains out of New York.”
Wilkie’s blunt forefinger made a sand-paper noise on his chin.
“So you’re going right over to Korner’s place and tell him no.”
“Yeah.” Tracy was sliding into his overcoat.
“You sound tough. Packin’ a gun?”
“Nope.”
“What’s my angle?”
Jerry grinned. “You pack the gun, sweetheart. You’re the life insurance.” His grin faded. “Kidding aside, it’s my party. All I want you to do is to wait outside Korner’s joint in the coupé. Park under a light
if there’s one handy and keep your coat collar down. Let the well-known Wilkie features be prominently displayed. If I don’t come out in a half hour, you go in.”
“The hell with that,” Wilkie muttered. “You call that a party?”
Tracy nudged him to the door. “Out,” he said sweetly.
It was freezing cold on the dark street. The columnist took the wheel of the open car. Wilkie shivered as the icy wind bit his face and slashed sparks from his cigar.
“Nix on the half hour stuff,” he snapped. “Fifteen minutes, brother. That’s all the cold I can stand.”
“Fifteen’ll be plenty,” the newspaperman said.
They parked the old rattletrap under a street-light. Jerry hopped out, walked briskly along the deserted sidewalk. He climbed the stoop of a squat four-story dwelling house, rang the bell and opened the glassed door of the vestibule.
The inner door was solid oak timber. A peephole opened and an eye peered. The metal eyelid closed with a click and there was a long wait. Jerry’s mouth grimaced a little. The wait meant a hurried conference inside, uneasiness. Korner’s bullet targets were not in the habit of calling on him to find out why. The Dutchman was probably feeling a mild species of alarmed wonder.
A moment later it was Jerry’s turn to be surprised. Otto Korner opened the door himself. In person. He was smiling expansively but his eyes looked shrunken and hard. He kept his left hand in his pocket.
“Well, well! My old pal, Jerry! A pleasure, Mr. Tracy! Come on in.”
He shut the door and Tracy saw the steel bar of the special Fox lock slide into place and click rigid.
Cigarette smoke drifted through the doorway of an inner room.
“Come on in and meet the boys,” Korner smiled.
Tracy didn’t smile back. He walked in. Stood in the middle of the room with a deadpan countenance. A tall man with light taffy-colored hair drifted behind him and closed the door. Otto Korner went over to a battered-looking desk and sat down. He waved his left hand vaguely.
“Boys, meet a dear old pal of mine. Jerry Tracy. Get him a drink, Sid.”
“Never mind the drink,” Jerry growled. “And forget the pal stuff. I don’t pal with rats.”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 14
