“Wrong? Hell, no. You’re right.”
“Sorta cryin’, the Babe was. All worked up.”
“You’re still right. … Looks like I’ll have to get me a new doorman hired, Sam.”
“It wasn’t the doorman. And even if it was, that wouldn’t get you anywhere. … What’s worrying Flip?”
His tongue boggled ever so slightly on the last word. Couldn’t make it sound entirely casual. He sensed Jerry’s awareness, guessed at the columnist’s inner smile. It didn’t make him happy. He fiddled with an ashtray and set it in a better spot.
Jerry said: “Why, Flip was scared, Sam. An argument, wasn’t it? Something scared her.”
“Yeah. Little argument. That was all.”
“So I gathered. I see you cut yourself shaving this morning.”
“Yeah. … Flip say who the guy was?”
“What guy?”
“Oh, it’s gonna be like that!”
“More or less, Sam.”
“Flip didn’t tell you the mugg’s name that—er—had the argument with me?”
“Nope.”
“You lie like hell!” Volga whispered tonelessly. His eyes held flickering hatred.
Tracy didn’t say anything. He wasn’t in love with anybody and his hand was steadier than Volga’s. Smoke rose from his cigarette-tip like a long and solid blue icepick.
“I’m supposed to be here,” Jerry said, as though explaining something he had forgotten. “I mean, people know about it. I’m not supposed to stay here long.”
“Sure. That’s all right. I just wanted to ask you something.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Something like this,” Volga said slowly. “Guys that nose in on me are either too dumb or too wise to know any better. You ain’t neither one. I been thinkin’ a lot about you, Tracy.”
“Thanks,” Jerry said dryly.
“I can’t figure your play, see? You earn a wad of good dough and you’d like to go on livin’, I guess. … How come? That’s what I wanna know. What’s your in on the whole business?”
Tracy’s jaws clamped. He thought hard. Volga would have to be prodded, worried some more. It was dangerous but necessary if the big shot was to be softened up for snow removal. The question Volga asked was an exact echo of the one asked by Inspector Danny Burch. Tracy had answered Burch, but to Volga he merely said: “Will this help? I never did quite like you, Sam, or approve of you.”
“So what?”
“So anything you like. You wanted to know my in? That’s it. Our fair city is turning virtuous. Somebody is going to the cleaners some day. And I’m betting on you, Samuel.”
His voice was playful but his knees shook.
“Do I die now?”
“Not now,” Volga said huskily. The words were barely audible. The hatred in Volga’s eyes flickered up like bright flame and again smoldered. Tracy thought to himself: Smoke!
“Maybe you won’t die at that,” the big shot muttered, as though musing to himself. “There must be lots of real comical things I could do. … By God, I can think of a stunt right now!”
“Including the personal alibi, as usual?” Tracy asked pleasantly.
“Alibi? Why, sure. As per usual.”
Without warning the killer’s face purpled. He came leaping awkwardly to his feet and his roar of rage filled the apartment with sound. “What are yuh grinnin’ about, yuh little ——!”
A flat automatic bulged in his clenched fist. Its snout bored at Tracy’s belly. Volga lunged forward with the weapon, his finger on the trigger. For a deadly split second he hesitated, trumpeting with rage.
Tracy backed up slowly, trying not to make too much motion. He dropped his hand towards a chair. His face was very pale. The door of the room opened and Eddie Ahearn came in. Eddie looked at Volga and didn’t say anything.
“Get out!” Volga said to Tracy in a crawling whisper. “Get out, before I blast the livin’ dirt outta yuh!”
The columnist slid quickly into his overcoat, buttoned it with fumbling fingers, picked up his hat. He walked towards the bulky figure that blocked the doorway, his heart thumping against his ribs.
Volga said thickly: “Okey. Let the —— out!” and Ahearn moved aside, frowning.
Ahearn told the columnist with dignity: “Yeah. Scram, you —— ——!”
The cold air outside turned Tracy’s sweat-bath into twitching icicles. He got uptown somehow, went to his Times Square kennel. He knocked off a couple of gigantic shots of bonded rye and went through the shakes all over again.
He tried resolutely to put his mind on newspaper work. He tried to drive himself along the familiar grooves. No use. He couldn’t concentrate. The gags were lifeless, the pert paragraphs stunk. After a while he abandoned all pretense of industry. He slumped and allowed his thoughts to scamper. They were scary thoughts. They squeaked and rustled like mice. A foreboding sense of impending disaster made his heart bump unpleasantly. He was in the mess now, right up to his neck, whether he liked it or not. How the thing had widened! Flip the dumb-bell and Fred the plumber; Volga the big shot and Antonelli the wop—and now Jerry Tracy. Jerry Tracy, the snooper, the wise guy, the buttinski. …
A sandy-haired man came in presently and the columnist’s eyes lit up. He was glad of the interruption. Activity always keyed up the Daily Planet’s expensive ace.
He said, cheerfully: “Hey, hey, Paul. Business improving?”
“Allatime. How’s my cold sound?”
“It doesn’t. What did you do for it?”
“The guy in Liggett’s gave me something that you sniff. Boy, am I improved! Coax me and I’ll sing soprano.”
He moved a desk calendar aside and sat on part of his thigh, his foot swinging idly.
“Two Antonellis, chief. Believe it or not, yow-suh. One of ’em born in Palermo, naturalized citizen, works for the Apex fleet out of a garage on Christopher Street. An old geezer. No relation to the other guy. … The other guy comes from Bridgeport, so you pay off on the guess. I brought a pic along. Look him over.”
Tracy studied the photo carefully. “This is the bird, all right.”
“Owner-driver. Buick 1931. Socked once on a minor traffic violation, otherwise clean as a whistle, clean as this lovely brand-new schnozzle of mine. Antonelli’s stand is on West End Avenue and 97th. He nighthawks. Practically doesn’t use the stand at all. Does a lot of cruising south of 59th. Not liked particularly by the two other muggs on the 97th Street stand. Kinda surly and standoffish. Smokes Camels and has one lovely little hobby.”
“Cut the clowning, Paul. I’m not in the mood. You mean he carries a rod?”
“A rod? Hell, no. I didn’t tab that. … No, I’m talking about hobbies. He’s a collector.”
“Collector?”
“Yeah. And it ain’t stamps. The mugg is a hero worshiper. He’s got a crush on one of our celebrated citizens. Thinks his hero is quite a guy. Reads up on him in all the tabs. Tears out pictures and saves ’em. And who do you think his hero is?”
Paul chuckled. “I’ll help you. It’s not Al Smith.”
“It couldn’t possibly be Sam Volga?”
“Check,” said Paul in a surprised voice. “I’ll be damned!” He hesitated. “Playing some marbles with Volga, Jerry? Of course, it’s none of my business, but—”
“You’re damned right. It isn’t. That’ll be all for today, Paul. Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t mention it.” The leg swung off the desk. “Well—I guess you’re over twenty-one. Be seein’ you.”
“ ’By, Paul.”
Tracy sat back again. A half hour crawled. The telephone rang. It was Flip Kern calling.
“He dated me up, Mr. Tracy. I feel awful scared and funny about it—but you said to play along with him. You think it’ll be all right?”
“Sure it’s all right. When is the date? Tonight?”
“Tomorrer night. Thoisday.”
“How come? I thought you had to dance nights in Max Bloom’s liquor spo
t.”
“He—he told me he’d talk to Maxie and fix things.”
“I just bet he will.” Tracy grinned mirthlessly. “Sweet, this is important. Where is the date gonna be? Did you talk it over at all? Did he say?”
“Yeah. The Silver Trumpet.”
“That’s fine. … Heard anything from the boy friend—you know who.”
“No, and I’m worried terrible. Don’t-cha think I oughta—”
“NO! For gawd’s sake let him alone! No, Flip! Do you want him to run into So-and-so and get killed?”
She sniffled at that and said no, she didn’t.
“Okey, then. Leave it to me, be nice to So-and-so—and for crimp’s sake don’t worry.”
He hung up and went over to his typewriter—an electric typewriter with a hair-trigger touch. He had taken the tip on it from a fiction-writer friend of his who turned out high-pressure stuff at top speed. The columnist shoved in a sheet of paper, watched the blank sheet a while. Finally he typed swiftly without a stop:
“Sam Volga, the big merchant prince with the heart of gold, is being seen these cold winter nights at the Silver Trumpet. … Which adds one more note of distinction to this smart and popular glitter puddle on old Bee-way. … ”
He rang up the Daily Planet, read the squib to McCurdy and instructed him to make a place for it in the Thursday column. McCurdy beefed as usual but Tracy made it stick. He grinned thinly into the transmitter and explained this was a werry, werry special item. What you might call a collector’s item. …
It was still early afternoon but Tracy felt tired and spent. His head ached with a dull throb. He decided to call it a day. He squirmed into his beautifully tailored overcoat and stood a moment, eying with listless hate the untidy frowsiness of the office.
Under his breath he muttered: “Jeeze, what a rat’s nest!”
He got rid of it with a vicious bang of the door and went down to the street.
Still icy cold outside. The wind bit at his tired face and woke him up. The snow remnant in the street had hardened into a dirty coating of lead-colored ice as solid as concrete. Down by the corner an unkempt little gang of unemployed were chipping with picks at the flinty ice, shoving the stuff down a sewer-opening. They worked like languid sleepwalkers.
Tracy turned up his coat collar, walked past a parked sedan and stood at the curb, waiting for a cab. He didn’t see the woman get out of the sedan but he did hear the quick clack-clack of her heels on the pavement.
As he turned she screamed suddenly—a piercing, horrible shriek of rage. She was screaming at Tracy, mouthing shrill obscenity. She was blonde, pouchy, middle-aged. Pedestrians were stopping, staring warily.
Tracy stuttered in astonishment: “For gawd’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”
“Tracy the rat! Tracy the woman chaser! Tracy the —— ——! You’ll ruin no more decent daughters, you two-timing little gigolo!”
Her hand whipped out of her muff and darted at him like a snake.
Tracy threw up a defensive arm and staggered backward. It was involuntary and awkward but his very awkwardness whirled him clear of the woman’s hasty arm. He heard glass smash with a brittle tinkle on the sidewalk. All along his sleeve tiny brownish spatterings appeared like pin-point moth-holes. They were on the front of his overcoat, too. The tip of one of his shoes was wet. On the pavement fragments of glass lay scattered in a wet splash. The splash seemed to smoke faintly with a queerish gray haze.
Men began to yell and point excitedly behind the columnist. A door slammed with a bang and the parked sedan slid away from the curb. It roared round the corner, scattering the pick-and-shovel men like quail. Somebody blew a police whistle. People came crowding around Tracy. A cop shoved through the excitement after a while, began asking stupid questions.
Tracy had to go through a rigmarole. Mistaken identity. Never saw her before in his life. Blah, blah, blah. No, yes, no. …
The sickening part of it was the mumblings from the crowd. He could hear it like words from a jumbled dream: “No kiddin’ … Sure it’s Tracy; I seen him once at an actors’ benefit show. … They say the little rat is absolutely girl struck. … Jist before she threw it she yelled somepin’ about her daughter. The dames are beginnin’ to catch up with Tracy, I guess. I bet if yuh was to count all the … Jeeze, lookit his shoes. Look what it done to the leather. … ”
The cop said: “What is it? Carbolic?”
A voice tinged with authority interrupted: “Looks more like muriatic, Officer. Rather nasty stuff. If I were you, young man, I’d get home quickly and get out of those clothes.”
Tracy looked gratefully at the precise man with the Van Dyke. “Thanks, Doc.”
The cop said: “Okey, Mr. Tracy. I guess I got everything.”
He waved his stick towards the gutter side of the crowd. A horn honked and a taxi butted slowly through a moving surf of arms and elbows and heads.
Tracy got into the hack. Faces peered, kids jumped up and down to get a look, fingers pointed from the sidewalk; then the gears clashed and the jumble of noise sucked backward and grew dim.
The columnist gave the address weakly. The walls of his stomach were rubbing together. It hurt.
He thought: “The wise son of a gun! I didn’t think he had sense enough to pull a wise stunt like that. Volga! I got luck—but he used brains. No tie-up for him on this job. … And what a jobbing he’s handed me. Gawd, has he put me in a spot!”
Tracy shuddered. He knew to the last semi-colon and comma what he was up against now. He braced himself for a locust horde of reporters. A taste of his own medicine! Headlines in all the tabs, with the Daily Planet doing friendly missionary stuff to hush-hush the dirtiest of the noise. Couldn’t do much, at that. The circulation would drop and the Daily Planet lived on circulation. All the rest of the competish would be yelping gleefully like dogs on a scent. The dames catching up at last with wise guy Tracy! He could hear the guffaws, the spiteful cracks, the crop of brand-new dirty jokes about him and his love-life. The careful, non-libelous digs by the radio comics and the daily feature boys. A stag down and the dogs tearing with bloody jaws at his flesh!
Sweat dappled his pale forehead. Not bad finaygling on Volga’s part, he thought grimly.
He smiled, a thin bloodless gash without merriment.
“Okey, Mr. Volga. I still can take it. How about you? Do you think you can take it, Mr. Volga?”
6
THE HOUR WAS BEGINNING to get late—even for the Silver Trumpet. Music from the ballroom filtered dimly into the bar. The rhythm sounded thin and tired and brassy; mostly trumpet and cornet; the rest was a murmuring haze that flowed or ebbed when someone opened or closed a door. The air was bluish tinted and much too hot.
Tracy was at the bar. He sipped Scotch and soda. He had already sipped a lot of them but they weren’t doing anything to him. People said hello to him and he was politely and briefly affable. He kept on sipping. A man came in with a tabloid sheet and the barkeep coughed. Jerry saw the black headlines before the tab discreetly vanished. That was the Sphere. An eight-word head, featuring “hurls acid” and “columnist playboy.” Not a bad job, although Tracy thought personally that the Record’s headline had copped first honors.
A pudgy man with a soft gelatine stomach, pink scrubbed hands and faultless starched bosom, came in. He carried a folded menu card in his left hand. Except for his deferentially drooped shoulders he might have been a bishop.
He went across to the bar; the bar-keep moved away, picked up a glass and began polishing.
The pudgy man said in a low, smiling whisper: “He just called for the check, Jerry.”
“Thanks, Julius. I’m learning who my friends are. Nice crowd tonight.”
He finished his Scotch, set down the empty glass, said, “Night, Otto,” to the barkeep and walked out by the corridor door. Somebody said, “Night, Jerry,” as he passed but there was mostly silence in the bar. He knew, wryly, that the moment he vanished the Sphere would come out
again and there would be smirks, whisperings, wise surmises about Tracy and his love-life. Jerry knew this with a feeling of no emotion whatever. He knew now that he didn’t give a damn.
He got his hat and coat, patted the hat-check girl’s face softly. Her eyes gave him the sympathy she dared not put into words.
He said: “You look sweet tonight, Anita. Go easy on the eyebrow-pencil, keed; you can’t stand too much of it.”
A uniformed attendant placed a gloved hand on the revolving-door and stood there, respectfully alert, waiting to twirl. Jerry lingered, drew on his gloves slowly. Then he turned and said: “Well, well. Fancy meeting you here.”
Sam Volga guffawed openly. “How’s everything, pal?”
“Smooth as silk, Sam.”
“Oh, yeah? Where do you buy your silk? Woolworth’s?”
He guffawed again and turned away to help Flip with her wraps.
“Hello, Jerry,” Flip said. Her eyes were scared, interrogative.
“Sort of celebration night, isn’t it?” Tracy said. “I suppose you two chillun will be tap-dancing for hours yet.”
Flip said quickly, “No—I—” She finished, lamely, “No.”
“The kid’s tired,” Volga said. He looked at her with hot, smoldering eyes. “Pretty tired, baby?”
“Awful tired, S-Sam.”
Tracy said in Volga’s ear: “Nice job yesterday, but your boys bungled it.”
“Give the boys time,” Volga purred. He was in high good humor.
The revolving door clacked round and round and pushed them to the sidewalk.
There were four taxis waiting in line along the curb. Tracy glanced across and looked away again. He kept up a brisk friendly chatter. He seemed in no hurry to break away from Volga and the girl. Flip helped along with inconsequential small talk. She was afraid of her bulky escort, afraid to lose Tracy’s protective presence.
Finally, Volga nudged her. “You’re shivering, kid,” and all three of them moved towards the curb.
Flip said: “I’m not cold, really. I think the air’s grand.”
Tracy stood closest to the open cab door. He looked down the line, saw the driver of the second taxi. The driver was hunched slightly forward, staring at the three on the sidewalk. He seemed asleep. He was carved in quietness. Like a stone.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 21
