Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter

by Tinsley, Theodore A.

  “What sedan?”

  “The one I left downstairs at the curb.”

  “What are you trying to do, kid me? If you mean that big new boat you bought, it ain’t downstairs.”

  Tracy darted to the window. There were two police cars parked below like white-blanketed bugs. But no sedan.

  Tracy had left the car locked. There was only one person in New York besides Tracy who could have unlocked it. That wise little floozie who had stolen his keys. Vera!

  He took a deep breath as he turned from the window. He walked over to Spane’s telephone. Killan looked at Fitz, but Fitz shook his head slightly.

  “Hello. Gimme police headquarters. … Who’s this? McDougal? This is Jerry Tracy. I want to report a stolen car.”

  McDougal’s voice chuckled across the wire. “You’re having your troubles with that new boat, ain’t you? What’s the matter? Somebody got a grudge against you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Somebody called up an hour ago. Gave us your license number. Wanted to know who owned it.”

  Excitement made Tracy’s voice crackle. To a newspaper man the inference about a license call made directly to police headquarters was obvious.

  “Did the guy say who he was?”

  “Yeah. Some fella named Springer. He’s a reporter on the Daily Chronicle.”

  “O.K. Thanks a lot.”

  Fitzgerald had leaned close enough to hear both ends of the conversation. He didn’t say anything. Nor did Killan. In the silence only the voice of Jack Davy was audible. He was backed in a far corner of the room, talking smilingly to Patrolman Kennedy.

  “You think that last one was a honey? Listen to this:

  “A Bolivian princess named Paca

  Liked to float nude on Lake Titicaca.

  But the trouble with that,

  Was the gal got so fat—”

  Fitzgerald’s outraged bellow drowned the last line of the limerick.

  “Kennedy! Throw that damned fool out of here! Kick him downstairs!”

  Jerry Tracy had picked up his hat from the floor. He jammed it on his head and started for the door. Fitzgerald stepped in front of him, blocking his exit.

  “Take it easy, Jerry.”

  “I’m walking out of this dump. You know where I live. Or you can arrest me right now and I’ll crucify you and the whole damn police force in my column, after I blow your case apart!”

  Fitzgerald’s expression was not a happy one. He said harshly, “Listen, Jerry, I don’t like that kind of talk.”

  “I’ll talk any damn way I please!”

  “Mmm, big, huh?”

  “Damn right—if you force me to act that way. I don’t want to use my publicity connections to make a monkey out of you, Fitz. But I’ll do it if you shove me in a corner. I don’t have to tell you that I swing a lot of weight in this town and in plenty of others, too, for that matter. If you think I’m kidding, try me.”

  Fitzgerald had never seen Tracy in such a quiet, tight-lipped fury. He made an awkward gesture of conciliation.

  “How about talking this thing over privately, Jerry? You going straight home?”

  “Yeah.” Tracy wasn’t, but it gave him a chance for an easy exit. He let his stiff lips relax into a blurred smile. “How long do you expect to be here, Fitz?”

  “Probably another hour. Why?”

  “When you’re through, come to my penthouse. I may have something to tell you that will save you from making a complete ass of yourself.”

  His heels clicked calmly down the hall. He took the service elevator to the street.

  It was snowing harder than ever. The sky was a dirty orange-gray. Tracy trudged a block or two before the cold gale blew the rage out of his system. Blinking through clogged eyelashes, he tried to locate a taxicab.

  To his delight he saw one presently. He ploughed into the middle of the street with arms waving. It slowed at his yell, its chains clotted with white. It was empty, but the hackman shoved an arm back and held the door shut.

  “Sorry, but I’ve had enough snow plowin’ for one night. I’m headin’ for the garage.”

  Tracy changed that with a crisp ten-dollar bill. “You can take care of all I want in a half hour. Ten more bucks when you’re finished.”

  He piled into the cab and slammed the door.

  “Stop first at an all night drug-store.”

  In the drug-store Tracy opened a Manhattan phone book and leafed rapidly through the C’s. He wrote down the address of Roy Chanler on a scrap torn from the margin of the phone page. But as he came out of the store, he halted for a quick instant.

  A block behind his taxi, at the invisible curb on the other side of the avenue, was a parked police coupé. Tracy swore. Fitzgerald wasn’t as trusting as he had seemed. He had put a prompt police tail on the Daily Planet’s suspicious gag-and-humor man.

  The scrap of paper in Tracy’s hand fluttered behind his overcoat into the snow. There’d be no use going there. He got back into his cab with a wry grin.

  He had himself driven back to his penthouse. His head ached from the crack Chanler had given him. He felt worn out, mussed up, weary. Fitz could go to hell when he showed up! He’d tell the hallman no dice on visitors and Fitz would need a warrant to get past Eddie on that basis, inspector or no inspector. All Tracy wanted now was some hot liquor and bed. The hell with everything else till morning!

  He gave his hackman another ten and watched the cab depart. Then he waved his arm toward the slowly approaching police car. Sergeant Killan was driving it. What Tracy said to Killan made him squirm a little.

  “No use getting sore, Jerry. Maybe you’re a swell guy, but we’d like to be sure about it. If it’s all the same to you, I could do with a drink before I start back.”

  “You can stick your head in the East River,” Tracy rasped. “And tell Fitz for me—Oh, skip it!”

  He strode into the apartment lobby, stamping the snow from his feet. The elevator door was open but Eddie wasn’t in his chair back of the switchboard enclosure. Tracy knew where to find him, however. He’d be curled up in one of the soft chairs in the swanky imitation cathedral vestry at the rear of the lobby.

  Eddie wasn’t there, but somebody else was. A tall, thin man with a flat spongy nose and eyes as glazed and as hard as a blue China doorknob. He was waiting there patiently with an expensive overcoat folded over his left arm. He rose languidly and said:

  “Hello, Jerry.”

  Tracy felt himself get very quiet from head to foot. He could feel the rug under his soles, the soft hammer of blood in his eardrums.

  He knew this thin, lazy-looking man. He didn’t like him, but the two had always been fairly friendly. The guy’s name was Joe Wilkie. He was not exactly a gunman, not exactly a businessman. His specialty was labor, although he had never done a tap of physical work in his life. He had been in and out of several unions, each time escaping a Grand Jury indictment. Wilkie knew when to get in and when to get out.

  Five years ago, you couldn’t have bought a chicken or any other kind of poultry without dropping a small tax into Joe Wilkie’s pocket. After that it was building materials. But the police never bothered Wilkie. He had money and plenty of guts—more guts than anyone on earth, according to underworld gossip. Brains, too; although Tracy had always suspected that Wilkie was a front man for somebody a hell of a lot smoother than he was.

  “Hell, Joe. Where’d you drop from?”

  “I didn’t drop,” Wilkie said. He was on his feet, the coat still hanging loosely over his left arm. “The hallman dropped, not me. He’s down in the cellar, in case you’re worried about him.”

  “I’m worried about myself,” Tracy said.

  He noted that Wilkie’s right hand was under the coat that was draped across his left arm. The coat lifted slightly and the motionless black O of a pistol muzzle pointed at Tracy.

  “Get going, Jerry. Straight ahead of me to the rear stairs.”

  “You sore at me, Joe?”


  “Why get sore? I’m doing all right.”

  “What have you got against me? Can’t it be squared?”

  “You stuck your neck out, that’s all. Too far out to pull it in again.” The gun muzzle hurt Tracy’s spine. “Get moving!”

  The pistol pressure shoved Tracy through the warm, dimly lit cellar of the apartment house and out the rear to the white blur of flying snow. Emerging from a long alley to a back street, Tracy saw a car at the curb.

  The appearance of that car frightened Jerry more than the hurtful jam of Wilkie’s gun in his back. It was an ancient and decrepit Chevrolet coach, five or six years old. For the dapper Wilkie to be riding a bone-yard heap like that—It meant a torch job, or the river. …

  “Open the door,” Wilkie said. “Bend the seat forward and get in the back.”

  Tracy obeyed. He knew what was coming, but he didn’t utter a sound. He saved that until he felt the numbing smash of the gun butt. He fell with a groan that he tried to taper off artistically into fake unconsciousness. He had twisted his head slightly at the instant the blow was delivered. Part of the impact landed on his hunched shoulder. He clamped his lips tight as Wilkie tested him with a vicious kick in the ribs.

  A mouldy lap-robe was dropped over his sprawled figure. The coach got into motion. Tracy lay perfectly still under his covering, although the smell of the robe made him sick. It smelled like rancid cheese.

  Tracy, had fallen purposely so that one arm stretched under the robe toward the hinged seat in front. He tried to picture in his mind the outline of the coach’s door and the exact location of the rusted door-handle.

  He knew now that he was going to have to force that door open under water!

  The hoarse toot of a river tug sounded very close. It was followed by the rumbling mumble of wooden planks under the slowly rolling car.

  The Chevrolet halted. The mournful hooting of the tug boat gradually faded. Then suddenly the automobile began to roll forward. Tracy’s throat ached with the tension of his locked jaws. There was nothing he could do. To make a move now would merely add a cracked skull or a knife in his ribs before he went overboard.

  He felt the quick swerve of the car as Wilkie’s hand left the wheel. There was a squeak from the open door, a slam, a duller thump as Wilkie’s feet struck the planks of the pier.

  Then the speeding car rammed against a low string piece and bounced outward into space.

  Tracy felt a sickening emptiness in the pit of his stomach as his fist sent the hinged coach seat crashing forward. The lap-robe whipped away, clawed desperately loose by his left hand. His right darted for the door-handle and gripped it. Then … “Whosh!”

  He was under the surface of the river, cradling downward in utter blackness. Water jetted into the car through every crack and cranny. Tracy could feel its coldness burning his blinded face as he wrenched fiercely at the door-handle. It was hard to force the door outward against the pressure of the river. He got it partly open, and the spout of roaring I water almost tore him loose from his grip. He held rigidly, lips clamped, feet braced. A convulsive kick shot him away as the sinking car settled with a quiver in the soft mud of the river bed. Tracy’s chest was still expanded with every ounce of air his lungs could hold. He shot upward, trying desperately to slant shoreward as his body rose.

  The freezing bite of the water wrenched his mouth open. Bubbles raced from his lips. Then his head broke the surface of the river. His numb fingers slid wildly across the slippery surface of an upright timber. He was under a pier.

  He missed his grip and went down again. But he had taken a quick gulp of air and he fought back to the surface. This time he caught at one of the pier’s horizontal stringers. Tracy got an arm over, then a leg. His weight, rather than his strength, rolled him across the squared beam.

  He wriggled along it, inch by inch, his buttocks humped high like a crawling baby. The wind sucking under the pier, brought snowflakes sifting against his face. It slashed knifelike against his soaked body. Twice he slipped and hung breathlessly. But he kept on.

  How he did it, he never knew. But he found himself, presently, hanging partway over the combing at the edge of the pier. There was a vertical ladder under his feet that led to a kind of floating boom in the river. Somehow, he had managed to swing to the ladder and climb it. He squirmed over the pier edge and fell headlong, his cheek aching from the feel of soft snow.

  Wilkie was no longer in sight on the pier. Tracy, reeling on his feet, staggered over to the marks where the coach had toppled into the river. He saw where Wilkie had leaped to safety. He followed the prints of the killer’s feet down the pier toward the street. Tracy began to run, swinging his arms awkwardly, slapping at his face and ears and chest. There was a sharp pain in his lungs.

  Front Street was like a white desert when Tracy reached it. There was no trail to show where Wilkie had fled after committing what he had conceived to be a perfect murder job. The driving snow had filled in his prints.

  But a block up a side street was something a lot more important than Wilkie. Tracy saw a neon sign on the corner: Coffee Pot.

  As Tracy hurried toward it, he saw that there was a taxicab parked outside. The thought of hot coffee and a quick dash homeward in a cab restored his courage.

  He peered through the steamy window of the restaurant and gasped with dismay. Joe Wilkie was sitting at the counter with a half dozen other men. He was calmly swilling hot coffee.

  Tracy backed away hastily, opened the taxi door and crawled in. The cab was heated. Tracy would have stolen it, if he’d been in any condition to drive; but he wasn’t. He leaned through the open glass panel in front and pushed the horn.

  A fat man in a dirty sheepskin coat came shambling out of the restaurant. “What’s the big hurry, guy? Can’tcha wait till—”

  He saw the soaked, and shivering columnist and his jaw dropped. Tracy held out his wallet to him.

  “Take it! Everything in it is yours. But hurry up! Drive!”

  The hackman opened the wallet, fingered the damp wad of currency, gave a quick grunt and slid behind his wheel.

  “Where you wanna go?”

  Tracy told him.

  “What the hell happened to you? Fall overboard?”

  “Yeah. I got drunk and woke up floating. Make it fast!”

  “Pal, I’ll make it faster than that!”

  But he slowed as he approached Tracy’s ornate apartment entrance. There was sly curiosity on his beefy face. He went thoroughly through Tracy’s wallet with the fingers of one hand. And he found something that Jerry had forgotten. Tracy’s column from the Daily Planet!

  “I’ll take that wallet,” Tracy said faintly. “The money’s yours. The rest is mine.”

  “You’re Jerry Tracy, ain’t you?”

  “Yeah. Keep your mouth shut about all this. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “What kinda trouble?”

  Tracy knew he had said too much as he watched the hackman’s eyes.

  “Never mind. Keep quiet about my dive in the river. Garage your cab and go on home and I’ll double that dough of yours in the morning. O.K.?”

  “You bet,” the driver said.

  But Tracy knew he was lying. The guy was eager to race back to the Coffee Pot and tell all about his pick-up of the famous Jerry Tracy. The only hope was that Joe Wilkie had already left the Coffee Pot.

  Tracy cursed as the cab raced away through the storm. He thought of Roy Chanler and Vera. He’d protected them and they had hired Wilkie to rub him out! They’d had plenty of time, after they fled from Spane’s, to make telephone arrangements with Wilkie. …

  He saw no sign of the slugged doorman, Eddie, inside the apartment lobby. Tracy operated the elevator himself and let himself, shivering, into his warm penthouse. The light in the living-room was still burning the way he had left it. He walked to a bottle on a side table and poured himself a long slug of Scotch. The liquor made him choke, but it burned like a welcome flame in his belly.

  “Bu
tch! Hey, Butch!”

  He flung open the door of Butch’s room and stared. Butch wasn’t there. The bed was rumpled, his clothes were flopped across a chair, but there was no sign of the big lop-eared valet.

  Tracy had no time to worry about that. He hurried to his own bedroom. He wanted a hot bath more than anything he had ever wanted in his life. He darted across the bedroom, toward the door of his bath. But before he could reach the inner door, it opened. A gun pointed steadily at the startled columnist.

  “Hold it, Tracy!”

  Roy Chanler was staring grimly over the barrel of a gun. He moved cautiously from the bathroom and a girl followed him. She had a gun, too. Like Roy, she looked pale. But like Roy, there was a lot more anger in her eyes than fright. It was, of course, Vera Durensky.

  The sight of her sleek, lovely face whipped Tracy into blind rage. He sprang bare-handed, clutching at Chanler’s gun. He got his fingers on the barrel and tried to wrench it loose. But Vera shoved him and he fell over Chanler’s outthrust leg.

  He was too exhausted to make much of a fight of it. Chanler’s gun whacked him over the ear, cutting his temple and making the room rock before Tracy’s vision.

  Vera had eight swaying faces, all of them beautiful. They bent in a dazzling semi-circle over Tracy.

  “Good Lord, Roy! Look at him! He’s soaking wet, half-frozen!”

  Tracy felt his outstretched heels drag across the rug. Chanler had him by the shoulders, pulling him into the bathroom. The noise of roaring water filled Tracy’s tub. He felt his shoes come off and his socks. Hands unbuckled his belt and ripped at his trousers.

  Vera’s voice came in an embarrassed whisper from a long way off. “I guess I’d better get out of here, Roy.”

  “Find his bathrobe and slippers. Dig out some wool underwear. Take these wet duds out and fix him a drink.”

  The next thing Tracy knew he was naked in the tub. It was hot and getting steadily hotter. Through bleared eyes he could see Chanler staring at him, one hand poised on the faucet.

  “Want it any hotter?”

  “Go ahead. Let it run,” Tracy gasped.

  He could feel the grateful heat stealing into all his aching joints. Steam rose from his reddened arm as he lifted a weak hand from the water.