The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35

by Frederick Nebel

  Returning to the anteroom, he said, “Pat, you and Genevieve better leave now—just the two of you. Go to the hotel. Get a drawing room for you two and a lower for me on the New York train tonight. I’ll have to hang around till this thing’s cleared up, then I’ll join you.”

  “But what just happened?” Pat asked, anxious.

  “The big guy ran into Scanlon and clouted him and Scanlon went to work on him. The big guy’s down the street.”

  “Dead?” Pat said.

  “Well, I just called the morgue.”

  Genevieve put her face in her hands, began crying quietly. Pat moved over to her, took hold of her arm, said gently, “Come on, Genevieve. It’s all over. Everything will be all right.”

  “Yes, yes…. Good-by, Pops.”

  Mafey, holding his jaw, mumbled, “Good-by, Genevieve.”

  Pat said, “Chief, will Scanlon get nasty?”

  “Scanlon?” He laughed. “Hell, no. We’re buddies now.”

  Her eyebrows sprang upward. “Well, of all things!”

  “It’s life,” he said. “Scanlon… me… Genevieve… Pops here… and the big mug. Hearts are hearts and spades are spades and bullets are bullets. No matter how you slice it, it’s life, precious.”

  Hot Spot

  Chapter One

  Apples and Nuts

  THE address was down at the fag end of Kearny Street, but Cardigan got out of the taxi half a block away. He tossed a half-dollar in the air, slapped it neatly shut in his palm and then planked it into the driver’s palm.

  “Play penny ante with the change,” he said.

  The driver had a cold and said through his nose, “I nedder gabble. Gad afford to gabble.”

  The cab slewed off and Cardigan stood beneath the street light in the wet San Francisco fog. The fog blurred the light, moved sluggishly about it, like wet, oily smoke, and all sounds, near and far away, had a resonant, bell-like clarity. The brim of Cardigan’s lop-eared hat stopped the downstream of light, leaving his face mostly in shadow. His left overcoat sleeve dangled; his left arm was in a sling beneath the coat.

  He could see the uniformed cop standing in front of the dun-colored brick house. The hall door was open and sufficient light streamed from it to raise a glitter on the cop’s buttons whenever he turned about. There were some persons hanging around, and parked at the curb was a car Cardigan recognized as Sergeant McGovern’s.

  Cardigan moved presently, bulking in the illuminated fog. The cop in front of the house turned. He was big as Cardigan, but fat, with a rubicund face, and the fog had beaded his black visor and now it glittered there.

  “Okay if I go up?” Cardigan said.

  “Why should it be?”

  “Now we get to riddles, huh?” He lit a cigarette. “I’m Cardigan, copper. Do you read the papers?”

  “I like the funny pictures…. Okay, g’ on up.”

  THE stairway was narrow and hugged the wall. The hall was cold, damp, and as Cardigan reached the top of the staircase he saw a door open and a uniformed cop leaning in the doorway. There were voices beyond. The cop looked over his shoulder.

  “Hanh?” he said.

  Cardigan shook his head. “I didn’t say anything. I want to see McGovern.”

  “Who wants to see McGovern?” said a foghorn voice within the room.

  The cop stepped aside.

  “Only little me,” said Cardigan, entering, spitting smoke from his lips. He leaned against a radiator. “Thanks for every little thought, Mac. Once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout.”

  “What the hell are you doing out of the hospital?”

  “I didn’t like the food.”

  They looked at each other, talking with their eyes only. McGovern was a tall, lean man, tough-built, with grizzled hair, a bony granite-colored face, a jaw like the bow of a tugboat. He had a ferocious glare and used it on Cardigan for a full minute. Then he laughed like a foghorn off-key and took a crack at his thigh. Cardigan grinned.

  He said, “Who’s the hoss on, Mac?”

  “Boy, you’re a one, Cardigan; you’re a one, all right!” He spun and jabbed a finger at Detective Hunerkopf. “Ain’t he a one now, August? Ain’t he, now?”

  Hunerkopf was sitting on a chair, eating an apple which he pared with a penknife. He was a roly-poly man and, munching a sliver of apple, he chuckled silently, his fat body shaking, his fat head nodding.

  Cardigan said, “What’s the lay, Mac?”

  McGovern looked suddenly very innocent and spread his palms. “Do you see anything?”

  “I see an old bedroom with a single bed, a bureau, a chair, a rag rug on the floor, walls that haven’t been papered in years; an open Gladstone, a few clothes, some shoes, and two men disguised as detectives.”

  McGovern tightened his mouth. “Soon as you get on your feet you begin making cracks, huh?”

  Cardigan ignored this. He said, “What about Jagoe?”

  McGovern shook his head. “Nothing. We been fanning the place for half an hour.”

  “What’s this?” Cardigan said, picking up a sheet of paper.

  “A letter,” McGovern rasped. “But it don’t mean a thing. No name signed.”

  It was a short note.

  Dear Pete: I’ll be back in town on Wednesday. Am verey lonely for you. Will be at the same place and hope verey much you’ll come over Wednesday night.

  Always yours.

  “A jane,” muttered Cardigan. “Dated a month ago.”

  “And signed ‘Always Yours,’” said McGovern irritably. “Ain’t that a help?”

  “Even if it were signed,” Cardigan said, tossing the sheet of paper back to the bed, “you’d crab.”

  “You just wear yourself down being friendly, don’t you?”

  Cardigan kicked abstractedly at the open Gladstone. “You’re a pretty smart cop, Mac—except when you get up against real competition. Hell, I’m not sore. Not much. It was damned smart of you, baby, to try to keep me in the hospital long enough for you to run around town with your nose to the ground. Only it didn’t work. The nurse fell for me. Besides I can use five thousand bucks as well as you.”

  Hunerkopf lowered his apple and looked very hurt. “Look, Cardigan, we didn’t even think of the five-grand reward.”

  “Of course we didn’t!” snapped McGovern, looking very indignant.

  Cardigan chuckled deep in his throat. “Just thought of old alma mater, huh?” He chuckled again. “Dry-clean that baloney and pack it away. Listen, you two. I was guarding that bankroll. I was the guy walked down Market with Hamlin, who carried the satchel. We’ve just opened a branch agency here. I was getting it in shape. And right off the bat this happens. Hamlin’s killed and I’m plugged and now I’m getting the razz from the home office. Pete Jagoe pulled a fast one, fast even for me. He’s somewhere in this town lugging around thirty grand. As a matter of fact, Mac, I’m looking for no reward. I wouldn’t take it. But I hate the razz…. And then you finagle around and try to talk that crowd into keeping me in the hospital. I can stand a joke, Mac. I’ve pulled fast ones on you. But lay off the baloney. You slice it too thick to swallow. And stay from under my feet.”

  Hunerkopf looked very melancholy.

  But McGovern could take it. He jammed his hands on his hips and lifted up his jaw. “Okay, Cardigan. It was a fast one. I’ll stay from under your feet and you stay from under mine. Monkey around with my parade and you might get the other arm busted.”

  Cardigan said, “With both arms busted, kid, I’d still have my head, which would still leave you in a jam.”

  “Have an apple, Cardigan,” Hunerkopf said.

  “Nuts to you, too.”

  “I don’t like nuts,” Hunerkopf said. “They always get stuck between my teeth.”

  McGovern roared. “Hey, that’s a good one, August! That’s a pip!”

  Cardigan’s face got red. He swiveled and went to the door. He turned to say, “Now I remember why that laugh of yours is so familiar, Mac. When I was a kid, I used
to breed jackasses.”

  “Whoops!” exploded Hunerkopf, shaking all over. “That there one was a rich one!”

  McGovern glared at him. Hunerkopf shut up and sat looking very guilty.

  Cardigan drummed his big feet down the stairway and swung out into the cold fog.

  Chapter Two

  In a Sling

  PAT SEAWARD was having a late snack in the coffee shop of the Hotel Galaty, in Powell Street, when Cardigan pushed past the cashier’s desk and made his way among the glossy black tables. Pat laid down the corner of a sandwich and looked up round-eyed at him. Not bothering to remove his overcoat, he sat down, dropped his battered fedora to a spare chair, and picked up the corner of the sandwich which Pat had laid down. He ate it, swallowed some water.

  “Well!” said Pat, her eyes still round. “The last I saw of you, chief, you were in a hospital bed.”

  A grinning waiter swooped down, bowed and spread a large menu before Cardigan. Cardigan brushed it aside. “Take it away.”

  “I beg pardon, sir—”

  “You needn’t. Just take it away.”

  The waiter took it away.

  Pat reached across the table, said anxiously, “Oh, chief, what are you doing out in a night like this in your condition? Your poor arm—”

  “To hell with my arm,” he muttered under his breath. “Those babies thought they were smart, keeping me in the hospital.”

  “Oh, but think, chief—”

  “That’s what I did in the hospital, chicken. I figured it all out. I was being kept there so our mutual friend and pal McGovern could get a running broad jump on me. I kicked that trick in the pants. McGovern’s all right. I kind of like him. He kind of likes me. But business is business and I”—he made a fist and pressed it quietly but firmly against the table—“have got to wash the razzberry off my face. Jagoe’s in town. All the outbound arteries were blocked ten minutes after he killed Hamlin and wounded me in Market Street. I didn’t come to this burg to set up a dime museum. I came here to set up a branch of the Cosmos Agency, and that was a swell recommendation to start on. I’m in a spot, Pat—a hot one. Nobody’s going to keep me in a hospital while Jagoe’s on the loose.”

  “You look bad, chief. The blood you lost. Think of it. You look terrible—no color—circles under your eyes—”

  “And I feel lousy. So what? So I should stay in bed and do crossword puzzles? Nix.” He pounded the table twice, quietly but firmly. “Nix, chicken.”

  He picked up a newspaper, spread it before him, ran his eyes over the columns. He turned a page, looked at an ad, then frowned and turned back again, bent over the paper and peered hard. He drummed reflectively on the table. His eyes narrowed and his jaw hardened.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up. “I want to phone.”

  Leaving his hat, he strode out into the lobby. There was a drawn look on his big face; his complexion was bad. His thick black hair was bunched haphazardly on his head; it curled round his ears and grew far down on his nape. He crushed into a telephone booth, filling it with his bulk, and called the number of the newspaper he held. When he was connected with the proper person, he said:

  “I want this put in the Personals column, soon as you can get it in: ‘Baby—Meet me corner Grant and Pacific five P.M.’ And sign that ‘Hon.’… Yeah. Charge it to the Cosmos Agency, per Cardigan…. What edition will it make?… Swell.”

  He hung up, stepped out into the lobby, and used a pocketknife to cut a small rectangle from the newspaper. He returned to the coffee shop and found Pat finishing a cup of coffee. Sitting down, he said, “Tomorrow at about a quarter to four you go over to Grant and Pacific. Don’t plant yourself right on the corner, but hang around near enough so that you get a clean sweep of the place. Watch for a jane. See when she gets there. She’ll hang around a while and when her date doesn’t show up she’ll probably leave. Follow her. See where she goes. Get her located and then ring me. That clear?”

  “All except why the hocus-pocus?”

  He slid the small rectangle of paper across the desk. “Read that over.”

  She read aloud: “‘Dear Hon—Verey important you shouldn’t see me—Baby.’”

  “See anything funny?”

  Pat squinted. “Nothing except a misspelled word.”

  “Very, huh?”

  “Yes; very.”

  “She must have stopped in and written it out and the paper forgot to spell it right.”

  “Maybe she spelled it right and the paper didn’t.”

  He nodded. “Maybe, Patsy. But I was just over at Jagoe’s room. McGovern was fanning it. There was a note there, an old one, written by a dame to Jagoe. In that letter, the word very was misspelled…. Okay. Wipe the coffee off your chin and let’s go, sugar. I’d go on this tail myself, but I’m afraid McGovern will pull some more practical jokes. He might put a guy out to watch my moves. You just got in yesterday and you’re not known by sight to McGovern.”

  As they walked from the coffee shop into the broad corridor leading to the lobby, Cardigan put a hand on Pat’s arm. He said:

  “Fade, Pats. I see McGovern’s pal.”

  Pat ducked out of sight and Cardigan swung on. As he entered the lobby, Hunerkopf, turning, saw him and signaled. Cardigan went toward Hunerkopf. The fat detective was standing solidly back on his heels. He drew an apple from his pocket.

  “Have an apple?” he said.

  “No,” said Cardigan.

  “Have a banana?” Hunerkopf said, producing one.

  Cardigan shook his head.

  “Well, well,” Hunerkopf said. “I guess you don’t know what’s good for you. Fruit keeps me fit as a fiddle.”

  “And makes you look like a bass drum with swollen glands. What’s on your mind?”

  “Oh, I just thought I’d kind of drop by. I hate like the Old Nick to see you and Mac all the time riding each other. Thought maybe I could patch things up so you and Mac—well, would kind of—you know—well, two heads is always better than one.”

  “That depends, August, on whose shoulders the heads are. Did Mac send you around to say this?”

  Hunerkopf colored. He laughed. “Mac? Gee, no. If Mac thought I was—”

  Cardigan laughed outright. “Great, August! Great! In fact, swell!”

  Hunerkopf gaped. “Huh?”

  “Take that story out for a walk, copper. It needs exercise.” He turned on his heel and went long-legged across the lobby, into a waiting elevator. Pat had stepped into it a moment before. As it rose, Pat said:

  “Well?”

  “Hunerkopf,” Cardigan said.

  “Please speak English.”

  “That’s a name, Pat, not a slogan. He’s in his second childhood. Likes to tell fairy stories.”

  IT was clear, cold, when Pat walked up Grant Avenue next afternoon. She wore a three-quarter-length lapin coat, lizard-skin oxfords, and a small rimless hat that rode jauntily over one eye. Her bag matched her oxfords and contained a small-calibered Webley automatic. Chinatown’s windows shone and Chinese youths, dapper, well-dressed, hurried. She was worried about Cardigan—worried about his wound, his general condition following the shooting. But there was no talking with him when he was determined.

  Nearing Pacific, which, coming down from Van Ness, crosses Grant and plunges toward the Embarcadero, she slowed down and stopped at last in front of a shop window. She was a little early and saw no one waiting on the corner, though many persons were in transit, mostly Orientals. But in a little while she turned from the shop window and saw a girl standing on the corner.

  The girl was tall, rather well-dressed in dark clothes, a dark narrow-brimmed hat. Pat could see that she was anxious; the girl kept looking constantly about, shifting from foot to foot. Later, she began referring frequently to her wristwatch. Pat looked at her own and saw that it was half past four. Soon it was a quarter to five and then it was five. The girl waited until five-thirty and then started off in the dusk. Pat followed.

  A
few blocks farther on the girl boarded a taxi and Pat climbed into one a moment later and gave instructions to the driver. The girl alighted at the bottom of Filbert Street and Pat went on for half a block. She got out, paid hurriedly, and walked back. When she reached the corner she could see the girl climbing Filbert. Two men had suddenly appeared on the corner also, and Pat, remembering that Cardigan had said McGovern might shoot out someone to shadow him, wondered if by chance her connection with Cardigan had become known. But she did not hesitate. She walked up the precipitous street, keeping the girl easily in sight. Near the top, the girl turned into a small house. As Pat came abreast of the house, she saw a light spring to life on the street floor, caught a glimpse of the girl pulling down a shade. Pat did not stop but continued on her way up. Looking about, she saw the two men standing diagonally across the way from the house the girl had entered. They did not go in, however. They entered, she saw, a building across the street.

  Pat went over the hump of Telegraph Hill. She climbed a wooden stairway, then went along a wooden walk built on stilts; from here she began a long descent by way of old wooden stairways, switchback walks. San Francisco Bay lay spread before her, darkening now, and with tiny lights beginning to wink. Reaching the bottom of the hill, she walked to the Embarcadero, walked on for a while until a cab came along. She took it and stopped at the first telephone pay station. She called Cardigan.

  A CAB pulled up in front of the drugstore outside which Pat stood and Cardigan stepped out and beckoned with his chin. She walked across the sidewalk and he handed her into the cab, followed and slammed the door shut.

  “What’s she look like?” he said.

  “Tall, good-looking. She wears very smart clothes. She wears the kind of a hat I’ve been thinking of buying and—”

  “How long did she wait on the corner?”

  Pat told him.

  The cab was speeding along the Embarcadero.

  Pat said, “I may be overly suspicious, but two men cropped up on the corner of Filbert—out of the blue, so to speak—and when I reached the top of the hill they were standing looking at the house the woman entered.”