“Ho! Ho!” laughed Hunerkopf, his fat body shaking up and down.
“August!” barked McGovern darkly. “You keep your jaw shut and stick to your own tomatoes.”
“I never touch tomatoes, Mac. Bad for an acid condition.”
The ambulance backfired and rolled off, its tires swishing on the wet pavement. Cardigan looked after it, his face grim in the rainy darkness.
Hunerkopf said: “Look, Mr. Cardigan. We’ll run you home in the flivver.”
“Thanks, Augie. I’ll take my chances on foot.”
“Don’t be surprised,” McGovern said, “if we have you down to headquarters tomorrow to answer some questions.”
Cardigan walked off saying: “O.K., Mac. Have your fun.”
Chapter Three
Razzle Dazzle Rat
IT WAS four A.M. at the Razzle Dazzle and the crowd had gone, the last drunk had been escorted to a cab, the main lights had been turned off. A couple of barmen were wiping down the bar and the waiters were scooting from table to table looking for odds and ends. The doorman was inside having a drink and the headwaiter was counting gratuities. The checkroom girls had gone. The noise and the glare and the glitter had gone too. The front door was locked.
When the buzzer sounded the doorman looked at the door, shrugged and finished his drink. The buzzer sounded again. The doorman went over and slid back a small panel and looked out into the bleary night.
“Let me in,” Cardigan said.
“Sorry. We’re closed.”
“I want to see Luke Plant. Tell him it’s Cardigan.”
“Wait a minute. I’ll see.”
The doorman shut the panel and made his way back to the bar and beyond the bar to an office in the rear. Luke Plant was counting money.
The doorman said: “There’s a guy outside named Cardigan wants to see you.”
“What’s he want?”
“I don’t know.”
Plant, without looking up, said, “O.K., let him in,” and snapped a rubber band round a roll of bills. “That guy’s like dandruff—he always comes back.”
The doorman left the office and Plant, looking very wooden-faced, went on counting money and making notations on a sheet of paper. His slick-down hair made his hard face look twice as hard. His heavy sloping shoulders threw a gigantic shadow on the wall. He was still counting when Cardigan came in and though he did not look up he said: “Down in Australia they have gadgets that you throw and they always come back to you. Boomerangs they call ’em. I didn’t throw you out but still you come back…. Seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five, a hundred and five…. Well, what’s in your whiskers now, Cardigan?”
Cardigan looked like something that had been hung out in the rain all night. In the quiet room the water dripping from his clothes made clearly audible sounds. His big face was wet and shiny but his eyes were dry, hard and sharp beneath the soaked brim of his hat.
He said: “Happen to know a guy named Barney Corday?”
“Barney Corday? No. I knew a guy once named Barney Somers.”
“This guy’s name is Barney Corday. He was a friend of mine.”
“Was? What did he do, get tired of it?”
“No. He got knocked off.”
Plant was still preoccupied with counting his money. “That’s too bad, Cardigan.”
“That’s what I was thinking, Luke.”
Plant snapped a rubber band round another roll of bills and sat back to light an oval-shaped cigarette. He still looked wooden-faced and unconcerned. He said: “What are we playing—button-button, who’s got the scissors?”
“This guy Corday spread some dough around your place within the past six hours and then got himself blown out over in Stockton Street about an hour ago.”
“I’m glad it was Stockton Street. I’m glad it wasn’t in here. We just had the floors rewaxed. I don’t live in Stockton Street, Cardigan. How do you know your friend was in here?”
“Because I met him about ten minutes before he came here. I was on my way home in a cab and I met him over in Powell Street and dropped him outside.”
Plant leaned over and changed the date on his desk calendar. “I suppose when you came here before you just dropped in for a drink, huh?”
“No. Corday said he was out for a big night. He said if I wasn’t doing anything about midnight I should drop in and have some drinks on him. So I dropped in and when I didn’t see him around I blew again. The cops came around to wake me up and tell me a friend of mine had been knocked off in Stockton Street.”
“So I fit into what part of the puzzle?”
CARDIGAN said: “Corday came here to meet a frill. He said she hung out here a lot. A girl by the name of Josie.”
“I don’t run a hotel, Cardigan, so I wouldn’t know the names of the people, male or female, who hang out here.” He stood up. “I’m going home. If I can drop you off somewhere, come on.”
“How about dropping me off at Josie’s address?”
Plant was on his way to the clothes-tree, but he stopped and looked steadily at Cardigan and said: “Be your age, dummy. With a spot like this, I should cater to the frill trade?”
“Try your waiters or your barmen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Try ’em now, Luke, or I’ll pull in a gang of cops to ask questions.”
Plant laughed drily and put on his overcoat. “Pull yourself together, boy. You’re not so tough.”
“I’m tough enough, Luke,” Cardigan said, and picked up the telephone.
Plant said: “Put it down.”
Cardigan did not put it down. “Get your crew in here.”
Plant eyed him for a long minute. Then he said, “O.K.,” and pressed one of a row of buttons.
A waiter appeared in the doorway.
Plant growled: “Get the boys in here—everybody.” His face was cold and wooden. The waiter left and Plant lit another cigarette and said to Cardigan: “You’re nuts, but I’m used to humoring nuts.”
Ten waiters filed in, followed by three busboys, two barmen and the doorman. Plant, standing with one foot placed on a chair, elbow on knee, looked down at his cigarette and said: “This is Mr. Cardigan, a private detective with a bee in his bonnet. He wants to ask you something. Take it away, Cardigan.”
Cardigan was leaning back against the wall, his ankles crossed and his hands in his overcoat pockets. He ran his eyes over the sixteen faces.
“There was a man named Corday in the Razzle Dazzle tonight,” he said. “He was later killed in Stockton Street by gunfire. He came here to meet a girl named Josie. This was one of her spots. Corday had plenty of dough on him. He was probably plastered. I want a line on this dame, Josie.”
There was no reply. Some of the men looked curious, some blank, some startled.
“Come on,” Cardigan growled. “Some of you know her. I’m making it easy for you. If you want to stay here all night, say so and I’ll ring in the cops.”
No one made any comment until one of the busboys, a dumb-looking little redhead, piped, “Mr. Flynn, didn’t—” He shut up like a clam, gulped and looked scared.
Plant scowled and took his foot down from the chair. One of the barmen had begun to color. He was a chubby man of forty-odd, with a head partly bald.
Plant snapped: “Well, Flynn?”
Flynn looked ill. “Well, you see—I—you see—”
“Take the marbles out of your mouth, you punk!”
Flynn swallowed and looked suddenly desolate. “I—I didn’t know. You see—ugh—this gentleman was pretty tight and he kept asking about Josie and I didn’t say anything and then he was getting pretty mad and finally I told him where he could find her. He said he was a friend of hers and I—well—I had her address and I—”
Plant walked across the floor and hit him a terrific blow on the jaw. Flynn fell down and lay on the floor rubbing his jaw.
“Get up,” said Plant coldly.
Flynn got up, still holding his jaw, and cringing.
Plant said: “You dirty rat, didn’t I tell you when you came to work here that you should steer clear of dames’ addresses?”
“Gosh, I’m sorry, boss—”
“You’d be sorrier if I knocked your teeth down your throat!”
Cardigan, standing back on his heels, said: “I want her address, Flynn.” He added: “Yours, too—just in case.”
Cold sweat stood out on Plant’s face. He turned and eyed Cardigan levelly. “I knew you were bad news the minute I saw your mug come in the doorway.”
“Keep your pants on, Luke. I’m not dragging you into it.”
“I’d like to believe it.”
“Why the hell don’t you?” Cardigan held out his hand. “My hand on it, Luke.”
Cold-eyed, grim, Plant took his hand.
Cardigan said: “Now the address.”
THE streets were empty. The drizzle had stopped and now a thick fog lay sluggishly between the rows of buildings and made the street lights look bloated and hazy. The sounds of the cab in which Cardigan rode were accentuated by the utter absence of all other traffic. Its tires sucked loudly at the wet pavement and even the rattling of its loose gear echoed sharply. In a little while Cardigan leaned forward and said: “Stop at the next corner.”
He got out and paid up and stood watching the cab swing away into the foggy dark. Then he turned and walked up an empty street, a large and shaggy man whose shoulders rolled. There were a few apartment buildings, all dark except for dimly lighted lobbies that threw a pale yellow glow into the fog. There were houses, many with bay windows, some built of brick and some of wood. They looked pretty substantial. At last he came to the address he wanted—a frame, two-storied house that stood back of a small square of lawn. Dark shades were pulled down but he saw vague slivers of lights. He stood for a moment regarding the house.
Then he walked on, counting the number of houses to the corner. He turned right, went halfway down the block and then turned right again into an alley. He counted the number of houses from the corner of the alley until he came to the sixth. Shades were drawn in back of the sixth house but there slivers of light here also. There was a small garage and a small back yard.
Cardigan found a black sedan in the garage. He made a note of the license number. Then he reached in under the dashboard and using a penknife, cut the ignition wires. He cut off half a foot of the wires, so that there wasn’t enough remaining to hook up again. He threw the pieces away.
He tried the back door and the basement windows. All were locked. Each of the basement windows had six small frames of glass, and the windows were of a type that, when unlocked, pushed inward and upward. He took his knife and cut away the putty at the bottom of the lower center frame. He cut into the frame until he could get the blade of his knife beneath the edge of the glass. He pried until there was a faint snap and the pane of glass cracked diagonally from left bottom to right top, but did not shatter. Then he slipped the blade into the crack and pried until he could get his finger in the glass opening. In another minute he pried out one portion of the split pane, then reached in and unlatched the window. Somewhere near he heard the sound of chickens stirring.
He dropped into a cool, damp cellar. It took him five minutes to find a stairway which he climbed to a door that gave into a main-floor corridor. Here a small frosted light glowed but gave off little radiance. As he made his way slowly forward in the shadow of a staircase that rose beside him, he saw a wide, open doorway at the right of the corridor, and as he drew nearer he saw a low glow of light in the room.
He heard a man cough once and the sound stopped him dead in his tracks. He looked up the staircase. The sound had come from aloft, he thought. After a minute of silence, he worked toward the open doorway, reached it and looked into a large, comfortable living room. A single floor lamp glowed beside a deep easy chair in which a woman sat reading, with her feet propped on an ottoman. He drew his gun and held it in his hand, stood watching the woman whose profile was turned to him. She had a shock of yellow hair, bobbed and clipped close on the nape. She wore black silk lounging pajamas with white cord trimming.
Suddenly she looked in Cardigan’s direction, started, one arm flying outward and knocking down a smoke-stand. The smoke-stand thumped loudly as it fell and Cardigan stepped into the room, his gun leveled.
She cried: “How’d you get in here?”
“Never mind. Button your mouth!” he muttered. “How many in the house?”
SHE stood up, a hefty woman in her thirties, with pale down on her forearms. Her eyes were round as saucers, brilliant with shock. There were sounds upstairs. A man’s voice called down: “That you, Bella?”
Cardigan drew closer and nodded his head, his eyes threatening.
“Yes—yes, that’s me,” the woman cried.
“What’s the matter?”
Cardigan pressed the muzzle of his gun against her side.
She called out: “I just knocked something over.”
“Oh,” the voice grunted, and footsteps receded and then there was the mutter of other voices upstairs, then silence again.
Cardigan backed up and closed the doorway leading to the corridor. The room was very quiet and the woman stood pale and motionless in the floor lamp’s pool of mellow light. Cardigan pressed a button and wall lights jumped to life. The woman’s face looked harder in the new light.
“So you’re Bella,” Cardigan murmured, his eyes dark and hard as black lacquer. He raised his left hand. “Make it very soft, Bella. Where’s Josie?”
“Why, you big lug—”
“Mr. Cardigan to you, precious. And make it soft, I said.”
He added: “You look like you’d know a lot around here.”
There were voices upstairs again, lazy and yawning, and footsteps coming down the stairs. Cardigan crossed to the woman, pressed his gun against her stomach, turned her so that her back was to the doorway.
He muttered: “Put your arms around my neck.”
“You crazy—”
“Do as I tell you.”
She put her arms up around his neck. He put his left arm around her waist while his right hand kept the gun jammed against her stomach. As the door opened he held her tightly and bent his head, pretending to kiss her.
“Why didn’t you say you had company?” one of the men chuckled.
Cardigan looked over her head and at two men who stood in the doorway. One was tall and gaunt, in shirt sleeves and suspenders. The other was almost as tall but broader, younger, with pale little eyes that leered. He was the one who had spoken.
“Don’t let us disturb you,” he chuckled. “Come on, Cal.”
They backed out and went upstairs again, still chuckling. Cardigan held on to the woman until he heard a door close above. Then he spun her into an easy chair.
Her face was white; her lips shook with anger. She muttered: “Boy, you think ’em up, don’t you?”
He said: “Now where’s Josie?”
She pressed back into the chair, her jaw setting, her eyes glassy.
“And who knocked off Barney Corday—the big blond kid?”
Her mouth sprang open.
“Quiet!” he warned in a crisp whisper.
Her mouth shut tightly, her jaw grew firmer. She made no reply.
Cardigan said, “Sister, if you won’t talk I can’t make you—in here. I don’t know how many guys are in this château and it might cost me a lot of headache to find out. But I’ll get it out of you—here or somewhere else. What’ll it be?” Her face was like a mask. Her lips did not move.
He muttered: “Get up.”
She stood up.
“You’ll not get your coat,” he said. “You’ll wear mine.”
He held his gun on her while he shrugged out of one sleeve. Then he switched the gun to his left hand and shrugged out of the other sleeve.
“Put it on,” he said.
Still staring glassily at him, with her jawbone bulging, she put on the coat. He took hold of her arm and sai
d very close to her ear, in a low deadly voice: “We’ll go out the front way. One chirp out of you and you’ll get a big surprise.”
He led her into the corridor, first making sure that no one was standing at the head of the staircase. Then he marched her to the front door and nodded for her to open it. She unlocked it, turned the knob and preceded him out to the vestibule.
A man stepped from the deep shadow of the vestibule and pressed a gun against Cardigan’s side. “Back,” he grunted; and to the woman, “What the hell’s the matter with the telephone?”
“There was an accident,” she said. “It got ripped out.”
“Get in, Cardigan,” the man grunted again.
Cardigan backed up into the corridor, into the light, and as the man came into the light also, Cardigan’s eyebrows shot together; a vicious twist came to his lips.
“Surprised?” Luke Plant asked, his face drawn.
Cardigan relaxed, his face dark and sour. “Maybe I’m not. Did you say your name was rat?”
Chapter Four
Not So Tough
THE two men came running down the stairs and the pale-eyed one said: “Hey, what is this, what is this?”
Plant, disarming Cardigan angrily, shoved him into the living room and the others followed. The woman, beady-eyed now, her breast rising and falling in wrath, suddenly took a long stride and punched Cardigan in the face. His eyes shimmered and he looked her up and down, from head to foot.
He chuckled: “Where’d they find you, sister, at a remnant sale?”
She struck him again.
Plant snapped: “Cut it out, Bella! Take hold of her, Cal.”
The gaunt man grabbed her arms, said: “Quit it now, Bella—now quit it.”
Plant said: “Pete, keep this mug covered.”
The pale-eyed man grinned and swung a gun on Cardigan. “He was necking Bella before and we thought—”
“Necking your eye!” she cried. “The big palooka had a gun in my gut all the time.”
“Sit down, Cardigan,” Plant said. His face was gray, hard, wooden, and there were deep wrinkles across his forehead. He was worried, angry—but he wasn’t soft; his voice was like an axe hitting a chopping block. “Your nose is pretty big, Cardigan, and you had to shove it into other people’s business.”
The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35 Page 18
