“You go by and tell them anyway,” I instructed him. “You go to the same school Stub does?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’ll have the doctor write out a note and you can take it to school with you tomorrow.”
“All right,” he agreed, but his expression indicated he didn’t feel the note was any more necessary than informing Stub’s parents. Probably when the Purple Pelicans skipped school they wrote their own excuses and signed their parents’ names.
By the time I returned to the bedroom with the hot toddy, Dr. Mason had put some kind of dressing on Stub’s back, had gotten him into a pair of my pajamas and had him under the covers of my bed. Taking the toddy from me, he gave it to Stub and told him to drink it. Then he instructed the boy to stay covered up all night even if he felt hot.
“He’s taken a terrific beating,” the doctor told me. “But he isn’t in any serious condition. I don’t want him moved tonight, but he should be recovered enough to do anything he feels capable of doing by morning. That won’t be much. He’ll be stiffer than a board and that back’s going to hurt for a week at least. How’d it happen?”
“A kid kangaroo court.”
Mason pursed his lips. “I suppose I ought to report something like this to the police.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t,” I said. “I think an adult put the kids up to this beating, and if a lot of cops descend on the neighborhood where it took place, he’ll probably take to cover. I’d like him out in the open where I can get at him.”
When he didn’t look very satisfied, I said, “Suppose I cover you by reporting it to Inspector Warren Day. This incident concerns a murder he’s interested in, and I think I can talk him into agreeing to keep the beating quiet. At the same time you’d be in the clear if the cops ever inquired why you didn’t make a report on it.”
He said he was willing to go along with that.
A few minutes after he departed I took my car down the street to the public garage where I keep it, put Dave O’Brien in a taxi and sent him home. When I returned to the apartment I waited until I was sure Stub had gone to sleep, then made up a bed on the couch in the front room and went to sleep myself.
16
ORDINARILY I’m not a very early riser, but then ordinarily I don’t get to bed very early either. For a change having fallen in before eleven, I was up at eight in the morning and had showered, shaved and dressed before Stub even stirred. When I came out of the bathroom he opened one eye to look at me.
“Morning,” I said. “How you feel?”
He had been sleeping on his stomach. Before replying he pushed himself up on his elbows and winced.
“Lousy,” he said, but his voice had lost the thickness of the night before.
I watched as he stiffly raised himself to a sitting position and arched his back with caution. He winced again.
“I happen to have an unused toothbrush,” I said. “I left it on the bathroom sink for you. Want to get up, or sleep a while more?”
He said he was slept out and preferred to get up. Somewhere during the confusion of the previous evening he had lost the shirt I handed him when we started out of the club room. I found an old one of mine which was too small for me but looked as though it would be an approximate fit for him. Then I left him and went to get breakfast.
By the time he had dressed and come into the kitchen, I had bacon and eggs on the table. After breakfast I stacked the dishes in the sink, took Stub into the front room and told him to sit down.
When he had a cigarette going and I had lighted a cigar, I said, “Time we had a little talk, Stub. You remember everything that happened last night?”
“Pretty well. It’s a little hazy after you got there.”
“It’s before that I’m interested in. Just what took place?”
He puffed reflectively on his cigarette. “I’d told the fellows to get there at seven-thirty, so we’d be all set when you got there at eight. The ones you met the other day, I mean, plus a couple of other guys I’d sounded out. But when Dave and I arrived together, the whole club was there. When I asked what was up, they said they were holding a kangaroo court. Soon as they told me what for, I whispered to Dave to scoot out and stop you from coming down. Then I walked up to where the three judges were sitting at the table and told them to do their damnedest.”
He grinned a little ruefully. “It wasn’t a trial. It was just a lot of hopped-up guys hollering accusations and getting themselves more worked up all the time. I hardly got to say a word. When they passed sentence of ten lashes, I got mad and clipped one of the judges. Larry Covington, the guy you took the whip away from. Then I clipped two more guys as they moved in, but after that so many jumped me, I couldn’t fight them off. They pulled off my jacket and shirt and held me down while that big jerk Covington laid on the cat. He can’t count either.”
“How you mean?” I asked.
“The sentence was ten lashes,” he said dryly. “Larry was up to about eighteen when you stepped in.”
I asked who he thought was behind the kangaroo court.
“Larry Covington did most of the talking, but Buddy Tipp was urging him on.” He frowned puzzledly. “I didn’t get that. Buddy was one of the guys I thought was with me all the way. Most of the other fellows you met the other day were there too, but they didn’t do any talking. Matter of fact they stayed pretty well back, like they was ashamed to have me see them. But Buddy kept needling along Larry and the rest of the gang all the time.”
“Did you know Buddy was an H addict?”
He looked as surprised as Dave O’Brien had. “You’re sure?”
“Certain,” I said. “I think he sold you out to Buzz Thurmond for a couple of shots. And Buzz had him brew last night’s mess to stop both you and me from sticking our noses into his business.”
Stub’s face darkened. “I guess I’d better look up Buddy Tipp when I get home.”
“What would that accomplish?” I asked. “Buddy can’t help himself. A narcotic addict is just as sick as if he had T.B. He’s not to blame for last night. Buzz Thurmond is.”
Stub looked doubtful. “Yeah, I guess he is,” he said reluctantly. “But I can whip Buddy, and I’m sure not about to tangle with Buzz Thurmond.”
I grinned at this bit of pragmatism, and after a moment Stub grinned too. “I guess that didn’t sound very heroic,” he conceded.
I thought it was time to get down to business. For a few moments I examined the boy contemplatively.
Finally I said, “Stub, I want a release from my promise to keep confident what you told me about the Purple Pelicans and the racket setup down in your neighborhood.”
He looked at me in astonishment. “You mean to tell the cops?”
“A cop. I want to tell Inspector Warren Day, the chief of Homicide. I think he’d be interested in Buzz Thurmond going to the lengths he did to stop this investigation. If Buzz wasn’t worried about the possibility of being tied to Bart Meyer’s murder, he wouldn’t care how much a private cop, or you and your picked squad dug into the murder. The homicide department has a lot of facilities I haven’t got. If I can sell Warren Day on the theory that Buzz Thurmond or someone in his gang killed Bart and framed it on Joe, chances are this thing will be cracked a lot faster than if I just continue to work on my own.”
The boy shook his head. “I don’t want to be a squealer, Mr. Moon. Even second hand.”
“You have a perverted sense of loyalty, Stub. What do you owe either the club or Buzz Thurmond after last night? You stood a good chance of being beaten to death if I hadn’t arrived when I did.”
He merely shook his head again.
Before I could advance any more arguments, the door buzzer sounded. When I answered it, I found Dave O’Brien standing in the hall.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked him.
He just brushed that aside. “Listen, I got to see Stub, Mr. Moon.” His expression was excited and his hands were trembling.
&nbs
p; I let him in and closed the door behind him. Immediately he crossed over to Stub.
“You all right, Stub? I mean can you move around?”
“Sure,” Stub said.
“Listen, you got to get out of here and hide somewhere. They know you spent the night here, and if you don’t show up in the neighborhood today, they’re coming after you.”
“Who?” Stub asked.
“The guys. Or some of them anyway. Larry Covington and Buddy Tipp are talking it up. They say you’ve got to be shut up before your squealing wrecks all the club’s rackets.”
“You mean they want to bump me off?” Stub asked incredulously.
Dave ran nervous fingers through his long hair. “The whole gang’s gone kind of nuts. I went back to the club room after I left here last night, and they had a party till nearly morning. Buzz Thurmond dropped in with a whole flock of H and passed it out to anybody that wanted it. I don’t think a guy in the club made school today.”
“Buzz suggest that the gang come here after Stub?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Dave said. “The guys were all talking about Stub squealing to a private cop, and Buzz just said if it was his gang, they’d know how to handle it. Larry and Buddy picked it up, and next I knew half the guys were saying squealers ought to be rubbed out.”
Almost in afterthought he added, “Buzz let it drop that his gang was going to take care of you, Mr. Moon.”
I grinned at him. “I was having similar thoughts about Buzz and his gang.”
I walked over to the ash stand next to Stub’s chair and punched out my cigar. “How’s your loyalty to the gang now, Stub?”
He looked up at me, half frightened and half unbelieving. “That was just a lot of talk because they were hopped up, Mr. Moon. The Purple Pelicans never went in for stuff like killing. Besides, they’re all my friends.”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “I noticed them demonstrating their affection last night. You want to know what I think, Stub?”
“What?”
“I think Thurmond wants us both dead. If he can talk the Purple Pelicans into taking care of you, so much the better. But if your pals chicken out when it comes right down to the point of killing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Buzz himself took the job over. A hood like Thurmond doesn’t hand out free heroin and work a bunch of kids up to killing level just for kicks. He means business. I think you’re toying with suicide if you don’t release me from my promise and let me bring the cops into this.”
When he only looked stubborn, I said with mild exasperation, “For cripes sake, kid! These people intend to kill you! What in the name of jumping Jehosaphat do you think you owe them?”
This changed his stubborn expression to one of worry as he struggled between self-preservation and loyalty to an underworld code that had been bred into him. A code which regarded squealing to the police as the lowest crime in the book, no matter what the pressures were.
Finally he looked at Dave instead of at me and said with a peculiar mixture of apology and belligerence, “I’m not just going to sit still and wait for a bullet. You tell the cops anything you want, Mr. Moon.”
It seemed to make him feel better when Dave said seriously, “I don’t know what else you can do, Stub. I’d do the same thing in your spot.”
“Now you’re both beginning to make sense,” I said. “But first we’ve got to get you to a safe spot, Stub. I don’t think the Purple Pelicans would try to take you here in spite of their big talk, but Buzz Thurmond might.”
I turned to Dave. “How’d you get over here? By streetcar?”
He nodded.
“You check to see if you were followed?”
His lips curled in a superior smile. “I know better than to let the guys suspect I’m having truck with Stub and you. I don’t think anybody was tailing me, but I pulled a couple of shake tricks anyway.”
“How’d they find out Stub stayed here last night?”
“They sent one of the auxiliary members around to his house this morning, and his mom told her. They didn’t find it out from me.”
“Okay,” I said. “I want one last favor from you, Dave. Then I want you to stay away from both Stub and me before Buzz Thurmond decides to eliminate you too. Get down to Stub’s place and pack his clothes. Give them to a taxi driver and tell him to deliver them to El Patio Club over on the South Side.” I gave him a five-dollar bill. “Pay the cab out of this and keep the change.”
“All right,” the redhead said. “Want me to get in touch with you if I hear anything else?”
“Just phone me. I don’t want Thurmond or the Purple Pelicans spotting you running in and out of here. If you can’t reach me here, phone El Patio, ask for Fausta Moreni and leave a message with her.”
I wrote both telephone numbers on a slip of paper for him and he stuck it in his pocket.
Before leaving he went over to the front windows and checked the street like a professional gangster. Even though the situation had him obviously scared, I think the kid was enjoying his precarious role of intermediary.
When Dave O’Brien had departed, Stub and I left the flat too. Getting my Plymouth from the garage, I drove him over to El Patio.
En route Stub seemed enthralled by the way I managed the car with only one leg. My right one being false, I have to operate both brake and the clutch with my left foot, and I don’t have any special equipment in my car to make it easier. When I brake, I turn my foot sideways, my heel hitting the clutch and my toe the brake. I’ve done it so much, it’s second nature, but Stub watched in fascination every time I approached a stop sign.
“You drive better with one leg than most people with two,” he commented.
“Most people with two legs drive as though they also had two heads,” I told him.
17
I was taking Stub to El Patio for two reasons. The first was that, except for the jail, I couldn’t think of a safer place in town to take him, both because of its structure and because of its personnel. The second reason was that I knew he’d be welcome.
Prior to being taken over by its present owner, Fausta Moreni, El Patio had been a gambling casino, and it had been constructed with the idea of making it invulnerable to both hijackers and raiding cops. Isolated in the center of a three-acre patch of ground at the extreme south edge of town, from the outside it resembled nothing so much as a medium-sized gray prison, even to ornamental but burglar-proof bars on the lower windows. The big bronze double doors at the front were always open when the club was, of course, but after they’re locked at night it would take TNT to get through them. The two side doors and the service entrance at the rear look like oak, but actually they are painted and grained steel.
On the off-chance that Buzz Thurmond or one of his pals managed to break into the building anyway, or the more likely chance that an attack might be made during the time the club was open for business, my old friend Mouldy Greene constituted a secondary line of defense. Mouldy had acquired his interesting nickname from army buddies because of a mild case of acne. His real name was Marmaduke.
When Fausta Moreni took over the gambling casino and converted it into a supper club some years back, she kept the bartenders, waiters and bus boys already working there, but summarily fired all the stick men, dealers and bouncers inhabiting the place. All but Mouldy, who had been the previous owner’s personal bodyguard up until the time the previous owner caught a hole in his head by unwisely getting it in front of a .45 automatic.
Fausta’s decision didn’t stem from her recognition of Mouldy’s potential value to the club; it stemmed from her soft heart. Physically there aren’t many people more capable of taking care of themselves than Mouldy Greene. There isn’t an ounce of fat in his two-hundred-and-forty-pound frame, except possibly in his flat-topped head, and I’ve seen him lift grown men clear of the floor with one hand. But unfortunately the day they were handing out brains, Mouldy was AWOL.
As compensation for shorting him on brains, Nature gave Mouldy a heart of
gold and an idiotic sort of charm entirely out of keeping with his paleolithic appearance. Fausta could no more bring herself to toss him out into a competitive world than she could have kicked an orphan out into the snow. She tried him at every job in the place, even as head waiter for one evening which still makes her shudder, before she discovered his latent talent.
Mouldy was now El Patio’s official customer greeter, a job which involved his standing just inside the big double bronze doors and welcoming all who entered in his own unique way.
At most supper clubs as expensive as El Patio you can expect a soft word and a formal bow as you enter. At El Patio you were met by the hideous grimace which Mouldy believed was a friendly smile, a boomed greeting, frequently insulting in a chummy sort of way, and a slap on the back which jarred you to your toes.
The more dignified the customer, the less formal Mouldy became. I have yet to hear him call a dowager anything more formal than “Babe,” and he was famous for the picturesque nicknames he coined for celebrities. A certain austere circuit court judge who frequented El Patio he always addressed as “Hanger” for example, and a much-married matinee idol he called “Bluebeard.” Both to their faces, of course.
He also had a captivating habit of asking interested questions, such as, “How are the bribes coming in?” to officials such as the district attorney, or, “Who’s your husband these days?” to movie actresses.
Once new customers get over the initial shock, they love Mouldy, for despite his earthy manner, it’s obvious he loves every one of them.
Fortunately for the sake of my spine Mouldy wasn’t on duty when we arrived at about eleven o’clock, as he didn’t start duty until the evening trade began to filter in. We found him drinking a beer at the cocktail lounge bar.
“Hi, Sarge,” he said, friendlily waving a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt. “Pull up an elbow and lean.”
The “Sarge” was a holdover from army days, when Mouldy was a basic in the company where I was first sergeant. I’d given up trying to break him of the habit for fear he’d coin me an even more picturesque nickname.
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