The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  He smoked out his pipe, knocked the ash into a tray. He sailed out of his office, went down to the central room, on down to the Bureau of Criminal Identification. McGovern, the fingerprint man, chewed a cigar beneath a brilliant light. The smoke foamed and rolled beneath the green eyeshade he wore, and he spoke laconically:

  “No prints but Rand’s on this gat, Steve. Nice gun. I always did like a .32.”

  MacBride muttered: “You’re sure of that, Mac?”

  “That’s my business—being sure. But wait.” He picked up the gun. “Smell it.”

  MacBride leaned down, sniffed. “What?” he said.

  McGovern shrugged. “Smells—that’s all. Can’t you smell it?”

  “I think I can. What’s that mean?”

  “Oh”—McGovern shrugged—“nothing, I suppose.” He slapped palms softly together. “Suicide, Steve. You can’t get away from it.”

  MacBride pointed: “Turn the gat over to Lewis. We ought to have that slug from the Morgue this morning.” He turned on his heel, strode away; stopped, returned to the desk and picked up the gun again. He sniffed along the barrel, along the butt; sighed, shrugged and walked away again, a puzzled frown shadowing his forehead.

  In the central room, Otto Bettdecken lowered a half-eaten liverwurst sandwich behind the desk and called: “Cap, a guy just called up from 313 Diamond Street. His name’s Rossman. He said if you could come down there maybe he can tell you something.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, he said he’d read the paper this morning—”

  “Okey. Thanks, Otto.”

  The skipper hiked up the steps two at a time, barged into his office and saw Kennedy sitting at the desk. Kennedy was holding a glass in one hand, a bottle in the other; and he was grimacing painfully.

  He said: “Honest, Cap, this last batch of liquor of yours is crummy—absolutely crummy.” He was indignant.

  MacBride grinned tightly, nodded. “I know, sweetheart. You got it out of that lower left drawer, didn’t you? Swell! The good stuff is in the lower right—under lock and key. And I”—he thumbed his chest—“have the key!”

  “Ah, my pal, my pal! Is it true that Rand was shot down by four Chinamen disguised as Princeton professors? I understand that there is a certain captain in Headquarters who insists that they were not four Chinamen; he says they were four dwarfs disguised as two dark, swart men wearing false hair eyebrows. This captain is principally known as an oboe player.”

  MacBride slapped on his hat, shrugged into his overcoat, said scornfully: “I hope you choke, Kennedy. And I hope if you ever get married your kids’ll turn out to be saxophone players. In three words”—he reached the door, yanked it open—“nerts to you!”

  In the central room he ran into Eggleson, the Deputy Medical Examiner. Eggleson’s chalky face wore a dry, broad grin. “I hear, Steve, that only Rand’s prints were on the gun. Tsk, tsk!”

  MacBride said grimly: “You’re just breaking down with regret, ain’t you.” And he went on, red-faced, warm with chagrin.

  Cohegan was waiting at the wheel of the shabby squad car.

  MacBride said: “Down to 313 Diamond Street, Bert.”

  “Okey.”

  MacBride climbed in, slammed the door. “The razzberry market is cheap these days,” he rasped out.

  “Me,” said Cohegan soberly, “I like blueberries. My wife, now, she likes strawberries; but take a good bowl of blueberries—”

  “You take ’em.” MacBride sighed. He nipped savagely at the end of a cigar, cupped hands in the wind and lighted up.

  The car purred across town, hit Broadway Avenue and weaved through traffic. It pushed westward past midtown hotels, shops, theaters. Its canvas top clapped and pattered in the wind, and the wind kept MacBride’s cigar at a bright glow, tore smoke from his nostrils and whipped it away, reddened the right side of his face. Winter sunlight glittered on plate-glass windows, automobile radiators, the shields and buttons of white-gloved traffic officers. Pedestrians hurried. Discarded newspapers skipped and planed and looped above the sidewalks.

  Cohegan made a left turn into Diamond Street, a narrow thoroughfare that sloped downhill, walled on either side with food shops, noisy radio stores, cut-rate drug-stores, pawnshops, novelty stores, cheap haberdashers. Number 313 was a pawnshop.

  “Park here, Bert,” MacBride said.

  He climbed out, made a half-turn against the driving wind and strode into the pawnshop. Inside it was dim. Lights glowed dimly. Counters and showcases were cluttered with cheap odds and ends; and behind a brass wicket a small, pink-cheeked man was studying the inside of a watch.

  “Your name Rossman?”

  The little man was cheerful, bright-eyed. “Yes—yes, I’m Rossman.”

  “I’m Captain MacBride—”

  “Oh, yes!” The little man laid down the watch, turned and shouted: “Charley! Charley, come here and take care a minute.” And to MacBride: “Right in the back, Captain, if you don’t mind.”

  MacBride strode to the rear of the store. Rossman met him at the end of the counter and bowed him into a small office where a coal stove glowed warmly. He closed the door quietly, changed spectacles and picked up a copy of the Free Press. A smile twinkled in his eyes, tugged at his lips.

  “This,” he said, pointing to the Rand story. “I read about it this morning, and I thought it over. I saw your name connected with it. I remembered that once you were kind to my son-in-law, Benny Lisk, and I thought maybe this would interest you.” He paused, darted a shrewd, smiling look at MacBride. “I read here about the gun—the gun it says you gave him. I looked a long time at Mr. Rand’s picture here. Sit down, Captain.”

  MacBride sat down.

  “This man,” went on Rossman, striking the picture of Dan Rand, “came into my store at about two o’clock yesterday afternoon. I’m sure. I remember the face. And, Captain”—he dropped his voice significantly—“he wanted to buy a gun.”

  MacBride’s face remained expressionless, but his eyes steadied on Rossman’s cherubic face.

  Rossman nodded. “So I sold him one. A .32 Colt automatic. And a box of 73-grain, metal case cartridges.” He paused. “You see, Captain, I want no trouble with the police. Usually I don’t sell guns to anybody, but this man had a permit to carry one. He loaded the gun here, and then, after he left, I found he didn’t take the rest of the cartridges.”

  MacBride’s eyes glowed. “Thanks, Mr. Rossman. I appreciate this a hell of a lot.” He stood up, shook Rossman’s hand vigorously. “This will help. This will help, Mr. Rossman. Any time you feel you’re in a jam, let me know. I don’t forget.”

  Leaving the room, he strode briskly through the shop, a hard windy glitter in his eyes and a firm jut to his jaw. Outside, he found the shabby squad car empty. He sent a sharp glance about the street, took a few steps, swore irritably; and then he saw Cohegan stroll casually out of a fruiterer’s, eating a banana.

  “Bert!”

  Cohegan reached the car with his mouth full of banana.

  MacBride jerked his chin, growled: “In, bozo!” And as they drove off: “Always on the muscle! Always on the make! If it’s not fruit you’re mooching, it’s cigars, or socks, or candy for some jane you know, or liquor!”

  Cohegan said soberly: “Where was we headed for now?”

  There was a note of vengeance in MacBride’s short laugh. “Back to H.Q., you racketeer!”

  oriarity and Cohen were rolling dice on MacBride’s desk when the skipper breezed into his office. His two aides did not look up. The dice clicked, tumbled; coins rang on the desk.

  “Hot-cha!” Cohen exclaimed. “After it’s over, Mory, you can borrow from me—at seven percent.”

  “What I found,” MacBride said, rocking on his heels, “was that Dan Rand bought a gun. Bought a .32 Colt auto from a guy named Rossman in Diamond Street. Yesterday afternoon. And loaded it and walked out!”

  The dice clicked and Cohen said: “You should never roll the bones, Mory; you we
re born unlucky.”

  “Now why did he buy that gun?” MacBride said impressively. “Why did he buy a gun when he had a perfectly good gun of his own? And how come the gun we found on him was the gun I gave him and not—not, you understand—the gun he bought? What happened to the gun he bought? Boy, oh, boy, if I— Lisyou apes!” he suddenly exploded. He caught up the dice and flung them against the wall.

  Cohen whistled, picked up the money and dropped it into his pocket. Moriarity lighted a cigarette and said reasonably:

  “It must have disappeared.”

  “It means this,” MacBride hammered out, shaking a fist. “It means that I’m no fat-head! It means that maybe all the razzberry you and a lot of other guys shoveled at me is going to be dumped right back at you! It means,” he said, thinning his voice, “that when Dan Rand walked out of his house at noon yesterday he didn’t carry a gun. He went and bought one—”

  “And with it,” nodded Cohen, “committed suicide.”

  MacBride barked: “No!” He walked around the room and came back and barked again: “No!” He folded his arms. “This is murder. I know what to do about murder, wherever I find it. We’ll see what kind of bullet they’ve taken out of Dan Rand and—”

  The phone rang and MacBride scooped it up. “Okey,” he said. He hung up. “Come on down. That was Lewis.”

  They went down to the basement. Lewis, the ballistics expert, was wiping off a gun.

  He said: “There’s the slug they took out of Rand. I matched it with this gun you gave him. It matches. There it is—a lead slug. Came out of a ninety-eight-grain Smith and Wesson cartridge.” He laid the revolver down. “Suicide, I guess.”

  MacBride picked up the slug, studied it closely, then rolled it round and round between thumb and forefinger. His eyes flashed, his lips warped. He tossed the slug back to the desk.

  “Murder,” he clipped.

  “Suicide suits me,” Lewis said.

  But MacBride was striding away. Moriarity and Cohen went along, exchanging hopeless glances. MacBride stopped short, swung about, returned to Lewis’ desk and picked up the gun, thrust it into his pocket. He bore down on Moriarity and Cohen with a hard, preoccupied stare.

  “Look at it this way, Cap,” Moriarity said. “Maybe this guy Rossman made a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t Rand after all.”

  “I’ll bet that’s just what happened!” Cohen said decisively.

  MacBride went past them with his hard, fixed stare. He picked up Cohegan in the central room and they went outside and climbed into the car. MacBride sat motionless, staring ahead, while Cohegan started the motor and waited. After a while MacBride relaxed, looked about them as though surprised, then said:

  “Okey, Bert. Drive to the Metals Building in Simpson Street.” He leaned back, sighed as the car started. “I’m a sap,” he muttered. “I get all steamed up over nothing.”

  The Metals Building was a seven-story brick affair, not new. The elevator was large, old, tarnished, and wheezed on the way up to the fifth floor. MacBride got out, slapped his heels down a linoleum covered corridor floor and stopped before a ground-glass door bearing the inscription: Acme Sporting Enterprises, Inc.

  “Yes, sir?” chirped a blonde over a noisy typewriter.

  “Mr. Cardiac.” He champed the tip off a cigar. “MacBride’s the name.”

  The girl flounced into one of two inner offices; reappeared in a moment and said: “Okey.”

  MacBride swung into the inner office, scaled his hat on the desk and flopped down into a leather-upholstered armchair; scowled down at his cigar and then licked a piece of the wrapper back into place.

  “What do you think about Rand’s suicide, Cardiac?”

  Cardiac said: “Shocked. I was shocked. Sorry as hell to hear of it.”

  “Yes, you were!” MacBride chuckled sardonically.

  Cardiac was a tall, handsome man, blond and rounded about the head. He had broad, neatly tailored shoulders, a jaw shaped like a spade, big white hands.

  “Okey, then. I’m not sorry.” He chuckled.

  “That sounds better. With Dan Rand out of the way I suppose things will be easier for you, huh?”

  “In what way?”

  “Oh … I suppose it’ll be easy for you to get control of the Colosseum. Listen, Cardiac.” MacBride leaned forward. “Dan Rand hated you and you hated him. I’ll tell you why he hated you. He didn’t like your business methods. He kept you and your stable of fighters out of the Colosseum because he didn’t believe in robbing the fight public. He had no use for set-ups. He believed the Ricks-Gowanus thing was a set-up.

  “Before that, he crossed you on a number of other deals. He lost money doing it but he was willing to lose money to keep the fight game clean. You tried to stage fights in the old Hessler Arena. He stopped that by proving the place was a fire-trap. The only place big enough to make money in was the Colosseum, and he shut you out of there. You got back at him by talking other sport promoters into taking their jobs elsewhere—the smaller jobs, hockey, bicycle racing, wrestling. The Colosseum became an empty barn. He lost money and kept on losing it but no matter what you did you couldn’t make him change his mind. Dan could always take it.”

  “Sure.” Cardiac nodded. “Until finally he was flat broke and did the Dutch.”

  MacBride’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “It always surprised me, Cardiac, the way all these small frys suddenly slid away from the Colosseum and pulled their stuff elsewhere. All of them!” He held aloft a rigid forefinger for a taut split-minute, then swung it levelly towards Cardiac. “I hope you’ve kept your nose clean, boy.”

  Cardiac delivered a bland smile. “You’re steamed up about something.” An eyebrow went up. “Will a drink help?”

  “No … I’m dumb,” he confessed. “When I look back, I see how dumb I am. The more I think of it, the funnier it seems.… I mean the way all these enterprises—wrestling, bike races, hockey, smokers—the way they all slipped away from the Colosseum to outlying dumps. You’re the only man big enough in this town to’ve worked a racket like that, Cardiac!”

  Cardiac looked bored. “Rave on, Skipper,” he said offhand, waving a cigarette languidly.

  There was a thump—and the gun lay on the table. And there was MacBride’s blunt voice: “Ever see that?”

  Cardiac folded his hands on his flat stomach, shook his head, said quietly: “No.”

  “It’s the gat that killed Dan Rand.”

  “So-so! H’m … nice-looking gun. Suicide’s queer—”

  “Damn queer. So queer, Cardiac, that this time it’s not suicide.”

  “Well, that is news!”

  “Would you mind,” said MacBride, “letting me see that nice silk pocket handkerchief?”

  Cardiac tensed, his eyes flickered. He flexed his lips, then shrugged, chuckled jerkily. “Sure! Here.” He tossed the handkerchief across the desk.

  MacBride smelled it, making noises. Then he threw it back to Cardiac, rubbed his bony hand around the nape of his neck and sent a couple disgruntled smoke-puffs from one corner of his mouth. The skipper and Cardiac regarded each other for a long minute.

  “Plan to get the Colosseum, don’t you?” MacBride asked.

  “I plan to organize a holding company and try to do business with the executors of Rand’s estate.”

  “You wouldn’t,” MacBride said, “by any chance have already formed this holding company?”

  “I was just thinking about it.”

  MacBride picked up a clipped sheaf of papers from a wire desk basket. “I’ve got good eyesight, Cardiac. It says here, ‘Prospectus of the Colosseum Holding Company.’ ”

  Cardiac nodded. “Yes, I know. I was just playing around with the idea this morning. Got down to the office early and ran off my ideas on the typewriter before my secretary arrived.”

  MacBride nodded, turned and went to the connecting door and opening it said to the blonde in the outer office, “Typewrite on a piece of paper, miss, one line—anything—and bring it in.�
��

  Cardiac was annoyed. “Why all the horseplay, Captain?”

  MacBride, reading the prospectus, made no reply. In a moment the blonde entered with a sheet of paper. MacBride took it, slowly read the single line.

  “Miss,” he said, “how many letters have you typed since you arrived this morning?”

  “Oh, about three.”

  “Thanks. You can go.”

  She went out, puzzled, a little frightened.

  MacBride tossed the prospectus and the newly written sheet of paper on the desk.

  “Take a look at them, Cardiac. You said you wrote that prospectus on the typewriter this morning. The girl said she’s written only three letters this morning. Yet—look close, Cardiac—the typewriting on your prospectus is in fresh, heavy black type made by a brand-new ribbon. The line the girl just wrote is very faded—the ribbon hasn’t been changed in weeks.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Cardiac scoffed.

  “Nonsense your grandmother! That prospectus wasn’t written this morning, Cardiac. It was written weeks ago—maybe months ago. It was written because you had a good idea that pretty soon the Colosseum would be in the bag!”

  Cardiac rose slowly, his mouth twisting, his pale eyes hard as chips of ice. “I’m getting tired of listening to a lot of hot air, MacBride!”

  “You’ll listen, baby—and like it. You’re the only man big enough in this town to’ve wanted Rand’s scalp.”

  Cardiac came around the desk, swaggering, a hard set to his spade jaw. “Watch those cracks, copper! I’m not taking dirty cracks from any cheap shamus.” He held his hands out, palms up. “These hands are clean, skipper. Suppose you tuck your tail between your legs and scram.”

  The phone rang and Cardiac lifted it, growled “Hello” into the mouthpiece. Then his eyes blinked, he shook his head; clipped: “Call back. No, I’ll call you back when— … No—no, not now!” His face colored, he seemed uneasy; he shouted: “I said I’ll call you back!” He hung up violently. There were a few beads of sweat on his forehead.