The Man with the Lumpy Nose

by Lawrence Lariar

  “But that is impossible,” pleaded Plimmer. “There is a truck that comes here twice a week. He takes it all away. If you had come a little later maybe even this would not be here.”

  The voices faded toward the rear of the house. The doorman ran back along the outside passageway to the street. He was breathing hard. He was excited. He was much more excited than he had been when the police went up to Chance’s penthouse.

  In the shadow of the street entrance he paused and quickly slipped out of his coat. He took off his hat and wrapped it in the coat. Then he placed the bundle behind the border of shrubs on the street and ran softly up to the pavement, turned left and sprinted to the corner.

  There was a cab on the corner. He got in.

  “Watch the first canopy,” he told the driver. “Two men will walk out and enter that taxicab on the street. I want you to follow that taxi.”

  The cab started away from Beekman Place.

  “You’ll like this—it’s Bourbon,” said Dumbo.

  Homer lipped the bottle tentatively, rolled the liquor on his tongue. “Excellent,” he said, and swallowed long.

  Dumbo emptied the bottle and leaned back in the seat. “Gives me energy, Bourbon does. There must be a hidden vitamin in the stuff. Say—that’s not bad, you know. Suppose some smart company found a load of vitamin B in their liquor, can you imagine the advertising campaign?” He slapped his knees with enthusiasm. “I’m a positive genius after midnight! I’ll have to mention the idea to old man Kendall. He owns the Greyneck Distilleries. They could run full page ads, you know, with plenty of fancy art. First ad would show a doctor looking at a bottle and writing a prescription. ‘Use Greyneck for That Run Down Feeling,’ he could say.”

  “Loaded down with vitamin DT?” mused Bull, and leaned forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. “We’re being tailed, bud. Turn down Third Avenue toward Forty-Second Street, but take it easy.”

  Dumbo looked out through the rear window. They turned into Third Avenue, slowed down. A minute later a cab swung out of Fifty-fifth behind them.

  “Now who the hell would that be, Homer?”

  Bull lifted the corrugated box to his lap. He drew out a sheet of manuscript and studied it. “Somebody doesn’t want us to take this stuff with us.” He began to empty the carton into his pockets. “Might be the night janitor.”

  “Want me to carry some, too?”

  “No. You’re going on a little errand with an empty box, Dumbo.” They were approaching Forty-Second Street. “Turn to the left at Fortieth, driver, then shoot over to First Avenue. When you get to First head downtown, we can outdistance him on First Avenue.”

  The cabby was expert. At Fortieth Street he swung suddenly left and the taxi leaped forward at a good clip. They rounded the corner into First Avenue on two screaming wheels and started downtown at fifty miles an hour.

  “Turn right on Fourteenth Street!” The cab behind them was a mile back, but coming fast.

  They roared along Fourteenth Street.

  “There’s a hack stand at Fourteenth and Fourth, isn’t there?”

  The cabby nodded. “Should be empty now.”

  “Good. Park at the hack stand.”

  There were two cabs parked on Fourteenth and Fourth. They slid in behind the second cab. Bull handed Dumbo the empty box. “Take this carton for a walk, Dumbo. Walk slowly along Fourth Avenue until you see our friend behind you. Then hop into a cab and go uptown on Broadway toward Times Square. Tell your cabby to drive slowly. I’m going to circle the square and head uptown behind the stupid fool who’s tailing us. When you get to Times Square, leave the cab and stand on the corner, near the subway entrance. I’ll nab him when he gets out to follow you.”

  “The tailer tailed, hey?” laughed Dumbo, and sauntered away with the box.

  Bull circled the square. He saw Dumbo enter a cab on Fourth Avenue, saw the pursuing car follow into Broadway.

  “Now,” he told the driver, “tail our pal, cabby. But don’t get too close to him.”

  They swung into Broadway. The cabs were moving slowly uptown. Six blocks ahead, Dumbo’s car approached. Twenty-Eighth Street with his pursuer close behind him. Then something happened. The pursuing cab picked up speed, suddenly, drew alongside Dumbo at Twenty-ninth, forcing his car into a lamp-post. A figure leaped out of the second cab.

  Homer said, “Give her the gun! Try to pull ahead of him!”

  His taxi leaped forward, but it was too late. When he crossed Twenty-Sixth Street the man had jumped back into his car and roared off uptown. Dumbo stood in the street, gaping hopelessly after the fast fading cab.

  “Jerked it right out of my hand,” he told Bull, dejectedly. “The guy had plenty of nerve, forcing us over to the sidewalk the way he did. Thought we were going through a store window for a minute.”

  “Did you see his face, Dumbo?”

  Dumbo tilted back his hat. “Yes and no.”

  “It wasn’t Plimmer, was it? The janitor?”

  “Hell, no. I’d know that mealy-mouthed stoker anywhere.”

  Bull questioned the cabby, but the man was all atremble from the sudden loss of his left front wheel and fender. “Mister, don’t ask me stupid questions. I kept my puss lookin’ straight uptown, I tell ya. I never even saw the guy.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I suppose you could identify him if you saw him again, couldn’t you, Dumbo?”

  “Identify him? He’s a marked man. Say—you don’t think that dumb-looking frill at the switchboard tipped somebody off?”

  “Possibly.” They got back into the cab. “At any rate I want you to go back and question that little lady.”

  Dumbo made a face. “She’s a mess. My libido is turning in my stomach.”

  “You’ll never make a detective with that point of view. A girl like that is usually a profound introvert. They make elegant witnesses when worked the right way.”

  “What do I ask her?”

  “Questions. All kinds of questions. Get all you can on the janitor, the elevator boys and the doorman—”

  Dumbo snapped his fingers suddenly. The light of memory lit his massive face. “Got him, Homer! I knew I’d seen that mug’s face before, and I have. He’s the doorman up at the apartment!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. Red-faced ape with bushy eyebrows. It was hard to recall that pan without the military collar under it.” He slapped his knees. “I’d give a sawbuck to have seen his face when he opened that box.”

  Bull puffed silently on his cigar. “He must have followed us to the basement and overheard my conversation with Plimmer. I don’t imagine he’ll ever come back to that apartment now.”

  The taxi stopped before the Police Station.

  “Then I don’t have to go up there?” asked Dumbo. “I don’t have to gurgle at that switchboard menace?”

  Bull got out and slammed the door. “I think you’d better. She might have some information about him, anyhow.” He winked slyly. “Take a crack at her; she looks like the type of gal who’d yield to your manly charms.”

  Dumbo scowled. “Yeah—she’s the type, all right. They swarm around me like flies around a dead horse. It’ll be fun.”

  CHAPTER 11

  It was nearly one o’clock.

  At West Ninety-Fourth Street almost everybody slept. Mrs. T. W. McGinness, however, was wide awake. The old lady leaned lightly on her window sill, waiting for the sight of her son Dan, coming home to her from work.

  An early morning wind wailed mournfully up the darkened street, whistled into the darkened stoops and then blew itself out on Amsterdam Avenue. A cat sang sadly to its echo and from somewhere in a distant alley a tin can clanked a single cymbal beat and rolled away.

  From down the hall the old clock bonged once. Mrs. T. W. McGinness sighed, rubbed her eyes, adjusted her field glasses and leaned
lightly on the window sill.

  A man was walking up the block from Broadway. For a moment the old lady’s heart beat quickly in her breast. She thought the man was her Dan. Dan always walked a half block on the other side of the street because he knew she was watching for him.

  Mrs. McGinness squinted into the gloom. This man wasn’t Dan. She could tell it even though he hadn’t yet passed the first house up from Broadway. This was a taller man—a great hulk of a man. He walked with his head down a bit, as though he were looking for something on the pavement ahead of him. And was that a bit of a limp in his stride?

  The headlights of a car turned into the street when the man was directly opposite her window. She saw the car swoop slowly behind him. There was a roar from the motor and the loud rat-a-tat-tat of backfiring. The big man on the street turned around at the sudden noise. Then, of all things, there came a blast much louder than a backfire and the big man slumped forward awkwardly, knees buckling, hands clutching at thin air.

  A figure darted out of the car. In a flash the man on the sidewalk was hauled into the car, the motor roared and the car sped away. It crossed Amsterdam Avenue against the traffic light and was lost to sight as it sped east.

  Mrs. McGinness blinked. All this was unreal to an old lady in a wheelchair all alone at one o’clock in the morning. For a minute she continued to lean gently upon her elbow and stare out at the street. Then with deliberate purpose, she swung the wheelchair around and propelled herself to the telephone.

  “Hello,” she said. “I want the police.”

  She tapped her lean fingers on the chair arms until the connection was made.

  A man’s voice said, “Police Department.”

  “Hello,” said Mrs. McGinness. “I just saw a man murdered!”

  The black Buick sedan raced across the Brooklyn Bridge. The driver gripped the wheel with one hand; with the other he held a cigarette. His face was a mask of grinning ugliness. The light played havoc with his cheekbones and made his pop-eyes glisten with malignant highlights.

  It was nearing one-thirty in the morning. The moon, a thin slice of lemon, glowed feebly from behind a heavy bank of fog. In the river the black bulk of a tug struggled patiently with the tide, panting as it pulled. From somewhere out in the bay an orange light blinked on. Off again. A skittery breeze tried to blow the fog inland but failed. The air lay heavy, wet and cold over the city rooftops.

  At the end of the bridge, the black car turned left, wound through a maze of darkened streets and then stopped. Soon another car, a roadster, shot out of the gloom and parked in the heavy shadows. A man got out and approached the Buick.

  “You’re driving too fast.” The voice was hard and cool. “No reason for speeding, you imbecile; we have all morning.”

  “Where in hell we headin’?” Brittle voice was nervous.

  “Go left on Atlantic Avenue. I have a place in mind out on the island. When we reach the highway you follow me.”

  “Why not dump them right here?”

  “Where?”

  Brittle voice put his ugly head out of the window and pointed ahead. “I know a dock down further. We could drop ’em over, both of ’em. They’d make a helluva splash droppin’ over this spot I’m talking about.”

  “You’re crazy. Do as I told you.”

  Brittle voice watched his partner walk away into the shadows and cursed him under his breath.

  An hour later he swung the sedan sharp right and followed the roadster down a rutty road. The first car pulled into the sand and its driver got out.

  “We’ve got to stop here. I’m taking no chances with those two. We’ll use the chains.”

  Brittle voice opened the luggage compartment. The other stood watching him at the lock. Then he turned his head and peered back into the gloom. The lights on Merrick Road were dull pinpoints two and a half miles away.

  Brittle voice bent into the luggage carrier. The chains rattled in his hands, clanked against the side of the car. “You want all these chains? You got a ton of ’em back here.”

  “Get them all.”

  “You only need one or two.”

  “You heard me. You’ll find the heavier ones in the back.”

  Brittle voice reached. “I feel ’em now.”

  As Brittle voice reached, the other drew a revolver from his pocket. He leaned forward and held the gun close to his assistant’s head. Then he fired.

  With a muffled gasp the other man fell against the chains. They slid slowly to the sand. The man with the gun lifted them and hurled them back into the car. He grasped Brittle voice by the legs and shoved him into the luggage compartment. Then he slammed the door shut and locked it.

  Now he moved quickly. He dragged the body of a man from the rear of the black sedan and placed him behind the wheel. He started the car. It crept slowly along the rutted road. A minute later the road ended on a crude wooden pier. Here he stopped the car, walked to the edge and peered down at the water. Below, the quiet black tide sucked at the old piles. This was a deep spot in the shallow shore line—one of the deepest spots in Great South Bay.

  Back at the sedan, he struck a match and studied the bulky corpse in the rear. He carefully closed all the windows and started the motor once again.

  The car moved ahead slowly. The old boards creaked under its weight. Thirty feet from the edge of the pier, he leaped out of the car and slammed the door shut. The car rolled forward, hit the raised plank at the pier’s edge, bounced crazily for an instant and then disappeared over the edge.

  There was a great splash and then silence.

  It started to rain.

  He lit a cigarette casually and stared up at the sky.

  The rain fell solidly. If it rained this hard for an hour or two there wouldn’t be a trace of tires in the rutted road and the uneven tread marks on the rotten planks would disappear in no time at all.

  He pulled his collar up and began to trot steadily in the direction of Merrick Road and the other car.

  CHAPTER 12

  Dick McElmore fidgeted. Homer Bull looked out of the window, gazing idly along Ninety-fourth Street.

  “It’s high time,” said Mrs. McGinness, pulling her shawl around her shoulders with a little nervous gesture. “What is this city coming to when a person has to wait nine hours to report a murder? You’d think a person saw men murdered every day on Ninety-Fourth Street the way the police department acts about it!”

  The inspector drew out his little black book. “You saw a man shot at one o’clock this morning. He was standing directly across the street when this car drove up behind him and began to backfire. Then he was shot and dragged into the car. It drove off headed east.” He paused to smile down at the old lady. “Isn’t that right, ma’am?”

  “Of course that’s right.” She took off her glasses and polished them briskly. “What do you expect to do with my information now?”

  McElmore sat down. The old lady was beginning to tell on his jarred nerves. Sleep hadn’t come easily last night. “Of course, Mrs. McGinness, there’s a lot in what you say.” He leaned forward and tried to smile amiably. “Now, we’ve done a lot of questioning on this block since early this morning, ma’am. We’ve been getting all kinds of stories about last night from everybody on the street.”

  “What are you insinuating? Are you trying to tell me that I’m making all this up?” The old lady breathed hard. “What are these stories you’ve been hearing?”

  McElmore thumbed through his black book slowly. “Here’s what I mean, ma’am. Take Mr. Thorkelson, for instance. Now Mr. Thorkelson heard that backfiring, too. But he says when he looked out of the window all he saw was this car moving off down the street.”

  “And what does that mean? Isn’t it possible that Mr. Thorkelson arrived at the window after the man was pulled into the car?” She smiled victoriously and looked around the room for approval
. McElmore sighed.

  Homer left the window. “Certainly it’s possible. That’s a keen bit of reasoning, too, Mrs. McGinness. But how do you account for the testimony of Mr. Giniger?”

  “Giniger?” she laughed. “Joe Giniger is a drunken fool. You can discount whatever he told you.”

  “He wasn’t drunk last night, ma’am,” said McElmore. “Mr. Giniger came home earlier than usual he says. He had to, he says, because he wasn’t paid last night.”

  “And what does Joe Giniger say he saw?”

  McElmore explained. “Joe Giniger turned the corner of Broadway and started up Ninety-Fourth Street after the backfiring. He admitted that the noise seemed rather loud for backfiring. But he saw no one being hauled into the car.”

  Mrs. McGinness threw up her hands. “Very well, then. I must have been dreaming.” She leaned forward suddenly in her wheelchair and extended her lean jaw in McElmore’s direction. “Except that I wasn’t! Joe Giniger may have rounded that corner just after the man was pulled into the car. I don’t know. I don’t care about Giniger or Thorkelson or anybody else for that matter. That man was shot and pulled into the car. You may take it or leave it!”

  “We’ll take it, of course, Mrs. McGinness,” Homer said. “But you must try to help us a bit more. Can you remember the type of car it was?”

  “Sedan,” she snapped. “A black sedan. It looked like a good car to me. It was long and had a big motor.”

  “Will you show me where you were sitting?”

  She wheeled herself to the window. “Like this. I was leaning like this. I always sit at this window. I like bay windows because they give me a clear view of the whole street.”

  “How much of the street could you see at night?”

  “All of it. I can see clear to Broadway and the other way to Amsterdam.”

  “Can you see clearly? I mean this, Mrs. McGinness; if a man were approaching on the other side of the street, could you make out his face?”

  “Indeed I could!” she snapped. “My vision is excellent. There isn’t a neighbor on the other side of the street that I can’t recognize a half block away.”