A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  But I wasn’t going to let Mary Morse go this time. I started after her as she ran toward the hall door. Then I stopped, swung quickly around and said to the Flame: “Don’t touch it!”

  She shrugged her shoulders and straightened from the gun.

  “O.K., Race,” she cut in when I would have spoken. “I know your line. ‘There is no sex in crime,’ you were going to say. Then gallantly spare my life by shooting three fingers off my right hand.” And biting her lips, “I am very proud of my hands. I wouldn’t want to live without the fingers that make them so clever.”

  “I wonder,” I said, “why you want to live at all.” This as the door slammed and I picked up the Flame’s gun. No, I didn’t follow Mary Morse. I might have caught her, probably would, but the Flame still had the little green bag in her hand and I didn’t know what all was in it. I might very easily catch a bullet in the back.

  “I live simply for you, dear.” Her smile was rather unpleasant. “Is Sam dead?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” I told her gruffly. “If his head is as thick as the thoughts that come out of it, he won’t have much more than a dent.”

  She shook her head at me, smiled. “They couldn’t arrest you for killing Sam. It would just be one of those mercy killings.”

  Not a bad crack at all, but I didn’t feel in a light humor. Damn it! I had loved the Flame, had—And she was putting those eyes on me now, with a brightness, yes, a sparkle of youth in them. And—And I snapped out of it.

  I said when I reached the door: “Has Armin Loring got much money, Florence?”

  “Enough. Why?”

  “Because if you want to inherit as the widow you’d better marry him at once. He hasn’t much longer to live.”

  I started to turn, but didn’t. I felt almost as if she were laughing at me as I backed through that doorway to the hall. Well, after all, I’d rather have her laughing at me than be dead. Did I mean that the Flame might kill me? Truth is truth—that is exactly what I meant.

  CHAPTER SIX

  An Earful of Murder

  Jerry and I hopped out of the taxi and hustled into the Morse and Lee jewelry-shop the following night. Though the weather was warm we were both sporting topcoats—Jerry’s, a somber blue, mine a light, noticeable brown. What’s more, we had our coat collars turned up. If anyone watched us enter or not, I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone; didn’t expect anyone, but I like to do things as if the whole town were watching.

  Conklyn Lee was nervous as a mother hen when we stepped into his private office and fumbled with the key at least a full minute before he got that door locked. He finally said: “Why is that young man with you, Mr. Williams? And why are you wearing coats this time of year.”

  “We forgot to look at the calendar.” I gave him a dig in the ribs. “You have your assistant manager in the other room there?” I jerked a thumb toward the door to the right. “About my size you said on the phone.”

  “Yes—but I don’t understand.”

  “Fine, fine. If you don’t understand, then others won’t. No word from Mary?”

  “No, not a word. You think they’re keeping her prisoner until they finish their work below? But if they kill you, then—”

  “Never mind about my life. I’ve taken care of it for years. And I intend to live to dance on the graves of Armin Loring, Baron Stutz, et al. You’d better think about her life and your own and do everything I asked you to do.”

  He had a first-class chill right away. Maybe I didn’t hear his bones rattle, but I heard the change in his pocket.

  Jerry remained behind and I got a slant at the assistant manager, standing in the room beyond when we passed through it. He was about my height and build, but not weight. He’d have to do something about that stomach of his first. And his face—well, I’m not so hot-looking I can complain. But his walk, as he opened the far door for us, bothered me. And the way he moved his hands looked as if he might break into Mendelssohn’s Spring Song any moment. A couple of minutes later Conklyn Lee and I stood before the steel door in the back of the shop.

  “I don’t think anyone is down there now,” he jittered. “But I don’t know—I couldn’t know. They come and go by the entrance on the alley.”

  “Open her up,” I told him. “They wouldn’t be around this early, and if they are—that suits me, too.”

  He got the key working and we went down to the basement. There was no one there—we covered it thoroughly. It wasn’t such a big room—that is, as cellars go.

  Just a little way from the foot of the stairs and beneath a green-shaded lamp was a stretch of carpet, a flat desk, and two comfortable chairs. There were no windows in the room, but tiny ventilators up near the ceiling.

  Conklyn Lee lost his nervousness as he began to show me rare vases—far back in the dimness. He lifted them, held them as if they were a king’s first born and looked childishly hurt when I told him flat they didn’t look any better than five-buck ones to me. I was interested in those cheap ones he’d been telling me about. The ones Raftner, alias the Baron, had brought in.

  We found them at once—and Conklyn Lee gasped. They were all close to the wide steel door which led to the alley. They were small and packed six to a partly opened crate.

  “These are the ones?” I asked him. “Crated just like this? Why”—I went down the line and counted the crates, one upon the other—“there are enough here to flood the whole country with dope.” I stretched a hand between the slats, had difficulty feeling inside of one, turned the crate over and slipped in my flashlight. Every vase was empty.

  “There’s nothing in them,” Lee told me. “I have looked into every one. But if you’re thinking of drugs—well, those vases are just a cheap pottery. The drug could be placed right in the mold. Do you want to break one and see?”

  “No. The stuff might be in only one vase in ten. Besides, they’d notice a broken one, and I don’t want to rouse suspicion.”

  “But if the drug is there why not—”

  I cut in on him: “But I don’t know it’s there. They may bring the stuff with them later—tonight even—place it in the vases then take them away in a truck. A crate sent here and there—all open and above-board; just drop half a dozen vases at second-hand shops throughout the city. Nice distribution. I’ll wait and see.”

  “Wait—and see. What do you mean?”

  I didn’t answer that one then. I was looking at two immense vases. Boy, they were big! Over six feet tall each one of them. If some of those small ones were worth dough why these must have been worth a cool fortune. They were both off the rug—just in the shadows away from that single overhead light. Still you could see animals and dragons dancing all over them. They were class. I told Lee so.

  Conklyn Lee laughed. “Monstrosities,” he said. “Valueless—sickening.”

  “How come you have them then?” They looked hot stuff to me.

  “We give exhibitions above occasionally. A salesman on the road picked these up when the Chicago World’s Fair closed. Had some fool idea that they would look nice on either side of the entrance to our little display of rare pieces.”

  He seemed disgusted at the thought and maybe a little disappointed that I didn’t give him a chance to tell me about how they fired that salesman. I was pulling a chair over, looking at the short wide neck, trying to see things in the blackness of one of the vases.

  “A man could get in there—hide in there,” I said.

  “Can and did.” Lee smiled. “A burglar hid in one all night at the Fair, robbed the place, climbed back into the vase and the next morning mixed with the crowd and was never caught.”

  “A man about my size?” I was examining that opening.

  “About—” Conklyn Lee nodded. “Maybe not so broad of shoulder. Good God, Mr. Williams! You weren’t thinking of hiding in there. Why—these are desperate men. One of them could look down from the top and shoot you to death.”

  “If that one didn’t lose his head.”

  Conklyn L
ee pondered a moment. “They are very level-headed men,” he said seriously.

  I didn’t explain how the guy who looked in would lose his head. I just took Conklyn Lee by the arm, led him to the stairs. I had seen the telephone that stood on the desk. He sat beside me on those steel steps as if his last ounce of dignity had left him.

  “Mr. Lee,” I said, “how far would you go for Mary?”

  He said without hesitation: “I would give my life—everything for that child.”

  “O.K.,” I told him. “There’s a phone on that desk. Go to your home. Stay awake. Mary Morse is missing. They won’t harm her until after the stuff is safe away from here—if it’s here—or if they intend to bring it here and carry it away in those vases. You have let things go too far and so have I. I’d have the feds in here now if it weren’t for the danger to Mary. I’m going to blow the works tonight—come what may. But I’m going to find out where Mary is first.”

  “But they won’t tell you where she is. And they will kill her later.”

  “Mr. Lee,” I said very seriously, and meant it, “if they don’t tell me they won’t be alive to kill her later. Now—go home. I have your number. If I don’t telephone you before twelve, call this number.” I handed him a card. “Ask for Sergeant O’Rourke. Tell him to come here. Then skip yourself and tell it all to a good lawyer. You’ll need one.”

  “But what of you?”

  “Oh, I’ll have missed out.”

  “You’ll be dead.”

  “That’s right. But get O’Rourke here, tell him about the vases. No matter what happens to me that dope must not get into the city.” And after a pause, “You’re not worth it. The firm is not worth it—Mary is not worth it. No, and by God, I’m not worth it!”

  I dropped his hand quickly when I found I was holding it like a leading-man in a cheap road-show. Sure, that’s right. I was even beginning to feel sorry for myself, and the sacrifice I was making for my fellow citizens.

  I snapped out of that, said: “Jerry, my boy upstairs, will walk out to your car with your assistant manager, who will wear my brown coat, and my slouch hat. He’ll turn the collar of my coat up high. If anyone is watching they’ll think I’ve left.”

  Conklyn Lee proceeded me up the steps to the closed door. “Mr. Williams,” he said and his voice was husky. “I have read enough about you, seen enough of you to understand that this is—well, part of your business, part of your life—maybe routine with you. But it is the most fearful night of my whole life. Is there anything else I can do?”

  I smiled at him. “Brother,” I said. “I have a feeling it is going to be the most fearful of my life, too.” And just before he closed the door, “Yeah, there is one thing you can do. Make your assistant manager keep his hands in my overcoat pocket when he leaves the store.” I was thinking of the airy-fairy way he used those hands. If I was to die—well, there might be people outside who would take that lad for me, and I didn’t want to be remembered doing any Spring Dance.

  After Conklyn Lee left I took a look-see over that cellar again. The boys had to come in that sliding door which led to the alley. It would be simple to stick each one up and wait for the next. I looked at those huge vases, too. They’d be swell places to dump a stray body or two if a lad felt like tossing a few corpses around.

  I felt I had lots of time. No one would show up until late; until the side-street would be deserted. I went over to those crates of vases and examined them again. The Morse and Lee name was painted in great black letters on wide slats. Respectability that—keen thinking. And the vases weren’t completely boxed. All the world could see what was being carried. And I saw it—or thought I did.

  I took out my flash and examined the boards of a crate; then another and another. By God, the stuff must be in them! I’m not an expert carpenter; I didn’t need to be. One or two boards on every crate had been hammered up far enough to remove the vases, then nailed down again. Did that mean the stuff was in them, hidden away in a secret place in those vases? Little movable parts in the bottom, perhaps, put there for that very purpose.

  Should I bust hell out of them? Stand at the door afterwards and knock everyone for a loop that came in? Should I call O’Rourke and—But Mary Morse came first. But hell, she didn’t come first—not before an entire city!

  I went to the desk, looked at the telephone on it. The telephone! And I thought back to a mistake I had made in my younger days. Forgetting a telephone, caving in a guy’s head who was supposed to use that phone to tell others the coast was clear. So it might be tonight.

  My eyes raised and rested on one of those huge vases. A place to hide—a damn good place to hide. Plenty of room for a crouching man inside, and one of those vases had held “a man about my size!” Would they look inside the vase? Would the first man who came look inside it? Well, he couldn’t see anything unless he stuck a light in. And if he stuck a light in, he’d never see anything again. I’d shoot his head right off his shoulders and damn near through the ceiling.

  The vase was the place, obviously. I couldn’t see once I was in there, but I could hear, wait, pop out with a couple of guns and do my stuff if the boys wanted it that way. No more fooling around, then. Into the vase I’d have to go.

  Trouble? Of course there was trouble. First, I had to turn out the light. Second, I had to use my flash in the deep blackness. Third, I had to put the flash in my pocket while I scrambled up. And I made it—at least I was lying on my stomach on top of it. Getting inside was another thing. One leg at a time didn’t seem to work, but I finally managed to get on my feet, straddling with one foot on either side of the thick circular rim around the top of the neck.

  Why so fancy? Well, I wanted another chance to look inside that vase, with the flash directed straight in. I felt for my flash; the vase wobbled. I regained my balance, breathed a sigh of relief, then stuck my feet together and dropped right into that vase. It was dark and my judgment wasn’t so good. My shoulders caught for a moment in the neck, slipped through and I landed bent up like a jackknife inside that vase.

  Why did I pull that quick drop? Well, a bolt had clicked; a heavy iron bar was removed from the alley door. I’d heard it distinctly, as even now I heard the door beginning to slide back. But I was safe inside.

  The door opened and closed. Groping feet crossed the stone floor, the feet of a lone man. Then the feet left the stone and settled on the rug. A light flashed and after a moment or two the feet moved again upon stone, passed close to the vase, hesitated. I looked up and raised my gun. My position was certainly good. If he looked in I’d simply have to decide whether he saw me or not. And on my decision would rest his life. What could be fairer than that?

  After a bit the dial on the phone clicked several times. A husky voice said: “O.K., boss. All quiet here. I think you’re wise to move the stuff early. . . . What . . . ? Yeah, I’d like to see Williams come here, too. He bounced a gun off my head last night.”

  So it was Sam. Poor dumb Sam. And the Flame had wondered if he were dead. His very next words made me feel that perhaps after all Sam wasn’t so dumb.

  “What?” he said. “The Flame’s turned Armin’s head? I don’t know about that. But I tell you she’s a wildcat, Raftner. See you in an hour then.”

  An hour. That was not so good. That vase was built funny, maybe thicker than I thought. Anyway I couldn’t stand up and I couldn’t sit down; I had to crouch like a guy playing squat-tag. I could turn, but I had to be careful of noise; had to be careful that neither one of the two guns I clutched in my hands pounded against the sides of the vase and rang out like chimes. How did I know they would ring out like chimes? I didn’t. I didn’t know what that vase was made of. But I did feel that the burglar who’d robbed the World’s Fair was entitled to all he got if he spent most of the night in that crouched position.

  There was little sound after the phone was hung up. Just the pounding of Sam’s heels on the desk where he sat and waited. And I just crouched and waited.

  An hour
passed and there was a knock, followed by Sam’s feet beating across the hard stone, then the opening door.

  This time more than one pair of feet crossed the floor. Each sound, each word came to me hollowly.

  Armin Loring’s voice snapped: “We don’t need Sam here, Raftner. The trucks will be along any minute now—we’ll want to get rolling.”

  The door closed and I guess Sam left.

  Raftner said: “Sure, sure, Armin.” And his voice changing to a harsh note, “Sit down. Yes—that thing in your back is a gun.”

  “God, are you mad!” Armin said and his breath whistled in his throat. It was a regular radio play for me from then on with sound effects and all. I saw nothing; heard everything. And I heard plenty.

  Raftner was speaking and his voice was soft, pleasant. “I heard about you, Armin—One Man Armin. Yes, one man—running a great racket; building up for this great racket until you became head of it. I thought Frank Morse was at the top. When he died I thought Gentle Jim Corrigan was head of it, and when he died—I knew the real head. The last man to be suspected because you built up the one-man idea, the working-alone idea. You’ve been head of it all along—and neither Frank Morse nor Corrigan even suspected it.”

  “Well,” said Armin, “why the gun in my back? What the hell! You knew you had a boss—now you know who he is. I had to come out in the open sometime—at least to you.”

  “Well,” said Raftner, “it goes like this. Frank Morse got onto the Flame. She was shoving herself in, getting into his papers. He didn’t kill her; he wrote me he wasn’t going to kill her. He felt pretty cocky in having that brilliant criminal mind working for him. And he died—she planned his death.”

  “Hell, you’re crazy,” said Armin.

  “There was Jim Corrigan,” Raftner went on. “She played him along. He got wise, wrote me exactly how Morse died, then died himself. And his death was planned by the Flame. She was there in the house with Corrigan when Williams killed him. Williams didn’t expose her then. He didn’t expose her because she’d set Corrigan up for Williams to kill.”