Hang by Your Neck

by Kane, Henry

“Funny. Screamingly.”

  “What happened to the bath?”

  “I didn’t take it.”

  “What happened to sleep?”

  “It’s postponed.”

  “A new tizzy, huh? Kelcey spank.”

  “You’re included.”

  “Thanks, but does it have to be?”

  “It has to be, Louis.”

  He came off the banter wagon. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’d like you to meet me, Louis. Downstairs, where you are. Lobby of headquarters. That all right? I—”

  The bell rang. Once and short.

  “A minute, Louis.” I opened the door for Vaydelle. “Hi. Throw your things someplace. Be with you in a minute.” I went back to the phone. “Yes, Louis—”

  “When?” Parker said.

  “Any time, starting with about a half hour from now. I’ve got company.”

  “You sound like you’re nuts. I mean, you sound like you’re still nuts. But you sound like you mean it. You got a date, chum.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Sweetheart Vaydelle put his coat neatly over the back of a chair and he balanced his hat on top of that. He wore a perfectly tailored Oxford-gray double-breasted and a white on white lounge-type shirt and a yellow and pink regimental, large knot. He wore a smile as specious as a brass nickel. He walked the carpet and he said no thanks about a drink. He stopped and he spread his feet and he put his hands behind him. He was a powerful man and young enough for trouble. He had thick shoulders and a thick neck and a thick red face. His nose was short and wide with blunt nostrils below a few purple veins. He had a lot of chin. I liked that. A lot of chin is vulnerable.

  “What about it?” he said. He looked at me.

  You couldn’t tell what he was thinking, that kind of face. He had big eyes, oval-shaped and popped, wide up from round cheekbones; they never looked at you. When he stared, they looked around you: bulgy green opaque eyes like olives in a jar. He had a small forehead that looked big joining baldness.

  “What about it?” he said.

  “Congratulations on Atlantic City.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Gonna make money?”

  “If I have the time to concentrate on it.”

  “You’re going to have a lot of time.”

  “How do you make that?”

  “You’re closing down Eleventh Avenue.”

  “Says what?”

  “Me.”

  He came over close. “Mister,” he said, “you’re a funny guy. You’re educated. You got a college diploma. You’re always taking them post-graduate causes, or whatever the hell they’re called. You’re supposed to be a pretty fancy writer. You got a reputation as a character, a wit, a guy that makes with the epi—epi—grams. You got a rep for being one of these barroom philosophers. You go for the classical music, the modern jazz, the crazy art, the heavy books, and the dollies, all the dollies. And the dollies go for you. Right?”

  “Well—” I said, duly modest.

  “But as far as I’m concerned, I think you’re nuts.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Now, look—”

  I hit him first.

  Like that you sell Vaydelle.

  I caught him as he began his swing. I caught him with a little jab, but it pushed him off balance, and then he closed into a full bouquet of pent-up knuckles. On the mouth. It crunched blood, but it didn’t floor him. He came in a rush and I sidestepped most of it, but I caught some of the butt from his hard bald head on the side of my stomach and I did an adagio whirl and I fell. He was on me, all over me, with my arm twisted up behind my back, and he put a lot of pressure on that. His left hand took the hair of my head and he kept yessing my forehead against the floor, jouncing my brains. But it helped. It took some of the pressure off the arm he was dislocating. “Son of a bitch of a crumb,” he said. That helped too. You ease off the concentration when you talk. I heaved up rump, and he fell off me, panting, but he didn’t let go of my left wrist. The arm up by the socket made a noise like the tear of a sheet of paper and we were jumbled like a pair of insane acrobats, my head in his crotch, and then I bit him in the soft part of the thigh with all the pain that was in me. He screamed. His hand opened on my wrist. I squirmed on the floor and I saw the blood on his mouth and I swung for it with the one hand that was left me. A denture got loose in his mouth, clicking. I swung for it and it cut him; blood came again and he gagged. I swung for it and he coughed it up, gurgling. I squared off the floor and he started coming up, ugly with blood and spit. I kicked him in the jaw and he lay there.

  My left arm hung like a Dali untitled.

  Pain was a burning screech all the way to my ribs: pain lopped off a part of me, a stranger. My arm was a cripple, slow-writhing in geometric absurdity: pain had me smiling, lips up numb by the gums of my teeth. It was either you pass out or you stay with it. I stayed with it, but it had me breathless and limping. Whiskey helped. Shot by shot, fast you almost gagged. In seconds, you learn to walk humped over an arm, protective.

  Sweetheart snored on the floor.

  I went to the bedroom and brought back a thirty-eight. I sat on the arm of a chair with the gun in my hand and I waited for him. It’s corny, but there you have it. Nausea stayed down. Pain became a habit.

  He moved and I waited. He sat up and he saw me.

  “Don’t get up,” I said. “Sit there. Fix your mouth.”

  He sat on the floor and his legs sprawled. He grinned, but he didn’t mean it; perhaps he did. He drew a handkerchief and he wiped his mouth. “It’s all messed up inside.”

  “Take your teeth.”

  He looked and he found his bridge. “I ought to wash it.”

  “Let’s talk first, huh?”

  “You’re rougher than you look. I heard about that, too. Maybe I didn’t believe it. You like women too much. Maybe that’s why I didn’t believe it. I don’t know. I can’t figure you.”

  “You want a drink?”

  “It’ll burn. I’m cut in there.”

  “You want it?”

  “Yes.”

  I brought him a jigger and I handed it down to him. I was ready if he wanted to play again. He drank it gulp to the back of the throat. “Thanks. I can stand another one of those.” He stood another one. I went back to the arm of my chair.

  “What’s the play?” he asked.

  “Eleventh Avenue is finished. I’m blowing my top, and I think I can prove it. All of it.”

  “Your arm looks like it’s broken.”

  “Never mind my arm. If you play ball, they figure to close down your joint. But you—maybe you’ll be breathing fresh air.”

  “Otherwise?”

  “Otherwise, you do time. Positively. And they’ll love putting it to you.”

  “How?”

  “You ever hear of accessory after the fact?”

  “What fact?”

  “Murder.”

  “I heard of it.”

  “That’s you, and like that, you’re not going to have much out. And Eleventh Avenue is finished, either way. Do you get it? Think about it.”

  He thought about it while I furnished another drink. He said, “Thanks.” He said it musingly. He said, “Spray some of that seltzer on these.” He handed up his teeth.

  I sprayed seltzer, spoiling my carpet. I gave him back his teeth and he spread his mouth and bit down on them. The gun in my hand had all the utility of pits in a grapefruit. The guy was convinced.

  “I think I see what you mean,” he said.

  “You’re a smart boy, Sweetheart.”

  “I’m a businessman. I know when I’m licked. It’s a good thing, a good thing we made that Atlantic City deal. When do we go, shamus?”

  “We go now.”

  “You talked me into it. Can I get up?”

  “Certainly, Sweetheart.” I helped him off the floor, the gun near him. I said, “In case you’re thinking of angles, most of the information is already spilled.” I was lying, bu
t it didn’t matter. The guy was convinced.

  He had another drink of Scotch, grunted, grimaced. “That arm don’t look so good.” He was proud of that.

  “The hell with it. I’m putting the gun away. Any questions?”

  “It’s your gun.”

  I put the gun away. He helped me on with my jacket. I wore it like a toreador, one arm. “We’ll skip the coat,” I said.

  The doorman blew his whistle for a cab.

  He blew happily. He winked largely.

  Christmas had begun for him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Police headquarters is five stories of piled-up gray stone on Centre Street. At night it looks like a squat office building with the charwomen loose. Windows are yellow lights in disarray. The cabbie said, “Here y’are, gents, the ole bull pen.”

  Parker was a lonesome gnome in a wide, deep lobby.

  Me: a cripple with a smile all teeth.

  Sweetheart: palpitating hope with its pants down.

  “The private eye,” Parker announced, tapping me on the shoulder.

  “Ow.”

  “This a new design for the sharpies?”

  “What?”

  “The way you’re wearing your jacket?”

  “He might have a broken arm,” Sweetheart said. “I think.”

  Parker said, “What’s the matter, Pete?”

  “Who you got here?”

  “What do you mean, who I got here?”

  “I mean, who’ve you got here that’s important?”

  “Me. I’m important, professor.”

  “Have you got something like a deputy commissioner?”

  “I’ve got something better than that. I’ve got the Commissioner himself, came in about twenty minutes ago, sore as a boil about a double shooting on the East Side. I’ve got him, but I don’t have him for you. You’re peanuts, professor.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s where we’re going, though.”

  “Don’t be crazy, Pete.”

  “We’re going, and you’re coming. You know him?” I pointed at Sweetheart. “Sweetheart Vaydelle. Owns El Courvocco.”

  “I know him.”

  “Sweetheart is closing his joint down. He wants to talk to the Commissioner.”

  “The hell he does.”

  “Don’t you, Sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart made a fish mouth, nodding. “The guy is cooking.”

  Parker rubbed an open hand across his cheek. “Look, I don’t mix with the political stuff. Commissioners, deputy commissioners, inspectors—those guys are appointees. Me, I’m a cop that got promoted. I don’t mix with the political stuff. I’ve been around too long. Mr. Vaydelle, if I ever get assigned to a job that’s got something to do with you, I don’t care who the hell you know, I don’t care if it’s the governor of the state, I do my job. But this I don’t get.”

  “As long as we’ve got the Commissioner,” I said, “let’s go see the Commissioner, huh?”

  His office is on the second floor. It is a square big room with a couple of anterooms. The Commissioner is a tall man with a moon face and straight eyes. He’d come all the way up from patrolman. He had no strings. We waited outside; then we were shown in.

  “This man—” Parker began.

  “Which man?”

  “Me,” I said.

  “What is it? Please be brief.” He sat back in the chair behind the neat desk. He puffed his cigar. He looked tired. “This is most unusual.”

  I said, “I wish to accuse your Chief Inspector Sam Kelcey of accepting bribes over a long period. I also wish to accuse him of murder.”

  Dryly the Commissioner said, “You do?”

  Then he did a double take. Subtle. But when he was through he was sitting bent across the desk, impatient hands tapping the wood. The cigar was in an ashtray. He didn’t look tired any more.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Peter Chambers.”

  “What’s your business?”

  “Private detective.”

  He looked at Parker. “You know him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’s not a screwball?”

  “No, sir.” (Parker hoped).

  The Commissioner looked back to me. “Credentials?”

  “Yes, sir.” I showed him.

  “Who’s he?” He pointed at Vaydelle. “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Albert Blake Vaydelle.”

  “Business?”

  “I own—uh—a restaurant.”

  I said, “Have you ever heard of El Courvocco, Commissioner?”

  “No.”

  “I believe that. I think—”

  “Look here.” He stood up behind the desk. “Any more of that kind of lip, mister—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  The Commissioner sat down.

  “Sir,” I began, “I’m not one of those nihilists, or something, that’s going to rant about corruption in high places, that stuff. You’re a big executive, with your hands full, with eighteen thousand men under you. You don’t figure to know about every after-hours joint, no matter how elaborate. You especially don’t figure on this one, when the information gets lopped off by the Chief Inspector Kelcey, who is taking money as the politician in the right spot, and spreading a little of it where it does the most good, and keeping most of it, because there is where it really does the most—”

  “Just a minute. Who owns this—this club?”

  “Mr. Vaydelle. And another gentleman, who doesn’t own it any more because he’s dead. A Mr. John Mikvah.”

  The Commissioner looked at Parker. Parker blinked with the stiff expression of an owl peering at a flashlight. The Commissioner opened a drawer of his desk and took out a thick ream of typewritten sheets. “Is this connected?” he asked of Parker.

  “John Mikvah,” Parker said.

  “Are you ready to swear to this, Mr. Vaydelle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Commissioner slammed his desk drawer. “Lieutenant, do you have any idea of the whereabouts of the Inspector?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Go get him. Consider him under arrest, your custody. The less you say to him about this the better I like it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Parker said with no relish.

  He saluted and he went out and the purple spots began to jump like the air was full of animated buckshot and a buzz-saw went to work in my ears. I heard a dim, “What’s the matter with him?” and the next thing I knew I was full on my back on the couch in the office with a sharp smell in my nose and a strange guy saying, “Dislocation, Commissioner. It should be X-rayed.”

  “Ow,” I said.

  “Take it easy, feller.”

  “Can you fix him up,” the Commissioner said, “here?”

  “Ow,” I said.

  “I might,” the man said. “I’ll give him a shot that’ll freeze off the pain, set it, and immobolize it.”

  “Do that, won’t you?”

  “Ow.”

  I lay there and I waited for the doctor and his needle.

  I heard Sweetheart say, “… yes, sir. He received full fifty per cent of the profits for the past six years…. Yes, sir…. That was the deal when we open the joint…. Yes, sir…. Twenty-five for me, twenty-five for the Mick—and us the guys that’s putting up the money—and fifty for him to cover all the traffic. Like that, we open up, sir…. Yes, sir…. That’s the arrangement…. Yes, sir….”

  I heard the Commissioner’s clear denunciation:

  “The miserable thieving son of a bitch.”

  The doctor came and the prick of the needle was a slow amnesty from pain. My arm was crowbar to his scientific unconcern: it was like another man kissing another man’s wife—you felt you should disapprove, but you simply didn’t feel it. He pasted adhesive across me and he fit my arm into a sling and he helped me put my shirt on. “There,” he said. “You�
�ll see your physician. Temporarily, this will do.”

  “Thanks.” I brought my legs down over the couch.

  Vaydelle was finished talking. The lobes of his nostrils were wax-white and taut.

  The Commissioner’s voice was slow and dry and angry. “Mr. Chambers, I believe I have the initial data on the bribery. Do you feel well enough to talk? What’s wrong with that arm?”

  “Twisted it, sir.”

  “Do you feel well enough to talk?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. What’s the rest of it?”

  “Murder, sir. Three times.”

  Parker came then with Kelcey. Kelcey looked from Parker to Vaydelle to me to the Commissioner. Parker hadn’t talked. Kelcey stood up straight and high, but his face had caught the tone of ashes, ashes and sleet and a dropped-sky day in winter. I talked it up fast, somehow, out of courtesy: “You have the data on the bribery, Commissioner. On the murder, it’s a round robin—Pamela Reeves, John Mikvah, Toby Nottiby.”

  Straight and high. Where another man bent, this one stiffened, but he couldn’t control his color, and the crazy-quick movements of his eyes, and the jump of the twitch-muscles of the jaw.

  The Commissioner spread his hands on the desk. “You’re under arrest, Inspector. Charges to be specified. You will wait in the anteroom, please.”

  Sam Kelcey saluted, turned through the open door on his left. Parker parted his legs in front of the door, a squat triangle of guard with his hands clasped behind him, intent on the gossip but unhappy.

  “Mikvah. John Mikvah,” the Commissioner said. “I’ve read and reread that report. It was absolutely convincing. I cannot see—There was, of course, the one element of dereliction subject for investigation and appropriate corrective measure. The guard Nottiby. But when I learned of his suicide, that sealed it off.”

  I made an arrow of my sling and I pointed with my elbow. I said it loud enough for the man in the anteroom. I challenged denial. “He fell for a girl, Pamela Reeves, and for that you can’t blame him, from what I hear. He fell for this girl. He was the new boy friend—I’m sure you folks made inquiry—he was the new boy friend that so many people knew about without knowing who it was, Mr. Clandestine. She had learned all about him from the Mick, that he was the take-guy. That was during the time she was the Mick’s girl friend, when he told her things. He kept telling her things. He had it strong for that girl. I knew the Mick, and when he went, he went terribly. When she met the take-guy, the Mick was through, but he didn’t know it. She met him, liked him, they got chummy, and then she leeched on to him, in a nice way, but she had him hooked, and he knew it. We can prove it, Commissioner. They had to keep it a secret because of his position in the setup—he didn’t want the Mick getting sore at him—but we can prove it.” I drew the long bow. “The sister, Nancy Reeves, knows all about the affair. Pamela Reeves told her—”