The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933

by Frederick Nebel

  The woman moaned. He went to her and found her sitting up, rubbing her forehead.

  He said in a low tense voice: “Remember—keep your mouth shut! I’m in a lousy spot!”

  Her flat voice said: “What’s the matter?”

  “Some friends of yours.”

  She gripped his arm, choked: “Don’t let them find me! Don’t let them take me! Oh, please—for God’s sake—don’t—”

  “Sh!” His voice, the firm pressure of his hand, silenced her. He could feel her body shaking close to his own. She clung desperately to his arm.

  “Please—don’t let them—”

  His growl was low: “Who do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know—but—please—”

  “Fat chance. You decoy a poor old guy from Texas and he’s lushed and then bumped off—”

  “Please God, I didn’t—”

  “Shut up!”

  HE lifted her to her feet and she was able to stand. But still she clung to him, shaking, biting sobs back of her lips. There were long minutes of silence and the damp chill of the yard reminded Cardigan that he still held her hat and coat. He helped her on with them.

  Suddenly a light sprang to life in the yard. It was above the rear door, a kind of floodlight, and its dazzling radiance sought out and found every dark corner of the yard. Cardigan spun backward, the girl still hanging to his arm. His back stopped against the high wall and he blinked. His gun was frozen in his hand. The girl whimpered. He shoved her behind him, spread himself in front of her.

  A voice said: “You’re covered, guy. Toss that rod away or you and the jane’ll get it. Snappy!”

  The voice came from the ground floor, from one of the windows. But the light blinded him and he could not tell for sure. His mouth dried up and he shook and there were bitterness and anger and a touch of horror in his face.

  He chopped off: “You got me.” He tossed the gun the length of the yard and it rang against the house wall. He did not move. He stood with his big rangy body covering the girl. A bolt clanged and a door opened and there were footfalls in the yard. A shape bulked in the glare of the light, followed by another.

  “Inside, mug.”

  A gun jabbed him. The second figure grabbed the girl and rough-housed her across the yard. She made a choked little outcry. The sound of a hand slapping her face reached Cardigan’s ears—and then her cry.

  “Hey!” he growled.

  “Shut up, you!” the man with the gun said. “In.”

  Cardigan tramped across the yard and was shoved into the hallway. There was a door open on the left. Light poured from it into the hallway and another shove sent Cardigan into a small, shabby room. He saw the janitor unconscious on the floor. A small man in a derby and a tight-fitting blue overcoat was regarding the janitor. The man who had brought Cardigan in was big, bony, hook-nosed. The man who was slapping the girl around the room wore a brown raglan, a floppy gray hat and gray spats. He was too handsome.

  “What about it?” the man in the derby said.

  The hook-nosed man said: “That’s up to Ken.”

  Ken had stopped slapping the girl. She was sitting down, glassy-eyed, sobbing. His eyes flicked to the others, then landed on Cardigan. “See who this bird is.”

  The other two rifled Cardigan’s pocket, and the hook-nosed man said: “Ah, one of them private gumshoes! Ain’t I mortified, though!”

  Ken snapped: “What do you know, fella?”

  “I know I’m in a tight pinch,” Cardigan said.

  “No?” the hook-nosed man laughed.

  Ken had no sense of humor. His eyes jabbed. “What did this jane spring, shamus?”

  “Nothing.”

  The man in the derby put a piece of chewing gum in his mouth. “Ask me, I’d say him and the jane built up a frame. This tomato knows things. He’s in on the ground floor and I got a hunch he’s gonna try talking himself out of this jam. Ask me, I’d say nuts with the waltzaround. It’s open and shut, Ken. We know what we gotta do. Why stall around?”

  “Idea,” the hook-nosed man said. “Rocco talks on the gold standard, and you can’t beat that, Ken.”

  The girl seemed on the point of fainting again. Sitting, her body swayed from side to side, her head lolled. Ken walked over and slapped her face. “Don’t be a monkey,” he snapped irritably.

  The janitor stirred on the floor.

  “How about it, Ken?” the hook-nosed man said. “I know a nice marsh near Hackensack where we can toss him and they won’t find him for days.”

  CARDIGAN drew out a pocket knife, began paring his nails. He kept his eyes lowered, held his elbows close to his sides to keep his hands from shaking.

  He said: “You guys have got me wrong. I never thought there were any guys mixed up in the steer I was on. I figured there was only a woman.” He moved a few steps to the right, working on his nails. “When I heard you knocking on the door upstairs, I thought you were cops. I wanted to pull a fast one on the cops. I was after a shake-down. Why pick on me? I lost. Give me a break.”

  “Don’t that burn me up!” laughed the hook-nosed man.

  Cardigan, back to the wall, crossed his arms, put a hand beneath either armpit. “I’m telling the truth.”

  Ken tossed his chin. “We’ll scram, guys. Hackensack, ‘Hookie’?”

  “Boy, what a spot, Ken!”

  Cardigan moved the fraction of an inch. The steel blade of his knife plunged into the empty light socket in the wall. There was a snick, a spark. The room was plunged into darkness. He had blown out a fuse.

  He flung sidewise, caught up a pot of water that was steaming over a low gas flame. He hurled it. A voice cried out in pain as the hot water splashed. The table crashed over. Glass smashed.

  Cardigan grabbed for the door knob. He missed and reeled, losing his balance. And then he knew that he was in the hall. Someone else had opened the door. Whirling, he collided with a shape that gave, then pressed close to him. He started to spin away.

  “Chief!”

  “Good Lord—”

  “Here’s a gun!”

  It was Pat in the darkness, his number-one aide. He groped and his hand closed over hers, got hold of the gun. He knew the gun—a small one—a .32 Colt automatic.

  “Scram!” he whispered harshly.

  “Chief—”

  “Get out, Pat. These monkeys—” He shoved her down the hall.

  “But, chief—”

  “That jane. I’ve got to get her out—”

  “Where is he?” Ken yelled.

  “You’re asking me!” came the hook-nosed man’s voice.

  Pat cried: “Chief, don’t go in there!”

  He was starting in when a shape crashed against him. He knew it was Tulsa Lee. He caught her with his left hand, shoved her down the hall.

  “Get out of this, Tulsa! Pat, grab her!”

  “O.K., chief!”

  He started in again, reaching out with his left hand, ready to fire his gun as soon as he touched a human body. But a gun flamed in the room. The little .32 was torn from his hand and pain lanced to his shoulder. He cursed and wheeled away as another shot crashed. Wood splintered above his head.

  “Chief!” Pat screamed from the hall door.

  His right arm was numb. He dashed down the hall, snarled: “Get out, Pat, you fool!” She ducked. He reached the doorway and dived through as another shot rang out and shattered glass in the vestibule. He almost fell down the steps.

  Pat cried: “In the car, chief!”

  There was a big sedan standing at the curb. The tonneau door was open, the engine was being raced. He plunged in after Pat and crouched over her to protect her from shots that he knew would come from the doorway.

  The man in front had one hand on the wheel. His other hand was out the window, holding a gun. The car moved off as shapes bunched in the doorway. A dagger of flame came from the top of the stoop. The man at the wheel fired three times. No more shots came from the vestibule. The car gathered speed.
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br />   Cardigan finally slumped to the seat.

  “Who’s at the wheel, chicken?”

  Pat said: “You’ll need a doctor, chief.”

  “Who’s at the wheel?”

  “Mr. Pomano.”

  NEXT morning Cardigan sat in his apartment drinking hot black coffee. Pat was cutting the fried ham on his plate.

  “Afterwards,” he said, “maybe you can shave me.”

  “I’ll send a barber up.”

  He leaned back. He was a little weak, a little haggard, from loss of blood. “Honest, Pat, I was never in such a tough spot in all my life. When that light was turned on me in the yard I thought— No, I didn’t think.”

  “Eat and be quiet,” she said. “I just ran in to see how you were, and I’ve got to run out again.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She pulled up an ottoman and sat down. “Well, when I went into Pomano’s, the first place I went to was the dressing-room. Tulsa Lee was in there. She was very drunk and tumbling around and she was crying and the maid there couldn’t do anything with her. I tried to help. And then I smelled the familiar perfume. I talked to her and—and I did a mean thing. I asked her if she knew Joe Henderson. And you should have seen her. White as a sheet. Then she barged out.

  “I followed. She made a lot of trouble in the place and she talked incoherently. Pomano tried to quiet her but she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Then these three men came up from the bar, got hold of her and took her out. I knew I had a date there with you, but I also knew this was a hot clue. So I left the place, too, and followed them to that house. I was afraid to go in, but I stayed around looking for lights in the windows that would show me what room they had. Then the three men came out.

  “I knew you’d be at Pomano’s, so I called there. I wanted to give you the address. But you weren’t there. I wanted to make sure, so I took a cab to Pomano’s. You had been there. You’d tied Pomano up in a room. He was sore. I talked plainly to him, chief. I had to find you. I told him that I knew this girl was tangled in a murder mess and that I wanted the truth. I told him I’d followed her to that house.

  “He said, ‘Cardigan isn’t here. He grabbed my keys and breezed. He must have tailed down that address too.’ Chief, a change came over Pomano. He almost begged me not to tangle her up in anything. He said she was innocent but mixed up with some heels. He named them. Chief, he was begging for her because he loved her. He said she’d gone soft on Ken Treynor and that Ken and the other two had forced her into a jam.

  “This little old man Joe Henderson was in Pomano’s. He was taken there by a taxi driver. He got in a stud game with Ken and some others and beat them—won a thousand dollars. They tried every trick to fleece him, but didn’t succeed. Then Ken sent Tulsa Lee after him and she found that the old fellow had a big bankroll in cash. He fell for her and told her that he was living under an assumed name at the hotel because a man was looking for him. The man was Gus Tracy. He said Tracy had tried to double-cross him in Mexico on a mining deal. They’d shot it out and Henderson wounded him and beat it—took the money with him.

  “Ken had said he just wanted to know how much Henderson really had, so he could go after him at cards again. But Ken double-crossed Tulsa too. He and the other two got into Henderson’s room—and you know the rest. When Tulsa found out, she turned on Ken—she started drinking like a fool. Pomano tried to stop her. She said she was through with all men.”

  “Is she?”

  Pat stood up, shook her head. “Soft-Shoe Pomano and I decided that you’d actually got a lead of your own and were out to arrest the girl. I’m weak, chief. You should have heard him pleading for her. So he and I piled into a taxi and went to the address—to talk it over with you. And found fireworks.”

  He leaned forward. “But what about all this dough Henderson had?”

  “When you got in the car last night, you didn’t see the man on the floor in front. He’d been sitting at the wheel. It was Ken’s car and there was a bag on the floor with thirty-seven thousand dollars in it. Pomano had knocked out the man at the wheel. And this morning I found out that Henderson has an heir—a shool-teaching daughter in Phoenix, Arizona.”

  He leaned back. “And Tulsa Lee?”

  “Pomano hath not a faint heart. He’s marrying her.”

  Cardigan grabbed the telephone, called a number. “Hello, Soft-Shoe,” he said. “Congratulations. Also, apologies for every little thing. For everything, John…. Who is it? It’s me, you old potato, Cardigan!”

  Doorway to Danger

  Chapter One

  Death of a Senator

  TRAFFIC STREET, in Brookton, is a busy street by day. Cardigan hit it at night. He saw a narrow, winding thoroughfare, deserted, walled in by five and six-story office buildings, with here and there an occasional newer one rising to ten. The winter wind was cold; it droned up the street, over the roof-tops. A few office windows glowed.

  “I guess dis is it,” the taxi driver said.

  The Rails Building was probably one of the oldest. Narrow, five-storied, of an anonymous color somewhere between brown and russet, it stood on the corner of Traffic and Wire. Winds met at the corner, buffeted, slapped Cardigan’s shaggy ulster, his lop-eared hat.

  “Should I hang around?” the driver said.

  “No. You can scram.”

  THE cab went away and Cardigan bent his big body athwart the wind, shouldered into a high wide vestibule—on into a high, dim-lit lobby genteelly clean. There was no directory board. His footfalls made a hollow string of echoes. There was an old cagelike elevator, but it was motionless, locked. There was a recess in the wall boxed in for a distance of four feet from the floor. A drop light glowed in the recess and there were pigeon-holes in back. A small punch-bell stood atop the boxed-in desk, and there was a small sign alongside: “Ring for attendant.”

  Cardigan slapped the plunger with the heel of his hand and the sounds jangled, faded away. He took a few turns up and down the lobby, stopped, listened to the low moan of the wind, returned to the desk and hit the bell again. It jangled, and then died.

  And then Cardigan heard a groan. He pivoted sharply, listened, heard the groan again—a loud groaning sigh. He braced arms atop the desk, jacked himself up and leaned over. On the floor behind the desk lay an old man. Cardigan could see the white hair, and he saw that blood was on the hair.

  He found that the front of the desk swung outward, like a door. He bent down, crept beneath the top and rested on his knees beside the old man. The man wore a faded gray uniform. A uniform cap lay in one corner; gold braid wrote the words “Rails Building” across the front.

  “Hey, pop—”

  He shook the man. Blood lay like a network of veins down one pallid cheek. The old man moaned but did not open his eyes. Cardigan stood up, twisting his lips, squinting. There was a phone on the desk and he grabbed it.

  “Police headquarters.” He waited, leaning over, saying again, “Hey, pop….” But there was no answer. Only a weak groan. Cardigan snapped to the phone: “Headquarters?… Send a man to the Rails Building, Traffic and Wire. The night man here’s been socked and he’s unconscious. Better send an ambulance too.” He dropped the receiver into the hook; it made a loud click in the hollow lobby.

  He stretched long legs about the lobby, found a washroom and returned with a towel, a bucket of water. He made the towel sopping wet and laid it on the old man’s forehead. The staccato sound of a woman’s quick footfalls came to him and he stood up. She was on her way from the front door. She was tall, neatly dressed in dark colors, and seeing him behind the desk she slowed down but did not stop. He thought he saw a wary look jump into her eyes.

  He said: “The old boy was socked—”

  “Oh!” she gasped, and stopped. Then she came toward the desk, bent, looked beneath the top leaf and cried: “Oh—oh, dear!” She rose quickly and her lip trembled, her eyes shimmered as she stared at Cardigan. Then she spun, dashed off. Cardigan heard her shoes drumming rapid
ly up the staircase. He listened until the sounds died away.

  The man on the floor groaned.

  Cardigan started to bend—and stopped. The explosion shook the building, and echoes slam-banged somewhere above. The light in the recess shuddered and almost went out. There was the brittle patter of glass on the sidewalk out front. Cardigan ducked beneath the leaf, skidded on the slippery marble in the lobby.

  The front door whipped open and a cop barged in. “Hey, you!” he shouted.

  Cardigan pointed: “The old guy—”

  “Who are you?” snapped the cop. He was young, hard-eyed, and had his nightstick raised.

  “The old guy needs—”

  “No stallin’—no stallin’! What about that crash?” He waved his nightstick.

  Cardigan grabbed it. “Listen—I’m trying to tell you—”

  “Leggo that stick or I’ll—”

  Cardigan wrestled him to the wall, flattened him against it, said in a loud, earnest voice: “The night man was knocked out. I found him. I called headquarters. I don’t know about the crash and for crying out loud don’t use that locust on me!”

  He let go, ducked back. The cop was red with anger. He took a swing with the club and Cardigan caught the shaft in his gloved hand, wrenched it, tossed it. The club bounced and clicked on the marble floor as the front door whipped open and two plainclothesmen came in. One of them caught up the club and the other, taking long strides, hit Cardigan on the jaw, said: “My name’s Kelsey. What did you say yours was?”

  The cop snarled: “He right away wrastled me against the wall.”

  “Listen to him,” Cardigan said, holding his jaw.

  AN ambulance bell clanged and two men in white coats breezed cheerfully through the door. One said: “Smoke pouring out of a window upstairs—”

  “Smoke!” echoed Kelsey. “There’s a fire then!”

  Cardigan lunged to the wall, picked up a small hammer attached to a chain, broke the glass in a fire-alarm box. The girl appeared from the staircase. She walked stiff-legged and her body, too, was stiff, like a marionette. Her face was gray-white and her eyes stared straight ahead; her lips trembled. Kelsey stopped her. She did not resist but stood trembling all over. And then she began to laugh—at first in fits and starts, jerkily, her lips popping; and then the laughs were more drawn out, a little madder, higher in pitch—becoming, finally, screams, screeches, as she pressed hands to her cheeks.