The Paul Cain Omnibus

by Cain, Paul

  Demetrios turned and closed the window savagely. “I don’t know nothing about it,” he snarled. “I told Lew I didn’t want no part of it. I been in bed since ten o’clock an’ got a witness to prove it. There’s been three phone calls through the switchboard, so the operator knows I was in.”

  Green asked gently: “Told Lew you didn’t want any part of what?”

  “Any part of nothing! Me an’ him was washed up. He’s been screwy for the last week. He thought everybody was trying to double-­cross him.”

  Green purred: “Everybody probably was.”

  Doyle repeated: “Any part of what, Demetrios?”

  Demetrios sat down. “He was tipped off yesterday that Gino an’ Tony were juggling the books. One of Tony’s barbers called him an’ said instead of the syndicate going into the red like it’s supposed to been going the last few weeks, it’s been cleaning up important money. Costain never paid any attention to the business. He didn’t have no head for figures. He furnished the original bankroll an’ trusted Gino an’ Tony to take care of the business.”

  The lieutenant muttered: “Christ! what a character shark! Trusting Gino and Tony!”

  “They were going to take a powder, according to Lew’s info,” Demetrios went on. “Gino was going to shag a boat out of Boston for Havana an’ Tony was going to Florida by rail an’ meet him there. Between them they were supposed to have about four hundred grand. Lew told me about it an’ said he’d made a date to meet both of them at Tony’s at a quarter after one tonight. He wanted me to go along, but I couldn’t see it. It looked like a dumb play. Anyway, me an’ him was washed up and I been in bed since ten o’clock.”

  The lieutenant snapped: “You’re good enough for us, Demetrios, as a material witness. Get on your clothes.”

  “That’s what I get for trying to help you dumb bastards,” Demetrios bleated. He got up and went into the bathroom.

  Green stood up, crossed quietly to Doyle and the lieutenant, whispered: “Don’t pick him up. Tell him to stand by for a call in the morning and let him go. I’ll lay six, two, and even he doesn’t go back to bed, but goes out. We can wait outside and if he doesn’t lead us somewhere I’m a Tasmanian watchmaker.”

  Doyle looked doubtful, but the lieutenant seemed to like the idea.

  He called: “Let it go, Demetrios. But stick around for a call in the morning.”

  Demetrios appeared in the bathroom doorway in his pajamas. He looked a little bewildered.

  “Can I go back to bed?”

  Doyle said: “Sure. Get some sleep. You’ll probably need it. After all, we wouldn’t be getting nowhere in figuring out what this’s all about if it wasn’t for you.”

  Demetrios nodded glumly, went over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  Doyle grunted, “G’night,” and he and Green and the lieutenant filed out.

  Demetrios sat silent for two or three minutes and then got up and went to the door, opened it and looked up and down the hall. Then he closed the door and crossed to the private telephone that stood on the stand beside the bed, beside the regular house phone. He sat down on the bed again and dialed a Schuyler number, said:

  “Hello, honey. Listen. The big news just came through. They found ‘im on the New York Central tracks, uptown. Uh-huh. I guess he left the pinwheel at Tony’s an’ picked up Gino on the Boston train. Only Gino saw him first… . A couple coppers just stopped by an’ told me. They thought I might like to know.”

  He laughed quietly. “Sure, I gave ’em enough so they know he blasted Tony’s. They can figure the rest of it out for themselves. Now, listen. They’re probably waiting for me outside, but I’m going to duck out through the basement.” He glanced at the alarm clock on the dresser. “It’s a quarter of three. I’ll be over there in half an hour at the outside unless they tail me an’ then I’ll have to lose ’em. You throw some things in a bag an’ be ready to leave. We’ll take a little trip. Someplace where it’s cool… . Okay, baby—’Bye.”

  He hung up, dressed swiftly and took a traveling bag out of a closet, began stuffing clothes into it.

  Green’s car was parked on the other side of Broadway, on Seventy-­sixth. He went into an all-night drugstore on the corner and called the Star-Telegram, asked for Kessler.

  Kessler grunted, “Hello,” wearily, snapped out of it when he recognized Green’s voice.

  “Hey, Nick! I just heard somebody took a shot at you,” he yelped. “You all right?”

  “I’m okay. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

  “That’s swell!” Kessler whooped. “Everything’s swell! I just put the Star-Telegram exclusive on Sallust to bed. What a story! It oughta be on the streets in an hour.”

  Green said softly: “Blondie, if you want to keep your job, and keep the Star out of an awful jam, kill it.” Then, before Kessler could answer, he went on: “I just left Demetrios’ apartment. He’s the tall good-looking Greek that worked for Costain. Doyle and his partner are waiting for him to show, to tail him, but I’m afraid he’ll get past them and I have a very merry hunch where he’s going.”

  Kessler interrupted: “But listen, Nick—”

  “You listen.” Green’s tone was ominous. “Hold that story for at least an hour, and leap up to Three thirty-one West Ninetieth with some Law, fast. I’ll be outside, or if I’m not, I’ll be upstairs in Costain’s apartment. Come up, and come quick. This is going to be the payoff on everything that’s happened tonight and it’ll make your Sallust story look like a want ad.”

  “But listen… .” Kessler sounded like he was about to cry.

  Green snapped: “I’m depending on you. Make it fast and make it quiet. And don’t forget to bring along that fifty skins.”

  He hung up the receiver and went out and got into his car, drove to Amsterdam Avenue, up Amsterdam to Eighty-ninth, turned west. He parked just off Riverside Drive on Ninetieth, about a hundred and fifty feet west of the entrance to Three thirty-one.

  Then he lighted a cigarette and sat still and waited.

  The man in the third-floor front room at Three thirty-two didn’t smoke any more; he simply waited, his eyes at the slit under the window shade. Occasionally he leaned back in the big chair, but for only a few seconds at a time and only after ten minutes or so of rigid, wary immobility.

  At four minutes after three someone knocked at the door. He got up and opened it swiftly. Giuseppe Picelli came in; the man went back to the window.

  Picelli sat down, said dully: “Got Solly. Green got away. There was ice… .”

  “There was ice,” the man at the window repeated slowly. “All right, there was ice. How long were they together?”

  “Green came up to Solly—Solly was in his cab. They went into the bar and I called you. Two or three minutes after I came out of the booth, they came out. I went up to them on the sidewalk… .”

  “And there was ice.”

  The man at the window stiffened suddenly, shaded his eyes from the dim light in the room. He peered intently through the slit for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, then stood up and picked up his suit coat and put it on.

  “Come on, Joe. We’re going places,” he said.

  He took a big blue automatic out of the pocket of the tweed Chesterfield and stuck it against his stomach, under the belt, pulled the points of his vest down over it.

  The two men went together out of the room and down two flights of stairs, out of the rooming house and across the street to Three thirty-one.

  The elevator boy stared wide-eyed at the man who had been sitting at the window.

  “Jeeze, Mister Costain,” he stuttered. “I thought—Miss Neilan has been going crazy—calling up the newspapers every few minutes… .”

  Costain did not answer.

  They got off at the fourth floor, went to the door of the front apartment on the right. Costain took a bunch
of keys out of his pocket and unlocked it, opened it. They went in and closed the door.

  June Neilan was a very pretty platinum blonde with wide blue eyes, orange lips that looked as if they had been put on to stay. She turned and stared at Costain and her creamy skin went gray.

  Demetrios’ hand moved swiftly upward across his chest and then he looked at the snub-nosed revolver in Picelli’s hand, changed his mind and dropped his hands to his side, slowly.

  Costain said: “Sit down.”

  June Neilan walked unsteadily to the nearest chair, sat down. Demetrios stood still.

  Costain went to Demetrios and reached inside his coat, jerked a .35 automatic out of a shoulder holster and handed it back to Picelli. Then he doubled up his right fist and swung hard at Demetrios’ jaw. Demetrios moved backward a little and Costain’s fist cut his cheek; two tiny drops of blood started out on the white skin just beneath the cheekbone.

  Costain drew his fist back and swung again; this time his timing was better, there was a soft splat as his fist struck Demetrios’ jaw, Demetrios reeled backward against the wall. Costain went after him, cocked his right again. June Neilan said, “Please don’t, Lew,” dully. Costain’s right fist ripped into Demetrios’ throat, his left smashed his nose. Demetrios made a curious strangling sound and slid sidewise down the wall to the floor.

  Costain was panting, his heavy florid face was purple. He drew his foot back and kicked Demetrios’ face, hard, again and again; it made a soft, smacking sound like someone snapping their fingers in water and Demetrios’ face darkened with glistening deep-red blood. Someone pounded on the door.

  Costain did not seem to hear; he raised his foot and stamped on Demetrios’ face so hard that the bones of the nose and cheek crunched like crumpled paper. Picelli whimpered: “Boss—there’s somebody outside… .”

  Costain did not turn his head; he panted: “Okay—let ’em be outside. I’m busy… .”

  The pounding came on the door again.

  June Neilan was staring at Costain and Demetrios blindly; she jumped up suddenly and ran to the door. Picelli was a split second too late. She turned the lock, the door swung open and Nick Green stood in the opening.

  Costain turned from Demetrios and jerked the big automatic out of his belt, shot twice. June Neilan spun around as if a heavy unseen hand were on her shoulder, twisting her slight body.

  Green felt the sleeve of his coat lift, tear, a hot stab of pain in the outer muscle of his left arm. He shot once from a little above the hip. Costain bent forward slowly as if in an extravagant bow; then he sank to one knee and raised his head, stared vacantly at June Neilan.

  She was holding on to the edge of the door with her two hands. Her eyes went back in her head suddenly and her body folded; she fell.

  Green came forward into the room.

  Picelli was shivering violently and his face looked very pinched and small; his revolver fell to the floor and he raised his hands slowly.

  Costain’s mouth twisted upward a little to a kind of grin, he toppled sidewise and as he struck the floor he straightened his right arm until the muzzle of the big automatic was jammed into Demetrios’ stomach.

  The dark doorway was suddenly crowded with faces, men. Doyle and Kessler and two detectives from the Ninth Precinct Station came into the room. One of the detectives picked up Picelli’s and Demetrios’ guns, the other knelt beside June Neilan.

  Doyle went past Green and stood looking down at Costain. Costain had emptied the big automatic into Demetrios’ stomach; he rolled over and raised his head a little, grinned up at Doyle, then at Green.

  “That was a good job,” he whispered. “That was the best job I’ve ever done… .”

  His head fell back. Doyle stooped over him.

  “He’ll be all right, I think,” Green said slowly. “I tried to shoot him in the leg and in the shoulder… .” He turned to Kessler with a very faraway expression on his face. “I wonder why.”

  The detective kneeling beside June Neilan looked up. “The gal hasn’t got a scratch,” he mumbled. “She bumped her head on the door when she fell but that’s all.”

  Green said: “I guess she fainted. Costain’s a lousy shot.”

  He peeled off his overcoat and his suit coat, sat down and rolled up his shirtsleeve. The wound on the arm was slight, a crease; one of the detectives wrapped a clean handkerchief around it and tied it.

  Kessler was staring blankly at Costain. “I still don’t get it,” he stuttered. “How many times can you kill one guy? Who was the guy they—they found on the tracks?”

  Doyle was at the phone.

  Green smiled at Kessler. “That’d be Gino,” he said. “Picelli tipped Costain that Gino and Tony were running out on him with all the syndicate’s dough. Costain left the ticker at Tony’s and then caught up with Gino on the late Boston train. He probably got the bright idea that if he made it look like he’d been killed he could sneak back to a spot where he could watch the apartment, he might catch Demetrios and his girlfriend in the act.”

  Doyle hung up the receiver and turned to listen.

  “He’s probably been suspicious of them for a week or so,” Green went on. “That was his reason for keeping away from her until Demetrios showed. He planted his things on Gino and tossed him under the train; he wasn’t sure it’d work or how long it’d take for ’em to find what was left of Gino, so he called Picelli and told him to check on it. Picelli checked and sure enough, the report had gone out that Costain’s body had been found. Then all Costain had to do was wait for Demetrios to turn up to break the big news to the girl.”

  Green rolled his shirtsleeve down and got up and put on his coat.

  “Picelli shot Solly Allenberg tonight because Solly drove Costain to the corner of Bleecker and Thompson. That’s about a half block from where Maxie Sillmann lives and Maxie’s the boy who specializes in plain and fancy pineapples. Costain wanted to be sure no one got to Solly because Solly knew a little bit too much about the whole business, and he probably had Picelli watching him. My guess is that Picelli called him back and told him Solly and I were in the bar and that I’d been at Tony’s after the blast, so Costain told Picelli to let both of us have it.”

  Green was looking at Picelli. Picelli nodded slightly.

  Kessler had perked up amazingly; he suddenly dashed for the telephone.

  Green said: “Wait a minute, Blondie. I’ve got a couple of important calls to make.”

  He crossed to the telephone and sat down and called the Receiving Hospital, asked about Solly Allenberg. He waited a minute, then shook his head and whispered, “That’s too bad,” hung up the receiver and looked at Kessler. “I’ll take that fifty, now,” he said softly.

  Sockdolager*

  I’m Finn; thirty-three, white, unmarried, and a professional gambler. By professional I mean up until six or seven years age I was an amateur and turned over most of the money I made—which was plenty—to the bookmakers. That got to be pretty monotonous. I finally broke the monotony by the simple expedient of becoming a bookmaker.

  Late last Fall I came out to California—Los Angeles. It was my first trip but it was just like coming home because practically all my friends were here. I took a big apartment in the Strip on the edge of Hollywood—the Strip is where the speakeasys and class nightclubs used to be when there was still reason to speak easily and when you could tell the difference between a class club and a honkytonk—and listened to propositions. I had a bankroll as big as your thigh.

  I finally picked the proposition that looked best and it turned out to be—to put it modestly—a pip. Fritz Kiernan and I went into partnership and inside of six weeks we had the juiciest play on the Coast. We had two spots, one in the center of Hollywood and one for ladies only in a house in Beverly Hills.

  That Number Two spot was an inspiration. The Santa Anita track had just opened and all Southern Cali
fornia had gone nag-nutty. We got the cream in Number Two; at two o’clock of any afternoon in the week you could stand in the middle of the main room and poke your finger in the eye of anywhere from ten to two dozen picture stars, wives of stars, “cousins” of producers, and just plain rich women. If you think men are natural gamblers you ought to see a lot of gals who can afford it in a bunch. A two grand parlay was chickenfeed.

  We got most of the she class play that didn’t go to the track, and after the track closed for the season about a million new horse players had been made and we had wire service to all the eastern tracks and kept on getting it. Our Number One place was holding its head up, too. The proverbially flourishing green bay tree was a stunted sapling alongside of us; we were rolling in dough.

  Then one night a couple months ago—it was a Friday because I’d been to the regular Friday night fights at the American Legion Stadium—I was sitting in the Brown Derby with two or three of the boys and a waiter brought a phone over and plugged it in and piped: “Mister Kiernan wants to talk to you.”

  I nodded at the girl at the switchboard, said: “Hello.”

  Kiernan’s voice was a shade and a half above a whisper: “Listen, Sean… .”

  He was one of the even half-dozen people who pronounce my name the way it should be pronounced: Shane.

  I listened.

  “I’m out at the house—my house… .”

  I said: “You sound like you were in a coal mine. Stop whispering.”

  There was a meaningless jumble of sound and then: “Somebody took a shot at me… .”

  His voice faded away. I yelled “Fritz” but there wasn’t any answer. The phone hadn’t clicked off so I didn’t waste time trying to call him back. I was out of the Derby in nothing flat, roaring out Sunset Boulevard.

  He lived to hell and gone out in Bel-Air. I took all the shortcuts I could remember and made sixteen cylinders do even better than the salesman had promised but it took the best part of half an hour.

  The house was all by itself on a private road about a quarter of a mile off the main highway. I pulled up and snapped off my headlights and took the front steps in one jump. The front door was partway open. There was a big tanned athletic looking gent in a light camel’s hair coat lying on his back just inside; his eyes were wide open and one of his legs was sticking out through the doorway. There was a bullet hole in the middle of his chest, high. I’d never seen him before. I stepped over him and went across to Fritz.