CHAPTER FIVE
The Bloody Shroud
I glanced sidewise at the round, smiling face of Norman Sheridan. A .45 automatic was half-smothered in one doughy hand, and it was leveled at my car.
“Move very carefully, Mr. Moon,” he said softly. “I understand you can draw and fire a pistol with astonishing rapidity, but you can’t possibly do it in the time it takes to press a trigger. If you make any abrupt movements, I won’t wait to decide their purpose. I’ll simply fire.”
I sat still without saying anything.
“Get out slowly, Mr. Moon. Very slowly.”
My hand reached for the door handle in slow motion, and I slid from the car at the same rate of speed.
“Turn around and raise your hands, Mr. Moon.”
I did as directed, and Harry climbed from his seat and removed the P-.38 from my shoulder holster. Sheridan motioned with his pistol, and I preceded him through a side door into the house’s cellar.
Except for the space taken up by a furnace, the entire basement had been converted into a combination office and laboratory. Placed diagonally in one corner was a desk, behind which was a double-width swivel chair. Hanging from the chair’s back was Sheridan’s heavy cane. Around three sides of the basement ran a wide, waist-high shelf on which were screened cages of buzzing insects, Petri dishes, and assorted equipment.
Motioning me to a chair in front of the desk, Sheridan oozed his own vast bulk into the wide chair behind it. He carefully placed the cocked automatic within reach of his hand, leaned forward on his elbows and favored me with a beaming smile. Harry stood in the corner, shuffling from one foot to the other and avoiding my eyes.
“Harry is frightened to death of you, Mr. Moon,” Sheridan said. “Your name induces quite some fear among the lesser criminals.” He chuckled mildly. “I understand they even carefully address you as ‘Mister’ when they meet you, a habit you have unimaginatively inculcated by beating them up when they fail to use the title. Now, I call you ‘Mister’ also, but merely because I prefer to be formal.”
I said: “Before you fall asleep at the sound of your own voice, get to the point.”
For an instant his eyes frosted over, then he smiled again. “Directness is an admirable trait. I won’t keep you in suspense. We’re waiting for a phone call.”
I thought this over without growing any wiser, and tried again. “Any particular reason you want my company?”
He only smiled, so I kept on. “I suppose you wouldn’t have come out in the open like this unless it was urgent to sidetrack me. And since I was headed for a dope peddler, it follows you must not have wanted me to get to him.”
The smile continued, bland and friendly.
“So we come to the riddle of how you knew where I was going,” I said, smiling just as blandly. “And the only sensible answer is that Harry must have phoned you before we left the house. Then, by the process of logical deduction I learned in my correspondence course in private detecting, a number of interesting things follow.” I ticked them off on my fingers for him. “One: Harry is your employee, and his job as chauffeur for Mrs. Rand is only a blind. Two: Joe Alamado is also your employee, or you wouldn’t care whether I got to him or not. Three: you’re the head of the local dope ring.” I stopped and looked at him questioningly.
But all I got was a lot more smile and a deprecating shake of his melon head. “You are wasting your time, Mr. Moon. We are merely waiting for a phone call.”
Suddenly his eyes fixed on a fly which had settled to the desk top in front of him. With instant coordination one hand shot out and cupped the whirring insect. Carefully he worked two fingers of his other hand into his clenched fist until he had the fly’s legs gripped between the thumb and index finger. Then he calmly stripped its wings and dropped it back on the desk to run in drunken circles.
As though there had been no interruption, he said: “I have no intention of answering any of your provocative questions, Mr. Moon. I’m sure I couldn’t think up any explanation for detaining you which would sound more plausible than the one you’ve deduced, so I won’t bother to either affirm or deny your accusations.” He raised a thick index finger and shook it at me. “I never underestimate opponents, Mr. Moon. I have studied your history very carefully, and am fully aware of your talents. You have a bulldog tenacity which I consider much more dangerous to my interests than if you were intelligent. The only way to beat a man like you is to catch him unaware and crush him at once. Like this!” He suddenly slapped his fat palm over the wobbling insect on his desk.
I said: “You flatter me.”
“No. As I say, I have studied your history. I probably know as much about you as you do yourself.”
“For instance?”
Studying me through half-shut eyes, he began to recite: “You were born on the north side in a neighborhood of—ah—lower middle-class families.”
“Lower lower-class,” I said.
He bent his head courteously. “As you please. Your father was an immigrant laborer, and died when you were three. Your mother died when you were seven, and you and your brother and sister were placed in the state orphanage. Both your brother and sister were adopted, but you stayed until you were eighteen, were turned loose with a high school education and became a dock worker. In a rather rough environment, you soon established yourself as pretty nearly the roughest element, and it was about this time that you received the slight brass knuckle disfigurement your face still bears.
“At twenty you won the Golden Gloves tournament, turned professional, fought three setups which you won by knockouts in the first round; then decided to beat up your manager and, in the ensuing investigation by the boxing commission during which you refused to explain your action, were permanently barred from the ring. Just what was your reason?” he asked curiously.
“He bored me. He talked much too much.”
Sheridan smiled benevolently. “Well put, Mr. Moon. I won’t bore you much longer. At twenty-one you went to work for the Jones Detective Agency, stayed with them two years and then opened your own business. You’ve been working alone ever since, with the exception of four years in the Army, and have built an excellent reputation.”
I said: “You certainly went to a lot of trouble.”
“In the Army you became first sergeant of one of the famous Ranger companies, and succeeded in winning the Legion of Merit, the Silver Star twice, the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart and a theater ribbon with a number of campaign stars on it.”
“You forgot the Good Conduct Medal,” I said.
“You also succeeded in losing your right leg.”
“The left,” I said, just to be cantankerous. “Your sources of information must have been lousy.”
He frowned, and a tinge of annoyance was in the frown. “Cover him,” he said to Harry, and watched from the corner of his eye until Harry got my P-.38 leveled at my head.
He heaved himself erect by holding the desk edge in both hands, grasped his cane by the shaft and rounded the desk to bulge over me like an enormous balanced rock. Without speaking, he slammed the heavy crook across my left instep.
If he had not telegraphed the blow, I probably would have shot clear to the ceiling, for the pain was terrific. As it was, even though it felt as though every bone in my foot was broken, I managed a heckling grin.
“You’ll bust your cane,” I said. “That’s aluminum.”
Again he raised the cane and brought it down, this time at my right foot. I jerked back my leg and let the cane head crash to the floor.
“Easy,” I said, not grinning. “That one bruises.”
For a moment he glared down at me, his eyes nearly closed. Then he swung around impatiently and lumbered back to his desk. Leaning back in his oversized swivel chair, he latched hands across his stomach and waited for his color to recede. When it finally did, he revived the benevolen
t smile.
“A minor point,” he said indifferently. “On the whole, my sources of information were excellent.”
Since this seemed to call for no answer, I just sat and looked at him. Sheridan looked backhand a conversational pause built up and lengthened. Then the silence was burst apart as the phone on his desk uttered a shrill peal.
Sheridan’s body jerked and the gun leaped into his hand, pointed at me.
I laughed aloud. “I make a different noise, fatty. That was the phone.”
His smile was a sickly, self-conscious version of the bland original as he laid the automatic back on the desk. Glancing at Harry to make sure I was still covered, he lifted the instrument from its cradle.
“Yes?”
I strained to hear the other voice, but it must have been pitched unusually low, for only a whisper of unintelligible sound trickled past Sheridan’s ear.
“He’s here and under control,” Sheridan said.
A short dribble of sound issued from the received, and Sheridan said: “Delay is unnecessarily risky. Suppose he escapes?”
Again he listened. “Of course he’s under control. But why delay? What’s the point?”
This time the other party talked a long time while Sheridan frowned into space. Then he said: “It will be no harder to dispose of now than when we finally act.”
I had an uncomfortable feeling he was referring to my body, and silently began to root for the other person to win the argument.
“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll meet you in thirty minutes. Usual place.”
He hung up and glowered at me.
“So I get a reprieve?” I said. “Who was my benefactor?”
His expression relaxed into its habitual smile. “Reprieve? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Again placing both hands on the desk edge, he heaved himself upright. “Do you have any rope in the car, Harry?”
“Moon’s got handcuffs in his pocket,” Harry said.
“Mr. Moon, Harry,” I snapped.
Harry wet his lips and shifted his eyes to my feet. Norman Sheridan laughed.
“Harry is being brave, Mr. Moon. Please don’t embarrass him.” He turned his eyes to Harry. “Take his handcuffs.”
Picking up his automatic from the desk top, Sheridan motioned me to rise and turn around. When I complied with his pantomimed directions, Harry reached under my coat and removed the cuffs from my pocket.
I turned back to face Sheridan then, and he swept his gun muzzle toward a stairway and followed behind when I started toward it. In single file, Harry bringing up the rear, we went clear to the second floor and stopped at a closed room.
“Open the door and go in,” Sheridan said.
I obeyed his order and we entered a narrow bedroom containing a single bed, a dresser and one chair. The bed had an old-fashioned iron frame.
“Sit on the bed,” Sheridan directed.
I swung around until I sat straight-legged in the center of the mattress. Sheridan tossed the handcuffs at me.
“Clip one link to the center bed rung.”
I snapped the loop in place.
“Clip the other to your leg.”
Automatically I moved my good leg forward and reached for the cuff. Sheridan’s soft chuckle made me look up.
“You’re a very enterprising man, Mr. Moon. Clamp it to your good leg.”
Keeping my face expressionless, I locked the metal band around the ankle of my false right leg.
Satisfied that I was adequately restrained, Sheridan tucked his automatic beneath his arm, informed Harry that he would be back about dark and went off to consult with his associates. Harry leaned the lone chair against the wall and sat with my P-.38 in his hand, watching me steadily.
Every time I shifted position, Harry raised the pistol and pointed it at me. I noticed that it shook slightly in his hand. “What are you scared of?” I asked.
“I’m not scared of anything.”
“You’re scared silly,” I said. “Relax.” I reached toward my breast pocket for a cigar and the gun came up again. I paused with my fingers touching the cigar.
“Just getting a smoke.”
Brooding, he watched me peel the cellophane, search my pockets for a match and light up. “You’re crazy if you think I’m afraid of you, Moon,” he announced abruptly.
“Mister Moon,” I said.
“Mister Moon,” he amended quickly.
I finished my cigar, yawned, lay back, and went to sleep.
When I awoke, I turned my eyes in Harry’s direction and he immediately centered the pistol muzzle between them. I grinned at him, raised myself to a sitting position and glanced at my wrist watch. It was just noon.
“What’s for lunch?” I asked.
Harry wet his lips and remained silent.
“Don’t I get fed?” I demanded.
“The boss said stay in here with you.”.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “He also said he’d be back about dark. Do we starve?”
“I’m not leaving you out of my sight.”
I shrugged. “Okay. I won’t get any hungrier than you do. But if you went downstairs to rustle something up, how do you think I’d get out of here? Drag this bed through the window?”
Harry wet his lips again, then came over near the bed to lean forward and examine the locked handcuffs, keeping his pistol trained and carefully staying beyond my reach as he looked. With his left hand he reached out and shook the bed rungs to test their strength. He backed to the door, opened it by reaching behind himself and backed out. The door shut and the key turned quickly in the lock.
Rolling up my trouser, I loosened the harness of my false leg, pulled the stump free and swung my knees over the side of the bed. I pushed myself erect, balanced for a moment and hopped over to the wall next to the door. There I patiently waited for the next fifteen.
Finally a key turned in the lock and the door pushed open. Then Harry was standing with his back to me, one hand on the door knob and the other bearing a tray on which rested a plate of sandwiches, two glasses of milk and my cocked pistol. He just stood there staring stupidly at my manacled leg on the bed.
My left arm went about his throat and my right knee raised to his back.
The crash of the tray was immediately followed by the crash of Harry’s body beneath mine as he suddenly went limp, throwing us both off balance. I rolled clear and sat up. Harry had fainted.
It took less time to remove the cuff key from Harry’s pocket, unlock my leg and strap it back where it belonged than it did to revive Harry. And when I finally got him awake, he took one look at me and fainted again.
The second time I threw water in his face, he stayed awake, but he was trembling so badly it took ten more minutes to convince him I wasn’t intending to kill him on the spot. Finally he was in shape to walk, although he stumbled twice going down the stairs.
I opened the garage doors myself, told Harry to get behind the wheel of the Packard, and slid in beside him.
“Four-hundred block on Second Street,” I said.
Harry killed the engine once before he got the car to move, then sideswiped both sides of the driveway in backing out. Normally he was a good driver, but en route to Joe Alamado’s office he killed the engine at every light, clashed gears in starting and nearly had me as much a nervous wreck as himself.
In front of the decrepit building where Alamado kept his office, I clamped one cuff to Harry’s wrist, the other around the steering column, took the car keys and left him to brood over his sins.
The drab reception room of Joe Alamado’s office was empty. I opened the door marked “Private” and found Joe seated behind a cheap desk. He was a squat, narrow-browed man with patent-leather hair slicked back over a nearly flat head. He looked up with a scowl.
I said
: “Hello, Joe. We’ve never met, but you may have heard of me. I’m Manny Moon.”
His eyes turned flat and expressionless.
“Get on your feet,” I said patiently.
For another moment he remained motionless, then he slowly rose and advanced toward the door, one hand casually slipping into his coat pocket. He started to precede me through the door, suddenly twisted to face me, and his right arm flashed upward.
I let him bring his leather sap even with his ears before starting the eight inch jab I had been saving for him all day. It connected perfectly, breaking just at the point of impact. He did a back flip and went to sleep.
* * * *
Harry’s eyes bugged out at me and his face turned yellow when I appeared carrying Joe Alamado like a sack of meal. Opening the rear car door, I dumped Joe in, climbed in beside him and leaned over the back seat to loosen the handcuffs. Then I tossed Harry the car keys.
“Back home,” I said.
Nellie let us in, examined us sharply and went away muttering to herself. Herding my two captives toward the stairway, I spun Joe around, pushed his chest and let him sit down hard on the steps. “Stick out your left wrist,” I said.
Peevishly he held out his arm. I snapped one cuff on it, passed the chain between the railings of the banister and attached Harry to the other end.
“Don’t wander off,” I said, and went on into the drawing room.
Most everyone I expected to find was there: Mrs. Rand, Claude Banner, Dr. Yoder, Alex Carson, Norman Sheridan, Lieutenant Hannegan and, last but not least, Inspector Warren Day.
The moment I walked through the door, Day bellowed: “Where you been, Moon?” and Norman Sheridan’s hand snaked toward his chest.
“You’ll get a hole in your head,” I said coldly, ignoring Day and walking over to Sheridan.
I jerked him to his feet, spun him around until his back was toward me and cramped one fat arm against his spine. With my other hand I removed the .45.
“Cuffs,” I said to Hannegan.
A Shot in the Arm Page 5
