Death on the Waterfront

by Robert Archer

  “Ten minutes.”

  “What a dame,” said Doc mockingly. “Make a guy out a liar for ten minutes. You ain’t mad, are you, honey?”

  Kate’s mouth curved in a smile. “Get away from that door and go to bed,” she called sleepily.

  “All right, it’s your loss,” said Doc. “I’m going.”

  She heard his step move away from the door and mount the hall stairs to his room. She turned out the light and rolled herself into a ball, still chilled, and tried to go back to sleep. Her room was at the rear of the house, but tonight every noise seemed just outside the open window. Ordinarily they didn’t disturb her, but now for some reason, it seemed that every sound was magnified. She heard every automobile as clearly as though it were passing through the room itself. She dozed and wakened, dozed and wakened but she must have slept longer than it seemed, for when the doorbell rang again the hands of the clock pointed to two.

  This time she wrapped herself in a dressing gown and opened her door to peer out into the hall. The broad form with the rocky Irish face, striding toward her, had “cop” written all over it.

  “Sorry to bother ya, ma’am,” said the cop when he saw her. “Police business.”

  “Police business,” mimicked Kate. “Does that give you a license to wake people up at this unholy hour? There’s no fly-by-nights in this rooming house.”

  “Sorry,” said the cop stolidly. “Yah got a man here name of’—he consulted a slip of paper—“Doc Painter?”

  “Never heard of him, Lieutenant,” said Kate.

  The cop looked disgusted. “Look, lady, that’s no help. I got his address and his description. Now, do you tell me where his room is, or do I call in the boys and rout out the whole house? Suit yourself.”

  “You win,” said Kate. “Second floor, first door on the right. What’s Doc done?”

  “What time’d he come in?” the cop countered.

  “Twelve o’clock.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The big bum woke me up ringin’ the bell, that’s how.”

  “Ummmmm.” The cop scratched his ear. “You swear to that?”

  “Look, Lieutenant,” said Kate. “I wouldn’t swear to my own name without knowing what the score was. What do you want him for?”

  “Questioning. A union buddy of his was murdered tonight.”

  Kate caught her breath. “Murdered! Ain’t that something? Well, if Doc did it he did it before twelve o’clock. That’s the time he came home.” A thought occurred to her, and her eyes narrowed. “Unless he sneaked out and bumped the guy after I seen him.”

  The cop’s eyes were on the v of the dressing gown where it had fallen open at the front, and his mind wasn’t entirely on his work. “That’s no good, sister,” he said absently. “This guy was bumped right around twelve o’clock.”

  Kate pulled the dressing gown together and smiled gently. “Thanks,” she said. “Now, will you remove the body and let me get some sleep?”

  The cop’s face screwed itself into a comical expression of disgust. “You’re pretty smart, ain’t you?” he growled. “I got orders to take your friend Doc down to the precinct house. I think you better come along.”

  Kate said, “You got another think coming, flatfoot,” and slammed the door. She went back to bed and presently she heard the cop go upstairs and rap on Doc’s door. She listened to their muffled voices and then to their feet clumping down the stairs and out to the street.

  The plain-clothes man consulted a small red notebook. “Bay Street,” he said, “number nineteen.”

  As the car pulled away from the curb Doc said, “You got a crust dragging me out of bed this way. I gotta go to work in the morning, but you wouldn’t know about that.”

  “That’s too bad,” said one of the cops. “Do you think we enjoy riding around town picking up you lugs?”

  Doc grunted. “Where’d you get that?” He gestured toward the red notebook.

  “Out of a desk in your Union Hall. Nice of you to keep all your addresses handy that way.”

  Painter twisted nervously on his seat. “Give me the low-down,” he asked. “What’s this all about?”

  “You wouldn’t know, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”

  “You might.” The cop leaned back in the corner of the car, his hat tilted forward over his eyes. “Take it easy, fellow,” he advised. “The captain’ll tell you all about it.”

  Painter scowled and gave up trying to pump the cop. There was no further conversation until the car pulled up in front of the second address. The plain-clothes man got out. “I’ll be down in a jiffy,” he told the driver.

  “Ain’t you worried I might take a powder?” asked Painter.

  Both cops laughed. ‘You wouldn’t get far,” said the plain-clothes man.

  He was gone about ten minutes. When he came back Melius was with him.

  Melius climbed into the car pretty fast for a big man. He acted mad. He saw Painter and seemed somewhat mollified. “So they routed you out, too, did they, Doc?” he said. “Did they tell you what it was all about?”

  The plain-clothes man got into the car and wedged his bulk between the two. “You guys pipe down,” he said. “You can talk all you want when you get to the station house.”

  “You can’t do this,” said Melius. “We’ve got some rights.”

  “Want to make something of them, fat?” asked the cop. Melius began to splutter, and Painter said dryly, “Shut up, Jim. Squawking won’t get you anything.”

  They went up the steps of the precinct house, past the desk, and into a small room in the rear. There was a row of chairs along the wall, and the plain-clothes man jerked his head. “Sit over there. I’ll see if the captain’s ready for you.”

  He went through a door into a larger room where there was a desk and some chairs and a row of steel filing cabinets against one wall. Captain Nicholson of the Homicide squad sat behind the desk, and Whitey Gordon was seated alongside of it. At a small table in a corner sat a police stenographer. Stern, the special labor-rackets man from the D. A.’s office was bending down in front of the filing cases, squinting at the labels through thick hornrimmed glasses. He did not seem to be interested in the conversation going on at the desk.

  “Them two other guys are here, Cap,” announced the cop. “Which two?”

  “Guy named Painter and another one named Melius—the ones you sent us after.”

  “How about one named Burke?”

  “We went after him first. He wasn’t home.”

  “Oh.” Nicholson held a pencil in his hand, and he pointed it at Gordon. “That makes five out of seven,” he snapped. “We can’t find Burke and we still don’t know where Jackson lives—but you do. Are you going to tell us, or do I hold you till we find him?”

  “I guess you’ll have to hold me, Cap,” said Gordon. “I already told you I don’t know where Jack flops.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Gordon said nothing.

  “I’ve got a good notion to go to work on you,” said Nicholson. “The way this thing is shaping up, it begins to look like your pal Jackson is the bird we want, and you could be in it with him. Are you going to talk or not?”

  “I’ve talked,” said Gordon. “You wouldn’t try to scare me, would you, Captain?”

  Nicholson threw the pencil down on the desk top. “Take him out of here,” he said to the plain-clothes cop. “Put him with the Negro and the other one and keep an eye on them. Then bring me one of those other sons, and we’ll find out how their stories click.” Gordon got up and walked out of the room in front of the plainclothes man. Stern looked around and grinned at the longshoreman’s back. “Kind of got under your skin, didn’t he?”

  “What the hell are you doing, checking up on how the precinct keeps its files?”

  Stern left the files and came over and sat down by the desk. “I just lost interest,” he said. “There isn’t enough to go on yet.”

  “We got
this.” Nicholson tapped a typewritten piece of flimsy paper that lay on the desk in front of him. “Finding this on the murdered man makes it look like he was a spy in the union. It gives us a swell motive for the killing. This thing is going to be a cinch once we get the whole story, and I’ll get it out of these babies before the night is over.”

  “You’ve grilled three of them so far,” Stern pointed out, “and about all we’ve got is an alibi for all three covering the time of the murder.”

  Nicholson snorted. “Grilled? Why, I was gentle as a lamb. You have to really go to town on these cases to get anything. Let a couple of the boys take ‘em one at a time——”

  Stern shook his head. “Any rough stuff, and you’re on your own. I won’t be a party to it, and my chief’ll back me up. Besides, anything you got would be repudiated later on and just mess things up “....

  Nicholson cursed bitterly. “Politics! Politics! How the hell am I going to get anywhere?” He waggled a finger at the representative of the district attorney’s office. “That Negro and the Italian are dumbing up. They know plenty they haven’t spilled—both of them. And that little towhead Gordon is a smart guy if I ever saw one. You can’t handle that type of suspect with gloves.”

  “You can’t manhandle them either,” said Stern. “Not with the labor vote as strong as it is in this town.” He grinned at the police captain. “The good old days are gone, my friend.”

  Nicholson opened his mouth to retort but was interrupted by the opening of the door. The plain-clothes man came in, followed by Melius.

  Melius waddled up to the desk. “What’s this all about?” he asked belligerently. “The police can’t get away with dragging people out of bed this way. What do you think this is—Germany?” Nicholson reddened and controlled himself with a visible effort. “You have a right to know why you’re here,” he said. “A man’s been killed—murdered. We have reason to believe that you can give us vital information. The man’s name was Riorden. He was a member of your union.”

  “Riorden!” Either the news came to the fat man as a complete surprise, or he was doing an excellent job of simulating. “Poor old Pop. Who did it? When did it happen?”

  “Sit down.” Nicholson indicated the chair beside the desk. “I’ll ask the questions if you don’t mind. When did you last see Riorden?”

  “Why, around eleven-thirty, I guess. We had a drink in Danny’s Bar.”

  “And before that?”

  “There was a meeting at the hall from about eight-thirty to eleven o’clock. Both Riorden and myself were present.” Nicholson read a list of names from a notebook. “Are those the other men who were present?”

  Melius bobbed his head.

  “Now.” Nicholson closed the notebook. “Tell us what took place at that meeting.”

  Melius hesitated. “Why, nothing special,” he said finally. “Just union business.”

  Nicholson frowned. “Did Riorden quarrel with anyone?”

  “Well—yes. There were a couple of words.”

  “What about?”

  Melius looked up. He gave the impression of a man who had suddenly made up his mind. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “Pop Riorden was a good union man and a good friend. He was killed trying to expose a stool pigeon. I’ll help any way I can to find the skunk who did it.”

  “That’s fine,” said Nicholson. “Suppose you tell us what happened from the beginning.”

  Melius launched into the story of the meeting and the stenographer’s pencil raced. Nicholson and Stern listened with growing interest. When the story was finished Nicholson had a gleam in his eye that said he had made up his mind. He pushed the typewritten sheet across the desk.

  “Is this the spy report?”

  Melius looked at the paper, and his eyes widened with surprise. “Where’d you get this?”

  “According to your story Jackson had it last,” said Nicholson. “That right?”

  Melius gulped. “That’s right,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Nicholson.

  Melius looked a little bewildered. “You want to ask me any more questions?”

  “A couple,” said Nicholson. “Where’d you go when you left the bar?”

  Melius’ eyes shifted. “I met Doc Painter,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “The White Horse, over on Eighth Avenue. We had some union business.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Couple hours. I left around one o’clock. The bartender’ll tell you.”

  “We’ll ask him,” said Nicholson dryly. “What about Painter? What time’d he leave?”

  “Before I did. About an hour.”

  “Around twelve?”

  “Something like that. I didn’t notice exactly.”

  Nicholson pushed himself back from the desk. “That’s all,” he said. “We’ll check your alibi and if it’s straight we won’t bother you again. Thanks.”

  He went to the door with Melius and called to the plain-clothes man. “Send in the other one, Joe. And let this fellow go home.” Joe came over and said in a low voice, “How about the three downstairs? That little fellow is kickin’ up a stink.”

  “Might as well let them go too,” said Nicholson. “No, wait a minute. Let the other two go and hold Gordon till daylight. Then turn him loose with a tail on him. Maybe he’ll lead us to his pal.”

  “Right.”

  Nicholson held the door open and closed it after Painter. He walked around the tall man and sat down again at the desk. Painter dropped into a chair without being told and waited silently. He seemed perfectly at home.

  “Just one or two questions, Mr. Painter,” said Nicholson. “I think we’ve got this thing pretty well straightened out.”

  “How bad is it?” asked Painter.

  “How bad is what?”

  “Whatever happened.”

  “You wouldn’t know what happened?”

  “I could guess but I’d rather not. I suppose Fat told you about the union row.”

  The last was more a statement than a question. Painter had a quizzical smile, as though he were enjoying himself.

  “Let’s hear your story of the row,” said Nicholson.

  “Go fly a kite,” said Painter pleasantly. “I don’t talk out of school.”

  Stern intervened suddenly. “How did you know Riorden was dead?” he asked.

  “Dead?” Painter’s eyes widened, and the smile left his face. “So it’s really tough, is it?”

  “You bet your life it’s tough,” said Nicholson. “Riorden’s dead—murdered. And all the evidence points to one of you guys that was at the union meeting.”

  “When was he bumped?”

  “Let’s hear your story first. When did you see him last?”

  “On the street in front of the meeting. Just after it was over. Around eleven o’clock, I guess.”

  “Where did you go from there?”

  “To a bar on Eighth Avenue. I met Melius there. He probably told you.”

  “What time did you leave the bar?”

  “About a quarter to twelve. It must have been about then because I got home at twelve o’clock.”

  “Anyone see you come in?”

  “Your stooge talked to my landlady when she let him in, didn’t he? She knows what time I came in because she saw me.” Nicholson got up and went into the small room, closing the door after him. Painter lifted an eyebrow at Stern. “If you’ve got the guy who did it,” he said, “I’d like to spit in his eye. There were a lot of worse guys than old Pop in the world.”

  “We haven’t got him,” said Stern. “How did you know you were going to need an alibi?”

  “Have I got one?”

  “If your landlady’s story is on the level you have.”

  “Thanks.” Painter stretched out his long legs. “I’m just lucky, I guess.”

  Nicholson came back into the room. He carried a bulky package wrapped in newspaper, and there was a light of triumph in his eyes.

  �
�You’re clean on that alibi,” he told Painter. “But wait a minute. I want you to do one thing for me before you go.”

  “Yeah?” said Painter suspiciously. “What?”

  “Identify this.” Nicholson reached into the folds of newspaper and drew out a longshoreman’s cargo hook. There were traces of red-brown stain on the wooden handle and long, wickedly curving steel shank.

  Painter looked at the hook. “Those things are all pretty much alike,” he said. “I don’t see how anyone could tell one from another.”

  “You can if it has an initial on it, can’t you?” Nicholson held up the blunt end of the wooden handle for Painter’s inspection. “Ever see that before?”

  Painter drew a deep breath. “J might stand for a lot of things.”

  “Don’t stall,” snapped Nicholson. “I already got an identification. All I want from you is confirmation.”

  “All right,” said Painter. “It won’t be difficult for you to find out anyway. That’s an old hook of Jackson’s. He had it around the union office.”

  Nicholson rarely smiled. Now he bared his teeth wolfishly. “That just about clinches it. I want this Jackson. Where is he?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You know where he lives.”

  “Not me.” Painter shook his head emphatically. “When Fink Weller moved out of the union and over across the river he promised Jackson he’d come back and give him a one-way ride. Since then Jackson watches his step. Weller wasn’t kidding.”

  Nicholson glared at Painter and Painter met the stare with quizzically lifted eyebrows. Finally Nicholson jerked his head toward the door. “On your way,” he said.

  Painter went out. Nicholson turned to Stern. “Jackson’s our man. We’ll have this thing cleaned up in no time.”

  “I hope so.” Stern came over to the desk and lifted a corner of the newspaper package. “What else you got here?”

  “Monkey suit.” Nicholson unwrapped the package and disclosed a brown coverall garment. “The boys just brought it in. The guy wore it to avoid getting blood on his clothes. Then he stuffed it in the nearest garbage can.” He spread out the garment and indicated dark splotches on the front and others on the knees and sleeves.

  Stern turned the garment over. A legend in red letters on the back read: “Overland Garage.” The little lawyer pursed his lips. “Did the boys check with the garage people?”