Death on the Waterfront

by Robert Archer

  Sergeant Tripp said, “Holy smoke,” and regarded the doctor with popping eyes.

  Jackson started to speak, then changed his mind. His eyes were amused, but his mouth was a firm, straight line. He had few liberalistic illusions and felt that anything he said now would be merely grandstanding. The main thing was to avoid a pinch, and the doc’s way seemed to be as good as any.

  Nicholson was tapping a pencil irritably on the desk top while he regarded Dr. Stevenson with mingled exasperation and respect. Finally he lifted his shoulders slightly. “Okay,” he said. “Suppose we leave it like that, shall we, Doctor? But remember, Jackson has to be on call any time, day or night, if I want him.”

  The doctor nodded and smiled a frank, pleasant smile that lighted up his old face like sunlight on snow. The two men rose and shook hands, and the girl and her uncle moved toward the door. At a word from the old man Jackson smiled thinly at Nicholson and followed obediently. Stern walked to the door where he talked for a moment before saying good-by. As Jackson passed him the assistant D. A. spoke to him in a low tone, and Jackson paused and looked surprised. Then he nodded curtly and went out, closing the door after him. Stern, his face bland and expressionless, strolled back to the chair he had occupied and sat down.

  “Well,” exploded Nicholson. “What the hell do we do now?”

  “Check alibis on this second kill,” suggested Stern.

  “Sure, we’ll do that, but where will it get us? We’re checking background on those union guys, and something may turn up there, but I doubt it. I’ve got a tail on every one of them, but the man we want will watch his step from now on. He’s got away with murder and he knows it. Burke’s still missing, and that butler’s description sounds enough like him to make me interested, but after this Jackson business I wouldn’t be surprised if Burke turns up with the president of the Federation of Churches for a bodyguard. Damn a liberal administration anyway.”

  “Don’t let it get you down, Cap,” said Tripp solicitously.

  “Shut your trap. Haven’t you got anything to do?”

  “Who, me? Oh, yes sir, sure I have. I just thought——”

  Nicholson started to get up, but the sergeant was already out the door. Stern laughed. “Don’t let it get you down, Cap,” he mimicked.

  Nicholson glared at him. “If it wasn’t for you...”

  Stern continued to laugh, and the police captain threw up his hands in disgust. “What’s the use?” he moaned. He settled back in his chair and began searching his vest pockets abstractedly for a cigar.

  Stern became serious. He lit a cigarette and got up and took his hat from the rack. “I’d like to stay and chin the case over with you but I’ve got a date. There’s just one favor I’d like to ask though”—he paused until Nicholson’s head came up and then continued—“put two good men on our little pal, Nellie C., and tell ‘em to keep their eyes peeled.”

  “I’ve got two men on her now but I’m damned if I know what for,” said Nicholson angrily. “You think she bumped that guy in the truck?”

  Stern didn’t smile. “No, and I’m not worrying about Murdock’s ten grand either,” he said somewhat cryptically. He stood looking at Nicholson for another minute, then turned on his heel and went out the door.

  3. Hunches

  Stern found Jackson in a back booth of the little restaurant across the street from headquarters. He sat down, and they stared critically at each other.

  Finally Jackson asked, “Is this a gag?”

  “Uh-uh.” The expressionless eyes met Jackson’s level gaze. A waitress appeared at the open end of the booth and spread menus with a professional flourish. “Better order first,” said Stern. “The steak’s okay.”

  Jackson realized that he was hungry enough to eat a whole cow. He glanced at the menu.

  “Stew,” he told the waitress, “and a side of potato pancakes.”

  “What then?” he asked when the waitress had gone.

  Stern made a face. “Potato pancakes,” he groaned, “in a joint like this. They don’t know how to make them. Oh well.” He grinned at Jackson. “I just thought it’d be a good thing for us to compare notes. We both want the same thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “The guy who did these killings—quick.”

  Jackson’s lip curled. “That’s me, according to your pal, the flatfoot.”

  “Look at it Nicholson’s way,” Stern said. “He don’-know-from-nothin’. He puts two and two together just like any cop—and he ‘ gets you.”

  “And you get something else?”

  “You’re too obvious. All that’s lacking is a picture of you doing the killing. The world’s biggest dope couldn’t frame himself so completely, and I don’t think you’re a dope.”

  Jackson extended the tips of his fingers to his bandaged head in an ironical salute.

  The waitress came with their orders, and Jackson waited until she was gone. “Maybe I figured it that way,” he said then. “I read a book once——”

  “Nicholson didn’t read it,” Stern pointed out. “You didn’t fool him.”

  Some of the hardness went out of Jackson’s eyes. “He’s even smarter than I am. He can figure two and two.”

  “Look.” Stern gestured with his fork. “Dr. Stevenson and his niece don’t believe you did it. That’s good enough for me.”

  “I’m not so sure about the niece,” said Jackson. “The doc’s a nice old liberal who believes in Santa Claus. You’re different. You’re the law.”

  A familiar feminine voice said, “That’s tellin’ him, stevedore,” and the two men looked up to see Maeve O’Callighan standing in the entrance to the booth. They both jumped up, and Jackson choked on a mouthful of stew.

  Stern said, “Blackie! What in the name of common sense are you doing here?”

  “Move over.” Blackie sat down primly, adjusted gloves and purse on the seat beside her, and unbuttoned her smart heather-tweed sports coat. She wiggled a little to settle herself comfortably in the seat and smiled up at the waitress who came to take her order. “I’ll have stew too,” she ordered. “It looks delicious. And English muffins and coffee now, please.”

  Having solved the food problem, she turned her attention to the two men. “It’s lucky I have good ears,” she told Stern severely. “The minute I heard you tell Mr. Jackson to meet you here I knew I’d have to do something about it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Joey Stern, trying to pump a man that’s been all battered up. Just wait till I tell Nunky about this. He was furious because Mr. Jackson wouldn’t go to the hospital with him.”

  Stern said, “Honest, Blackie, you got me wrong. I’m on his side. I don’t think he did it any more than your uncle does.”

  Maeve’s eyes danced, and a devastating dimple appeared in her smooth cheek. “Cross your heart,” she commanded.

  Stern solemnly executed the required gesture.

  The girl sighed, and the dimple blossomed into a roguish grin that wrinkled her nose.

  “Then that’s all right,” she told Jackson. “Mr. Stern is a lawyer, but he wouldn’t lie to me. If he says he’s on our side he is. Now you two men go ahead and talk, and I’ll eat and listen. I want to find out how you’re going to catch the murderer.”

  Problem number two having been settled to her satisfaction, Maeve veiled her eyes demurely with her long lashes and began buttering a muffin. Jackson stared at the bobbing feather atop the silly little hat and tried desperately to regain his equilibrium. He had never known a girl who threw him so completely out of gear; before he had thought her candid and efficient and a little hard-boiled; now she was scatterbrained and positively kittenish. He didn’t know what to make of her, but she was certainly good to look at. He pulled one ear abstractedly and muttered under his breath, “Well, I’ll be——”

  “Me too,” said Stern with a grin.

  Jackson tore his eyes away from the red feather and met the grin. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and he said sheepishly, “I guess we got o
ur orders. You go ahead and talk.”

  “Uh-uh,” demurred Stern. “You first. Tell me what you think about the case.”

  “Me?” Jackson pushed his plate aside. He avoided Stern’s eyes. “I’m no dick.”

  “My God,” Stern snapped, “if you’re going to be like that we’ll never get anywhere. You know more about this business than any headquarters flatfoot ever will. You know your union. You know the men in it and those you trust and those you don’t. You know stool pigeons and how they work. You’ve been racking your brain every waking minute since this thing broke, trying to figure out who the rat is. Or maybe you knew right off the bat. Is that why you headed for Murdock this morning?”

  Jackson looked up. There were little stubborn lines around his mouth, but he met Stern’s eyes squarely. “There you’re wrong,” he said. “I didn’t know but I knew Murdock did and I was going to find out if I had to choke it out of him.”

  “And someone beat you to it. That someone is the rat who killed Riorden, and he killed Murdock, either because he was afraid Murdock was going to turn him in or because they quarreled over the pay-off.”

  Stern took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He offered it to Maeve who refused and then held it out toward Jackson. When Jackson took the cigarette Stern asked, “Who was it?”

  Jackson scowled at him. “If I knew do you think I’d be sitting here horsing around with you?”

  “But you’ve got a damn strong suspicion. Who do you think it was?”

  “You don’t think about things like that,” Jackson told him. “You either know or you don’t.”

  “But you said you did know, Mr. Jackson,” Maeve interposed brightly. “In the car, remember?”

  Jackson’s eyes flared at her momentarily, then lowered. He wanted to tell this little squirt in the red hat to go home and mind her own business, but the words wouldn’t come. He said nothing.

  “I thought so,” murmured Stern softly. “Just what did the big lug say, Maeve?”

  “Why, that he knew who the stool pigeon was. That’s the same as knowing the murderer, isn’t it?” Her eyes widened wonderingly on Jackson. “Why don’t you tell Mr. Stern?” she asked severely.

  Jackson turned on her almost savagely. “Because I don’t know. Because I can’t prove anything—yet.”

  “But you said you did know before.”

  “Call it a brain storm,” he said. “I was groggy from those cracks on the head.”

  “All right,” Stern said. “Skip it. Tell me this. Who was in that car that ran you and your pal off the road?”

  Jackson looked relieved. “Moe Silver I think,” he answered. “There was another mug with him, but I didn’t see who it was.”

  “Who’s Moe Silver?”

  “A little rat that we ran out of the union at the same time as Fink Weller.”

  “What was it all about? I’ve got a hunch but I want to hear you tell it.”

  “Murdock had several reasons for not wanting to see me this morning. I got out on a limb when I called the butler but I had fixed it so he wouldn’t call the cops and I didn’t think he’d try any private rough stuff. I was wrong. I don’t know whether Murdock engineered the frame on me or whether he even knew about it but I’m certain he and Weller were cooking up a kettle of fish that would taste a lot better with me out of the way for a few days—or maybe he just didn’t want me blabbing to the tabloids about the love nest.”

  “Do you think they meant to kill you?” asked Maeve.

  Jackson shook his head.

  “I wasn’t sure at first but now I think it’s likely they’d have given me a shot of dope or filled me full of liquor and dumped me on an outgoing freight as soon as it got dark. By the time I came to or the cops found me it’d look like I was running away, and then whatever I said wouldn’t make much difference.”

  “Oh,” gasped Maeve, her eyes round, “that’s the most beastly thing I ever heard. Nunky says they used to do things like that to union men out West, but I didn’t think they’d dare try it here. And if they tried it once what’s to prevent their doing it again?”

  “You forget Murdock’s dead,” said Stern.

  Jackson reddened. “I guess I’m safe enough now, Miss O’Callighan. It’s just barely possible that Weller might try something, especially if Moe Silver thinks I spotted him this morning, but I don’t think they’re that desperate and, anyway, they know I’d be ready for them this time.”

  “Could it have been Moe Silver or his friend who put that cord around Murdock’s neck?” asked Stern.

  “Could have been,” said Jackson thoughtfully, “but I don’t think so. Those two were acting under orders, and if they’d showed at Murdock’s they’d have had some tall explaining to do. Murdock would have been suspicious, and they wouldn’t have had a chance to try anything funny. Besides, from the newspaper story I read, it doesn’t look like their kind of a job.”

  “How about Burke?”

  Jackson smiled and shook his head.

  “Oh, for crying in the rain, we’re not going to get anywhere this way,” Stern raged. “You suspect someone. Who is it? What’s your hunch? Come on, man, spill it.”

  “Nope.” Jackson wagged his head mulishly. “I’ll admit I’ve got a hunch but I’m not sure.”

  “When you are sure will you tell the police?”

  “Yes, I’ll tell ‘em.”

  “And they can have what’s left of him. Is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Jackson carefully.

  “No, but that’s what you meant.” Stern groaned in exasperation. “Good lord, man, don’t you realize this is murder?”

  “Sure,” said Jackson. His jaw tightened. “Murderers aren’t the worst criminals. Some murderers are pretty decent, but I’ve never known a stool pigeon that was.”

  Stern said to Maeve: “You see what we’re up against. He’s sore and bullheaded. He thinks he knows who the murderer is, and when he finds out for sure the poor fellow will have a terrible accident. Then he’ll tell the cops, and they can pick up the pieces if they can find any. Boy, I hate to think what Nicholson would do if he heard about this.”

  “You’re a strange lawyer,” said Jackson.

  “Yes, isn’t he?” Maeve patted Stern’s hand. “It’s nice to know that you two boys agree. I think it’s a marvelous idea for Mr. Jackson to play nemesis. I’m sure the murderer would rather be caught by the police. I know if it were I, I’d come in and give myself up.”

  “Jackson threw back his head and laughed uproariously. It was the first time either of his companions had heard him laugh like that and it was contagious. Maeve trilled in appreciation, and even Stern could not suppress a responsive chuckle.

  “There, you see,” said Maeve.

  “Uh-huh,” said Stern. “I see, all right. I see you two are going to be a lot of help. Now, suppose you stop acting like a spoiled brat, Blackie, and you, Jackson, get this through your head. There’s a murderer loose who has killed twice and will kill again at the drop of a hat, and once he gets the idea you’ve spotted him you’ll be next on his list——”

  “Not me,” Jackson interrupted. “I’ll be watching him every minute.”

  “Let’s hope you’re watching the right guy,” snapped Stern. “And even if you are there are others beside yourself in danger. If you’ll start using your head you’ll see that.”

  “I’m sorry, Joey,” said Maeve contritely. “Of course you’re right. I’ll grow up and be good.”

  “Thanks.” Stern smiled at her. He turned to Jackson. “How about some cooperation from you?”

  Jackson was noncommittal. “What do you want?”

  “I want to find Burke.”

  “You think he’s the murderer?”

  “I don’t think anything. The butler described a guy that sounded like Burke. Burke’s sister was playing house with Murdock, and Burke didn’t like it. Burke disappeared. I want to find him.”

  “How do you think I can find him when the cop
s can’t?” asked Jackson.

  “I don’t know. Can you find him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Maeve.

  “You can’t come,” said Stern.

  Jackson shook his head at her.

  “Now who’s being childish?” asked Maeve.

  “Seriously,” said Jackson, “if I agree to look for Burke it means combing half the dives in town. You’d start a riot in any one of them.”

  “You’ve got to see that, Blackie,” said Stern. “With you along we wouldn’t get to first base.”

  “I’m not a complete dope,” Maeve said acidly. “I’ll drive and I’ll stay in the car if I decide you’re not just being masculine and silly.”

  “Not with me, you won’t,” said Jackson.

  “You’ve got to go home,” said Stern.

  Maeve stood up. “All right. Either I go with you or I go to Captain Nicholson. If I do Mr. Jackson will go to jail, and you”—she smiled sweetly at Stern—“will go to the doghouse and stay there. What do you think of that?”

  Stern held his head in his hands. “Oh, my God,” he groaned.

  “Well,” said Maeve adamantly. “What do you say, gentlemen?”

  “But you can’t do that, Blackie,” pleaded Stern. “What would Dr. Stevenson say after the scrap he put up to keep Jackson out of jail?”

  “Nunky’ll understand. I’ll tell Captain Nicholson Mr. Jackson didn’t kill anybody but he thinks he knows who did and he’s in terrible danger. I’m not so sure jail isn’t the safest place for him after all.”