Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 8 — November, 1938)
- Автор: Баллард Уиллис Тодхантер, Cave Hugh B.
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pro-Distributors Publishing
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 8 — November, 1938)». Краткое содержание книги:
They were coming back from the rear of the apartment. Paradine unlocked the door.
“All right. She’s still asleep,” he whispered. “It’s a miracle, after the happy time you had with the doorball. You can use your flash; if you turn it on her and wake her I’ll kill you. And be quiet.”
Shapiro briefly turned his pocket flash into the closet, then stood in the middle of the dark room, glancing uneasily toward the bed.
“If you must,” said Paradine, and gripped Shapiro’s arm, turning off the flashlight but not trying to take it from the Captain’s hand. Paradine hoped sickly that the pounding of blood in his throat was hidden as he led Shapiro to the bed and whispered: “Does the Hanifin woman have gray hair?”
Shapiro stared once, sharply, then blinked his eyes and tiptoed out. With the door closed, he mopped his forehead and groaned:
“I hope you don’t hate me for this, Paradine. I hope your sister gets better.”
Leeds said, “About the bullet holes in your car—”
“Shut up,” said Captain Shapiro.
At one o’clock Paradine tiptoed into the bedroom and took the charcoal marks off Molly with light touches of a damp cloth. He set the can of sardines down softly on the pillow.
From the lower drawer of the dresser he took out a shoulder holster and a Colt .38. He went to the front window and smiled down at the slope-shouldered figure across the street. Shapiro had left a man on watch.
Paradine shrugged and left the house. He walked two blocks to the subway, without haste and without looking behind him. In the station he caught sight of the slope-shouldered man. He boarded Paradine’s downtown train, reading a newspaper with tremendous concentration.
Paradine sent him a vague, friendly smile, and the newspaper immediately covered his whole face. Paradine got off and walked toward the single yellow glow that was Hanifin’s Bar and Grill.
Pete Holden was alone. He watched Paradine come in with hostile eyes, and said:
“That was nice, the way you ran out when trouble started. I had to tell the police you’d been here and run out as if you were chasing somebody.”
“As if I was chasing somebody,” said Paradine. “Funny. I had an idea I was chasing somebody... I’ve talked with the cops, of course. Look here, Pete, I’ve been hearing things about you.”
“What?”
“Oh,” said Paradine, “I heard you’d been having trouble with rats. It does beat hell, the way they get into everything. I’m the exterminator.”
Pete said. “Talk sense!”
Paradine watched his eyes. They were agate hard, made so by his trouble and anxiety, perhaps. “You don’t feel a bit good, do you? Well, it isn’t strange, with Ed Hanifin dead and the cops on a hunt for your wife.”
Pete’s hands turned into fists. “What’s that you said? Ed Hanifin—”
“He’s dead. Someone shot him three times through the heart. It was fairly straight shooting, for a punk. I have a funny feeling that whoever did it ought not to live. Yes, the cops would like to know where your wife is... Incidentally, I noticed that Salter didn’t shoot Ferenczi himself. But I think he had it done, didn’t he?”
“Salter?” said Pete Holden slowly. “Who is Salter?”
“A small fellow with a parrot beak who reads newspapers.” Paradine’s voice was soft; deep purring cello notes from his chest. “I noticed a couple of cops across the street when I came in just now. There was another, tailing me. The three of ’em are having a conference, I suppose. Queer people, cops; sometimes I like ’em, sometimes I don’t. Did you kill Dutch Tiemann?”
“You must be crazy,” said Pete Holden. “I ought to throw you out. Who the hell told you I was married?”
Paradine shrugged. “You might get away with it on the unwritten law basis or something. Tiemann was a louse and it was a shame the way he went hunting after your wife... I don’t really know a lot, Pete: that’s the devil of it.” Paradine’s hand rested against his vest. “If I knew more, I could tell for sure whether you’re a good egg or a damned swine. Tiemann’s ailment was that he was too loose around the mouth. You’re too tight...
“I wonder why Ferenczi thought it was so important to give you that address; so important that he got himself shot for it. And you didn’t seem a bit interested, I remember. Ah, draw me a beer, Pete. I don’t feel so damned good myself.”
Holden reached for a glass, his hands shaking. He said:
“If I thought for a minute that you were straight about this... I think you’re heeling around for the cops. You’re trying to find out from me where Molly is, so the cops can get her. She didn’t kill Tiemann. If I didn’t think that was your game, maybe I’d loosen up and tell you things.”
“You don’t know where Molly is,” said Paradine. “I don’t see how you knew she wasn’t still in the jail-house; the snatch was kept out of the papers... This glass is dirty. Ed Hanifin never stood for anything like that when he was alive. Get me a clean one.”
Pete Holden picked up the glass Paradine had shoved toward him. He held it in his shaking hand, and foam spilled, and the hand tightened. Paradine murmured:
“You want to throw that in my face. Don’t do it, Pete.”
Pete said stiff-mouthed: “I’m sorry. The clean ones must be out back.”
“Uh-huh. The only way I can figure it out, Pete, is this: Now that Tiemann’s dead, his mob has split in two. Salter is the natural heir apparent, except for one thing: he hasn’t got the confession that Tiemann made him write, the confession to the murder of Steve Banks. You remember Tiemann made Salter write out and sign a—”
“I remember!” Holden laughed, gripping the edge of the bar. “What the devil are you trying to do?”
Paradine ignored that. “Salter hasn’t got that confession. Tiemann s safe was rifled when he was killed. It s a good bet that the one who killed Tiemann has that confession. And the one who has that confession can send Salter straight to the chair any old time. Salter knows that... Get me a clean glass.”
Pete walked stiffly to the kitchen at the back. From the kitchen Paradine heard the clink of glassware, but it was an unreasonably long moment before Pete returned with a glass, its bottom resting in his curled palm. He held it under the tap, eyes downcast; sliced off the foam from the top and set it.
“Thanks,” Paradine said. “Three of the Tiemann crowd died tonight in an automobile smash. Three dead, and one in the hospital not much good to anybody. Tiemann men — that means Salter men, I think. They were Salter men, so I guess you probably hadn’t heard.”
“Just what do you mean?”
Paradine gazed into his untouched beer. “Tiemann himself told me not very long ago that you, Pete, were trying to muscle in on him. You joined up with Ed Hanifin two years ago, and it was two years ago that the Tiemann mob went to work on Ed. Now you explain.”
“It’s a damned lie,” Pete spat.
“O.K.,” said Paradine, and smiled suddenly. “It’s a damned lie, son. I wanted to hear that... Dig me up a ham sandwich, will you, Pete?”
Pete turned away, shoulders relaxed. He disappeared in the kitchen again. Paradine, watching him go, had a queer sort of despair and uncertainty in his face. He bent swiftly, his hand visible through the plate-glass window, and poured out the beer into the cuspidor near his feet, shielding the glass from his own fingers with a paper napkin. He thrust the glass, still covered by the napkin, in his overcoat pocket; reached down the counter for another empty, unwashed glass and clicked it down in front of him with a smack of his lips as Holden returned from the kitchen with the sandwich.