Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 2, March 19, 1938
- Автор: Clark Dale, 12627 Convict
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 2, March 19, 1938». Краткое содержание книги:
Slats went on as though I’d been talking out loud. “There weren’t any radio jobs ashore and all you could get was the chance to nurse a truck around all day. Only thing was, you weren’t making enough dough to please cutie. She kept nagging you about how you’d grown up with Big Ed, and why didn’t you get him to do something for you.”
I gave him a surprised look. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve got eyes,” he said, and his profile looked older, more tired. Somehow I couldn’t get sore at him. He was using No. 4 sandpaper on me and still I couldn’t get sore. He said, “You’re working for Ed, aren’t you?” Explaining quite simply that one and one added up to two. “Working for Big Ed is also bad medicine, Jerry.”
I said stubbornly, “It pays some real dough. And what I’m doing is on the up and up as far as the law’s concerned. If the D.A. says the machines are games of skill who am I to tell the suckers different?”
He reached forward, wiped fog off the inside of the glass. “All right, what you’re doing now is maybe not so bad. But how do you know it’ll stop there? Once you’re in, boy, you’re in.”
“Nuts,” I scoffed. “Ed would be the first one to mitt me if I got out of the racket. The only reason he gave me the job at all was because of old times. Show me a real job and I’ll get out.”
He turned then, grinned at me. “Okay, keed, that’s a promise. I was talking to Kramer up at C.B.S. I told him how good you were and he said if you were that good—”
“You mean a technician’s berth at C.B.S.?”
“Maybe chief. They’re having a sort of shakeup. Maybe you could talk yourself up better than I did.”
I couldn’t say anything for a minute. I mean, this guy beside me was real people. Ed was okay too, of course, but I’d been thinking about what I’d do if he ever asked me to step over the line. This way, I wouldn’t have to find out. I could take a brace and maybe pay Cora off some way and... I didn’t go any farther than that. The reason I didn’t was that Slats had gotten tired of waiting for me to say thanks and was talking again. About something else. “I can’t get a line on the lug,” he was complaining. “You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you, Jerry? Guy by the name of Heinie Ziegler?”
I felt as though he’d just clouted me behind the ear. This guy Ziegler was going to be pretty hard to find — I hoped. He was the mug I’d killed a month or so back. Thirty-seven days, to be exact. You don’t forget the date of things like that. I got a cigarette out, scratched the match, but somehow I couldn’t get the two together. Then I noticed that my hands were shaking. “Ziegler?” I coughed. “No, I don’t think I know him.”
Slats reached over, held the match steady for me. “I’m glad you’re off the stuff, keed. Another week and you’d be in the D.T. ward out at the County.” His eyes burned me. I flipped the match out the window as an excuse to turn away so he couldn’t read the fear that must have been plastered all over my face.
He didn’t seem to notice.
“Funny you don’t know him,” he said musingly. “He used to be one of Big Ed’s punks. I went up to see Ed and he said the guy had gone to Chicago, but I think he was lying.”
The cigarette fell out of my mouth. I just couldn’t help it. Slats McKenna wasn’t my friend any more. He was a dick and I was a murderer. He leaned down and got the cig where it was burning a hole in the floor mat, took a couple of quick drags, threw it away. It reminded me of how we used to share snipes when we were kids south of the tracks. For a second I almost broke down and told him the whole works. Then I took a gander at his face and knew I couldn’t. He was not only a tough cop; he was an honest cop. He’d crucify me if he knew.
I twisted the door handle. “Well, thanks a million, Slats. I’ll go up and see Kramer tomorrow.”
“Better make it tonight, Jerry. These things don’t wait. I told Kramer I’d have you on deck if I could find you.”
“Okay, tonight, then.” I was out on the sidewalk now, in a hurry. I had to get to Big Ed and find out what was happening. “I’ll go down and check in and then I’ll go see Kramer.”
“Swell,” Slats said. “A shower will snap you out of it, Jerry. Better take something for that breath, though.”
I told him I’d do that too, and then I was slogging toward my own car, lugging the sack of nickels. That damned sack was beginning to remind me of an anchor, something I couldn’t get away from. I laughed at that. Of course I could get away. Just as I could from Big Ed Harmon. All I had to do was drop them both. Getting in my car I was surprised to note that it was raining. Then I remembered that it had been raining all evening. I reached in the door pocket for the spare bottle that I usually carried, had the cap off and the neck rattling against my teeth before I remembered; remembered what fat little Luigi had said, and Slats. I hurled the bottle through the window. It smashed on the sidewalk and little rivulets of liquor ran down to the curb. Somewhere down the street, back of me, a horn tooted twice. That would be Slats, I thought, applauding me for busting the bottle. I didn’t feel very heroic. I felt like hell.
II
The Title Guarantee Building was all lit up like a church when I got there. Usually at that time of night it was pretty quiet, but it must have been tax time or something because everybody connected with the real estate racket, title searchers and all, were working late. I’d always gotten a kick out of Big Ed having his headquarters in a building like that. Of course, Ed was the first big shot I’d ever known personally, but nearly every one I remembered reading about transacted his business from a more or less swanky night club. It seemed to be the thing to do. Big Ed was different. He had over half of the seventh floor of the Title Guarantee and the doors that weren’t marked “Private” were labeled “The Harmon Amusement Enterprises, Inc.” As far as I knew he didn’t have any hideaways, or cafés, or any of the usual clap-trap. Maybe he had ’em, but I didn’t know about ’em. I didn’t want to know about them.
I rode up in the elevator with four or five clerks who’d been out for a snack. A couple worked for Ed, and they looked at my leather grip and grinned. I might have been a collector for the telephone company, even including the gun in my shoulder clip.
Only I wasn’t.
I checked in with the cashier, went through a couple semi-private offices and knocked on Ed’s door. There were a couple gorillas sitting there in the anteroom, coats off and rods exposed, but they didn’t pay me a bit of attention. Believe it or not, they were playing checkers. After a minute Ed himself opened the door.
“Oh, it’s you, Jerry.” He was a little bigger than I was, though it wasn’t his size that got him his name. He wore good clothes as if he were used to them, always had a gardenia in his lapel, and a faint scent of soap clung to him, as though he’d just stepped out of his bath. He looked like a senior executive in a business whose stock was selling above par. I guess he was, at that.
I said, “Yeah, it’s me. Could I talk to you for a minute, Ed? Something has come up that...”
He gave me a smile, opened the door wider. I went in. He came around and sat down behind his desk. “Okay, Jerry, shoot.”
I told him first about Slats McKenna looking for Heinie Ziegler. “You sure I’m covered, Ed? Sure somebody hasn’t popped off?”
Ed looked at his nails, hike everything else about him they’d had plenty of the right kind of attention. He’d come a long way since he and I and Slats prowled the freight yards for scrap iron to sell to the junkie. Somehow I was embarrassed in front of him; not like I was with Slats. I guess it’s the same as two guys who go to college together and one of them turns out to be a success. I hadn’t gone to college, but I was the other one, just the same. I didn’t blame Fran for picking the winner.