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:
Ed looked at me and for the first time I noticed how cold his eyes were. “You’re covered,” he said briefly. “Unless you’ve gotten drunk and belched to someone yourself. Have you?”
I thought about how I’d told Cora, my wife, the night I did it. God, I’d had to tell someone! I was half off my nut. Not that this Heinie Ziegler hadn’t had it coming; in a way it was even self defense, but there wasn’t a chance of making a jury believe that.
Ed’s voice had a little undertone of menace in it when he repeated, “Have you, Jerry?”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I asked him. “It’s bad enough to have you and Danville and Skeeter in on it. I’m not doing any advertising, thank you. It’s just that McKenna picking me to ask — well, I got the jitters is all.”
“I see,” he said. And then, giving me a quick, level stare: “What else did you and McKenna talk about? You were with him quite a while.”
I didn’t get it for a minute. Then I did and I was sore as a boiled owl. “Having me tailed, huh? What’s the matter, afraid I’ll knock down a few of your lousy nickels?”
“Now don’t get red-headed, Jerry. One of the punks just happened to be in Luigi’s and phoned me. He thought you might be in a jam of some kind.”
“As if I’m not! And that reminds me, Ed, I’ve got a chance to go to work for C.B.S. I’m checking out on you.”
He went back to studying his nice nails. “McKenna?”
“Yes, he’s the one got me the break.”
“And will your wife think it’s a break, Jerry? They tell me that even what you’re making with me isn’t enough for Cora.”
“To hell with her. I’m through, washed up.”
He shook his head. “No, Jerry, I can’t let you do it.”
“You mean you won’t? You mean I can’t walk out if I want to? The hell with that. I’m going.”
Again he shook his head. He was smiling, but it didn’t mean a thing. His eyes were diamond hard. “Nobody walks out on me, Jerry. Maybe they’re carried out, but they don’t walk. I need good boys, Jerry; boys I can depend on. I can depend on you, can’t I, Jerry?”
You couldn’t miss what he meant. You either stuck — or you got stuck. With me, it was just a little murder rap, of course. Nothing serious. Looking at it from his angle I wondered what he had to be afraid of from me. The answer was nothing. I didn’t know a thing more than the whole town knew. He could hire a hundred guys to do the work I was doing. Well, then, why didn’t he? Why did he want to hang onto me? Sort of desperately I asked him. “I wasn’t cut out for the big time, Ed. I’m just a punk, I guess. What’s it to you?”
This time when he looked at me I actually shivered. “Punks,” he said, “are useful sometimes, Jerry. Especially with a rap hanging over them like yours. And if you ever get the bright idea that I could be clipped as an accessory, just forget it. I couldn’t.” He sat up a little straighter, touched a button on his desk. “I think we’ll be able to get along, Jerry. Now that we understand each other.”
The door opened and the two gorillas came in. I took my hand away from my gun. Yep, for a second I’d seen the well-known red. I’d been on the point of letting him have it. Sick, actually sick at my stomach, I stumbled toward the door. Ed’s voice halted me. “Better lay off the liquor, keed. It’s bad for you.”
“I know,” I said dully. “You’re about the fifth guy that’s told me tonight.” I went out and got in an elevator and dropped to the lobby. A guy looking at the building directory turned and gave me a screwy stare. “Did you speak to me?”
I guess I must have been mumbling out loud. I said, “It was two other guys, mister,” and pushed out to the street. In the car I reached for the bottle in the door pocket before I remembered that it wasn’t there any more. There didn’t seem to be anything to do except stop somewhere and get tanked to the eyes, only I couldn’t think of any place where there wouldn’t be somebody else too and I didn’t want to see even a bartender for a while. I went home hoping Cora hadn’t found that last pint. She had, though. I flopped on the davenport in the living room, too tired to even undress. After a while I went to sleep.
The ringing of the front door bell woke me. I didn’t identify it as the front door hell right off the bat. I’d been dreaming I was in a broadcast station control room, trying to get an S.O.S. through on account of an earthquake was rapidly making kindling out of our fair city. It was pretty real. I mean, I could feel the building tottering under my feet. But the most vivid of all was Big Ed Harmon holding a gun on me and telling me to lay off; that he didn’t want anybody to know there was an earthquake. I kept thinking, “They’ve gotta know. I’ve gotta tell ’em,” and then I remembered the little alarm button recessed in the floor. I put my foot on this and a dozen alarms started singing so loud it woke me up. The dozen alarms turned out to be the apartment bell. Maybe I should have been relieved at that, but I wasn’t. I just lay there for a minute, shivering, wondering if maybe Big Ed hadn’t changed his mind about me. Not about letting me go, but about making the parting permanent. Maybe I’d worried him, almost pulling my rod like that. Maybe he’d sent a couple of the boys over to see that it didn’t happen again. The bell kept ringing.
Finally I couldn’t stand the suspense any more and got up and went over to the door. Maybe, I thought, it’s just Cora. She might’ve forgotten her key. I jerked my gun out of the clip, twisted the knob and leaped back. I was so surprised I couldn’t shut my own mouth. It wasn’t Cora standing there. It wasn’t the couple of hoods I’d imagined. It was Fran. Yep, that’s right: Frances Harmon, Big Ed’s wife. She was as scared as I was. Her big eyes looked enormous in the dead white of her face, and her dark hair was all mussed up and wet from the rain. She didn’t have any coat on and her gown was sopping, what there was left of it. Somebody had been playing rough.
I grabbed her, yanked her inside before some of the other tenants could see her in case they got curious.
She started sobbing then; not noisily, but as if she’d run her heart out. I put my two arms around her, held her close for a minute, trying to kid her out of it. “It’s okay, Fran. I’m here and you know how I’ve always felt about you. Take a brace, keed. Tell papa.”
She put her hands on my chest, pushed me away a little, so that she could look up into my ugly mug. “Oh, Jerry, I’m sorry if I’m putting you on a spot. I... I just couldn’t seem to think of anybody else to go to, and I didn’t have any money, or clothes or—” She broke off and her eyes sort of rolled up in her head. “Oh, Jerry, I’m scared!”
“That makes two of us,” I said. J picked her up and carried her over to the couch. “Come on, Fran, tell me what happened and then I’ll see about getting you some dry clothes.”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Not like a guy removing the last of the mashed potatoes, but trying to stop her lips from quivering. “Ed just shot and killed a man. I... I saw it.”
“Where? In his office?”
“No, at home.” Home was a penthouse out in Beverly Hills. I looked at my wristwatch. I’d been asleep two hours. It was just a little after midnight.
“Okay,” I said, “tell me about it. Fast, Fran.”
“It... it was State Senator Delgardo. He’d been waiting for Ed to come home. Ed brought another man with him, a man named Ames, I think. The three of them went into the library and I went to bed. Not long after that I heard shots. I ran to the library door, got it open and... and there was the senator on the floor. Ames was stooping over him, cursing, but it was Ed who had the gun. It... it was still smoking. I guess I must have screamed at that. They turned and Ames started cursing Ed. Then they both started for me. They caught me in one of the guest rooms and Ames insisted they kill me too. Ed said that could wait. Finally they locked me in and went back to the library, I guess.”