The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

It took them half an hour to reach the ramshackle farmhouse. It was quite some distance from the hub of the city. It stood well off the main highway, hidden behind an arm of woods and reached by a narrow lane where the snow still lay. Fink pulled up into the yard and they got out. He had keys and opened the kitchen door. They entered and Cardigan looked it over. Two big rooms and a kitchen downstairs. Three bed-rooms upstairs. Dust, the dust of long neglect, covered the floor. The windows were small and set with many little squares of glass. The place was old, years old. The walls were lined with brick, a relic of days when houses were built to last for more than one generation.

“Just the thing,” nodded Cardigan. “Maybe we’ll use it tonight.”

“Huh?”

“Tonight. Cavallo keeps a lot of his booze on North Street. Know the old milk stables?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the place. There are three in a row, all joined together. The one in the middle is our meat. It has sliding doors, and there’s always a reserve truck inside.”

“How do you know all this, Jack?”

“What do you suppose the Department does, sleep all the time?”

“Oh... I gotcha. Yeah, sure.”

“Get your map out.”

Fink dived into his pocket, came out with a folder that opened to large dimensions. Cardigan also had his out.

“I’ve figured out the route you’re to take,” he said. “Mark these down now, so there’ll be no slip up. The truck is a type governed to do thirty-five per and no more. Four speeds ahead. All right.” And he proceeded to give Fink precise directions to follow, street by street to Black Hill Road which leads into Farmingville Turnpike. “Got the route all marked?” he asked, as he finished.

“Yeah, all marked.”

“Who’ll drive the truck?”

“Bat Johnson and—”

“No — Bat’s enough. The rest of you drift along ahead in the touring car and lead the way. One man on a truck’ll cause no suspicion. More might. And get this. Maple Road runs parallel with North Street — behind the stables. You park on Maple Road and watch across the lots till you see three blinks from a flashlight. That will mean to come on and take things over. When Bat takes the truck out you boys beat it back across the lots, into the car and fall in ahead of the truck on Avenue C.”

“Who’s goin’ to blink the lights?”

“I am.”

“Huh?” Fink seemed incredulous.

“That’s what I said. I’m going ahead to see if the road’s clear. I’ll take care of the watchman. If there’s more there — the gang, I mean — we’ll give up for the night. And mind this, if you don’t see any flashes by ten o’clock, breeze. Be on Maple Road at exactly nine fifty, no sooner or later. If everything turns out all right, if you get the booze out to the farmhouse and away safe, call me up and just say, ‘Jake’; that’s all. And about the truck. Drive it back and abandon it on Black Hill Road.”

“But, hell, Jack, why can’t me and the boys bust in the stables and crash the place proper?”

“You would say that, Pete. That’s just the way to ball up the whole works. We’re not out to butcher our way if we can help it. That’s the trouble with you guys. You don’t use your head. That’s the main reason why Cavallo and his rats are going to blow up. They’re too damned free with their gats.”

“Um — I guess you’re right there, Jack.”

“All right, then. Come on, let’s breeze. Drive me to the bus line and drop me off.”

An hour later Cardigan was eating lunch at his favorite haunt in Jockey Street, with a bottle of Sauterne on the side. It was one of fifteen restaurants circulated throughout the city and owned by a syndicate of brokers that paid a fat sum monthly to the authorities for the privilege. Four were in the financial district, six in the theatrical district, the rest scattered. More would open for business in time. You didn’t need a card. The places were wide, wide open. Where the syndicate got the liquor, was nobody’s business.

The Jockey Street place was managed by an ex-saloon keeper named Maloney. Cardigan had been a frequent visitor there since his resignation from the force, and they got on well. This day he called Maloney over and asked him to sit down.

He asked, “Between you and me, what does your outfit pay for good Scotch?”

“That’s our business, buddy, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. Come on, I’m talking business.”

“You in the game?”

“I know somebody who is.”

Maloney thought hard. “Sixty-five bucks a case.”

Cardigan nodded. “You can get it for fifty-five. Work the deal with your boss and you’ll get a rake-off of five bucks on the case.”

“Your friend must be hard up.”

“He’s just starting in business.”

“Oh. We’ll have to sample it first.”

“Sure. But are you on?”

“It sounds good. How — how many cases?”