The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

1

Tough precinct was the Second of Richmond City, lying in the backyard of the theatrical district and on the frontier of the railroad yards.

A hard-boiled precinct, touching the fringes of crookdom’s elite on the north — the con men, the night-club barons; and on the south, the dim-lit, crooked alleys traversed by the bum, the lush-worker and poolroom gangster. On the north were the playhouses, the white way, high-toned apartments, opulent hotels, high hats, evening gowns. On the south, tenements, warehouses, cobblestones, squalor, and the railroad yards. The toughest precinct in all Richmond City.

Captain MacBride, back again in the Second, ran it with two fists, a dry sense of humor and a generous quantity of brass-bound nerve. He was a lean, windy-eyed man of forty. He had a wife and an eighteen-year-old daughter in a vine-clad bungalow out in suburban Grove Manor, and having acquired early in life a suspicion that he was going to die young and violently in the line of duty, he had forthwith taken out a lot of life insurance. He was not a pessimist, but a hard-headed materialist, and he rated crooks and gunmen with a certain species of rodent that travels by dark and frequents cellars, sewers and garbage dumps.

He was sitting in his office at the station house a mild spring night, going over a sheaf of police bulletins, when Kennedy, of the Free Press, strolled in.

“Spring has come, Mac,” Kennedy yawned.

“Why don’t you set it to poetry?”

“I got over that years ago.” He drifted over to the desk, helped himself to a cigar from an open box, sniffed it critically. “Dry,” he muttered.

“I like ’em dry.”

“I always keep mine moist.”

MacBride chuckled. “That’s rich! First time I see you smoking a cigar of your own I’ll buy you a box of Montereys. Well, what’s on your mind?”

Kennedy looked toward the open window through which came the blare and beat of a jazz band muffled by distance.

“That,” he said.

MacBride nodded. “I thought so. I’ll bet if something doesn’t bust loose over there you’ll get down-hearted.”

Kennedy shrugged, sank wearily to a chair and lit up. “And I’ll bet you’re happy as hell they’re staging that political block-party. You look it, Mac.”

“Don’t I!” muttered MacBride, a curl to his lip. “Yes, Kennedy, I’m happy as a school kid when vacation time comes. Of all the dumb stunts I can think of, this block-party takes the cake. If this night passes without somebody getting bumped off, I’ll get pie-eyed drunk and take a calling-down from my wife. A political campaign in Richmond City makes a Central American rebellion look comical.”

“And how!” grinned Kennedy. “But I only hope Krug and Bedell get kicked out of office so hard they’ll never get over it. As State’s Attorney, Krug’s made a fortune, and Alderman Johnny Bedell’s his right-hand man. I’m all for Anderson for State’s Attorney and Con-naught for alderman of this district. They’re square. But I wouldn’t be willing to bet on the outcome. The Mayor and his crowd are behind Krug.

“And here’s the nigger in the woodpile. Con-naught and Anderson are square men. They deserve to get in office. But there’s a gang in this city that’s taken it into their own hands to make things hot as hell for Krug and Bedell, and by doing this they’re going to cramp the Anderson-Connaught square style. Connaught and Anderson don’t want their support, but they’ve got to take it — through the nose, too.”

“Say who you mean, Kennedy,” broke in MacBride. “Come on and tell me you mean Duveen and his guns.”

“Sure — Duveen. Duveen hasn’t got a good break since Krug’s been State’s Attorney. But who has? Simple, Bonelio, the S.A.’s friend. And Bonelio is sure tooting his horn for the Krug-Bedell ticket. If Anderson gets in for State’s Attorney he’ll put a wet blanket on Bonelio’s racket; and if Anderson sweeps Connaught in with him, it’ll mean that Bonelio’s warehouses this side of the railroad yards will be swept clean.

“And that’s what Duveen wants, because he wants to run the bootleg racket in Richmond City, and so long as Bonelio has the present State’s Attorney and the alderman for this district on his side, Duveen’s blocked. What a hell of a riot this election is going to be!”

MacBride grunted, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of Three Star Hennessy.

“Have a drink, Kennedy,” he said. “There are times when I’d like to kick you in the slats, but I admire your brains and the way you get the low-down on things.”

Through the window came another burst of dance music. On Jackson Street couples were dancing, political banners were flying, ropes of colored lights were glowing. And policemen were on the walkout, idly swinging nightsticks, watching, waiting, prepared for the worst and hoping for the best.

MacBride lit a cigar and looked up to find Detective Moriarity standing in the doorway.

“ ’Lo, cap. ’Lo, Kennedy.” Moriarity was a slim, compactly built young man, short on speech, quick in action — one-time runner-up for the welterweight title.

“How do things look?” asked MacBride.

“Depends,” said Moriarity. “Committeeman Shanz is a little tight. Bedell ain’t there yet. Shanz expects him, though. Says Bedell’s s’posed to speak at eleven.”

“See any bums?”

“No. But pipe this. I just been tipped off that a crowd of Anderson-Connaught sympathizers from the Fourth Ward are making a tour of the town. About ten machines. Band and flags and all that crap. I figure this way. Ten to one all o’ them have got some booze along, to make ’em feel better. They’re mostly storekeepers and automobile dealers, but if they get tight they’ll get gay. Like as not they’ll wind up at the block-party and some wiseguy will haul off and talk outta turn.”