The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

I

Alderman Tony Maratelli walked up and down the living-room of his house in Riddle Street. Riddle was the name of a one-time tax commissioner. Maratelli was a fat man, with fat dark eyes and two generous chins. His fingers were fat, too, and the fingers of one hand were splayed around a glass of Chianti, from which at frequent intervals he took quick, sibilant draughts. Now an Italian does not drink Chianti that way. But Maratelli looked worried. He was.

The winter night wind keened in the street outside and shook the windows in a sort of brusque, sharp fury. Riddle Street is a dark street. Also a windy one. That is because one end of it disembogues into River Road, where the piers are. One upon a time Riddle Street was aristocratic. Then it became smugly middle-class and grudgingly democratic. Then proletariat. Other streets around it went in for stores and warehouses and shipping offices. But Riddle Street clung to its brownstone fronts and its three-step stoops. It was rated a decent street.

Maratelli stopped short as his five-year-old daughter bowled into the room wearing a variety of night attire known as teddy bears.

” ’Night, poppa.”

Maratelli put down the glass of Chianti, picked up the baby and bounced her playfully up and down on the palms of his fat hands.

“Good-night, angel,” he said.

His wife, who was taller than he, and heavier, came in and smiled and held out her arms.

“Give her to me, Tony,” she said.

“Yes, mama,” said Maratelli. “Put her to bed and then close that door. Captain MacBride will be here maybe any minute.”

“You want to be alone, Tony, don’t you?”

“Yes, mama.”

She looked at him. “It’s about...”

“Yes, mama. Please take angel to bed and then you, too, leave me alone.”

“All right, Tony.” She looked a little sad.

He laughed, and his ragtag mustache fanned over his mouth. He pinched the baby’s cheeks, then his wife’s, then marched with her to the inner door. They went out, and he closed the door and sighed.

He went over to the table, picked up the glass of Chianti and marched up and down the room. His broad, heavy shoes thumped on the carpet. He wore a henna-colored shirt, a green tie, red suspenders and tobacco-brown pants. His shoes creaked.

When the bell rang, he fairly leaped into the hallway. He snapped back the lock and opened the door.

“Ah, Cap! Good you come!”

MacBride strolled in. He wore a neat gray Cheviot overcoat, a flap-brimmed hat of lighter gray. His hands were in his pockets and he smoked a cigar.

“Slow at Headquarters, so I thought I’d come down.”

“Yes — yes — yes.”

Maratelli closed the hall door. The lock snapped automatically. He bustled into the living-room, eyed a Morris chair, then took a couple of pillows from the lounge, placed them in the Morris chair and patted hollows into them. He spread his hands towards the chair.

“Have a nice seat, Cap.”

“Thanks.”

“Give me the overcoat and the hat.”

“That’s all right, Tony.”

MacBride merely unbuttoned his coat, sat down and laid his hat on the table. He was freshly shaven, neatly combed, and his long, lean face had the hard, ruddy glint of a face that knows the weather. He leaned back comfortably, crossing one leg over the other. The pants had a fine crease, the shoes were well polished, and the laces neatly tied.

“Chianti, Cap?”

“A shot of Scotch’d go better.”

“Yes — yes — yes!”

Maratelli brought a bottle from the sideboard, along with a bottle of Canada Dry.

“Straight,” said MacBride.

Maratelli took one with him, said, “Here’s how,” and they drank.

MacBride looked at the end of his cigar.