SSC (1950) Six Deadly Dames (16 page)

His right hand slipped beneath his coat to settle on the butt of his automatic. His left hand closed over the doorknob and eased it as far as it would go. He turned it in the other direction and after a firm but gentle pressure towards himself he knew that the door was locked.

His lips formed a silent oath. He turned and climbed to the pavement and returned to the areaway across the street! The fall air was cold and he turned up his collar, kept his hands thrust in his pockets.

At a little past three he heard the blue door open. After a moment the woman and the fat man climbed to the sidewalk. The man had hat and overcoat on and a red cigar-end marked his face. The woman took his arm and they started walking rapidly towards Sixth Avenue.

Donahue let them get a good lead, then followed, hugging the shadows and the house walls. He followed them through Waverly Place into Grove Street. They crossed Grove at the subway entrance, crossed Sheridan Square towards a row of three taxies parked in front of a lunch-wagon.

Donahue stopped at the north side of the Square. He looked up and down West Fourth Street. It was wide here-and deserted. He saw the fat man and the woman get into a taxi and drive off. He waited until the taxi was out of sight and then drifted across the Square and entered the all-night lunchroom.

Monahan was sitting at the far end of the counter, drinking milk, eating pie and reading a newspaper. He did not look up. Donahue gave himself a half-smile and sat down near the door.

“Cup of black coffee,” he said.

Monahan looked up. His eyes popped.

Donahue grinned. “Hello, Monahan.”

“Hello, Donahue.”

“Out late, aren't you?”

“Came out to get the air and a bite to eat.” He thought for a moment, wrinkling his forehead in perplexed indecision. Then he picked up the glass of milk, the pie and his paper, and came down next to Donahue. He leaned over, spoke out of the side of his mouth.

“What do you think of that kill, Donahue?”

“Huh?... Oh, that. Well, Monahan, my good friend, I really haven't thought about it.”

“G' on!”

“Honor bright. I couldn't sleep so I came out to the flesh-pots. What do you think about it, Monahan?”

Monahan looked uncomfortable. He stabbed a chunk of pie. “I ain't thought much about it, either.”

Donahue drank his cup of coffee, stood up and said: “Well, I'll be seeing you, Monahan.”

He went out, climbed in a taxi and said: “Head east.” When the taxi was under way, he leaned forward and thrust a dollar bill into the driver's hand.

“Duck south at the next block and let me off,” he said. “Then duck around the streets for a few minutes or go where you like. There's a dumb bunny back there tailing me.”

“Okey.”

The taxi swung south into Cornelia Street. Donahue leaped out, slammed shut the door and bounded to the sidewalk. He had barely reached the shadows when a second taxi turned the corner. He saw Monahan in the back seat. He laughed to himself, watched the tail-light disappear and then walked back to Sheridan Square.

Five minutes later a taxi drew up and the driver got out. Donahue approached him.

“Buddy,” he said, “I'll give you five dollars if you'll take me to the address where you took that fat man and the woman.”

“Says you.”

“Says I. I'm a private dick and I'm hard up for an address.” He peeled a five dollar bill from a cordovan leather folder.

“Get in.”'

Donahue gave him the bill, entered the cab and sat back lighting a cigarette. The cab cut across town to Third Avenue and then headed north beneath the Elevated structure. At the corner of Fifteenth Street it pulled up and the driver turned around, jerking his thumb.

“Up that way, opposite Stuyvesant Square. Number two hundred and-; it's a gray brick building, kind of narrow. You want me to wait here?”

Getting out, Donahue said: “No.”

“That's swell by me.”

Donahue watched him drive off, took a few drags at his cigarette, tossed it away and turned into East Fifteenth Street. Across the way Rutherford Street ran its two blocks north, flanking Stuyvesant Square on the west. The south side of East Fifteenth faces the park and is walled by substantial stone houses marking a bygone period. Some of them have been remodeled with new fronts and modern facades and hold forth as small apartment houses. Such a one was that in front of which Donahue paused.

The lobby was flush with the sidewalk, faced with two glass doors. Donahue pushed one of them in and was confronted by a large wooden door with a shiny brass knob. On the wall at the right were built-in brass letterboxes and a row of ten brass buttons with names under them. The door was locked. Donahue studied the names intently. Then he went out, crossed the street and looked up at the front of the house. There were only two windows lighted, the shades drawn. The windows were on the third floor, at the right.

Donahue re-entered the lobby, drew a ring of keys from his pocket. He used four master keys and spent four minutes. The door eased open and he stepped into a wide, brown-carpeted hall. One little amber wall-light burned at the foot of a wide staircase with a broad banister. The stairs were carpeted, Donahue's footfalls muted as he climbed.

He listened at the head of the staircase, turned, walked along the wall of the second floor corridor and started up a second staircase. On each floor burned a single amber light, sufficient to light one's way, but overlooking many shadows. Donahue climbed stealthily, leaving his hand off the banister because banisters invariably creak.

On the third floor he stopped, getting his bearings. At the front of the hall was a window. At either side, an apartment. There was a sliver of light beneath the door on the left. Donahue slid towards it and listened. He caught the undertones of a voice, and though he could not distinguish a word he recognized the undertones. The fat man....
'

He straightened suddenly and stepped quickly into the corner of the hall. The door opened and the fat man came out putting on his hat. The woman came with him. She had red hair and looked to be in her thirties, and she had beauty of a sort.

“All right, Tony...”

“Sh!” the fat man whispered. “Everything'll be jake. Just keep a stiff lip, Beryl.”

She went with him down the hall towards the stairs, leaving her door wide open. Donahue crept along the wall, entered the apartment. He was in a comfortable living-room. Back of it was an open bedroom. He slipped into the bedroom.

In another minute the woman came in, closed the corridor door, pushed fingers through her hair. She stood in the center of the living-room, holding her hands to her head, staring haggard-eyed at the floor. Donahue appeared and said: “Good morning, Beryl.”

“Oh!”' She started, tearing her hands from her head, making fists that she pressed to her thighs, and stood suddenly rigid and white-faced, her eyes wide.

Donahue scaled his hat onto a divan, sat down with his overcoat open and flaring around his neck. “Sit down, Beryl,” he said.

“How-how-”

“Go on, be a good scout, sit down.”

“Oh, my-! My-!”

He pulled out pouch and pipe, ran the bowl into the pouch, packed with his second finger. The woman kept staring at him while she moved, felt for a chair, gripped its back and let herself down slowly. Her face had drained so of color that her rouged lips looked like a vivid red gash. She began striking her fist on a knee slowly. “What do you want, what do you want?” Donahue reached towards an end table for a match. He glanced at the cabinet photo of a girl. The girl was young, reminiscent of the woman in the room. Donahue lit up.

He said: “When you left Tony's last night with Larrimore, what happened?”

“I wasn't at Tony's last night,” she said huskily. “No?”

“No. I wasn't at Tony's.”

Donahue smiled. “Why, when you came to Tony's alone at about three this morning-why did you come right out and hide behind that stoop?”

“I didn't.”

“And why, after a man was thrown out, did you go back in?”

She said, hoarsely: “You seem to get around, don't you?”

“I'm a great little getter-around, Beryl. And I'm a great guy, too, once you get to know me. If you knew me better you wouldn't try to hand me a line. I don't even nibble, let alone swallow the hook.”

Color was coming back to her face. She seemed to have got over the first shock and now a desperate, level look was in her eyes.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “My actions are my own business. Who is this Larrimore you're talking about?”

“Now, Beryl...” Donahue got up and stood looking down at her with eyes in which mockery danced lightly.

“Listen, you,” she said, warmly. “What business have you here? Who are you?” She stood up, trembling, her eyes burning. “You have no right here. If you don't get out I'll call the police and have you put out!”

Donahue chuckled, shook his head. “No, you wouldn't call the police.”

“Wouldn't I?” Her chin rose, her nostrils quivered. “You think I wouldn't?”

“I think you wouldn't.”

“You're a pretty wise guy, aren't you?”

“Pretty wise.”

“Well, we'll see how good your bluff is!”

She swept past him, crossed the room to an open secretary where a telephone stood, sat down, put her left hand on the telephone. Donahue took two fast strides, caught her right hand as it was drawing a small automatic from a pigeon-hole. She cried out and heaved up, tussling with him. He twisted her wrist once.

“Not in this day and age,” he said, as the gun fell to the floor.

She stood panting before him, her throat pulsing, her breast convulsing, a fierce, haunted look in her eyes.

“I knew you wouldn't call the police,” he said.

“Get out!” she choked. “You have no right here. For-sake get out and leave me alone!”

He released her, kicked the little gun under the secretary. A v-shaped crease was between his brows, his brown eyes were steady and searching, his face suddenly somber and serious.

“You're in a tough spot, sister, and don't think you aren't. And don't try to play around me. I don't like it. There's been a lot of monkey-shines between the
Venetian Cellar
and this place tonight.”

“If you're a cop, show your shield. If you aren't, then get out.”

“I'm without benefit of shield, sister, but that cuts no ice with me. And don't think it's going to cut any with you. You're a liar, and you know it, and I'll tell you right now that I'm a swell guy ordinarily and a mean baby if anybody, jane or guy, tries to pull a rod on me. Tuck that under your belt and grow up and be your age.”

He spoke crisply, bluntly, without malice or emotion, stating facts simply and pointedly.

She defied him. “I don't know what you're talking about. You have no right here.”

“All right, smarty, take that telephone and call the cops and see if you have a better right to be here or in jail. There's been murder done, little girl, and this man's town still looks on murder with disfavor, despite a lot of ballyhoo to the contrary.”

“Murder! Murder!” she cried. “What-what do I know about murder?”

“Nothing. Oh, nothing. Maybe you call the death of Larrimore just an act of God.”

“Death of... I-why, my-! I haven't murdered anybody! I haven't-Oh, for-sake, I haven't killed anybody. No! No!”

She held out her hands and fell backward, shaking her head. Her calves struck the low divan and she dropped to it.

“And death's not enough, darling, to kill a hot clue,” Donahue muttered. “Larrimore was murdered somewhere between the
Venetian Cellar
and his hotel-”

“No! No! Oh, no!”

“You were with him in the
Venetian Cellar.
You left with him. You left the
Venetian Cellar
with him and he was Shot. He was shot and got to his hotel-and he died. He died and by-he died for something-and you know! You know why he died. You know because-”

“You're a liar-a liar!” she broke in. “What do you think you can do? You can't come here and accuse me! Who do you think you are? I-”

“Never mind who I think I am. I've got that fat boy's ticket and I've got yours. And never mind what right I have to be here. I'm here and here, by cripes, I'll stay! Till you fork over, little one. It's my business-and I'm a business man.”

Her voice throbbed but became at the same time one-toned and incisive-“I was with-with a man named Larrimore, was I? Can you prove it? No. Nobody can. Because I went to the
Venetian Cellar
and backed out because they were arguing with some pest... what's that to you? I went there because a friend there is a good friend of mine. And that's none of your business, either. You handed me a jolt when I first saw you here. You handed me a jolt when you mentioned murder. It's an ugly word. But that's all there is to it. Go on. Run along. I'm getting tired of you already.”