SSC (1950) Six Deadly Dames (6 page)

“Yeah, this is Donahue.... Oh, hello, Roper. What's on your mind?... Oh, you do? Well, I'm going out to eat.... It can wait, can't it? Okey. I'll drop in.”

He hung up, stood for a long moment with the telephone in his hand. Then he put it down, looked a little puzzled, and went out.

Roper was sitting in the back room of the station-house.

Madden, his partner, and another dick named Crowley, were with him, and none of them smiled. Crowley closed the door, and Roper creaked his swivel chair. He drew a letter from his pocket, held it out.

“Read it, Donahue.”

Donahue took the letter, spread it and found it to be a note written on I. Friedman's business stationery. It said:

Dear Benny:

Business is not so good, but that seems to be the case all around. I can lend you a hundred till the first, but I've got to have it back then.

My back is a little better, and I guess I'll be all right soon.

Nothing has happened, except a visit yesterday by a fly cop named Donahue. He threatened me, but I laughed that off.

Don't forget I've got to have that century back by the first.

.-Ike.

Donahue said, “H'm,” handed the letter back and added, “What do you make of it, Roper?”

Roper wore a dull, inimical look. “I'll turn that question right around at you.”

“And we still don't get an answer,” Donahue said. “Don't we?”

Donahue looked at him with wide-open brown eyes. “What's this-another indication of your sense of humor?” Roper's gaunt jaw shifted. “Why did you threaten Friedman?”

“Did I threaten Friedman?”

Roper stood up, a bony man with wide, stooped shoulders, hard wrists and big-knuckled hands. “You read this letter, didn't you? This guy Friedman wrote to his brother, and he wrote you threatened him.”

“It doesn't say I threatened his life, does it?”

“It says you threatened him.”

“All right. I threatened to bust him in the face. What about it, copper?”

“Why did you threaten to bust him in the face?”

“It was personal. I lost my temper.” Madden came up behind Donahue and gripped his arms. Roper said, “Come on, Donahue. Why did you threaten him?”

Red color began to creep into Donahue's face. “You guys going to get rough?”

“I'm waiting for an answer,” Roper said.

“Then tell this mutt to take his hands off me!”

“Let him go, Madden.”

Madden stepped back.

Roper said, “Okey, Donahue. Now tell me.”

“I've told you. It's my business, and if you're dumb enough to think I'm mixed up in this job, arrest me!”

Madden grabbed him again, twisting his arms behind his back. Donahue's brown eyes got humid, and his lip curled, a dark shadow swept down across his forehead, across his face, making the red there dull and malignant.

Roper said, “I want to know what you were doing in that guy's store yesterday. This letter wasn't mailed. We found it in his store. He must have written it this morning. You've got to come across, Donahue.”

“Not on your natural, Roper,” Donahue snapped. “Arrest me. Go ahead. Nothing would tickle me more, because I'd be out in a couple of hours and you'd be the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood. You can't buffalo me, sweetheart. Try it on the kids you slap for pitching pennies in the back alleys.”

Roper took one forward step and laid the flat of his hard hand across Donahue's face. Donahue kicked Roper in the shins and Roper fell down. Madden butted Donahue with his knee. Crowley punched Donahue in the short ribs, and Donahue, cursing, kicked sidewise at Crowley while Madden still held his arms locked behind.

Roper was getting up, his upper lip lifted wolf-like.

Donahue said hotly, “You know damned well you can't arrest me! What you want, you cheap punk, is to find out what I know about Friedman! You're using this letter as a buffer. But it only gives me a laugh. Go ahead-arrest me! Why don't you?”

“Let him go, Madden.” Roper's face was sombre, his voice a low growl.

Madden stepped back. Donahue smoothed down his sleeves, turned and headed for the door. Madden stepped in his way.

Donahue said, “You're another dick needs a bust in the mouth.”

“Why don't you bust it?”

Roper raised his voice-“Get out, Donahue.”

Donahue yanked the door open, threw a contemptuous look at Madden, at Roper, and Crowley; laughed sarcastically and went out with a toss of his chin.

Four nights out of each week Donahue ate dinner at Dominick's, a quiet joint where you got good chili con carne and Spanish sherry that wasn't cut but once. This was one of the four nights. Dominique was the real name, but the neighborhood was more or less Italian, and Dom himself had lived much in Genoa; and besides, the guy who'd painted the sign that hung over the narrow door was a Baxter Street Italian with a one-track mind.

It was near Columbus Park, on the Baxter Streetside. It had a few booths in the rear room-the restaurant comprised two large rooms-and some lattice-work beneath the ceiling entangled with imitation vines.

Donahue found his favorite booth empty and after he'd told the waiter to bring him a Martini, Dom came over all smiling with a lot of big white teeth.

“Lady lookin' for you, Donny.”

“Yeah?” Donahue laughed, broke a bread-stick. “It's happened before.”

Dominick indicated a brunette who sat alone at a table in the opposite corner.

“She doesn't know me,” Donahue said.

“Mebbe not. She justa ask you come here and I say sure, lots.”

Donahue said, “Okey. Let her sit there. I don't want to know her.”

Dominick looked puzzled. The waiter brought the Martini, and Donahue tried it, gave his order. The brunette didn't eat. She was drinking gin rickies, from time to time. Donahue spent an hour over his meal, winding up with black coffee and a tot of brandy. He paid his bill, got up and on the way out stopped to touch Dominick's shoulder.

“Remember, Dom, I haven't been in.”

“I getcha. Sure.”

Donahue walked out and crossed the street, stopped at the corner and waited. He waited half an hour. Finally the girl came out and walked towards him on the opposite side of the street. She was tall, had a loose-limbed walk that was not ungraceful.

He tailed her until she reached a corner where three cabs stood at the curb. She got in the first and drove off. Donahue got in the second and said:

“Tail that jane, bud.”

The tail led to Julie's in West Tenth Street, and when Donahue entered the bar he could see the girl sitting at a table in the back room. A waiter was taking her order, and when the waiter came into the bar he saw Donahue and started to open his mouth.

Donahue cut in with, “Is that jane looking for me?”

“Yeah, Donny. She just-”

“Tell her you haven't seen me here in weeks.” Donahue had a beer and was finishing it when the girl got up and left. He went out a minute later and saw her walking east. She turned into Gay Street and struck Waverly Place. Familiar neighborhood for Donahue. Here Crosby had met his death at the hands of Babe Delaney. Here he had first seen Irene Saffarrans and Alfred Poore, the nice-faced rat. Here he had seen Adler-who later got smoked out in Grove Street.

The girl entered a four-story graystone near Sixth Avenue. Donahue crossed the street and watched the building. Lights on first and third floors were glowing. Two minutes later Donahue saw two windows on the left light up. He saw the form of the girl in one of the windows for a brief moment, before she pulled the shade down. She lived on the third floor. While she was reaching up to draw down the shade on the other window Donahue saw a man in a bathrobe stretching and yawning. Then the drawn shade hid both.

After a minute Donahue crossed the street, got the number of the house, and walked to Sixth Avenue, turned north and then east into Eighth Street.

When he entered his hotel there was a letter in the box. It was on the hotel stationery.

The clerk said, “A man came in at about eight, asked for you and I said you'd gone out. He wrote a note and said I should be sure to give it to you.”

“Thanks.”

Donahue walked away, stopped, tore open the letter. It was from Ames.

Dear Donny:

Tubba Klem finished a five-year stretch last Tuesday. He was Poore's cell mate. Luck. And don't forget yours truly.-Billy.

Donahue walked to a large earthen ash receptacle, tore the note into fragments, dropped them on the butt-littered sand, and entered the elevator wearing a puzzled frown.

The man he had seen yawning and stretching was not Tubba Klem.

“Never saw her before,” Donahue said.

“That's queer,” Hinkle said. “Funny, too, that when Dom said a girl was asking for you, you didn't get right up and fall right down for her.”

“What am I supposed to do, laugh?” Donahue leaned back in the chair.

“If the man I'd seen was Tubba Klem I'd bite. But he wasn't, and I haven't the slightest use for that sort of a woman. They mean trouble every time and all the time and no foolin'.”

Hinkle sighed. “Well, we won't go into that.... And Roper started a third degree on you, eh?”

“Yeah. And he's got a flatfoot tailing me now.” Donahue stood up, strolled to the window. “He's holding a pole up now. Some rookie.” He came back and stood by the desk, staring abstractedly at its hard, shiny surface. “And the guy wasn't Tubba Klem. He was a big guy, plenty of muscle, and light hair. At a glance, I'd say I'd” never seen him before. The jane and the guy must be strangers in town.”

The telephone rang. Hinkle answered it, then shoved it across the desk. “For you, Donny.”

Donahue picked it up, said, “Hello.... Yeah, this is Donny.... Huh?... I get you.... Sure. Okey, kid.” He hung up and put the telephone back on the desk. “One of my little stoolies. I know where Tubba Klem is. Tubba has come out of stir with a he-man complex. He's packing two big guns.” He put or? his hat.

Hinkle's face became grave. “I wouldn't get a two-gun man's goat, Donny.”

Donahue laughed. He slipped his right hand beneath his left arm, drew out a long-barreled blue automatic. “Take a look at that, Asa.” He laid it on the desk and smiled at Hinkle.

“Hell, man, it's only a twenty-two!”

“Ten shots, hollow-point. The best balanced gun a man can buy, and one little slug will do the trick. When a guy packs two big guns, it means to me that he's a punk shot and figures on dynamiting his way out.”

He picked up the slim automatic, slipped it into the sheath beneath his arm. He took a look through the window. “First,” he said, “I'll have to shake the rookie.”

He went out and walked down Park Row to Broadway. He hopped a northbound Broadway street car, and saw the rookie climb into a taxi behind. The taxi followed the street car, though it had plenty of opportunity to pass it. Donahue rode as far as Worth Street, alighted and dodged traffic to the west side of Broadway, then strode west on Worth Street. The taxi passed him, and the rookie got off at the corner of Worth and Church. Donahue turned north on Church. The rookie was drifting along behind.

Donahue turned west into Franklin Street, walked one block and went down into the West Side Subway kiosk. A train was standing in the station. Donahue ducked into the toilet. He waited until the train had drawn out, then pushed the door open and stood behind the turnstiles. He saw no one. He dropped a nickel in the slot and a minute later caught a northbound local. He changed to a Bronx Park express at Fourteenth Street, saw no sign of the rookie.

Harlem was sunning itself. The spring afternoon held promise of an early summer. Little kids-three of them-sat half naked in a doorway from which issued the sound of something frying and the smell of that which was being fried. Two doors farther on a couple of tough-looking bucks leaned against a dirty store-window that had the word Pool painted on it.

Donahue passed the smelly doorway, and slowed down as he approached the pool parlor. A hall-door was ajar just beyond the big window. It indicated regions above the pool layout. Donahue pushed the door open, left it open, so that bright sunlight followed him in. He stood inside, body twisted, eyes slanted at the door. After a minute he looked up the wooden staircase.

He climbed it. The soles of his shoes made loose boards creak, and the banister wobbled when he leaned against it. On the first landing a door opened and a girl came out humming. She was high-yellow, had pretty teeth and flashing black eyes. It was the perfume Donahue didn't like. “How yuh, mistuh big boy?”

“Yeah,” said Donahue, and went on up the next staircase.

He paused at the top. The girl's heels were rapping down the stairs below. Donahue climbed a third staircase, stood at the top counting doors. Then he walked past three doors, stopped before the fourth. He knocked. He waited a minute and knocked again.

Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket. He chose one of three master keys. It worked. He entered swiftly, closed the door and locked it.

The room was small, with one window looking out on a backyard and a panorama of roofs, clothes-lines and garbage cans, rusty fire-escapes and skeins of radio aerials.

The room itself had a cot salvaged from some army and navy store. Two chairs, one with a broken cane bottom. A washstand with speckled stone top, a bowl and a pitcher. An imitation-leather suitcase, new, lay on the floor. A dirty shirt lay on the bed, along with a pair of socks. The drawer of a cheap bureau was open, revealing one clean shirt.

Donahue pulled the two other drawers out. They were empty. He looked under the clean shirt. Nothing. He tackled the suitcase. There were two bottles of High-and-Dry in it, buried among more dirty clothes. He searched the clothes, making a face. Finally he closed the suitcase, stood up and let his eyes roam around. He crossed to the washstand, opened the door beneath the mottled top. Closed it. He drew his lower lip sidewise beneath his upper teeth, scowled reflectively, while his keen eyes stabbed the room in a dozen places. As a matter of form he turned the mattress over and searched the pillows. Nothing, of course. There was a pair of old brown shoes beneath the cot. He pulled them out, ran his hand inside each. He threw them down, disgruntled. One turned over on its side.

The sun, driving one slim rapier of brilliance into the room, made something shine on the sole of the shoe. Donahue knelt down. Gum soles. He held the shoe in his left hand, took a penknife with his right, pried out the shiny little object. He carried it to the window. He smiled-grimly, intimately.

He went to the door, unlocked it. He took one of the two chairs and placed it against the wall beside the window. He opened the window and looked down. A fire-escape led to the cluttered yard below. He looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. He dragged out his pipe, stuffed it and sat down on the chair facing the door. He lit up, and when the inside of the bowl was a red glow, he leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest, his right hand concealed by the upper part of his left arm. He hooked one heel on the edge of the bed.

At five a key grated in the lock. The door swung open and Tubba Klem rocked in. Stopped short. Drew up one side of his broad, fat nose and wrinkled his fat eyelids over rodent eyes.

“Should lock your door, Tubba, when you go out.”

“How'n hell'd you get in?”

“Door was open.”

“The hell it was!”

Donahue grinned. “Honest, Tubba. How the hell do you think I'd get in?”

Tubba Klem scowled with his huge apish face, kicked the door shut and scaled his hat on the bed. He had got a haircut in stir just before leaving. His head was shaped like one end of a watermelon, hairless, corrugated in the back. He had no eyebrows, but the bone above his eyes was craggy.

“What you want, Donahue? I know you!”

“go you've gone native, Tubba?”

“What you want? I said what you want?” His mouth was huge. His teeth were huge, and primordial fire burned in his crag-shaded eyes. A broad man, wide around the middle, wearing a misshapen coat. “You got a helluva nerve, comin' in here! What you want?” He stood on trunks of legs that were spread wide, mammoth feet rooted to the; floor, outthrust jaw belligerent. The room seemed to have grown smaller since-his entrance.

Donahue lounged on the chair, heel of his left foot still hooked on the edge of the bed. The surface of his brown eyes was whimsical. Deeper, there was a hawk-like watchfulness.

“Don't get steamed up, Tubba.”

Tubba Klem's scowl wavered. He looked almost sheepish. He laughed, shrugged, and drew a crumpled cigarette from his pocket. He lit up and dropped to the cot.

His tone was more amiable when he said, “What can I do for you, Donny?”

“I heard you were Poore's cell-mate.”

“Yeah.”

“I fixed him for that ride. I was wondering how he's getting on. He wasn't a bad guy.”

Tubba Klem shuttered his eyes, dropped his thick lower lip so that his lower teeth appeared. For a brief moment he looked oafish. Then he said, “Oh, yeah, Al's okey.”

“Hear he's trying to get another trial.”

“Well, maybe. Guess he is maybe. I dunno.”

“He needs jack; that's what he needs.”

Tubba Klem steadied his eyes. He was thinking hard. The effort made wrinkles on his forehead. Donahue was eying him slyly. Tubba Klem looked up at him a little baffled, a little suspicious. Donahue smiled. Tubba. Klem dropped his eyes, jerking them back and forth across the floor. Then he scowled and looked up.

“What you drivin' at? What you want?” He heaved up, making great fists of his hands. “I don't savvy you at all, Donahue! You go get to hell outta here!”

“Ah, calm down, Tubba. I don't want you. I just thought you might spring something about Poore's plans. Well,” he got up, “I guess Poore held his trap. I just got a bum steer, Tubba.”

“Well, see you stay outta here!”

“Sure. Don't get sore, Tubba. I'm wrong. I admit it.” He grinned. “I always figured you got framed up the river last time. I'm sorry, Tubba.”

Tubba Klem looked grieved. “Course I got framed. Ain't I tryin' like hell to get a job now? And here you gotta come snoopin' around.”

Donahue held out his hand. “I'm sorry, kid. Shake.”

Tubba Klem looked suspicious again. He put out his hand warily. Donahue shook it, dropped it, went to the door. He opened it, said, “The straight and narrow pays, Tubba. So long.”

“So long, Donny.”

Donahue entered the hockshop on Fourteenth Street at a quarter to six.

A youngish man, with pomaded black hair, looked up from a ledger.

“Hello,” Donahue said.

“Hello,” the man said.

“Are you running this place now?”

“Yeah.”

“Ike's brother?”

“Yeah.”

“Benny?”

“Sure.”

Donahue smiled. “I'm Donahue.”

“Yeah? You're the guy came in here the other day-”

“I'm the little boy. Now hold on, kid. Don't get hot and bothered. You'd like to find out who murdered your brother, wouldn't you?”

“What's that to you?”

“Maybe I can turn the trick. Now forget I was going to punch him in the jaw. I lost my temper, that's all. I'm sorry, too. You forget it and maybe we'll get somewhere.” The man shrugged. “Go ahead: Spill it.”

“Okey. When you came in here to open up, I suppose things were not in order. Was anything lying on the floor? I mean, was anything spilled?”

“As far as I can make out, nothing was swiped.”

“I know. But was anything lying on the floor? Watch parts. Anything.”

“Well, there was some parts scattered on the work desk in the back room.”

“Let's look at 'em.”

Benny grumbled, but led Donahue into the back room. He pointed to a tray. “These things were scattered on the desk. I put 'em back.”

“What's this?”

“Lady's wristwatch. I guess Ike was fixing it.”

“Yeah. All the parts here?”

Benny looked at a tag. “It needed a main spring.”

“Is that all?”

“That's all it says.”

Donahue got down on his knees, lit a match and searched under the desk. Two fingers of his right hand slipped into his vest. Then he lit another match, searched some more, and finally stood up, asking:

“What's this?”

“Looks like a watch stem. Guess it belongs to that watch.”

Donahue picked up the small watch, inserted the stem. It fitted flush with the frame of the watch. He stood back, stroking his jaw.

“Well,” he said, “another blind alley, but worth a chance. Thanks, Benny.”

Outside, he hopped a taxicab. Fifteen minutes later he walked in on Asa Hinkle. Hinkle was putting on his hat.

“I see no blood, Donny.”

“Don't lose hope. I'm going to get a good meal under my belt and then I'm going after Tubba Klem.”

Hinkle dropped his smile. “That certain.”

“I dropped in Tubba's place this afternoon. He was out. I looked around and I found the smallest watch stem you ever saw. It was jammed in the gum sole of Tubba's spare shoes. Tubba came in and we talked about the weather. Then I went down to the hockshop. The stem fitted a watch there.”

“Listen, Donny; you'd better get a flock of cops-”

“No! They'll blow him apart. I just want to put him out temporarily.”

“For God's sake, Donny, that guy's a killer!”

“That's tabloid talk, boss. But if he gets me, here's his address.” He bent over the desk, writing.

“Donny, it's suicide-”

“Said he hysterically.”