The Essential Noir Bundle, page 5
“Didn’t I tell you not to bother me unless you wanted to talk sense for a change?”
“You did, my lad.” There was a foolish sort of triumph in his voice. “And I’ll talk you your sense. I want a man to clean this pig-sty of a Poisonville for me, to smoke out the rats, little and big. It’s a man’s job. Are you a man?”
“What’s the use of getting poetic about it?” I growled. “If you’ve got a fairly honest piece of work to be done in my line, and you want to pay a decent price, maybe I’ll take it on. But a lot of foolishness about smoking rats and pig-pens doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“All right. I want Personville emptied of its crooks and grafters. Is that plain enough language for you?”
“You didn’t want it this morning,” I said. “Why do you want it now?”
The explanation was profane and lengthy and given to me in a loud and blustering voice. The substance of it was that he had built Personville brick by brick with his own hands and he was going to keep it or wipe it off the side of the hill. Nobody could threaten him in his own city, no matter who they were. He had let them alone, but when they started telling him, Elihu Willsson, what he had to do and what he couldn’t do, he would show them who was who. He brought the speech to an end by pointing at the corpse and boasting:
“That’ll show them there’s still a sting in the old man.”
I wished I were sober. His clowning puzzled me. I couldn’t put my finger on the something behind it.
“Your playmates sent him?” I asked, nodding at the dead man.
“I only talked to him with this,” he said, patting the automatic on the bed, “but I reckon they did.”
“How did it happen?”
“It happened simple enough. I heard the door opening, and I switched on the light, and there he was, and I shot him, and there he is.”
“What time?”
“It was about one o’clock.”
“And you’ve let him lie there all this time?”
“That I have.” The old man laughed savagely and began blustering again: “Does the sight of a dead man turn your stomach? Or is it his spirit you’re afraid of?”
I laughed at him. Now I had it. The old boy was scared stiff. Fright was the something behind his clowning. That was why he blustered, and why he wouldn’t let them take the body away. He wanted it there to look at, to keep panic away, visible proof of his ability to defend himself. I knew where I stood.
“You really want the town cleaned up?” I asked.
“I said I did and I do.”
“I’d have to have a free hand—no favors to anybody—run the job as I pleased. And I’d have to have a ten-thousand-dollar retainer.”
“Ten thousand dollars! Why in hell should I give that much to a man I don’t know from Adam? A man who’s done nothing I know of but talk?”
“Be serious. When I say me, I mean the Continental. You know them.”
“I do. And they know me. And they ought to know I’m good for—”
“That’s not the idea. These people you want taken to the cleaners were friends of yours yesterday. Maybe they will be friends again next week. I don’t care about that. But I’m not playing politics for you. I’m not hiring out to help you kick them back in line—with the job being called off then. If you want the job done you’ll plank down enough money to pay for a complete job. Any that’s left over will be returned to you. But you’re going to get a complete job or nothing. That’s the way it’ll have to be. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll damned well leave it,” he bawled.
He let me get half-way down the stairs before he called me back.
“I’m an old man,” he grumbled. “If I was ten years younger—” He glared at me and worked his lips together. “I’ll give you your damned check.”
“And authority to go through with it in my own way?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll get it done now. Where’s your secretary?”
Willsson pushed a button on his bedside table and the silent secretary appeared from wherever he had been hiding. I told him:
“Mr. Willsson wants to issue a ten-thousand-dollar check to the Continental Detective Agency, and he wants to write the Agency—San Francisco branch—a letter authorizing the Agency to use the ten thousand dollars investigating crime and political corruption in Personville. The letter is to state clearly that the Agency is to conduct the investigation as it sees fit.”
The secretary looked questioningly at the old man, who frowned and ducked his round white head.
“But first,” I told the secretary as he glided toward the door, “you’d better phone the police that we’ve got a dead burglar here. Then call Mr. Willsson’s doctor.”
The old man declared he didn’t want any damned doctors.
“You’re going to have a nice shot in the arm so you can sleep,” I promised him, stepping over the corpse to take the black gun from the bed. “I’m going to stay here tonight and we’ll spend most of tomorrow sifting Poisonville affairs.”
The old man was tired. His voice, when he profanely and somewhat long-windedly told me what he thought of my impudence in deciding what was best for him, barely shook the windows.
I took off the dead man’s cap for a better look at his face. It didn’t mean anything to me. I put the cap back in place.
When I straightened up the old man asked, moderately:
“Are you getting anywhere in your hunt for Donald’s murderer?”
“I think so. Another day ought to see it finished.”
“Who?” he asked.
The secretary came in with the letter and the check. I gave them to the old man instead of an answer to his question. He put a shaky signature on each, and I had them folded in my pocket when the police arrived.
The first copper into the room was the chief himself, fat Noonan. He nodded amiably at Willsson, shook hands with me, and looked with twinkling greenish eyes at the dead man.
“Well, well,” he said. “It’s a good job he did, whoever did it. Yakima Shorty. And will you look at the sap he’s toting?” He kicked the blackjack out of the dead man’s hand. “Big enough to sink a battleship. You drop him?” he asked me.
“Mr. Willsson.”
“Well, that certainly is fine,” he congratulated the old man. “You saved a lot of people a lot of troubles, including me. Pack him out, boys,” he said to the four men behind him.
The two in uniform picked Yakima Shorty up by legs and arm-pits and went away with him, while one of the others gathered up the blackjack and a flashlight that had been under the body.
“If everybody did that to their prowlers, it would certainly be fine,” the chief babbled on. He brought three cigars out of a pocket, threw one over on the bed, stuck one at me, and put the other in his mouth. “I was just wondering where I could get hold of you,” he told me as we lighted up. “I got a little job ahead that I thought you’d like to be in on. That’s how I happened to be on tap when the rumble came.” He put his mouth close to my ear and whispered: “Going to pick up Whisper. Want to go along?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you would. Hello, Doc!”
He shook hands with a man who had just come in, a little plump man with a tired oval face and gray eyes that still had sleep in them.
The doctor went to the bed, where one of Noonan’s men was asking Willsson about the shooting. I followed the secretary into the hall and asked him:
“Any men in the house besides you?”
“Yes, the chauffeur, the Chinese cook.”
“Let the chauffeur stay in the old man’s room tonight. I’m going out with Noonan. I’ll get back as soon as I can. I don’t think there’ll be any more excitement here, but no matter what happens don’t leave the old man alone. And don’t leave him alone with Noonan or any of Noonan’s crew.”
The secretary’s mouth and eyes popped wide.
“What time did you leave Donald Willsson last night?” I asked.
“You mean night before last, the night he was killed?”
“Yeah.”
“At precisely half-past nine.”
“You were with him from five o’clock till then?”
“From a quarter after five. We went over some statements and that sort of thing in his office until nearly eight o’clock. Then we went to Bayard’s and finished our business over our dinners. He left at half-past nine, saying he had an engagement.”
“What else did he say about this engagement?”
“Nothing else.”
“Didn’t give you any hint of where he was going, who he was going to meet?”
“He merely said he had an engagement.”
“And you didn’t know anything about it?”
“No. Why? Did you think I did?”
“I thought he might have said something.” I switched back to tonight’s doings: “What visitors did Willsson have today, not counting the one he shot?”
“You’ll have to pardon me,” the secretary said, smiling apologetically, “I can’t tell you that without Mr. Willsson’s permission. I’m sorry.”
“Weren’t some of the local powers here? Say Lew Yard, or—”
The secretary shook his head, repeating:
“I’m sorry.”
“We won’t fight over it,” I said, giving it up and starting back toward the bedroom door.
The doctor came out, buttoning his overcoat.
“He will sleep now,” he said hurriedly. “Someone should stay with him. I shall be in in the morning.” He ran downstairs.
I went into the bedroom. The chief and the man who had questioned Willsson were standing by the bed. The chief grinned as if he were glad to see me. The other man scowled. Willsson was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“That’s about all there is here,” Noonan said. “What say we mosey along?”
I agreed and said, “Good-night,” to the old man. He said, “Good-night,” without looking at me. The secretary came in with the chauffeur, a tall sunburned young husky.
The chief, the other sleuth—a police lieutenant named McGraw—and I went downstairs and got into the chief’s car. McGraw sat beside the driver. The chief and I sat in back.
“We’ll make the pinch along about daylight,” Noonan explained as we rode. “Whisper’s got a joint over on King Street. He generally leaves there along about daylight. We could crash the place, but that’d mean gun-play, and it’s just as well to take it easy. We’ll pick him up when he leaves.”
I wondered if he meant pick him up or pick him off. I asked:
“Got enough on him to make the rap stick?”
“Enough?” He laughed good-naturedly. “If what the Willsson dame give us ain’t enough to stretch him I’m a pickpocket.”
I thought of a couple of wisecrack answers to that. I kept them to myself.
CHAPTER 6: WHISPER’S JOINT
Our ride ended under a line of trees in a dark street not far from the center of town. We got out of the car and walked down to the corner.
A burly man in a gray overcoat, with a gray hat pulled down over his eyes, came to meet us.
“Whisper’s hep,” the burly man told the chief. “He phoned Donohoe that he’s going to stay in his joint. If you think you can pull him out, try it, he says.”
Noonan chuckled, scratched an ear, and asked pleasantly:
“How many would you say was in there with him?”
“Fifty, anyhow.”
“Aw, now! There wouldn’t be that many, not at this time of morning.”
“The hell there wouldn’t,” the burly man snarled. “They been drifting in since midnight.”
“Is that so? A leak somewheres. Maybe you oughtn’t to have let them in.”
“Maybe I oughtn’t.” The burly man was angry. “But I did what you told me. You said let anybody go in or out that wanted to, but when Whisper showed to—”
“To pinch him,” the chief said.
“Well, yes,” the burly man agreed, looking savagely at me.
More men joined us and we held a talk-fest. Everybody was in a bad humor except the chief. He seemed to enjoy it all. I didn’t know why.
Whisper’s joint was a three-story brick building in the middle of the block, between two two-story buildings. The ground floor of his joint was occupied by a cigar store that served as entrance and cover for the gambling establishment upstairs. Inside, if the burly man’s information was to be depended on, Whisper had collected half a hundred friends, loaded for a fight. Outside, Noonan’s force was spread around the building, in the street in front, in the alley in back, and on the adjoining roofs.
“Well, boys,” the chief said amiably after everybody had had his say, “I don’t reckon Whisper wants trouble any more than we do, or he’d have tried to shoot his way out before this, if he’s got that many with him, though I don’t mind saying I don’t think he has—not that many.”
The burly man said: “The hell he ain’t.”
“So if he don’t want trouble,” Noonan went on, “maybe talking might do some good. You run over, Nick, and see if you can’t argue him into being peaceable.”
The burly man said: “The hell I will.”
“Phone him, then,” the chief suggested.
The burly man growled: “That’s more like it,” and went away.
When he came back he looked completely satisfied.
“He says,” he reported, “ ‘Go to hell.’ ”
“Get the rest of the boys down here,” Noonan said cheerfully. “We’ll knock it over as soon as it gets light.”
The burly Nick and I went around with the chief while he made sure his men were properly placed. I didn’t think much of them—a shabby, shifty-eyed crew without enthusiasm for the job ahead of them.
The sky became a faded gray. The chief, Nick, and I stopped in a plumber’s doorway diagonally across the street from our target.
Whisper’s joint was dark, the upper windows blank, blinds down over cigar store windows and door.
“I hate to start this without giving Whisper a chance,” Noonan said. “He’s not a bad kid. But there’s no use me trying to talk to him. He never did like me much.”
He looked at me. I said nothing.
“You wouldn’t want to make a stab at it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll try it.”
“That’s fine of you. I’ll certainly appreciate it if you will. You just see if you can talk him into coming along without any fuss. You know what to say—for his own good and all that, like it is.”
“Yeah,” I said and walked across to the cigar store, taking pains to let my hands be seen swinging empty at my sides.
Day was still a little way off. The street was the color of smoke. My feet made a lot of noise on the pavement.
I stopped in front of the door and knocked the glass with a knuckle, not heavily. The green blind down inside the door made a mirror of the glass. In it I saw two men moving up the other side of the street.
No sound came from inside. I knocked harder, then slid my hand down to rattle the knob.
Advice came from indoors:
“Get away from there while you’re able.”
It was a muffled voice, but not a whisper, so probably not Whisper’s.
“I want to talk to Thaler,” I said.
“Go talk to the lard-can that sent you.”
“I’m not talking for Noonan. Is Thaler where he can hear me?”
A pause. Then the muffled voice said: “Yes.”
“I’m the Continental op who tipped Dinah Brand off that Noonan was framing you,” I said. “I want five minutes’ talk with you. I’ve got nothing to do with Noonan except to queer his racket. I’m alone. I’ll drop my rod in the street if you say so. Let me in.”
I waited. It depended on whether the girl had got to him with the story of my interview with her. I waited what seemed a long time.
The muffled voice said:
“When we open, come in quick. And no stunts.”
“All set.”
The latch clicked. I plunged in with the door.
Across the street a dozen guns emptied themselves. Glass shot from door and windows tinkled around us.
Somebody tripped me. Fear gave me three brains and half a dozen eyes. I was in a tough spot. Noonan had slipped me a pretty dose. These birds couldn’t help thinking I was playing his game.
I tumbled down, twisting around to face the door. My gun was in my hand by the time I hit the floor.
Across the street, burly Nick had stepped out of a doorway to pump slugs at us with both hands.
I steadied my gun-arm on the floor. Nick’s body showed over the front sight. I squeezed the gun. Nick stopped shooting. He crossed his guns on his chest and went down in a pile on the sidewalk.
Hands on my ankles dragged me back. The floor scraped pieces off my chin. The door slammed shut. Some comedian said:
“Uh-huh, people don’t like you.”
I sat up and shouted through the racket:
“I wasn’t in on this.”
The shooting dwindled, stopped. Door and window blinds were dotted with gray holes. A husky whisper said in the darkness:
“Tod, you and Slats keep an eye on things down here. The rest of us might as well go upstairs.”
We went through a room behind the store, into a passageway, up a flight of carpeted steps, and into a second-story room that held a green table banked for crap-shooting. It was a small room, had no windows, and the lights were on.
There were five of us. Thaler sat down and lit a cigarette, a small dark young man with a face that was pretty in a chorusman way until you took another look at the thin hard mouth. An angular blond kid of no more than twenty in tweeds sprawled on his back on a couch and blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling. Another boy, as blond and as young, but not so angular, was busy straightening his scarlet tie, smoothing his yellow hair. A thin-faced man of thirty with little or no chin under a wide loose mouth wandered up and down the room looking bored and humming Rosy Cheeks.
I sat in a chair two or three feet from Thaler’s.
“How long is Noonan going to keep this up?” he asked. There was no emotion in his hoarse whispering voice, only a shade of annoyance.
