Johnny Liddell's Morgue, page 21
Pretty Boy stared at him for a moment, lashed out with his heel at Liddell’s shins. The detective pulled him to his feet, hit him flush in the mouth with his fist. There was a dull crunching sound. Pretty Boy’s mouth dissolved into a stream of red.
“I’ve got all day, junior,” Liddell told him grimly. “And there’s no way I’d rather spend it.” He caught the other man by the front of his shirt, pulled him to his feet. “Feel like playing Twenty Questions?”
Pretty Boy nodded, fell into the chair when Liddell released his hold on his shirt.
“Know a girl named Laplanche? Susie Laplanche?” Liddell growled.
The man on the chair dabbed away at his mouth with his pocket handkerchief, brought it away red stained. He nodded his head. “She was out at the Temple last week.” He had difficulty talking with the smashed lips.
“You pulled this picture gimmick on her?”
Pretty Boy’s eyes dropped. They rolled upward to Liddell’s face in a hurry when the private detective grabbed a handful of hair, snapped his head back.
“I asked you a question,” Liddell told him.
“Yeah. We didn’t know she was going to take the pipe. Her old man has plenty.” Liddell released his hair, the man in the chair raked it back out of his face with a shaking hand. “The guy steered us to her said she was good for it.”
“Waiden?”
The man nodded.
“How’d you get her to pose for the pictures?” Liddell walked over, picked up his picture, studied it. “What’d you use to get this one? Infra red?”
Pretty Boy nodded again. “Usually, when the lights go out, one of us uses a snooperscope, finds a pretty good picture, we snap it, take our chances on what we can shake out of it. Other times, when we’ve been steered onto a shake like the dame and you — ”
Liddell grinned. “You mean Mr. Liddell, the big banker from Memphis?”
The man in the chair started to get up. Liddell shoved him back. “Who are you, anyway?” the man asked.
“My name’s Liddell. You knew that.”
“But you’re no banker. You’re a plant.”
Liddell nodded. “Suppose we go back to me asking the questions.” He caught a flick of the other man’s eyes toward where his companion still lay on the floor. Liddell turned, saw the big man struggling up to his knees. He walked over, chopped the side of his hand against the side of the other man’s jaw, knocked him back down on his face. “In case you haven’t gotten the idea, pal, I don’t like you guys.” He walked back to Pretty Boy. “How’d you get the picture of Susie? Was Walden in it with her?”
Liddell raised his fist.
“No. One of the boys we have around the place.”
Liddell growled deep in his chest. “She thought it was Waiden?” he demanded incredulously.
“She was so high she wouldn’t have known if it was a gorilla.” Pretty Boy wiped his lips, winced. “That wine they gave you. It’s spiked to the hilt with Spanish Fly and hop. They fed her enough of it so’s she was higher than the Empire State Building.”
“Where do I find your boss?”
“Look, Liddell — ” the man in the chair started to argue.
“Do I have to persuade you?”
Pretty Boy shook his head. “The San Carlo Apartments. He has the penthouse.” He raked at his hair with his fingers. “What are you going to do with Stanley and me?”
Liddell grinned humorlessly. “I’m going to cuff you ankle to ankle to the plumbing with your pal there. So if you get wanderlust, you can try walking with a bathtub between your legs.”
The San Carlo Apartments was an oppressively modern pile of bricks and plate glass perched on a small promontory in the modern section of New Orleans. Johnny Liddell headed across the lobby to a bank of elevators at the far end. He gave no sign that he noticed the man who ambled over when he asked the starter for the elevator to the penthouse.
As he entered the elevator, the man squeezed in behind him. He was short, but what he lacked in height he more than made up in breadth. He wore a white linen suit, a wine-red shirt, cream-colored tie. His thick blue-black hair was plastered flat against his skull, he smelled strongly of cologne. When he got in, he nodded to the operator.
“You got an appointment to see Mr. Russo, mister?” he asked. His eyes were dark, half-veiled by heavy, sore-looking lids. “I’m sort of his secretary.”
Liddell nodded with studied uncertainty. “I — I wanted to talk to him on a business matter.” His eyes jumped from the man in the white suit to the operator and back. “One of his men was to see me this morning — ”
White Suit grinned. “I get it.”
The elevator slid to a smooth stop at the penthouse floor, the doors opened noiselessly.
“This is the end of the line, mister,” White Suit told him.
Liddell followed him out of the elevator to a large metal door. White Suit knocked two times, the lock clicked and the door swung open. The man in the white suit stepped aside, Liddell walked in. The man followed, shut the door behind him.
A man was sitting on a huge sofa at the far side of the room. He was huge, his chins cascaded down over his collar. His lips were small, pouty, damp. His eyes were almost lost behind the discolored pouches of fat. His fingers touched across the broad expanse of his stomach.
“Good day, sir,” his voice was blubbery, as though it were choked by the heavy fat that surrounded his neck. “Who is our visitor, Carlo?”
“He didn’t say.” The man in the white suit stepped up behind Liddell. The private detective could feel the sharp point of a knife against his back. “Who are you, mister?” Carlo’s breath was foul.
“There must be some mistake. My name is Liddell. Two of your men called on me this morning, and — ”
The fat man went through the motions of applauding. “Very good performance, sir. Very good indeed.” His eyes receded further behind their pouches. “Of course we should have checked up on you before. But better late than never, wouldn’t you say, sir?” He picked up a yellow telegraph form. “My friends in Memphis tell me there never has been a bank president there named Liddell. Not even a vice-president.” He laced his pudgy fingers across his chest, leaned back. “Mr. Liddell is a private detective, Carlo.”
Liddell could hear the breath whistle through White Suit’s teeth. The knife point jabbed deeper, Liddell fancied he could feel the bare tip against his skin.
“You’ve got a pretty good system, Russo,” Liddell told him.
Russo shrugged. “Not as good as it should be sometimes. But we’re learning. I suppose you’re trying to figure out how I knew you were a detective?”
“I’d like to think the gal out at the temple said I was too good to be a banker.”
Russo considered it for a moment, started to shake with laughter. “Very good, sir. Very good, indeed.” He contemplated the need for motion, decided it was inevitable, pulled himself to his feet with a grunt. “Bring our humorous friend this way, Carlo.” He waddled toward an inner room, pushed open the door.
White Suit prodded Liddell in the back with the knife, he followed the fat man to the door.
Jimmy Walden sat on the floor, his back against the wall. He stared at them with blank, unseeing eyes. His hands were held out in front of him, the fingers twisted and bent in crazy shapes. As Liddell watched him, a stream of saliva coursed from the corner of the pianist’s mouth, glistened on his chin. He seemed completely unaware of their presence, started to rock slowly back and forth, crooning over his broken fingers.
“A friend of yours, sir,” Russo told Liddell. He turned to study the man on the floor. “Had to be taught a lesson. He might have saved us all some embarrassment if he had come to us directly he knew you were working on the Laplanche case.” He shook his head, the heavy chins wabbled. “Another disappointment, sir. Not very good stuff, these younger people.”
Liddell nodded. “He’s a pianist, you break his fingers. What are you planning to do to me?”
The fat man studied him for a moment, then burst into gales of laughter. “You are a card, sir,” he gurgled. “I’m sure Laveau would get the point.” He rested his palms on his heaving stomach, roared.
“You’re so funny, you’re going to die laughing, shamus,” Carlo growled in his ear. “You know what we got in the cards for you? You’re going to walk to the edge of the terrace out there. Then you’re going to keep on walking. And I won’t even pull the old one about watching out for the first step.”
Liddell could feel the perspiration beading on his forehead. His shirt stuck damply to his back.
“That wouldn’t be smart, would it, Russo? They’d trace me back here.”
The fat man shook his head. “We have a little apartment downstairs. Carlo will open the window down there.” He raised pudgy hands palms up. “It will just be a case of a despondent John Doe. Happens all the time.”
“Let’s not make it too fast, Cookie. After fifteen stories no cuts will show.” Carlo’s voice was tense, he was breathing faster. “I like to hear big tough guys scream for mercy.”
The fat man shrugged, “Be my guest.” He waddled over to an upholstered chair, sank into it with a grunt. “Hadn’t you better make sure our good friend isn’t armed, Carlo?”
The man in the white suit reached around Liddell, patted him down expertly. He pulled the .45 from Liddell’s waistband, tossed it at the couch. It bounced off the pillow, clattered to the floor. Russo eyed it for a moment, sighed, decided against the exertion of pulling himself out of his chair.
Carlo dug the tip of the knife into Liddell’s back, flipped it upward. The private detective could feel the stinging sensation as it scraped a ditch from his kidney to his shoulder. Carlo’s breath was coming in gasps. The fat man watched, his eyes sunken behind the discolored pouches, the tips of his fingers tapping against each other over his stomach. Nobody noticed the man on the floor inching toward the gun.
Liddell tensed his muscles, determined on a last-ditch effort. The knife point caught him under the ribs, made him gasp for breath.
Walden had almost reached the gun when Carlo saw him.
“Walden, boss! He’s after the gun.”
Russo turned in time to see the man with the broken fingers trying to get his finger through the trigger guard. He slid his hand into his jacket pocket, brought out a snub-nosed .38, fired point-blank. The first bullet hit the pianist in the shoulder, half spun him. The second hit him in the chest, slammed him back against the floor. The .45 fell from his nerveless fingers.
At the first sign of distraction, Liddell went into action. He dropped down and away from the knife, heard it swish over his head. He lashed out with both heels, caught the man in the white suit in the shins. Carlo cursed, went down in a heap.
Before Russo could swing his gun, Liddell was on his feet, had Carlo in a hammerlock, held him between himself and the fat man. Russo’s face was an ugly red. He struggled to get out of the chair, was halfway up when Liddell threw the man in the white suit at him bodily. Carlo hit the fat man, caught him off balance, knocked him and the chair over. The fat man’s head hit the floor with a dull thud, the .38 fell from his fingers, skidded across the floor.
Carlo was the first to scramble to his feet. His dark face was white with anger. He made the one mistake a knife fighter can’t afford to make. He threw his knife at Liddell, missed him. Liddell moved in, slammed both hands to the other man’s body, heard the breath wheeze from his lungs as his knees bent under him and he tumbled to the floor.
Liddell stood for a moment, drawing air into his lungs in gasps. He turned, walked back to the wall where Carlo’s knife had imbedded itself. He caught it by the blade, tugged it loose.
“That was very foolish, sir,” Russo’s gurgling voice came to him. “Now, I’ll make sure there are no more mistakes.”
Liddell turned his head, looked over his shoulder. The fat man had picked up the .45 where it lay near Walden’s body.
“Turn around slowly, Liddell. I want you to see it when you get it.”
Liddell reversed the knife in his hand, caught the point. As he swung around, his hand completed an arc. The knife whistled through the air, sank into the fat man with a dull thud.
Russo squeezed the trigger. The .45 roared, a slug bit a piece out of the molding near Liddell’s head. The fat man stood swaying, the handle of the knife protruding from under his breastbone. He tried to raise the .45 for another shot, found it was getting too heavy. The bullet plowed a hole in the floor in front of Liddell. Russo dropped the gun, clasped both hands to his midsection in a futile attempt to stem the flow of red. He collapsed heavily.
Johnny Liddell walked over, turned the fat man over with his foot. Russo’s eyes were half open, but had already started to glaze. Near him, Carlo was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness. Liddell walked over, brought back his foot, kicked the man in the white suit on the side of the jaw.
Then he walked to the telephone, dialed police headquarters, asked for Sergeant MacMillan. Then, “This is Liddell, Sarge. I just came up to Cookie Russo’s place. He had a bodyguard named Carlo who knifed him.” He listened to the metallic chatter from the receiver. “Sure. His fingerprints are probably all over the knife. There’s another stiff here, a guy named Jimmy Walden. You’ll find the slugs from Cookie’s gun finished him.” He shook a cigarette from his pocket, stuck it into his mouth. “And you’d better contact the sheriff at San Vincente. There’s a temple over there Cookie’s been using for a blackmail set-up. You’ll find all the evidence you need right here.” He lit the cigarette, nodded at the instructions MacMillan shouted over the phone. He looked over at where Carlo lay. “The bodyguard? No, he’s not here. He ran for the terrace — and kept right on going.”
If you liked Johnny Liddell’s Morgue check out:
A Real Gone Guy
CHAPTER ONE
The Hotel Seymour was a dingy-fronted narrow stone building that nestled anonymously in a row of similarly dingy, narrow stone buildings ranging between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the low Thirties. The two men pushed through the revolving door, crossed the napless lobby rug to the elevators in the rear. Neither spoke, neither paid any attention to the man behind the registration desk.
They walked to the back of the cage, stared at the back of the elevator boy who was preoccupied with the absorbing task of digging a black crescent from the nail of his index finger with a toothpick.
“Take us up,” the younger of the two men grunted. He was thick shouldered, heavy in the face. His fedora was pulled low over his eyes, its brim almost touching the top of his eyebrows. His companion was older, slight. He wore a baggy blue suit, a battered fedora pushed to the back of his head.
The elevator operator rolled his eyes up from his nails languidly, prepared to argue. Upon seeing the man, he decided against it. He looked for support to where the starter leaned against the glass counter of the cigar stand in a perennially unsuccessful effort to make the blonde who presided over it. The starter had his back turned.
“You don’t hear so good. I said take us up,” the big man growled.
The operator licked at his lips, slammed the gates and pushed down the handle. “What floor?”
“Four.”
The two passengers leaned against the back wall of the cage, watched wordlessly as the floors slid past the grilled door. The cage wheezed jerkily to a stop at the fourth, and the operator dragged back the door.
As the older man started out, his younger companion caught him by the arm. “No sense taking any chances, Rosen.” He flattened himself against the side of the cage, studied the length of corridor through the mirror slanted against the top of the opposite wall.
The mirror showed an empty corridor.
The operator stared at them curiously, stiffened nervously as the big-shouldered man nodded to his companion. He unbuttoned his coat and tugged a .38 from his belt. The older man followed suit.
The elevator boy licked at his lips. “Say, what is this, mister?”
The older man reassured him. “Police business, sonny. You stay here in your cage and you won’t get hurt.” He turned to his partner. “Ready, Ryan?”
Ryan nodded, scowled at the elevator operator. “Keep your cage on this floor and your door open. We may need it in a hurry.” The gun in his hand looked dwarfed by the size of his fist.
The operator lost a battle to keep his eyes off the yawning muzzle of the .38, stared at it in fascination. He managed to nod. “I understand, mister.”
Ryan signaled to his partner, led the way down the corridor to Room 416. He stopped to the left of the door, motioned his partner to the other side, waited until he had flattened himself against the wall. Then he reached over, rapped on the door with the snout of his gun.
“Open up in there, Hollister,” he yelled.
There was a pause, then a voice. “What do you want?”
“Open up. It’s the police.”
Hollister’s answer was to the point. Four muffled booms from inside the door chewed holes in the paneling.
Slugs ripped through, leaving long scars in the outside of the door where the wood splintered.
Ryan cursed at the man inside under his breath, then got in front of the door. He kicked his heel heavily against the door, just to the right of the lock. There was a rending of wood, the agonized screech of screws being torn out as the door swung open.
The room inside was in darkness, a curtain flapped eerily in the half light.
“The window, Ryan. He’s going through the window,” Rosen snapped. He started through the door. There were two loud cracks outside the window and long orange fingers of flame seemed to be reaching toward him.
Rosen coughed, folded at the middle, went to his knees.
Behind him, Ryan cursed fervently, threw two shots at the dim figure outlined on the fire escape beyond. The man on the landing staggered as the heavy slugs ripped into him. He tried to raise his gun to firing position, but suddenly it seemed to have gotten too heavy.
