Wise Guy Read online

  Wise Guy

  Frederick Nebel

  FEW PULP WRITERS WERE as prolific as Frederick Nebel (1903‐1967), who wrote several long-running series, mainly in Black Mask and its closest rival, Dime Detective, in a career that essentially ended after a single decade (1927‐1937). His crimefighting heroes are tough and frequently violent, but they bring a strong moral code to their jobs, and a level of realism achieved by few other pulp writers.

  Homicide Captain Steve MacBride, who is as tough as they come, and his ever‐present sidekick, Free Press reporter Kennedy, who provides comic relief in most of the thirty‐seven stories in which they appear, was a Black Mask fixture for nearly a decade.

  Donny “Tough Dick” Donahue of the Interstate Agency, with twenty‐one adventures, all in Black Mask, ran from 1930 to 1935; a half‐dozen of the best were collected in Six Deadly Dames (1950).

  The stories featuring Cardigan, an operative for the Cosmos Detective Agency, nearly fifty in all, ran from 1931 to 1937 in the pages of Dime Detective; the best of them were published in The Adventures of Cardigan (1988).

  Both of Nebel’s novels were filmed: Sleepers East (1933) in 1934 and Fifty Roads to Town (1936) in 1937.

  “Wise Guy,” a MacBride and Kennedy story, was first published in Black Mask in April 1930.

  Wise Guy

  Frederick Nebel

  I

  aristocratic. Then it became smugly middle‐class

  and grudgingly democratic. Then proletariat.

  Other streets around it went in for stores and

  LDERMAN TONY MARATELLI warehouses and shipping offices. But Riddle

  walked up and down the Street clung to its brownstone fronts and its living‐room of his house in three‐step stoops. It was rated a decent street.

  Riddle Street. Riddle was the

  name of a one‐time tax

  Maratelli stopped short as his five‐year‐

  commissioner. Maratelli was old daughter bowled into the room wearing a

  a fat man, with fat dark eyes and two generous variety of night attire known as teddy bears.

  chins. His fingers were fat, too, and the fingers

  of one hand were splayed around a glass of

  ‘“Night, poppa.”

  Chianti, from which at frequent intervals he

  took quick, sibilant draughts. Now an Italian

  Maratelli put down the glass of Chianti,

  does not drink Chianti that way. But Maratelli picked up the baby and bounced her playfully looked worried. He was.

  up and down on the palms of his fat hands.

  The winter night wind keened in the

  “Good‐night, angel,” he said.

  street outside and shook the windows in a sort

  of brusque, sharp fury. Riddle Street is a dark

  His wife, who was taller than he, and

  street. Also a windy one. That is because one heavier, came in and smiled and held out her end of it disembogues into River Road, where arms.

  the piers are. One upon a time Riddle Street was

  “Give her to me, Tony,” she said.

  Maratelli closed the hall door. The lock

  snapped automatically. He bustled into the

  “Yes, mama,” said Maratelli. “Put her to living‐room, eyed a Morris chair, then took a bed and then close that door. Captain MacBride couple of pillows from the lounge, placed them will be here maybe any minute.”

  in the Morris chair and patted hollows into

  them. He spread his hands towards the chair.

  “You want to be alone, Tony, don’t

  you?”

  “Have a nice seat, Cap.”

  “Yes, mama.”

  “Thanks.”

  She looked at him. “It’s about. . .”

  “Give me the overcoat and the hat.”

  “Yes, mama. Please take angel to bed

  “That’s all right, Tony.”

  and then you, too, leave me alone.”

  MacBride merely unbuttoned his coat,

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

  sat down and laid his hat on the table. He was

  freshly shaven, neatly combed, and his long,

  He laughed, and his ragtag mustache lean face had the hard, ruddy glint of a face that fanned over his mouth. He pinched the baby’s knows

  the

  weather.

  He

  leaned

  back

  cheeks, then his wife’s, then marched with her comfortably, crossing one leg over the other.

  to the inner door. They went out, and he closed The pants had a fine crease, the shoes were well the door and sighed.

  polished, and the laces neatly tied.

  He went over to the table, picked up the

  “Chianti, Cap?”

  glass of Chianti and marched up and down the

  room. His broad, heavy shoes thumped on the

  “A shot of Scotch’d go better.”

  carpet. He wore a henna‐colored shirt, a green

  tie, red suspenders and tobacco‐brown pants.

  “Yes—yes—yes!”

  His shoes creaked.

  Maratelli brought a bottle from the side‐

  When the bell rang, he fairly leaped into board, along with a bottle of Canada Dry.

  the hallway. He snapped back the lock and

  opened the door.

  “Straight,” said MacBride.

  “Ah, Cap! Good you come!”

  Maratelli took one with him, said,

  “Here’s how,” and they drank.

  MacBride strolled in. He wore a neat

  gray Cheviot overcoat, a flap‐brimmed hat of

  MacBride looked at the end of his cigar.

  lighter gray. His hands were in his pockets and

  he smoked a cigar.

  “Well, Tony, what’s the trouble?”

  “Slow at Headquarters, so I thought I’d

  The wind kept clutching at the windows.

  come down.”

  Maratelli went over and tightened a latch. Then

  he pulled up a rocker to face MacBride, sat

  “Yes—yes—yes.”

  down on the edge of it, lit a twisted cheroot and

  took a couple of quick, nervous puffs. He stared

  “Him. It’s about him. Him and my boy

  vacantly at MacBride’s polished shoe.

  Dominick. You know my boy Dominick is only

  twenty‐one. And—and—”

  Finally—”About my boy Dominick.”

  “Going around with Chibby?”

  “H’m!”

  “Yes—yes. Look. This is it, and Holy

  “You know?”

  Mother, if Chibby knows I talk to you—” He

  exhaled a vast breath and shook his head.

  “Go on, Tony.”

  “Look. I have lotsa trucks, Cap, being what I am

  a contractor. I have ten trucks, some big, some

  “Yes—yes. Look, Cap, I’m a good guy. I’m not that big. Chibby—uh—Chibby he wants my a good wop. I got a wife and kids and business trucks for to run booze at night!”

  and I been elected alderman and—well, I’m a

  pretty good guy. I don’t want to be on no

  MacBride uncrossed his legs and put

  racket, and I don’t want any kind of help from both heels on the floor. He leaned forward and, any rough guys in the neighborhood. I been putting the elbow of one arm on his knee, jack-pestered a lot, Cap, but I ain’t gonna give in. I knifed the other arm against his side. His eyes, got a wife and kids and a good reputation and I which had a windy blue look, stared point‐blank want to keep the slate what you call pretty at Maratelli.

  damn clean. Cap
, I ask you to come along here

  tonight after I been thinking a lotta things over

  “And you?”

  in my head. I need help, Cap. What’s a wop

  gonna do when he needs help? I dunno. But I

  “Well—” Maratelli sat back and spread

  ask you, and maybe you be my friend.”

  his hands palmwise and opened his eyes wide—

  “me, I say no!”

  “Sure,” said MacBride. “Get it off your

  chest.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “This wop—uh—Chibbarro, you know

  “Maybe a month.”

  him?”

  “And Dominick. Where does he come

  “Sam Chibbarro?”

  in?”

  “Yes—yes—yes.”

  Maratelli fell back in his chair like a

  deflated balloon. “That is what you call it, Cap.

  “Uhuh.”“

  He is very good friends. He thinks Chibby is a

  great guy. He says I am the old fool.”

  “Him.”

  MacBride looked at the floor, and his

  “What about him?”

  eyelids came down thoughtfully; the ghost of a

  curl came to his wide mouth, slightly sardonic.

  Maratelli took a long breath. It was

  coming hard, and he wiped his face with his fat

  Maratelli was hurrying on—”Look, Cap.

  hand. He cleared his throat, took a drink of My Dominick is a good boy, but if he keeps Chianti and cleared his throat again.

  friends with that dirty wop Chibbarro it is gonna

  be no good. I can’t stand for it, Cap. And what

  can I do with Dominick? He laughs at me. Puts

  MacBride was already swinging away, his

  the grease on his hair and wears the Tuxedo and cigar a red eye in the wind.

  goes around with Chibby like a millionaire.

  Dominick has done nothing bad yet, but if this

  Chibby— Look, Cap, whatcha think I’m gonna

  do?”

  II

  MacBride sat back. “Hell, Tony, I’ve had Jockey Street was never a good street. It was a lot of tough jobs in my day, but you hand me a the wayward offspring of a wayward lulu. It’s too bad. You’ve got my sympathy, and neighborhood. Six blocks of it made a bee line that’s no bologney. I’ll think it over. I’ll do the from the white‐lights district to the no‐lights best I can.”

  district, and then petered off into the river.

  “Please, Cap, please. Every night

  The way was dark after the third block,

  Dominick goes out with Chibby. Dominick ain’t except for a solitary electric sign that winked got the money, so Chibby he pays the bills. And seductively in the middle of the fourth. It where do they go? Ah—the Club Naples, and projected over the sidewalk, and the winking, places like that, and women—Holy Mother, it beckoning letters were painted green: ain’t good, Cap! My wife and my baby—I ask

  you, Cap, for my sake.”

  L U

  “Sure, Tony.”

  C B

  MacBride stood up.

  N A P L E S

  Maratelli stood up, his breath whistling MacBride did not come down from the bright in his throat. “But if Chibby knows I speak to lights. He came up from River Road, up from the you—”

  bleak, unlovely waterfront. He still walked with

  his hands in his pockets, and the wind blew

  “He won’t,” clipped MacBride.

  from behind, flapping his coat around his knees.

  He buttoned his coat, put on his hat and

  A man in a faded red uniform with

  shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ll be tarnished gold braid stood in front of the double going.”

  doors. As MacBride drew near, the man reached

  back and laid his hand on the knob. He opened

  “Have another drink.”

  the door as MacBride came up, and MacBride

  went inside.

  “Thanks—no.”

  The ante‐room was quite dim, and the

  Maratelli let him out into the street and sound of a jazz band was muffled. To the right hung in the doorway.

  was a cloak‐room, and the girl came over to

  take Mac‐Bride’s coat. But MacBride paid no

  “Night, Cap.”

  attention to her. A man came forward out of

  the dim‐lit gloom, peering hard. He wore a Tux,

  “Night, Tony.”

  and he had white, doughy jowls and thin hair

  plastered back, and he was not so young.

  “Your eyesight bad, Al?” chuckled the wall and sat down. Al signaled to a waiter MacBride.

  and motioned to MacBride.

  “Oh . . . that you, Cap?”

  “Snap on it, Joe. That’s Captain MacBride

  from Headquarters. Don’t give him none of that

  “Yeah.”

  cheap alky.”

  “Cripes, I’m glad to see you, Cap!”

  “Okey, boss.”

  He grabbed MacBride’s hand and wrung

  Al went over and put his hands palm‐

  it. MacBride stood still, slightly smiling, his face down on the table and asked, “How about a in shadow, and Al laughed showing a lot of good cigar, Cap? And I’ve got some good Golden uncouth teeth.

  Wedding.”

  This was Al Vassilakos, a Greek who

  “All right, Al—on both.”

  went over big with the wops and who was on

  speaking terms with the police. Mike Dabraccio

  “Hey, Joe! A box of Coronas and that

  really started the joint, a couple of years ago, bottle of Golden Wedding. Bring the bottle out, but Mike talked out of turn to the old Sciarvi Joe.”

  gang, and Sciarvi told Mike to go places. Al was

  instated by Sciarvi himself, and when Sciarvi got

  “Okey, boss.”

  himself balled up—and subsequently shot—in a

  city‐wide gang feud, Al carried on with the club.

  “Anything you want, Cap, ask me. I’ll be

  He’d kept clean since then, but Sam Chibbarro, outside. I gotta be outside, you know.”

  called Chibby, was back, and MacBride had his

  doubts.

  “Sure, Al.”

  It looked as if Al was a little put out at

  Vassilakos went out to the ante‐room,

  MacBride’s imperturbable calm.

  but he still looked a bit worried.

  “You—you looking for some guy, Cap?”

  It didn’t take long for MacBride to spot

  Sam Chibbarro. Chibby was at a big table near

  “No. Just wandering around, Al. How’s the dance‐floor. Dominick was there, too. And business?”

  MacBride picked out Kid Barjo, a big bruiser

  swelling all out of his Tux. There were some

  “Pretty good.”

  women—three of them. One had red hair and

  looked rather tall. Another had hair black as jet

  “Mind if I sit inside?”

  pulled back over the ears. The third was a little

  doll‐faced blonde and she was necking

  “Glad to have you, Cap.”

  Dominick. MacBride recognized her. She was

  Bunny Dahl, who used to hoof with a cheap

  MacBride took off his overcoat and his burlesque troupe and was for a while mama to hat and gave them to the girl. Al walked with Jazz Millio before Jazz died by the gun. The him across the ante‐room and opened a door. A whole party looked tight. A lot of people were flood of light and a thunder of jazz rushed out as there, and many of them looked uptownish.

  MacBride and Al went in. Al closed the door and

  MacBride drifted over to a small table beside

  This Club Naples was no haven for a Chibby
’s table were both talking at the same piker. A drink was two dollars a throw, and the time, and both of them looked peeved. The convert four. If a hostess sat down with you, small dance‐floor was jammed.

  your drink or hers was three dollars a throw,

  and her own drinks were doctored with nine

  Joe came over and said, “Everything

  parts Canada Dry. A sucker joint.

  okey, Cap?”

  Joe brought the bottle of Golden

  “Yeah,” said MacBride, watching the

  Wedding and a fresh box of cigars. MacBride door.

  took one of the cigars, bit off the end, and Joe

  held a match. MacBride puffed up and Joe went

  “Maybe you’d like a nice sandwich? Al

  away, leaving the Golden Wedding on the table. told me to ask you.”

  MacBride poured himself a drink and watched

  Chibby and his crowd making whoopee.