The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 Read online

  “Yassuh, Miss Annie—”

  Cardigan was on his way. Long-legged, he climbed the staircase. Saw at the top a vast, fat woman in a blue corduroy bathrobe. In her mouth she held, with thumb and forefinger of one hand, a long-stemmed clay pipe. Blue eyes gazed grimly down the staircase, but Cardigan kept climbing. And nearing the top, he said: “Saltpork Annie Bischeff….”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He was at the top, then, and he stood looking down into her massive pink face. He did not have to look down very far, for she was not short. Her pink hands glittered with rings, a series of three graduated bangles encircled her pink fat wrist.

  He said quietly: “I want to talk to you, Annie.”

  She puffed on her clay pipe. “And who gave you the idea I want to talk to you?”

  “Get off your high horse. Be friendly.”

  “You smell cop to me.”

  “A good reason why you ought to be friendly.”

  She turned, growled, and tramped through an open doorway into a large room. The room was a riot of chintz, batik and velours, and from the ceiling hung a ridiculous crystal chandelier. Saltpork Annie pulled on a green eyeshade such as clerks wear, booted the door shut, and jammed fists to ponderous hips. She looked resourceful, belligerent, and well-planted.

  “Get it off your chest,” she growled.

  CARDIGAN had taken off his hat and was spinning it on a forefinger, sending his eyes about the room. He brought them, finally, to rest on Saltpork Annie. He said: “I’m looking for a girl named Pat Seaward.”

  “What do I run, an information bureau?”

  “I thought I was supposed to ask the questions.”

  “Ask ’em.”

  “I did.”

  “Pretty fly, ain’t you?”

  “There you go asking ’em again.”

  She puffed. “Never heard of her.”

  “She’s heard of you.”

  Annie chuckled raucously. “Lot of people heard of me. So I ain’t heard of her, and where do we go from that?”

  He took several slow, measured steps that brought him close up and face to face with her, and he thrust his hands deep into his overcoat pockets and looked down into Saltpork Annie’s face with a dark, portentous calm. “Listen, old sister. Get a load of me. I’m looking for that girl, and I’d as soon tear down this chateau of yours as not. This waltz-me-around-again-Willie stuff you’re pulling doesn’t get by. You see, Annie? It doesn’t get by. I asked you a question and I don’t want a flock of damned dull remarks for answers.”

  Her clay pipe, clamped between strong teeth, tilted upward till the bowl was almost level with one eye. “You heard me once, mister. I’m short-winded but I’ll spend another breath on you: you riddle me—the dame I never heard of.” She dipped her head, tramped past him, planked herself in a large armchair and picked up her knitting. The long needles flew, clicked.

  There were voices in the corridor outside. The door opened and the dark Magnolia teetered there trying to get words out. She was brushed gayly aside by a large man built like a keg. He entered and said in a hale and hearty voice: “I beg your pardon, Annie. I didn’t know you had a friend.” And with a big-handed flourish toward Cardigan: “And I beg your pardon, sir—yes, I certainly do beg your pardon. Don’t rise, sir. Do remain seated…. Annie, you do look well—you do, Annie. Doesn’t she—ah—er—I’m afraid I didn’t catch the name, sir.”

  Cardigan, who had not been seated, who had not given his name, regarded this newcomer as one regards a strange species of sideshow freak. He had that largeness usually found in ward heelers of a few decades ago; he was well dressed in clothes of substantial cut. His linen was white and crisp and clean, his hands thick, white, freckled, and his cheeks had the pinkish slapped look that usually follows a massage. He emanated good cheer, good fellowship, abundant health.

  “Annie,” he said joyously, “looks a little peevish. Ah, Annie, I think you’re losing a zest for life. I do say, sir”—turning smartly to Cardigan, extending a hand—“my name is Abel Franks and I am wholeheartedly glad to make your acquaintance—that I am, sir!”

  He pounced on Cardigan’s hand, wrung it gleefully, beamed from rosebud chin to rosebud cheeks. While Cardigan, mentally, repeated the name—Abel Franks. An uncommon name. One of the names on Pat’s list.

  He said: “Hello.” And steadily, steady-eyed, “Mine’s Cardigan, Mr. Franks.”

  “So! Cardigan! I tell you, sir, a good, fine name—nice ring to it. I am delighted to know you, my dear Cardigan. Delighted!”

  Saltpork Annie’s needles were traveling rapidly, her mouth was grimly clamped on the stem of her pipe.

  The door opened and a tall, slack-hipped girl leaned there, drawing on a cigarette through a long ivory holder. “Thought I heard you, Franks. Want to see you.”

  “Do come in, Marcella!”

  “Later’ll do.” She nodded upward. “You know where I live.”

  “Later it is, Marcella! Be awfully glad to see you!”

  She smirked, strolled away, and Abel Franks closed the door, rubbed his hands together briskly, said: “I think a bit of brandy would go well, Annie my dear.”

  SHE flung her knitting to the table, slapped hands to knees and gazed fiercely at Franks, her checks puffing and then collapsing with a rasp-breathed oath. She heaved out of the chair, banged her feet across the floor and disappeared into another room slamming the door behind her.

  “Annie,” Franks sighed, “is so touchy. If you’re an old friend of hers, you’ll know, of course. Poor soul! Will you smoke a cigar, sir? Very mild, very mild.”

  Cardigan shook his head. “Thanks, no.” He flipped up his hat, caught it, flicked a glance at the door through which Annie had gone. “I think I’ll run along.”

  Abel Franks raised a hand. “But don’t! I hope you don’t mind Annie’s tantrums. Let’s sit down. I’ll have Magnolia bring in a bottle of brandy. You know, sir, I feel I ought to know you better. I like the cut of you. And I’m influenced a lot by names. Now the name of Cardigan influences me very strongly.”

  “Thanks. But I’ve got to get along.”

  Franks sighed, bent his shiny eyebrows. “Damned if I blame you, sir! Annie does go a little too far. Matter of fact, I think I’ll go too. Yes, by George, I will! Teach her a lesson!” He strode to the corridor door, opened it with a flourish. “Before me, sir!”

  Cardigan swung into the corridor. Magnolia was a dusky shadow against the opposite wall, eyes round and white, feet toed inward. Cardigan went past her, started down the staircase, and Abel Franks, bobbing after him, said a joyous good-night to Magnolia. Cardigan, going down the stairs, could see his shadow on the wall. He could also see Abel Franks’. It was when they were halfway down the staircase that Cardigan saw the arm of Abel Franks’ shadow rise. Cardigan jumped, skipping a step. He swiveled, saw Abel Franks chopping downward with a blackjack, his balance seriously impaired for an instant. The instant was useful to Cardigan. He caught hold of Abel Franks’ arm, wrenched, heaved. Head over heels went Abel Franks’ two hundred pounds pinwheeling down the stairway, crashing and thumping from step to step.

  Cardigan went bounding down after him. But he heard sounds at the front door, and as he reached the lower hall he saw the front door burst inward, saw three men come with it. Abel Franks, sprawled on the floor, kicking, flailing his arms. He yelped: “Help! Help! Murder!”

  Cardigan spun and dived for the shadowed well of the staircase. His hand dived beneath the lapel of his overcoat as he groped toward the rear. Footsteps pounded down from above. Male voices shouted.

  “Back there—get him!” panted Abel Franks.

  Feet scuffled.

  Cardigan rasped: “Come on, get it! I’m waiting!”

  The feet stopped scuffling. There was a moment of silence, and then the lights went out. Cardigan moved, found his left hand on a doorknob. He turned but the door would not give. He groped and found a heavy bolt, slid it back. Then he could feel the door op
en. How bright would the night be?

  He took off his coat, held it by the neck, hefted it. He reached over and yanked open the door. The night was dusky, but none the less he would make a target if he dived through. He hefted the overcoat again, swung it back and forth and then sent it sailing out through the door.

  A voice muttered: “There he goes!”

  Feet hammered the floor. Cardigan crouched back of the door, saw four men streak past and plunge into the back yard. He slammed the door shut, bolted it; turned and ran swiftly forward in the hall. He met no one, but already the men had discovered his ruse and were belaboring the back door. He did not linger. Reaching the front door, he whipped it open, drummed his feet down the wooden steps and landed on the sidewalk.

  THERE was an empty car parked at the curb, its motor idling. The front door was ajar. He climbed in, jammed himself behind the wheel and slipped into gear. He pedaled down on the accelerator, gathered speed and was doing forty miles an hour by the time he reached the first main crossing.

  He turned in the general direction of the hub of the city, found a signpost that said Exeter Street and sat back, rolled the car prosaically through westbound traffic. It was only then that he began to look around at the interior of the car. He craned his neck out, looked back along the outside; then inside again. He blew out a breath and dropped lower behind the wheel. He was in the car that had picked him up at the airport!

  Parking in front of police headquarters, Cardigan climbed the front steps, swung into the central room. “Bogart in?” he said.

  “Yeah,” said the man at the desk.

  Cardigan went up the staircase three steps at a time, found the door to Bogart’s office open, found Bogart at his flat-topped desk running through a sheaf of papers.

  “Hello, Cardigan. Sit down. I’m busy.”

  “So am I. Chuck that, Bogart, and lend an ear.”

  “Busy. Just sit down there—”

  Cardigan leaned over the desk and slapped both hands down on the sheaf of papers. His face was very close to Bogart’s and he said: “What I’ve got to say is more important.”

  Bogart leaned back. He looked neither injured nor amused, but scratched his chin absently and said: “You’re nothing but a damned Fenian. What should I do, toss you out?”

  “Yeah, you and about six other guys.” He stood up, held both hands chest high, palms toward Bogart. “Listen, Bogart, what do you know about a dame named Saltpork Annie Bischeff?”

  “I am going,” said Bogart, “to finish reading these reports.”

  Cardigan’s hand darted down, scooped up the sheaf of papers. He held them behind his back and said: “Don’t be Dutch, Bogart. This girl works for me—Pat Seaward—has disappeared. That’s the only reason I came to you.”

  Bogart leered genially. “Sucking around, eh? Before, when I asked you—‘Oh, no, Captain, I got to see the attorney general first.’ But now I’m all right, huh? Poor old Bogart’s all right now.” He held out his hand. “Dope, give me those reports.”

  Cardigan tossed them to the desk and said earnestly: “Just now I don’t give a rap about the attorney general’s office. This jane’s a friend of mine, and a close one. I was in Saltpork Annie’s house. The lay-out was crazy as hell and I wanted to get out and find someone who could give me the straight of it.”

  Bogart beamed, his chest swelled, he hooked thumbs in his vest. “Little old Bogart’s all right now and—”

  “Fat-head!” Cardigan rasped, darkening; and then he bellowed: “I tell you this girl disappeared—yesterday—last night maybe! And here you puff up like a damned duck and start acting like a lousy low comedian! My God, the guys that wear shields nowadays!”

  Bogart’s grin showed that he relished Cardigan’s anger. “Boy,” he said, chuckling, “I never figured to see you coming around and begging to poor old Bogart. It sure tickles me.”

  “I might tell you—” Cardigan inhaled a breath, held it. He came around the desk, leaned with one arm on it, bent way down, bared his teeth within an inch of Bogart’s nose. “I might tell you, you thick Dutch honk-out, that downstairs, right now, is standing the car that started to take me for a ride today.”

  Bogart shot to his feet, his face tightening up, his hand whipping to his gun.

  Now Cardigan was smiling—sardonically—and saying: “The car, Bogart, is empty.”

  Bogart barked: “How’d it get here?”

  “I drove it.”

  “You! Where the hell did you get it?”

  CARDIGAN spread his feet in front of Bogart, jammed arms akimbo. “Bogart,” he said, deadly serious, “this girl of mine disappeared. I don’t know a thing about this city and I need help. I need help because I haven’t the time to scout around and find out things for myself.”

  Bogart wore his tight, hard grin. “You admit you’re licked. You admit you got to come to me. Huh?”

  “Yes—on both counts.”

  “O.K., kid.” Bogart screwed a forefinger against Cardigan’s chest. “Your high and mighty client was too high-hat to throw his jobs to us common people—us cops. He had to go and hire a fancy detective agency. O.K., Irish,” he bit out, “I buy in. I go after this dame of yours and use my whole bureau. But—I get all the dope you got on this sweatshop case. I get all your leads. I get everything. I supply your client with the evidence myself and this will rate so high that I’ll haul down an inspector’s pay…. Now wait a minute. I get a two-thirds rake-off on the fee you get.”

  Cardigan muttered: “What’s the idea?”

  “This. You came here with the idea of playing a lone hand and keeping us cops out in the cold. Your big-stiff client didn’t think we were good enough to handle this. Well, I’m good enough to handle anything, Cardigan. I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. And I’ve got a grudge. I’m going to make you pay through the nose and I’m going to walk up to the attorney general with the evidence, slap it on his desk and laugh in his face!”

  “You sure don’t pull your punches.”

  “I never have. When I punch a guy I mean to bust his kisser.”

  Cardigan said: “You’ve got me, Bogart—where a lot of cops have tried to get me. Where I’ve got only one out. You know what that is. I take your deal. You get a two-thirds cut, you get your name and mug splashed on the front page and you laugh in Atchison’s face—if you can find out where Pat Seaward is.”

  “Swell!” Bogart walked to a costumer, put on overcoat and hat. “I’ll find her, Cardigan. And no hard feelings, huh? You know damned well you’ve razzed a lot of cops in your time. Thing is, can you take the same kind of razzing?”

  “I can take more than you can, copper.” He crossed the office, opened the door.

  Bogart joined him, poked him playfully in the ribs. “I guess you can, Cardigan.”

  They walked down the hall, took the stairway down. As they were striding across the central room, the man at the desk called: “Hey, Cardigan!”

  Cardigan stopped, turned about.

  “On the phone here,” the sergeant said.

  Cardigan tramped to the desk, picked up the telephone and said: “Cardigan…. What!… No, not now. Shut up. I’ll be right over—right away.”

  The receiver banged into the hook.

  Cardigan headed toward the front door, where Bogart was waiting. “You can go upstairs, Bogart, and twiddle your thumbs.”

  “What’s eating you now?”

  Cardigan stopped in front of him, flipped Bogart’s tie out of his vest, grinned down sardonically at him. “She’s safe, Bogart. You’re not needed. Not now or ever. And if you come and stick your nose in my business, you’ll get hurt.”

  Bogart, back on his heels, was speechless.

  Cardigan raked him up and down with a contemptuous look, made a half-pivot on his heel and punched open the door, went out.

  Chapter Four

  The Irish and the Dutch

  HE knocked on the door of 610 and heard her call: “You, chief?”

  “Yeah
.”

  “Come in.”

  He entered and realized her voice was coming from behind the closed bathroom door. “Showering,” she yelled above the hiss of driving water. “Be out in a minute.”

  Cardigan was impatient, darkly frowning, angry that he had, against all wishes, made an enemy of Bogart. He paced up and down the floor. Bogart had tried to squeeze out the last drop. It was natural, of course, that he, Cardigan, should have dressed Bogart down when he found that Pat was safe. But—

  “Whew! Hot in there!” She came out muffled in a terrycloth bathrobe, with a Turkish towel slung about her neck. Her black hair, due to the steam, was a cap of short, gleaming curls.

  “So what happened to you?” he growled.

  “H’m—you talk as if—”

  “Forget it, chicken. I’m all hot and bothered. I’ve been busting around town ever since I got here.”

  She perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair. “Well, I was detained for a while. I was picked up last night—bopped in the face—look at the souvenir over the left eye—”

  “The bums!”

  “I’ve been thinking worse names than that. I—”

  “How’d it happen you were—”

  “You know me—Pat the old zealot. Well, there was this little half-starved thing Hanna Kropek. When I was making my way about one of these nameless sweatshops the other day, most of the girls were antagonistic—worse than the chaps they worked for. Sullen, you know—b-r-r-r!… But I noticed one, bent over a machine; small and wasted and with a hungry, haunted look in her eyes. I never forgot the way she looked at me—eager and yet scared. But I didn’t say anything to her.

  “I waited outside till late. She came out about ten-thirty, dragging her feet. She walked along and I followed for several blocks. Then she went in a soda store and bought a hot chocolate—her supper. She came out and I followed her and caught up with her. She was scared, but I hung on, quieted her. I didn’t want to take her to a hotel—so I figured the best place was a taxicab. We got in—Hanna Kropek and me.

  “Well, she wasn’t much help. Dazed—in a sort of stupor—unable to remember where she came from. But she mentioned names: Saltpork Annie Bischeff, Marcella Wohl, Abel Franks, Tony Gatto. I asked her what salary she received. Sometimes it was a dollar a week, sometimes less. She kind of worshiped Saltpork Annie—said Annie let her and Mabel Murphy share a room for nothing. I wrote the names down and somebody—”