The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 1: 1931-32 Page 24

  Chapter Two

  Thirty-Five Grand

  THE Metals Building was two squares west of the hotel. It was old. The elevator was old and looked like a tarnished brass cage. It wheezed up three flights and Cardigan got out. Night lights were burning in the corridor and down at the end glowed a frosted square of light that was a glass-paneled door. There were black letters on it saying: Aaron Steinfarb, Counsellor at Law.

  “Phooey,” muttered Cardigan.

  He knocked and a voice said: “Come in.”

  “I thought I might have to look up your home address,” Cardigan said, kicking the door shut behind him.

  “Who are you?”

  “Calm, counsellor.”

  Cardigan tipped back his hat and eyed the small, chubby-cheeked man behind a battered flat-top. “You’re Steinfarb, huh?”

  “Can’t you read?”

  “Now is that nice?”

  Steinfarb took a couple of quick drags on a tremendous cigar. He stood up. He was a very small man, far below medium height. He was all white and chunky and looked like a flyweight boxer gone to soft weight and too much electric light. His black hair was combed back flat, but through it his scalp was visible.

  “Spiel it,” he said. “And be quick. I was just about to leave. Get it off your chest. Come on, come on!” He threw his hands up irritably. “You think I’ve got all night?”

  Cardigan said: “I’m representing Mr. Milbray. You’re representing the quantity known as X.”

  Steinfarb blinked, screwed up his white fat nose. “Oh, you’re—then you’re the rep—”

  “Cardigan…. Please sit down, counsellor. You give me the heebejeebies ducking around like that.”

  “Well, well, of course, of course. Ah, yes, Mr. Cardigan.” He smacked his white hands together, beamed, sat down in the swivel chair. “It is really lamentable that—”

  “Quit it, Steinfarb. I’m no babe in arms. Quit the preliminaries. All I want from you is the dope on how we can put this deal through. I understand that these heels that snatched the Milbray kid engaged you as counsel. All right. Now just what is what?”

  Steinfarb got up, went to the door, opened it and peered into the corridor. Closing the door, he locked it and returned to his swivel chair.

  His voice, his manner, ceased to be theatrical. His eyes took on an oblique slant, evading Cardigan’s. His mouth jerked: “Well, the price is thirty-five thousand. It was twenty-five but the cops got childish and my clients upped it ten grand. They’ve got the kid. The kid’s unharmed, well and happy. If there’s another fluke it’ll be swan song.”

  “Have you seen the kid?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know she’s well and happy?”

  Steinfarb’s fingers drummed, his shoulders twitched. “I was told. When a guy walks in here with a proposition like that he’s bound to tell the truth.”

  “How do I know the kid’s not dead?”

  “I’m telling you.”

  “And you were told by somebody else. How do you know the guy who walked in here and propositioned you wasn’t some wise bunny that didn’t kidnap the kid at all but is just muscling in on general principles?”

  Steinfarb made a sour face. “Are you telling me my business?”

  “No. I’m working for Milbray. You’re working for these kid-snatchers. It’s my job to have my client’s interest at heart and I’ve got to be sure of where this dough goes. It’s not my job to pinch these guys. I’m interested only in getting the kid back. I’ve got to have proof that this client of yours has the kid.”

  STEINFARB drew on his cigar, rose and went to one of the windows. The shade was down, but he drew it gently aside and peered down into the street. In a minute he turned, came back to the desk and sat down. His eyes narrowed. He picked up a pencil, held it erect—then tossed it aside and laughed harshly.

  “You can’t talk to me, mister,” he snarled. “I’m sitting on dynamite and I’ve got to be careful.”

  “What’s eating you?”

  Steinfarb nodded to the window. “Instead of leaving Lieutenant Michaels down under that street light, why didn’t you bring him up with you?”

  “Michaels?”

  “Michaels!” Steinfarb barked. He picked up the pencil and threw it down again. “Michaels! Michaels!”

  Cardigan got up and started for the window.

  Steinfarb snarled: “Stay away from there!”

  Cardigan turned and found Steinfarb holding a gun. Cardigan raised his shoulders. “You’ve got me.”

  “I just don’t want Michaels to see where you are.”

  “O.K. Put that gun down.”

  The storm passed as quickly as it had risen. Steinfarb slipped the gun into his desk drawer and chewed petulantly on his big cigar.

  Cardigan said: “Don’t be a goof, Steinfarb. The bum ran into me as I got off the train today. He tried to make me take another train back east. I thought I’d ducked him but he must have picked me up again. I represent Milbray—not the cops. The cops want these heels. I want the kid.”

  “All right, all right. I got excited. I just got excited.” He looked at the ragged end of his cigar. “The kid’s all right. Safe. Sound. All I can do is carry on negotiations. You give me thirty-five thousand dollars. I give it—minus my commission—to my clients. The baby will be returned—automatically.”

  “Fair enough. But first—first, counsellor, I’ve got to be sure your clients have the baby.”

  Steinfarb flared up. “My God, do you think I can take you to these guys!”

  “No. Take this.” He pulled a small vest-pocket camera from his coat. “Have your clients take all exposures on this of the kid in various positions.”

  “Why?”

  “So we’ll know she’s alive.”

  Steinfarb leaned back, drew one eye shut. He smiled—a bleak, warped smile. “You think of things, don’t you?”

  “I’m in 517 at The Wheelburgh.”

  “I’ll see.”

  Cardigan turned and went to the door. “Is there a back way out?”

  “Yeah. Downstairs, turn left after you get out of the elevator. At the end of the lobby there’s a door. That leads down a flight of stairs to a garage. Go out that way.”

  CARDIGAN ignored the elevator in The Wheelburgh. He walked all the way around the lobby, stopped at the cigar stand, bought a paper and some pipe tobacco and used the mirror behind the counter to watch the lobby. Then he took the stairway to the second floor and knocked on 209. Blaine let him in and Stope lay on the bed in an undershirt kicking his heels up and laughing.

  Cardigan shot Blaine a dark sidelong look and Blaine said: “What the hell, he said he was going out only for a paper.”

  Cardigan went over to the bed, drew a blackjack and smacked Stope on the soles. Stope’s body vibrated as though an electric current had shot through it. He sat up, half laughing, half snarling: “What do you think—”

  Cardigan laid the flat of his hand against Stope’s cheek and knocked him spinning across the bed. Stope put his face in his hands and went into a crying jag. Cardigan crossed the room to a lowboy and picked up two pint flasks. They were unlabeled and contained a smoky white fluid. Cardigan uncorked them, sniffed.

  “You try this, Blaine?”

  “I’ve got kids to support.”

  Cardigan took both bottles into the bathroom and emptied them. He dropped the empties into a wicker linen hamper, reentered the bedroom rubbing his hands slowly together. Stope was sitting up, cross-legged like an Indian. He wore a silly grin and kept hiccupping regularly. Cardigan suddenly shot across the room, grabbed Stope by the throat and shook him violently.

  “Listen to me, you dirty bum! What the hell do you think you are, a traveling salesman?”

  “Jus’ little drinky—”

  “By cripes, you’re working for a tough agency, Stope. You got kicked off the cops for boozing. I don’t care how much you drink when you’re not on the road with me, but when you’re out wi
th me—Ah-r-r, you sap!” He flung him across the bed. Then he began tearing Stope’s clothes off.

  “Come on, Blaine. We’ll sober him.”

  They stripped him and held him under an ice-cold shower. He moaned, groaned, prayed. They turned the shower off, hauled him out of the tub. Cardigan threw him a towel and motioned Blaine into the bedroom.

  He said: “You and Stope go out to the Milbray place pronto. Bum’s-rush anybody who doesn’t belong there. Leave your rods here. The cops in this burg are funny that way. Ask Milbray for a room. Let this honk-out sleep a couple of hours, then you catch shut-eye—and so on, alternating.”

  “O.K., chief.”

  “Now open the door and see if anybody’s in the hall.”

  Blaine looked, said: “O.K.”

  Cardigan went out and climbed to 412. Pat had on black pajamas and a mandarin coat.

  He began: “I’d climb the highest mountain and swim the broadest river—”

  “Be your profession. I hate mountain climbers. Always make me think of yodeling.”

  He spun his hat on a forefinger. “Milbray’s all broken up. It must be tough on a guy when they snatch his kid…. Well, look. You be down in the lobby bright and early in the morning. I figure Michaels still might try to pick me up for packing a gun. You pack my gun. You follow me wherever I go and if I get in a jam, pass me the gun and then get to hell out of the way. Savvy?”

  “Little Chinee girl savvy.”

  He raised his hand. “Stop that!” And grinned. He turned and said: “Take a look in the hall.”

  She opened the door, looked out, stepped back in. “Scur-ram!” she said.

  “Happy dreams!”

  IN a minute he was in his room. Five minutes later he was in blue cotton pajamas, his big feet thrust into worn-down slippers. He crammed an ancient briar and opened both windows wide. Night brought fewer sounds, but each of these was clear, resonant; the drawn-out rattle of a trolley crossing switches, the toll of a freight engine in the railroad yards, the sad hoot of a river boat. He drew on his pipe, cuddling the smoke behind his lips in the manner of the true pipe-smoker. Darkness had a way of making the unlovely city romantic—and of making him feel acutely lonely.

  He chuckled to himself: “Sentimental Mick!”

  Knuckles rapped his door. He scowled at it, his face a hard network of shadows. He crossed and put his ear to the panel.

  “Yeah?”

  “Cardigan, this is Kittles, city editor of The Trib.”

  “I’m not interested in subscribing.”

  “Listen, Cardigan, I’ve got news for you!” the voice hissed.

  Cardigan let him in, eyed him with a calloused stare. The man was scrawny, wore spectacles that looked like thick magnifying glasses. He had a confidential air, rolling eyebrows, dry wrinkled lips. He started off by tapping Cardigan’s chest.

  “Now don’t do that,” Cardigan said. “It makes me fidgety.”

  “Of course, of course,” Kittles’ low voice raked on in a cracked whisper; and his eyebrows rolled. “Cardigan, we’re glad to see you’re here. I, personally, am glad to see you here. Oh, I’ve heard of you. Remember the time you were head of the St. Louis branch? Yes, yes, indeed! Ah, yes. Great work, great work!… Can I send you up a case of nice liquor, the real McCoy?”

  “Thanks—no. You can tell me what you want, though.”

  He huddled close to Cardigan. “We’d just like to know, old man, what progress you’ve made since you came here. What transpired between you and Milbray? Have you made contact with the kidnapers? When do you expect to have the child back? Just a few words, old man—just a hint, here and there.”

  Cardigan rolled a harsh laugh between closed teeth.

  Kittles raised a finger. “Oh, of course, we expect to make you a little present. Little pin-money. Five hundred, say.”

  Cardigan repeated the laugh, raked Kittles from head to foot with a sardonic smile, turned and crossed to one of the windows. Kittles blinked, looked at the ceiling, at the floor, then at Cardigan’s back. Then he crossed the room, moistening his lips.

  “Of course, old man—”

  Cardigan swiveled. “Of course, old man!” he growled. He tossed his thumb. “I don’t like your groceries. Blow!”

  Kittles wore a quaint, hurt expression. “But, gosh, old man—”

  “Yeah, a swell chance Milbray has of getting his kid back when you newspaper guys and the cops clown all over the city. What about those other three kidnapings? What good are they? You print a lot of crap in the papers. You scare the heels. You’re no help and you’re a lot of nuisance. Now get out of here. And stay away from Milbray’s place. And don’t bother me. And go to hell.”

  Kittles pouted. He turned and scuffled to the door. He paused to blink at Cardigan through his heavy glasses. Then he scowled petulantly and went out, slamming the door.

  Chapter Three

  Kick-the-Wicket

  CARDIGAN went downstairs at eight next morning and had breakfast in the coffee shop. The headlines went far toward spoiling his appetite. They made him curse; made him glare at the waitress, through her, beyond her; until she began blushing and backing away.

  “Baked apple,” he said. “And eggs, three, three minutes. Rolls. Coffee.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  He crackled the paper and glared at it.

  POLICE PROMISE ARREST IN MILBRAY CASE

  “Horsefeathers!” he muttered.

  New Clues Indicate Early Arrest of Baby Milbray Kidnapers

  He tossed the paper to one end of the table, ran his hand across his cheek, up around the back of his neck. He rushed through his breakfast, ate too rapidly, and left the table with a stuffed, unpleasant feeling. And in this condition he ran into Michaels, in the lobby. Michaels had a couple of boys with him. At the same time Cardigan saw Pat watching him from the depths of a leather chair.

  Michaels took his arm. “We wanted to wait till you ate, Cardigan. Come along.”

  “Where?”

  “Headquarters.”

  “What for now, pitching pennies?”

  Michaels moved his head. “Come on. No use stalling.”

  “What for?”

  “Little talk.”

  Cardigan shook his head. His voice was low, quiet, but dynamite was in the background. “I’m busy, Michaels. I can’t go.” He put his left hand on Michaels’ right and wrenched it from his arm. “Grow up, copper.” His dark eyes were steady, sultry.

  “Now wait, Cardigan,” Michaels said, blocking him. “We’re going to have a talk with you. There’s three of us and if you start to get rough we’ll jump you and beat hell out of you and fix you for a three-months’ spree in jail. Use your head. Use your head. Come on before we get sloppy.”

  Cardigan looked at the other two men. They were big, bigger than Michaels, and looked like hard parties. He shrugged. “O.K., let’s go.”

  THEY went outside. The street was already hot, the air motionless and soggy, the sun hidden behind a dull haze but nonetheless felt in the narrow street. The two bruisers walked beside Cardigan and Michaels walked in front, led the way around the corner to a parked sedan. They got in and one of the bruisers took the wheel.

  After five minutes Cardigan said: “Headquarters, huh?”

  “Sit tight,” Michaels said.

  Cardigan turned and punched him in the jaw. “You crummy bum, I know where headquarters is!”

  The bruiser on his right grabbed him and then Michaels had his gun out. “Easy, Cardigan.” His face looked red and bloated and somehow desperate.

  Cardigan put his hands on his knees and stared straight ahead. The car left the suburbs and went down the other side of the mountain. It passed a glass factory; went on downward toward the coal mines; cruised along the outside of a husky settlement drenched in coal dust, sooty and tatterdemalion. It entered a clump of trees and stopped before a board-and-batten shack. A gaunt man with one eye missing came out and unleashed a slow tobacco shot.

  The two br
uisers hustled Cardigan inside. The place smelled of raw corn liquor. He got one arm free and took a smack at the nearer face and then Michaels came in and helped crowd him into a chair.

  “Now use your head, Cardigan.”

  Cardigan hit Michaels in the stomach, rose wheeling the chair with him and let it fly. It missed both bruisers but stopped the one-eyed man in the doorway. It was a heavy chair. It knocked the man cold. Cardigan had a stone jug in his hand by this time, but Michaels clipped him with a blackjack and Cardigan leaned against the wall, shaking his head. They shoved him into another chair.

  “Be your age!” Michaels cried hoarsely. “We don’t want to kill you, dope!”

  Cardigan walked across the room and sat down heavily, his arms hanging, fingers touching the floor. He addressed Michaels in colorful if unprintable idiom.

  “That won’t get you anywhere,” Michaels said. He planted a chair in front of Cardigan and sat down solidly. He looked serious, worried, desperate. “I’ve got to know how things stand,” he said. “I’m going to break this case. I’ve got to. I’ve got to get this kid-snatching crowd. I’ve got to. There’s no halfway measure about it. Get me, Cardigan. I mean it. There’s no out for me. None. I either crash this case or I’m all washed up. All washed up.”

  “Good. I hope you get all washed up.”

  “Cardigan—” Michaels leaned forward. His stomach bunched, overlapping his tight belt. He looked red hot, sweaty, and there was a fierce glow way back in his China-blue eyes. “There’s been a kidnap gang systematically working this city for six months. Three times they got away from me. I’m on the carpet now. If I flop this one, I’m out—out. Broke. Out on my pants! I can’t afford it.” He made a fist, looked at it, then laid it on his thick knee.

  Cardigan said: “You’ll flop this like you flopped the others. Why? Because you’re dumb. Because you’re the kind of cop that went out of style when I wore diapers. Because you’re a louse. You couldn’t even get a job sweeping out our agency’s office.”

  “Cardigan, I am going to get the lowdown on this. Milbray won’t even talk to me. He’s talked to you. You’ve made contact. You were in the Metals Building last night. Who’d you see?”