The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 Page 24

  “This is private up here!” Rigatti rasped, his eyes blazing. “Get down!”

  Cardigan grinned. “Now listen, Rigatti—”

  Rigatti shot a hand toward his hip. Cardigan grabbed, caught Rigatti’s wrist; he shifted his feet quickly, tightened his loins; his bent arm hardened, lifted while it corkscrewed upward. Rigatti rose from the floor, gritting his teeth, his body supported by his bent arm. Suddenly Cardigan relaxed. Rigatti’s body dropped a couple of inches; and then Cardigan’s arm did a whipsnap and instantly Rigatti was flat on his face. He pawed for his gun; his hand didn’t seem to work properly.

  Cardigan said: “I sprained your wrist, Rigatti. You’re wasting time trying to get that gun.”

  He reached down, took the gun from Rigatti’s pocket, thrust it into his own. He left Rigatti panting and aching for breath, and still on the floor. Below, the troubadour was singing Marcheta. Cardigan came up to the door through which he had seen Rigatti emerge. He grasped the knob with his left hand, turned it; he opened the door, and walked into a large, old room furnished with large, modern pieces at odds with the Georgian fireplace.

  “Take your time, Beniamino,” he clipped.

  A lucious little redhead, all hosiery and white shoulders, was sitting in fat, swart Beniamino’s lap. Beniamino had a fat wife and ten bambinos uptown. The redhead, taking one look at Cardigan, grabbed fat Beniamino around the neck and cried: “Oh, Popsy-wopsy!”

  Cardigan let a low, brittle chuckle escape. “Popsy-wopsy!”

  Beniamino ordinarily had the face of a fat angel, but now it showed a mixture of anger, fear and embarrassment.

  Cardigan’s smile vanished, his face grew cold. “Chase the dame, Beniamino,” he said.

  “I—I’d say you’re Cardigan.”

  “That’s right. Now chase her.”

  Beniamino, his fat eyes fixed on Cardigan, patted the redhead’s shoulder, urged her away with a movement of his body. Goggle-eyed, she fled across the room, while Cardigan looked her over from head to foot and said, as the girl went out and closed the door: “You pick ’em, you old playboy, you!”

  Beniamino looked breathless, mournful. “What do you want?”

  “I want….” He paused, came a few steps closer, showed his teeth in a hard, brazen smile.

  Beniamino gulped: “Yes?”

  “Can’t guess, huh?”

  “N-no.”

  “Joe Polarmo.”

  BENIAMINO’S fat swart face seemed to jounce once, and was then motionless and mournful, saggy-eyed. “Joe Polarmo,” he said in a far-away whisper.

  “Joe Polarmo,” Cardigan said, matter-of-factly now.

  Beniamino giggled, made a silly gesture. “Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, you mean Joe Polarmo! Joe Polarmo, you mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Beniamino giggled. “Uh—have a drink?”

  “I’ll have Joe Polarmo instead.”

  Beniamino groped to his feet, coughed, blew through his teeth, made silly gestures, said: “I—I—yes—I’ll have a d-drink.”

  Cardigan stepped between him and the table. “I’m in a hurry, Beniamino. Where’s Polarmo?”

  “Well—heh-heh!—you see, I don’t—that is—I don’t j-just know where Joe is.”

  Cardigan’s voice hardened. “Beniamino, I want Polarmo! He was here at a banquet on the night of the Twenty-second!”

  “Yes. Sure he was here. He was here all right.”

  “What time did he leave?”

  “Oh, about two A.M.”

  “What time did he come here?”

  “Eight-thirty.”

  Cardigan grinned ironically. “Got his alibi all fixed, huh?”

  “Look now, Cardigan—”

  “You’re lying like hell! Because Polarmo left during the banquet, you dumb potato!”

  Beniamino said dramatically: “There’s twenty men and women know he didn’t.”

  “They’re liars too!” He stopped short, remained silent for a moment and then his voice rushed out violently. “Me and the agency I work for are headed for the rocks! I’m not crazy about my job but I have to eat and I’m damned if I’m going to lose it. And I want, you fat Italian sugar-daddy, I want Polarmo! I don’t want any arguments and I don’t care how many people say he didn’t leave your banquet. I know he did. I want him, you hear!” He whipped out the gun he had taken from Rigatti and jammed it hard against Beniamino’s middle. His voice chopped: “Get him. Phone him. Get him here.”

  “N-no!”

  Cardigan rushed him halfway across the room. Beniamino landed in an armchair so hard that he almost bounced out again. His jowls jounced.

  “Mother o’ God, Cardigan—”

  “I want him!” Cardigan snarled. “Get up!” He yanked Beniamino out of the chair, turned him, pressed the gun against the back of Beniamino’s neck. “I want him, Beniamino!” he snarled.

  It was this simulated madness that frightened, horrified the Italian. He stumbled to the telephone, dialed a number. The instrument shook in his hands.

  “Joe—Joe. This is Beniamino. I got to see you—quick!”

  He hung up, groaned. He gulped: “Let me get outta here.”

  “Wait.”

  The door whipped open and Dirigo stood there with his gun drawn. “Drop it, Irish!”

  Cardigan looked over his shoulder.

  Dirigo rasped: “Drop it! Or move—move an inch, baby, and I’ll let you have it—and like it!”

  Cardigan let the gun drop to the floor.

  Dirigo was breathless. “Send me on a buggy-ride to Grand Central, will you? O.K., smart guy. This is a pinch.”

  Cardigan had turned. “For socking an officer of the law?”

  “Yeah—for socking an officer of the law. I’ll see you spend six months in the can for this!”

  Cardigan raised his palms, went toward Dirigo. “Now wait a minute. I can’t be pinched right now. I’m on a job—”

  Dirigo was simmering, his eyes were blazing, and his voice shook with suppressed passion. “You heard me, Cardigan! I’ve stood enough from you—enough! You’re going over to headquarters and you’re going to spend the night there.” He snapped up his chin, steadied his gun. “Get out in the hall.”

  “Dirigo, listen—”

  “Get out!” rasped Dirigo. “Shut your mouth! I don’t want to hear a word out of you!”

  Beniamino, at first shocked, now breathed in deeply and looked like a man who had been told his world would end and then found that it would not. But he said nothing. His jowls quivered with excitement.

  Cardigan walked into the hall, passing Dirigo and looking down at him with dark, malignant intensity. He began: “I just—”

  “Shut up!”

  CARDIGAN inhaled deeply, held his breath, then let it out slowly, sighing hopelessly. His face became red with chagrin, his eyes sultry and mutinous. Dirigo, he knew, was mad to the core, bitter and resentful and determined to make him, Cardigan, pay in full for past victories and abuses. Dirigo was on top, riding the crest. Cardigan thought, “I’m a fool—a sap. I should never have pasted that guy.” He reached the head of the staircase, saw a group of waiters waiting expectantly below. The troubadour was singing The Peanut Vender, “Pe-e-e-e-e-e-nuts….”

  “Dirigo, for crying out loud—”

  Dirigo struck Cardigan a blow on the head and Cardigan involuntarily took three steps down. His face grew darker, redder, and he licked his lips, felt himself beginning to sweat as he walked down the stairway. He reached the bottom, looked straight ahead as he walked past the waiters. He heard a few snickers and one Bronx cheer. His face was taking on a very dark red color and his eyes seemed to become bloodshot.

  Rigatti hissed: “I’ll send you some ice cream, Cardigan—and put arsenic in it!”

  Cardigan did not move his head. He walked through the dining room, passed into the bar. Dirigo was behind him, a step behind him. He turned and faced Dirigo and his big face was warped.

  “I tell you, Dirigo, I came here to
make a—”

  “Mug, get on!” rasped Dirigo.

  Cardigan turned and headed for the anteroom, but the man coming into the bar made Cardigan stop. He felt Dirigo’s gun prod him in the back, but he did not budge. The man was young, dark-clothed, darkly handsome. He held a cigarette in his mouth, and a large ruby shone redly on his small finger; a flower was in his lapel.

  “Polarmo!” Cardigan muttered.

  The man had not noticed him; he was making his way swiftly toward the dining room.

  “Get!” snapped Dirigo.

  But Cardigan raised his jaw. “Polarmo!” he barked.

  The sleek young man spun.

  Cardigan turned on Dirigo. “There’s your man, Dirigo! Nab him! There’s Joe Polarmo!”

  Polarmo was unaware of the situation that existed between Dirigo and Cardigan. He did not know Cardigan, but he must have known that Dirigo was a detective. And he saw the gun in Dirigo’s hand—he saw the savage, bitter, murderous look on Dirigo’s face, but he did not know that it was meant for Cardigan and not for him.

  Joe Polarmo made one sleek dive, twisted as he ran toward the door through which he had just come. He must have had things on his mind. Metal flashed in his hand and his gun boomed. Women screamed. Dirigo looked silly, made a wry face, shook himself, took one step forward, one backward, then turned around like a dog sitting down—and sat down.

  Cardigan’s hand sliced beneath the left lapel of his coat. He started off, drawing his gun from its shoulder holster. He heard the front door bang. Going through the anteroom, he saw the fat checkroom girl holding her ears. He leaped over a man lying on the floor. He reached the door, yanked it open and dived out on hands and knees.

  He heard running feet. Rising out of the small well, he climbed the stone steps, saw a dank figure fleeing west. He waited until he saw the figure speed beneath a street light. Then he raised his gun, fired. The bullet hit an ashcan and scared away a couple of cats. It made Joe Polarmo run faster.

  But Polarmo spent a second at the next corner to spin. He used the corner of the building as a shield—and he fired, but he fired as Cardigan flopped behind the ashcan; and the bullet whanged into galvanized iron. Cardigan got a mouthful of cinders. Spitting them out, he rose and raced on; skidded up to the corner, bent way down and looked around the corner with his chin almost touching the sidewalk.

  Polarmo fired and bits of brick dribbled down onto Cardigan’s hat. Cardigan, kneeling, fired twice in succession. He saw Polarmo stagger. He saw a truck driver jump from a truck and race out of sight. Jumping up, Cardigan broke into a run; saw the flash of Polarmo’s gun, heard a window two feet from his head fly to pieces. The crash of the glass commingled with the crash of his own gun. The echoes banged in the narrow dark street.

  Going on, he saw Polarmo walking around in a circle. It was curious, he thought, the way Polarmo kept walking faster and faster, in the same circle, round and round. And then Polarmo suddenly stopped walking and fell to his knees He remained on his knees for a moment and then fell over backward.

  DOAKE sat on a straight-backed chair in his office, his feet far apart but planted solidly on the floor.

  “Yeah,” nodded Cardigan. “Yeah. I shot Polarmo up because he shot Dirigo. It makes good reading matter—so what the hell. I could have given Dirigo a pinch there. But no. He was so lousy mad at me that he was blind—he couldn’t even get it through his nut that Polarmo was drawing on him. I could have saved him these three weeks in the hospital he’s going to spend, but I’m no dummy. I knew damned well that if I so much as started toward my lapel Dirigo would have blown my heart out. So I let him take that slug. I had to. And then I went after Polarmo.”

  “How the hell did you tie down on Polarmo?”

  Cardigan shrugged. “First off, you guys and a lot of other guys were bent on running the Agency out of business. Then I didn’t believe Murfree did it, and I told you why. The confetti in Molly Shane’s dress gave me an idea. It meant a party. I walked my feet off finding where parties had been held on the night of the Twenty-second. I knew that Murfree didn’t do the shooting because I found out that Murfree was down by the time Molly was shot.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “His watch. His wrist watch. The bullet that killed Molly stopped the clock on the table behind her at three to eleven. When Murfree was shot, he fell—he fell and smacked his watch on the floor. I took it to a jeweler, who put new hands on it, and I found then that his watch had stopped at twenty past ten—thirty-seven minutes before Molly was shot. Pictures had been taken of Beniamino’s party. I saw the pictures. Two chairs, side by side, were empty. I swiped the chairs. Off one I got Molly’s prints; off the other I got some prints I brought down here and looked up: they were Polarmo’s. I went out to find Polarmo. Molly wrote poetry. When I met him in the Rome, I knew him right away from the pictures I’d seen here—but I would have known him from her bum poetry too.”

  Doake sighed, shook his head.

  Cardigan said: “You know, of course, what Polarmo did. He told you in the hospital. He wanted Molly to help him dispose of Murfree’s body. Murfree knew Polarmo. He saw Polarmo go into the Hotel Gascogne, and Murfree, on the job, wanted to find out what Polarmo was doing there. He found out. Polarmo was drunk and attacking Molly. And afterward Polarmo wanted her to swear she wouldn’t tell who killed Murfree—and she wouldn’t swear—and Polarmo shot her. Murfree was a sap. He walked into that apartment with his gun in his pocket. Polarmo took it away from him and Murfree was sap enough to try hand-to-hand. Murfree should have walked in with his gun drawn.”

  Doake shoved his hands into his pockets, frowned, bit his lip. He said dully: “When Dirigo comes out of the hospital, he goes back to harness.”

  “You’re getting wise to him, huh?”

  “I been wise a long time—but I never acted.” He kept staring hard at the floor, thrust out his hand.

  Cardigan reached out, shook it.

  Scrambled Murder

  Chapter One

  Hello Frisco

  THE rain fell like a mist, looked like a fog. The cab rolled past Union Square, made a left turn into Powell Street, squeezed past a cable car and went down the hill past the St. Francis. Ahead, on the right, a flat white marquee of glass, lighted, had the words “Griggs Hotel” in black block letters on its glass fringe. The cab drew up, making its right front tire squeal against the wet curbstone.

  Cardigan climbed out, hauling a gladstone in one hand, using the other to dig into his pocket. A bell-hop came on the jump, grabbed the bag; and Cardigan, passing a bill to the driver, said to the bell-hop: “Careful with that bag, boy. I’ve got two quarts of Reno Scotch in it.”

  “O.K.”

  Cardigan took his change, tossed back a tip to the driver. The entryway to the hotel was narrow, merely a highly polished glass door flanked on one side by a tobacco shop, on the other by a drug store. Cardigan followed the hop down a narrow corridor lined with merchandise displays in glass booths. The corridor emptied into a small, dark-wood lounge without frills. Half a dozen unimpressive men sat about.

  Cardigan, always a good example of what the well-dressed man should not wear, reached the desk, slapped down his damp gloves and said: “I wired for a room, this morning. Cardigan’s the name.” His voice had a heavy, male sound that carried.

  “Oh, yes. Harry, Six-ten.”

  “Six-ten right!”

  Cardigan registered, said: “Any mail?”

  “A couple of wires.”

  “Thanks.”

  He took the wires and went long-legged after the bell-hop. The hop also operated the elevator, which rose laboriously to the sixth floor. Cardigan’s woolly, baggy ulster smelled of the rain. Rain had made his shapeless hat more shapeless.

  “Bad night,” the hop said.

  “In a plane you could see it.”

  The door opened. “Out here…. Flew, huh?”

  “Little bit. Give me Mother Earth anytime…. Hey,” as they entered 610, “
run me up a split of White Rock and some ice. Never mind the bathroom and the windows.”

  THE hop went out. Cardigan took off hat and overcoat, tossed them to the bed; sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the telephone and said: “Hotel Margery.” He waited, humming to himself, looking down at his wet shoes. “Margery?… Miss Seaward.” He lay back on the bed, spoke up into the mouthpiece. “Hello, Pat. I got here…. Yeah, I think I’ve got the dope. I’m going to knock off three highballs. Meet met at Bernstein’s, upstairs—in an hour…. O.K., chicken.”

  He hung up, rose, got out of his coat and vest and hung them up in the closet. He was unbuttoning his shirt when a knock sounded on the door. He called: “Come in.”

  The door opened, swinging wide. The man who strolled in was broad, of medium height, and substantially built. He had a chubby, rosy-cheeked face that was beefy rather than fatty. He wore a dark gray Homburg-type hat and a darker, gray mackintosh. Closing the door, he leaned back comfortably against it and grinned genially.

  “Cardigan?”

  “Yeah. What’s the honor?”

  “I’m Reilly from the Bureau.”

  Cardigan said “Uh,” and pulling off his shirt, tossed it across the bed and into the closet.

  The bell-hop arrived with ice and the makings, dumped the ice from a metal bucket into a glass pitcher, left an opener with the bottle. Cardigan gave him a quarter and signed the check. The hop went out.

  “I just dropped in,” Reilly said. “Was sitting down in the lobby. I cover the hotels. You were in this town about three years ago, weren’t you?”

  “Maybe…. Drink?”

  “No.”

  Cardigan mixed himself a stiff highball and said, turning: “What’s on your mind?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just thought maybe something was hot.”

  Cardigan took a drink, shook his head and said: “Uh-uh. Just routine.”

  “From New York to San Francisco on routine, eh?”

  “Believe it or not.”

  Reilly chuckled. “Any time you get this far away from home, it’s got to be hot.”

  Cardigan sat down, took off his shoes. Reilly was smiling and eyeing him with shrewd merriment; and Cardigan, looking up, grinned and shrugged. “Have it your way, copper, but it won’t get you anywhere. I happen to be here on business and it’s my business.” He rose, spread his palms, grinned crookedly. “No hard feelings, I hope.”