The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 3: 1934-35 Page 31

  “So you’re the man that knocks them down and drags them out.”

  He said: “Yeah. I never count the times I get knocked down and dragged out.”

  “Many?”

  “I’ve been in all the best hospitals. But you know the old gag: you should have seen the other guy.” He squinted, took a drag on his cigarette, cuddled the smoke back of his lips and then popped it out, saying: “How’s to skip me and get down to you?”

  Her eyes were still preoccupied, remote. “I didn’t intend to get down to me when I asked you here.”

  “O.K. Put it aside and go on from there.”

  She compressed her lips. She leaned over and began grinding out her cigarette in a copper tray, turning the cigarette round and round until the end was a black, smokeless smudge. Her face was grave, set, her eyes fixed remotely on the copper tray.

  She said in a low, preoccupied voice: “Don’t try to find Farrell,” let the dead cigarette go and brushed her fingers slowly together.

  A somber look came into Cardigan’s face. “Smack down to cases, huh?”

  She nodded, her lips compressed again.

  He said in a dull, toneless voice: “You’re not the first one tonight that tried to pull that on me.”

  The dog, a smooth-haired terrier, came trotting in from the bedroom carrying a ball in his mouth and put his front paws on Cardigan’s knee. Cardigan took the ball and tossed it back into the bedroom and the pooch lined out after it. But Cardigan had not taken his eyes from the girl as he did so.

  “It could mean one of two things. Either Farrell’s dead or he’s alive, but you don’t want me to find him—because you feel that somebody might knock me off.”

  She said in her grave, preoccupied way: “I don’t really care what happens to you,” and did not look at him.

  “Trying to whittle me down to a small opinion of myself?”

  “I’m asking you not to look for Farrell. He’s alive. He’ll be turned up when the proper time comes.”

  “When’s the proper time?”

  “I’ll not go into that.”

  He said, almost closing one eye: “Maybe you don’t want me to look for Farrell because the heel you love might get hurt trying to take me.”

  “Please don’t look for Farrell,” she said, staring fixedly at the carpet.

  HE made an angry, impatient gesture and sat upright in the chair, jamming his fists upon his knees, his face dark beneath his shaggy mop of hair. “I came to this town to do several things. One of them’s to find Farrell. It happens to be the most important one to me. I think I know a gag when I see it. You and those other smart babies you’re hooked up with are figuring now that by telling me Farrell is alive, safe, I’ll lay off for fear of him being killed if I don’t! Nuts to you, my pet!”

  He stood up, his overcoat wrinkled, one of his trouser legs hitched up and revealing the top of his sock. But he towered darkly and threateningly.

  The girl did not move, she did not grow tense. “Don’t, don’t,” she said in a tired, dead voice. “He’s alive. I tell you he’s alive. I know he’s alive. I swear he’s alive. Don’t, don’t talk that way.”

  He snapped: “And if I continue to go after him, he’s going to get knocked off, huh?”

  “If you continue to go after him, you’ll regret it.”

  Her implacable sad calm angered him and he growled: “How’d you like me to turn you over to the cops?”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said, looking up at him lazily, “turn me over to the cops.”

  “I wouldn’t, wouldn’t I?”

  She moved her head slowly. “You wouldn’t.”

  He glared sullenly at her.

  She added: “Because the cops are no doubt looking for the man or men involved in the murder, tonight, of a cab driver. The cab driver was playing pool on his night off. He was playing pool with his brother in a place next to the Station Hotel. I heard the brother went home and got a gun and started out looking for a tall, heavy-set man, about thirty-five or so. The owner of the pool parlor said he caught a glimpse of this man outside at the time of the shooting—holding a gun. The same man, according to the pool-hall proprietor, made a phone call a little earlier, from a booth in the pool room. You wouldn’t turn me over to the police, Mr. Cardigan.”

  His face was dull red with chagrin. “I hope I never come nearer to wringing a dame’s neck than I am right now.”

  “You can wring my neck if you want. See what it gets you.”

  He snarled: “Don’t tempt me!”

  She was silent for a moment, regarding him gravely. “I beg you, Cardigan, don’t look for Farrell.”

  He started toward her growling savagely, “I think enough of that guy to slap you around in order to find him!”

  The terrier pounced on his leg and Cardigan wheeled about, sending the dog the length of the room. When he spun back on the woman she had a gun in her hand.

  “You’d better get out,” she said; and to the dog: “Mike! Under the bed!”

  The dog scampered off into the bedroom.

  The gun in the girl’s hand was as steady as any gun Cardigan had ever seen. Her face was grave, but now the eyes were narrowed a bit, cool, watchful, unafraid.

  “Don’t forget your hat, Cardigan.”

  He slapped savagely at his hat, crumpled it in his hand, and towered to the door.

  Chapter Three

  Bedside Manner

  LYING in bed an hour later, he slept fitfully. Whenever he woke up in the darkness, he thought of how angry he felt. It did not pass off easily. He heaved and tossed, punching the pillow into one shape, then into another. It was almost an hour before he fell away into sleep, aided by copious draughts of Irish whisky.

  He was awakened by lights in the room and turning his head saw two men standing between the door and the bed. For a minute he stared at them, while his vision cleared; and then leaning on an elbow he said: “Even where I was brought up, people knocked.”

  “Where were you brought up?”

  “It was a pretty tough neighborhood. Even the dames led with their left.”

  “Just a big batter and yegg man, eh?”

  “I’ll bet you wiggle your ears and do impersonations and everything. Who’s the other guy, the stooge?”

  “Do you wake up funny all the time?”

  “Only when I see something that makes me feel that way.”

  “I don’t like you already.”

  “I don’t expect to be liked by a couple of guys that bust in my hotel room carrying guns. I’m sure I locked the door.”

  “You did.”

  “See? Even in hotels nowadays a guy has about as much privacy as a goldfish. Does the guy with you ever say anything or does he just stand around like that all the time trying to look intelligent?”

  The man to whom Cardigan referred came slowly over to the bed and smacked Cardigan on the jaw and Cardigan at the same time took a swing and knocked the man down.

  The other cocked his revolver. “Quit it, dummy.” He was tall, bony, with wide slablike shoulders. He wore a plain black overcoat that had faded around the collar and the underside of the cuffs were worn down to the weave; the buttonholes needed mending. His hat was a gray fedora with a short stiff brim. His face was yellowish, stony, with hard expressionless eyes, and all his words were spoken in the same dull, blunt, expressionless voice. He looked about forty-five, his hair, eyebrows and short mustache black and lusterless like charcoal. “Get up, dummy,” he said, “and put your clothes on. You just took a sock at my partner but we’ll let that slide. We’re from headquarters. My name’s Britto, in case you want to know. This is Polinski.”

  Polinski, a yellow-haired stocky man of about Britto’s age, had got to his feet and was rubbing his jaw. Britto said: “Go ahead, Joe, if you want to sock him.”

  Polinski said: “In just a minute I’ll sock him, Sam.”

  Cardigan got out on the other side of the bed, hitched up his pajamas and said: “Take it easy. How the he
ll did I know you were a couple of coppers?”

  “A wise guy like you ought to know everything,” Britto said. “Go ahead, Sam, have fun.”

  “Hell,” said Polinski, “what’s the use? If I think of it later, I can do it over at headquarters.”

  Britto’s face did not change expression. “Go ahead, big fellow,” he said to Cardigan, “get your clothes on.”

  Cardigan put a cigarette between his lips and while lighting it looked over his cupped hands at Britto.

  “Shake a leg,” said Britto.

  Cardigan fanned the match out and said: “I’d like to know why I’ve got to go over to headquarters.”

  “A lad named Figlar got the side of his mug blown off tonight down in Station Street and I got a tip you were the guy with the gun. Add two and two together and see what you get.”

  “Four.”

  “He’s starting again,” sighed Polinski.

  Britto said to Cardigan: “The guy that runs the pool room where Figlar was shot through the window seen you with the gun and seen you beat it.”

  “Did he see the other guy?”

  “What other guy?”

  “The guy that fired six shots at me, nicked a pole, busted a telephone sign, the pool-room window, and knocked over this lad you’re talking about.”

  “I guess he didn’t and I guess nobody else did. This guy that runs the pool room said you came in with a bag just after the nine-fifty pulled in and made a phone call. Then you bought a pack of butts. Then you went out. The next he knew, his window was busted by gunfire, this lad Figlar was hit, and you were seen holding a gun and then scramming. Who’d you phone to?”

  “You’ll have to skip that one. It was personal.”

  “Who’s the mysterious guy you’ve built up that was supposed to fire the shots?”

  “I wish I knew. I never saw him. He was in the shadows.”

  BRITTO was patient. “Then it’s funny as hell when a dame calls me up and says she seen a guy—she described you—arguing with a little guy on the corner there. You thought the guy was heeled and when you found he wasn’t, you yanked your gun and started blazing away. You were a lousy shot, because the guy must have got away. But you crashed the window and killed Figlar.”

  “Who’s the dame?”

  “I don’t know. It was a call from a booth. We usually don’t bother with them calls but this fitted in. She said she tailed you to this hotel and that you came in here at about half past ten. We found downstairs you were the only guy who registered between ten and eleven. Will you get your clothes on or are we going to have to drag you out of here in your night drawers?”

  “You get any of those slugs?”

  “Sure. One out of Figlar and two others.”

  Cardigan gave a short, contemptuous laugh, tossed his gun onto the bed. “Take that along with you, master mind. It’s loaded. It wasn’t fired tonight. In fact, not in a whole month. It’s a new gun, a month old. If you can’t see for yourself, let your ballistics expert look it over. You worry the pants off me. Yes, you do!”

  Britto picked up the gun, hefted it. After a minute he said: “Suppose you are right? All right, suppose you are? You’ll still have to explain why you were holding the rod out when the guy that runs the pool room saw you. You’ll have to explain who the little guy is you were talking to. You’ll have to explain why you scrammed and never reported to the police. You’ll have to tell what you and the little guy were arguing about. Just to be legal, we’ll pinch you as a material witness. We ought to be able to keep you tied up in the can for a week or two. What are you doing in this town anyhow?”

  “Looking for Farrell. What d’you suppose? If we waited for you guys to find him—”

  “Why was he here? What was he doing here?”

  Cardigan was getting into his trousers. “Well, it was this way. A newspaper syndicate sent him up here to conduct an intelligence test among you detectives. He probably went nuts at the answers he got and took to drink.” He snapped long heavy arms into his shirt sleeves. “If ever you walk into a guy’s room again, Britto, you ought to hold your badge way out in front and say, ‘Look, I’m a detective.’ I could have sworn you were a cigar-store Indian that somebody dressed up and shoved in here as a joke.”

  Britto remained stony-faced. He said, “I’ll fix it so you spend maybe three weeks in the can.”

  Cardigan laughed harshly in his face.

  “You tenth-rate ham. I’ll be out for breakfast.” He scooped up the phone and said into it: “Baysway Nine-two-nine.”

  “Drop that phone!” Britto snapped, starting around the bed.

  Cardigan stood holding the phone pressed against his chest and growled: “Lay off that. You’re not talking to a heel, Britto.”

  “Drop it!”

  Britto gripped the phone and tried to wrestle it away from Cardigan. Polinski came over too. Cardigan wedged himself back into the corner, grinned wickedly at Britto and held onto the phone, holding it almost stationary against Britto’s struggle. Then suddenly he whipped his arm upward, tearing the phone from Britto’s hand. With his other hand he straight-armed Britto back against Polinski and snapped into the mouthpiece: “Holman! SOS—Cardigan! Headquarters!”

  He dropped the phone in time to catch Britto’s descending blackjack and, holding the detective’s arm rigid, said straight into his face: “You’d like to pinch me for smacking an officer too, wouldn’t you? If you do, say so and I’ll make it worth while. I’ll rip this blackjack out of your hand and close your eyes for life.”

  “Hey, easy now!” Polinski called out, unable to get at Cardigan because the Cosmos op was wedged in the corner, with Britto in front of him.

  Cardigan ripped the blackjack out of Britto’s hand and shoved him back. “I’m going with you guys to headquarters,” he said, “but I’ll be damned if you’re going to slap me around.”

  Polinski said: “Oh, hell, Cardigan—Sam just lost his head.”

  Britto’s yellow face was drawn, sinister. He remained motionless, rigid for a long minute, his dark eyes lit with a cold fury. Gradually he seemed to relax, and when he spoke his voice was blunt again, cold. “Let’s go.”

  Cardigan tossed the blackjack onto the bed, slapped on his hat, growled: “And if you’re interested, the guy I just called up was the agency’s local lawyer. That shield you wear, and the law behind you, make it tough sometimes. But the law works both ways. Come on over and see it work. And on the way, Britto, you’d better think it over about that anonymous dame who phoned you. Even though it fits, you’ve still got to prove she phoned you and told you those things.”

  Chapter Four

  Nash

  CONWAY, the chief inspector, was a tall, grayish, handsome man with steely eyes. He was back of his desk at police headquarters at nine fifty next morning when Dan Holman, the Cosmos Agency’s lawyer, came in with Cardigan. Holman was a small, quiet-looking man with an absent-minded air about him and a habit of sauntering.

  “Morning, Conny,” he sighed, tapping back a yawn. “Everything fixed, I suppose. I broke toast with Judge Boardman this morning and he intimated—”

  “Your client walks out, as per instructions.”

  Holman said sleepily: “Rather stupid of that chap Britto to make such a fuss. Everything was so against him. And that fable about a woman tipping him off by phone. Droll! Naturally that pool-room owner saw Cardigan holding a gun. Why not? When someone begins to blaze away at you, you’re going to pull your gun.”

  Conway leaned back, shrugged. “Sensible, Dan.” He looked up at Cardigan. “This small man you alluded to, the man who accosted you—what do you make of him, Mr. Cardigan?”

  “What’s there to make of him, Inspector? He came up to me and offered me a grand to leave town and I refused and told him what he could do with the grand and then a guy across the street cuts loose with a gun. It’s screwy, but most things in this trade are screwy anyhow.”

  Conway opened a desk drawer, withdrew Cardigan’s gun and sai
d: “You’ll want this back. Sorry to have inconvenienced you.”

  “That’s O.K., Inspector. Only tell that horse’s neck, Britto, to watch his step. A night in the can hasn’t improved my bad humor a bit and if Britto tries any more of his low comedy I’m liable to forget that badge he wears and take him apart like a clock.”

  Conway said: “I regret Britto was hasty.”

  “Come on, Jack,” Holman said, taking Cardigan’s arm. “A little air’ll do you good, kid.”

  They went downstairs and across the central room and as they were passing through the doorway Britto came up the steps, a gaunt, unpleasant-looking man with the wind flapping the skirt of his overcoat. He looked up, started at sight of Cardigan, and stopped.

  “You see?” said Cardigan.

  Britto said nothing, his face stony cold, only some vague look of unleashed malice deep in his chilled eyes. Cardigan went past him, laughing scornfully in his throat, and with Holman got into a taxicab, rode off.

  “Britto,” sighed Holman, with a half-yawn, “is on the skids. Two years ago he was a detective-sergeant. He was demoted to a first-grade sleuth last year, then six months ago second-grade. He’s hard, but he’s dumb. You’ve got to be better than just hard to get along, even on the cops. He’s a quarrelsome bloke and not popular in the department. If you’re ace-good, you don’t have to give a damn whether you’re popular or not. It’s different when you’re mediocre. Look out for him, Jack: Britto’s vicious. Don’t ride him.”

  “To hell with him. Thanks for getting me out so quick.”

  “It was a snap. I spoke with the governor for exactly ten minutes. He spoke with the mayor. The mayor spoke with Judge Boardman.”

  “Why didn’t the inspector ask me a lot of questions?”

  HOLMAN said: “My boy, the inspector’s a discreet man working for a police commissioner that’s a flabby, weak-livered but politically powerful blockhead. I think—I think Inspector Conway knows that Billy Farrell wasn’t engaged by the governor merely as a bodyguard for the duration of the election campaign. I think Conway knows, or suspects, that Farrell was engaged to run down Max Kovac. Truman Shay, though in state’s prison, is at present according to the sentimental wing of the press, something of a hero. Governor Ballard wants Truman Shay to die, but Ballard is such a downright conscientious chap that he won’t permit it until Max Kovac is found and proved either a liar or a brave man.”