FREDERICK NEBEL
Red Pavement
DURING CAP SHAW'S ten-year editorial reign, a good many private eyes battled their way through the pages of Black Mask in pursuit of truth, justice, and the American Way—Daly's Race Williams, Hammett's Continental Op, Chandler's Carmady, Raoul Whitfield's Ben Jardinn, Roger Torrey's McCarthy, Norbert Davis's Ben Shaley, and Dwight V. Babcock's Maguire, to name the most prominent. But with the clear exceptions of the Continental Op and Carmady, none of these dicks was in the same league with Frederick Nebel's slightly jaded, slightly shady "Tough Dick" Donahue.
Donahue made his debut in the November 1930 issue, in a story called "Rough Justice," and appeared in fourteen more cases until his "retirement" in 1935. He was not the most active of Nebel's pulp detective characters—the team of police captain Steve MacBride and news hound Kennedy appears in thirty-seven Black Mask stones, and another private eye, Cardigan, is featured in forty-three novelettes published in Dime Detective—but he is certainly the toughest. A former New York City cop who was fired for raiding the wrong gambling joint, Donahue works for the Inter-State Detective Agency and is not above using illegal methods to achieve his goals. "I've been up against crooks, guns, and I've double-crossed them to get what I wanted," he says in one story. "That's what my game is. It's not a polite business of question-and-answer bunk. You work against crooks and you've got to beat them at their own game."
Toughness is only one of the elements that make the Donahue stories memorable. They are also vivid portraits of the New York underworld at the end of Prohibition. And they are rich in the street slang of the period, as well as spiced with an underplayed sense of gallows humor.
Six of the Donahue stones comprise Nebel's only collection, Six Deadly Dames, first published by Avon books in 1950 and reprinted by Gregg Press in 1980 as part of their series of mystery fiction revivals. "Red Pavement" is not included in that book. It is, in fact, reprinted here for the first time anywhere since its original publication in the December 1932 issue of Black Mask.
Louis Frederick Nebel (1903-1966) began selling regularly to the pulps when he was in his teens, using his own name and such pseudonyms as Eric Lewis and Grimes Hill. Instead, of attending college, he worked in the Canadian North Woods and on a tramp steamer in the Caribbean, and traveled extensively in Europe, where he met his wife Dorothy in 1928. In the early thirties, Nebel wrote his only three novels, Sleepers East (which was filmed three times, once as Sleepers West), But Not the End, and Fifty Roads to Town. But he was a short story writer at heart, and because at this time he also began making sales to such slick magazines as Collier's, American, and Liberty, he abandoned novels and, in 1937, the pulps as well. He was a successful slick writer for more than twenty years, with only a few of his stories for these magazines having criminous themes. Ironically, however, his final few stories marked a belated return to the mystery field: they were published in such genre periodicals as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in the late fifties and early sixties.

 DONAHUE HAD STOPPED in the dark, windy street to cup his hands over a match. He heard the door bang, and looking up from the match's glow, he saw the drunk reel towards him across the sidewalk. He stepped aside, still maneuvering his hands in the wind to get a light, and had the flame leaning steadily towards his cigarette when he heard the grunt and the sound of the man piling headfirst into the gutter, near a fire-hydrant.
The door opened again. Tossing the match away, Donahue saw a head thrust out, the shadow of a face beneath a fedora; then the head withdrew and the door banged shut. He stood for half a moment quite complacently enjoying the first drags of smoke and watching the drunk's awkward efforts. The wind came from the west, up West Tenth Street and smack against his back, flapping the long skirt of his belted camel's hair and humming past his rigid Homburg.
"Here," he said, at length.
He swung to the curb, grabbed a wandering arm and hauled the man to his feet. He grinned good-humoredly.
"Steady, brother. Another dive like that and—Stead-y!"
" 'S all right—'s all right, brother. Must have been somethin' I ate. 'S trouble with restaurants these days: you can't depend on nothin' any more."
"Come on; I'll steer you to a subway."
The man grunted. "Idea." He reeled around and poked Donahue's arm. "An' not only restaurants, brother." His lower lip pouted; he teetered back on his heels. " 'S damn' shame, 's what!"
"Come on; snap out of it."
"Sure. Where was we goin'?"
"Subway. I'll pilot you to Sheridan Square."
"Swell idea. Le's go. . . . You goin' uptown, too?"
"Yeah."
They went along the dark street, past the pale glow of a speakeasy areaway; went on—the man bouncing along on his heels like a marionette and Donahue keeping a firm grip on his arm. He was no great bundle to handle; short, bony-faced, with a gray, hard pallor. New clothes, cheap but substantial. And he was very drunk. The whites of his eyes rolled into view frequently. They reached West Fourth Street and the drunk stopped resolutely.
"T' hell with subway. Le's get taxi. Taxi!" he yelled.
Brakes squealed and a cab stopped on the opposite side of the street. Donahue hadn't bargained for this, but traffic was flowing past and he did not care to see the drunk run down. He steered him through the traffic and put him into the cab.
"Where d' you want to go, friend?"
"Hell. You're comin' uptown, ain't you? Come on!"
Donahue shrugged and climbed in and the man said: "Penn Station, Jymes."
The cab started off and the drunk leaned against Donahue's shoulder. "Gonna meet her, brother. Gonna make her my wife. Penn Station, train at 9:02. She come a long ways. To meet me." He poked himself?, hiccoughed. "Be my wife."
He swung away, heaved over on one side and dragged awkwardly at a hip pocket. He drew out a small wallet and a big .38 revolver. His lip drooped and he said:
"Here, hold this rod a minute, brother."
Donahue took it, hefted it; guns were in his trade and he liked the feel of this one.
The drunk had taken a small snapshot from his wallet. "Her picture, mister." He looked, oddly enough, like a yokel just then.
Donahue glanced sketchily at it, then said, hefting the gun: "You want to look out for this rod. What the hell are you packing a cannon like this around for?"
"Ah," the drunk said, and winked with tremendous spirit. He closed his hand over his gun and thrust it into his overcoat pocket. His teeth bared in a drunken grimace and he stared grimly before him. "I gotta pack it," he said.
Donahue was good-humored, twisting a smile off his lips. "I know, but look at it this way: here you show me, a perfect stranger, a rod the State of New York says you're not allowed to pack. Of course, personally I don't care who packs a rod, but if I'd turned out now to be a city cop instead of a private dick—well, where'd you be?"
"Uh," said the drunk. "Yeah, I get you. I gotta be careful. I gotta—" He stopped short, fell against Donahue, gripped his arm. "You—you're a private detective?"
"Yeah."
"Good! Listen, brother—now listen." He tugged at his wallet, counted out some bills. "Here. Here's a hundred bucks. Listen, now. I gotta meet this gal. But I'm drunk, see? I'm stewed. Some swell lousy pals o' mine got me stewed. Tell you what. You meet rny gal, tell her I been detained on business. You take her to a hotel—make it the Grandi, and she gets a room there. Me, I'll get me a Turkish bath, get straightened out. Hey, wait now! How the hell do I know you're a private dick?"
Donahue chuckled, showed him plenty of identification. He was frank. "This is easy money," he said.
"A hundred bucks. Count 'em. I—jeeze—I got to get straightened out. You see, I just come back from South America—struck it rich—and these fine, nice, lousy pals o' mine . . ."
Grinning, Donahue pocketed the hundred dollars. "Now wait, brother. You'd better lend me that picture of the girl. Tell me her name. Also, I'll have to have your own name."
"Sure! Sure I'll"—he sought his wallet again—"lend you the picture. Name's Laura and she's—"
Donahue had his little book out. "And your name."
He turned, by instinct more than anything else, and saw the long black shape of the touring car draw up and crowd in close. But he hadn't time to get a word out of his mouth. He hadn't time to snap his hand to his gun.
A gun crashed four times.
Donahue flung back against the side of the cab, ducking. The driver ducked and slewed in his seat and the cab careened, brakes screamed, but at the same time there was a tremendous bounce as the wheels went over the curb. The right front mudguard crashed against a building wall. The car recoiled and glass shattered.
Donahue was pitched forward out of the seat. He struck the glass partition between tonneau and driver's seat and collapsed on the floor, facing backwards. The drunk piled down on top of him violently and Donahue felt something warm and liquid slap his cheek. He straight-armed the drunk off, hauled himself up and dropped to the seat, hot and shaking all over. His client was gurgling on the floor, in the darkness there.
The driver was pressing his forehead down on the upper rim of the wheel. The man on the cab's floor was groaning and gurgling, and up and down the street autos, trucks, were stopping; the shots, the sound of the crashing taxi had frozen a few pedestrians into immobility and they remained thus.
"Brother . . ."
Donahue got a flashlight on and sprayed light down on the man's face. He shut the flash off immediately, grimacing.
"Brother ..." The tone was curiously sober.
"That's all right—that's all right."
"Listen. Go meet her. It'll be tough, her comin' alone. Go meet her. Here . . . take this wallet. Key inside—for bag—"
Donahue snapped: "Cut out talking."
"Here, take it."
"Will you shut up!"
He felt a hand pawing at his own.
"Take it. You'll recognize her by the picture. There's some dough in it. Give it to her. Here. There's a baggage check in it. I got a bag at the station. Get it. Give it to her. Tell her to get out of town—go home again—I'm sorry—"
Donahue found himself taking the wallet, shoving it into his pocket.
And he heard the broken voice go on: "Don't tell—the—cops. It ain't her fault. She—don't—know—and—"
"For	sake, shut up!"
It was hard to listen to the gurgle of a dying man. There was no reason why he had to listen to it. The man was a stranger.
"Hey, there!"
That was a voice outside the cab—loud and challenging.
Donahue pushed open the door and climbed out and a cop came up to him, stopped and eyed him with a hard stare.
"What the hell happened?"
Donahue's thoughts were on the sprint. In his pocket lay the hundred dollars representing his fee for promising to meet and conduct to the Hotel Grandi one named Laura something. He did not know the man's name—nor the girl's. He had a rather thorough opinion of a harness-bull's imagination. To tell this cop the truth as it had happened would, in the clear sound of words, seem fantastic. He would not expect the cop to believe him. Part of the truth might get by. The fact of the matter was he had seen an easy way to make a hundred dollars, had taken the case as a joke; and the joke had turned into tragedy.
"Take a look in the cab," he said.
The cop snapped on a flashlight and poked into the tonneau. Donahue watched him, his eyes narrowed.
"Hey!" the cop yelled; then he backed out, spun around. "That guy's dead."
Donahue said: "A curtained touring car yanked up alongside us and let go. The guy inside got it."
"Who's the stiff?"
"I'm damned if I know."
The cop towered with rage. "What the hell are you trying to hand me?"
"I picked him up in a gutter downtown. He was soused. Like a drunk, I couldn't get rid of him. So we took a cab."
The driver looked out, choked: "F-four shots!"
"You," the cop said to Donahue, "are lying!"
"So what should I do now? Break down?"
There was no turning back now. He had the man's wallet. To turn the wallet over now would be to put himself in a very serious jam.
The cop twirled his nightstick and laughed unpleasantly.
"Okey, guy, okey. Be wise, be wise. . . . Hello, Coake," he said to another cop who had come up on the run.
"Hello, Donlin. What the hell?"
"A stiff inside."
"Who's this?"
"A wise bimbo."
Donahue said: "You cops!" with hopeless irony, and chuckled.
A car drew up at the curb and a stoutish man alighted without haste and came across the sidewalk slapping gloves he held in one hand across the palm of the other.
"I heard shots."
"Yeah," Donlin said. "Pike what's inside."
The stoutish man looked into the cab, backed out and said: "Well, well," in a merry voice. "And who's—"
Donahue was leaning against the building wall, eyes cold but watchful.
The stoutish man said: "Well, well, Donny!"
Donahue's "Hello, Kelly," was not enthusiastic.
"He's a wise bimbo," Donlin growled.
Kelly McPard grinned broadly. "Hell, he's all right. Just has a habit of being Johnny-on-the-spot. So what happened, Donny?"
"Ask precious," Donahue said, indicating Donlin.
Donlin told him, and then said: "And this guy right away starts to act dumb."
McPard made a face, as though all this was unpleasant business. "Tsk! tsk! Well—well, suppose we get the Morgue bus. Did you frisk the stiff?"
"No," Donlin said.
"Better," He backed away from the cab, turned casually and looking up the street, said to Donahue: "What about it?"
"It's blind to me." Donahue shrugged, "I told the cop everything I know."
Kelly McPard kept looking up the street and said thoughtfully: "Ye-es, I suppose so. ... Well?" This was directed at Donlin, who had come out of the cab.
"Only this." Donlin held the .38 auto in his hand.
"Full?"
"Yup."
McPard sighed and said to Donahue: "Mind running over the station house?"
"I gave the cop all the dope. I was headed uptown. You know where I live."
McPard shrugged. "Okey."
"What!" yelped Donlin. "You gonna let this ape—"
"Ah," drawled McPard, "he's all right. We don't need him." There was curious laughter back of his voice, a wily dip to his head. "Run along, Donny. I wouldn't think of pestering you." And there was still that curious sense of laughter.
Donahue walked away.
2
HE HAD DECIDED a dozen times in the space of as many minutes to turn the wallet over to McPard. And in the end he hadn't. He was Irish, and that may have accounted in some measure for the sentimental streak beneath the tough hide. That—or the fact that he and Kelly had a habit of playing hide and seek with each other. Within limits he trusted McPard. Kelly was square. But he had long wanted something on Donahue, and this would have been too good a chance.
It was two minutes to nine when he heaved out of a taxi at Penn Station. He slapped swing doors open, went down into the main rotunda. The only 9:02 train would arrive downstairs. He went down and saw a man in a cap marking on a blackboard that the 9:02 was expected to arrive at 9:15. He worried a cigarette between his lips and cast a quick glance over the waiting people. The small wallet felt hot and oily in his palm; he kept that hand religiously in his overcoat pocket. Shop windows were bright and cheerful in this subterranean cavern, but the air was always stuffy, secondhand, winter or summer. He prowled around, looking. He pushed into a soda counter, entered a telephone booth, took out the wallet. It contained two hundred and twenty dollars. There was the girl's picture. She looked young, brown-haired, nice. On the back was inscribed: "Love to Charlie from Laura." The snap wasn't very old. And there was a baggage check. He replaced the articles in the wallet, the wallet in his pocket.
"Tough," he said, thinking of the picture.
He went out and looked at the blackboard again. His watch checked with the electric one above: 9:12. Then the man with the cap was megaphoning: "Blah . . . from . . . blah . . . Columbus . . . Wheeling . . . blah . . . was due at 9:02 . . . blah . . . Track . . . blah!"
People got up and moved down the corridor. Donahue tailed along, looking around. His eye lit on a small young man leaning against a stone pillar. There was a sensation of something clicking as the little man's eyes met his own. Then they dropped, a foot ground out a cigarette and the little man sauntered off, whistling. Donahue tried to catch sight of him a moment later, but was unable.
People were coming up the stairway from the train level below. Donahue watched and saw her but did not immediately go to her. She was very small, with a startled, pretty face. A porter was beside her, holding a bag and asking something. She kept shrugging and peering eagerly at the faces. It was minutes before the crowd went away, and then she stood there alone with the porter drooping beside her. Donahue cast another look around, then went over to her.
"Laura?"
There was a frightened smile. "Yes!"
"He couldn't meet you. He sent me. . . . I'll take that, porter." He took the bag and gave the porter a quarter. "This way, Laura—"
"But—"
He was pointing: "We have to go to the checkroom first." He flung a look over either shoulder.
"How is Charlie? Why couldn't he come?"
"Yes," he said, making believe he misunderstood. "The checkroom's upstairs. Have a nice trip?"
"Oh, long. Lonesome."
"There it is over there."
He gave the check to the man at the counter and received a small yellow handbag that looked new. Gripping it in his left hand, the girl's suitcase in his right, he started off.
"Come on. We'll get a taxi."
They got one in the tunnel and rode out into Seventh Avenue. Donahue had given the address of his apartment-hotel. He was glad the girl didn't talk. She sat quietly in a corner. He sat in the other, his arms folded and his face in a hard, brown study. Presently the cab stopped and the hotel doorman let them out. Donahue lugged the bags and they went up to his apartment. He could tell by the way she looked when they entered his rooms that she expected to see Charlie there. She turned on him as he was closing the door.
She said, weakly: "Something—something's—"
"Ssh!" He skated the bags into one corner and scaled his hat on to a divan. He went on into the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror and thought: "Of all the saps, Donahue, you're the berries— with all the trimmings." He turned, strode out of the bathroom with his coat's long skirt slapping his calves. He walked straight to the center of the room and stood there grinding the heels of his hands slowly together and regarding the girl with a glazed introspective look.
There was a little cry—"Oh!" And small white fingers suddenly against cheeks from which the color was ebbing.
He took a step and laid a big hand on either of her small rounded shoulders. "He's dead, Laura." That was the easiest way—right out with it. He felt the rounded shoulders twitch and he saw her looking up at him with a peculiarly abstracted expression. Then she stepped back and began walking up and down the room, swiftly, quietly, with her eyes fixed on the carpet. Suddenly she dived on to the divan and lay there—still, motionless, without a move, without a quiver.
He grabbed the back of a chair and dragged it across the carpet, planked it down in front of the divan. He sat down and scrutinized the palms of his hands, turning them this way and that.
He said, as if talking aloud to himself: "He asked me to meet you. That bag there: he asked me to give it to you. He said you should go home again. He said he was sorry he couldn't meet you. He gave me some money to give to you—to get back on, I guess."
She broke into sobbing and he got up and entered the bathroom and washed his hands. The running water dimmed the sound of her sobbing. He washed his hands over and over again, throwing secret glances at his image in the mirror. After a while he turned to the room and saw her sitting up. Her hat was askew, her face smeared with tears. She sniffled, stared straight ahead of her with blank, wet eyes.
"Where can I see his body?"
"I wouldn't," he said.
"I want to."
"You can't."
She looked up at him. "Why?"
"It was his dying wish that you shouldn't."
Her tone was dull: "How did it happen?"
"He was shot. I guess it was an accident." He tossed the wallet to the divan. "His money's in that and the key to his bag. I'll get you a room in the hotel. I brought you to this apartment because I thought it'd be easier."
"Who—who are you?"
"My name's Donahue. I'm a private detective."
"You knew Charlie well?"
"I never saw him before. I just saw him when he was dying."
"And—and you did this—for him—for me? You did this for strangers?"
He frowned and turned away. He was glad she didn't rave and carry on hysterically. She wasn't that kind. All her emotion remained inside, locked up, torturing her. You could see that much in the stunned white face, tell it by the dull, listless monotony of her words. Then she was feeling at her throat.
"Do you—you mind if I stay here till I can get a train?"
He shivered. He wanted to get her into another room, out of sight; he wanted to get her out of the city as soon as possible. He had done enough. He didn't want to have a strange girl on his hands.
She was saying: "I hate to ask it. I—I'm not that kind of a girl, you understand. But—but I'm afraid to stay alone. I'm just—afraid. Coming like this—from a small town—I've never been in a big city. And I'm afraid to be alone. I'm ashamed to ask you, but. . ." She moved her shoulders wearily and then covered her face with her hands.
"Okey," he said after a while. "Sure. Stay here. I never thought of that." He nodded. "Bedroom's in there."
He picked up her suitcase and Charlie's bag and carried them into the bedroom. He frowned and muttered to himself, but when he reappeared in the living room these manifestations of his ill-humor were absent. She was standing, a small, lone, pitiful spectacle.
"In there," he said.
She smiled wistfully. "You're so good, Mr. Donahue—so good." She dragged her feet past him and entered the bedroom, closing the door quietly.
He crammed a pipe and lit up, took to pacing with slow, long strides, his face wrapped in thought. A few moments later he heard a sharp outcry. His nape bristled, his eyes narrowed and he whipped to the connecting door, flung it open.
She was on her knees, shaking, her eyes wide. She looked up at him and grimaced and pointed downward. He crossed the room and looked down into Charlie's open bag.
It was crammed with money—hundreds, thousands of dollars.
3
THE CONNECTING DOOR was closed—locked. He had heard the girl turn the key quietly on the bedroom side. It amused him more than anything else. There was a single in-a-door bed in the living-room, if he wanted to use it later. But the divan would do. He was interested in neither, though, at the moment. Coming out of the little pantry that contained nothing more than an icebox and a sink, he tried the Scotch highball while heading for a mohair easy chair. Dropping into the chair, the dim glow of the floor lamp behind made his smooth black hair shine but kept his face mostly in shadow.
Fourteen thousand five hundred dollars. He looked at the connecting door: the money was behind that door. He drew on his pipe and heard, far away, the thresh of a southbound Elevated train.
Charlie Stromson was his name. It was like this: He'd known her in Revelation, Ohio, six or seven years ago. She was the cashier in the Center Square General Store. Charlie worked in the Sportsman's Exchange, the game and fish store; he was a wizard at repairing guns and fly rods and mounting fish or birds. Then he got it into his head that there was gold in South America. They became engaged, and he went off to find a fortune.
He wrote her three months later from New York, that he was leaving for South America to get their fortune. That was the last she heard of him for three years. Then there was a letter from Montevideo. He'd made his fortune and he named a date when she was to meet him in New York. She sent a letter care of the General Post Office, New York, saying she would meet him on the appointed date. She'd shown Donahue the letter post-marked at Montevideo. It told of hardships in the jungle, of privation, months and years away from any civilized town.
Donahue muttered: "Um," and took a long drink. The sound of a knock on the corridor door made him lower the glass slowly and stare. He had removed his shirt—his suspenders looped around his hips—and was in worn leather slippers. He got up, went to the secretary, put the drink down and picked up his gun. He crossed to the door.
"Who's there?"
"It's Kelly, Donny."
Donahue thrust his gun into his hip pocket. He threw a look at the closed bedroom door, then turned the key in the one before which he stood and opened it.
McPard looked neat in his blue overcoat and soft gray hat. His shoes shone. His cheeks were pinked up by the wind outside and his smile bloomed whimsically in his cherubic face. He wandered in, cast his smiling, twinkling eyes around the room. Donahue closed the door and stood for half a moment eying McPard's back.
"Park, Kelly. . . . Drink?"
"No, thanks." McPard sat down on a straight-backed chair, drew a white linen handkerchief from his pocket, unfolded it and blew his nose quietly. "That guy who was bumped off, Donny. . . ." He patted his nose gently, put away the handkerchief.
Donahue drew his eyes away from the bedroom door. "Yeah?" He walked across to the secretary and scooped up his drink and carried it on to the divan. "Yeah, Kelly?"
"Hell, now, Donny"—he made a palliating gesture with his hands—"why not give me the straight of it?"
"I did, Kelly."
"I know, I know. Straight as a crooked line. I don't say you had anything to do with his death, Donny; you know I wouldn't say a nasty thing like that."
"I know; you wouldn't like to hurt my feelings."
McPard grinned. "Exactly!" He leaned back, crossed his legs. "It didn't take us long to place him. I didn't expect much, but anyhow I wandered through Rogues' Gallery and—sure—there was his mug—there it was."
Donahue snapped a look at the bedroom door. "I don't believe it, Kelly."
"So his mug led to his record. He did a three-year stretch."
Donahue stood up, growled: "That's something you thought up!"
McPard chuckled absently. "Yeah, I thought you'd say that. But it's no go, Donny. I guess you weren't so hot as a bodyguard."
"Bodyguard?"
McPard stood up and regarded Donahue affectionately. "Come, now, Donny—don't try to kid me. I just want the truth. When did this mug hire you, where did he live, and who bumped him off— and where," he added, smiling whimsically, "was the dough bunked?"
"You know so much about this, Kelly: tell me."
"There was around twenty thousand involved. This mug blew into New York from the wide open spaces about three and a half years ago. He got tangled up in the wrong end of town. One night this egg and two pals walked into a gambling joint uptown and collected twenty thousand bucks in a handbag they swiped from the joint's office. In the mix-up one of the customers got shot and spent a month in the hospital. One of this egg's pals did the shooting. They scrammed out with the dough, this egg hauling the bag. Cops were bearing down. The two pals got big-hearted and told the egg to take the bag and beat it—they'd meet later.
"Well, he beat it. He waited in their hide-out for a week, but they didn't show up; they were waiting for the tail to cool and besides a couple of dicks were working that street and the pals were afraid. The egg finally leaves the hide-out. We pick him up two weeks later on a loitering charge, not knowing who he is—and then he's identified by the guy who was shot. But he won't squeal on his pals—no names, nothing. And he swears he doesn't know where the money is. He gets three years. He comes out six weeks ago and tonight he's bumped off. He was afraid of that, I guess, so he hired a private dick."
Donahue shot back: "The only reason a guy like that would hire a private dick would be so he wouldn't have to pack a rod himself. Well, this guy packed a rod. You saw it. And besides, since when have I been so hard up that I'd rent out to a heel?"
"You mightn't have known."
"I didn't know what he was. I picked him out of the gutter down near Sheridan Square. He was plastered. He couldn't stand up so I thought the best way to get rid of him would be to shove him in a subway train. Well, I walked him a couple of blocks and then he got the taxi idea. I didn't want to go with him, but you know how drunks are—and, anyhow, I was headed uptown and it meant a free ride. I never saw him before in my life. I didn't know his name."
McPard seemed politely bored. "Anyhow, Donny—anyhow, what I came here for in the first place was to tell you that Inspector Overhill wouldn't take my word for it that you were on the up and up. So you better put a shirt on."
"Listen, Kelly—"
McPard shrugged. "What's the use? Overhill wants to see you. I'll wait." He added: "Meantime, if I were you, kid, I'd think it over. This Charlie Stromson left some dough. Overhill's very eager about knowing where. Besides, when a guy hires another for a bodyguard he usually tells the bodyguard the names of the guys that are after him and what they look like."
Donahue swung around, glowering: "I told you—"
"That's right, that's right. You told me you weren't hired. Tsk, tsk! I keep forgetting." His eyes danced with a wily blue twinkle. "I'm waiting."
Donahue cursed him, put on a shirt and tie. His eyes darted to the bedroom door. No sound there. McPard had not even noticed the door.
"Okey," Donahue said, swinging the overcoat over his arm.
They went down in the elevator. Going across the lobby, McPard pulled out a packet of cigarettes, took one, said: "Have one, Donny?"
Donahue took one and McPard struck a match and they lit up from it. Outside, they climbed into a taxi. It turned left into a side-street, then down Park Avenue, which lower became Fourth.
Overhill, a blond man with big ears, a Roman nose and a wicked pair of eyes, said: "There you are, Donahue," and kicked shut a desk drawer upon which his foot had been propped. He scanned some sheets, leaned back and made a pyramid of his fingers.
"Well, Kelly, what's the dope?"
"Donny's in the dark."
Overhill planted his elbows on the desk. "You knew this man, Donahue. You were riding with him and the cock-and-bull story you handed Kelly doesn't go over—not at all. Now I'm not here to waste my time or patience on a private dick. I don't want a song and dance. I want to get the guys that killed him and I want to recover a certain amount of money. This Stromson cached about twenty thousand before he was imprisoned. He got it when he came out and these two heels went after him to get it. He hired you—"
Donahue broke in: "As for wasting time, Inspector, mine's as important to me as yours is to you. Kelly went over all that and I told him what I'm telling you: I never saw this guy before until I picked him out of the gutter tonight."
"You're lying, Donahue."
"Did you get me down here to pinch me?"
Overhill frowned. "Of course not. I got you down—"
"I know—to hand me a lot of crap. Well, keep it. Any time something happens within a hundred blocks of where I happen to be, you damned blockheads get me down here and put on an act. I'm getting fed up on it!" He glared. "And if I'm lying, you prove it. You go ahead and prove that I knew this bird, that I was acting as his bodyguard when he was bumped off. Prove it! And when you prove it, get out a warrant for my arrest or a subpoena as a material witness—"
"Here, here!" Overhill said. "Don't get all steamed up—"
"Oh, don't get all steamed up! Maybe I should take it as an honor!"
McPard shook his head. "Tsk, tsk! All over nothing. We're just your friends, Donny—"
"Oh, yeah!" Donahue said, nodding his head. "Yeah. Like"—he drew a forefinger across his throat—"this."
He pivoted and strode to the door.
"Hey," Overhill said, "where you going?"
But Donahue did not reply. The door banged after him.
Overhill shrugged. "No use, Kelly. We haven't anything on him. He knows it."
Kelly McPard smiled whimsically and rosebuds bloomed on his cherubic cheeks. "Some day, Ed . . . some day I'm going to make Donny say Uncle."
4
WHEN DONAHUE SAILED into his apartment the first thing he noticed was that the bedroom door was open. The next thing he noticed was that the bed had not been slept in.
The girl was not there.
Both bags were gone—the suitcase and Charlie's handbag.
His eyes brown and hard, he cruised around the apartment. There was no sign of a struggle. Nothing was overturned, no rugs had been scuffled. He stopped in the center of the living-room and his thoughts went round and round. She had listened, heard Kelly and himself talking. Afterwards she had slipped out. No note of thanks, no note of explanation.
The phone rang and he answered it. "No, don't send it up. I'll be right down."
The clerk at the desk was mysterious when Donahue confronted him downstairs. "A lady left this letter for you with instructions that I should give it to no one but you." He smiled. "She emphasized—'no one but Mr. Donahue.' "
"What time was that?"
"About forty minutes ago."
"Thanks, Herbert. You're a great guy."
He walked to a corner of the lounge and opened the letter beneath a shaded wall light. It read:
Dear Mr. Donahue:
I heard the conversation between you and that man. He was a detective, I guess. I am sorry. I wanted to open the door and tell him you were innocent but I was afraid. I am taking the bags to the Penn Station. I thought that I better get Charlie's bag out of your apartment in case some policemen came back. I will wait at the information booth in the station until midnight, in case you come back. Then you can come over and tell me what to do. If you don't come, I will check the bag and throw away the check. I don't want it. Then I will take the first train home I can get. The way you talked to that man, I know you would not want me to show up. But I am very grateful to you for everything.
					Laura.
He crumpled the letter and stuffed it into his pocket. She had used her head, taking the bag out. But—he cursed—it would be like her to throw away the money! He stalked out of the hotel, hailed a taxi and climbed in. Ten minutes later he climbed out at Penn Station and made his way to the information booth. She was not there. He looked all around, ventured into the waiting-room, came back to the information booth. He sought out every nook in the station, re-covered the waiting-room and returning to the information booth stood with his hands in his pockets and regarded the floor darkly.
It began to occur to him that his position was not as secure as he had felt it to be when he walked out of Overhill's office. Certain people had seen him take the girl into the hotel earlier that evening. The clerk was a good fellow, but the cops could make him talk. If she turned up a corpse, they would be able to get a fair likeness of her for the tabs. Certain people in the hotel would recognize her.. .
He shook his head, made a sound in his throat and strode long-legged out of the station. He stood for a moment on the curb, the wind hooting and clapping about him. A cab drew up.
"Taxi?"
Donahue said: "Maybe that's a good idea." He climbed in and said: "Sheridan Square."
He leaned back, his hands way down in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. He took the letter out of his pocket, tore it up into little bits and let them fly out the window. He did not go quite as far as Sheridan Square.
"Stop here," he said, and got out at Hudson Street and West Tenth.
He made his way slowly down West Tenth Street, bending his head into the wind that blew from the river. He was frank with himself. No mock heroics. The guy with the death gurgle in his throat asked you to do something, and like a sap you did it. The girl turned out to be a pop-eyed little thing from the sticks. You broke the news to her as gently as you could. You didn't have to be gentle about it, but you were, anyhow. Then you felt relieved: it was simple, and you'd put her on the train back, tomorrow, brush your hands together and—finish. Hell!—you would. The yellow handbag turns out to be a plant, the girl is more shocked than you are. You still are able to get over that. "Take this dough, little one, go home and bury it for another five years. Then use it." But then Kelly had to turn up. . . .
No. No mock heroics. Not tonight. Not now, especially. There was one thing essential, paramount, vital: this girl must not turn up a corpse. Not under any circumstances must the cops find her; not alive, if possible, certainly not dead. So Donahue was frank with himself. He was not being gallant—not now. He was intent on saving his skin, his license to operate, his sense of superiority born of his always having been on the right side of the fence when the cops got gay. When you got right down to it, the girl as a personality meant nothing to him; she was significant only for the fact that her death would bring the cops down on him. And, he reflected, a girl wandering around with almost fifteen thousand dollars was certainly a potential corpse.
He recognized the glow of the areaway speakeasy across the street. He moved on, and in a minute he saw the fire-hydrant. He continued to the end of the block, crossed to the southeast corner and came back up West Tenth on the south side of the street. By this time he had his gun in his overcoat pocket, his fingers gripping it loosely.
He remembered the door, not because it was unlike the other doorways in that block but because it lay diagonally across the sidewalk from the fire-hydrant. He remembered considering how neatly the drunk would have opened his head had he struck the hydrant.
Going up to the door, he put his left hand on the knob and turned it. The door gave but he did not immediately throw it open. He stood deliberating for half a minute. He threw a glance up and down the street. Then he opened the door swiftly the length of his arm, stepped in while his right hand came out with his gun; shifted deftly and quietly on his feet and in a second had the door shut behind him, without a sound.
For the space of a minute he did not move. He stood rock-still, his gun held level with the lapel of his coat pocket, his breath bated and his ears straining. The hall was black as pitch but there was, beyond in the darkness, an oblong of slightly lighter darkness that seemed familiarly like the night outside. He went towards it. The oblong was a door. The door was open. It led into a small yard. Standing not too close to the doorway, he could smell the damp earth. After a moment he slipped into the yard and hugged the outside wall.
It was a sort of hollow square. A high board fence separated it from the yard back of the house on the next street. The house he had entered had a wing extending on either side as far as the fence. These wings made the east and west side of the hollow square, the fence made the south, the part through which he had come made the north.
There was an outside wooden stairway up the front of the west wing, with a platform at the top, and a door. On this door was a spider-web of light, as if a green shade, cracked with age, had been drawn down over the glass panel. Otherwise there was no light, no sound of life or even hint of it, within the hollow square.
He crossed to the foot of the wooden stairway, looked on the building for a button. There was none. A railing went up the outside of the stairway, supported at intervals by a post. He started up, keeping close to the face of the house. He paused on the next to last step and listened. The night had an emptiness about it; street sounds, not nearby, had a bell-like clarity.
He took the last step rapidly, rapped soundly on the glass panel. His right hand shoved the gun back into his pocket and remained there. The door opened, a blowzy fat man in an undershirt stood there outlined against light made hazy by skeins of tobacco smoke. He was sleepy and halfway through a yawn, and Donahue shoved him backward, stepped in and said:
"Now sit tight, everybody."
It was a large room, dusty, smelling of liquor, tobacco, old perspiration. There was a round table in the center with a drop light, green-shaded, above it. Poker chips were on the table, stacks of silver and bills; and around the table three men in shirt sleeves. The skeins of tobacco smoke wound sluggishly around their heads. They did not move. The three of them leaned with their elbows on the table. One had a deck of cards, ready to deal. They had about them the beady-eyed immobility of rats at bay.
"Sit down, you," Donahue muttered.
The fat man pawed his way around to the fourth chair and sat down. His fat eyes popped and he wore an injured expression.
Donahue said in a dead-level voice: "I may be up the wrong alley. Who runs this scatter?"
The fat blowzy man looked very pained.
"You?" Donahue said.
"Well, that is, now—as you would say—if some boys want to play a little cards and drink a bit—" He stopped and sat back and looked injured again. "I don't see—that is, as I would say—"
"Hell," chopped off the man at his left. He had a face the color of cement and looked quite as hard. His pale hard eyes were steady on Donahue. The man next to him made whistling lips but no sound came forth. He wore a gray hat and an innocent, youthful expression. The man on his right had a bald head and a red neck.
This man fidgeted and then said: "You a dick?"
"Suppose I am?" Donahue said.
"Well, I'd say, then, we only spoke to the skipper last week and he said he'd lay off. He's gettin' his cut. He and Henry—"
"Of course," the fat man nodded. "Me and Bill there—" He looked around indignantly. "Me and Bill are okey with the skipper."
The man with the pale hard eyes growled: "This guy ain't no dick! Damn it, this guy ain't no dick!" He shoved back his chair.
"I wouldn't do that," Donahue said.
The man subsided, but his pale eyes glowered. The youthful man in the gray hat went on making whistling lips but still no sound was heard. He kept looking at the cards in his hands.
Donahue said: "It's about Charlie Stromson."
The man in the gray hat choked. This startled everybody at the table. The man broke into a violent fit of coughing and the pale-eyed man towered in his chair. The other sneezed, choked, and finally sat with his eyes running water.
Donahue said: "You get up, put your coat on."
The man rose, put his coat on and stood sniffling and wiping his eyes.
"Pull your hat down a little more."
The man did so.
"Okey," Donahue said. "Now sit down again and—and this goes for all of you—keep your hands on the table." His voice lowered, his eyes were fixed hard on the man in the gray hat. "When Strom-son pitched out of the street door tonight, why did you open the door and then duck back?"
The man sneezed. "I didn't open no door."
The fat man and the bald man both looked very innocent and the pale-eyed man stared hard and bitterly at the man in the gray hat. He seemed about to explode, but didn't. Instead, he tore a card in two and slapped the pieces angrily down on the table.
Donahue was grim. "No song and dance. I'm in the right scatter and I'm going to get what I came after. I'm looking for the woman. I'm looking for fourteen thousand five hundred bucks. I'm looking for the guys that bumped off Charlie Stromson."
The pale-eyed man forgot himself. He jumped to his feet and his chest swelled, his eyes got doubly large and hard and they had a white whiplash look in them.
"Who the hell bumped off Charlie Stromson?" he bellowed.
"Sit down, you."
The man sat down—but sitting, he towered, his jaw thrust out like a slab of cement.
The blowzy fat man insisted: "This man's a dick! I tell you he's a dick! Listen, now listen—" He stopped and threw a peevish look around the table. "May as well tell him. I'm going to tell him." He looked up at Donahue. "This Stromson was here. He got tight here. He was here, see, and about eight-thirty he goes. He goes out about eight-thirty. He gets halfway down the steps and falls. 'Louie' "—he nodded towards the man in the gray hat—"Louie goes out and sees. I guess he picks him up. Anyhow, in a few minutes Louie comes back. This is on the up and up. Louie comes back and says, 'Hell, Charlie's in bad shape.' I say, 'Well, Louie, maybe you and Beef ought to look after him.' And Louie says, 'I told Charlie. I said we ought to look after him, but he says he can take care of himself.' So we think, well, Charlie'll be all right and we sit down to play. That's God's honest."
Donahue said: "Why did Charlie come here?"
The fat man shut up like a clam. The pale-eyed man had undergone a considerable change of expression. He stared at the table with a bright, concentrated look. He was thinking—hard. He looked up suddenly to find Donahue eying him with keen scrutiny.
"You," Donahue said, "and this mug in the gray hat were the two pals that stuck up that gambling joint with Charlie. He bunked his dough before he went up to stir and you two smart sweethearts chiseled in when he came out."
The man in the gray hat choked on this and went into another fit of coughing.
"Will you stop that!" the pale-eyed man cried.
Donahue's voice picked up an edge, swiftly. "I'm not going to monkey around here. I'm no precinct dick. I'm just a sap that walked into a jam out of which I'm getting nothing but a headache and a swell chance of taking a rap for a stunt you eggs pulled off tonight. Well, I don't take raps. Where's the jane?"
The pale-eyed man leaned back. "Guy, we been here in this joint since eight o'clock. You ain't worryin' us. We didn't know this umpchay was bumped off till you told us." He grinned, seemed confident and suddenly sure of himself. "We're strictly kosher, and there's a phone over there if you want to call the cops. See if we care."
The fat man began fussing like an old woman: "Now, now, Beef, don't go makin' the gentleman mad. Of course, that is to say, well, I'm okey with the skipper and all that—but if I cause him any trouble, it'll mean a bigger cut. Me and Bill here"—he indicated the bald, red-necked man—"like to play square with everybody."
Louie, the man in the gray hat, moved nearer to the pale-eyed Beef, and the pair assumed an attitude of mixed hostility towards the operators of the joint. And Beef said:
"I don't care. This palooka ain't goin' to faze me none. I'm clean. You guys know me and Louie been in this dump since eight or before."
Donahue remained silent for a long moment. Then he shrugged, grinned and put his gun in his pocket. The fat man sighed and smacked his hands together.
"Now, now, sir, that is what I would call—well, so to speak, that is—"
Donahue was at the door. He said: "Fourteen thousand five hundred bucks are floating around somewhere." He was noisy going down the stairway. He did not go far. There were many nooks in the dark hollow square. He pressed back into shadows and waited.
5
TWENTY MINUTES ELAPSED. Then Beef and Louie appeared on the landing. Both wore hats and coats. The door closed behind them and their feet came down the stairway. They did not go towards the door leading to West Tenth. They went around the bottom of the stairway and passed through a hole in the board fence. Donahue went after them. In the street, they walked into a cigar store. Donahue went on, walking rapidly. At the corner he climbed into a cab and said:
"Just wait here a minute."
He watched through the rear window, and when he saw Beef and Louie come out of the cigar store accompanied by two others, he said:
"Drive around the corner and park."
In a minute the four men, walking briskly, crossed Hudson Street and got into a cab on the east side.
"When that Checker starts," Donahue told the driver, "swing around and tail it. Don't get too close—but don't lose it."
The tail led up the West Side, went across town at Fortieth as far as Madison, and then north. It made a right turn into the Fifties, swinging in with a few eastbound cars. The Checker stopped at the next block and Donahue, passing in his cab, saw the four men get out. He let his cab cross to the east side of Park, then got out, paid up, tipped generously and walked back to the west side of the avenue. The four men, he saw, had started walking west. They walked in pairs, Louie and Beef in front. A little farther on, they turned and climbed a brownstone stoop, opened a door and disappeared. Donahue waited a couple of minutes, then went up the steps, opened the door there and entered a high, narrow corridor.
There was the sound of a piano being played lazily. Muffled drone of voices. A girl reached for Donahue's hat and coat. He gave her a quarter but kept both. At the end of the corridor was a wooden door with a glass port high up. He went down and looked through the glass. There was a chummy bar inside, half a dozen men. Beef and Louie and the others were not present.
Donahue pushed open the door. There was a wide door at the right, a dim-lit room beyond. A man was drowsing over piano keys, playing lazy rhythm. A girl was leaning on the piano singing in a whisper.
Donahue said: "Rye high," to the bartender. Turning, he caught a glimpse of a small young man leaving the other end of the bar, heading for a curtained doorway at the rear. Donahue moved slowly, then a little faster as the curtains opened and closed. He pulled them aside. There was a small lighted sign halfway down the hallway: Men's Room.
Donahue took two long running steps. The small man turned around. Donahue had his gun out. He did not stop. With his left hand he grabbed the small man by the collar and hustled him into the men's room. The door swung shut.
"Quick, you!" Donahue clipped in a hoarse whisper.
"Look out now—"
"You're the nice-faced punk I saw at Penn Station tonight! Where is she?"
"I don't know what—"
There were voices coming down the hall. Donahue rushed the man into one of three closets. The cabinets had half-doors, with two feet of open space at the bottom. Inside, he snapped the catch and kept his gun jammed in the small man's back. Several men entered. He heard them talking, laughing. In a few minutes they went out.
"Now," Donahue said, "spill it!"
"You're hurting me!"
"Oh, am I? Listen, you! There's an open window leading to an alley. If you don't yap, I'll let you have a bellyful and take that window out. Quick, now!"
"Honest, I don't know anything."
Donahue took a big gun from the man's pocket. "You're just an angel, I suppose. You're going to be an angel for me, sweetheart. Where's the jane? By --- where is she?"
He had the man by the throat now. He pressed hard, while his knee kept the man pinned to a sidewall of the cabinet. The man twisted and writhed, his tongue stuck out and his eyes bulged.
"Where is she?"
"Leggo—"
Donahue eased up. "Now."
"Upstairs."
"How'd she get here?"
"I—brought her."
"Who wanted her?"
The man shook his head and Donahue went to work on his throat again.
It came out—choked: "Hagin . . ."
"He upstairs?"
"Ugh—yeah."
Donahue said: "Okey, sweetheart. Now don't think you're going to waltz right after me and ..."
He struck with the man's gun—on the head, a short, hard chopping blow. The man sank without a sound. Donahue pushed him against the back wall of the cabinet. He did not unlock the door. He got down on hands and knees and crawled out. Looking at the outside of the door, he saw that the indicator said: Occupied.
He put a gun in either pocket and left his hands on them. He went out into the corridor and began climbing the stairway. In the hallway above, he stood for a moment, then went to the rear and peered through a windowpane there. He unlocked and opened the window. There was a fire-escape outside, leading to a court below. He left the window open. The lazy sound of the piano seemed far away.
Moving up the hall, he listened at doors. At the third from the rear, on the left, he listened longest. Then he retraced his steps to the door nearest the rear window. He tried it. It was open and he entered a large bedroom. A small bed lamp glowed. The room was empty, and an open door gave into another room that was dark. He moved into it on soft rugs and saw a long, thin sliver of light where sliding doors had not quite closed. He returned to the bedroom, took stock of his bearings, then turned out the bed lamp. All was in darkness now. Looking through the open door, he could see the thin sliver of light. He moved towards it.
The slit was not large enough for him to see through. He counted four or five different voices. There was a heated argument, everyone was talking at once. He pried the doors apart, a bare half-inch, noiselessly. Now he saw Beef and Louie and the two men they had picked up downtown. The four were in a dangerous huddle around a blond burly man, at the far side of the room.
Donahue pulled out his guns. He worked the doors apart another inch. No one noticed him. Bit by bit he got them far enough apart to enter. He entered and stood quite silent. He saw the girl on a couch. She looked unconscious. Her hair was down and her clothes were twisted. He stood waiting, the guns in his hands, level with his hips.
It was the burly blond man who saw him first. The others stopped talking.
"Hold that pose, all of you," Donahue said.
"It's him!" muttered Beef.
Donahue said: "So you and Louie were just a couple of home-loving card players. Fighting over the split, huhn?"
The burly man began: "These mutts—"
"You're Hagin," Donahue said.
"I'm Hagin. These mutts walked in on me. Let me walk out of this huddle and it's worth a thousand bucks to you."
"Put the thousand on the table."
Hagin took out a wallet, emptied it. "I got only nine hundred here. I'll get the rest up. Now lend me one of those rods and I'll teach these grifters a lesson."
"You sit right down in that chair," Donahue said. "You other guys hold that pose."
Hagin dropped down into the chair, his eyes wide. "Why, you dirty—"
"Pipe down. There's a lot of dough flying loose around this burg tonight. Most of it I can't touch. So I'll touch what I can." He moved slowly to the table, caught up the sheaf of bills with the two end fingers of his left hand. "Somebody's got to pay my taxi fare. You, Hagin—you were the guy ran that joint Stromson and these two heels crashed that night. Right?"
"Right! And now these two bums tango in here with a couple of punks—"
"Pardon me. I want to get this straight. It figures, then, that the little punk downstairs was the guy you sent after Stromson. He got Stromson and then he went to Penn Station to head off the jane. You didn't know just where the dough was bunked. You figured the jane might know. I got to her ahead of the punk. The punk tailed us, camped on my doorstep. I went out. The jane went out later and he clamped on to her and brought her here. What I can't figure out is"—he looked at Beef—"where you guys horn in."
Beef growled: "Stromson took the rap for us and kept his trap shut. When he come out, we crowded him. He bunked the dough in the country before he went up. We knew he took the rap and he kept his jaw shut. We dickered and he offered us two grand apiece and that was okey by us. Then for some goofy reason he takes a boat to South America, soon as he's out of stir, and comes back on the same boat. We try to roll him for some dough by gettin' him into a card game. We get him drunk three nights runnin', but he won't play. And we don't know where he's bunked the dough.
"There was a little guy hangin' around Bill and Henry's for a week. Bill says he's hidin' out. This little guy leaves about half an hour before Stromson does tonight. Stromson was bellyachin' about a jane he had to meet at Penn Station. When you bust in there tonight we know there's only one guy'd be after Stromson. Hagin. So up we come, after Stromson's dough. The little guy's Hagin's punk. We saw him downstairs but didn't let on. You drop them guns, fella, and you get a third of the dough. Hagin's got it."
"You're a damn' liar!" Hagin said. "I haven't got it."
Beef snarled: "You bum, you got it! When we crashed in here the jane was out cold!"
"If I got it," Hagin growled, "why the hell would the jane be out cold?"
She was lying now with her eyes open.
Donahue said to her: "Get up, put your hat and coat on and go out. Got the wallet?"
She shook her head.
Donahue said: "Hagin, give her the wallet."
"It's in the desk drawer," he said.
Donahue said: "Get it, Laura. See he hasn't taken anything out."
She got up and made her way to the desk, took out the wallet, examined it. "It's all here."
"Where're your bags?"
"I checked them at the station. I thought it would be best to check them. After I checked them a little man followed me to the information booth. Then he said he'd shoot me if I didn't go with him. He brought me here."
Hagin said: "I only tried to get the checks out of her."
"He's got them!" Beef snarled.
"No," the girl said, "I've got them." She turned down the left cuff of her coatsleeve. She said to Donahue: "I couldn't make up my mind whether to give them up or not."
Donahue said: "Which one is for the little bag?"
"This one," she said, holding up a cardboard square.
"Put it on the table. These rats would run you down for it, no matter where you went."
She sighed. "I guess you're right. I don't want it anyhow."
Hagin stared at it. Beef and the others stared at it—hungrily.
The girl had her hat on.
Donahue said to the men: "This hurts, but it's my only out." He motioned to the girl. "Come on. Go through those rooms and into the hall. There's a back window open. Go down the fire-escape, through the alley. Get a cab, get your suitcase, go to a hotel and leave on the first train you can get. I won't be seeing you again."
She came very close to him. "Thanks," she said. "Thanks for everything."
He waited fully two minutes, then began backing out. The men remained like images. They couldn't understand his letting almost fifteen thousand dollars slide by. He reached the next room, turned and sped swiftly to the bedroom. The hall was empty. He went out the window, down the fire-escape, through the alley. He breathed thankfully. The girl had gone.
He grabbed a taxi and rode to Penn Station. The driver passed a stop-light and was held up for five minutes by a long-winded cop. Presently he moved on. It was dark and deserted in front of the station. No trains were moving, and inside the station it was quite deserted also. He didn't see the girl. She would have been here already, he reasoned.
He saw four men heading for an exit. He started, then stopped. The four men walked swiftly in close formation and passed out through the doors. Donahue broke into a fast walk. He reached the doors and pushed one open when a vicious snarl of gunfire broke loose in the street. The mad sound of a sub-machine-gun was touched up with the bark of heavy pistols.
He saw four men lying on the sidewalk. A car roared on the getaway. One of the four figures moved and the gun in his hand blazed four times. The car turned suddenly, heeled over on its rubber, hurtled diagonally across the street with full power on. It struck a building and seemed to bounce back into the street. He couldn't tell definitely. Because the car exploded in a sheet of flame. The fourth man on the sidewalk was motionless again, on his back now, his arms outflung. It looked like Beef.
Donahue was on his way, blocks north, by the time police arrived, to find the pavement red.
Next day the papers had it. Hagin and the punk had shot it out with the other four, using a Thompson gun. But their get-away had been tragically incomplete. Six dead men in the street . . .
One of the papers got waggish. "Apparently," it said, "there was something sentimental about it. It would appear that the gun fight started over a suitcase containing a lot of woman's clothes, no piece of which bears any identification."
Donahue, reading it, said: "These women . . . these women!"