“Been foolin’ around with one of your boys. He plays too rough for me.”
“Who?” Calini was watchful, suspicious.
“Augie Sado. I had to jump through a window to get away from him. But that wasn’t what I came to see you about.”
“No?”
“No. A client... uh... of yours got hurt tonight.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah. Sort of bad. But what I dropped in to tell you was this — the bird that did the work got away with two hundred of Schultzman’s dough.”
“Herman Schultzman? That’s too bad.” Jack Calini shook his head sympathetically.
“Yeah. Sure. But about this dough. It’s hot money, Jack. Twenty tens — Federal Reserves — marked. Numbers taken at the bank before they were turned over to him.”
Calini looked interested.
“...Now, somebody’s got that green. Shivy Lewes hasn’t, because he’s cold meat now.”
Calini put down his whiskey glass, smiled disagreeably.
“You probably haven’t got it,” the detective continued, “because you wouldn’t be that crude. But if you see... um... the punk that has got it, you might tip him off. It’s bad medicine.”
“Drink, Mike?”
The detective thought it was a first-class idea, said so.
“I’m obliged to you, Mike,” murmured the Italian, when they had hoisted. “Much obliged. But not for the reason you think...”
“Never can tell, Jack. Well... so long.”
Mike went downstairs, strolled slowly to the corner, climbed the long flight to the elevated station. He dropped a nickel in the slot, walked to the southern end of the platform and let six trains go past.
At the end of that time, he saw Jack Calini and his bodyguard come out the front door of the Social Club, climb into a limousine and move north.
Hansard grinned, as if pleased at something, walked downstairs and hailed a cruising cab.
“I better buy me a car,” he sighed as he relaxed on the cushions. “Cabs cost too much coin. Drive me to Hundred Eighty-first and St. Nick.”
Then — sitting on the back seat of the taxi — he went to sleep.
After the taxi-driver shook him awake at St. Nick, Hansard entered a dingy office building and cursed at the thought of climbing more stairs. He went up one flight, sat down and took off his shoes. The next three flights were accomplished with less noise than would be made by a prowling cat.
Which was the reason for the sudden and painful shock sustained by Bug Fister, Calini’s personal bodyguard. Bug was guarding the hall which gave entrance to the offices of the Heights Commercial Protective Association, one of Calini’s most prosperous ventures.
The clubbed gun which caught the Bug back of the ear would put him out of business for at least half an hour; and Mike fixed wire bonds and an old sock-gag to keep him that way. Then he got set outside the door bearing the name, G. Calini, M’ngr.
Inside, voices were raised in argument. The detective recognized both of them.
“I tell you, th’ Yid wouldn’t come across. He said he’d put in a squeal and then he pulled a rod on me. I hadda burn him.”
“You didn’t get any dough?” Calini’s voice was a threatening purr.
“Not a lousy nickel.”
“Where’s Shivy?”
“How th’ hell should I know? Sleeping off a jolt, probably.”
There was a silence.
“...Jeeze, boss, don’t you believe me?”
No reply. In the hall, where he could command the door as it opened, Mike smiled grimly and thought of the dead man in the cleaning shop; of the woman.
“I swear to — what’s th’ idea, boss?”
“Up, Augie. Way up... turn around!”
“You gonna let some crummy John Law fill you up with dirt about me, boss? You ain’t....”
There was a vicious crack, the sort of noise that might be made by an open hand slapping a mouth.
“Jeeze, Jack... gimme a chance...”
Silence. A rustle of crisp paper.
“You had the crust to try that on me! With th’ roll right on you. Thought you’d have a little time for yourself, eh, Augie? Well, I will see that every dime is spent on you, Augie — for flowers.”
The gurgling sound that followed made Mike a little sick to his stomach.
The door swung open softly. A pair of heels showed in the light which streamed into the hall, then legs. The body of Augie Sado slumped down crazily, as if stuffed with sawdust.
“Oh, Bug!”
Mike crept forward... “Hold it, Jack! Make one bad move and I’ll let you have it!”
A breathless second — then a slamming door, the click of a key.
“No use, Calini. You can’t get away. I’ve got Fister in the bag out here. You’re licked. Maybe you can fix up a self-defense plea. Better take the rap.”
The light went out in the offices of the Heights Commercial Protective Association, but there was no noise.
Mike took his shoes out of his coat pockets, put them on. He had no proof that Calini had slashed a knife into Augie Sado’s heart. He knew it, but he hadn’t seen it. He hadn’t seen Calini either. He’d recognized the voice, to be sure.
He fished through Sado’s pockets, extracted a thick roll o£ ten-dollar Federal Reserve notes. Then he got a piece of wire from Fister’s bonds, crouched beside the door. It took a lot of fiddling, but finally Mike turned the lock and kicked open the door... He got the light on... the office was empty.
He looked in the closet — nothing. The window was closed. He opened it, looked out. Five stories straight down to concrete pavement. No fire-escape.
“Now, how th’ hell did he get out of here?”
He stuck his head out of the window again, looked up. A window was open directly above him. A rope ladder dangled from that window right down to the top of the Protective Association sash.
He went back to the hall.
Bug Fister was gone, and there was nothing to indicate that Augie Sado’s body had ever been in the hall. He groaned and took off his shoes again.
He got to the stairwell without making any noise; kept close to the wall as he went down. At the second floor landing he felt a prickling at the back of his neck, stopped, crouched.
A jet of orange flame gashed the blackness, blinded him so that his return shot was pure reflex. His ears were still ringing with the roar of the discharge when he heard a body crash to the floor of the landing.
“Get him, Bug?”
Mike made his voice hoarse... “Okay, Jack — here he is.” Then he waited.
He heard Calini’s quick, jerky steps; jabbed savagely with the muzzle of his service special. Calini squalled warningly.
“Look out, you damn fool—”
“Up, Jack. Up fast! That’s it... now, let’s frisk you.”
Calini cursed obscenely.
“Don’t carry a roscoe, do you?” Hansard kept the gun in the gangster’s belly, backed him against a wall, turned him around and marched him up the stairs.
“No, I don’t, flatfoot. And everybody knows it.”
“You carried a knife, though. Augie Sado found out you carried a knife.”
“Try and prove it!”
They got to the Protective Association offices. The detective made Calini stand against the wall, his hands on top of his head.
“The headquarters boys’ll find Augie around somewhere, Jack. And I can testify to what I heard a little while ago.”
“Frame up,” snarled Calini. “And the knife you put in my pocket won’t show any prints of mine, either.”
“That wasn’t a knife I put in your pocket, Jack.” Hansard spun the phone diaclass="underline" Spring 7-7100... “That was the two hundred bucks Augie took off Schultz-man.”
“You—!”
“So you can take your choice. If they indict you for the tailor’s murder, you’ll go out of that little room up the river, but you’ll go out feet first. If you plead to getting Augie in self-defense, you might get out in twenty years.”