“Was there anybody at the house where you got the body?” Nace inserted.
“Oh, yes! Two of them. One was a big, red-headed girl. The other was a man, a big man. He had a purple nose. The body was there in a coffin. Like I said, I drove all night—”
“The two at the house have names?”
“They forgot to tell me—”
Nace picked up his newspaper, popped it into a wastebasket. “Go on with the yarn.”
“I got in New York this morning—”
“If I know my geography, Lake City is on the Lake Erie shore, just across the Ohio state line. That right?”
“That is correct. Lake City is a beautiful little town of—”
“You made a damn quick trip for a hearse!”
The man put his black derby on. His mien was not so mournful now. “I opened her up a little. She’s fixed up with a siren. We use her for an ambulance sometimes. Anyway, I tried to find the New York address them people give me, and there wasn’t no such thing. So I got your office address out of the phone book and came here.”
Nace set teeth in his pipe stem, fanned a match over the bowl. He did not mention the fact that his phone was unlisted. His name and number were not in the directory.
“Well,” he said. “It looks like the next move is yours.”
The man adjusted his derby. The headgear was sizes too big, but the folded paper in the sweatband made it fit snugly. “They told me in Lake City that you would pay me for the trip.”
Nace snorted. “Do I have to tell you the answer to that one?”
The visitor recovered his mournful look. “If this is a joke, mister, it’s on me, not you.”
“Sure.” Nace puffed his pipe bowl hot. “I think I’ll take a look at your passenger from Lake City.”
“Of course!” said the black clad man.
He walked ahead of Nace into the tiled hall, and thumbed for an elevator. Nace began slapping his pockets with great vigor.
“Wait a minute!” he grunted. “Forgot something!”
He swung back into his office. But he did not put anything into his pockets. Instead, he made sure the hall door had set its spring lock, so his visitor could not follow him. Then he snapped open a desk drawer and took out a steel skullcap, lined with sponge rubber. This bore a blond mop which exactly matched Nace’s hair.
He put it on, adjusting it by a mirror on the inside of the clothes locker door. The thing made his head look a little bigger, but only a close observer would notice that.
He rejoined the man in the raven garb. They rode the cage down to the lobby. Nace, with a habitual duck as he stepped out of the elevator, headed for the street.
“Wait!” said his guide. “I parked the hearse around behind.”
“Sure. I guess it would collect a crowd out in front,” Nace said. But he began to get a cold feeling around his spine.
They circled back of the elevators, and went down a long passage with shoe soles clicking on cold concrete.
They came out in a pit of a courtyard, concrete floored. A slit between two buildings gave access to the street. There was a circle of big iron doors, loading platforms, dirty windows. The air smelled of rubbish, gasoline and disinfectant.
The hearse was black and long. The windows were backed by light tan curtains, fully drawn.
Nace’s guide took off his black derby and climbed in, after flinging open the double doors at the rear. Tan curtains whizzed on the slide as he brushed against them. He reached back and closed them, although they had let in light.
“Come and look,” he invited.
Nace clambered in and forward, seeming not to notice that the somber man maneuvered to a position behind him. The fellow opened the forward half of the coffin.
Nace did not look surprised when he saw no body in the pearl-colored interior.
Instead, he sank a little, bending both knees. He had a good idea of what was coming. He wanted to take it on the top of his head.
The blackjack made a whistle, a thunk! Its leather burst and shot sprayed the hearse interior.
Nace fell, ears belling, colored lights crawling around in his eyeballs. The man had either never used a blackjack before, or he had meant to kill. Only the steel skullcap had saved Nace.
The man spurred Nace with a foot. “You’re supposed to be quite a guy in the big town. But take the word of an elm-peeler from the sticks, you ain’t so hot!”
He went back, closed the rear doors. Nace opened an eye and studied as much of the coffin lid as he could see from his position on the floor. It bore no lock, much to his relief.
The man came back, humming cheerfully, and flipped open the other coffin lid. He got hold of Nace’s shoulders and lifted. Nace let himself be dumped into the coffin and lay there, feet sticking out. The man pushed at Nace’s feet.
“Yah!” he snorted. “You would be too long to fit!”
He scrambled out the back. Nace heard the rattle of the lock on the rear door, but did not worry greatly. He could kick a window out if necessary.
Starter gears gnashed iron teeth. The engine came awake with a hoot. It moaned a few times as the man pedaled the accelerator.
Then several things happened in slap-bang order. Shoes scuffed on concrete as a man rushed from some hiding place. The wild footsteps reached the hearse. Blows whacked. A gasp made a sound as if paper had torn.
The hearse seemed to spring backward. Evidently the driver had slumped against the shift lever, knocking it into reverse. Nace’s head hit the coffin and so hard that the shock trickled to his toes.
The vehicle came to a stop with the engine killed.
“You would give your pal Tammany a run-around, would you?” growled the newcomer, harsh-voiced.
Nace got up and sat on the coffin edge.
Chapter II
The Pop-Eyed Dead
Leaning forward, Nace picked the curtains apart a crack. He got a good view of the new arrival.
The fellow was a little, dapper hawk. He was around five feet, weighing maybe a hundred and twenty. He was twitching scuffed skin off the fist with which he had just struck blows. He flexed the fist, snapped crimson drops off, then blew on it.
Seizing the dark-clad man, he hauled the fellow from behind the wheel, exhibiting amazing strength for one so small.
The man in black was so dazed that he could not stand erect.
Leaning down, the little man slapped. The blows had the crack of a pistol shot.
“I should smear you, Jeck!” he gritted.
The sitting man put both hands over his cheek, wailed, “Listen, Tammany—!”
“Listen — hell! I’ve listened to you too much already!”
“I couldn’t find you, Tammany!” Jeck put up black-gloved hands, as if to shield off more blows. “They started to take Jud Ogel’s body to Nace. And I couldn’t find you. I tried everywhere, and I couldn’t get you. What was I to do? The body-moving gag looked like a stall to get the stuff out of town.”
“Was it?”
“That’s the funny part! I grabbed the hearse near Hudsonville, in Jersey. There wasn’t nothin’ in it! Not even Jud Ogel’s body!”
Little Tammany snapped more red from his fist. “Well, when I found everybody concerned had left for New York, I set sail myself. Understand me, I’m not saying I believe a word of your talk. But we’ll play like I do. Who’s this bird, Lee Nace?”
“A private dick. I called a newspaper and got some dope on him. He has a rep.”
“Bad or otherwise?”
“Search me! He’s something the police don’t like. But that don’t mean anything. The private shamus that they would like don’t live.”