McHugh, page 6
Chapman got away with it, not because he was brash or clever, but because he was one of the best American counter-intelligence agents. He was a flier for hire with a reputation for getting his clients into and out of the places they wanted to go. It was a nice way of keeping track of what the opposition was up to, and where.
McHugh looked at Gabrielle. Her fingers were drumming on the table in time to the music, and she was watching the piano man with a speculative eye. McHugh and Chapman excused themselves and went through the doorway leading to the rear of the bar and the rest rooms. There was a broom closet. McHugh stepped inside, shut the door and twisted a pipe from which work clothes were hanging A side wall moved, and they went into the second room. It was hardly bigger than the closet, and it was totally bare. McHugh grimaced as the sound hit his ears. It was close to a whine, rising and falling abruptly through two octaves, and there was no steady sequence to the changes in pitch. It made talking difficult, and it made effective bugging of the room futile.
“This isn’t from you?” Chapman pulled a cablegram from the pocket of his Ivy League jacket and handed it to McHugh.
McHugh scowled as he read, HAVE GOOSE SFO STANDBY MEET PER USUAL. It was signed, MAC, and had been sent from San Francisco.
“Not mine,” McHugh said. It was dated ten days earlier and addressed to Chapman at Ensenada, Mexico. “Nothing’s happened?”
“Nothing like a contact. It began to smell bad as soon as I heard you were on the Jamaica thing when it was sent. So I’ve just waited around.”
“The goose,” McHugh said thoughtfully. “That the amphibian?”
“Yeah. Know anybody who might have to set down on some water?”
“I don’t know a thing. Right now I’m not even working, chumly. I’m sure not sending anybody out”
“So I hear. I buzzed the old man this afternoon, and he said you’re on leave. I don’t think he likes it.”
“He doesn’t like it a bit.”
“So what do we do?”
“Go out and keep the ladies company, I guess.”
“You mean that?” Chapman’s eyebrows raised.
“Sure. Wait long enough, your man will find you.”
“You talk like you know who it is.”
“I can only think of one party who’d use my name in a thing like this. His name’s Johnny Stover, and he’s running.”
“From what?”
“Darned if I know. I doubt he’s committed any crimes, but some rough individuals are interested. You know Loris—well, her sister’s been going with Stover. Somebody took her digs apart the other night and left a dead hood behind.”
“I read the papers. What do I do with this guy if he shows?”
“Stall him and get me. Muy pronto.”
“What if he’s not the one?”
“Play it by ear. Let’s go get a drink.”
They closed The Door. Chapman and his woman left with the last of the customers, and Gabrielle waited while McHugh checked with Benny on the night’s receipts. He counted the empty whisky bottles from the shift and compared the readings of the cash registers. He took each of the relief bartenders by the neck and marched them back to the small office. He shoved them against the wall as Benny came in and locked the door.
“Give it back and we’ll forget it,” McHugh said. The maple-syrup eyes were hot and bright as he stared at the pair.
“Just what the hell do you think—” one of them said angrily. He rubbed the red marks McHugh’s fingers had left on his neck.
“You’ve been knocking down. I want you to give it back,” McHugh said pleasantly.
“Like hell…” the second bartender said. His eyes flicked to his partner and away again.
“He hitches his pants up quite a bit, boss,” Benny said.
“Off with the pants, mister,” McHugh ordered.
“You can’t pull somethin’ like this,” the man protested. “Gimmie what’s due on the shift and tomorrow I take this up with the business agent.”
McHugh’s fist moved and dug into the man’s stomach. The barkeep bent double, gasping. McHugh’s fingers closed on his belt and the waistband of his trousers. There was a snap of leather breaking and cloth shredded. The pants gaped open, then slid down around his ankles. McHugh yanked at the shorts and saw money flutter to the floor. He spun the man around and smacked the bare buttocks with the flat of his hand. The man yelped and crashed into the wall.
“Pick it up and hand it over,” McHugh ordered.
The man drew his trousers up and held them together with one hand as he picked up the bills.
“Forty-five bucks. Nice little bonus while it lasted,” McHugh said. He glared at the second bartender. “Well?”
The man was wearing half-Wellington boots. Wordlessly he slipped them off and shook them out McHugh added fifty-one dollars to the collection, handed the money to Benny and said, “You birds can go. And pass the word around.”
“You’re not gonna call the cops?” the one with ruined pants said hopefully.
“We handle our own trouble here. Get out.”
He took Gabrielle to the car, and she told him how to reach her apartment. McHugh saw the headlights come up behind him and hang half a block back. The other car made no attempt to overtake him, even when there were no other cars in sight on the deserted streets. When he parked, the other car parked.
“I’d ask you in for coffee, but my roommate’s home tonight, and she’ll be asleep,” Gabrielle said.
“Maybe some other time,” McHugh replied. “There’s a man who wants to see me right now.”
“Oh?”
“We were followed.” He loosened the Browning in its holster as he walked her to the door. When she went in, he walked slowly down the steps. He dropped the automatic into the pocket of his jacket and kept his hand on it as he came up to the car, a late-model Lincoln.
“Don’t shoot, McHugh. I’ll marry your daughter.” The interior light came on in the Lincoln, and McHugh recognized Frank Fenton. The gambler wore a tuxedo and a homburg hat, and his grin reminded McHugh of an amiable horse. Fenton was alone.
McHugh holstered the gun and got into the car.
Chapter 6
“I saw you with the airplane driver. Thought we should have a few words before anything wrong happened.”
McHugh watched Fenton’s face. Fenton had been in business a long time. A floating crap game was his principal stock in trade. The game was discreet and honest.
“Now, what sort of wrong thing could happen with you?” McHugh asked.
“I would look on losing eighteen grand in markers a wrong thing.”
“I don’t owe you a sou.”
“True, McHugh. But Johnny Stover does. Stover is hot like the bald-headed row at the Follies.”
“That’s what I understand.”
Fenton shook his head and smiled a sad smile with his horse face. “You aren’t giving a bit.”
“Nothing to give. I not only don’t know where Stover is, I would like very much to find out so I can go back to being a bartender or whatever.”
“That straight?” Fenton said quickly.
“Do I lie?”
“You’ve been known to do worse than that.”
“Not to protect characters like Stover.”
Fenton shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I hear you had a session with Kline’s lads and the FBI. I got the impression you weren’t worried about the markers.” McHugh pushed the dashboard lighter in and got a cigarette going.
“Stover’s made good before.”
“But this time you’re worried.”
Fenton laughed. “No. Just curious. Between you and me, McHugh, and don’t let this go anywhere else, I’ve already sold them for fifteen. Makes me three thousand short, but it’s nice to have the fifteen.”
“True, true,” McHugh agreed. “Makes me wonder who would want that kind of paper, and why.” He stretched his legs and thought it would be good to get to bed. “This in the last couple of days, I presume?”
“More like three weeks.”
“Stover was still in town three weeks ago.”
“Which is why I’m looking into it.” Fenton took his time wetting a cigar and lighting it. “I don’t want anything that looks like trouble, even indirectly. It’s bad for business. In fact, the game’s been shut down two nights already.”
“So who bought the markers?”
“If I knew, I might not have to talk to you.”
“Stranger on the corner?” McHugh said wryly.
“Next man to him,” Fenton said seriously. “Willie Waddle. Etiquette says you don’t ask Willie who he’s representing.”
“I’ve already run across Willie’s name,” McHugh told him. “Also Dex Orland. You know the connection?”
Fenton shook his head. “Nothing direct. Willie has connections all over.”
McHugh thought about it and said, “A reasonable man might think Willie bought Stover’s paper because somebody wanted a handle on him.”
“It occurred to me, and I don’t like the idea of being a handle salesman. Looks like whoever got it tried to use it and maybe frightened Stover into taking leave until things cooled down.”
“But what’s to cool?”
Fenton smiled and started the motor. “McHugh, if I knew that, maybe I wouldn’t be worrying.”
McHugh grinned and got out of the car. He drove to the motel, wondering if Loris were awake.
She was.
McHugh lingered over the remnants of a breakfast built around a small sirloin steak, four eggs, a big pot of coffee and two wedges of apple pie. He watched whitecaps bounce under the Golden Gate and forced his mind to the problem at hand.
“Nadine, did Johnny ever mention a Tony Tomasini to you?”
Nadine watched the smoke curl from her cigarette before she said, “I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because, whoever the man is, Johnny gave him a check for a hundred dollar’s the day after he left San Fran. He also bought two tires in Salinas.” Nadine and Loris listened without interruption while he told them what he had turned up in Stover’s apartment. “Did the Pierce need tires?”
“It shouldn’t have,” Nadine said. “He spent over a hundred dollars each for a new set of whitewalls.”
“Maybe it’s not important. Probably isn’t,” McHugh said, rising. “About time to go bother some people.”
Loris inspected her lipstick and asked, “McHugh, how much longer must we stay in that motel? It curdles my soul to spend fifty dollars a day when we have a place of our own.”
McHugh rubbed his jaw. “Until I can find out why Nuss was knocked off in little sister’s layout, I guess we better stay out of sight. Just a gesture of respect toward people who go around killing other people.”
“I could never live there again,” Nadine said in a quiet voice.
“Sure. Why not look around for a new place? Give you something to pass the time.”
“While you’re doing what?” Loris asked. “What about this Tomawhatever?”
“Tomasini. That lead’s two weeks old. A couple of things I can check in the city first. Starting with a guy called Willie Waddle.” He paid the check and caught a cab in front of the restaurant.
Pomper was at the pool hall when McHugh phoned. “You don’t gimme an awful lotta time, Mac. Also your barkeep says he don’t know any reason to gimme any dough off of the till.”
“I’ll phone in right away, Pom,” McHugh said patiently. “Haven’t you got anything?”
“Well, Willie seems to be makin’ his rounds like always, but with a difference the last couple of days. There’s a couple of dock wallopers with him all the time. Goons, supposed to be rodded up. I don’t get the names, but I hear they might be some that works for Howard Hale. You know him?”
“Yeah. The money man.”
“Uh-huh. He and Willie Waddle long time buddies.”
“What’s Hale been up to lately?”
“Whatever, he ain’t been caught at it.”
“Okay. Keep digging, Pom. I’ll call the bar.” McHugh hung up. He phoned The Door, left instructions to give Pomper twenty dollars and caught a cab to the Hall of Justice.
Inspector Kline regarded him without any show of enthusiasm as McHugh said reproachfully, “You held out on me, compadre. You didn’t tell me Stover got a parking tag in Seaside. I had to find it out by my own little self.”
Kline made a noise with his lips. “We know the car got a tag. We don’t know he was driving it.”
“Knock it off. I got the word on where he used his credit card.”
Kline allowed himself a smile. “Then why talk about it?”
McHugh tilted his chair back and put his feet on the inspector’s desk. “I’ll give you something. Free, like for nothing. But I want to know what you squeeze out of it.”
“That is not free, like for nothing. That is you having a piece of dirty work and wanting the department to do it for you, McHugh.”
McHugh grinned. “I thought the department was on fine terms with Willie Waddle.”
Kline used a word which caused McHugh to wince. “We use Willie. Willie uses us. Sometimes it’s a good arrangement. But one thing Willie does not do is talk over-his affairs with flatfeet. He’d hit us with a flying squad of shysters before we had a chance to ask him his name.”
“I understand Willie goes around these days with a couple of bodyguards. Maybe Howie Hale’s lads.”
Kline thrust his lower lip out, nibbled it, pulled it in again. “Find out quick enough.” He picked up a phone and asked for the Intelligence Division, talked briefly, listened, wrote on a pad. “You hit it, McHugh. A pair of trouble kids. Jug Benich and Mickey Drinkwater.”
“Drinkwater…sounds like an Indian.”
“Nah. Dago, just anglicized. They belong to Hale.” Kline stuffed a pipe with tobacco. “Which is beside the point. Why are you trying to give me Willie Waddle?”
“You won’t take him, so what’s the difference?”
“I might give him a toss if there was something to gain. Can you tie him in to Stover disappearing?”
“Can you tie Stover in with one Gordo Nuss, deceased?”
Kline said the dirty word again. “You know we can’t, for sure. All we got was the stiff in the Andersen girl’s place, and her being Stover’s playmate. Just about nothing at all, but what the hell else is there to go on?”
“The only reason I’m looking at Willie is I found his name in Stover’s apartment last night. While I think about it, I met an interesting man there. Harvey Lowell, the private cop who works for Stover’s employer. We drank up our host’s, liquor, and Lowell had some vague but interesting things to say.”
“Whoa, hoss, back up,” Kline said sharply. “I sent a dick team to toss Stover’s place here and his farm near Half Moon. They didn’t turn up Willie’s name.” He snorted. “They didn’t turn up much of anything at all.”
“So it goes when you don’t look in the right place,” McHugh replied. “Now, this is free for nothing. Stover had what looks like a list of possible buyers for that car. One of them was a Bill Brixey. There could be two or three Bill Brixeys, but I doubt it.”
Kline rocked back in his chair. “Do tell. And what did you pick out of Lowell’s brain?”
“Ancient history. He’s sticking with the Stover thing because it looks like there might be a tie-in with Dex Orland.” McHugh told him the substance of the talk.
“Yeah. I remember that,” Kline said sourly. “Well, now I’ll give you something because you’ve been so sweet to me The Federals haven’t forgotten that gold heist, either. They planted guys in Folsom with Orland to pick his brains and got nothing. They’ve had an eye on him since he got out, and it’s the same thing. He lives quietly and well and stays out of trouble.”
“Who keeps him?” McHugh demanded.
“It’s not the County Welfare Department,” Kline said grimly. ‘For a while he scrounged around, just about made hamburger money. The postal inspectors kept an eye on his box for us. About three months ago interesting envelopes began showing up. No return address, but always the same postmark. With Orland, fraud is something that comes easily to mind, and he was beginning to live better. The inspectors made him open his mail in front of them. Each of those little envelopes had five one-hundred-dollar bills in it.”
“Nothing else?” McHugh muttered.
“Nothing.”
“He couldn’t have pulled a job?” McHugh asked. “Or, supposing he had this wad of gold stashed, fixed it up with somebody to go get it?”
“With the eyes and ears he’s had on him, he couldn’t have pulled a tomcat’s tail and got away clean,” Kline said firmly. “And Orland’s not the type to send his own mother after more than four hundred grand in gold bullion.”
“Yeah. Well, Syd, let’s pin it down. With what you know, would you say maybe Hale is behind the five C-notes a week?”
“He’s the organization’s banker. Like I said, it’s not coming from the welfare people.”
“Blackmail?”
“Nah! The only guys he’d have anything on would pay off with a pair of cement shoes.”
“Okay. So Orland sold something to somebody. He just hasn’t delivered yet.”
“Gold,” Kline said wearily. “Gold four other men stole and died fast because of. Don’t count on Orland having engineered that job. Big as he was in those days, there were always a few guys around who’d try something on their own. Matter of fact, I think if he had set it up, he’d have fixed the heisters up with a safe getaway. Even money says his tail got twisted because it was the easiest one to grab.”
“So why the five bills a week?”
Kline swung his feet down. They thumped on the floor. “Hell, I don’t know. Twist it around a little. Here’s Orland, out of the pen, his old connections all shot, and flat broke. He’s coyote enough to know the Feds are on his tail. He senses a way to make out on it, slips the word to the guys who are running this thing now that he’s got the gold stashed but can’t get to it right away. They keep him and expect a split when he gets to it. Only he never gets to it. He just gets to hell and gone out when it looks like they’re getting impatient.”
