McHugh, page 8
McHugh went to the liquor storeroom and used the phone there. He called a detective agency that operated on a nationwide scale and operated efficiently, and read off the names and addresses of the previous owners of Johnny Stover’s car.
“People move around a lot, and this wagon was first sold late in nineteen thirty-four. You’ll be lucky to find half of them,” he told the operative. “I’m particularly interested in whoever had it on April twenty-sixth, nineteen thirty-six. Also, if any of the owners ever had a connection with a Dexter Orland, the racket boss in those days. Start with the original owner and work from there. Use as many men as you need but get it fast”
He hung up and wished he knew how the other people who were looking for Johnny Stover were making out. There were enough of them. The city cops. The FBI. Assorted hoods. Likely some bill collectors. Maybe the Seaside Police Department with its unpaid parking tag. An ex-cop hunting a reward. And himself.
He wondered who Stover was hiding from—the laws or the outlaws?
Or maybe he wasn’t hiding. Maybe he was dead. McHugh sincerely hoped not. He wanted words with the man.
He locked the storeroom and left the bar through the service entrance at the rear.
There were two of them. They wore chino work clothes, and were lounging against the side of a black panel truck. They both had guns, and the guns were pointed at him.
McHugh stopped as the door swung shut behind him, blocking retreat. The alley was long, narrow, and lined with trash cans from the business places that backed on it. He could run, and he could be shot down before he’d gone ten feet. He could try for his .38, and the result would be the same.
“Up. Be cute and you get it right here, McHugh,” the one on the left said. He had a lean, swarthy face and looked out of place in the chinos.
McHugh brought his hands up as the second man moved over to him. At a gesture from the gun, he turned to the wall and leaned against it, legs apart. Cautiously the man shook him down. He knew his business, ran his hands along McHugh’s arms and legs, checked the top of his socks for a hideout gun and snapped the .38 from its holster with a deft motion.
“Now move,” he snapped. “In the wagon.”
McHugh went toward the open right-hand door, and the gunman shoved him aside. “You ride in the back. Then you can be tricky as you like. But not too tricky, or you might get what you gave Mickey before we’re ready to give it to you.”
One of the rear doors was open. McHugh could see a heavy grillwork separating the body from the driver’s seat. There were no windows in the body. McHugh fixed the pair with his eyes and said, “Willie Waddle shot him. Not me.”
“Willie says different,” the second man said. He had hair that looked greasy and a bulb of a nose. “Inside.”
McHugh shrugged. There was no point in arguing with this pair. They were a couple of small-timers just doing a job. He climbed into the truck, and the door slammed behind him. He heard a lock snap into place, and then the two gunmen were getting into the front. Swarthy Face took the wheel and started the motor. The truck moved out with a suddenness that sent McHugh sprawling on the floor. Bulb-Nose looked back through the iron mesh and grinned. He still had the gun.
McHugh got his balance and squatted down, bracing his back against the side of the truck. “Mind telling me who we’re going to see?” he yelled.
“Shut up,” Bulb-Nose said. He kissed the front sight of his pistol and grinned.
They took him to a sprawling cinderblock building. The name of a trucking company was fading from the sign over the big door. Bulb-Nose got out, slid the door up and pulled it closed after the truck was inside. The garage smelled of years-old dirt and exhaust fumes and gasoline and rubber. It was illuminated by a few bare light bulbs glaring from their yellowed reflectors. There was a skylight, but it had been painted over. McHugh heard the lock being taken off the rear doors.
The driver had his gun in his hand as he said, “Out, and don’t make any anxious moves.”
McHugh stared into eyes for a moment, grinned silently and stepped out. Bulb-Nose was waiting. He waved McHugh toward a wooden door.
“We got him okay. We’re comin’ in,” he yelled.
The door opened. McHugh went through it into a cluttered room that might have been an office. There were a couple of roll-top desks and swivel chairs of the same light-colored wood; wall calendars advertising automotive products through the charms of a pair of girls with big breasts and no clothes; a sagging sofa, one filing cabinet and an old-fashioned stand-up phone on one of the desks.
There were people waiting, and McHugh did not expect a good time. Willie Waddle was clenching and opening his fat fists, and Jug Benich sat on the corner of a desk. There was a noticeable swelling in his face, and the area around both eyes was the color of a thundercloud. Benich looked at McHugh and began to smile.
Two others were sitting on the sofa. One was tall, with black hair combed on the left side, rimless glasses, a well-barbered, well-manicured look and a sharkskin suit McHugh estimated had cost about three hundred dollars. He’d seen the face once before, in a newspaper mug shot taken during a rackets investigation. He remembered Howard Hale had taken the Fifth all the way.
The second man was shorter, heavier. He wore a mismatched jacket and slacks, a plaid shirt and thick-soled shoes. He had a head of thick, black, curling hair and a round, bland face. Dexter Orland reminded McHugh of a pizza cook.
McHugh looked at them and said, “Well?”
Bulb-Nose stationed himself in front of the door and his companion leaned against the wall on McHugh’s right. Their hands hung by their sides now, but they still held their guns.
“Lemme soften him up. It’ll save time,” Benich said. He looped the thong of a sap around his thumb and started for McHugh.
“Jug—shut up. Sit down,” Orland ordered. “Better you just get the hell out.”
“I want this bird,” Benich said flatly. He fingered the patch of black around his eyes.
“See nobody bothers us.” Orland said in a quiet voice. “Right now you might not be able to take him.”
Benich stared at the older man, shrugged and went out.
“Well?” McHugh said again. He stood in the center of the room and scowled at his captors.
Howard Hale cleared his throat. Hell, McHugh thought, he does it just like a banker. Hale fiddled with the knot of his regimental-striped tie and said, “Why are you trying to cut in on us?”
McHugh grinned and said, “Why? Afraid there won’t be enough to go around?” He saw Dex Orland look quickly at Hale.
“Just exactly what do you mean by that?” Hale demanded.
“I’ll never tell.”
There was movement behind him. Blazing pain seared the back of his head, and McHugh dropped to his knees. The green and blue pattern of the scuffed linoleum on the floor swam past his eyes. He was vaguely aware of Bulb-Nose standing over him, hefting his gun.
“You’ll tell,” Bulb-Nose said.
“Let him up,” Orland said.
McHugh got his feet under him. He swayed a couple of times and shook his head, trying to send the pain away.
“Now, before it gets hard on you,” Hale said, “what are you up to?”
“I want Johnny Stover,” McHugh said after a moment “I understand you creeps want him, too.”
“Why, McHugh?” Hale insisted.
“Favor for a friend. A girl who got tangled up with him.”
“The Andersen broad?” Orland asked.
“Miss Andersen to you.”
Orland laughed deep in his belly. “Few more smart cracks and I’ll let Jug take you apart You ain’t playin’ with a bunch of kids, fella. Well, is that the girl or ain’t it? Stover really has a stable.”
“That’s the girl.”
“Tell her to forget the bum. Do herself a favor,” Orland said.
“I did. It didn’t take. Besides, one of your goons got himself dead in her apartment. The sort of thing could make a girl nervous.”
“Yeah,” Orland said softly. “You stick Gordo, McHugh?”
“No,” McHugh said evenly. “But he was yours, huh?” Orland shrugged. “He was a guy who was around.”
“So what did he want in the girl’s apartment?”
Orland shrugged again. “Things are tough all over. Maybe he had to take up a little burglary to make ends meet.”
“Things might not be so tough if a guy had, say, eight hundred pounds of pure gold. Yeah, Dex?”
Orland flushed and snapped, “What’s that?”
McHugh could feel the concentration of their eyes on him. Carefully, he got a cigarette out and lighted it.
“From what I hear, the story’s pretty well known around. A lot of cop-type people seem to think you rigged an armored car job back in nineteen thirty-six. A lot of cop-type people are still looking at you with bright little eyes. And putting a few things together with what Willie Waddle here said this morning, I figure Stover’s involved. I just haven’t figured out how.”
They were silent, looking at each other. Howard Hale’s face flushed briefly before he concentrated on clipping the end from a thin cigar and-getting it going with a gold lighter.
“You keep talking like that, you could get hurt,” Orland said.
McHugh sneered. “You brought me here to hurt me. Why the hell don’t we get on with it?”
“A pleasure,” Bulb-Nose muttered. He advanced on McHugh, raised the gun.
“Hold it!” Orland barked. “God damn it, you wait for me to give you the word!”
Bulb-Nose scowled and went back to his door.
“Let’s quit kidding around,” McHugh said. “Either you rigged that heist or you know who did and where the loot went. But you’ve been on ice until a few months ago. About broke, from what I understand. Now, for no good reason, you draw five hundred bucks a week in what looks like Syndicate dough. Only the banker here wants you to deliver, and you’re a day late and a dollar short. You’ve got to turn Stover up first.”
“Keep talking. And don’t forget to put in what you intend to do about all this,” Orland said.
McHugh shrugged. “I don’t much care to do anything about it. Maybe I’m all wrong. Stover would have been just a kid at die time of that stickup. Maybe you want him on something that has nothing to do with it. Or maybe you don’t want him at all. From what Willie said, you just tried to buy that old Pierce-Arrow from him. Ever own that car, Orland? State records say you didn’t, but maybe a friend of yours did. Maybe there’s something in that buggy that would lead to wherever the gold is. That would be reason enough to want it bad.”
Orland snorted. “You been runnin’ off at the mouth a long time, McHugh. You don’t make much sense. Just to straighten you out, that wasn’t never my car and I never knew anybody it belonged to. Happens I want to twist Stover’s tail for a personal reason. Lettin’ him think there was a deal on the car was part of the setup.”
McHugh smiled crookedly and drew on his cigarette. “Could be. Let me tell you something, Orland. If that buggy was involved in any way with the gold heist, if there was anything in it that would tell where the stuff is today, Stover found it. He tore that heap apart and rebuilt it from the ground up. Whatever might have been in there probably didn’t mean a thing to him. What would it be? A map shoved down in a door. Sounds reasonable, with Gordo looking behind picture frames when he tossed the girl’s place. Whatever it is has to be small.”
Orland glowered at him.
“Stover is a pretty sharp kid,” McHugh went on. “Could be he found a map, and then when the ex-boss of the rackets started sending people around and offering twice what the car could possibly be worth, Stover put the pieces together and took off on a little treasure hunt. How’s that grab you?”
Orland was glaring at Willie Waddle. Howard Hale was chewing his cigar and frowning at both of them. Orland gestured to Bulb-Nose.
“Take this bastard outside. Pound on him. Then dump him somewhere,” Orland said.
The barrel of Bulb-Nose’s gun crashed against the side of his head again. McHugh struggled to keep his balance as he was shoved across the room and through the door.
Jug Benich was waiting, slapping the sap against the palm of his hand. He looked at Bulb-Nose and the thinner, swarthy hood and said, “Okay?”
“It’s okay. Don’t kill the bastard,” Bulb-Nose said. McHugh tried to dodge the sap. It caught him across the forehead, and he could feel the skin split. There was an instant of blinding whiteness that quickly turned red. The sap came down again, across the side of his neck. He gagged and began to fall.
The first kick caught him in the kidneys. It was at least ten minutes before he ceased to feel anything.
Chapter 8
There was filth and smoke and a stench that made McHugh think an outhouse was afire and he was in it. He instinctively tried to move away from it, and the effort brought waves of pain. It seemed like every bone, muscle and organ in his body was broken. His head felt like a shattered egg. He concentrated on lifting the shattered egg a couple of inches. He shut his eyes tight against the dizziness, then made them open.
He was down in the dumps, one of the trash heaps that ring the city. An evil-smelling fire smouldered to his left, and he heard an angry squealing as a rangy cat tangled with a rat. He was glad for the cat, because the rat had been just a few feet away from him at the time, twitching its whiskers and watching him with its pinpoint eyes.
“Thank you, cat,” he mumbled. He shook his head and concentrated on checking himself out. Arms and legs would move. His suit was black with ashes from a previous fire, and he could feel that the grit was worked deep into his skin. He rolled around, got his knees under him. He swayed and almost fell on his face again.
“Boy, it look like somebody don’ like you a bit.”
McHugh got his feet under him, fought to keep his balance against a sudden gust of wind as he looked at the man. He wore a frayed khaki shirt, high boots with jeans stuffed into the tops, a battered hat and a thick sweater that was out at the elbows. His face was dark and lined, and he was grinning at McHugh with teeth that were so white they were out of place.
“A lot of people don’t like me a bit,” McHugh said weakly.
Soft, dark eyes studied him. “You’re a big fella. Guess it might take a lotta guys at that.”
McHugh tried to walk. His foot caught on a jumble of refuse, and the other man caught him and slung his arm over his shoulder.
“C’mon, best you git outta here.”
“Yeah. I’d like that a lot.” McHugh felt his pockets. His keys and wallet hadn’t been taken. The other man steered and hauled him toward the edge of the Hump, where an old bus was squatting on chunks of wood. There was a stovepipe shoved through a rear window, and a vine of some type struggled for life and crawled over the hood.
“You c’n clean up a li’l here in my place. Hurt bad?”
“Bad enough. You live here in this stinking hole?”
The dark face laughed “I gets a hundred a month an’ whatever land in the dump. ‘Cludin’ you, I guess.”
McHugh laughed too. “Some days a man just can’t make a profit.”
They were inside, and what he saw surprised him. The bus had obviously been furnished from the dump, but it was clean and neat. Coffee was simmering on the back burner of an oil stove, and there was a refrigerator with the freezer unit squatting on top. McHugh caught his reflection in a cracked full-length mirror. He looked blacker than the ragpicker, and not half so healthy. He shook his head and muttered, “Suffering bastard.”
“That your name? They call me Junkie.”
“McHugh.” They shook hands, and Junkie went to the stove, poured coffee into a thick mug and colorless liquid from a bottle into a glass with a cream cheese label still stuck on it.
“Gulp this. Might straighten up a li’l, McHugh.”
McHugh looked doubtfully at the glass, set himself and swallowed fast. It was no worse than choking down a hand grenade. He drenched the explosion in the strong coffee and gasped. “Nothing,” he managed to say, “like a good run of corn.”
Junkie grinned and swigged from the bottle. “Yeah, man. Kill you quick but not easy. Look, they’s a shower in th’ back end. He’p yourself, an’ I’ll see ‘bout knockin’ some a that crap off your clothes, McHugh.”
“Thanks. Good of you.” McHugh peeled his suit off, feeling new anger because of what had happened to it. It had been a hell of a fine tweed, and a London tailor with an unpronounceable name had taken much pride in it. He limped naked to the back of the bus and found the tin shower. He got the water running hot and soaped himself with a cake of strong-smelling yellow soap. He felt it burn his skin and hoped it was strong enough to kill the fleas and lice he’d certainly picked up. He had no idea how long he’d been lying in the dump, but dusk was gathering.
The heat boiled some of the pain away, but breathing hurt, and once when he coughed he thought the lower end of his abdomen was going to drop off on the floor. He was swollen and discolored all over. He found a clean towel and dried himself.
Junkie had a big can of cleaning solvent and was scrubbing at McHugh’s jacket. “Fine suit, McHugh. A man can feel good with threads like this on his back.”
“Was fine,” McHugh said grimly. “You like it, Junkie? We’re about the same size. Trade it to you for something clean.”
“Naw.” Junkie chuckled. “Good cleaner’ll fix this up like new. I’ll lend you some duds, man. You c’n send ‘em back later.”
“I mean it. The suit’s yours.” An opened pack of cigarettes was on a table and McHugh helped himself to one. “I think the guys who dirtied it up will be buying me a new one, anyway.”
Junkie was silent for a minute. “Those eyes, McHugh. You look at ‘em with those eyes an’ I guess you’ll get you a new suit at that.” He pointed to a closet. “Dig ‘round in there. Grab whatever you find to fit.”
