The Tough Guys Read online

  “Any complaints?”

  The old man frowned. “That’s the funny part. None of ‘em say nothing.”

  I stood up and stretched. “You know what I think? This Simpson guy pays them mighty generously and for the first time they get a look at how the other half lives and want to give it a try. So they leave town. It’s an old story. The others won’t leave, but let the gravy come to them. How about that?”

  “He got funny people working for him. They bring trouble to town, mister.”

  “Okay, so he hires hoods. I know reputable businessmen who have done the same.”

  Steiger thought it over. “Maybe, but did you ever see such a scared town in your life, mister?”

  The drizzle had stopped. I zippered up my jacket and shoved my hat on. Mort Steiger watched me carefully.

  Finally he said, “You’re a funny one, too, mister.”

  “Oh?”

  “You got a real mean look. You’re big and you look mean. You tell me something true?”

  I opened the door of the pickup and said over my shoulder, “Sure I’ll tell you true, pop.”

  “You ever kill anybody?”

  I slammed the door shut and looked at him. He was completely serious.

  Finally I nodded. “Yes. Six people.”

  “I don’t mean in the war, son.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the war.”

  “How’d you do it?”

  “I shot them,” I said and let the clutch out.

  The druggist had my prescription ready and handed it over without a word. I knew he had checked on the doctor who issued it and had another check going through different channels. I ordered a Coke, took two of the capsules, and pocketed the rest.

  A fresh rain slick was showing on the street and the weather forecast was that it would continue for a few days. So I’d fish in the rain. I’d take a six-pack of Blue Ribbon and a couple sandwiches along and anchor in the middle of the lake under an umbrella.

  I went outside, flipped a mental coin to see where I’d eat. The coffee shop in the hotel won and I hopped in the truck. At the corner the blinker was red on my side and I rolled to a stop. As I did, a new black Caddy with Kings County (New York) plates made the turn and I had a fast look at the driver.

  His name was Benny Quick, he had done two turns in Sing Sing on felony counts and was supposedly running a dry-cleaning place in Miami. There was somebody beside him and somebody in the back, but I couldn’t make them out.

  I made a U turn, passed the sedan, turned right two blocks farther on, and let the Caddy pass behind me. That’s all I needed to pick up the license number. A friend back in New York would do the rest.

  I couldn’t figure what Benny Quick was doing up this way, but I made a living being nosy and I had been too long at it to let a vacation take me out of the habit.

  Back at the Pines Hotel, I shared the coffee shop with a half dozen teen-agers sipping coffee and feeding the juke box. None of them paid any attention to me. The waitress snapped the menu down in front of me.

  When I looked up I said, “You ought to smile more, Miss Dahl.”

  “Not for you, Mr. Smith.”

  “Call me Kelly.”

  She ignored me completely and waited. I told her what I wanted, and while I waited scanned a newspaper. The headlines were still all about Cuba.

  Dari Dahl came back, fired my cheeseburgers at me, and put the coffee down so hard it spilled. I said, “Go back and get me another cup.”

  “What?”

  “Damn it, you heard me. I’ve had about all the crap from you I can take. You be as sore as you please, but, baby, treat me like a customer or for kicks I’ll throw these dishes through your front window. This town is giving me the business and from now on the business stops. Now shake your butt and get me another coffee and do it right.”

  The next time the coffee came slow and easy. I said, “Sit down.”

  She paused. “Mr. Smith…”

  When I looked up and she saw my face, she grew chalky and pulled out a chair.

  Dari Dahl was a magnificent woman, even scared. The tight nylon uniform outlined the daring cut of her underthings. The word bra was disputable for all that it was, and below it, far below, was a bikini-like thing beautifully discernible.

  “I heard about your sister,” I said.

  “Let’s not discuss it.”

  “Dari baby, it won’t be too hard to find out someplace else. I remember the rough details. Any old newspaper account could fill me in. Anybody around town ought to be glad to talk about the bit.”

  The hardness came back again, her mouth pulling tight at the corners. “You should be able to understand it. My sister was a drug addict, when she could no longer supply her need, she killed herself. Eventually, you’ll do the same.”

  “I will?”

  “Your supposed legitimate source of supply through our druggist won’t last very long. My sister used stolen and forged prescriptions, too, for a while. It was when they ran out that she killed herself.” She stopped, her eyes glinting. “Tell me, Mr. Smith, are you here now because there are no other pharmacists who will honor your prescriptions? Is that it?”

  Slowly, I finished my coffee. “You really are bugged, kid. You really are.”

  She walked away, tall, cool, a lovely, curvy animal, as beautiful as any woman ever was, but going completely to waste.

  I left a buck and a half by my plate, went upstairs where I showered and changed into a city suit. I decided to try the air again. There should be a movie or a decent bar someplace.

  I reached for the phone, but remembered the clerk downstairs and hung up. In the lobby, I called from a house phone where I could watch the desk, gave a New York number, and waited.

  When my number answered, I said, “Artie?”

  “Yeah, hi ya, Kelly, how’s it going?”

  For a full five minutes we made idle conversation about nothing, throwing in enough dirty words so any prudish operator bugging in would knock it off in disgust. Then I said, “Run a number through for me, kid, then get me all the information on its owner. Next, find out what you can about Benny Quick. He’s supposed to be in Miami.” I fed him the license number, talked a little more about nothing, and hung up.

  Outside, the rain had started again, harder this time. I looked each way, saw a couple of recognizable lights, grinned, and walked toward them.

  Like a whore’s is red, police lights have to be green, old-fashioned, and fly-specked. You know from the sight of them what it’s going to smell like inside. There’s a man smell of wet wool, cigars, and sweat. There’s a smell of wood, oiled-down dust; of stale coffee, and musty things long stored. On top of that, there’s another smell a little more quiet, one of fear and shame that comes from the other people who aren’t cops and who go down forever in the desk book.

  I walked in and let Sergeant Vance stare at me like a snake and then said, “Where’s your captain?”

  “What do you want him for?”

  The pair of young beat cops who had been standing in the corner moved in on the balls of their feet. They were all set to take me when the office door opened and Cox said, “Knock it off, Woodie.” He ran his eyes up and down me. “What do you want?”

  I grinned at him, but it wasn’t friendly at all. “You wanted my prints, remember? You said to stop by.”

  He flushed, then his jaw went hard. He came out of the doorway and faced me from three feet away. “You’re a rough character, buddy. You think we don’t know what to do with rough guys?”

  And I gave it to him all the way. I said, “No, I don’t think you know what to do with rough guys. Captain. I think you’re all yak and nothing else.”

  Across his forehead, a small pulse beat steadily. But he held it in better than I thought he could. His voice was hard but restrained when he told the beat cop behind me, “Take his prints, Woody.”

  I gave him my name and address and stopped right there. If he wanted anything on me he could get it onl
y after he booked me. I grinned at everybody again, left a bunch of stinking mad cops behind me, and went out into the fresh air.

  It was 9 o’clock, too late for a show but not for a bar. I found one called JIMMIE’S with Jimmie himself at the bar and ordered a beer. Jimmie was a nice old guy and gassed with me.

  When I finally got around to the Simpson place, he made a wry face and said, “Nobody ever saw the guy I know of. Not down here in town.”

  “How about the girls?”

  He nodded. “You don’t get much out of them. Simpson turns out to be either big or little, skinny or fat and you get the point. They don’t talk it up any.”

  “So they don’t talk about their boss. They get paid plenty, I hear.”

  “Hell, yes. Bonnie Ann and Grace Shaefer both sport minks and throw plenty of bucks around. Every once in a while I see Helen Allen in a new car. She comes through about once a month to see her folks. Used to be a nice kid. All of them were.”

  “Making money changed that?”

  Jimmie shook his head, squinting. “No, but used to be they were plain hustlers and not high on anybody’s list.”

  I asked, “You mean that’s their job up there?”

  His shrug was noncommittal. “They won’t say. Some of them do secretarial work, answering phones and all that, because the switchboard operators here have talked to them often enough.”

  “If they’re that interested, why doesn’t somebody just ring Simpson’s bell and ask?”

  Jimmie gave a short laugh. “Besides the brush-off at the gate, who wants to spoil a good thing? Before that bunch leaves there’ll be a bunch of money in this town, and off season you don’t kick out found loot. Then there’s another angle. That boy’s a big taxpayer. He’s got connections where they count, as some busybodies found out. A few local do-gooders tried some snooping and wound up holding their behinds. Nobody goes to the cops, though I can’t see them doing much about it. Cox is like a cat who’s afraid of a mouse yet getting hungry enough so he knows he has to eat one or die. I think he figures if he eats one it’ll be poisoned and he’ll die, too.”

  He opened me another bottle and moved on down the bar to take care of a new customer. It was the nervous taxi driver who tried to steer me away from Pinewood in the first place. I was beginning to wish I had let him talk me into it.

  He ordered a beer, too, said something about the weather, then confidentially told Jimmie, “Saw somebody tonight. Didn’t recognize her at first, but it was Ruth Gleason.”

  I poured my glass full, making like I was concentrating on it. Ruth Gleason was the girl Mort Steiger told me ran off to New York the same time Flori Dahl did.

  “You sure?” Jimmie asked him.

  “Oughta know her, I guess. She’s changed though. She’s got on fancy clothes and all that, but her face is sure old looking. Wouldn’t look at me. She kind of turned away when she saw me.”

  “Well what’s she doing back here?”

  “Who knows? She got in that blue ranchwagon from the hill place and drove off.” He waved off another beer and went out.

  Jimmie came back wiping his hands on his apron.

  Bluntly, I said, “Mort told me about the Gleason kid, too.”

  He didn’t question my tone. “Nice girl. She was up there a whole month. Hardly ever came down and when she did she wouldn’t speak to anybody. Flori and she went in at the same time. Flori used to come to town occasionally and the way she changed was hard to believe.”

  “How?”

  He waved his hands expressively. “Like you can’t pin it down. Just changed. They wouldn’t look at you or hardly speak. It was real queer.”

  “Didn’t any of those kids have parents?”

  “Flori’s old man was dying and they had no mother. I think Flori took the job up there to help get her old man into the Humboldt Hospital. They got him there, but he died soon after. Cancer.”

  “That’s only one,” I pointed out.

  “Ah, who can tell kids anyhow? They do what they please anyway. Sure, some of them had folks, but there’s big money up there.”

  He popped the top from another bottle and passed it over. “On the house.” He took a short one himself, and we gave a silent toast and threw them down.

  Then he said, “Better not do too much talking around town. This is a spooky place.”

  I grinned, paid off my tab, and waved him good night.

  For a few minutes I stood under the awning watching the rain, then started back toward the center of town. I had crossed the street and almost reached the corner when the big Imperial came from my left, turned left, and stopped half a block up ahead of me. Unconsciously, I stepped into the darker shadows and walked faster.

  Someone stepped out of the car, turned and pulled at another. They stood there together a moment and then I heard the unmistakable spasm of a sob.

  I ran then, holding one hand tight against my ribs to muffle the fire that had started there. I was too late. They heard my feet pounding and the one by the car turned sharply, ducked inside, and slammed the door. The car pulled away silently and slowly as if nothing had happened.

  But they left a beautiful young girl behind them. She was sobbing hysterically and started to collapse as I reached her.

  She was a lovely brunette wrapped tightly in a white trench-coat, her hair spilling wetly over her shoulders. She tried to shove me away while she hung on desperately to an oversize handbag and kept saying over and over, “No… please, no!”

  I said, “Easy, kid,” and pulled her to the porch steps of the nearest house. When I got her seated I tried to take her hand. She stopped sobbing then, jerked her hand, and held her pocketbook on the opposite side.

  For a second the hysteria passed and she said, “Get out of here. Let me alone!”

  “Relax, I’m…”

  “There’s nothing the matter with me,” she nearly shouted. “Get out of here. Let me alone!”

  She clenched her teeth on the last word with a crazy grimace and tried to stand up. But I was sitting on one edge of her coat and when she did the thing yanked open and half-pulled off her shoulder.

  She was naked from the waist up and I didn’t need any light to see the welts and stripes across her body and the small bleeding spots where something with a sharp tip had dug in.

  I stood up, pulled the trench coat closed. When she realized I had seen her, she closed her eyes, let out a soft, mewing sound, and let herself fold up in my arms. I put her down on the steps again and as I did, her pocketbook fell open. There was a sheaf of brand new bills inside, held by a bank wrapper. On it was printed the number 1,000.

  Suddenly the porch light snapped on, the door opened, and a man stood there clutching his bathrobe at his middle. His wife peered over his shoulder, her face worried.

  “You,” he called out. “What are you doing there?” His voice didn’t have too much snap to it.

  I motioned to the girl. “There’s a sick woman here. Look, call a doctor for me and hurry it, will you?”

  “A doctor? What’s…”

  “Never mind what’s the matter. You call. And turn out that light.”

  They were glad to get back inside. The porch light went out and inside one turned on. I propped the kid up, put her bag under her arm, and walked away from the house.

  I didn’t get very far. The car hissed up behind me and a voice said, “It’s him again. The one who jumped Lennie and me in the restaurant.”

  There wasn’t any sense running. A dozen fast steps would tear my side anyway. I just stood there and because I did the action that was all set to explode went sour. Nat Paley and the new guy who hopped out and came at me from different sides slowed, not able to figure me out.

  Nat’s hand came out of his pocket with a gun. The gun came up and Nat’s face said it was the right time and the right place. Except somebody else thought differently and a strangely cold voice from inside the car said, “No noise.”

  They moved before I could yell. The other g
uy came in fast from the side, but I ducked in time to get the load in his fist off the top of my head. I kicked out, jabbed at his eyes, and made the touch. He couldn’t yell with the sudden pain, ducked into my right and his face seemed to come apart under my knuckles.

  And that was the end of it. Nat got me just right, one stunning blow behind the ear, and, as I sunk to my knees, went over me expertly with a clubbed gun and ruthless feet. As one terrible kick exploded into my side, I thought I screamed and knew with absolute certainty that Nat had one more blow to deliver. It would come with bone-crunching force in that deadly spot at the base of the brain. I knew it was coming and I hoped it would, anything that would erase the awful thing that was happening to me inside.

  It came all right, but a sudden convulsion that wracked my side made it miss and my shoulder took it all. Nat didn’t realize that, though. A tiny part of my mind that could still discern things heard him laugh and drag the other guy into the car.

  In the middle of a wild dream of sound and light I coughed, tried to turn my head away from the jarring, acrid fumes of ammonia, and then swam back into a consciousness I didn’t want.

  Somebody had carried me to the steps and a face peered anxiously into mine. The old guy watching me said, “It’s all right. I’m Doctor McKeever.”

  “The girl…” I started.

  “She’s all right. She’s inside. We’d better get you in there, too.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “What happened? Was there an accident?”

  I shook my head, clearing it. “No… not actually.”

  When I moved my arm my shoulder muscles screamed. At least nothing was broken. I’d taken some bad ones before, but this took the cake. Under the bandages I could feel the warmth of blood and knew what was happening.

  I said, “You saw the girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got an idea of what happened?”

  He chewed his lips a moment and nodded. “I know.”

  “You’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”