Green Ice

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Stomachache

I READ A PAPER on my way down to Fifty-sixth Street. Dot Ellis got more space than most of the other humans. But there was one human that grabbed the headlines. His name was Harry Cherulli— there was an “Angel” between the first and last names. He was a nightclub owner and gambler, and he’d gone to the same place as Dot, only about an hour later. That is, I guessed he’d gone to the same place. I read the details on Dot first. After all, two years were two years, even though I couldn’t feel heroic about serving it for her. She’d been drinking my liquor before the accident.

The flat-faced cab driver had done most of the guessing. He’d had his hands full driving the cab. There was more traffic than usual in the prison town. He’d had a narrow escape from a smashup with a truck. He and the truck driver had talked it out, and it seemed the flat-faced driver was an ex-pug. Anyway, he’d climbed down from the cab and had invited the truck driver to do the same thing. The truck driver hadn’t. Instead he’d almost run the flat-faced one down. All this happened two squares from the station. The flat-faced one guessed that this was when Dot had been murdered. He hadn’t looked back at her until he’d reached the station. He was too sore.

It sounded fishy. But a lot of things sound fishy that aren’t. The bullets had been of twenty-two caliber— and in traffic they wouldn’t make so much noise. The police were working on fingerprints in the interior of the cab, and they expected to make an arrest shortly. That sounded like the bunk. There was a brief sketch about Dot Ellis— there was nothing about me. I guessed that there hadn’t been time. I’d come in for my share of publicity in the morning.

“Angel” Cherulli had been found in an alley behind his club, with a flock of thirty-eights in his stomach and chest. There wasn’t a clue. He had many enemies. The rest of the story was just writing. I stuck the paper in my pocket and decided that there might be some connection between the two murders. I also decided that there might not be any. I remembered, however, that two years and a few months ago Cherulli had fallen pretty hard for Dot Ellis. It seemed sort of queer that they should both drop out of worldly affairs at about the same time. Cherulli I remembered as a short, thickset Italian with a cherub-like face. I’d played around his club, contributing some of the hundred grand a damn fool uncle had left to me because his only niece had married a Swede with big feet.

The cab was rolling around Columbus Circle. I stopped thinking about Dot Ellis and Cherulli. I was out of the Big House— my bankers had better than seventy-five thousand dollars in safe spots, and I had a job to do. Wirt Donner could help me— he knew some of the little crooks that had been squeezed. I was after the breeders of crime, and they weren’t the little ones. There would be action; my mind and body needed it.

The cab stopped in front of the number Donner had given me. It looked something like a theatrical boardinghouse, only it wasn’t in the right neighborhood. Or maybe things had moved uptown since I’d started to serve the stretch. I paid up, got out.

The door beyond the steps that led to the vestibule opened as I started to climb. Donner came out. He was bent over; he had both hands pressing against his stomach. Funny, thick noises came from between his lips. His head was twisted to one side.

“What’s wrong?” I snapped, from a spot halfway up the stone steps.

Donner was swaying from side to side, hunched forward. His face was all twisted, and there was red on his lips. He tried to scream, but it was only a cough— a choking cough— when it came out.

Then he tumbled. I made a stab at grabbing him, changed my mind. His head hit the fifth step from the top, like a man diving into water. He went all the way down to the sidewalk. Across the street a woman screamed. I heard footfalls— someone running. It was a red-faced man; he reached Donner’s side as I came down the steps. He bent over, straightened up right away.

“How do you figure in this?” he snapped at me.

I shook my head. “I don’t,” I said. “Saw the sign up there— went up to see about a room. He came out, holding his stomach, and tumbled.”

The man with the red face nodded. He moved over close to me.

“I’m Donelly— Third Precinct,” he stated. “This bird’s dead— shot in the belly. Got a gun?”

I shook my head, lifted my hands a little. Donelly tapped around my new suit. I wasn’t surprised to learn he was a d**k— he looked like one.

A crowd was collecting. A cop came through. Donelly made his speech all over again.

“And stay with the dead guy,” he ordered. “I’m going in the house.”

I managed a faint smile. “Mind if I come along?” I asked. “I’ll still take a room here, if you get the murderer.”

The red-faced one didn’t think that was so funny. He narrowed blue eyes on me. Then he looked up at the sign. It was one of those blue ones, with white letters. It read: “VACANCY.” I’d seen it as I’d moved away from the cab.

“Come along,” Donelly muttered, and started up the steps.

I went up behind him. Wirt Donner was dead— shot in the stomach. He had been a second-rate crook. Up in the Big House he’d always insisted that he’d been framed.

Donelly was shoving a bell. You could hear it ring— but nothing happened. He tried the door. It was closed, locked.

“Not so good— for you,” Donelly muttered, giving me a quick glance. “He had a stomachache that killed him, but he stopped to close the door on the way out.”

“Or someone shut it— after he came out,” I added.

Donelly shoved the bell again. Nothing happened. Donelly swore. I looked down the steps. Another cop had come up. The crowd was growing. There were dirty curtains behind the glass in the door. A figure showed— the door was suddenly opened.

The woman had on a faded negligee. It was too long for her— it trailed dirty carpet. She had a pasty complexion, sharp features, and dopey eyes. She was around forty, maybe younger. Her blond hair was black close to the scalp. She looked sleepily at Donelly.

“You run this place?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I stay here,” she stated. “Thought someone left his key inside. Anything wrong?”

I figured she was lying, and so did Donelly. She wasn’t so doped up or sleepy as she looked. The d**k spoke.

“There’s a dead man on the sidewalk. Come on down and see if you know him.”

The woman smiled. She had nice teeth.

“Quit kidding,” she returned, and moved away from the door.

Donelly caught her by the arm. She started to act up. She screamed. Donelly swore and let her go. A fat woman came down the stairs. She started in by giving Donelly hell, and she ended by telling him that she was the landlady and that if he was a detective he was a great guy because her nephew was one, too. She went down the steps and looked at Donner’s profile. She got kind of splotchy in the cheeks.

“My God!” she muttered. “It’s Mr. Ross. He’s— dead.”

One of the cops said that he’d get the morgue wagon. The landlady said that Mr. Ross had lived in her house for three months; he had a hall bedroom on the second floor. He’d told her that he was a radio man, and he always had paid his bill a week in advance. He seemed quiet. That was all she knew about him.

Donelly said we’d go up to the parlor, if there was one. The landlady said there wasn’t. We went up to the hall. The woman with the nice teeth had gone. Donelly told me to follow him, and we went up to Donner’s room. It looked pretty neat. There was a quart of gin on a small table— a bottle of orange juice on the floor. The landlady looked surprised.

“I didn’t know Mr. Ross drank,” she stated.

“He’s sworn off,” Donelly returned grimly. “Ever see this gentleman before?”

He gestured toward me. The landlady shook her head.

“He looks something like my sister’s first husband,” she stated. “But I ain’t never seen him before.”

Donelly was poking around the tiny room.

“He was coming up to rent a place to sleep,” he stated. “Funny, eh?”

I said that I didn’t see anything funny about it. Donelly told the landlady to get everybody that was in the house downstairs in the hall— and asked her if she advertised her rooms to rent. She said she didn’t except for the sign outside. She said it was a terrible thing— but that she didn’t believe Mr. Ross had been killed in the house. She went out.

Donelly looked at me. “I was across the street when your cab stopped in front of this place,” he stated. “You knew where you were coming. What’s your name?”

“Malcolm Ourney,” I stated. “You had a tip, eh?”

His lips twitched. He’d been across the street, and he’d seen the cab come up. Maybe that had been chance— maybe it hadn’t. I figured it hadn’t.

“Something like that,” he stated.

“The murderer may be around the house,” I suggested. “You’re taking things pretty easy.”

Donelly shook his head. “Not my precinct,” he said. “Killer’s gone away from here. Out the back way, I guess. Got a pal in back. Ourney, eh? How were all the boys up at Sing Song when you left?”

I just smiled. But I was thinking fast. Donelly was out of his precinct, and he knew something. He knew a lot.

“Pretty fair,” I stated. “Jerry Coons died of pneumonia three days ago.”

Donelly was poking around under the bed. He dragged out a suitcase.

“Yeah, I read about Jerry,” he stated. “He always did have bad lungs. Got ’em doing night work around the Jersey City warehouses.”

I was beginning to think Donelly was a bright boy. There was a lot of noise coming up from the hall below. Donelly stood up. He hadn’t opened the suitcase. A deep voice reached us.

“Oh, Mike— I grabbed Salmon jumping fences!”

Donelly swore softly. He looked at me.

“Not bad, eh?” he muttered. “Red always swore he’d get Donner. Let’s go down!”

ii

HE LED THE way. His name was Mike Donelly— he was a plainclothes bull. He knew that I was Mal Ourney, that Mr. Ross had been Wirt Donner, and that I had come along to see Wirt. He knew that I hadn’t killed him, and he was pretty sure that one “Red” Salmon had done for Donner.

Red was pretty sick. He slumped on the dirty carpet of the lowest stair and talked a lot. He whined. He’d come over to see Donner, but he’d come in the back way because the police were riding him. He’d met Donner staggering down the stairs, and when he’d seen what was up he’d made a break for it. He hadn’t heard any shots.

The second detective was lean and wiry. He produced a thirty-eight-caliber gun with a Maxim silencer attached. He stated that three bullets were missing, and that he’d taken the gun from Red.

“It’s a dirty lie!” Red got pretty excited. “It ain’t my rod— it ain’t! It’s a frame.”

Salmon was undersized, pallid, redheaded. He looked like a sniffer. I stared at him while he whined. Donelly asked a few questions of everybody, and learned nothing. No one had heard even pop-coughs of a silenced rod. No one had heard Mr. Ross coming down the stairs. Donelly told his pal to take Red out. Red protested, and Donelly told him to shut up. He shut up. Donelly’s pal took him away.

“That’s that,” Donelly said to me. “You still want to rent a room here?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “And I don’t think Red Salmon got Donner.”

Donelly grunted. “You don’t know so much as I do,” he stated. “I haven’t been boarding up the river for two years.”

“Good enough,” I replied. “Who gave you the tip that Red was after Wirt?”

The detective grinned. “If I told you that, you’d know as much as I do,” he said cheerfully. “Red got Donner, all right. He’ll burn for it.”

I nodded. “He may burn for it,” I agreed. “But he didn’t get Donner.”