Long Live the Dead (7 page)

He forked the receiver and opened the phone book, looking for the name Jules Valliers. He dialed again and Katherine Mitchell answered the ring.

“Kennedy there?” Bill said.

“Just a moment, please.”

Bill waited, then said scowling: “Listen, Kennedy. Matthew Fern just gave me the works and got loose. He’s in the neighborhood. See what you can do.” “If there’s a lousy job around,” Kennedy growled, “I get it every time.”

“The girl make any trick moves?”

“Naw.”

“Okey. Find Fern.”

H
alf an hour later Bill limped out of a cab on LaRonge Street, climbed the stationhouse steps with painful awkwardness, and found Jay O’Brien, Great Brain Macy, and Edwin Krauss in the room behind headquarters. Macy was standing on spread legs, hands hipped, neck out-thrust, over the chair which held up Krauss. Jay O’Brien was sucking a fat cigar, slipping the paper cigar-band on and off his little finger and listening without interest to Macy’s harsh syllables.

“Now listen,” Macy was rasping. “We got it on you, see? You bring a letter in here and hand it to us in a nice, sweet way, and the letter’s a fake. The girl didn’t write it, see? You did. You wrote it to hang suspicion on Valliers, see? And to clear yourself. But you’re in a jam. You’re gonna come clean.”

“I wrote it because I was afraid,” Krauss mumbled.

“You wrote it because Matthew Fern told you to,” Bill said.

Macy spun around and growled: “What?”

“Didn’t you, kid?” Bill said quietly.

“Y-yes,” Krauss said, licking his lips. “He—he said it would clear me and it wouldn’t do any harm. I was afraid I’d be accused of the murder. I took some old letters I had from Rose and—and—”

“And faked the writing. Give the kid a break, Macy. He’s just dumb.”

“You’ll be tellin’ me next he didn’t kill the girl, wise guy,” Macy said irritably.

“I even might,” Bill shrugged. He leaned against the table, looked at O’Brien, and said softly: “You get Fern yet?”

“I don’t get anything,” O’Brien said pleasantly. “I’m in a complete fog.”

Macy exhaled loudly and swung back to face Krauss. He hipped his hands again and rocked back and forth on stiff legs. He said savagely: “Well, are you gonna talk, young feller, or do I have to show you how?”

“Lay off, flatfoot,” Bill said. “He didn’t do it. Fern did it.”

“What?”

“Save it for Fern.”

“What else do you know, wise guy?” Macy scowled.

“Plenty.”

“Well?”

“All right,” Bill shrugged. “You asked for it.” He put a cigarette in his mouth and took a light from O’Brien’s cigar.

“Valliers and the girl are in the studio, see? The phone rings. Valliers hikes out to answer it. Fern is waiting at the top of the back stairs outside the studio’s other door, which is kept locked. Fern has a key. He lets himself in, the girl screams, he does his dirty work, goes out the same way and locks the door after him. He does all this to frame Valliers with the killing. Instead Valliers gets rid of the body. So Fern calls up O’Brien here and reports the girl missing, to put the cops wise.”

Macy said: “Now isn’t that nice? Isn’t that just lovely?”

Someone else said bitterly, from the doorway: “You’re clever, Mr. Evans. Damned clever.” Kennedy and another man came in, holding Matthew Fern between them. Fern’s face was convulsed.

Kennedy said: “He was walkin’ down Vernon Street near Valliers’ house. When he spotted me he dove for a cab. Your pal Ricki was parked on the corner, and him and me chased this guy halfway across town before we got him. He had this on him.” Kennedy took a gun from his pocket and banded it to Bill. “There’s two shots been fired out of it.”

Matthew Fern said again, standing with feet wide apart and fists clenched: “You’re clever, Mr. Evans You think you know everything. I hope it does you some good.”

Jay O’Brien pulled the cigar out of his mouth and said, scowling: “What is this, anyway?” Macy walked away from Krauss’ chair and stood staring, eyes narrowed and a sneer widening his lips. “Yeah,” Macy said. “What is this?”

“You’re right, Mr. Evans,” Fern said viciously. “I killed the girl. I planned it right. I stole the key to the studio door when I went to Valliers’ house for money, a week ago. I knew he’d never miss it. At the same time I learned the layout of the studio and the rear stairs. The whole thing was planned right. Maybe you’d like to know the details.”

“It might save time,” Bill shrugged.

“Then you don’t know everything after all.”

“You killed her,” Bill said through his cigarette, “to send Valliers to the chair. You hated Valliers for playing around

with your wife.”

“So you know that, do you?”

“And more.”

“Good,” Fern said. He was enjoying himself. His face was flushed and his eyes smouldering, and a little mad. “Then I’ll tell you the rest. My wife was one of his women. I wasn’t supposed to know. They thought I was dumb.”

“Why the hell, then,” Jay O’Brien grumbled, “didn’t you kill Valliers? Why the girl?”

“Killing was too easy. That’s why.”

“So you picked on an innocent girl.”

“I’d kill a dozen innocent people to see him hang.”

“Oh, you’re a tough guy, hey?” Macy growled. “Well, I’m no sap. I don’t go for fairy tales, Fern. What about that phone call?”

“My wife,” Fern said precisely, “telephoned her lover at exactly the same time each day. I made my plans accordingly.” He swung on Bill. “What I should like to know is how Mr. Evans discovered me.”

“Should you?” Bill said quietly.

“Yeah. And so would the rest of us,” Macy snapped.

“Your wife,” Bill shrugged, looking without emotion at Fern, “is listed on the
Times-Herald
scandal sheet as one of Valliers’ latest attractions. Also, when you charged out of Valliers’ studio after killing Rose Veda, you stopped to wipe your fingerprints off the doorknob. You took a handkerchief or something out of your pocket. And you spilled some bird seed on the floor, little one.”

“Bird seed,” Fern repeated slowly, mouthing the words.

“Right. Bird seed. So it was either you or Krauss, sweetheart, and the scandal sheet pointed to you. Then you did your own pointing. You read what the
Times-Herald
said about the knife, and you fell for it. Psychology, feller, psychology.”

“What about Valliers’ secretary?” Kennedy said.

“Couldn’t be sure of her,” Bill shrugged.“She’s more than a secretary, and hell hath no fury like a woman double-crossed. And that phone call was a sticker. She might have chipped in.” He gazed calmly at Matthew Fern. “All nice and straight now, little one?”

“Thanks, yes,” Fern said, smiling.

“For a guy that’s gonna burn,” Jay O’Brien frowned, “you seem almighty happy. You’re a wise guy, huh?”

“Sure,” Fern said. “I’m a wise guy. I just came from Jules Valliers’ house. I found Valliers and my wife together. If you don’t think I’m a wise guy, go and look.”

By the time this story about Pooch Hanley and Mr. Buttons appeared in
Black Mask in March 1937, Cap Shaw
had been replaced as editor by Fanny Ellsworth. other tales of mine appeared about that time in
Adventure, Clues Detective Stories, Detective Fiction Weekly, Federal Agent, The Feds, Popular Detective, Thrilling Mystery,
and, under my jokey pen-name
Justin Case, in The Spicy magazines
(which, incidentally, by today’s freedom-of-speech standards wouldn’t raise an eyebrow). as for the Mr. Buttons character in this story, I’ve had dog and cat friends since I was a kid, and have turned out dozens of stories about these four-footed friends. If you’re interested in cats, you might want to check the internet or certain bookstores for a collection of mine called
The Lady Wore Black and Other Cat Tails,
published this year by Ash-Tree Press.

HBC

Mr. Button buys a life with his death.

E
verybody was always giving Pooch Hanley dogs, and when he left the Palace Bar that evening and strolled homeward he had no intention of picking up a dog en route. He had dogs enough at home already. But the mongrel mutt came sniffing along the sidewalk in front of the Corsair Club, and got tangled up in the legs of a drunken young man who was being steered to a taxi by Louis Zapelli, the Corsair’s head thief.

The mutt was pathetically frail and certainly meant no harm. But the young man pushed Zapelli aside, shouted drunkenly, “Punt formation, hip!” and punted the dog with sickening accuracy into a No Parking sign. And when that happened, something exploded in Pooch Hanley’s brain.

Hanley strode forward. With one hand he swung the young man around and with the other he sent the fellow staggering against the open door of the taxi.

It was a hard punch, loosening several teeth. Blood trickled down the young man’s chin.

Pooch Hanley said to Louis Zapelli: “When he sobers up, tell him why I did it and who I am. If he wants to make something of it, all right.”

The dog had not moved after dropping to the curb. Han-ley picked it up. “Hip broken,” he muttered, and glared at the man who had broken it.

He took the mutt home with him.

There were dogs galore at the Hanley homestead. There were kennels in the back yard, near the fringe of woods sloping down into Pine Pond, and countless cartons of canned dog food in the cellar. Pooch Hanley liked dogs, all kinds of dogs. Being a bachelor, he could give them his undivided attention and affection.

Even before he got the front door open, Mr. Buttons was violently assaulting the barrier from within. Mr. Buttons, a red-haired cocker spaniel, was two years old and uncontrollable. His adoration for Hanley was a form of St.Vitus’s dance.

Tonight, after launching himself at Hanley’s legs, he retreated amid ominous growls of suspicion. Hanley grinned at him.

“It’s the uniform you don’t like, is it?”

Some weeks ago, Mr. Buttons had been severely kicked by a short-tempered mail carrier. Since then, the mere sight of a uniform had been sufficient to arouse his anger.

Hanley was wearing part of a uniform. “This,” he said to Mr. Buttons, “is a motorman’s coat and nothing more, so don’t be losing my temper. I borrowed it from an old-timer at the Palace Bar. I had no yen to be walking home naked after losing my shirt in a poker game.”

That settled, he spent the next hour setting the broken hip of the mutt he had brought home with him. Then he went to bed.

F
ive minutes after he entered Police Headquarters the next morning, Pooch Hanley was summoned to the sanctum of Inspector John Murray. Murray greeted him coolly and said, “Sit down, Hanley,” and then said, “I hear you were at the Palace last night. That right?” “Yes, sir. I was checking on this White case.”

The White case involved Mr. Louis Zapelli of the Corsair Club and Mr. Jake Doonan, proprietor of the Palace. It was a queer tangle. Paul White silent partner of Louis Zapelli, had been found dead in an alley, shot through the hip and the head. It was quite likely that Jake Doonan had done the shooting.

It was likely because White and Doonan had hated each other intensely. White had claimed vehemently that the Palace Bar was an eye-sore and had threatened to put Doonan out of business. Doonan had sworn publicly to commit murder or mayhem if White came within reach.

White was dead now, and good riddance of a politically-minded knave with underworld connections. But it was a crying shame that Jake Doonan, whom everybody liked, would probably pay the extreme penalty for doing the good deed.

“So you were working on the White case,” said Inspector Murray.

“I was, sir,” said Hanley. “Yesterday afternoon I spent four hours snooping around the Corsair Club, talking to the hired hands there, and then I dropped over to the Palace. I had a few beers and played some poker with the boys.”

“And what did you learn?”

“Well, I—”

“Don’t say it, Hanley. I know all the excuses. You apparently think more of your dogs than of your job.”

Hanley sighed softly. “Now listen, Inspector,” he said.

“On your way home from the Palace you assaulted a man.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That, Hanley, was conduct unbecoming an officer.”

“Well, sir, he—”

“Kicked a dog. I know all about it. The District Attorney paid me a visit.”

Hanley sat very still. “The District Attorney?”

“The young man you assaulted,” said Murray curtly, “was the D.A.’s son. You, Hanley, are now without a job. You may appeal the suspension if you like, but I’d advise against it. When the D.A. has cooled down a bit, I’ll see what I can do.”

Pooch Hanley’s face paled and he pushed himself erect.

“It’s a good thing,” he said slowly,” the young squirt didn’t kick one of my dogs. I’d have killed him.”

Without waiting for Murray’s reply, he slammed the door furiously behind him.

An hour later, Pooch Hanley sat on a stool at the Palace Bar, despondently drinking beer. The beer wouldn’t help, he knew, but the business of drinking it would keep his mind off the fact that he had been suspended. Besides, it was soothingly quiet here at the Palace. Since Jake Doonan’s incarceration, customers had kept away. Doonan’s daughter was officially in charge. Her boy friend was tending bar.

Molly Doonan was young. She had a slim, trim little figure, black hair and dark eyes. The eyes were circled now from lack of sleep, and when she put a hand on Hanley’s shoulder he stared and felt sorry for her.

“Pooch, when are they going to let father go?”

“It’s hard telling, Molly.”

“But why are they holding him? They can’t prove anything, can they, Pooch?”

No, they couldn’t prove anything. Doonan was merely being held on suspicion. The hell of it was, Paul White had left the Corsair Club that night and come here, via the alley, to lay down the law to Molly’s father. That, at least, was Zapelli’s story. White had talked it over with Zapelli at the club and then barged out. Zapelli, having a mess of trouble with a new floor show, had thought no more of it until informed that White’s body had been found in the alley, midway between the Corsair and the Palace.