Man-Trap

VII

A block from the house I pulled my car over to the curb, switched on the dome light and read the note Mrs. Jones had dropped in my lap.

It said: “Meet me at the Sheridan Lounge at eleven P.M.” Nothing more, not even a signature.

My wrist watch said a quarter of nine. I decided to employ the two and a quarter hours before my date to wash and change my shirt.

As no garage comes with my flat, I keep my Plymouth at a public garage up the street.

At nine I put my car away for the night and started to walk to my apartment, deciding to take a taxi for my date. I can only drive a car so long before the strain on my thigh muscles caused by operating the accelerator with my false foot begins to cause my thigh to ache.

As I passed the areaway between my place and the building next door, a dim figure stepped from between the buildings and a hand flash shined in my face. Immediately it flicked out again.

“Night watchman,” explained a cheery voice.

Peering through the gloom, I made out a big, chunkily built man with a battered but good-natured face.

“You must be new. What’s the matter with Jim?”

“Sick. You’re Mr. Moon, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Idly I wondered why he wasn’t in uniform, since the block’s regular night watchman was a deputized member of the force. I should also have wondered how he knew my name, but his cheery manner threw me off guard.

The man touched his cloth cap. “Bit dark tonight. Evening, sir.”

“Night,” I said, and walked on two steps.

What felt like a baseball bat, but was probably the flashlight, caught me behind the ear.

I didn’t black out; I only lost the ability to control my arms and legs. Falling forward, I landed on hands and knees, and when a big hand grasped my collar and dragged me into the areaway, I was powerless to do anything about it.

Leaning me against the side of the building in a sitting position, the big man peered down at me with a grin. I gazed up at him stunned, unable to move either arm.

“I ain’t gonna kill you,” the man said. “Just make you even uglier than you are. And when you wake up, remember to stay out of Barney Seldon’s hair. Got that?”

I tried to shake my head, but it only lolled forward.

“I guess you got it,” he decided. “Now I’ll learn you how to kick a field goal.” Tentatively he swung his right foot to limber it up, and added, “Your head is the ball.”

Apparently he was satisfied that he was in kicking shape. With a kind of morbid fascination I watched his foot swing back and his body lean slightly forward to balance it.

My eyes were fixed on the foot, and as it reached the peak of its backswing, a hand snaked from the darkness and clamped about the ankle. The foot went even higher than it intended, the fake watchman’s mouth popped open in surprise and he fell flat on his face.

Before he could scramble as far as his hands and knees, a long lanky form settled in the middle of his back and the new arrival slashed downward with the edge of one palm.

Farmer Cole arose, ran his tongue along the edge of his buck teeth and regarded me without expression. “He got you with a rabbit punch,” he said. “Paralyzed, aren’t you?”

I managed a thick, “Yes.”

“It’ll pass in a minute.”

He stood watching both of us without any particular interest until feeling began to return to my limbs. When my arms and legs would again work, I felt the lump behind my ear and shakily climbed to my feet. Unreasonably I felt irritation rather than gratitude at the Farmer’s sudden appearance.

“When I need a nursemaid, I’ll let you know,” I said between clenched teeth.

He glanced down at the still unconscious strong-arm man, raised one eyebrow and shrugged. “Boss’s orders, Bud. Personally I don’t care who busts you up. Wouldn’t mind doing it myself.”

“That I’d like to see,” I said, staggering forward and thrusting out my jaw.

“O.K.,” he obliged, planting a left hook on it.

When I was able to get to my feet the second time, Farmer Cole was nowhere in sight. Shaking the cobwebs out of my brain, I frisked my first assailant, who had progressed to the point of groaning and rolling over on his back.

The guy had come prepared for any contingency. Removing from his pockets a gun, a clasp knife, a set of brass knuckles and a sap, I stacked them in a neat pile a dozen feet away. When I returned, he was sitting up rubbing the back of his neck.

I waited until he had fully recovered his faculties and was on his feet. He glanced around carefully and asked, “Where’s the other guy?”

“Gone,” I said. “There’s just you and me.”

He allowed a delighted smile to form on his battered lips. “How come you didn’t take off too?”

“Curiosity,” I told him. “I want to see if you can do it when my back isn’t turned.”

He shook his head wonderingly. “I’m almost ashamed to do it, Bud. I got thirty pounds on you, and I used to be a professional.”

“So was I,” I admitted modestly.

“Aw, let’s call it off,” he said. “Shake on it.”

He stuck out a huge right I grinned and pretended to reach for it Instantly his left whistled toward my head, I stepped inside, pushed a right jab into his belly, followed with a left uppercut and right and left hooks to the jaw in rapid succession.

In his prime he couldn’t have been more than a tanker, and now he was getting soft. On the other hand I had once been fairly hot in the ring. Not nearly as hot as I thought at the time, now that I look back on it, but nevertheless better than the average club fighter. In spite of a false leg I still have most of my coordination, and it was no match. He was staggering like a drunk after the first flurry.

Ordinarily I am not sadistic, but Barney Seldon had ordered his goon to leave permanent marks, and I felt the least I could do in return was leave temporary ones. I could have put him away with the second hook, but I kept him awake and deliberately cut him to ribbons.

When he was ready for the hospital, I went up to my apartment and called a police ambulance. Then, while waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I phoned Warren Day again.

“Are you going to keep this up all night?” he demanded. “I don’t work on the night shift.”

“How does this strike you?” I asked, ignoring his complaint. “This evening before I called you the first time, I questioned Barney Seldon about the Lancaster killing. A little while ago one of his goons tried to beat me up.”

“How do you know it was his goon?”

“He took pains to inform me before he went to work. It was supposed to scare me out of Barney’s hair.”

“Hmm,” the inspector said. “Think I’ll talk to Barney again. Where’s the goon?”

“Outside waiting for an ambulance.”

“You preferring charges?”

“You’re damn right,” I said. “Against both the goon and Barney. We have enough local hoods to worry about without letting a couple of out-of-town punks get away with anything.”

“Fine,” he said, pleased with me for a change. “I’ll have Barney picked up if he’s still in town, and you can swear out a complaint in the morning.”

I knew what pleased him, and it wasn’t my sentiments about out-of-towners. He was simply glad of an excuse to hold the mobster while he worked him over about the Lancaster killing.

I said, “You haven’t inquired about my damages. If I didn’t know you regarded me practically as a foster son, I’d suspect you weren’t worried.”

Day grunted. “Where’d you get hit?”

“In the head. Twice.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” he growled, and hung up.

I stood at the bar in the Sheridan from ten of eleven until a quarter after, and was about to forget the whole thing and leave when Mrs. Jones came in from the street door. Smiling in my direction, she made straight for a corner table. I moved over from the bar and joined her.

Curiously she eyed the black and blue mark which had formed on my chin. “What happened to your face?”

“I had to break another date to get here. The woman was angry.”

She grinned at me. “You got off easy. Break a date with me sometimes and see what happens to you.”

A white-coated waiter glided over to our table and bent from the waist, then waited soundlessly.

Mrs. Jones said, “Half a shot of Scotch, half a shot of bourbon, and water. Two of them.”

“One of them,” I corrected. “And a rye and water.”

When the waiter moved off, I said, “Well, Mrs. Jones?”

“Don’t be so formal. My name’s Isobel.”

“All right. Isobel. How’d you get out of the house?”

“Walked out. Harlan goes to bed on the stroke of ten, and an earthquake couldn’t wake him. We have separate rooms, so if I leave the house after ten-thirty, he never knows it.” She laughed aloud, enjoying her cleverness. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Tire waiter brought our drinks and neither of us spoke until he departed again.

Then I asked, “What’s on your mind, Isobel?”

She looked at me archly. “What’s on your mind?”

“Sleep, mainly,” I said dryly. “But I can spare a few minutes.”

She pouted. “If you’re going to be mean, I wish I hadn’t come.”

“I’m not being mean. But I assume you have something to tell me, or you wouldn’t be here. Spill it and I’ll be playful with you afterward.”

“How playful?”

I said cautiously, “As much as you can be in a place as public as the Sheridan.”

“Don’t you have an apartment?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But it’s only one room and my poor old mother is a light sleeper.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

“So what’s on your mind?” I asked again. Reluctantly she brought her thoughts around to business. “It’s about Willard Knight. You’re wasting your time looking for him. He couldn’t possibly have killed that man last night.”

“Why not?”

“He just couldn’t have.”

I waited for more, but apparently no more was forthcoming.

“Look, Isobel,” I said finally. “You’re a nice gal in an unbalanced sort of way, and I’d enjoy wasting time with you if I wasn’t busy looking for a killer. What do you expect me to do now? Say thanks very much and forget Knight?”

She nodded vigorously. “I’m sure he’s innocent.”

“Why? Do you know where he was last night?”

“I know he wasn’t near that night club.”

“How do you know? Were you with him?”

She looked offended. “If you’re intimating I’d have an affair with anyone,” she said with illogical virtue, “I’ll have you know I’m a respectable married woman. I just know Willard Knight wouldn’t commit murder.”

At that moment a tall, shaggy-haired man with a gaunt, Lincolnesque face entered the bar from the hotel’s downstairs hall. Isobel emitted a small shriek when she saw him. I looked at her inquiringly, noticing her face lose color.

“What’s the matter?”

“That man!” She faltered, then went on. “I know him. I mean he knows me. He’ll see us together.”

I glanced over at the man who was approaching the bar. “And tell your husband?”

“No, not that. I mean yes, he’ll tell my husband.” She was so agitated, she didn’t know what she meant.

When the man reached the bar, he turned and glanced casually around the room. His eyes stopped at our table, blazed with amazement, and at once he moved directly toward us. He kept his gaze unwaveringly on Isobel’s face until the edge of our table prevented him from getting any closer to her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked harshly.

Isobel’s face had turned dead white. “This... This is Mr. Moon. George Smith, Mr. Moon.”

I looked him over. “Sit down and have a drink, George.”

Paying no attention to me, he repeated. “What are you doing here?”

Isobel said desperately, “Mr. Moon and I are having a business meeting. It’s... well, he’s a private detective.”

Smith’s eyes swung sharply down at me. He gave me a thorough examination, shifted his glance back at Isobel, and comprehension broke over his face.

“Hired by your husband, was he?” he asked, and when she simply looked at him blankly, added, “And now he’s offering to sell you the data he’s collected instead of turning it over to your husband.”

I said in a bored tone, “Back off of that one fast, Buster, or you’ll find your teeth all over the floor.”

Isobel didn’t even know what we were talking about. In a bewildered voice she said, “Mr. Moon is hunting a murderer. That Lancaster affair that was in all the papers. I’m just one of hundreds of witnesses he’s questioning.”

Again Smith looked down at me. “Hundreds, eh? You question them all in night clubs?”

“About the blackmail crack,” I reminded him. “Take all the time you want to apologize. Anything up to three seconds.”

He started to form a sneer on his face, then changed his mind and said indifferently, “I withdraw the remark. Nice seeing you again, Isobel. Give my regards to what’s-his-name, your husband.”

Without another word he turned and left the room by the same way he had entered.

Isobel was sliding from her chair, collecting her bag and gloves as she moved. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

Dropping two one dollar bills on the table, I followed her through the street exit. She made straight for a cab standing at the curb, glancing nervously over her shoulder once before climbing through the door I held open.

“Where to?” I asked when I had joined her.

“Anywhere. Just so it’s far.”

To the cab driver I said, “Straight ahead three blocks.”

“You sending me home?” she asked as we pulled away.

“Yeah.”

She looked once through the taxi’s rear window, then, seeming to regain composure, leaned her head against my shoulder.

“Don’t send me home,” she said.

“It’s nearly midnight.”

“Let’s at least ride for awhile.”

I shrugged, then said to the driver, “Keep going and swing through Midland Park. And don’t rush.”

We both remained silent as the cab rolled along Park Lane. What she was thinking about, I don’t know, but I was thinking I had wasted an evening. Isobel Jones gradually was taking form in my mind as a woman who grabbed at every passing man she saw. I was relatively certain she had been having some kind of affair with Willard Knight, for she did not impress me as the type of woman who would go to the defense of a man merely because he was her husband’s partner. And it also seemed certain the character we had just left at the Sheridan was, or had been a man in her life. Possibly, judging from her agitation at seeing him, one she was trying to ditch.

To clinch it, she was making a mild pass at me. Women don’t pass at men with faces like mine unless they are in the habit of instinctively passing at every man.

We crossed Mason Avenue and moved slowly along the sweepingly curved drives of the park. It was a moonless night, but brilliant starlight barely prevented it from being pitch black.

“Put your arm around me,” she demanded.

I put my arm around her.

She turned up her face and closed her eyes. Her lips pursed expectantly, and I grinned down at her until she finally popped her eyes open. She looked cross when she saw my grin.

“Kiss me,” she said sharply.

I gave her a short, careless kiss, then pushed her erect and removed my arm. “Look me up between murders.”

She watched me uncertainly, chewing her lower lip. “Take me home,” she decided suddenly.

The cab driver half turned in his seat. “Car without lights following.”

Craning to peer through the rear window, I saw it about a half block back. It kept the same distance while I watched it for two more blocks.

“Want me to lose him?” our driver asked.

“No. Take the lady home.”

The rest of the trip we made in silence. Isobel periodically glanced through the rear window at our shadow, her face nervous and her brow puckered thoughtfully. As we neared her home, she asked the driver to let her out at the corner.

Getting out first, I held the door for her. Our tail, suddenly switching on his lights, rolled past as though he had no interest in our doings. It was a taxicab.

“That must be your friend, George,” I said to Isobel. “What’s on his mind?”

She shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”

She watched the taxi’s tail light until it disappeared around the next corner, then abruptly said good-bye and nearly ran toward her house. I got in the front seat with the driver and told him the address of my flat.

As we turned into Grand Avenue, the cab driver said, “Our friend’s with us again.”

“Let him enjoy himself.”

I didn’t even bother to look around. When we reached my flat, the trailing taxi pulled in right behind us, his bumper nearly against ours. As I paid off my driver, I watched from the side of my eyes and saw George Smith step from the other cab. My driver pulled away and I waited for George to make a move. But when he merely glowered from under shaggy brows, I grinned at him and started up the walk toward the apartment house door.

George caught up just as I reached it. I held the door for him to follow me into the lobby, then faced him, waiting.

His angry eyes burned up and down my frame as though he were calculating his chances. They halted at my jaw line, and suddenly he swung.

My knees bent just enough so that his fist skimmed off my hat. A short left jab into his exposed ribs swooshed the air out of him. Then I snapped erect, crashed a right hook to his jaw, and he spun like a top. The second time around he pitched forward and I caught him in my arms. I lowered him gently to a seated position with his back against the wall.

When he returned to this world, I was seated on the lowest steps puffing a cigar. He wagged his head a few times, felt his jaw and focused his eyes at me with difficulty.

“Sleep well?” I asked.

He eyed me with distaste. “I ought to knock your block off.”

I blew smoke at him. “You can keep trying. But you’ll only end up punchy. What’s your grudge?”

Struggling to his feet, he groped for the outer door handle to hold himself up. “Stay away from Isobel,” he said.

“Why?”

He leaned toward me, nearly lost his balance and recovered. “Because I’ll beat your brains out if you go near her again.” His eyes burned with an emotion I suddenly realized was jealousy.

“Why, you’re in love with her, aren’t you?” I asked softly.

“That’s some more of your business,” he snarled, and pushing through the door, was gone.