Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1953

The Lesser Evil by Richard Deming

It sounded like a good idea: team up with the small-time crooks to keep the big-time crooks from invading the town...

I always said it would take an unusual situation to put me on the side of any mug, but Frank Durant came up with such an unusual situation I ended up siding with three of them.

“It’s a question of choosing a lesser evil, Mr. Moon,” he told me. “If you sit back without taking a hand, this town will be syndicated in a year. Certainly none of us local boys have got the stuff to make the syndicate back down.”

Though Frank Durant was kingpin of the local bookies by virtue of controlling the wire service in town, he didn’t look like a racketeer. He looked like the deacon of a church, which as a matter of fact he was, for he took active part in church affairs in order to cloud the truth that he was a mug.

He had caught me coming out of my apartment house in search of lunch, and presented his proposition as he accompanied me the four blocks to the restaurant I was currently patronizing.

He said, “This is a fairly clean town at present, Mr. Moon, mainly because we local boys don’t step on each other’s toes. I stick to horses, Max Gruder keeps his nose out of everything but the numbers, and Harry Delanco confines himself to slots and a few floating crap games. Vice and dope are both unorganized, and the cops make it uncomfortable for what little there is. You might say there isn’t any organized crime in its usual sense.”

I said, “Five hundred book shops sounds organized to me.”

“Only four eighty,” he said quickly. “But think what you’d have if a national syndicate moved in. A thousand bookies, every industry and business place in town flooded with numbers tickets, slots in every tavern, wide open gambling, vice and dope shops. You want that sort of thing?”

“No. But it takes paid-off cops to make a town wide open, and no syndicate has enough money to buy Chief George Chester.”

Durant smiled at me benignly. “You’ve never seen them work, Mr. Moon. They’ll gather together all us local boys, tell us how much more we’ll make under syndicate auspices, and if we squawk, push us out and put their own boys in. At the start they won’t expand activities. They’ll just feel out the town, line up politicians they can get to. When it’s all cased, they’ll start pouring in money. Millions of it. They’ll buy aldermen, ward committeemen, everybody they can reach who has a finger in politics. And by the time of next election, they’ll have enough stooges to take over the whole city administration. George Chester won’t even have a job.”

I frowned sidewise at him. “If the syndicate can bring you more money, what’s your objection? You’ve never turned down a dishonest nickel before.”

He looked at me reproachfully. “I have a certain amount of civic consciousness, Mr. Moon.”

When I snorted, he added candidly, “Max, Harry and I got more money than we can spend now. We’d rather be top men in a small setup than employees in a big one.”

“So what makes you think I can help you?”

“If the syndicate thought there was an organized local group willing to fight, they might figure it wasn’t worth the battle. Max Gruder, Harry Delanco and I talked it over and decided none of us would make much impression on this Marty Swan the syndicate is sending to line us up. But you’ve made the news wire services at least twice for knocking off hoods who were supposed to be so tough even the Feds were afraid to go after them in less than platoon strength. Marty Swan will know who you are, and he’ll listen to you because he’ll figure you’re at least as tough as he is.”

I said, “What am I supposed to do? Make a face at this Marty Swan? You’ve got an exaggerated idea of my reputation if you think it will scare a whole syndicate.”

“No, no, Mr. Moon. You’re just to be the spokesman. You’re to give Swan the impression all the local boys are solidly organized under you to resist the syndicate. If we convince him you’re top man of a sizeable army of guns, he’ll think twice before committing the syndicate to a pitched battle.”

When I didn’t say anything for a few moments, he went on. “We picked you for the psychological effect, Mr. Moon. Not only have you a reputation for being tough, you’re ug... ah... you look tough. None of us would make much of an impression on a big operator like Marty Swan, but we think you would. It’s worth five thousand to us if you’ll try it.”

We reached the restaurant and stopped in front.

“I’ll take a crack at it,” I said abruptly. “Not because I like you or either of your mug pals, but because you’re just what you called yourself. A lesser evil. And I’ll have the fee in advance.”

He was all prepared for me. He had five one-thousand-dollar bills in his wallet.

As befitted his social position as one of the important lice in the vermin world, Marty Swan had an entire suite at the Jefferson. Not anticipating trouble, he had brought along only one bodyguard, and the two of them were roughing it together in the five room, fifty-dollar-a-day suite.

The bodyguard met me at the door. He was a burly man over six feet tall with wide shoulders and arms as thick as my neck.

“You’re Mr. Moon, I guess,” he decided after studying the bent nose and drooping eyelid I carry around as a permanent reminder to duck when anyone swings brass knuckles. Apparently he had been given my description. “The boss is expecting you. I’m Bugs.”

“I’m a little nuts myself,” I told him.

For a moment he looked at me puzzledly. Then he threw back his head and emitted a guffaw which shook the walls. It stopped abruptly and he led the way through a sitting room to a wide balcony which overlooked the park across the street.

As we stepped out through the French doors, Bugs said, “This guy is a card, Boss. Wait’ll I tell you the crack he just made.”

The man seated on a lounge chair on the balcony rose, said in a quiet voice, “Save it, Bugs,” and extended his hand. “Glad to see you, Mr. Moon.”

Marty Swan was as gaunt and gray as an alley cat, and about as predatory as an alley cat too. He sent Bugs off to order drinks sent up, resumed his seat and waved me to an identical one next to it.

“I was rather surprised when Durant, Gruder and Delanco all told me you were representing them, Mr. Moon,” Swan said. “I was under the impression there wasn’t much local organization here.”

“There is now,” I told him. “I have authority to deal with the syndicate.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said pleasantly. “We’ve been afraid no one in the local setup was strong enough to hold the town together. We contemplated moving a syndicate man in to head things up.”

Bugs appeared in the doorway and leaned against one side of it with his hands in his pockets. “Drinks will be right up,” he said.

Marty Swan nodded without looking at him. “I’m familiar with your record, Mr. Moon, and I’m sure you’re strong enough to keep the top spot. We won’t bother bringing in a syndicate organizer.”

“Don’t bother bringing in anybody from your syndicate,” I told him casually.

His expression did not change, but there was a sudden alertness about him. From the doorway Bugs frowned at me.

Swan said, “I don’t follow.”

“It’s simple,” I said. “I like the status quo. If you try to move in, you’ll have to make it a military operation. I got fifty guns taking orders from me, and as of tomorrow, after you leave town, every syndicate gunnie who shows up here will be met by a slug. I don’t want your syndicate.”

Bugs straightened, scowled at me, removed his hands from his pockets and began fiddling with the top button of his coat. Coincidentally this put his hand within inches of his armpit.

“Get the idea out of your head,” I told him. “I could count to three and still beat you.”

Swan glanced at his bodyguard sharply. “Don’t try anything foolish, Bugs. This is a friendly discussion.”

“Sure it is,” I agreed, rising from my chair. “But it’s all over. I won’t wait for my drink. You’ve got the point, haven’t you, Swan? Tomorrow. Noon by the latest.”

His lips formed a thin smile. “Suppose the syndicate insists?”

I shrugged. “Then it better stock up on coffins.” To Bugs I said, “Move aside, son. I want to go home.”

I think he was preparing to move before I spoke, but the “son” stopped him, which was just what I hoped it would do. Marty Swan had talked to too many tough guys to be impressed by mere words, and I wanted to leave a more solid impression.

Bugs’ flat eyes glittered at me as he settled himself in the doorway. Without taking his gaze from my face he said, “We gonna take this from a small-town punk, Boss? Or shall I teach him respect for his elders?”

Before Swan could reply, I let Bugs have a backhand left across the mouth. It was not a hard blow, just enough to rock back his head and make him blink. His hand dived under his coat.

As I had warned him, I was somewhat faster than he. He was looking at my cocked P-38 before his hand more than touched his own gun. Carefully he dropped both hands to his sides.

I jabbed my pistol barrel into his stomach, and when he bent in the middle, I smashed the barrel across the center of his face. Staggering back, he fell to one knee and stared up with incredulous disbelief that anyone would dare use him so. His nose was a pulp from which blood spurted downward and both eyes were going to be black.

I let him know it hadn’t been an impulsive mistake by casually kicking him beneath the chin. Below the knee my right leg ends in a stump to which is strapped a contrivance of cork and aluminum. It packs a heavier wallop than a flesh and blood foot, and it literally lifted Bugs off the floor.

I dropped the hammer to quarter cock, put the P-38 back under my arm, nodded politely to Marty Swan, and stepped over the unconscious bodyguard.

My job was now completed, and anything which resulted was between the syndicate and the local mobs. Either Marty Swan would report to the syndicate the local setup would require too big a war to make taking it over worth while, or he would start importing gunmen. Either way the decision would be based on cold percentages, without revenge being a factor. I hoped the surprise of encountering apparently solid and organized resistance where he had expected to meet none would swing him toward the former decision.

I went to sleep on that thought, and awakened the next morning just in time to catch the radio report that Max Gruder and Harry Delanco had been killed and Frank Durant wounded in a triple gangland machine-gunning.

With the short hairs along the base of my neck standing straight out, I listened to how Max Gruder had gotten it just before midnight as he stepped from a night club, a few minutes later Harry Delanco had been sprayed through an open window while supervising one of his basement crap games, and a few minutes after that Frank Durant had been wounded by machine-gun fire on his own doorstep. According to the newscaster the latter, accompanied by his younger brother, Dr. Charles Durant, was just ascending the steps of the home where they both lived when a machine-gunner in a passing car fired with such accuracy he nailed the racketeer without even scratching his brother.

“Both Gruder and Delanco died instantly of the assassin’s bullets,” the radio reporter said. “Durant, struck in the leg, shoulder and chest, probably owes his life to the quick action of his physician brother, who carried him into the infirmary attached to the house, administered plasma to combat shock and immediately dressed the wounds. His condition too critical to risk removal to a hospital, Durant remains in his brother’s infirmary under heavy police guard.

“No motive is yet known for the triple shooting. Tentatively the police ascribe it to gangland vengeance, since all three victims are known to have underworld connections. So far the survivor’s condition has prevented questioning by the police.”

Still in my robe and slippers, I checked both the front and back doors of my apartment to make sure they remained soundly bolted, then consumed a pot of coffee while I tried to figure out where the shootings put me.

In the soup, was the first answer I got, but after further cogitation I began to wonder if they put me anywhere at all. If Marty Swan had swallowed my act, I should have been first victim on the list, yet I had slept next to an open window less than a dozen feet off the ground without even being bothered by a mosquito.

I was still ruminating over this oddity forty-five minutes later when I parked in front of the Durant home, a three story building as broad as it was tall.

A sign on the ten foot iron gate in front read Dr. Charles Durant, M.D. Beneath it was another sign simply stating Frank Durant, and beneath them both stood a uniformed cop.

The cop was just telling me no one was allowed in when a sleek convertible pulled up and a thin man got out, carrying a black medical bag.

The man peered at me in surprise and asked, “You Manville Moon?”

I admitted I was.

“I’m Dr. Durant, Frank’s brother. We must have passed each other, for I just stopped at your flat. Frank wants to see you.” To the cop he said, “It’s all right, officer. Friend of my brother’s.”

I followed him up a flagstone walk and into a wide front hall, noticing as we entered the scars of a half dozen machine gun bullets in the wood to one side of the entrance. A fat butler appeared, took the doctor’s bag and my hat and went away again.

“Generally use the side entrance into my infirmary waiting room,” the doctor said. “But now it’s full of police and reporters. This thing has played hob with my practice. Police won’t let patients past the gate, so I’ve had to make fifteen home calls already today, and it’s barely noon.”

He led me through a half dozen rooms to the rear of the house and opened a door into a small surgery. Two other doors, one on either side, led into the surgery, and from the drone of conversation coming through the one on the right, I judged this led into the waiting room containing the police guards and reporters Dr. Durant had complained about.

He opened the door on the left and motioned me into an infirmary containing two hospital beds. In one of the beds, sitting upright with his back against a pillow and smoking a cigar, was Frank Durant.

Before I could recover from the surprise of finding a man who was supposedly in critical condition so healthy, I got another surprise. The white uniformed nurse sitting in a straight chair next to the bed casually elevated her face and the doctor planted a preoccupied kiss on her lips.

The doctor’s preoccupation startled me as much as the act itself. I had an idea it was not a requirement of professional ethics for a doctor to greet the nurse on one of his cases with a kiss, but as long as he was doing it, I couldn’t understand his lack of enthusiasm. She was a flaming redhead with glowing green eyes and a torso which would have made her a menace to any patient with high blood pressure. When my eyes got down that far, I noticed she had nice legs too.

Dr. Durant immediately cleared up the mystery of the kiss by introducing the nurse as his wife.

“Ann doesn’t practice any more,” he said brusquely. “But she’s still registered, and under the circumstances I didn’t want to bring in a strange nurse.”

I turned my attention to the second mystery. “I thought you were half dead, Durant?”

He grinned at me. “Only about a quarter.” Unbuttoning his pajama tops, he exposed bandages strapped to his shoulder and across his chest. “Got another on my leg,” he said ruefully. “But they’re all three flesh wounds. Guess I’m the luckiest guy who ever got machine-gunned. Charlie says I can be up in a week.”

I asked puzzledly, “Why the report you’re knocking at death’s door?”

“To gain time. Keep the cops off my neck until we can plan out this war. That’s why I sent Charlie after you.”

“Plan it after I get out of here,” the doctor interrupted. “My wife and I don’t want to be accessories. Come on, Ann.”

Her green eyes gleamed up at him. “I’d love to be an accessory,” she said in a venomous purr. “I’d like any kind of excitement which might make me better appreciate the quiet beauty of our marriage. But you run along, darling, and keep your conventional little nose clean.”

Flushing, the doctor stared at her, then turned and left the room.

The patient frowned at his nurse. “Charlie’s going to surprise you some day, Ann, and bust you square in your beautiful mouth.”

“Shut up or I’ll give you another enema,” she said amiably.

Frank grinned at her and she grinned back. Apparently relations between the woman and her brother-in-law were better than between her husband and herself.

I said, “I don’t follow your reference to we a minute ago, Durant. I’m not planning to get involved in any war.”

Drawing on his cigar, he blew a calm stream of smoke toward me. “You’re already involved, Mr. Moon. With the syndicate believing you’re top man, you think they’ll be satisfied with less than a clean sweep?”

“I think they’ve already guessed it was a bluff. Or else someone spilled. If they thought I was really top man, they’d have come after me before shooting up you underlings.”

He frowned at me, rolled the cigar between his lips thoughtfully and muttered, “I been counting on you to really head up the resistance. You leave me in a spot if you walk out while I’m flat on my back.”

“Walk out? I never walked in except for one performance.”

“All right,” he said in an agreeable tone. “But if you change your mind, drop back at seven tonight. I’m holding a meeting with Gruder’s and Delanco’s lieutenants and one of my own boys to work out a consolidated fighting plan.”

“How you going to get them in past the cops?” I asked.

He grinned again. “They’re coming as guests of Dr. and Mrs. Charles Durant.” Then his grin faded. “Even if you’re not siding with us, you won’t let it out that I’m not as sick as reported, will you, Mr. Moon?”

I told him I would cooperate that far unless they put me under oath.

On my way out I met Inspector Warren Day and his satellite, Lieutenant Hannegan, coming in the gate. The Chief of Homicide dipped his skinny head to peer at me over his glasses, aimed the unlighted cigar in his mouth at my nose and demanded, “You got a client in this mess, Moon?”

“Sure,” I said. “The guy who shot Gruder, Delanco and Durant.”

The inspector said a word frequently used in parlor conversation. Pool parlor, that is.

Needling Inspector Warren Day always leaves me mildly exhilarated, and I was almost happy when I returned my car to the garage and began to walk back to my flat. My feeling of exhilaration lasted until I reached the walk leading to the door of the apartment house, then was subdued by a gentleman in a blue sedan with a machine gun.

The car shot toward the curb so fast, I didn’t even have time to get scared until it was all over. I caught the glint of a Tommy gun barrel, without even thinking realized there was nothing to drop behind and no holes to fall into, and instinctively dived straight toward the gun, beyond it and into the gutter behind the car.

There was a chattering roar, followed by the throb of a powerful motor, as the car spurted away and wheeled around the next corner. As I picked myself up, I noticed with some surprise I had a gun in my hand.

I put it away, then noticed with even more surprise the lawn I share with the other tenants was chewed up a good six feet from the walk where I had been standing. Apparently my swan dive had been unnecessary, because the machine-gunner would have missed me anyway.

A quick glance around told me no one at all was in sight. It was impossible that no one would have heard the shots, however, and without waiting for the crowd which would inevitably gather, I walked swiftly to the alley, marched up it and made my apartment by the rear door. Locking myself in, I had a double shot of rye to settle my nerves, then found Dr. Charles Durant’s number in the phone book and dialed it.

Assuming that as a matter of course the police would have tapped the line, I asked the butler for Mrs. Durant.

When the soft purr of her voice tickled my ear, I said, “Manny Moon, Mrs. Durant. I’ve discovered I’ll be able to keep that dinner appointment after all. Was seven the time?”

“Yes, seven. The doctor will be delighted that you’re able to come. I’ll let the police guard know so you won’t have any trouble getting in.”

They probably knew the minute I made the statement, I thought, but forbore making the comment aloud. After all, wire tapping is illegal, and I didn’t want to make the listening cop blush.

The red-haired nurse was present during the entire meeting that night. Frank Durant made a halfhearted attempt to chase her out when we got down to business, but acquiesced to her argument that she had to remain in case one of the cops or reporters in the waiting room got nosy and knocked on the door. Obviously her real reason for wanting to stay was that she was thrilled to death at being in on a bit of gangland planning.

Since Durant agreed to his sister-in-law’s presence, I made no objection. In fact I thought she added a pleasant note to an otherwise drab gathering, for none of the others present could be described as joys to look at.

Buttons Sharkey, Frank Durant’s number one strong-arm man, was a heavy-set man with a bullet head and the expression of a person just coming out of anesthesia. The name Buttons was a misnomer, for he definitely lacked most of his.

Tall, lank and slow moving Hub Topping, lieutenant of the deceased Max Gruder and now presumably top man in the numbers racket, had a long sad face and eyes as blank as a dead man’s. He had at least two killings to his credit and gave the impression of patiently awaiting an opportunity to add to his score.

Little Joe Tecca, right bower of the dead Harry Delanco, was barely five feet two, narrow shouldered and with a pinched and wizened face perennially set in a meaningless grin. He was probably the most dangerous of the three because he was so unpredictable. Besides having a violent temper out of all proportion to his size, fie was a cokie and was usually hopped to the eyebrows.

The first part of the meeting was over fast. Both Little Joe Tecca and Hub Topping admitted they could not fight the syndicate alone, and agreed to pool forces with Durant at least long enough to push their common enemy out of town. They were not so agreeable about having me run the show, however, but Durant brought them around by reminding them if they didn’t stick together, they’d all end up in an alley.

“And neither of you think you could general this war, do you?” he asked.

Both were candid enough to admit they couldn’t.

I took this as acquiescence to my leadership, and took over the rest of the meeting. I started by bluntly informing them, just to keep the record straight, they were still mugs in my book and I didn’t like them any better than they liked me.

“This is a marriage of convenience, not love,” I told them. “Step out of line just once and you’ll think the syndicate is a society for brotherly love.”

They understood this language. In fact they understood no other. They looked sullen, but they also looked cooperative.

Then we got down to military strategy. It developed the three lieutenants together had under them a total of thirty-seven guns.

“Any of you have boys originally from Chicago?” I asked.

Buttons said, “I got a couple.”

“New Orleans?”

“One,” Little Joe Tecca offered.

“L.A.?”

All three had immigrants from L.A. on their payrolls.

I went down the list of all the major cities from which the syndicate might import gunmen until we had a fairly complete roster of local men who were familiar enough with the mentioned cities to be able to recognize at least some of the better known hoods if they started drifting into town.

“I want these guys assigned to check every incoming bus, train and plane from their home towns,” I ordered. “The minute they spot a syndicate man, I want him taken alive.”

“What’s that for?” Buttons asked. “Why not just bump him?”

“You’d make a lousy general,” I told him. “When you don’t know the enemy’s next move, the first thing you do is capture a live prisoner and pump some information out of him.”

“Oh. I got you.” His undersized eyes glittered. “Cigarettes on the soles of the feet, huh?”

I looked at him coldly. “If we net anything, I’ll do the questioning.”

Then I told them I wanted everyone in their organizations who wasn’t on spotting duty to start feeling out the town to find out where Marty Swan and whatever other syndicate men he had with him were holed up. When they looked at me as though I had handed them an impossible assignment, I patiently outlined it for them.

I told Buttons Sharkey, “Yesterday Durant said he services four hundred and eighty book shops. If you average three men to a spot, you’ve got nearly fifteen hundred guys you can start looking.” I turned to Hub Topping. “There must be at least five thousand guys running numbers tickets for you. The three of you are sitting on top of a grapevine that reaches into every nook and cranny in town. Shake the fuzz out of your brains and use it.”

They looked at me with awe. Their combined I.Q.s I guessed would add up to about one hundred, which is normal. Normal for one person, that is.

“As soon as you learn anything, phone me. My apartment is listed in the book. Don’t phone here, because the police probably have Durant’s phone tapped. Any questions?”

They shook their heads dumbly.

“Then scram out of here and get to work. And look where you’re going. I wouldn’t want you to bump into any soft-nosed bullets before you get your jobs done.”

Buttons Sharkey and Hub Topping snapped to instant obedience, departing with frowns of concentration marring the normal blankness of their expressions. But Little Joe Tecca lingered.

“You don’t have to treat us like we’re idiots or something, Moon,” he said resentfully.

“Mister Moon, Tecca. Don’t drop it again, or I’ll knock your head off. I’m not treating you like idiots. Idiots have only the mental development of two year olds. I’m treating you like morons, who have the mental development of ten year olds. Want to make something out of it?”

He blinked at me, for a moment undecided whether he did or not, then decided he didn’t and departed after the rest.

Ann Durant started to accompany me to the front door, but we didn’t make it all the way. As we passed through the dining room, which was half dark, its gloom cut only by what light filtered in from the hall beyond it, she pointed out a sideboard well stocked with bottles and asked if I’d like a drink. A subtle note of intimacy in the invitation warned me I had better not accept it.

“Not tonight, thanks,” I said.

She stopped me by putting a hand on my arm. “Don’t be in such a hurry, Mr. Moon. Why do you insist on the mister?”

“That’s only for mugs. You can call me anything you want if you don’t do it in baby talk.”

“I think I like Manny,” she decided. “Isn’t that what your friends call you? You know, Manny, I was quite impressed by the way you ordered around those gangsters. They are gangsters, aren’t they? As long as Frank’s lived with us, I’ve never met any of his business associates before. Would you consider Frank a gangster, Manny? Let me give you a drink.”

As she rattled this out in a kind of compulsive monologue, she gently steered me toward the sideboard until we were both practically leaning against it. One hand rested on my shoulder, and while no other part of her touched me, I sensed without checking it would have been difficult to slide a dime between our bodies. When she said, “Let me give you a drink,” she said it with her lips two inches from mine, as though she were holding the drink in her mouth.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s started you rattling all of a sudden?”

Her green eyes gleamed up at me and I felt her free hand between us doing something to her starched white uniform. “Being alone with you in a dimly lighted room maybe.”

The hand went away from between us to rest on my other shoulder, I looked down and got a shock, though not exactly a surprise.

There were three buttons to the top of her uniform, but from the waist to the hem it was snapped. The three buttons were open, and as I looked she pressed both knees outward and the snaps came loose with a series of little popping sounds. She didn’t have a stitch on under the uniform.

She leaned away from me slightly to let me have a better look, arching her back to make her breasts jut upward. She had reason to be proud of them. In burlesque they would have made her a fortune.

Pushing her hands away from my shoulders, I said unsteadily, “If you were single I’d pour salt and pepper on you and eat you up, madam. But there are too many fish in the sea to swipe from another guy’s hook.”

There was a sudden sound of footsteps at the doorway behind Ann.

Both her hands moved so rapidly it made me blink. When she swung to stare at her husband haughtily, the three buttons were in place. The snaps, of course, were still loose, but he couldn’t see that as long as she stood still.

“Evening, Doctor,” I said casually. “Thanks for the offer anyway, Ann. The drink I mean.”

She glared at me furiously and stalked toward the infirmary.

Dr. Durant was still gazing at her with a set expression on his face when I brushed past him on the way to the front door.

The next morning I discovered my elaborate intelligence organization had netted not a single rumor. Buttons Sharkey, Little Joe Tecca and Hub Topping all phoned to tell me they had been unable to uncover evidence of a single syndicate man in town.

I ordered a systematic check of tourist courts within a radius of ten miles from the city.

At noon I got a long distance call from Marty Swan. It came from Elmsterville, Illinois, a little town ten miles beyond the river.

“Hear you’ve been having shooting over there, Mr. Moon,” he said.

“A little,” I admitted. “Nothing very bothersome.”

“Wonder if maybe the syndicate could give you a hand in straightening things out?”

“No thanks,” I said politely. “We’ll manage.”

“Hmm. Might save you a lot of trouble. We’ve got some pretty effective techniques in putting a stop to civil war.”

“So have we,” I informed him, and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later I had a carload of gunmen streaking toward Elmsterville. By four in the afternoon they were back with the report Swan must have used a pay phone while passing through town, for there was no sign of the advance man nor any other syndicate employee in Elmsterville.

When evening came, my elaborate defense setup had accomplished exactly nothing. I had not the vaguest idea how many syndicate guns we were up against, nor from what point the syndicate was operating. Mentally I reviewed the negative reports which had been pouring in all day, and again went over the conversation I had had over the phone with Marty Swan.

And then, in what I can modestly describe only as a flash of genius, I got the whole picture. I knew where the syndicate men we had been searching for were, I knew who had operated the decreasingly accurate machine gun, and I knew what a patsy I was for getting involved in a gang war.

I dialed the number of the Durant home and asked for Mrs. Durant.

When she came to the phone, I asked, “You have to stay by your patient’s side all the time, or can you manage to get out?”

“Why should you care?” she inquired coldly. “Aren’t any of those other fish in the sea biting tonight?”

“They’ve all got dates. And I’ve been sitting here all day talking myself out of last night’s scruples. I still have two more single girls to ask as soon as their lines stop giving a busy signal, but in case both of them are busy, how about meeting you?”

She gave an indignant little snort, then suddenly laughed. “With your technique, no wonder you’ve stayed single. Did a woman give you that bent nose and funny eyelid, by any chance?”

“My mother,” I said. “What time tonight?”

She was silent for a minute. “I really shouldn’t leave the house,” she said finally. “Why don’t you come here?” There was another pause before she said, “The doctor will be out on calls until at least one A.M.”

“Clear me with the gate guard and expect me at ten,” I told her.

When I arrived she led me to a small play room across the hall from the surgery. It was furnished like a cocktail lounge, complete with bar and glass topped tables. Over the door on the inside was a tiny frosted bulb in a socket fixed to the sill, which she explained was connected to a switch in the infirmary. If her patient needed her, the light would go on.

She indicated she wanted me to sit behind one of the glass topped tables on a leather bench running the length of one wall, and after mixing two drinks at the bar she slid in next to me. Although there was plenty of room on the bench, she crowded in so close her hip and thigh pressed against mine.

“To my transparent cavalier,” she said, raising her glass.

We drank to her transparent cavalier before I asked, “Who’s he?”

“You,” she told me. “I can see right through you. It wasn’t my lovely green eyes that brought you here tonight. You’ve got some ulterior motive, and you’ve drowned your scruples against married women because of it.”

I managed to look wounded.

Setting down her glass, she removed mine from my hand and set it on the table also. “Whatever you’re after, friend, you’re going to pay for it.” Putting a hand to either side of my face, she jerked my head around until my bent nose was aimed at her straight one.

I bent to kiss her, and Immediately had an armful of squirming wildcat. Her tongue explored my mouth with greedy expertness, suddenly drew away and small but uncomfortably sharp teeth gripped my ear.

“Hey!” I said.

Her hand fumbled with the buttons across her bosom and I heard the familiar popping of snaps.

Calmly, I drew her head to my shoulder and pulled shut the gaping uniform with a clenched hand.

“It’s not that I don’t like the view,” I explained. “But it distracts me. If I’m going to pay for information, let’s have the information first.”

The white uniform, inadequately held together at the waist by my hand, still exposed the full roundness of her breasts, her naked thighs and about half of one hip. I felt myself sweating and looked at the ceiling.

“Were you in the house when the machine gunner got Frank the other night?” I asked.

“Just coming home,” she said into my shoulder. “I’d been to the symphony while Frank and Charlie were at a stag. That’s one.”

“One what?”

“One payment you owe me.”

“Oh. None of the servants even got out of bed when it happened, did they?”

She shook her head. “They slept right through. Two.”

“Stop counting out loud, dammit. You arrived just as the shooting took place?”

“Just after. I heard the shots as I turned in the driveway gate. Was that four or five?”

“Three,” I said. “You think I’m a marathon champion? So you were present when your husband patched Frank up?”

“Oh yes. Four. Charlie put the car up for me, and then we took Frank into the infirmary together...” She stopped abruptly.

“Go on,” I said softly. “Your husband put the car up for you, leaving his brother lying there full of machine gun bullets. He must be a miraculous diagnostician to have been able to decide in the dark the wounds weren’t serious enough to require immediate treatment.”

I could feel her body stiffen. “I can’t make the sharp turn into the garage,” she mumbled against my neck. “He...” She hesitated and ended weakly, “He always puts the car up for me, and I guess with the excitement and all, he just did it automatically.”

“Wouldn’t it be automatic for a doctor to take care of a wounded patient?” I asked dryly.

Jerking my hand loose from her uniform, she wound her arms about my neck. “Don’t ask me any more questions,” she said.

The little frosted light over the door flicked on.

“Damn!” she said, and jumped up.

Rapidly buttoning and snapping herself, she hurried from the room.

She was gone ten minutes. When she came back we dropped the subject of Frank Durant’s shooting while I paid off like a gentleman. I was still evading her questions about why I was asking my questions when I left...

I had parked my car across the street, which in the darkness put it beyond the range of vision of the guard on the gate. I was pulling away from the curb before I discovered I had a passenger.

“Just keep both hands on the wheel and turn left at the next corner,” he said.

Glancing in the mirror, I could dimly make out the silhouette of Buttons Sharkey, Durant’s lieutenant, and the metallic glint of a pistol pointed at my back. I kept my hands on the wheel and turned left at the corner.

Two blocks from the river Buttons had me turn left again, and then into the open entrance of what seemed to be an empty warehouse. I stopped with my front bumper resting against the far wall.

Backing out first, Buttons covered me while I got out. Relieving me of my P-38, he ordered me to close the truck door by which we had entered, and while I was complying he flicked a switch which turned on a dim overhead light.

Glancing around the huge room we were in, I saw the walls were lined with slot machines, most of which seemed to lack handles or in some other respect require repairs.

“This must be Little Joe Tecca’s warehouse,” I remarked. “Haven’t you got a quiet place of your own to pull your killings, Buttons?”

“This is good enough,” Buttons said, and was raising his gun when a door across the room opened and Little Joe Tecca suddenly appeared. Through the open door I could see the room he emerged from was a small office.

Tecca halted in astonishment, his eyes moving from me to the gun in Buttons’ hand. “Hey, what’s going on here?”

“Moon is leaving us,” Buttons said quickly. “He sold out to the syndicate. I brought him over so you could help me get rid of the body.”

“He brought me here because he thought you weren’t within miles,” I told Tecca, then stopped talking when I saw the murderous light in Buttons’ eyes. Another word and I realized he would press the trigger and explain to Little Joe afterward.

Little Joe’s wizened face suddenly darkened with suspicion. “Let him talk, Buttons. Who told you he sold out to the syndicate?”

Buttons’ gun moved slightly to include the little man in the coverage. The question stumped him, for he had too little brains to ad lib, and apparently his instructions had failed to cover what to say if he got caught in the act of rubbing me out. He just stood there and looked at Tecca stubbornly.

Little Joe’s eyes suddenly blazed with anger. “Point that thing away from me, stupid! You didn’t expect to find me here. You brought him here to bump him and leave the body for me to explain. Start talking.”

Buttons aimed the pistol directly at Little Joe. “Now take it easy, Tecca. I don’t want to shoot you.”

With the gun momentarily pointed in another direction, I decided to take a chance. “Buttons is the machine gunner who killed Max Gruder and your boss, Joe.”

Why the little man believed me I don’t know. Coming cold, the statement sounded preposterous even to me. But Little Joe believed it instantly.

Buttons missed the expression of maniacal fury which suddenly contorted Little Joe’s face, for he was swinging his gun to silence me once and for all. I dropped flat just as it boomed, and the bullet whistled so close over my head it warmed my scalp.

He never had a chance for a second shot. Like an echo came the flat report of a small caliber automatic. Buttons’ normally stupid expression grew even more stupid. He turned his head to look at Little Joe reproachfully, suddenly buckled at the knees and pitched forward on his face.

I got to my feet and dusted myself off with unnecessary thoroughness. When I thought I could manage to speak without a quake in my voice, I said, “Thanks, Joe. Now let’s go pick up Hub Topping and a couple of cops, and I’ll take you all over to the Durants’ to explain what a bunch of suckers we’ve all been.”

The group which arrived at the Durant mansion at one thirty in the morning was equally representative of both sides of the law. Day and Hannegan represented its guardians, Tecca and Hub Topping its infringers, and I, as a normal champion of law and order but temporary overseer of local gangland, could be regarded as a compromise between both.

I got both Ann and her husband out of bed and headed the whole group toward the infirmary. But when we got there, Ann put her back to the door.

“He’s still unconscious and you can’t see him,” she said, but I merely took her shoulders and lifted her out of the way.

Inside Frank Durant was flat on his back attempting to look unconscious. As I approached the bed Dr. Durant started yapping about holding me personally responsible if I disturbed his patient, but I calmly pulled aside the patient’s pajama top, hooked a finger under the bandage across his chest and pulled it loose.

There was no sign of a wound of any sort.

“You can sit up now, Frank,” I told him. “Buttons is dead and your whole scheme collapsed.”

“I don’t get it,” Hub Topping said in a bewildered voice.

So I explained it, first bringing Inspector Day and Hannegan up to date on the part they didn’t know, the syndicate’s sending in an advance agent and my attempt to bluff him out. I told them that as Frank Durant had guessed it would, my bluff actually, worked, for the syndicate wasn’t enough interested in the town to fight a war over it. Swan had moved on to organize some other town.

“Buttons Sharkey was the ‘syndicate’ machine-gunner who killed Gruder and Delanco,” I said. “To remove suspicion from himself Frank had Buttons throw a few slugs in the front door, then had his doctor brother put on fake bandages and further cover him by assigning his wife as nurse. Tonight I asked Ann a few questions, and after I tripped her up a few times, she told Frank she thought I knew he hadn’t been wounded at all. So Frank ordered his stooge Buttons to rub me out.”

“But what was behind all this?” Day asked bewilderedly.

“Frank Durant wanted to absorb the other rackets. With both Gruder and Delanco dead, and with neither Tecca nor Hubbing having enough brains to run the rackets they had inherited, Durant knew once he managed to consolidate all three factions, he would be able to hold them together taking his orders, and he’d be kingpin of the local underworld.

“Frank made two tactical errors, though. First, no one tried to get me, yet Marty Swan was supposed to think I was the local big wheel. When I mentioned this to Durant, he belatedly had Buttons squirt a few slugs at me which were intended to miss. He wanted me alive, and at the same time mad enough at the syndicate to take over the leadership of a non-existent gang war.

“The second error was not realizing the machine-gunnings would make the news wire services. When Marty Swan read about them, he phoned me long distance to find out if I’d like the syndicate’s help. He assumed it was a local war, you see, and if the syndicate was invited in, naturally they would stay after helping put down the rebellion.”

Ann Durant said suddenly, “I didn’t know Frank was going to order you killed, Manny. If I had, you don’t think I would have told him... after we...”

She stopped and looked at her husband from wide eyes.

“No, I don’t think you would, Ann,” I said gently. “Anyhow, I hope you didn’t. Where you’re going as accessory, you’ll be able to think about it for a long, long time.”