Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 5, October 1960

Undercover Man by Thomas Calvert McClary

McLeod expected to rub elbows with Death at some point in his investigations... for the drug-traffic octopus had long tentacles.

At eight minutes past five p.m. precisely, Frank McLeod swung into the rushing river of human flesh and let the current jostle him down the stairs and through the hungry, clacking jaws of the subway turnstile.

On the narrow platform, he swung sharply out of the crowd and stood for a moment watching the faces of those who followed. It crossed his mind that he was getting to know too many faces in the glamor belt. For every face that he knew, a pair of eyes, if they were sharp, also knew him.

And that was not good, not good at all, for a Special Prosecutor’s undercover man!

He saw a florist girl, two hat check girls, and three waiters from cocktail spas that he knew. None looked at him, so that was no sweat. A fourth man he didn’t know dropped a penny in the gum machine and looked straight at him as he thumbed off the wrapper. A squat, ugly-looking bruiser with faint, mauve circles under his glossy black eyes.

Hophead, McLeod thought with distaste, and the anger of frustration rolled through him like distant thunder in the Catskills.

The man popped the gum into his mouth and drifted southward on the platform. McLeod bought a paper and moved with the crowd as a train roared in, but cut out of it to stand behind a post until the doors had closed. For that brief instant, he could see who was on the platform. The hophead had caught the train. McLeod moved to a waiting bench and sat to scan his paper.

After two or three minutes, he fished a cigarette from his pocket absently, and murmured to the iron grey man beside him, “Got a match?”

The grey man let his gaze drift through the freshening crowd, and handed him a pack. At the same time, he slipped McLeod a sheaf of tightly folded bills. “Chief says it would have been cheaper to send you to Monte Carlo,” he grunted.

“Tell him I’d settle for Coney Island!” McLeod rasped. He lighted up and handed the matches back, except that it was a different pack. “Couple of new wholesaler names. Nothing more,” he said. His lips barely moved as he spoke, his voice was scarcely audible, but his tone held a bite.

The grey man looked at him. “Things getting rough?”

“Things ain’t getting nowhere!” McLeod said. “No action at all.”

“Don’t count on it,” the grey man muttered. “Somebody’s been nosing through our personnel files.”

Another train roared in. The grey man got up. “See you next Monday at Staten Island ferry.”

“No contact until then?”

“Don’t even phone unless you can come in with the case wrapped up.”

His S.P. contact, Riley Grimes, faded into the crowd with amazing dexterity, like a chameleon. The train moved out of the station, its rumble fading along the tunnel. McLeod felt the loneliness settle down on him again. Loneliness and frustration. It was a bad combination.

Thank God for Ellen Adams’ company! At least she broke up the monotony of hanging around with nothing but mobsters, cafe society, and rich screwballs. But even with her, he was playing an act so that her company was like his Jaguar — nice to drive, but not his own. At the end of this case, it went back to the rental agency. And Ellen would go back to her world of orchids and mink coats.

He folded his paper, rammed it in his pocket, and frowned at the crowd that ebbed and flowed. His experienced eyes picked out at least four junkies, the newcomers to the mainline showing their frenzied hungers the sharpest. Eyes glittering, mouths tight drawn, they rushed with desperate need to get their evening’s fix.

For that drugged escape from reality for a few hours, they would lie to their families, steal from their best friends, cheat their companies. Eventually, most of them would sell their bodies or their souls to pay the cost of their addiction. Some would commit murder before they ended in the river or on a mortuary slab.

And more and more, every year now, every month, the harsh signs were showing on younger and younger people.

The police could knock off a hundred pushers, but it wouldn’t stop the vicious flow of heroin through every stratum of the city. Nothing short of breaking Bellows could break the racket. The Special Prosecutor had put McLeod on undercover for that task exclusively now. But in four months he had uncovered nothing — not one clue — as to Bellows’ methods of city wide communication and distribution.

Without a really hot, crackdown kind of lead the S.P. could raid a pile of junk and punks he already knew about. And the racket would run right on, with hardly a ripple.

Somewhere, McLeod thought savagely, he had goofed. Either they had read through his act and knew who he was, and were secretly laughing at him. Or his act of an amateur pusher who ran around with the rich play-crowd had been too good, and they had decided he was too much of an amateur to risk in the Big Time.

There was a third possible alternative — that the Red Lounge was the wrong spot, the wrong part of the operation, in which to acquire the information he needed. But he couldn’t see how that could be.

The Lounge was the money-drop, the bank where the wholesalers brought their loot, and, by the same token, must leave their orders. And it was the place where they must learn where to pick up their supplies, for the delivery spots changed with every shipment.

No, damn it, somewheres he had goofed, and he’d rather be dead than goof on this one! It was dope that had wrecked his father’s life and health, turning a strong-willed, good and generous man into a pitiful human wreck before death took him.

Another train came in, and he rode it to the next express stop. He wove from the outgoing crowd into the one headed for the downtown trains. As he crossed the overpass he looked down upon the platform, and thought he saw the same man who had bought the slot-machine gum.

Anger, frustration and tension surged inside of him. He thought of testing the man, of leading him on if he were quite certain he was one of Bellows’ goons. God, what a relief it would be just to sink his fist into a beefy stomach and maul one of those rats until he coughed up the truth!

But what could he learn, even if he went that far? Bellows would not be putting top-level secrets into the hands of his roughnecks. That would be too risky.

McLeod suppressed his rage with an effort. He faded out of the platform’s line of vision, out of the crowd, and went upstairs to grab a cab downtown.

He stopped at Vic Tanay’s for a workout and massage and lay on a table the space of a cigarette, trying to figure what was wrong. The question mark ran around the inside of his head like a squirrel in a cage. There was no answer and he knew it because he’d done nothing wrong.

He’d hit the Red Lounge first as an out-of-town playboy, or at least, one of the leeches who live off them. He’d been careful not to act mysterious or secret or supersmart. He’d asked for Moira Savoy, who’d been dead for two months, but whose remains had not been located.

The name had startled the mob and made them curious. But no D.A.’s man would bust in and ask for her straight out like that, so it was taken for granted that he’d hoped for some racket connection with her, and didn’t know that she’d been trapped as a stool pigeon.

A tough, albino-eyed Irish gunman had tried to trip him by claiming that nobody had heard or seen Moira for a year. McLeod had shown proper heat at the statement and had said it was a lie, because he had been swimming with her in California only three months before. Not only that. He had spoken with her after her return, on a day when she’d just come home from the Lounge.

The gunman had grinned and bought him a drink, and that had been that. He’d kept his business with Moira to himself and made no leading remarks about dope, and Al Logan, cashier for Bellows, was the one who had made friends with him. McLeod had pushed nothing.

He got Ellen Adams on his string unexpectedly. Five years before, through his connection with the D.A. he had saved her brother from a circumstantial armed felony charge and steered the boy into better company, and she’d been grateful.

He had phoned her this time, not even sure that she’d care to go out with him. Five years ago, she hadn’t known exactly what his connection with the D.A. was, but she had known he was dirt poor from her Park Avenue penthouse standpoint.

Somewhat to his surprise, she’d not only remembered him and taken him in tow for an evening on the town, but she’d adopted him ever since.

Of course, the Jaguar might have something to do with it. Or his story that he’d made a killing on the stock market, with the implication that he was rich. He certainly threw money around that way on this job! Yet he was beginning to feel that she really liked him.

Without knowing it, she’d been his chief passport with the Bellows mob. They knew her, and about her, of course, as one of the prettier and wittier fixtures of cafe society. She both showed him around and introduced him right into the top echelons. She was a perfect fit for his current undercover needs — and no girl could be prettier while he was at it.

Even after he hooked up with Ellen, which eased the mob’s suspicions of him, he had tread very soft and cautiously. He’d put out no leaders to find out anything. He’d let everything originate with them. He’d even waited a full five weeks to lose the dog-eared address book in the men’s room — the book listing about seventy of the wealthier playcrowd on both coasts.

Three days after McLeod had lost the book, he was asked if he’d lost anything and while answering, identified it. It was returned without comment as having been found by the sweeper. He made no comment himself, although he suspected that Al Logan had his ear hanging out for some crack.

All of that had been played smooth and cool. There might have been some small bug in the Sonny Harlow incident, however. Sonny was a rich wild hophead whom he’d met with Ellen at the Aigrette, and whom he’d built a drinking friendship with since then.

One night he’d bumped into Sonny with a large crowd just in from yachting, all higher than standing jockies on Horse. He’d been swept into the party and in turn, swept the party into the Red Lounge.

Al Logan hadn’t liked it. He knew them, and couldn’t kick them out, but they couldn’t leave fast enough to suit him. Later he’d told McLeod, “I should have knocked your damnfool head off! What if some smart narcotic cop had picked that crowd up in here!”

McLeod made a gesture of apology. “They were drinking too. I figured I was doing the place a good turn.”

“Mac,” Al told him, his stubby finger puncturing the words into McLeod’s chest, “don’t ever bring a hopped up cokie or a deck of the stuff in here! Understand? Just don’t do it.”

McLeod made the only slip he’d made to that date. “I’m just trying to keep them rounded up until I can supply them regularly,” he explained.

Al had given him a long steady look. McLeod could almost hear the wheels whirring inside the man’s head. Logan was going over every remark McLeod had ever made, or that had been credited to him — for the mob had an astonishing Gestapo of its own.

“So that’s why you wanted Moira?” Al asked softly.

“Well—” McLeod muttered and spread his hands. “I don’t know New York too well, and I don’t know the racket here at all.”

“You seem to know the wrong people,” Al Logan chuckled suddenly. “Which in that case, is the right people. But to go in business here, you’d have to see Mr. Sunshine.”

That was Bellows. McLeod was getting near a break, and he had to sit on his hands and pound himself on top of his head, figuratively, to keep from blurting out some dangerously over-insistent demand.

Logan had a whole drink before he said anything else. Then fie simply said, “Maybe we can pass the word along for you.”

McLeod remembered that conversation down to the last inflection of voice, for he had searched for an item in it that might be used as court evidence, and found nothing. At no point, had Logan admitted knowing Bellows personally, or even Moira, and he’d said nothing suggesting that he was connected with narcotics. He was simply a broad-minded guy with some cautiously hinted at connections offering a favor to a friend.

And that had been the end of it. No sign or message from Bellows, and not another word on the subject out of Logan since then.

McLeod grated, “Hell!” and jammed out his cigarette and rolled off the gym’s resting table. The workout hadn’t done him one bit of good. The nerves were knotted in the back of his neck again the size of a goose egg.

McLeod went on to his 57th Street hotel, changed into a tux, picked up his Jaguar at the garage, and drove around to park diagonally across from the inconspicuous front of the Red Lounge, which was down two steps near the middle of the block.

A stranger would have passed it without knowing it was a bar. He switched off the motor, rammed his knees forward under the dash, and sprawled back, so that the back of the seat pressed the base of his neck. He relaxed, and let his thoughts drift for a moment with his eyes closed.

He thought of the two remarks which the grey-haired Grimes had made earlier. One, that the Chief had labeled him expensive; two, that somebody had been prowling through the D.A.’s personnel file. It had all the earmarks of a buildup for letting him down easy. They were going to pull him off the undercover job in a week or so.

He drew in a long, bitter breath and let it out explosively.

Ellen’s voice said from right beside him, “Good Lord, you aren’t drunk, are you?”

He sat up so quickly that his face collided with hers. She was leaning in, looking at him, and as long as her face was right there before him, he kissed her. It was, incidentally, the first kiss he’d garnered.

He said, “Drunks aren’t responsible.” Then, more soberly, “No, I’m just beat.” He grinned broadly. “Hop in and I’ll drive you.”

“Later maybe,” she said, and withdrew her head. “I’m only going to the Coq d’Or for dinner.” He looked out at her and she was frowning across at the Red Lounge. “Why do you hang out with those moronic hoodlums,” she asked. “No wonder you’re tired. All they know anything about is baseball and horses. That isn’t bad in itself, but you need wider interests.”

“Oh, they talk fights, too,” he said. “Am I seeing you tonight? I was going to phone.”

“Late, if you like,” she nodded. “But I’m going to give you a change of diet, and I’m going to drive. I’ve got a little old tumble-down shack in the Berkshires, and I’m going to drive you up and give you some fresh air and frozen trout for a change.”

He squinted up at her, smiling, but feeling the ripples of surprise inside himself that she’d have anything so homey and simple. “Nice,” he nodded. “Very nice. Ellen, you’d make a great wife. What in the hell are you doing single?”

She gave her deep-throated Sphinx laugh. She was back in her ultra-chichi character again. “No man I could tolerate could afford me,” she said. She wiggled her fingers at him. “I’ll pick you up here around midnight.” She moved away looking like the front cover of a fashion magazine.

He shook his head to himself, already missing her after this assignment was over. She was a great girl — really the greatest. If he’d made the killing in the market he’d talked to her about, he wouldn’t have minded spending every dime on her.

He felt better just from spending a few minutes with her. Even as a joke, that kiss hadn’t done him any harm. But when he looked at the Lounge, all of the frustration and weariness came back with a vengeance. If there’d been danger in the job, action, or even just sparring, it would have keened him. But this — Damn, it was just nothing! It was getting him in mind and body and heart.

And still, the answers must be there, somewhere, right in front of him. But he had goofed, and they were pulling him off the job. He felt sure of it.

He looked at the glove compartment where he kept his gun, frowned a moment, then left it there. If the occasion came to need a rod with this mob, he’d never get the chance to use it, anyway. They were too smooth and cool, and very finicky about bloodshed. They didn’t want their rugs and curtains spotted.

He had set a pattern of visiting hours here, and this was out of it. Ordinarily, he’d have been cocktailing or dining at one of the big-name spots by now, all of which was duly reported through Bellows’ Gestapo, he was nine-tenths sure.

Lonzo, the barkeep, looked over at him sharply as he came in. He detected an instant’s surprise, and maybe caution, on Al Logan’s face as he wigwagged familiarly.

The bar was noisy and crowded, not only a late crowd for cocktails, but many faces, particularly female, he’d never seen here before. The girls were dolls, expensive ones, and so Logan’s coterie of furriers, jewelers, modistes, photographers, stylists, and other minions of New York’s smart world stayed on and formed a very good cover. Very probably, there were even a few legitimate deals in the making.

McLeod gave his coat to the hat girl, but Logan, at his elbow, took it from her. He signaled over Richie, and covertly hefting the coat himself, told that slick-haired, side-glancing torpedo, “Put Mac’s coat in my office. It will just get knocked on the floor in the coat-room.”

It was a light colored coat and the statement was probably true, but of course what he’d wanted to do was heft the coat for a gun. Or, it crossed McLeod’s mind, delay any swift departure that McLeod might wish to make, such as, say, in company with somebody he met at the bar.

Well, it had happened before, but not so lately. He shrugged and lit a cigarette and took a table for want of space at the bar. He knew the neighborhood merchants who frequented this spot — the vulture-nosed, tightly dressed Madam Olga who owned a fur shop; the rotund, wart-nosed Steigheimer, who owned a very toni jewelry store; Carnadine Dawn, who did poodle’s coiffures for fabulous prices; Jan Thiery, who did their mistresses’ heads; Dr. Verblon, who did very well discreetly treating various troubles of the ladies.

He was not alone for long, and his company was constantly shifting. It was one time he could have wished for less friendliness. A half-dozen of the town’s biggest narcotic pushers were there with girls and he might have picked up a lead by watching them closely. Three others came in while he was on his first drink, all of them feeling or reaching toward their upper right-hand pockets after checking their coats.

In all three cases, there was a slight bulge inside the coat, and certainly, there wouldn’t be three southpaws in succession. It almost had to mean that they carried a thick sheaf of money. Sooner or later they disappeared with Al Logan into his office.

One came out still tapping a piece of paper against his other palm, and even a brief distant glance told McLeod it was a simple receipt for cash — in this case, thirty-two thousand, five hundred dollars.

He had seen money dropped here before, but never a line up like this. The S.P. had known about it even before Frank McLeod was put on the job. The S.P. also knew something else. At the time that the money was handed over, Bellows had seldom decided which of many fronts would be used as delivery point for the packages of raw supplies. So Al could not tell them where to go, and there was still the puzzle of communications. It was conceivable that Al was never in the know on the delivery end of the operations.

McLeod cursed to himself under the easy chatter of his conversation with the bright-eyed female vulture who was trying to lure him into finding a Valentine present for Ellen at her shop.

There was a fight at the Garden tonight and the crowd began breaking abruptly. With the big money boys leaving, the merchants had no cause to stay. The vulture invited McLeod to come along to the Tulip for dinner, and he was on the verge of accepting when he caught Logan’s look and made a hasty excuse.

When the crowd had cleared, Al Logan sucked a lungful of breath and expelled it forcibly. He walked slowly toward McLeod’s table. He stood in front of McLeod, smiling faintly, relaxing from the hustle into his more normal state — coat unbuttoned, exposing a diamond tie clip, hands in his trouser pockets.

He was rolling slightly on his feet as he hummed some favorite tune. He wore his brown hair short-cropped, and he had a square, smiling face, and a slight paunch.

Had McLeod not known what he was, he might have pegged him as the athletic director of some boys club, or maybe a successful construction salesman. He was easygoing, good-humored, and one had to look very searchingly to see the pyramids of bleak granite, way deep in the centers of his brown eyes.

McLeod asked smilingly, “What do you do with all that money, Al? Put it on the ponies?”

“Well, if I’m a book they never caught me at it!” Al grinned. “Order me a drink,” he added. “I’ll tote up and then I’ve got a surprise for you.”

He moved toward his small office, jerking his head at the front door. Richie glided toward it, flipping a bolt and taking a seat at a small table to the right of it. Rocky, the other regular gunman here, took a seat at a twin table across the doorway.

McLeod ordered Al’s drink and a refill and looked at the gangsters with amusement at their contrast. Richie was so slight as to look boyish, with wrists the size of a girl’s, and an always conscious vanity of his hair. His eyes were glittering and deepset, and if his thin lips had ever smiled, McLeod felt sure it was at somebody’s funeral.

In contrast, Rocky was muscular, larded, almost awkward of movement, with curly hair always in rebellion, and the brooding look of a smoldering volcano that may shower the night with red hot lava without advance warning. Rocky liked him, Ritchie hated his guts. But he was equally safe, or unsafe, with either one. They killed on orders. Execution was their business.

It struck McLeod suddenly that neither torpedo was looking directly at him tonight. Usually, Richie watched him with cold malevolence, while Rocky looked as if he’d like to speak, but felt it would interfere with his brooding.

It was an item that broke through his weariness and boredom, and for the moment, alerted him, pouring adrenalin through his athletic body. But of course, there was an explanation. The money was being recounted. The staccato punch and zip of Al’s adding machine came from the office. The executioners would be listening for any sounds outside that entrance doorway.

The adding machine made its grinding total burp and shortly Al came from the office, relaxed, humming, ready to enjoy his drink and McLeod’s company. He looked at the door guards, who immediately snapped off the bolt and sank into the rose-tinted shadows at the back of the room.

Al dropped a quarter in the juke box and sat down, tilting his chair on its back legs, and regarding McLeod with a benevolent smile.

He said, “Mac, I’m interested in a kid hoofer who’s trying to get some notice from the East Side crowd. He’s a tap dancer, but he’s the only one I ever knew who can improvise as well as do a regular routine. He’s terrific. I want you to take a run with me and catch his act.”

“I’ve got to meet Ellen Adams here at midnight,” McLeod said.

Al glanced at the expensive gold watch on his heavy-muscled wrist. “We can catch the ten-thirty show and be back in time. That is, if my dumb bookie gets here in time.” He laughed. “I’ve got winners at two tracks, and a parlay for seven football teams tomorrow! All guaranteed, in the bag. So I’ll be bumming quarters by the end of the week.”

There was a part he liked in the jukebox recording and he looked almost sentimental as he glanced up at the ceiling and sang the words, low, subdued, far back in his throat, but in a pleasant tenor, and with the feeling of a man enjoying himself. He wasn’t bad. He wasn’t bad at all. He was a man McLeod could have liked if he hadn’t been in this dirty racket.

“Is this kid hoofer the surprise you had for me?” McLeod asked finally.

“Part of it,” Logan replied, nodding. “But just something extra, like the candy canes on the Christmas tree. The big thing is, Mr. Sunshine’s going to give you a once-over.”

McLeod sat forward. He didn’t have to act his excitement. “When?”

Al Logan chuckled and rolled his shoulders. “When he feels like it. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.” He drank off his glass and looked at the ice. “There’ll be some things he wants to ask you. He has his own way of sizing people up.”

For some reason, the S.P.’s final words came back to him. “Don’t be afraid to fade out if you think they’ve put the finger on you. They’ll get the truth out of you the vicious way, and that won’t do you, or us any good.”

“I’ve had them beat on a bucket covering my head,” McLeod could still hear himself reminding the prosecutor.

“This mob doesn’t operate that crude,” the S.P. had said. “No more punching around, no more baseball bats. They use needles. Needles and truth serum and a psychiatrist. If you think you’re hot — get out, while there’s still time. If you can.”

He didn’t know why he’d entertained such forebodings. There was no indication of trouble here. Al was regarding him with more than ordinary amusement, obviously pleased with himself for bringing McLeod to Bellows’ attention.

“Finally — the big break!” McLeod murmured, and he didn’t have to act the sound of his voice, either.

“Everything comes to he who waits,” Al grunted, a little careless of his grammar.

He could come out with some of the damnedest quotes! McLeod thought. He’d never opened up like this before; it could be the break he needed.

George, the bookie came in and ordered a Scotch and soda at the bar. Al joined him there. “Don’t get those horses and football teams mixed up like you did one time,” he said, and laughed. “There are some with the same names but different bets.” He handed the bookie several sheets of paper.

“Getting more play on Ohio,” George noted.

“Not as well known and better odds,” Al said.

Same old betting talk. It rattled on McLeod’s ears like hail. But all of the fatigue and boredom and frustration had drained out of him now. He felt like a waterfront ferret overtaking a pack of wharf rats.

Al Logan finished his business with George and said, “Let’s go, Mac.”

They pulled on their coats and grabbed a cab. “Easier than parking,” Al explained, and gave the address — an off beat basement club that had once been a speakeasy, in long-dead days beyond recall. The address sounded as if it were a clip joint for visiting firemen.

The early show was beginning when they got there. The offstage lights were dimmed, but McLeod saw that the place was crowded. In the shadows, he recognized some of the cocktail crowd from earlier.

Al was doing all right by this boy! It was the kind of interest which spelt out the difference between make or break for talent in neon lights.

They ordered drinks. They needed them. The MC was terrible, the chorus and first dance acts almost as bad. Al called a waiter and peeled a twenty off his roll. “Take it back to the kid before he goes on,” he said. “Tell him that’s to wipe the glue off his hoofs.”

The waiter had started when McLeod said, “Al, you had two bills stuck together there.”

The waiter stopped. Al’s eyes darted to the bills he held. Then he waved an expansive hand. “What the hell, I wouldn’t have known. But see that the kid gets it, not you. I know now.”

The waiter grinned and hurried off.

“You must really like this boy,” McLeod grunted.

“I’m not the only one,” Al chuckled. “Wait till you hear the hands he gets.”

The kid came on. He wasn’t such a kid at that. But he could dance. McLeod had to hand him that. He could damned near tap your name in sound. He could build a rhythm up to an explosive crescendo like the holding of a high E on a coronet. He brought the customers right into the act. He’d stop in front of their tables and snap his fingers to emphasize the beat.

“A-one, a-two, a-three,” he’d breathe and tap, maybe four steps, maybe nine, and then swing out into the wildest improvised rhythm and dance McLeod had ever seen.

McLeod fell under the spell. He found he was picking up the kid’s taps and following them through with his own hand tapping on the table. And then he found there was something strangely familiar to this. He couldn’t believe it, he couldn’t believe it could be improvised, but he followed through again, and came up with the international wireless code being used for abbreviations.

“A-one, a-two, a-three—” and five taps, for somebody there, that said either Pier 35 or 35th Street, two p.m. sharp, watch out for guard. Or maybe, “guard O.K.” Or a different address: “A” for apartment. Then: “Seven, Ring two short, two short, code, Is Mary home?”

The efficiency with which the kid tapped out these messages was such a shock that Frank McLeod almost stopped, almost turned to Al to blurt out his consternation. He caught himself in time. This could be it!

Al turned to him. “Think he’s good?”

A cold grey feeling ran down McLeod’s back as he nodded, “Terrific! Got feet like castenets.”

But what he was thinking was, he was deep in the soup now or he wouldn’t have been brought here. Either he was on the spot, and so it didn’t matter what he knew, or he was being taken into the mob after Bellows grilled him. But he thought of that prowl through the D.A.’s personnel file, and he thought of the goon who’d bought the gun on the subway station, and he had no doubt which of the two fates would be his by tomorrow.

The applause at the end of the act was thunderous. It would be. Probably a million dollars in narcotic traffic profits were expected out of this little dance.

That left the puzzle of how the kid got his instructions. On a sheet between two twenty dollars bills, of course. How else? Probably they were usually sealed along the edges. Tonight they’d happened to come unstuck a little.

He had another drink and waited for Al to give him a hint or two of why he’d been brought here. But Al said nothing. He just looked pleasantly excited, as if the act had stimulated him enormously, making him think of something that was definitely to his liking.

Well, he could like bringing McLeod to Bellows’ attention either way McLeod turned out. If McLeod was a real pusher, he’d make a profitable one. If he was a pigeon, and they found out in time — and they’d make sure it was in time well in advance! — Al would get a bonus for suspicioning McLeod and still keeping him on the hook.

McLeod decided to find out about that fast. He got up with an excuse about needing to make room for another drink. Al made an amiable rejoinder and looked briefly beyond McLeod. Two hoods got up to go in ahead of him. Two more followed behind. He couldn’t have made a break for the front door if he had wanted to.

He walked in, boxed on all sides, tensed so tight he couldn’t have used the head, expecting a slug or a shot at any second. Nothing happened. But the first two hoods loitered to follow him, and the other pair never came in. They turned and moved back through the tables ahead of him, not taking their seats until he was seated.

“Your boys always so anxious to escort a man?” he asked.

Al chuckled. “That’s Bellows for you. Never takes a chance. But that’s just while you’re being considered. When he’s made up his mind, things will be different.”

McLeod would have given his shirt to have been able to see Al Logan’s eyes. He tried, but the lights were very dim. Things might still be all right. But it was one chance in a million. Everything so far had been all wrong.

He said with a bite of temper he’d have been entitled to, “Maybe after the Inquisition, I can ask where the hell Moira is?”

“Well, she’s not far. She just hasn’t been in,” Al said smoothly. “But you may be seeing her real shortly.”

So the mob didn’t know that the S.P. knew for certain — that she was dead. But McLeod knew it, and the answer told him what he needed to know. They were simply doing some final bit of checkup. They were damned near certain that he was the S.P.’s undercover man.

By rights the knowledge should have filled him with fear, panic, a mounting tension. Instead of that, it calmed him. The knot of tension had vanished from his neck. He had to play this thing out cool now. Real cool. He couldn’t let Al Logan know he suspected anything fishy in this.

He tossed off his drink and said with a wry laugh, “Well, I’ll be damned glad when Mr. Sunshine okays me!”

“When he says the word, things go fast,” Al assured him.

They got up to leave. Al took his time, saying a word here and there as he passed between the tables. He made no effort to cover McLeod himself. He left that to the four efficient hoods.

There was a taxi in front of the door when they came out. Driven by one of the mob, McLeod felt convinced. He reached for the window roller to drop the window. He couldn’t budge it. He was sure that his door was locked from the outside, too. They were taking no chances.

They got back to the Red Lounge shortly before midnight. Al ordered food for them and they had just started eating when Ellen came in. She looked five years younger with her chichi town paint missing and dressed in sport clothes.

Ellen sat down and had a drink. McLeod sang paeans of praise about the kid hoofer.

“Are you tight?” she laughed. “You sound like an Elvis fan!”

“No, but you’ve got to see this boy!” McLeod enthused. He told her about the act all over again.

She watched him with amusement that changed to a puzzled seriousness as he kept the line up. This kind of gushing enthusiasm just wasn’t his way. Yet he wasn’t drunk, and he was definitely trying to impress her with his description of the kid hoofer.

Without any evidence of more than casual interest, Al Logan was listening to every word. Maybe Ellen caught that — as a smart woman would — even before she realized that McLeod was trying to tell her something.

McLeod could see that idea take hold of her. He could almost feel her shrewd mind trying to grope through the confusion of his talk to find the hidden meaning of whatever he was trying to tell her.

Something was wrong, somewhere. She flicked Al a casual glance, but could read nothing from his expression. Still, if something was wrong that McLeod didn’t want to say in front of Al, why didn’t he draw her aside and speak to her privately?

Then it struck her. He couldn’t. Al was part of the picture, part of the danger. Mac was trapped — couldn’t break away.

McLeod saw the knowledge strike her, and prayed silently that she wouldn’t give herself away. She was perfect in her acting. There was just one brief instant when she became expansive and then snapped tight again. Indolently, she mashed out her cigarette and lighted up another.

McLeod knew that he’d have to help her play it straight and correctly. He said quickly, “Listen, Ellen, I’m not the only one in town who’s raving! You’ve got to see this boy right away. You should have heard the hand he got from Al’s hard-boiled friends. He really raised them!”

“Oh?” she pouted. “It was a family party and you didn’t ask me along?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite family,” he said, smiling. “I’d hate to have a family like some of those characters!”

Al looked at him with appreciative humor and laughed. So far, so good. He was sure now he’d gotten the importance of the tap dancer across to Ellen. But there was still one missing link in the chain — how did Bellows manage to get his packaging crews their orders on what to pack and for whom?

Suddenly he knew. The missing link had been right in front of him for weeks.

George. George the bookie with the nose like W. C. Field’s. It had to be! He recalled what he could of the random conversation Al had held with the man — so casual, so open, so obviously betting talk.

The football teams, for instance. Ohio. ‘O’ stood for opium, its uses not as well known as heroin and cocaine. And the horse sheets for heroin, of course. With all the packaging data coded as bets for each of the customers! He had it now! And if he could get away from Al and his goons, he could break the case tonight.

McLeod reached Ellen’s hand across the table and squeezed it. Al saw that. But McLeod gave no signals, transferred no note, and was careful to speak casually. He told Ellen, “You should have been here earlier. Al’s got a bookie called George who’s the spitting image of W. C. Field. He catch the act tonight, Al?”

“I doubt it,” Al said with a stretch. “Takes him about all night to make book.”

And all night to contact the various packagers and give them the code orders on what dope to include! McLeod thought.

Ellen frowned slightly, knowing her gambling pretty well. McLeod was afraid she was going to ask what George was doing making book so far ahead of the races and games.

But she kept her head. She thought her own question over and swallowed it. She just sat there toying with her cigarette and drink, cloaking her thoughts behind a Mona Lisa smile — the kind of smile a woman wears when she’s near a man she likes, but doesn’t understand a word he’s saying.

She stretched finally and said, “Well, what about our drive to the country?”

Al glanced up quickly, and gave McLeod a definite look. “We have that business to settle, Mac,” he remarked. “It would be better if you could stick around.”

Oh, he was smooth, McLeod thought! He glanced at the bar mirror and caught the oblique reflection of Al’s two gun hands back in the shadows. Al was just making a friendly suggestion — but just let McLeod try to leave with Ellen!

McLeod took her hand again while he made apologies. Ellen shrugged, acting the part of a spoiled doll, miffed by upset plans, but not ready to ruin her looks in an argument over it.

“Business first, of course!” she sniffed. “Well, at least I’ll get some sleep for a change.”

“Look, Ellen,” McLeod told her with undernotes of seriousness that he didn’t need to pretend, “I’ve been waiting for this break for weeks. And it may be an all night session.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“I was trying to figure out a time schedule,” he told her. “I’ll probably sleep late. In any case, I don’t want to rush to see that damned lawyer about your brother.”

McLeod’s heart was doing a tap dance as her brows knitted with puzzlement. But she didn’t question him. He breathed easier.

“Tell you, you’ve got his phone number at the house.” He was watching her closely. “Same one as five years ago. Why don’t you phone him for me and say that I can’t possibly keep my appointment with him tomorrow, but that I’ve got all the loot. He can go ahead and fix things.”

Al was bent over his plate eating, but McLeod saw the muscles of his back tauten, and his fork stop under his mouth as he probed this conversation.

“Got a little trouble in the family Ellen?” Al asked softly.

“It’s nothing,” Ellen said irritably. “Mac helped him duck a felony rap five years ago and this is just something to clear his record.”

Al looked inquiringly at McLeod. McLeod said, “Well, why carry a dirty slate? It doesn’t make you any tougher.”

He turned back to Ellen. “That robber’s kind of touchy about broken dates, so be sure to impress him that I at least remembered I had the date.”

“Sure,” Ellen nodded. She had the pitch now. She’d caught it from that reference to the kid’s lawyer — which had been the D.A. “What’ll I tell him for excuse?”

“Oh, hell, tell him anything. I’m at my grandma’s funeral, I’ve got smallpox, I’m being cremated!”

They all laughed and the moment of tension as the subject roused Al’s alertness had passed. McLeod took a long breath of relief.

Ellen stubbed her cigarette out and leaned over to peck him on the cheek. “I think you’re a heel to stand me up, but it will give me a night’s sleep for a change.”

“Take my car,” he told her and gave her the key. “I can grab a cab, and you can park all night on your street.”

She got up and gave Al a smile without a tenseness or a shadow in it. “Can you put arsenic in his drink?” she asked.

“For you, I might.” Al grinned.

They saw her to the door.

“Great gal,” Al said. “That serious about her brother?”

“Nothing to it that some loot won’t cure,” McLeod chuckled.

He dropped a quarter in the juke box. Al moved around with that rolling gait on the balls of his feet, humming or singing the tunes. He had the manner of a man waiting for something but in no great rush about it.

McLeod had another drink and prayed that Ellen would figure the message out and connect his insane talk about the kid hoofer as part of it when she talked with the D.A. The D.A. would get the importance of it, of course. He’d had no date with McLeod tomorrow.

A few customers dropped in and out. There was no change in the atmosphere or in Al’s friendly manner. Here McLeod was waiting for his death sentence, and these lugs were waiting to carry it out. But nothing was happening — nothing at all!

That was why Bellows was at the top. He took his time. He worked smooth and cool.

Well, McLeod might be a corpse when it happened, but at least he’d turned the tables. By the time the S.P. went over the talk with Ellen, he’d figure the deal out. The kid hoofer, George the bookie, “Tell him I’ve been cremated.”

With those leads they could pick up most of the evidence they needed. There’d never be a kick-back at Ellen. If Bellows looked up her brother’s record, they’d find it, and forget her. They’d puzzle like hell, but it would be too late. They would have murdered him, so they’d just have to puzzle.

He wondered just why Al Logan had taken him to see the hoofer tonight. Maybe hoping McLeod would catch the code and it would shock him into some startled statement. Maybe kind of a farewell supper.

An odd murder for precaution wouldn’t mean anything to this mob ordinarily. But they were hot now, and they knew it, and they’d not be asking for extra trouble. They were checking all angles.

McLeod yawned and looked at the time. Al said, “Yeah, me too. You better come up and stay at my place in case Mr. Sunshine calls.”

“That’s a damn good idea,” McLeod agreed innocently. “I’ll stop on the way and change clothes.”

Al looked dubious about the stop, but there was nothing to indicate McLeod had any idea he was on the spot. Al yawned himself and got their coats. He told the two gorillas, “Tail us with the car. We’ll walk.”

Logan had his hands in his pockets and he was singing in his low, clear, happy voice as they turned up the avenue toward McLeod’s hotel. He broke off once to say, “Mac, you know, I’m glad I got the chance to know you. You’ve been worth knowing.”

They neared the lighted canopy of the hotel. On the steps, Al laid a hand on McLeod’s arm. When McLeod looked at him, the hard granite pyramids were in the center of his eyes, but there was no sadism, no savagery in him as he said, “Don’t do anything in here that makes me jumpy, Mac. It’s always a little tense when a man’s up for final decision.”

“Sure,” McLeod nodded. He was thinking of that other gun in his bureau drawer, wondering if he’d left the safety on, if he had a bullet in the chamber.

“By the way,” Al added. “The boys stopped over and took your gun to check it against permits.”

The last bottom dumped out of McLeod’s world. Suddenly, the cold efficiency of this mob smote him. All of the wild, tense frustration of the past months rose up in him like an atomic mushroom. If he had to die, he would at least do it fighting! Maybe in the open like this, he’d give the S.P. a better case than he’d expected.

He half turned to jump Al before he came off the steps.

Then he saw Riley Grimes leap from the black D.A. car with drawn pistol. Somewhere out of sight, cops were cursing the two trailing gunmen.

Grimes, always cool, yelled, “McLeod! Stop where you are and lift your hands!”

Al spun toward Grimes, jerked back to look at McLeod with surprise, then started to bolt for the lobby, an animal in escape. Two uniformed cops ran toward him with drawn guns, coming from another entrance. He stopped, and deftly dropped his own gun in a potted plant. He was cool as ice when they grabbed him.

“Who’s he?” Grimes was demanding of McLeod.

“Al? He’s not in my mix,” McLeod said wearily. “He’s just a bar manager walking me home.”

Grimes turned to the smaller, spectacled man who followed him in. “What about it, Chief?”

“We want Frank McLeod. But he was alone on that job. Take the other punk’s name and let him go.”

Al gave his name and answered a few curt questions. He looked at McLeod with curiosity and ironic humor. “Tough luck, Mac, but maybe not as tough as you think,” he said laconically. “Well, stop around when it’s over.”

McLeod nodded and a cop strong-armed him into the lobby as Al moved out the door.

McLeod took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. This had sure been an evening of good luck and good acting. Thank God, Ellen had a mind as well as body!

The chief gave him a smoke and said, “She’s a real smart young lady, even if she did get me out of bed! We missed you at the Red Lounge, but spotted you walking. We were worried when Ellen mentioned smallpox and cremation. On the spot and good as dead, eh?”

McLeod smiled wearily. “I still must have goofed somewhere,” he acknowledged.

His chief tried not to look self-conscious and chuckled. “You’re not listed on our personnel sheet, so it wasn’t that. But maybe you let them see that address book of rich hopheads?”

“What about it?” McLeod asked.

“Well, unfortunately, it contained the name of a society woman who’s been dead forty years.” The chief laughed. “That’s older than you. Bellows probably wanted to grill you about that.”

The chief stood up. “We’ll wrap this up in a day or two. I don’t think they’ll wise up to this phony arrest.” He looked McLeod over enviously. “You look like you could do with a rest. How would you like to run up to the Berkshires for a week or so?”

McLeod glared at his chief with his face firing. “Whose crazy idea was that — yours?”

His chief made an airy, negative gesture. “Not mine. I’d send you to Dannamora. But Miss Ellen Adams said she had filled your car with gas — our car, when you bring it back — and she’d be waiting for you at her apartment.”

McLeod smiled slowly. “Put a woman in a nice quiet case and all hell breaks loose!” he grunted. “But she’s in for some disillusionment. She thinks I’m rich.”

“Oh no she doesn’t,” his chief told him. “She asked me if you’d lose any pay if she took you away.”

McLeod gawked at him. “How did she know about—” His voice failed.

“You may kid a mob like Bellows, but you can’t kid a woman like Ellen very long!” His chief laughed. “Now good night, good night!”

McLeod moved out into the pre-dawn freshness and hailed a cab for Ellen’s.