Mink Is for a Minx [1st Annual Edition: The best from Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine]

Man on the Run by Dennis Lynds

Detective Lieutenant Frederick Jacoby lighted a cigarette and watched the white-uniformed attendants carry the body from the dingy hotel room. Then Jacoby looked to where the coroner was still working on the other man. The second man had a bullet in his chest and had a hard time breathing or talking. Jacoby had just finished listening to the man.

“He almost made it out the door,” Detective Sergeant Allers said to Jacoby.

“He almost made it all the way to Rio,” Jacoby said.

“I still don’t get it all, Fred,” Allers said. “I mean, how come Maxie came back to New York anyway. He should of known he’d get it here.”

“He had a plan,” Jacoby said. “A smart man, Little Maxie. The careful type, never worked without a plan.”

Allers looked puzzled. “This was a plan? Some plan!”

“A hot tip, Sergeant, real inside information. Maxie probably paid plenty to check it out. The only trouble was he didn’t get the whole picture, you know?”

Jacoby had the wounded man’s story, and the Lieutenant could imagine the rest without much trouble. Jacoby smoked his cigarette and thought about Little Maxie and his hot tip.

Little Maxie Lima had been on the run for three months when he decided to work on Walter Midge. That was something new for Maxie, being on the run. It was usually the other way around. Since he had killed his first man with an icepick when he was sixteen, it had been the other men who ran while Maxie chased. Maxie got one hundred dollars for that first killing — a man had wanted his wife out of the way and Maxie went into business.

Since then his methods had improved and so had his pay. Maxie could kill you any way you could think of, and do it expertly, quietly, without a trace of evidence.

That kind of talent does not go to waste. Little Maxie was twenty when he filled his first contract for the Syndicate. The trouble was that Maxie liked his work too much. He filled private contracts on the side, the cops came down on him hard, and the Syndicate decided that Little Maxie Lima was no longer a safe property to have around. They put out a contract on Little Maxie himself, and Maxie started to run.

It was new to Little Maxie, running. Not from the cops, he was used to having the cops after him. There were a lot of places to run and hide from the cops. But there was nowhere for Little Maxie Lima to hide from a contract. So he ran.

He was a careful man, Maxie. He had some money put away in selected locations. That gave him the price of three months running. But Little Maxie would not have taken a lead nickel for his chances. He was a practical man, a realist, and he knew how much chance a man had when there was a contract out on him. No chance at all. Unless he could get far out of the country with enough money to hole up in some quiet place where the local police could be bought. And that was when Little Maxie Lima thought of Walter Midge.

There were only five ways Maxie knew to get money, the kind of money he would need to go far enough and be safe enough: killing, stealing, borrowing, gambling, and blackmail. No one would hire him to kill a fly now, and the small-time stealing he could do safely on the run would not get him to Brooklyn from Manhattan. He had no stake for gambling, and if he had ever had any friends, he didn’t have any now, so borrowing was out. That left blackmail.

The little killer was in Los Angeles at the time he thought about Walter Midge. In his room he actually smiled. Next to murder Maxie liked blackmail the best, especially the blackmailing of a fellow crook. There was more risk, more brains were needed, when you blackmailed a fellow criminal, and that gave Little Maxie a lot of pleasure. Outsmarting them was almost as much pleasure as killing them.

In that Los Angeles hotel room Maxie started to work on outsmarting all of them: Syndicate, cops, and Walter Midge. He rolled a cigarette of cheap pipe tobacco in a strip of torn newspaper and began to think.

There was a risk in going back to New York. Maxie had to weigh that against the safety of, say, $20,000 and a ticket to Brazil. That was the first step for any good businessman — weigh the gain against the risk. Maxie was a good businessman and this time there was no question. Without money they would get him within two weeks — the cops would if the Syndicate didn’t. But Maxie had to be sure Walter Midge was his man.

All he had was one piece of information — inside information. A very hush-hush rumor said that big, dumb Walter Midge, a hanger-on at Big Frank Arcarti’s crap game in New York, had driven the get-away car of the big Newark armored car robbery four months ago. Only a rumor, but Walter Midge was just the kind of man Little Maxie himself would have used to drive a get-away car.

But Maxie was the careful type; he wanted to check it out. The only man the little killer could think of who would know and who might still talk to him was Manny Gomez in Chicago. Maxie put his .38 in his pocket and headed for the airport.

Manny Gomez seemed glad to see Little Maxie. But not glad enough to forget that talk is cheap and information costs money. Manny smiled, but it cost Little Maxie a twenty-dollar bill.

“Yeh,” Manny said as he checked the twenty to be sure it was good, “I heard about Walter. I tell you, Maxie, it’s a hard one to figure. Word says he drove the car. He spilled to a broad, told her all about how he worked on a big job, told her what a great driver he was. She told some people Walter said stick with him and she’d be big. He’s spending, but not spending much. Not real loud, you know, but more then he ever had. He moved to a better pad. He gets his suits pressed now, and he walks big.”

“A dame?” Little Maxie said. “Walter never had a real dame in his life. They laughed at him.”

“One ain’t laughing,” Manny said.

“Maybe she just likes him,” Maxie said. “What kind of dame?”

“Not cheap, not high-price, you know?”

“The cops?” Maxie said.

“I heard they talked to him, but I ain’t sure. If he didn’t talk himself, I wouldn’t know nothing,” Manny said.

“Walter always did have a big mouth,” Little Maxie said. “Okay, Manny, and thanks.”

“What’s a pal for?” Manny said.

Back in his Chicago hotel room Little Maxie thought it all over. It was still only a tip, hot information, but it fitted, it made sense. Walter was just the kind of bum for a job like that. Walter was the kind who would spill to a dame, and Walter had money now. It was logical. Little Maxie liked logic. He was going over it again when he heard the noise.

A noise like a button hitting metal. Outside the window on the fire escape. Maxie held his breath, then took out his .38 and flipped off the safety. He glided like a ghost across the room to the window. Flattened against the wall beside the window, Maxie waited. He did not have to wait long.

The man was in the room almost before Maxie realized that the window had been opened. Little Maxie admired professional work; the man moved almost as silently as Maxie himself. The man was good, but not quite good enough.

Little Maxie hit the man expertly behind the ear, and the man went down and out. Maxie thought about his “pal” Manny Gomez.

Maxie checked the fire escape. It was empty. Maxie dragged the man into the light. A stranger. It was always a stranger. He searched the man. Not a cop. Maxie sat back in a chair and waited for the visitor to revive. He rolled another of his newspaper cigarettes and smoked until the man groaned, rolled over, and started to get up. Little Maxie waved his .38.

“Stay down, friend. Against the wall, hands flat on the floor. Right. Now don’t move and maybe you’ll live.”

“You won’t, little man,” the man said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Maxie said. “You’re pretty good, but the fire escape was a dumb play. You get this close to a mark, you got no business blowing the play. How come you tried a dumb move, friend?”

“We all ain’t as good as you, Maxie,” the man said.

“You got a point, friend, only you ain’t that bad either, right? Now the way I figure it is you tailed me to Manny Gomez. When you talked to my pal Manny, you figured I was working some angle and maybe I’d get away, right?”

“If you’re gonna shoot, shoot,” the man said.

“No hurry,” Little Maxie said. “Yeh, that’s it. You know something and you figured you had to move in fast. I got brains, friend, that’s the score. I ain’t perfect. Manny talked, right?”

“About what, little man?”

“Walter Midge, friend, and my ticket out.”

The man on the floor sneered. “Midge? That loony? How’s Midge gonna get you out? That two-bit bum ain’t even any good on the door of a crap game.”

“I hear he ain’t on the door no more, I hear he’s in the game now,” Maxie said softly.

The man on the floor showed no reaction, maybe a faint blink of the eyes, but Maxie did not expect to see a reaction. The man said, “You hear too much. So Midge ain’t on the door no more, so he rolled some drunks and came up with a few bills.”

Maxie hadn’t been sure Walter Midge wasn’t on the door of Big Frank’s game any more, now he was sure. And the man on the floor had made a dumb move because they were worried. That meant they knew about Walter, too. If Walter was still alive. You had to figure all the angles, weigh the facts. They knew about Walter, but only this guy knew that he, Maxie, knew about Walter. This guy and his partner, he had to have a partner. The partner would be watching the front.

Maxie said, “So Walter’s a loony, eh? He never had any money, he never worked a big job, that’s your story, friend! You never heard of the big job, you don’t know nothing?”

The man laughed. “Walter? A big job? You must be off your rocker, little man.”

“It figures you’d con me, friend, it figures. Only you can’t, see? You ain’t got the brains.”

“You’re runnin’ scared, little man,” the man said. “Go ahead, run! Shoot me, and run, see how far you get.”

“Shoot? You must really think I’m dumb,” Maxie said. “Where’s your partner, out front?”

The man raised his hands and lunged to his feet. Little Maxie brought his hand from his pocket, his left hand, the one that was holding his knife, not his gun. The man gasped once and fell.

Little Maxie moved swiftly. He hauled the man’s body to the window and pushed the man out. Then he turned and ran from the room and down the stairs to the lobby. As he expected, the lobby was empty, the last few people were running into the street.

Maxie slid out and walked silently in the shadow of the building to the edge of the crowd.

A cop was bending over the body of the man Maxie had killed. Little Maxie searched the faces in the crowd. He spotted his man. He could not be certain, but the man was trying to get close and yet not too close.

Maxie walked close up to the man. He touched the man’s coat under the left arm. The man whirled, his right hand inside his coat. The man saw Maxie and his hand came out and there was a gun in it.

Maxie smiled and stabbed the man expertly. The man slumped into Maxie’s arms. No one in the crowd had seen any of it. Little Maxie staggered away with the man until he reached an alley. Then he dropped the man and ran.

No one saw him arrive in New York. There had been no one waiting at La Guardia. But it was only a matter of time. The moment he checked into the flea-bitten West Side hotel it was even money the cops would know he was in town within three hours, the Syndicate maybe an hour earlier. They would find him tomorrow at the latest.

Maxie figured he had maybe fifteen hours if he changed hotels every five hours and never stayed in the same place more than two hours. That was the way it was; Maxie liked to face facts. He had to move fast. Fast and careful. You had to balance them just right to beat the Syndicate and the cops.

His first stop was Eddie the Wasp’s cigar store. The fat stool pigeon took one look at Maxie and began to sweat. “They’ll kill me for even talking to you! They got the word about Chi.”

“Walter Midge, Eddie,” Maxie said. “The cops after him?”

The fat man sweated in rivers in the cold. “They rousted him two months ago. I don’t know why. I put out an ear but I got no message. Three days they had him inside. Gimme a break, Maxie, that’s all I heard.”

For Little Maxie it was enough, it all fitted now. “Where is Walter?”

“Who knows? He’s been playin’ in Big Frank’s game, you know? And he moved like. Maxie, what’d he do? I mean, once in a while he talks about a big job, how he’s in the know. He’s spendin’, you know?”

“The cops don’t know, how should I know?”

“Cops’re dumb,” Eddie said.

“So dumb they got to use a stoolie as stupid as you,” Maxie said. “Okay, now you get a message to Walter. You tell him Little Maxie wants to see him about a big job, a driving job, got that? You tell him it’s me and a big job. And, Eddie, if anyone except Walter knows I’m in town I’ll be back for you.”

“Sure, Maxie,” the fat stoolie said.

“Okay. You get Walter here, and you get him to call me and ask for Alice, just Alice. That’s all.”

Little Maxie gave Eddie a Chelsea number, and turned on his heel and walked out. He did not have to worry about Eddie yet. Later, when Eddie thought he was safe, but not yet.

Maxie walked across the city to the Sixth Avenue bar that had the number, the Chelsea number, he’d given Eddie. He waited back in a dark doorway across the street until he was sure Eddie had called no one else. Then he crossed the street and went into the bar.

There were two men in the bar, and the bartender. Maxie covered his face as he passed the two men. He ordered a beer. A clock above the bar read ten o’clock. The little killer figured he had maybe ten hours left. He began to smile to himself. He was going to make it. With a break. He was on his third beer when he noticed that there was only one man sitting at the bar now.

Little Maxie jumped up and headed for the door. The telephone rang. Maxie hesitated, he did not know how long the man at the bar had been gone. It was a chance he would have to take. If he missed Walter this time it would take hours to make another contact, and Maxie did not have many hours. He went for the telephone.

A deep voice said, “Alice?”

“Okay, Midge, meet me in the alley behind the Belden Hotel in a half an hour. Come alone, I’ll be watching.”

The voice seemed to hesitate. Then the voice said, “Is this Maxie Lima? The hired gun?”

“Yeh, Midge, so be quick. It’s a big job.”

Little Maxie hung up and ran for the door. He was a half a block away when he looked back and saw the car drive up to the tavern. Two men got out and went into the saloon. In the distance Maxie heard sirens coming closer. The man from the bar had called everyone. Little Maxie walked faster and smiled in the night. His luck was holding.

He waited in the dark of the alley for Walter Midge. From where he stood he could see the mouth of the alley lighted by a street lamp. There was a blank wall behind him. The doors into the alley were all unlocked; Maxie had checked that. He had his escape route, and no one could sneak up on him. He lighted a cigarette as he waited, sure he had checked everything as usual.

The big man appeared at the mouth of the alley. Midge was almost a giant, and as broad as a wrestler. Little Maxie watched Midge walk down the alley. The big man seemed to move slowly as if afraid of something, hesitant. Little Maxie stepped out and shined a quick light on the big man.

“That’s far enough, Walter.”

Midge stopped. The big man’s eyes blinked in the light There was a thick cigar clamped in Midge’s mouth. The big man’s suit was good and pressed. His shoes were shined. Midge looked prosperous enough. Maxie shut off the light.

“You said you got a job,” the big man said in the dark.

Maxie stepped close to the big man. “A driving job, Midge. A bank, you drive the get-away car. You can handle that kind of job, right?”

The big man seemed to hesitate again. Then his voice from the dark said, “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t.”

The tone of the voice had changed, become, suddenly, arrogant. Midge’s voice was arrogant and wary, the voice of a man who is not sure how much he should admit, but who didn’t care if someone guessed what he had done. Midge was saying, “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t.”

“I know all about it, Walter,” Maxie said.

“All about what, Lima,” the hard voice said.

Maxie laughed. “Don’t try to con me, Midge. The robbery, I know all about it. What was your cut, ten percent? That’d be one hundred grand more-or-less, right? You ain’t been spending that much, you been taking it real easy. I figure you got most of it left.”

The big man’s voice was harder, cagy. “You got big ears, maybe you know too much.”

Little Maxie said, “Don’t try it, Midge! I got a gun in my hand, and a knife in my pocket. You know who I am. I could kill you ways you never heard of, and no one the wiser.”

“What do you want from me?” Walter Midge said.

Little Maxie smiled to himself. “Let’s say you got seventy-five grand left, I’ll take about twenty thousand bucks of that. I’m being good to you, that’s less than half.”

“Why should I pay you?”

“Because I know about the robbery. I figure it’s worth ten thousand dollars I don’t tell the cops; they’d listen to Maxie Lima, believe me. You fooled them once, only this time they’d have the tip from me, and this time they’d keep you inside until you rotted.”

Maxie went on: “The other ten grand is for not telling the Syndicate boys. You don’t pay, I tell the cops and the Syndicate boys. If the cops don’t lock you up and throw away the key, someone in the Syndicate is gonna get the idea of helping you spend that dough, right?”

There was a long silence this time. Little Maxie took a tight grip on his .38 and waited. At last the voice of Walter Midge said, “You’ll tell them? The cops and the Syndicate?”

“I will,” Maxie said. “And don’t think about knocking me off. In the first place you couldn’t do it, in the second place that’s a murder rap and twenty grand ain’t worth a murder rap to a guy like you.”

The silence was longer this time. The little killer went over the whole thing in his mind. The kind of man who drove a get-away car for ten percent of a big robbery was not the type who would kill anyone if he could help it. Maxie knew all about killers, and robbery drivers were never killers if they could help it.

Little Maxie was sure of that. It wouldn’t do the big man any good to turn him in to the police. And the big man was too dumb to know that Little Maxie wasn’t about to talk to the Syndicate. If Midge knew that, the big man would have walked out already.

The big man’s voice said, “You’ll tell the Syndicate?”

“You heard me,” Maxie said. “Here’s what you do. Bring the money to the Valencia Hotel, you know where it is. Ask for Mr. Brown’s room. Then you go straight up and wait at the room door, got it?”

The big man did not answer. Little Maxie was sure Midge was shaking his head up and down in the dark, but the big man did not speak, and then Maxie saw a shadow at the mouth of the alley. Maxie hissed, “Run!”

A voice called, “Halt! Police!”

Maxie was down and crawling away before the first shot was fired. The little killer never did see what happened to Walter Midge. Maxie knew the voice — Lieutenant Jacoby.

Maxie swore under his breath. The only way Jacoby could have known was from Eddie the Wasp. Eddie must have heard him on the telephone to Walter. He decided he would take care of Eddie after Walter paid the money.

There was movement at the mouth of the alley. Little Maxie fired four quick shots and made a dash for the nearest door. He went through the door in a sprawling dive, landed, rolled, and came up running. One last shot missed him by a hair as he went down a laundry chute in the hotel head first. He came out in the cellar and was out the front way and running away in the dark before the police reached the cellar.

From the shadows Little Maxie watched Midge cross the street and go into the entrance of the Valencia Hotel. The big man was carrying a brown-paper wrapped package. The little killer waited in the shadows. Light was just beginning to break in the sky to the east.

Dawn soon, and Maxie had already checked on the nine o’clock flight nonstop to Brazil. They had a seat. Now he waited across the street to see if Walter Midge had decided to try to be smart.

Fifteen minutes passed, but no one else went into the hotel, no one drove up and parked on the block.

Midge was playing it straight. Maxie knew Walter himself was no danger, but it paid to be sure, and Maxie checked his .38 before he put it in his pocket with his hand on it and ready. Then he walked across the street and into the hotel. He had played it all as smart as it could be played; now his luck just had to hold another three hours.

In the hotel he walked up the stairs. Walter Midge was waiting in front of the door of the room he had taken in the name of Brown. Maxie walked up to the big man and pulled out his .38. “Hold still!”

He carefully searched the big man. Midge was not carrying a weapon. Maxie had been sure, but it paid to figure on everything. Maxie said, “Okay, come on.”

“Where?” Walter Midge said.

“Just come on,” Maxie said. He led the big man down the stairs to the next floor. He took a key from his pocket and opened the door of an empty room.

Maxie grinned. “In case you told anyone. I got the key and checked the room being empty while the clerk was off buying me some whisky, for a small tip, of course.”

The big man walked into the room and Little Maxie locked the door behind them. Maxie still held his .38, just in case, but he was not worried about the big man. And he had decided not to kill Midge later. Sudden killings were dangerous, too much could go wrong. A shot in the hotel was too risky — too many people. With a man as big as Midge a knife was chancy.

The main thing was that Little Maxie did not want a killing to start the police checking the airports. Eddie the Wasp would have told them Maxie was looking for Walter Midge by now.

“Okay, Midge,” he said, “hand it over and I’ll blow.”

The big man handed Maxie the package. Maxie laid his .38 on the bureau and tore open the package. And Maxie stared down at the neatly stacked and wrapped piles of cut newspaper. Not all newspaper. On each stack there was a single ten dollar bill. Little Maxie screamed at Walter Midge:

“Newspaper?! Why you stupid—”

The big man moved with amazing speed. Midge was half way to Maxie before the little man knew what was happening. The big man shouted, “You ain’t gonna tell! You ain’t—”

Little Maxie grabbed for his .38. His mind was racing. The shots would bring the cops if the big man’s shouts didn’t. It was crazy, stupid!

The big man came closer. Maxie fired before his gun was steady. The big man grunted. But Midge did not stop coming. Little Maxie panicked. It was all wrong! It was stupid! Maxie ducked and ran. It made no sense, and the little killer reached for the door in panic.

The big man’s hands closed on his throat. The .38 fell to the floor. Little Maxie tried to breathe, but the fingers crushed his throat. Maxie heard shouts and running feet in the hall. He tried to scream, but his throat was twisted and nothing came out.

Blood rushed up behind Maxie’s eyes and his mind screamed over and over — it don’t figure, it’s stupid, it don’t figure, it don’t...

And Little Maxie Lima died trying to think of what had gone wrong.

Detective Lieutenant Fred Jacoby looked down at Walter Midge. The big man was breathing hard with the bullet in his chest. Jacoby said to the Sergeant, “So Maxie put his gun down and when Midge rushed him he couldn’t get it up fast enough. It looks like he panicked. He couldn’t figure what went wrong.”

“Midge was lucky,” Sergeant Allers said. “He gonna make it?”

“Maybe,” Jacoby said. “I don’t figure he cares.”

The coroner, who was working over the injured Walter Midge, looked up at Jacoby. “He’s got a chance.”

“That newspaper trick was smart, but risky,” the Sergeant said. “Me, I’d of given Maxie the money.”

“What money?” Jacoby said. “Walter never went near a big robbery in his life. You’re as bad as Maxie. The newspaper wasn’t a smart trick; Walter really thought it was twenty thousand dollars. That’s why the tens on every stack. You heard him tell us what happened? He still thinks he was in on the robbery, drove the car, and brought the money to Maxie. It’s a delusion, he wants to believe it. The only thing he doesn’t know is why he killed Maxie. If he had really been in on the robbery, he would have paid Maxie, not killed him.”

The coroner stood up. He looked down at Walter Midge. “He had to kill Maxie or face up to his delusion. If he let Maxie tell anyone about the robbery, the part of his brain with the delusion would have to admit it was only a delusion. So his subconscious killed Maxie to protect its delusion, so it could go on believing what it wanted. I’ll bet Maxie still can’t figure it out wherever he is.”

Jacoby said, “Maxie should have asked me. We checked Walter two months ago. We’d heard the same rumors. It turned out he inherited some money — he’d rolled some drunks when it was real safe. The big criminal, just a delusion. Poor Little Maxie.”

“You mean he killed Maxie because he didn’t do the robbery?” the Sergeant said. “It’s crazy.”

“A crazy delusion,” Jacoby said. “He had to protect his delusion. He still doesn’t know why he killed Maxie. He knew Maxie had nothing to tell but his mind couldn’t admit that.”

The coroner put on his hat and coat as the stretcher arrived from the ambulance. As they went out behind the stretcher with big Walter Midge on it, the coroner said, “If he lives, it’s Bellevue. He can still think he’s a big man there.”

“You know,” Jacoby said, “he did the job on Maxie for the Syndicate. Maybe they will even pay him.”

On the stretcher Walter Midge struggled to raise his head. The big man gasped out, “Yeh, I done the job, copper. I got Little Maxie Lima, I’m a big man, copper.”

“How’d you do it, Walter,” Jacoby said, “with his own thirty-eight I’ll bet.”

Walter Midge lay back on the stretcher. Then the big man smiled like a child. “Yeh, that’s right, I done it with his own gun.” The big man smiled like a happy child, and then, suddenly, the big man scowled and his eyes narrowed as he stared up at nothing. “Maybe I did it, maybe I didn’t, copper. You get me my lawyer. Yeh, that’s it, my lawyer. I ain’t talking.”

Lieutenant Jacoby closed the ambulance door behind Walter Midge and watched the ambulance drive away in the cold morning. A jet flew over the city high up. On its way to Brazil maybe, Jacoby thought to himself. Poor Little Maxie.