Muscle Man

Chapter Two A Slick Dame

Slick Sarah was dressed with more dash and sophistication than she had been on the previous evening. Her remarks were more swiftly friendly, less conventional. Paul Pry took every conversational lead which was offered. By ten o’clock she was giving him gin fizzes and talking frankly about the absent boy friend.

“Gee, he’s a nice kid, but he gets shocked so easy,” said Slick Sarah, eyeing Paul Pry through narrowed lids. “I took him to a cabaret one night. I had on a low dress, and it shocked him to death. I like him, but I don’t like men that get shocked too easy.

“And when the girl came out and did a barefoot dance! Say, you’d oughta seen him! He nearly looped the loop! His cheeks was red like fire!”

Paul Pry nodded with alcoholic sophistication.

“He ain’t never been around none,” he said.

“You don’t get shocked easy?” asked the girl.

Paul Pry laughed, the laugh of a man who wishes to convey the extent of his manly sophistication.

“Say,” he proclaimed, “I’ve been around.”

Sarah Slick nodded.

“Gawd, I didn’t dare to tell Louie, but I used to work in one of them joints. I used to come out and do a barefoot kick. He’d have died if he’d known.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“You’re sure built for it, baby!”

“Think so?” she asked and smiled alluringly.

Paul Pry sighed and stared at the girl, gulped down the last of his gin fizz and stared again.

“I’ll say! Sell me a ticket for the front row!”

She laughed, got up and took his empty glass.

“Gee, I’m glad I met you,” she said. “I’ll mix up a little more giggle water.”

She started for the kitchen. On the way she raised and then lowered the window shade.

Paul Pry lit a cigarette.

There was a knock on the door of the apartment. Slick Sarah dried her hands on a towel. Her face wore a puzzled frown as she went to the door and flung it open.

The man who stood on the threshold was the man Mugs Magoo had pointed out as Four Flush Finney.

“My Gawd!” she yelled, “it’s my brother!”

And she staggered back, hand to her throat, eyes wide. She gulped twice, tried to talk, failed, motioned with her hands.

The man in the doorway glided into the room with a motion as swiftly furtive as a wet eel slipping through a crack in a fishing creel. He held his finger to his lips for silence, whirled, locked the door, bent, listened with his ear to the keyhole.

Finally he straightened, ignored Paul Pry who sat staring with open mouth and wide eyes, and went at once to the girl.

“Sarah,” he said, “I’m in trouble, a lot of trouble. You’ve got to help me!”

The girl patted his shoulder.

“You poor, poor dear, what’s the matter? Tell me all about it— Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Fowler. I wanta introduce my brother, Finney Slade. Finney, this is a boy friend.”

The man regarded Paul Pry with wide eyes, made no acknowledgment of the introduction whatever.

Paul Pry was on his feet, gawking about him awkwardly, uncertainly.

“Can you trust him?” asked Four Flush Finney.

The girl left the man’s side, glided over to Paul Pry and placed a soothing hand on his arm.

“Can I trust him? I’ll say! I ain’t known him but a little time, but him and me are regular pals already — ain’t we, honey?”

Paul Pry gripped the hand that held his arm.

“I’ll say!” he said. “Maybe I’d better go.”

She shook her head.

“No, no. I get so frightened whenever there’s trouble. You stay. Mr. Fowler’s a big business man from some place in Indiana, just outside of Chicago, Finney. Maybe he can help us.”

Finney nodded, sank into a chair, put his head in his hands.

“They’re framin’ me, sis,” he said.

“Who’s framin’ you, Finney?”

“One of the big gangsters, sis. A guy they call ‘Big Front’ Gilvray. He’s head of a big gang here, and he’s been pulling a lot of rough stuff. I’ve been workin’ for him, and never knew it.”

The girl’s eyes were narrow again.

“What d’yuh mean you’ve been workin’ for him, an’ never knew it? I thought you was chauffeur for a big business man here in the city!”

He laughed, and the laugh was bitter.

“That’s what I thought. Know who that big business man was? Well, it was Tommy Drake, and Tommy Drake’s Gilvray’s right-hand man, collector and all that. I thought he was in some sort of legitimate business. He ain’t. He’s a racketeer, booze runner and regular gangster.”

The girl sank down on the floor, one hand on Paul Pry’s knee. “Gee!” she said. “Ain’t that a sock in the eye!”

Her brother nodded, signifying that it was, indeed, a sock in the eye.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he groaned.

“What’s the other half?” asked the girl.

“Gilvray needed a fall guy, and he picked on me.”

“A fall guy? What’s a fall guy, Finney?”

“Somebody to take the rap.”

“What d’yuh mean, take the rap? Talk sense!”

And she flashed a significant glance toward Paul Pry, then frowned at her brother.

He nodded.

“I see,” he said, significantly, then launched into a story of hard luck.

“You see, sis, it was this way. When I got the job of running the big limousine for Tommy Drake, I sure thought it was on the up and up. We just went places all over the city, and Tommy had conferences, and sure made a bunch of jack. He dragged down the long green every time he had one of those conferences. I should have smelled a rat, but I didn’t.

“Then, a couple of nights ago, Tommy told me that he’d loaned the car to some friends, and I’d take them for a little ride around the city. He was going to be tied up on business, see?

“Well, the friends showed up all right, and they looked just like what they claimed to be, some out of town customers, that were in for a lark. Tommy told me to take them out and drive them where they wanted to go.

“Well, they went to a couple of speaks first off the bat, and then one of ’em said he wanted to get some money, and he thought he could get a check cashed at the All Night & Day Bank, and would I drive ’em over.

“I drove ’em over, all right, and they told me to park right in front of the fire plug that’s by the door of the bank. They all went in. I thought at the time they went in sorta businesslike, but I didn’t pay so awful much attention to that then.

“One of ’em said he had a date, and he wanted to be sure and get there on time and he only had a few minutes, so he told me to keep the motor running and be all ready for a snappy getaway when they came out of the bank.

“Well, I never thought nothing. I just sat there with the motor running. They came out of the bank and piled in, and one of ’em said ‘A hundred bucks, buddy, if you get to that date in five minutes.’

“Well it was a good break for me, and I made the car do its stuff. They were counting out a wad of money, and I was so green I asked ’em if they’d had any trouble getting the check cashed. They laughed and said they’d had a little trouble, but after they’d identified themselves with the head cashier there hadn’t been any more trouble.

“I found out afterward it was a stick-up, and that the way they’d identified themselves with the head cashier was by slamming him over the bean with a blackjack.

“Of course I read about it in the papers, and I went to Tommy Drake, and then was when Tommy told me that he was the collection man for Big Front Gilvray and that I was in too deep to back out. He raised my pay fifty a week, and gave me a thousand bonus for sitting in on the bank job, and I didn’t have no choice in the matter. None whatever!”

The girl interrupted.

“That was wrong, Finney. You should have come to me right then and there. That wasn’t the way us Slades were brought up. You should have gone to the police right then. I’m ashamed of you, taking gangster money!”

He gulped and looked embarrassed.

“I guess you’re right, sis. I was a fool. But the way Tommy Drake put it up to me it didn’t seem like there was any other — way out of it. He said I was in already, that he’d stand back of me if I played the game, and that I’d get on the spot if I didn’t.

“That’s why I didn’t get in touch with you for a while. I was ashamed, and I didn’t want to drag you into the thing.”

She nodded.

Paul Pry interrupted.

“But I read about that case in the paper. The cashier died, didn’t he?”

The man who posed as the brother of Slick Sarah regarded Paul Pry grimly.

“The man died,” he said.

There was silence in the room for the space of seconds.

Then Four Flush Finney again took up his narrative.

“When the man died, Big Front Gilvray wanted a fall guy to turn up if anything happened. Two nights later one of the men who was on the bank job held up a restaurant and the cops took after the car.

“There was some shooting. The gangsters got to safety all right, but the bullets had found a mark. One of the men was dying. He knew he was kicking off. Big Front knew he was cashing in. And he had the man sign a dying confession. In that confession the man took all responsibility for croaking the cashier. He claimed there was only one other man on the job with him, and that man was me!

“See what he done? He left himself an out. If it ever came to a showdown he could spring the confession and maybe clear the other men. But it would put me on the hot seat.

“That’s the kind of a double cross they gave me. And Big Front’s going to use that confession to make me do his dirty work. That’s the way he plays the game.

“He’s got another job planned for me now, sis, and he says if I don’t go through with it he’ll mail the confession to the bulls. That’s why I came here. You’ve got to keep me for a while until we decide what to do.”

The girl got up from her place beside Paul Pry and crossed to him. “That’s all right, Finney, dear. We’ll just stand together. They can’t pin a dirty frame-up like that on you. They simply can’t!”

He grunted. “Shows all you know about it. Those that are on the inside will tell you that two out of three who get the chair are railroaded to it as fall guys by higher ups who throw out victims to the crooked police.”

He put his head on her shoulder. She stroked his hair.

“Why don’t you go to the police and tell them the whole story?” asked Paul Pry.

The man laughed, and his laugh was metallic, harsh.

“Shows how little you know about gang stuff. If I went to the bulls and told them the story they’d throw me in. They want to turn up some one for the cashier’s murder, and they’d rather it’d be me than anyone else because I’d be easy. A real gangster would have a slush fund and a mouthpiece, and they’d have a hell of a time pinning it on him.

“No, there’s no way out through the police. They’d either fry me, or else they’d believe my story, take me before the grand jury, and then the gangs would put me on the spot.”

“How do you mean, ‘on the spot’?” asked Paul Pry.

“Stick me in the path of a machine gun!” snapped the man.

“I see,” said Paul.

The girl was sobbing quietly.

“Isn’t there any way out, Finney?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, shortly, curtly, and stopped.

She put her hands on his shoulders, pushed herself back at arm’s length until she could gaze into his eyes.

“Well,” she said, “what is it?”

“It’s almost as bad as the other,” he said.

“Well, anyhow, you can tell us.”

He took a deep breath.

“We could muscle Tommy Drake and make Big Front kick through with the confession.”

She frowned, puzzled.

“Talk English, Finney.”

He explained it to her patiently: “You see, sweet, these big gangsters have to be on the job every minute of the day. If they was to get laid up for any length of time the whole pack of cards would come tumbling down. Their time is worth untold money to them, every day.

“There’s rivalry in the gang stuff, and if a man was to lose touch with his trade it’d mean that some rival would come in and scoop the business.

“Every once in a while some fast worker will muscle one of the big gangsters. That is, he’ll strong-arm him and put him some place where he can’t get out. Then the man has to kick through with whatever the captors want in order to get out. And if he’s part of an organization, he has to be on the job for the organization. So the organization kicks through.

“Now, of course Tommy Drake, would deny it if it was put up to him, but he told me in confidence that he’s going to do some heavy collecting for Big Front on Friday night. He’s going to take in certified checks, payable to Tommy Drake. It’s for some big booze shipments, and the gangs won’t take anything except certified checks or money. Money ain’t so hot right now with some of the gangs hijacking each other, so Tommy Drake does his stuff with certified checks.

“Now if I was to muscle Tommy out for a while, and make him give me those certified checks, endorsed to bearer, and then tell Gilvray I was going to cash those checks and beat it unless he kicked through with the confession and gave me a clean bill of health, he’d do it.

“Tommy, himself, was the one that suggested it. He thinks I got a raw deal from Big Front. But, of course, Tommy has got to protect himself in the thing, and I’d have to put it on in style. That’d be to protect Tommy afterward.”

Kinney stopped, looked steadily at his sister.

She returned the glance, steadily, as though it were a signal, or an attempt to exchange thought without the use of words.

“But why can’t you do it, Finney?”

“I need a muscle man.”

“Why?”

“It’d have to be someone that would make the thing look O. K. Otherwise it’d just get Tommy put on the spot, as well as me. But if someone that nobody knew was to do the muscle stunt then we’d all be in the clear.”

The girl’s voice was rapid.

“But wouldn’t it be dangerous?”

“Naw. Where’d there be any danger? Tommy’d be willing, and so would I. A man would just have to go through the motions. Then Tommy would surrender the checks, and that’d be all there was to it.”

“Would Gilvray come through?”

“Would he! Listen, sis, there’ll be at least two checks. One of ’em will be drawn on the Farmers & Merchants National for twenty thousand dollars, signed by Arthur Manser, and certified. The other will be for ten grand, on the Seaboard Union National, signed by Carl Chadwick, certified. Both of ’em payable to Tommy Drake! Use your noodle, kid, and see what that’d mean! Why Gilvray would come through so quick there’d be nothing to it!”

“But,” protested the girl, after a moment of silence, “wouldn’t it be a crime?”

“Of course not. We’d give up the checks. All we want is to kill some false confessions. We’d really be on the side of the law, doing it a favor.”

There was a long silence. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the eyes of the man and the woman turned to Paul Pry.

That individual gulped twice.

“I’m a stranger in the city. Nobody knows me. If I could help—”

Finney shot from his chair, hand outstretched.

“Put her there!” he said. “A regular guy!”

The girl flung her arms around his neck, kissed him, at first impersonally, then, with a startled gasp, more affectionately. She clung to him, hot breath coming through parted lips, eyes starry.

“My hero!” she said.

Finney didn’t give the situation an opportunity to develop any further.

“You and this friend of ours would have to get a bungalow out on the outskirts and pretend you were newly wedded and had just moved in. That’d take care of the neighbors. Then, on Friday, when Tommy gets done with his collecting, I’d leave the car at a certain place while Tommy and me went in for a drink. The car’d be locked, but Sid Fowler here would have a duplicate key.

“There’d be a robe in back. He’d get in and crawl under the robe. Then Tommy would get in front with me. All Sid here would have to do would be to stand up and stick a gun in our necks, and tell us to drive where he said and look pleasant about it. It’d be that simple!”

The girl rubbed her cheek against Paul Pry’s.

“How delightfully simple!” she said.

And there was a subtle double meaning which was meant for the ears of the man who posed as her brother.