Эд Макбейн - Running From Legs and Other Stories

Just like that.

Zip.

One minute, no gun. The next minute, a gun.

Dominique took off one of her high-heeled shoes.

As she raised her leg, Mr. Noland looked under her skirt at her underwear — black silk panties in my grandmother’s “sirocco” line, $4.98 over the counter in any of her shops. Mr. Noland then realized what Dominique was going to do with the shoe. What she was going to do was hit him on the other side of the head with it. Which was possibly why he aimed the gun right at her heart.

I did the only thing I could do.

In reaction, Mr. Noland bellowed in rage and doubled over in pain, his hands clutching for his groin, his knees coming together as if he had to pee very badly, and then he fell to the floor and lay there writhing and moaning while everywhere about him were dancers all aghast. Bruno rushed to him at once and knelt beside him, his hands fluttering. “Oh, God, Mr. Noland,” he said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Noland,” and Mr. Noland tried to say something but his face was very red and his eyes were bulging and all that came out was a sort of strangled sputter at which point one of the women with the purple hair came running over and said, “Legs? Shall I call a doctor?”

Which is when I grabbed Dominique’s hand and began running.

“A bootlegger, a narcotics smuggler, a hijacker, and a trusted friend of an even bigger gangster named Little Augie Orgen, that’s who Legs Diamond is.”

All this from Mickey Tataglia, who hurried us through tunnels under the club, pressing buttons that opened doors into other tunnels lined with booze smuggled in from Canada.

“He also owns a second-floor speakeasy called the Hotsy Totsy Club on Broadway, between Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth streets, that’s who Legs Diamond is. You did a stupid thing, both of you. Do you know who arranged the murder of Jack the Dropper?”

“Who is Jack the Dropper?” Dominique asked.

High heels clicking, long legs flashing through dusty underground tunnels lined with cases and cases of illegal booze. Mickey walked swiftly ahead of us, leading the way, brushing aside cobwebs that hung from rafters along which rats scampered.

“Jack the Dropper,” he said impatiently. “Alias Kid Dropper, whose real name is Nathan Kaplan, who all three of him was shot dead by Louis Kushner in a trap the Diamonds set up.”

“The Diamonds,” I said.

“Legs Diamond,” Mickey said. “Alias Jack Diamond, alias John Higgins, alias John Hart, whose real name is John Thomas Noland, who all five of him will not like getting kicked in the balls by a fucking dope who shot himself in the foot.”

“Richard did not shoot himself in the foot,” Dominique said heatedly.

“I’m sure the Diamonds will take that into consideration when he kills you both. Or if not him, then one of his apes. The Diamonds has a lot of such people on his payroll. I wish you both a lot of luck,” he said, and pressed another button. A wall swung open. Beyond it was an alleyway.

“You’re on 88th Street,” Mickey said.

We stepped outside into a dusky evengloam.

Mickey hit the button again.

The door closed behind us.

We began running.

We got to Penn Station at 8:33 P.M. and learned that a train would be leaving for Chattanooga, Tennessee, in exactly seven minutes. It cost us an additional twelve dollars each for a sleeping compartment, but we figured it was worth it. We did not want to be sitting out in the open should any of Diamond’s goons decide to check out the trains leaving the city. A sleeping compartment had windows with curtains and shades on them. A sleeping compartment had a door with a lock on it.

The train was the Crescent Limited, making stops in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C, Charlottesville, Spartanburg, Greenville, and Atlanta, before its scheduled arrival in Chattanooga at 10:10 tomorrow night. We figured Chattanooga was far enough away. The total one-way fare came to $41.29 for each of us. The train was scheduled to leave at 8:40.

A black porter carried our bags into the compartment, told us he’d make up the berths for us whenever we liked, and then inquired as to whether we’d care for any kind of beverage before we retired.

The “any kind of beverage” sounded like a code, but I wanted to make certain.

“What kind of beverage did you have in mind?” I asked.

“Whatever sort of beverage might suit your fancy,” he said.

“And what sort of beverage might that be?”

“Well, suh,” he said, “we has coffee, tea, and milk...”

“Uh-huh.”

“And a wide variety of soft drinks,” he said, and winked so broadly that any Prohibition agent wandering past would have arrested him on the strength of the wink alone. Dominique immediately pulled back her skirt, took a silver flask from where it was tucked into her garter, and asked the porter to fill it with any kind of colorless soft drink, please. I took my flask from my hip pocket and told him I’d have the same. He knew we both wanted gin. Or its vague equivalent.

“That’ll be twenty dollars each t’fill dese flasks here,” he said.

“We’ll need some setups too,” I said, and took out my wallet and handed him three twenty-dollar bills. He left the compartment and returned some ten minutes later, carrying a tray on which were a siphon bottle of soda, two tall glasses, a bowl of chipped ice with a spoon in it, a lemon on a small dish, a paring knife, and ten dollars in change from the sixty I’d given him. He put the tray on the table between the two facing seats, removed the two filled flasks from the side pockets of his white jacket, put those on the table as well, asked if there was anything else we might be needing, and then told us again that he would make up the berths for us whenever we were of a mind to retire. Dominique said maybe he ought to make them up now. I looked at her.

“No?” she said.

“No, fine,” I said.

“Shall I makes ’em up, den?” the porter asked.

“Please,” Dominique said.

The porter grinned; I suspected he wanted to get the bed-making over with so he could get a good night’s sleep himself. We went out into the corridor, leaving him to his work. Dominique looked at her watch.

I looked at my watch.

It was already ten minutes to nine.

“I’m very frightened,” she said.

“So am I.”

“You?” She waved this away with the back of her hand. “You have been in the war.”

“Still,” I said, and shrugged.

She did not know about wars.

Inside the compartment, the porter worked in silence.

“Why aren’t we leaving yet?” Dominique asked.

I looked at my watch again.

“There you go, suh,” the porter said, stepping out into the corridor.

“Thank you,” I said, and tipped him two dollars.

“’Night, suh,” he said, touching the peak of his hat, “ma’am, sleep well, the boths of you.”

We went back into the compartment. He had left the folding table up because he knew we’d be drinking, but the seats on either side of the compartment were now made up as narrow beds with pillows and sheets and blankets. I closed and locked the door behind us.

“Did you lock it?” Dominique asked. She was already spooning ice into both glasses, her back to me.

“I locked it,” I said.

“Tell me how much,” she said, and began pouring from one of the flasks.

“That’s enough,” I said.

“I want a very strong one,” she said, pouring heavily into the other glass.

“Shall I slice this lemon?”

“Please,” she said, and sat on the bed on the forward side of the compartment.

I sat opposite her. She picked up the soda siphon, squirted some into each of the glasses. Her legs were slightly parted. Her skirt was riding high on her thighs. Rolled silk stockings. Garter on her right leg, where the flask had been. I halved the lemon, quartered it, squeezed some juice into her glass, dropped the crushed quarter-lemon into it. I raised my own glass.