D. Champion - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 30, No. 2 — July 1947)

“I did and I am.”

“Yeah. But you didn’t and you’re not on that quotation deal. That hundred bucks should revert to the Freuh estate if he has one. Anyway, it’s not yours.”

“The time limit Freuh set has not yet expired.”

“No, but Freuh has. It’s not your dough.”

He glared at me. His mind, I knew, was working rapidly as he desperately figured out some specious reason why he was entitled to the hundred bucks as well as to the grand. No brilliant idea had occurred to him by the time the door opened and the two hoods walked in.

One of them was tall, thin and dark. He wore a brown silk shirt with a flashy collar pin. His suit was blue with a pin stripe just a trifle too wide. His lips were tight and his eyes narrowed. His partner was thick and squat, dressed in ready made clothes and his shoes were unshined. The chief point of similarity between them was that they both held guns.

Sackler’s normally white face turned tattletale gray. He was thoroughly opposed to violence when it was directed at him. Not that I liked it myself. I have seen battalions of thugs in my day and I knew a tough guy when I laid an eye on one.

I took no chances. I raised my arms above my head without waiting for orders and said: “O.K., boys, the dough is in that desk over there. The top drawer on the left. In two envelopes.”

Sackler looked at me like a bishop who has just read a volume of Robert Ingersoll. He said: “Iscariot. Traitor, Biter of nourishing hand.”

“On the contrary,” I pointed out. “One of my duties is that of bodyguard. I am, perhaps, saving your life. I know you’d never tell them where the dough was while there was a drop of blood left in your veins.”

The tall hood said in an odd high pitched voice: “All right, you gees, break it up. We don’t want no damned dough.”

“My God,” I said, “this isn’t purely social, is it?”

The tall hood said to his partner: “A comical guy, Jake. Go get him.”

Jake crossed the room, studied my features carefully along the sights of his gun and said: “Get up, mug. We’re moving.”

I got up. I am not garrulous when facing a gun. Across the room I saw that Sackler, too, was standing. He gave me a jaundiced eyes and said: “Earn your keep, Joey. Take them.”

I laughed hollowly to let Jake know I took this last crack as a joke. Jake said over his shoulder: “All right, Lou. Let’s get going.”

Lou nodded. They herded us together just before the office door. There Lou made a little speech.

“We are taking a little trip,” he said. “Now, it might look funny to some dopes if we get on the elevator with these rods in our fists.”

“Oh, no, ” I said. “Not in this building. No one would pay any attention. No one—”

“Shut up,” said Lou and I was certain he meant it.

“So,” he continued, “we’re going to put the hardware in our pockets. But our hands’ll be in our pockets, too. If either of you guys tries to make a break for it, you’re dead.”

We went out into the hall and got into the elevator. I felt Sackler’s eye upon me. I knew he was registering indignation. I knew he was holding me personally responsible for this kidnapping. I was his bodyguard and I wasn’t guarding his body. I was going to have to fight like hell to avoid a salary cut.

Out in the street Lou and his little friend herded us into a big sedan parked at the curb. We were ordered into the rear seat. Lou took his place behind the wheel and Jake sat alongside of him, twisting his squat body around so that he could keep an eye on us. He took his thirty-eight from his pocket and balanced it suggestively on the back of the seat.

Lou stepped on the starter and we headed downtown. For the first time since the hoods had come upon us I got a chance to think. Not that it did me any good. What their motives were, I did not know.

We’d been mixed up in no cases involving gangsters lately. Obviously it wasn’t a holdup since they had disregarded my information about the cash in the desk. And no one in his right senses would kidnap Sackler for ransom because not all the tortures of Torquemada could wring a single nickel out of him.

I said to Sackler, “Have you any idea what this is all about?”

“A glimmer, Joey. A faint glimmer. It’s not too bad. There may be a dollar or so in it.”

Jake and Lou remained allergic to conversation. In concert they said, “Shut up.”

We cut right on Fourteenth Street and headed toward the River. We came to an eventual halt before a pair of huge warehouse doors, a stone’s throw from Washington Market. Jake, who apparently had a high regard for monosyllables, said, “Out.”

We got out. Lou locked the car and joined us. We were escorted through a narrow alley at the side of the building. We were stopped before a narrow door with a bell set in the bricks at its side. Lou pressed the bell.

A moment later the door opened. We went into a tiny foyer at the end of which was a flight of wooden stairs. We mounted on Jake’s orders. At the top, Lou banged against a door panel. A suave voice said: “Come in.”

I gasped as the door opened. The room which I viewed was vast and lavishly furnished. It was not the sort of thing one expected in a warehouse hard by Fourteenth Street. The rug on the floor felt as if it had been stolen from the lobby of Radio City Music Hall. The walls were panelled. The chairs were chrome and red leather. At the far end of the room was an oblong mahogany desk which would have awed anyone but a corporation vice-president.

On one side of the room an open door revealed an elaborate bathroom. There was a man in there, bending over a green washbasin. As I moved forward into the room I recognized the figure and noted what it was doing.

The man was Joseph Capelli. And he was washing the barrel of an automatic with soap and water.

I didn’t know which of these facts surprised me most. First I had never heard of anyone laving a gun. Second, I failed to understand why a man of Capelli’s subtle and devious talents should stoop to something as obvious and unnecessary as kidnapping. If he wanted to see Sackler all he had to do was promise him a dollar bill plus his cab fare.

Lou said: “O.K., chief. We got ’em.”

Capelli came out of the bathroom, his automatic still in his hand. He tossed it carelessly on the desk, waved cheeringly to Sackler and myself and sat down.

Capelli was a man of about thirty-five. His hair was dark and curly, his face was dark, and his eyes black and liquid. He had begun life in Little Italy and by dint of a ruthless hand and a quick wit had eventually established himself as the top racket boy of the town.

All his life he had cleverly avoided publicity, with the net result that only the coppers, the police reporters, and a harassed D.A.’s office which had never obtained enough evidence to convict him, knew of his activities. The general public had never heard of him.

“Now,” he said to Sackler, “I’ll tell you what I want.”

“Will you?” said Sackler bitterly. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to get.”

Capelli lifted his dark eyebrows. “What?”

“Arrested. And indicted this time, too. You can’t get away with this.” Sackler removed his gaze from Capelli and transferred it to me. “If I’d had an adequate bodyguard your two hoods would be dead now.”

Capelli grinned at me. “Take it easy,” he counselled. “You don’t want to have me pinched, Sackler. I’ve brought you here to give you some money.”

Sackler’s indignation fell from him like a. strip teaser’s brassiere. “I am objective enough,” he said primly, “to keep my personal feelings out of a business affair,”

“Good,” said Capelli. “First, how about a smoke?”