Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

“I like it here.”

“You might like it even better in the booth.”

It was then that Jackie felt the steel finger prodding his kidney. In his day, he’d taken a few in the kidneys from an inside brawler or two. Nothing, though, like this gentle prodding. Nothing ever that left him so internally cold, so vulnerable to what would follow. He slipped off the stool and moved toward the last booth in the rear of the joint. His feet had the incredible heaviness that they used to acquire in the days when he went fifteen.

They sat across from each other in the booth, and the hood’s lips fashioned the shallow smile above the dimple. “It’s not like a fighter to train in a bar. Conscience bothering you?”

Jackie made a fist in his lap under the table. He wondered how much shoulder he could get into one reaching out from a sitting position.

“I’m not very bright,” he said. “You’ll have to keep it simple.”

The shallow smile spread a little. “Sure, champ. You know Rudy Ryan?”

The question was rhetorical. Everyone knew Rudy Ryan. Or about him. Another TV actor. Not a minor one, like Jay Paley. Big stuff. A real channel attraction.

Jackie said, “Who doesn’t?”

The hood across the booth lit a cigarette, the light of the gopher flaring up across his dark face. “Right. Who doesn’t? You’re lucky, champ. Rudy’s taking a personal interest in you. He sent me around to tell you so. He’s heard that Jay Paley’s laid a lot against you tomorrow night. He says to tell you he believes in you. He says to tell you he’s laying even more the other way. Your way. He says he’ll appreciate it if you do your best.”

Jackie’s lips were stiff, dry, like parchment. When he moved them, he had the feeling that they were going to crack open in a dozen places. “You’re still being too fancy for me. Why the hell would Ryan be interested in a peanut stand like this brawl? It makes no sense.”

The hood’s laugh was brittle, and he snapped it off before it was started good. “You’re pretty smart, champ. For a guy who’s been catching them as long as you, you’re real smart. Here it is on the line. Paley’s getting too cocky. He operates too much. He’s crossing too many lines. Like this fix. It doesn’t amount to much, but it’s the principle. For all Paley knows, Rudy might have laid a bundle the wrong way. Rudy doesn’t like that. He figures it’s time to cut Paley back. This is just a beginning.”

“Oh, sure.” Jackie’s voice was harsh. “The beginning of the end for Paley and me both. It’s not hard to figure what would happen to me if I pulled a deal like this.”

“No. You got no worry. Rudy said to tell you that. You don’t seem to get the big picture, champ. I said Paley was due to be cut back. That means way back. All the way.”

“It’d still make me a louse. Nothing doing.”

“I guess maybe you’re already a louse, champ, anyway you play it.” The hood slipped out of the booth. “You go home and think about it. Maybe you’ll see it different when you get home.”

Turning his back, he walked out of the joint, his shoulders swinging lazily under expensive tailoring. Jackie sat in the booth for a few minutes longer, anger disturbing his viscera, making him half sick again. After a while, he got up and went home.

He went upstairs to the apartment two at a time. His eagerness to see Peg had suddenly the strength of hunger. He was hungry to see her, feel her, smell the clean scent of her. He hadn’t felt this way in a long, long time. Not so desperately. He was, in a way, a kid running to his mother.

But Peg wasn’t home. The living room was empty. So were the bedroom, bathroom, dining room, kitchen. He made the tour slowly, wondering where she could be. There wasn’t anything cooking in the kitchen, either. It wasn’t like Peg to be gone when he got home. Usually she was waiting for him. It was late now, too. Later than he ordinarily arrived.

Back in the living room, he sprawled in a chair, thinking that it was a hell of a way for a guy to wind it up. Once, a long time ago, he’d had ideas of being champ. It hadn’t taken too long to learn that he’d never make it. There were too many guys around who were a little better. Too many guys a little faster, a little sharper, a little smarter. Maybe he hadn’t even been a strong contender. But he’d always been a good competitor. He’d taken them as he could get them, the good and the bad, and no one had ever been in the ring with him who hadn’t been in a fight.

Now to end it with a fix. Now to wind it up in a dive for ten lousy G’s.

He squirmed in the chair, swearing softly, and he was suddenly aware that the clock that Peg was so proud of was striking. Soft, musical strokes. Eight of them. Eight?

He was on his feet in one unbroken motion, standing tense, almost in a fighting crouch. He said aloud, “Peg. Where the hell’s Peg?”

Then at last with sluggish perception of significant relationships, he was back in the hole-in-the-wall with the hood’s voice in his ears. Maybe you’ll see it different when you get home. Whirling with a choked, gutteral cry, he lunged out into the hall and downstairs.

On the street, he began to trot, arms up, knees lifting high, as if he were doing roadwork. Blocks along, at an intersection, a cab pulled up, stopped by a red light. Quickly, without thinking, he tore open the rear door on the near side and piled in. The driver twisted under the wheel, peering back.

“In a hurry, Mac?”

Jackie leaned back in the seat, relaxed a little by the exercise of muscles. “Rudy Ryan’s club,” he said.

The driver threaded the cab through traffic, slicing across lanes, timing progress to hit green and slip through yellow. Over on glitter street, public playground number one, he pulled the cab to the curb in front of Ryan’s club. Jackie got out and passed a five and left without his change. Across the sidewalk, he ran into a doorman who appeared silently in the way.

“Sorry, sir. Evening dress is required.”

Jackie let his eyes drift down the black and white barrier. The guy was big — big shoulders, big hands, big feet. His belly was big, too. Jackie thought he could probably bury an arm to the elbow in that belly.

“To hell with evening dress,” he said. “I want to see Rudy Ryan.”

The doorman’s face seemed to flatten, nostrils flaring, and he shifted his big feet to a stance that indicated a knowledge of basic principles.

Behind him, a voice said, “It’s all right, Holly. Let Mr. Brand come in.”

Still polite and friendly, just like he’d been in the hole-in-the-wall, he stood there casually with the shallow smile faintly present above the dimple that must have sent the dames. Just the same as he’d been earlier, except that now he’d qualified himself for the night with soup and fish.

Jackie pushed past the doorman and said, “Where’s Peg? What the hell you done with Peg?”

His voice skidded upward, acquiring volume, and a couple on stools at a small bar beyond an arch turned to stare. The faint smile on the hood’s face jelled a little, displaying a quality no smile should have.

“Don’t be noisy, champ. You ask to see Mr. Ryan, and now you start yelling about someone named Peg. Make up your mind. You want to see Mr. Ryan or not?”

Jackie spread his legs and lowered his chin onto his chest, struggling for control, knowing he was playing a contrived wheel.

“That easy?” he said. “That easy to see the great Ryan?”

The hood’s shoulders lifted. “Why not? Mr. Ryan’s democratic. He tries to see everybody.”

He lead the way through the small bar and on into a hall that was cushioned against sound with a thick carpet and drapes and even a tapestry or two. They went upstairs into another hall and past a succession of rooms to a closed door. The dimpled hood knocked and pushed the door open.