Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 3, February 1974

Declining to answer immediately, the little killer took a wad of crumpled paper from his breast pocket and spread it open on the table. It was the diagram Big Lefty had flung at Shivers a short time ago, and we both stared at it stupidly.

Little Manuel watched our confoundedness with something akin to amusement, then smiling enigmatically, he re marked casually “Who said anything about the Caser being phoney?”

“Why,” said Big Lefty, “Dixie Dan came in right after you left and told us as much. He said Brockman was a ringer.”

Little Manuel snorted. “Sure,” he smirked. “And do you know why? I’ll tell you why. He was making a do-or-die attempt to get his hands on this bank layout we got. That’s why. And he was succesful too, up to a point. A stiletto point, that, is.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, scratching my head.

“I know you don’t,” Little Manuel conceded “But you will when I tell you what happened.”

“So tell us already, you little shrimp!”

“So I will already, if you guys will just sit down and open those potato farms you call ears.”

Big Lefty retrieved his fallen chair, replaced it at the table and sat down. I poured out three rounds and sat also

Little Manuel snapped off his slug quickly and then helped himself to another Still standing, he places his slender-fingered hands on the table, leaned over it like a junior executive about to deliver a progress report, and then with a great deal of gesticulations that reminded me of an Italian I once knew, he proceeded to give us an accounting.

“Well,” began Little Manuel, waving his frail arms, “I am heading for Lucky’s pad when who do I see coming toward me but No-name. He seems all excited about something, and signals me into a dark doorway where we can talk. He says he wants to return us a favor from the time we save him from that big Courthouse in the Sky. Then he goes on to tell me that he overhears Dixie Dan talking to The Dummy a while ago as they are standing over the grate that is just above No-name’s basement room window in Fu’s flophouse on Eighth.” He paused, and then proceeded.

“Now, according to what he hears, the syndicate has a contract out for these two, and so they are a little more than anxious to get out of town. In fact, they are desperate. But the two feys are broke, and between them they ain’t got enough dough to get to the city limits, let alone out of town — as if it would do them any good. But at least they could live a time longer if they got scarce, and so they contacted the Caser. But as you know, they couldn’t raise the loot to buy the job we did. Incidently, the Caser is alive and well, and living at the Royal under the name of Brockman. And he ain’t no ringer.

“Now, to get back to Dixie Dan and his pal, they figured we already bought the job they had in mind in the first place, and so they don’t know which way to jump. No-name learns all this as he is listening and watching from his basement window. Next, The Dummy writes something down on a pad, tears it off and hands it to Dixie Dan. His buddy reads it, thinks it over and then says okay, anything is worth a try, as they are walking dead men anyhow. He wads up the note, throws it into the grate and away they go.

“No-name reaches out, spears the message and it goes something like this: ‘Lets go see if we can fool Big Lefty out of whatever plan he got from the Caser tonight. Tell him the Caser’s a con man. Maybe we can get the details free, pull the job and get outta the country.’

“So,” went on Little Manuel, “that was enough for me. I slipped No-name a double saw and beat tracks back this way to warn you about what Dixie Dan had in mind. Just as I got near I saw the two of them scurrying out the front door of Sol’s here, and Dixie’s got the diagram in his hand, just as they’d planned. I stopped them on the corner and displayed my iron. Then I marched them around to the alley and was going to bring them in here when the scurvy mongrels tried to scrag me. They came at me hammer and tongs. For a moment they almost got me. I dropped my gun in the fight.

“So there was nothing for it, but the blade. I came out with my shiv and was so damned mad I ready worked them over And if I do say so myself, it didn’t take me all night to finish the business. I know just how and where to go about it, and in less time than it takes to tell they are lying dead at my feet.”

Little Manuel stopped his rapid-fire narration and brought his arms in for a landing.

“Go on, Manuel,” Big Lefty urged, impressed.

“Go on? That’s all there is, unless you want my life story.”

“Funny Anyhow, you did a good job But we’ll still have to get those suitcases.”

I said “I’ll get them myself when we get rolling.”

“Good enough,” Big Lefty nodded “But first we’ll have to do something about Dixie Dan and The Dummy out there.”

Little Manuel shrugged “There’s nothing you can do about them,” he said. “They’re beyond all help.”

Big Lefty registered exasperation. “I know that, Manuel,” he said patiently. “What I mean is, we can’t leave them so close to our headquarters. We got to get rid of them. You dig?”

“Ugh! Me dig.”

“Ah, shut up. Now, Lucky?”

“Here I is, boss.”

“Boss, schmoss! Don’t get cute Just be cute enough to go get your wreck and bring it around into the alley. We’ll get Sol to lock this door behind us and we’ll meet you out there.”

“Okay. But I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I always know what I’m doing, towhead. You just do like I told you. We got no time to lose.”

“All right, big boy I just wanted to make sure.”

“Get out of here!”

“See you in the alley,” I said.

In a matter of minutes we had the cadavers loaded into the rear of the wagon and covered with an old tarp. Next, I drove to my place, ran up to the apartment, grabbed the two old suitcases from the closet, blew accumulated dust off them and sprinted back to the waiting car In my short absence, Little Manuel had gone across the street to an all-night drugstore, and was now back in his seat chomping noisily from a long bag of hot, buttered popcorn.

“I told the little hoodlum,” Big Lefty said, “not to put that greasy junk in his belly on top of all the booze he drank tonight, he must have a calcified stomach, whatever that is.”

“I’m entitled to a snack now and then,” Little Manuel countered. “I get a little hungry once in a while.”

“Just stop making so much noise with it,” I told him. “You sound like a Malayan frog war.”

“Sez you.”

“Knock it off,” Big Lefty said. “Let’s go get rid of Dixie and The Dummy Head for Kennedy Park.”

“Right,” I agreed, and drove off.

To say I was nervous with the two bodies in the car would be an understatement. And the nauseating racket Little Manuel was producing with his damned popcorn, rattling the stiff paper bag and smacking his lips after each swallow, did nothing to quell my inner tension.

“I wish you’d hurry up with that stuff,” I said. “You remind me of a hog eating acorns.”

“You’re a farm boy, hey, Lucky?”

“Ah, shut up!”

We entered Kennedy Park from the main entrance at the south end, and I drove through the winding gravel roads until we reached the top of Art Hill. Up here, in front of the Museum of Science and Natural History there were several life-sized replicas of prehistoric dinosaurs standing about, and I parked in the shadow of Tyranosaurus Rex, the most fearsome, ferocious and vicious predator ever to roam the face of the earth That was, of course, until Big Lefty had come along.

And speaking of that particular monster, he now said “This is a good spot, Lucky You guys sit tight and I’ll do the honors.”