Bill Pronzini - The Bughouse Affair

Quincannon shoved furiously to his feet. The damned scruff had gotten away from him once, but not this time. No, by Godfrey, not this time! He unholstered the Navy again as he charged into the hallway.

Brown was running for the stairs, and when Quincannon spied him he loosed a bellow that shook the walls, brought startled noises from behind closed doors. The little burglar’s head jerked around and his stride faltered, which caused one bare foot to slide and bind up in a carpet fold, which in turn caused him to stumble past the staircase into the newel post on its far side. He spun off with arms flailing, lurched sideways across the hallway, and thumped into the wall with such force that he bounced backward, somehow managing to remain upright as he did so. He threw a terrified glance at his fire-breathing pursuer, who was now almost to the stairs, and commenced a splay-footed run toward the end of the hall.

There was a street-front window there, but it was closed and covered with a red shade; the yegg’s only chance for escape, or so he thought, was through one of the rooms. He clawed at the latch on the nearest one, yanked it open, and plunged inside to the sound of alarmed cries from the occupants.

Quincannon got there in time to prevent the back-flung door from slamming in his face. He shouldered it wide and barreled through. A naked fat man and an equally naked, equally fat Mexican girl were in the process of scrambling off a rumpled bed in a confusion of arms and legs, while Dodger Brown sprinted past to an airshaft window on the opposite side. He was frantically trying to open the window far enough to squeeze his scrawny body through when Quincannon reached him, caught hold of the collar of his long johns, lifted him off his feet, and yanked him around.

Brown fought him with body twists, fisted hands, and a shin kick, but this time Quincannon was ready for his sly tricks. He slammed the burglar backward into the wall next to the window, deftly avoiding another attempted shin kick. Held him there with a cocked hip and poked the bore of the Navy squarely between his bloodshot eyeballs.

“You’re pinched, lad,” he panted. “Resign yourself to it if you want to keep on breathing.”

The Dodger, staring cross-eyed at the Colt, was neither brave nor stupid; he knew the game was up. All the struggle and sand left him at once and he sagged quiescently in Quincannon’s grip.

“Here … what’s the meaning of this … this outrage!”

The spluttering voice came from the fat man, who was crouched on the far side of the bed with some, though not all, of his nakedness now swaddled in bedclothes. He seemed to be trying to hide his face as well, but enough of it remained visible for Quincannon to recognize him. There was no sign of the Mexican girl; she was either cowering under the bed or had managed to flee during the skirmish.

Quincannon holstered his revolver as he hauled Dodger Brown toward the door. On the way he used his free hand to doff his derby, which had miraculously managed to remain in place, at the fat man.

“Apologies for the interruption, Senator,” he said. “Carry on as you were.”

The last sound he heard before shutting the door behind himself and the Dodger was a mournful quacking cry like that of a ruptured duck.

Eyes followed the two of them back down the hallway, two of the brightest belonging to Lettie Carew, who had climbed puffing to the top of the stairs. When Quincannon assured her in passing that there would no more commotion, she said, “Well, at least there wasn’t any shooting,” sighed heavily, and headed back down to her lair.

In Ming Toy’s room, Quincannon dumped Dodger Brown on the mussed bed and used the handcuffs he carried to circle both thin wrists. The little housebreaker offered no resistance; his vulpine features were now arranged in an expression of painful self-recrimination.

“It’s my own fault,” he said in tones almost as mournful as the state senator’s. “After you near nabbed me the other night, I knew I should’ve staightaway hopped a rattler in the Oakland yards. Gone on the lammas instead of comin’ over here.”

“Aye, and let it be a lesson to you.” Quincannon grinned and added sagely, “The best-laid plans aren’t always the best-planned lays.”

“Murder? Me? ” Dodger Brown looked and sounded appalled at the notion. He squirmed on the rumpled bed, his manacled hands clutched together behind his scrawny back. “I never killed nobody in my life. Never! It wasn’t me who broke into the Costain joint and bumped him off. I was here last night, all night-I never left for a minute. Ask Ming Toy, she’ll tell you.”

“I already asked her.”

“Well, then? You know I done the other burglaries, okay, I admit it. But no more after you almost nabbed me at the banker’s. I ain’t been near the Costain place, not even to tab it up.”

“What make of pistol do you carry these days, Dodger?”

“None. I give that up-too dangerous, even unloaded like I always carried mine. Look in my clothes over there, you won’t even find a Barlow knife.”

“We both know that’s because Lettie Carew doesn’t allow customers to bring their weapons upstairs,” Quincannon said. “Will I find one downstairs in the lockbox with your name on it?”

The little burglar opened his mouth to lie again, changed his mind, and sighed instead. “Pocket pistol. Twenty-five caliber. But it’s empty and you won’t find any cartridges for it. I ain’t loaded it once since I bought it and that’s the plain truth.”

“I thought your preference was a larger-caliber weapon. A Forehand and Wadsworth thirty-eight, for instance.”

“Is that what plugged the lawyer? Well, I never owned a piece like that. Never. You can’t put the frame on me for no killing.”

“Clara Wilds,” Quincannon said.

“Huh?” Dodger Brown blinked at the sudden shift of subjects. “What about Clara?”

“Still keeping company with her?”

“No. Not anymore. We busted up awhile back.”

“Why?”

“She was two-timing me.”

“While you remained faithful except for your regular parlor house visits. Who was her new lover?”

“Some no-account named Pope.”

“Her fenceman, Victor Pope?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that?”

“When did you see Clara last?”

“Four, five months ago. Why all these questions about her?”

“She’s dead. Murdered.”

The Dodger’s eyes bulged. “Clara? Bumped off? When? Where?”

“In her rooms yesterday afternoon.”

“Who done it?”

Quincannon cocked an eyebrow.

“Say! You ain’t tryin’ to make out it was me?” Outrage replaced the scruff’s real or feigned shock. The handcuffs rattled again noisily. “I told you, I never carried a loaded weapon and I never shot nobody-”

“Clara wasn’t shot.”

“Then how-?”

“Stabbed with her own hatpin. And her rooms ransacked afterward.”

“Hatpin. Jesus.”

“You knew about her new dodge, I’ll wager.”

“Doin’ the dip? Yeah, she learned the game from old Sal Tatum. She must’ve made a big score and some bastard found out about it and was after the swag.”

Quincannon cocked his eyebrow again.

“Not me! I got plenty from my own scores. Listen, you got to believe me, I never-”

“Scoot around and lie facedown on the bed.”

“… What?”

“You heard me.”

Dodger Brown stared at him for three or four seconds, licked his lips, then twisted and flung himself flat across the bed. He squawked and began struggling when Quincannon caught hold of the collar of his unbuttoned long johns and dragged the top down over his shoulders. “Hey! What’s the idea? What you gonna do?”

“Nothing, if you keep quiet and hold still.”