Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

“I wish to God Harry hadn’t been bumped. Then I wouldn’t worry. If I had a man to cover me, I’d walk in there. If I wasn’t out in five minutes my man could brush in through the curtains with his rod ready, and take me out.

“The Gilvray gangster’s yellow. He’s Chick Bender. Used to be a mouthpiece until he got disbarred. Now he’s the brains of the gang, but he’s got no guts.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Yes, I’ve heard of Chick Bender.”

The girl yawned and pulled her cupped hands along the contour of her leg, frankly straightening the seam in her stocking without bothering to turn her back.

“Yeah,” she remarked. “You ain’t heard anything good about him.”

Paul Pry switched off the lights. “You have the keys,” he said.

She kissed him in the dark.

“Baby, you’re a regular guy. Wish I knew you better. Maybe you’d help me give the Gilvray gang a double-crossing that would make a fortune for us. God, I wish Harry hadn’t got on the spot.”

Paul Pry patted her shoulder.

“What time’s the appointment?”

“Eleven. Wish me luck.”

“You’ve got it. It’s early yet. Want to drive around?”

“No, just dump me — tell you what, big boy, if you want to see more of me, stick around the Mandarin about five after eleven. If I come through O.K. I’ll give you a tumble. If I get bumped you can forget about me.”

Her blue eyes were wistful.

“I’d sure like to see more of you,” she added.

Paul Pry smiled at her.

“Perhaps, if you find yourself in danger, you may find me sticking around.”

“You mean it?”

“Perhaps.”

Her arms twined around his neck in a fierce embrace.

Mugs Magoo emptied the glass of whiskey with a single motion of the left arm. His glassy eyes fastened upon Paul Pry in emotionless appraisal.

“You got no business here,” he said.

Paul Pry laughed, entered the apartment and closed the steel door.

“Why so? Isn’t it my apartment?”

“Yeah. I guess so, but you ain’t got no business being here. You’d oughta be out pushing daisies. You got a date with the undertaker. How’d you break it?”

Paul Pry took off his topcoat and hat, came over and sat down.

“Meaning?” he said.

Mugs Magoo poured himself another drink of whiskey.

“Meaning that the moll was Maude Ambrose. She went by the nickname of Maude the Musher in Chi. That’s because she’s got such a good line of mush. She usually lets a guy rescue her from some danger or other. Then she gets mushy over him and finally puts him on the spot.”

Paul Pry lit a cigarette. Twin devils were dancing in his eyes.

“She’s nothing but a kid,” he objected.

“Kid, hell! She’s a kidder.”

“You think she’s tied up with Gilvray’s gang?”

Mugs Magoo sighed, poured himself a drink of whiskey, gazed at the bottle ruefully.

“Hell,” he said, “it’s a cinch. You never would follow my advice. First you twist Gilvray’s tail into a knot, and then instead of crawlin’ into a hole an’ pullin’ the hole in after you, you start raggin’ hell outa Gilvray.

“Nobody’s goin’ to stand that. An’ then, on top of it all, you drive around just like you was any ordinary citizen out for a little air. Gilvray’s found out your car is bulletproof. He’s fixed up somethin’ else for you. Maude the Musher!

“I presume you found her in her undies, just climbin’ from the river where she claimed somebody’d tried to drown her, didn’t you? That’s her best line, getting all roughed up and losin’ most of her clothes, then fallin’ on the neck of the guy she’s ropin’ and gettin’ mushy.”

Paul Pry puffed at the cigarette with every evidence of enjoyment.

“You have described almost exactly what happened, Mugs.”

Mugs Magoo blinked his glassy expressionless eyes.

“Yeah. Her man’s in town, too.”

“Her man?”

“Yeah, Charles Simmons. They call him Charley the Checker, because he always works a suitcase checking racket wherever he goes. He’s bought into the checking concession at the Union Depot. That’s where the Jane had her suitcase parked.

“When you handed the redcap the ticket for that suitcase it was her way of lettin’ her man know that you’d fallen for her line. So they got the spot ready for you.

“I didn’t ever expect to see you again. So I came back an’ tried to get drunk. But I can’t make the grade. Not yet, I can’t. I ain’t had but about an hour, though.”

And Mugs Magoo poured the last of the whiskey in the quart bottle into the glass, tossed it off, looked significantly at the empty bottle, then at Paul Pry.

That individual laughed, took a key from his pocket, tossed it to Mugs.

“Here’s the key to the whiskey safe. Go as far as you like, Mugs. I’m to be put on the spot tonight at eleven.”

“Huh, she put it off that long, eh?”

“Yes. I’m to be punctured at Room 13 at the Mandarin Cafe at exactly eleven-five.”

Mugs Magoo blinked his glassy eyes rapidly.

“Then you keep off the streets tonight. You stay right here.”

Paul Pry consulted his thin watch.

“On the contrary, Mugs, I think I shall be on my way to keep my appointment with the undertaker.”

He got to his feet.

“You mean you’re goin’ to fall for Maude the Musher an’ walk on the spot?”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Yes. I rather think I have use for this girl you call Maude the Musher. She offers a point of contact with the Gilvray gang. And I have a hunch they’re about ready to do something.”

Mugs Magoo’s jaw sagged.

“Do something— Hell, you don’t mean—”

Paul Pry nodded as he wrapped a scarf about his neck.

“Exactly, Mugs. I have decided to let the goosie lay another golden egg.”

And Paul Pry was gone, the door slamming shut with a clicking of spring locks and bolts.

“I,” observed Mugs Magoo, “will be damned!”

He blinked incredulous eyes at the door through which Paul Pry had vanished, and then bestirred himself to go to the safe where the whiskey was kept.

“I better get plenty while the stuff is here,” he observed to himself, his tongue getting a little thick. “Dealin’ with an administrator is goin’ to be hell!”

Charles Simmons, known in Chicago as Charley the Checker, sat in Room 13 at the Mandarin Cafe with a heavy calibre revolver on his lap. His right hand rested within a few inches of the gun butt.

Back of him, well to the right, sat Chick Bender, the disbarred lawyer, brains of the Gilvray gang. He was a hatchet-faced man with cold eyes, and the habit of constantly blinking and sniffing. His long bony nose twitched and sniffed, sniffed and twitched. Occasionally he sucked his underlip between his teeth and chewed on it nervously. He was ill at ease.

The girl sat at the table, her chin resting on her cupped hands, her blue eyes twinkling with lazy humour.

“So he fell? You’re sure he fell?” asked Chick Bender.

The girl laughed, a throaty laugh of voluptuous abandon. “Hell, yes,” she said.

Charley the Checker glanced at his watch.

“He’s supposed to be bad medicine, awful fast with a gun.”

The girl’s voice drawled out an insult.

“Gettin’ yellow?”

The gangster sneered at her.

“Don’t get fresh or you’ll get knocked for a loop. You’re getting altogether too certain of what a hell of a swell moll you are lately.”

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and swept his right arm in a backhanded sweep. The knuckles caught her full on the chin and swept her head back, leaving a red spot on her lip where the teeth had bit through the skin.