Paul Cain - The Paul Cain Omnibus

He climbed into the cab, snapped: “Three thirty-two West Ninetieth — and make it fast.”

Green lit a match and examined the mailboxes carefully. The second one on the left rewarded him with a dingy label upon which:

had been typewritten in bright-blue ink.

He rang the bell under the label and after a minute the lock of the outside door buzzed; he went in and climbed two flights of narrow stairs to Apartment B5. The door was ajar; he knocked and a man’s high-pitched voice called:

“Come in.”

Green went into a very large and bare studio, dimly lighted by two floor lamps in opposite corners and a small but very bright desk lamp on a wide central table.

The high-pitched voice: “Well, Mister Green — this is an unexpected pleasure.”

Green took off his hat and went to the wide table. He bowed slightly.

“Might you, by any chance,” he inquired blandly, “have been out this evening — since, say eleven o’clock?”

John Sallust was a thin, consumptive-looking Englishman with a high bulging forehead, stringy mouse-colored hair, and cold gray eyes, so light in color that they appeared almost white. He sat straddling a chair, his chin resting on his clasped hands on the back of the chair.

“I not only might have,” he said evenly — “I was. I only got home about a quarter of an hour ago.”

Green glanced at the square heavy watch on the inside of his left wrist; it was fifty-two minutes after one.

Sallust turned his head. “This is Paula, my sister. This is Nick Green. You’ve probably heard me speak of him.”

She was half sitting, half lying on a low couch against one of the long walls of the room, a very dark, very diminutive girl with porcelain-white skin, a deep-red mouth and large oddly opaque eyes.

She nodded and Green bowed again slightly.

“We went to a theater.” She sat up slowly. “We went to a theater and John brought me home afterwards — it must have been about ten-thirty — and then he went for a walk.”

Green smiled. “That’s simply dandy. Now, if you two can jump into your hats and coats and the three of us can get out of here in about one minute flat” — he raised one snowy eyebrow and grinned at Sallust — “you won’t have to take another of those very unpleasant trips to jail.”

Paula leapt to her feet, almost screamed: “Jail!”

Sallust’s thin face twisted to a wry smile. “You choose a rather bizarre time to joke, Mister Green,” he said softly.

Green was looking at his watch. “Maybe in two minutes,” he whispered as if to himself.

Paula crossed to him swiftly.

“What are you talking about?” she gulped. “What is it?”

“I haven’t time to tell you about it, now. Take my word for it that the Law will be here in a split-jiffy to arrest your brother for the murder of Bruce Maccunn and a half dozen or so innocent bystanders. Let’s go first and talk about it afterwards...”

Sallust did not move. His eyes moved swiftly to his sister once, then back to Green. He muttered: “No.”

Green stared at him blankly. “No? No what?”

Sallust shook his head a little. “I returned three days ago,” he said gently, “from the better part of five years in prison, I was as I believe you call it, framed. I was accused by lies, tried by lies, convicted by lies...”

He cleared his throat and straightened in the chair, gazed very intently at Green.

“I know you very slightly, Mister Green. I have been led to believe at one time or another that you are in some way sympathetic to our cause, but I have just returned from a painful five-year lesson in misplaced trust. I do not know what you are talking about, now, but I know that I have done no wrong and I shall stay exactly where I am.”

It was entirely silent for a moment and then Paula’s voice rang softly, tremulously: “Perhaps you’re making a mistake, John. Mister Green is—” She stopped.

Green put his hand up and rubbed the heel of it slowly down the left side of his face. His eyes were fixed more or less vacantly on a small turkey-red cigarette box on the table. Very suddenly he went forward and as Sallust sprang to his feet, Green’s arm moved in a long looping arc, his knuckles smacked sharply against Sallust’s chin; Sallust crumpled and fell to his knees, clutched blindly at the chair, went limp.

Paula was too surprised to scream, or move; she stood with her hands to her mouth, her great eyes fixed on Green in startled amazement.

Green mumbled, “Sorry,” shortly, stooped and swept Sallust’s slight figure up into his arms and moved towards the door. “Come on,” he grunted over his shoulder, “and make it snappy.”

She followed in stunned silence; at the door he turned and jerked his head at her coat and she took it up from a chair and put it on like a somnambulist motivated and moved by something unknown, something irresistible.

The bleak Greenwich Village street was deserted; Green carried Sallust across the glistening sidewalk and put him in the car, hurried around to climb in behind the wheel. Paula stood hesitantly on the sidewalk; the cold air had brought back her momentarily dimmed senses and she reflected that it was not too late to scream, reflected further, after glancing up and down the street, that it was more or less useless. She got into the car and closed the door, put her arm around Sallust and waited.

Just east of Eighth Avenue, Green slowed and pulled over to the curb to allow two speeding police cars to pass, then turned and watched them skid to the curb outside the building where the Sallusts lived.

He grinned at Paula. “My timing wasn’t so hot,” he observed. “The Law was about three minutes less efficient than I figured.”

She turned from watching the men swarm out of the cars and run into the house. Her inclination to scream was definitely gone; she tried to return his smile.

“What is it all about?” she whispered. “I don’t understand...”

“Neither do I yet.” He let the clutch in and the car rounded the corner, whirred north on Eighth Avenue. “I’m sorry I had to resort to that to get your brother out, but I thought he got a raw deal before and I want to do what I can to prevent his getting another one. After five years on the inside he shouldn’t mind a sock on the jaw if it saves him even one night in the cooler.”

Green’s apartment was on East Sixty-first; the elevator boy helped him with Sallust, who was beginning to stir and moan feebly; Green explained that he was very drunk and when they reached his apartment on the top floor they put Sallust on one of the divans in the huge living room. The elevator boy went away.

Green turned to Paula. “He’ll be all right in a little while,” he said. “The main thing is that he’s not to show up outside of this place until certain matters — I’m not quite sure what, yet, so I can’t tell you about them — are straightened out. Do you trust me enough to help, and to see to it that he stays here?”

She nodded.

Green smiled slightly. “Your word?”

She nodded again, returned the faint shadow of a smile.

He went towards the door.

“I’ll be back or give you a ring as soon as I can. Make yourself at home. If you get hungry or thirsty try the icebox.”

He went out and closed the door.

Downstairs, he admonished the night clerk. “There’re a man and woman in my apartment and I want them to stay there. I think they will, but if they get tough call Mike and let him handle them.”

The clerk nodded; he was accustomed to more or less curious orders from Mister Green. Mike was the janitor, a husky Norwegian who had performed odd jobs of a strong-arm nature for Green upon more than one occasion.