The Glass Key Read online

  The waiter came with their drinks. Ned Beaumont drained his glass immediately and complained: “Cut to nothing.”

  “Yes, I guess it is,” Jack said and took a sip from his glass. He set fire to the end of his cigarette and took another sip.

  “Well,” Ned Beaumont said, “I’m going up against him as soon as he shows.”

  “Fair enough,” Jack’s good-looking dark face was inscrutable. “What do I do?”

  Ned Beaumont said, “Leave it to me,” and caught their waiter’s attention.

  He ordered a double Scotch, Jack another rickey. Ned Beaumont emptied his glass as soon as it arrived. Jack let his first drink be carried away no more than half consumed and sipped at his second. Presently Ned Beaumont had another double Scotch and another while Jack had time to finish none of his drinks.

  Then Bernie Despain came upstairs.

  Jack, watching the head of the stairs, saw the gambler and put a foot on Ned Beaumont’s under the table. Ned Beaumont, looking up from his empty glass, became suddenly hard and cold of eye. He put his hands flat on the table and stood up. He stepped out of the stall and faced Despain. He said: “I want my money, Bernie.”

  The man who had come upstairs behind Despain now walked around him and struck Ned Beaumont very hard in the body with his left fist. He was not a tall man, but his shoulders were heavy and his fists were large globes.

  Ned Beaumont was knocked back against a stall-partition. He bent forward and his knees gave, but he did not fall. He hung there for a moment. His eyes were glassy and his skin had taken on a greenish tinge. He said something nobody could have understood and went to the head of the stairs.

  He went down the stairs, loose-jointed, pallid, and bare-headed. He went through the downstairs dining-room to the street and out to the curb, where he vomited. When he had vomited, he went to a taxicab that stood a dozen feet away, climbed into it, and gave the driver an address in Greenwich Village.

  III

  Ned Beaumont left the taxicab in front of a house whose open basement-door, under brown stone steps, let noise and light out into a dark street. He went through the basement-doorway into a narrow room where two white-coated bar-tenders served a dozen men and women at a twenty-foot bar and two waiters moved among tables at which other people sat.

  The balder bar-tender said, “For Christ’s sake, Ned!” put down the pink mixture he was shaking in a tall glass, and stuck a wet hand out across the bar.

  Ned Beaumont said, “ ’Lo, Mack,” and shook the wet hand.

  One of the waiters came up to shake Ned Beaumont’s hand and then a round and florid Italian whom Ned Beaumont called Tony. When these greetings were over Ned Beaumont said he would buy a drink.

  “Like hell you will,” Tony said. He turned to the bar and rapped on it with an empty cocktail-glass. “This guy can’t buy so much as a glass of water tonight,” he said when he had the bartenders’ attention. “What he wants is on the house.”

  Ned Beaumont said: “That’s all right for me, so I get it. Double Scotch.”

  Two girls at a table in the other end of the room stood up and called together: “Yoo-hoo, Ned!”

  He told Tony, “Be back in a minute,” and went to the girls’ table. They embraced him, asked him questions, introduced him to the men with them, and made a place for him at their table.

  He sat down and replied to their questions that he was back in New York only for a short visit and not to stay and that his was double Scotch.

  At a little before three o’clock they rose from their table, left Tony’s establishment, and went to another almost exactly like it three blocks away, where they sat at a table that could hardly have been told from the first and drank the same sort of liquor they had been drinking.

  One of the men went away at half past three. He did not say good-by to the others, nor they to him. Ten minutes later Ned Beaumont, the other man, and the two girls left. They got into a taxicab at the corner and went to a hotel near Washington Square, where the other man and one of the girls got out.

  The remaining girl took Ned Beaumont, who called her Fedink, to an apartment on Seventy-third Street. The apartment was very warm. When she opened the door warm air came out to meet them. When she was three steps inside the living-room she sighed and fell down on the floor.

  Ned Beaumont shut the door and tried to awaken her, but she would not wake. He carried and dragged her difficultly into the next room and put her on a chintz-covered day-bed. He took off part of her clothing, found some blankets to spread over her, and opened a window. Then he went into the bathroom and was sick. After that he returned to the living-room, lay down on the sofa in all his clothes, and went to sleep.

  IV

  A telephone-bell, ringing close to Ned Beaumont’s head, awakened him. He opened his eyes, put his feet down on the floor, turned on his side, and looked around the room. When he saw the telephone he shut his eyes and relaxed.

  The bell continued to ring. He groaned, opened his eyes again, and squirmed until he had freed his left arm from beneath his body. He put his wrist close to his eyes and looked at his watch, squinting. The watch’s crystal was gone and its hands had stopped at twelve minutes to twelve.

  Ned Beaumont squirmed again on the sofa until he was leaning on his left elbow, holding his head up on his left hand. The telephone-bell was still ringing. He looked around the room with miserably dull eyes. The lights were burning. Through an open doorway he could see Fedink’s blanket-covered feet on an end of the day-bed.

  He groaned again and sat up, running fingers through his tousled dark hair, squeezing his temples between the heels of his palms. His lips were dry and brownly encrusted. He ran his tongue over them and made a distasteful face. Then he rose, coughing a little, took off his gloves and overcoat, dropped them on the sofa, and went into the bathroom.

  When he came out he went to the day-bed and looked down at Fedink. She was sleeping heavily, face down, one blue-sleeved arm crooked above her head. The telephone-bell had stopped ringing. He pulled his tie straight and returned to the living-room.

  Three Murad cigarettes were in an open box on the table between two chairs. He picked up one of the cigarettes, muttered, “Nonchalant,” without humor, found a paper of matches, lit the cigarette, and went into the kitchen. He squeezed the juice of four oranges into a tall glass and drank it. He made and drank two cups of coffee.

  As he came out of the kitchen Fedink asked in a woefully flat voice: “Where’s Ted?” Her one visible eye was partially open.

  Ned Beaumont went over to her. “Who’s Ted?” he asked.

  “That fellow I was with.”

  “Were you with somebody? How do I know?”

  She opened her mouth and made an unpleasant clucking sound shutting it. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know that either. Somewhere around daylight.”

  She rubbed her face into the chintz cushion under it and said: “A swell guy I turned out to be, promising to marry him yesterday and then leaving him to take the first tramp I run into home with me.” She opened and shut the hand that was above her head. “Or am I home?”

  “You had a key to the place, anyway,” Ned Beaumont told her. “Want some orange-juice and coffee?”

  “I don’t want a damned thing except to die. Will you go away, Ned, and not ever come back?”

  “It’s going to be hard on me,” he said ill-naturedly, “but I’ll try.”

  He put on his overcoat and gloves, took a dark wrinkled cap from one overcoat-pocket, put the cap on, and left the house.

  V

  Half an hour later Ned Beaumont was knocking on the door of room 734 at his hotel. Presently Jack’s voice, drowsy, came through the door: “Who’s that?”

  “Beaumont.”

  “Oh,” without enthusiasm, “all right.”

  Jack opened the door and turned on the lights. He was in green-spotted pajamas. His feet were bare. His eyes were dull, his face flushed, with sleepiness. He yawned, nodded,
and went back to bed, where he stretched himself out on his back and stared at the ceiling. Then he asked, with not much interest: “How are you this morning?”

  Ned Beaumont had shut the door. He stood between door and bed looking sullenly at the man in the bed. He asked: “What happened after I left?”

  “Nothing happened.” Jack yawned again. “Or do you mean what did I do?” He did not wait for a reply. “I went out and took a plant across the street till they came out. Despain and the girl and the guy that slugged you came out. They went to the Buckman, Forty-eighth Street. That’s where Despain’s holing up—apartment 938—name of Barton Dewey. I hung around there till after three and then knocked off. They were all still in there unless they were fooling me.” He jerked his head slightly in the direction of a corner of the room. “Your hat’s on the chair there. I thought I might as well save it for you.”

  Ned Beaumont went over to the chair and picked up the hat that did not quite fit him. He stuffed the wrinkled dark cap in his overcoat-pocket and put the hat on his head.

  Jack said: “There’s some gin on the table if you want a shot.”

  Ned Beaumont said: “No, thanks. Have you got a gun?”

  Jack stopped staring at the ceiling. He sat up in bed, stretched his arms out wide, yawned for the third time, and asked: “What are you figuring on doing?” His voice held nothing beyond polite curiosity.

  “I’m going to see Despain.”

  Jack had drawn his knees up, had clasped his hands around them, and was sitting hunched forward a little staring at the foot of the bed. He said slowly: “I don’t think you ought to, not right now.”

  “I’ve got to, right now,” Ned Beaumont said.

  His voice made Jack look at him. Ned Beaumont’s face was an unhealthy yellowish grey. His eyes were muddy, red-rimmed, not sufficiently open to show any of the whites. His lips were dry and somewhat thicker than usual.

  “Been up all night?” Jack asked.

  “I got some sleep.”

  “Unkdray?”

  “Yes, but how about the gun?”

  Jack swung his legs out from beneath the covers and down over the side of the bed. “Why don’t you get some sleep first? Then we can go after them. You’re in no shape now.”

  Ned Beaumont said: “I’m going now.”

  Jack said: “All right, but you’re wrong. You know they’re no babies to go up against shaky. They mean it.”

  “Where’s the gun?” Ned Beaumont asked.

  Jack stood up and began to unbutton his pajama-coat.

  Ned Beaumont said: “Give me the gun and get back in bed. I’m going.”

  Jack fastened the button he had just unfastened and got into bed. “The gun’s in the top bureau-drawer,” he said. “There are extra cartridges in there too if you want them.” He turned over on his side and shut his eyes.

  Ned Beaumont found the pistol, put it in a hip-pocket, said, “See you later,” switched off the lights, and went out.

  VI

  The Buckman was a square-built yellow apartment-building that filled most of the block it stood in. Inside, Ned Beaumont said he wanted to see Mr. Dewey. When asked for his name he said: “Ned Beaumont.”

  Five minutes later he was walking away from an elevator down a long corridor towards an open door where Bernie Despain stood.

  Despain was a small man, short and stringy, with a head too large for his body. The size of his head was exaggerated until it seemed a deformity by long thick fluffy waved hair. His face was swarthy, large-featured except for the eyes, and strongly lined across the forehead and down from nostrils past the mouth. He had a faintly reddish scar on one cheek. His blue suit was carefully pressed and he wore no jewelry.

  He stood in the doorway, smiling sardonically, and said: “Good morning, Ned.”

  Ned Beaumont said: “I want to talk to you, Bernie.”

  “I guessed you did. As soon as they phoned your name up I said to myself. ‘I bet you he wants to talk to me.’ ”

  Ned Beaumont said nothing. His yellow face was tight-lipped.

  Despain’s smile became looser. He said: “Well, my boy, you don’t have to stand here. Come on in.” He stepped aside.

  The door opened into a small vestibule. Through an opposite door that stood open Lee Wilshire and the man who had struck Ned Beaumont could be seen. They had stopped packing two traveling-bags to look at Ned Beaumont.

  He went into the vestibule.

  Despain followed him in, shut the corridor-door, and said: “The Kid’s kind of hasty and when you come up to me like that he thought maybe you were looking for trouble, see? I give him hell about it and maybe if you ask him he’ll apologize.”

  The Kid said something in an undertone to Lee Wilshire, who was glaring at Ned Beaumont. She laughed a vicious little laugh and replied: “Yes, a sportsman to the last.”

  Bernie Despain said: “Go right in, Mr. Beaumont. You’ve already met the folks, haven’t you?”

  Ned Beaumont advanced into the room where Lee and the Kid were.

  The Kid asked: “How’s the belly?”

  Ned Beaumont did not say anything.

  Bernie Despain exclaimed: “Jesus! For a guy that says he came up here to talk you’ve done less of it than anybody I ever heard of.”

  “I want to talk to you,” Ned Beaumont said. “Do we have to have all these people around?”

  “I do,” Despain replied. “You don’t. You can get away from them just by walking out and going about your own business.”

  “I’ve got business here.”

  “That’s right, there was something about money.” Despain grinned at the Kid. “Wasn’t there something about money, Kid?”

  The Kid had moved to stand in the doorway through which Ned Beaumont had come into the room. “Something,” he said in a rasping voice, “but I forget what.”

  Ned Beaumont took off his overcoat and hung it on the back of a brown easy-chair. He sat down in the chair and put his hat behind him. He said: “That’s not my business this time. I’m—let’s see.” He took a paper from his inner coat-pocket, unfolded it, glanced at it, and said: “I’m here as special investigator for the District Attorney’s office.”

  For a small fraction of a second the twinkle in Despain’s eyes was blurred, but he said immediately: “Ain’t you getting up in the world! The last time I saw you you were just punking around for Paul.”

  Ned Beaumont refolded the paper and returned it to his pocket.

  Despain said: “Well, go ahead, investigate something for us—anything—just to show us how it’s done.” He sat down facing Ned Beaumont, wagging his too-large head. “You ain’t going to tell me you came all the way to New York to ask me about killing Taylor Henry?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s too bad. I could’ve saved you the trip.” He flourished a hand at the traveling-bags on the floor. “As soon as Lee told me what it was all about I started packing up to go back and laugh at your frame-up.”

  Ned Beaumont lounged back comfortably in his chair. One of his hands was behind him. He said: “If it’s a frame-up it’s Lee’s. The police got their dope from her.”

  “Yes,” she said angrily, “when I had to because you sent them there, you bastard.”

  Despain said: “Uh-huh, Lee’s a dumb cluck, all right, but those markers don’t mean anything. They—”

  “I’m a dumb cluck, am I?” Lee cried indignantly. “Didn’t I come all the way here to warn you after you’d run off with every stinking piece of—”

  “Yes,” Despain agreed pleasantly, “and coming here shows just what a dumb cluck you are, because you led this guy right to me.”

  “If that’s the way you feel about it I’m damned glad I did give the police those I O Us, and what do you think of that?”

  Despain said: “I’ll tell you just exactly what I think of it after our company’s gone.” He turned to Ned Beaumont. “So honest Paul Madvig’s letting you drop the shuck on me, huh?”

  Ned Bea
umont smiled. “You’re not being framed, Bernie, and you know it. Lee gave us the lead-in and the rest that we got clicked with it.”

  “There’s some more besides what she gave you?”

  “Plenty.”

  “What?”

  Ned Beaumont smiled again. “There are lots of things I could say to you, Bernie, that I wouldn’t want to say in front of a crowd.”

  Despain said: “Nuts!”

  The Kid spoke from the doorway to Despain in his rasping voice: “Let’s chuck this sap out on his can and get going.”

  “Wait,” Despain said. Then he frowned and put a question to Ned Beaumont: “Is there a warrant out for me?”

  “Well, I don’t—”

  “Yes or no?” Despain’s bantering humor was gone.

  Ned Beaumont said slowly: “Not that I know of.”

  Despain stood up and pushed his chair back. “Then get the hell out of here and make it quick, or I’ll let the Kid take another poke at you.”

  Ned Beaumont stood up. He picked up his overcoat. He took his cap out of his overcoat-pocket and, holding it in one hand, his overcoat over the other arm, said seriously: “You’ll be sorry.” Then he walked out in a dignified manner. The Kid’s rasping laughter and Lee’s shriller hooting followed him out.

  VII

  Outside the Buckman Ned Beaumont started briskly down the street. His eyes were glowing in his tired face and his dark mustache twitched above a flickering smile.

  At the first corner he came face to face with Jack. He asked: “What are you doing here?”

  Jack said: “I’m still working for you, far as I know, so I came along to see if I could find anything to do.”

  “Swell. Find us a taxi quick. They’re sliding out.”

  Jack said, “Ay, ay,” and went down the street.

  Ned Beaumont remained on the corner. The front and side entrances of the Buckman could be seen from there.

  In a little while Jack returned in a taxicab. Ned Beaumont got into it and they told the driver where to park it.