Juvenile Delinquent Page 17

  “Hi, Joe,” I said. “How you feel?”

  “All right,” he said in a tired voice.

  “Beginning to get used to it here?”

  He looked at me as though he thought I might have a weak mind. “Who could get used to this?”

  “Lots of guys do, Joe. Lots of guys spend ten or twenty years, or even life in a cell like this.”

  Suddenly his face pinched and he looked as though he were going to cry. Sitting up, he swung his feet to the floor and gripped his knees with his large-knuckled hands.

  “Get me out of here, Uncle Manny,” he said in a low voice. “For God’s sake, get me out of here.”

  “I’m doing my best, Joe. Did you know your friend Buzz Thurmond and his whole gang are in here with you?”

  He shook his head, wide-eyed. “They just keep killer suspects in this row. I never see anybody but cops. They must be over on the other side.”

  Briefly I told him what had happened since I last saw him, and that there was an outside chance Homicide might pin Bart Meyer’s murder on the gang.

  “It would help if we could establish opportunity for Thurmond or some other member of the gang to have gotten hold of that hunting knife,” I said. “You ever mention it to him or to any members of the Purple Pelicans?”

  “I never even knew Dad owned it. Honest, Uncle Manny. I never saw it before in my life until the night I found it sticking out of Bart’s chest.”

  I frowned. “That seems kind of funny, Joe. With only two rooms it could have been in. Didn’t you ever root through that trunk in the back of your father’s closet when it was raining and you didn’t have anything else to do?”

  He looked puzzled. “Yeah, I guess,” he said slowly. “When I was a kid. Not in the last couple of years. But I never remember that knife being there. It must of been in one of Dad’s dresser drawers. I never went in them.”

  I only stayed a few minutes, having stopped by just to see how he was getting on, and not because I wanted anything in particular. When I left I told him to hang on to hope a couple of more days, as by then Warren Day should have made up his mind definitely as to whether or not Bremmer’s gang was responsible for Bart Meyer’s death.

  “I don’t wish anybody any bad luck,” he said glumly. “But I’d rather see Buzz Thurmond in here than me.”

  It was shortly after two-thirty when I got back to my flat. I phoned El Patio to check up on Stub and had a few words with Fausta. She said the boy was still a little stiff, but much recovered and was at the moment working in the kitchen.

  “He got bored just standing around,” she said. “He wanted something to do, so I put him to work washing dishes.”

  If I hadn’t known Fausta so well, I might have thought she was making him work for his keep. Knowing her, I wasn’t worried about it. Stub was working because he wanted to work, and he’d draw standard dishwasher’s pay for every hour he put in.

  I told her I’d see her that evening and hung up.

  Hardly had I walked away from the phone when it rang. Dave O’Brien was on the other end.

  “I just got home from school,” he said. “It’s all over the neighborhood that Buzz Thurmond and his whole gang are in jail. Anything to it?”

  “You heard it right,” I told him. “Thurmond, Harry Krebb, Sam Polito, Art Cooney, Limpy Alfred and Sherman Bremmer. You probably don’t know the last one. He owns the Bremmer Hotel and was leader of the gang.”

  “I’ve heard of Sherm Bremmer,” the redhead said in an awed voice. “He’s supposed to be really big shot.”

  “He won’t be from here on out, Dave. He’ll just be a number for some time.”

  The kid was silent for a moment. Then he said rather hesitantly, “The guys are kind of worried. They wonder if the cops are going to start pulling them in.”

  I asked drily, “They put you up to-checking the situation with me?”

  “Well, they knew Stub and I was always pals and thought maybe I knew how to get in touch with him. They figured Stub was with you, and maybe I could get a little information secondhand. I said I’d try, but I didn’t tell them I was contacting you direct.”

  “Are they worried enough to listen to a little talk?” I asked.

  “How you mean?”

  “I’d like to talk to the whole club. Think you could arrange it?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully.

  “I think your members would be smart to listen. It’s no skin off my nose one way or the other, Dave. But I can tell them exactly what they’re up against, now that the cops have nabbed all the adults they were dealing with. I don’t mean preach. I’ll just give them the cold facts. I should think they’d be interested in knowing.”

  “They’d like to know what’s going on,” he admitted. “Some of the guys are pretty scared.”

  “See if you can arrange it for seven forty-five tonight,” I said. “At your club room. And tell the junkies to stay home.”

  “Nobody’s riding the stuff today, Mr. Moon. They can’t get any.”

  “Good. I hope they never get any more. Can you call me back when you get things set up?”

  “Suppose I phone about six?”

  “Fine,” I said. “One other thing, Dave. I have a date tonight for after I leave there, so I’ll be wearing a dinner jacket. Pass it along that the first kid who laughs is going to get a bat across the seat of the pants.”

  He laughed himself.

  The rest of the afternoon I spent catching up on my correspondence. I had just finished typing the last letter with my two-fingered system when Dave O’Brien phoned back.

  “All set for seven forty-five tonight, Mr. Moon,” he said. “And you won’t have to worry about any trouble.”

  “I wasn’t contemplating any, now that the heroin supply’s cut off,” I told him.

  I didn’t have to bother with dinner before the meeting, because it was Fausta’s and my custom to have late dinner at El Patio before we started out for an evening. I took my time showering and dressing and was ready to leave the house by seven.

  I killed another fifteen minutes by mixing myself a drink, not wanting to be too early

  The Purple Pelicans seemed strangely subdued when I arrived at the club room. It looked to me as though most of the members were present, either seated on folding chairs or on the benches around the walls. But there wasn’t a sound as I walked the length of the room to where Dave O’Brien and Larry Covington, the boy who had tried to knife me, sat behind a pair of card tables which had been pushed together. Not a single boy snickered at my stiff white shirt front.

  Both boys at the table rose when I neared.

  Dave said, “Hi, Mr. Moon,” and the Covington kid gave me a nervous nod without meeting my eyes. He seemed a little jerky, which was natural after the load of heroin he had been carrying two nights before, but apparently he wasn’t yet a hopeless addict. If he had been, the withdrawal shakes would have had him flying apart.

  It seemed that Dave O’Brien had been appointed master of ceremonies. When Larry sat down again, the redhead remained on his feet.

  “Fellows,” Dave began. “I guess you all know what this is about. Mr. Moon here has kindly consented to come down and tell us what the score is on Buzz Thurmond and the other guys who were arrested. Also what plans the blueshirts have for us, I think.” He looked at me inquiringly, and when I just grinned at him, he went on. “I think this is pretty nice of him to take the trouble after what happened here Monday night. So that’s all I have to say.”

  He sat down abruptly and there was a general shifting. I saw one or two boys start to raise their hands uncertainly, as though they thought the introduction of a guest speaker should be followed by applause, but when nobody started the first clap, they dropped them in their laps again. Before starting to speak, I ran my eyes over the room.

  The two shattered light bulbs had been replaced, of course, but I noted there were scars in the whitewashed ceiling where my bullets had finally come to rest.
I tried to locate Buddy Tipp in the crowd, but failed to find him, although I spotted several other members of Stub Carlson’s picked squad. Recalling the terrific shakes Buddy had the evening he peeped through the curtains from Sam Polito’s back room, I wasn’t surprised that he was missing. Probably he was at home in bed going through hell.

  I said, “To begin with, let’s forget Monday night and start off fresh. I think by now most of you boys must realize you were suckered into making the play you did Monday. Is there anyone here who doesn’t by now know that Buzz Thurmond had Buddy Tipp deliberately work you up into a mob in order to block my investigation into Bart Meyer’s murder?”

  There were a few mutters, but no one said anything aloud.

  “That’s all we’ll say on the subject,” I said. “I just wanted to clear the air. Now here’s the situation on Buzz and his gang. Six arrests have been made and they’re all going up for offenses ranging from possession of stolen property to pushing narcotics. The police seized plenty of narcotics as evidence, but that part of it doesn’t concern you boys too much. What does concern you is the stolen property found in the possession of Harry Krebb, Sam Polito and Art Cooney. The police are doing their best to break down the fences and get them to tell who sold it to them. You all know, and I know, and the police suspect, that most of it came from members of this club.”

  I paused and the group shifted uneasily.

  “However, I doubt that any of the men will break and implicate you boys,” I said.

  There was a murmur of mingled surprise and relief.

  “But not because any of them give a hoot in Hades what happens to you,” I said brutally. “If they thought it would save their necks, they’d sell you down the river so fast, the cops would have to hire extra stenographers to take it all down. They won’t give your names because you’re a bunch of kids, and they know you’ll squeal back. Right now they’re only hooked for possession. They know that once the cops got hold of you, they’d be hooked for everything from conspiracy to commit burglary to contributing to the delinquency of minors. So if you’re tempted to admire your adult pals for not breaking, forget it. They’re already squealing on each other, and the only reason they’ll protect you is in self-defense. They’d throw any one of you in the pen for life if they thought it would save a week off their own time.”

  I gave them time to absorb that before I went on. “As I told Dave over the phone. I’m not going to preach to you. What you make of your club is your own business. But if you want to be a bunch of hoodlums instead of a straight club, at least decide with your eyes open. I never knew such a bunch of suckers as you kids. With the possible exception of the Gravediggers. You’ve been used by this Bremmer gang while they laughed their heads off at you. Do you think Buzz Thurmond steered a third of your club into dope addiction just to let you enjoy a new kick? He did it to widen the market for his gang’s pushers. Neither of the two pushers you bought from, or Buzz or any other member of the gang uses H himself. They’re too smart. Narcotics are for suckers like you kids. And do you think Buzz advised you on burglaries out of the goodness of his heart? He was drumming up business for his gang’s fences. You took all the chances and got peanuts for your loot. The Bremmer gang took all the real profit.”

  I let a moment or two pass before I went on more amiably. “A lot of you youngsters came awfully close to ending up in juvenile court. You still may, for that matter. I’m not guarantying that no one in the gang will drag you in. That’s merely my opinion. But it’s also the opinion of a police inspector I talked to today, so I think it’s fairly sound. But this time you were just lucky. The police had shadows on every one of the Bremmer gang, and if things hadn’t accidentally broken ahead of schedule, for the next couple of weeks every one of you who took an item of stolen property to Krebb, Polito or Cooney would have been arrested along with them when the cops finally moved in. Which without much question would have meant reform school. Think that over when you decide what kind of activities your club wants to engage in now that you’ve lost your adult advisor. And one more thing. Stub Carlson is coming back home tomorrow. What you do about keeping him in your club or pitching him out is your business. If individuals among you are still sore because you think he told me your club secrets, choose him one at a time for all I care. He’s a big boy and knows how to take care of himself. But if I hear of any ganging up by the whole club such as last Monday night, I’ll come down here and beat the living hell out of the instigator, even if he’s your youngest member.”

  I turned to Dave O’Brien and said, “That’s it, Dave. I have a couple more minutes if anybody wants to ask any questions, but otherwise I’m finished.”

  The redhead rose rather uncertainly and asked in a low voice, “Anybody got any questions?”

  No one had.

  I said, “Then see you around,” and started to walk back toward the stairs.

  I made the trip in dead silence until I was within feet of them, then somebody gave a tentative clap.

  That set it off, and the kids began to applaud as though I had sung like Mario Lanza instead of bawling the hell out of them.

  I grinned, gave them a wave and started up the stairs.

  26

  SOMETIMES Fausta has dinner served in her apartment when we have a date, and sometimes in the dining room. Tonight she had picked the dining room and we had Stub Carlson as a guest. He was dressed in a neat blue serge suit, a white shirt and a conservative dark tie.

  Both of them were waiting in the cocktail lounge when I arrived a few minutes before nine. I managed to sidestep Mouldy Greene’s affectionate pat on the back, so my shirt front wasn’t even buckled when I reached Fausta.

  “You are not only on time, but ahead,” Fausta said in a pleased voice. She looked me over critically. “You have not been fighting gangsters either.”

  “Neither have you,” I said.

  She wore a shimmering blue gown of some metalic material which clung to her so closely, it looked as though it were enameled on. She wouldn’t have had any trouble fighting gangsters in it. While they were goggling at the expanse of creamy tan flesh exposed by its insufficient top, she could have slugged them one by one with a bottle and they probaby wouldn’t even have realized they were being hit.

  “Where’s the rest of your dress?” I asked.

  “You do not like it? Stub does, do you not, Stub?”

  Stub blushed. “Yes, ma’am. It’s very pretty.”

  “I like it fine,” I said. “I wasn’t criticizing its quality. Only its quantity. You make me feel overdressed.”

  “Do not pay any attention to him,” Fausta instructed Stub. Manny has blue-nosed ancestors who used to put women in jail for wearing sleeves which only came to their elbows. Come. Our table is all ready.”

  During dinner I told Stub about the meeting I had just left, and told him he could go home the next day.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about any more kangaroo courts,” I said. “Or even about being kicked out of the club. Going to stay in it?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I been thinking things over the past couple of days. I think I’ll stand for president after all, if Knuckles doesn’t get out of jail by Friday. I mean Joe. That’s when the annual meeting comes up.”

  “Larry Covington seems to be acting as president right now,” I said. “That mean you’ll have to whip him?”

  “I figure on doing that anyway,” Stub said indifferently.

  Later in the evening, when Fausta and I were sitting at a table at the Sheridan Lounge, I said, “Remind me to phone a guy named Wilfred Reed tomorrow.”

  “Who is he?” Fausta asked.

  “Fellow who works for the YMCA. I think the Purple Pelicans are about ready for him.”

  • • •

  The next day I stopped by headquarters in the afternoon to check how Homicide was making out with its interrogations. Warren Day let me sit in on the questioning of Buzz Thurmond for a time, but the results were depressing. I walke
d out of the interrogation room convinced that if Thurmond had anything to do with the killing, he was never going to admit it until he was confronted with evidence he couldn’t deny.

  Back in the inspector’s office, I asked, “Think there’s any hope?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think he’s guilty. Or anybody else in the gang. I don’t think they know anything at all about the killing. They were after you because you threatened their rackets, not because you were digging into the murder.”

  “So what’s the situation on Joe Brighton now?”

  “What do you think?” he growled. “The D.A.’s going ahead and ask for an indictment.”

  • • •

  When I left headquarters I was more irked than I was discouraged. I was personally convinced of Joe Brighton’s innocence, which meant there had to be evidence of it somewhere. The only thing to do was continue digging.

  One phase of the thing I hadn’t looked into was young Joe’s theory that he had been framed by the Gravediggers. I’d skipped it because it seemed such an unlikely possibility it hardly seemed worth checking. Even Stub Carlson had pooh-poohed the idea when I mentioned it to him on our first meeting. But with the probability of pinning the killing on Buzz Thurmond growing more remote by the minute, it was time to look into even unlikely possibilities.

  Another point I hadn’t managed to make any progress on was the identity of the girl who had phoned the police at about the time Bart was killed and reported a reefer party in progress at the club room. Turning her up might answer a lot of questions.

  I decided to try to find the girl before I tackled the Gravediggers.

  It was twenty of three when I parked in front of the building where Stella Quint lived. Knowing that the girl was in school until two-thirty, I didn’t go inside. I waited in the car for her.

  About ten minutes later I saw her coming along the street with some books in her arms. Again her blonde hair was done up in a pony tail, but this time a gold-colored clasp held it in place instead of a purple ribbon. Instead of a purple jacket she wore a loose pullover sweater.