Read Online SSC (1950) Six Deadly Dames by Frederick Nebel - Free Book Online Page A

haven't seen me here in weeks.” Donahue had a beer and was finishing it when the girl got up and left. He went out a minute later and saw her walking east. She turned into Gay Street and struck Waverly Place. Familiar neighborhood for Donahue. Here Crosby had met his death at the hands of Babe Delaney. Here he had first seen Irene Saffarrans and Alfred Poore, the nice-faced rat. Here he had seen Adler-who later got smoked out in Grove Street.
    The girl entered a four-story graystone near Sixth Avenue. Donahue crossed the street and watched the building. Lights on first and third floors were glowing. Two minutes later Donahue saw two windows on the left light up. He saw the form of the girl in one of the windows for a brief moment, before she pulled the shade down. She lived on the third floor. While she was reaching up to draw down the shade on the other window Donahue saw a man in a bathrobe stretching and yawning. Then the drawn shade hid both.
    After a minute Donahue crossed the street, got the number of the house, and walked to Sixth Avenue, turned north and then east into Eighth Street.
    When he entered his hotel there was a letter in the box. It was on the hotel stationery.
    The clerk said, “A man came in at about eight, asked for you and I said you'd gone out. He wrote a note and said I should be sure to give it to you.”
    “Thanks.”
    Donahue walked away, stopped, tore open the letter. It was from Ames.
    Dear Donny:
    Tubba Klem finished a five-year stretch last Tuesday. He was Poore's cell mate. Luck. And don't forget yours truly.-Billy.
    Donahue walked to a large earthen ash receptacle, tore the note into fragments, dropped them on the butt-littered sand, and entered the elevator wearing a puzzled frown.
    The man he had seen yawning and stretching was not Tubba Klem.

IV
    WHO WAS the woman?...
    “Never saw her before,” Donahue said.
    “That's queer,” Hinkle said. “Funny, too, that when Dom said a girl was asking for you, you didn't get right up and fall right down for her.”
    “What am I supposed to do, laugh?” Donahue leaned back in the chair.
    “If the man I'd seen was Tubba Klem I'd bite. But he wasn't, and I haven't the slightest use for that sort of a woman. They mean trouble every time and all the time and no foolin'.”
    Hinkle sighed. “Well, we won't go into that.... And Roper started a third degree on you, eh?”
    “Yeah. And he's got a flatfoot tailing me now.” Donahue stood up, strolled to the window. “He's holding a pole up now. Some rookie.” He came back and stood by the desk, staring abstractedly at its hard, shiny surface. “And the guy wasn't Tubba Klem. He was a big guy, plenty of muscle, and light hair. At a glance, I'd say I'd” never seen him before. The jane and the guy must be strangers in town.”
    The telephone rang. Hinkle answered it, then shoved it across the desk. “For you, Donny.”
    Donahue picked it up, said, “Hello.... Yeah, this is Donny.... Huh?... I get you.... Sure. Okey, kid.” He hung up and put the telephone back on the desk. “One of my little stoolies. I know where Tubba Klem is. Tubba has come out of stir with a he-man complex. He's packing two big guns.” He put or? his hat.
    Hinkle's face became grave. “I wouldn't get a two-gun man's goat, Donny.”
    Donahue laughed. He slipped his right hand beneath his left arm, drew out a long-barreled blue automatic. “Take a look at that, Asa.” He laid it on the desk and smiled at Hinkle.
    “Hell, man, it's only a twenty-two!”
    “Ten shots, hollow-point. The best balanced gun a man can buy, and one little slug will do the trick. When a guy packs two big guns, it means to me that he's a punk shot and figures on dynamiting his way out.”
    He picked up the slim automatic, slipped it into the sheath beneath his arm. He took a look through the window. “First,” he said, “I'll have to shake the rookie.”
    He went out and walked down Park Row to Broadway. He hopped a northbound Broadway