Poison Ivy: A Lemmy Caution Thriller

Chapter One

RUB OUT FOR ONE

Was I pleased or was I? I’m tellin’ you that kickin’ around Alliance Nebraska never pleased me any; more especially when I say that I have been rusticatin’ in this dump so that I am already beginnin’ to think I am growing hay in my hair. But I reckon that the ways of the main G office is nobody’s business, an’ I have also got an idea at the back of my head that they have kept me kickin’ around this spot all this time so that the bezuzus I started over the Miranda van Zelden case could die down.

It looks to me like they have got something pretty good boilin’ up for me because I reckon if they are pulling Myras Duncan down from Chicago and plantin’ him to contact me in New York, the job is not goin’ to be one for sissies, because I’m tellin’ you that this Duncan is a tough ace G man, and that guy has got more medals for cleaning up mobs than you ever heard tell.

I reckon a train is a great spot for thinkin’ things out. All the while I have been in this train I have been sittin’ back letting my mind play around. There is a lot of guys think that being a G man is a mug’s business and that’s as maybe; but I’m tellin’ you that if you are a guy like me who likes to see things happen sometimes an’ who falls for contrast, it’s a great business, that is if they don’t get you first, an’ all the time I am wonderin’ just what the lay-out is going to be on this job an’ just what is going to happen to Lemmy Caution before I hand my ticket in and sign off the charge account.

It is eight o’clock when I arrive. I check out of the depot and get along to some hotel near West 23rd Street where they don’t know me, and I register myself as Perry C. Rice, an’ I do a little talking in the reception that would show anybody that I was an egg and butter man who thought New York was a nice place for strangers only a bit big.

After this I give myself a bath an’ I dig myself out a tuxedo, the sorta cut that a guy like this fellow Rice would wear. After which I get around the town a bit, absorb a little bourbon, an’ about ten o’clock at night I jump myself a taxicab and I scram down to Moksie’s on Waterfront.

This Moksie’s is the usual sorta dump. It’s a place I don’t know because I ain’t acquainted with New York any too good, my not havin’ operated around there very much, which looks to me like the reason I have been picked for this job. But it is the usual sorta waterfront dive where you can win yourself any amount of bad hooch an’ anything else you’re looking for including a split skull an’ a free dive in the East River with a flat-iron around your neck.

When I go down the steps a lotta tough guys give me the once over, but they don’t look very surprised so I imagine they have seen guys in tuxedos before. In one corner is a bar an’ behind this bar is a big guy—I hear ’em call him Moksie—an’ I tell him that I am drinking rye straight an’ that he looks as if he would like one too. I am right about this. I then start givin’ him a lotta dope about good times in Mason City where they make bricks an’ beet sugar, an’ by the time that I am finished talking these guys have got a definite idea in their heads that I am such a hick that ferns will start growing outa my ears any moment.

I stick around this dump for about twenty minutes and then some guy comes down. He is middle-sized guy an’ he is round and plump an’ smilin’. He is wearing a good grey suit an’ he has got a big pin in his scarf. His right hand is stuck in the armhole of his waistcoat an’ I see that the top joint is missing from the little finger, so I do some mathematics an’ conclude that this is Myras Duncan, my contact, otherwise Harvest V. Mellander.

He’s got a coupla dames with him an’ it looks to me like he is making a play that they have been showin’ him around the town. They go over to a table an’ they sit down an’ presently some thin feller comes in an’ takes the two janes away.

I just don’t do anything at all. I just stick around.

Pretty soon this Harvest V. Mellander comes prancing up to the bar, an’ believe me he is puttin’ on a very good act that he is good an’ high. He buys himself a four-finger shot of bourbon an’ whilst he is drinkin’ it he looks at me an’ sorta grins.

Listen, kid, he says, I wouldn’t try anything on with you, but ain’t your name Rice an’ ain’t you from Mason City?

I look at him an’ I tell him yes, an’ say how would he know a thing like that. He tells me that he knows it because he once had a car smash on Main, an’ don’t I remember taking him in for the night.

I then do a big recognition act an’ we start buying drinks for all an’ sundry, and in about an hour’s time we have got this place jazzed up good, an’ plenty so that nobody takes any notice when this guy Myras and myself scram off to some table at the end of the room with a bottle of bourbon an’ start tellin’ stories about the old days.

I turn my hand over so that he can see the razor cut which I got off some mobster four years before. He pours me out a drink.

O.K. buddy, he says. Now get a load of this. You an’ I are chasing daydreams because believe me the job we’re on is so slim that nobody knows anythin’ about it including me. I suppose you don’t know nothin’.

You’re dead right, I tell him with a big hiccough. I don’t know a thing, Harvest. What’s it all about? Is somebody goin’ to shoot the President or what?

He lights himself a cigar. All around the other guys in this place are making plenty noise an’ we can talk easy.

It ain’t quite so bad as that, he says, "but it’s this way. The Bureau’s got this tip-off that somebody is goin’ to try something funny with a gold shipment that’s goin’ to Southampton England in a week’s time. Well, how anybody in the Bureau reckons that any palooka can get at that gold I don’t know, but that’s the idea that’s flying about, an’ you gotta handle the works. I’m here to give you the low-down as far as it goes an’ I’m scrammin’ out in a coupla days leaving you to carry the baby.

The Bureau reckons that they’ve forgotten you down in this part of the world an’ anyway you’re elected.

I light myself a cigarette and have a little more bourbon. I reckon this sounds good to me.

Listen, Harvest, I say, where do they get all this fancy stuff from. It sounds to me like a pipe-dream from a police nose. Maybe the cops around here have been goin’ to the movies or somethin’.

He grins.

That’s what I figured in the first place, he says, "only it ain’t like that. It’s this way. One night there is a schlmozzle in some swell joint, an’ some tough egg gets smacked over the front-piece with a bottle of White Rock, an’ it don’t do him no good neither, see? This guy just goes out like he had listened to two lullabies at once an’ he never comes round again.

"Any how they run this guy down to Bellevue in a patrol wagon, an’ he gets delirious an’ starts shootin’ off his mouth about this and that. Finally this guy starts talkin’ about the gold shipment an’ does he know all about it or does he? He knows the amount to be sent over, the boat it’s goin’ on, the U.S. Treasury order for movin’ it an’ what will you. He knows the whole piece an’ where he got it from is nobody’s business.

Carson, a New York ‘G’ man, was takin’ it all down in shorthand, after which this palooka passes out and hands in his dinner pail before he comes round again, an’ so that is that, an’ where do you go from there?

You certainly ain’t got a lot to work on, I tell him. Ain’t there anything else on the job?

That’s just it, he says. "I can’t tell you a thing. All I’ve been doin’ is to go around here an’ try an’ get contacts with the outside of the mobs so as we can try and get wise to any one who is plannin’ to pull something funny over that shipment, but up to the moment I have drawn a blank.

Now you know as well as I do that there are only about five bad men around this City who are big enough to try and get away with a pinch of a shipment of bar gold worth about eight million dollars, so I reckon all you can do is to contact those five guys here, get in somehow, let ’em play you for a sucker, lose your money, but try an’ get next to ’em.

He pulls a toothpick out of his vest pocket, an’ he starts gettin’ to work on his back teeth. All of a sudden he gets a big idea an’ I see his eyes change. He looks across at me an’ he grins again.

Say listen, he says. I’ll tell you something else that might amuse the children. Directly Carson shoots in a report to the Bureau they put me on this job an’ I pick three good boys from police headquarters an’ start to do a little investigatin’. I put these guys on doin’ a quiet muscle-in act on any mob or really tough egg they can contact, an’ the joke is that the whole lot of ’em has had the works one way or another. McNeil—a nice kid from Queens—got himself shot near Brooklyn Bridge, nobody knows how. The second guy—Franton, a wise dick—was found in East River with a card in his pocket inside a waterproof tobacco pouch he used to carry with ‘Come around again some time’ written on it, and the third feller, a tough copper with brains, was taken off the dope squad to do this one, an’ he got smacked down with a blackjack so hard that he never even knew they’d hit him. So what do you know about that?

He stops talking because a lotta new guys have come down into this dive, an’ a bunch of ’em come around our table.

O.K., he says, lettin’ out a phoney hiccough that could be heard a mile away, now get a load of this. I’ve got one or two people workin’ for me, people I’ve picked up, people who get around places and hear things. I don’t mean ‘G’ men, I mean just ordinary pikers. I gotta scram outa here now. You meet me at Joe Madrigaul’s place at one o’clock this morning. Maybe I can show you somethin’.

With this he shakes me warmly by the hand, an’ waltzes out of this dump.

I sit there an’ I do a bit of quiet thinkin’ because this job does not look so easy to me. It looks like chasing a needle in a whole lotta haystacks. At the same time what Mellander has said is true. There are only about five mobsters left the in City of New York who would have the nerve or the organisation to try and pull a break like this and even then they’d be bughouse, but I reckon his system of musclin’ in on this case from the outside on the chance of picking something up is good, an’ that looks like the only way this job can be pulled.

In any event I have always found it a very good thing not to start any trouble until it comes up an’ hits you. Too many guys have had to use hair restorer over goin’ out an’ meeting a whole lot of grief before it got there, an’ I have been too long in this thug chasing game to get excited about anything very much.

The only thing that is worryin’ me at the moment is that my good friend Mr. Mellander has left me to pay the bill which when you come to weigh it up is not so hot, an’ while I am waitin’ for the guy who is lookin’ after our table to bring me my change I am doin’ some quiet thinkin’.

I am thinkin’ that this is a break for me anyhow. It looks like a job for the brain trust all right, and I start to hand myself a bouquet for getting it.

Then I come back to earth. I remember also that I have not got through with this yet, an’ that I am just as likely to win myself a royal smack in the puss an’ a nice bronze casket, as a citation from the Director, an’ it looks to me as if I had better look out for myself plenty.

Still, after I have finished the bourbon, and got my change it looks to me like this New York can be a very interestin’ place.

Also, they tell me, they have some very swell dames around here which is a thing that I am very interested in at any time providin’ that it does not interfere with the business in hand.

And after these ruminations I scram.

I go back to my hotel dump, an’ I lay on the bed an’ I begin to do some heavy thinkin’ about this gold bullion bezuzus. Because it looks to me like there is a leak somewhere if all these police dicks have got themselves bumped off just hangin’ around and tryin’ to make some sense out of what is goin’ on. Mark you I ain’t surprised that these coppers have got themselves in bad because I have often noticed that a police dick will go out for too many contacts in order to keep himself wised up as to what is goin’ on, an’ some of these contacts are not so good an’ go shootin’ their mouths off all over the place, after which some mobster gets wise to the game an’ starts a little target practice on the bull.

That’s why they started this G man business. They reckon that we have got to work on our own an’ not get tied up with the coppers unless we have to, which believe me is a thing we don’t do unless the have is spelt with one helluva big H. Another thing is that we are a mixed lot of guys an’ you can pick practically any sort of class of guy from a G division any place. There is guys who meant to be lawyers an’ guys who meant to go on the stage an’ guys who have taken a run out powder on some dame—in fact there is every sorta guy you can think of an’ a lot you’d never dream of.

I am also feelin’ a bit pleased that they have put me on to this job because it is a big sorta job, an’ if they are takin’ Myras Duncan off it an’ leavin’ it to me then I reckon that they think I am the cat’s lingerie, an’ I don’t mean maybe, an’ I am also thinkin’ that they musta been sorts pleased with the way I handled that Miranda van Zelden case in England with the English cops.

From here I start rememberin’ Miranda an’ what a swell piece she was. Believe me that dame had got a figure that woulda meant a lot to a blind man. I also start wonderin’ just what sorta dames I am goin’ to run across in this case that I am on, an’ whether I am goin’ to contact any swell lookers whilst I am tryin’ to rub in on the mob that is plannin’ this gold snatch.

Because I am a guy who is very interested in women, an’ I am tellin’ you that women are very interestin’ things an’ that if a woman ain’t interestin’ then she oughta go an’ see somebody about it, because even if you are as ugly as a bunch of stale frankfurters you can still have that sorts something that makes guys go goofy an’ start writin’ in an’ orderin’ correspondence courses on How to acquire a mysterious personality an’ all that sorta punk.

I’m tellin’ you women are the berries an’ I mean just that, because I have noticed things about women in cases I have been in on an’ in nine cases outa ten if you handle a dame the right way she will spill the beans an’ wise you up to something you are after even before she knows that she has got her little mouth open. In fact I will go so far as to say that some swell mobster’s pet in Missouri once gave me the low-down on a hot ice proposition just because she liked the way I showed my teeth while I was yawnin’ my head off when she was tellin’ me how much she would like to tear her best friend’s ears off.

By now it is half after midnight, an’ I reckon that it is time that I got a move on an’ met up with Harvest V. Mellander at Joe Madrigaul’s place, which is only a ten minute run in a cab from where I am. So I doll up a bit, an’ just before I go I have a meetin’ with myself as to whether I should pack the old shooting iron because Lemmy Caution without a Luger under his arm is about as much use as a lump of pickled pork to a rabbi, especially when I come to consider that these palookas have been givin’ the heat to these previous guys, but after doin’ a bit more thinkin’ I conclude that this guy Perry Charles Rice would not pack a rod, so I leave it behind an’ believe me havin’ regard to what happened this was a durn good thing for Perry Rice an’ Lemmy Caution as I hope to tell you.

You oughta know that it was a swell night when I got outside an’ what with the shot of bourbon an’ me gettin’ this bullion case I am feelin’ like the guy who four-flushed the pot in a poker game when the other guys forgot to ask him to show his openers.

Pretty soon I get around to this Joe Madrigaul’s place which is called Madrigaul’s Club Select, which looks to me like a good crack because this Joe Madrigaul, who is a Greek, was one of the original forty thieves if some of the stories I have heard about him are O.K.

It is a swell dump—like the night club you always see on the movies, only with real liquor. There is a gold sorta entrance an’ then you go along a wide passage an’ up a few stairs an’ through some doors an’ you check your hat at a place on the right. In front of you is a few more wide stairs an’ then a dance floor with tables all around it an’ a curtained-off stage on the floor level right at the end. Away on the left, half-way to the stage, is a little passage with a blind end an’ some telephone booths in it. Right dead on the right-hand side down near the doors is a bar with a couple of bar tenders in fancy white coats shakin’ ’em up. The band platform is on the right of the stage with a little door beside it, and there is a band playin’ some hot tune with a swing that would make Caruso wish he had been a song an’ dance guy.

I check in my hat an’ cross over to the bar, an’ as I open my mouth to say rye I catch a look at a guy who is on the other side of the room. Now there is something familiar about this guy because he is pretty high an’ is yet steady on his feet an’ when I have another look I see that this guy is Jerry Tiernan, a reporter on the Chicago Evenin’ Sun an’ Gazette, an’ I get the jitters because this palooka knows me for Lemmy Caution an’ I reckon that I have gotta tell him to keep his trap shut about my being a G man otherwise there is likely to be some sweet complications.

Now you oughta know that this Jerry Tiernan is a right sorta guy an’ that I have made use of him once or twice before now, an’ that he is very hot at findin’ out things that you do not want checked up through the office. He is also a guy with a lot of sense an’ knows how to keep his trap shut, so I ease over across the floor and grab him just as he is about to stagger off some place.

Listen, Hangover, I say, just take a pull at yourself an’ meet your old friend Perry Charles Rice who is down from the old bond-sellin’ racket in Iowa, an’ I hope you ain’t too drunk to get that, big boy, an’ like it!

Mind you this Hangover is well gone—he was one of them guys who is always half cut anyhow an’ I don’t suppose he’d ever been any other way for years—but his brain is workin’ all right because he looks at me an’ grins an’ says:

Well . . . if it ain’t the old Perry. . . . What are you doin’ down here you ol’ son of a hoodlum. An’ how’s the big bond salesman? Let me promote you to a big drink, Perry. . . .

An’ with this he grabs me by the arm an’ takes me back to the bar where I tip him off that I am down here on a little business an’ that he is not to forget that I am Mr. Rice—the stuff you use at weddings—an’ that if he does I am liable to go haywire an’ cane the pants off him with stingin’ nettles.

After which I turn around and start to give the once over to this Joe Madrigaul’s place. This is a swell place I’m tellin’ you an’ cost some sweet dough to sling together. There are plenty people there eatin’ and drinkin’ and