Poisons Unknown

Inside the apartment lay a dead girl.
The cops were closing in. He had no
place to hide …

Then a low voice whispered in the darkness,
“This way.” A warm hand guided him through
the door. “Get your clothes off.”

He ripped off his coat, his shoulder holster.
He crossed to the bedroom, tore off his
pants. In a moment bare warm flesh
squeezed into the bed against him.
A hand reached up, mussed his hair.
Lips smeared his face and mouth as
the pounding started at the door …

A cop looked in, snickered, left.
And Johnny Liddell got his first
look at the girl …

T
HE APARTMENT
was small, dark, hot.

The man in the rumpled white suit swabbed at his face with a pocket handkerchief, poured two fingers of rum into a water glass, swallowed it in a gulp. He got up, walked to the window, and stared out at the heat mist that shimmered over New Orleans and gave no evidence of relief.

He wiped the back of his neck with the handkerchief, shrugged out of his jacket. The armpits of his shirt were half-mooned with sweat; the back stuck damply to his body.

The tap on the door was so soft he almost missed it. He cocked his head, listened. The tapping was repeated.

He crossed the floor and put his ear against the door. “What is it?” There was a faintly liquid accent in his voice.

“I have a message for you from Kirk,” the voice on the other side of the door whispered.

Satisfied, the little man turned the key in the lock and pulled the door open. A man and a woman stood in the hallway. The man in the room squinted at them in the half-light.

“You were not supposed to come here,” he complained. “No one must know I am here.” He gestured impatiently for them to come in, closed the door after them.

As he turned to face them, something in the other man’s expression startled him. He looked from the man to the woman, started to back away.

“Give me the message, please. I am busy. I—”

The other man started toward him; the girl took up a position in front of the door.

The man in the white suit stared at the newcomer, recognition slowly dawning in his eyes. “You? But you said—” The words froze in his throat. His lips moved, but no sounds came. His eyes widened until they were completely rimmed with white.

“Come here,” the other man ordered.

The little man moved back in horror, turned, tried to run. The other man moved faster. In two steps he was on the back of the little man, his arm around his neck in a murderous mugger’s grip. As the little man struggled to break the hold, the mugger put his knee in the small of his back and bent him slowly but relentlessly back.

The victim reached up with both hands and clawed desperately at the arm that was cutting off his breath, slowly strangling him. His eyes started to pop; his struggles grew weaker. After a minute, his hands seemed to grow heavy and dropped to his sides, fingers clenching and unclenching spasmodically.

Relentlessly, the mugger tightened his grip until even the fingers stopped moving. The man in the white suit went limp. Satisfied that his victim was beyond further resistance, the mugger loosened his hold and let the little man’s body slump to the floor.

The mugger stood over him, while he wiped the wet smear of his mouth with the back of his hand. The girl walked over, bent over the man on the floor, and pulled a wallet from his breast pocket. She flipped through the papers and held up a torn baggage check. “Here’s half of it.”

The man swore fluently. “Where’s the other half?”

“Kirk must have it.”

The man swore again. He brought back his foot and kicked viciously at the fallen man’s head. The girl turned, walked to the door. The mugger kept kicking at the man’s head until it gave off a sound like an overripe melon.

• • •

Two days later, Johnny Liddell leaned against the bar in Mike’s Deadline Café in New York, staring morosely at his reflection in the back-bar mirror. It didn’t look any better than he felt.

The man behind the bar made a production out of selecting a bottle from the well, filling a jigger to within a hairline of the top, and sliding it across the bar without spilling a drop.

Johnny Liddell wasn’t quite as successful in transferring it to his glass.

The bartender bared the yellow stumps of his teeth in a grin, as he swabbed the bar dry with a damp cloth that left oily circles. “Takes practice, my boy.”

“I should have enough of that,” Liddell grunted.

The man behind the bar tossed the cloth under the bar. “Haven’t been around much lately, Johnny. Business picking up?”

“Business?” Liddell made a sour face. “Playing bodyguard to some tin coffeepots at a wedding. A couple of dames who want to know where their husbands spend their evenings, a couple of husbands ditto their wives. You call that a business?”

“It’s better than working.” The bartender caught a signal from the far end of the bar and shuffled down.

Liddell took a deep swallow from his glass, while he studied the other denizens of the Deadline Café. He tried to work up some interest in the redhead at the other end of the bar who was working an overtired businessman, but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. He finished his drink, spilled some change next to it, and turned up the collar of his topcoat.

The bartender shuffled back, scooped up the money. “One for the road, Johnny? On the house.”

Liddell considered it, decided no amount of liquor would shake him out of the mood he was in, shook his head.

The cool breeze flapping the awnings of some of the fancier
boîtes
along Madison Avenue felt good after the closeness of the bar. He looked up at the sky and decided it was a good night for walking. He was halfway up the block when the man came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

“I thought you was never going to come out, Liddell,” a nasal voice whined accusingly. “A guy could catch his death of cold in this damn climate.”

Liddell looked him over in the yellow street light. He was thin and undersized, a fact that the carefully tailored gabardine, built-up shoulders, and elevator shoes failed to conceal. He wore no hat; a mass of thick black hair rolled back in oily waves from his low hairline. He wore it in a three-quarter part revealing the startling whiteness of his scalp. His thin, bloodless lips were split in what was intended to be a smile, but there was no trace of it in the eyes that squinted across the high bridge of an enormous hooked nose.

Over his right arm he carried a carefully folded topcoat. The ugly snout of a .45 poked out from under its folds.

“What’s on your mind, friend?”

“I just came by to invite you to a party.”

Liddell’s eyes dropped to the .45. “You make it hard to refuse such hospitality. But give me a rain check on this one. I’m not dressed for a party.”

The thin lips tilted at the corners, and the eyes grew bleaker. “You are for this one. It’s a come-as-you-are party.”

“Who’s throwing it?”

“What do you take me for, a stool pigeon?” Without taking his eyes off Liddell, the little man raised his hand in a signal. A big black sedan pulled away from the curb down the block and glided toward them. It came to a noiseless stop at the curb, and the back door swung open. The little man motioned with the .45. “Be my guest.”

Liddell debated the advisability of making a fight for it, dropped the decision. “You talked me into it.” He stepped in and dropped back against the cushions.

The man with the gun followed him in, closing the door after him. He settled back in his corner, with the .45 cradled in the crook of his elbow. Its muzzle stared at Liddell’s midsection.

“Have we got far to go?” Liddell wanted to know.

The little man shrugged. “Depends on how much traffic we hit in the tunnel.” He took a flat platinum case from his pocket and held it out. “Smoke?”

Liddell selected one of the long, thin cigarettes, smelled it, shook his head. “I prefer tobacco in mine.”

The man with the gun shrugged. “After a day like this has been, I can use a lift.” He stuck one of the long cigarettes in the corner of his mouth, motioned with the .45. “Get one of your own if you like. But just use two fingers in bringing it out.”

“I’m not heeled if that’s what’s worrying you.”

The little man pasted the frosty grin back on his lips. “Who’s worrying? I’m just careful. Use more than two fingers and I’ll blast the hand off.”

Liddell fished in his jacket pocket with thumb and forefinger, brought up a pack of cigarettes. He shook one loose and replaced the pack. “Heading for Jersey, eh? Anyone I know?”

“There you go, trying to spoil the surprise again,” the little man chided. He leaned over, touched a lighter to Liddell’s cigarette, returned to his corner. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Liddell shrugged and settled back, smoking moodily. The big car emerged on the Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel, headed for the Pulaski Skyway. The driver handled the car as if it were a scooter, cutting in and out of the crawling traffic, making time. Once past the Newark Airport, he bore right toward Union, swung onto Route 29.

The character of the neighborhood changed from densely populated to suburban, with bigger and bigger stretches of unpopulated areas showing up. About forty minutes from the Holland Tunnel, the driver swung off 29 onto a macadam road that meandered back about a mile.

“Club Coronet, eh?” Liddell asked.

The little man’s teeth flashed whitely in the gloom. “You do know your way around. I told you we were going to a party.”

“Lew Crossan behind this?” Liddell growled.

“That punk?” There was contempt in the little man’s voice. “You think I’d be running errands for him?” He snorted audibly, then relapsed into an injured silence.

From the outside, the Club Coronet gave no hint of its character but looked like any other estate that had been kept up. The lawn and shrubs were in good condition, and it was only by the small brass name plate on the stone pillars that it could be identified.

The big car swung between the pillars and headed up a bluestone driveway that wound and curved its way through a row of trees to the house itself.

“Know where the office is?”

“Still upstairs?”

The little man nodded. “That’s where we’re going. Make it easy on yourself. I’ll be right behind you.” He brandished the .45. “So will Betsy.”

The car pulled up to a canopied entrance. The little man got out first, waited for Liddell, then followed him up the broad stone staircase. A grilled metal door led into what obviously had once been a reception hall.

Small groups of people in formal dress were clustered all through the hall. A low murmur of polite conversation welled toward Liddell as he walked in. Overhead a pall of smoke stirred restlessly in the draft from the opened door.

Liddell headed for the staircase at the far end of the hall; the little man trotted along at his heels.

The door at the head of the stairs had the word
Private
stenciled on it in gold leaf. The little man turned the knob, pushed the door open.

A man sat on the corner of a desk that looked as if it had cost important money, his feet swinging lightly against the side. He didn’t look up from the engrossing task of paring his fingernails.

“Here’s Liddell, boss.”

“Took you long enough, Hook.”

“I couldn’t get to him, boss. He was in a bar with a lot of people. I had to wait until he came out, didn’t I? I damn near froze.” The little man sounded as if he were on the verge of crying. “I got him here soon’s I could.”

“Go down to the bar and get something to warm you up. I’ll call you if I need you.”

The little man nodded, turned, and scooted out the door.

The man on the desk looked up. “Hello, Liddell. Remember me?”

Liddell studied the man’s features, then nodded. “Marty Kirk.”

“Nice of you to come all the way out here to see me,” Kirk snapped the blade of his knife closed and dropped it into his pocket.

“You mean I had a choice?”

Kirk chuckled. “That Hook, he never learns. You tell him to bring somebody, he only knows one thing.” He got off the edge of the desk, walked around, sat behind it. “Been a long time, Liddell. Must be four, five years.”

“Five.”

The years had made a lot of changes in Kirk, Liddell realized. The lean wolfishness of his face was blurred by a soft overlay of fat. Flat, lusterless eyes still peered from beneath heavily veined, thickened eyelids, but the soft, discolored pouches beneath them took away the old menace.

“I need a boy, Liddell. I came up personally to offer you the job.” Kirk reached into the lower drawer and brought up a bottle and two glasses. “Before you say anything, it’s strictly legit.”

“Where is this job? Here?”

“You know my territory’s the bayou country. I just borrowed this place from Crossan because I don’t want word out that I’m in town. It’s personal business.” He uncorked the bottle, spilled some liquor into each of the glasses. “Listening?”

Liddell took one of the glasses. “Listening,” he said.

“Take a look at these.” He pulled a batch of stapled clippings from his pocket and tossed them across the desk. Liddell picked them up, riffled through them, read snatches.

“So?”

“Interesting?”

“Fascinating. So what? Some guy running a Holy Roller show in New Orleans blasts hell out of you in the newspapers. He’s against sin. So?”

Kirk looked up. “He’s disappeared.”

“So what?”

“I want him found.”

Liddell shook his head. “It’s still like the old days, Kirk. I don’t bird-dog anybody for a hit.”

Kirk shook his head. “It ain’t like that, Liddell. Anything happens to him, I’m sunk. That’s why I’ve got to find him before something does.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you get it? He’s been tearing the hide off me and my operation in the newspapers. He disappears, somebody gets the idea I had him hit, the heat goes on. Him calling me names don’t mean anything. But if anything happens to him, there’s plenty heat.”

Liddell tasted his drink, approved. “Good stuff.”

“Private stock. Not the varnish they pour down there.” He tasted his drink, emptied his glass. “Well?”

“You think this character’s been snatched?”

“What pro would pull a job like that?” Kirk snorted. “This guy’s playing house with one of the dames that fall for that yogi routine of his, and if the papers ever get their hooks into it, we’re cooked.”

Liddell shook his head. “It doesn’t sound kosher to me, Kirk.”

“Maybe this will convince you I’m leveling,” Kirk leaned back in the desk chair, put the sole of his shoe against the edge of the desk. “Remember a little blonde named Gabby Benton?” He outlined an hourglass with his hands.