5 Detective Novels, Winter 1952 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: 5 Detective Novels
Published: 1952-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

JOE HARRIGAN was catching it. That it was coming over the phone made it easier to take, since all he had to do was hold the receiver away from his ear to cut down the volume of his chief’s angry words.

He gathered that the Gaudels, father and son, had complained about his actions; that the sheriff’s office had also complained; and that the district attorney had called and threatened to lift his license. All in all, he decided that he was not very popular. He replaced the phone and glanced at the watch on his broad wrist. It was a quarter after twelve, and he knew that he should be asleep.

He went toward the bedroom door, intending to turn in, but he had not reached it when the apartment buzzer sounded. He hesitated, wondering who could be calling at that hour. It certainly could not be a friend, since he seemed to have no friends left, and then he thought of the Gaudel girl.

Perhaps she needed him, after all. Perhaps she had come over to thank him for what he had done that afternoon and evening. Perhaps— He turned, and his long legs carried him into the small entry hall.

He reached down and pulled the door open, a welcoming smile on his big face. But it wasn’t the girl. It was the Gaudels.

Harrigan’s smile died, and he started to close the door, but Morton Gaudel’s hand-sewed shoe was in the way. For just an instant they stared at each other. They were almost of a size and could easily have worn each other’s clothes. But while there was a line of flabby fat around Gaudel’s middle, there was no corresponding bulge on Harrigan, whose stomach could have done service as a washboard. What covered Harrigan’s big bones was muscle.

“Well,” he said, and his tone sounded anything but inviting.

“We want to talk to you.” Morton Gaudel sounded nervous, and the pinch glasses which rode the high bridge of his aquiline nose threatened to drop from their perch. “I’ll tell you that you won’t lose by giving us ten minutes.”

Harrigan made up his mind fast.

“What have I got to lose?” he queried and stood aside for them to enter.

They came into the front room but they did not sit down. Morton Gaudel cleared his throat uneasily.

“I suppose you realize that we’re in a position to cause you a great deal of trouble,” he said.

Harrigan did not like stuffed shirts and he had never in his thirty-one years seen a more perfect example.

“You already have,” he said sourly. “I had just finished talking to my boss when you came.”

Morton Gaudel’s smile was thin and satisfied.

“That was just by way of warning,” he explained. “We really did not put the pressure on, you know. We just made a complaint.”

Harrigan said nothing. He knew that these men had come to him for some purpose and he wanted to find out what it was. Nor did they keep him waiting, for the older Gaudel at once took the offensive.

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