The Complete Casebook of Cardigan, Volume 2: 1933 by Frederick Nebel

Author:Frederick Nebel [Nebel, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Detective/Hard-Boiled
Publisher: Altus Press
Published: 2013-08-18T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

The Irish and the Dutch

HE knocked on the door of 610 and heard her call: “You, chief?”

“Yeah.”

“Come in.”

He entered and realized her voice was coming from behind the closed bathroom door. “Showering,” she yelled above the hiss of driving water. “Be out in a minute.”

Cardigan was impatient, darkly frowning, angry that he had, against all wishes, made an enemy of Bogart. He paced up and down the floor. Bogart had tried to squeeze out the last drop. It was natural, of course, that he, Cardigan, should have dressed Bogart down when he found that Pat was safe. But—

“Whew! Hot in there!” She came out muffled in a terrycloth bathrobe, with a Turkish towel slung about her neck. Her black hair, due to the steam, was a cap of short, gleaming curls.

“So what happened to you?” he growled.

“H’m—you talk as if—”

“Forget it, chicken. I’m all hot and bothered. I’ve been busting around town ever since I got here.”

She perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair. “Well, I was detained for a while. I was picked up last night—bopped in the face—look at the souvenir over the left eye—”

“The bums!”

“I’ve been thinking worse names than that. I—”

“How’d it happen you were—”

“You know me—Pat the old zealot. Well, there was this little half-starved thing Hanna Kropek. When I was making my way about one of these nameless sweatshops the other day, most of the girls were antagonistic—worse than the chaps they worked for. Sullen, you know—b-r-r-r!… But I noticed one, bent over a machine; small and wasted and with a hungry, haunted look in her eyes. I never forgot the way she looked at me—eager and yet scared. But I didn’t say anything to her.

“I waited outside till late. She came out about ten-thirty, dragging her feet. She walked along and I followed for several blocks. Then she went in a soda store and bought a hot chocolate—her supper. She came out and I followed her and caught up with her. She was scared, but I hung on, quieted her. I didn’t want to take her to a hotel—so I figured the best place was a taxicab. We got in—Hanna Kropek and me.

“Well, she wasn’t much help. Dazed—in a sort of stupor—unable to remember where she came from. But she mentioned names: Saltpork Annie Bischeff, Marcella Wohl, Abel Franks, Tony Gatto. I asked her what salary she received. Sometimes it was a dollar a week, sometimes less. She kind of worshiped Saltpork Annie—said Annie let her and Mabel Murphy share a room for nothing. I wrote the names down and somebody—”

“I was in here. Got the list. Go on.”

“Well, chief, I couldn’t get much out of her. Only these names, over and over again. The girl isn’t in her right mind. Then she suddenly got very scared and wanted to get out. I held her and asked her her address. She said Saltpork Annie’s—and then I got the street number. But as we drew near, she was afraid again—afraid to get out of a cab there.

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