Dick Tracy (18 page)

Big Boy raised a calming hand. “Let’s not be impolite to our guest, boys.” He looked around the furnace room again. “Don’t you think your little sweetie deserves better than a dump like this, Dick? If you were on my payroll, you could make her happy.”

“She’s happy enough as it is.”

“I doubt that,” Big Boy said with a knowing smile. “You been going with her for years, but on your salary, how can you afford to do right by her? Sad. How I hate to see our valued civic servants suffer.”

“Do tell.”

“I’m a businessman, Tracy,” Big Boy said, reasonably. “I think all this shooting nonsense has gotta cease. All these tommy guns and cement overcoats and bombs in cars . . . did you hear about that disgraceful murder last nght, right outside my place? Poor ol’ Spaldoni.”

“Somebody must’ve wanted to make you look bad, Big Boy, blowing up Spaldoni right outside your place like that.”

“I know. I know.” He shook his head sadly. “Everybody wants to make me out to be a big, bad man. I’m just in the entertainment business. My business is to serve the public.”

“We have that in common, then. If there’s a point to this, Big Boy, I wish you’d get to it. I’m late for work.”

Big Boy exchanged smiles with his boys. “Ain’t this guy a pip?” he asked them good-naturedly. Flattop and Itchy weren’t smiling. “Numbers” Norton was doing his best to fade into the background.

“The point is,” Big Boy continued, “I don’t want trouble. I thought you might be in a position to help me out.”

“Oh?”

Big Boy nodded sagely. “What I need is, Tracy, for you to go bother the real criminals. Bank robbers and embezzlers and jaywalkers. I think you should
support
a good local businessman like me. And I think a good local businessman like me should support local law enforcement.”

Big Boy dropped his walnuts into one topcoat pocket and reached into the other and withdrew a large wad of bills. He threw the loose stack of bills onto the table, in front of Tracy.

Big Boy, ever the philosopher, said, “Everybody’s got his price.”

Tracy picked up the stack of bills and began riffling idly through them. “What’s mine?”

Big Boy pointed at the money Tracy was thumbing through. “You’re holding fifteen gees in your hot little hands right now. And you’ll get fifteen more, at the end of every quarter. That’s sixty grand a year, in case your math ain’t so good.”

Tracy watched the green bills flutter under his thumb. “Oh, that’s a very businesslike arrangement. I’m impressed, Big Boy. When can we seal this deal?”

Big Boy shrugged grandly. “Right now.”

Tracy gave him a bland smile. “All right, let’s. You’re under arrest for attempted bribery of an officer of the law,” he said, and hurled the wad of money in Big Boy’s face, and in one continuous motion, slammed an elbow into Flattop’s belly, doubling the wincing-in-pain punk over even as Tracy was throwing a left hook into Itchy’s chin, leaveling the pop-eyed purse-lipped gunman.

But then Big Boy had him from behind, and Flattop was on him, snarling, and swinging his massive .45, catching Tracy along the side of the head with the barrel.

Tracy, as he crumpled to the floor, felt rough hands on him, and he was hauled back to the table, where a furious Itchy was looping a thick rope around him, binding him to the chair.

Flattop held the .45 to Tracy’s temple while Big Boy backhanded the detective, brutally. The gangster sneered at Tracy and Tracy looked back at him coldly.

“Hot in here, did ya notice, copper?” Big Boy walked over to the big boiler furnace behind Tracy and patted it with a gloved hand; it echoed hollowly. “This accident’s just been waitin’ to happen. Somebody carelessly turned it way up this morning and jimmied some of the safety valves and so on.” He made a clicking sound in his cheek. “See those trash cans in the corner? Those are your girlfriend’s. You brought ’em downstairs here, after you dropped that candy off to her. You just happened to be down here, when the boiler blew . . . which it’s gonna, in due time. This basement’s gonna be blowed to chop suey.”

Tracy shrugged. “I like Chinese food.”

Then Big Boy smiled; it was a horrible, toothy thing under the skinny mustache. “You silly, stupid cop. I offer you a seat on top of the world, and you choose the gutter. I offer you the keys to the kingdom, and you tell me you’re an officer of the law. I
am
the law.
Me!”

“You’re one law I look forward to breaking,” Tracy said calmly.

Big Boy’s sneer returned. To Itchy, who stood nearby, he said, “Let ’im have it.”

Itchy picked up a nasty-looking wrench and stepped near Tracy with the wrench raised; Itchy’s eyes behind the thick glasses were crazed, his lips smiling madly. His weasel-like laugh filled the small furnace room as he moved toward Tracy, who tightened his eyes, and braced himself for the blow . . .

But Itchy had moved past Tracy, and the blow was struck beyond and behind the bound-in-the-chair detective, against the furnace itself, the glass of the safety-valve meter breaking, metal meeting metal jarringly, and the furnace began to hum and the hum began to build, quickly, to a low rumble.

The boiler was roaring as Big Boy began climbing the stairs, the mob accountant on his heels. “Hate to miss the fun,” the gangster said, “but ringside seats at some events can prove dangerous. My boys’ll take care of ya, proper.”

“You’ll fry for this, Big Boy.”

“I think you’re gonna do the fryin’ today, Tracy.” He looked down from the stairs at the detective; steam was filling the room. He shook his head forlornly. “You shoulda made the deal. So long, sucker . . .”

And Big Boy was gone.

“Pick up the dough,” Flattop said.

“It’s gonna blow, Flattop!” Itchy said.

“Shut-up,” Flattop said. “Pick up the money.”

Itchy, scratching his shoulder, began collecting the scattered bills; the furnace was rumbling, the room steamy, fogging the gunman’s thick glasses.

Tracy looked around the furnace room, eyes darting, looking for something to use to escape as soon as these clowns had finally left; in the process, he glanced up at the window.

The Kid was framed there. Tracy looked quickly away.

“You got it all, Itchy?”

“Sure, Flattop!” Itchy was stuffing the money in his topcoat pockets. “Think I’m nuts?”

“Is that a trick question? Let’s go.”

“Say good-night, Tracy,” Itchy said, and giggled nasally, heading for the stairs.

“Hey!” Flattop said, spotting the Kid in the window. “It’s that kid!”

The Kid had watched it all through the window, wondering what he could do to help, trying to catch Tracy’s attention without alerting the hoods in there, hoping a beat cop would come along . . . and then when two of the gangsters came out, one important-looking one in a red topcoat and another unimportant-looking one in a tan topcoat, he hid behind some garbage cans by the stoop, till they drove off. Then he returned to the window and, finally, Tracy saw him!

But a few seconds later, so did that flatheaded killer.

From within the basement room Tracy shouted, and through the glass window his voice was muffled but the words were unmistakable:
“Get out of here! Run!”

If he could only break the window—but the glass was thick, and a fist or even a kick wouldn’t do the trick, and if he stayed close to that window, that flatheaded guy would
shoot
him. What could he do? What should he do?

The baseball!

He dug it out of his pocket and backed up and he brought his arm back and he pitched the pitch of his life, the pitch of all-time, and the glass shattered; it was the most beautiful sound the Kid had ever heard.

But down in the cellar, the flatheaded guy was shouting, “Let’s get him!”

And he knew they were coming up out of there to grab him, maybe kill him, and he knew he should run, like Tracy said; but he just couldn’t leave Tracy down there, where that boiler looked like it was going to go
ka-blooie
any second!

So he hopped inside one of the garbage cans and huddled there.

And when the two killers made it onto the street, the Kid was nowhere to be seen.

“That thing’s going to blow any second,” Flattop said. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

The Kid heard their car roar away.

He scrambled out of the garbage can and went back to the shattered window and reached in through the jagged glass-teeth to open it and dropped himself down into the steam-filled basement.

“Get outta here, son!” Tracy said. He was trying to drag his chair toward some of the glass shards, to try to cut his ropes; but the Kid could see there was no time for that. And it looked like Tracy was getting groggy from the steam . . .

“I’m not goin’ anywheres without you,” the boy said, and worked at the big knots on the ropes. It was no problem for the Kid—Steve had taught him how to untie all sorts of things. It came in handy when you were a thief.

The ropes fell loose around the man, and the Kid slipped an arm around Tracy and used every ounce of his strength to help the heavy adult up.

When he got to his feet, Tracy seemed to come to life. He grabbed the boy’s hand, and said, “Come on, junior!” and they clambered out of there, up the stairs, and out onto the street. They ran and ran and behind them the explosion rocked the building, sending glass and wood and other rubble flying; the man and the boy hit the deck, the debris raining down on them.

Still on the pavement, Tracy looked back at the building; smoke and fire billowed from basement windows.

“You okay, kid?” he asked.

“Sure. How ’bout you?”

“All in one piece.” He sat up and so did the Kid. “How did you wind up here?”

“I was comin’ back.” the Kid said shyly, “and saw those goons kidnap ya. I hopped the spare tire and went along for the ride.”

“You came back to my place?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah, well,” the Kid said. “I forgot my jammies. And what’s the idea, turnin’ down fifteen thousand bucks?”

Tracy hugged the boy, hugged him tight; and the boy hugged back. Their tears were partly from the drifting smoke.

Partly not.

T
racy sat at his desk, loading cartridges into his .38 Police Special. Out his office windows, the night awaited—a night that Tracy was confident would spell the beginning of the end for one Al “Big Boy” Caprice. Tonight was the grand reopening of the Club Ritz; but, if Tracy’s plan succeeded, the gangster’s moment of glory would be followed by days and nights of frustration and defeat.

And Tracy knew all about frustration and defeat. Today had been a prime example of that.

“You’re saying,” Tracy had said to District Attorney Fletcher earlier that day, following the latter down a bustling hallway at the County Courthouse, “that if I pull Caprice in, you won’t prosecute? The man tried to have me killed!”

“It’s your word against his,” Fletcher had said irritably, walking fast, making Tracy work to keep up.
“And
the word of his two cronies.”

“Flattop and Itchy! You can’t be saying you’re taking their word seriously . . .”

Fletcher paused and looked at Tracy with frank disgust. “After you so recently arrested Caprice under specious circumstances, you can hardly do it again on anything less than the solidest of grounds.”

“The bribe was real. The threat was real. The attempt on my life was real.”

They were moving down the hall again. Fletcher’s face tightened; he seemed annoyed to have Tracy wasting his time. “Were there any fingerprints in your apartment? Any witnesses in your building, or on the street, or at Miss Trueheart’s building, who saw any of these people?”

“I don’t know if he got a good look at ’em,” Tracy said, “but that street kid that I took in, the one who saved my bacon, saw ’em all.”

Fletcher stopped. He seemed both amazed and weary. “Well, then it would be your word and that of a delinquent child against thirty-five respectable witnesses who place the three men at a fund-raising prayer breakfast.”

“A what?”

The D.A. sighed heavily. “A favorite charity of Big Boy’s. Saint Catherine’s Church is building a home for unwed mothers.”

“Oh, brother. Mr. D.A., don’t you want to get rid of this scum that’s fouling our town? Do you really expect to run successfully for Mayor if Big Boy has the city in his grip?”

Fletcher scowled. “If you want me to prosecute Big Boy, then ye gods, man—give me something solid to go on! Have your detectives scour the rubble of that basement for fingerprints; comb the streets and find some witnesses. But I won’t waste my time, and the city’s money, for you to chase windmills, just because your girlfriend’s father got killed a hundred years ago!”

Fletcher’s courtroom baritone was echoing in the high ceiling hallway; it had attracted the embarrassed attention of more than a few passersby.

Tracy grabbed the D.A.’s arm; through clenched teeth, he said, “That was unnecessary, Fletcher. I’ll give you something solid, all right—since attempts on my life aren’t enough for you. And when you
get
this solid evidence, I’m going to be watching you. And if you don’t prosecute, if you find some excuse not to, the next case I investigate is going to be
you.”