Dick Tracy (5 page)

Tracy helped Tess into her black woolen coat; she slipped one hand into a dyed-black rabbit muff—a few small animals had died for Tess’s garment, whereas half a forestful had died for Vitamin’s—and the couple followed the old ham through the backstage area, where he bestowed his gratitude to everyone he met, from costars to stagehands.

As the trio reached the front of the theater, a gaggle of reporters awaited beyond the doors, pencils poised over notebooks, flashbulbs popping in blinding little bursts.

Flintheart, raising a hand to protect his eyes, said to Tracy, “You see, my boy—you see what I must put up with, with this cursed fame of mine? I’d best duck out the stage door . . .”

“Tracy!” they shouted. “Dick Tracy! Tracy!”

“What’s the story, Tracy?” said one of the eager faces in front.

“Yeah,” another yelled, “who pulled off the Seventh Street Garage Massacre?”

“Well, Bart,” Tracy said calmly, as he and Tess slowly but steadily shouldered their way through the clamoring group, Vitamin having disappeared, “I see you haven’t wasted any time giving it a name.”

“Who was killed, Tracy?” another one said.

“We haven’t confirmed the identifications yet, fellas. You’ll just have to wait on that one.”

Tracy and Tess were to the street now, the crew of newshounds sticking with them like gum on a shoe.

“You think this was Big Boy’s work, Tracy?” yelled skinny, intense Larry Charet of the
Trib.

“If it is, we’ll find out. Excuse me, fellas . . .”

“Any comment,” Charet persisted, “on the rumor you’re in line for the Police Chief slot, when Brandon retires?”

“My only comment is I hope Brandon
doesn’t
retire.”

“Well, we’re not far away from the mayoral race,” said Bart Bush of the
News;
he was a sleepy-eyed, easygoing reporter who never missed a detail. “Some people think you could have
that
job, if you wanted it.”

“No offense meant to His Honor the Mayor, but I wouldn’t want to take a demotion. I already got the most important job in town: I’m a cop.”

Tracy protectvely slipped his arm around Tess’s shoulder as the pressboys crowded around; a flashbulb popped. “If that shot’s any good, McNally,” Tess called cheerily, “I want a copy!”

Tracy moved away from the boys, who finally backed off, just as a rather morose Vitamin rolled by in his limo; the actor smiled sadly and lifted a gloved hand in a halfhearted wave as he passed.

“Poor Vitamin,” Tess said. “Those reporters let him down.”

“He’ll get his ego reinflated at that big cast party,” Tracy said good-naturedly, as Tess slipped her arm in his.

They strolled slowly down a quiet, nearly deserted street close to the theatrical district. Shops were closing, though several cozy restaurants caught Tess’s attention; she seemed to be wondering which one her beau had picked out. Twilight had settled on the city. The evening was cold, but not bitterly so. The sky had cleared.

She nestled against him, just a little, as they walked. “You know,” she said, “you
would
make a swell Chief of Police.”

He sighed. “It does pay darn near twice as much.”

“Chief Brandon says you’re the only man he’d trust to take over. That’s why he hasn’t retired before now.”

He shook his head. “I’m uncomfortable behind a desk, Tess. I’m already doing more administrative work than I like.”

They were crossing with the light.

“Besides, if I let ’em kick me upstairs,” he said, “who would nail Big Boy?”

“Dick . . . there
are
other detectives on the force.”

His eyes tightened as if that thought had never occurred to him. “I suppose somebody else
could
get something on Big Boy. But . . .”

It was something they never spoke about; but Tracy felt his pledge to Tess’s late father would not be complete till he put Caprice away.

She squeezed his arm as they walked. “It’s just that I’d feel more secure knowing you weren’t out risking your life every night. I know you
love
it, but I worry. I’m human. And so are you, Dick. So much death around you . . . you might catch a dose of it yourself.”

“Not me,” he said confidently. Then he tried to make a joke out of it: “The bad guys do the dying; not the good guys.”

“But do the bad guys know that?”

He laughed silently. “Hey, as far as this Chief job is concerned—I’ll keep an open mind . . . if you will. But let’s drop it for tonight.”

“Sure,” she said, and hugged his arm as they walked. He liked it, but he didn’t hug back. Showing affection didn’t always come easy to him.

He just looked at her and smiled shyly. He felt a warmth toward her unlike anything he felt for anyone else on the planet.

“The night’s really cleared up,” he noted.

“Maybe tomorrow we can finally get around to that ride in the country. Might be a nice day for it. Don’t you think?”

“Sure.”

“Say,” she said, as the shopping district began to drop away and the outskirts of an industrial district were looming ahead, “where are we going, anyway? Somewhere ‘romantic,’ and ‘secluded,’ you said.”

“That was Vitamin who said that. But ‘secluded’ is right.”

Mike’s Diner was a chrome-trimmed storefront on a corner near the trainyards. Greasy-spoons didn’t come classier.

“Mike’s
again?”
Tess asked, though, detective that he was, Tracy suspected she’d known it all along.

“They serve a mean bowl of chili here,” Tracy said, escorting his dressed-up date toward the glow of the diner’s door.

“How mean?” Tess asked.

“I’ve seen it eaten without crackers,” Tracy said, straight-faced.

It was not the first time they’d had this exchange.

As Tracy held the door open for Tess, a small figure came quickly out and bumped into Tracy.

“Gee, mister,” the kid said, moving away from Tracy, “I’m sorry . . .”

He was a red-haired street waif with an oversized cap, a frayed black jacket, and patched denims. A cute, bright-eyed kid, who at the moment had Tracy’s two-way wrist radio in his hands. An antenna wire from the wrist radio extended up Tracy’s cuff, so the “watch” was still connected to the plainclothes detective.

“That’s not a wristwatch,” Tracy said with a mildly scolding smile.

The kid dropped the wrist radio, which hung limply from Tracy’s wrist by the wire clipped up Tracy’s shirt sleeve, and he bolted. Or tried to bolt. The long arm of the law—specifically, the long arm of Dick Tracy—settled a firm hand on his shoulder, gripping him, stopping him.

“Bad luck, kid,” Tracy said, shaking his head. “The first thing a good dip learns is don’t pick a cop for a mark. You just tried to lift a two-way police-band radio off the wrist of a city detective.”

“Let go of me, you stinkin’—!”

Tracy frowned and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Watch your language, junior! There’s a lady present.”

Tess seemed distressed by this; her eyes were wide and sympathetic as she said, “Dick—please! He doesn’t look like he’s had a decent meal in weeks.”

“He’ll get a meal at Juvenile Hall. A night or two there will be most instructive, I think.”

The kid sneered. “Go to blazes, flatfoot!”

“Listen, you little—”

“Dick!” Tess said, moving nearer Tracy. “Please! Let him go. He’s got a hard enough life . . .”

Tracy glanced at Tess, and her look melted him, and he was about to let the kid off with a lecture when a heavyset figure filled the door and bellowed, “My watch is gone! That brat must have
stolen
it!”

The big man’s face was as red as a tomato and so was his suit; he wore a bowler hat and a napkin was tucked in under his double chin.

The kid took advantage of the moment to shove Tracy in the stomach, pushing him into Tess. The couple didn’t quite lose their balance, catching themselves on the sleek surface of the diner, but Tracy did lose the boy.

Who was a small, fleeing figure, heading toward the railroad yards, disappearing into the dark night.

“That little son of a . . .” Tracy started, and caught himself.

“There’s a lady present,” Tess reminded him, with a pretty little smirk.

“Gun,” Tracy said, embarrassed. “Get us a nice booth, honey.” He was rebuckling the two-way as he took off after the boy, yellow coat flapping as he ran.

The kid was fast, but Tracy was fast, too, and the footsteps of both echoed through the night, the kid’s making small slaps, Tracy’s making ominous louder ones. Sometimes there was a splash as feet punched puddles, the aftermath of yesterday’s rainstorm. The streets were as black and slick as patent leather.

The train tracks were half a block away when a freight roared along, its beam cutting through the darkness like a giant’s flashlight, the shrill of its whistle piercing the air, the blatt of its horn shaking the ground, the bells and the clanging and the rattling of the tracks filling the world, and—

—and the kid ran right in front of the train!

Tracy threw on his own brakes, the brakes of his heels, and barely missed bumping into the crossing guardrail, its red lights flashing; just beyond, the train whooshed jokingly by, scattering sparks. Shaking his head, Tracy grinned at the passing train. This kid was long on guts; short on brains, maybe—but long on guts.

When the caboose rushed past, Tracy didn’t wait for the guardrail to raise; he ducked under and ran into the dimly lit yard. A railroad yardman spotted him and said, “Hey, you!”

Tracy slowed and flashed his badge and the yardman, carrying a kerosene lantern, said, “What’s up?”

“Chasing a little pickpocket,” Tracy said. “Just a kid.”

The yardman pointed to the right. “I spotted a kid running down that way. I was going after him when I seen you.”

Tracy nodded and ran where the yardman had pointed.

He didn’t see the urchin at first and was looking frantically left to right; but then, there the kid was: scrambling up the iron ladder of a boxcar. As Tracy took pursuit, the kid was running along the boxcar’s roof, and jumping to the next one, and the next.

Tracy climbed one of the iron ladders and joined in.

“Give it up, son!” he called out.

Without looking back, the kid called, “You gotta catch me first, copper!”

Tracy pursued the brat from one boxcar to another, the leaps shaking the detective from his ankles to his ears. Once, he nearly lost his balance and went tumbling to the cinders.

But he didn’t.

And he followed the boy the length of this thankfully motionless train, where the kid stopped short as he found himself atop the caboose.

“Give it up, son,” Tracy said, and the kid turned, poised at the edge of the caboose’s roof, his back to air.

And the kid gave the detective an elaborate, and apparently heartfelt, Bronx cheer.

And jumped from the car.

Expecting to hear the howl of an injured child, but hearing nothing at all, Tracy moved to the edge, peered down and, expecting at this point to see the youth in a crumpled pile, saw nothing.

Just the darkness of the trainyard.

The Kid slowed as he entered the Hooverville on the other side of the trainyard. Fires glowed, as the otherwise homeless men, women, children, dogs, and cats huddled for warmth. The “houses” of this city within the city were made of this and that—walls of discarded boards, corrugated metal, packing crates; tar paper for roofs. The ground mixed cinders from the ’yards with straw and chicken feathers. Nobody nodded at the Kid as he moved through; the boy wasn’t a permanent resident. He and Steve had moved into a shack after Steve pulled a shiv on its previous owner.

The boy ducked into the shanty, where Steve lay on a “bed” that consisted of several boards atop steel drums; Steve had a mostly empty bottle of whiskey in his two hands. The tramp was a burly brute, bald, his jowly face so gray with stubble it looked dirty, which of course it was, and so scarred he might have been a fighter, which he also was, just never in a ring. He had black beady eyes and a nose he’d broken almost as often as the law. His coat was a tattered black-and-white checkered affair that had been fashionable, a decade ago; his pants were patched like the boy’s.

“Where the hell have you been, boyo?” Steve asked gruffly, sitting up. He took a long swig, and then tossed the empty whiskey bottle to the hard-packed earthen floor where it rolled.

“I been working, where d’ya think?” The Kid sat at a soapbox table, turned up the glow of the room’s only lamp, a kerosene lantern stolen off a railroad yardman. The light revealed the remains of a chicken dinner scattered on the table; Steve’s mouth still looked greasy. There was nothing in the way they lived that reflected the money Steve made off the Kid’s stealing—other than the whiskey bottles littered here and there. Most of the Hooverville residents were lucky to get rubbing alcohol.

Steve pulled up an orange crate and sat at the table; the crate creaked under his weight. “Where’s the take? What’d ya get?”

“I got hungry is what I got. You said you’d save me some chicken. All I see’s bones.”

Steve slapped the Kid, and the Kid fell off his own orange-crate chair.

“Let’s see the loot, you little mongrel.”

“Okay, okay.” He picked himself up, wiped the blood from his mouth, and got out the watches he’d got—the fancy gold-plated pocket watch, and the wristwatch on the leather band, plus the fat guy from the diner’s silver pocket watch. Steve fingered these appreciatively.