THE GOOSE CACKLES

Paul Pry paid the attendant. The girl watched him with shrewd eyes. “Telling the wife you were detained at the office?” she asked.

“No wife.”

“Betcha I’m making you miss a heavy date, then.”

Paul Pry grinned.

“It’s worth it.”

He got into the car, drove rapidly and skilfully through the traffic, parked in front of the Union Depot, handed a redcap porter the crumpled pasteboard and a half-dollar.

“At the check stand,” he said. “Make it snappy.”

And Paul Pry watched the face of the girl at his side to see if she was at all nonplussed at his failure to call for the suitcase in person. If she was, she failed to show it.

Paul Pry was red hot. It might well be that the sole function of this girl was to get him on the spot in front of the checking stand at the Union Depot.

Mugs Magoo walked past.

His glassy eyes flicked once toward the automobile, then turned away. He walked awkwardly, dressed in shabby clothes, his right arm gone at the shoulder.

At one time he had known every crook in the underworld, and his information was now hardly less complete. He had been “camera-eye” man for the metropolitan police. A political shake-up, an accident which cost him his right arm, and bad booze, had made him a human derelict selling pencils in the gutter.

Paul Pry had “discovered” him, and organized a strange partnership. For Mugs Magoo never forgot a name, a face or a connection. While Paul Pry was an opportunist de luxe who lived by his wits. And of late he had chosen to exercise those wits in a battle against Benjamin Franklin Gilvray, known to the police as Big Front Gilvray.

For years Big Front Gilvray had grown in power and prestige. The police knew him as a big man, too powerful to tackle, a gangster who was always in the background, letting his minions do the dirty work of murder and plunder. The police hated Gilvray, and they feared him.

To Paul Pry, Big Front Gilvray was merely the goose which laid his golden eggs.

The redcap returned with a suitcase, deposited it in the car. Paul Pry drove away into the stream of traffic.

“Gosh,” said the girl, “I can’t change in here. You’re sort of one of the family, but these windows are too wide. I don’t want to give the whole damned city a treat.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“We will go to a safe place,” he said.

And he meant what he said. He had no intention of letting this girl open that suitcase, take out a gun and pull the trigger.

He took her to a cheap hotel, engaged a suite of connecting rooms, took her up to those rooms, and closed the door while she engaged in the process of changing her clothes.

When she rejoined him in the bedroom, Paul Pry was ready for anything in the line of attack. But there was nothing. She smiled gratefully at him.

“Kid,” she said, giving him her hand, “here’s where we part. I ain’t asked you nothing about yourself, but I have an idea you’re a big shot on the lam, maybe from Chi. It’s easy enough to see that you’re about half sold on the idea that I am a lure to put you on the spot.

“But you’ve been a gent, and you’ve treated me white. I’m going out. I won’t see you again. Tonight at eleven o’clock I’ve got to go up against the most dangerous thing I’ve ever tackled. If you read in the papers about me being found with a lot of lead in me, remember that I was thinkin’ of you when I cashed in.

“You’ve given me a chance, and you’ve been on the up and up. Want to drive me downtown?”

He nodded. “You’ll stay here tonight?”

“If I come through alive.”

“Must you run into it?”

“Yes. I’m meeting a big shot of the Gilvray gang in the Mandarin Cafe. He’s got Room 13 reserved. If I can get what I want I’ll walk in and walk out inside of five minutes. If I ain’t out by then I’ll never come out. But I’ve got to go. That big shot has something I’ve got to have.”

Paul Pry lit a cigarette.

“Just you and he alone?” he asked.

“That’s the bargain. I wouldn’t deal any other way. It’s a long chance, but I’m taking it. Big Front Gilvray doesn’t waste any love on me. My man was a thorn in his flesh. He’d like to give me the works. But he needs me in his business. He’s pulling a job that they’ve got to have a moll on that knows the ropes. I’m elected. I can deliver the goods. The other molls can’t.

“I wish to God Harry hadn’t been bumped. Then I wouldn’t worry. If I had a man to cover me, I’d walk in there. If I wasn’t out in five minutes my man could brush in through the curtains with his rod ready, and take me out.

“The Gilvray gangster’s yellow. He’s Chick Bender. Used to be a mouthpiece until he got disbarred. Now he’s the brains of the gang, but he’s got no guts.”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Yes, I’ve heard of Chick Bender.”

The girl yawned and pulled her cupped hands along the contour of her leg, frankly straightening the seam in her stocking without bothering to turn her back.

“Yeah,” she remarked. “You ain’t heard anything good about him.”

Paul Pry switched off the lights. “You have the keys,” he said.

She kissed him in the dark.

“Baby, you’re a regular guy. Wish I knew you better. Maybe you’d help me give the Gilvray gang a double-crossing that would make a fortune for us. God, I wish Harry hadn’t got on the spot.”

Paul Pry patted her shoulder.

“What time’s the appointment?”

“Eleven. Wish me luck.”

“You’ve got it. It’s early yet. Want to drive around?”

“No, just dump me – tell you what, big boy, if you want to see more of me, stick around the Mandarin about five after eleven. If I come through OK I’ll give you a tumble. If I get bumped you can forget about me.”

Her blue eyes were wistful.

“I’d sure like to see more of you,” she added.

Paul Pry smiled at her.

“Perhaps, if you find yourself in danger, you may find me sticking around.”

“You mean it?”

“Perhaps.”

Her arms twined around his neck in a fierce embrace.

Mugs Magoo emptied the glass of whiskey with a single motion of the left arm. His glassy eyes fastened upon Paul Pry in emotionless appraisal.

“You got no business here,” he said.

Paul Pry laughed, entered the apartment and closed the steel door.

“Why so? Isn’t it my apartment?”

“Yeah. I guess so, but you ain’t got no business being here. You’d oughta be out pushing daisies. You got a date with the undertaker. How’d you break it?”

Paul Pry took off his topcoat and hat, came over and sat down.

“Meaning?” he said.

Mugs Magoo poured himself another drink of whiskey.

“Meaning that the moll was Maude Ambrose. She went by the nickname of Maude the Musher in Chi. That’s because she’s got such a good line of mush. She usually lets a guy rescue her from some danger or other. Then she gets mushy over him and finally puts him on the spot.”

Paul Pry lit a cigarette. Twin devils were dancing in his eyes.

“She’s nothing but a kid,” he objected.

“Kid, hell! She’s a kidder.”

“You think she’s tied up with Gilvray’s gang?”

Mugs Magoo sighed, poured himself a drink of whiskey, gazed at the bottle ruefully.

“Hell,” he said, “it’s a cinch. You never would follow my advice. First you twist Gilvray’s tail into a knot, and then instead of crawlin’ into a hole an’ pullin’ the hole in after you, you start raggin’ hell outa Gilvray.

“Nobody’s goin’ to stand that. An’ then, on top of it all, you drive around just like you was any ordinary citizen out for a little air. Gilvray’s found out your car is bulletproof. He’s fixed up somethin’ else for you. Maude the Musher!

“I presume you found her in her undies, just climbin’ from the river where she claimed somebody’d tried to drown her, didn’t you? That’s her best line, getting all roughed up and losin’ most of her clothes, then fallin’ on the neck of the guy she’s ropin’ and gettin’ mushy.”

Paul Pry puffed at the cigarette with every evidence of enjoyment.

“You have described almost exactly what happened, Mugs.”

Mugs Magoo blinked his glassy expressionless eyes.

“Yeah. Her man’s in town, too.”

“Her man?”

“Yeah, Charles Simmons. They call him Charley the Checker, because he always works a suitcase checking racket wherever he goes. He’s bought into the checking concession at the Union Depot. That’s where the Jane had her suitcase parked.

“When you handed the redcap the ticket for that suitcase it was her way of lettin’ her man know that you’d fallen for her line. So they got the spot ready for you.

“I didn’t ever expect to see you again. So I came back an’ tried to get drunk. But I can’t make the grade. Not yet, I can’t. I ain’t had but about an hour, though.”

And Mugs Magoo poured the last of the whiskey in the quart bottle into the glass, tossed it off, looked significantly at the empty bottle, then at Paul Pry.

That individual laughed, took a key from his pocket, tossed it to Mugs.

“Here’s the key to the whiskey safe. Go as far as you like, Mugs. I’m to be put on the spot tonight at eleven.”

“Huh, she put it off that long, eh?”

“Yes. I’m to be punctured at Room 13 at the Mandarin Cafe at exactly eleven-five.”

Mugs Magoo blinked his glassy eyes rapidly.

“Then you keep off the streets tonight. You stay right here.”

Paul Pry consulted his thin watch.

“On the contrary, Mugs, I think I shall be on my way to keep my appointment with the undertaker.”

He got to his feet.

“You mean you’re goin’ to fall for Maude the Musher an’ walk on the spot?”

Paul Pry nodded.

“Yes. I rather think I have use for this girl you call Maude the Musher. She offers a point of contact with the Gilvray gang. And I have a hunch they’re about ready to do something.”

Mugs Magoo’s jaw sagged.

“Do something – Hell, you don’t mean–”

Paul Pry nodded as he wrapped a scarf about his neck.

“Exactly, Mugs. I have decided to let the goosie lay another golden egg.”

And Paul Pry was gone, the door slamming shut with a clicking of spring locks and bolts.

“I,” observed Mugs Magoo, “will be damned!”

He blinked incredulous eyes at the door through which Paul Pry had vanished, and then bestirred himself to go to the safe where the whiskey was kept.

“I better get plenty while the stuff is here,” he observed to himself, his tongue getting a little thick. “Dealin’ with an administrator is goin’ to be hell!”