Barbary Street Incident, A John Cronin Private Eye Short Story

A John Cronin Private Eye Short Story

by

Wolf Wootan

© Copyright 2011, Wolf Wootan

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This book my not be re-sold or given away to other people. If
you would like to share this book with another person, please
purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then you should return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the author’s work.

* * * * *

Barbary Street Incident

When you’re in my business you meet all
kinds of people. And you can’t have sympathy for all of them;
sometimes you have to be hard, and I’ve been hard with plenty of
them. But never let anyone tell you that a private detective has no
heart at all, because even old yours truly himself—the old, cold
stone of Barbary Street—got to feeling pretty bad once about the
affairs of people, especially one big guy that could have broken me
in two if he’d had a mind to do it. His name—the only one he had as
far as I knew—was Little Caesar.

The first time I saw Little Caesar he was
bending over me slapping my face. I struggled to a sitting position
and inspected myself. I had been lying in the gutter, rather
grotesquely since I hadn’t moved since I had been dumped there. I
used one elbow and the curb to keep myself from slipping back into
my old position. Little Caesar was stooping over me, grinning. His
huge hulk blocked everything else from sight. Straining my
bloodshot eyes, I regained my perception of proportion; he was the
biggest man that had ever picked me out of the gutter. My
estimations of his size, even minimized as they were, were
astounding. He was at least seven feet tall and wide as a moving
van. Satchel-like hands hung at his sides. The grin on his
pugilistic face was frozen there. He was dressed in a red and black
checkered sport coat with Mexican silver conchos the size of
saucers for buttons. The pants were of the same material. He had a
gigantic straw panama perched on top of his head.

I moved my left arm; sharp needles of pain
shot through it. I felt my head and face — my hand came away
bloody. My head was killing me. The big man reached down and took
hold of my coat. He lifted me to my feet as if I were a sack of
feathers.

“Hit me again. Once ought to do it. Who are
you?” I said sourly as I tried to dust my torn suit off with my
bruised right hand.

“I guess you was mugged. I found you laying
here in the gutter just like you are now. Roll you for much, or
just a grudge job?”

He seemed good-natured enough. His voice
seemed to come from way down in his barrel chest. I had to look up
to see his face.

“I remember now. I just took some guys in a
crap game. I guess they were kind of sore. They ganged up on
me.”

I felt in my pockets and found nothing. I
was cleaned out. The big man said something about buying me a drink
so I followed him. I was in a daze and I tried hard to regain my
senses. He led me to a pub on Purg Street and overflowed a stool. I
climbed up next to him and drank the beer he ordered.

“What’s your handle, bub? Mine’s Caesar.
Yeah, they call me Little Caesar, because I’m so dominatin’.”

He laughed loudly and slapped me on the
back, nearly breaking it—and I don’t mean his hand. I answered him
after I got my breath back. I was in no mood for conversation, but
I felt I owed it to him, so I talked.

“My name is Cronin. John Cronin. Nothing
fancy, just John Cronin. I’m a private detective by profession, but
when business slows down, I live off the suckers. Cards, dice, and
what have you. I hate sharpers, but I’ve got to live.”

I looked sideways at him and asked, “You
wouldn’t stake me to a fin, would you? Just until tonight. I can
get all my dough back tonight.”

“Sure, Johnnie. I ain’t got much use for
dough no more anyways. At least not for long. The boys will finally
catch up to me. They always finish what they start out to do. You
ain’t got a chance when you rub ’em wrong.” He sounded almost
proud. I was puzzled.

He reached into his pant’s pocket and pulled
out a roll and peeled off two bills. They were both fifties. He
dropped them lazily on the counter and seemed to forget them. I
didn’t
seem to forget them. They crinkled musically as I
stuffed them into my otherwise empty pocket.

We sat there a long time, just talking and
drinking—at his expense. I usually don’t drink so early in the
morning but it was free, so I kept on drinking and talking to him.
I liked him. I liked him immensely. I liked the way he talked, the
way he drank his beer, the way he scratched his left ear while he
talked. Maybe it was the beer, I don’t know; but I liked the
guy.

He kept talking about “the boys” at
intervals. I finally became curious enough to ask, “Who in hell’s
name are ‘the boys’? Why are they after you?”

There was a note of irritation in my voice,
but he ignored it. He raised his face to the ceiling and roared to
some unknown god of which I knew nothing. After his laughter had
subsided and the walls stopped shaking, he turned on his stool and
faced me.

“You’re kinda nosy, Johnnie, but I guess all
peepers are like that.” He said it with good humor, with no trace
of malice. “‘The boys’ are just ‘the boys.’ They’re out to get my
scalp since I walked out on ’em.”

He looked at me and said with emphasis, “You
don’t just
walk out
on the boys.”

Then he continued, “They wanted me to work a
dame over, and I ain’t a woman-beater. They break too easy. I
didn’t mind working on them mugs they brought in, but I ain’t gonna
maul no woman. The boys got kinda sore when I said no, so I just
got up and walked out. I was lucky I wasn’t dimmed then, but
Fingers got too close and I tossed him against the rest of the
boys. I slipped out then. That was last Monday. They’ll find me
pretty soon.”

I detected a bit of sadness in his eyes, in
spite of his sporadic laughter.

“Why didn’t you fix
them
? You seem
big enough to take care of yourself. It shouldn’t have been hard to
show them who was boss.”

He looked at me sadly.

“I ain’t got nothin’ against none of the
boys. I don’t want to hurt none of ’em. I hope they make their play
fast so I won’t have to hurt ’em. I might lose my head. I don’t
like to hurt people. I’m just too big.”

I tried another question. “How about those
muggs you mauled for the boys?”

“Ah, that was different. They was against
the boys. They even tried to kill the boys. They deserved what they
got.”

I shuddered as I envisioned Caesar’s
gigantic hands twisting off an arm or crushing a man’s ribs without
effort. Did anyone deserve such a fate? I eased my conscience by
agreeing that they did; then we walked out onto Purg Street.

As we walked along, I racked my brain for
some connection to this giant at my side. He was definitely a
member of some small-time gang working the waterfront. At least,
that is the way I figured from the way he talked. I remembered some
killings that happened back in July. They were small-time
operators; they were all mangled unmercifully by some powerful
being. It could have been Caesar’s work. I didn’t know what I was
stumbling on to, but I decided to stick along with Caesar and see
what I could see. And besides, I liked him, even though I thought
he might be the mangler of those men last July.

My brain kicked it around all day.

* * * * *

All the rest of the day we walked from joint
to joint, just talking and drinking. I had knocked off the
drinking, but Caesar hadn’t.

I had gone to my room on Barbary Street and
changed clothes and shaved. Before I left I slipped my Colt .38
into my overcoat pocket without letting Little Caesar see it. If I
was to walk around with a booby trap all day, I wanted to be
prepared for anything. Besides, I liked him and didn’t want to see
him hurt if I could help it.

Nightfall found us at a good pool room on
Purg Street. I was playing draw poker with some guys while Caesar
watched. I was letting them win a little, waiting to make a killing
on two or three quick bets. Caesar lounged his huge hulk against a
pool table, alternately watching me play and playing a little
pool.

It started raining outside as the twilight
turned to the darkness of night. I felt a bit uneasy and on edge. I
didn’t know why until the girl came into the poolroom.

She had on a tan trench coat over a red
suit. She had a cloth tied around her head; it was sopping wet. She
was small, but long-boned. Her features were pleasant enough, but
there was an underlying hardness which I detected in her pale eyes
and tight, thin lips. I had seen her off and on all day. That’s
what made me uneasy. She was following us.

She sat down on a stool and ordered a beer.
She didn’t drink much, just sipped. Little Caesar didn’t seem to
recognize her, so I figured she was to tip the “boys” off when we
got to a suitable place for them to bump him off.

She crossed her legs. The drops of water
glistened as they ran slowly down her stockingless calves.

“Deal me out,” I told the dealer. I stood up
and picked up my money. I hadn’t won much; I hadn’t been ready yet,
but the girl in the tan coat and red suit changed things. I laughed
to myself; dressed in red, just like the dame that stooled on
Dillinger. Quite a coincidence.

Little Caesar was playing pool with a
beady-eyed kid, laughing like a lion when he made a good shot,
which was nearly every time. Nobody would have thought he expected
to get the honor spot in a killing that night. I tapped him on the
elbow. I couldn’t reach his shoulder without sending sharp pains
through my arm—and motioned for him to follow me. I walked towards
the room marked MEN, but before we got there, I opened the back
door and stepped into the dark alley. I put my overcoat on, which I
had picked up on the way out, and guided Little Caesar down the
alley to Mission Street. He didn’t ask any questions until we got
to Broad Street. Then he only remarked, “There ain’t no use
running. The boys will only catch up with me anyhow. They knew
where I was. Mona’s been tailing us all day. I kinda like Mona.
She’s pretty, too.”

So he had known she was following us—and
hadn’t said a word! I shivered all over. What in hell went on in
that big hulk’s brain? I’d always figured I was pretty tough and
full of courage, but Caesar made me seem like a coward.

We walked clear down to where Barbary meets
Bay, keeping to the alleys most of the way. There was a small joint
there, a dinge joint, but they weren’t too strict about keeping
whites out. We went in and sat down in a booth facing the front so
I could watch the door. Caesar drank beer, but I just sat tensely
and watched the door.

I had picked the dinge joint because I
thought that that would get Mona off the track. Even if she found
us there, I didn’t think she’d come in, because it had a reputation
of being a tough joint; besides it was a colored joint. I was wrong
on both counts. About 11:30 P.M. she came in, still sopping wet. It
was raining hard now. The sea was rough, too. I could hear the
smashing waves throwing themselves against the fishing smacks tied
up to the wharf. They grated the dinghies against each other,
causing a screeching sound. I could hear the dismal, lonely sound
of a fog horn somewhere out on the bay.

Mona walked in without hesitancy, going
straight to the bar. She took off her wet trench coat and threw it
onto the warped bar. She smoothed her red suit over her body,
showing off a good set of curves. She climbed up on a stool and
drank rye.

A couple of big Negroes in the back of the
joint looked her over and conversed in low tones. Then they got up
and walked to the bar; she ignored them. They didn’t leave, so she
moved to another stool. They followed. The black behind the bar
fidgeted nervously. Caesar and I took it all in.

I thought maybe she would finally leave if
they bothered her enough. She was stubborn though. Finally the two
Negroes started getting rough with her. They started pawing her
with their big, greasy black hands. I couldn’t stand that. I got up
and walked over to them. I tapped the ugliest one on the shoulder.
He turned and looked me in the eye. The bartender was nervously
polishing glasses.

“What you want, small boy?” grinned the big
Negro.

“It’s not nice to paw women that way, or
didn’t your Mammy teach you any manners?”