The Killers Are Coming

by Jack Bludis

A Ken Sligo mystery

Published by Bold Venture Press

boldventurepress.com

Cover design: Rich Harvey

The Killers Are Coming by Jack Bludis

Copyright 2017 by Jack Bludis. All Rights Reserved.

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher and copyright holder. All persons, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

License Notes

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Contents

Dedication

THE KILLERS ARE COMING

Author’s Notes

About the Author

Connect with Bold Venture Press

Dedication

To

MAXWELL

BLUDIS

1

Instinct told me not to meet with a stranger at Baltimore’s Penn Station but I was back from the war in Europe for less than a year and I needed all the money I could get. I expected trouble but not the personal disaster that hit me over the next week or so.

It was almost ten in the morning, and I left the woman I considered hiring as a secretary with my car at the curb and walked into the station by way of the Charles Street entrance. Three men and a woman waited for turns at the six phone booths that lined the wall. A squatty guy in dark pinstripes was holding a brief case, and I walked toward him.

You Sligo, the private eye who’s got offices around the corner from the Hippodrome?

Same guy.

Cohan, he said as if he was George M himself. I learned later that his first name was Rudy.

He didn’t try to shake my hand. Instead, he showed an ugly grin and led me toward the wide-open waiting area. The grin was my second warning. I thought about it briefly but I ignored it. The plates on his heels and toes clacked against the marble floor like a dancer’s taps, joining other noises and screamed conversations that echoed around the waiting room.

Only going to be in Baltimore a couple more minutes, so we better talk fast. I’m the agent.

He was short, red-faced, and lumpy through his chest, with a red handkerchief in the breast pocket. He damn sure wasn’t Secret Service or FBI. Insurance was my best guess, but he seemed even too sleazy for that.

Glad to meet you. What kind of agent?

Theatrical agent.

It seemed improbable, but I nodded.

What do you know about show business?

Nightclubs and burlesque, I used to have clients on the Block.

He seemed disappointed. The Block was famous up and down the East Coast as a good place for a shady visit so long as you kept an eye out for pickpockets and muggers. If you chose to go with one of the girls, you were on your own for protection of any kind.

I’ve had a few clients from the Hippodrome, I said, but that was a lie. With the location of my office, that was what I was hoping for.

Stage shows are vaudeville, it’s just like burlesque.

I had seen some excellent stage performances at the Hippodrome and some decent burlesque at the Gayety, but the women weren’t the same and neither were the jokes. For a guy claiming to be a theatrical agent, he was pretty loose with his definitions. Maybe he was just loose with his choice of clients.

They tell me you’re a man I can trust, Cohan said.

Who’s they?

Couple of people, let it go at that.

Before we sat at the end seats of one of the ornate benches, he glanced up the board where someone chalked up the arrivals, departures, and changes.

I mostly book shows on the RKO circuit, but I also do a couple of clubs, some here on the Block. Some in D.C., some in Philly, but not much anymore.

The Hippodrome was on the RKO circuit, alternating the same movie and stage performances throughout the day. Sometimes the stage show was more important than the movie. At other times, like now, with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, it was the other way around.

Three GIs and two sailors waited with AWOL bags. One of the GIs was with a gray-haired woman who was blotting her eyes. The war was over, everything was occupation now, so the kid wasn’t likely to die.

What we got is a client who thinks his girl is running around on him and we want to find out more about it.

Cohan was talking straight into my ear, challenging the noises, but letting no one but me comprehend his words.

Are you a bookie?

"I said I’m a booking agent. I’m starting to think I got steered to the wrong guy."

By now, I was certain that working with Cohan would lead to trouble. I for no more than a second, stood, and looked down at him.

Maybe you did get steered wrong .

Cohan unbuttoned his jacket, letting it fall open and exposing the gun I already suspected was there. My jacket was unbuttoned already, but I kept my own .38 in the hip holster over my right buttock. It would be harder to get at, but neither of us needed trouble in the middle of a crowded train station.

Sit, he said and I did.

What do you want me to do?

Two-hundred bucks for a week, but no more questions. You just listen. If what I’m askin’ don’t meet up with your high standards, you just pretend you never seen me.

I didn’t like Cohan but the two-hundred dollar figure and the gun stuffed in his shoulder holster kept me listening. He wanted me to follow some dancer who was on the bill at the Hippodrome from that afternoon until she left town a week from now. It seemed simple enough, but I wasn’t comfortable.

I’ll have to put a couple of extra guys on the case to do twenty-four hours, and I’ll need more money.

Two hundred’s all you get, and it’s for the week. She’s on stage most of the day. Ain’t no reason to follow her except before and after the last show.

I thought he might be wrong about that, but I let him talk. He filled me in details about Rainy Dawn, a name seemed more like it belonged on the Block than at the Hippodrome. He kept looking over his shoulder, and that didn’t make me feel any better. People hurried to the gate where they had just called the arrival of a train from Washington that was on its way to Philadelphia and New York with stops in between.

I want you should tell me everybody she sees and anything she does that’s off-kilter. I want all you can get on her. Especially, I want to know if she sees Mickey Berg, the jeweler. And keep an eye on them punks she’s in the show with.

You want pictures? In spite of the fact that two hundred was plenty, I was fishing for more money.

I just want to know what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with. You don’t have to snoop, you just have to follow and watch.

So you can keep your agency free of the riffraff ?

You’re catching on.

Yeah, sure, no riffraff for him.

If I had good sense, I would have turned him down when he told me to meet him at Penn Station. Now, I couldn’t pass up the two hundred he promised, especially with me trying to hire a secretary on a limited nut.

If you see cash change hands—you let me know. You see packages change hands—you let me know that. Presents? I want to know about that too. You see anybody go into her room—I want to know who it is and I want you to guess about what they’re doing. You wait until I call you. Then you give me a report. That’s all you got to do.

You told me not to snoop.

Snoop easy. If somebody catches you, you ain’t as good as they say.

Who says I’m good?

Sammy the Bondsman.

Great, one of the slimiest people on the Block.

I worked for Sammy until he conned me and almost got me killed. A gift from Sammy was like a knee to the crotch. If Cohan knew Sammy, me backing out after he gave the details, might get me hurt, no matter how innocent the job seemed. I was already a loser to Sammy. Worse, I was a bug up his ass.

You better not screw this up. People will be watching.

Why don’t you just have them do it?

They ain’t gonna be watching all the time, but they’ll be keeping an eye on you. Make sure you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, you get it?

Now boarding! the guy at the chalk board called over the loud speaker. His voice bounced around the room as he called out all stops from Aberdeen to New York, and connections to Boston.

Cohan rose and when I did too, he poked me in the chest with his finger.

I ain’t asking miracles, but I don’t want no bull shit either.

He reached inside his jacket and came out with a thick, white envelope. He handed it to me and I started to open it.

Open it someplace private. It’s all there.

Do you have a business card?

"I get in touch with you. Not the other way around."

Yeah, as easy as a jump without a chute.

I watched as he clicked his steel plated shoes against the floor. The sound made me think of Nazi’s marching in old newsreels.

He didn’t seem in a hurry, and I called after him, but he didn’t turn around. He walked through the gate and down the stairs in plenty of time to board the train for points north.

He had a gun inside his coat. I wondered what was inside the brief case.

2

Grace Hovick slid across the seat to the passenger side. I hadn’t hired her yet, but she was in the office when I got Cohan’s call. At her interview, part of which came while we were coming to Penn Station, she claimed she was a cab driver during the war, which was why I let her sit behind the wheel while I went into the station.

I handed her the envelope and started the car.

Count it for me?

This isn’t a commitment to take the job.

It’s not a commitment to hire you either.

She was probably forty or so, good looking for that age, and neat. She was businesslike, especially considering the hurried interview I put her through while we drove up from my office.

We can talk about a commitment later.

Two hundred dollars in new tens, she said.

Can you tell if it’s real?

She fingered the money. The day was hazy, but she held one of the bills to the light that came through the windshield.

Real.

You sure?

I’m not the Treasury Department.

She put the money back in the envelope and put it between us on the seat. At the next red traffic signal, I put the envelope in my inside jacket pocket.

She told me her husband was a submariner during the war. The fact that she had been a cab driver seemed an important talent because not many women could even drive. She also claimed to type thirty-words a minute.

Thirty words a minute’s not very fast is it?

I don’t make mistakes … You’re worried about this thing aren’t you?

Nosiness is not a good trait for a secretary.

It’s the best trait for a private detective’s secretary. I’m intuitive too, and that helps. You came out of Penn Station pretty scared.

Until then, I never heard anyone use intuitive or some of the other words she used during the drive-uptown. She said she graduated from Eastern High School, which probably meant she was too smart to be working for me.

You’ll work this thing out, she said.

More intuition?

Just buttering you up.

A dollar an hour is what I can give you. It was double minimum wage.

I work nine-thirty to two-thirty?

And I suppose you want an hour for lunch?

No lunch. You don’t need a full-time secretary, and you shouldn’t meet somebody on the fly like this either. It makes you look desperate.

I’ve got enough to carry me.

I won’t do anything illegal.

I’m not asking you to.

But you will.

No.

I worked for private a detective before. He always asked for something illegal, immoral, or downright wrong. He asked for things that were too dangerous for what I was getting paid. He won’t give me a reference, not a good one. That’s why I didn’t tell you about him before.

Who is he?

She gave name I’d never heard of. What did he want you to do?

Get guys into hotel rooms so he could take pictures.

Is that all he wanted that you didn’t like?

That was the worst, maybe the second worst.

What was the worst?

I’d prefer to keep that to myself.

Are you taking the job or not?

Tell me about the man in the station and I’ll let you know.

I wanted to hire her, but now she was interviewing me. I didn’t know if it was some kind of strategy, or she was trying to find an excuse to get out of taking the job. By now, I wanted her taking my calls, typing my letters, and using that intuition of hers.

He’s a New Yorker. He claims to be in show business.

All New Yorkers claim to be in show business.

While we waited for a traffic signal at the wooden Indian outside the tobacco store, I told her about the Hippodrome, the clubs, and the Block. I told her what I believed about Cohan and what I didn’t believe.

The two-hundred is covering you how long?

A week.

Lot of money.

Too much.

Watch your back.

I plan to.

The engine of my 1937 Ford started to sputter as we climbed the hill to Howard Street and I grunted my disgust. I needed a new car more than I needed a new secretary, but I could afford only one or the other.

You should check your points and plugs.

Huh?

My reaction wasn’t to what she said, but to what I was thinking before she said it. Even if she did type only thirty words a minute, she was smart, good with words, and she would be great on the phone.

Points and plugs, she repeated.

You do points and plugs too?

You hiring a mechanic?

I chuckled.

This job from Cohan sounds more like what you’d get from a bookie than a booking agent.

I asked if he was a bookie. He said no, but I still have my doubts.

So why didn’t you turn him down?

Money’s money. Does this mean you won’t take the job?

And he had a gun?

Is that intuition too?

I’ll start at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Let me off here.

Why?

My streetcar’s coming.

She got out, slammed the door, and hurried across Baltimore Street, her coat waving behind her. I figured it was the last I’d see of her, but I definitely wouldn’t hire anybody before nine-thirty tomorrow. If she showed up, she had the job.

***

I went up to my office and figured my budget. I was okay financially, and the two hundred would come in handy, especially if I hired Grace Hovick. I took another call about the secretary’s job and told the girl I’d call her back. If Grace showed up in the morning, I’d do that and tell her job was gone.

It was after two when I went to the Hippodrome to buy a ticket. If I was going to follow Rainy Dawn, I should know what she looked like.

Pretty packed in there for the afternoon, the redhead at the box office said, and she popped her gum. Everybody likes those two. She was talking about Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.

It’s the middle of the day?

First showing. People been waiting for this one, and we got a new stage show.

I had seen Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant individually and together on covers of magazines for more than a month, so I didn’t doubt the crowd. The movie was Notorious. Claude Raines was in it too. It would probably run two weeks, maybe more.

I’ll stand, I said, and I bought a ticket.

I stood in the back of the theater and watched the end of the movie. A few patrons left while the orchestra was warming in the pit, and I found a seat up front and on the far right side of the theater. It was a bad angle for the movie, but great for a stage show.

Arty Preston, a fat comedian in a fedora with the brim turned up, came out as the MC. He directed most of his insult cracks at upcoming acts, and made fun of the quartet in the orchestra pit. He made not-quite off-color jokes about Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman and definitely off-color jokes about Claude Raines. Finally, he raised his voice, spoke rapidly, and gestured offstage.

"And now, here they are Judy Garland and Mickey … Ooops! Sorry, way too tall, but just as silly, Miss Rainy Dawn with her dancing and prancing pal, Miss-ter Bobby Frost!"

The two came out tapping from the wings, like Judy and Mickey in an Andy Hardy movie. They were about the same height, maybe five-six or five-seven, but the bobby socks and cheerleader outfits gave the impression that they were shorter and younger.

Something about Rainy Dawn confused me until I finally recognized her as Lorie Day, who I knew briefly before the war. I felt the same carnal reaction as back then. Her smile was as broad and gleaming as it had ever been. She had been a stripper on the Block, but never good enough for the Gayety. She seemed a better dancer now than I remembered.

Someone once told me that if you live long enough, everybody comes back into your life. I looked for her after the war, but I didn’t find her. Now, I knew she was no longer a regular in town. Damn, Lorie Day on stage at the hippodrome! Thing change, but usually not by that much. It was no wonder somebody wanted to know what she was doing with her free time.

Part of her appeal to me was that she was neither short and chunky nor tall and skinny, the two ways that most patrons of the Block preferred their women—just so long as they stripped to pasties and G-string. Another part of the appeal was the smile that said, very quietly, You can look, but you can’t touch.

I never forgot her, even though I was with her only once. I had been with very few women in my life before, during, or even since the war, in spite of the fact that I worked on the Block for a while recently. Nice kid, I thought then, even though I paid cash for her time. It’s interesting how emotions play tricks on your innocence, and I was definitely innocent of most things carnal before the war.

The whole time that