Bullet Proof Read online

  Bullet Proof

  Frank Kane

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  * * *

  Johnny Liddel was grimly determined to get to the fat gang leader, who twice now had sent killers wtih tommyguns after the private eye. What really griped Liddell was that he had no idea what Capolla had against him. But in a few minutes now he'd either know or be dead. And he wasn't taking any bets on which it would be.

  Dedication: To my brother Vin, who acts as Technical advisor on this series

  Chapter One

  Johnny Liddell perched on a barstool at Mike's Deadline, added to the gray fog that swirled lazily near the ceiling. He watched the creative geniuses of the advertising agencies that filled the neighboring skyscrapers stock up on extra inspiration to go back to their trade of geniusing. He discovered his own glass was empty, signaled for a refill.

  The bartender made a production of selecting a cognac bottle from the back shelf, filled his glass to the brim.

  “What do you hear from that cute little blonde you used to run around with, Liddell?” the bartender wanted to know.

  “Muggsy? I guess she's gone Hollywood on me, Mike. Haven't heard in a couple of weeks. Her old man tells me she's been working on a new picture out there.” He dropped a bill on the bar, watched the bartender pick it up, replace it with a dime and a nickel. “Ain't that a helluva fate for a good newspaperwoman?”

  “It's better than working,” the bartender grunted.

  Somewhere a phone shrilled, and the man behind the bar shuffled off to answer it. Liddell regarded his full glass morosely, considered the advisability of opening a Hollywood office. He decided against it, debated the alternative of making a pass at his redheaded secretary, got a momentary lift out of the prospect, decided he was looking for trouble.

  “It's for you, Liddell,” the bartender called from the other end of the bar.

  Liddell grabbed his glass, shouldered his way to where the bartender stood holding the receiver. “My office?”

  The bartender shrugged, shuffled back to his station behind the bar.

  “Yeah?” Liddell asked the mouthpiece.

  “You better get on back to the office, Johnny. Sounds like some business coming our way. A dame called twice within fifteen minutes. Has to talk to you.”

  Liddell groaned. “Not another dog-poisoning case?”

  “Didn't sound like it,” she told him. “This babe sounded like she was in real trouble. Wouldn't tell me who she was or where you could reach her. She said she'd call back in fifteen minutes. That means you'd better finish that glass you've got in your hand pronto.”

  “What do you mean, glass in my hand?”

  She laughed at him. “This is Pinky, boss. What do you think I mean by glass in your hand?” The receiver clicked in his ear.

  The redhead was in the outer office stabbing away at a typewriter when he came in. She looked up, shook her head. “Hasn't called back yet, but it should be any second now.” She grinned maliciously. “I hope I didn't break up anything?”

  Liddell scowled at her, stamped into his private office, dropped into his chair. He grimaced at the pile of correspondence on his desk.

  The phone rang exactly six minutes after he'd gotten back. The voice on the other end sounded breathless.

  “Mr. Liddell?”

  “That's right. Who's this?”

  “Jean Merritt. I've been trying to reach you for the past hour.”

  Liddell nodded. “I've been on a case. What's it all about?”

  There was a pause, then a low, tense voice.

  “Murder.”

  “Whose?”

  “My father. Matt Merritt. They've been able to make it look like suicide, Mr. Liddell, but I know he's been murdered. I want you to get the proof.”

  “Have you gone to the police with this?”

  “I can't. They're watching me. If they knew I was talking to you they'd kill me.”

  Liddell scratched the side of his jaw. “Can you come over here and talk it over?”

  “I wouldn't dare.”

  “Where are you now?”

  She hesitated. “I'm at the Hotel Westmore. But please don't come here, Mr. Liddell. They'd know and my life wouldn't be worth a dime.”

  Liddell scowled at the phone. “I've got to see you. If you won't come here and I can't go there where'll it be?”

  “Can't we meet on the outside some place? By tonight I may be able to shake them long enough to meet you.”

  “At a bar?”

  The voice was emphatic. “No. It's got to be in the open. Some place where I can be sure I'm not being followed.”

  “What time do you think you'll be able to make it?”

  There was a pause. “Not before ten-thirty. Would that be too late?”

  Liddell looked out the window over Bryant Park, groaned inwardly at the threatening cloudbanks over the Public Library. “I guess it'll have to do. Where'll it be?”

  “Can you suggest a place? I don't know too much about this part of New York.”

  Liddell pulled his desk pad to the edge of the desk, scribbled a few notes on it. “There's an all-night drugstore at the corner of Lexington and Twenty-Eighth. How would that be?”

  “I'll be there at ten-thirty,” the receiver promised. “If I'm a little late, wait for me.”

  Liddell returned the receiver to its hook, glared at it. “Why is it that all the screwballs come to me?”

  The redhead pursed her lips humorously. “Do you want me to answer that, Mr. Liddell?”

  * * *

  Johnny Liddell yanked irritably on his coat collar, drew it closer to his face in a fruitless effort to stave off the pelting rain. He took a deep drag on the soggy cigarette he held cupped in his hand, fervently cursed the fate that had made him a private investigator.

  The gleaming wet face of the jeweler's clock across the street put the time at twelve o'clock and the girl had been due at ten-thirty. He was painfully aware that he should have insisted on seeing her immediately when she called.

  He took one last, deep drag on the cigarette, flipped it toward the gutter, sloshed into the all-night drugstore whose awning had given him questionable refuge from the driving rain. A tired-looking, middle-aged clerk looked up from the morning tabloid as Liddell walked in, made a halfhearted attempt to wipe the boredom out of his eyes, sighed as the detective passed him on his way to the row of phone booths, dropped his eyes back to the newspaper he had been reading.

  Liddell flipped through the pages of the telephone directory, underscored a number with his thumbnail, fished a dime from his pocket. He stepped into the booth, dialed the number of the Hotel Westmore.

  “Hotel Westmore, good evening,” the metallic voice of the hotel operator responded.

  “Not unless you're a duck,” Liddell growled. “Let me talk to Miss Merritt's room.”

  The receiver giggled at him. “Whom did you wish, sir?”

  “Miss Merritt. Miss Jean Merritt.”

  There was a brief pause. “Sorry, sir. I have no Miss Merritt on my register. I'll give you the front desk, sir.” There was a click, then: “Stevens. Desk clerk speaking.”

  “Miss Jean Merritt.”

  “Sorry, sir. Miss Merritt has checked out.”

  “Checked out? Where'd she go?”

  “We don't have that informatio
n, sir.

  Liddell tossed the receiver on its hook, rubbed the heel of his hand along the stubble on his chin, scowled at the instrument. He fished another dime from his pocket, dialed the number of his office. After a moment, the answering service came on.

  “Mr. Liddell's office,” the receiver chanted.

  “This is Liddell. Any calls?”

  “Just one, Mr. Liddell. Your secretary. She wants you to call her as soon as you check in.”

  Liddell made the third call, heard Pinky's sleepy voice at the other end of the phone. “What time is it, anyway?” She yawned.

  “Wouldn't it be easier for you to get a clock than to have me calling in the middle of the night?”

  “Very funny,” the girl retorted. “It just so happens that I expected you to be checking in before you kept the date with the Merritt girl. I wanted to tell you we got a check for five hundred dollars as a retainer from her right after you left.”

  “How'd it come?”

  “Western Union messenger. How'd it go? With her, I mean?”

  “It didn't. She didn't show up. I thought she might have called to call it off or something.”

  The receiver laughed at him. “You must be soaked.”

  “Instead of laughing at me, you ought to invite me to drop by and get out of my wet clothes into a dry Martini.”

  “It might be arranged. If you promise to be nice and quiet and not annoy the neighbors. After all, what would they think if they saw a strange man dropping by at this hour?”

  “Nothing strange about me. I'm the most normal guy you ever saw. See you in a little while.”

  He hung up the phone, started for the door. He had almost reached it when he noticed the black sedan idling at the curb. He caught a dull glint of motion in the back seat, dived for the counter, and hugged the floor.

  The snub nose of a submachine gun poked out of the rear window of the car and started raking the store with buzzing death. Little boxes danced off the shelves, glass crashed, and a neat line of holes appeared on the wall over Liddell's head as if by magic. He tugged the .45 from its shoulder holster, focused all his attention on the front door.

  There was a sudden letup in the monotonous rhythm of the tommy gun. A man appeared in the doorway. He was tall, thin, the coat collar of his dark overcoat pulled up around his face. He held two .38 specials in his hands. Before his roving eyes could pick out Liddell, the private detective fired, the .45 sounding like a cap pistol after the shattering blast of the tommy gun.

  The man in the doorway staggered back as the heavy slugs hit him. The guns in his hands started belching orange flames, and Liddell could see the slugs chew bits out of the counter near his head.

  He raised the .45 deliberately, aimed at the gunman's midsection, squeezed the trigger. The man's body jerked as the heavy slugs rammed into it. He folded his hands across his belly, went to his knees, then slid out, full length, on his face.

  Liddell crawled across the debris to where he could command a view of the street. The sedan was beginning to roll away from the curb, its rear window belching a renewed rain of flame and death.

  In the rear window of the car Liddell caught a momentary glimpse of a gross, fat face, with thick pouting lips and a flabby neck that bulged over its collar. He had barely time to catalogue for future reference the beady little eyes, buttressed by heavy pouches, that peered down the barrel of the tommy gun.

  Somewhere in the distance a police siren moaned.

  The gun stopped coughing abruptly, leaving a silent void that was almost deafening. Liddell was on his feet and into the street in time to see the heavy sedan lurching round the nearest corner. He flung two parting shots after it, was reloading when the police car skidded to a stop at the curb.

  “Okay, Jesse James,” a gruff voice commanded. “Drop the artillery and turn around real slow so's we can take a look at you.”

  Liddell obediently let the .45 slip to the sidewalk. He turned to face a uniformed policeman who was scrambling from the police car, riot gun in hand.

  “Having fun, buster?” the cop asked. His eyes roved beyond Liddell to the wrecked front of the drugstore. “Looks like you've had a busy night.”

  “Plenty busy. Mostly ducking.” Liddell grinned bleakly.

  “Just an innocent bystander, eh?” The cop's eyes picked out the body of the thin man lying in the doorway, face down. “He wasn't so good at ducking, no doubt?” He motioned Liddell back against the store front with the snout of the riot gun, walked over, picked up the .45. “I'll keep this guy covered, Ray,” he called over his shoulder to his partner who was covering him from the rear. “Better have a look at the guy in the doorway.”

  “This wasn't my party, bud,” Liddell told the cop placidly. “Like you said, I'm just an innocent bystander.”

  The cop grinned frostily, hefted Liddell's .45 in his hand. “You probably just wear this so's your coat will hang straight, no doubt?”

  “It's licensed,” Liddell told him. “I'm a private op. Name's Johnny Liddell. I have my papers here if you'd like to see them.” He motioned toward his breast pocket, froze when the cop's finger tightened on the trigger of the riot gun.

  “If I was you and I wanted to keep breathing, I wouldn't make no sudden moves like that,” the cop advised. “When I want to see your papers I'll come get them.”

  The second cop kneeled beside the body of the thin man, turned him over, grunted. “This is a job for the meat wagon, Ed.” He got up, brushed off the knees of his blue pants. “Stopped three big ones.” He walked over, joined his partner. “What size iron he packing?”

  “A forty-five.”

  The second cop nodded. “That would do it.”

  “He says he's a private eye.” The cop with the riot gun didn't take his eyes off Liddell. “Has a license and everything, he says. Maybe we ought to have a look at it while we're waiting.”

  The second cop stepped over to Liddell, careful not to come between him and his partner's gun, reached into his jacket pocket, brought out a wallet. He riffled through the credentials, copied off a few notations into a large leather notebook. “Better take a long, fond look at these, pal.” He grinned at Liddell. “I got an idea you won't be having this license very long.”

  “Since when is it against the law to stop a guy who's out to burn you down?” Liddell was unimpressed. “Besides the guy in the car with the tommy gun, this gunsel was out looking for me with two thirty-eights.”

  “Save the song for the inspector, pal. He's got a real ear for sad music.”

  Liddell shrugged. “Suits me. Only don't you think somebody ought to get in there and look after the clerk?”

  “Clerk? In there?” The cop flicked a worried look at the wreckage of the store.

  “There was one in there when the guitar serenade started. Maybe it might be an idea to dig him out from under all those aspirins and feed him a couple.”

  Chapter Two

  Inspector Herlehy sat behind an oversized, varnished desk in his office at headquarters, eyeing Johnny Liddell without enthusiasm. He chomped methodically on a wad of gum. “Suppose you come clean on this one, Johnny. You know I don't like trouble in my division.”

  Liddell shrugged. “I don't know any more than what I told your men, inspector. I was making a telephone call. When I came out of the booth, I spotted this car out front. They let go with a tommy gun and I hit the floor.”

  Herlehy scowled, made an impatient gesture. “And the guy in the doorway died of old age waiting for you to come out?”

  “No. He wasn't the patient kind. He came to get me. That was a mistake.”

  “You should have shown him your press clippings. He didn't know how tough you are.” The inspector reached over, pulled a typewritten sheet from his correspondence basket, scowled at it. “It's a lucky thing for you the clerk in that store backs you up on most of it. But he also says you were hanging around out front for a couple of hours before the shooting started. What for?”

  Liddell fished
through his pockets, brought up a pack of cigarettes, held them up for approval. “Okay to smoke?”

  The inspector nodded impatiently, tapped stubby fingers on the arm of his chair, watched Liddell deliberately hang a cigarette from the corner of his mouth. “I asked you what you were hanging around that store for, Liddell?”

  “I was supposed to meet somebody there. They were late.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “I don't know if I'm at liberty to discuss my client, inspector. I'm working on a case.”

  Herlehy leaned across the desk. His voice was dangerously low. “Look, shamus. I'm not interested in your client or any case you're working on. I am interested in the fact that some hoodlums decided to shoot up my district. I want to know who they are and why they did it.”

  “So do I, inspector.”

  Herlehy pulled himself from behind his desk, stamped over to the water cooler in the corner, half filled a paper cup, drained it. “Who handled that tommy gun tonight, Liddell?”

  Liddell shrugged. “I don't know.”

  The inspector nodded, crushed the paper cup in his huge hand, threw it at the wastebasket. “Okay, if that's the way you want it. I've played along with you in the past because you leveled with me. You know me well enough to know that I'm not just sounding off when I tell you that if you're holding out on me on this, I'll break you, license and all.”

  “And I tell you I'm not holding out.”

  “Okay. Let's go over it again.” Herlehy stamped back to his chair behind the desk. “What were you doing there?”

  “Waiting for a client.”

  The man behind the desk snorted, banged the desk with his fist. “What's the matter with your office? Don't you pay your rent?”

  “My client didn't want to come to the office. She didn't want anybody to know she had hired me.”

  “I don't blame her.” Herlehy leaned back, studied Liddell. “She, eh? What is this case you're supposed to be on?”

  Liddell took a deep drag from the cigarette, let the smoke dribble lazily from his nostrils. “It's confidential, inspector.”