Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask Read Online Free PDF Page A

banged against the roof. Lightning crackled, spat, flashed in the dim room. Micky jerked on his chair. His voice rushed out as the thunder stumbled reluctantly away.
    “Jeeze, I tell you I’m broke—flat, on my uppers! I never saw the damn’ ring! So help me, God, I never saw it!” He suddenly began to blubber, to choke, to cry. His head fell down to his chest.
    Donahue reached out, put the heel of his hand against Micky’s forehead, and shoved the head up, saying, “Cut it out!”
    The head fell down again. Donahue shoved it up again.
    “You goof, cut out bawling! What a hell of a chance you’ll stand against Hocheimer!” He stood up, stepped in front of Micky, grabbed a handful of hair, jerked the head up and held it back, peering down into the pale, tear-and-sweat smeared face. His voice came low, husky: “Get this, lad. You’re in a pinch. Come across about that ice and I’ll do anything I can for you. I’ll get you a lawyer. Listen, Micky. You could never stand the gaff here. Hocheimer’ll whale hell out of you and they’ll hang you sure as hell! Use your head. Listen to me, do you hear! Listen to me! I’ll—”
    Thunder exploded. The window rattled. Sheet-lightning blazed luridly through the window. Micky cringed, sobbed. The rain thrashed violently.
    “For God’s sake, let me go!”
    “You listen to me!”
    “Let—me—go! I tell you, I didn’t—I don’t know anything about—”
    Thunder seemed to bang through the room. Micky jerked. The chair fell over and Micky fell with it. Donahue hung on to his chair and followed him to the floor, stopping on one knee. Micky lay panting. His lips blubbered and sweat poured down his face.
    “Micky, think hard. I’m a guy can make things easy for you.”
    “I—don’t know! I didn’t get that ring! If I had it, I’d tell you. But I haven’t got it. I never had it. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t. I—I—Lemme go! I tell you, lemme go! Lemme….”
    Donahue said, “Hell,” without emotion, and let the head drop to the floor. He knelt, looking down at Micky, forearm resting on knee, hand hanging motionless. There was a dark scowl between his eyes. His mouth was unpleasantly bent. His dark eyes scintillated. He said, “Hell,” again, this time deeper in his throat. He motioned his lips. He pulled out a wrinkled handkerchief and ran it over his face. He combed his fingers back through his hair.
    Suddenly he snarled, “You’re a damn’ liar, Micky!”
    “No—no! God’s honest truth—”
    “Stow it, you hop-head!” His teeth shone between curled lips. He stood up. He leveled an arm down at Micky. “Just before they hang you, baby, I’ll come around and maybe you’ll tell me for the good of your soul.”
    Micky scrambled to his feet, stood shaking on them, moving his manacled hands up and down. “And—they won’t hang me! Because I didn’t kill Cross!”
    “Didn’t? Well, they’ll hang some guy for the killing, and you’ll do as well as any. I’ll do my little bit towards seeing you do hang.”
    Micky’s voice grated—“Frame me, eh? Frame me, eh?”
    “Sure. Think that over.” He bowed and smiled with mock obsequiousness. “Shall I tell Hocheimer you’d like an audience with him?”
    Thunder boomed. Lightning blazed in the room. Micky cringed, gasped, stood shivering.
    Donahue laughed shortly, without humor. “Little boy afraid of lightning?”
    “You—you—”
    “Ah, for cripes’ sake, lay off! That gutter language is out of date. Sit down”—he started towards the door—“before I knock you down.”
Chapter V
    Stein sat behind his shiny flat-topped desk and probed abstractedly beneath a thumb nail with a long, slender paper knife. The thunder storm of three days before had in some measure broken up the heat wave. It was still hot, but not unbearably so. Stein looked very neat in his light tan summer suit, with a henna-colored tie trimly meeting a tan silk collar. Below in Olive Street a trolley car