Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask by Frederick Nebel Page A

had reached about the center of the living-room. The big man sat across the room from the corridor door but faced it squarely. One of the two front windows was directly behind him.
    When Donahue entered the bedroom he turned its lights out and took up a position behind a highboy, around whose front corner he could peer into the living-room and see the big man but not the corridor door.
    He called quietly, “For the time being, Babe, you’re on the spot. Play ball.”
    The big man droned sullenly, “Okey, fella.”
    A moment later a light knock sounded on the door.
    The big man said, “Come in.”
    There was a pause. Then the door banged open.
    Donahue saw the big man heave in the chair, throw off the newspaper, open his mouth, start to get up.
    A silenced gun popped.
    The big man slammed back into the chair snapping out his legs. He toppled with the chair.
    Donahue leaped across the bedroom.
    Footfalls were hammering down the stairs.
    Donahue streaked out into the hallway, looked over the balustrade. The feet were hurrying down the staircase below. Donahue forked the balustrade, shot down backwards, landed on his feet, raced down the next staircase. He heard someone stirring in one of the apartments. He rapped the door as he sped past and yelled, “Man shot on top floor!” He boomed down into the lower hall, burst out into Thirty-seventh Street.
    There was a man racing towards Lexington Avenue, hugging the buildings. Donahue started long legs flying, swung south on Lexington. The man was half a block ahead of him. He was a small man, swift as the wind. He was Alfred.
    He shot down Thirty-sixth Street, turned south on Third Avenue. The avenue was deserted. Store fronts were dark. An Elevated train threshed by overhead, southbound. Alfred reached the Thirty-fourth Street station, bolted up the stairway. Donahue hammered up behind him. When he reached the platform the train had pulled out. Alfred had crossed the tracks, was rushing through the turnstile on the northbound platform.
    Donahue turned and went down the steps he had climbed, crossed Third Avenue and saw Alfred running north, now a block distant. At Thirty-eighth Street Alfred leaped aboard a cruising taxi, disappeared in the back. Donahue yelled, ran out into the street, flagged a southbound taxi.
    “Tail that blue cab, bud!” he clipped as he jumped in the back and slammed the door.
    The taxi wheeled about in the middle of the block, shifted into high, roared north beneath the Elevated structure. The blue cab made a left turn into Thirty-ninth Street, turned north on Lexington. It went through a red traffic light. Donahue’s cab went through a red traffic light. The blue cab swung left at Forty-second Street, skidded on streetcar rails. Alfred jumped off at Grand Central. Donahue handed the driver fifty cents, dropped off before the cab stopped, galloped on the sidewalk and shoved in through heavy swing-doors.
    When he reached the rotunda of the upper level Alfred was at the other end heading into a passageway at a fast walk. When he saw Donahue he broke into a run, took the underground entrance to the Commodore, came out into Forty-second Street and headed east at a fast walk. Donahue made him break into a run again, and they raced east past the News Building.
    Alfred winged a taxi at Second Avenue. Donahue stopped on the corner and watched the taxi speed south. A minute passed before he hailed one swinging out of Forty-second Street, and when they were under way the other cab was three blocks beyond. An Elevated train was crashing southbound overhead. The taxi that Alfred had taken slewed into the curb at the Thirty-fourth Street Elevated station, and Alfred leaped out, darted up the stairway as the train was pulling in alongside the platform.
    Donahue leaned forward and said, “Shoot down to Twenty-third Street.”
    “Listen, boss—”
    “No fireworks—honest, buddy,” Donahue said.
    Taxi sped southward between steel Elevated pillars. Train sped