The Talmage Powell Crime Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  In a minute he stood up. He was holding a white pillow that had been dyed in spots with blood. He crammed the pillow under his coat and it made stiff, cracking noises.

  Percival Smith laughed, reached in his vest pocket, and got out a calling card, his own card.

  “It began with a card, Willie. It might as well end that way.” It looked goofy to me, but he put the card on the dead dog’s head, right in sight.

  We climbed out of the hole. “Do we fill the grave back, boss?”

  “No, but we’ll have to tie the caretaker and hide him somewhere. I don’t want him to find that card.”

  The caretaker was still out. We tied him up with our neckties and gagged him with Smith’s handkerchief.

  We got out of the graveyard fast, went back over the fence. We walked a block or two, and Smith flagged a cab that passed. “The Jackson Building,” he told the driver.

  When we got back to the office, Smith turned on the light just like he was going to read awhile. He put the bloody pillow he had got from the casket on the desk. I looked in the closet to make sure Hannrihan had got Joe Dance’s body out of there. He had.

  Smith smoked a cigarette, walked around the office. He lighted another smoke from the old butt.

  When he got through with that one, he looked at his wrist watch. “It’s been five minutes since we came back, Willie. You can turn off the light now.”

  He pushed a couple of chairs together over in the corner. I turned off the light.

  “Sit over here, Willie,” Smith said.

  I went over and parked beside him in one of the chairs.

  “Well,” I said, “this is all okay, I guess. But what’s the idea?”

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “Cripes, boss, who the hell are we waiting for?”

  “Whoever finds my calling card.”

  “And who’ll that be?”

  “Perhaps the police,” he said.

  “Oh, Lord!”

  “Or perhaps the mild gentleman who left Joe Dance in the closet.”

  “That’s better.”

  Smith didn’t talk anymore. He leaned back in his chair. I knew we were in for a long wait.

  After what seemed like a hundred years, I started to tell the boss it was no soap. I wanted to get out of here. This hanging around didn’t make me feel any too good.

  But Smith caught my arm before I could say anything. And I heard it too—somebody putting a passkey in the lock.

  The door swung back, covering us. The guy waited a minute, then came in. He was good-sized. I made a guess—Pete Lorentz, the bookie who had taken a powder.

  He saw the bloody pillow in the light from outside. His breath made a funny sound. He jumped at the desk, got his hands on the pillow.

  Smith turned the light on.

  The guy wheeled around. Smith covered him with his automatic. I’d been all wet. This guy wasn’t Pete Lorentz.

  Smith made a little bow. “You almost got away with it,” he said, “and it was a scheme worthy of a genius.” He grinned at the guy. He said, “Mark Droyster—the man who wouldn’t stay dead!”

  Droyster didn’t look so good. He hadn’t had any sleep, and he needed a shave badly.

  He didn’t say nothing. He just looked at Smith and the Spanish in Smith’s hand.

  “Come on, Willie,” the boss said, “we’re taking him in.”

  But I didn’t move. Somebody else had come in the office. He gave the orders, “No, Smith, you’re not taking him in. Drop your gun. You, Aberstein, line up beside him.”

  The boss let the gun go. It bumped on the floor. Me and the boss turned around. Al Newell was bent over a little from the slug he had taken. There were two guys with Newell. Ike Clark, a little hophead, and Harry Haines, a skinny, tall gent who had shot his own brother a couple of years before.

  Newell pushed the door shut. “You can scram in a moment, Droyster. If I let Smith take you in, people will know you are alive and I lose my dog track. So I’ll help you, even though you did plug me earlier tonight.”

  My head was spinning. I finally got my jaw back up where it ought to be. “I thought that was Droyster’s stiff in the storage house. I—”

  “So did a lot of people, monkey,” Newell said. “It was a fine plot, the nicest business deal Droyster ever cooked up. And I’m going to help him push it through. I’ll take you to Hannrihan, Smith. Think he’ll ever believe you when you claim Droyster is still alive?

  “You’ll tell him that the corpse in the storage house is not Droyster but Pete Lorentz. But will he believe it? Can you prove it? We’ll claim the corpse really is Droyster. So the only mystery the cops will have is why wasn’t Droyster’s corpse in the grave?”

  It looked plenty bad. If Droyster got away from here, no telling where he’d be this time tomorrow.

  Newell nodded to Ike Clark and Harry Haines. “Let’s get a move on.”

  The two torpedoes pulled their rods. The boss fired a smoke. “Are you quite sure, Newell, that you and Droyster haven’t overlooked anything?” The way he said it and the way he looked at Newell sort of did things to the slim punk.

  “‘What do you mean?” Newell said. He held out a hand to slow Clark and Haines down.

  “Shall we go back to the beginning?” the boss said. “Back to what drove Droyster to this?”

  Newell and Droyster looked at each other. Droyster said, “Talk fast and it had better be good. If I’ve slipped I want to know it, but if you’re stalling…”

  “In the first place,” Smith said, “you were slipping all around. Your house was mortgaged, your business enterprises—thanks to men like Newell handling the books—were shot to hell. Your whole life was exploding in your face, money evaporating, your wife giving you the air for Doctor Lawrence Jordan. You were losing, had lost, everything. You had been a big shot, now you were sinking to the level of a tramp.

  “No man who has had your money and power, Droyster, would give it up without a fight. It hurt to see yourself as an old, broken bum, with people laughing and shaking their heads behind your back.

  “But you had fifty-seven grand that no one knew about.” The boss laughed, puffed his fag. “This is the first case on record where a man killed other people for his own money. That’s exactly what you did. You were finished. There was only one way out—get away, start over. For a start you needed money. And the only way to keep your fifty-seven grand was to die here and be another man someplace else. That fifty thousand dollars wouldn’t have lasted long, what with all your debts, if you’d tried to leave in a legal manner.”

  The boss sat down like he had all the sweet time he needed. The others watched him like buzzards. Me, I was soaking my shirt with sweat.

  “When Pete Lorentz gave you the beating,” the boss said, “you got your big idea. It was a hard pill to swallow, having a two-by-four bookie beat hell out of you. It showed just how far you had slipped. You were so enraged you wanted to kill—and thinking about it started the plan in your mind.

  “You killed Pete with a shotgun, Droyster. With your clothes and ring on him, and his head gone, everyone thought it was you. Neither of you had ever been fingerprinted. You knew Lawrence Jordan would swear the corpse was you, even if he did have a few doubts. He was that anxious to get your wife.”

  The boss put out his cigarette, fired another one. “So you were a dead man—with a nice stake of fifty-seven grand, no strings attached. But Newell happened to go into the room, drop a calling card, and your wife, wanting insurance, called me in. Perhaps Newell suspected the truth about you, Droyster.

  “He dropped a few words around Joe Dance, and Joe thought to make himself a pile of dough by spilling it. But you had been hiding close around. You killed Dance and brought him up here, then called the police.

  “Were you in that storage house most of the time, Droyster? Is there a phone extension there?”

  “In the attic,” Droyster said, “I heard Dance phone my wife and I heard her phone you.”

&n
bsp; The boss nodded. “That’s why the Great Dane went out to the storage house, because you were there. He barked with joy and you slashed his throat to silence him. That was the same day you killed Pete Lorentz.

  “That night you sneaked back into your house. You knew you simply couldn’t have Pete up and vanish. If his draft board should put him in 1-A and the F.B.I. went looking for him, it might have upset your scheme. You had to get Pete’s body out of the coffin, mutilate it more, and plant it someplace where it could be found, with papers to show his true identity, several days later.

  “You took the dog’s body back into the house when you went after Pete. You took Pete out of the casket, put the dog in, knowing the casket would not be opened because of the horrible condition of the body. You knew it might take a day or so to dispose of Pete’s body, which was very ticklish business; so for safe-keeping you put your fifty-seven grand in the casket—in that blood-stained, satin pillow.

  “You went to the graveyard last night, but the caretaker scared you off. You couldn’t get rid of Pete’s body sooner, and tonight I was on the case. You had to watch other things than the cemetery.”

  “You talk well, Smith,” Droyster said, “but where’s the slip? Give out—and hurry!”

  Smith smiled at Droyster. “Let me finish. Newell gave you a bit of help all along. First he tried to gun us off the case, later to buy us off. He really wanted that dog track. You were hiding outside, Droyster, when we came out of the storage house. You heard Newell almost break down; so you took a shot at him.

  “Naturally, I was wondering all along, since I found the corpse in the storage house, what the devil was in the casket. So Willie and I went to the cemetery. We found your money, left my card where you’d think I accidentally dropped it. You were pretty close on our heels. You found the card as I hoped.

  “I left the light on long enough so that you’d not think I suspected you of shadowing me. You watched from across the street until the light went off. You waited until you thought we had gone, then you came to find your money.”

  I saw just a little bit of sweat on the boss’ face. That made my knees bang. If Smith was sweating…

  “Poppycock!” Droyster said. “He’s stalling. Take him on, Newell.”

  Newell nodded. He started to say something, but the door crashed open.

  Bless his heart! Bedrock Hannrihan looked like the answer to my prayers. “Smith—” he howled. Then he flopped on the floor as Ike Clark got his roscoe going. I hit Newell and Newell hit the floor.

  It was some party. Hannrihan’s gun went like a cannon. Droyster was cursing a blue streak. Somebody hit a chair. Ike Clark screamed.

  Somebody slung a slug my way. It caught me in the leg, knocked me down. I looked up to see Harry Haines. The boss and me don’t like people that shoot at us. The boss shot Haines in the neck.

  The bullet in my leg kept me on the floor. I rolled around. I was scared sick with all the lead flying loose. I rolled into Newell. He was drawing a bead on the boss and I hit him, I broke his nose with that one and blood went everywhere.

  Then it stopped and my ears rang. Ike Clark was doubled up in front of the desk. Haines was on his back, blood coming out of his neck, Newell was over at the wall holding his nose and moaning.

  Droyster hadn’t been touched. He dropped his gun, looked at the boss, and said, “You win, Smith.”

  Hannrihan took a look at Droyster. “Cripes! I’m going nuts!”

  The boss said, “Yes, quite true.” Then he helped me to my feet. “It’s only a flesh wound, Willie.” Then the boss turned to Hannrihan. He wised the big dick up to all that had happened.

  “I talked myself blue in the face,” the boss finished, “and had just run out when you got here. I knew as long as the light stayed on there was a chance it would attract you or one of your boys.”

  Hannrihan kept the live ones covered. “The light attracted me, all right. I passed and saw it. I’ve been combing the town for you all night, Smith.”

  The boss tossed the bloody pillow to Hannrihan. “Watch the rent in the cloth,” Smith said. “There’s fifty-seven grand in that pillow!”

  Hannrihan whistled.

  “You may use my phone to get the meat wagon and reinforcements,” Smith told him. “Willie and I are leaving now.”

  The boss helped me downstairs. Hannrihan’s car was at the curb. We got a cab. “Central hospital,” Smith told the driver. He turned to me. “We’ll get that leg dressed, Willie. Then we eat.”

  I leaned back. The morning air tasted sort of good. The sun came up. I hadn’t ever noticed before how good it looked, all red and everything.

  I looked at the boss. He was looking at me. I don’t know why, but the first thing I knew we were grinning at each other and shaking hands to beat hell.

  YOUR CRIME IS MY CRIME

  Originally published in New Detective Magazine, May 1946.

  The city of Baltimore lay sweltering in the sluggish heat of the autumn night. A searing, fitful breeze off the bay lay its hot tongue on the dinginess of Pratt Street, bringing tired, stringy-haired women to doorways, causing babies to whimper in their grotesque sleep. On Redwood Street, a few offices in concrete and steel buildings blazed with light as brokers figured clients’ margins, or tried to guess how many points above 103 Acme Steel would be four weeks from today. Lower East Baltimore Street teemed with sweat-boiled, jostling bodies. A newsboy hawked his wares, rearranging newspapers and magazines laid along the grimy curb and held prisoner from the faint breeze by paperweights.

  A burlesque barker added his voice to the din and the air-conditioned penny arcades were jammed, offering refuge from the heat for the price of a pinball game and hot dog smeared with sweet relish. Shooting galleries reminded passing veterans of things they wanted to forget, and bartenders worked like machines, pouring streams of cool liquid over damp bars, while the laughter of men was joined by the tinkling laughter of women and juke boxes and sweating four-piece orchestras pounded a never-ending rhythm. Street cars clanged and horns blared as taxis snaked toward curbs for fares and into the stream of traffic again.

  In John Hopkins, a quartet of specialists studied a case of leukemia and wagged their heads over it, knowing it to be incurable. In surgery a famed obstetrician finished a Caesarian and the new life was rushed to an incubator.

  It was people. It was sound and silence, life and death. It was kinship, for no matter what a man was doing that hot night in Baltimore, there was another doing or thinking a similar act—even to murder.

  Save for the man in the small apartment on Mount Royal Avenue. He was quite alone in his decision, his act—for there was, after all, only one John Brennan.

  He stood looking at the slim steady girl with the brunette hair and the rotund, bald man who sat on the couch beside her. They looked back at him and the silence was heavy, broken only by the angry hum of traffic on the street below and the laboring whir of an exhaust fan somewhere in the building.

  The rotund, bald, red-nosed man stood up his bulldog jaw quivering on the black cigar clamped between his teeth. “But you can’t mean this, John! Now that you’re back, you’re staying right here—in Baltimore. We need you. Jean,” he glanced at the girl who looked at John Brennan so steadily, “and me. The force needs you. And the city, John. We’ve been waiting for you to come back—me and Jean and the force and the city. We’ve waited a long time. When V-J day came—”

  Brennan turned from the window. He’d been a big, strapping, lean-bellied man once. Now he wasn’t. He felt only the ghost of himself.

  He broke in, “V-J day was just another day in a hospital for me, MacLaren—and for a lot of other guys.” His voice was almost savage, bringing the heavy silence back again. Then he added, “Sorry.” He waited a moment and said, “Thanks for coming by, Inspector MacLaren. Tell the boys on the force—”

  The ash on MacLaren’s cigar glowed. “I’ll tell them you’re coming back, John.” He moved over beside the younger man, the man who looke
d and felt old. He took Brennan’s elbows in his hands and gripped until the tall, gaunt man winced. “You remember Donnavan, don’t you, John? Donnavan is dead.”

  Brennan closed his eyes. “Sure,” he said, “I remember Donnavan. A pug-nosed, red-a headed kid in school—the flivver we used to chase around together in.”

  “That was Donnavan,” Inspector MacLaren said. “And you remember him as a red-headed rookie, too, John. The way he kept his shield shined and gun oiled. He worshipped you Brennan—and he was right.”

  “No,” Brennan husked. “Donnavan was wrong.”

  “But you remember, don’t you?” MacLaren released Brennan’s elbows and sat down again, slowly, stiffly. “Now he’s dead, Donnavan is. He never had a chance to tell us what crook killed him. He only had time to say one thing, Brennan. He said, ‘I was trying to do it up like Brennan—but I guess I just ain’t man enough.’”

  MacLaren stopped and that brought the heavy silence again. Once more the bald man got up, paced back and forth. He wheeled on Brennan abruptly. “Then let’s forget Donnavan—let’s just think of all the decent people and the rats who are going to hurt some of them in the years ahead.”

  “Let the decent people look out for themselves,” Brennan said. “Dammit, I’ve told you I’m tired. I’m sick of fighting for decent people! I’m through—washed up. Who the hell are the decent people to depend on me to look after them?”

  “Just people,” the girl on the couch told him softly.

  Brennan almost snarled at her, “Not you too, Jean!” Then, “Sorry—look, MacLaren, I’ve never known anything but fighting. As soon as I was old enough and had sense enough to pass a civil service exam, I been fighting. First on the force—then to make the world safe for decent people. All right! I’ve made it safe! Now I’m tired. Who are you and Joe Doaks to tell me, ‘Here, Brennan! Here’s a gun, Brennan. Keep on fighting, Brennan. Make us safe.’ What gives anybody the right to put the finger on me—me?—and say, ‘Finish your job! Keep us safe!’”