Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “Homan’s garage—the public garage, around the corner on Twenty-Ninth Avenue. Where I always keep it.”

  “George has been bedridden for a week,” the woman offered. “He hasn’t had the car out.”

  “I see,” nodded the round-faced little agent, with a final glance around the bedroom. “Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you. Good night.”

  WHEELING, he scurried out of the apartment while the aged man and his wife stared after him open-mouthed. With a word to the cab driver to wait, Captain Farrell walked swiftly around the corner.

  A red and blue neon sign loomed over a big brick building—

  HOMAN’S GARAGE

  STORAGE -REPAIRS

  The only sign of life as Farrell stepped into the wide driveway was a dim light, far back among the rows of cars. He wended his way toward it.

  A mechanic in brown overalls, bending over a motor and holding a drop-light, looked up sharply as Farrell coughed discreetly.

  “This car that Mr. George Berger keeps here,” the G-man said without preliminary. “Where is it?”

  “Oh, the Stude sedan? That was stolen an hour ago,” the mechanic replied, without questioning the little man’s right to ask.

  “Stolen? From here?” Farrell’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  “Yeah—Shorty and I were here alone. The car was up front. First thing we knew, we heard it start up, and when we ran out, it was gone. We told the cops about it. Are you a cop?”

  The Federal man ignored the question. “Didn’t you tell Mr. Berger?”

  “We didn’t know his address. We told Otto.”

  “Who’s Otto?”

  “Otto Homan. He owns the joint.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Yorkshire Hotel.”

  The captain took off his glasses and squinted around the dark garage. Then he nodded wearily.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  He whistled tunelessly to himself as he plodded toward the entrance. Apparently he’d reached a dead end—as he had feared. He had followed the lead of the license number on one chance in a million that it would pan out.

  Farrell stopped, and his eyes narrowed. Parked near the entrance was a huge black truck. He thought of the truck that had loomed in the path of Brophy’s car as they chased the gunmen.

  He touched the black snout of the truck. It was warm. He looked speculatively up at it, then shrugged and turned again to the driveway, where rain swept in gusts, rainbowed by the neon light. Emerging with his head down, he almost collided with a woman.

  “Oh, pardon me,” she gasped, breathless. “I was in a hurry. Has Frank come back yet?”

  The Secret Service man blinked and looked at her. She was a young girl with flashing black eyes. Dark hair tumbled wildly over her forehead. She was hatless. She had pulled her fur coat over her head against the rain. She gasped again when she saw Farrell’s face in the neon light.

  “Oh, I thought you were—”

  “Whom were you looking for?” asked the Federal man mildly. “Frank Viano?”

  “Yes,” she nodded eagerly. “Is he back?”

  “He won’t be back. He’s dead. They’ve killed him.”

  The girl stifled a scream. Farrell grabbed her arm as she sagged against him.

  “You’d better come with me. I have a cab around the corner.”

  Dumbly, she let him pilot her up the street. Her coat fell back. Rain pelted on her face. The moon-faced little man watched her closely.

  “Who killed him?” she managed final1y.

  “Those fellows.” Farrell indicated the garage with a jerk of his head. “Back there.”

  “You mean—Otto and John and—But who are you?”

  There was quick suspicion in her voice.

  “Who are you?” the Federal man countered, still urging her along the street. They were almost at the corner.

  “I’m—I was his wife!”

  “Oh.” Farrell considered a moment. “I’m no friend of theirs. They’re out to get me. I want to get them first. Where are they now? In the room over the garage?”

  He was guessing in the dark—there is always a room over a garage.

  “No. They’re at the plant.”

  The Federal man tensed—the fake money plant!

  “The plant?”

  “Yes—oh, I told him! I knew they—”

  Abruptly, the girl was plucked from Farrell’s arm as though a giant had grabbed her away. Farrell ducked instinctively. There was a crash of sound above the rain, and then a stabbing flash of flame.

  THEN Farrell’s gun was out and spitting lead at the unlighted car that had slipped up to the curb behind them. He heard the windshield crash. He saw the white face of the garage mechanic behind the wheel. Then a smear of black appeared, magically, on the white face.

  The gunfire ceased. The car veered slowly, climbed the curb, and crashed into a pole.

  Farrell bent over the dark-haired girl, who had slumped to the pavement. Her eyes were closed. A thin, dark trickle of blood came from the corner of her mouth. Raindrops splattered on her face. He leaned close to her ear.

  “The plant. Where is it?”

  The black eyelids fluttered but did not open. Farrell waited tensely, unbreathing. The bloody lips opened.

  “Forty-four . . . twenty . . . Santiago . . . look out . . .”

  She shuddered. Foam flecked her lips. Farrell slipped his hand under the fur coat. The girl’s left breast was torn away. She was dead.

  The little man straightened like a jack-in-the-box and sprinted around the corner. He flung himself into the cab.

  “Say,” the driver began, “I heard shots. I don’t like—”

  “Forty-four-twenty Santiago Street, and make it fast,” the captain clipped.

  The driver started to answer, but something he saw in those blue eyes stopped him. He hunched over the wheel and they darted from the curb.

  Five minutes driving through rain and blackness brought them to the Santiago Street address. It was a stucco bungalow, standing alone in a block of sand dunes. The ocean roared half a mile away, and the wind, unhampered, swept over the dunes like great sighing wings.

  Farrell leaped from the cab and dismissed the driver. He stood alone before the dark house, rain driving at him in waves. When a full minute passed without any sound or light from the house, Farrell relaxed his grip on the heavy automatic in his pocket. Apparently the roar of the storm had drowned out the noise of the taxicab.

  Slowly, he paced around the house, stooping low and ploughing ankle-deep through the wet sand. At the rear of the bungalow, he cocked his ears as a faint clatter was borne to him above the wail of the wind. He took a step toward the house, and the clatter grew louder.

  ANOTHER step brought him flat against the rear wall. A square window on the basement level loomed beside him. Peering close, he saw pinpoints of gold in the black square. He frowned. Then the explanation came to him. The window was painted black on the inside. The pin-points of gold were little scratches in the paint, where light gleamed through. The basement, then, was brightly lighted.

  Farrell smiled grimly. The clatter he had instantly identified as the noise of a printing press. Now he heard the murmur of men’s voices. Gripping the gun in his pocket, he walked to the front of the house. He hesitated as he noted the dark pillar of a police call box on the corner. Then he shook his head resolutely.

  “Too many young men,” he muttered to himself as he cat-stepped to the front door. “Me, I’m an old hand.”

  A Yale lock greeted him, but the door was warped by the punishing sea winds. Farrell drew a thin sliver of steel from an inner pocket, slipped it into the crack. He eased the door partly open, and ducked inside. Gently, he closed it, shutting out the noise of the wind and rain.

  He held his breath for a moment. The clatter of the press and voices of men continued unabated. They had not heard. The upper rooms were dark, as far as Farrell could see. A dim glow came from an open door at the far end of th
e hall—evidently the stairway to the basement.

  Gun in hand, cat-footed, the Federal man prowled swiftly through the house. The rooms were empty. On the kitchen table were liquor glasses and cigar butts. Farrell moved smoothly toward the stairs, barely lifting his feet.

  He was a far different Farrell now from the mild-faced man who had stood in the rain a few hours before. His eyes were narrowed to blue steel slits behind the bulbous glasses. Shoulders hunched, he moved with the swift sureness of a hunting cat or a leopard. In a brief second he was at the bottom of the stairs and covering the room with his gun while he blinked in the bright light.

  SIX men were in the basement room.

  Their backs were turned. They were bending over the press, which had ceased its clatter momentarily. The Secret Service man cleared his throat politely. The six men whirled.

  “I wouldn’t move,” Farrell snapped. “You’re covered.”

  They stared at the little man in deathly silence, raising their hands slowly. There were two tan men in overalls smeared with grease.

  There was a short, dark man, unshaven, in a black suit. Two young men with blond mustaches quivered visibly and raised their hands the highest. There was a tall, fat man, red-faced whose eyes started from his head as his lips moved wordlessly.

  “I said, I wouldn’t move,” Farrell repeated. “If you move, I’ll have to shoot you.”

  “Stop! Don’t!” the fat man screeched. “Don’t shoot me. I’m not one of them. I’m Otto Homan. I own a big garage.”

  “Yes,” Farrell clipped, “a garage where the gang borrows its cars, and you report them stolen if they get in trouble.”

  “I gave them Berger’s car,” the fat man blubbered, “but I didn’t have anything to do with the killing, I swear to God. It was this man—”

  In his excitement, Homan turned half around and pointed a shaking finger at the dark, unshaved man.

  “Why, you—”

  The dark man darted his hand under his coat. Farrell’s pistol crashed as the two blond men dove for their guns. Homan, who had lurched into Farrell’s line of fire, screamed shrilly and fell against the wall.

  The captain’s gun barked again, just as the dark man’s automatic spat fire. The room crashed to ear-splitting roars. In Farrell’s hand, the heavy .45 leaped again and again. The little Farrell stood stifflegged, dodging not an inch.

  The dark killer flung his hands over his head, spun around like a top and crashed to the floor, blood welling from his face. One of the blond men, winged in the shoulder, collapsed on top of the fat body of Homan. The other young gunman flung his revolver away and cringed against the wall.

  Throughout, the two men in overalls had stood immobile, their hands above their heads. A cigarette still dangled from the mouth of one of them.

  “I told them not to move,” Farrell said sadly.

  “You’re the boss,” said one of the overalled men. “What you say goes.”

  The prisoners obeyed stolidly as Farrell herded them upstairs. He covered them with the automatic while he got Matt Brophy on the phone. He was the mild-mannered, moon-faced little man again.

  “I’m sorry I kept you up, Matt,” he said. “You can go now. The case is cleaned up. Yes, I had a little trouble. I warned them, but they started shooting.”

  COPS ARE SMART, TOO

  George Armin Shaftel

  Officer Ryan’s Flashlight Showed Up Something He Certainly Didn’t Expect

  “CALLING Car 56! Rush to 505 Broadway. Prowler seen in alley. Investigate.”

  The order rasped out of the radio under the dash of Dennis Ryan’s police car. He got under way like a rocket, juicing his prowl car into a screaming rush toward Broadway. An icy tingle crept along the back of his neck. Suppose that prowler was a loft thief, and had two-three partners?

  All of a sudden, Dennis Ryan felt as lonesome as a bull-pup in a cage of lions. For tonight was the first night that the city’s police cars were operating with one man, instead of two. In the name of economy and efficiency, the city managers had streamlined the police force.

  “Come on, quit griping,” Ryan growled at himself. “If you can’t handle a loft thief by yourself, turn in your badge and start raising chickens.”

  505 Broadway was a big storage building which employed a watchman, and was equipped with burglar alarms. A risky place to loot, Ryan reflected as he braked his car to a stop at the curb beside the building. But lots to steal if you could manage it. Only shrewd, tough thieves would attempt it. Ryan’s stubby hand tightened around the butt of his police special as he jumped from the prowl car.

  Abruptly he stopped. Turned back to the car. From his pockets he pulled out his wallet and a fine old watch. These he thrust inside the dash compartment of the car.

  In the compartment was a shiny crescent of metal—a horseshoe thrown by Beachcomber II at Santa Anita the afternoon he came in and paid Ryan 47 bucks on each of three $2 tickets. For an instant Ryan’s thick fingers touched the smooth metal. Then he got busy. Along the dark sidewalk toward the alley he ran. A short, stocky man, he carried his compact bulk with the steely springness of a bobcat.

  The alley was empty. But the street lamps did not spill light into the dark doorways and back entrances. Taut-nerved, Ryan strode swiftly to the rear door of the storage building.

  The knob turned to his palm, and the door swung inward to his push.

  The door should have been locked. For an instant Ryan hesitated, peering into the dark interior of the building. He saw nothing and heard nothing; but if a man with a cocked gun crouched back of a crate in there, waiting, he wouldn’t buzz a warning like a rattlesnake. Ryan caught a sharp breath, and switched on his flashlight.

  A man lay on the floor in the corridor.

  “Come on, come on,” Ryan growled at himself. “Look at him! If he’s dead, look for the killer.”

  Shielding his flashlight, he bent over the man on the floor.

  It was Luke Carney, the night watchman. But he wasn’t dead. He was snoring, breathing of fumes of alcohol like a fumigating machine. He shifted irritably, as if annoyed in his sleep at prospect of being wakened up. He was lying on a canvas tarp, and had a coat pulled over him and a seat cushion for a pillow.

  “All the comforts of home,” Ryan growled.

  HE REACHED to shake Carney awake—and froze, listening. Footsteps. The creak of a door sliding open. Across the long, crate-filled room, in the darkness.

  Ryan instantly put out his flashlight, and started running down a corridor between concrete posts, on tiptoe.

  He reached the elevator shaft, and heard the whine and grind of the motors. Turning his light on the floor-indicator dial, he saw that the elevator was rising—4th, 5th floor—and still going up. So he whirled to the stairway, and started sprinting up the iron stairs in the concrete well, gun leveled in his hand. At the 6th floor, he paused to look at the elevator dial again. The elevator was at the 9th, and still going. But the tenth floor was the top.

  Ryan swore, and sprinted on up the stairs.

  Reaching the tenth floor, he found the elevator door open. But across the room he heard stealthy footsteps, and he saw the beam of a small flashlight moving down a corridor between bins toward the iron door of a concrete vault in which valuables were kept. Ryan almost said, “Aha!” as he saw where the prowler was headed.

  Following, he got closer to the man. The prowler was a sawed-off little mug, and he was carrying something bulky. He stopped in front of the built-in concrete vault, and turned his flashlight beam on the iron door.

  Ryan stuck his pistol against the man’s back, grated, “Don’t move!” and switched his flashlight on.

  He looked into the scared, white face of a boy, a mere kid. Freckled, sandyhaired, his blue eyes wide with fright, the lad blinked in the light and bit his trembling lip to keep from crying. And Ryan, realizing that the kid probably was only twelve or thirteen years old, stared in dumbfounded surprise.

  “Say, what is this? How’d you get
in here? What you up to?”

  The boy swallowed hard. He didn’t answer, and tried to set his jaw in defiance, but his chin quivered.

  “Come on,” Ryan demanded, feeling like a loud-mouth bully, but too upset to follow the police school rules about handling kids, “what’s your name? What you doing here?”

  “My name’s Mike C-Carney.”

  “Carney! Why—the night watchman any kin to you?”

  “My brother,” the lad stammered. “What you doing here? What you got in that laundry sack?”

  Ryan savagely jerked the sack open—and his flashlight gleamed on rich, sleek furs. He swore in amazement.

  “Stealing furs out of storage!”

  “I’m not stealing them!” The boy’s voice was shrill with fright and worry.

  “Then what are you doing? Come on, spill it.”

  The lad angrily wiped at his eyes with the heel of his palm.

  “You got to let me tell it all.”

  “You bet you’ll tell it all,” Dennis Ryan snapped grimly.

  “Well, Luke’s been sick.”

  “Your brother? The night watchman?”

  “Yeah. It’s his heart. He says—he says it won’t—Anyway, he’s started drinking bad again.”

  “Don’t lie to me. He can’t drink and stay on the job at night. He has to keep punching time clocks every so often, or we’d be busting in here to see why not,” Ryan said roughly.

  “I punch the clocks,” the boy said. Ryan’s high-colored face mottled with crimson, and he choked back an oath.

  “Well, go on! This sack of furs—”

  “Luke knows he’ll be canned, soon’s the boss finds out. He’s liable to—just drop, any time. So—Mister, he wasn’t doing it for himself. He wanted money for me and Tiny.”

  “So he stole these furs? That what you’re trying to say?”

  “That’s right.” The boy blinked angrily, but couldn’t keep back scalding tears. “But, look, Mister, I’ve brought ’em back—”

  “Is that what you’re doing here?”

  “Yeah. You got to believe me!” The boy’s voice broke shrilly. “Luke’s not a crook, honest: He just can’t—do no better. I mean, he thought he had to do something—”