Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  Paddy’s blood immediately turned several degrees cooler. The woman’s head had fallen forward and her shoulders drooped pitifully. With great concern, Paddy realized that she was quite dead.

  He excused himself to Marta and moved carefully into the aisle and up toward the lobby. He found a red-coated usher.

  “I’ll have to see the manager right away,” Paddy informed him.

  The kid in the uniform was filled with selfimportance.

  “Sorry, Mister, he can’t be disturbed. Anything I can do?”

  “There’s a dead woman in there,” O’Sheen answered dryly. “I suggest you remove her.”

  INSPECTOR MIKE HUMPHRY of New York Homicide liked O’Sheen. Perhaps it was Paddy’s blarney that endeared him to the rough-talking, hard-hitting Humphry.

  The corpse had been removed with dispatch and several persons sitting near the murdered woman were questioned. Humphry, O’Sheen and his attractive spouse, Marta, sat in the manager’s office. A couple of plainclothesmen waited near the door.

  “Her name was Peggy Walters,” Humphry said. “Wife of Ed Walters, a big gambler from downtown. He’ll have an alibi all sewed up.”

  Peggy Walters had been shot with a .32 equipped with a silencer. It was lying in her opened purse. There were no prints on the gun, and Peggy Walters had worn gloves.

  “Someone murdered her, all right,” O’Sheen offered. “I remember we came in when the picture changed. She must have been right behind us, and there was a lot of noise and commotion.”

  Humphry snorted.

  “Walters will swear she came to the theatre alone, pulled a gun and committed suicide.” O’Sheen grinned nervously.

  “Guess I’m a little out of my own territory,” he confessed. “Me and Marta don’t know much about this city police work. Up home the criminals ain’t so much on alibis and such.”

  He drew his watch from his pocket, separated it from a handful of assorted junk and whistled.

  “After midnight,” he said. “Come on, Mrs. O’Sheen, I’m needing a pillow under my head.”

  Marta stood up, smiling uncertainly at Mike Humphry.

  “I’m wishing we could help Mr. Humphry,” she said regretfully. “Seems like we owe him something for being so nice.”

  Humphry took her hand in his.

  “Forget it,” he said gruffly. “I’d almost forgotten Irish girls could be so fresh and pretty until tonight.”

  Marta blushed and Paddy cleared his throat loudly.

  “Enough of that blarney, Mike Humphry.”

  He took the Inspector’s hand and shook it warmly. “Maybe you could tell us where the Globe Wide Photo Service is. They took a candid picture of Marta and me when we came in. I’d kinda like to take it home for a souvenir.”

  Humphry gave him the proper directions and the O’Sheens left. On the street, Paddy hailed a taxi.

  “I think we’ll take a little ride before we turn in.” He squeezed her arm affectionately. “It’s fun I’m having, after all.”

  INSPECTOR HUMPHRY was tired. It was three in the morning. Ed Walters had been in his office since midnight, Walters, a slim darkfaced man with a trimmed mustache, sat at ease on the far side of the room. Three sleepy-eyed police detectives lounged near the door. The room was a blue haze of smoke.

  “As I mentioned several hours ago,” Ed Walters put just the right inflection of sarcasm into his speech. “I’m all busted up about Peg’s death. I didn’t know she knew about the gun. But, so help me, Humphry, I’ve got two dozen witnesses who will swear I was at my club from five to midnight this evening.”

  Humphry shook his head.

  “We know—we know,” he growled. “You can pay a hundred witnesses, but you still knocked off the kid.”

  Walter’s sneer grew more pronounced.

  “I’d like to go home,” he said. “This is all pretty silly.”

  A knock sounded on the door. One of the detectives opened it and turned to Humphry.

  “It’s that hick cop and his wife from upstate,” he said.

  Humphry nodded and Paddy came in. Marta, tired and looking unhappy, was at his side. O’Sheen looked quickly at Ed Walters.

  “Her husband?” he asked. Humphry nodded.

  “We been on his neck all night,” he admitted. “His story is air tight.”

  The light in O’Sheen’s eyes went steely cold.

  “Sure and I’m not agreeing with that,” he produced a small envelope from his pocket, took a tiny photo from it and tossed it on Humphry’s desk. “There’s your killer.”

  Humphry picked up the picture and his face turned several shades redder.

  “This is a picture of you and your wife approaching the theatre,” he protested. “I don’t understand . . .”

  O’Sheen smiled.

  “It’s still a picture of your killer,” he insisted. Humphry’s eyes hardened. His voice became cuttingly sarcastic.

  “Are you trying to tell me that you did this job?” Marta was at Paddy’s side, her hand clutched tightly on his arm.

  “Paddy, you’re tired. Sure and I’m thinking the pixies are in your head.”

  Paddy was enjoying himself immensely. “There’s dozens of people in that print,” he insisted. “See that taxi cab behind us at the curb. Who’s getting out of it, Inspector?”

  Ed Walters crouched forward nervously on his chair. His cheeks were suddenly drained of color.

  “I can’t make out,” Humphry squinted at the tiny picture. “Could be anyone, I guess.”

  O’Sheen fumbled in his coat and drew out a crumpled 8x10 blow-up of the same print, and passed it to Humphry.

  “I figured Mrs. Walters was just behind us when we came into the theatre,” he said. “With a hundred people outside when our picture was taken, there was a chance that they might be in the crowd. I was right. That enlargement shows both Ed Walters and his wife leaving the taxi. It proves the time . . .”

  “That’s a lie.” Walters sprang to his feet, his lips parted in an ugly snarl. “I wasn’t . . .”

  The dicks at the door tossed him down quickly and snapped on the cuffs. Marta O’Sheen beamed proudly upon her husband, and Mike Humphry stared with a new respect.

  “By Golly, O’Sheen, that was quick thinking,” he admitted. “If it hadn’t been for your hunch to enlarge a candid shot we would never have pinned him down.”

  Paddy O’Sheen chuckled.

  “What you might call a photo finish,” he agreed.

  THE END

  HOT-SEAT FALL GUY

  E.Z. Elberg

  When Peanut Smith went to the hot-seat, he made Mike Powers the executor of his will. And that will would make Mike his own executioner, for the death-house legacy was—the Chair.

  I HAVE to hand it to that little guy for the way he went out. With a lopsided smile under his useless peanut nose, he said, “Boys, now you’re going to see a roasted peanut.”

  The executioner threw the switch; Joseph “Peanut” Smith quivered and was no more. I stood up with the rest of the reporters and we filed out. I was used to executions, but this one sure got me.

  I’d sort of liked the little guy. He always had a ready grin; when you looked at the loose crinkles around his shrewd mouth you knew it was just a caprice of fate that put him on the easy but short road. Walk into any big office, any City Room, and even any Hollywood studio, and you’ll find guys who stepped out of the same package he did. Guys who fought their way up, guys whose eyes had to turn glossy and careful to mask the active brain behind them. But that’s how it goes—some this way, some that.

  Peanut Smith had killed another gangster. Most of the papers said it was one rat killing another rat and I guess they were partly right. But I felt there was more to it than that.

  When we interviewed him, I kept noticing how steady his hands were, how a strange, twisted courage mocked us from his grey eyes. So I tried to give him a break. Now and then I slipped some things into my copy that might help the little guy. But I guess I didn
’t help much after all. He was as dead as they come now, with or without my kind intentions.

  In the prison press room I phoned and got my rewrite. I reeled off facts and before hanging up added, “You might use this, Nat. ‘Nothing became him so much in life as the leaving of it.’ ”

  Nat snickered and said something about getting literary. I swore, not too vehemently, because Nat was usually good for a ten spot in hungry times. He laughed again and I hung up.

  Before I climbed into my roadster to go back to town, a guard came over to me. “Mike Powers?” he asked.

  I nodded. He handed me an open, white envelope. “Smith left this for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said and slid under the wheel, fingering the flap quizzically. With my left hand I guided the Buick and by the dashboard light read the angular handwriting on the sheet inside:

  Powers, you tried to soften my jolt. Go to the cafe on Murray and West Broadway. Keep whistling I Came Here to Talk for Joe—even though Joe won’t be around when you read this. Luck.

  I put the note in my pocket and grinned into the rear view mirror a little sadly. The cold and defiant humor that had fashioned these lines was snuffed out, wiped away by a manmade bolt of electricity.

  THE cafe was a smudge of greyness between hulking black buildings around it. I locked the roadster and legged it over to the canopied entrance. Weary juke box music drifted out and shrilled around me when I entered the place. I found it a glorified saloon with a bar taking up half the space and a line of empty booths on the opposite side. At the bar I wedged myself between a once passable blonde and a sailor.

  The bartender’s pouched eyes flickered at me inquiringly. I tossed a dollar bill down. “Scotch.” He poured and I began to whistle I Came Here to Talk for Joe. The man knuckled my glass over. He smoothed out the wet spots on the dollar, rang it into the register behind him. Then he jangled change back to me. I began to whistle louder and searched his face.

  “What’s bothering you, brother?” he grouched, meeting my probing eyes.

  “Nothing, nothing.” I swallowed the Scotch in a gulp and pushed the glass forward. He filled it up and picked coins out of my change. This time I began to hum. He shook his head, curled his lips down, and shuffled off.

  I gathered my change and moved away. The juke box began clamoring again. I stopped my humming, shoved myself into an empty booth.

  A waiter in a splotchy, loose apron ankled across the thick sawdust floor toward me. “Beer,” I ordered. He slopped a rag almost under my elbow.

  “You’ve never been here before,” he told me.

  “That’s right.” I lit a cigarette and took in his soggy cheeks and nose. “Never.”

  I started to hum. He kept the rag going until the marble top was somewhat clean. Finally he looked up. “Okay, buddy, the back room there.” His chin indicated.

  I wanted to ask him something, but couldn’t think of anything sensible. So I just got up and went to the rear door. I knocked and the door opened almost immediately to expose a fat man with a brownish, I-trim-it-when-I-please mustache. His fleshy cheeks rotated and his mouth munched. He eyed me inquisitively and interrupted the act of putting a gum drop to his lips.

  “Yeah,” I said foolishly, “Peanut Smith sent me.”

  “Um-m.” He lumbered to a chair behind a battered desk and I followed, taking an overstuffed leather chair uninvited. I handed him the dead gangster’s note. He um-m-ed over it and then dialed on his phone. He shoved a bag toward me and I selected a gum drop from it. When a voice squeaked at the other end, he pressed the receiver to his thick ear.

  “This is Prescott,” he said and the words were slurred and tinny. “Smith’s man is here. He’s got a letter, just rode down from the prison I think.” He looked at me over the mouthpiece and I nodded.

  “I’m a reporter,” I added. “Mike Powers.”

  Prescott passed on this incidental information to the telephone, and then listened for a short while, hung up lethargically. He leaned his bulk back in the chair. His eyes closed and his jaws munched rhythmically.

  “Wait,” he said. I shrugged and began to wait.

  THE man that came in about half an hour later was well-dressed and cleanshaven. The skin of his face was drawn tightly over the bones and sallow as Prescott’s gum drops. Quick, black eyes brooded deep in faintly pockmarked cheekbones. I’d seen him around a couple of times before this, although he didn’t know me.

  His name was Pete Shaw and his excuse for living lay in that, right now, he was adding zest to the lives of a pitiful few; to wit, supplying them with marijuana or opium. But that was none of my business. I vaguely recalled he’d once been a strong-arm man for Peanut Smith. He nodded briefly to Prescott and sat down on the corner of the desk, facing me. The dark blue cloth of his topcoat wrinkled softly over a leg he swung back and forth.

  “How’d Peanut go out?” he asked, propping one hand on his knees and exposing hairy wrist with some white grains on it under the cuff of the expensive maize yellow shirt.

  “Game,” I said.

  Shaw smiled grimly. “I knew it. Great guy.” A faraway look faded from his face. “Look, Powers, Peanut wrote us that he’d send someone for the little thing he wanted done. You see, he married a girl about four years ago. She was a nice kid but not his kind and, you know how these things go, it didn’t come off. She left him.”

  Shaw inclined his head and stared steadily at me with feeling. “Funny guy, Peanut was. He really loved that woman. He’s left forty-two grand and he wanted you to deliver forty of it to her.” Shaw handed me a thick envelope.

  “There’s twenty grand in there. Prescott has the other twenty. Peanut split up the dough between his two best friends, because forty grand to one guy would be too much of a temptation. This way Prescott and I couldn’t get together for a cross because we like each other too much, eh, Prescott?”

  Prescott’s thick lips drew back wolfishly and his small eyes receded into layers of fat to glint ominously. He tossed an envelope toward me. “I like you, Shaw,” he said tonelessly. “I like you fine.”

  Shaw’s head jerked back and he laughed forcedly. “Like hell you do.” His eyes flickered to me. “You’d better count the dough.”

  I picked an ivory-handled letter opener off the desk, slit the flaps, and counted the money inside both envelopes. When I finished, I asked, “Why don’t you deliver this yourself?”

  Shaw grimaced. “Look at us. I told you what kind Peanut’s wife is. You think she’d believe it was honest dough if we brought it to her? Peanut knew that. You got brains, education. You can convince people. You’re a newspaperman, ain’t you? You got to make her believe it’s clean cash.”

  “Is it?”

  Shaw nodded slowly. “Take my word for it, pal.”

  I hesitated and kept turning the money over in my hands.

  “I’ll give you a grand now,” Shaw said softly, “and a grand after you’ve made her take it.”

  I looked up at him. “That’s a lot of dough.”

  “Don’t I know? Peanut knew it too. He told us to give out that much.” Shaw tucked a thousand dollar bill into the handkerchief pocket of my suit jacket. “Deliver it tonight and get it over with.”

  My forehead furrowed and I picked out the pattern of the carpet on the floor. After all, two grand would just about cram the wife’s war bond drawer full. What was wrong with delivering a guy’s dough to the one he wanted to receive it?

  Abruptly I stood up and shoved the heavy packet of money into my pocket. Shaw wrote out an address for me. I glanced at it and started for the door, but stopped with a hand on the knob. I turned round.

  “Why all the melodrama about whistling when I came in?”

  Shaw grinned and the corners of his mouth slipped tightly to opposite sides of his face.

  “Reason one, Peanut’s sense of humor. Reason two, it isn’t smart to toss Peanut’s name around in a public bar. It’s no secret he didn’t die broke. Also it’s likely the warden up at t
he prison read this note, and Prescott wasn’t anxious to have his name mentioned in it. You might call the warden and Prescott old acquaintances.”

  Prescott ignored the barb and stood up, his bulk looming over the desk. His tiny eyes fixed themselves on me. “No funny business,” he said. “It ain’t safe.”

  I began to waver, but thought better of it and strode out.

  MY BUICK coughed emptily again. I turned off the ignition with disgust, got out from behind the wheel. I could have sworn the tank was not dry when I parked outside of the cafe. At this hour there were no gas stations open and I headed up the black side street.

  My heels clacked on the pavements and the sound echoed with sharp remoteness in the crouching, unlit heaps of brick towering on each side. After going four blocks, I found the subway entrance and took an uptown train.

  A wispy man huddled in a coat sizes too big for him, gazed with soulless eyes at the car cards and, as I entered, turned toward me, mouth opened like a sleepy dog’s. I noted it was two-thirty on my wrist watch and felt a curious kinship with him. Picking a seat in a corner, I stared out of the window until the train pulled into my station.

  The address I wanted was not far from the subway. I held a match to the letterboxes and found the name, Mrs. Helen Smith. A self-service elevator got me up to the fifth floor and I jabbed the buzzer on 5A. I waited a few minutes and buzzed again. Shuffling came muted through the oak panels, then the door opened, showing the room beyond in darkness.

  I stepped in slowly, trying to make a face out of the white blob. “Does Mrs. Helen—” A streak of silver dropped before my eyes and shattered into bursts of painful, whirling lights. I staggered forward and fell across something. Glass smashed and my hands became wet. I tried to stand up, but something very cold slammed against my jaw again. I went hurtling into a vortex of ebony mist.

  I came to very slowly. My jaw was heavy and aching. The nerves of my teeth flashed spurts of fire up to my eye sockets. I got up and lurched in the blackness until I hit a wall. Then I rested for a while, lit a match, and found the light switch.