Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  I gave up trying to untie my feet and I dragged myself along the floor to the door. I got to my feet and braced myself flat against the wall beside the door. It was hard to stand with my feet tied together. I heard Henderson yell, “Doc! Where the hell are you?” I heard him come up the steps and cross the rickety porch. I braced myself beside the door and cocked my right fist.

  Henderson came in first. He said, “Doc, damn you—” and then I let him have it with all I had. I felt his jaw crunch against my knuckles like a bag of marbles and he went sideways to his knees, teetered there a second, and then went over on his face and lay still.

  But the effort had thrown me off balance, and my hobbled legs refused to hold me up. I stumbled halfway across the doorway, tried to hang on to the door jamb.

  Rowden, coming up the steps of the porch, saw me there. He stopped suddenly and I heard him blurt out, “Allen!” I tried to scramble back inside the door, but he was too fast for me. His gun came out and I saw the orange flash of flame and there was a deafening blasting roar in my ears. Wood splintered beside me, and Rowden’s gun spat flame again. There was a sudden jolting blow in my side, low down, and my face hit the planks of the porch. It didn’t hurt, but when I grabbed my side with my hand I could feel the warm blood running through my fingers.

  I saw Rowden turn and run for the car. I reached out an arm to the motionless form of Henderson and my groping hand found what I was looking for—his shoulder holster. I slipped out Henderson’s automatic and dragged myself on my stomach across the doorway. Rowden had the car started and was turning it around in the road, the gears clashing. He gave it the gun and it bounced down the road in second gear, gaining speed with every second. I lay on my stomach, my gun arm stretched out, and aimed carefully. I squeezed the trigger and Henderson’s big automatic jumped viciously in my hand. I kept squeezing the trigger until the gun stopped jumping. The car weaved drunkenly in the ruts of the road, and swerved suddenly for the ditch. I saw it hit the ditch and bounce high. In the moonlight I saw the flash of the polished body as it rolled over twice in the field beyond. Everything was still then. I could see the car, a dully gleaming mass of metal, with its four wheels turning slowly and pointing straight up to the sky.

  And then I heard another car coming up the road and I saw the lights. It was coming fast, too. I didn’t think it was the girl because she hadn’t been gone long enough. But I didn’t care much who it was. My head seemed to be floating somewhere above my shoulders and there was a burning pain beginning to throb in my side. Something wet and dark was spreading in a widening puddle from beneath me and dripping down through the loose planks of the porch. I just lay there and dully watched the car approach.

  It was the girl, though. I saw her jump out of the car and I heard the sob in her voice as she ran up to the porch.

  “Pete, Pete—what have they done to you . . .?”

  It was all pretty hazy after that. I remember that two cops climbed out of the car and followed the girl up to the porch. They picked me up and laid me on the back seat of the squad car and the next time I knew anything for sure it was the following afternoon and I was in a hospital bed. The first person I saw was the girl. She stood by the bed looking down at me. Behind her was Dan Coppus and the boss.

  The girl said. “Pete—how to you feel?”

  I grinned up at her and said, “Fine.” It seems that the sawbones had got the slug out of me, and I wasn’t so bad hit. A sour-looking nurse came in and said that I ought to go back to sleep, but I wanted to hear the story. Dan told it to me.

  When the girl and Aterbury got to the main road they went into a filling station to call a cab. While they were there two cops in a squad car spotted Aterbury from the description I had given Dan that afternoon. Aterbury got scared and rattled. He pulled a rod and started to sling lead at the cops. They opened up on him, of course, and he died hanging on to a gasoline pump. The girl told the cops the story and the three of them highballed back to the shack where I was.

  In the meantime Rowden had gotten the dough from his wife—he showed her a fake note saying that Rose was being held for $50,000, and that he, Rowden, was to deliver it in person. She must have trusted him all right, because she gave him the dough without a squawk and Rowden rejoined Henderson who was waiting outside. The two of them went back to the shack to pick up Aterbury and, I suppose, to give me and the girl the business. Rowden probably intended to keep on living with the girl’s mother and he couldn’t have us hanging around to squeal on him.

  They found Rowden dead in the wrecked car. Henderson confessed all of this stuff the same night but he insisted that he and Rowden and Aterbury were going to take it on the lam after they got the money, and that they had no intentions in the world of harming a hair on the head of either the girl or me! Henderson confessed, too, that Rowden got the idea of kidnapping the girl after she left home. He was paying Henderson and Aterbury to tail her.

  When Dan finished telling me, he said, “But the hell with that. How soon you going to get out of here? When you coming over to the house? I still got that beer.”

  “I’ll be over,” I said. “Can I bring a friend?” Dan looked at Rose and I saw him wink. “Sure, Pete,” he said.

  The boss butted in then. I could tell by the way he had been fidgeting around waiting for the rest of them to get through talking that he was mad. I was right. He gave me hell.

  ONE WAR SHORTAGE THAT IS A BLESSING

  As a rule any news of a war shortage only makes us grit our teeth and work harder for victory. But now we learn of a shortage brought on by the war which is really good news.

  The war shortage is narcotics and because of it many addicts have been forced to take cures to rid themselves of this terrible habit, according to the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics. The shortage is the result of more effective control measures used by the Bureau as well as the shortage of shipping facilities. Today raw opium sells at $600 per pound; morphine at S2.75 a grain.

  When underworld sources of narcotics are denied them, addicts resort to unscrupulous physicians and druggists who illegally sell them the drugs. Many of these have been apprehended by the Bureau, which wants it known that doctors and druggists have done much to reduce drug addiction by cooperation with the Bureau.

  Not only does the Bureau of Narcotics help to protect the health and safety of American citizens, but it has been found to pay its own way. The income to the government through the enforcement of narcotic laws in 1942 was almost $1,500,000, more than the administration cost.

  MURDER ON THE MENU

  Michael O’Brien

  When death is dished up at the Golden Harvest, a drummer and a cigarette girl make solid with the sleuth stuff!

  I’M beating the skins in the band at the Golden Harvest when we get a nice murder dished up with the floor show. Jerry Kent has a good band—a small, but solid outfit and we are doing all right.

  Bob Martin is my name, and I never did believe in hiding my light under a bushel, unless it was a bushel of good press notices.

  “If you didn’t like yourself so much maybe I’d marry you,” Loraine Doyle told me more than once. “But I’d hate to realize I had a rival for your affections every time I saw you looking in the mirror.”

  Straight from the shoulder, and not pulling any punches. But when Loraine spoke her mind I usually took it and liked it. She is the cigarette girl at the club. Blond and luscious—and when she goes out among the tables selling cigars and cigarettes in one of those cute costumes of hers she’s a dish, but definitely.

  As I said before, I’m the drummer in the band, and we guys who sit up there on the platform night after night doing a hot number with plenty of jive and then another that’s sweet and slow, see a lot. In a place like the Golden Harvest you get to know the regular patrons; by sight at least.

  Sometimes I burn a little when I see some local yokel try and make a pass at Loraine, even though I know I don’t need to worry. She can freeze a guy with a look.

  But n
ever mind my raving about the wren. Let’s get to the murder—though I can do without homicide any time. It’s a Saturday night and the club is packing them in. It’s after midnight and the crowd from the theaters is drifting in strong.

  “Looks like it’s going to be one of those nights, boys,” says Jerry Kent while we’re resting between numbers. “I’ve got a feeling something will happen soon.”

  Jerry is no long-hair waving a baton at us. He plays piano with the band most every night, though we have a substitute ivory tickler when the boss feels like taking a little time out. Kent got started the hard way, and he can play every instrument in the band. He still gets a kick out of working up the arrangements on the new numbers.

  It is almost time for the floor show. It is due to go on after we finish the next number. Jerry Kent tells us what we are going to play and pounds off with his foot on the floor. We get playing and couples drift out onto the floor.

  I’m beating out the rhythm, with Copper on the bass and Jerry at the piano keeping right with me. We’re doing a nice job with “Speak Low” but I’ve got a feeling there is something wrong in the club.

  IT’S strange about playing in a place like that. You can tell when it is an off night, or when the patrons in the place just aren’t enjoying themselves. And when they are. But the way I am feeling now is different. Just a little creepy—like an elephant is dancing on my grave.

  “Help! Murder!”

  Some dame lets out the howl and then she screams good and loud. We don’t stop playing because we knew that might cause a real panic in the place. I see Lang Marshall, the owner of the Golden Harvest, heading over to a table in one corner of the room.

  There is a tall brunette in one of those strapless evening gowns that look like they are held on by sheer will-power, standing beside the table and she is doing the screaming. The gray-haired guy who has been sitting at the table with her is slumped back in his chair—and I get the idea he is good and dead.

  Marshall is a cool number and he gets the brunette quieted down and the grayhaired guy carried away in a few seconds. Well, maybe it was longer than that, but it didn’t seem so. The crowd gets over their excitement quickly and most of those on the floor keep right on dancing.

  “Repeat on the chorus and out,” says Jerry Kent.

  We play the chorus over and then finish the number. I see Loraine wandering over near the band platform. I can hear her saying: “Cigarettes, cigars, cigarettes.”

  Larry Kent quietly leaves the bandstand and the rest of us follow him. We have a fifteen-minute wait before the floor show.

  “Wonder what happened to that old guy,” says Jerry as I catch up with him. “Maybe he dropped dead.”

  “You find out,” I tell him, as I get the high-sign from Loraine that she wants to see me. “I’m going to talk to Loraine.”

  I leave Jerry and follow Loraine out into the private corridor that leads to Lang Marshall’s office and we are alone there.

  “Bob!” says Loraine. “That man was murdered! Someone stuck a knife in his back. I—I saw it.”

  “You saw who did it, Loraine?” I ask. “That what you mean?”

  “No.” Loraine shakes her pretty head. “I just saw the knife in his back—and Mr. Hamilton was such a nice man. It’s no wonder his niece screamed when she saw what had happened.”

  “Who was this Hamilton guy?” I ask. “Seems to me I’ve seen him around the club a lot, and always with that same dame.”

  “I don’t know much about him,” says Loraine. “I only knew him by name. But I think he must have been quite rich. He often gave me five-dollar tips. He usually came to the club one or two nights a week and always brought Norma Hamilton with him. She seemed very fond of her uncle.”

  A dark-haired guy steps into the corridor. He has a hard face, and I don’t remember ever having seen him before. Loraine and I stop talking and just stand there looking at the stranger.

  “I’m Corrigan, Police Headquarters,” he says. “What do you two know about the murder?”

  It wasn’t what he says, but the way he says it that I don’t like. There’s a nasty note in his voice, and he keeps looking at us like he suspected we did the killing.

  “We don’t know anything about it,” I say. “I was up on the band platform when it happened and Miss Doyle was selling cigarettes.”

  “Oh, sure,” says this Corrigan. “Nobody ever does know anything when things happen in a joint like this.”

  He walks on back along the corridor without paying any more attention to us. He draws open the door of Lang Marshall’s private office and steps inside, closing the door behind him. Loraine looks at me and frowns. Lang Marshall doesn’t like anyone, even a detective, barging into his office when he isn’t there.

  “The boss isn’t going to be pleased,” says Loraine. “But I guess that’s his business.”

  Marshall strolls in from the outer entrance to the corridor. He doesn’t look the least bit ruffled. I’ve never seen him when he did. He’s a character. I’d heard he had been running night clubs ever since the days when the speakeasies were going full blast and always doing all right for Lang Marshall. He is good looking in a hard sort of way and might have been any age from thirty to close to fifty.

  “Better get back on the floor, Loraine,” he says. “And the band is getting ready for the floor show, Bob.”

  “Okay, Boss,” I say. “A guy named Corrigan just went into your private office. Said he was from Headquarters.”

  MARSHALL scowls and heads for his office in a hurry. He flings open the door and just stands there for a moment, staring in. I can tell he doesn’t like what he sees, though his expression doesn’t change to any great extent.

  He glances back at us and motions for us to join him at the-door. We walk down the corridor and stop where we can look into the office. Corrigan is seated in a chair at Marshall’s desk. He doesn’t make a pretty corpse.

  “Another murder!” gasps Loraine. “That’s right,” Marshall says softly. “I wanted you two with me as witnesses. You know this man was alive when he came into my office and I didn’t see him until after he was dead. Someone might get the idea that I killed him.”

  “Not unless you’re a magician, you didn’t do it,” I say. “The police still around, Boss?”

  “Of course,” says Marshall. “Go and find them and bring them here, Loraine. Hurry!”

  Loraine turns and runs back down the corridor. I glance at my wrist-watch. The floor show is due to start in five minutes and I know I’d better get back with the band.

  I look at the dead man. Corrigan hasn’t been shot and there’s no knife sticking in him that I can see. I wonder how he was killed. “I’ve got to get back with the band, Boss,” I say.

  “Go ahead, Bob,” says Marshall, as he steps into the office. “But remember we all found the body together.”

  “Sure.”

  I beat it back to the stand. All the rest of the boys are in their places. Jerry Kent gives me a look as I hastily seat myself at the drums. He doesn’t like guys showing up at the last minute.

  “The boss just found another stiff in his office,” I say. “Guy named Corrigan—said he was from Police Headquarters.”

  “The police will take care of the investigation,” says Kent. “We’ve got our own jobs to do here.”

  The master of ceremonies steps out on the floor with a portable mike in his hands and starts giving the cash customers the old buildup for the floor show. He finishes his spiel and Kent gives us the “One and—” and we go into the opening number.

  I am beating it out pretty mechanically. I keep thinking about that guy Corrigan being murdered in Marshall’s office the way he was. Far as I knew there had been no one in the office when he went in there and yet when Marshall opens the door a few minutes later he finds Corrigan dead.

  If anyone had come out of the office after Corrigan went in, Loraine and I would have seen them. Unless . . . There had been just a few seconds there in the corridor wh
en both Loraine and I were looking at Lang Marshall. Somebody might have stepped out of the office then, but if they did, then surely the boss must have seen them.

  The floor show runs the same length of time as usual, and seemed to be going over big with the crowd in the club. But to me it seems hours before it’s over. As soon as it’s finished one of the waiters comes over and speaks to Jerry Kent. He listens and nods.

  “The boss wants to see you, Bob,” Kent says. “Marty will sit in for you on the drums while we play the next number.” Marty plays steel guitar but he can handle the drums, too. He’s just fair when it comes to beating the skins. Nothing flashy like I am, but good enough to get by.

  I leave the stand and the waiter leads me around the room to where Lang. Marshall is sitting alone at a table. I notice that Loraine is wandering around, selling cigarettes.

  “If there’s trouble, buy a cigar from me, Bob,” she says in a low tone as I pass close to her. “Remember!”

  “Sure,” I say, though I don’t get what she means by buying a cigar. I always smoke cigarettes. “I’ll do that, honey.”

  WHEN I reach Marshall’s table he motions me to sit down. There is a big mirror behind us that reflects a good bit of the room.

  “I want to talk to you, Bob,” says Marshall when I am seated at the table. “That guy Corrigan who was found dead in my office wasn’t a detective. That stuff he gave you about being from Headquarters was just a bluff.”

  “Oh, I see.” I don’t see, but I am hoping Marshall will tell me more of it. “How did he die?”

  “He was poisoned,” says Marshall. “There’s one strange angle to the whole thing. The police are certain now that it was Corrigan who stabbed Thomas Hamilton in the back out here earlier tonight.”

  “What makes them so sure of that?”

  “They found Corrigan’s fingerprints on the knife.” Marshall frowns. “Having Hamilton killed the way he was makes it tough for me.”