Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “You saved me from a bad situation, Eddie.”

  “Glad to do it, Copper. Told you I’d changed my mind about you after learnin’ what I did from Mom. Meant it when I said I guess I was goin’ straight. Into the Army, then comin’ back when the job’s done and aimin’ to get married and get a job and be decent.”

  “I believe you now, Eddie. That package you took—?”

  “My last two crimes, Copper—packin’ an illegal gun and burglary. I got rid of the gun and threw my skeleton keys down a sewer manhole. Now, I’m starting clean.”

  “The package—?”

  “Oh, that! I tore it open and threw the socks away. They were gaudy plaids, Copper, and you wouldn’t have liked ’em. They weren’t honest socks, anyhow, comin’ from Tony Parsons.”

  “I’m hintin’ about the money—the hundred dollars.”

  “Oh, that!” Eddie said, grinning. “I folded the bills up tight and dropped ’em into the Salvation Army kettle on the corner when the fake Santa Claus wasn’t lookin’. Tony Parsons’ contribution to the Christmas fund.”

  Eddie grinned again, and Asher answered with a grin of his own. Then Eddie started toward the busy street.

  “Merry Christmas, Copper!” he said, as he disappeared into the crowd.

  DEAD MAN’S GIFT

  Ben Frank

  Jim Eddie is sure there’s no Haw in his perfect

  JIM EDDIE let the heavy iron poker clatter to the floor and wiped a gloved hand across his clammy face. He felt exhausted. His thin body trembled, and his knees felt watery. Beating the life out of old Burl Benton hadn’t been easy. Funny, how hard it was to kill a man with an iron stove poker.

  He glanced at the twisted body on the floor and shuddered.

  Overhead, the ceiling lights burned brightly, but the blinds were drawn. Eddie had seen to that when he’d first entered old Benton’s house. No danger of his struggle with the man having been seen from the outside.

  He glanced over the dining room. No clues in here. He’d been careful about that. He patted his hip pocket where he’d put the roll of bills which had been in the blue, egg-shell china sugar bowl.

  On the dining table among the cheap dishes lay the pieces of the shattered sugar bowl. Funny about that. If old Benton hadn’t come home unexpectedly, making Eddie drop the sugar bowl, Eddie might not have found the bills stuffed inside. He chuckled—then shivered. Sweat popped out on his face again as he remembered he was a murderer.

  In this State they burned murderers in the electric chair!

  His thin body began to shake all over again. His nerves were going to pieces, and he mustn’t let that happen. Going to pieces might cost him his life. A man needed a smoke at a time like this.

  He fumbled through his pockets for his cigarettes, only to discover that he’d come off without them. He wet his stiff, cold lips and cursed hoarsely. Now that he didn’t have a cigarette, his raw nerves screamed for one.

  Then he remembered the cigarettes on the dining table. Old man Benton’s cigarettes.

  HE STUMBLED to the table, found the half-empty pack, and clawed out one of the crumpled cylinders with his gloved fingers. The cigarette going, he pulled a deep breath of the sweet smoke into his lungs. That helped. His knees stopped rattling together, and his heart slowed its wild pounding. He even smiled a little, thinking that no one would ever dream that he, the meek and soft-spoken Jim Eddie had killed a man and then had had the nerve to smoke the dead man’s cigarettes.

  Still smiling, he dropped the pack into his coat pocket.

  Jim Eddie’s room was on the ground floor of Mrs. Tanner’s boarding house. He’d left by the window. Now he returned the same way. Outside, the snow was growing thicker. He chuckled softly. Tomorrow, the world would be covered by a clean white blanket—with no tracks from his bedroom window showing. He hid the roll of bills under his mattress, undressed and went to bed.

  But he didn’t go to sleep. He couldn’t forget that he was a murderer, and the sweat kept popping out on him while his mind kept going over the events of the night, checking everything, trying to assure himself that he was in the clear.

  The whole ghastly business had begun with the Handley Races over at the county seat. He had borrowed some money—he didn’t like the word embezzled—from the Maxwell Milling Company where he worked as bookkeeper. He’d had a tip on the races—a sure thing—and had shot the works. But the tip had been a phony. The company’s money had been lost. It wasn’t much—just slightly over three hundred dollars, but that was plenty enough to send him to jail.

  He could have put the money back if he’d had a few months’ time, but Mr. A. Maxwell had taken a sudden notion to sell the mill. That meant the books were to be audited at the end of the week. So Jim Eddie had to have that money back in the safe by Friday. Or else! And this was Wednesday.

  And on this same Wednesday, old Burl Benton sold the rent corn from his farm to the Maxwell Milling Company.

  “Don’t want your check,” he told Jim Ed-, die shortly, “if it’s on Oakley’s bank.”

  The Fairview Bank, run by Cuthbert Oakley, was the only bank in the little mining town.

  “We do our business with Oakley’s bank,” Eddie replied.

  “I’ll take cash then,” Benton said. “Oakley and me ain’t on speakin’ terms. I’d just as soon take a lickin’ as one of his checks!”

  So Jim Eddie counted out the money—a little over five hundred dollars. And as he watched the old man stuff the bills into a baggy coat pocket, he realized that Benton wouldn’t have a chance to bank the money over at the county seat before the next morning. Right then, Eddie began making plans to get that roll of bills.

  Old man Benton lived alone at the edge of town. On Wednesday nights he always went to lodge meeting, so Eddie knew it was safe to search the old man’s house that night.

  Getting into the house was simply a matter of turning a skeleton key in the side-door lock. But finding the money was another matter. Jim Eddie looked every place where a man might hide money and found nothing.

  He was ready to give up when the blue, egg-shell china sugar bowl on the table caught his eyes. But he supposed it had sugar in it. After all, that’s what sugar bowls were for.

  However, something about this particular sugar bowl drew him over to the table. Maybe it was the way the light made the deep blue seem to change color. Maybe it was the fact that this delicate piece of china seemed so out of place among the cheap dishes. Maybe it was fate.

  Anyway, Eddie picked it up, remembering that Mrs. Benton, when she was living, collected blue egg-shell china. He held it up to the light, not even thinking to take off the lid and look inside. A man surely wouldn’t put money into a sugar bowl and leave the bowl in the middle of the dining table. It just didn’t occur to Eddie that sometimes the best place to hide something was in the most conspicuous place in the room.

  And then the door opened behind him. It was old Burl Benton, home early from his lodge meeting. The old man let out an angry growl and started across the room. And Jim Eddie dropped the sugar bowl. It broke into a thousand glittering blue fragments, and the wad of bills rolled across the table.

  Eddie’s hand shot out, grabbed the money shoved it into a pocket. Then he turned on old man Benton.

  “You low-down, dirty thief—” Benton began.

  THE heavy iron poker was the first thing Eddie got his hands on. He had to hit the old man, finish him. There was no other way. The blood pounded up through his brain, and a new strength squeezed into his flabby muscles.

  He lifted the weapon, brought it down. The blow laid open Benton’s scalp, the blood ran down over his face. The sight of that red, spurting liquid spurred Eddie on.

  When he’d finished, the old man lay dead, and Jim Eddie was a murderer!

  But now he was safely back in his room and in bed with the money under his mattress. Tomorrow, he’d return the three hundred to the safe in the mill. No one would ever know that he’d played the races with the compa
ny’s money. He could keep right on with his job under the new owner. Everything would go on as if nothing had happened. He’d still be that nice Jim Eddie who kept books at the mill.

  He lay very still and tried to sleep, but his mind kept checking over the events of the night. He’d kept on his gloves. There’d be no fingerprints. No one would have any reason to suspect him of the crime, for a lot of people had been around the mill office when he’d given the money to old Benton. By now, everyone in town probably knew about that money being in the old man’s possession. News like that traveled fast in a small town. No, Jim Eddie guessed he didn’t have a thing to worry about. No reason why he shouldn’t go to sleep.

  Outside, the snow kept swishing down the windows. Someplace inside the house, a clock struck three. Eddie went to sleep soon after that.

  The next morning, Eddie dressed with his usual care. The world was white and bright outside. From another part of the house came the clatter of dishes and the smell of frying bacon. With the sun streaking warmly across the floor, his fears of the night seemed foolish and far removed. Eddie was suddenly famished. A soft whistle came from between his thin lips as he started for the door. He was going to eat a whale of a breakfast.

  Just as his fingers touched the doorknob, a heavy fist pounded on the door. The whistle froze on Jim Eddie’s lips, and his heart began to hammer.

  The knock came again. Then Eddie remembered that he had nothing to worry about, and opened the door. Old Gus Curry, the town marshal, stood looking down at him with his shrewd bright blue eyes.

  “H’lo, Jim,” Gus Curry said.

  For a moment, Jim Eddie couldn’t find his mice. His hands went clammy, and he wanted to push past Curry and go racing down the hall and out of the house.

  Gus Curry shuffled into the room.

  “Jim,” he observed, “you look kinda tuckered out this mornin’.”

  “Something I ate last night,” Jim Eddie managed.

  Curry sat down and tugged at his white mustache.

  “Somebody murdered old man Benton last night, too,” he said tersely.

  “Murdered!” Eddie swallowed. “No!”

  GUS CURRY nodded.

  “Bill Watt—you know Bill—he rents the old man’s farm—Bill came over to see the old man early this mornin’, and found him dead. He’d been beat over the head with the stove poker. Bill said the old man had taken his corn money in cash. I found about fifty dollars in his pockets, but figure he ought to have had more’n that. I come over to find out how much cash you gave him yesterday for his corn, Jim.”

  “I’d have to check at the mill to tell you exactly,” Jim Eddie lied carefully. “Close to five hundred dollars, as I remember it.”

  A wave of relief had swept over Jim Eddie. Gus Curry didn’t suspect a thing. He was here simply to learn how much money the old man had had.

  Eddie suddenly wanted to whistle, but he couldn’t do that. Not while Curry was around. His hand groped in his coat pocket, came out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Old man Benton’s cigarettes! Eddie had forgotten all about putting them into his coat pocket.

  The shock of seeing the cigarettes stunned him for a moment. Then he got hold of himself. Cigarettes were alike any place you went.

  There was nothing about a half pack of cigarettes to condemn a man—even if they were the gift of a dead man.

  The shock passed. With steady fingers, he pulled out one of the bent cigarettes, and put it between his lips. Feeling suddenly secure, he grinned and held back the pack toward Gus Curry.

  “Smoke?”

  “Thanks.”

  Curry took the pack, turned it upside down, and shook one of the cigarettes into the palm of his big hand. His chin stiffened, and his bright blue eyes whipped up to Eddie’s face.

  “Where’ve you had these cigarettes?” he demanded.

  Eddie felt his blood run cold.

  “Why—no place,” he panted. “No place—except in my pocket!”

  The marshal swung to his feet. His eyes searched the room. He began jerking out dresser drawers and spilling the contents on the floor.

  Eddie suddenly couldn’t stand up.

  “What’s the matter?” he choked, slumping into a chair. “What’re you lookin’ for?”

  “Old man Benton’s money,” Gus Curry replied grimly.

  He heaved the covers and mattress off the bed, and a thin grin came to his face. He held out his left hand, the one into which he’d dumped the cigarette. A small blue object glittered in the light.

  “Old Burl Benton’s wife was the only person in Fairview who ever went in for blue egg-shell china,” the marshal went on grimly. “And when that blue chip of china fell out of the cigarette pack into my hand, I remembered the broken sugar bowl on Benton’s table.”

  He reached down and picked up the roll of bills that had been under the mattress.

  “Some way”—Gus Curry’s voice rolled on like heavy gray waves over a bleak sea-coast—“a piece of that sugar bowl got into your pack of cigarettes, Jim. That’s why I started lookin’ for this money. That’s why you’re going to fry—”

  Jim Eddie didn’t hear any more. He buried his head in his hands, and his thin shoulders shook.

  In this State, he remembered, they burned murderers in the electric chair!

  MURDER OFF THE RECORD

  Bill Morgan

  A detective is a good witness to your innocence when your homicide scheme is foolproof. But how can you trust a flatfoot in a case of . . .

  DR. AGUST FIELDING stood there in the upstairs bedroom and passed a hand with faint nervousness over his graying hair. There was nothing to worry about, really, he told himself. It was 9:58 in the morning by his strap watch. The city detective was due to arrive for guard duty at eleven. That was just about right; ample time to get ready.

  The expensive cabinet radio stood by the four-poster bed with its lid raised, revealing the record-player mechanism and the shiny surface of the clean blank record. The disk had cost Fielding exactly fifty cents, he recalled. It would net him in the neighborhood of $50,000. Which wasn’t a bad deal, considering the absolute lack of risk.

  The doomed old man in the white linen pajamas stirred feebly beneath the satin quilt. Fielding was prepared for that. He knelt beside his medical bag and took from it a sponge the size of an egg and a slim canister of ether. He moistened the sponge, pressed it deftly to Claude Blaylock’s quivering nostrils.

  Not that Blaylock could cause trouble in this weakened condition. But he might very possibly be capable of speech later when the detective arrived. It could be awkward if he expressed curiosity over Fielding’s reason for making a home phonograph record at his bedside.

  The old man sighed deeply and lay still. Fielding put the ether away. Moving swiftly, he took the nickel-plated microphone from its place inside the cabinet. He set it on the carpet, facing directly into the radio’s speaker. He switched the set on but kept the volume control turned off. Then he started the blank record spinning, lowered the needle onto it.

  He recorded one minute of absolute nothingness. At the end of the minute he gradually opened the volume control. It was a dance band playing. He allowed it to continue for ten seconds. Then he thumbed a pushbutton and tuned in a male quartet from another station. He continued pushing buttons at intervals of a few seconds until he got a loud-voiced announcer saying:

  “. . . who defies the attempts of the underworld to muzzle him. Ladies and gentlemen, we present your fearless crusader for law and order in this city, Jimmy Lullwood!”

  FIELDING stood up, carefully, so not even the squeak of his shoes could be picked up by the microphone. Frowning, he stared at the almost lifeless body of Claude Blaylock. Not lifeless enough, as long as radio reporters like Jimmy Lullwood, were around. When a man was as near death as Blaylock rested, the conscience sometimes did strange and terrible things.

  Lullwood’s voice was sharp, biting, “An open letter to Claude Blaylock: Once to every man comes a chance to
atone for past errors. You have that chance now, Sir. By your own admission, you are at the door of Death. You therefore need not fear the retribution of the law. You can freely admit to any guilt . . .

  Fielding continued to stare at the flaccid figure on the bed. His mind was automatically, without any volition of his own, dropping back to a September night in 1926 when Claude Blaylock had pitched headlong into his office, clutching both hands to the red wetness that smeared his coat. The nightmare of that experience lived with Fielding again. The wild pleas of the wounded man, the promise of money, big money; the struggle of ethics against greed that had raged within his own mind.

  Greed had won and, contrary to all the old proverbs he’d learned as a boy, it had given him strength. Never had his probe and scalpel moved with greater ease and skill. The bullet came free; the patient lived. The police never knew of that backroom surgery. Money changed hands but, more importantly, a codicil appeared in a grateful politician’s will; “To my dear friend Dr. August Fielding I bequeath . . .”

  Jimmy Lullwood’s incisive voice was running on. “It is alleged, Mr. Blaylock, that you have engaged in political vice and corruption for two decades. It is further alleged that no less than a dozen men, both in public life and the underworld, are connected with your shady operations. You have the chance to finger them at no cost to yourself. And that is why I am waging this campaign against your conscience. You are the key figure. Despite warnings from your confederates, I intend to turn that key . . .”

  Fielding stabbed a blunt finger against the radio console. The voice cut off in mid-sentence. Slowly, absently, almost without thinking, Fielding picked up the microphone and called in a choked, muffled voice:

  “Gus! Help me! Gus . . .”

  It took three minutes to replace the microphone, set the record so it would be ready to play when he needed it, lower the lid of the radio, and air out the bedroom to kill traces of the ether. Then he went downstairs to the living room and sank into Blaylock’s flowered wingchair.