by Jerry eBooks
“Swing it baby, tie it up! Swing it baby, tie it up! Comin’ at ya, comin’ at ya, comin’ at ya . . .”
“Harrigan, do you get it?” Eddy whispered.
I nodded. “I get it.”
My words were lost in the final climax of the drum-dance. Cavanaugh seemed to rip apart at the drums, leaping, beating. Vivian pirouetted twice, folded at the ankles, the knees, the hips, collapsing into a mound of flesh and quivering rhythm. Cavanaugh was on the tympani in a final thunderous uproar and then it faded, and faded, and Vivian’s long body shot straight up into the air like a fountain, came down lightly, and bowed.
The drum beat died, but metal and glass picked up the vibrations, a thousand little insects of sound.
Vivian swung on her long toes. “That’s all, Mark. I’ll go get dressed.”
Cavanaugh wriggled down from the stand, brushed the hair out of his eyes. His thick fingers crawled up and down his shirt front—they were still alive with spiders of unspent rhythm. Oily sweat flowed down his face. He blocked Vivian’s path to the dressing rooms, searched her with his eyes. His fingers played around his white throat and finally forced out some words. His voice was down in the well. “Sure, Vivian. You go get dressed.”
Vivian swished past him and through the back curtain. Cavanaugh got out a cigarette, clamped his teeth on it. The guy who never missed a beat with a drumstick had to use both hands to hold a match to that cigarette.
He paced up and down the floor, twisting his hips and shoulders with little cat motions. He came close enough so that I could see the muscles playing up and down his neck. Suddenly he slapped down the cigarette, ground it with his heel, and started toward the back of the pit, gliding on his toes.
Eddy Delgado got his long legs moving, ran down an aisle. “Cavanaugh!” Eddy’s voice sounded as if his chest had been run over with a truck.
THAT voice was a knife in Cavanaugh’s back. His body arched, spun on the toes. “Delgado! Where you been all the time, Eddy?” he rasped.
Eddy crouched down, shoved his chin out to protect his ribs. I started to get up, then slid back into my chair. The little voice was back, riding my shoulder. “Harrigan, how about you sitting this one out?”
Eddy was getting the words out somehow. “Cavanaugh, you’re the guy who murdered Leland Stokes! You slipped out the back curtain while Vivian was dancing to my song. You snapped Stokes’ neck with your hands while he was still asleep from that knockout—”
Cavanaugh slid sidewise along the dance floor on one foot, skating on his toe. His body moved, but there was no visible motion in it except the working of his spread hands. “What did you say, Eddy?”
“You murdered Stokes, Mark, because he threatened to boost Vivian into the movies, to take her away from the band, away from you and your drums! Drummers like you are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. Vivian didn’t have to have you, but you had to have her, Mark!”
Cavanaugh didn’t answer in words. He wove the answer with the twisting lines of his face. He took off from that skating toe in a crazy ballet leap.
I had to stand up to see. They were rolling, skidding around, wrestling like two kids in a sandpile. I could see Cavanaugh’s white hands inching up Eddy’s back. If those hands ever got to the throat, I wouldn’t give Eddy over thirty seconds—
The little voice spoke up. “You will note, Harrigan, that the competition for Vivian is rapidly being eliminated.”
Eddy’s arms were free but he wasn’t finding much use for them except to shred Cavanaugh’s shirt. All he could do was wheeze.
Cavanaugh was on top again, flattening the crooner. His fingers slipped past the hump of Eddy’s shoulders. The thumbs looped up around the base of Eddy’s neck.
“Harrigan, you will note . . .”
I trotted down, flattened my left hand against the back of Cavanaugh’s neck, palmed his forehead with my right and snapped. His arms and legs jerked apart like sprung pincers.
I grabbed his shoulders, spun him, tossed him up in the air, and threw a hard right into his face. He went over the piano, smeared through the music racks, and piled into the drums. His head hit a snare drum with a pop, smashed through the hides, and he was collared there. He didn’t move.
Vivian floated into the scene, trying to get a silk thing wrapped around her. “Oh, Eddy!” she wailed. “I heard you on the loudspeaker in the dressing—Oh, Eddy!”
She surveyed the wreckage of Mark Cavanaugh and then found her man. Eddy the Terrible was trying to push his face away from the floor but he couldn’t make it.
Vivian got down and pawed at his head, cooed over him.
“Oh, Bert,” she said, “wasn’t Eddy wonderful?”
“Eddy was tremendous,” I said and walked out to call the cops.
Which was all very well, I guess, considering that The Heartbeat rightly belongs with The Lung, and The Arm is only an arm. But if any smart-alec newspaperman gets hold of this and tries to dub me The Big Heart, there will be one neck in this town that they’ll never get untwisted!
THE END
HE HUNG TOO HIGH
Berna Morris
Nothing could induce Bill Rufus to go on a diet . . . until he was called on to catch a skinny crook.
“Chief or no Chief, the answer is—NO!” Detective Inspector William Rufus brought the flat of his hand down on the desk with a smack and his eyes were grim as he glared at the girl sitting across from him.
Judith Haskell returned his glare with warm brown eyes that crinkled slightly at the corners. She pushed her bright hair back from her forehead and shrugged slim shoulders.
“You were very nice to me about that accident the other day, and I—I thought that—”
“Listen.” Rufus heaved himself to his feet. He placed his fists on the desk and leaned forward. He spoke slowly and distinctly. “All my life I’ve liked food. I enjoy food. I like to eat. And Chief or no Chief I’ll keep on eating!” He swung away from the desk and stood looking out of the window, fists balled behind his broad back.
Judith gazed at his blue serge shoulders and shook her head slowly. She got to her feet. She sighed.
“It’s just that last night when I was covering that civic dinner, I heard some very pointed remarks about—well, about our ‘overstuffed’ police force.”
Rufus swirled. He placed a large hand over the spot where his third brass button used to be before he made plainclothes. He patted the spot. “Well—suppose I am fifteen or—or twenty pounds overweight. It’s all good and solid. And anyway, the Chief’s got no room to talk.” He turned back to the window.
“Mr. Rufus, if you would just cooperate, I guarantee that in two months—”
Rufus’ face was growing beefy as he turned slowly and looked at her silently. He seemed to have difficulty in getting his words out.
“Look.” He took a step forward. “You don’t seem to understand.” Another step. “I am not going to be your little guinea pig. I am not going on a diet and be written up in that lovely newspaper column of yours.” Another step and he brought his face close to Judith’s. “That nice column ‘Beauty with Judith’—’Read today how Inspector Rufus lost twenty pounds.’ That would be good publicity! A policeman in a beauty column!”
“It’s not just a beauty column, it’s a health column.”
“Well, I’m healthy and I’m going to stay that way.” His face was very close and Judith took a step backwards.
“Last night, the Chief was very enthusiastic.” She smiled slightly. “I rather got the impression that he might order all—ah—overweight police force members to diet.”
Rufus snorted. “No danger of that. It would include him. And anyway if they want my shield they can have it. I’ll keep my stomach.”
After the girl had gone, Rufus sank slowly into his swivel chair. He tilted it back and propped his feet on a desk drawer. For a long while he sat rolling a pencil between his fingers. Then there was a sharp crack and the two halves of the pencil fell to the floor. His feet thudded
down and from the drawer he drew a shaving mirror. Propping this against a book on the desk, he backed away until the mirror reflected a square portion of the midsection of his anatomy.
Inspector Rufus gazed critically, his rusty bead tilted. Then he turned sideways; squatted down until his own blue eyes stared at him; then rose slowly, getting a traveling picture of his curving outline.
He was thoughtful as he replaced the mirror. Then the drawer slammed shut and Rufus crushed his hat down over his ears.
“Damn it, no! Not for her or any other woman!”
He strode fiercely toward the door.
It burst open in his face and Lieutenant Stringer pounced on him.
“Say, Bill—you heard what’s happened?”
Rufus glared suspiciously. “What?”
“Steeplehead’s loose! Broke out this morning.”
For an instant lean hard lines seamed Rufus’ face.
“Any leads?”
Stringer shook his head. “Nothing yet. Thought I better tell you. Steeplehead talked mighty big when you sent him up.” Rufus shrugged. “It was three years ago. That high-brow little burglar is thinking about me now. He’s got his mind on getting away.” He opened the door again and the two men went into the hall. “Thanks, anyway, for the—say,” Rufus stopped and looked at his friend. “You got on somebody else’s hat?”
Stringer smiled and shook his head. The hat wobbled drunkenly. Rufus stretched out a big paw and lifted it gingerly. He stared at the few strands of thin, streaked hair adorning Stringer’s head.
“Jumping toadfish! What the hell happened to your hair?”
Stringer snatched the hat that was dangling from Rufus’ fingers and looked ruefully at the big man.
“You ain’t married are you, Bill?” Slowly Rufus shook his head, his eyes still fascinated by Stringer’s moth-eaten dome.
“I got enough trouble already.”
“It’s a great life. I was painting the garage and two of the kids were helping—see?” He sighed. “We got most of the paint out of my hair with turpentine, but there was a couple of spots we had to shave.” He sighed again. “Oh, well—it’ll grow out in a month or so. And like I said, it’s a great life, Bill. Say—how about you and that Haskell babe?”
He looked at Rufus’ darkening face and shook his head. “No. I guess two red-heads in one family would be one too many.”
Rufus pulled his hat down farther and strode off.
Stringer stared after him for a moment and then a half-smile flickered over his lips.
That night, for some reason, Rufus didn’t enjoy his supper. Two small round potatoes stared up at him from a circle of roast beef gravy like two pale accusing eyes. He pushed his plate away, and stumped out of the boarding house. “Damned snub-nosed little redhead!” He lit a cigar, took a couple of draws from it and flung it in the gutter. Then he walked on with the steady methodical tread of the man who has pounded the beat.
The city dulled and settled around him and it was close to midnight when he stopped and leaned against the high spiked fence of an old churchyard. This was the old part of town and warehouses and wholesale places had all but swallowed the small church and its tiny burying ground.
Rufus started to light another cigar, then stopped. Something had brought him down to this section. This was where he had cornered Steeplehead three years ago. He shook his head.
“Rufus, me lad, you’re slipping. No smart crook is going to head hell-for-leather right back where he got nipped. That is—not unless he figures that we’d figure that he wouldn’t—and that little college professor—gone—bad is as smart as they come—”
The big man moved quietly forward, sliding along the blank wall of a warehouse. He stopped at a door that showed a crack of pale light. The watchman’s cubby-hole was empty. Rufus’ face settled into hard lines as he looked about the little two-by-four room. A scrabbling noise came from the other side of the door that led into the warehouse itself.
Rufus’ hands moved simultaneously. The left reached overhead and flicked off the small electric light and before the light vanished, a .38 had appeared in his right hand.
For three silent minutes, Rufus waited. Nothing happened. The warehouse seemed dead and empty. Then there was a breath of sound on the other side of the door. Cautiously, Rufus stepped forward, turned the knob and inched the door open. Close to his feet there was a sound and his usually imperturbable heart leaped as something touched his ankle, clutched at it and then dropped limply away. A sobbing breath, like a groan came from the floor. Rufus found his small flashlight and in the wan circle of light saw the bloody face of the old night watchman. The man was struggling to his feet.
Rufus helped him into the little office and sat him in the chair.
“What happened, Pop?”
The old man shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know—I don’t remember—I was just settin’ here and then—Blam!—I was out there on the floor—” He touched his head gingerly.
“You just sit here, Pop. Take it easy. I’m going to have a look around—be right back.” Rufus closed the door of the small room behind him and stood in the heavy blackness of the warehouse. The close, thick air seemed to press against his chest, made breathing difficult.
He moved slowly forward in the darkness, feeling his way around the bales and boxes that cluttered the floor and which were stacked high on every side. Every few feet he would stop his silent progress and listen. All about him in the blackness there were small scurryings and scramperings and occasional squeaks. But when he had gone about half way across the wide floor, a heavy thud came from overhead and a muffled exclamation.
Rufus risked a flash of his light and moved swiftly to the far wall. Three years ago there had been some rickety stairs—they were still there; still rickety. This was a one-story building and upstairs there was only a low loft. The stairs ended at a closed door. Rufus stowed his light in a pocket and pushed gently, on the door; inched it open. A dim glow crept in the widening crack. Rufus looked through the narrow line of light. The brightness was coming from behind a stack of boxes on the other side of the low room. He pushed the door inward and slid into the loft, closing the door behind him. In spite of his size he made no noise as he edged his way toward the light that was radiating from behind the boxes.
Slipping the nose of the .38 around the edge of a box, Rufus eased forward until one corner of his eye could take in the scene in front of him. A big flashlight was sending a bright stream of light across the floor from its propped position on a box and in the middle of this puddle of light, a small figure was rocking back and forth. Both hands wrapped around one bare foot, the man was pouring forth a torrent of whispered curses.
Rufus took in the jimmy and the overturned crate that had apparently thudded on the man’s toes. He looked again. The man had hobbled to his feet, trying the bare foot tentatively on the floor. Apparently it wasn’t broken for he put on his shoe and stood upright. Rufus saw the man’s face then. It was Steeplehead. The wiry little Steeplehead picked up the jimmy again and looked ruefully down at his pants, craning his neck to get a posterior view. In falling, he had apparently caught them on a nail or a splinter because their rear was a ruin. Steeplehead shrugged philosophically and attacked the crate again. He thrust the jimmy under it and then heaved and cursed. Sweat coursed down his long thin face.
“Need some help, Steeplehead?” Rufus kept the gun trained on the middle of Steeplehead’s back and stepped from behind his box.
The little man froze, then slowly he straightened up, the jimmy hanging loosely in his limp hand. He was still facing away from Rufus and he turned his whole body, slowly, stiffly, as though reluctant to face what he knew was behind him. His bright, beady little eyes were brilliant points of reflected light.
“William. My old friend William, the Red.” He pronounced it ‘Wil-yum’ and he grinned.
“Yep, Steeplehead, it’s me.” Rufus stepped forward. “You know, Steeplehead, nobody has called m
e that since you went away. It’s a shame, but we got to do this all over again.” He reached for his handcuffs. But Steeplehead didn’t wait for the cuffs. He slung the jimmy—like a spear. And Rufus dodged as it went by his ear. The heavy iron banged into the box behind him and the flashlight rolled off and crashed on the floor. Rufus had time for one shot in the swift flicker of action.
But he knew that he had missed. Because Steeplehead was laughing in the darkness.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the blackness, Rufus searched the dark.
He hadn’t moved from his position by the boxes and he knew that Steeplehead couldn’t get back to the stairs without passing him. Then from his right and overhead he heard a sound. A thin squeak of metal. And against the blackness of the warehouse roof he saw a lighter square of grayness. The late moon was coming up and the outside sky was lightening. A laugh floated down from the open ventilator.
Rufus damned Steeplehead vehemently. The little squirt was already outside on the roof. No chance for a shot now. Rufus turned and then checked himself. From the roof Steeplehead had a choice of three or four different routes. If Rufus went back down the stairs, Steeplehead would be blocks away by the time he could make the circuit of the warehouse. He turned back.
His small flashlight stabbed the darkness until he found the terrace of boxes that came close to the low roof. He was sweating and breathing hard by the time he had hauled himself to the top of the pile. The ventilator was still open. Steeplehead hadn’t stopped to close it.
Rufus thrust his head and arms through and putting both hands down on the graveled roof, tried to haul himself through the opening. He struggled for a few minutes. Sweat was running down his collar and his lips were grim. He heaved and cursed but that place where the third brass button had formerly rested wouldn’t budge. He expelled a gusty breath.
Well, no help for it. He would have to go back through the warehouse. He thrust himself downwards.
A look of horror came into his eyes.
