Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  When Tom learned the hiding place of a desperate criminal he simply went after him, for Tom was a policeman—but it wasn’t so simple, after all.

  IT WAS one of those small rooming-house hotels that hovered around the main section of the city. Police Sergeant Tom McAvoy paused in front of it for a moment, then pushed open the door and stepped inside. He kept his gun hand tense.

  His eyes asked a question of the clerk who stood up behind the desk. The clerk jerked his head toward the corridor behind him.

  “Room Thirteen, end of the hall,” the clerk said, in a half-whisper. “He’s been in there all day. I recognized him from the papers.” He looked behind McAvoy expectantly and his eyes widened as no one else followed.

  “You alone?” he asked.

  The Sergeant nodded.

  “It’s Jed Slivers!” The clerk was incredulous. “He’s dangerous.” Again Sergeant McAvoy nodded and started toward the corridor, but stopped as the clerk moved toward him.

  “There’s a reward out for him, isn’t there? I read about it—”

  McAvoy stopped, his fists clenched. He wanted to grasp this bony skeleton in front of him by the neck, shake him until his eyes bulged and those spectacles fell off from that long nose.

  He took a deep breath. “You’ll get your reward,” he said. “Now shut up. And get back to your desk. Or under it.”

  He moved into the dark hallway, his shoes silent over the dusty floor. Someone was laughing in a room on his right, the sound of a bottle clinking against a glass, a woman’s voice blurred through the door. He felt a contempt rising in him. Let them laugh, the filthy bums, laugh and drink and make love, while a man went to his death.

  He forced himself to breathe deeply again, and his lungs stifled against the odor of decayed wood, and the dusty unswept floor. He stopped as his foot scuffed against a warping board, listened. There was no sound ahead. He must control himself, be calm, cold-blooded about it all. Jed Slivers deserved all that was coming to him, and more. One death could never atone for the two prison guards killed in his escape, the shopkeeper in Detroit lying dead, or the callous murder of the clerk in Sullivan’s Junction, shot in the back for no reason at all as Jed and his gang were leaving.

  He moved forward again, cautiously, his hand on his gun now. The dim light seemed to drive the shadows back on themselves, make them thicker along the walls and floor.

  For years he had followed the career of Jed Slivers, the career that had started in small-time robberies and worked itself into a well-paying racket. Jed had tried almost everything at least once, from stolen cars to slot machines.

  The police had followed his career, too, tried vainly to pin something definite on him, until finally they had caught him smuggling dope. McAvoy had cursed to himself and smiled a little bitterly as he read of Jed’s being captured and sentenced to the state penitentiary. Perhaps, he had thought, the career of Jed Slivers was at an end now.

  Then the escape, and Jed had started in all over again, robberies, and petty thefts, followed by murders and finally a reign of terror that had made his name a by-word throughout the middle west. He had gathered a small gang around him, but one by one the federal agents had tracked them down. Three of them had paid with their life already. Now there was left only Jed, the ringleader.

  McAvoy knew he shouldn’t be going in here now, alone. He should have passed the information on to the lieutenant and waited for instructions. Probably it would cost him his job, but he would face that part of it when he came to it. Because after all it was his job, his alone. There was one thing none of the other police knew, not even the federal agents, who knew most everything. Slivers’ real name was McAvoy; the man in room 13 was his brother.

  ROOM 13. He was in front of it now. Slowly he drew his service revolver, held it steady, and then with one quick motion his hand grasped the knob, threw open the door. The occupant had been sitting on the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands. When the door burst open he made one startled movement under the dim light, then froze as he saw the gun in the policeman’s hand.

  Sergeant Tom McAvoy looked him over, and death and the chair stared back at him from the two frightened eyes.

  “Hold it, right where you are. And get those hands up. High.”

  He held his voice cold, impersonal.

  “Coppers!” Jed gasped under his breath. His hands trembled slightly as he raised them above his head. “What do you want with me? I haven’t done nothin’.”

  “Quit stalling, Jed. And walk over here by the door. And keep those hands where they are.”

  Something was dawning in those two burning eyes, a gleam of recognition and with it a last glimmering of hope.

  “I know you,” Jed said slowly. “You’re Tom. You’re my brother—Tom. A copper.” He spoke faster now, louder. “You must be him! I’d know that voice anywhere, and that scar on your face—”

  “All right. So I’m Tom. And you should know that scar. You gave it to me yourself, when we were a couple of kids. Remember?”

  “Tom! You’re not taking me in?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? You’re just a dirty crook, dirtier than most of em.

  “But, Tom—I’m you’re own brother! You’re the. last person I’ve got in the world, Tom. All the rest of the world is against me. They’ve hunted me, followed me, they’ll kill me if you take me in. You know that, Tom. It’ll be the same as though you killed me, yourself, killed your own brother. Tom, for God sakes, for our mother’s sake, give me a break!”

  “Shut up! And stand up.”

  But Jed remained huddled on the bed, and the fear of death seemed to draw the features in until only the skull of a man was visible under the yellow light.

  “Tom, you remember our mother—you remember when she was dying. I wasn’t supposed to hear, but I listened, anyway. She called you in, Tom, and I listened at the door. She said, ‘Always look after your younger brother, Tom. He’s wild, but he isn’t really bad,’ she said. I heard her. She said, ‘Promise me you’ll always look after and take care of Jed, and help him if he should get in any trouble.’ Those were her very words, Tom. And you said, ‘I promise, mother.’ Tom, you can’t break that promise.”

  “Cut the sob stuff. And get up. You forfeited any promise I might have made a long time ago. All that’s left for you now is the hot seat. Come on, get up. I’ve wasted enough time on your blubbering.”

  Tom moved toward the front of the bed, motioned toward the doorway with his head. The revolver remained steady, motionless, unrelenting.

  Slowly Jed rose, his feet dragging the floor as he moved to the center of the room.

  “Did you ever think how it’s going to feel when you walk that last mile, Jed? And when they strap you in the chair? You should have thought of those things, Jed. A long time ago. All right. That’s far enough. Hold it right there.”

  As Tom started toward the motionless figure he stumbled and fell against the chair, heavily. Jed gave one last, frantic look over his shoulder and made a dash for the doorway.

  The gun in Tom’s hand spoke once, and the running figure went down in the hall, like a sack of grain thrown from a wagon. One leg kicked convulsively, then was still.

  Tom got up, managed to guide the revolver back into his holster, and stood looking down at the dead man.

  “It had to come sometime, Jed,” he muttered. “You could never have got away. And even if you had, it would have been to be hunted, and starved, and tracked down, from city to city. The weeks in the jail awaiting trial, and the courtroom, and the people, hating you, or curious, or just being amused while you fought up there for your life. And you couldn’t have won, Jed. The verdict, and the judge passing sentence. Then the appeal, and the appeal denied and more weeks of waiting, alone with the four bare walls and the fear of death inside you. You always were a coward, Jed, even when we were kids. Sitting in a dark cell and biting your fingers and seeing the trees through the bars you can’t break. Sleepless nights, and death playing with you
like a cat with a mouse, tortured by a hope that you know is hopeless. The final despair, the sinking feeling in your stomach, and your legs giving out from under you as they half carry you to the execution. Perhaps a last minute reprieve, and more waiting, and the same thing all over again. I saved you from all that, Jed. I kept my promise.”

  (THE END)

  EASY KILL

  William Hellman

  Like all artists, Rick took pride in his work, but for a brush he used a .25 automatic, and for a model, he used the woman whose unspoken words would damn him to the chair.

  RICK HAINES was a master craftsman. He admitted it. He also admitted to the cleverest brain in the profession; the police hadn’t a thing on him because he always planned his jobs well and his plans always worked because they were simple and direct. As now—

  He came briskly down the hall, a tall, well-built man, impeccably dressed, carrying a battered brief case. He fore-knew exactly what to do and what to expect when at noon he walked into the fourth-floor office of Acme Finance, and closed the door behind him. The lone occupant, a little gray-haired man, rose hastily and came toward him, said: “I’m sorry sir, but we—”

  Rick said not a word. He pushed the little .25 deep under the man’s breastbone, fed him two efficient little pills with no more of a report than the pop of bubble-gum, and rolled the body out of sight behind a desk. Then he pulled off the big, black-lensed glasses that were an effective disguise for his small, shrewd eyes, laid his gray fedora on top of them on the desk and went to the unlocked safe where he swiftly and efficiently transferred its more cheering assets to the briefcase. He turned to pick up his hat and glasses and walk out the way he had come, when he froze in amazed disbelief—standing in the open doorway watching him, was a woman. She just stood there with her hand on the knob, a stout, middle-aged woman with gray hair under a little, pertly styled bonnet and blue eyes behind rimless glasses. She was looking at him, her lips parted a little in surprise, as though she had expected to find someone else there.

  At the sight of her standing there like that, his well-oiled plans deserted him; he hadn’t even remotely considered a chance intrusion. His first wild, blind impulse was to flee, to shoot his way out, but his clever, high-speed brain kept him from making such a fool mistake. He reasoned: she’s just standing there, not yelling her head off. So, she just thinks I belong here. I’ll get her inside, let her have it, and—He came toward her, smiling, bowing politely.

  “Come in, madam,” he invited heartily. “We are—”

  For a moment longer she just stood there, watching him like a hypnotized bird, shifting her bulk uneasily, trying to see past him into the office. She brought her hands up in a little gesture, as if to make a sign, then suddenly turned and fled.

  “Wait!” Rick shouted after her, but she scurried away and was gone before he could grab her. He cursed loud and luridly—she was on to him! He had to catch her and kill her before she got away. She was a living, competent witness who had had plenty of time to memorize his face.

  He had the presence of mind to slap his hat on his head, hook his dark glasses on his long nose and grab the briefcase, before he dashed down the hall after her. But the pause had given her time to disappear; he heard the elevator doors clang shut and the car was just dropping out of sight—he knew his ticket to the chair was on it.

  He took the stairs in amazing, long-legged strides, almost dropping straight down them. At the street floor, he compelled himself to pause a moment, then go swiftly but sanely through the door into the foyer. The elevator car was loading for another ascent; ahead of him, waddling desperately for the street, was the fat slob who could put the finger on him.

  Panic caught at him again. He had to stop her, had to! It was all he could do to keep from shouting at her to stop; he actually started to pull the gun from his pocket to shoot her as she drove ahead through the crowded foyer. She paused once as she came abreast the line of telephone booths, and Rick thought: here it is, she’s calling the cops where I can’t stop her, here in front of this mob. But she went on, and he guessed without looking that the phones were all busy.

  But it was a brief respite at best, a few more steps and she’d be on the street, yelling her head off for a cop. Back in his brain something seemed wrong, for why hadn’t she given the alarm before this, to the elevator operator or someone? His quick mind had the answer: she was a woman scared silly and she was beating it for a place of refuge—her home, probably. She’d keep her tongue in silence until she could contact someone she trusted—her old man, likely.

  She lumbered out onto the street, paused a moment, while Rick, panicky in his fear and uncertainty, weighed his chances of plugging her right here and running for it, or tailing her. He had no choice; while he hesitated, she popped into a waiting cab and was off down the street.

  He had a bad few seconds as he got his car out into traffic, but the drizzling, misty rain helped him, the cabby was a cautious soul and Rick caught up with him two blocks down. He kept close as they threaded through traffic, his eyes glued onto the back glass of the cab, where he could see her huddled and staring back at him repeatedly in her terror.

  He smashed the steering wheel a savage blow with his fist and let his rage run free. “The stinking idiot!” he snarled aloud. “I ought to have killed her right there in the office, then I wouldn’t have to chase her a couple miles to do it.”

  They came out onto the wide boulevard and the cab speeded up, but Rick drove carefully, just keeping his quarry in sight; he didn’t want to be picked up now. The rain beat steadily against the windshield; the sedate whir of the wiper was company for his thoughts. His master mind was already busily at work planning and as it worked, his rage vanished and his confidence returned. He could handle this job—easy!” He’d been right back there—she was holing up somewhere to wait a chance to spill what she’d seen after she got over her terror. And she wouldn’t expect the killer to trail her clean out here in the suburbs; she’d figure he was already on the lam. Which was O.K. for Rick Haines.

  The cab swung-off the boulevard, went down a quiet, tree-aisled street, lined on both sides by big, box-like houses set back from the sidewalk behind a narrow strip of lawn. Rick swung in, parked the stolen green Chevvy and watched intently; the cab pulled up to the curb half-way down the street, the woman got out, scurried up the walk onto the wide porch. In the half-murk, Rick watched intently and when she used a key instead of ringing the bell, he laughed in pleased confidence, for it meant he had guessed aright—she’d he alone!

  He clambered over the seat back, lifted the rear cushion and slid the briefcase back under a mess of papers and old rags he had placed there. He waited a while, then drove boldly down and parked before the house. He got out, swung briskly up the flagstone walk, across the porch and punched the button. He didn’t hear the sound of the bell within, so he punched the button again, peering through the curtained glass, and he saw a little light flash off and on somewhere inside in response to his fingered pressure. His lip curled in derision—of all the silly stunts! So the big fool’s nerves were too bad to stand the clatter of a bell, eh?

  He never had a doubt that his surmise was correct, that she would answer his summons. He waited until she opened the door, stood looking at him enquiringly, then he whipped off the black glasses; she gasped in surprise, her eyes amazed. Her hands came up in a gesture again and before she had the wit to close the door on him, it was too late; he was in the hall, the door closed, the little gun jammed deep against her soft, bulging middle.

  Her eyes were big pools of surprised terror.

  “Not a peep!” he warned savagely. “So you do recognize me, you blundering idiot! Well, you’ll never live to tell it!”

  She was paralyzed in her horror, trying desperately to back away from him, her fingers twisting helplessly at her mouth, from which no words would come. He pushed the little gun deeper under her sagging breast, fired twice, the bullets slanting up and to the right. Her clutching fin
gers clawed at her mouth and face in a gripping spasm of pain and terror; she swayed, then crumpled without a sound.

  Rick froze crouching over her, listening—the gun ready in his hand. But no other sound came to him, except somewhere the slow, ponderous ticking of a clock. The shots had made a small noise, like the snapping of a pencil, and perhaps there was someone else in another room. He couldn’t wait to find out; cautiously he investigated and found no one, and relaxed with a grin.

  Swiftly, he executed the rest of his lightning plan. He ransacked the house, turning out drawers and cupboards indiscriminately, spilling their contents in confusion, garnering items of value into a pillow slip.

  He came downstairs, dropped the sack of loot with a clatter on the kitchen floor, near the rear exit. He unlocked the door, leaving it partly open, and dropped the little gun nearby. He allowed himself a moment to grin in self-appreciation of his cleverness; the dumb police would lay the crime to a prowler who had killed the woman, ransacked the house, then had been frightened into dropping his loot and escaping out the back door. The little gun could be easily traced to a small-time, misshappen snowbird with a long record.

  He went back through the hall to where the woman still lay, a lumpy, sprawling heap. He peered out into the street through the curtain; the rain had stopped, it was wholly deserted and gray in the murky half-light. He put on his glasses, paused, went over and deliberately kicked the woman in the face, laughed and opened the door.

  He was half-way through it, when he halted, stunned—a man was coming toward him on the sidewalk, not ten feet from the flagstone walk. A car was parked a little distance behind the Chewy. Instantly, Rick realized what had happened; he hadn’t noticed the other car parked by the trees when he had looked out the curtains, and when he had gone back to kick the woman, the man had got out of it. Who was he? But more important, where was he going? Rick Haines wanted desperately to duck back into the house, but it was too late; the man had seen him.