Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  IN THE lobby of his apartment building, a woman was sitting on one of the two plush-covered benches. Her eyes followed Ben as he crossed to the automatic elevator. “Ben Starke?” she called as he passed. He turned. She was in her late forties, but men would ignore attractive women half her age to look at her. Her figure was full-blown without being heavy or bulging. Her nonchalantly crossed legs were girlishly slim. A cigarette dangled at a rakish angle from her very red lips.

  “That’s right,” Ben said, going toward her.

  She met him halfway. “I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour. My name is Eleanor Horton.” Her eyes moved nervously about the lobby. “We can’t talk here.”

  “Let’s go up to my apartment.”

  He cupped her elbow, led her into the elevator. On the way up, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes as if abruptly overcome by weariness. She seemed to have nothing more to say, not even when they entered his two-room apartment. She dropped into a chair and stared at her clasped hands.

  “Yes?” Ben prompted.

  She roused herself. “Kate Dietz recommended you. You did a job for her a few months ago. She said you were honest for a private detective.”

  “I’m flattered,” Ben said dryly. “It’s close to midnight. I’ve an office downtown where I transact business.”

  “I couldn’t wait. I found your home address in the phone book.” She crushed out her cigarette in the end-table ashtray. “Somebody wants to kidnap George.”

  “George?” Ben said quietly. He stood waiting for more.

  “George Frost. I’m a distant relative, his guardian since his father died three years ago. His father was Morgan Frost, the hairpin manufacturer. Since childhood George has suffered from a heart condition. He is getting worse rather than better. My husband and I must give him constant attention.”

  “Are you rich, Mrs. Horton?” Her eyes dropped. “Do you mean, could I afford to pay ransom if George were kidnaped? No. Almost the only source of income is the small bequest George’s father left us in return for taking care of the boy. But George in his own right is well-to-do.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twelve. As his guardian, I am executor of his estate. I see what you are getting at, Mr. Starke. Yes, I could use George’s own money to ransom him if he were kidnaped.” She lit a fresh cigarette with unsteady hands. “Mightn’t the police believe that I’d had him kidnaped and paid the money to myself?”

  “They might.”

  “I admit there’s this personal angle. I have to protect myself as well as George.” After a single puff, she was mangling the cigarette in the ashtray. “Last week I received a phone call. A strange voice told me that if I did not leave twenty thousand dollars in small hills under the oak tree at the south corner of the property I would never see George again. I simply hung up. At the time it seemed to me like the usual crackpot extortion threat. Two days ago George was walking along the road in front of the place. Two men came along and tried to force him into their car. George managed to break away and run into the house. In the hall he fainted. His heart can’t stand such excitement.”

  She leaned toward Ben, her hands clasped as if imploring him. “It would be murder. George would never live through being kidnapped!”

  “Did you call the police?”

  Mrs. Horton shrugged. “A policeman came and asked questions and went away. George was too upset to even describe the men. I live in terror that they will make another attempt.”

  Ben loaded his pipe. “Where’s little George Frost now?”

  “He’s—” Mrs. Horton broke off. She stared at Ben. “How do you know he isn’t at home?”

  “Tonight a couple of mugs with guns tried to force me to tell them where he is. I pretended to know what they were talking about and got them off guard and ran away.”

  “Oh, God!” Jerkily she rose. She strode to the window and stood looking out.

  “Where is he?” Ben asked her again impatiently.

  FIERCELY she swung from the window. “I sent him away. I’ll tell nobody where, not even you. And I won’t bring him back until all danger is over.”

  “That may be wisest. But what made those mugs think I was working for you before you’d hired me?”

  “I’ve no idea. I hadn’t—” She frowned at the floor. “My handbag! Somebody stole it this afternoon while I was shopping in Macy’s. I thought it was a sneak thief. Could it have been—”

  Ben nodded. “One of the mugs. He figured that there was a good chance he’d find in your bag the address of the place where you’d sent George. Instead he found my name and address. They found out that I was a private detective, and they added it up to mean that you’d hired me to protect George.”

  “They’re diabolically clever,” she muttered.

  Maybe, Ben told himself. So far everybody involved had acted either too dumb or too smart.

  He said, “If you had my address this afternoon, why did you wait until now to come to see me?”

  “I hadn’t made up my mind definitely. Then tonight Richard—he’s my husband—and I talked it over. We decided that the only way to protect George permanently is to hire you to catch the kidnapers.”

  “And you couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning to hire me?”

  “There’s no time to lose,” she said tautly. “Now I realize that I need you for another purpose. If they tried to force you to reveal George’s whereabouts, wouldn’t they also try it with me or Richard? We live alone, rather isolated. Men like that will stop at nothing. Mr. Starke, you must come home with me at once and stay until this danger is past.”

  Ben started to tell her that he didn’t accept bodyguard jobs. But he didn’t say it. He stood looking at that handsome woman and reflectively tapped the stem of the pipe against his teeth.

  Mrs. Horton’s hands were again clasped in that gesture of entreaty. “Please, Mr. Starke. I’ll pay you well.”

  “Okay. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  He went into his bedroom and packed a small bag. As he snapped the clasps, he paused. He didn’t believe in guns, but Henry and Gus did. There were times when a man had to compromise with his beliefs.

  From the bottom drawer of his dresser he dug out a snub-nosed .32 automatic.

  ELEANOR HORTON drove Ben up to central Westchester, not far from the place where a couple of hours before, he had escaped from the two mugs. The house was a large fieldstone affair, sitting in a full acre of lawn and shrubs and rock gardens.

  “Your house?” Ben asked as the car rolled up the cinder driveway.

  “Hardly. I couldn’t afford it. It was left to George Frost by his father.”

  When they entered the house, a man came into the hall from another room. He had just got out of bed or had been about to go to bed, for he was wearing a red silk dressing gown over red-striped silk pajamas.

  “So you brought a detective home with you. Eleanor?” he said with a mocking twist of his mouth. “Don’t you consider me capable of protecting you?”

  “Richard, you refuse to see how serious this is.” She turned her head. “Mr. Starke, my husband.”

  Richard Horton didn’t shake hands. He kept his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown and nodded briskly. He was slender, a couple of inches shorter than his wife and probably several years younger. His weak face might have been considered handsome by a middle-aged woman. Ben would have been surprised to learn that he had ever done a day’s work in his life.

  “Richard,” Mrs. Horton was saying, “tonight Mr. Starke was attacked by the men who want to kidnap George.” And she told him of Ben’s experience.

  As she spoke, a change came over Richard. His shoulders lost their jaunty carriage; his cheeks paled.

  “Great heavens, then they really mean business!” he whined. “Starke, you think you’ll be able to keep them off our necks?”

  “I’ll try,” Ben said, making no attempt to hide his contempt.

  There was a brief, embarrassed silence
. Then Mrs. Horton said crisply, “I’ll show you up to your room, Mr. Starke.”

  The bedroom was the size of Ben’s living room in his Bronx apartment. He put down his bag and leaned against the dresser, watching his hostess spread sheets and blankets over the bed.

  “Who’s in the house besides the three of us?” he asked.

  “Nobody.”

  “No servants?”

  “Not at the moment. The housekeeper and the gardener—they’re husband and wife—left a few days ago. A cleaning woman comes in every afternoon.” Mrs. Horton gave the blanket a final pat. “How are you going to work this? I mean, are you going to stand guard outside throughout the night?”

  He stood looking at her, and she flushed slightly. He turned his eyes away.

  “You’re the boss,” he said. “Do you want me to stand guard?”

  “I don’t see that it’s necessary as long as you’re within earshot in case anything happens. I trust you’re a light sleeper.”

  “I’ll be awake when you need me,” Ben told her.

  WHEN she had left, he filled his pipe and sat in a chair at one of the windows. From there he could just about make out the driveway that ran two hundred feet to the tar road. He heard low voices in the hall; then a door opened and closed. He rose, snapped out the light, and returned to his chair.

  He had smoked two pipefuls when he heard a woman say sharply, “Is that you, Mr. Starke?”

  The voice wasn’t anywhere near him. It seemed to come from below.

  The window was open only a few inches. Ben raised it all the way and stuck his head out. Suddenly light spread out over the flagstone terrace directly below his window, light from the living room. Then he heard a woman gasp, and a man chuckled softly. The man said something Ben could not catch.

  Ben moved swiftly to the door. A dim night light was on in the hall, and he saw Richard Horton coming toward him. He had on only his striped pajamas and his feet were bare. He looked sick with fear.

  “I heard voices downstairs,” he whispered. “Somebody’s with Eleanor.”

  Ben brushed past him. His shoes made too much sound on the hardwood floor. He paused to remove them.

  Richard was at his side, whispering, “Eleanor went down for a glass of hot milk. Do you think—”

  “Quiet,” Ben told him. With his shoes off, he went noiselessly down the stairs, followed by Richard.

  In the downstairs hall, light poured out of the arched living room doorway. Inside the room a man was saying, “I’m asking you for the last time—where’s George?”

  Ben took his gun out of his pocket. When he got closer to the doorway, he saw that the speaker was the tall man named Gus. He had his rimless glasses off and was cleaning the lenses with a pocket handkerchief. He smiled lazily.

  “Never!” Mrs. Horton was saying. “You’ll never learn from me.”

  She had changed into a loose robe which she was holding tightly about her lush body. She looked older than she had thirty minutes ago and not so handsome.

  “I’m afraid I pulled a boner tonight by trying to get it out of that shamus you hired. That’s because I don’t like to fool around with women.” Gus replaced his glasses. “But I’m tired of this run-around.”

  Urgently Richard plucked at Ben’s sleeve. Ben looked at him over his shoulder and shook his head. He wanted to hear more.

  Mrs. Horton stood huddled in her robe, her lips pressed tightly together. She said nothing.

  Gus sighed. “I have ways of making you talk.”

  “No!” The word was a scream torn from Richard’s throat. In sudden frenzy, he plunged past Ben into the living room.

  Gus whirled. His hand crossed to his left armpit and came out with a gun.

  Ben was right behind Richard. Momentarily Richard’s body blocked out Gus. Ben leaped sideways to get Gus back into his line of vision, and that was when a gun barked.

  Gus went down as if hit over the head. He crashed against a table and flopped to the floor. He rolled on his back and lay still, and Ben saw that his nose was gone. That was where Eleanor Horton’s bullet had entered.

  The gun was in her hand, the automatic she had been holding under her robe. Her head moved, as if on a swivel, from her husband, to the dead man on the floor, then to Ben.

  “I—I had to,” she muttered.

  Henry!Ben thought. The other gunman might be near by. French doors led out to the terrace. They were wide open; doubtless that was the way Gus had entered the house. Ben stepped outside.

  NO ONE was on the terrace. He stepped down to the lawn, into darkness. There was a patch of moonlight, but only enough to make weird shadows in the night. The thin beam of his fountain-pen flashlight wasn’t much help. He made a complete circuit of the house and returned to the living room.

  Mrs. Horton was sitting limply on the couch, the gun still in her hand, forgotten. Her husband sat beside her, an arm about her shoulder.

  “You’re not to blame, Eleanor,” he was assuring her. “It was a heroic thing you did.” He lifted his head. “You saw the whole thing, Starke. She shot him to save my life.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ben looked down at the dead man. Gus’ glasses had fallen off and lay, unbroken, near his left ear. His right hand still clutched the gun. Ben moved to the couch. “How did you happen to have a gun on you, Mrs. Horton?”

  She shivered. “I was boiling milk for myself in the kitchen when I heard somebody in the living room. I was terrified, of course. This gun was in a dining room drawer. I fetched it before going into the living room to see who was there.”

  “Why didn’t you call out to me?”

  “I was afraid to make a sound. And I wasn’t sure you could get downstairs in time.”

  Richard said urgently, “She could have shot him right away, but she didn’t. Not till she had to when he pulled his gun. It was obviously self-defense.”

  “You don’t have to protest so much,” Ben said sourly.

  He went out to the hall to phone the police.

  There was little investigating for the police. Eleanor Horton admitted the shooting, and there were two eyewitness accounts to agree with her story. In addition, the complaint she had made several days ago to the police of a threat to kidnap George Frost was on record. Also, Ben’s experience with Gus earlier that night fitted in with her story and the night’s happenings.

  Open and shut justifiable homicide. The police dumped it in the lap of a young assistant district attorney named Bordan.

  Bordan hadn’t seen thirty yet and had a young man’s enthusiasm for his job. He brooded over the three signed statements in his hand and still didn’t seem satisfied.

  “Where, by the way, is George Frost?” he asked.

  Mrs. Horton muttered, “I sent him to my sister in Cleveland.”

  Bordan rustled the papers. “Doesn’t it strike you that this man Gus acted odd for a kidnaper?”

  “I hardly know how a kidnaper is supposed to act,” Mrs. Horton replied tartly.

  Bordan turned to Ben. “I’ve heard of you, Stark. You’re one of the few private detectives police respect and trust. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure.” Ben sucked his pipe stem. “Kidnapers don’t reveal themselves before a snatch. They did to me earlier tonight, and a few hours later Gus showed his face to Mrs. Horton.”

  Bordan nodded. “That’s it, of course. If they had found where the boy was and kidnaped him, we would have had a description of them. Besides, why were they so determined to kidnap this particular boy? They could find another victim as rich or richer and more easy to get at, once George Frost was sent away.”

  A state police sergeant suggested, “Maybe somebody has a grudge against the family and wants to take it out through the kid.”

  “It’s possible.” Bordan frowned at the statements. “Mrs. Horton, had you ever seen this man Gus before tonight?”

  Mrs. Horton clasped and unclasped her hands. She looked up at Richard who was toying with the cord of his dressing gown.

/>   “No,” she murmured.

  Bordan stared at her. She’s lying, Ben thought, and Bordan knows it. But the district attorney let it go and a moment later said good-night.

  The police left with him. By that time dawn was trickling through the windows. Richard yawned and suggested that they go up to bed.

  “Good idea,” Ben agreed.

  He went upstairs. While he was undressing, he heard the door to Mr. and Mrs. Horton’s room close. He locked his own door, put his gun under the pillow and got into bed. He could think of no reason why he shouldn’t sleep. He slept.

  IT WAS noon when Ben came downstairs. He found Richard in the living room, reading a newspaper and still in his pajamas and dressing gown. Ben wondered if the man ever bothered to get dressed.

  “Nothing in here about what happened last night,” Richard said. “Guess it happened too late for the morning papers.”

  “Is that you, Mr. Starke?” Ben heard Mrs. Horton ask behind him. She came into the room and handed him a check. “I imagine that we have no more need for your services.”

  The check was for one hundred dollars. “I’m afraid I didn’t do much to earn it,” Ben told her.

  “I have no complaint,” she said crisply. “Richard will drive you home whenever you’re ready to leave.”

  There was no offer to have breakfast first. He had been paid off; he was being dismissed.

  The doorbell rang. Mrs. Horton went out and returned with Assistant District Attorney Bordan. He seemed to be very happy about something.

  “Well, we have identified the man you shot last night, Mrs. Horton,” he said cheerfully. “From his fingerprints. They were on file. He had a criminal record. A confidence man. Only two weeks ago he came out of Sing Sing, after having served four years. He spread his smile to include both Mr. and Mrs. Horton. “His full name was August Frost.”

  Richard uttered a tired little sigh. His wife clasped her hands so tightly that the knuckles whitened.

  “He was George Frost’s brother,” Bordan went on. “In short, Mrs. Horton, you lied last night when you said you didn’t know him.”