Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “Lisbeth, keep out of the direct beams of the light.” Mahlon suddenly pulled Lisbeth into the shadowy, tree-lined walk. “He had everything to gain. He knew that once he got Bigard into the ambulance on his way to the morgue with a judgment of heart disease made by a physician, the chances were that the Medical Examiner would not have performed the full autopsy, but merely would have signed Bigard out to his family. Yes, his kind always have families. Usually nice people, too. But that wasn’t the main reason; he wanted to steal Bigard’s stock of morphine out of his pockets. I have no doubt that it was a rich haul.”

  “Don’t rush me so, Mai,” she panted. “But what about your phone calls?”

  “The second call, Lisbeth, was to the Hospital Library. I asked her to check the American Medical Directory for a physician by the name of Gordon Roscoe. There was; he died during the war.

  “The second call, Lisbeth, was to Detective Brickley Lindquist. I told him to set a trap to catch a murderer; he’s a quick-thinker and came through.”

  “The big fellow? What did he do across the street?”

  “I think he followed my suggestion. When he was introduced by the traffic cop to Roscoe, he probably said he’d just been tipped off by some one inside the restaurant to the effect that a murder had been committed. Roscoe fell for it, and started to sneak away. I’ve no doubt that when they search him at Headquarters they’ll find his pockets full of narcotics.”

  He suddenly grabbed Lisbeth and pushed her toward the street. “Now, Lisbeth, run for that cab. I mean—run!”

  Lisbeth ran.

  Mahlon shouted to the driver, “Get going, man!”

  The driver had the cab in midstream traffic in seconds, but not too soon to hear the shouts of, “Hey, You! Hey, Doc Steele! Come back here!”

  The cabby glanced back at them. “Do I stop?”

  “No, indeed,” said Lisbeth determinedly. “Ambassador Theatre, please.”

  She turned to her husband, “Any arguments?”

  Mahlon had none.

  ONE DUMB COP

  Richard Brister

  Being a rookie cop is not the most pleasant duty—especially with weisenheimers like Danny Denning strutting around as if they owned the place. Yet, there are rewarding circumstances, too. For instance, the case of Dolly Graham . . .

  MIKE DOOLAN paused under the awning of a dingy little second-hand clothing shop, took the heavy policeman’s cap off with his large freckled hand and wiped perspiration from his forehead. A pinch-face, sallow man dressed in the loudest, ugliest and, probably, most expensive suits Mike Doolan ever laid eye on, stood picking his teeth in front of Joe’s Pool Room. “ ‘S matter, copper. Can’t take it?”

  “Sure,” said Mike. “Sure I can take it.” It was his first day on regular duty since graduating from rookie school. He was conscious of the glitter his badge made, down there on his huge chest. He was more conscious of the weight of the gun against his right leg. He wiped his forehead again, and said with dignity befitting an officer of the law: “I seen it hotter than this. Lots of times.”

  The sour little character who appeared to use the front of Joe’s Pool Room as a sort of headquarters grinned at Mike and said, “Brand new recruit, ain’t you? So you’re takin’ Quill’s place on Sixteent’ Street, hey? What’s your name, copper?”

  Mike Doolan looked the man over more carefully now. His large, deceptively soft brown eyes took in the loud clothes, the elevator shoes, the expensive diamond bedecking the man’s soft hands. “Doolan,” he said. “Me name’s Doolan. What’s yours, friend?”

  “Danny Denning.”

  Mike looked at him carefully and said, “So you’re Denning. I been hopin’ I’d see you today, Denning.”

  “That’s so?” grinned Denning. “Why?”

  “You’re the hoodlum that’s responsible for most of the trouble down here on Sixteenth, the way I understand it. You an’ me may’s well start right off with a clear understanding.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah? I ain’t putting up with no nonsense from you. So if you step out of line and wind up in back of the eight ball, don’t say I never give you fair warning.”

  Danny Denning glanced back over one small shoulder and called through the open door of the pool room: “Hey, you guys, c’me on out if you wanta laugh! There’s a big mick from headquarters out here making like tough. From the looks of him, he don’t even shave yet.”

  Danny Denning’s friends spilled dutifully out of the shadowy interior of the pool room, a motley, unappetizing lot, stood grinning at Doolan, whose large-featured face was rapidly turning a strawberry color. Nothing in his policeman’s handbook coverd this situation. He couldn’t very well punch Danny Denning, as he fair itched to. It would be beneath his dignity as an upholder of Law and order.

  “If you’re smart,” he said, “you’ll change your tune, Denning.”

  Now a group of passersby was collecting, sensing the conflict between Sixteenth Street’s new law officer and its least desirable denizen. Danny Denning’s grin grew wider as he looked at Mike Doolan. Obviously playing up to his audience, the hoodlum and petty racketeer said, “Am I supposed to scare when you talk tough, sonny?”

  Mike Doolan’s large ears burned. He stood there trying to control the heat of his temper, wondering what was his best move now. “I got a good mind to run you over to the station, Denning.”

  “Why don’t you kid?” said the gambler. “That’d be just ducky. What would you charge me with? Hurtin’ your feelin’s?”

  This drew a raucous laugh from Denning’s friends, a nervous titter from the group of passersby who were standing behind Mike Doolan. Mike saw that he was losing face, gaining nothing by this interchange with the gangster. He turned with a cloudy expression, and stalked off down the sidewalk.

  “That’s all right, son,” Danny Denning jeered. “We ain’t goin’ to hold this against you.”

  Mike Doolan kept on walking. A group of hard, dirty-faced street kids tagged after him, and he was aware of their wide-eyed expressions. “Jeez;” he heard one kid say, “the force ain’t what it used t’ be, is it?”

  “Quill would of told Danny where to head in,” said another.

  Mike Doolan hit rock bottom then. He realized he was off to the worst possible start in his career as a policeman. And it wasn’t just for himself that he worried. He had a brand new bride at home to be thinking of, though he could always get another job if he flopped as a cop.

  The worst part was these street kids. When they began drawing unfavorable comparisons between a duly sworn-in cop and a small-time racketeer, they were in very real danger.

  “Kids are too impressionable,” Mike muttered. “First thing you know, if I let Denning walk over me, they’ll be makin’ a hero out of him, wantin’ to grow up and sass the law the way he does.”

  MIKE DOOLAN was gunning for Danny Denning, in the days that followed. He haunted the smart aleck gangster, trying to pin something on him, anything that would justify him in running Denning in to the clinker.

  Danny Denning made a joke of it. “You really hate my guts, don’t you, copper?”

  Mike didn’t say anything. He had learned that technique, belatedly. It disarmed Denning, a little.

  “You ain’t going to get nothing on me, copper. You ain’t got the brains. I eat dumb flatfeet like you for my supper.”

  Mike Doolan knew he wasn’t any Einstein for brains, otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone in for a career on the force. On the other hand, he had a qualty of stubbornness in him which kept him eternally plugging away at any project he set his mind on. And those large, disarmingly innocent brown eyes never went on vacation. Mike not only saw, he observed, and what he observed was swiftly categorized and tucked away in the recesses of his brain, for possible future reference.

  He used to study the rogue’s gallery up at the precinct after hours, and one day he recognized a face on Sixteenth Street and ran his man in to the station house. It turned out he was right; the g
uy was wanted up-State, and Mike Doolan’s self-respect received a shot in the arm.

  “Good work, Doolan. Keep it up.” Captain Regan said. It wasn’t much but Danny Denning had been riding him pretty hard, down on the beat, and a starving man is not choosy.

  Danny Denning grew more sure of himself, more careless in his operations. One afternoon, Mike Doolan watched Denning greet a dozen passersby in front of Joe’s Pool Room. With each, the racketeer exchanged a few words, then took out a pencil and pad and made a notation on it.

  Mike Doolan was watching from the interior of an office supply shop across the street and about forty yards up from the pool hall. Finally he strode down the street to where Danny Denning stood, looking worried, for once, and said, “All right, let’s have it, Denning.”

  “Have what?”

  “That pad you been writing down bets on.”

  “You mean this?” said the gambler, and handed the pad over to Mike Doolan. There was no writing on it.

  Mike stared at it, frowning a little. He looked at Danny Denning, and saw that the gambler was smiling at him. “Lift your mitts, Denning. I’m gonna frisk you.”

  He did, but there was not another scrap of paper anywhere on the gambler.

  “What’s the matter, copper?”

  Mike Doolan took the top leaf of paper off the writing tablet and held it up to the sun. “Disappearin’ ink, maybe. You ain’t bluffin’ your way out of this, Denning. I seen you makin’ them bets. Come on. You and me better go have a little talk with Regan.”

  “Sure,” grinned the gambler. “Why not?”

  When Mike Doolan brought his prisoner into Captain Regan’s presence, he was a little shocked at the way the racketeer and the police captain greeted each other.

  “Hello, Cap,” Denning said casually.

  “Hi, Danny,” said Mike Doolan’s captain. “Why can’t you keep your nose clean? What’s this about Doolan?”

  Mike told him. Regan’s face clouded as he listened. “Let’s see that pad, Doolan.” He studied it for a brief moment, then flung it on his desk. “Disappearin’ ink, my eye! That’s virgin paper. You ain’t got a thing on this man, Doolan!”

  “But—”

  “Doolan, if I was an ambitious young copper like you, I’d spend some of me spare time in the courts, listenin’ to trials. It don’t do no good to arrest a man until you’ve got something real on him.”

  “But I saw him. I—”

  “Doolan, you haven’t got a legal leg to stand on, in pressin’ these charges against Denning. Better get back to your beat.”

  Mike Doolan was aware of the triumphant smile on Danny Denning’s face. “Look,” he said, “I—”

  “Back to your beat, Doolan,” said the captain.

  MIKE DOOLAN received a merciless ribbing along Sixteenth Street, the next few days. Danny Denning did the lion’s share of the razzing, and he always chose a time when there were plenty of onlookers, before he teed off on Doolan.

  “How about the disappearing ink, copper?”

  Mike tried to ignore him.

  “You wanta know somethin’, Doolan? That whole thing was planned. I knew you was watching from that crummy store up the street. Me and the boys put on an act for you, pretendin’ they was makin’ bets and I was makin’ a book. Only I never wrote nothing down, just went through the motions. And you went for it.”

  “Some day I’ll get you, Denning,” Mike said.

  “You’ll never pin nothing on me,” Danny Denning said. “It takes more than a dumb flatfoot to reach me.”

  The little man with the big diamonds and the flashy clothes had a supreme self-confidence which infected people. Sixteenth Street was inclined to take Danny Denning on his own valuation, especially so since he had made a public monkey out of that new young cop, Doolan.

  Mike’s prestige reached a new low. The only way to regain his waning authority on the street, he knew, was to turn the tables on Danny Denning. He continued to watch the petty racketeer like a hawk. One day he saw Denning go into a cheap nightclub, the Coco, on Allison Alley. Mike had been watching the place for some time. It seemed to do a lot of business during afternoon hours, and Mike was pretty sure it was a gambling trap.

  He staged a one-man raid on the place, a foolhardy gesture, but he had to nail Denning in something soon or turn in his gun, so it seemed a gamble worth taking.

  Doolan encountered surprisingly little resistance. He found his way into the back room, and saw Danny Denning standing in front of a roulette layout. He wasn’t playing the wheel; he was taking horse bets from the customer’s choices down on his pad.

  “I’ll take that,” Mike said.

  Denning shrugged and handed it over.

  “Where’s the guy that runs this joint?” Mike said.

  “He’s out of town,” somebody wisecracked.

  Mike said, “When he gets back, he’s goin’ to be up to his ears in hot water. All right, Denning. Let’s go.”

  “You dumb flatfeet all have to learn the hard way, don’t you?” said Danny Denning, still smiling as he accompanied Mike Doolan out of the Coco Club. “You can’t buck the system, kid. Why don’t you get smart?”

  •

  Mike Doolan didn’t know what the gambler meant till die testified against Denning in Magistrate Keenan’s court, the following morning. This time the evidence was sufficient to convict, but the magistrate was content to fine Danny Denning sixty dollars and turn him loose to continue booking the horses.

  “Your Honor,” said Mike, “if you’ll forgive me presumption, this ain’t the first time this man’s been in trouble. Ain’t he getting off kind of soft?”

  Keenan was a large man in his early forties. He still was handsome in a raffish, high-colored way, but his face was beginning to pouch from good living. He looked at Mike shortly and said, “When this court needs your help, Doolan, it’ll ask for it. Next case.”

  “But you can’t just turn this man loose,” Mike said, sweating. “It—”

  “Next case,” said the jurist, ignoring Mike Doolan.

  Danny Denning was peeling sixty dollars off a fat roll of greenbacks. He paid his fine and started out of the courtroom, then changed his mind and walked toward Mike Doolan.

  “See what I mean, kid?” he grinned. “You can’t buck the system.”

  MIKE DOOLAN put in a bad hour, during which time he aged a good deal, as he thought over what had happened in court. At the end of that hour he reached a decision. He went into Regan’s office and laid down his policeman’s badge.

  “What’s this, Doolan?” said the captain.

  “Me badge,” said Mike. “I’ll be turning me uniforms in too, Captain.”

  “So you’re quitting, eh, Doolan?”

  “He should of gone up for at least two years. I nailed him red-handed. That Keenan ain’t honest.”

  Regan couldn’t help smiling. “Unfortunately, his job is a political appointment, Doolan. You’ll find a lot of dishonest men in and around City Hall. And believe it or not, you’ll find one or two, here and there, who are straight as a stick. They’re the ones that keep the wolves at bay, Doolan. We need a few honest men in politics. And we need honest cops, to make up for the ones that can’t resist the temptation of an easy dollar.”

  “Keenan’s been fixed,” grumbled Mike Doolan. “Danny knew the minute I put the arm on him that he wasn’t going to run into no trouble. He’s got the horse laugh on me now, more than ever. This finishes me on Sixteenth Street. Nobody’ll take me seriously down there. And what’s the use haulin’ a guy in here, if the court’s gonna spring him?”

  “Every cop asks himself that kind of question sooner or later,” said Mike’s superior. “Every cop has to find his own answer, Doolan.”

  Mike Doolan fidgeted in front of the older man’s desk. He clasped his big hands behind him. “There wasn’t but one answer for me. To nail Danny Denning. But it’s like he says; one cop can’t buck the whole system.”

  “So you’re quitting?”


  Mike frowned. He didn’t like that word. “How you going to nail a guy like that? He’s got all the cards in his favor.”

  “I’d like to see somebody nail him,” said Regan, suddenly changing his manner. “Danny’s gotten too big for his britches. He’ll step on thin ice one of these days and go under, with or without Keenan to pull his fat out of the fire. That’s the only hope, and you’re the guy I’d like on the job down there when the time comes, Doolan.”

  “I ain’t done much good down there so far.”

  “That’s why I want you to stay with it,” said Regan.

  “Huh?”

  “Danny’s got you marked down for a stupe, a born fall guy. He figures you’ll never give him any real trouble. He’ll get more careless all the time, and someday he’ll leave himself wide open, and you’ll trip him.”

  “And meanwhile,” said Mike, “I get me ears razzed off me down there.”

  “Well, if you can’t take it,” said the captain, “if you want to quit—”

  “Who said anything about quitting?” Mike said, none too consistently.

  And he picked up his badge off the desk.

  MIKE DOOLAN sopped up the jibes, down on Sixteenth Street, in the weeks that followed. He was that pitiable figure, the honest young cop in a world peopled by crooks and double dealers. He had tried to pin a rap on Danny Denning, not once but twice, and his efforts had succeeded only in making him the laughing stock of the community where he spent his working hours.

  Sometimes Mike asked himself if he wasn’t piling folly on folly, in blindly hoping that Danny Denning would leave an opening whereby Mike could get something real on him.

  “Sure an’ it’s wishful thinkin’ an’ nothin’ much else,” he told himself dismally. “If I ever do catch him red-handed in somethin’ an’ hail him into court, that Keenan’ll just set him free. It’s like tryin’ to catch rain water in a sieve.”

  Common sense told him to quit, but some streak of stubbornness in him kept him from throwing the sponge in. He stayed on the job, he absorbed the jibes and sneers, the disgusted looks of the kids, and all this while he kept his large brown eyes open, seeking a solution to a problem which obviously had no solution.