Norma had knocked the weapon out of line. And during the moment it took the unoccupied highbinder to clear the end of the sheet metal barricade, Cragin had jerked the pistol from his enemy’s grasp.
Tai Fang knocked Norma into a corner as Cragin’s first shot kicked a highbinder half way across the room. The confusion of lead and flailing limbs checked Tai Fang’s fire. That gave Norma her chance.
The chair she smashed down on the smuggler’s head coincided with a slug from Cragin’s weapon.
“Grab his keys!” he shouted. “I’ll hold ’em!”
But as she frantically dug into Tai Fang’s pockets, a squad of highbinders came charging down the hall.
“To hell with the keys, Red! Get out—quick!” he roared as he jerked himself and the table into line and hosed the passageway with lead.
But Norma did not check out. The crackle of pistols and the smack of slugs was drowned by the dull thunder of shotguns from the rear, a babble of Mongolian voices, the chatter of a machine gun. A wave of Chinese surged through the place, gibbering and shooting.
“For Kri’sake—” A tong war!
He understood when he caught a glimpse of Tin Yuk following the mopping up squad. She had turned out a rival Chinese tong to help the musicians gang up on Tai Fang.
Norma caught the idea, looked dazed and relieved, and promptly passed out. Before Cragin could get in a word edgewise, Tin Yuk’s musicians had seized him, still shackled to the operating table, scooped Norma from the floor, and charged back down the passageway. An alley swallowed them before the police arrived.
Presently a cold chisel took the place of a key; and as the musician who knocked the iron grip of Tai Fang from the prisoner’s ankles stepped from the room, Cragin turned to Tin Yuk. His heart skipped three beats as he remembered what that coral tunic concealed. He could almost forgive Norma’s insane gamble. The subtle, scarlet mystery of Tin Yuk’s smile aroused hopes and ambitions.
“Now that everyone is in the clear,” he proposed, “let’s you and me improve on our start—I’m nuts about Chinese music—”
She smiled and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but…well, I’d feel awfully foolish, after what I tuned in on while I was hiding out in that clothes closet in your apartment until after Tai Fang’s raid.”
“What?” Cragin turned a deep plum color.
“Of course,” explained the Heavenly Jewel. “How else could I have followed you? Now run along, Cliff. You really do like that redhead, don’t you? And she’s waiting for you.”
DEATH’S BACKYARD
Originally published in Private Detective Stories, February 1944.
A sentry herded Private Cliff Cragin from the guardhouse, and to the orderly room. There the captain spent a moment eyeing the prisoner.
Cragin’s tanned face, which appeared to have been assembled from mismatched spare parts, had not been damaged.
Aside from cub knuckles and a whirling head, it had been a grand night; tame, after Tunisia, but brisk for New Orleans.
“Private Cragin,” the captain began, wearily, and pointed to the ribbons and badges on the khaki tunic, “you’ve been decorated several times. You made Distinguished Pistol Shot while you were in the reserve. Doubtless it does seem monotonous here, but you should realize that getting drunk and trying to mop up waterfront bars is out of order. In spite of your splendid record in action, a court martial can hardly be avoided.”
“Sir, the captain can prefer charges. I have nothing to say.”
“We know what you can take,” the officer went on patiently. “But, just because you’re being rehabilitated before we discharge you is no reason for proving you still can fight.”
Cragin forgot discipline and flared up, “Damn it, sir, I don’t want to be discharged. A shell with all of Africa to land on had to take off a couple of my toes. What do I need the toes for anyway; do you kick the enemy?”
“For civilian life you’re just as good as new, but those machine-gun slugs have taken some of the edge off your reserves, the stuff that kept you up in front. You know that!”
Cragin nodded. The man was right. “But I don’t want to be rehabilitated! I don’t want to be a printer or an auto mechanic; I don’t want forty acres and a mule; I don’t want to be an acetylene welder; if I can’t go back and pitch, I want to get out, right now! I want to open my agency, even if private dicks ain’t an essential industry.”
The captain raised his hand. “Cragin, have I not made it clear that the War Department has made no provision for rehabilitating soldiers to be detectives?”
“That’s just it, I know my business; you don’t have to teach me a thing.”
“You operated the Crescent Investigation Service?”
“And a good one, sir! That’s what I mean.”
The captain thumped on a foot-high sheaf of general orders: “And I am required to rehabilitate you. Regardless of what you and I may think of your exceptional case, I’ve spoken to the commanding general and that’s as far as I can go.”
Cragin grinned. He planted his elbow on the desk and said, confidentially, “Speaking of the general, has he got Nedra Dalli to stage a public appearance at the U.S. O.?”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“Sir, I’m the guy that can talk her into it. There’s something screwy; Nedra’s a grand gal; they’ve not started shooting “Pirates of Barataria”; she’d come across if the right fixer got to work.”
“You speak as if you know her.”
“Do I know her? Brother—er, sir, she and I went to school together. I knew her when she was in burlesque, though that’s confidential. You talk the general out of me being rehabilitated, and I’ll get Nedra lined up—and if I didn’t, I’ll take the course cutting paper dolls and like it.”
“Cragin, if you are—um—exaggerating—man to man, did you see her before you got pig drunk, or after?”
“Did I? Heck, I was up in her suite at the Iberville; she’s got a Spanish refugee maid by the name of Pilar—well, I mean, that proves I was there, and I met her manager, and we went to the Slave Exchange to hoist a few, and along comes the 4-F that’s going to play Lafitte, and—”
“And your five absinthe drips began cutting up?”
“Sure, I socked him, the papers kept it quiet; then I checked out; then I began worrying, down along Decatur Street, and then—”
He rubbed his head. “Going good, till a cop conked me, those Third Precinct cops are really tough, I guarantee you they are.”
“And Nedra Dalli wasn’t—isn’t—um—off you for life?”
“You fix it up and see.”
The captain thrust his chair back. Cragin snapped to attention.
“I am betting on you. But if you make a chump of me in front of the general I promise you something to make rehabilitation a pleasure! That’s all.”
Being a prisoner, Craig did not salute. The sentry shouldered his rifle, and once outside he said, “Gosh, chum, they’ll have you up for observation and treatment.”
“Bet I’m out before retreat.”
He was released six hours earlier than he’d predicted. More than that, he had a special dispensation, in view of his mission and his status, permitting him to wear civilian clothes. The note which Nedra had written, a few days previous, had won him unusual concessions. The film star had been getting threatening letters ever since her arrival in New Orleans. Far from using that as a publicity build-up, her worried manager, and her old friend, the owner of the Iberville Hotel, where she and some of the cast stayed, had advised against releasing the story.
Ballyhoo, they argued, would encourage the nut who was behind it, and perhaps tempt him to try and make good. At least, that was what Cragin had gathered from Nedra’s none too coherent note.
CHAPTER II
Voodoo!
Back
in the old days they had lived in the Irish Channel, and her name was Julia O’Rourke; but for all her going to the top her memory had gone with her. She remembered how they’d dredged a number of phone directories to find “Nedra Dalli,” which suggested everything exotic, because it couldn’t be pinned down to anything definite.
And Nedra looked it: lashes so thick that they seemed to make a smoke smudge around blue-black eyes, eyes from any land at all, Ouled-Nail eyes, if you pleased, and fell for a phone book name.
But it was the smile that talked to all the world, that stratosphere smile which hoisted her way up, and up. Or the sparkle. Or something. They could have picked a hundred others, only they had picked her instead: the public, not the directors.
And Cragin, now wearing a tropical worsted taken out of storage, sat there in Nedra’s suite at the Iberville, and wondered at Julia O’Rourke’s long memory for people she might have forgotten.
“What’s the trouble, honey? Gee, was I chump, the other day, listen—do you really like that 4-F?”
“Oh, Cliff, he’s a grand guy, really he is, but tell me about you.”
So he did, never suspecting that that was Nedra Dalli’s appeal: the eyes and the smile which always said, “Tell me about you.”
“I’m on the spot, account you’re on the ditto. This is business. Your note. Threats and stuff.”
The eyes clouded. “Oh, it’s nothing, Cliff. Only I wanted you to know that I wasn’t giving the army a brush-off.”
“Yeah, it’s nothing. Open up, baby.”
Pilar, the Latin maid, set out Scotch and soda and mile-long cigarettes. If it hadn’t been for Nedra, Cragin could have spent some time telling Pilar about Tunisia!
Then a sharp-faced little man who looked important came barging in. “Achille, I’m busy! Do get out!”
Cragin rose, eyed Nedra’s manager. “Hey, Ash-heel, wait a second!” He caught the checkered shoulder with the red stripes. “You, come back. I want to talk to you too.”
Achille Meraux wriggled clear of the hand. “Is it that you want more rioting?”
“Nuh-uh.” Cragin got a fresh hold and shoved him into a chair. “This threat business.”
“So you call out the army now, hein?”
“I’m not in the army.”
“Deserter?”
“No. This gal can’t hide out, I’m giving the answers, and—shut up, I know Globe-Colossal can hire dicks, but I’m better, account I’m in this for sentimental reasons. Those threats, Frenchy.”
Meraux’s brows rose way up. “My God—Nedra—he knows? Why?”
“Oh, Lord, Achille, because he’s an old friend, I told him, so what?” She bounded up in a flurry of silk, and pounced for the cabinet in the corner of the sitting room. “Here it is, a ouanga.”
Cragin whistled, brushed Meraux aside effortlessly. “Ouanga it is, honey! Voodoo, and nasty.”
The tiny waxen image was a caricature, a venomous distortion of Nedra’s lovely face and figure.
“Voodoo! But that is crazy,” Meraux protested. “That’s African, where does she get African enemies?”
“Enemies are where you find ’em,” Cragin retorted.
He didn’t like it a bit. Under the Creole gaiety of New Orleans there were dark stratum of superstition from Haiti, primitive African magic, strenuously denied by black and white, but with a hold on a surprisingly high percentage of the population.
“See here,” Meraux pointed out, “suppose someone does poke pins into an image, what’s going to happen to her?”
“That’s just a front. But if someone wants something to happen, it’ll happen, one way or another. And quit trying to sell the idea you’re not worried; why for are you keeping her from making an appearance at camp?”
He had Meraux there. While the Frenchman groped for some logic, Nedra cut in, “Because he is afraid, Cliff, and because Globe-Colossal is afraid that even a false alarm might cause a lot of nasty friction. Look at those terrible riots in Detroit, and Harlem. We simply mustn’t have too much accent on African.”
Cragin frowned. She was too right. “Well, what’s Globe-Colossal doing about it? You going to be caged up for the duration? Twiddling your thumbs? Hell, that’s the fix I’m in.”
“N-no, we’re expecting a good man from a Los Angeles agency; he’ll be out when he can get reservations.”
“And in the meanwhile,” Meraux said, “we made some personal appearance engagements before this—this—everlastingly damned voodoo business came up, and now what should I do; can you break off arrangements and say, it’s little wax images?”
“Lord, I hope not,” Cragin muttered, thinking of Captain Howes. “Look here, you carry on. You take me along. I’ll get my dinner clothes out of storage. I’ll get my blackjack and anybody looking like he had voodoo on the brain—”
“Achille, suppose we do not wait for that dick from L. A.?” Nedra had brightened up; Cragin’s presence was giving her a lift. “Let’s carry on; Cliff’s as good as any imported talent.”
“As good? Honey, is that any way—?”
“He’s really better, Achille.”
Cragin was fingering the ugly little waxen image. Everyone else had handled it, so his prints could not make things worse.
“I’m slipping; I should’ve asked in the first place, are the postal inspectors in on this threat business?”
“Thank God, no!” Meraux answered, “or the news would leak out. Nothing has been mailed, you comprehend.”
“Huh! Pretty sick voodoo if it’s got to dodge postal inspectors.”
“Achille, we’re going. Pilar, see if you can get Mr. Burnett.”
The luscious brunette’s white dress crackled as she hastened to the phone. In a moment, she reported, “Is not an answer.”
“Mmmm…try Mr. Sinclair.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with trying me for a change?” Cragin demanded.
“Forsythe Burnett,” Nedra explained, “was to join me in that appearance. We’ll both be at the mike, and—”
“Ballyhoo for ‘Pirates’, huh?”
“That’s right.”
Cragin turned to glare at the framed photo on the table. “We’ve met before. Honey, can you talk that 4-F into keeping in line? I won’t start anything, I guarantee you.”
“If you do,” Meraux promised, “every bouncer in the club makes a masthead attack.”
“Don’t worry. If you knew what I know, you’d be sure I am not conking Burnett.”
Pilar reported. “Mr. Sinclair, he is not answer.”
“Oh, Lord! Achille, find him, find him! If he’s getting an early start drinking, we’re blown up again!”
Achille Meraux groaned and darted toward the door. Cragin said, “That Frog is slick as a cat. And so Burnett hoists too many?”
Nedra nodded. “When you two tangled, you were not as much out of line as you imagined. He’d had more than he could carry.” She sighed, and added, “Maybe that’s my fault.”
“Huh? You driving him to drink?”
“He’s beginning to suspect I’m not going to marry him.”
Cragin caught her by both arms, and fairly hoisted her from her feet. “Then I still got a chance?”
“Cliff—if you have to get clothes out of storage, you’d better hurry along, my things are down in the porter’s department. What I was going to wear tonight. I’d given everything up, and—darling, you can’t imagine how much better I feel already.”
Cragin went away beaming. He had it in the bag. Nedra had just been worn out by war-time travel from the coast. No wonder those threats gave her jitters.
The first guy he caught with a pocketful on ouangas would really need rehabilitation.
CHAPTER III
Phony Trimmings
Cragin got breaks all along the line. He even got a room at the Iber
ville. Nedra wheedled the manager into line. Before he knew it, he was all set for his test run as a civilian. Now that he was out of the big show, he wanted to be thoroughly out. Rehabilitation was undoubtedly a grand thing for a fellow who needed it; but when one didn’t, it was just a way of marking time and feeling low.
Somehow, Royal Street looked different when you got out of khaki—no, it wasn’t the getting out of khaki, it was the getting away from the feeling that you were not in shape to buck civilian life. It was a thrill, whiffing the smell of oysters and beer, of shrimp and crayfish, of roasting coffee.
When he barged up to Nedra’s suite, he did not expect to see her. She’d be busy, and plenty, but he could talk to that jittery Meraux and pry out a few more facts about the threats. However, what counted most would be keeping an eye on Nedra, to see that no crackpot started an “incident.”
Meraux had a new headache. “Hoodoo—hoodoo is what I said, not voodoo!” he groaned. “Now it is her trunk, that number five trunk; it is sent to storage because she isn’t going to wear the things, and now she’s going to need them, and where is it?”
“Hell, wear something else,” Cragin suggested.
“All you know about women! This is a duplex gown. With a jacket or bolero or something; it is for cocktails. Then she takes off the outside top layer and it is a dinner dress. And now that Burnett, he’s lost. I have nothing to do but calling all bars—listen, if you are a detective, find that Forsythe Burnett, and you get a bonus!”
Pilar came in from the hall and fairly pounced on the phone. When she got the head porter, her temper and her voice rose until she became incoherent.
“Hell, get the manager—Harry Ormond—” Cragin suggested.
“Try and find him!” Meraux retorted, bitterly. “And his assistant, one supreme blockhead!”
He snatched the phone from Pilar, heroically controlled himself. Cragin was in a sweat. The tension was contagious. The way things were going, Nedra would be totally mad. In another hour, they’d have her in a psychopathic ward! It began to look as though he had sounded off prematurely when he offered to fix things.
E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives Page 8
