E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives

by E. Hoffmann Price

  Alma came down the warped stairs. Small flames, momentarily growing, guided her through the thinning dust and smoke. Honest John stared dully at her, as though he did not recognize her.

  But Alma did not reach his side. Ignoring the fire, she knelt beside the man over whom Honest John had stumbled. A moment passed; there was a silence broken only by crackling wood. “Dad!” she finally cried, flinging herself across the motionless man. “He’s dead—they killed him—”

  Carmody drew her to her feet. He found a portable fire extinguisher and drowned the blaze. The wiring had not been completely knocked out so in a moment he was viewing the destruction by the illumination of the bar lights.

  Bullets and the blast had finished Anton Juras. Carmody’s shots had riddled one of the bombers. Behind the bar was an expensive camera, with a synchronized flash bulb. Carmody began to understand; he explained it to Alma as he pieced it together: “Your dad wasn’t hurt much when they slugged him. He played foxy at the hospital, and had the medicos claim he was near death. He was planning something, maybe to go on a still hunt, or make a newspaper stink by playing dead.

  “Then the papers boomed you up, and he figured the score. So he got that camera—look at the price tag still on it—in Palo Alto. Get it!”

  “He figured they’d be out to make an example, and he thought he’d get a picture of the vandals, in the act,” Alma said, nodding. “He always was close mouthed, when he wasn’t cussing someone out. So as to keep me from worrying, he kept his plan on the Q. T. Afraid it might leak out, somehow.”

  Honest John shook his head. “Gawd all mighty,” he muttered. “Poor devil, he didn’t realize you could have a movie of those mugs and still you couldn’t convict the dirty son that’s behind it all!”

  “Foreigners,” she sobbed, “never can understand this country like the people who were raised in it.”

  “Baby,” said the detective, “I’ll use your old man’s picture taking. I got an idea. Those mugs were scared for themselves, and risked facing their own bomb to get the camera. If I can nail the one that got away—nail him private, I mean—he’ll tell me things he’d not dream of telling a cop.”

  * * * *

  The next day Carmody traced the costly camera. He also called at the hospital. Everything he learned confirmed, substantially, his original reasoning. Old Juras had trusted the doctor enough to give sufficient details to justify the deception which had at first caused his daughter so much anxiety.

  Then Honest John took the film to a photo finisher in San Francisco. He was certain that he had moved too fast for any of Iron Mike’s spies to have caught up with him.

  The sheriff and the district attorney were very busy at the wreckage of the Six Mile House. But whether they were dummying up, or just could not, from honest stupidity, get to first base, Honest John did not know. He was not surprised, and neither was he crying. Alma’s kisses had entitled her to Iron Mike’s head, personally taken and delivered. And the knife would be the bomber who had escaped!

  Or so Honest John thought until he went to get his roll of film.

  When he saw the print, he stood there, shoulders sagging. The camera had caught neither of the crew, only blank walls. As he looked back, he understood and correctly timed the events: the chair had tipped when Juras moved in the dark to trip the camera. They had caught him off guard, or he had miscalculated. The flash bulb, however, had whipped the blasters to needless panic, so they had remained to try to seize the film.

  “Good shot of the wreck,” observed the photo finisher, who had personally developed the film.

  “Good for what?” growled Honest John. “Buddy, forget this.”

  “You know me, John. Tough, huh? I guess that ain’t evidence after all.”

  Carmody suddenly brightened.

  “Wait and see.”

  But he did not explain how Anton Juras’ tragically bungled photo was perhaps even better than the winning ticket he had hoped for.

  His first move was to pocket the print and bury the film in a safe deposit box. Then he drove down to Iron Mike’s office. It was in a produce warehouse, the legitimate front for the racketeer’s widespread extortion.

  Trucks dashed crazily down the cobblestones of the narrow, crooked streets of the Embarcadero district. Sailors trooped into waterfront saloons. Others lurched drunkenly out. A U.S. Mail truck was pulling up to the Ferry Branch Station.

  Busy, honest seeming, this whirl of import and export goods, coming in or going to the Far East. Central America, the Atlantic Coast. For the moment Honest John would not need his gun. Iron Mike was too subtle to have meddlers smoked out so close to headquarters. He did not have to be hasty.

  There were people who knew Iron Mike’s right name, but no one ever used it; nor did Honest John. He just said to the copper-haired dame at the switchboard, “Tell the boss I want to see him about the last pineapples he planted.” The girl eyed him, puzzled, antagonistic, then decided that there were some kinds of fruit Iron Mike always was glad to discuss.

  The office was paneled in walnut. It was soundproofed against the noise of the waterfront, and the ox-blood Khiva carpet would have bought a good-sized car.

  Honest John stalked in, drew up a chair without invitation, and addressed the racketeer: “I see you know business when you hear about it.”

  The gray eyes and hard mouth teamed up in that amiable smile which had helped Iron Mike to power. Mere slugging never got a man anywhere. “Right,” he admitted, and did not ask his caller’s name. “Let’s hear it.”

  Carmody displayed a diagonally divided print of the Six Mile House interior and said, “I’ve salted down the business end of this photo. Maybe you been wondering why the papers didn’t feature Juras’ last snapshot. Like it for your album? Good looking mug shows in it.”

  Iron Mike did not reach for the picture. He said, as John pocketed it, “Buddy, I’m not interested a bit. If you need dough—”

  He leaned back, exhaled a thread of cigar smoke, jabbed one of the row of buttons on his Circassian walnut desk. Honest John grinned, seeing the big-executive gesture. Every hard guy has a soft spot, a sucker angle. So did this racket king.

  He could not personally express his contempt by flipping out a hundred-dollar bill. He had to wait for the sleek blond fellow who came in response to the buzzer note. Then he said, “Pay this gentleman a century, and charge it to publicity relations. He is leaving town right away.” Then, to Honest John, “Shall we make reservations?”

  The detective and the assistant had been eyeing each other. Neither betrayed recognition; though the latter had a neat patch of adhesive tape on his head, where a bung starter had conked him. Nor could Honest John guess whether the “business agent” had told his chief about the encounter. He need not have, since he had successfully executed the mission that had bluffed Alma into relaxing her vigilance.

  Iron Mike smiled as Honest John gravely pocketed the century note. He said, “Good luck, pal. Pictures never interested me.”

  That ended it. No, Carmody corrected as he reached the street, that just started it. Not having had a picture of the bomber, he had offered himself as bait to force the assassin into self-protection.

  Had the blond mug returned that fatal night, to plant the pineapple? Meeting him in Iron Mike’s office was no proof. The test would come if they met again.

  Honest John phoned Alma, saying, “Baby, I got to dig in town from now on.”

  Her cry of dismay cut him. He brusquely silenced her protest: “Pipe down, sweetness. I’m doing this my own way. No, it’s no use. I can’t come out to watch you.”

  “But—why not—John—darling—”

  He could not stand that. Neither could he explain. If she knew, she’d do some fool female trick. Women were crazy when they like a guy. So he gave her a nasty growl and told her love was an avocation, not a business.

  Th
at shut her up! He rather hated himself; he liked Alma a lot. In a moment, though, he was sourly grinning as he said to himself, “Cripes, if I had an iron undershirt!”

  * * * *

  He ate away from his usual haunts and earlier than usual. He parked the car in a strange garage, and hoofed it toward his Pine Street apartment. He was whistling a soft, savage little ditty his grandfather used to play on a squeaking pair of bagpipes, after damning the English. Thus he did not see the girl until he fairly knocked her end for end. He’d been watching for men, of course. Soft footed, harmless seeming men.

  This girl dropped some eggs and a bottle of milk, cried out with her own impact against the paving. She was not well dressed, and what she wore had become an omelette. Honest John grunted, “The devil, Madam! I’m sorry—uh—lemme give you a lift—”

  He caught her arm, tried to brush her saturated skirt down over her knees; it clung stickily. She cried, “Oh—wait—that glass—”

  A red gash blossomed from her calf. Carmody was just as red. “I’ll call a cab—I’ll pay for it—and the damage—”

  She thrust aside the bill he tried to give her. “It was my fault—I wasn’t looking where I was going—heavens, no! How could I get into a cab, this way?”

  She grimaced disgustedly. Then she laughed at his embarrassment.

  “If you want to get cleaned up a bit,” Honest John began.

  “If I want to? Where?” She plucked the sticky skirt away from her legs.

  “Couple doors up the block,” he said.

  Once in his apartment, he gestured toward the bath. “Want a drink first?”

  She planted one foot on a chair, sized up the cut on her leg. She was not bad looking, and Honest John didn’t keep his eyes on the slight damage below her knee. He handed her a shot, then sat down to wait for her to wash off the omelette. He frowned, fingered the square angles of his chin. He was not thinking of the redhead’s legs, though they were tops in any man’s language. A false note had set him thinking plenty.

  * * * *

  When she came out, she wore his robe. She explained, “I had to rinse everything else. Got an iron?”

  Naturally, he did not have. The girl went on, “How about a drink while I wait. Lucky you’re a bachelor—” She sized up the diggings. “I’m Mamie Wayne, not that it makes any difference.” She had brightened a lot, and she airily waved her cigarette, “I won’t cramp your style long. Those rags’ll dry quick enough over the register.” He wondered if Mamie had noted his preoccupation. He said, “I can get an iron. Be back in a minute. Have another drink for yourself.”

  He clumped out into the hall. Then he grinned. No reason why Mamie shouldn’t take him for a boob. Who wouldn’t try to console her a little? And he would never have tumbled if he hadn’t noticed the underthings Mamie had rinsed out. They were brand new and expensive looking. An odd contrast to her rundown outer garments and pathetic hat. The average girl of her type would reverse the process, if she had just made a killing and her soul needed finery.

  “Only,” he told himself, “this ain’t no ordinary bum.”

  He wasted no time hunting an iron, though he could have borrowed one at the tailor’s shop across the street; perhaps in an adjoining apartment, as Mamie expected. Instead, he hastened to a door down the hall. It opened into vacant rooms; the maid’s quarters of the large suite which a tenant-hungry landlord had subdivided to suit Honest John’s needs. He paid rent for both. Having two exits was worth the overhead, in his line.

  Thus, when he softly tickled a well-muffled lock, he was able to re-enter what Mamie thought, naturally enough, was the limit of his apartment.

  The redhead’s activity was not surprising. She was giving the place a quick frisk. He watched her make chewing gum impressions of the keys he had left on the table. Iron Mike’s spy was out of luck as to the missing half of the photo, but she skipped nothing else.

  He smiled bleakly, watching his visitor. He knew what her next play would be. Foxy, she had avoided too quick an approach.

  A moment later, he came around from the front, and glumly announced, “The guy’s wife wasn’t in, and the tailor across the street’s using his iron. Later?”

  Mamie smiled vivaciously. “I had a date, but I phoned the boyfriend to give him a stall.”

  Well, she could have, with fast work; she had had time enough.

  “So you won’t have to hurry back?” He was just a bit more eager. “Didn’t say where, did you?”

  “Of course, not! Do I look silly?”

  “Let’s eat,” he proposed, heading for the kitchenette.

  Mamie was game. She crowded him from the range, and did it in a very warming way. Once the bacon was frying, she turned and snuggled tantalizingly close, but for just long enough to make him grab and miss.

  That was art. Instinctively he made a dive for her. She laughed, clucked, deftly skidded near the lounge; and just as Carmody caught her, her quickened breathing and playful laughter did the trick.

  The bacon scorched black, but nobody cared. When they finally noticed the fumes, Mamie broke away to turn out the gas.

  Carmody shed his coat and shoulder harness. Playing up to Mamie was business, but it was not hard to take. A tramp, but very high class, her lingerie had said. He forgot to wonder what her game was in sticking around. Another search, later?

  Sure, that’s it! So he blotted Alma out of his mind and kissed the redhead again—

  * * * *

  Honest John could have bitten ten-penny nails in half when the door slammed open. He thought he’d latched it after him. Alma was standing at the threshold. She had heard, through the panel, enough to make her blaze with rage.

  “Why—you dirty tramp!” she said very softly, after a deliberate survey of the redhead. “So this is finding out who killed my father? Tracing the thug in the picture, are you? No wonder you wouldn’t come out to keep me from being killed!”

  She choked, then whirled as tears drowned her smouldering eyes.

  “Listen—Alma—I can explain—”

  He talked to a slamming door. Mamie was blank, wide-eyed. “Gee, John. I’m sorry. I thought—”

  “Yeah,” he wearily cut in, “you thought I was a bachelor. I will be, now.”

  “Would you mind getting my dress?” she dully said. The encounter had cooled her enthusiasm and she seemed to sense that it had done more for Carmody.

  He went to pick the clothes hanger from above the bathroom register.

  “Listen,” he said, “here’s ten bucks to pay your cleaning bill. I got to get that jane and talk to her, now! Slam the latch when you check out.”

  “Well, I guess you would have a headache. Good luck—I’m awful sorry.”

  The door closed on him. Mamie’s smile was half wistful, half venomous as she nursed the stockings over her small feet, shaped the silk to calf and knee; though the one with a runner was distressing—

  She wriggled into the sleazy dress. For some moments she stared at the holstered gun which Carmody had left in his eagerness to reinstate himself in Alma’s good graces. Mamie shook her head regretfully, then slipped out into the hall.

  A few minutes later, however, her qualms had vanished. She was at a telephone, talking business. And the door of Honest John’s apartment had not been latched.

  * * * *

  Half an hour after the redhead completed her call, a man sat in Carmody’s apartment, patiently waiting. It was dark, a decided advantage for such a vigil. For a while the man impatiently fingered a drawn pistol. Later he holstered it. He could get it quickly enough when the hall door creaked. And creak it would…

  The cable car clattered up Taylor Street. A taxi gunned up Pine. The sounds that disturbed the growing quiet of the city became more widely spaced. But one of them had masked a stealthy approach. A man was moving, catlike; catlike as the other waited.
>
  The wind shifted. A drape stirred, soundlessly. Then the door of Honest John’s apartment slowly swung inward. Its sigh was a metallic whispering, but to highly keyed nerves it was a scream. Blued metal glinted dimly in the gloom.

  An ash tray clattered. A pistol blast blotted a tense inhalation. Before the plaster blown from the wall hit the floor, the momentary spurt of flame had revealed a second man, arm’s length from the watcher, who was whirling.

  There was no second shot: only a crunch, then a thud. An empty champagne bottle is a deadly weapon in the hands of a big man.

  Honest John dropped the bottle, snapped a switch. He nodded when he saw the red-spattered, familiar face of Iron Mike’s business agent. Behind the big dick was the door that opened from the uncharted half of the subdivided apartment. That silent, roundabout approach had made enough draught to suck the front door inward, and startle the lurker into premature fire.

  “Nothing like an Irish hunch,” Carmody said aloud.

  He meant that; starting with Mamie’s luxurious lingerie, and ending with the certainty that she would not latch his door when she left, he had decided upon using his emergency entrance.

  He knew everything about this man except his name. When the cops came, he told them these things, beginning, “He pulled a gun on me.”

  “Huh. Kind of slow,” grunted the homicide dick. But the evidence was too plain for argument. Then, after listening to Honest John, he said, “Nuts, Carmody. You saw this guy at the Six Mile House, you conked him after a threat that no one witnessed. Then you saw him in Iron Mike’s office, where he works. What does it prove? Tell it to the D. A. Ain’t you grown, and don’t you know this town?”

  That was that. Carmody shrugged. After all, he had not mentioned the photo; simply because, since it showed no man’s face, the link to prove that the late Mr. Warren had participated in the bombing, and the murder of Anton Juras was totally missing.

  Yet Mr. Warren must have had a hand in it. Otherwise, he would not have gone to such lengths to have a girl frisk the apartment, and failing in results, figure out a sure fire shooting. Iron Mike would logically delegate the man most vitally concerned; thus he would be assured of success. The executive temperament, always knowing just the right subordinate to pick for a job.