E. Hoffmann Price's Two-Fisted Detectives

by E. Hoffmann Price

  The hijackers were tearing into the car. They worked with mechanical precision. They had to, to get away before the Chinatown squad woke up.

  Bud Worley’s light sleep had been shattered by the riot. His gunners were there, but men booted out of the hay at that hour are dull and sluggish. The chief was the first into action. He dashed down a passageway that led to a deserted building that commanded the scene.

  The murky glare of a street light almost touched the crippled car. He opened fire with a revolver. A hijacker pitched face forward. Cans of junk rolled down the grade. Worley cursed bitterly. They were beyond retrieving.

  Answering fire blazed from behind a power pole. Another hijacker shot from the rear left of the riddled car. Worley’s deadly skill got him; a slug lifted the top of his head. But as he dropped, the dead man’s reflexes jerked a farewell shot.

  That misdirected spurt of flame ignited the gas that ran from the slashed tank from which the junk had been taken. A tall column of flame roared up, three stories high. The raiders fled.

  Police whistles shrilled. Cops came charging up the hill, guns drawn. A wounded fugitive stumbled, gun clattering from his hand. One lay roasting in the awful heat of the blazing gas, unable to crawl to safety.

  Bud Worley lurked, eyes glittering. Dawn grayed, but the roaring blaze was brighter than day. The cops were picking up the cans of hop. Leadfoot Johnson was regaining his feet.

  He lurched drunkenly. A cop started in pursuit. There was a man to question, along with the wounded raiders the others were rounding up.

  Panting, coughing blood, Leadfoot headed for Worley’s fortress and safety.

  Then he saw a revolver barrel reflecting the flames. The wind whipped the blaze for a moment, giving him a view into the shadows of the building. He recognized the dark man who smiled.

  “Bud, fer Christ’s sake!” he yelled. “It’s me—”

  His legs buckled. The cops were closing in. The revolver rose, and blackness blotted Leadfoot Johnson’s terror…

  Worley Retreated before the cops could get between the flames and the window from which had come the shot that had picked a captive from their hands. As he reached his own house, which still was legally above reproach and could not be entered without a warrant, he exhaled a sigh.

  “Close…damn close.” He grinned amiably and set to work cleaning his revolver, washing his hands with chemicals to destroy incriminating traces of nitro powder. “Tough about Leadfoot…good driver, too…”

  He spent the day smoking and listening to the radio. From time to time, underworld gossip filtered into his house. He ran his gunners into cover. He knew now that Smoke Keenan, hopped up and reckless, had staged the reprisal; but the flareback had driven Keenan and his mugs into hiding.

  * * * *

  Every junk dealer was hot now. That the cops had not made a raid to round up every suspected racketeer was ominous. They were waiting. G-men were taking things in hand. When they cracked down…

  But Worley smiled. Leadfoot Johnson could not talk about the source of his opium and snow. Suppose the narcotic squad did slug the pants off Keenan’s wounded gunners? Their statements would only kick back at their boss, not Worley.

  Some of his telephones were unauthorized extensions tapped into instruments a block away. Thus he got reports.

  That night, things eased up. A few of his gunners returned. And Mae Allen came to the house.

  “Bud, darling,” she cooed, “Keenan’s crazy-mad. I’m afraid he’ll take it out of anyone messed up with you.”

  “Stay here,” he generously invited. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Come to think of it, Mae was nice looking. Her legs were gorgeous, and the way she had them crossed, he got peeps of smooth whiteness. Only the right thing to take care of Mae…

  They had a few drinks. Spike and Benny tended bar. Everyone had an alibi. Worley wished the dumb clucks would get out and leave him alone with Mae. She’d make a quick job of getting over Rod’s death. Mob widows usually did…

  The phone rang. No name was mentioned, but Worley recognized the voice.

  “Fer Christ’s sake, watch yourself, Bud. Leadfoot sang before he croaked. He knew you tried to knock him off to shut him up, so he squawked. All about Calexico.”

  Click! Nothing more to be said. Worley’s face tightened. Nobody could use Leadfoot’s dying remarks as a peg for a murder rap. No D.A. would be silly enough to try to. But narcotic agents would nail Torres and Blaze and Nita. Not right away, no. Not until a new runner was put on the job.

  Certainly not until then. For no one was supposed to know Leadfoot Johnson had squawked. But for a crooked captain, Worley would have suspected least of all. He relaxed and began smiling.

  “Drink, baby?” He squirted soda into the tall glass.

  Mae snuggled closer, lifted admiring blue eyes. She had to build it up carefully before she used the gat that had killed Rod. She had not even dared bring it. If Worley began pawing her and found it, she’d be finished. He’d put two and two together; the answer was quick death.

  Worley was pawing her, and she pretended to like it. Later, as she peeled out of her ensemble and stood before the dresser, all white and gold and silk, Worley said, “I could go for you, steady.”

  “Darling, do you mean that?” she cooed, snapping off the lights…

  * * * *

  That night, Worley got more phone calls. His plan took form. If he personally went to Calexico, he could pull things out of the fire. Instead of sending a pair of torpedoes to settle Blaze and Nita, he had a better idea. A keen piece of strategy. So keen that he kept it from Mae, who’d turned out to be a perfectly swell kid.

  Worley smiled at the world as he listened to the pilot warming up a plane at the private landing field of an aviation club at San Carlos, some twenty-odd miles south of San Francisco. The cops and the narcotic agents still thought they had him bottled up in his fortress, huh?

  He had discarded the idea of rubbing out Blaze and Nita, simply because they were too handy and too useful; he had them where they lived, and they dared not be stupid or talkative. And even though that lousy rat of a Leadfoot Johnson had squealed, Blaze and Nita would play a new role: that of decoy ducks!

  “Let the feds watch ’em,” he outlined to himself as the plane swooped south. “Let ’em chase suspicious cars with nothing in ’em. While I’m running the junk from Tecate…well, maybe Andrade would be better.”

  He was truly becoming a field general. This was strategy, making the feds believe that Blaze was really outwitting them. The continued flow of hop and snow to ’Frisco would drive them nuts! They’d end by folding their tails between their legs. He was so pleased that he forgot his bitterness against that yellow bastard, Leadfoot Johnson, ratting on his chief.

  “And Mae’s a nice kid. Damn near wished I’d brought her along.” She’d begged for the trip, but Worley had compromised. “Listen, toots, I’ll phone you from the hotel at El Centro. Uhuh. You don’t think I’m landing in Calexico? Christ, am I that dumb?”

  When he landed, he’d phone Blaze, and they’d meet at the hotel. That way, Blaze wouldn’t get jittery and think, he, Worley, was sore.

  * * * *

  It was an hour after dark when he was set down in Brawley, which had a landing field. It was only fourteen miles to El Centro. He engaged a rental car and drove it himself. He needed no bodyguard in this apple-knocker section, where people had cotton and dates and rice on the brain.

  Worley thus paid no attention to the car that passed him, just beyond the landing field, at Imperial, which was four miles from his destination.

  At the Vista Real, he gave his keys to the porter and strode up to the desk. The house was small, yet tastefully furnished. Its lobby was spacious as the open desert. A tourist place, and the clerk was impressed by the debonair, carefully tailored young man who approached.

>   As Worley signed the register, the clerk said, “Lucky you reserved a suite. We’re a bit crowded, and if you hadn’t, we’d have had to give you something a bit less choice.”

  “Huh?” Worley looked up sharply. “Reservation?”

  “Why, yes. Mrs. Worley hurried down to surprise you.”

  “Uh, sure.” He brightened. Mae, the dizzy little doll, had flown down! After all, why not? “Listen, is this the best in the house?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, sir! Air conditioned—you know, it does get hot here, but it’s clean, dry, invigorating desert heat. Lots of the movie people patronize us. Ah…I know I’ve seen your face on the screen, Mr. Worley.” The clerk nodded wisely. The racketeer beamed. It tickled him, being mistaken for a movie idol, incognito. “The suite is sound proofed, Mr…ah…Worley. Yes, indeed, sir. You’ll not be disturbed.”

  Pretty swell. Pretty swell. And Mae’s perfume and open arms welcomed him at one swoop.

  “Darling, I hope you’ll not be mad. I just got so damn lonesome.”

  He held her from him. Lord, she looked as good as she smelled.

  “Shake up a drink while I clean up,” he said, breaking from her followup kiss. “You little devil, you could get an airport plane ahead of me. But you took a risk.”

  “As if I care!”

  A shower. A shave. His face smarted and tingled from windblown sand. He turned back to the medicine chest mirror, but there was Mae’s handglass.

  That quick move and the unexpected mirror gave him a glimpse of Mae’s hate-distorted face and flash of nickel. Cat-quick, he hurled himself to the shelter of the jamb just as the little automatic crackled.

  The tiny slug bit lightly. Mae’s treachery infuriated him. She cried out, shudderingly, and desperately squeezed another shot. Worley flinched. God, that was close. He deliberately leaped out of cover, but crouched to make the most of the race against death.

  He hurled the mirror. It caught Mae between the eyes, stunning her. She fell, a quivering huddle of white and orchid and red.

  “You God damn dirty—! So that’s it?” Trembling, he seized the little gat, emptied it into the half-conscious woman’s body.

  Sound proofed room, huh? No one’d hear that pea shooter.

  He dressed, very rapidly. He cut every label and laundry mark from Mae’s garments and his own. Then he grinned, remembering the dumb cluck down below had suspected him of being a movie star. Sweet, huh?

  But now he could not phone Blaze. Not by no manner or means! Especially not from a hotel in which an unidentified blonde would be found.

  He stopped at the desk, slid a century note to the clerk and demanded change. That gave him a chance to add a few strokes to the register: changing Worley to Worleigh. Not that it’d make much difference. Why wouldn’t an incognito movie star pick on his name? Not a dozen people in the state knew that “Bud” meant “Rudolph.”

  Presently, Worley was on a bus to Calexico, eleven miles away. When he reached his destination, he phoned Blaze Hayden: “Come on to the back room of the Mission Pool Room. Yeah, I know this is sudden, but I got a hot idea. Don’t mention any names, see?”

  “Listen, uh—listen,” answered Hayden. “Nita’s sick in bed. And that uh—well…that man—I’m afraid he’ll sneak up on her.”

  Worley knew that Blaze referred to Torres. Leadfoot had told him that much, and no more; nothing about Nita’s discontent.

  “Aw, fer hell’s sweet sake—” Then he abruptly checked himself. Much better to go to the filling station. It would not be as conspicuous. There was Mae, dead in her room. And since no junk-runner had been working the beat, the narcotic snoopers would not be watching day and night. It all flashed through his mind. He said, “Okay, Blaze. Be out right away. The back way, huh?”

  Calexico was too small to make a cab necessary. The aristocrat got a kick out of walking, once in a while, like common people. He was whistling softly as he strode on air. He was invincible. Keenan’s revolt had kicked back. So had Mae’s lousy treachery. And she’d not squawked to the narcotic men. She was a mobster frill, sold on personal vengeance; not a louse like Leadfoot.

  Can’t sneak up on me. I catch ’em, even when my back’s turned. Keenan. Mae. Not to make a horse’s neck of the God damn feds…if they’re screwballs enough to try to nip me.

  He loved Blaze Hayden like a brother. Good old Blaze, helping making a monkey’s so and so out of the coppers! He’d buy Nita something ritzy. Nice girl, Nita, but he had one blonde already…

  * * * *

  Blaze Hayden was saying, “Now, honey, I tell you, Worley ain’t mad. Cripes, if he was gunning us out, he’d not come down here, he’d send torpedoes.”

  Nita was buffing her finger nails long after they gleamed like rubies.

  “I smell death. Look at Northup. Look at Leadfoot. We’re hoodooed.”

  “He didn’t croak Leadfoot,” protested Blaze. “Keenan’s mob did.”

  He was sore and got up to go downstairs and wait for Worley. Blaze was becoming shaky from Nita’s day and night grousing. It was a lousy, stinking racket, but they were lucky, being so far from headquarters. It’d been different, if Leadfoot had squealed and told all about Calexico…

  A cheery voice hailed him. “Hi, Blaze.”

  “Hi, boss,” answered Hayden, extending his hand. Hell, Worley was smiling, tickled to death with something. “Something big bringing you down, huh? How’d you square that mess up north?”

  The telephone jangled. “Wait a sec. Be right back.”

  “I got it, honey,” Nita called from the second floor.

  “Oh, that?” chuckled Worley. “Listen, pal. It had me talking to myself, but believe me, when I get thinking, I think fast. Now take a load of this—”

  He leaned across the kitchen table in the back room. A packet of maps jutted from his inside coat pocket. And the butt of his revolver peeped from under his armpit. But he was not thinking of that, nor of the gun in Blaze Hayden’s hip pocket. Hell, the boy was watching out for Torres. He’d have to warn him against quarrelling with such a valuable guy.

  He did not hear the frou-frou of silk. But he did get a whiff of expensive perfume. He was still shaky about women in back of him. He had not laughed Mae completely out of mind. So he abruptly turned in his chair as he reached for his maps.

  Blaze yelled, but that was drowned in the heavy blasts of a .38. Nita, white faced, was pouring lead into Worley. Slugs bounced screaming from the range. Some grazed Hayden as terror sent him ducking for cover.

  Worley was cursing, rising to his knees, gun jumping into line.

  Nita was crazy, but Blaze knew they were doomed. His own gun got into action. He finished what Nita’s insane shooting had started. Worley dropped, his face a red blot, his revolver blasting wild. The blood fury gripped Blaze. He emptied his automatic into the quivering, dead hulk.

  He shoved in another clip and emptied it.

  Nita stopped him. Dazed, he said, “What’d you do that for?”

  “Mae Allen—she phoned—from El Centro—the dirty son—shot her—she said just enough—to warn me—so—darling—we’re not damned! We’re free—thank God—free. Quick, get the car—I’ll finish this.”

  As he rolled his bus into the drive and gunned the engine, he began to get the point of it all. Nita came out with a suitcase. A handful of large bills from Worley’s wallet. The damned had revolted, and Satan’s blood-soaked money would give them a fresh start.

  Nita flung a match, then joined Blaze. “Drive like hell,” she panted. “Before the fire gets too big. I soaked things with gas, lots of it. They’ll think you shot Torres for making passes at me. And nobody’ll care.”

  A tall red column rose high enough to touch the rear vision mirror of the roaring car. A pillar of fire celebrated the revolt of the damned.

  “Baby,” whispered Blaze, as he pieced it all tog
ether, “it’ll work. When Torres hears of the shooting and fire, he’ll stay away, so they won’t nail him for killing me and running off with you.”

  * * * *

  She pillowed her copper red waves against his unwounded shoulder.

  “Darling, you’re awful smart. God, I was afraid I’d got you into trouble.” She turned back, glancing at the far off fire that had made the undrained gas pumps explode. Then she sighed, “It’s just like I read, once, about a pillar of fire guiding a bunch of people into the promised land, or something.”

  MUMMIES TO ORDER

  Originally published in Thrilling Mystery, January 1940.

  The overhead lights beat down on the mummy stretched out on the broad table, and picked the premature gray from Murray Deane’s averted head. His deep-set eyes glowed, and his tanned face was set in squarish angles. A frown of concentration puckered his forehead as he bent over the dried flesh and the leathery skin stretched over ancient bones.

  Deftly, he plucked the crisp, brown linen from the throat of the mummy, exposing a carnelian amulet, engraved with sacred symbols. Deane nodded, rolled his camera tripod into place, and switched on the flood lights. Their heat brought sweat to his forehead, and it trickled down his cheeks. But he did not notice the glare, nor the bitter dust that settled on his lips.

  Slowly, patiently, he was unveiling the secrets of old Egypt. An American museum trusted his judgment and his skill, and had sent him to Cairo as director of operations.

  Deane muttered wrathfully when he heard the persistent tapping at the laboratory door. Hassan, his Arab servant, was at the threshold.

  “Effendi, two gentlemen wish to speak to you. It is urgent.”

  Deane irritably smote the mummy dust from his hand.

  “Who are they?”

  “That red-faced Crawford, Effendi, and the fish-eyed grave robber.”

  “Heyl?” Deane grimaced. He had met the two, and he disliked them both. One was a loudmouthed amateur collector; the other, Gunther Heyl, a dealer in outright fakes, as well as genuine antiques illicitly purchased from native tomb looters. “All right, send them in!”