The Pulp Fiction Megapack

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Inspector Glennon scowled at Nick, and grudgingly said to the cop, “It’s all right. Get back there and hold that crowd.”

  Then the inspector took Nick by the arm and urged him into the house. “You’re just the baby I been looking for, Ronson. There’s something stinks in this whole business, and you’re the fair-haired boy that knows all the answers!” “Sure,” said Nick. “I know all the answers. Any time you’re stuck, just ask me. Only suppose you tell me what’s happened around here?”

  Glennon looked down from the height of his six-foot-two to Nick’s measly five-foot-ten, and said, “Nothing’s happened, baby. Nothing—at—all!”

  He piloted Nick into the living room, and Nick gasped. The living room looked like a temporary field hospital. McGuire lay stretched on the sofa, groaning, while a white-coated interne wrapped bandage around his head.

  Munsey, one of Nick’s operatives, sat in the easy chair while another interne taped his arm. The body of the Chinaman whom Deming had killed was still on the floor next to that of Frayner, the secretary. Both were covered now.

  Nick’s other operative, Joe Brody, was standing by the couch trying to help the interne bandage McGuire’s head. Joe Brody had his right trouser leg rolled up above his knee, and his leg was plastered up with gauze and adhesive tape.

  Inspector Glennon let go of Nick’s arm and said, “Well?”

  Nick said, “What was it, Joe, a raid?”

  Joe Brody turned from the couch and grinned sheepishly. “Just that, boss. The Chinks took us unawares. I was in here with Deming,

  and Munsey was outside at the door. McGuire, here, was keeping Deming and me company until the morgue wagon came for the stiffs.” “So what happened?” Nick asked impatiently.

  “So the first thing,” Brody went on, “we heard a battling around at the outside door, and a shot. So I get up to take a look-see, and just at that minute three wild Chinks bust in here with a sawed-off shotgun, and let fly without a single word. It got us all except Deming who was sitting in that chair over there, out of range. Then when I was on the floor with this stuff in my leg, I tried to go for my gun, and one of the Chinks covered me. So I had to lay there while they dragged Deming out.”

  Nick’s eyes were smoldering. “Nice!” he grunted. “Fine protection we gave Deming! What happened to him?”

  Glennon coughed. “They took him away in a delivery truck marked, ‘Fancy Groceries.’ There was an alarm out for the truck inside of five minutes, but it did no good. We found the truck down on the West Side, abandoned. They must have switched to another car.”

  Nick asked, “Did Deming have that jade figure on him?”

  Brody shook his head. He took the two pieces of jade out of his own pocket. “No. He had given them to me to hold. And the dopes never stopped to make sure he had them. I guess they were a little nervous, even with the riot guns.”

  Nick snatched up the two parts of the jade figure. His eyes glinted.

  Glennon growled at him, “Look here, baby—what’s this all about? Where were you while this was going on?”

  Nick laughed mirthlessly. “Where was I? I must have been at a movie. Or maybe I was having my nails manicured.” He turned to go. “Take Munsey home when he’s fixed up, Joe. And don’t feel too bad about it. I should have put an army in here instead of just two guys.”

  Glennon’s thick arm came up to bar his way. “Hold everything, baby! Where the hell do you think you’re going with that jade! And where the hell do you think you’re going—anyway?” Nick stopped short and glared at him. “I’m gonna earn my five grand, you dope, by getting Deming out of one hell of a pickle. You should be the last one to stop me. I’m doing cop’s work for the department, and all I get is abuse!”

  “All right, all right,” Glennon soothed. “Don’t get huffed up. That jade figure is evidence, an’ we’ll need it. You can’t take it away like that.”

  “This jade figure,” Nick said slowly, “is what is going to save the police department a hell of a lot of razzing. Because it’s going to bring Deming back with a whole skin. Do I get it, or don’t I?”

  Glennon stared at him stonily for a long while, then shrugged. “You’re a hard guy to get along with, Ronson, but I got to play this your way. You’re in the saddle. You wouldn’t want to take me in on the know with you, eh?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Nick told him.

  Glennon sighed. “Go ahead, then.” His brows came together, and he poked a finger under Nick’s nose. “But if you muff this, and let Deming get bumped, I’ll ride you out of town—and don’t you forget it!”

  Nick pocketed the jade, grinned across the room at McGuire who was sitting up on the couch looking like a Turk with the bandage on his head and a scowl on his face. “So long, Mac,” he called, and went out with a mock salute to Glennon.

  Outside, he saw the same cab driver who had brought him to the house. The driver grinned, and said, “I figured there’d be some sort of a ride back, so I hung around.” “All right,” Nick grunted. “You get a good ride. Take me through the Holland Tunnel to Hoboken—and squeeze the minutes!”

  At the corner of Ninth and Peasley, in Hoboken, Nick got out of the cab and said, “If you’re looking for more business, you can wait around. I might be coming back.”

  The driver grinned, showing a hole where two teeth were missing. “I’ll wait. You seem to be the kind of a guy that always comes back.” Nick left him and walked up past two or three buildings till he came to the dirty plate glass window on which was lettered,

  SAM MEE HAND LAUNDRY

  There was a light in the store, and three undersized yellow men were working away industriously, with the sweat pouring down their necks and soaking their undershirts. They were all south of China boys, meagre of build, but wiry, and dangerous in a fight.

  One of them came behind the counter when Nick entered, looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to produce a “tickee” But when he got a good look at Nick, his face became blank, devoid of expression. His body seemed to go taut.

  Nick said, in Cantonese, “It is many months since I have seen you, Sam Mee. Your health is good, I trust?”

  The other two Chinamen looked up from their work when they heard the fluent flow of sing-song syllables coming from the white man’s mouth. Sam Mee did not show by a single flicker of expression that he understood what the detective had said. His hand stole along underneath the counter, while his eyes remained locked with the visitor’s.

  Nick saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, and shook his head reprovingly. “The wise man knows when he has met his superior,” he quoted in Chinese. “Do not try to press that button which will warn those inside, Sam. You remember the time that I saved you from a murder charge? You remember how fast my shooting was then? I can still shoot, Sam.”

  He spoke very softly, but Sam Mee stopped the motion of his hand, brought both hands to the top of the counter.

  “I remember,” he answered, “the service you did me, thereby placing the whole Kung Tong in your debt. But this is a matter that is deeper than the life of any of us. My brother has told me about your visit to the tong house, how you chose to take the other side. He thought you were killed there, but I see he was in error. Now that you are still alive, I beg of you, do not go behind the rear partition tonight, for you will exhaust the patience of the gods. It will surely mean your death, and I will be sad.”

  Nick wagged his head from side to side. “Sorry, Sam, but I got to see this through.”

  He walked sideways toward the rear of the store, keeping an eye on all three of them. At the rear wall he felt around with his hand until he found a button. He pressed it, and a section of the rear wall slid open. He stepped through, and the sliding door closed behind him.

  He was in a lighted, bare room. A wiry yellow man sat before a closed door at the far end. The yellow man snarled, his hands moved like lightning, and a knife came hurtling through the air. But Nick was already on his knees. The knife imbedded i
tself in the closed panel, and the Chinaman reached for a gun.

  Nick flashed his own out of its holster, covered the other. The Chinaman froze, hand inside of his shirt.

  Nick said in the other’s tongue, “You are not ready to go to meet your ancestors yet. Do not draw that weapon.”

  His words were convincing enough, for the Chinaman took his hand slowly out of his shirt, raised it and the other in the air. Nick came up close to him, said in English, “It hurts me to do this, brother, but you know how it is!” His left fist crashed against the Chinaman’s chin, and the hatchet-man went down in a heap with a muted groan.

  Nick gripped hard on the knob of the door the hatchet-man had been guarding, and turned it slowly. Then he pulled it toward him very gently. The door opened.

  Through the slight crack thus made, Nick could see a room luxuriously furnished in oriental style. But he could only get a view of a small portion of it. He saw a black-garbed yellow man stooping intently over something that might have been a table.

  Then he heard a smothered cry of agony, and tore the door wide open, stepped in, gun at his hip.

  There was a table in the center of the room. Deming, stripped to the waist, was strapped to the table. Charlie Mee was standing close by, regarding the proceedings with a benign expression.

  The black-garbed hatchet-man, Nick now saw, was one of three around the table. He was holding a strange sort of thing that looked like a pin cushion with the pins reversed, the points sticking outward. The cushion was attached to a bamboo handle, and just as Nick stepped into the room, the hatchet-man had finished sweeping it down across Deming’s naked chest in a raking blow that caused the pins to scrape bloody furrows in the jade collector’s body.

  There was a bandage over Deming’s eyes, and he strained against his bonds in agony.

  Nick said nothing, just swung his gun in an arc to cover the four yellow men. One of the black-clothed ones made a motion to go for a gun, but Charlie Mee, with a movement that was surprisingly swift for so fat a man, put a restraining hand on his arm.

  The hatchet-man let his hand drop to his side and stared at Nick out of narrow, wicked eyes.

  Charlie Mee walked around the table, came close to Nick, with his hands spread out, palms up. He said very low, in Cantonese, “You are a man of miracles. I was aware that you knew of this place, but I thought that you were killed; my heart is glad now that you were not. Since you seem to have us at your mercy, I ask you to wait another moment; you may learn something that will surprise you. Please answer me in my own tongue—I do not wish that Deming should know you are present.”

  Nick looked into the fat man’s eyes, and shrugged. “I will wait, and see what I shall see.” he answered. “But I am not to be taken unawares.”

  Charlie Mee nodded wordlessly and returned to the table on which the blindfolded Deming was strapped. He spoke to him in English. “Where, my friend, is the image of Kung Fu-tsu? Before we go on with the Death of a Thousand Cuts, you have another chance to speak.”

  Deming groaned. “I tell you, I haven’t got it! I gave it to that private detective. Get him. If you torture him, he’ll give it to you. God, let me up! I can’t stand any more!”

  Charlie Mee bent lower over him. “Tell us, then, once more, what happened in your house when you killed the brother of the Kung Tong—not the story you told the police and Mr. Ronson, but the true story!”

  Deming spoke with difficulty. His chest was heaving, little rivulets of blood were running down his body from the cuts onto the table. “God! I’ve told you that already. Can’t you let me alone?”

  Charlie Mee said patiently, “There is a man here whom the Tong holds in high esteem. We wish him to hear the story from your own lips. Speak quickly, and we may spare you further—er—affliction.”

  “All right,” Deming moaned. “That Chinaman had half of the Confucius, and I had the other half. He wouldn’t sell, he wanted to buy my piece. He brought his part to my house to compare it—I got him to do it, making him think I was willing to sell. And when he came, I killed him; killed him, and took his half. Together, the two halves make the most precious piece of jade in the world. I would have killed a hundred men to own the whole thing!”

  Nick’s eyes opened wide while Deming spoke. He took a step toward the table, his face purpling, but he stopped as Charlie Mee bent lower and ordered, “Repeat now, the part about the secretary.”

  “I killed Frayner, too,” Deming croaked hoarsely. “Frayner came in just when I shot the Chinaman. He saw me do it. I hit him on the head, and then stabbed him with the Chinaman’s knife. Then I touched the Chinaman’s fingers to the safe and made it look like robbery!” His body sagged weakly in the straps. “Now, you devils, let me up,” he gasped.

  Charlie Mee straightened up over the table, and his eyes met Nick’s. Then he waved the three hatchet-men back. The one with the pincushion went to a corner and put it away.

  Charlie Mee said to Nick, still in Cantonese, “You see, my friend, the nature of the cause you have espoused? I could not explain to you before because the laws of our Tong forbid us to speak of our wrongs to one of an alien race, even if it means death to those we love. We must work out our own vengeances.” He smiled a little. “But I have violated no Tong laws. I told you nothing. This man has spoken for me. Now you know.”

  Nick slowly put his gun away. From his other pocket he took the two jade pieces, laid them together and handed the image to the fat man. “This is yours,” he said.

  Charlie Mee took the icon, and for the first time he smiled. “I was desolated when I had to order you killed, but the Tong comes before all else, as you well know, who have yourself lived among my countrymen. Had you died, I intended, when the image was recovered, to follow you into death to seek your forgiveness. I am a happy man.”

  Nick took from his wallet the check that Deming had given him and tore it to bits.

  Charlie Mee looked at the pieces of paper and said, “The Tong knows how to reward its friends. You shall not be the loser for having destroyed that check.”

  “The man on the table,” Nick said sternly, “must be turned over to the law.”

  Charlie Mee bowed graciously. “We are done with him. He is yours. The price he would have received for his half of the jade shall go to the dead man’s relatives as indemnity.”

  “All right,” said Nick. “You deliver him. I’ll go ahead and prepare Inspector Glennon.” From the table came a moan, and Deming called out weakly, “What are you going to do with me? What are you going to do with me? God, don’t cut me with those pins anymore!” “You,” Nick said in English, “are not going to be cut any more. You are going to burn!” And he went out to find his cab.

  THE RAY OF MADNESS, by Captain S. P. Meek

  A knock sounded at the door of Dr. Bird’s private laboratory in the Bureau of Standards. The famous scientist paid no attention to the interruption but bent his head lower over the spectroscope with which he was working. The knock was repeated with a quality of quiet insistence upon recognition. The Doctor smothered an exclamation of impatience and strode over to the door and threw it open to the knocker.

  “Oh, hello, Carnes,” he exclaimed as he recognized his visitor. “Come in and sit down and keep your mouth shut for a few minutes. I am busy just now but I’ll be at liberty in a little while.”

  “There’s no hurry, Doctor,” replied Operative Carnes of the United States Secret Service as he entered the room and sat on the edge of the Doctor’s desk. “I haven’t got a case up my sleeve this time; I just came in for a little chat.”

  “All right, glad to see you. Read that latest volume of the Zeitschriftfor a while. That article of Von Beyer’s has got me guessing, all right.”

  Carnes picked up the indicated volume and settled himself to read. The Doctor bent over his apparatus. Time and again he made minute adjustments and gave vent to muttered exclamations of annoyance at the results he obtained. Half an hour later he rose from his chair with a sigh an
d turned to his visitor.

  “What do you think of Von Beyer’s alleged discovery?” he asked the operative.

  “It’s too deep for me, Doctor,” replied the operative. “All that I can make out of it is that he claims to have discovered a new element named ‘lunium,’ but hasn’t been able to isolate it yet. Is there anything remarkable about that? It seems to me that I have read of other new elements being discovered from time to time.”

  “There is nothing remarkable about the discovery of a new element by the spectroscopic method,” replied Dr. Bird. “We know from Mendeleff’s table that there are a number of elements which we have not discovered as yet, and several of the ones we know were first detected by the spectroscope. The thing which puzzles me is that so brilliant a man as Von Beyer claims to have discovered it in the spectra of the moon. His name, lunium, is taken from Luna, the moon.”

  “Why not the moon? Haven’t several elements been first discovered in the spectra of stars?”

  “Certainly. The classic example is Lockyer’s discovery of an orange line in the spectra of the sun in 1868. No known terrestrial element gave such a line and he named the new element which he deduced helium, from Helos, the sun. The element helium was first isolated by Ramsey some twenty-seven years later. Other elements have been found in the spectra of stars, but the point I am making is that the sun and the stars are incandescent bodies and could be logically expected to show the characteristic lines of their constituent elements in their spectra. But the moon is a cold body without an atmosphere and is visible only by reflected light. The element, lunium, may exist in the moon, but the manifestations which Von Beyer has observed must be, not from the moon, but from the source of the reflected light which he spectro-analyzed.”

  “You are over my depth, Doctor.”

  “I’m over my own. I have tried to follow Von Beyer’s reasoning and I have tried to check his findings. Twice this evening I thought that I caught a momentary glimpse on the screen of my fluoroscope of the ultra-violet line which he reports as characteristic of lunium, but I am not certain. I haven’t been able to photograph it yet. He notes in his article that the line seems to be quite impermanent and fades so rapidly that an accurate measurement of its wave-length is almost impossible. However, let’s drop the subject. How do you like your new assignment?”