by Otto Penzler
“They’re on their way,” he said.
He took a look at the binnacle and moved to the chart table. “Now to figure out which way to go,” he remarked. “I’d hate to wind up in Cuba.” He studied the chart for a few silent minutes. Then he moved the wheel and unchained it. “Look,” he said, “think you can hold this wheel on one-eighteen when I get her on that course?”
“Sure,” she said, still the adventuress.
“I’ll have a look around,” Frost said. He went to the side of the box and yanked at the control. From somewhere in the boat’s depth a bell tinkled. It slowly gained speed. Frost spun the wheel and held her circling until she was on the course he had determined upon as most likely to intercept the cutter he had summoned. Frost reached into his shoulder-holster and took out his other pistol. He laid it on the table beside her. “That’s a .38,” he said; “fitted with a silencer. And it’s ready to blast.” She nodded and he went out.
Frost noted that the Catherine B was holding steady at about half speed. He went to the rail and unloosed the rope that anchored his plane, snubbed it along the rail and finally tied it off the stern. Then he walked for’ard and went below through the fo’csle.
Helen Stevens, left alone on as weird an adventure as any newspaper woman ever had, gripped the wheel, her teeth clenched, and stared into that disk of white light that held the magic number, 118, wavering across a red line.
Some time later Frost emerged from the shadows of the deck-house and came forward into the wheelhouse wearing a wide smile.
“We’re all alone but for the engineer,” he said. “Now I’ll take charge of that.” He took the wheel, and she stood beside him and shivered.
“You might as well get comfortable,” he said.
“I’m all right,” she said. “I think this is a good time to begin that belated interview. Born?”
“Yes?”
She laughed. “Where?”
“I’d rather talk about you,” Frost said. “How long are you going to be around Texas?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“How long it takes to get this story.”
“In that case—” he smiled.
And she smiled.
They probably would have been talking yet had not a siren sounded off the port side some two hours later. Frost rang the signal for power off and went out of the wheelhouse.
“Ahoy, there!”
“Who’s there?”
“U.S. Coast Guard!”
“Okey! This is Frost—Texas Rangers!”
The cutter pulled up alongside, its fenders bumped and they lashed on. Haifa dozen huskies vaulted the rails. The leader shifted his pistol to his right hand and came forward fast. Frost could see in the half-light he was some sort of an officer.
“Frost?”
“Right!”
“I’m Al Bennett.” They shook hands. “We picked up your message. I radioed Clay in Corpus that I’d located you.”
Thanks,” said Frost. “Can you send a man over to take the wheel? I’ve got somebody in there who’s just about washed up.”
“Sure,” said Bennett. “Bucko—on the wheel!”
The man saluted smartly and preceded Frost and Bennett into the wheelhouse.
“Miss Stevens this is Mr. Bennett, of the Coast Guard.” Bennett nodded his head. “So you’re the little girl who’s been leading us such a merry chase?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said. She took Frost’s arm.
“Bennett, there’s three of the crew in the hold—one winged. For’ard there’s a man dead and beside the sky-light there’s another one in the same fix. There is a woman below I had to tie up.”
Bennett looked at him, his eyes wide.
“Say,” he said, “is it possible you took this baby all alone?”
“It was a cinch.” Lightly.
“Yeh? Well. I don’t mind telling you the whole Coast Guard has been trying to land this bark for weeks.”
“Will you,” asked Frost, disregarding the praise, “see that we get into port okey?”
“You bet.” He went to the door and spoke to the crew who had come over in the recent boarding. “Pass the word along for the cutter to shove off. You men stay aboard with me. We’re going to Corpus.” He came back to the wheel.
“We’ll go below,” Frost said. “Er—”
“Sure,” said Bennett, grinning.
“Business,” Frost went on. “She’s getting—”
“Sure—”
But Frost, self-conscious, refused to let Bennett be diplomatic. Helen Stevens finally had to rush to the rescue. “I’m interviewing him,” she explained.
Bennett laughed, full. “That’s okey with me, Miss,” he said. “But you’d better shove off. Ox Clay and Jimmy O’Neill are on their way out here.”
Frost and the woman walked out—close together.
The moment they disappeared Bennett turned to the man at the wheel and said: “Ever hear of anything like it?”
“Beats me.”
Bennett looked aft at the shadowy form that rose and fell behind like a phantom. It was Frost’s battle plane.
“I guess,” said Bennett, soberly, “a guy has got to be a little goofy to try something like this. It wouldn’t work once in a hundred times. They must be right about that guy, Frost. I’ve read of those one-man cyclones, but I never saw one before.”
“You said it,” contributed the man at the wheel.
The Catherine B, in the firm hands of the Coast Guard, slipped on towards Corpus Christi with a grim greyhound of the Gulf for a convoy, and another on the way.
In four hours they would be in port.
Double Check
Thomas Walsh
NIGHTMARE IN MANHATTAN, Thomas Walsh’s first novel, one of the most exciting police novels ever written, was rightly awarded the Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America as the Best First Mystery of 1950.
Walsh, however, had been writing for the pulps since 1933, and then wrote numerous stories for such better-paying “slicks” as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as numerous contributions to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He won his second Edgar for the short story “Second Chance” in 1978.
When his prize-winning novel was made into a motion picture in the same year in which it was published, the title was changed to Union Station, clearly New York’s Grand Central Station under a pseudonym. It was well-adapted from the printed page to the screen, losing none of its tension. The entire plot occurs within a 48-hour period and the notion of a deadline looming, while now a cliche of thriller movies, was still fresh when Walsh (1908-1984) wrote this, the first of his eleven novels.
He wrote a half-dozen stories for Black Mask in the 1930s, and “Double Check” was the first; it appeared in the issue of July 1933.
Double Check
Thomas Walsh
A detective long on brains and a copper long on brawn team up on a big-loot, murder case
EVINE WAS A SMALL, slender man, thin-featured, and quick of I manner. His hair and the wisp of mustache on his upper lip were deep black. His sharp eyes, wrinkled at the corners, watched the man across from him with a mixture of anxiety and forced lightness as he spoke.
“You must understand that I’m not taking it seriously,” he said.
Flaherty nodded. He knew the type—money, position, pride and a manner that told nothing whatsoever of the man himself.
The banker’s low voice went on more rapidly:
“I received the first letter two weeks ago. After that they kept coming at intervals of two or three days. Of course I paid them no attention— men in my profession are constantly getting letters of this type. Cranks, most of them. But yesterday they put in a phone call here to my office; it was then that I decided to send for the police. Professional advice, you know—” He smiled faintly with an uncertain upward curl of the lips.
Flaherty nodded. “The right thing to do,” he said. “Have yo
u got the letters?”
Devine turned slightly in his chair, pressing one of the white-disced buzzers at his side. “Why, no. Unless Barrett—my secretary—kept them. I didn’t imagine—”
A tall man with gray eyes, gray clothes, grayish-brown hair, came noiselessly through the door. He stared coldly at Flaherty after a brief nod.
“No,” he answered, when Devine repeated the question. “Sorry—I threw them in the waste-paper basket; in fact, it seemed the best place for that kind of rubbish. I had no idea they were necessary.”
Flaherty’s lean young face soured. Snobby guy, he thought. “You should have saved them. Sometimes there’s a lot to be got out of stuff like that. Hold any more.” He turned back to Devine. “What did the phone call say?”
“It came in about noon. When I picked up the receiver there seemed to be two voices at the other end. But they were speaking too far away from the instrument for me to make out the words. Oh, yes—I think I got one; something like Ginger or Jigger. I took it for one of the men’s names. When I said hello a voice replied: ‘We’re not fooling. Have the money by noon Thursday. No police. If you’re ready to pay put an ad in the Morning Herald to Charlie. We’ll let you know what to do with it.’ Then they hung up.”
“That all?” Flaherty asked, shortly. At the banker’s nod he rose and gripped his hat. “Don’t do anything until you hear from me; I’ll phone you tonight. We might have to put that ad in the morning paper to get them. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Devine’s thin features broke in a smile he couldn’t quite control; his tongue tipped out nervously for an instant. “I’m not afraid, of course. I have no intention of paying. They can’t frighten me like they would a little shopkeeper. I’ll leave it in your hands, Mr. eh—Flaherty.”
Flaherty didn’t like that eh stuff so much as he went out. He slammed the door behind him and passed through the outer offices of the First Commercial Bank to the shaded crispness of a late September afternoon. His dark, small eyes flickered right and left along the street. Nothing to stuff like that, usually. Still—
He handed in his report at headquarters and was going down the stairs from the chiefs office when he met Mike Martin coming up. Mike was big and paunchy, with a gruff voice and hands like fleshed mallets. Beside the younger, slimly muscled Flaherty he resembled a fat pug next a whippet.
Flaherty grabbed his arm and drew him into a niche by the elevator shaft. “Just the man, Mike. You’re working with me on an extortion case. Old man’s say-so.”
“The old man’s getting’ smart,” said Mike. “He musta wanted someone with brains on the job.”
“Yeh,” said Flaherty. “And he thought you’d pick up a little experience. It’s Conrad Devine, head of the Commercial Bank.”
Mike took a cigarette from Flaherty’s pack and puffed slowly.
“Devine?” he said. “They’re not picking smart. There’s talk the Commercial’s about to crash.”
Flaherty grunted. “What bank ain’t?” he said. “They called him up yesterday. He says he heard one of the names—it sounded like Jigger to him.”
Mike spat thoughtfully into the corner of the wall. “Jigger? That might be Jigger Burns— been pretty quiet for a while now. But he don’t figure in a case like this.”
Flaherty said: “That’s the way I got it. This ain’t the Jigger’s line. But anything’ll do these days.”
“Let’s see,” said Mike. “Jigger’s a peter man—expert on nitro. He’s cracked enough jackboxes to blow us to hell.” He stared at Flaherty wide-eyed, without seeing him. “I saw him in Joe’s place Monday night—fourteen minutes to eight. He was wearin’ a blue suit, white spats, yella gloves—” Mike stopped admiringly. “Yella gloves! The old lady bought me some last Christmas, but I’m damned if I could ever wear ‘em. I had to tell her they were lost. He was talkin’ to Johnny Greco.”
“You’re fading,” said Flaherty. “I didn’t hear you mention his tie. What you got on Johnny Greco?”
“Tough,” said Mike, spitting again. “Thirty-five; five feet eight; one sixty on the hoof; dark hair and eyes; scar on right eyebrow. Up twice for assault—once for homicide. Acquitted—no witnesses. He—”
“Can it,” said Flaherty. “I know the ginny. Davis brought him in on a loft job last week, but had to drop him on a writ. He plays around with a Polack girl at the Esplanade. We could stop there this evenin’ and pick him up.”
Mike looked at his watch. “Make it nine,” he said. “The old lady’s havin’ company, and she’ll want me around for a bit.”
“Run along,” said Flaherty bitterly. “They oughta put married coppers on desk duty, with aprons and bibs. I’ll bet you look sweet with a baby blue dishtowel spread on that belly of yours. What do you use to make your wash so white, Mr. Martin?”
“Honest to gawd,” Mike scowled, “some day, Flaherty, I’m gonna lay you like a rug.”
The long vertical sign threw a rush of dirty yellow light across the pavement. The lettering winked on and off rapidly: Esplanade—Dancing 25 c.
Two dusty, fly-spattered doors gave into a hallway with shabbily carpeted stairs leading up. A quick rush of music, undertoned by voices and sudden, whirled-away gusts of laughter, swept against his ears as Flaherty stepped in, holding the door back for Mike Martin. Flaherty was neat and slender in a brown suit and wine-colored tie; behind him Mike was in gray, unpressed and shiny. His tie was crooked and his soft collar folded up in clumsy flabs.
Flaherty gritted his teeth. “You’re the type, fella; watch the girls fightin’ for you when we get upstairs. By a blind man miles off could tell you were a copper.”
“They could,” said Mike. “The old man mighta wanted a cop on the job as well as a jig— gollo. If I’d had my good suit back from the tailor’s—”
“Yeh,” said Flaherty. “I’ll work inside. Stick by the door, Mike, and try to hide behind a cuspidor. Come on.”
Mike followed slowly up behind his partner’s quick legs. At the stairhead Flaherty tossed a quarter to a girl in a window, and was passed through the turnstile by a tall, pimply faced man with glasses. A small anteroom, lit dimly by wall clusters of frosted red bulbs, and furnished with stuffed lounges and wood-backed settees, opened before him; past this the larger space of the ballroom spread from side to side of the building.
Flaherty pushed his way slowly along the side, looking over the crowd. He came back to the door, went around a second time, a third. After he smoked a cigarette and danced once with a plump brunette he walked out to where Mike was waiting in a chair near the door.
“No luck,” he said. “Johnny and the Jigger aren’t showing. Maybe they will be in later. We’d better stick.”
Mike nodded. Time passed slowly. Now and again men came up the stairs and pushed through the turnstile, greeting the pimply faced guardian as they passed. Flaherty grew restless, lit one cigarette from another, took a few quick puffs and quenched them in the sand bowl at his feet.
They had been waiting almost an hour when a little sallow-faced man came up the stairs and went past them to the men’s room. Mike jerked his head.
“Joey Helton, Flaherty. We can give him a try.”
Flaherty nodded and followed him across the room to the door. Inside, the little man was washing his hands at the sink. He didn’t turn as they entered but jumped quickly when Mike said: “Hello, Joey.” The sharp rat’s eyes flickered from one to the other, narrowed and beady.
Flaherty said, smiling thinly: “Hello, Joey. We got some news for Johnny the Greek. Seen him lately?”
“I ain’t,” said the little man. “What’s the news?”
“He’s been left a dirty pair of socks,” said Flaherty. “We wanta see him about washin’ them up. Try to remember, Joey.”
The little man snarled suddenly. “To hell with you!” He stepped by them with a quick twist of his body for the door.
Flaherty’s arm yanked him back, thrust the small body against the sink. “Easy, Joey. Three mo
nths without a sniff would soften you up.”
Joey glanced at Mike’s stony face, licked his lips weakly. He said: “All right. I don’t know nothin’ about the Greek; he’s been comin’ here pretty often, and hangin’ out with that Polish skirt. That’s all I see.”
“That’s all I want,” said Flaherty. “You’re a good boy, Joey. When you go out step up to the Polack and say something. But nothin’ about this. Got it?”
“Yeh,” said Joey. He straightened his tie sullenly and went out. A second later they followed.
Flaherty reached the edge of the dance-floor a yard behind the little man. He watched him thread a way through the crowd, stop before a tall blonde girl near the front. She nodded, turned away, and Joey went on again.
Flaherty went back to Mike. “I’m gonna call Devine,” he said. “Stick here.”
“Okey,” said Mike. “I’ll wait.
Flaherty went past the ticket-taker to a phone booth at one side. He thumbed through the book, got his number, dropped a nickel in the box. When he announced himself a man’s voice said: “Just a moment, sir.” He was trying to get a cigarette from his pack with one hand when a quick, staccato voice broke metallically in the earpiece.
“Mr. Flaherty?” Flaherty grinned a little; there was no eh stuff this time. Devine’s voice quivered and ran up swiftly, like a child’s. “I’ve got another message—by phone. They threaten to kill me tonight. They found out about you. My! You must get out here at once. If they—”
Flaherty got out his cigarette and scraped a match against the side of the booth. He said: “Don’t get excited. We’ll have some men out there in ten minutes, maybe less. They’re trying to scare you into it. Don’t worry.”
He hung up. Scared as hell now, but tough enough this afternoon when the steam wasn’t on. No guts, that kind….
Mike was waiting for him. “Wanta hop out to Devine’s?” Flaherty said. “Pick up a man on your way. He’s got the jitters—thinks they’re gonna spot him tonight. I’ll stick here; maybe I can get something from the Greek’s girl. Call me when you get there.”
