The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s

by Otto Penzler

  MacBride shouted and fired his gun, but the figures disappeared in the woods. Kennedy brought up beside the shattered touring car. Four broken, twisted men were linked with the mangled wreckage.

  “They’re done for, Mac,” he said.

  “You stay here, Kennedy. I’m going after the others.”

  “So am I.”

  “Kennedy—”

  “Let’s go, Mac.” He was off on the run.

  MacBride galloped past him, dived into the timber. Somewhere ahead, two men were thrashing fiercely through the thickets. Five minutes later MacBride caught the fleeting glimpse of one. He yelled for the man to stop. The man turned and pumped three shots. Two clattered through the branches. A third banged into a tree behind which MacBride had ducked.

  Kennedy, coming up at a trot, raised his automatic and blazed away. MacBride saw the man stop, throw up his arms, and buckle.

  “Come on,” said Kennedy.

  They plunged ahead, reached the fallen man.

  “Bannon!” muttered MacBride. “You finished him, Kennedy.”

  “Good.”

  Bang!

  Kennedy and MacBride flung themselves into a convenient clump of bushes. They lay still, back to back, until they heard the sounds of continued flight up ahead.

  “Let’s,” said MacBride, heaving up.

  “Sure—let’s.”

  MacBride started, hunched way over, darting from tree to tree, bush to bush. He stopped, to listen. Kennedy puffed up behind him.

  “Come on,” said MacBride.

  “Sorry, Mac….”

  MacBride pivoted. Kennedy was sitting on the ground, holding his right leg.

  “Hell, Kennedy!”

  “Hell, Mac!”

  MacBride bent down.

  “Go on,” grunted Kennedy. “Get the slob!”

  “I’ll get him,” said MacBride, and started off.

  Dodging from tree to tree, he finally came to the edge of the timber. Before him lay a wide, marshy field, and the wind rustled in blanched weeds and bushes.

  Bang!

  MacBride’s hat was shifted an inch, and the bullet struck a tree behind his head. His teeth clicked and he fired three shots into the weeds, then ducked. He crouched, breath bated, and listened.

  The weeds crackled, and he heard a groan. Warily he crawled out into the weeds, worming his way over frozen puddles. A groan, and a rasped oath reached his ears. Sounded a bit to the right. He wriggled in that direction. He stopped, waiting. Five, ten minutes passed. Half an hour.

  Then, ten yards from him a head appeared above the weeds, then a pair of shoulders. MacBride stood up.

  “Drop it, guy!” He leaped as he said it.

  With a snarl the man spun, but not completely. MacBride jabbed his gun in the man’s side, and the latter regarded him furiously over one shoulder.

  “Hello, Sciarvi.”

  Black and blue welts were on Sciarvi’s face. He was hatless, and his overcoat was ripped in several places.

  “Where’d I pot you?” asked MacBride, snatching his gun.

  “In the guts,” grated Sciarvi.

  “Didn’t know you had any.”

  “Get me to a doctor. Snap on it, and can the wisecracks. You don’t worry me, MacBride.”

  “Get going.” MacBride prodded him. “And lay off the lip, you lousy Dago! You’re the guy I’ve been looking for, Sciarvi, and I’ll see you to the chair!”

  “Yeah? Laugh that off, MacBride. I got friends.”

  “I’ll get your friends, too.”

  “That’s a joke!”

  “On you, Wop.”

  They passed into the timber, and came upon Kennedy leaning against a tree and smoking a cigarette.

  “Sciarvi, eh?” he drawled. “Spats Sciarvi, the kid himself, the Beau Brummell of crookdom, the greasy, damn dago.”

  “Yeah?” sneered Sciarvi. “When I get out of the doctor’s care I’ll come around and pay you a visit.”

  “Tell me another bed-time story, Sciarvi!”

  They moved along, Kennedy limping in the rear. They came upon Bannon, alias Shane, lying face down, quite dead. They walked past, rustled through the bushes, and came out near the wrecked car.

  Haifa dozen policemen and a sergeant looked up, and then Bower appeared, red-faced and bellicose.

  “Oh,” grumbled MacBride, “the riot squad. What did you do, come around to pick souvenirs?”

  “We’ll take the prisoner,” rumbled Bower.

  “You’ll take hell!” said MacBride.

  “Damn you, MacBride!” roared Bower.

  MacBride pulled the gun with the silencer from his pocket, held it in his palm, looked at Bower. “Don’t you think you’d better pipe down?”

  Bower closed his mouth abruptly, stood swaying on his feet, his bloodshot face suffused with chagrin.

  “Come on, Bower,” snarled Sciarvi, “do your stuff.”

  Bower caught his breath, glared at Sciarvi with mixed hatred and fear. Then he stamped his foot and pointed a shaking finger at MacBride.

  “You’ll see—you’ll see!” he threatened, but his tone was choked and unconvincing.

  MacBride chuckled derisively, turned to the sergeant and said, “There’s a stiff back in the woods. Better get him.”

  Then he pushed Sciarvi up the slope toward the road, and Kennedy limped after him. They reached the roadster and Kennedy eased in behind the wheel.

  “Your leg,” said MacBride.

  “It’s the right one, Mac. I’ll use the handbrake.”

  Sciarvi was shoved in and MacBride followed, and the roadster hummed back toward Richmond City.

  “Now the big guy,” said Kennedy.

  “Now the big guy,” said MacBride.

  “Jokes!” cackled Sciarvi.

  VIII

  HE MAYOR paced the library of his opulent, fifteen-room mansion. He wore a beaver-brown suit, a starched, striped collar, a maroon tie and diamond stick-pin. He was small, chunky, with a cleft chin, a bulbous nose, and shiny red lips. He wore pince-nez, attached to a black-ribbon, and this, combined with the gray at his temples, gave him a certain distingue air. He was known for a clubable fellow, and a charming after-dinner speaker; and he went in for boosting home trade, sponsoring beauty contests, and having his picture taken while presenting lolly-pops to the half-starved kids of the South Side, bivouack of the bohunks.

  He was not his best this morning. There was a hunted look in his usually brilliant eyes, and corrugated lines on his forehead, and he’d lost count of how many times he’d paced the room. He stopped short, to listen. There was a commotion outside the door, a low, angry voice, and the high-pitched, protesting voice of Simmonds, his man.

  Perplexed, he started toward the door, and was about to reach for the knob when the door burst open. He froze in his tracks, then elevated chest and chin and clasped his hands behind his back.

  MacBride strode in, kicked shut the door with his heel. He was grimy, blood-streaked, and dangerous. A pallor shone beneath his ruddy tan, and dark circles were under his eyes. He was weary and worn and the hand of his wounded arm was resting in his pocket. His coat collar was half up, half down, and his battered fedora, with Sciarvi’s bullet hole in the crown, was jammed down to his eyebrows.

  “Well?” said the Mayor.

  “Well!” said MacBride.

  And they stood and regarded each other and said not a word for a whole minute.

  “Who are you?” asked the Mayor.

  “MacBride. A common precinct captain you never saw before. But you know the name, eh?”

  “Humph,” grunted the Mayor. “I shall refer you to my secretary. I’m not in the habit of receiving visitors except by appointment.”

  MacBride lashed him with windy blue eyes, and a crooked smile tugged at his lips. “Mister Mayor, Spats Sciarvi’s dying. He wants to see you.”

  The Mayor blinked and a tremor ran over his short, chunky frame.

  “Sciarvi? Who is Sciarvi?”

 
; “Better come along and see.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  He turned on his heel and strode away.

  MacBride put his hand on the knob. “Remember, Mister Mayor, I carried a dying man’s wish. He’s at 109 Ship Street.”

  The Mayor stopped, stood still, but did not turn.

  MacBride left the room, and as he went out through the front door he ran into Bower. They stopped and stared at each other.

  Bower snarled, “Where’s Sciarvi? What did you do with him? He ain’t at Headquarters. He ain’t in none o’ the precincts. He ain’t in the hospitals.”

  “Ask the mayor,” said MacBride, and passed on.

  He got into a taxi, sank wearily into the cushions, and closed his eyes. Twenty minutes later the taxi jerked to a stop. The driver reached back, opened the door and waited. After a moment he looked around.

  “Hey,” he called.

  “Um.” MacBride awoke, paid his fare and entered a hallway.

  The room he walked into was electrically lighted. Sciarvi lay on a bed, his face drained of color. Kennedy sat on a chair while a doctor was bandaging his leg. Another doctor hovered over Sciarvi.

  “MacBride … ?” a question was in Sciarvi’s tone.

  MacBride shook his head. “Your friend wouldn’t come. Never heard of you.”

  Sciarvi stared. “You’re lyin’, MacBride!”

  “God’s truth, Sciarvi!”

  Their eyes held, and in the captain’s gaze Sciarvi must have read the awful truth.

  He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Then he glared. “Damn your soul, MacBride, why are you hidin’ me here? Why didn’t you take me to a hospital?”

  MacBride said, “You started yelling for a doctor. This was the first M.D. plate I saw.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you turn me over to Bower?”

  “You’re in my hands, Sciarvi, not Bower’s. I’ve got two doctors here. You wanted your friend, and I went for him. He said he didn’t know you. You’ve gotten a damned sight more than you deserve already. Quit yapping.”

  “Cripes, what a break!” groaned Sciarvi, relaxing, closing his eyes.

  MacBride sat down, stared at Kennedy’s bandaged leg. Kennedy looked sapped and drawn. But his cynical smile drew a twisted line across his jaw.

  “I needed a vacation, Mac,” he drawled.

  “Hurt?”

  “Hell, yes!” And still he smiled, eyes lazy-lidded, features composed.

  The one doctor left Kennedy, and joined the other doctor and the two doctors put their heads together and conversed in undertones. Then they looked at Sciarvi, examined his wound, took his temperature. After which they went back to the window, put their heads together again, and mumbled some more.

  The upshot of this was quite natural. One doctor said, “Captain MacBride, we have come to the conclusion that, for the sake of everyone concerned, this man should be removed to the City Hospital.”

  “Gawd!” groaned Sciarvi.

  “Huh?” said MacBride.

  “Gawd!” groaned Sciarvi.

  All eyes looked toward him. He glared at the doctors. “City Hospital, eh? Why the hell don’t you come right out and say I’m done for? I know the City Hospital. You saw-bones always send a dyin’ guy there. It’s just a clearin’ house for stiffs. Come on, mister, am I done for?”

  The doctor who had spoken before spoke again. “I will tell you frankly—you have one chance in a hundred of living.”

  “What odds!” cackled Sciarvi, sinking again. Then a shocked look came into his eyes, and he stared with the fierce concentration of those who are outward bound.

  “MacBride!” he choked.

  Kennedy drew a pencil and a couple of blank envelopes from his pocket.

  MacBride stood at the bedside. “Yes, Sciarvi?”

  “The Mayor—the pup! He hired me, at a thousand a month to wage a war of—whaddeya call it?—intimidation?—against the Colonial Trucking. He promised absolute protection in case I got in a jam. For the killing of Saunders— Bannon did it—I got a bonus of fifteen hundred. The Mayor supplied that special kind o’ poison. He got it from the City Chemist. When you got Gertie, I wised him and he started working to nip an indictment in the bud. His right-hand man is Bower. Bower flopped, and two this mornin’ I told the Mayor that if Gertie was planted in the State’s Attorney’s hands, we were done for. He turned white. He was in a hole, and he asked me what idea I had. I told him we could block off Law Street and get rid of Gertie. He said go ahead. We went ahead. Huh—and now the pup says he don’t know me! Ugh…. Get a—ugh….”

  “Get an ambulance,” said one doctor.

  “He wants a priest,” said MacBride, understanding.

  “He won’t die for half an hour,” said the doctor. “And if we get him to the hospital—”

  “He’ll burn in the chair eventually,” said MacBride.

  “That’s not the point,” said the doctor, and took up a telephone.

  When he put it down, Kennedy said, “I wrote it down, Mac. I’ve signed as a witness. You sign and then the doctors.”

  All signed, and then MacBride stood over Sciarvi. “Want to sign this, Sciarvi?”

  “Read it.”

  MacBride read it. Sciarvi nodded, took the pen and scrawled his signature.

  “Get a … ugh….”

  Five minutes later an ambulance clanged to a stop outside. Two men came in with a stretcher, a hospital doctor looked Sciarvi over briefly, and then they carried him out, and the ambulance roared off.

  Kennedy hobbled out on MacBride’s arm, and they entered a taxi. Twenty minutes later they drew up before an imposing mansion. Kennedy hobbled out and with MacBride’s assistance climbed the ornate steps.

  MacBride rang the bell and a servant opened the door. MacBride brushed him aside and helped Kennedy into the foyer.

  The mayor was standing in the open door of his library, and his face was ghastly white. Toward him MacBride walked and Kennedy hobbled, and the mayor backed slowly into the room. MacBride closed the door. Kennedy sat down in a comfortable chair and lit a cigarette. The mayor stood with his hands clasped behind his back—very white, very still, very breathless. MacBride looked around the room, and then walked toward a table. He pointed to the phone.

  “May I use it?”

  The mayor said nothing. MacBride picked up the instrument and gave a number. A moment later he asked, “That Sciarvi fellow. What about him?” He listened, said, “H’m. Thanks,” and hung up.

  Then he drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the mayor. The mayor read, and moved his neck in his stiff collar, as though something were gagging him. His hand shook. Then he laughed, peculiarly, and scaled the letter on the desk.

  “His dying confession,” said MacBride, picking up the envelope.

  “Confessions made at such times are often worthless. This Sciarvi was a little off. A dead man makes a poor witness.”

  MacBride nodded. “Yes. But, you see, Mister Mayor, he is not dead. He had one chance in a hundred, and he got it. They just told me he’ll live. Of course, it will mean the chair.”

  The mayor drew a deep breath. MacBride bit him with keen, burning eyes, and nodded toward Kennedy.

  “This,” he said, “is Kennedy, of the Free Press. Of course, this confession will appear in the first edition.”

  He said no more. He shoved the envelope into his pocket and turned to Kennedy. “Come on.”

  They went out, arm in arm, and left the mayor standing transfixed in his ornate library.

  MacBride went home that night, and his wife cried over his wounded arm, and he patted her head and chuckled and said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s all over now.”

  He had his wound dressed and went to bed and slept ten hours without so much as stirring once. And he was awakened in the morning by his wife, who stood over his bed with a wide look in her eyes and a newspaper trembling in her hands.

  “Steve,” she breathed, “look!”

&nbs
p; She held the paper in front of him, and he saw, in big, black headlines, three significant words:

  “MAYOR COMMITS SUICIDE.”

  INTRODUCTION BY LAURA LIPPMAN

  LATELY, IT SEEMS TO ME, there is a lot of hand-wringing about the lack of suitable role models for young people. Apparently, there was some halcyon period in U.S. history when everyone was good and pure, a time when rosy-cheeked boys and girls ate sandwiches made from Wonder Bread while choosing among an embarrassment of heroic riches. They were told that they could grow up to be presidents or astronauts or surgeons or firefighters. Now our young people watch something called celebutantes in homemade sex tapes on YouTube, and we are all going to hell in a handbasket. Or so I’ve heard. My Internet connection is too slow to watch videos.

  At any rate, I simply cannot work myself into the requisite tizzy. You see, I actually came of age as feminism was dawning and what I remember is a dearth of female role models, good or bad. We were advised that any boy could grow up to be president; a girl had to set her sights on First Lady. A boy might train to be an astronaut, but a girl could aim no higher than stewardess— and, yes, that was the only term used at the time. If you scanned the textbooks of my grade-school days, virtually the only females you would find would be Pocahantas, Sacagawea, and Amelia Earhart. Granted, Earhart really did break the mold. But the mistakes she made in her final journey didn’t do much to change all those jokes about women and their sense of direction.

  The pop culture of the 1960s did not act as a corrective to the academic void. In the comics, we had Betty or Veronica fighting over the dubious prize of Archie Andrews. At the movies, all I remember is Julie Andrews, who seemed to find fulfillment in tending to others’ children. On television, the highlight of the week was the June Taylor Dancers, spreading their legs in synch. (That’s not a double entendre, but a perfectly literal description of the geometric patterns the dancers made when the camera switched to an overhead shot.) I thought it was marvelous, but I doubted I could ever perform such feats. Even then, I knew I wasn’t a team player.