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

  McCarthy turned fast. He saw a small and dirty boy of around ten with black curly hair and bigger and blacker eyes than McCarthy thought were possible. He gulped and said:

  “Tony isn’t here right now. You run along and come back by and by.”

  The boy said, “Ma says for him to come to supper. She says she won’t wait, that it’ll spoil. Where is Tony?”

  “He’s out right now.”

  The boy said reflectively, “Ma’11 raise hell with him when he comes home. She says all he does is run along and talk to lawyers and that the store ain’t run right any more.”

  “Is he your dad?” asked McCarthy, going a little sick. There was no resemblance between the dead man and the boy but he got the answer he dreaded.

  “Sure! I’ll go back and tell Ma he ain’t here. If you see him, tell him supper’s ready.”

  McCarthy said he’d surely do that and watched the boy swagger out. He decided that Tony had been an indulgent father and that the children had rather taken things into their own hands—basing this on the good nature still showing in the dead man’s face and on knowledge of other decent, kindly, honest Italian people he’d met. He went out of there, head down and deciding he would not be the one that broke the news of Tony’s death to his family.

  He called the station and told Shannon what he’d found, and Shannon cursed luridly and asked him to go back and stand guard until he could get a radio car on the scene.

  And McCarthy did, praying the youngster wouldn’t be back looking for his father.

  Chet Morris was at Marge’s apartment when McCarthy got there. He was again polishing his glasses and his mild, near-sighted eyes peered up at McCarthy as he said:

  “I’m sorry, pal! I guess I spoke out of turn to that big, stuffed shirt. How was I to know he’d take it the way he did?”

  “You told him I’d talked to you about him? That it?”

  “Yeah! I didn’t stop to think a thing about it.” He put his glasses back on and this cleared his vision. He looked McCarthy over and said, in a different tone:

  “What’s the matter with you, Pat? You look sick.”

  McCarthy said: “I am sick. Marge, honey, how’s about a drink? I thought I could take it but I guess I can’t.”

  Marge brought the drink and said anxiously, “What’s the matter, Pat? What’s the matter with you?”

  “I want to kill a man. This bird with the ice pick. Him or the man who hired him. That’s all. I didn’t know I could get so crazy mad that I’d be sick.”

  Morris asked, “What’s happened?” and McCarthy told them both. Morris started toward the phone, saying: “I’ll telephone it in. With the guy in the hospital getting it the same way, it’s a story. They may not get the connection.”

  McCarthy said, with no inflection: “You touch that phone, Chet, and I’ll beat you to a pulp. I’m praying God that nobody will see there is a connection. That other business didn’t rate much of a spread and maybe nobody will add ‘em together. I’ll work it my own way, Chet. Let the other boys handle it. You’re off shift.”

  Morris said, “If you say so, Pat! But give me a break when the thing smashes.”

  “If it smashes,” McCarthy said bitterly. “It’s going to be hell to lay it on that guy. You don’t accuse men like Wilson of having murder done unless you can prove it. And he’s got no motive.”

  Marge said: “Chet told me all about it. This Italian man was suing Wilson for damages. If he was dead, he couldn’t sue, could he? That’s why that other man was stabbed, too. They tried to kill him so he couldn’t testify. It stands to reason, Pat.”

  McCarthy said wearily, “Oh, use your head, Marge. Giovanni was asking for twenty-five grand, claiming Wilson was driving carelessly. Wilson is very wealthy and what’s twenty-five grand to a man like that? He’d pay it in a second rather than have anybody killed. It ties up some way, but we haven’t caught the angle yet.”

  The phone burred and Marge answered it and then said, “It’s for you, Pat. It’s Lieutenant Shannon.” McCarthy took it and said, “Yeah, Shan?” and Shannon blurted out:

  “You called the turn on it, Irish! You sure did. I had a man on guard up at the hospital and two guys came in and tried to kill that Bowes guy. One of them even got in the room. That’s the one that got away, down the fire-escape. I should have seen that they put him some place where he was easier watched.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, this man, his name’s Dugan, was sitting out in the hall. He admits he was talking to some nurse, or maybe it wouldn’t have gone as far as it did. Two men come up the stairs and walk down to Bowes room and Dugan finally gets wise to himself and asks ‘em what they want. One of them pulls a gun and starts using it and Dugan kills him. The other ducked in Bowes’ room and down the fire-escape and Dugan missed him three times hand running. He’s going to put more time in on the range or get off the force and I told him so.”

  “Was Bowes hurt?”

  “Hell, no! They’ve got him doped up so he won’t roll around and tear himself up any more and he didn’t even know anything happened.”

  “Has he talked yet?”

  “He can’t. And the doctors wouldn’t let him if he could.”

  “Who was the man the cop killed?”

  “Some bird named Weeks. Just a hired hand.”

  “Did Dugan see the one that got away well enough to identify him?”

  “No. He was talking to that nurse, like I said. He wasn’t paying any attention to what he was supposed to be working at. I’m going to see he gets a month’s suspension without pay if I have to resign to get it…. You coming down?”

  McCarthy said not that evening and then he asked if the man the policeman had killed had happened to have an ice pick on his person, and found he hadn’t. And then he said to Marge and Chet Morris:

  “Let’s eat! Chet, why don’t you come with us?”

  Morris said, “Don’t think I’m not. I’m sticking close until this thing’s settled. I’m scared, Pat, and I’m not fooling.”

  Marge said, “I’m afraid about Pat.”

  And McCarthy said, “And I’m afraid the cops will get to the ice-pick guy before I do. I want to be first.”

  T TOOK McCarthy the best part of a week to find that Mr. James R. S. Wilson was maintaining a small apartment in a discreet apartment house. And a small blond girl who fitted ? the apartment. The small girl’s name was Mrs. Martha Abott, or at least that name was accepted. Her husband was Mr. James Abott, supposedly a traveling man, but his travels only extended from the Wilson brokerage firm or the Wilson house to the apartment.

  It took twenty-five dollars of what was left of the five hundred for McCarthy to get details but he thought it money well spent. He said to Marge and to Chet Morris, who was arrayed in something new that shocked the eye:

  “The guy’s keeping her all right, but in this day and age that’s no crime. And I’m damned if I can see that he’s doing anything else. I’ve tagged him back and forth, from his house to his office, from there to this apartment, and I haven’t seen him do one thing that would tie him up to any of the rough stuff.

  “Of course I can’t tell just who he sees in his office, but he’s too cagy an old turkey to meet some hoodlum there where the help could spot it. I’ve got a boy on the day shift and another one on the night shift to tell me if he meets anybody there at this apartment and they say he doesn’t.”

  Morris asked, “Does he know you’re following him?”

  “If he does, he hasn’t done anything about it.”

  Marge said firmly, “He’s a nasty old man. Or he wouldn’t be doing things like that.”

  Morris said, “Did you ever see his wife?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, I did. When I went to see him. I don’t blame him a bit. She’d drive a man to drink.”

  McCarthy asked what woman wouldn’t and Marge slapped half-heartedly at him. She said, “What are you going to do now, Pat?”

  “
Keep after him, of course. He’s bound to make contact with his hired killers before long and I want to see ‘em. He’s the only lead to them I’ve got.”

  “I wish you’d drop it. After all, it’s none of your business.”

  McCarthy said, “You didn’t happen to see old man Giovanni stretched out like I did. You didn’t see this poor kid of his. You didn’t go to the old man’s funeral.”

  “Pat! You didn’t go to the funeral!”

  Chet Morris said, “Pat and some of the cops, mostly Shannon, and some of the boys on my paper paid for it, Marge. Even Abe Goldstein came in for ten bucks and the guy thinks money is something to hide in a bank. All of them had seen the family the guy left and it seems he’d given Halstead all the money he could raise to prosecute Wilson for running over his oldest boy. He’d mortgaged the shop he had and they took it away from the family before they could even have his funeral.”

  Marge said, “Oh, the poor people.”

  There was a knock on the door and Marge opened it for Benny. He came in, grinning, and said, “Another thirty-five bucks you owe me, Chief. I’m running you into dough—that’s five of’em.”

  “You always cost me,” McCarthy said sourly.

  “But not any more, Chief. It seems that I’m getting amnesia or something like that and the docs say I’m no good any more and that they’re going to get another boy until I get fat again. Jeez, Chief, I lose ten pounds, but it’s seventeen and a half a pound the way I figure it and that buys a lot of groceries.”

  “I’d rather pay you than some other mugg.”

  “Thanks, Chief, thanks. I like that.”

  McCarthy explained, “If I pay you, you don’t have to borrow from me. If I pay somebody else I’m stuck with you again.”

  “Jeez, Chief, that ain’t right. Don’t I always kick it back to you?”

  “You haven’t yet.”

  “Well, I never had it yet. When I’m in the dough I will.”

  McCarthy looked at his watch and asked, “You got the hack downstairs?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll ride with you then.”

  He said to Marge and Chet Morris: “I’ll start after Wilson some more. He gets out of his office in half an hour; he’s as regular as the old maid putting the cat out. See you some more.”

  Marge went to the door with him. She said earnestly, “You be careful, Pat! I’ve got a funny feeling about this.”

  “Forget it, kid! He’ll lead me to the right guys sooner or later. He has to—they’ll contact him some time. And then I’ll step in on him and them both.”

  Benny said, from where he was waiting in the hall: “Hey, the guy talked today. When I was doing my stuff with the docs and him. But all he wanted was a priest. He said he wanted to confess.”

  “Shannon know this?”

  “Sure. But the guy wouldn’t talk to him. He wanted a priest is all, Chief.”

  McCarthy said, “I’ll put Wilson to bed, either at his house or at his apartment, and then I’ll see Shannon and we’ll talk to the doctors. If the guy can talk to a priest he can talk to the cops. And he knows things we have to know to get any place.”

  “Is he getting along all right?” Marge asked.

  “According to the doctors he is.”

  He said good-by again and Marge watched him follow Benny down the hall with quick strides. She went inside and said to Chet Morris:

  “This has Pat down. I never saw him get upset about anything like that before.”

  Morris said slowly, “Well, here was a case of the innocent bystander being the victim. Worse than that. That killing was so senseless, and there was no reason for the attack on Bowes. Twenty-five thousand dollars means little to Wilson—and the death of his oldest boy hit Giovanni pretty hard. From what his wife said, he only wanted the money for his family. And then he gets killed and leaves five kids, none of them over ten. Twenty-five thousand isn’t worth that.”

  Marge said, “Maybe Pat’s after the wrong man. Maybe he didn’t do it or have it done.”

  Morris shrugged his gaily covered shoulders and said, “Don’t be silly. If it wasn’t Wilson back of it, why should the one witness against him be almost killed? Why should the man making the charge be killed? It doesn’t make too much sense, but he’s the only connecting link between the two happenings.”

  “I wonder where the man Bowes got the five one hundred dollar bills.”

  Morris said, “I didn’t know he had any,” and Marge told of them. She defended Pat with: “He just took them so he’d have money to care for the man in the hospital. That was all.”

  “Sure,” said Morris, with no conviction in his tone.

  Marge said, “Poor Pat! I’ve got the oddest feeling about him. I’m really worried.”

  “If the cops find out Pat took the five hundred you’ll have something to worry about,” Morris told her.

  cCARTHY walked a hundred feet behind the sedate-looking James R. S. Wilson. I But Wilson was alone and I McCarthy wasn’t. A thin, very dark man was on one -side of him and a heavy but equally dark man was on the other. The heavy man was saying:

  “Go ahead, shamus. You been following him and he didn’t know it and we been following you and you didn’t know it. Now we’re all going to get together and get acquainted.”

  The heavy man had a hand in a side coat pocket and the pocket lumped out with more than hand. His thin partner was just as close to McCarthy and his pocket bulged in the same manner. He had a high whiny voice and he said:

  “You’re a stupid, shamus! You might’ve known we was keeping watch on him. You’re stupid.”

  McCarthy admitted it with: “I’ve been told so before. By better men than you two punks will ever be.”

  “Sing high, sing low,” the heavy man said. “But if you do it out loud I’ll smear you all over the town. You guys out here think you know something but you’re made to order.”

  The thin man said, “Yeah, tailor-made.”

  Wilson turned into the apartment house, first glancing suspiciously up and down the street, and McCarthy said, “Now what?”

  “We go in. Just act right.”

  McCarthy acted right. He went inside and to the elevator as though expected, and the clerk looked at him casually and turned away. They rode up to 3C and the heavy man said:

  “You know, Mike, I don’t blame the guy for going with the gal here. She’s a honey. I don’t blame him for going for her.”

  The thin partner said, “Why should you? He’s paying for it, ain’t he?”

  “And how!” the heavy man agreed. He said to McCarthy: “Just you knock on his door. When he opens it you just walk in like you owned the place. No funny stuff now.”

  The thin man said, “Hey, wait!” and reached over and snapped McCarthy’s heavy gun from its shoulder sling. He stuck this in the waistband of his trousers and said, “O.K. now. Go to it.”

  McCarthy knocked. He heard fluttering sounds inside and then a girl’s voice said, “What is it?” McCarthy got a warning gun jabbed in his short ribs and held silent.

  The heavy man said, “Electrician, ma’am!”

  There was more fluttering and then the door opened. The small and blond and supposedly Mrs. Abott stood framed in it, a black silk negligee wrapped around what appeared to be herself and nothing else. The thin man jammed his gun into McCarthy’s ribs and said:

  “In!”

  McCarthy went in, accompanied by a small shriek from the blond girl. The heavy man said in an approving voice:

  “Now that’s nice, lady. That’s the way to yelp. If you’d made any more noise than that somebody might have heard you and then there’d have been hell to pay for this chump.”

  She said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Wilson’s voice said, from inside: “What is it, darling?”

  The girl didn’t answer, just backed into the room where Wilson was, staring at the three men and the two guns that followed her. Wilson jumped to his feet, his face suddenly white
, and the heavy man said:

  “Don’t have kittens, mister. We’re friends. And I’ll prove it to you.” He said to his partner: “You watch ‘em, Mike,” and headed toward the French phone by the window.

  Wilson said, “Why, what—” and the heavy man grinned back at him over one shoulder and said:

  “Don’t get in a lather, dad. I’m going to call Halstead. I’ll get him to come up and we can sort of talk things over.”

  McCarthy said, “You’d better call the cops, Wilson. This has gone far enough.”

  Then the thin man hit him on the back of the head with his gun and McCarthy went ahead and on his face. And completely out.

  He came back to life in time to hear Halstead say, “This is going to complicate things, Wilson. This man possibly has somebody working with him. This is going to cost money to hush up.”

  McCarthy opened his eyes just wide enough to take in the room. He saw Halstead sitting composedly in a chair with the heavy man standing back of it and leaning on it. Wilson was standing in front of him and looking very unhappy. The girl was sitting on a couch, swinging and admiring an arched instep that held a high-heeled bedroom slipper. The thin man was at the window and looking directly at McCarthy. He said:

  “Hey! Ain’t it about time Sleeping Beauty woke up? I didn’t rap him hard, Halstead. I just slapped him a little.”

  Halstead said to Wilson: “You’re in this too far to back out now, Wilson. If Bowes gets a police guard, which he is very apt to do, there’ll be hell to pay all the way around.”

  The thin man said, “We’ll take him and his copper guard if we have to, Halstead. I never liked cops anyway.” He walked over to McCarthy and kicked him in the ribs, and McCarthy took it with a lax body and still half-opened eyes. It took what will power he had to do it but the thin man turned and walked back satisfied and McCarthy thought the effort worth it.

  Halstead said, “You didn’t do so well at the hospital, Mike. If that cop had been a better shot, you wouldn’t have done well at all.”