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

  From behind them a quavering yell rose on the air and the two fugitives knew that Wylie’s escape had been discovered. It was a matter of yards and of minutes now. Then they burst from the shadow of the jungle into the moonlight clearing.

  “Follow me,” she said quickly. “Don’t take the path,” and he followed her footsteps as she twisted and twined about the space toward the steps.

  At the steps he halted a moment in wonder at what he saw there, and then, in spite of the gravity of the situation, a chuckle broke from his panting lips.

  “So that’s it,” he said, and Vivian nodded.

  “That’s it. Be careful. It’s a slim enough chance, but there is just a chance it’ll work—the only chance we’ve got.”

  “But even that,” he said, a thought striking him, as he threaded his way carefully up the steps to the veranda, “will only be temporary. Even if it holds them at bay until dawn—when daylight comes …”

  “I know,” she said a trifle impatiently, “but long before then—” She broke off suddenly as their pursuers appeared, breaking out from under the palms, just as a flash of lightning came.

  “They’re here,” he whispered. “If the scheme won’t work, then it’s all up with us.”

  “It will work,” Vivian said confidently.

  But, although her tone was cool, confident, there was anxiety in her eyes as she watched the black figures pouring out of the jungle. Vivian knew that her own and Wylie’s lives were hanging by the slenderest margin in their criminal career.

  The Papaloi, the giant Negro with the white lines and scar ridges criss-crossing his muscular torso, was the first to see them as another flash of lightning illuminated the veranda where they stood. He uttered a single bellow, a stentorian cry, which seemed to shake the house, and bounded toward the stairs. Behind him came part of his followers, while others rushed for the other pair of stairs.

  The Papaloi leaped for the steps, his men close behind him. His feet landed in something that slid quickly under him, that clung to his soles. He lost his balance, fell asprawl, his followers in a momentary confusion that quickly increased to panic—the panic of the primitive mind confronted with something unseen that it cannot understand.

  The hands of the gigantic black Papaloi were glued now to squares of sticky fly paper that he could not shake off—the fly paper that the Lady from Hell had taken from the storeroom and spent so much precious time placing upon the steps and around the veranda without encountering it, save along the narrow, tortuous trail along which Vivian had led Wylie.

  There was a square of fly paper on the Papaloi’s face now, clinging there, flapping a little as if alive, persistent as a vampire bat. There were more on the side of his body where he had slipped. He struck at them and accumulated more.

  The Mamaloi, that ancient crone, was in trouble also. She had slipped and, in falling, had a sheet of fly paper plastered squarely across her eyes. She was uttering shrill cries of distress as she pawed at her face with hands that were covered with sticky fly paper and glue. All about the two men and women were struggling, shouting in alarm. The silent attack had materialized out of nothing with such appalling swiftness, and continued with such devastating persistence that it robbed them of every thought save alarm.

  Robbed of their spiritual leaders, terror was striking at the hearts of the voodoo worshipers. At the edge of the veranda, black men writhed in horror, snatching at one another for support, tearing at the horrible things that clung as if with a million tiny sucking mouths. Their machetes, covered with glue and flapping fly paper, had been dropped, forgotten in the confusion. Torches had dropped underfoot, forgotten, so that the struggle was in darkness, illuminated only by the light of the moon through the clouds and the flashes of lightning. Fly paper in their hair, across their eyes, clinging, hampering, maddening them with the knowledge that some frightful voodoo, stronger than their Papaloi or Mamaloi, had laid hands upon them.

  A flare of lightning slashed from the very center of the storm cloud that was now hanging overhead. Its brilliance illuminated, for a moment, the figure of the Lady from Hell, standing at the edge of the veranda, her arms uplifted as if calling down the wrath of the heavens upon them. A shattering blast of thunder followed and a gust of wind swept across the clearing.

  That gust of wind was the crowning touch, the straw that was needed to break the camel’s back of resistance in that struggling, milling black throng. It set all the loose ends of the fly paper fluttering, where it was not fastened to bodies. And, more than that, it caught up the sticky squares that were still unattached and sent them dancing through the air.

  There rose a howl of fear. The demons of these blancs, not content with lying in wait and springing out upon them, were now flying through the air; attacking them from the heavens, sucking from their bodies all their strength.

  What use to resist when even the magic of the Papaloi and the Mamaloi was not sufficient to fight off the demons.

  They bolted headlong, fly paper sticking to every part of their anatomy. They fell, scaled with the awful things, and promptly acquired more. Women fell and shrieked as they were trampled upon, not from the pain of the trampling feet, but from the fear that they might be left behind at the mercy of the demons. Men, blinded by the sticky things, ran in circles and clutched at whatever they came in contact with.

  Then came the low drone of an airplane engine in the distance, flying low because of the storm. Turning, Vivian ran back into the dining room, where Benedetti still lay, bound upon the floor, his eyes glaring hatred at her. Calmly she sat down and wrote upon one of his letterheads which she found in the desk there. Then she snatched off the gag that muffled his mouth.

  “The danger is all over,” she told the man, “for us. But for you trouble is just beginning.”

  “You can’t escape,” he raved at her viciously. “I don’t know what you’ve done, but you won’t be able to leave the island. In an hour, two hours—by daylight at least—they will return, and what they will do to you won’t be pleasant.”

  Vivian smiled. The invisible plane seemed to be circling the house now. She waved the paper she had written to dry the ink.

  “What the American authorities in Port-au-Prince do to you will not be pleasant, either,” she told Benedetti. “Voodoo is forbidden by law. You have not only aided and abetted voodoo ceremonies, but you have also procured human sacrifices for the ceremonial. There was the little French girl from the Port-au-Prince cabaret, and the girl from Santo Domingo—you should not have boasted. For you murdered them as surely as if you had driven a knife in their hearts, and the law will agree with me.”

  “You’ll never live to tell the Americans, even if they believed the tale,” he scoffed.

  “Oh, yes I will,” she mocked. Her voice was as dry and keen as a new ground sword. “Within an hour I shall be on my way to Cape Hatien. Hear that,” and she raised an admonitory hand. In the silence the plane could be heard. She threw open the French windows. From where he lay Benedetti could see a Marine plane slanting down toward the comparatively sheltered waters of the little cove.

  “In less than ten minutes,” she said, “the plane will have taxied up to the beach and the Marine pilot and his observer will be in this room, asking if we need aid. You see,” and her smile was completely mocking and scornful now, “you yourself brought about your own downfall—planted the idea in my brain when you told me that the plane passed overhead every night at about this time. There was a can of luminous paint in your storeroom. I saw it, and there he is coming to see what it’s all about—and to take you to Cape Hatien— unless …”

  “Unless what?” he queried eagerly.

  “Unless you sign this memorandum. It deposes that I have purchased this plantation from you—that you have received the purchase price—and that proper legal transfer to it will be made later.”

  There was a calculating gleam in the man’s eyes as he made assent. His gaze flickered out through the open door to where the pla
ne had already landed on the surface of the cove.

  Vivian had caught that gleam. “Of course,” she went on smoothly, “we will have the Marine officers sign it as witnesses in your presence. Then you can accompany us back to Cape Hatien in the plane, and the lawyers of the Haitian Sugar Central will be glad to see that memorandum is put in proper legal form before I, in turn, resell the plantation to them. I shall not refuse the price they are willing to pay—and it will not matter to the sugar trust whether you or I are the owner.” She gazed at him for a moment. “Well, do you agree?—or do you go to Cape Hatien a prisoner?”

  Benedetti shot a glance at the trim, uniformed figure coming cautiously up from the beach. Feverishly he scribbled his name at the bottom of the memorandum.

  Brother Murder

  T. T. Flynn

  MORE FAMOUS AS A WRITER of Western fiction for the pulps, the prestigious Saturday Evening Post, and in book form, Thomas Theodore Flynn (1902-1978) was also a prolific author of mystery fiction, producing a story, “The Pullman Murder,” for the very first issue of Dime Detective (November 1931).

  He led the type of macho life that many male writers thought helpful in learning about the world, spending time as a hobo and working as a carpenter, door-to-door salesman, clerk, traveling salesman, and in a shipyard, steel mills, on ships in the engine and fire rooms, and in a railroad shop, inspecting locomotives.

  He published five Western novels with Dell between 1954 and 1961, one of which, The Man from Laramie, was filmed starring James Stewart and directed by Anthony Mann.

  Flynn’s only two mystery novels were paperback originals published in Great Britain by Hector Kelly, It’s Murder (1950) and Murder Caravan (1951).

  His mystery pulp stories tended to be humorous and cheerful, as exemplified by the series featuring Mike Harris and Trixie Meehan, both of whom work for the Blaine International Agency. Mike is tough, redheaded, and wise-cracking; Trixie is cute and pert and, while depending upon her partner if a fight breaks out, is also smart and inventive when necessary.

  “Brother Murder” first appeared in the December 2, 1939, issue of DFW.

  Brother Murder

  T. T. Flynn

  Father Orion was the Prophet of Truth, with Death as the greatest Truth of all—but Mike and Trixie were unbelievers

  CHAPTER I

  GIRL IN A COFFIN

  I WAS DOING SIXTY-EIGHT on the Ventura highway, north of Los Angeles, when the siren wailed behind me—and you could have had all the fun for a kippered herring.

  Sixty-eight on that smooth open highway through the orange groves—and when I heard the siren and looked in the rear-view mirror, the motorcycle cop was coming like a bee to a flower.

  “Whoa, Mike,” says I, and stood the long fast coupe halfway on its nose at the edge of the pavement.

  He rolled alongside, killed the engine and wanted to know sarcastically: “Going somewhere?”

  “Points east,” says I. “Did the sunshine make me reckless for a moment?”

  “It made you murderous at that speed!” he snapped. “Name, please!”

  “Harris,” says I.

  “First name?”

  “Michael Harris.”

  “Red hair,” says he, peering in at me. “Sawed-off and wisecracking.”

  “Is this a beauty contest?” I gave him.

  “It’s a pinch,” he informed me coldly. “We’ll go down the road and get it over with. I came out here looking for you.”

  “Not me,” I told him. “No one knew I’d be along this stretch of road.”

  He was glancing in a small notebook.

  “Blue Packard coupe,” he read off. “New York tags. Sawed-off redhead named Mike Harris driving.” He pocketed the book and grinned nastily. “If I hadn’t been out this way looking for you, I wouldn’t have caught you splitting the road open. Which makes us even for my trouble. Over sixty-five—and that’ll cost you huckleberries, young feller.”

  “Okay,” I said sourly. “Huckleberries it is. But why look for me?”

  “The Los Angeles office of the Blaine International Agency want you to telephone,” he said. “Drive on.”

  So I drove on—and they took huckleberries away from me. When I put a call through to Lew Ryster, manager of our Hollywood office, I was fit to tie.

  Lew sounded relieved when he heard my voice. “So they got you, Mike! I wasn’t sure what road you were taking out of the state, and your next address being New York, I put out a general call for you.”

  “They got me all right,” I said through my teeth. “And try to explain my fine on your expense sheet, wise guy! I’m not taking the rap for it!”

  “What fine?” says Lew.

  “The cop who came out looking for me slapped a speed charge on me!”

  Lew haw-hawed.

  “Cackle like a Death Valley jackass!” I said. “I’m heading on to New York. We’ll settle my fine from there.”

  “Wait, Mike!” Lew yelled. “Your vacation’s canceled! I telephoned New York. And now you’ve been formally notified!”

  “You Judas!” I howled. “You had my vacation canceled?”

  “I’ve got a job for you,” says Lew. “It’s important, Mike. Murder, I think.”

  “There’ll be murder if I get near you!”

  Lew said: “Get back here fast. I’m waiting for you, Mike.”

  I slammed the receiver down and blistered the phone booth. But when you worked for the Blaine Agency you were in harness. The Agency had discipline and a tradition of breaking cases fast. An assignment to a case put you to work fast or else.

  So I drove back to Los Angeles to meet murder.

  There’s a cold-blooded touch to murder. Crooks, thieves and swindlers are mostly ordinary people with ordinary weaknesses. A lot of us would like to collect from life the easy way.

  But we’re all born knowing murder is out of bounds. And you never know what angles a murder case will turn up. Dangerous angles sometimes. Two murders can’t draw much worse penalty than one murder. Long ago I’d decided that after the first murder, a second one comes easier—so look out for murder, Mike.

  Lew Ryster was waiting in the Hollywood office, big and pink-faced as ever, with the usual striped collar, natty suit and expansive confidence that clicked with the Hollywood trade, which was mostly theft, blackmail and body-guarding.

  “What’s on your mind, Rat?” I asked as I shoved a paper cup under the water cooler.

  Lew grinned. “I had to do it, Mike. No hard feelings, I hope.”

  “Later,” I said, “we’ll settle that. Who murdered whom?”

  Lew stood up and took his Panama from the desk.

  “I’ve an appointment, Mike, and I was hoping you’d get here in time to come along. Let’s shove off.”

  So we shoved off from Hollywood and Vine in my car—and over on Sunset Boulevard, Lew ordered me to stop before the Greek-colonnaded front of J. Conwell Smythe’s Sons, Morticians.

  “Did you read my mind?” I growled as we got out. “A funeral parlor is exactly where I’d like to leave you!”

  Lew chuckled. “Kid, you’ll thank me for this before you’re through. Did I tell you there was a two grand reward for anyone who broke this case?”

  “You wouldn’t,” I said, “if you could figure a way to collar the dough … And what does the score have to read before the reward is paid?”

  We were inside by then. A long, lean, lugubrious lassie of some forty winters met us.

  “Yes?” she said, and thawed visibly as Lew grinned.

  “I have an appointment here with Mr. Farn-son,” Lew beamed in his best Hollywood manner. “Ryster is the name.”

  A faint flush appeared in her pallid cheeks.

  “Mr. Farnson is in Room Three, with two other gentlemen. He is expecting you, Mr. Ryster. If this other gentleman will have a seat, I will show you to Room Three.”

  “He’s here to meet Farnson also,” says Lew carelessly, and when he grinned again her doubtful look vanish
ed and we all went back to Room Three.

  The heavy scent of flowers filled the small room into which we walked. Three men in there had been talking in low tones; and one of them—the tallest—said: “I was wondering if you’d come.”

  “Sorry if I’m late, Mr. Farnson,” says Lew— and I saw the old Hollywood chuckle start and freeze off as Lew realized where he was.

  Two floor lamps in the back corners of the room dusted indirect light against the ceiling and down in subdued dimness, down over the flower sprays and the pinkish coffin resting just beyond the men …

  She might have been sleeping in the coffin— that girl whose peaceful, life-like face rested there on a satin pillow surrounded by a chaste froth of lace.

  They had dressed her in what might have been a wedding gown of white satin, and she was heart-stoppingly natural, even to the little splash of good-natured freckles still luring along the bridge of a small tippity nose. Her mouth had once been built for laughter—and now it never would again smile.

  But the spell of her was there in the room, even on the mortician’s lean lady, who lingered inside the door eyeing the coffin for a moment, and whispered: “So lovely—and we have never brought out a face so well.”

  Farnson, whose mustache was a white military line against his heavy, full-blooded face, snapped: “Enough, Madam! This meeting is not an exhibit of your skill!”

  She faded out in pallid silence and closed the door and the stocky-chested man on Farn-son’s left speared me with a disagreeable stare, jerked his head at me and grunted: “Who’s this guy?”

  A cop. He was smeared with copper from sparse, sandy hair to thick-soled shoes—and he didn’t like us. He didn’t like Lew Ryster who could handle a tight spot coolly when he had to. And who did now.

  “This,” said Lew suavely, nodding at me, “is Mike Harris, one of our best operatives. Mike, this is Jake Dennis, from Homicide—and Larry Sweet, who helps Jake think.”