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

  “All right, as long as he doesn’t spot you.” Helen adjusted the ridiculous brim of the hat, snapped the beads around her neck. Hastily, she used the pad once more.

  Did Forst tell you where you were to stay in New York? Or how soon you’d get married?

  “As soon as we could get the license.” Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes again. “He said I could stay with his family. But I don’t know just where they live.”

  “I bet Peter doesn’t, either,” Teccard muttered, beneath his breath. He watched Helen go through the contents of Miss Yulett’s bag—the little leather diary, the packet of envelopes like the one in Helbourne’s desk drawer, the savings bank book.

  The train slid alongside the concrete platform, redcaps kept pace with the slowing cars.

  ELEN put her arm around Miss Yulett’s shoulders, hugged her lightly. Teccard pulled down the worn, leather suitcase from the overhead rack. “I’ll get a porter for you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” The sergeant hefted the bag, easily. “She wouldn’t spend a quarter that way. So I won’t.” She nodded cheerfully at the woman, joined the procession in the aisle.

  Teccard got out his notebook, penciled: Fm going to get a detective to take you to the Commodore Hotel. Right here in the station. Register and stay right in your room until Sergeant Dixon comes for you. Don’t worry about your bag, or expenses. We’ll take care of them. Understand?

  She didn’t hide her fear. “Yes. But I’m afraid.”

  He patted her shoulder. “Nothing to be scared of—” he said before he realized she wasn’t reading his lips. He followed her out to the platform, located one of the boys on the Terminal Squad, told him what he wanted done. “Keep her here on the platform for a while, too. Better take her out through one of the other gates—in case the man we’re after is still waiting there. Phone my office and tell them her room number. Notify the desk at the hotel to route all calls to her room through the office of one of the assistant managers.”

  He tipped his hat to Miss Yulett, left her staring blankly at the bandage on the back of his head. The poor soul must be scared stiff, he knew. Well, better than being a stiff…

  He had managed to keep sight of Helen’s abominable hat, thirty or forty yards ahead. He put on steam to catch up with her. She was playing the part of the timidly anxious woman, to the hilt—searching the faces of the crowd lining the gate-ropes with just the right amount of hesitancy.

  Teccard couldn’t see anyone who resembled the snapshot. He was completely unprepared for what happened. A young man of thirty or so stepped abruptly out of the thinning crowd and took the suitcase out of the sergeant’s hand.

  Except for the exaggerated sideburns, his thin, clean-cut features could have been called handsome, in a sinister sort of way. If it hadn’t been for the cream-colored necktie against the extravagantly long-pointed soft collar of his mauve shirt, he might have been considered well-dressed. There was no goatee, none of the full roundness of the face in Miss Yulett’s snapshot. Yet Teccard was sure he recognized the man. He had only seen those dark eyebrows in side view—the deeply cleft chin had been covered with a towel when the lieutenant had pointed a gun at him. But this would be Harold Willard, beyond much doubt.

  Teccard couldn’t get too close to them. “Willard” or “Forst,” or whatever his name was, would be certain to recognize the man who had crashed the room on Eighty-eighth Street! How could the lieutenant shadow them without being spotted himself?

  Evidently “Willard” knew that Miss Yulett was deaf, he showed no surprise when Helen offered him the pad. But apparently there was some difference of opinion going on. The sergeant was shaking her head, as if she were bewildered.

  When her escort took her arm and led her across the great central lobby, toward the subway entrance, she evidently protested. She made her way to one of the marble shelves alongside the ticket windows, pointed vehemently to the pad. “Willard” began to write, furiously …

  Teccard bought a newspaper, unfolded it, kept it in front of his face so he could just see over the top. He edged, unobtrusively, within a dozen feet.

  “But I don’t understand.” Helen gazed at “Willard” in obvious fascination. “You’re so much better-looking. Why did you send me the other man’s photograph?”

  The youth favored her with a dazzling smile, proffered her a sheet from the pad.

  She read it, crumpled it, seemed to thrust it into the pocket of her jacket. “I would have liked you even more, Peter—if you had trusted me— told me the truth.”

  They moved on toward the Lexington Avenue subway. Willard was having difficulty holding up his written end of the conversation. He kept setting the bag down, scribbling rapidly, then seizing her arm and rushing her along again.

  Teccard followed them through the stile, downstairs to the uptown platform. They boarded the rear of one crowded car. The lieutenant squeezed onto the front platform of the car behind. He saw Helen’s hand release the crumpled paper, before she was pushed into the car. People surged in like a mob pressing to the scene of a fire. Teccard struggled through the door over the car-couplings, into the space Helen had just vacated. He stooped, retrieved the paper.

  He held it down at his side, unfolded it.

  I wanted to be certain you were not attracted to me merely because of my looks, darling. That’s why I sent you the other picture. Now I am sure you will love me, for what I really am—not merely what I seem to be. Is that not better, dear one?

  Teccard spat out a sibilant, jammed the paper in his pocket. The doors closed, the train rumbled out of the station.

  He searched the crowded car aisle, ahead. They must have found seats somehow.

  He unfolded the paper again, elbowed his way slowly forward.

  They were nowhere in the car. Long before the brakes had screamed for the Eighty-sixth Street stop, he knew they were nowhere on the train.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PRIMROSE PATH

  ECCARD was in a cold rage as he shoved through the throng and up to Eighty-sixth Street. “Willard” had made a sucker of him with the old on-agin, off-agin, Finnegan—gone in the rear door, made his way, with Helen in tow, up by the side door at the middle of the subway car and— at the last instant—stepped off to the platform while the lieutenant was perusing the note Helen had dropped.

  Of course, the sergeant couldn’t have stopped the man without giving her hand away. Of course, also, “Willard” must have caught a glimpse of Teccard. Now, the make-love-by- mail guy would be on his guard—and likely to suspect Helen. Teccard had dragged her into this mess, by requesting her assignment from the Policewomen’s Bureau. Now she was literally in the hands of a cold-blooded killer!

  By force of habit, he called the Telegraph Bureau first, to get the alarm out for the dark-haired youth. The description was complete now. Teccard was good at estimating weight, height, age. Long experience in the Criminal Identification Bureau made him remember points that the average policeman wouldn’t have noticed. “His ears are funny. Kind of pointed, at the top of the helix. He brushes his hair to cover them as much as he can. And his chin looks as if somebody had started to drive a wedge into it. And don’t forget, this man is sure to be armed and dangerous.”

  Then he called Captain Meyer, repeated the description.

  “Send a car around to check every man on beat, will you, Cap? Odds are good he hangs out in this parish somewhere. Have ‘em keep an eye out for Sergeant Dixon, she’ll be with him.”

  He had half expected to find a report from her, waiting for him when he called his office. He was wrong about that. The office didn’t have much—there hadn’t been any prints on the cellophane, too many on the knobs and furniture in the Eighty-eighth Street room. They hadn’t been able to find any of record, though.

  Talking with the Telegraph Bureau had given him an idea. He called Western Union, located the night traffic manager. “There was a bunch of flowers wired from this city to Miss Marion Yulett in Algers, upstate, someti
me this a.m. Chances are, they went through Floral Telegraph Delivery. Find out what shop put in the order, will you? Buzz me back.”

  He fumed and stewed in the drugstore phone booth for what seemed like an hour. When he passed the clock over the soda fountain, on his way out, he found it had been seven minutes.

  The address the telegraph company had given him was only a few blocks away. He didn’t bother with a cab, but went on the run. Over to Second, up to Eighty-seventh. There it was, next to the undertaker’s place in the middle of the block.

  THE REMEMBRANCE SHOP.

  Potted ivy and cactus in the window, flanked by lilies and dried grasses in tin vases—inside, a glass-front icebox with cut flowers, roses and carnations.

  Carnations! Now he knew why that fragrance in the closet had reminded him of church, there had always been a big bunch of white carnations in front of the pulpit, when he was a kid. “Willard” must have had a carnation in the buttonhole of the coat he hung up in the closet …

  A girl stood talking to the shirt-sleeved man behind the counter. As Teccard walked in she was saying: “You’ll send those wreaths over to the sexton right away? He’s waiting for them.”

  The florist nodded impatiently. “I’ll get ‘em right over, right away.” He turned inquiringly toward the lieutenant. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  Teccard drew a deep breath. This was the man in the snapshot! Round face, goatee, receding hair! “You can tell me who ordered some lilies of the valley wired to a lady up in Algers, New York.”

  “Was there some complaint?” asked the florist.

  “Just checking up on the person who sent them. I’m from the police department.”

  The girl paused, on her way out, to stare at him out of stolid blue eyes set deep in a square, pleasant face.

  “Police! What’s the matter the police should come around?” The man waved his arms, excitedly.

  Teccard said softly: “You have a duplicate record of your F.T.D. orders. Let’s see it.”

  The florist ran stubby fingers through his hair, dug a flat, yellow book out of the debris on a bookkeeping desk. He ruffled the pages. “It ain’t against the law, sending flowers like this!”

  The carbon copy of the wired order wasn’t helpful. All it indicated was that Peter Forst had paid two dollars and fifty cents to have a corsage delivered to Miss Marion Yulett at Algers.

  “Who took the order?”

  “Nobody. The envelope was under the door when I’m opening the shop this morning. With the cash. What’s the matter, eh?”

  Teccard’s hand clamped on the other’s wrist. “You sent those posies yourself, Mr. Forst.”

  “Forst! What’s it, Forst?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “I’m George Agousti, I run this business, no nonsense. I pay taxes.”

  The lieutenant’s grip remained firm. “Then someone’s been framing you, Agousti.”

  “Framing me? For what!”

  “Murder.” Teccard spoke quietly.

  Agousti recoiled as from a blow. “It’s terrible mistake you making. So much as a single flea, I ain’t ever hurt.”

  “You don’t know this Peter Forst?”

  “The first time I ever hear his name, so help me!”

  “What about Harold Willard? Heard of him?”

  The florist shook his head.

  “You don’t feel like talking, do you? Maybe you’d feel more like it if you came down to headquarters with me.”

  Agousti shrugged. “I’m telling you. There ain’t nothing on my conscience. I ain’t afraid to go anywhere you like.”

  Teccard made one more try. He described the man Helen had gone with.

  “Know him?”

  Recognition crept into the florist’s eyes. “I ain’t dead sure. But from how you putting it, this one might be Stefan.”

  “Who’s Stefan?”

  “Stefan Kalvak. He’s no good, a low life, sure.”

  “Yair, yair. Who is he? What’s he do? Where’s he live?”

  “He’s Miss Kalvak’s brother, she really owns this shop. I run it for her. She’s O.K., fine. But Stefan’s a bum, a stinker. Always stealing dough out the cash register when I don’t watch. Or getting girls into trouble, you know.”

  “He’s done his best to get you in trouble. He sent your picture to this girl up in Algers—so she’d come to New York to get married.”

  “Holy Mother!”

  “Where’s he live?”

  “You got me. His sister threw him out of her apartment. But you could phone her—”

  A freckle-faced boy burst into the shop. “My pa sent me for the ivy for ma’s birthday, Mr. Agousti.”

  “All right, Billy. Excuse me, one second.” The florist whisked out of sight, back of the showcase.

  The boy jingled seventy-five cents on the counter, an elevated roared overhead—and Teccard began to sweat, thinking of Helen Dixon and Stefan Kalvak.

  The youngster called. “Pa says you needn’t bother to wrap it up, Mr. Agousti.”

  There was no answer from the rear of the shop, though the sound of the elevated had died away.

  Teccard stepped quickly around the glass case.

  Agousti was leaning, face down, over a wooden bench—his head under the spreading fronds of a potted palm. There was a dark puddle on the boards of the bench, it widened slowly as drops splashed into it from the gash in the florist’s neck.

  SHARP-bladed knife that had evidently been used to cut flower stems lay with its point in the glistening disk of crimson. There was blood on Agousti’s right hand, too. Teccard lifted the limp wrist, saw the slash across the base of the fingers.

  That settled it! A man didn’t cut his hand that way, when he slashed his own throat! The florist had been attacked from behind, while he was putting the ivy in a flowerpot. He had tried to block off the blade that was severing his jugular—and had failed.

  Not five feet from the dead man’s back was a rear delivery door, with a wire screen nailed over the glass. The door was closed, but not locked.

  Teccard tore a piece of green, glazed paper from the roll fixed to the end of the bench, wrapped it around the knob and twisted it. Then he opened the door.

  A narrow alley ran behind the two-story building. It was floored with cement. There wouldn’t be any footprints on it—and there wasn’t anyone in sight.

  He came inside, shut the door. He stuck his nailfile through the oval handle of the key, turned it until the bolt shot home.

  The boy stuck his head around the corner of the glass case. Teccard stepped quickly between him and the body.

  “Is he sick?” the youngster began.

  “Yair. You go home, tell your father the ivy will be over later.”

  “O.K., mister. Gee, I’m sorry—”

  “Wait a minute, son. You seen Stefan Kalvak around tonight?”

  The boy made a face. “Naw. Steve ain’t never around, except with girls. I don’t like him, anyways—”

  “You know where he lives?”

  He jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. “I guess he lives right up over the flower store, here.”

  Teccard was startled. “That so?” Maybe the kid didn’t know about the sister tossing Stefan out on his ear …

  The boy ran. When he’d gone, the lieutenant felt in the pockets of the dead man, without disturbing the position of the body. There was a leather container, with four Yale keys. He took them.

  One of the keys fitted the front door. He used it, from the street. Then he stepped into the entrance-way to the second floor stairs.

  There was only one mailbox, a big brass one with a mother-of-pearl push button and a neatly engraved card: Vanya Kalvak, Floriculturist.

  He went up the stairs, noiselessly.

  There were two doors opening off the second-floor hall. The one nearest the front of the building had another of the engraved cards tacked to it.

  He heard voices. They came from the room behind the door at the head of the stairs.

  The tones of th
e girl who’d asked Agousti to deliver the wreaths were very distinct.

  “Why do you come here, anyway, Miss Yulett?”

  “Your brother brought me here,” Helen answered. “He said it was all right.”

  Teccard’s heart skipped a couple of beats. What was Helen doing, talking? She must have been startled out of her wits by this other woman and been caught off guard. He put his ear to the panel.

  “I’m very sorry for you, Miss Yulett.”

  “I don’t understand! Why should you be?” The sergeant was still playing her part. “Peter said he would be back in a moment. He’ll explain.”

  “Peter!” The girl’s tone was one of disgust.

  “His name is Stefan. Stefan Kalvak.”

  “It all seems very queer. I can’t imagine why he lied to me about his name. But you ought to know, since you’re his sister.”

  The girl laughed harshly. “You stupid idiot! He is my husband.”

  “What!” The sergeant didn’t have to fake that exclamation, Teccard thought.

  “It is the truth. I am his wife, God forbid.” The girl spat out the words. “I know what he told you. The same as he told those others.”

  “You’re just trying to drive me away from him.”

  Teccard decided they were in the kitchen of the apartment. One of them kept moving about restlessly—probably Mrs. Kalvak.

  “I’m trying to save your life. You don’t know Stefan. He’s a fiend, absolutely. After he’s taken your money—have you already given it to him?”

  “No,” Helen answered. “Tomorrow after we get the license, we will talk over buying the business.”

  “Tomorrow, you will be dead—if you do not let me help you get away.”

  “I should think you’d—hate me, Mrs. Kalvak. But honestly, I didn’t know Peter—Stefan—was married.”

  “I don’t care about you one way or the other. The reason I’m praying to God for you to get away quickly is that I don’t want him caught.”

  “No …”

  “I know what would happen to him, if the police got him. My eyes haven’t been closed all these months. Stefan hasn’t earned the money he’s been spending. Nevertheless—” she hesitated— ”nevertheless, I love him.”