The Murder Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  The eyes of both the man and the woman were riveted on the instrument in horror. The woman spoke—the words falling haltingly from lips that seemed suddenly to have gone dry and stiff.

  “Where—did—you find that?”

  Black John answered. “After it flew out of yer hand there at the Dawson landin’, ma’am, it must have floated back up the Yukon a piece, an’ then up the Klondike, an’ then up a feeder, an’ lodged in under a bunk in a shack that was there. Corporal Downey, he come along an’ found it.”

  “An’,” continued Downey, “that ain’t all I found. In the crick, weighted down with rocks, I found the body of a man—the body of your husband, O’Hara—”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about it,” cried the man, in a panic of terror. “She ain’t my wife. I lied! I never been outside of Dawson. I never seen her till the other day. I don’t know nothin’ about no cricks an’ dead men! I never seen that fiddle before.” The woman turned abruptly into the shack, as Downey smiled at the man grimly.

  “You picked a poor time to lie,” he said. “An’ I s’pose it’s a lie about this knife never bein’ out of yer possession since you bought it.”

  “No, that’s the God’s truth! The A.C. store man—he’ll remember sellin’ it to me. It was early in the spring—not June, like she said—an’ we had a argument about it—he’ll remember.”

  “That’s all I want to know,” said Corporal Downey. “An’ it’ll be plenty to convict you. You’re under arrest for the murder of James K. O’Hara—I’ll have time to find out your name, later—”

  The woman leaped suddenly from the interior of the shack, her arm flew out, there was a loud report, and Corporal Downey’s Stetson went spinning from his head. Before the woman could shoot again, Black John jerked the violin from the case and brought it crashing down on the woman’s head. The instrument shattered, so that her fury-distorted face appeared through the broken wood, tangled up among the strings, as the big man jerked her violently toward him, at the same time snatching the gun from her grasp with his free hand. At the sound of the shot, the man had leaped upon Downey, who had staggered backward, momentarily dazed by the bullet that cut his scalp and grazed the skull on the top of his head. But the officer quickly recovered, and drawing his own gun, he jammed it into the other’s ribs, as his hands flew upward in a sign of surrender. Meanwhile Black John managed to subdue the woman who struggled and fought like a wildcat.

  “There, there, now, ma’am—take it easy,” he grinned, as blood trickled from a deep finger nail scratch at the corner of his eye. “Jest be yerself, an’ you ain’t got nothin’ to fear. There ain’t a thing on you except bein’ an accessory before an’ after the fact of a murder, an’ robbery of the murdered man, an’ resistin’ arrest, an’ shootin’ an officer with intent to kill. You jest pretty yerself up a little, an’ look sort of sad an’ wistful out of them big eyes, an’ wear a short skirt so the jury kin git an eyeful of them good lookin’ legs of yourn, an’ they’ll turn you loose, all right. It might be that they’ll even award you alimony.

  “Yer luck is that yer facin’ a legal trial, instead of a miner’s meetin’.”

  ARMORED CAR RENDEZVOUS, by Lawrence DeFoy

  Originally published in 10-Story Detective, January, 1947.

  The purchasing agent was out for the afternoon so I decided to go back to my hotel. I was strolling past the Tri-State National Bank in the warm spring sunshine when I heard, “Lootenant Evans! I’ll be a dirty name if it ain’t!”

  I looked around. The city was new to me—the whole territory was new. I was certain there must be some mistake, even though the thunderous voice was vaguely familiar.

  A thick-shouldered man in a grey uniform was bounding down the worn brownstone steps. Under his visored cap peeped unforgettable carroty hair, and his florid face was one huge grin.

  My own jaw dropped. “Pink Nolan, you old jungle rat! Is this your Springfield?” We pumped hands, standing there in the middle of the sidewalk. People smiled sympathetically and walked out around us.

  “Surest thing y’know!”

  “But—why the rig and the gun?” I queried, slapping the leather holster.

  “This?” Pink jerked a thumb toward a battleship-grey armored car behind me. Acme Protective Bureau was lettered just below a small gun-turret on the side. “My job, you remember. My gosh, we talked about it enough in them lousy foxholes on Guadal. Talked about everything, trying to keep from going crazy!”

  “That’s right. Now I remember,” I said.

  “Yeah. And that reminds me. I’m on dooty now, not supposed to go gabbin’ with anybody. We gotta get together, though. Look, how’s about coming out to the place for dinner? I’ll phone the wife and—You can make it, can’t you?”

  “Pink, just try and keep me away. You know, all this time I’ve been wondering if Jerry’s as pretty as those photos you used to show me nine times a day.”

  “She’s a real looker, Loot, wait’ll you see.” Pink puffed up like a pouter pigeon. “Come out about six, huh?”

  “You bet,” I said. “But maybe we’d better drop the titles, Sergeant. Your wife might get the idea we’re still Marines.”

  “Well, ain’t we?” Pink demanded. He gave me his home address. “See you later. I gotta get back to work.”

  I felt good, walking on around the corner. You don’t meet old friends in every strange city, and Pink Nolan was something more than a friend.…

  Almost without volition my thoughts went back to those weird, unforgettable days and nights when the shrieks of jungle birds mingled with those of taunting Japs, and the staccato hammering of intermittent machine-guns riveted through both. Odd, how realistic it was, after all this time. I could hear—

  I stopped, whirled. It was real! The shrieks were from tires and human throats—the gun ha-ha-ha-ha-ed balefully.

  I was running back to the corner. People came spilling around it, yelling. Windows of office buildings slammed open. A motor roared, and a large, low-slung sedan came shooting into the street, cutting across the sidewalk. I barely had time to flatten against the foundation of a building when splinters of granite were whipped from the wall above me. Nearby a running woman went down, stumbling, her mouth wide in terror.

  Then the car was gone, rubber treads howling around another corner. I twisted in time to catch a quick glimpse of a white, blurred face, peering out the rear window—the face of a boy or a woman, rather than of a man.

  The space before the bank was deserted save for bodies sprawled here and there. Two were struggling to sit up, but Pink and another uniformed man lay motionless near the gaping rear doors of the armored truck. A third, whose leather puttees tagged him as the driver, slumped with a smoking pistol on the running board. He seemed to be whistling tiredly through prominent teeth.

  I went down on my knees beside Pink, cursing a fate that sent a man halfway around the world in battle, then allowed him to be shot down in the gutters of his own hometown. Nolan had taken a burst in the chest. I had seen too many sucking wounds to be optimistic. His face was now putty-colored, his eyes were open but unseeing.

  “Gun—gun,” he gasped, blood flecking his lips. “Gun…miss…” The carroty head lolled back toward the pavement.

  My throat was too full for swearing. Why, I’d been talking to Pink not five minutes ago! Probably Death was even then riding the streets in the long, low sedan.

  The memory of the car brought back a measure of clarity and I looked around. Heads were protruding here, bodies beginning to edge into sight there. Far-off whistles kept shrilling. Farther yet, sirens rose to hectic howls. A babble of voices began coming closer and closer—until the monstrous clangor of a gong high up on the wall of the bank drowned them out.

  What had Pink been trying to say? The “gun missed?” Obviously it hadn’t, if he was talking about the bandits’ machine-gun. But Pink, dying, wouldn’t be concerned about that, would he? A .38 service revolver teetered on the edge of the curb and I reached fo
r it automatically.

  His gun misfired! That was what Pink Nolan was trying to say. Pink had been a Marine, among whom care and use of weapons is a fetish. Naturally, to have a gun misfire at the crucial moment would weigh on his mind.

  I thumbed out the cylinder. The empty chamber, which Pink normally carried under the hammer, was three turns down! The gun had missed not once, but thrice!

  Then I looked closer. There were no firing pin dents on the caps. Sudden anger gripped and shook me so that I could scarcely breathe. What kind of an outfit had Pink been working for—to arm him with a gun having a defective firing pin?

  * * * *

  Old Luke Marcourt’s wavy white hair was the softest thing about him. There was nothing lax about his ash-tough big frame, his deep-set eyes which brooded, as he stood by the cemetery gate, over the mourners returning to their various cars.

  “So you want Nolan’s job? Well, since you gave up your own, I suppose I can’t say no. But I still don’t get what you hope to find out. Believe me, Evans. Pink’s death hits me as hard as it does you. But it’s one of those things, after all. Apt to happen to any of my boys anytime.”

  I kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t tell him I was sure they’d try again, sometime, somewhere. I couldn’t tell him Pink Nolan was murdered, that someone on the inside had tampered with his gun. Marcourt was on the inside himself.

  “It’s what they’re hired for, you know. Damn bad luck Nolan got hold of a bad gun, but—”

  “And that his helper had to faint—right at the critical moment.” My irony was pretty raw, but I was still furious.

  Marcourt looked embarrassed. “Yeah, that was bad, too. But old Long John Nehrbass had that bum ticker—not dangerous, just weak. Maybe I should’ve pulled him off armored-car duty. Naturally, if you don’t want him with you, Evans…”

  So you were sorry for him? I thought. “Let him stay,” I said aloud. “I want the whole setup just as it was.”

  Marcourt shook his head. “You don’t figure these hoods’ll try again, do you? Even if they get away from the police and the deposit insurance investigators—”

  I had been watching a slight, quick-stepping man in a camel’s hair coat passing down the row of parked cars, thinking he was dressed rather jauntily for a funeral. Just then he turned to look back over his shoulder at the door of a cream-colored convertible. I grabbed the old man’s arm. Those boyish features!

  “Who’s that? The bird down near the end of the line?”

  Old Luke’s hawk eyes flicked around. He frowned. “Candy Horn. Minor office holder over at City Hall. Hmmm, wonder what he’s doing here? Nolan hated his guts.”

  “Candy?” I said.

  “They used to call him the Candy Kid. Baby-faced glad-hander with a smooth line of chatter. Maybe he hopes to pick up a few votes out of this.” Luke’s voice dropped suddenly. “Here’s Mrs. Nolan coming. Get my car door open, will you?” Geraldine Nolan was approaching unseeingly, but with her chin high. She looked more pathetic than if she were shedding the tears I felt to be close to her clear blue eyes. Pink had been right, his wife was far more beautiful than shown in the cracked, begrimed photos he had carried in his camouflaged jumper pocket. Even now she was vibrant with life.

  “This way, my dear,” Marcourt said gently, guiding her toward the polished black limousine. “Oh—uh—this is Mr. Paul Evans, another good friend of your husband’s.”

  I bowed, but her blank eyes swept over my face without stopping. I wished I could do something, say something, to ease that taut, animal hurt. She got into the car and Marcourt followed her. He hesitated, seating himself, then jerked his chin at me.

  “You better come along with us, Evans. There may be some things… All right with you, my dear?”

  Mrs. Nolan’s head turned and she saw me, standing in the door. “Please,” she invited. “I’ve just remembered. You’re Lieutenant Evans who saved Pink’s life once, aren’t you? In the South Pacific?”

  I got in, awkward as a schoolboy. “It was the other way around,” I said simply. “He was the kind of man you appreciate under fire—brave and efficient and, above all, dependable.”

  “The police said you talked to him just before…”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “About what?” Her lips were parted slightly, her whole body tense. She waited to hear of her dead husband’s last words, his last conversation.

  I wasn’t much good. “Very little. He said he was on duty and couldn’t talk, but he wanted me to come to dinner—said he’d phone you—” I stopped, appalled.

  For at last the tears came, like a torrent. And it wasn’t to old Luke Marcourt she turned, oddly enough. She buried her lace against my shoulder. I held her close, as a brother might, glad for her relief but angry at myself for causing it.

  * * * *

  The job wasn’t difficult. In the first few days I learned the simple routine. We transported bank, jewelry wholesalers’, and private estates’ valuables in the rear compartment of the truck; sitting guard, en route, in bucket seats under the turrets or on the hardwood locker top, occasionally peering from the bulletproof windows which closed the narrow slots.

  I was assigned much of Pink Nolan’s equipment, a fact that pleased me. I had the worn Sam Browne and holster, the repaired .38 police positive, his pad of receipts and carbons. The other armament was general. On big jobs Nehrbass and I each got sawed-off riot guns. Bucky Newsome, the toothy, good-natured driver, was assigned a Thompson submachine-gun for the stops which was kept in the locker other times.

  Long John Nehrbass, Pink’s former helper, who had a sourpuss that hated the world, tangled with me the very first day.

  “I hear ya been makin’ cracks about me to the boss.”

  I looked him over. He sat with his feet on a pile of coin sacks and his back against the inch-thick, case-hardened armor which was the truck’s side panels. The gunport between us and the cab, where Bucky was driving, was shuttered. There was nothing to prevent me from telling him off in the way I felt he deserved. On the other hand, this lean, sneering character with the “weak heart” was a lead I wanted to follow to the end.

  “I don’t know what you mean by cracks,” I said. “I asked about you when I took over Nolan’s job, naturally.”

  “You figgered my passing out was a phony, don’t tell me!” Nehrbass had a habit of never looking directly toward you when he talked, but looked up out of the corners of his eyes.

  “Marcourt would know more about that than I would, Nehrbass. Don’t holler before you’re hit. We’ve got to work together, you know, for awhile.”

  “Yeah? I can always transfer, don’t forget.”

  “Not very handily,” I said. “The whole bureau will suspect you’ve gone yellow.” It was all I could do to hold back a sneering, “You haven’t, have you?”

  He grunted, at a loss. Then he thought of something else. “By rights, you ought to be my helper. I had this truck, then Pink comes back and gets it again. Now he’s dead and you calmly step in and cut me out. Just watch it, pal, that’s all.”

  It was an armed truce, of a sort. I was just as happy. If Long John Nehrbass was the inside man, I’d find out sooner or later. If he wasn’t—Well, I didn’t want to get into the habit of depending on him when the showdown came.

  Another employee of the Acme Bureau—which included an audit section, a store detective agency, and an insurance claim investigating unit as well as the armored car service—who interested me for more reasons than the purely social and business was an ancient ex-patrolman by the name of Paddy Hanrahan. He was the office supply clerk, and custodian of the locked cabinets which contained all the armament.

  “Ye’ll turn in yer gats and shillelaghs every ayvnin’ at five, mind,” he instructed me. “Exceptin’, o’ course, thim nights yer workin’, d’ye see?”

  I had already learned that one night each week the truck was sent to pick up late receipts at the big department stores for deposit, and that currency transfers were
occasionally made at night.

  “And what do I do on those nights?” I asked, slipping a package of the old man’s favorite tobacco across his desk. His faded, Killarney-blue eyes thanked me, but his manner retained its severe importance.

  “Thim nights I work late meself, o’ course. The pistols must all be in their coop before I lock up.”

  I nodded, thinking. “Paddy, would it be possible to substitute one gun for another, either in your cabinet or when it was being turned in?”

  Hanrahan snorted. “Not likely, me bhoy. Each man of ye’s assigned a particoolar weapon, y’understand. The number o’ that gun ye call out to me every mornin’ when ye take it out, and agin every ayvnin’ when ye turn it in. I check it off on me little list, d’ye see, and devil a substitute will I take.”

  “You always do that?”

  The old Irishman grinned, showing snaggle teeth. “Well, now, there ye got me, lad. On thim late nights, when we’re all a bit tired, and there’s only the three of ye to be checked, I sometimes omit the ceremonies. That’s betwixt you and me and the inkstand, now—if the boss was to find out…”

  I felt my neck prickle with premonition. Was this a break? Pink’s murder had occurred on a morning after a “late night!” But then I shrugged. The gun would be checked out by number in the morning, in any case.

  I took the gun Paddy had slid across the desk, read off the number to him, then snapped out the revolving chamber. The firing pin had a glint of newness.

  “The old pin was really broken off, you say?”

  “I did,” Paddy nodded. “Me bhoy, I know what yer thinkin’, but I been repairin’ sidearms too many years not to know a clean break when I see wan. No file marks on that pin.”

  I, too, lowered my voice. “I wasn’t thinking of file marks, Paddy. A filed-down pin would be too obvious. This had to look like the accident you call it, otherwise—” I broke off. I had been about to say, “Otherwise the inside man could be traced.” But Paddy Hanrahan, wrinkled and benign as one of his leprechauns was also an inside man, an extremely logical suspect.