The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Penzler, Otto

  “Your flash, Donnegan,” he whispered, and felt the cylinder pressed into his hand.

  He snapped on the light. The beam leaped through the clammy gloom, shone on stacks of dusty kegs, long out of use, and on stacks of bottles musty with cobwebs. The odor of must and mold seeped into the men’s nostrils.

  MacBride led the way, winding in and out between the rows of barrels. Further on he came to a small, heavy door which, swinging open under his hand, led into another section of the cellar. Here were more barrels, but they were standing upright, and the smell of new wine was prevalent. Barrels of it. Kennedy licked his lips, then pointed ahead.

  The beam of light swung back and forth across stacked cases of liquor. The men crept closer.

  “Hot diggity!” whispered Kennedy. “Look at the Dewar’s, and the Sandy MacDonald. And— say! … Three Star Hennessy!”

  “Pipe down!” snapped MacBride under his breath.

  “Maybe you got a bum steer after all, Mac. If it’s only liquor, and you dragged me all the way out here—”

  “Nobody dragged you out here, Kennedy! Quit yapping!”

  “I know, but—”

  Bang! Bang!

  Kerr tensed and his breath shot out with— “What’s that?”

  Bang! Bang!

  MacBride had his gun out, his lips pursed, his eyes looking up toward the unseen regions above.

  “One thing,” he muttered. “It’s not just target practice. Come on!”

  X

  Four shots, muffled by floors and walls but, nevertheless, somewhere in that building.

  MacBride, with his flash sweeping around furiously, finally located a staircase that led up to the ground floor. At his heels came Kerr, trailed closely by Donnegan and Kennedy. MacBride paused to get his bearings.

  Another shot rang out, echoes trailing, commingled with the sounds of banging doors and the shouts of men.

  “This way!” clipped MacBride, espying another stairway.

  He ascended two steps at a time, reached the next landing. He looked up into the gloom above just in time to see a slash of gun-fire rip through the darkness. In the sudden flare he saw a man with hands upthrown. Then there was a thumping sound, as the man fell.

  MacBride’s flash was out. His lips were set. He whispered to his men, “Watch it, boys! This place is a death trap! Stick close!”

  A sudden exchange of shots burst out on the floor above, and the rebound of bullets could be heard intermingled with screaming oaths and pounding feet. Then, nearby, MacBride heard a body hurtling down the stairs. He jumped in that direction, caught a man in the act of scrambling to his feet. Heaving up, the man struck out and the barrel of a revolver whanged by MacBride’s cheek and stopped against his shoulder.

  MacBride struck back with his own thirty-eight and landed it on the stranger’s skull. Then Donnegan was there to help him, gripping the man’s arms from behind. They dragged him down the hall, felt their way into a room, and then MacBride snapped on his flash and looked at their catch.

  It was the bull-necked red-head whom he had seen in Devore’s hide-out in Jockey Street. The man was streaked with blood.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” MacBride wanted to know.

  “Playin’ Santy Claus—”

  “Cut out the wisecracks! What’s going on upstairs?”

  “Go up an’ find out. Go on. Slugs are sailin’ around up there like flies in the summer time.”

  “I’ll tend to you later,” bit off MacBride; and to Donnegan, “Get out your bracelets and clamp him to the water pipe on the wall.”

  This done, MacBride again led the way back up the hall. As they reached the foot of the staircase leading to the floor, they partly heard, vaguely saw, a knot of men milling down the steps.

  MacBride squared off and pressed on his flash.

  “Good cripes almighty!” exploded one of the men.

  “As you are!” barked MacBride.

  The man in the lead was carrying a canvas bag. The man was Chuck Devore, and behind him were six others. One of these snapped up his gun and fired. The shot smashed MacBride’s flashlight, tore through his left hand that held it. He cursed and reeled sidewise, and Kerr’s gun boomed close by his ear, and the slug ripped through the gang on the stair.

  “Back up!” one of them called to his companions.

  MacBride thrust his wounded hand into his pocket and fired at them.

  “Come on!” he snapped, and leaped up the staircase.

  Kerr passed him on the way up, and let fly with three fast shots. A gangster crumpled near the top, spun around and came crashing down. He reeled off MacBride and pitched over the railing. At the top, a gun spat and a bullet grazed Kerr’s cheek, leaving a hot sting. Then they were on the top floor.

  In a close exchange of shots Kennedy gasped and clutched at his left arm, and Donnegan stopped short, his legs sagging. His gun dropped from his hand and he crumpled. MacBride stumbled over him and sprayed the gloom with three shots. A man screamed and another flung out a bitter stream of oaths that died in a groan. MacBride plugged ahead, reeling over prone bodies, himself dazed with the pain of his wounded arm.

  He saw a square of the night sky framed in a window, saw it blocked suddenly by a figure that stepped out to a fire-escape. The figure twisted and a slash of gun-fire stabbed the darkness. MacBride’s cap was carried from his head. His own gun belched and the man in the window doubled over and fell back into the hall.

  Then he brought up short, looked out and saw, vaguely, a couple of automobiles tearing away into the night. He spun around, expecting another enemy, but a dread pall had descended after that last shot. Kerr limped up to him, panting. Kennedy was swearing softly. MacBride snapped on his own flash and saw them, bloody and torn; Kerr with a gash on his cheek, Kennedy slowly sopping a wound in his arm. The beam picked out dead bodies on the floor. He swayed back and bent over Donnegan, then stood up, wagging his head.

  “I’ll never say, ‘Shoot, Donnegan,’ again,” he muttered.

  His light swung around and settled on the man he had shot by the window. It was Devore, still gripping the canvas bag. MacBride bent down and opened the bag, and saw a mass of bills—fives, tens, twenties. He gave the bag to Kerr, and moved on toward a door. He threw his light in here and saw a large, square room whose expensive furnishings were in ruin. He espied a light switch and pressed the button, and a big chandelier sprang to life.

  “Hot diggity!” exclaimed Kennedy.

  Dead men were here, too. But what had caused Kennedy’s exclamation was the gambling layout. There was a roulette wheel. There was a faro table. There were a half dozen card tables, two of them overturned. There were cards and chips spread over the floor. The windows were covered by heavy curtains, and ventilators were in the ceiling.

  “My hunch was right,” nodded MacBride, bitterly.

  “And look who’s here!” cried Kennedy. “Duke Manola—dead as a doornail. And—oh, boy!—the late Judge Mike Haggerty—late is right. Where,” he yelled, looking around, “oh, where is a telephone? What a scoop!”

  There was a shot below, and MacBride whirled. He dived out into the hall, with Kerr at his heels, and went down the stairway on the fly. His flash leaped forth and spotted two figures running for the lower staircase.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  His answer was a shot that went wild. But MacBride fired as he ran, and saw one of the figures topple. He kept going, furiously, and collided with the other.

  “All right, Cap. You’ve got me.”

  His flash shone on the face of a woman.

  The man lying dead on the floor was the redhead.

  XI

  “Well,” said MacBride, “who are you?”

  “Arline Kane, and what about it?”

  “No lip, sister. What are you doing here?”

  She laughed—a hard little laugh. “Came in to look around. I heard the fireworks from the road. I found Red tied to a pipe and I shot away the nice little bracelet.”r />
  “You come upstairs,” directed MacBride, and shoved her toward the staircase.

  Once in the hidden gambling den, Arline stood with her hands on her hips and looked around with lazy eyes.

  “Hell,” she said, “what a fine mess. Real wild West stuff. Jesse James and his boy scouts were pikers alongside these playboys. Well, there’s Duke, the bum. Good thing.”

  “What do you mean?” asked MacBride.

  She sat down and lit a cigarette. “Don’t know, eh? Well, Duke used to be my boy friend, until he got hot over a little flapper not dry behind the ears yet. Gave me my walking papers. That was after he tried to frame Chuck Devore, and Chuck breezed for a while. But when Chuck came back, I looked him up and we consolidated our grudge against the wop.

  “We got one good break. Duke and his kid brother were on the outs. The kid wanted more money, but Duke was nobody’s fool. He told Joe where he got off. I understand they actually came to blows. Well, it was about that time I met Joe, and like a kid he handed me his sob story about Duke landing on him.

  “I got him tight one night and he sprung his tongue for a fare-ye-well. Told me about Duke buying this brewery to make and store booze. But some politicians, and Diamond Jack Winslow—laying there, with the busted neck— were behind him. Diamond Jack installed the games here and Haggerty was to get a thirty percent split from Jack on the house winnings. Duke had some money in it, but he was mainly for the booze end. Haggerty promised protection, and Duke, in payment, promised three thousand votes for Haggerty’s party.

  “Well, Duke’s kid brother was hard up for money, and Duke would never let him run with the gang. So Chuck and I got the kid one night and put it up to him: He could clean up by raiding this dump, by tipping us off when the games were running high. Then the other night, he got drunk and sore and—”

  “Pulled a bone,” put in MacBride, “on Old Stone Road. I know all about that. And then tonight Devore and his rats thought they’d pull a fast one—do what we’d least expect after their first fumble—jump this joint and clean out before we’d caught our breath. Well, they would have fooled me, sister. I didn’t expect them. I came here on a hunch to look around, and found fireworks. And you—you’re the last one.”

  “Out of luck again,” she nodded.

  “You could make some money,” put in Kennedy, “writing a series of articles for the Evening News on ‘How I Went Wrong.’ “

  “You would say that, ink fingers,” she gave him, derisively. “But I’ll do no writing. And because I’m the last straggler, I’ll take no rap.” She bit off the end of her cigarette and flung the other part away with a defiant gesture. “A pill was in the tip. Always carried one for just a tough break like this.” Her eyes were glazed. “Not lilies, boys … something red … roses.”

  A day later MacBride sat at his desk in the station, his cap tipped back, one eye squinted against the smoke from his cigar while he read the Free Press’ account of last night’s holocaust. Sometimes he wagged his head, amazed at remarks which he was alleged to have made.

  The city was shocked to the core. Election possibilities had turned more than one somersault during the past twelve hours. Big officials were making charges and counter charges. And MacBride, with his hunch, was mainly responsible for it.

  He looked up to see Kennedy standing in the doorway. He put down the paper and leaned back. Kennedy’s arm, like his own, was in a sling.

  “Greetings, Mac. No end of greetings.” He wandered in and slid down on a chair. “How do you like the writeup I gave you?”

  “You’re a great liar, Kennedy.”

  “Well, hell, I had to make up a lot of goofy stuff, sure. What’s the biggest lie, Mac?”

  “Where the account says, ‘Captain MacBride, having received a tip from an unidentified person, probably a stoolie, that a certain gang was planning to raid the near-beer plant on Farm-ingville Turnpike last night, immediately drove out to forestall any such attempt.’ “ He jabbed the paper with a rigid forefinger. “That’s the part, Kennedy.”

  Kennedy shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right. When I got back to the office and wrote the thing up, I wondered how you had got the tip. Well, I was in a hurry, so I wrote in that—just that. It sounded all right, fitted all right—and look here, Mac. It just about cinches any chance of the big guns bawling you out. You were tipped off by a stoolie—a phone call—no name. You shot out there and the raid was under way. What developed later was not your fault. It’s air tight!”

  MacBride creaked his chair forward, sighed, and drew a bottle and glasses from his desk. He set them down.

  “Have a drink, Kennedy.”

  Kennedy edged nearer the desk and, arching a weary eyebrow, poured himself a stiff three fingers. MacBride poured himself a drink, and leaned back with it.

  “Kennedy,” he said, “there have been times when I ached to wring your neck. You’re a cynical, cold-blooded, snooping, wisecracking example of modern newspaperdom. But, Kennedy, you’ve got brains—and you’re on the square. Here’s to you.”

  Kennedy grinned in his world-weary way. “Boloney, Mac. No matter how you slice it, it’s still boloney,” he said.

  The Law Laughs Last

  Frederick Nebel

  Captain MacBride and organized crime have a showdown

  TOUGH PRECINCT was the Second of Richmond City, lying in the backyard of the theatrical district and on the frontier of the railroad yards.

  A hard-boiled precinct, touching the fringes of crookdom’s elite on the north—the con men, the night-club barons; and on the south, the dim-lit, crooked alleys traversed by the bum, the lush-worker and poolroom gangster. On the north were the playhouses, the white way, high-toned apartments, opulent hotels, high hats, evening gowns. On the south, tenements, warehouses, cobblestones, squalor, and the railroad yards. The toughest precinct in all Richmond City.

  Captain MacBride, back again in the Second, ran it with two fists, a dry sense of humor and a generous quantity of brass-bound nerve. He was a lean, windy-eyed man of forty. He had a wife and an eighteen-year-old daughter in a vine-clad bungalow out in suburban Grove Manor, and having acquired early in life a suspicion that he was going to die young and violently in the line of duty, he had forthwith taken out a lot of life insurance. He was not a pessimist, but a hard-headed materialist, and he rated crooks and gunmen with a certain species of rodent that travels by dark and frequents cellars, sewers and garbage dumps.

  He was sitting in his office at the station house a mild spring night, going over a sheaf of police bulletins, when Kennedy, of the Free Press, strolled in.

  “Spring has come, Mac,” Kennedy yawned.

  “Why don’t you set it to poetry?”

  “I got over that years ago.” He drifted over to the desk, helped himself to a cigar from an open box, sniffed it critically. “Dry,” he muttered.

  “I like ‘em dry.”

  “I always keep mine moist.”

  MacBride chuckled. “That’s rich! First time I see you smoking a cigar of your own I’ll buy you a box of Montereys. Well, what’s on your mind?”

  Kennedy looked toward the open window through which came the blare and beat of a jazz band muffled by distance.

  “That,” he said.

  MacBride nodded. “I thought so. I’ll bet if something doesn’t bust loose over there you’ll get down-hearted.”

  Kennedy shrugged, sank wearily to a chair and lit up. “And I’ll bet you’re happy as hell they’re staging that political block-party. You look it, Mac.”

  “Don’t I!” muttered MacBride, a curl to his lip. “Yes, Kennedy, I’m happy as a school kid when vacation time comes. Of all the dumb stunts I can think of, this block-party takes the cake. If this night passes without somebody getting bumped off, I’ll get pie-eyed drunk and take a calling-down from my wife. A political campaign in Richmond City makes a Central American rebellion look comical.”

  “And how!” grinned Kennedy. “But I only hope Krug and Bedell get kicked
out of office so hard they’ll never get over it. As State’s Attorney, Krug’s made a fortune, and Alderman Johnny Bedell’s his right-hand man. I’m all for Anderson for State’s Attorney and Con-naught for alderman of this district. They’re square. But I wouldn’t be willing to bet on the outcome. The Mayor and his crowd are behind Krug.

  “And here’s the nigger in the woodpile. Con-naught and Anderson are square men. They deserve to get in office. But there’s a gang in this city that’s taken it into their own hands to make things hot as hell for Krug and Bedell, and by doing this they’re going to cramp the Anderson-Connaught square style. Connaught and Anderson don’t want their support, but they’ve got to take it—through the nose, too.”

  “Say who you mean, Kennedy,” broke in MacBride. “Come on and tell me you mean Duveen and his guns.”

  “Sure—Duveen. Duveen hasn’t got a good break since Krug’s been State’s Attorney. But who has? Simple, Bonelio, the S.A.’s friend. And Bonelio is sure tooting his horn for the Krug-Bedell ticket. If Anderson gets in for State’s Attorney he’ll put a wet blanket on Bone-lio’s racket; and if Anderson sweeps Connaught in with him, it’ll mean that Bonelio’s warehouses this side of the railroad yards will be swept clean.

  “And that’s what Duveen wants, because he wants to run the bootleg racket in Richmond City, and so long as Bonelio has the present State’s Attorney and the alderman for this district on his side, Duveen’s blocked. What a hell of a riot this election is going to be!”

  MacBride grunted, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of Three Star Hennessy.

  “Have a drink, Kennedy,” he said. “There are times when I’d like to kick you in the slats, but I admire your brains and the way you get the low-down on things.”