The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  Jack “Flashgun” Casey, Coxe’s other famous detective character, was also a newspaper photographer, though tougher and less educated than Murdock. He made his debut in the March 1934 issue of Black Mask, and had successful careers in radio with Flashgun Casey (later Casey, Crime Photographer), running for more than a decade after its 1943 debut, and film, with Women Are Trouble (1936, MGM, starring Stuart Erwin) and Here’s Flash Casey (1938, Grand National, with Eric Linden).

  “Fall Guy” was published in the June 1936 issue.

  Fall Guy

  George Harmon Coxe

  Somebody had to take it and Flashgun Casey was a natural.

  T WAS THE FAG END of a dull day, and Casey was slouched behind his desk in the anteroom of the photographic department of the Express arguing with Tom Wade about the pennant chances of the Red Sox. When the telephone rang, he scowled at the interruption, hesitated, reached reluctantly for the offending instrument.

  “Trouble, I’ll bet,” he growled.

  He flipped the receiver into his hand and said: “Hello … yeah. Who? Norma?”

  O’Hearn, who was leafing through an old movie magazine in search of the more undraped studies, winked at Wade and said:

  “Umm. Norma.”

  “Sure,” Casey was saying, grinning now. “I saw in the paper you were in town.” He listened a few moments, added: “A favor? Sure. Anytime … Now? Okey, I’ll be right over.”

  He planted the telephone on the desk with a flourish, gave a downward tug at his battered brown felt and swept his trench coat from a hat rack.

  “Is she any good?” O’Hearn asked doubtfully. “This Norma.”

  “Quiet, Mugg,” Casey said. Then, turning at the doorway: “If the Mayor wants me I’ll be at the Carteret.”

  “Can you get in?” Wade asked, grinning.

  “Listen,” Casey said. “When I step in that hotel the manager nods.”

  “Yeah,” cracked O’Hearn. “To the house detective.”

  Casey swung into the hall with a spring in his stride and a twinkle in his eye. He flipped a hand to the office boy who crossed his path, had good-natured answers for the elevator boy, the over-alled pressmen in the car and the two circulation hustlers who got on at the second floor.

  Without knowing it Casey sat, temporarily at least, upon that mythical and precarious spot known as the top of the world. There was no reason for this. It was just a mood. The mood was catching, and when the car stopped everybody was grinning.

  Casey was like that. Big, thick through the chest and flat across the stomach, he was a burly figure with a rugged squarish face and craggy jaw. Gray peppered shaggy brown hair over the ears; his clothing was baggy but not cheap. His manner was often blunt, crabby; his dark eyes, without much illusion, were frequently sober. Sometimes he wore a grouch as a protective garment, but when he smiled he did a good job and seemed, somehow, to reflect a friendliness that was vital and genuine.

  Whistling tunelessly, he bumped his cream-colored roadster out of its parking space at the curb, slid down Tremont Street through the gathering dusk of the June day. An afternoon rain had turned to a stubborn mist, leaving the pavement glossy and making shimmering red and green and orange lights of the traffic signal ahead of him.

  He caught a green arrow at Boylston, and ten minutes later he was pounding briskly through the entrance of the Carteret. Answering the doorman’s lofty, “Good evening, sir,” he strode hard-heeled into the lobby as though he owned the place, bogged down slightly in ankle-deep carpet and bounced skilfully from a fat man’s stomach when he winked at a marcelled blonde behind the magazine counter.

  A silent elevator cushioned him to a stop on the ninth floor and he rapped a hard fist against a pastel-blue door marked Suite 9-B. He had a momentary wait; then the doorway was filled with a woman’s silhouette and a vibrant contralto voice said:

  “Flash.”

  “Norma.” He got his hat off and took the firm, warm hand. “Gee, it’s good to see you.”

  Silently she drew him into the entryway, took his arm, and they went into the room side by side. He saw from opened doorways beyond that there were at least three rooms to the suite. This first, the drawing room, was cream and green—hangings, upholstery, rug. Near the windows a man sat at a knee-hole desk which had apparently been moved in, because it did not go with the period furniture. There was a portable typewriter on the desk, a lot of scattered papers, a briefcase on the floor.

  “Could you finish that some other time, Fred?” Norma asked.

  “Surely.” The man stood up, a slender, dark fellow with good clothes that he wore expertly. Definitely handsome in a rather brittle way, he gave Norma a reserved nod and a perfunctory smile as he withdrew.

  “Martin—my husband—uses this as his office while he’s in town,” she explained, leading Casey to a Queen Anne love seat. “That’s Fred Gilbert, his secretary.”

  Casey moved a damp polo coat from the chair, tossed it across the seat-back, sat down and studied briefly the woman opposite him. She was still just as attractive. Full-sized and meaty—the show-girl type—with auburn hair and liquid brown eyes. At least thirty, she remained beautifully put together; her jaw was clean and determined, with a rather pointed chin that was firm and smooth.

  He had known her first as Norma Lamont, artist’s model. Eight years ago that was. But even then she had been the sort that knew what she wanted and worked to that end. She had tried burlesque for a while, found she had a fair voice to go with her figure, and done a turn in vaudeville. Her first marriage, to her piano player, had not been much of a success from her viewpoint and she had gone West with a musical comedy after her divorce.

  It was in Chicago that she met and married Martin Patten. Sure-shot Patten, they called him. Casey didn’t know the man, but he knew of him. A well-known promoter and State Boxing Commissioner, Patten’s name stood high in sporting circles, and his Eastern affiliations included a half interest in Norfolk Park, the local racing plant.

  “I’m in trouble, Flash,” Norma Patten said, and Casey, seeing her eyes upon him, knew that she spoke the truth.

  A new and unaccustomed nervousness had put a jerkiness into her voice and tight lines around the mouth. She rose abruptly, went into an adjoining room and came back with a half dozen eight by ten photographs.

  Standing in front of him she looked at them a moment, then fanned them out and showed them impulsively.

  Casey’s jaw went slack and his eyes widened. The photographs were of Norma Lamont in nude, or almost nude, poses. In two of these she grasped a bit of flowing chiffon about her; one showed her with a bath towel, apparently getting out of the tub. They were old, these pictures. Casey saw that her face was younger, knew that they had probably been posed for various advertising clients.

  Norma Patten whisked the pictures behind her. Casey stood up. In spite of himself he compared the rounded lines of this woman in her tailored dress with that glimpse of the nude pictures, and thought: Her figure is just as good now as it was then.

  He was ashamed of the thought when he saw the trouble in her eyes, the way she tortured her red lower lip between her white even teeth.

  “Blackmail?” he asked finally.

  She nodded, then whirled and took the pictures into the adjoining room. When she returned she had a thick sheaf of fifty-dollar bills in her hand. She sat down and tapped them nervously against an open palm.

  “A man brought the pictures yesterday,” she began hurriedly. “He wants $25,000. Sorenson took them—years ago. I want you to take this ten thousand and see if you can buy the negatives back direct.”

  Casey’s former jauntiness of manner and spirit fled and left his thick face somber, his dark eyes brooding.

  “Wait a minute. How about your husband?”

  “He knows. I had to tell him to get the money. He gave it to me—all of it.”

  “Then why doesn’t he—”

  “You don’t know him, Flash.” Norma Patten put a hand on his arm. “H
e doesn’t know where the pictures came from, and I didn’t dare tell him the name of the man who brought these copies. I told him I didn’t know. We’ve been battling about it all day. If Martin knew where to go, well—I’m afraid of what he might do.

  “I think he’s planning some way to trap this man when he comes back, and he can’t take the chance. If these pictures were printed, the publicity, the ridicule, would ruin him at home—everywhere. He—”

  “Nobody’d dare print those,” Casey argued. “You could sue.”

  Norma Patten shook her head wearily, spoke gently.

  “No, Flash. Those were advertising studies, mostly. I was young, I needed the money. I had no great background; about all I had was a good figure and a determination to get to the top of the heap in any way I could. To collect on those pictures, I had to sign a release. Every model doing that sort of thing has to sign one—as a protection to the client.

  “Well, Sorenson must have kept those negatives and the release. I’ve got to have both—particularly the release. I finally talked Martin into paying. I have the money. But if you go direct, Sorenson might take ten thousand. It would help to save that fifteen, and then I know Martin can’t get mixed up in any trouble.”

  “I don’t like it,” Casey said. His brows drew down in a scowl and he rubbed the hinge of his jaw. He had never been intimate with Norma in the old days; she had always aimed a little higher than his prospects seemed to warrant. But he knew her, and had been at parties with her, accepted her as she was.

  “Please. For old time’s sake, Flash.” The brown eyes were pleading, the lips parted, waiting breathlessly.

  “I’m a chump to try it,” Casey growled, “and a mug if I don’t.” He screwed morose eyes upon her. “Damn it, Norma! Why did you have to think of me?”

  “I don’t know anyone I could trust as I do you,” the woman said simply. “And you couldn’t be fooled about the negatives. You will try, won’t you? Just try. It may not work. Sorenson may not have the negatives now. I don’t know. But I’ve got to do something.

  “The man, his name is Ambrose, who brought those prints, will call tomorrow and tell me what to do. He says if my husband is in on it, the deal is off. But Martin will try to be in on it and—”

  “Okey,” Casey grumbled, and snatched the sheaf of fifty-dollar bills. “But don’t expect a miracle. Sorenson’s a heel and if he’s got the stuff maybe I can persuade him.”

  II

  he mist had cleared and stars were a hazy counterpane against the dark blue sky. Along the quiet emptiness of Barlow Street two rows of ancient brown stone fronts marched in sedate columns that, under the cover of darkness, gave no inkling that most of them had gone commercial and been converted into small apartments and studios.

  Casey parked his roadster in front of number 22 and stared morosely at the dimly lighted vestibule. Still grumbling over the job at hand, yet knowing there was no decent way he could have refused Norma Patten, he stepped to the sidewalk and started up the worn stone steps.

  Scanning the vestibule mail boxes, he was about to reach for the inner door when it pulled away from his hand and a man popped through the opening. Without so much as a glance, he rushed past Casey and ran down the steps with coat tails flying. Casey grunted, stepped inside a musty-smelling hall and began to climb the ancient staircase.

  Sorenson apparently rented the entire right side of the floor. A small sign directed Casey to enter at the door at the front of the hall, and he knocked here, noticed that light slid from a crack at the bottom and turned the knob.

  He went in confidently, hesitated a moment as he noticed the disordered appearance of the office-like interior. Closing the door, he stepped towards the flat-topped desk flanked by barricades of steel filing cabinets, and had nearly reached the desk when he saw Sorenson.

  The man was on his back on the floor with his neck cocked forward by his head, which was propped against one of the cabinets. Casey stiffened with his hands flat on the desk top, stared without breathing, then said:

  “Sorenson.”

  The spoken word was not as silly as it sounded, because at that moment Casey was not sure. He swung around the end of the desk, knelt quickly beside the small, swart man with longish hair and a black tie that suggested a certain artiness, real or affected.

  The black suit was mussed, disarranged; the collar was torn and there was a lump on one corner of the jaw, a bruise over the eye. It was not until Casey reached for an outstretched wrist that he saw the blood on the fabric of the coat. Opening this, he saw the wide reddish spot on the vest completely surrounding two tiny holes about four inches apart. There was no pulse.

  Conscious, at last, that he was holding his breath, Casey exhaled noisily and stood up. For a moment a jumble of disordered thoughts vortexed crazily and he glanced about as he sought an answer.

  Beyond the filing cabinet, the room had been arranged as a sort of waiting-room. There was a green rug, a leather divan, a few chairs, a table and two floor lamps. One of the chairs was overturned; so was one of the lamps. The drawer of one filing cabinet had been pulled clear out so that its load of manila folders had spilled on the floor; other drawers were open but still in the cabinets.

  Ordinarily Casey’s first move would have been to telephone the police. He had never kidded himself that he could outsmart the detective bureau, and he found it paid dividends to co-operate with fellows like Logan, Manahan, and Judson. But this time he was held back by his thought of Norma Patten.

  Murder was something he wanted no part of. He cursed himself for coming here, cursed Norma for calling him up in the first place. Yet, now that he was here, he decided to look for the films. If he called the police first he might not get the chance to look, and he’d have too much explaining to do.

  He went through the two connecting rooms of the studio, found them empty and came back to the waiting-room. As he passed the magazine table, he noticed an ashtray, and when he stopped to inspect the cigarette butts, he saw that one was of an ivory color. Scowling, he picked it up, sniffed it. It was a medicated brand. He stared at it, twisted it in his fingers, finally put it back. Still scowling he stepped to the filing cabinets and began his search.

  He had gone through one drawer and was starting on the second when he heard the quick rap of footsteps in the outer hall. Before he could do more than shut the drawer and jump to his feet, the door swung back and four men barged into the room and slid to a stop on the threshold.

  The first man was the fellow who had run through the downstairs vestibule five minutes previous. Behind him stood Sergeant Haley and two plain-clothesmen.

  “Well, well,” Haley said and seemed to take a sneering enjoyment in the moment.

  Trouble and dismay settled over Casey and he stood there, a burly, somber-eyed figure, as Haley approached.

  Haley inspected the body briefly, glanced about, and said: “Looks like a .25. Got the gun?”

  Casey said: “That’s very funny,” sourly.

  Haley stood in front of Casey and bobbed his head. He was a tall, skinny man with shrewd green eyes and a perpetual sneer that fed on an ingrown grudge. His apparent dislike of the world in general became acute where Casey was concerned, and the animosity was mutual and of long standing; both men had long since accepted it.

  “Well,” Haley said again, “what’re you waiting for? Let’s have it.”

  “Have what?” Casey grunted.

  “First—how you happen to be here?”

  Casey did not hesitate long on his question. Possibly, had Lieutenant Logan been the questioner, Casey might have told the truth. But under Haley’s sneering methods a sullen stubbornness welled up and he said:

  “I got a tip—a phone call—and I came down to have a look.”

  Haley glanced about. “Where’s the camera then?”

  “I wasn’t sure what it was so I didn’t bring it.”

  “Baloney,” lipped Haley. “What were you searching for?”

  “Who was sear
ching?” Casey bluffed.

  “You were. Look at these drawers.”

  “You look,” Casey said. “They were that way when I came.” He glared at the wiry little man who stood looking on with eyes popping and jaw slack.

  “You saw me downstairs,” he rapped.

  “Yes,” the fellow gulped. “I—I’m a photographer. I do work for Mr. Sorenson now and then, and I had an appointment at nine o’clock. I came up here and—”

  “There you are,” Casey told Haley.

  “He saw you downstairs,” Haley leered, “but that ain’t no alibi.”

  “Find out when he was killed,” Casey said, “and I’ll have an alibi.” He tugged at his hat brim, buttoned his trench coat and started for the door.

  “Hey,” Haley called, “I’m not through with you. You’ve been here alone about five minutes. If you were on the level you’d’ve called Headquarters. I want to know things and you’re gonna stick around until—”

  “I am, huh?” Casey said. “Is it a pinch?”

  “Never mind. Just do as I say.”

  Casey smiled, a mirthless gesture that, with the look in his hard, narrowed eyes, was ominous. The effect was part of his act. He wanted to get out, to have time to look around before Haley checked up on him, and he kept on with his bluff.

  “Any time you want me at Headquarters to answer your questions you know where to find me,” he said defiantly. “But I don’t stay here and watch you fiddle around. I’ve got work to do.”

  Casey seldom bluffed. When he did he had the build and the manner to do it convincingly. And right now Haley wasn’t quite sure of his ground. He advanced slowly, his thin face red and frustration in his eyes.

  “You want to get tough about it?” he challenged.

  “I don’t have to,” Casey said flatly. “I know my rights. If you want to keep me here, pinch me.” He cocked a disdainful brow. “Otherwise—”