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

by Unknown

  “Jeeze, Mike! What a shambles! Which one shot the blonde?”

  “The Babe, there. On Brundage’s orders, no doubt. The girl got panicky when Tom was shot and tried to skip. They had to blot her out or the game was up.” He went over to the half-conscious youth, ran his fingers through the marcelled hair. “Know what I was wondering, Eddie?”

  “What, Mike?”

  “How this baby will look with his head shaved.”

  Murder Is Bad Luck

  Wyatt Blassingame

  WYATT (RAINEY) BLASSINGAME (1909–1985) was born in Demopolis, Alabama, and graduated from the University of Alabama. Eager to travel, he hit the road and was given the nickname “Hobo.” He got a job with a newspaper but lost it within a year because of the Depression. He eventually found his way to New York City in 1933, where his brother Lurton, a literary agent, showed the young writer a stack of pulp magazines and told him to take them home and study them, as they were buying stories. Six weeks later, Wyatt, who had never even heard of the pulps, sold his first story. Although he was a slower writer than many of his contemporaries, he still sold four hundred stories to the pulps before serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and about six hundred throughout his career. The service gave him background for several books, and he graduated to the better-paying slick magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, American, and Redbook. When the fiction markets began to dry up, he turned to writing nonfiction articles, mainly on travel, and juveniles, mostly about animals and American history. His only book of mystery fiction was a short-story collection, John Smith Hears Death Walking (1944). Perhaps his best-known mystery character was Joe Gee (a short name he liked because he could type it quickly but which still counted as two words), who couldn’t sleep while he was on a case. He also wrote many pulp stories under the pseudonym William B. Rainey.

  “Murder Is Bad Luck” was published in the March 1940 issue.

  Murder Is Bad Luck

  Wyatt Blassingame

  It started at a New Orleans racetrack, that chain of strange events of which the links were murder and mystery.

  OR ME THIS MAN McCracken was bad luck. Like a black cat or the number thirteen for some people. He didn’t want to be bad luck any more than a cat does. He just was.

  To start with, he lost me my chance at the daily double. It was New Year’s Day, and the Fair Grounds was jammed with people. Christmas week had made a cut in my paycheck and I was trying to get well with ten bucks on the double, which my old agent, who is still around chiseling the boys out of their fees, had put down for me. I’m a track cop and not supposed to bet. Extra Trouble had taken the first one all right, and now if Doomsday came through, the payoff would be $22.40 for each two-buck ticket.

  I hadn’t gone to the paddock, so I didn’t see Doomsday until the horses were on the track. And when I saw him I leaned over to Dud Harris, who is a rat-faced private detective and a louse and happened to be standing beside me.

  “He’s got a needleful,” I said.

  “So it would seem indeed,” Dud said.

  Doomsday was wet with sweat, with foam white along his neck and around his mouth, and he was tiptoeing along, chiefly on his hind legs. He made a couple of breaks toward the infield and he took a nip at the number four horse’s rump. The boy on him, an apprentice who’d been riding about three months, was so scared you could tell it by looking at him. As they paraded past—I was standing at the rail near the finish line—I yelled to Johnny on the lead pony and he turned around, meaning to get a hand on Doomsday’s reins.

  And then some damn fool threw a New Year’s firecracker right over on the track!

  The guy who threw it was standing a few yards from me, and I saw his hand go up in the air, the sparks sizzling off the fuse. A man close to him—later I learned it was this man McCracken, who at the time I had never seen—yelled, “Hey!” and grabbed the thrower’s wrist, and the firecracker, instead of sailing up the track, went straight out between Doomsday’s feet.

  It and the horse exploded together. Doomsday made two corkscrew turns, and, on the second one, the jockey took off like a pebble out of a slingshot. Then the horse came straight at the rail, fear-crazy, and jumped it. The crowd was so thick that persons against the rail didn’t have a chance. The fall broke Doomsday’s right foreleg and his neck, or only God knows what would have happened; but he had already done damage enough. There was one man killed, another with a dislocated shoulder, a woman with a bloody nose, and my ten bucks gone to hell. The drunk who’d thrown the firecracker wasn’t hurt.

  The man with the dislocated shoulder was this McCracken. David McCracken, he said his name was, and he said the dead man was a friend of his named Andrews. Doomsday had come right down on top of this Andrews, crushed his skull and broken his neck. I was told to go along to the hospital with the injured man and learn just how bad the lawsuit was going to be.

  When I finally got to talk with McCracken he turned out to be a pretty nice fellow; an average-sized blond man with an average face. He said he realized the track wasn’t to blame—and the drunk who’d thrown the firecracker didn’t have money enough to be sued. All McCracken asked for was money for his doctor’s bill and a pass to the track.

  He couldn’t tell me very much about the dead man, a fellow named Arthur Andrews, except that Andrews had been a small-time commercial artist and writer. “Told me he did articles on outdoor life and illustrated them himself,” McCracken said. “He’s got a wife somewhere in New York City. I can probably find her address for you.”

  It seemed this McCracken was a bachelor who lived on a comfortable but fairly moderate income and spent his time wandering around the world. He had met Andrews two weeks before at a little fishing camp near the mouth of the Mississippi; they’d got to be friends and had come to New Orleans together for New Year’s.

  The police checked this as a matter of routine and proved it was true. To everybody’s surprise Andrews’ wife didn’t sue the track for a dime. She just had her husband’s body sent to New York and buried it. The only person who sued was the woman who’d got a bloody nose. She said her beauty had been ruined forever and she sued for a hundred thousand dollars. I said I was going to sue because my ten bucks had been on Doomsday, but the stewards reminded me they couldn’t have been because a track cop isn’t allowed to bet.

  So that, we thought, was that. But it wasn’t.

  I saw McCracken a few times. Twice he asked me up to his hotel to poker games, and both times I lost. For me he was plain bad luck.

  It was about two weeks later that the girl turned up at my apartment and asked if I could find David McCracken. “He’s my uncle,” she said, “and I’ve got to find him, and he seems to have disappeared all of a sudden.”

  I looked the girl over and decided maybe McCracken wasn’t such bad luck after all. She wasn’t more than five feet tall, with black hair cut in a long bob, and she was cute and sleek as a two-year-old. I like small women because I’m little myself. I’m too heavy to ride anymore, though I rated with the best for three years, and I brought home Morning Glory in the Derby; but I still don’t reach over five feet six without jumping … and this girl was small, but oh my!

  “The clerk at Uncle’s hotel told me to come to you, Mr. Rice,” she said. “He said you knew my uncle personally and that you were a detective and could find him, if anybody could.”

  “Maybe he’s left town,” I said.

  “He was here three days ago when I arrived and telephoned him. He said he would come over to my hotel to see me—and he never got there. No one has seen him since, but his hotel says he has phoned several times to ask if he had any mail. And he’s still registered there.” She looked me squarely in the eyes. “If you could find him, it might be worth money to both of us. He’ll be getting six months’ income in a few days, and I want to make a touch. I’ll pay you ten percent of what I wiggle out of him.”

  I’d had a sure thing in the fourth that afternoon and consequen
tly was wondering what I would use for money the rest of the month, so pay on the side sounded good. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—and you’d understand that if you’d seen the girl. I have my weaknesses.

  “I was just going to dinner,” I said. “Come along and you can explain in detail.”

  I went by and nicked my old agent for thirty, and the girl and I went to a place in the Quarter where they boil shrimp the way I like them. I said we should have a drink before eating and she said she’d drink a martini. I took a pousse l’amour. I ate there fairly often so the waiter didn’t even blink, but the girl did when she saw the drink.

  “What’s in there?” she asked.

  “Nothing but maraschino, the yolk of an egg, vanilla cordial, and brandy.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. Now tell me about this missing uncle of yours.”

  “I’m his only niece; in fact, I’m the only relative he has.” She smiled. Her lips were full, the lower one puckering down a little, the way I like them. They were bright red and her teeth were white. She was a honey. “My name’s Mary Swanson and I’m a junior in medical school.”

  “What?” I said. “Huh?”

  She laughed. “Everybody looks that way when I say I’m studying medicine, but I am. I won’t be much longer, though, if I don’t find Uncle David and put the bee on him. He wasn’t very definite in his last letter, so I decided I’d come down—from St. Louis—and try to talk him out of a thousand dollars. After all, I’m his only living relative, and I happen to know that he gets half his income every year about the first of February. But I’ve got to be back at school in a couple of days, and I haven’t been able to find him.”

  “He’s hiding out on you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s always been generous with me. I’ve never had to ask him for money before. But he did sound strange when I talked to him over the phone—kind of frightened. I’m afraid something has happened to him.”

  She took another martini and I had a brandy scaffa, which is made of raspberry syrup, maraschino, green chartreuse, and brandy, the liquors kept in separate layers. She said it was pretty, but that she didn’t want to sample it. Which was probably my loss.

  I asked why she hadn’t gone to the police about her uncle.

  She sipped at her drink and then looked up, half serious and half grinning. “I’m afraid my uncle’s got himself mixed up in some kind of personal affair. Nothing bad, but—well, I have my reasons.”

  I said that I could understand, and that Sandy Rice was to be relied on to be discreet in matters of this kind. And she said, “I’m sure you are, Mr. Rice.”

  And I said, “Call me Sandy.”

  So we ate dinner, and afterwards she drank cognac and I took a brandy sangaree, which is a mild concoction of sugar and water and brandy and port wine with nutmeg sprinkled on top.

  It was cold when we went outside. The wind whipped down Conti Street, and Mary—she was Mary by now and I didn’t even remember her last name—put her hand in my elbow. “Let’s go over to your uncle’s hotel,” I said. “If we don’t learn anything, we can take in the first show at the Blue Room without getting out in the cold again.”

  Sam, the night clerk at the hotel, said, “McCracken phoned a couple of times to know if he had any mail, but I haven’t seen him the last three nights. I told the girl you were the guy to help her.” Mary was standing several yards behind me. Sam said, “Nice, huh?” and leered out of one corner of his eye like a cop who has caught you speeding but doesn’t want to write a ticket. “One good turn deserves another, Sandy.”

  I said, “There is some rumor that Old Cactus will take the fourth tomorrow, but I wouldn’t put more than two bucks on it.”

  “Thanks.”

  It was my inning now.

  “How about giving me the key to McCracken’s room and letting me go up and look around?”

  “I like this job,” Sam said. “I don’t want to lose it.”

  “Is it still the same room?”

  “Yes. Five twelve.”

  I said, “If the odds go below five to one, tomorrow might not be Old Cactus’ day after all.”

  “You are a hell of a detective,” Sam said. “You protect the people’s interests, don’t you?”

  “I work for the track. I investigate what they tell me to. I can’t help rumors.”

  I told Mary to wait for me in the lobby. I rode up to the fifth floor and went up to five twelve, the first door around the bend in the hall. There are quite a few keys on my key ring and they will open a lot of doors, but none of them opened this one. Wondering why, I tried the knob. The door was already unlocked. I stepped inside and closed the door again.

  It was dark in the room, just a little gray haze coming through the windows. I moved to the left, feeling for the light switch, and my foot touched something big and heavy and rubbery. My hand touched the switch at the same time and I clicked it on. I looked down at the thing at my feet.

  It was a man. He lay on his back with one arm flung back. The coat was messy with blood and the knife was still there under his left shoulder blade. Blood was bubbling slowly around it, but he was dead, plenty. And they tell me that when a corpse is still bleeding, then it hasn’t been a corpse more than a few minutes.

  I looked at the dead man’s face, and I had never seen him before. Then I looked up and saw that the door to the adjoining room was open.

  t was very still and very quiet; that kind of quiet stillness that comes just before a big race when there is actually some movement and sound all around you but you don’t hear it or see it anymore. It was the kind of stiff quietness that you feel.

  When McCracken and Arthur Andrews—the man who had been killed in the accident at the track—had come here they had taken adjoining rooms, and after Andrews’ death, McCracken had kept both rooms. The one beyond the open door was dark except for the yellow rectangle of light on the floor.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a gun and I didn’t have any business here—though Sam, the desk clerk, knew damn well I had come up—and I didn’t know if there was anybody in that dark room beyond the door. But there wasn’t much time to think and I did a fool thing … maybe Mary and I shouldn’t have stopped in that bar on the way to the hotel where I put down an East India cocktail of raspberry syrup, caroni bitters, red curaçao, maraschino, and a double brandy. Anyway, I reached down and took the knife out of the dead man’s back—it was really stuck in there. I had to pull hard to get it loose. Then I circled the bed and went through that open door into the room beyond.

  I could see the outline of the room, but nothing else. I turned on the light to make sure. The room was empty.

  I tried the door opening into the hall. It was unlocked.

  When I looked down, I saw that several drops of blood had dripped from the knife blade onto the floor. The palm of my hand was sticky, and all at once I felt a little sick at the pit of my stomach. I realized I had been so scared the backs of my knees were aching.

  I returned to the room where the dead man lay. Somebody knocked on the door, two sharp raps, and then the door opened and a man came in. He said, “Ah, David, if you won’t answer my letters, I—” Then he stumbled over the dead man.

  He was a tall, thin, hawk-nosed man and he looked as if he was accustomed to having his own way. He certainly had control of himself. He took a half step back from the corpse and his mouth, which wasn’t much more than a white slit in his face to start with, got tighter and whiter. He reached in the inside pocket of his expensive gray topcoat and took out a .25 automatic. The gun was about as big as a pack of cigarettes, but it was big enough. With his left hand he reached back of him and closed the door into the hall.

  “Drop that knife,” he said. And when I did, “Where’s David McCracken?”

  I just stood there. There wasn’t much else I could do. “I don’t know,” I said.

  The newcomer stared hard at me.
<
br />   “This is his room, isn’t it? Where is he?”

  “It’s his room all right, but he’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Was he here when you killed this man?” His eyes flickered down to the body and back at me again, hard and black. “That’s impossible. This man hasn’t been dead more than ten minutes.” He had a deep voice but it was sharp and hard and very distinct. Except for one of these Boston accents, he would have made a swell race announcer. He said, “What are you doing in McCracken’s room?”

  “I was looking for him.”

  “And this man?” He gestured at the corpse without taking his eyes off me. That fishy stare was getting me.

  “I found him here.”

  “Who is he? What is his connection with Mr. McCracken? And who are you?”

  I was getting over the shock of looking into the gun muzzle and felt sure the man wasn’t going to shoot. I said, “I’m a detective, of sorts. The guy on the floor I don’t know. Do you?”

  We faced one another for about four seconds, the tall man trying to make up his mind about something. I had already made up my mind; I wished to God I had never heard of David McCracken.

  The man said, his mind made up, “Back over to that phone in the corner and tell whoever answers that you have killed a man in room five-twelve and to send the police.”

  “Wait a minute!” I said. “You’re jumping the bell. I didn’t kill him. I never saw the guy before.”

  He said, “Phone,” and meant it.

  The switchboard girl answered and I said, “Put Sam on the line.”

  The tall man snapped, “You can talk to whoever answers!”

  “To hell with you.” I was certain now he wasn’t going to shoot. I said, “Sam, I’m up in McCracken’s room. The door was unlocked; that’s how I got in. And there was somebody ahead of me. A guy with a knife stuck in his back.”