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

by Unknown

  He pried out the picture with the point of his penknife and his breath caught as he read the rounded, childish handwriting on the back of the photo: “To Mother from Lois.”

  Lois … He knew the face now! His imagination filled out the promise of beauty in the face, matured and hardened the lovely mouth, added a nude body misted to a milky radiance under the glow of diffused lights.… Señorita Lois; she used no other name. Poised in the perfumed darkness of the Club Español, dancing like a flitting white moonbeam behind the iridescent translucence of an enormous floating bubble.

  Tracy closed the locket, replaced it gently around the neck of Sweetie Malloy. Poor, desperate, gray-haired Sweetie! Pleading guilty to murder, secretly conveying a dead body to her own home and bedroom—to save this same reckless-eyed child? It was only a guess, but to Tracy it seemed a guess perilously close to certainty.

  A grim hatred for the charming Señorita Lois grew in Jerry’s mind. Without Lois there was no need at all for Sweetie’s desperate sacrifice. A childless Sweetie had no sane reason for attempting to frame herself to burn in the electric chair. But if she had a daughter … If her daughter had killed a man, had begged Sweetie in hysterical terror to save her—save her.…

  Jerry’s lean jaw hardened. All Lois had to do, apparently, was to lock her damned crimsoned lips and let her unsuspecting mother take the rap. Sweetie would never disclose the secret. Tracy himself, friend of years as he was, had never once dreamed that Sweetie’s marriage with drunken Jack Malloy had produced this pampered and sinuous darling of the Club Español. A damned, cowardly murderess, if his hunch was correct. A gal whom Jerry Tracy was going to pay a grim visit before this tragic night was over.

  He reexamined the corpse on the floor. Except for tailor marks the clothes were empty of clues. But Tracy was patient with his searching and his patience was rewarded by a stiff, oblong pressure in the lining of the man’s coat. He found the hole in the inner pocket, ripped it wide with his forefinger, felt down through the lining and drew up the pasteboard. There were only two lines of print:

  Phil Clement

  Representing Señorita Lois

  Rain still slogged viciously behind the drawn shades on the window. Tracy shuddered slightly at the sound; he knew what he had to do tonight before he called on Sweetie’s unnatural and cowardly daughter. He’d get rid of the body, plant it somewhere else for the police to find. With the police short of all clues that might show where and under what circumstances the man had been murdered, Tracy himself would be free for at least one night to go to work on Lois, uncover the whole slimy truth. Sweetie would keep quiet as long as Lois’ name remained a secret. Besides, if she stepped forward now and tried to re-assume the guilt, it would drag Tracy himself into a criminal mess—and Sweetie, God bless her, wasn’t built that way!

  racy strode to the telephone on the night table and called his penthouse. To his disgust McNulty, his ancient Chinese butler, answered the call instead of Butch. In a steady voice Jerry assured the Chink that he was perfectly dry and in the best of health, that he wouldn’t be home for dinner—and please put Butch on, like a first-class and intelligent Chinaman!

  “You got him laincoat an’ lubbers?”

  “Sure, sure. I’m all right, keed. Honest!”

  Then Butch’s adenoidal bellow came over the wire. “Hello, Boss. Jeeze, what a night, huh?”

  “Where’s the Chink?”

  “Gone back in the kitchen.”

  “Swell. I want you to phone my garage and get the car. The Chrysler, not the Lincoln. Don’t tell the Chink where you’re going.”

  “How kin I?” Butch asked in a puzzled voice, “When I dunno meself?”

  Tracy gave him the address. “Drive out here right away. You can’t miss the cottage. It’s three from the corner of Locust. Pull into the drive and park at the back of the cottage. Keep your mug covered up as much as you can. I don’t want anyone recognizing you on the drive through Manhattan.”

  “Oke.”

  “And tell Felix over at the garage to keep his trap shut about the Chrysler going out. If anyone asks later on, both my cars were there all night.”

  “Oke.”

  Tracy hung up with a nervous click. He prowled swiftly about the shaded bedroom, pocketed the gun from the rug, tidied the grim evidence of struggle that Sweetie had so pathetically counterfeited, made the room normal and neat except for the huddled corpse. Sweetie was still breathing with drugged regularity; she’d be asleep for hours yet.

  The Daily Planet’s pint-sized columnist went downstairs to the kitchen and made himself a hasty sandwich with some Swiss and rye he found. He was as hungry as hell; and besides, it gave him something to do while he waited for Butch. Inaction always got on his nerves, made them raw and jumpy.

  He had finished the sandwich and was hunting for a bottle of beer when the bell rang at the rear door.

  Jerry Tracy stiffened. He knew that the prompt caller at the kitchen couldn’t possibly be Butch. Then who was it? And should he answer the ring or let the guy get tired and go away? Again the bell rang. The guy outside knew that the lights were on in the cottage, that someone was at home. Jerry would have to answer or arouse suspicion that something was wrong.

  A plan formed instantly in his mind. He sprang noiselessly towards the gas range, turned on one of the burners. He grabbed an empty kettle from the table, filled it with water, stood it over the blue flame. Then he walked noisily towards the rear door, flung it open.

  To his surprise the caller was a woman. Rain slanted against the columnist’s bare head. He stared at the woman, trying to get a glimpse of her dripping face.

  “Mrs. Malloy is quite ill,” he said curtly. “What did you want?”

  “Ill? I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Her beady eyes stared suspiciously, peered past him through the half-opened door. “I’m—I’m Mrs. Malloy’s next-door neighbor. I came to borrow a cup of sugar. You see, we’re having a little party and—”

  Tracy leaned forward, glanced alternately to right and left. Both adjoining houses were dark from cellar to garret.

  “I’m Doctor Rolfe,” he told the woman with a cool smile. “We mustn’t disturb Mrs. Malloy—but come in, by all means! And—er—get your cup of sugar.”

  His firm hand drew her unwillingly across the threshold. He took a good look at her in the light. She was fully dressed for the street: hat, coat, high-heeled shoes, gloves. Soaked with rain. Obviously out in the storm longer than it would take to run from an adjoining doorway. Pale angular face. Might be a Swede. Watching the suave stranger that she had not expected to run into with a puzzled, scared expression in her bovine eyes. That lump in the sagging pocket of her long coat was a gun bulge, or Jerry was crazy!

  He lifted the lid of his kettle and peered professionally.

  “Mrs. Malloy had a bad heart attack this afternoon. She’s upstairs in bed, barely conscious. I’m heating hot water now for a—ahem—parallelogram treatment.”

  He smiled faintly.

  “You no doubt know where she keeps the sugar. Help yourself.”

  The woman’s eyes swept the cupboard helplessly. “I—I guess I won’t bother, Doctor. Thank you; I—I won’t stay.”

  “Shall I tell Mrs. Malloy who called?”

  “No, no. Don’t annoy her.”

  She backed towards the kitchen door, swung it open and ducked out into the drumming rain. The minute the door closed Tracy ran noiselessly into the front room. With his eye carefully glued to a corner of the shifted shade, he saw the woman hurrying from the driveway to the sidewalk. She melted into the darkness towards Locust Avenue. A liar and a faker. As bad an egg as Tracy had ever smelled. Who was she? Did she know about the corpse upstairs? Could she be—his jaw tightened—an emissary of Señorita Lois?

  He went back to the kitchen and turned out the gas flame under the kettle. He heard the pulsing hum of a motorcar with a thrill of satisfaction. The car turned slowly into the driveway from the street. It braked behin
d the cottage and a moment later the bell rang briefly. It was Butch.

  Tracy yanked the startled big fellow into the kitchen and snapped an eager question at him. “See any sign of a woman walking along Locust Avenue?”

  “Naw.” Butch snorted with derision. “On a night like this they ain’t nobody walkin’. Street’s as empty as a—a motorman’s glove. I mean,” he added hastily, with a silly grin, “a motorman without no hand.”

  “Did you see a car parked anywhere along Locust?”

  “Oh, sure. About four blocks down. Parked without lights. You tol’ me not to show me mug much, so I didn’t give it no gander.” He grinned. “Jeeze, let ’em park—I was young meself once!”

  Jerry wiped the romantic grin off Butch’s thick lips with a curt sentence or two.

  “Huh?” Butch gasped. “Moider? Right here? An’—an’ we’re gonna snatch the body?”

  “Right. And I don’t want any mistakes.”

  Less than ten minutes after Butch had arrived, the body of Phil Clement was carried discreetly out the back door of the cottage and stowed away in the rumble of the Chrysler. He made a tight fit—but he fitted. The adjoining houses were still dark. Tracy smeared the license plates with a handful of wet earth. He was climbing in alongside of Butch when he suddenly remembered his two bundles—the birthday cake and the candles! Swearing grimly, he hurried back into the cottage and got them.

  Butch swung the car through the driveway and out to the rain-pelted street.

  As they turned into Locust Avenue, Jerry’s eyes peered ahead through the slanting sliver of headlight-illuminated rain.

  “Is that the parked car you saw?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Slow down a trifle when we go by. Don’t let ’em see your face. Cut in close and go right by ’em.”

  “Okey.”

  Butch ducked his head low over the wheel. Tracy, hunched beside him, gave the stalled car a lightning scrutiny from under the wet brim of his hat. Two of ’em—a man and a woman. The man’s back was turned; all Tracy could see was a very sporty, extremely gray topcoat—almost a white-gray. The woman was the dame who had called at Sweetie Malloy’s kitchen to borrow a cup of sugar.

  Butch, who had glanced casually into the rear-vision mirror, gave a faint yelp. “Hey! They’re follerin’ us, Boss!”

  “I know. Show ’em how fast you can go with a special engine job that cost me plenty of jack.”

  Butch crooned with delight. “Fast as I like?”

  “Sure. Lose ’em.”

  Butch lost them in a straightaway mile of hair-raising speed along water-slippery concrete. He made doubly sure by two sneaking turns through the bumping darkness that brought the Chrysler to a parallel highway.

  “We’re going to Brooklyn,” Tracy said. “We’re going to dump the body in a vacant lot at the corner of Pike and Pacific.”

  The place registered instantly with Butch. “I getcha. The spot where the cops found Snipe Moretto last week.” His smile bathed Tracy with fond admiration. “Jeeze, you sure got brains in that little nut o’ yours. The cops’ll think it’s a gang killin’. They’ll think Snipe Moretto’s boys got hunk with the Peewee gang.”

  The flitting Chrysler roared smoothly through the Bronx, crossed into Manhattan, went all the way down to Canal and across the Manhattan bridge into Brooklyn. It was barely nine o’clock, but the steady torrential rain had swept the streets clear of all but a driblet of traffic. No signs of pedestrians at all.

  At Pike and Pacific, Butch braked the car to a stop and got out with a hand-jack. Unmindful of the soaking rain he jacked up the rear axle and pretended to go to work on a tire. Tracy drifted unobtrusively to a gap in the rickety fence and peered into the vacant lot. He came back and rested one hand negligently on the closed rumble. An occasional automobile rocketed by, throwing water flying in a soggy splash.

  “When I say ready—out with him!” Jerry whispered.

  More cars. Tracy straightened nervously as the last one swerved out of sight around a corner. As far as he could see, the street was empty for the moment except for the sullen hiss of the October rain.

  “Ready!”

  Up went the lid of the rumble. Arms plunged and caught at the wedged-in corpse. In a moment Tracy and Butch had staggered across the deserted sidewalk and vanished through the gap in the fence. They were gone less than sixty seconds. Butch let down the jack and tossed it into the open rumble. Jerry closed the lid with a bang.

  The Chrysler was in motion almost before the columnist could close his door. Butch’s hands, he noticed, were shaking on the circumference of the wheel. His own were tremulous, too. The car took an erratic slide and straightened out.

  “That’s that, Boss.”

  “Yeah. That’s that.”

  A vivid picture was still uppermost in both their minds: a dead man lying in a grotesque huddle in the rainy darkness of a vacant lot. Cold and inanimate, in a sordid welter of tin cans, mud and busted bed-springs … Tracy felt a little sick at the necessity of heaving even a dead man to a rest like that.

  Jerry had a grim hunch that if he didn’t make a quick job of this case, the gal who asked for a cup of sugar and the guy in the gray-white topcoat might do something damned nasty to a pint-sized columnist who had developed such an uncanny habit of minding other people’s business—when they broke the law. Whoever they were, those two were in the thing up to their ears, along with the bubble dancer.

  “Drop me off at Nevins Street,” he told Butch in a low tone. “I’ll grab the subway back. Remember to tell Felix that the car wasn’t out of the garage tonight. Get rid of those two packages of mine somewhere. Be sure no one sees you do it. Better smash ’em both up and stick ’em in one of the garage trash cans.”

  He watched the crimson tail-light of the Chrysler vanish in the rain and descended frowningly into the Nevins Street station. He rode a Seventh Avenue express to Times Square, caught a cab, rode quietly with set jaw to the Club Español.

  Tracy was soaked and soggy, a bit squishy at the heels, but the Español’s doorman recognized him with a respectful grin.

  “Bad night, Mr. Tracy.”

  Jerry said, “Yeah,” and made quick puddles towards the cloak room. Suddenly he stopped short in the center of the foyer. He was staring at a familiar white-gray topcoat. The coat was being handed across to Nita, the checkroom girl, by a thickset, muscular man of medium height, with bushy black hair and a neck almost as big as Butch’s.

  Tracy began backing quietly towards a convenient Spanish arch, but Nita’s face had lifted and her pert red lips were smiling at the columnist.

  “Hey, hey, Jerry mío! Lousy night, no?”

  The muscular man whirled like a cat. His dark eyes focused on Tracy. Jerry advanced smilingly, fumbling casually for his cigarette case, taking in the guy’s details with one slant-eyed flash. Didn’t know the mug from Adam. The fleshy cheeks, blunt nose, shaggy black eyebrows made a brand-new tintype for Tracy’s mental rogues’ gallery. But the topcoat was an old friend!

  The stranger grabbed the coat from Nita with a brusque snatch. “Forgot something,” he muttered, and with his face averted from Tracy, barged through the lobby and butted out into the rain.

  Tracy waited for ten hesitant seconds. The hard-boiled bubble dancer could wait, he decided. This was a guy to check on in a hurry.

  There was no sign of him on the gleaming black lacquer of the rain-drenched sidewalk. A taxi was moving from the curb and Jerry said swiftly to the doorman: “A guy just came out. Did he take that cab?”

  “Was he a sorta short, heavy mug in a light coat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He walked. Pretty fast, too. Went around the corner.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jerry caromed off a bobbing umbrella and made it to the corner without delay. His eyes narrowed with elation. That car parked at the curb down the street looked a hell of a lot like Light Coat’s tin wheelbarrow. Might swish by and give it a look.

  A hand c
lutched him as he passed a pitch-dark doorway. The clutch lifted Jerry off his feet, yanked him headlong into the narrow entry.

  His fist swung instinctively and skidded off a wet ear. The force of his hasty blow threw him off balance but it saved him a fractured skull. A pistol butt hit Jerry’s falling shoulder and laced it with numbing pain. Before it could hit again Jerry’s left hand closed desperately on a thick ankle and toppled his antagonist.

  Neither of them made a sound. The hiss of the rain on the black sidewalk and the scuffling of their entangled legs on the tiled pavement of the doorway was the only noise audible.

  The clubbed gun swung backward for a bone-smashing blow.

  Jerry butted his head against the man’s nose. He bit his way through the hand that crushed his mouth and chin. The killer yelped shrilly and they rolled apart for an instant. Tracy staggered to his feet, slipped, went down jarringly on hands and knees. He managed to throw one arm upward and he took the savage gun smash on the wincing tendons of his forearm.

  His assailant turned, chin and mouth crimson from his butted nose, and ran head-downward through the rain. He darted along the sidewalk and slammed headlong into his parked car. As the gears meshed Jerry leaped to the running-board, clutched at the wheel, tried to throw the automobile towards the sidewalk.

  A straight-arm blow to the mouth tore him loose and sent him reeling backward. The pavement came up dizzily and socked the back of his skull with a force that bounced his teeth together. It took him a dazed minute to remember where he was and to sway dizzily upward from the cold puddle he was blotting with his aching back.

  The car was in high, roaring towards Sixth Avenue. Its stop light flared crimson; the car skidded around the corner and vanished.

  Tracy sat down on the uncomfortable spiked top of a hydrant and tried to pull himself together. His head still felt like an overstuffed chair. A man with a dripping umbrella came down from Seventh, stopped hesitantly.