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

by Unknown

  “Did you dip their pockets, honey?”

  “Sure did. Nothing in the dame’s coat but a soiled handkerchief and a few hairpins. In the guy’s pocket—this.”

  The slip of paper switched hands with deft invisibility. Tracy cupped it for an instant, read the penciled memo. Two lines: Selma Borquist, 932 West 10th.

  Something in the way he crawled into his coat and popped the snap-brim hat askew on his rumpled hair brought a solicitous frown to Nita’s dark eyes.

  “You’re not going down there tonight, for Gawd’s sake?”

  “I dunno yet.”

  “Listen, Jerry. You’re dead on your feet right now. There’s a lump on the back of your dome like a hen’s egg, and that left arm of yours looks like it might hurt like hell. G’wan home to bed. The Swede’ll keep till tomorrow.”

  “You’re a sweet kid, Nita.”

  “It’s the mother in me.” She grinned, and wondered why the words should make Tracy look so suddenly queer, as though she had said the wrong thing.

  “I feel all in,” he admitted. “I think I’ll head straight for home, a stiff drink and a swan dive into the hay. S’long.…”

  He lurched out to the street and Nita, watching the tired drag of his feet, thought angrily: “He’ll kill himself one of these days with his damned running around. About as big as a bag of popcorn—and more pep to him than a Mack truck … Crazy little runt …”

  hen Jerry awoke the sun was shining. He picked up his fresh copy of the Daily Planet and saw the expected headline on the front page. There was a photograph of the body, with a squat white arrow above it to help dumb tabloid readers pick it out from the tin cans and debris. No identification yet. Jerry, having carefully cut out all the labels from Clement’s clothing, wasn’t surprised. Twenty-four hours, he thought grimly. After that—Inspector Fitzgerald and the cops.

  Butch was behind the wheel of the Lincoln when Jerry appeared on the sidewalk. Off like oiled lightning, down to Times Square.

  Butch tossed his plaid cap at a peg and squatted in the outer office with a copy of Variety and the Daily Planet funnies. Jerry sat down at his desk and hooked the dictating machine closer with a tug of his patent-leather toe.

  But before he dived into the column he reached for the phone and called Garbo, the very snooty chief operator on the Daily Planet switchboard. He gave her Sweetie Malloy’s suburban number.

  “When you get it, say anything you like. I want to know how the woman sounds when she answers. Keep my line in. Verstehen Sie?”

  “If you mean do I understand,” Garbo said icily, “the answer is yes, Mr. Tracy, I do.”

  He hung on and listened with narrowed eyes to the brief two-way misunderstanding between Garbo and Sweetie Malloy. Garbo lingered a second after she broke the connection. “Satisfactory, Mr. Tracy?”

  “Quite.” He grinned. “Hey, Garbo—listen. Why don’tcha like me, keed? You mad because I call you Garbo?”

  She sniffed audibly and clicked off. But Tracy was satisfied. The sleeping draught he had slipped Sweetie hadn’t done her any harm. She sounded tired and listless—but she was out of the shadow of the electric chair, and there wasn’t a way she could frame herself again. Call in the cops now, and they’d laugh at her!

  He tackled the column with vim. At noon Butch appeared with a mound of Swiss cheese on rye and a pitcher of draught ale. Tracy took the stuff in his stride. When he got busy on an overdue column he was like the Twentieth Century singing along steel rails. At four-thirty a messenger arrived and took the cylinders away. Tracy stretched gratefully. He was done. McCurdy always edited the stuff and trimmed the edges. Nice guy, McCurdy. His youngest brat was named Jerry. On purpose.

  Tracy went down to the sidewalk and thought things over, while a steady stream of pedestrians buzzed and bumped past him. Sam, his favorite hackman, was parked at the curb. He gave the Daily Planet’s columnist a wrinkled grin and gestured briefly towards his tin flag; but Jerry shook his head. The subway seemed a better bet for a well-known little guy on an anonymous mission. The small-calibered gun that he had picked up from the bedroom floor in Sweetie Malloy’s suburban cottage was a sagging weight in his pocket.

  The dump Jerry was hunting was west, between the gaunt Ninth Avenue El and the river. A mean, red-brick hovel, tucked away in a welter of dust and decay. An incredibly filthy fish store on one side, a secondhand plumbing shop on the other.

  Tracy hesitated, rubbed his chin uneasily. “Whoa!” he thought. “You’re galloping too fast, keed!” After all, he was a Broadway columnist, not a policeman. If he didn’t tip the cops—and tip ’em right now—he might get his wise little nose so deep into trouble that it would take him eleven years to convince Headquarters that he was acting not to cover up crime but to expose it!

  He stepped into a telephone booth in a cigar store near the corner and called Police Headquarters in a low voice. After a short wait he heard the welcome sound of Inspector Fitzgerald’s deep voice.

  “Fitz? Listen—”

  “Jerry?” Fitz’ heavy rumble exploded into a pleasant chuckle. “Haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been keeping yourself, you little bozo?”

  “Don’t talk!” Jerry snapped. “Listen!” He uttered a sentence or two with curt speed.

  Fitz’ voice changed instantly. “Right! I getcha.” A smart cop, Fitz. Never wasted a second asking how or why. He knew Jerry Tracy well enough from past experience to wait until later for complete explanations. Jerry had a habit of handing him a crisis and a solution all in the same breath.

  “You and Sergeant Killan get down here as soon as you can,” Tracy said. “In the meantime I’m gonna have a try at the Swedish maid. She might beat it if I waited for you.”

  “Watch your step, Jerry!”

  “You sound like a subway guard,” Jerry kidded lightly; but there was a hard line to his lips as he hung up. He was aware that he had reached the point where a single misstep might lower his dapper little body into a graveyard for keeps. He had never thought much about the next world, but he knew he liked Broadway!

  He went back to the red-brick tenement and sauntered inconspicuously into the shabby, dirt-littered vestibule.

  Jerry glanced at the scraps of paper stuck askew under a row of bell buttons. Most of the name-plates were empty. Borquist was under the last button. Top floor.

  He climbed the stairs through pitch darkness, except for the faint flicker of light on the first and third landings. He could barely see the gun in his hand when he rang the bell, after a long, careful listen.

  There was no answer to his ring. He waited for thirty seconds, then banged noisily on the wood with a clenched fist.

  “Gas man! Gas man, lady!”

  The door opened a mere crack, but Jerry was all set. He recognized the scared face of Selma. His foot blocked the door; his shoulder sent it flying open.

  Selma backed into the frowsy living-room and Jerry closed the door and held the woman motionless with his gun.

  “Up with the pretty arms, keed!”

  “What—what’s the idea?”

  “I came to borrow a cup of sugar,” he told her pleasantly.

  There was no sound except the rickety roar of an El train slogging past in the growing darkness. Tracy forced the woman ahead of him. He searched every inch of the apartment—bedroom, kitchen, closets. There was no sign of any lurking boy friend. Smiling coldly, Jerry marched Lois Malloy’s ex-maid back to the living-room. Selma’s knees were knocking with fright.

  “Why did you kill Phil Clement?”

  “I didn’t. I swear I didn’t!”

  “Who did?”

  “Lois killed him. All I did, Mister, was to try and help that little devil of a dancer cover up. Her old lady butted in and gummed the works. She said she’d smear me with the murder if I didn’t help her. So we packed the stiff in a trunk and the old dame took it out. That’s all I did, I swear!”

  “How much blackmail did you ask when you called up the dancer yesterday a
fternoon?”

  No answer.

  “Who suggested putting the bee on Lois? Your boy friend?”

  “I—I got no boy friend.”

  “What’s the use of lying to me?” Tracy snapped. “The guy was in the car with you out on Locust Avenue. You both beat it out there to stop Sweetie Malloy from crabbing your blackmail act. But you were late getting there—and I got there first. Good old Doctor Rolfe!”

  “I dunno what you’re talking about.” She faltered.

  “No?” Tracy’s smile was knifelike. “I gave you a break by stealing the corpse myself. You tried to hijack me and get hold of the stiff again, but my Chrysler was too fast for that lousy can you were driving. So the boyfriend hunts me up at the Club Español and does his best to rub me out of the racket. He brought you back to the club later to proposition Lois for quick dough, but I foxed him again by kidnaping her in her cellophane panties.… For a virgin with no male acquaintances, you sure manage to get around, Selma.”

  Her bony face got suddenly triumphant.

  “Drop that rod!” a voice rasped behind the columnist.

  Tracy became very still. He let the gun fall to the floor.

  “Take it easy, Emil!” Selma croaked, her eyes glassy with fear. “Don’t shoot the guy in my flat, for God’s sake!”

  “Turn around, stupid,” the voice ordered.

  Tracy turned. Death was shining at him out of Emil’s fishy eyes. Greed, ruthlessness, murder … No mistaking the gloating satisfaction in those eyes.

  “You killed Phil Clement,” Jerry breathed. “Not Selma. Not Lois. You.”

  “Sure I killed him. So what?”

  “Shut up, you damn’ fool!” Selma hissed.

  Emil’s chuckle was not pleasant. “This guy is so close to bein’ dead that it don’t matter much what I say. I killed Clement, and I’m gonna kill you. How d’yuh like that, Mr. Jerry Tracy? The smart guy! The wise little cluck from Broadway! Too smart to look in the dumbwaiter shaft before shootin’ off his rat mouth!”

  Tracy forced himself to smile. “I guess you’re a pretty smart guy at that, Emil,” he said in a slow, persuasive voice.

  “You’re damned right I am.”

  “How did you work the murder job? You sure made a monkey out of me. Fooled me completely.”

  Emil kept the gun steadily aimed, but he smirked with pleased vanity.

  “A cinch,” he sneered. “Brains done it. Selma fixed up a fake love note that got Clement into the dancer’s apartment. He fell for it like a sap. He was nuts about the señorita.”

  “Be careful, Emil,” the maid said faintly. “This guy is smart. He’s trying to pump you.”

  “This guy is gonna be dead in about two minutes.” His grin widened. “All right, smart guy. I was in the apartment and fixed him and got out again. What more do you want?”

  “Yeah—but why kill the guy?”

  “Plenty reasons to do it, kid,” Emil said cockily, “and if you want more, the stunt was for Selma to accuse this dizzy dancer of the murder the minute she saw the body in her bedroom and yell for the cops.”

  “But the old lady gummed that scheme,” Tracy suggested tonelessly.

  “Yeah. The old lady was too tough for Selma to handle. She stuck the body in a trunk and scrammed with it. Can you imagine that?”

  “I can’t imagine it,” Tracy said faintly. He eyed the killer and allowed his tensed muscles to relax. A leap forward to wrest the gun from the watchful Emil would be sheer suicide. His own gun was on the floor. Sweat gathered in tiny beads on Tracy’s pale forehead. He knew Fitz could never make it in time. He felt a sick horror at the pit of his stomach.

  Emil’s smile hardened. He gestured briefly towards his pale girlfriend. “C’mere, Selma.”

  She moved stiffly. She looked uneasy, frightened.

  “Take this rod and—” His hand swung suddenly sidewise and the weapon crashed with horrible impact against Selma’s skull. She crumpled to the floor without a sound.

  “What’s the idea of that?” Jerry whispered thickly.

  “The idea, stupid, is to git rid of people I don’t need no more. You first and then Selma. Nice?”

  “You can’t get away with it.”

  “No? Git moving! Through that hall. Into the kitchen … Right! Now git over by the window. Sit down on the sill.”

  The window sash was already raised. Tracy, obeying the menace of the leveled gun, sat down. He snaked his eyes outward and downward for an instant—and knew he was doomed. The window faced a narrow, five-story airshaft. There was a blank brick wall opposite. There were windows all the way down below the kitchen; but Tracy, remembering the empty name-plates in the vestibule, felt a sick shudder.

  “Tough, ain’t it?” Emil said. “We gotta wait for an El train to settle you—but Selma’ll be easy. She’ll go down like a bag of laundry.” He grinned with ghastly humor. “You kin hold on to the window-sill if you like, while you’re waitin’.”

  The dusk outside had deepened to chilly darkness. Away off in the darkness Jerry could hear a faint rumbling. It grew rapidly to the metallic clatter of a speeding El train.

  “So long, stupid,” Emil said.

  As the roar of the passing train became a clamor that shook the ancient tenement, the killer’s fingers tightened.

  A woman screamed shrilly. A bullet whizzed past Emil and shattered the glass above Tracy’s bent head.

  A wave of hot, incredulous joy swept through the columnist’s body as he recognized the face of the woman with the gun. He dived headlong from the sill as the startled murderer whirled. For an instant all three of them were inextricably tangled on the kitchen floor: Tracy, Emil—and Lois Malloy.

  A kick from Emil sent Lois bouncing against the wall in a moaning huddle. The man whirled to fire into Tracy’s face, but the columnist’s fist was already whizzing. It caught Emil on the Adam’s apple and paralyzed his throat with pain. He dropped his gun, sprang frantically to recover it. Tracy’s foot kicked it spinning towards the wall, where it rebounded towards Lois.

  The dancer was hurt and badly rattled. Swaying there on her knees, she scooped up the gun with her left hand, but to Tracy’s horror, instead of firing at the plunging Emil, she threw the weapon out the open window—and her own after it!

  The two men tripped over her and went down in a flailing fury of fists and feet. Tracy fought like a silent, tight-lipped demon, his mind ablaze with a single thought: his own gun! Lying on the living-room floor where he had dropped it!

  A smash on the jaw rocked him groggily, but he managed to dig his face desperately against Emil’s neck and get the hold he wanted. He let Emil’s own weight do the trick. A slight bend of the knees, the sudden instant of leverage he had learned on the gym mat from Artie McGovern himself—and the snarling murderer flew over Jerry’s head and landed on the floor with a jarring impact.

  Jerry dived out of the kitchen like a lean arrow, but Emil beat him to it.

  Emil had ducked back, picked up Tracy’s gun. He fired as Jerry appeared. A long sliver of wood jerked outward from the casing of the doorway. The panting columnist tripped over the unconscious body of Selma and fell in an awkward heap on his hands and knees. He was up in an instant, rigid with fear, his heart pounding inside his dry throat.

  He saw Emil leering at him.

  Emil was standing quite still, legs planted apart, barely five feet away. Tracy could see the black muzzle of the gun, the tautness of Emil’s knuckles, the pressure of his bent forefinger on the trigger.

  In that split second of eternity all fear whipped away from the mind of the doomed columnist. He thought with a kind of hypnotized clarity: “I’m gonna die.… He’s gonna kill me.…” There was no horror in the thought; only a puzzled incredulity. Not someone else! Jerry Tracy!

  The gun exploded. Tracy heard the racketing roar. He was still standing there, glassy-eyed—and unhurt! Maybe it didn’t hurt when you got killed.… Then he realized that Emil’s bullet had slanted astonishingly upward,
not straight into his own stiffened flesh. There was a ragged hole in the plaster ceiling and Emil was falling limply forward. He landed on his face and lay there, full length on the floor.

  Tracy could see the blood gushing sluggishly from Emil’s back. A pair of legs seemed to be walking towards the columnist out of a dream. They were queer legs—blue serge pants that seemed to end in fuzzy nothingness at the hips—until a brisk palm slapped Tracy’s face with stinging emphasis and brought him back to sanity.

  He was gaping stupidly at Inspector Fitzgerald. There was a big blue gun in Fitz’ paw and a faint haze of smoke at the muzzle.

  “Hey—wake up!” Fitz barked. “You all right?”

  “Yeah … I—I guess so.”

  “I shot him right through the kidney. Another second, Jerry, and you’d have been cold meat. Why didn’t you duck when I yelled?”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  Fitz grinned shakily. “Lord, I let out a yelp like a steamboat whistle! And you just stood there!”

  “How—how did you get in?”

  “Fire escape. Same way the girl did. We were right behind her, the sergeant and myself. Afraid she’d spoil the whole business. Killan tried to grab her, but she’s as quick as an antelope. Up and in before we could do a thing. Damned glad it worked out that way. Otherwise you’d be deader than hell. I’m not kidding.”

  Tracy drew a long, shuddering breath. He still felt very woozy as he turned his head. Lois Malloy was in the living-room doorway, white-lipped, rigid. He saw her gazing fearfully at the body of Emil and the senseless huddle of Selma. The sight of this slim, courageous girl brought reason back to the fuddled columnist. Lois had saved his life! She wasn’t a rotten little coward! He’d been completely wrong about her from the very start!

  He walked slowly towards her, laid a hand on her smooth arm.

  “Beat it, babe,” he told her gently. “You can’t afford to show in this mess. Leave it for me to handle.”