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

by Unknown

  Jerry Lake cut himself short and whirled on the intruders. “What are you looking for now, Smith?”

  “Don’t let me interrupt. Go on with your conversation.”

  “Is he the guy I hit, Cellini?”

  “No, Duck-Eye. I’ll designate the right party when the time comes.”

  The gambler said: “What the hell’s the matter with you, Smith? Has everybody gone crazy?”

  “What else has gone crazy?” countered Cellini. “The way the fight turned out?”

  Lake made no answer. Cellini nodded to Hank Wheaton. “That’s the one, Duck-Eye. Try hitting him.”

  Duck-Eye lumbered forward. The blow he let loose could have flattened a case of K-rations. Hank Wheaton leaped to one side but could not entirely escape the huge fist and he staggered back, tripping over a bench.

  Cellini had seen enough. “O.K., Duck-Eye. Let’s go.”

  Duck-Eye said: “I’ll kill him. I’ll murder the guy. I’ll—”

  Cellini grabbed the back of his collar. “Stop making speeches. Wheaton’s liable to realize he can take you.”

  Jerry Lake caught up with Cellini Smith and Duck-Eye Ryan in the corridor.

  “What was the meaning of that, Smith?”

  “I’m trying to earn an honest nickel, Lake. I wanted to find out just how good Hank Wheaton is.”

  “Did you?”

  “Uh-huh. He’s slow on the take. Duck-Eye couldn’t touch any first-class man with a little speed. Besides, Duck-Eye threw his fist too high, but instead of ducking under it and moving in, Wheaton tried to jump to one side. That’s not being bright.”

  “Go on,” said the gambler.

  “That’s where it stops. I like this kind of thing to be give and take, and you don’t give.”

  “Where do you get that idea?”

  “You know damned well,” said Cellini impatiently. “I asked you what you were betting on the fight and what the odds were, but you didn’t seem interested. Then, a half hour later, I find you in Hank Wheaton’s dressing room, reading him the riot act. If you know him that well, you’d know whether to take bets for or against him. What have you got to say to that?”

  Jerry Lake had nothing to say to that. He turned on his heels and walked away.

  Cellini said: “We’ll try it again, Duck-Eye. And try to let me do the talking this time. You just take the beating.”

  “Sure, Cellini, sure.”

  There was no need to hunt for Eddy Bly’s dressing room, for they could see him coming down the corridor with the small, tightly packed blond number hanging on his arm. The dark, set face was out of place for a fighter who had just won the main bout.

  Cellini stepped in front of them. The blonde’s eyes gave him a practiced glance. She didn’t seem to like what she saw.

  Bly said: “All right. I did a great job and I’m terrific. Thanks, and now get out of our way.”

  “That’s not the idea,” said Cellini. “My friend here claims he’s tougher than you are. Try it again, Duck-Eye.”

  Cellini got out of the combat area. Automatically, Eddy Bly’s arm came up and knocked Duck-Eye’s first pass aside. The boxer leaned back against the corridor wall and then bounced forward with a fast, chopping blow. It was a smooth and efficient right that jarred Duck-Eye’s huge form down to the patched toes of his socks.

  Cellini called: “Cut.” He took Duck-Eye’s arm and they walked out, leaving the puzzled pair behind.

  “I need two hundred bucks,” Duck-Eye Ryan said.

  “You won’t make it with fighting.”

  They found Dan Turner tallying the night’s bets in front of the stadium. When he saw Cellini he said: “You can drop that matter I wrote you about.”

  “Do you want all the money back?” asked Cellini with obvious sarcasm.

  “No. Keep it.”

  “That’s good, because I can tell you it wasn’t fixed. Eddy Bly’s a good boy. Wheaton doesn’t belong in the same ring with him.”

  “It makes no difference,” the gambler said. “I was betting on Bly and I would have been interested only if he lost. Thanks anyway.” He nodded and walked away.

  Cellini and Duck-Eye headed for the parking lot. They had gone not more than twenty yards when they heard a shot. It came from the direction of the stadium and a moment later they heard a woman’s full-lunged scream. It sounded like the big, homely woman.

  As Cellini raced back, he wondered why the blond number hadn’t uttered a sound, hadn’t even moved an eyelid, when Duck-Eye Ryan suddenly threw a punch at Eddy Bly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  COLD MEAT

  ellini Smith, Duck-Eye Ryan behind him, pulled up short at the alley entrance to avoid colliding with a couple hurrying out. The two were Eddy Bly and his blond friend.

  Cellini moved next to Duck-Eye to block their exit effectively and asked: “What’s the rush?”

  “Get out of our way!” Bly’s fists were already in position to start swinging.

  “Didn’t you hear that shot? That was a gun, and that screaming sounded as if someone got in front of it.”

  “I don’t give a damn what it sounded like,” said Bly carefully. “Me and the lady are leaving. For the last time, get out of our way.”

  “You’re good, Bly. But you’re not good enough to stop the two of us.”

  There were others who had heard the scream behind Cellini now, trying to get into the back of the stadium.

  Eddy Bly surveyed the crowd, shrugged and his arms dropped. “You know who I am and anyone knows where to find me if I’m wanted. I just don’t feel like hanging around here.”

  “Get back in there, Bly. It’s a bad time to leave. I’m a private dick and I pack a gun.” Cellini didn’t add that this was one of the times he had neglected to do so.

  For the first time the blonde spoke. She thumbed a carmine fingernail at Cellini and observed: “I don’t like that shtoonk.” Then she said, “What the hell! Come on,” and returned down the alley with Bly.

  In the corridor, someone was shouting incoherently into the wall phone. They could make out the words: “Hurt … ambulance … police …”

  Cellini shouldered his way through the crowd that overflowed Hank Wheaton’s dressing room. The little blonde, who had preceded him, fought her way to the middle of the room with sharp jabs of her elbow. When she got there, she took in the scene at a glance and put her arm around the convulsing shoulders of her large, homely friend.

  “Come, Prunella,” she said calmly. “You can’t help him now. You better sit down.”

  They moved aside, Cellini took Prunella’s place and examined the cause of the commotion. Hank Wheaton had lost for the second time that night. There was no need for an ambulance, for the bullet had been neatly placed, entering behind the fighter’s left ear. The body had been raised from the floor and put on a massage table and the onlookers gazed at it more in curiosity than in grief. Prunella’s sobs, which punctuated the babble at clock-like intervals, provided the only tragic overtone.

  In a knowing, triumphant voice, someone suddenly shouted: “Don’t nobody touch anything till the cops get here.”

  The reminder of the police created a sudden, uncomfortable silence. Cellini knew that within another minute there would be a stampede for the doors. He flagged Duck-Eye and went out into the corridor.

  “Have you got any friends around here?”

  “Sure, Cellini. There’s Sariola. He stopped me in the first round at an Elk smoker. And Rojo, there, fouled me below—”

  “O.K. Get a few of them together and tell them to stop this gang from leaving. You take that exit and put someone at the other end. Have a couple of the others keep an eye on the windows.”

  “This is sure a load offa my mind, Cellini.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You got a job now to work on this killing and you’ll make the two hundred skins I need for—”

  “We’ll talk about it later, Duck-Eye. Get busy.”

  Cellini wonde
red why he bothered saving suspects for Homicide. Ira Haenigson would probably answer a call like this and he held no love for Haenigson. It was the Homicide man who had talked up Cellini’s drinking at the induction station until they took ulcer-revealing X-rays that barred him from the army.

  Cellini returned to the dressing room. The window which fronted on the outside alley was broken. A round hole centered the pane and lines, where the glass had cracked, radiated from it. A couple of splinters of glass lay on the inside window sill. The shade was rolled to the top. From the alley, Wheaton had no doubt been a clear and well-lit target.

  Cellini walked outside and headed up the alley. When he was nearly abreast of the late Hank Wheaton’s dressing room, he found the object of his search. The gun, a flat .38 automatic, simply lay on the pavement where it had been dropped. The murderer had not even bothered to toss it over the brick wall that sided the alley.

  “If the killer was in such a hurry to get rid of that, he’s probably still inside there.” The voice at Cellini’s elbow belonged to Dan Turner.

  “I suppose,” Cellini replied. “But how did you get out here past the guards I posted?”

  “That subnormal friend of yours, Duck-Eye Ryan, let me by. He said it was all right because you were working for me.”

  “And?”

  “And I just wanted to make it clear that you’re not.” The gambler reached into his flannel jacket for a cigarette case. “You’re not working for me, Smith, because I haven’t the faintest interest in who killed Wheaton or why.”

  “So it’s as hot as all that,” commented Cellini.

  The police cars, followed by the wailing ambulance, did not come too soon. Duck-Eye Ryan was having trouble. The men he had chosen to help guard the exits liked the implication that they were on the side of law and authority for a change and they didn’t bother being tactful about it. Several men were banding together to rush the guards when Detective-Sergeant Ira Haenigson strode in with his crew of men from the Homicide Division.

  The police, Cellini had to admit, acted swiftly and competently. Within a few minutes, Haenigson had the broader details of the event and he had sifted out those who seemed to have a direct connection with the murder, dismissing the rest to an adjoining room.

  A plainclothesman beckoned to Cellini and he entered Hank Wheaton’s dressing room. Duck-Eye followed in his faithful fashion. The photographers seemed to be finished, but a couple of fingerprint experts were wandering around with hopeless looks in their eyes. Prunella and her blond friend were still there, as well as Eddy Bly. Jerry Lake was absent but Dan Turner leaned against the wall in his indolent manner and took in the proceedings.

  Ira Haenigson waved affably. “It’s good to see you, Smith.”

  “Why?”

  The detective-sergeant rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There must be some reason. I hope you’re not still carrying a grudge against me on your notion that I kept you out of the Army. You’re over twenty-six anyway, so you wouldn’t have made it.”

  “What do you want?” asked Cellini.

  “I want to thank you for posting guards and saving this gang till I got here.”

  “You’re welcome. Shall I leave now?”

  “I also want to know whose axe you’re grinding.”

  “Duck-Eye Ryan,” said Cellini, “is going to be a father and he needs money—but you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Cut the doubletalk!” The Homicide man’s voice became less affable. “Look, Smith, this isn’t my birthday and I’d like to know why you went to that trouble for me.”

  “I like to turn the other cheek, Haenigson. Not the one on my face.” Cellini reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun which he had rolled into a handkerchief. “I found this outside the window and picked it up in case someone else took a yen for it. I marked the spot where it was with a pencil.”

  “Better every minute. This may help a lot.” Haenigson passed the automatic to one of his men.

  “I doubt it,” said Cellini. “This job looks like the work of a cool hand who probably knew it couldn’t be traced.”

  The tall, eagle-beaked girl named Prunella had watched with fascination as the gun was being passed over. She suddenly screamed, “It’s your job!” and leaped for Cellini. Her hands caught his left wrist unexpectedly but firmly, her right shoulder went under his left armpit and he found himself sailing through the air to end up against the wall.

  The blonde yelled: “Good for you, Pruney!”

  Duck-Eye Ryan leaped for Prunella and wound his arms around her. Ira Haenigson began to roar with laughter.

  Duck-Eye asked: “Should I hit her?”

  “No,” said Cellini. He stood up unsteadily.

  Prunella was suddenly composed and said to Duck-Eye in a lady-like fashion: “Take your paws off me, you big ape.” Then she returned to her seat beside the blonde.

  Haenigson’s body still shook uncontrollably from laughter and Cellini snapped: “What the hell’s so funny?”

  The detective-sergeant blew his nose and wiped the tears from his eyes. He turned to Prunella. “That wasn’t bad, madam, but would you mind telling me what it’s all about?”

  She pointed to Cellini. “That last week’s garbage did it. He even had the gun.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning. First, would you mind telling me exactly who you two girls are?”

  “Do you want our professional names or our real ones?”

  “Your professional names?” Haenigson arched an eyebrow.

  Eddy Bly was quick to pick it up. “It’s not what you think, copper.”

  “We’re wrestlers,” said Prunella hotly. She indicated the blonde. “She’s known as the Blond Bomber but her real name’s Juno Worden. I’m Prunella Wheaton, the—the”—she paused, then remembered the right phrase—“the wife of the deceased.”

  “Lady wrestlers,” murmured Haenigson. “You’ve been thrown by a professional, Smith, so you don’t have to feel so badly. Now, Mrs. Wheaton, do you mind explaining your accusation?”

  “That guy had the gun, didn’t he? And he was in here before, getting that big baboon to beat up on my husband.”

  “It was only a friendly experiment like,” Duck-Eye explained. “We’re working for Mr. Turner and—”

  “Nobody’s working for Mr. Turner now,” provided Dan Turner.

  Haenigson threw up his hands. “Shut up, everybody! You, Duck-Eye, get out and find your intellectual equal to explain things to. And don’t take away his rattle!”

  ra Haenigson waited till the door had closed on Duck-Eye Ryan, then said: “Now, let’s have it, Smith.”

  Cellini said: “Turner asked me to find out if tonight’s bout between Wheaton and Bly was fixed. As you may know, it ended so quickly it was hard to tell, so I came back here and matched Duck-Eye against Wheaton and then Bly. I decided that Wheaton was no good, but Bly was, and I told Turner the brawl was on the level.”

  “What about it?” asked Haenigson of Turner.

  “That’s right,” said the gambler. “I was taking a lot of bets and didn’t want to be caught with the short end.”

  “What made you think it might be fixed?”

  “Just some things I overheard. Nothing to do with the killing. Do you want me any longer?”

  “Not right now, but stick around.” Haenigson watched Turner leave. The police usually left Turner alone, as he had carefully built up a reputation for honest dealing. The unofficial policy was to allow Turner and others like him to operate, in the open and honestly, in preference to crooked underground activity that could not be watched.

  “Is there anything you can add to your statement?” asked the detective-sergeant.

  “Very little,” Cellini replied. “Maybe you’d like to know that Jerry Lake was in here when I came in with Duck-Eye. Lake wasn’t acting too friendly toward Wheaton.”

  “I would like to know that,” Haenigson replied. He nodded to one of his men. “Get Jerry Lake.”

  When Lake ca
me in, Haenigson asked: “What kind of an argument were you having with Wheaton?”

  “I suppose Smith called it that,” the gambler said, “but it wasn’t an argument. Mrs. Wheaton was here all the time. I was just telling Hank he was asking for a knockout by leaving his chin stuck in the open the way he did.”

  “Did you lose much on the fight?”

  The shrug that Jerry Lake gave tried to indicate that money meant little to him.

  “What else, Smith?” asked Haenigson.

  “When I went out,” Cellini said, “Mrs. Wheaton and Lake were still in here. Eddy Bly and Miss Worden were in the corridor where Duck-Eye and I left them. I was out of the building when I heard the shot about a minute later.”

  “You didn’t leave me anyplace,” Juno Worden snapped. “Right after you left I went to the toil—the powder room, so I have an alibi.”

  “An excellent alibi,” was Haenigson’s gentlemanly observation to the Blond Bomber. “However, that leaves Eddy Bly in the corridor alone when the shot was fired.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” put in the fighter. “Jerry Lake was talking with me just at the time the gun went off, so I couldn’t have gone into the alley to do the job—even if I wanted to.”

  “Did you?”

  “Why should I? I took care of him in the ring. Besides, we were old friends.”

  Haenigson asked of the gambler: “Do you agree to all that?”

  “Yes, I do,” replied Lake.

  “You’d be stupid not to,” noted the Homicide man, “because if you claim you were talking with Bly at the right time, out in the corridor, it will not only alibi him, but also yourself.”

  “Do me and Miss Worden have to stick around here any more?” asked Eddy Bly.

  “I suppose not. I’ll probably want you again tomorrow.”

  “You better make it the afternoon. I’ll be busy all morning.”