Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “I suppose she’s right,” the Orchid nodded lazily. “But just the same if they were mine I wouldn’t take chances.”

  “Not you,” I thought. Aloud I said: “Let’s forget ’em. If she is robbed, I’ll buy her some more. And how about taking a ride with me this evening? The wife is going to be downstairs playing bridge until late. I may have to leave tomorrow. Got a wire from my partner.”

  She looked at me through her lashes smiling, mysterious, inscrutable. “Do you really want to?” she murmured.

  “Try me,” I dared.

  “At eight,” she said.

  And I wondered whether I was being a fool after all. She looked soft and inviting as honey—and I knew she was as dangerous as a cobra.

  Waldo Maxwell said harshly, “You are a fool!”

  “I know I am,” I agreed. “We all act the fool now and then.”

  He winced, said something savagely under his breath and prowled back and forth. I had run him down in one of those fantastic villas that huddled up little narrow drives just off the beach. Simplicity by the hundred thousand dollars’ worth. Handkerchief sized lawns, tile roofs, and luxury inside that would dim the Arabian nights.

  It was indiscreet, I knew. I shouldn’t have gone near him. But I needed action quick, and he was the only one who could give it to me. And there he prowled around the room like an enraged old bear, his dewlaps shaking, his white hair mussed where he had shoved his fingers through it, a scowl deepening the wrinkles over his rimless eyeglasses.

  Waldo Maxwell might have been able to tame a multimillionaire board of directors, but he had never tried Michael Harris of the Blaine Agency before. “Do I get it?” I demanded.

  “It is an insane request!” he blurted violently.

  “I know. I’ve thought it all over. If something isn’t done quick, you’re going to be splashed on the front pages, or out a quarter of a million,” I reminded. “You haven’t a thing on that dame. She’s got you by your reputation and you can’t even yip. Unless I’m wrong about the contents of those letters.”

  “No—no! I was out of my mind when I wrote them. Don’t mention them! Are you certain you can control this insane—this plan of yours?”

  I would have felt sorry for him, if I hadn’t remembered he could sign his name to a check for five million, and still have plenty left in the sock. “What would you give to have her come begging for mercy?” I asked.

  Waldo Maxwell showed his teeth in a smile, gentle as a wolf’s. “It would be some consolation for the humiliation I have been put to,” he confessed.

  “Then come through with what I need.”

  He glanced at a platinum cased watch and made up his mind abruptly. “They will be delivered to your hotel some time before six,” he promised.

  “Can I count on that?”

  “Young man, you heard me. Some time before six.”

  So I left, satisfied.

  And he came through.

  I opened the sealed brown paper package and poured the contents on the sitting room table. Trixie took one look and squealed: “Mike, where did you get these?”

  “Kris Kringle,” I grinned. “Now do you believe in fairies?”

  “I’ve never seen such good looking imitations.”

  “I’ll bet you never have,” I agreed. “Not a phony among them. Every stone and setting is the real McCoy.”

  And I didn’t blame Trixie for going pale and sick when she looked at me. That mess of diamond rings, bracelets, necklaces and whatnots needed a lot of explaining. Trixie picked up a pearl necklace and ran it through her fingers. “Tell me, Mike,” she commanded.

  “Waldo Maxwell,” I admitted. “It was like pulling eye teeth, but I got him to buy the lot on consignment. If they’re returned, he gets his money back. If not—he’ll probably have a heart seizure.”

  Trixie put her little hands on her little hips and looked me up and down with her lips pressed tightly together. “Have you gone insane, Mike Harris?”

  That has a familiar ring,” I recalled. “Maxwell wanted to know the same thing.”

  “I think you have! What are you going to do with all this jewelry? Why, it—it must be worth a fortune.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “And we’re going to put it all in that little false bottom in your trunk, and you’re going downstairs this evening and play bridge, and I’m sneaking off for an automobile ride with the Orchid.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And leave all this up here?”

  Trixie bristled. “Now I know you’re out of your mind! We’ll do nothing of the sort! You can waste another evening making sheep’s eyes at that cat if you care to, but I’m staying in and sit on this jewelry, to take it down to the hotel safe.”

  “Jealous?”

  Trixie tossed her head. “Of you, big mouth?”

  “We’ll do as I say.”

  “If we do,” Trixie snapped, “something tells me we are in for grief. I think that massive brain of yours is cracking under the strain.”

  “Don’t think,” I advised. “It’s dangerous.”

  If I had stopped to think I would have gone shaky myself. For I knew what Waldo Maxwell and Trixie did not—that lot of jewelry was in greater danger than if I had tossed it on the lobby floor and walked off. It might have been returned from there. And I didn’t dare use phonies. A slick crook would have spotted them the first look. So I shut my eyes and walked into the manager’s office and asked for four young bellhops who could ride bicycles, keep their mouths shut and stay honest for a twenty dollar bill.

  He looked at me as if I were addled. “Of course, Mr. Blaine—I mean to say, we strive to furnish every service, but—”

  “Then service me,” I cut him off. “I’m serious and in a hurry.”

  Grant the Palm Beach Palo Verde service. They delivered. I chased the manager out of his office, talked turkey to those bellhops, and hung a hundred dollar prize to sweeten their twenties. All four of them could outthink the average guest they roomed. In five minutes I drilled them letter perfect, and they scattered with expense money.

  The Orchid sighed dreamily. “Isn’t the surf lovely?”

  “Great,” I agreed, and held her hand tight while I looked over to the beach.

  Sure enough, there was a surf frothing in through the moonlight. Pretty, too, if a fellow had time to look at it. I didn’t. My mind was on Trixie back there in the hotel playing bridge. And on my five bellhops, and the Orchid beside me on the front seat of the big rented sedan. No chauffeur this time. I didn’t want to be bothered in ease quick action was needed.

  But for the time being we had no action as we loafed south in the moonlight with the open sea on the left. Some night. Some scenery. Some girl. I forgot the times I had called myself a fool for throwing in with the Blaine Agency. Nights when the rain ran down my neck, and guns barked out of the blackness. Days when nerves were worn to a frazzle matching wits with the smartest crooks in the country. A dog’s life, until I met the moon and the sea, and the Orchid went limp inside my arms as we loafed along through the miles. She was concentrating forgetfulness in a gorgeous shell.

  Only I didn’t forget. When I wrap my arm around a snake I watch it. I tested her out. “We’d better be getting back, beautiful.”

  “Not yet,” she sighed, and came over another inch. “It’s so lovely out here tonight. I could drive until morning.”

  “You won’t sister,” I thought—and gave her three miles more before I turned and stepped on the gas.

  “You are driving too fast,” the Orchid protested.

  I patted her knee. “I’m a fast chap.”

  “You’re a fresh one,” she said, and tried to steer me over to Lake Worth and down through West Palm Beach, stalling for time.

  “Little girls shouldn’t be out so late,” I stalled back. “I have a headache, and I’m going to turn in. I’ll stay over another day and we’ll take this up tomorrow night.”

  “But I will not be free tomorrow night.”

>   “My loss,” I mourned, and rolled her back to the hotel far faster than she had gone away from it.

  The Orchid said good night without much graciousness and went in the front entrance. When I parked the car one of the four bellhops popped out of the night. His eyes were wide with suppressed excitement.

  “Your room was entered. Mr. Blaine!” he said breathlessly. “A thin man with a black mustache. About twenty minutes ago.”

  “Any trouble? Where are the others?”

  “They haven’t come back yet. I’ve been waiting here for you.”

  “Be back in a few minutes,” told him, and hurried inside, lifted Trixie from her bridge game and took her up to the suite.

  “Powder on your coat again,” Trixie sniffled while unlocked the door. “I’m getting sick of a half-baked Romeo underfoot all the time.”

  “It’s my charm,” I grinned.

  “It’s your oil wells!” Trixie snapped as she marched into the room.

  She beat me to the trunk while I was closing the door. And a moment later pulled her hand out of the hidden compartment in the bottom and whirled on me.

  “They’re gone! Every stone and setting; while you played the fool and I play bridge like you ordered! Oh, why did Thompson ever put an idiot like you on this?” She stamped her foot, grabbed my arm and shook it. “Say something! Don’t stand there grinning like an idiot! They’re gone, I tell you!”

  “That’s great,” I said heartily. And Trixie almost swooned.

  While she was getting her breath back I came out of my room sliding a clip into my automatic. “Hat and coat,” I directed. “We’re going out.”

  “Where?”

  “Ask me something I know. It’s a great night.”

  And Trixie almost swooned again. But she was ready in sixty seconds, slipping a small edition of my automatic in her purse. Tucked away somewhere, too, was a fountain pen gas gun. Trixie never went without it.

  A second bellhop was waiting when we got outside, his bicycle tipped on the grass. “What luck?” I asked him, and held my breath for the answer. It might mean the end of Waldo Maxwell’s diamonds and pearls. If it did, it was my finish.

  “Over in West Palm Beach,” he said quickly. “Two of the boys are watching.”

  “Get in the back,” I ordered. “We’ll talk as we drive.”

  “Who are they?” Trixie demanded as we all tumbled in.

  “Bellhops.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Nothing does.” And as I drove, the boys in the back seat talked fast. One of them had been in an empty room where he could watch the door of our suite; another outside covering the windows; and the other two had been downstairs near a telephone.

  There had been no second story work. A well-dressed man had walked down the hall, fitted a key into the door of our suite, stepped inside, remained a few minutes, and stepped out again, natural and easy. He had walked out of the hotel into a waiting car—and three bellhops had jumped on waiting bicycles and followed. Simple as that.

  “And you didn’t tell them to call the house detective?” Trixie asked thinly.

  “Think of the publicity, my dear.”

  “I think you are a reckless idiot!” Trixie flared. “You’ve called me that before,” I reminded. “He who steals and runs away will surely pay some other day.”

  “Mad!” Trixie muttered despairingly. “Stark, raving mad!”

  Cross west on the brightly lighted bridge over Lake Worth and you come into another world. The coast highway runs through West Palm Beach, and now and then a tourist stops off and settles. Apartment buildings, cottages, cozy houses—it was like getting home from phantasy land. We found the other two bellhops beside their bikes at a corner in the residential section.

  Their dope was short and sweet. The car they had followed had turned into a driveway in the middle of the block, and was still in there.

  “Stay here with the car,” I said to Trixie.

  And she said: “Never again. You need someone with sense to watch you.”

  “Meaning a woman.” I said sarcastically. “Nevertheless, you stay here. This isn’t a tea party.”

  So she stayed, and two of the bellhops walked down one side of the street and the other guided me to the one story stucco cottage where Waldo Maxwell’s jewels had flitted. One side room was lighted. The window shades were down.

  I sent the kid across the street and walked to the back of the house. A big car was standing in the driveway, heading toward the street.

  No one was worried inside—and why should they be, after strolling out of the Palo Verde so easily? A radio was playing jazz. The screen door on the back porch was unlocked, and so was the kitchen door. I pulled my automatic as I stepped inside.

  A swinging door opened out of the kitchen, a hall beyond that, and to the left was an archway into a dining room. A voice said: “God. Harry, this bracelet ought to be worth five grand anyway. The emerald is good for two, and most of the diamonds will bulge a carat and a half.”

  And a second voice, “Shall we split this necklace and peddle the pearls separate?”

  “I wouldn’t,” I advised as I stepped in. “That’s a sucker trick.”

  There were two of them, sleek, good looking young fellows. One knocked over a chair as he jumped back and reached under his coat. When he saw my gun he stood still.

  Waldo Maxwell’s bait was spread over the table. They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off it. Harry had a little black mustache that jerked as he got out; “What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t be so formal.” I said. “This is a pinch.”

  And Harry gasped, “It’s a frame! He talks like a dick!”

  “You mind reader,” I said. “He is a dick. Turn around while I collect your rods, suckers.”

  Harry took a chance, dodged and grabbed for his gun. I shot him through the shoulder. The next instant the light went out as his sidekick reached the wall switch. They both cut loose as I dropped to the floor behind the table. Four shots that were almost one—and a door slammed . . .

  I was alone with my ears ringing and the radio blaring away in the next room.

  That was what slowed me up! My ears and the radio. I couldn’t hear their movements, had to go slow for fear they were waiting for me. The motor in the driveway suddenly spun. Gears whined as it rushed toward the street.

  And just as I opened the front door there was a terrific crash at the street. They had run into another car in front of the driveway as they turned sharp to avoid it.

  I ran out.

  Two groping, stumbling figures reeled on the sidewalk, fighting at their eyes. I backed away quick from the thin drifting vapor they were trying to escape.

  It was my rented car they had run into. Trixie joined me, and said coolly: “I drove up when I heard the shots, and blocked them. I let them have the gas through the open window of their car.”

  “Good girl!” I yelled. “Tell those bellhops to collar ’em until the cops get here!” And I ran back into the house while the neighbors poured out into the street.

  I reached the street again just as the police car slid up. We settled the rest in the station house. It took the jewels on the dining room table, the testimony of the belli lops, our credentials and a telephone call to Waldo Maxwell to clear Trixie and me enough so we could leave for the evening.

  And at that we were told it was damn queer business, and there was going to be a lot of explaining before the matter was settled.

  “There will be,” I promised.

  Trixie was wild as a taxi took us back to the Palo Verde.

  “See what you’ve done with that idiotic jewelry!” she stormed. “A man shot, two cars wrecked, serious charges plastered everywhere—with all the publicity it will bring—and Maxwell is as bad off as ever!”

  “We’ll ask the Orchid about that,” I said.

  Trixie was still breathing hard when I knocked on the Orchid’s door. The maid, almost as good looking as the Orch
id, answered it. She took one look at Trixie and informed us that Miss Dean had retired.

  “Too bad.” I regretted. “Get her up.” And I pushed on in.

  The Orchid met us in a frothy negligee that was enough to stop the breath. “What does this mean?” Her voice was knife-edged.

  “Harry and his sidekick are in the West Palm Beach police station.” I told her. “They were caught with the jewelry. It belonged to Waldo Maxwell.”

  I saw the maid, standing in the doorway, turn pale and press a hand against her throat. But the Orchid’s eyes began to blaze past her long lashes.

  “So you tricked me!” she said through her teeth.

  “Gloria,” I sighed, “it broke my heart to do it. But you’ve been loose long enough.”

  “Waldo Maxwell is behind this!”

  “Sad—but so.”

  I’ve seen a furious tigress behind the bars. But never have I been so close to one. The Orchid’s face turned marble white. Her eyes narrowed to points.

  “Maxwell won’t get away with this!” she blazed. “I’ll spread his name over every paper in the country! Tell him he’d better run here! and settle it quick! If those men aren’t out by tomorrow, I’ll call tin; reporters in and give them the story of their lives!”

  “Can you back it up?”

  “Certainly! I have letters!”

  “You had,” I corrected. What do you think I planted that jewelry for? I wanted to uncover your boy friends who were probably holding Maxwell’s letters. I found them in the bottom of a suitcase in their house. You might call Maxwell from the police station tonight and ask him for a little mercy. He’s got an answer all ready.”

  She spat at me like a cat.

  Trixie said later that gave her hope for me.

  “TAKE ’IM ALIVE”

  Walter C. Scott

  An Ex-Dick Tries a Double-Cross

  “Private Detective” Jake Kilgore raised his heavy, brooding face and scowled as the rain-soaked figure of the little crook slithered into his dingy office.