Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  He had spun out of the way of the bullet, and now he slashed the gun down on the kidnaper’s head. Landers stumbled back, still firing; but firing wildly, blindly. Blood was streaking down his face.

  At that moment a shot rang out from another quarter. A hot slug caught Tay in the shoulder, spun him around and slammed him up against a bulkhead. One hand on his bleeding wound, he stared with hot eyes at the pearl-handled revolver in the hand of Sandra Poynter.

  Landers’ shots had stopped. He rubbed his eyes now, shook his head. Then he pointed his gun straight at Ted Tay’s heart. The Coast Guard sailor hurtled the desk, came toward the swarthy crook. But a roaring shot caught him in the side.

  Weak, fighting for consciousness, he stumbled toward the door of the cabin and jerked it open. A shot followed him, biting into the panel of the door. Tay turned, an unholy light burning in his black eyes. He hurled the empty automatic at Lou Landers, then moved through the door and out on deck before Sandra’s next shot could touch him.

  Men were coming on the run from both the forecastle and aft. The Lady Death was cutting through the water at 45 knots, a streak of white in the murk of the night. Shots roared red from the deck, screaming past Tay’s ears.

  Then the outnumbered coast guardsman was hurtling the rail of the speeding vessel.

  He landed in the water, and in the next instant the Lady Death was gone, and he was alone. He bit hard on his lip. The wounds in his shoulder and thigh stung with the bite of the salt. The sea was cold, and black.

  Treading, Tay at last took off his blue cap, reached in and drew out four small metal objects. He pulled the cap from the first and released it from his grip. A red flare shot up like a rocket. In a few minutes Tay let go the second flare.

  The fourth and last flare had just died down when a sweeping searchlight rippled across the water, found him and steadied its gleam on his bobbing figure.

  LIEUTENANT TREVOR, in charge of the coast-guard cutter was a man who had a face the color of a ripe tomato—sharp blue eyes and a thick lipped mouth. His eyes were blue, and at times, sardonic. His hair was iron gray.

  “We followed as soon as we saw the Lady Death speeding through the breakwater,” he said, “but at the speed they were going, we could hardly keep her course. I didn’t expect you to go overboard so soon, Tay.”

  “I didn’t expect to,” Tay clipped, slipping on a dry pair of blue trousers, and quickly buttoning-up his shirt. He put on his tunic, strapped a holster belt around his waist and put a loaded service automatic in it. “Naturally, we were trying to get a lead on the craft because we thought they smuggled dope. But when I saw that poor little kid—Martha Mason—met Lou Landers himself, and realized what the racket really was, I sort of went crazy. I fell for his gun gag. Although he had enough faith in me to let out quite a lot, he still had the trick up his sleeve.”

  “So it’s Landers and his Hollywood kidnap crew,” Lieutenant Trevor breathed.

  Tay nodded: “The same mob that cleaned up three hundred thousand last month for Ronald Hunter’s snatch, then returned Hunter all cut up because the money had been marked and not in the denominations they had specified. The case practically every G-man on the coast is trying to crack.”

  Trever’s red face was hard. “The other Coast Guard cutter is standing by, Tay. Between the two of us, we’ll crack this case and crack Landers too. The trouble is—”

  “There’s no trouble,” Tay snapped, “except that we’ve got to work fast, and we’ve a helluva sweet battle facing us.”

  “What’s the schedule?”

  Tay grinned. “Holtz, their skipper, gave me a cock-and-bull story about shooting around Clemente and heading for Mexico. But I happened to get a look at the charts on the bridge. They go in the direction opposite Mexico. There were lines marking the navigation shoals around Seagull Island; that’s their spot. Thirty miles east of Catalina in what is probably the most dangerous water for boats there is!”

  “Think we can beat them there?”

  Tay shook his head. “Not a chance in the world. They’re probably halfway already, and their craft can run circles around us. It wouldn’t do any good to catch them, anyway—though we couldn’t attack, so long as that little girl is aboard with them. It’s too dangerous.”

  Captain Trevor asked: “Then what’s the plan?”

  Tay’s eyes were hot. “What they’ll do is deposit Martha Mason on the island with that woman who is in charge of her, and a couple of men—for safe keeping. They’ve been doing this on every case, which is probably the reason they haven’t been caught yet. But, the Lady Death, with some of the gang’s lieutenants aboard, will return to the mainland to write the notes and collect the ransom. That’s also part of their system. If they get caught, they figure they can refuse to tell where the kid is—unless they’re released.

  “What we have to do is figure as nearly as possible the straightest compass line between Seagull Island and Pedro harbor, then lay off on their course and wait for the Lady Death to return. With the two cutters, and a good stiff battle, we should be able to take them.”

  “We will,” Trevor snapped.

  “Sure, and after that I’ll go ashore from the Lady Death, disguised as one of the crooks returning for something, take them by surprise, and get the little kid back.”

  “Great!” Trevor ejaculated, “great!” His voice quieted. “But it isn’t going to be easy,” he added.

  MIDNIGHT water, and two Coast Guard cutters lying quietly waiting. Trevor stood on the bridge of one, with his binoculars in hand. Below him, on deck in charge of the gun crew, was Ted Tay.

  Presently the other cutter flashed a short signal. Trevor bellowed orders for full steam on the engine. Tay snapped to the sailors: “Ready—on the guns!”

  The Lady Death came then, like a white ghost flying over the water. The cutter nosed directly into her path. The other cutter lay off. Lady Death veered violently to the starboard, tipping forty-five degrees in the turn.

  “Load—fire!” Tay yelled.

  The gun from the deck of the cutter let go a blast that whirled across the water, caught the Lady Death under the bow. The ship kept going, however, and Trevor called the command for the cutter to take the chase. The other Coast Guard vessel let go a salvo at the Lady Death immediately following Tay’s. Wham . . .

  The kidnap power boat lurched in the water as it took the chunk of steel in the fan tail.

  Trevor’s cutter was right behind the Lady Death now, speeding in her wake. Tay wished they could go faster. In a moment the crook boat would be out of range. He called his orders to the men:

  “Slam breech . . . Mark—-fire!”

  Red flashed in a hideous glow, and a salvo—which could travel faster than any boat—whirled through the air, straight into the butt of the Lady Death. The kidnap yacht seemed to be slowing. Tay could see the cutter was gaining. The other cutter was coming up very quickly.

  “Mark-fire . . .”

  The roar of the deck gun . . . the sweating, tense sailors leaping back as flame burst from the muzzle—then opening the hot breech, stuffing in another charge, slamming the breech again . . . Pointer and setter turned their wheels to get the muzzle on the target. Tay’s shrill voice again:

  “Mark-fire!”

  He could have yelled for joy now. The Lady Death was swinging about, reversing her course. She headed back between the two cutters, picking up speed as she came. The cutter across the water from Tay bravely maneuvered into Lady Death’s path. The kidnap cruiser veered, slashing through the water, to avoid collision. The side of their vessel faced the cutter that had blocked their course, and Ted Tay saw—with sudden horror—the teeth of the four machine guns chattering from the Lady Death. On top of it came the boom of the three-incher from the deck.

  The cutter rolled, seeming to groan under the charge. A spotlight flashed across the water from the Lady Death’s bridge, and a snarl of red fire followed. Through the light, Tay could see the sailors falling overboard from the
other cutter. He saw the bridge window smashed, the captain fall out of it and tumble headlong to the deck of his vessel.

  The sailors in front of Tay, grunting, cursing under their breath, jerked open the breech of the gun again, jammed home the charge—the powder and bunting. The breech clicked on its hard jaws of steel.

  “Mark!” Tay screamed. “Fire!”

  He watched the salvo slice neatly into Lady Death’s bow. But even as the shot hit, the kidnap cruiser was roaring with their three incher at the other cutter. They caught her amidships. The Coast Guard craft wallowed in the water, shaking, and swinging from side to side. Then it suddenly began to sink—rapidly.

  Tay’s voice was hoarse, desperate: “Mark—fire!”

  Insane rage coupled with mad fury was seething through him. The Lady Death, snarling laughter bursting red from her porthole, chattered her teeth in the direction of the cutter still left afloat.

  “Captain Trevor,” Tay shouted, “bring us alongside. They outnumber us in artillery like a battleship against a tug. Their machine guns will chop down our crew. Maneuver us alongside. It’s our only chance!”

  Trevor, red face running with sweat, stuck his head over the side from the bridge. “But it’s madness!”

  “No more mad than this sea-going murder,” Tay barked.

  “All right,” Trevor screamed’. “Alongside we go!”

  The gun was loaded again, and as Tay gave the order it screamed its steel death; its fire and smoke. The sailors, panting by now, wearily loaded again. Tay was looking through the darkness. The shot had again hit amidships. He could see the hole in the gleam from the spotlights. The Lady Death was lurching desperately. Two of the port-hole machine guns were silent.

  But their three-incher wasn’t, and the shot that thundered from it almost took off the cutter’s bow. The whole vessel shook. Machine gun chatter followed in the wake of it.

  “On your bellies, sailors!” Tay yelled.

  THE seamen ducked down. The cutter kept creeping closer and closer to the crippled kidnap cruiser. Tay could see the three-incher bearing down on them for another shot. He ordered the sailors up on the cutter’s deck gun. They loaded in record time, and their shot came simultaneously with the Lady Death’s bid for destruction.

  The deck of the cutter was shattered, and three of the sailors went down, two of them falling over the side. Screams burst from their lips, then desperate gurgles—as they sank in the water and were crushed by the moving wreckage of the cutter.

  They came together sooner than anyone expected. Trevor made a neat, last-minute maneuver to swing the ship broadside to the deck of the Lady Death instead of hitting head on with his battered bow.

  Tay was up over the deck in an instant. Trevor leapt from the bridge, gun in hand, crossed the deck, and swung onto the kidnap ship. Two of the sailors followed, guns in their hands.

  Tay swept down deck, clipping off two of the porthole gunners by taking them with utter surprise. He opened the door of the cabin, swung inside. Trevor rushed in the direction of the bridge.

  Tay looked across the room at one of Landers’ lieutenants, a huge blond, nattily dressed. He lifted his gun. Tay’s trigger finger worked faster, however. His automatic roared. The spluttering shot from the crook went splintering into the wooden deck as he keeled forward, his face gushing blood. Tay’s bullet had taken out a chunk of his cheek.

  He deserted the cabin to help Trevor on the bridge. But when he got there, the coast guard officer was standing, staring down at a man who had slumped by the Lady Death’s wheel.

  “I—I guess that settles things here,” Trevor said.

  Tay nodded. His blood was racing hot. “The craft will still run. Take what men there are left alive aboard this ship, and leave me a skeleton crew of Coast Guard sailors. You can ride your prisoners back in. I’ll get a slicker and hat and go after Martha Mason.”

  “But don’t you think a more centered attack would—”

  “The element has to be surprise,” Tay clipped, “or they’ll kill the little girl. It’s a job for a man alone. Go ahead, captain—” his voice caught—“I’ll see you in Pedro after I bring the others in.”

  Sweat was still running from Captain Trevor’s red face. He blinked in the glaring overhead light, stuck out his hand and shook Tay’s.

  “Okay, Trigger Tay,” he said, not unproudly.

  TAY and his sailors found the small channel between the rocks on Seagull Island within an hour. It was the only possible place where the kidnapers could berth. The Lady Death coasted in quietly, motors dead, lights all out.

  Tay pulled a hat down over his forehead, clasped a yellow slicker tightly about his immense body. “No noise, no lights. And not a man is to leave the vessel,” he said quietly.

  Then he swung from the deck to the rock landing. He could see a large-sized cabin house not far ahead, lights glowing from the windows. The overhanging cliffs and bluffs of the island made the house invisible from the ocean. A boat would have to slip up into the hidden channel before it was in sight.

  He had seen no one standing guard out front, and when he got to the door, he paused and then turned the knob. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

  Sandra was directly across the room from him, and she looked up. Little Martha Mason was in a corner on the left, sobbing. Holtz, who had been skipper of the Lady Death coming out of the channel, stood with his back to Tay.

  “It’s only me,” Tay mumbled.

  Holtz paused for a bare instant. But it gave Tay time to get further into the room. He leapt suddenly behind Holtz, jammed a gun into the small of his back.

  “Don’t make a move!”

  There was a moment of silence. Sandra Poynter, blue eyes wild, was reaching into her purse.

  “You either!” Tay said.

  He felt Holtz trying to pull his hand from his pocket. Saw, in that instant, the pearl-handled revolver in Sandra’s hand, aimed toward Tay. And then Martha Mason cried out in a trembling seven-year-old voice:

  “Please! Mr. Holtz don’t shoot me.”

  Sandra Poynter screamed. “He’s going to—”

  Holtz lunged to move forward. He was holding a gun he had lifted from a breast pocket of his coat. A gun that was pointed at the child star. Tay knew that the code of this gang was to kill the victim if he or she were cornered.

  And then, suddenly, there was the explosion of a gun. Tay started across the room, fear pounding in his throat. But Martha Mason had not been hit. Then he knew. Holtz was slumping from his grip, crumpling to the floor.

  Tay let go of him and looked down. The kidnaper’s bloody and unconscious figure did not move.

  When Tay looked up again he saw the hay-blonde, the little smile—a hard little smile—on her too-crimson lips. Her watery-blue eyes flickered. The pearl-handled gun in her hand was still smoking.

  “They—they promised me,” she said jerkily, “that they wouldn’t hurt her . . .”

  But Tay heard the door to the next room opening. He leapt across to it just as it swung back. For a cold fraction of a second, he stood face to face with Lou Landers. The gun in Tay’s hand exploded. But Landers had moved, was out of the way. Even so, the bullet scorched his hip—and he was flung back into the room from which he had come.

  As he stumbled backward, Tay followed him in, raised his weapon again. Snarling, Lou Landers gripped the edge of a table. His gun belched rapid fire.

  Wham—Wham—Wham . . .

  Shoulder seared, Tay was spun about, his own shot going astray. He felt the floor coming up, felt his head bashing against the wall. Even then he was twisting around, straining his feverish eyes to get a line on the swaying figure of the kidnap chief. His vision was blurred. He held his automatic with both hands.

  Wham—Wham . . .

  He did not know how well he had fared, for he could not see. He knew only that he heard a bullet splinter across the floor just an inch from him. He tried again to aim, as Landers’ figure moved across the room. “Sh
oot a little ahead,” his mind told him desperately, “a little ahead, as when you get a bird on the wing, or a speeding rum runner . . .

  He fired.

  Rubbing his eyes, he stared across the room. He saw Lou Landers before he fell. Saw the awful hole in his right temple.

  TAY navigated the Lady Death back to San Pedro, and when he got as far into the channel as the Fifth Street landing, he stopped. Sailors loaded Lou Landers’ body into the police barge. Holtz, conscious now, but handcuffed, was herded into the waiting craft. Ted Tay himself gently handed the beautiful little Martha Mason to her weeping parents.

  He heard the child say: “Don’t cry, Mommy, I’m all right . . .”

  And then Sandra Poynter came on deck. She was very composed, and her face was without expression. Tay looked at her impassively, and his eyes flickered. He said:

  “You wait.” And to the police barge coxswain: “That is all—shove off.”

  The barge chug-chugged off into the night. The sailors went back to their stations in preparation to taking the Lady Death on into Wilmington. Only Tay and the hay-blonde that was Sandra Poynter remained on deck. There was a strange, incredible look in her eyes.

  “Why—why wasn’t I taken with—” But she stopped short, seemed to choke a little.

  Tay regarded her for a moment longer, then he said: “Can you swim?”

  She began to nod, began to smile, but he gave her no encouragement, and in the end she did neither. She just stared at him as though he were something to be looked at with awe. Then she kicked off her high heeled shoes, climbed over the side of the Lady Death, and splashed into the water.

  Ted Tay stood on deck, without moving, without even trying to think. The splashes of her even swim strokes grew fainter and fainter.

  At last he looked down at her high-heeled shoes standing side by side on deck, and there was a flicker of a smile on his lips, and a light that was in his eyes . . .