Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  Jerome grunted. “Playing possum. I thought so. Get up, sister. You’re gonna do a lot of spieling before we croak you.”

  Lois Ward got to her feet. She saw Perry.

  “Hello,” she said coolly. “Sorry to have gotten you into this mess.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” replied Perry dryly, “for the world.”

  “These rats were crowding me,” she said. “I was near the Lanin Building. I thought of you. That casket had the evidence. I was afraid they’d lift it before I got to H.Q. So I dropped it with you.”

  “And here we are,” smiled Perry.

  Jerome’s face tightened. He wheeled on Lois Ward and grabbed her arm, twisting it slightly. “I don’t want no trouble,” he snarled, “getting answers. You talk and talk fast. Anyone else on the case with you?”

  “My, my,” Lois Ward murmured. “Look at his face, Perry. He’s diabetic, don’t you think?”

  “Oh,” sneered Jerome. “A bright girl, eh? Well, you talk fast, sister, or Scarotti will pull that trigger a couple of times and bank your boy friend on the floor.”

  That got her. Lois Ward’s pretty face paled swiftly.

  “I’ll talk,” she whispered. “That’s better,” growled Jerome. “Look,” said Perry, “mind if I smoke a cig?” Jerome grinned. “I sure do, bright boy. I’ve heard about the tricks you pack up your sleeve. A cigarette makes a swell blowgun, don’t it?”

  “Give me one of your own then. You wouldn’t refuse a fellow one last cig, would you?”

  “Here’s your cig.” Jerome threw him one. “Watch him, Scarotti.” He turned back to Lois Ward. “Who’s with you on the case?”

  “No one,” she said.

  Perry cocked his head around at Scarotti, the cigarette in his mouth. “Give me a light,” he said.

  Scarotti, still holding the Mauser against Perry’s back, let his left hand slip into his pocket and withdrew a packet of safety matches.

  “Light it yourself. No queer tricks. Or I kill.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” murmured Perry, striking a match.

  In the movement, he had slowly turned himself so that he nearly faced Scarotti directly. As he lighted the match, Perry pressed the back of his right hand against the upper pocket of his coat.

  Simultaneously, a wispy stream shot out into Scarotti’s beetle-browed face right out of the small pearl stickpin in Perry’s tie.

  Scarotti gripped at his eyes, screaming at the torture which the gas sent through his body. Perry spun around like a top. One of his hands tore the Mauser out of Scarotti’s hairy paw. The other clipped the screaming man on the point of his jutting jaw and crashed him to the floor senseless.

  There was a long thin bread knife on a small table in the room. Scarotti had been making a sandwich when they entered. Jerome snatched up the bread knife and threw Lois Ward back with him on the sofa, pressing the blade against the pale white skin of the girl’s throat.

  For a second, Perry was lost. He didn’t know what to do. Lois Ward took matters in her own hands. In horror, Perry saw her twist her neck under the knife and sink her white teeth into Jerome’s hand.

  She drew blood. Jerome howled, infuriated, and tried to pull the knife into her throat.

  But Lois Ward was smart. She had thrown herself down, a little to one side.

  Perry pounced on Jerome, swung his fist. He knocked him solidly back on the sofa, unconscious.

  Lois Ward jumped around and looked at him. “Some wallop! I’m glad you didn’t shoot him.”

  Perry sighed. He felt like a wilted lily. “Nice going, pardner,” he said in a small voice. “But you took a chance biting his hand.”

  She got to her feet and smiled. “Not so much,” she said. “The fool had the dull edge of the blade against me. He didn’t know it.”

  There was a battering at the door. The hollow reverberations of police clubs beat on it!

  “You wanted him alive, eh?” Perry said.

  “I’ll say,” replied the girl. “He’s just one of a chain. We’ll find out the others through him. Who’s outside?”

  He unlocked the door and opened it. Inspector Lowery, his burly face crimson with excitement, burst wildly into the room with two homicide bureau detectives behind him.

  “I thought so,” he cried. “All cleaned up! Damn you, Perry, you never give the cops a chance!”

  Lois Ward’s mouth was agape. “How did the police find out?”

  “The driver who brought Jerome and me here,” explained Perry. “I handed him a dollar bill. It’s a special one I have fitted up for emergency cases. It carries a little note that says: ‘Call Inspector Lowery at police headquarters and tell him Matt Perry is in trouble. Give any other information you know.’ I’ve used the gag before.”

  “Yeah,” said Inspector Lowery sourly. “Another one of Perry’s tricks, miss. Some day he’ll run outa them and—”

  “I’ve got a million of them,” said Perry, grinning broadly.

  THE PHANTOM WITNESS

  Clark Frost

  D.A. Mathew Sturgeon was all primed to step into the governor’s shoes. But Fate suddenly made him prosecute for murder the only witness to his own gun-laden youth.

  AT his desk in the marble-faced court-house, Mathew Sturgeon, big crisply-handsome district attorney, sat rigid. The keenness to his strong blue eyes was gone. His otherwise alert mind was dazed and uncertain. Yet he dared not let them see how he felt. No, these men must not guess what havoc the sight of this shrunken old self-confessed murderer had created in him.

  Of course, there had been no trouble getting a confession. The grizzled little man had calmly admitted his guilt, had willingly signed a statement.

  He, Joe Weber, had met the man, Jeff Stringer, in a cheap flophouse at the city’s outskirts. They had been friends years before. But once Stringer had cheated Weber. It was over that they had argued. And Weber, displaying a frenzied strength despite his shrunken figure, had caved in Stringer’s head with a hunk of lead pipe.

  No, it was not the confession that bothered the big district attorney. There was another fact, a fact which as yet had been unmentioned. Joe Weber, this little old man who now sat in Sturgeon’s office, had once been the sole witness to another killing. And in that killing it had been Mathew Sturgeon himself who had wielded the instrument of death.

  There had been a prolonged silence following the signing of a statement by Weber.

  “Through with him, Mr. Sturgeon?” asked one of the detectives at last.

  The district attorney jerked to his senses. “Yes,” he said sharply. “We have his confession. That’s enough.” Glumly, the shabby old man stood up between the county detectives. But the odd light which had been there from the moment he had first seen Sturgeon still gleamed in his small eyes. The district attorney didn’t miss its import.

  Alone, Sturgeon’s head sagged in his hands.

  If Joe Weber spilled what he knew—and what was to prevent him from doing it?—Sturgeon’s chance for the governorship was wrecked. But that was but a fractional part of it. Why, his whole life would be smashed, his freedom would be gone. Martha and the children? They’d be known as the wife and children of a murderer.

  No, at all costs, Joe Weber must be prevented from talking.

  Wildly, Sturgeon’s mind raced back to that confused sweltering night, thirty odd years ago Tonopah, Nevada . . . a boom mining camp. To it as a swaggering eager youth Sturgeon had come, staked a claim . . . and then that damnable night.

  In a lonely desert shack, Little Joe Weber, Sturgeon and a long-nosed man from the North named Bill Unger were playing stud poker. All at once there was a hoarse curse. The long-nosed man lunged to his feet, spilling cards and silver.

  Young Sturgeon staggered erect, too—swaying belligerently, full of red whiskey. He yanked a six-shooter from his holster, waved it wildly. And then, despite Little Joe’s frantic attempts to intercede, Sturgeon blasted it at Bill Unger.

  Afterwards, Little Joe had gotten the boy
, white-faced and scared, out of the shack. “He’s dead, kid,” said Joe, “deader’n buzzard bait. You gotta pull stakes pronto

  And Sturgeon had—leaving his claim without a backward glance.

  But the knowledge of one thing burned into his conscience like a redhot branding iron. For he knew, from scraps of talk he had overheard, that somewhere along the line the long-nosed man possessed a family. A wife and little children.

  And finally, so much did this trouble Sturgeon, he cautiously returned a year later, intending to locate and secretly help the destitute family. But no one appeared to know much of Bill Unger. The search was fruitless. Even Joe Weber’s present whereabouts were unknown. And Sturgeon was forced to abandon his good intentions.

  Those were wild days around the boom town. It was the last frontier of a vanishing West. Men could disappear, like Unger, without too many questions being asked. So young Sturgeon eventually returned East with none the wiser.

  There, determined to get ahead, he buried the past completely. He finished law school, passed his bar examinations, and hung out a shingle. For a young fellow, he got along fairly well. Then came the war. By that time Sturgeon was thirty. He went in a private and came out a major. That gave him a substantial boost—politically.

  He ran for, and was elected to, some minor offices. He proved to be a vote getter. Then he received the district attorneyship. He was re-elected, a second and a third time. And now at last, Big Matt—as he was called—was primed for the long step to the state capitol.

  But all the priming in the world would avail him nothing with Little Joe Weber on tap, and a thirty-year-old killing come home to roost.

  Of course, Sturgeon felt he would be offered a deal by Weber. But on the basis of the direct evidence, any jury would convict Weber. There just wasn’t much Sturgeon would be in a position to do.

  SO, with tense nerves, Mathew Sturgeon turned to the trial of Joe Weber. Little fanfare attended the proceedings. Few were interested in Weber’s fate. But Sturgeon’s friends and associates could not help but notice how haggard and nerve-wracked the district attorney was becoming.

  For, as the trial progressed, and no word came from Weber, the strain grew greater. At first Sturgeon had been inclined to let things drift, not even bothering to view the body of the murdered man. But later, it seemed logical that by putting on a strong front little Joe Weber might lose his own nerve. At least, it would not harm Sturgeon’s cause.

  And then one morning, as the prisoner was being led into the courtroom, Weber tugged at his guards and managed to halt them momentarily. His thin bloodless lips twisted crookedly.

  “Mr. Sturgeon,” he said in a whining voice, “I wanta talk to you—after the trial.” The guards yanked him away. Mathew Sturgeon stood rooted to the cold tile floor.

  This then was the game. Little Joe Weber intended to wait until he found out what his sentence would be. After that he would strike. He would seek a pardon. If he didn’t get it, it would be just too bad for Sturgeon. And if he did get it, there would be no assurance that the real blackmail would not then start in earnest.

  Sturgeon could not repress a shudder. Little Joe Weber, he knew, would have to die. And without too much delay.

  Later that same day the jury retired. They were out for a scant twenty minutes. They filed back with a verdict of guilty. Impassively, the judge passed sentence. Life imprisonment.

  When Sturgeon returned to his private office, word came to him that the prisoner wanted an audience. Sturgeon nodded briefly. Then, while he waited alone, he slipped a snub-nosed revolver from his desk.

  A few minutes later, Joe Weber arrived. His shrunken old form quivered with anxiety.

  “It’ll be all right,” Sturgeon hastily told the guards. “You can leave; I’ve got this”—he brought out the revolver and laid it lightly on the desk—“I’ve got this if he tries anything.”

  THE guards withdrew chuckling. But they were due for a surprise. Sturgeon fully intended to use the revolver—and fast. Weber would be dead before anyone got back in the room. And he, Sturgeon, would explain that Weber had attempted to seize the revolver.

  Sturgeon leaned across the desk. “Well, Little Joe,” he began softly, “it’s been years, hasn’t it?”

  A crooked grin crossed Joe Weber’s wizened face. “So you mind of me, Matt?”

  “Sure. I remember.” Sturgeon moved to the front of the desk. “Have a cigar?”

  Joe chuckled and reached forth.

  But Sturgeon’s other hand had slipped behind him. His fingers closed over the revolver.

  “I been sorry, Matt,” said Little Joe as he took the cigar.

  Sturgeon smiled as he raised the revolver from the desk. But then a strange thing seemed to take place within him. And all at once he knew that come what may he couldn’t kill this man.

  Something of what was going on within his mind must have shown on the district attorney’s face. At all events, Joe coughed and said awkwardly: “I reckon you always hated me, Matt.”

  Sturgeon shook his head. “Oh, no.”

  Joe waited quietly, but after a moment’s silence, he said: “I knowed you come back to Tonopah—askin’ after Bill and me.”

  “Yes—I went back.”

  “Uh-huh.” Little Joe’s head bobbed gloomily. “That’s how I knowed you’d tumbled to our game.”

  “Game? What game?”

  The old man looked down and fumbled with his fingers. “I mean about Bill and me fixin’ to jump your claim.”

  “My claim?”

  “Sure. But it was Bill’s idea—him startin’ an argument . . . and me aholdin’ onto you, so’s your six-gun would fire into the ground.” Joe sighed. “You was so drunk you figured you’d killed Bill plumb quick.”

  The old man didn’t notice Mathew Sturgeon’s eyes widen. His own had become dreamy. “We figured your claim was good. But shucks, it wasn’t worth nuthin’. Served us right, I reckon.” He looked up crookedly. “Sure you ain’t mad, Matt?”

  Sturgeon was leaning against the desk for support. His hands were clammy and his forehead moist. “No,” he said at length. “No, Little Joe, I’m—I’m not mad.” Then, because he felt that he had to keep on talking, he said in a heavy voice: “What ever did happen to—to Bill Unger.”

  “That buzzard!” The dreamy look left Little Joe’s old eyes. His cracked voice took on a shrill note. “He was a long-nosed, lopeared no-good. He cheated me right smart, he did.” Joe breathed deeply and his bony fists clenched. “He lit out not long after you was in Tonopah. But I finally come onto him. In this here town. He’d changed his name years back—with I good reason, I reckon.”

  “Changed his name, eh?”

  “Yep. Damned right. Called himself Jeff Stringer. He’s the gent I killed, Matt.”

  SLENDER CLUE

  E.D. Gardner

  Big John’s super-hearing often got him into a mess of trouble. Usually it got him out, too. But in the jewelry murder case, it almost didn’t. Then he had to depend on his fists.

  “I’M GONNA run into town and see what’s doing,” said Police Chief Blake. “How about coming along, John? Break up the monotony.” It was early morning of a cool August day, in Sandboro.

  Big John nodded and went in for his battered gray felt hat. He and Blake had become pretty good friends. His cabin on the lake adjoined Blake’s, and the two men had fished and hunted together—Blake made it a rule to take his vacation during the period when the ban on deer was lifted.

  There was still a week’s vacation ahead for Blake, but he’d decided to go into Sandboro for the day. Parking his car in front of the police station, Blake walked inside and found everything satisfactory. He and Big John sauntered along Main Street. The big, swarthy half-breed noticed one thing immediately: Chief Blake was a prime favorite with most people in town.

  Near the corner of Elm Street and Main, a shapely brunette was standing in front of the window of a women’s-wear establishment.

  Blake called good-
naturedly, “Good morning, Inez. Aren’t you supposed to be at the store?”

  When she turned about, she seemed to smile and scowl at the same time. Certainly her smile was perfunctory, and her large black eyes held a hostile light. She said, “Not until ten o’clock, Chief.” Her glance swept John from head to foot before she turned back to the window.

  “Works in Lenz’s jewelry store—and she doesn’t like me!” Blake grinned. “She keeps company with a fellow named Vic Terris, who runs a joint here in town they call the Pleasure Palace—right around the corner from the jewelry store. I told her she ought to stay away from him—which didn’t make me popular with her a bit. There’s the store right ahead of us—some display there, too! Lenz is the rich man in this town!”

  John grunted, as chary of speech as usual. They paused in front of the store.

  Suddenly the door was flung open, and a small, dapper man called to them in an agitated voice.

  “Chief Blake—oh Chief! Come in—hurry!”

  “What’s wrong, Will?” Blake strode forward, and peered over the little man’s shoulder into the store.

  “Murder!” said Will. His face was white and he was shaking. “Sam Murtha, the watchman—in the office in back!”

  He stepped aside to let Blake pass him; Big John followed. They found the lifeless body sprawled grotesquely in front of the desk. Nearby lay a plumed hat. The gaudy green and gray uniform in which the man had been dressed was stained red. There was a red mess all around. Two small-caliber bullets had been fired into the body, and one through the head.

  Blake called, “Come here a minute, Will!”

  The clerk’s voice came shakily to their ears. “Chief—if you don’t mind—I’m afraid I’d faint if I came in there.”

  “All right—I’ll come out!” Blake found the clerk breathing heavily. He snapped, “Pull yourself together, Will Simmons! Don’t be an old woman. Was anything stolen?”

  “Everything in the safe,” said Will. He wiped his forehead with a very white handkerchief. “Including about a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of uncut diamonds a salesman—Phil Abrams—left in there last night. I’d better telephone Mr. Lenz—he doesn’t know about this yet.”