by Jerry eBooks
“But you couldn’t explain that to Larry; he was too smart for you. He figured out how it worked, and when he got you alone, at one of the rest periods, he told you he was next to you. He said the only thing that would keep his mouth shut was winning the contest. You’d have to frame it with the judges to give the other boys and girls a fast count whenever they slipped, or dropped—a slow count for Larry and Loretta. Maybe other contestants would be ruled out on technicalities. But the price you had to pay was that Couple No. 13 had to win the show.”
“The dirty—” he began.
I cut in: “At first you figured you’d have to play ball with Larry. There was a good chance he’d keep the secret from Loretta; she was marrying him to reform him, and he wouldn’t be able to disillusion her by saying he was pulling a blackmail to win the show. But even at that you figured you shouldn’t put so much trust in an ex-crook, ex-bad boy, ex-convict, like Larry Gilroy. Larry had the goods on you. He probably investigated that wheel-drum and found out you added some cable to it for your little job. He had too much on you. So you decided to put him out of the contest—permanently.”
Phil said to me now, from clamped lips: “You got it all figured out, huh, smart guy?”
“All,” I admitted glibly. “You knew if you made a shrewd kill on Larry, with no suspicion touching you, the police would never be able to figure it out. A guy with a past like Larry’s could have anybody in the world want to rub him.
“So with the same brain that figured out the microphone alibi for the fake stick-up, you figured out the ice-pick finish for Larry.
“One of the picks in the refrigerator had a loose handle. Just the thing. The corridor was dark: just the place. There was no element of timing, since you could wait your chance. As master of ceremonies you had a right to be in the rest rooms, or the corridor, at any time you wanted—in an official capacity. So you made it a point to be there at every sleep period this evening, just waiting the chance when Larry might be the last one out and you could meet him alone. It worked.”
Phil gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, it worked.”
“A slap on the back,” I said, “with the ice pick. Fast. Then yanking the handle away in the dark. Larry wouldn’t stand a chance in a million of knowing he’d been stabbed. After forty-three days of marathon grind, Larry’s whole body was affected; muscles swollen, painful, his insides practically numb. On top of that he’d just been shaken out of the deep sleep of fatigue. In a condition like that he could probably take a dozen ice picks in the back and not know it.
“So that’s the way you worked it. You just chatted with Larry in the corridor, wishing him luck, telling him you were fixing it with the floor judges to let him win. You sent him back into the show, dying on his feet, and he didn’t know it.
“Then all you had to do was wipe off the handle of the pick and replace it in the refrigerator. Just return to the orchestra platform and be gay again—till Larry dropped.”
For a long tight moment Phil Thorndike gave me the solemn, cold eye of an executioner about to spring the final trap. Then he said: “What the hell do you expect to gain by giving me all this?”
“My life,” I said. “And the jackpot.”
“How come?”
“Don’t be a dope, Phil. I got all this just from a few words Loretta mentioned to me. Lieutenant Ballantyne is a hard-headed, hard-hatted cop, like you see in the comic strips, but underneath it he’s got thirty years of experience. Thirty years of cracking tougher cases than this one. You’re behind the eight ball, Phil. Right now. Turn State’s evidence and maybe you dodge the death sentence. It’s your only chance.”
He thought that over, a tense shudder moving him against me, the gun in his pocket still pressed tight at my side. Doc Miller said: “I think the guy’s right, Phil,” but Thorndike gave him a snort of scorn.
“For you, maybe. With me, it’s different; you didn’t shove Larry, doc. Get this car rolling.”
“You mean you’re gonna—”
“Get it rolling.”
I ask you: Was I in a spot? Once we got rolling, there’d be no chance for me; none at all.
If I’d had one man to handle—that might have been maneuvered somehow; I didn’t quite know how, but it would be a reasonable, fifty-fifty chance. But with two men, and one of them with a loaded gun all ready to blast me—
Phil Thorndyke was desperate. He just had to get out of this. My life didn’t mean a thing to him. But it meant something to me. It meant, as a matter of fact, a terrific lot to me. I thought of Loretta Ward; even in that spot I thought of her. I had a picture of her face before me. Her face, as I’d last seen her, and as I’d first seen her. I thought of those times when I’d carried her books.
Doc started the car, the blackjack on the front seat beside him, while he kept one hand on the wheel and one pulling out the choke to warm the cold motor. And that was my one chance—maybe my last one.
Phil Thorndike was sitting at my left. I hooked my left arm, jabbed my elbow into his throat with all the force I could muster. He gave a choking gasp, and his head snapped back, and his cough nearly gagged him.
The pistol banged twice in his pocket, but I wasn’t there in the way of it. I’d thrown myself across his lap, slugging, hammering—elbows and fists, working at his throat and jaw, storming him in a blitzkreig attack that forced him to cover on the defensive while he tried to yank the gun from his pocket.
It snagged; he tugged; he couldn’t free it.
I clamped my right hand on his wrist, holding it inactive against the gun; then, falling to my knees on the tonneau floor, dragging him with me, I crooked my left arm over the back of the seat, got a strangle hold on Doc Miller.
I had them both then, one in front, one in back, while all of us fought crazily, struggling, in a sedan in a rainy parking lot. I threw all my weight forward over the seat, pushing Doc Miller’s head against the horn button on the steering post.
The horn blasted continuously, and I added to the noise of it by shouting for Ballantyne, or any cop inside the Paradise Ballroom.
Phil Thorndike got his hands free and clawed at my eyes. That made me let go of doc.
He yelled: “Get ’im, doc!”
But Miller opened the door of the car, and stumbled out, and started to run across the dark auto park toward the street. At the same moment I heard a whistle blow, and a uniformed cop, from the rear exit of the ballroom, shouted: “What goes on? Stop!”
Doc didn’t stop, and there was a single shot. Then he stopped, dropping into the gravel, holding both hands to his stomach.
I saw that out of the corner of my eye, from the sedan, while I elbowed the latch and swung the door open. With the opening door, I pulled Phil Thorndike out into the rain with me.
We both fell into the gravel, and he was still trying to get the gun from his pocket when the cop came running up and got him by the collar. A thick, heavy knee, in blue uniform trousers, hit Phil in the face so hard I could hear his teeth clatter.
“He’s got a gun!” I warned.
But the cop didn’t need the warning. His service revolver had become a club; and before Phil Thorndike could scramble up from the gravel, he was dropped in his tracks—the way they clout steers in a slaughter house.
It was all over before dawn that morning, and when Ballantyne released Loretta Ward I told her I’d walk home with her.
It was like the old times, way back in the past, when I used to carry her books from school. Now, though, we were adults, and walking in the rain through the early morning. Her mind was miles away—maybe on Larry. I’d fixed everything up, but I hadn’t brought Larry back. And I wondered, in the silence between us, if she really wanted him back.
I said at last: “Would you like a cup of coffee, Loretta?”
“All right, Jack.”
“Where shall we go?”
She looked up at me briefly. “I don’t care, Jack. I’ll go anywhere—as long as it’s not dancing.”
THE END.
TOO M
ANY ANGLES
Calvin L. Boswell
Branded as the chief suspect in a bowling alley murder, Jim Trent matches wits with a crafty killer!
THE room was stuffy and small, and the business of being confined in it was obviously getting on Jim Trent’s nerves. There was a dour look about his mouth, and his gray eyes were brooding and restless as he stood at the window and watched the rain make a mobile pattern on the wetly gleaming asphalt of the street below.
Abruptly, he let out an explosive, angry breath and turned away. He moved to the center of the room with quick, nervous strides. He got out a cigarette, lit it, and absently picked up a heavy glass ash tray from the scarred table.
Sound made him jerk around. Footsteps mounted the creaky stairs. They scuffed on the worn hall runner. The dour look became a little grim as the footsteps ceased outside his door. There was a staccato rap on the panel.
“Come in,” he called very gently.
His right hand moved backward beyond his shoulder, and the ash tray was suddenly converted into an efficient weapon. When the door swung open he was poised on one bent leg, like a baseball pitcher.
He relaxed, let the ash tray swing to his side and said with studied calmness: “Say something next time, Sam. You nearly walked into a mickey.”
The thin fellow’s sandy brows lifted. “Next time I’ll announce myself with bells and sirens. How’s the fugitive?”
Trent scowled, moved his big shoulders in a gesture of irritation.
“Even coming from a press agent that’s no joke. And I’m slowly going nuts, hiding out from the cops in this rooming house. Has anything turned up?”
Moody closed the door, took off his soggy hat and slapped the water out of it against his thigh. He crossed the room, carefully lifted the tails of his wet overcoat and sat down on the bed.
“I had a bad time getting up here,” he grunted. “Santa Monica’s alive with cops. What a stormy night! Gimme a cigarette, will you?” Trent extended one and Moody lit it, shook the match out and added, “They found out about that five-grand insurance policy you had on Stan Kovacs.”
“So what?” Trent demanded. “A sport manager’s got to protect his interests, doesn’t he? I’ve always taken out insurance on my boys. Why I shouldn’t I do the same thing with Kovacs?”
Moody had little shoe button eyes in a narrow, pointed face. They went almost shut as he grimaced wryly.
“Why ask me? All I know is that the police have gotten their teeth in the fact like a litter of pups with an old shoe, and they’re having one honey of a time making a motive out of it.”
JIM TRENT shook his head and swore softly. Strain was very real on his cheeks. “I guess I don’t live right. Six months ago I run into this big Finn, Stan Kovacs, in a Chicago bowling alley. A guy who can make a sixteen-pound ball sit up and do tricks for him. A two-forty average bowler! I talk him into giving exhibitions, sign him up and tour the country with him. Then along comes this offer to bowl a match series in the Santa Monica Recreation Center with the west coast champion, George Whitbread.
“The movie crowd are behind it. They offer a nice, fat purse and a full house with a percentage of the take. And what happens? Kovacs trims the daylights out of Whitbread in the first string, and in the middle of the second he drops dead.”
“Poisoned,” Moody murmured curtly.
“Yeah, poisoned. And the bulls are convinced that I murdered him! So I lay low, waitin’ for you to turn up some evidence that’ll clear me or put us on the track of the real killer. And what happens? Your luck’s no good and every day I’m gettin’ closer to a murder rap for a killin’ I didn’t do.”
“I’ve got a little news,” said Moody. “The cops found out how it was done. He had a tiny scratch on the ball of his thumb. The chemist said the stuff got into his blood that way. Curare, I think they called it. The police figure the killer saturated the thumb hole in Kovacs’ bowling ball with the poison and stuck something in the bottom of it to scratch him.”
“Did they find the ball?” Trent demanded.
Moody shook his head. “You remember when he collapsed, and dropped it, and everybody crowded down on the alley? Well, it disappeared. It must still be at the alley somewhere. A guy couldn’t hide one of those big mineralite balls under his coat and walk away with it; the thing would stick out like a watermelon in a snake. So the cops put a padlock and a watchman on the place. The killer evidently stuck the ball in one of the racks among the others, figuring to go back and get it out, somehow. The police chemist is going over tomorrow to try and identify it.”
Trent blew a gob of smoke at the ceiling. His eyes were hooded and thoughtful. “They might have something there, at that. If the murderer was the last one to handle it, he’d sure leave his fingerprints all over the thing.”
“Sure. Well, I’d better drift.”
Moody rose and moved toward the door. Then he snapped his fingers and wheeled toward Trent again.
“Say, there was one other little item, about Joe Reese.”
“The gambler who owns The Casino?” Trent looked interested. “I saw him at the match this afternoon. Heard he had three grand on Whitbread, at four to one.”
“That’s the point. I learned that Eddie Borio got out of San Quentin a month ago. Hs used to be pretty close to Joe back in the prohibition days. Eddie specialized in mickeys, only the guys that got ’em didn’t wake up with a hangover; they were buried. Some very lovely funerals they had, too. Eddie’s smart—went to college, studied chemistry, and got interested in poisons. A reporter friend of mine on the Sentinel told me Eddie’s staying at a joint down on the front called the Criterion, under the name of Berg. What’s more, he’s been out to see Joe a number of times.”
Trent whistled softly.
“That is something. Reese lays a bet on Whitbread; gets heavy odds, and has Borio give Stan Kovacs the business. But wait a minute. Stan was using his own ball. How could Borio have gotten to it?”
A PUZZLED frown ridged Trent’s forehead. He glanced sharply at his companion.
“Easy. Remember when the three of us were in the locker room, just before the match? Marla Dane, the movie star, sent in word that she wanted to meet Kovacs so we went out. He could have slipped in then and fixed it.”
Trent frowned, shook his head.
“It doesn’t wash, Sam. Killing Kovacs wouldn’t make Reese any money; his death would automatically nullify all bets. Hold on! I’ve got it, now! Kovacs might have been intended to get just enough of the stuff to slow him up, and the plan backfired.”
The guy in the doorway spoke harshly.
“I didn’t get that. How about putting the record on again?”
Moody spun around, his eyes glittering.
“Cripes. I would pick up a tail.”
Trent turned slowly, carefully. He found himself looking at the business end of a .38 Police Positive engulfed in the hammy fist of a thick barrel of a man with tiny, pouched eyes and a mouth like a surgical incision.
His name was Cottrell, and he was the main cog in Santa Monica’s Homicide division.
“For a big tub of lard you move pretty quietly. Come in.” There was a rasp to Trent’s voice.
“I’ll do that little thing.”
Cottrell moved ponderously forward, shutting the door with his foot. His bright little eyes flicked from Trent to the dour-faced Moody, then back to Trent.
He looked mighty pleased with himself.
“Well, come on,” he urged. “Let’s have a recap of that little powwow you boys were having. What’s this about something backfiring, and at who?”
“At whom,” Trent corrected equably. He looked relaxed and at ease. He even grinned. “With those big ears of yours you should have heard what was said without any trouble.”
Cottrell’s thick brows drew together. He didn’t like being made fun of. The fact was amply illustrated in the sullen storminess of his face as he took two steps toward Trent.
“We got a nice little private
room in the City Hall for wiseys like you. Suppose we take a ride down there?”
“Rubber hose a la mode, hmh?” Trent sneered. “The inquisition chamber rears its ugly head.”
He still held the glass ash tray in his hand, and it was half full of cigarette stubs and ashes. He turned as if to get a coat off a chair behind him. Suddenly his arm shot out in a whipping backhand motion, spewing the contents of the ash tray squarely into the detective’s face.
Cottrell’s finger squeezed the trigger of the .38. It went off with a blast that enveloped the room in sound. But he was trying to get away from the cloud of ashes and cigarette butts, and the bullet thudded into the floor. An agonized squawk boiled from his lungs as the stuff filled his eyes, forcing him to drop the gun and paw blindly at them. Trent plucked hat and coat out of the open closet and bolted out the door past the openmouthed Moody.
HE SHOT down the stairs and out the back way. Traversing a littered, puddled yard, he negotiated the rickety board fence at the rear and dropped onto a surfaced alley. The rain had petered out to a sullen drizzle that whipped against his face as he moved rapidly toward the cross street. He breathed deeply, like a man who has been freed from prison. It felt good to be out of that cramped, stuffy room in spite of the fact that every cop in the city was on the watch for him.
Emerging from the dark mouth of the alley, he hesitated, looking to right and left. Cottrell was undoubtedly in the middle of a fit of screaming by now, and as soon as he could get to a telephone this immediate neighborhood would be teeming with cops. Which meant that Mrs. Trent’s little boy Jim would be taking a step in the right direction if he promptly made himself scarce.
The street was lined with old-fashioned residences fronted by a parkway dotted with tall, heavy-foliaged evergreens. Parked at an angle under one of these was a shiny, new V-8 convertible with its windows rolled up.
There was just enough light from a nearby standard for Trent to see that the convertible contained a young citizen and his gal friend, both of whom were enthusiastically wrapped up in the business of pitching woo.