by Jerry eBooks
He hurried across the threshold, had taken two or three steps when he almost stumbled headlong over the limp form lying on the floor. He dropped to his knees as he heard the man’s groan in the darkness.
“Pete!”
The old man mumbled something. Regan bent close.
“It’s Regan, the cop,” he said. “Tell me, Pete!”
The old man’s words were faint.
“They shot me—chest,” he said. He coughed, and Regan didn’t like the sound of that cough. “I’m done for, Regan. There’s nothing you can do. But try—get them—three men—guns—”
Johnny Regan tried to prod the information out of the old man. He caught the words:
“Office—there—”
The main office, that would be it.
The watchman was trying to tell him that the gunmen were in the main office of the studio, just across the lot!
“Pete!” Regan urged. “You’re going to be all right. I’ll be right back.”
THE old fellow was trying to say something. He held to Johnny Regan’s arms, and Regan heard the faint words:
“I bought lights—other Christmas tree. Thought they might let me—”
Then, suddenly, his aged body went limp in Regan’s arms. The officer felt for a pulse. There was none. Old Pete was dead!
Grimly, Johnny Regan whipped to his feet, unholstered his gun and spun toward the doorway. In a way, the blackout aided him. He moved swiftly across the dark area between the buildings, positive that no one watching from the main office could spot him.
He realized that the gunmen had tried a daring scheme. Almost trapped last night, they would hardly return tonight. That’s the way the police would figure. That’s the way they figured the police would figure. And so they had come back!
Pay-day was the day after Christmas here at Acme. That bonus money was probably still in the company safe.
Regan thought these things as he moved soundlessly toward the building. In the darkness, another dark blot of darkness took form between his eyes. The main office door—open! He approached it.
And just as he was two feet away, a man’s figure appeared in that doorway. The fellow spotted the cop, dived back, kicked the door shut as he called a warning to someone within.
Johnny Regan hit the door and crashed it open before it could be locked. He fired instantly and saw a man drop, knew he was dead even before he dropped on his knees beside him.
He caught the barest glimpse of another man leaping toward him, then something slammed down on his head, the gun in the man’s hand. He pitched forward, hit the floor, slid, gained his feet and whirled. His gun had fallen and someone was hurtling toward him in the gloom, now that there was no flashlight. Two forms, because he could hear the men’s forced breathing.
Regan crashed into one man, and with a blur of movement knocked the fellow’s gun hand aside, grasped the man’s wrist, twisted until there was a gasp of pain. The weapon clattered to the floor.
The second man seized him from behind.
Regan hunched forward, tried to fling the man over his shoulders. But the fellow hung on. The patrolman twisted, slammed a fist into the man’s face. He broke free, dived aside and crashed into a wall. His hand slid along the wall and touched a row of light switches. He flicked one on.
Light flooded the room. One man was leaping toward him. The other was down on the floor, searching around for his gun. Johnny Regan saw his own gun, flung himself down in a dive and clawed out for the weapon.
But the one crook had reached his own gun first.
“Don’t move!” he rapped out at Regan.
The gun in the man’s fist covered him steadily. Regan climbed slowly to his feet, watching the dark-haired man’s heavy, menacing features.
“Get his flashlight,” the man covering the cop said.
The second man behind Regan moved close, frisked the officer, and stood back.
“All right,” the man with the gun snapped. “Turn off that light. Move!”
Regan edged backward toward the light switches located on the wall.
“Use that flashlight and keep it shielded!” the gunman said to his partner. “These other lights on here might bring a raft of cops!”
JOHNNY REGAN’S hand went up to the wall switches. He turned slightly to look at them. Something old Pete had said as he was dying flashed through his mind. There was a little lettered metal plate on the wall that made him remember.
He flicked the switch, found himself caught in the beam of the flashlight. The man with the gun came close to him and prodded him across the room. They moved through a doorway.
Regan saw that they had opened another door so that it shielded the office safe, which was open. The door was opened in such a way that, Johnny Regan realized, not even the light of the flashlight could ever be seen from outside.
“Aren’t you going to give this guy a slug?” the man holding the flashlight demanded.
“Wait, you chump!” snapped the man who was moving toward the safe. He handed the gun over to his partner. “Wait until we’re finished here,” he said. “Then.”
He bent down, continued rifling the drawers of the open safe. He dumped things into a sack that he had rested on the office floor. Regan was held covered by the light and the gun in the second man’s hand.
He knew what was coming. The instant they were finished, and ready to scram, he got a slug. They had already murdered the watchman. A cop killing would make the rap no worse.
Regan’s eyes glittered. There was nothing he could do. Nothing to do but die! If only someone—
He heard it then, the shrill whine of a police siren. The two men heard it, too, and the man bent down in front of the open safe came to his feet with a snarl.
“Douse that light!” he yelled automatically, obviously forgetting their captive.
As the light flicked out, Johnny Regan dived. He dived into the man who had been holding the gun, twisted it free of the man’s frantic grasp, reversed it in his fist and fired. It was all done in a breathless instant of time.
The man screamed, swayed against Regan.
The officer shoved him aside, heard him crash down to the floor. But Johnny Regan was leaping after the other fellow, trailing the sounds of the man’s thudding feet toward the front office door.
The man dived through, straight into the glare of the flashlights and the guns held by police converging on the doorway.
“He’s a killer!” Regan yelled, as he saw a heavy gun barrel rap down across the escaping man’s head.
That’s all Regan waited to see, and then he kept running. He saw the sedan that was moving slowly past in the street outside. He fired a shot overhead and the girl at the wheel drew up in sheer horror, probably figuring the shot was fired directly at her.
Regan pulled her from behind the wheel, held her arm. She was the blonde from the rooming house.
“You and I, lady, are going to have a little talk about Cecil,” Regan said grimly. “Remember?”
And as they passed through the entrance gates, rejoining the police who were gathered there, Johnny Regan looked at the two small treelike shrubs that were brightly illuminated with colored Christmas tree lights.
THE air raid warden was there too.
“So I saw these lights,” he was saying excitedly, “and hurried over here to complain to the night watchman, and found him in there—dead!”
“Old Pete tried to tell me as he was dying,” Johnny Regan added quietly. “He said something about buying lights for his trees. Each year he used to light them up here, but this year he was worried because the dimout rules might not allow it. He was telling Slattery and me about it one night.”
“You mean you managed to turn on these tree lights?” someone asked.
Regan nodded. “When they ordered me to turn off the lights inside the office, I saw the lettered plate for the switch that controlled the gate entrance lights. I took a chance that old Pete had hooked his Christmas tree lights up on that cir
cuit. I snapped it on as I shut the other lights off.”
The block warden was saying they had better get the lights off. The police were loading a wounded killer and two dead ones into a car. Regan was still holding the woman.
He pushed her toward one of the officers.
“Take care of her a moment, will you?” he said. “I want to call up Slattery and tell him I’ve got it all straightened out.”
“You got what straightened out?”
“Blond trouble,” said Johnny Regan grimly.
SHE’LL MAKE A GORGEOUS CORPSE
Eric Provost
The cops laughed when Bill Gordon’s wife vanished. But that laugh choked in their throats when a mocking voice said . . .
BILL GORDON, passing the length of his small living room for the fifteenth time, came face to face with a mirror. He looked at the image and frowned. His close-cropped blond hair was awry, his clothes disheveled, and his eyes were staring, anxious, bloodshot from lack of sleep.
He crunched a half-smoked cigarette among the heaped-up butts in the ashtray. It tipped over, spilling the litter over the rug, but Bill didn’t notice. He picked up the phone and dialed Police Headquarters.
“Captain Mahoney, please.”
There was a murmur on the other end of the line and Bill said, “This is Gordon again, Captain. Have you heard anything?”
Mahoney’s voice was irritable, “No. Not yet, I told you I’d get in touch with you when I did. Stop worrying. She’ll turn up all right. You aren’t the only guy in Miami who don’t know where his wife is.”
Hot words came to Bill’s lips but he choked them back. When he spoke, his voice was low and quaking slightly with the effort to control emotion.
“Listen, Mahoney, she’s in trouble. I know it. What can I do about it? This waiting around is driving me crazy!”
“Are you sure she isn’t in some friend’s house getting over a binge?”
Bill’s voice had an edge. “I told you she doesn’t drink. I had no reason to lie about it.”
Mahoney said, “Okay. We’re doing what we can. If you hear anything, let me know.”
The instrument went dead just as the doorbell rang loudly. It couldn’t be Helen; she had a key. But it might be someone who’d seen her. He opened the door.
A man stood in the entrance. He was a stranger, tall, bright-eyed, and hatless. His clothes were sloppy. He didn’t wait to be asked inside—he nodded to Bill and brushed by into the living room. His roving glance seemed to take in and catalogue everything in a moment.
Bill turned from the door. “Well,” he said, “who are you?”
The tall man had an infectious grin. “I’m Connor of the Times,” he said. “What’s this about your wife?”
“She’s gone.” Bill’s voice was numb.
“I know that. Mahoney sent me. What’s it all about? Could it be a kidnapping?”
Bill’s gorge rose. All this man wanted was a story, something sensational, good for headlines. But he choked back the feeling; after all, maybe the guy could help.
“Kidnapping’s out,” he said. “I haven’t any real dough. In the second place—”
“With that first reason,” Connor said, “you don’t need a second. When did she go?”
“I dropped her at the corner grocery yesterday at five. She bought her supplies and came back here.”
Connor’s brows lifted. “How do you know she came back?”
“We were out of coffee,” Bill explained. “She bought some. The can’s in the kitchen now.”
“Check,” Connor said. “Then what?”
“She was gone when I got home last night at eleven. I thought she might be with some friends or at the movies. But I called her friends—and the movies were over by that time. At two, I phoned all the hospitals but no luck. Then I called the cops.”
“Have you looked for a note?”
“Of course. There wasn’t any. That proves—”
“How long have you been married?”
“Just a month. Why?”
Connor pursed his lips. “Well . . .” Bill didn’t like the way Connor was avoiding his eyes. “Go on,” he said. “Say it!”
“The honeymoon was over—maybe she ran out . . .” Connor stopped when he saw Bill cock his right fist and take a forward step. He lifted his hands and backed off. He said, “Okay, okay. Don’t get tough.”
“Don’t make cracks.” Bill’s tone was even, hard.
“I apologize. But you know lots of women get tired—”
“That’s out. You can take my word for it. If she intended going somewhere, there would be a note. There wasn’t any. Her folks are in Texas, too far away for a quick visit and anyway, all her clothes are here.”
“I see. How about a picture?”
Bill pointed to a large silver-framed portrait on a spinnet desk in the corner. Connor took the picture to the window.
“Mmnn. She’s nice.”
“She’s—” Bill tried to put it in words. It would sound silly to say that she was the sunrise in the morning after the black of night. That’s how lie felt but he couldn’t say so. “She’s beautiful,” he finished lamely, and the tone of his voice brought an understanding smile to Connor’s face.
“Shell turn up, fella. I’m sure of it.” Connor put the picture back and looked over the room approvingly. “You got a nice place here. What do you do?”
“I have a drive-in on the boulevard. The STOP-N-SNACK. Helen worked there for a while. That’s how we met.”
CONNOR nodded. “Have you another picture? We’ll run it with the story. It may help locate her.” Bill took a snapshot album from a table drawer. “Take one of these.”
Connor thumbed the pages and selected two pictures. He stowed them in a pocket and rose. “I’ll bring ’em back. How about a description?”
Bill tried to be accurate. Helen was five feat five and weighed one-twenty. That much was easy. But when he tried to describe her hair and eyes, he ran fresh out of words. Her eyes were the deep green of the ocean, close in shore near a white beach. They were soft and warm and understanding. Her hair had the soft glow of dying embers, and there were lights in it like tiny tongues of flame. But they couldn’t put that in a newspaper.
“Her hair,” he said, “is reddish. Her eyes are green. Her figure—” Connor tapped the pocket containing the pictures. “I know,” he said, walking to the door. “I’ll run a couple of sticks with the picture in the next edition. If she turns up, call me.” He closed the door and a moment later Bill heard a car move off down the street.
Bill sank down on the divan and ran a hand through his hair. If, he thought. They weren’t taking it seriously. Both the police and this reporter thought Helen was all right and would come home with a perfectly good explanation of her absence. Bill rubbed sweating palms on rumpled trousers. How could he convince them? He couldn’t tell of an inner ache, of a premonition which, as far as he was concerned, amounted to knowledge that Helen was in trouble and needed him. That wasn’t evidence and he knew it.
But he also knew that two people who love each other very deeply can sometimes sense what the other feels, without words, without visible means of any sort. It’s just one of those things.
He didn’t blame the police or the papers, but time was the essence of this problem. It might take the cops a day or two to get steamed up and then it might be too late.
He rose and stared out of the window. He didn’t see the fresh green grass or the vivid flame vine on the wall of the house across the street. Instead, he saw troubled green eyes.
He forced down the lump in his throat and tightened his belt. “What the hell?” he said. “Detective work is only a matter of common sense. If the cops won’t go to work, I will.”
He dropped into Dixon’s Drugstore on the next corner. He hadn’t realized that his head ached, but now the pounding throb prevented clear thinking. He bought aspirin.
Dixon, the druggist, was a short, dark man with a gold tooth. He came up
to Bill. “Has your wife come back yet?”
“No, she hasn’t,” Bill said shortly. He wasn’t crazy about the druggist. The man was too ingratiating, over anxious in his quest for business. He said suddenly, “Did you see her last night?”
Dixon nodded. “She came in about nine for a package of cigarettes.”
“Did she say where she was going?” Bill asked excitedly. This was the first lead he’d had.
But the druggist shook his head. “No. She headed down the street toward the movies. That’s the last I saw of her.”
Bill thanked him and left. He turned toward the theatre. Maybe someone else had seen Helen last night. The streets were crowded at nine o’clock, but this Little River section of Miami was enough of a small town for its inhabitants to know each other. Years ago it had been on the outskirts but the growing city had swept up and around it and kept going. One of the reasons why he and Helen liked it was the small town atmosphere. People were friendly. They would help when they could.
He had reached the small neighborhood theatre. The picture was a Western, the same picture that had shown last night. But the girl in the box office didn’t remember seeing Helen.
He spent two hours asking questions. Everywhere he met sympathy, interest, and offers of help. But no one had seen Helen. She might as well have gone to the moon.
The afternoon papers came out with her picture on the front page and the story of her disappearance featured. Heartsick, Bill retraced his steps. He’d go over the house again. Perhaps, in his anxiety, he’d overlooked something . . .
BUT his search of the house proved fruitless. He paced up and down and, unconsciously, began to chew a knuckle of the first finger of his right hand. It was an old habit, dating from childhood, when he had done it in time of stress. His mind went back to his schooldays in California. Someone had nicknamed him Bull and the thing had clung. Helen read it in a class book and called him that once. He’d protested that he wasn’t bull-headed, he just didn’t believe in admitting defeat. He didn’t admit it now. It was his inability to fight against a tangible enemy that was driving him screwy. All he could do was wait.
The telephone brought him out of reverie. The voice was disguised but the words were clear enough. “Gordon?”