Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “Good morning, Boss,” he said out of habit.

  “Well, howya feel?” snapped Dawson, smoke curling up into his eyes. “Ready to step back into the old game. We need you bad. Very bad.”

  Danny Kerney gulped a little and he still stood up. He cleared his throat and then said, “I ain’t going to work for you no more, Dawson.” The office was like a tomb for a couple of seconds and then Dawson leaped out of his chair.

  “What in hell are you talking about? Didn’t I get you out of stir? Didn’t I make a damned hero out of ya? Didn’t I?”

  Danny only nodded. Dawson blinked and sat down, his face red, far too red to be natural. Heally was dumbfounded. He glared and looked at Dawson. Their scheme had backfired, or so it seemed.

  “If you’ll listen to me for a second, Boss, I’ll explain. Just don’t interrupt me. I ain’t used to saying much but cuss words, so I’ll make it short and clear.”

  “You’d better,” snapped Dawson.

  I nudged the C.E. and he smiled sweetly. He was enjoying this as much as I was. Seeing Dawson and Heally double-crossed legitimately was a treat that only came once in a lifetime.

  Well Danny Kerney, hero number one, shuffled his big feet and tortured his hat, then begun.

  “I was born in this town, Dawson, as you know. I always was a bum and a bully. I never had much of an education, but I managed to get along. Well, when I was a kid, about eight, I saw a guy, who was nothing but a bum like me. He risked his life, really risked it, to save a couple of women from a burnin’ house. Gosh, he was given presents and money and a good job. Ever after that he was tops around that town. I always wanted to be like that guy. I never had the chance, though. I grew older and then I joined this bunch. It was a good racket and I fitted in. Well, I sort of forgot about that hero, until about a week ago. I was laying in bed with a laugh on my lips, thinking what a bunch of suckers everybody is. Nobody is wise to me but about three people. I think it’s a great joke. My room is full of flowers and everybody treats me like I was somebody. Still, I ain’t quite convinced that I’m a hero, even after reading all the papers.

  “Then this Miss Marvin comes up to a write my life story. Boy, she sure put me right. Everything I said, she turned it around a little, so that I sound like I might have been a good guy. You know, sort of on the border line, between good and bad.

  This gets me thinking and I realize that I am really a hero. That rail was really split and if I hadn’t come running the train would have been wrecked. So, I listen to Alice and she tells me I’m tops.”

  Right then I spotted the whole thing, when Danny said Alice. The big boob had fallen for Marvin. He stops being nervous and takes a big deep pull of fresh air and continues.

  “Alice—Miss Marvin and I are going to get married. I’ve got a swell job with a trucking firm over in East Bullen and everything is set for a good clean happy life from now on. So there,” he snaps off at the end.

  Dawson gets to his feet, still red and burned up. “So there, eh?” he comes back. “Suppose I open up and tell Miss Marvin, you lovey dovey, what you really are? What then, stupid?”

  “She wouldn’t believe you, Boss.”

  “What if I should tell the governor and the prison board that it was all a fake to get you out of prison, so that you could clean up votes in the river wards for Heally? What then, eh?”

  “Why, I guess you’d go back to prison with me, Boss,” smiled Danny, like he had a mouth full of honey. That stopped Dawson. His hands were tied. He couldn’t expose Danny Kerney, his ex-strong-arm man, without exposing himself and Heally.

  Dawson slumped down in his chair and Heally cursed softly under his breath. I wanted to laugh, but still wanted to keep my job, as I didn’t appreciate an empty stomach.

  Danny, without saying good-by or go to hell, turned on his heels and walked out of the office and the hands of Dawson. I got up, followed by the C.E. I said, “Shall I put a new caption on the spread, Dawson. ‘Danny Kerney is to marry reporter and settle down as truck driver’ ?” All I got was a glare and a smile of approval from the C.E.

  So I went back to my desk and sat there for a long time. Crime is slow in this town and still doesn’t pay. I looked at my typewriter and clicked the keys a couple of times and then wrote.

  “Miss Alice Marvin, the sob sister, who did such a beautiful job on the story of the convict and the five hundred kids in a special train, which culminated in finally getting Danny Kerney, convict 1298, a pardon, also did such a beautiful job of convincing the same, Danny Kerney, that he was a hero and really not a bad guy, he married her.

  “The final outcome is that Danny has turned respectable, is going to get married and live like a human being.” I tapped that off and then tore it up. I knew the C.E. would laugh, but Dawson wouldn’t, after he had read it.

  So that’s what happened. Heally lost the election and is now running a slot machine racket.

  Dawson is collecting the take and the paper is now in the hands of a regular guy. So Heally got nothing for his troubles, Danny got everything and it was all due to the little Marvin gal, because she believed in what she was doing. Gosh, I wish I could feel that way sometimes.

  Honest.

  ADOPTED FOR DEATH

  Donald G. Cormack

  When the road kid dropped off the freight train and let himself he adopted by the little old lady of the night, he didn’t know that a job, a pretty girl—and a murder frame—went with it.

  I HOOKED onto the freight in Athens, Georgia, early that morning and after seven hours of riding the blinds I was plenty tired, and hungry. I was out of the deep South by now, though, and that was what I wanted. Maybe you’ve read about the way they treat prisoners on the chain gangs down Florida way. Well, mister, I could do without that. I don’t mean maybe.

  We were nearing a water tank just then and the big laboring hog up ahead was slowing for a drink. I let go the blinds, hopped the rails and heeled it down a steep embankment. At the bottom was a dirt road that led to what looked like a smallsized city. I washed up as best I could in a little stream that cut through the road, then started out for the city ahead. I hoped to be through there and on the highway beyond before night set in.

  It was called Jackson, I discovered from the signs, and a busy, clean looking little layout it was, too—which was bad. Towns like that are apt to be pretty touchy about undesirable outsiders rolling in to louse up the place. When you’re on the road, though, you always follow the same procedure, no matter what the community looks like. You keep marching straight through, and lively, as though you were late for an important date somewhere. If you want to stay free you do.

  The highway followed the town’s main drag, and the lighted windows of the homes I passed made me feel sort of empty inside. In the commercial district, the aroms that flooded out of the public eat-joints made my stomach feel plenty empty too. But, tell me, what can a guy buy with two cents and an old key?

  I was past the center of town when I made a little mistake. The main street seemed to branch, and the through highway must have taken the left fork. I took the right. Within a dozen blocks I realized what had happened, but I didn’t retrace my steps. Instead, I cut left into a side street, figuring to pick up the other fork within six blocks or so.

  THE side avenue was pretty dark, being residential, so I didn’t see this guy until he staggered under a street light about fifty feet ahead of me. I stopped too. He was plenty drunk, hanging onto the lamp for support and swaying from side to side on rubbery legs. He wore a camel’s hair topcoat, and he had a snappy Homberg on his head. Then, as I watched, he staggered crazily backward and flopped in the tall grass beside the footwalk—out cold.

  I remember the flip-up my stomach did when this thought came to my mind: I wonder how much dough he’s got in his wallet?

  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a crook. I’ve never swiped anything from a pal or anyone else who needed it. But this rich young drunk was just asking to give it away—and, mister, I
needed a few bucks bad. I know what a lot of people would say: if I worked in some defense plant I’d have all the money I wanted. Well, that’s what I’d been doing up to a few weeks ago. But an old case of malaria started nagging me again and I knew I’d have to get North. After a week’s spree in Tiajuana, broke, I’d started out. There was plenty of war work in New York, too.

  To tell the truth, I suppose I’d have pulled out and hit the road in a little while, anyway. I can’t stay put worth a damn. I’ve never had a home, either—not the way most kids know home. My mom died when I was a baby, and my old man was a circus roustabout—until the day he tried to string a tent with a skinful of ultra-potent firewater. I was sixteen then.

  You get the picture? Yeah, I’ve been around and seen plenty. Take a look at this busted nose—and guess how often.

  Well, a car came slowly down the street just then and I jumped quick for the covering grass at the side of the walk. Cop cars prowl slow like that—and I didn’t want to get picked up in this section of town. But the car went past, and again that thought came to my mind: Twenty bucks? Maybe thirty? Hell, I’ll settle for the price of a meal!

  The guy was laying flat on his back, his arms flung wide, and the sound of his breathing was a cross between a snore and a groan. But I didn’t mess around. His wallet was in the inside pocket of his jacket and I had it out in a second. I flipped it open, made a quick count—eighteen bucks! Then, barely readable in the dim light from the streetlamp, I noticed his draft card with his name: Harold Crowley. I had my fingers around the dough when a voice behind me made me freeze solid, paralyzed.

  “Young man, do you realize what you’re doing? That’s sinful stealing!” There was a clucking sound. Then, “Don’t you think you’d better put it back?”

  I swear I couldn’t move a muscle. I didn’t know if some wise cop was giving me the business before he belted me bow-legged with his nightstick, or if some fugitive from the loony bin was giving his Napoleon hat an airing. I turned around—but slow!—just in case my first hunch was right. And then I froze again.

  A little old woman stood there, just off the sidewalk and four feet behind me. She had snow-white hair, leaned heavily on a thick cane and was dressed in the latest style of the Roosevelt administration—Theodore Roosevelt. Her expression was unhappy, forlorn, and she was shaking her head disapprovingly.

  I was wishing then I could be lousy enough to belt her one and take it on the lam; then I wondered what her lung-power was like and how far a cops’ car was just then. All the time she was clucking her disapproval. Then she simply stepped forward and plucked the wallet from my unresisting fingers.

  “It may seem unimportant to you now,” she said, wagging the wallet at me, “but in years to come you’d live to rue this day bitterly. And all for a few paltry dollars!”

  Her remarks, plus the glittering of rings on her fingers, got me sore. “Without the few paltry dollars, grandma,” I told her, “I might not live until those ‘years to come’ when I’m supposed to do all that rueing.”

  She stopped flapping the wallet at me and I realized what a dope I’d been. Now she’d howl for the bulls for sure. But her reaction fooled me completely.

  “I see what you mean,” she said quietly. “I do realize the temptation—and for a selfish moment I’d forgotten what might almost be called the—er—necessity. And I think I can help you, my dear boy. Indeed, I’m sure I can. But first—”

  She was holding the wallet out to me to be replaced. I took it from her, noting regretfully the nice bulge of bills within, and was about to slip it into the wheezing guy’s pocket when my movement stopped abruptly. Only her urgent words, the quick movement of her cane made me complete the job.

  I STOOD up and faced her, both bewildered and furiously angry. She’d just completed the neatest switch I’d ever failed to see! The original wallet was a light cowhide—and the one I’d just replaced was black kidskin! This loopy old bag with the angelic face and manner had put the glom on my legitimate snatch! I’d been played for a sucker!

  She stood there smiling sweetly at me. “Now we can go with a clear conscience,” she said, “can’t we, dear boy? And I shall see that you are not the loser for your brave act. You have only to come with me to my hotel.”

  She reached out and put her arm through mine, as though for support, and I was so dazed I swung into line without protest. As we went down the street she said, “Agatha. You must call me Aunt Agatha—not grandma. All my adopted nieces and nephews call me Aunt Agatha—and now you’re one of them!”

  My own thoughts weren’t so happy. I could swear she’d switched the wallets—but was that real dough in the second wallet? It certainly looked and felt like it. And where was she taking me now? Not to the bulls, because she couldn’t prove a thing—especially if she had that other wallet. Why take me to her hotel? And what about this see-that-you’re-not-the-loser stuff? Maybe she was completely cracked. But what did I have to lose? I played along.

  The hotel was only a few blocks away—an ancient, dusty-velvet sort of joint right out of the Victorian era. But it was spotless and it was undoubtedly the best in town.

  The old dame stopped before we got to the entrance and I figured this was where she put the bite on me for whatever it was she wanted. So far, she’d done all the jabbering, and all she’d gotten out of me was my name: Jim Powers.

  “Can you drive a car, Jimmie?” she asked, and she seemed satisfied when I told her yes. “And would you like to drive for me? I’m headed for New York, and if you’d drive me that far I’d give you shelter and keep in return.” When I said okay to that she gushed all over the place.

  “It’s this way,” she explained. “A boy I befriended on the road—my newest nephew, except for you—drove me this far and then disappeared. He left in the middle of the night, as a matter of fact, and he—well—he took along a few things that weren’t his, strictly. George was so thoughtless, so impulsive! And here I am without a strong man to drive my car and look after me. Oh, dear boy, I’m so delighted you’ve consented to help a poor little lady in distress! So delighted!”

  Then she gave me a hotel key, explaining it had been her George’s room and that it was now mine—along with the clothes I’d find there. But first I’d have to park the car behind the hotel, if I didn’t mind, she told me—and gave me the keys. We parted then, she going into the hotel and me going across the street to the car. It was some jallopy—a V-12 convertible job that could really go places.

  She was sitting in the lobby when I entered—my ragged clothes hidden under a linen-duster coat I’d found in the car. I nodded to her on the way to the elevators, but she didn’t seem to notice me. I hoped she saw me going up, because I had plans.

  The old babe must have, because five minutes later she tapped on my door. “Comfy?” she asked, giggling foolishly.

  “This is some shake-down,” I told her, noticing her frown of disapproval with satisfaction. “I’ve been in lots worse fire-traps than this. Good night.”

  “Good night what, dear boy?” she asked.

  She had me for a moment. Then I got it. “Good night, Aunt Agatha,” I said—and felt like a damn fool caught playing dolls.

  I heard her door open and close, and that’s what I’d been waiting for. I gave her five minutes more, spending the time in casing my layout again. It had double beds—real old fashioned double beds. The rest of the furniture matched In massive size. The closet was full of suits—and there I came across a puzzling fact. The suits were in two sizes, like two guys lived here. But I didn’t let it worry me then; the crazy old babe probably had “adopted” more nephews than a state orphan asylum.

  “That guy George must have been nuts,” I said aloud. “He should have taken the car, too, with his clothes piled in back.”

  Then I figured I’d given old loopy enough time. I could start working on my plan now—and the plan was simple.

  I was going back and roll that drunk the way I’d meant to in the beginning.


  I opened the door quietly, stepped into the hall—and immediately that voice came from behind me. I spun around.

  “Naughty, naughty!” she said, wagging a finger. “Mustn’t go out so late.” Then her tone became more earnest. “Please, Jimmy boy, don’t go out. I know what a temptation that money is, and that’s why I stayed here to see that you didn’t weaken.”

  I WENT back into the room, slamming the door, but in spite of my show of bravado and anger I felt suddenly scared. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on; it was a combination of a lot of things, most of them as yet not fully realized. But most of all it had been the look deep in her eyes out there in the hall, a cold, dominating, masterful look—the look of a self-sure killer!

  Then, too, there was the missing Georgie; there was the guy who belonged to the second set of clothes; there was the guy laying in the grass up on that lonely street. And there was me here alone in the hotel room. I wished then I could have scrammed, but I couldn’t. Be frightened out of town by a little hundred-pound old woman and her sugar-sweet words? I’d never get it out of my mind. Too, there was a challenge before me, and I wasn’t used to ducking away from a challenge.

  I couldn’t figure why the old dame had such a protective attitude toward Crowley, the fancy-pants drunk—but I figured that if I could get a gander at that second wallet she put in his pocket I’d gain more than a few bucks for my trouble. And there was always the fire escape as a way out of this joint.

  First, though, I gave myself a treat I’d been anticipating for a long time. I took a hot bath. Afterward, I dressed in clean linen from the well-stocked bureau and picked out a brand new blue serge suit. Then, seeing a wallet in the drawer, I snatched the thing up—and found thirty bucks inside! That was okay by me. I pulled the few personal items out of my old worn-out keister and switched them. Especially my draft card.