Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  We came down Laurel Canyon, swung east to La Brea, then south to Sunset. I took a look at my wrist-watch. It was one-thirty. Through bitter experience, I knew O’Conner’s routine almost as well as he did. This time of night he was usually swinging west on Sunset somewhere between Vermont and La Brea.

  If he wasn’t off somewhere answering a call, I ought to meet him. And if he was as bull-headed and ornery as I thought he was, he would promptly come tagging along after me with the fond hope of catching me pulling something that would rate a ticket.

  If. Nice little word, that. It only has two measly letters in it, but when your life happens to be hanging on it, it’s the largest word in the English language.

  We turned east on Sunset. I drove as slow as I dared, but block after block went by without any sign of O’Conner. Then, when I had just about given up hope, I saw the black and white of a radio cruiser, drifting along the nearly empty boulevard ahead. My passengers spotted it as soon as I did.

  “Cripes!” Gil growled. “A prowl car!”

  “Yeah,” Pete said. He leaned forward till his mouth was about a foot from my ear. “Listen, baby,” he grated, “if you got any idea about attractin’ the attention of them cops by pullin’ a traffic boner, better forget it. You won’t get a ticket. You’ll get a funeral!”

  I saw O’Conner give me the once-over as we passed. I kept my eyes glued to my rear-vision mirror. I almost cried in relief when I saw the prowl car make a wide U-turn at the first intersection and come swinging along after us.

  “Somethin’s screwy!” Gil exclaimed. “Them coppers are tailin’ us. The dame must’ve give ’em the high sign some way.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Pete said. “I was watchin’ every move she made. Take it easy till we see what’s cookin’. If they try to curb us, start blastin’ !”

  I knew I had to get a warning to O’Conner some way that I was carrying danger in large and violent quantities. A couple of blocks farther on, the signal turned red on me, and I had my chance.

  The police car was close behind me while I waited for the signal. I’m no Girl Scout, but everybody knows that a combination of three dashes and three dots means “S.O.S.” I winked it out on my stop-lights by carefully dabbing the brake pedal.

  I found out afterward that I got my sequence wrong and flashed “O.S.O.,” but O’Conner is no dumb-bell. He figured out I was in trouble of some kind. When the light turned green and I started on, the radio car began closing in.

  “They’re gonna curb us!” Gil growled. “They’re startin’ to swing out now!”

  “Get set!” Pete warned. “The minute they come alongside, let ’em have it!”

  Something had to be done—and quick. There was a vacant lot on the right of the boulevard, with a large signboard in the middle of it. I jerked the wheel hard to the right, tramped on the gas, and ducked.

  We went over to the curb with a jolt that threw Pete’s aim off just enough so that his slug blasted well over my head. A split second later we hit the big signboard with a crash that should have registered on seismograph needles as far east as Denver.

  The impact would have telescoped a private car, but taxicabs are built to take anything short of a head-on collision with a locomotive. I landed on the floor, half-stunned and thoroughly bruised, but with nothing broken, outside of the cab.

  Things were happening around me. Gil and Pete broke from the wrecked cab just as O’Conner and Durkin came charging out of the police car. For a minute that vacant lot sounded like the Battle of Bizerte, with added sound effects by M.G.M. Then the shooting abruptly stopped.

  I opened the cab door and scrambled out. O’Conner was standing with his gun in his hand. Durkin was sitting on the ground, cussing and holding his right hand over his left shoulder. Pete was sprawled out, groaning. Gil was also sprawled out, but he was neither cussing nor groaning. He wasn’t even breathing.

  O’Conner holstered his gun and turned to me.

  “One guy dead,” he said, “and two shot up. One very well wrecked taxicab, and one large signboard, ditto. Squirt, I don’t know what your story is going to be, but it had better be good!”

  It proved to be good enough by the time various cops and detectives had finished their work, a couple of hours later. One squad went up in the hills and retrieved the coupe and George’s body.

  Another squad went to the Eighth Street address. They found Slick Carelli still in the process of packing a bag containing his spare shirt, two thousand bucks in folding money, and a briefcase full of gasoline C-books.

  Slick made the mistake of thinking he could beat the cops to the draw. From the few remarks Slick made before he died, and from what Pete admitted while the doctor was working on him, they got the whole story.

  The C-books had been stolen when Pete, Gil, and George, cracked the safe of a Los Angeles ration board several nights before. They contacted Slick, who offered them two thousand bucks for the books. Then Slick tried to pull a large and luscious doublecross by bumping George off and thereby acquiring the books without putting out the dough.

  Slick slipped George knockout drops in his drink while they were in the nightspot closing the deal. That made it a cinch to park a knife in George’s ribs in the cab. Slick had doped the taxi gag out as being a nifty way to get rid of his victim’s body and at the same time give himself several hours leeway in which to take it on the lam.

  When I finally wandered downstairs from the Detective Bureau offices in the Hollywood Police Station, I found Mike O’Conner patiently waiting to haul me home. There was a new and very interesting light in his eyes as he looked at me.

  From the way he acted on the way home, I think the only tickets I will be getting from him henceforth, will be the kind that will take the two of us to matinees, dances, and sundry other such entertainment.

  It is quite okay by me. The big lug may have a face that you could use to scare gremlins with, as I have claimed before, but what the heck?

  I’m not a gremlin.

  THE PIN-UP GIRL MURDERS

  Laurence Donovan

  Lieutenant Kemp had his girl’s picture on his wall—until he discovered she had become the pinup girl for half the company. Then, when he found his tank plans missing, he thought there might be more to it than that!

  Lieutenant Don Kemp stood with his hands clenched in cold fury. His rooms, including the blueprint draughting office, appeared to be in perfect order. But Don Kemp’s precise, orderly mind and eye told him that his quarters had been thoroughly ransacked, although every article apparently had been restored to its place.

  From habit Don Kemp’s slate gray eyes went to the unusual “pin-up girl” on the wall above his drawing table. His eyes became colder and he uttered an oath through clenched teeth.

  Now the pin-up girl certainly was not such as to arouse the anger of a red blooded lieutenant of army engineers. The scanty sarong of the pin-up picture proved that she had everything the most discriminating male might demand, from her massed golden hair to slender ankles and tiny feet.

  “Smile, blast you, smile!” exploded Kemp audibly. “So my shy, little Tina will be far from the old home town tonight. Yeah! In person! To show off her pin-up charms to all the other boys of the steenth engineer corps! An’ I placed you special, before I found out half the wolves in the company had the same picture!”

  Don Kemp permitted one phase of anger to overcome the other momentarily. His “barrack rooms” in the swanky Miami Beach hotel had been searched, it was true. But the one item of immense value he had left there could not have been discovered, he was sure.

  His own new, secret traction was being tried out back in Everglades. With some changes, it promised to revolutionize the speed and efficiency of Allied tanks. The final prints, with all the necessary changes, had been made.

  “Who could have entered these rooms?” muttered Don Kemp, as he stepped over to the pin-up picture he had so carefully mounted on a special black background, and which he so obviously appeared to d
islike. “We’ll find out any possible spies in the outfit. In the meantime, my dear Tina, besides bringing sweet dreams to a whole pack of wolves, you’ve been faithfully guarding the plans which may alter the whole outcome of the war and shorten its time.”

  The lieutenant engineer spoke with confidence. For it appeared obvious that the recent prowler had been seeking other valuables, or, if the tank prints was the objective, it had been missed. Otherwise two rooms overlooking the white beach and the Atlantic would not have been so thoroughly searched.

  “My beloved Tina!” he muttered again through set teeth, as he touched the apparently immovable and pasted black cardboard and it slid to one side. “Tina who has become the pet of the engineers, and who—”

  The come-on eyes of the golden-haired girl still seemed to be watching him as the black background slid to one side. Her fixed smile was unchanged even as Kemp bit off his words, jerked a hand to the wall, and then started swearing low and steadily.

  “Gone?” His gasped exclamation was a question, as if he could not believe it “Gone! They’ve got the tank plans!”

  The wall safe he himself had installed behind the cardboard of the pin-up girl had a sliding door. He saw that its combination had been solved by an expert. The blueprints vital to all of the tests now being carried on by the—th corps were in alien hands.

  Don Kemp slipped the pin-up girl back into place instinctively as he heard footsteps outside his door. Ragged nerves sent his hand fumbling at his revolver holster. The thieving spy would scarcely be returning, but Kemp’s brain was seething that such a theft could have been accomplished.

  He was compelled to recall that there were civilian employees about the big beach hotel given over to the engineering unit. Of course, all had been checked and double-checked for loyalty. But this war had developed some strange and dangerous enemies, even among those who could prove American birth.

  When the steps halted and there was a quick rap at the door, Don Kemp said, “Come in!”

  Red-headed, round-faced “Legs” McCarthy, the corps photographer, pushed his good-natured countenance into the crack of the door. Don Kemp was still standing under the replaced pin-up girl, his lean face darkened by his scowl of suspicion and rage.

  McCarthy was the only man in the outfit who came from Kemp’s small home town of Centerville. The cameraman’s face cracked into a broad grin as he saw Kemp’s position and the storm of anger in his eyes.

  “Holy gosh, Don!” exclaimed McCarthy, neglecting any formal salute. “You still burnin’ up over Tina winnin’ that big pin-up girl contest an’ gettin’ her picture in the papers an’ pinned up all over the place? Jeeminee! An’ with Captain Morgan’s girl all out for you! I’d think you’d know that most of the gals that promised to wait have been spreading that same hooey around to—”

  “Shut up, Legs!” exclaimed Kemp with an intensity of anger that rubbed off McCarthy’s smile. “You been upstairs long? An’ if so, did you see anyone—?”

  Don Kemp checked his own raging speech. It had come to him that the first report of the tank plans theft must be made to the C. O. Just as quickly it dawned upon him that he did not intend to make that report at once. Not until he had done some investigating on his own, while the spy and thief might still be unaware that the theft had been discovered.

  McCarthy slowly recovered his grin. “Sure, I saw someone who might have come calling with the proper escort, Don,” he said with a little laugh in his voice. “You missed seeing her then? She’s here already for the big show downstairs tonight. And I happen to know she asked Captain Morgan if she could see Lieutenant Don Kemp. That’s why I’m here. Tina—”

  “Tina?” grated Kemp. “I’m not seeing her. And I’m not seeing the show either.”

  “Look, Don,” reasoned McCarthy. “I’m the only guy in the outfiit that knows the now famous pin-up girl, Tina Layton, is also your sweetheart. I know you were to be married, and that you mailed back her letters unopened after this pin-up publicity came out a month ago. Show some sense, Don.”

  Don Kemp glanced at the red glow from the sun going down over the Everglades. Dusk and darkness would settle within a few short minutes over Biscayne Bay and Miami Beach.

  Legs McCarthy stood there uncertainly. It was like this. Tina Layton, small towner from Centerville, the girl he had intended to marry since high school days, had become a Big Town celebrity. All because of shapely legs and other proper proportions.

  Tina Layton had gone to Chicago. She had come out first in a radio “pin-up girl” contest. Don Kemp’s memory of her was of a shy, sweet little blonde who had kissed him ardently and promised she would be waiting.

  There was a newspaper column clipping in his wallet. One of the latest. It read:

  BOBBY LANE, PLAYBOY, ALL OUT FOR PIN-UPPER

  Bobby Lane, of the tungsten millions, is being seen around with Tina, the BYT radio pin-up winner. One more matrimonial splurge seems to be in the offing.

  Tina, the pin-up girl, will make a tour of the camps where her saronged person has become well known by photos colored to life. Bobby will trail along.

  Lieutenant Don Kemp responded to Legs McCarthy’s advice. In the movie-vaudeville entertainment tonight, Tina Layton was to be featured in person. Kemp did not desire to see Tina in person. He had compelled his surface emotions to believe that was over.

  In showing some sense, Kemp said, “Get out, Legs. I’ve work to do. I’m afraid I’ll be too busy to be present in person at tonight’s blowout. Have a good time, and if Tina talks to you, give her my best wishes.”

  That was cold and McCarthy’s smile slowly died. Kemp’s tone had a razor edge. He was fighting back tearing emotions that insisted upon trying to choke his voice.

  There was the theft of the tank blueprints. Kemp had learned that the notorious Bobby Lane was accompanying the show. Kemp could take it on the chin, he believed. But he was not making a public effort at proving it.

  “Okay, pal,” grunted Legs McCarthy, and closed the door.

  Kemp debated briefly. He gave the rooms the quick once-over. He was tempted to pull down the pin-up girl’s picture and tear it into bits. But he had to show the C. O., Captain Morgan, exactly how the spy robbery had been committed.

  Fast semi-tropical darkness was closing in on the dimmed-out beach and Collins Avenue. Kemp switched on lights and checked the rooms.

  “That’s queer,” he said musingly. “The only other thing missing is the Spanish dagger.”

  He had used the sharp, thin-bladed dagger as a tool for point marking on the blueprint desk. The dagger had a duplicate.

  Don Kemp passed perhaps ten minutes in self debate. Regulations called for an immediate report of the loss of the blueprints. He was convinced he was being watched.

  “The thief would know when I reported to Captain Morgan,” he reasoned aloud. “But if I don’t report and appear unconcerned, the spy may think I have not yet found out about the robbery.”

  A thought hammered in the back of his mind. He alone had planned that wall safe behind the picture of the pin-up girl. No other member of the engineer corps, including Legs McCarthy, knew of its existence.

  But when it was being contrived, and while Tina Layton was still the small town girl waiting for him, he had confided in her. That had been on one of his brief furloughs back in Centerville.

  Kemp had been given no furlough since that time. The tank traction plan was considered too important. It was a hard, a mean and a sickening thought that now pounded at his brain.

  Determined to avoid the patriotic entertainment for the engineers in the hotel ballroom, Don Kemp knew he must appear as usual. The elevator dropped him ten floors. The civilian operator was a colored man who grinned at him.

  Kemp decided he must not ask questions. He strolled from the elevator through the lobby. He met Mary Morgan, as if she had been waiting for him to appear. She smiled and her dark eyes looked up at him.

  “What gives, Don?” said Captain Morgan’s vivacious
girl child. “The show’s starting soon, and it isn’t the direction you’re taking. Of course, I wasn’t asked, but I thought I’d like to have a look-see at this pin-up girl. I hear they’ve planned a stunt opening the show that is copied after the very artistic setting little Miss Pin-up has in your room.”

  Her oval face was uplifted. Her curved mouth was a smiling challenge. The depths of her dark eyes nevertheless conveyed a hint of jealous observation. There was a bit of it in her voice.

  Don Kemp liked Mary Morgan. But at this moment he wondered what she would think if she really knew what was pounding inside his mind.

  He had a job to do. Somewhere about the swanky beach hotel he was convinced the blueprint thief and spy must be lingering. He could not get his thoughts off the remembrance that only Tina had been told about the concealed wall safe.

  It was true, a thorough enemy agent might have accidently tested that pin-up picture. That was something he had to know. His idea of not attending the ballroom show was changed.

  Kemp had not known of his own background for the pin-up girl being copied. He had intended to rid himself of the captain’s attractive daughter. On an impulse he gave her his arm.

  “We have a date to see the show together,” he said gruffly.

  “Maybe it’s the Miami moon makes grouchy bears out of some men,” chattered Mary Morgan. “Lost something, Don?”

  “Naw, c’mon,” he grunted, his breath pulling in at the nearness of her random retort.

  He was determined to excuse himself quickly. Mary Morgan laughed musically.

  “You know, Don, at times I’ve wanted to see these pin-up girls in person,” she said. “Especially this Tina Layton. And there’s that Bobby Lane, too.”

  Don Kemp saw a partly bald, baggy-eyed man in youthful clothes not far from the ballroom doorway. Bobby Lane was rising from a chair as they entered.