Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  MY EYES narrowed. “Wait a minute,” I snapped. “Do you just want to toss somebody to the cops? Or do you want to give ’em the real murderer? Somebody they can hold more than twenty-four hours?”

  Blackie rumpled his hair with thoughtful fingers. “What’s the gag, my friend?” he asked softly.

  “The gag,” I said, “is that I can prove I didn’t kill Fetts. The M.E.’s going to find that Fetts was dead quite awhile—half an hour, at least—before Zeke saw me leave the apartment. And I’ve got an airtight alibi for all the time this morning until a few minutes before Zeke joined us.”

  Blackie smoothed the hair back down again. “Visiting a sick relative, no doubt?”

  “Better than that. Sam Richards’ daughter was with me!”

  The lambent eyes swung slowly to the divan. “Is this true, honey?” he purred.

  Elaine nodded dully. Blackie turned back to me. “Of course, we could “eliminate” your alibi. But that would be messy. And I do not like messes. Perhaps you have some other suggestion?”

  “Perhaps. First, two sets of conflicting interests have been lousing this thing up almost from the start. One interest sent Fetts to Shanghai and drugged me, made an appointment with Sam in my name, loaded me in the taxi, drove out and picked up Sam, killed him, left the corpse in the cab with me, then tipped the cops where to find us.

  “In other words, the murderer wanted the crime discovered right away, wanted me framed for the kill. He’d have got ten away with it except for two things: First, I woke up too soon and scrammed. Second, this other interest found out what was going on. It was this second interest which drove the cab into the river before the cops got there, and sent Elaine a phony telegram to cover up Sam’s absence.”

  I paused. Blackie’s eyes were narrow now, bits of shiny onyx boring into mine. “Very interesting,” he mused. “Would you care to continue?”

  I nodded. “You were the second interest,” I said. “You or one of your boys heard the police radio dispatcher assign a prowl car to investigate the taxi tip. You decided to hightail out and have a look, yourself, because you knew that anything which might involve Sam this near election, also involved your own interests.

  “When you found the corpse, you knew what would happen at the polls if the news of Sam’s death got out before election. Most of the voters were loyal to the machine because they owed allegiance to Sam. But if he turned up dead, half a dozen lieutenants and ward bosses would start fighting to take over and the whole setup would collapse. That would leave the reform party a wide open stretch to the tape and wreck your own illegal little playhouse.

  “Meanwhile, the prowl car boys had stopped by to pick up Fetts before making their checkup, and that gave you time to drive the cab into the river and get away again. Later you sent Elaine the telegram in Sam’s name, so she wouldn’t go running to the cops about his disappearance and start them nosing around all over again.”

  Blackie studied his fingernails. “Fetts was killed, too,” he mused.

  “Sure. When the killer found out his frame against me had gone blooey, he knew he had to get rid of Fetts before anybody else had a chance to put pressure on him. Because Fetts alone knew who had hired him to set up the first part of the frame.”

  BLACKIE thought about that. “Any suggestions as to this mysterious murderer’s identity?” he wanted to know.

  I shrugged. “The steering wheel of that cab left a little smear of grease on the coat of anybody who slid in or out beneath it,” I said. “I saw a smear like that this morning—on the coat of Frank, here. I thought then that he’d got it when he ditched the cab in the river—and he was plenty glad to have me go on believing it, when he found out what I was driving at.

  “Yet why should the boys you stationed out there to keep an eye on things later find him swimming around in the very spot where the cab was hidden? There’s only one answer. He was trying to verify my guess about the cab’s whereabouts, before he tipped off the cops.

  “In other words, he got that grease on his coat driving out to pick up Sam and kill him in the first place. And he still wanted the body found and me framed for the kill!”

  Frank looked at me regretfully and shook his head. “It won’t do, Nick,” he said gently. “I admit it wasn’t I who hid the cab. I never said it was. But that doesn’t make me a murderer. What possible reason could I have for killing Sam, or trying to frame you?”

  I looked across at Elaine. She was staring at him now, her eyes bleached with horror. I nodded.

  “Several reasons,” I said. “As Elaine’s husband, you’d indirectly control a good share of the personal fortune Sam left. And that wasn’t hay.”

  His good eye blinked. He swung it accusingly toward the couch. I shook my head. “No, she didn’t tell me. It might have saved a lot of trouble if she had. I should have known, anyway, when I found out she had a key to your apartment. But it wasn’t until some other things added up, and I realized the murderer had been planning this frame against me for a long time, that I finally caught on.

  “Then, you always dreamed of some day stepping into Sam’s shoes as boss. And you recognized Blackie’s growing threat to supremacy. You figured that Sam’s death just before election would automatically make the machine leaders turn to you, with your background and knowledge of Sam’s deals and methods—that they’d have to compromise on you as head man. After that, it would be easy to get rid of Blackie.”

  Blackie’s eyes had narrowed obsidianly. “But why bring you, his best friend, clear back from the coast for a fall guy?” he asked. “If he wanted to kill Sam and hang the frame on someone else, there were a dozen people here in town he could have used just as well.”

  I nodded. “That takes us back to Elaine again,” I said. “He’d talked her into a spur-of-the-moment elopement. But he must have realized that down deep the torch she’d been carrying for me wasn’t quite out yet. If he could convince her that I’d murdered Sam, any feeling she might have had for me would have died. That’s why he made her keep their marriage a secret. He knew if I found out she was married, I wouldn’t have come back at all.”

  Frank reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. His face was gravely sympathetic. “I’m afraid it still won’t do, Nick,” he said quietly. “You’re just wishing, and you know it. Of course it’s hard to make yourself believe you could possibly have done what you did. But don’t blame yourself too much. Remember, you were out of your head at the time. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince a jury of that.”

  I let the hand stay where it was. “No,” I said grimly. “It shouldn’t be hard to convince a jury—of the truth.” I turned to Blackie.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “you’ll get a letter from a dead man, Albert F. Fetts, telling the details of his part of the frame against me, and naming his “employer.” He didn’t know he was letting himself into a murder plot when he signed for the job.

  “When he found out, he decided to make a clean breast of it—not to the cops, but to you. I gather that in exchange for the information, he was relying on your influence with the cops to keep his slightly illegal part in the mess covered up.”

  I waited for the reaction. Blackie’s eyes widened a little and the fingers stopped caressing his hair. A little color came into Elaine’s face, a little hope into her eyes, for the first time since she’d crumpled to the divan. Across the room, Zeke’s jaw sagged and he hunched forward.

  Frank stared at me inscrutably, the round flat face hardening into a brittle mask which looked as if it might shatter into a million fragments at any moment.

  “What makes you think so, Sheppard?”

  Blackie’s words seemed slow, almost lazy.

  “A new desk blotter on the table in Fetts’ apartment,” I said. He blotted the letter on it before he mailed it. I could make out enough to guess the rest.

  Blackie’s slitted eyes fastened on Frank. Twin spots of color bloomed suddenly on his sallow cheekbones, just above where the dimples would have been
if he’d smiled.

  Frank’s lone eye faltered. The tension in the plaster face burst abruptly, as though the flesh had been remolded into a dozen intersecting planes. He dropped to all fours, scuttled around the big desk before Zeke could focus the automatic.

  Then the chunky shoulders heaved up again. An elbow slashed at Blackie’s jaw, and I realized how Sam and Fetts had been knocked out before their necks were broken.

  Blackie’s head flipped to one side. He dropped a hand into a coat pocket, didn’t bother to take it out. There was a muffled roar; the bitter smell of cordite and scorched fabric.

  Blackie stepped back. Feeble thrashing sounds came from the carpet behind the desk. Then silence.

  ELAINE began to sob quietly. I crossed to the sofa, put an arm around her quivering shoulders. Blackie looked at us and sighed.

  “You two,” he said, “are a problem. If only you hadn’t been so bright about that taxi cab. There is only one thing for me to do, now. You see that, of course. If I let you leave here alive, you would merely go straight to the police and help them locate Sam’s body. I can’t have that.”

  I looked at Zeke. Zeke looked right back. So did his gun. I was glad it was angled at me now, instead of Elaine. Because this was the payoff. There’d never be another chance. There wasn’t a chance now. But I knew I’d have to make a stab at it.

  I tried to keep my face blank. I felt the muscles in my legs draw up, tightening for the lunge.

  Then something that had been gnawing at my ears for a long time cut off, and another sound took its place. I listened a minute, felt the tension drain out of me again.

  “Too late, Blackie,” I murmured. “Listen.”

  Words spilled softly from the radio on the desk: “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. The body of Sam Richards, North End contractor whose career had been linked to control of Storm City politics for more than two decades, has just been found in a taxi submerged in the Zee River near his country estate two miles north of town . . .

  “Police are seeking Roger A. ‘Blackie’ Cerno, Richards’ erstwhile associate and alleged political rival, for questioning . . .”

  I looked at Elaine. She nodded shakily. “I phoned them from that apartment house, while you were still upstairs, Nick,” she said. “It didn’t seem right, leaving Dad’s body down there any longer . . .”

  Blackie looked suddenly old, tired, sick. “There goes the ball game,” I told him. “You might as well start packing. The reform boys are as good as in. You’re finally through, Blackie. You and Sam and Frank—all washed up in one day.”

  The door burst in and a voice roared hoarsely: “Cops outside, Blackie. I got the front door barricaded, but they won’t listen to reason. What the hell we payin’ protection for?”

  Blackie studied his fingernails. I crossed to the desk. “Keep Elaine and me out of this, when they get there,” I said. “We just dropped in for a social call. It was all Frank’s work. He murdered Sam with the hacker’s help, hid the cab, then killed his accomplice. Tell it that way, and we’ll swear you gunned him in self-defense.”

  Below, the pounding on the front door had acquired the measured rhythm of a battering ram. Blackie stared at me, eyes flashing. “Damn it, I did shoot him in self-defense! Pie was after my gun. He would have killed us all to get away!”

  I grinned. “But it might help if somebody besides Zeke swore to that for you,” I told him.

  AFTER the cops had trundled out their wicker basket, taken our statements, and left again, Zeke looked over at me with that twinkle in his eye.

  “Funny,” he said. “I went over that little table in Al Fetts’ place pretty careful. I would’ve swore there wasn’t no blotter on it.”

  I grinned again. “Maybe you’re right, Zeke,” I said. “Maybe Al wrote that incriminating letter in pencil.”

  Zeke chuckled. “Prob’ly, Al couldn’t even write,” he said.

  I turned back to Elaine. “It’ll be a lot easier to forget all this,” I said gently, “if we get out of this stinking town for good, right after Sam’s funeral. I hate the place, anyway—and everything it stands for.”

  She nodded. Her hands found mine and she held up her face like a lost child who has suddenly recognized someone it knows and loves and trusts.

  “But I’m glad I came back,” I finished unsteadily, minutes later. “I’m glad I came back . . .”

  TWENTY GRAND LEG

  Walter Wilson

  Joe Kerr sets out to investigate a strange crooked damages racket!

  JOE KERR knew right away it was another phony accident. He was walking along Vinton Street when it happened. Darkness had just settled and the street lights hadn’t been on over ten minutes. The street seemed to be deserted until the truck appeared. It came from Joe’s rear and passed him on the left.

  As the truck passed Joe Kerr, a man stepped from the sidewalk and began to cross the intersection ahead. The truck was coming fast and the man didn’t seem to notice it as he walked slowly and deliberately across the pavement. Joe Kerr sensed that there was a chance for an accident and stopped.

  The truck didn’t honk until it was bearing down on the pedestrian. The pedestrian jerked his head up and stopped. The truck slowed for an instant as the driver applied the brakes but it shot ahead again immediately. Apparently the brakes had failed to hold. The man in front of the truck moved fast at the last moment.

  Joe Kerr clenched his fists and clamped his teeth together at that last second. He was in perfect position to be a star witness, because the point of impact was going to be directly between him and the street light at the far corner of the intersection. The front end of the truck and the figure of the man were clearly outlined in that light.

  The brakes of the truck caught now. The big tires screeched as they slid over asphalt coating. The man screamed as his body shot away to the left and rolled over and over on the pavement. The truck skidded on across the intersection and came to a stop. The man stopped rolling and lay still.

  Before Joe Kerr could move a step, two men came, seemingly from nowhere, and ran out to the prostrate figure on the pavement. The truck driver got out of his cab and came running back. The three of them knelt by the victim. Joe Kerr started to sprint forward to join them.

  He changed his mind and decided to stand there and watch them for a minute. He wanted to see how those smart lads would play the game out. There was no doubt at all that it was just a slick scheme. There hadn’t been any accident at all. The truck had not even touched the man. With that street light making the scene stand out like an etching Joe had clearly seen a space of at least a foot between the man and the truck as the truck swept by.

  THOSE two men who had run out to the fallen man had been planted there as witnesses for the complainant. They would tell a sad story of how the driver of the truck had run down the man with almost criminal negligence, of the sickening impact of hard steel and flesh and bones, of a body being tossed into the air and landing in an inert mass twenty feet away from the point of contact.

  There would be three of them to shout down any story that the truck driver might tell. On that angle even Joe Kerr would have to admit that it wasn’t the driver’s fault that there hadn’t been an actual impact. That truck had been coming too fast in the first place. The brakes of the truck hadn’t worked properly, hadn’t taken hold until the truck was almost on top of the victim. Was it possible that the driver of the truck was a party to the plot? That would probably come out later.

  Kerr hung back and watched. It was going to be fun to see this thing develop, then blow them all out of the water later with an impartial statement of what had actually happened. Joe Kerr had another angle, too. He was a private detective. It was possible he might make a more or less honest penny out of the affair if he worked it right. He reasoned that he ought to collect a modest fee if he saved a trucking company or an insurance concern from paying off on that phony accident.

  So he let matters proceed for a minu
te before he strolled on up to the intersection. The three men about the recumbent figure seemed to be arguing.

  “You ain’t got a leg to stand on, driver,” one of the witnesses announced loudly. “We saw the whole thing plain as day. You was coming down the street like a fire truck. You never used your horn till about two seconds before you hit him and he didn’t have any warning. You didn’t even put on your brakes till the last instant.”

  “I did too put my brakes on,” the driver mumbled. “But the brakes didn’t work at first. I had to pump ’em two or three times before they caught. Then it was too late to stop. I tried to pull out to the right and miss him but I couldn’t make it.”

  “Well, we can’t just stand here and argue while the guy is dyin’,” the third man put in. “You got an empty truck there, haven’t you? Give us a hand. Let’s carry him over and put him in the truck. There’s a hospital about six blocks from here. We can take him there in a few minutes, long before we could get an ambulance here. We got to handle him carefully. Looks to me like he’s got a busted leg.”

  By the time Joe Kerr reached them other spectators were arriving at the scene. The two witnesses for the complainant didn’t waste any more time. They lifted the still form from the pavement and carried it to the truck, placed it inside on a pile of quilts that the driver quickly arranged. The two men got into the truck with the victim and the driver ran around and climbed into his cab. The truck moved away fast. Joe Kerr marked the name on that truck. Windsor Storage Company. A big company and financially responsible.

  Joe Kerr grinned. He knew the group of casualty companies that carried the insurance on the Windsor Storage Company’s trucks. He was familiar with the rather tight-fisted gentleman who handled such matters for the casualty companies. His name was Theodore McNutt. McNutt suffered physical pain and mental agony every time he had to part with money, whether it was his own or the firm’s. The pain and agony was trebled when he had to disgorge to Joe Kerr. Joe had done special work for him on several occasions. Joe was going to take an added pleasure in making Theodore McNutt cough up for exposing this phony play for damages.