by Jerry eBooks
Kerr ran out and got a taxi . . .
IT WAS a large, sunny room that Joe Kerr entered twenty minutes later. Ernest Dort was lying in the hospital bed. He was smiling, obviously pleased and comfortable. McNutt was sitting in a chair by the bed with his briefcase and a stack of papers on his lap. Dr. Zoller stood near the foot of the bed. Wellington Jones sat by McNutt. Orrin Hix, the truck driver, was sitting in a chair at the other side of the bed.
“I think this is a fortunate settlement for you, McNutt,” Wellington Jones was saying in his rich baritone. “We could undoubtedly have obtained a large judgment if we had gone to trial. But I always prefer compromise in a case of this kind.”
“Skip it,” McNutt said sourly. “We’ve been robbed and we know it. Now you’ve all signed your statements. I’ve made the check out to the three of you, Dort, Zoller and Jones, so when you sign you release my companies from any further claim on the part of any of—”
McNutt saw Joe Kerr and stopped speaking. The others turned and stared at Kerr. Smiles disappeared. Hix reflectively put a hand up to the left side of his jaw. “What do you want, Joe?” McNutt asked.
“Same complaint, McNutt. I still want to save you some money.”
McNutt’s eyes searched Kerr’s face but Kerr only smiled.
“I’ve just settled this case,” McNutt said stiffly. “For fifteen thousand. I’ve already delivered the check.”
“To me,” Wellington Jones said importantly. He turned to Kerr. “What business is it of yours?”
“You may have a little trouble cashing that check,” Kerr told him.
“Why?”
“The check will have to be endorsed.” Kerr turned and faced Orrin Hix, the truck driver. “You wouldn’t endorse it, would you?”
“Why should I?” Hix retorted. “I’ve got nothin’ to do with it. I just come here because Jones asked me to. So I could tell about the accident if there was any dispute at the last minute. That check is made out to Jones, Zoller and Ernest Dort.”
Joe Kerr still kept his eyes on the truck driver. “I’m still asking you the same question,” he said softly. “Will you endorse that check—Dort?”
“That’s not Dort,” Wellington Jones said impatiently. “That’s Orrin Hix, the truck driver. This is Ernest Dort in bed.”
“Not in my book, Jones,” Joe Kerr said firmly. “Orrin Hix is in the bed. It was Ernest Dort that drove the truck. That’s how the trick was pulled, McNutt.”
“What trick?” Jones snapped. “What would be the sense of swapping names?”
“It made plenty of sense,” Joe said. “They switched names so that Ernest Dort could be established as a man having a sound leg up to the time of this accident. McNutt’s files showed that Ernest Dort’s last job was moving heavy boxes about on a hand truck, a job he couldn’t have done with an artificial leg. But it was Orrin Hix, using Dort’s name who actually did that work. The real Dort was hiding out, learning how to use his artificial leg so it wouldn’t be discovered under ordinary circumstances. It wasn’t detected when he went to work for the American Glass Company. Dort, really Hix, sat at a table and inspected glassware. No one noticed that he had an artificial leg when he came and left his work.”
“This is fantastic,” Wellington Jones sputtered.
“Not so fantastic when you get all the facts,” Joe amended. “I just got back from a trip to Raton, New Mexico. Now Ernest Dort, the real one, had a job there driving an ambulance. On one occasion he brought into a hospital a bum who had a leg mangled while hopping a train about twenty miles from Raton. The bum was the real Orrin Hix. While picking up accident cases, Dort had developed some ideas. He got acquainted well with Hix whose leg had been taken off a few inches above the ankle. So the two of them worked out the racket. Dort convinced Hix that it would be worth his while to undergo another small operation if he could collect a few grand for the trouble. Dort bought Hix the artificial leg. When they left Raton they switched names.”
“I get it,” McNutt said brightly. “So when I wired around to the places where Ernest Dort had worked I got reports that Dort was an able-bodied man, that he had held jobs that couldn’t possibly have been handled by a one-legged man. You can prove all this, Joe?”
THE detective nodded his head.
“Sure, McNutt. When they had established that vital point, Dort, the real one, blew in here. He found out that Dr. Zoller often handled accident cases and got acquainted with him. Then he obtained a job as a driver for the Windsor Company. When everything was set he brought Hix on and Hix took the right kind of job at the glass factory. They waited just long enough to make things look right, then pulled the accident. They had the two witnesses ready to see that Hix was rushed to the hospital before anyone else could get a good look at his supposed injuries. It was a cinch for Dr. Zoller to work Hix’s stump over so that it would look like a fresh amputation. After that all they had to do was sit back and collect.”
“If there has been a fraud here I am an innocent party,” Wellington Jones said shakily. “Dr. Zoller called me here to the hospital, said he had a case for me. I only know what he told me about it and what the witnesses said.”
Joe Kerr looked at the truck driver and grinned. “How about it, Dort? You going to endorse that check?”
Dort’s face purpled. “You dirty, snoopin’ little rat!” he bellowed and came around the bed to Joe Kerr. Dort was one of those fellows who never seem to learn by experience. He brought his big fist up from his heels and swung it with all his might. Again he failed to raise his left for protection. Joe Kerr stepped inside again and nailed him with the same paralyzing punch. And Dort was looking up from the floor with only the vaguest interest in further proceedings.
“Nice work, Joe,” Theodore McNutt said generously. “I’ll see that you get a check for a thousand this afternoon.”
“It’ll be three thousand, McNutt. Twenty percent of the fifteen grand you were forking over. That’s what you promised me and that’s what you’ll pay me.”
“Three thousand, then.” McNutt uttered a deep sigh. “You insist on holding me to what was practically a slip of the tongue in an unguarded moment.”
I DIE DAILY
H. Wolff Salz
Cop McCabe was a coward who was too yellow to run.
IN THE fog-choked darkness, the warehouse loomed like a spectral bluff. Not a sound broke the brooding midnight silence.
Joe McCabe was sure the stool pigeon’s tip that Lou Fox and his boys were working the Sayer warehouse tonight was a bad steer, until he and Detective Sergeant Allister stumbled over the lifeless figure of Officer Jordan in the cobblestoned alley! The patrolman had been shot in the back, a typical Lou Fox touch.
A strange truck stood at the loading platform, and confirmed the obvious conclusion that the warehouse crooks were at work within the ancient mildewed building.
Joe McCabe saw Sergeant Allister grope for his gun. His heart began to pound with a fierce, painful velocity. He opened his mouth to suggest that maybe one of them had better go back to the car and radio headquarters for assistance. Instead, he clamped his mouth shut, biting into his lower lip to keep from speaking.
He knew he was scared stiff. It was that same paralyzing fear that had always numbed his body at the first whiff of danger. The fear that made him hate himself.
It had always been that way. He remembered how it had been when he was a kid of ten, and Butch Cleary, the block bully, had demanded a piece of his candy bar. Joe had been afraid of Butch. But he would have died if the crowd of kids who had been drawn to the impending battle like flies to sugar had realized how scared he was. He had waded into Butch, landed a couple of punches, then found himself stretched on the sidewalk with a swelling, bleeding nose.
Butch got the candy, but the other kids helped Joe to his feet, enthusiastically pumped his back, and praised him for his bravery in standing up to Butch. They had never discovered what a coward he was.
Then in high school, Joe remembered the
fear that had seized the pit of his stomach when Judy Allister had asked him if he was going to try for the football team. But he had been even more afraid of her scorn if she discovered that the mere thought of football scrimmage frightened him.
He had gone out for the team, made it, played each game with a dread that numbed his body. Somehow he had managed to do things the right way at the right time and they called him a star. Neither Judy nor his teammates had ever learned the truth.
Now, he was on the detective force, teamed up with Sergeant Mike Allister, the most fearless cop on the force; a man who was said to hate a coward with a cop’s badge as much as he hated rats like Lou Fox. And it was Judy Allister, Mike’s daughter, whom Joe wanted to marry. That was why he had tried so hard to get on the force in the first place. Judy had always said that the man she’d marry would be like her dad.
Joe McCabe’s teeth bit deeper into his lip. What a fraud he was! Trying to pass himself off for a man like Mike Allister, a man who didn’t know the meaning of fear!
Joe felt Sergeant Allister’s grip on his arm.
“Draw your gun, son. Those rats are up on a higher floor on the other side of the building. That’s why we don’t see any lights. We’ll give them a surprise party.”
The palm of Joe’s hand was sticky as he fumbled for the gun in his shoulder holster. Like a man walking in his sleep he found himself moving forward at Allister’s side.
THE warehouse loading door was unlocked. Sergeant Allister eased it open, shouldered inside. A pulse hammered in Joe’s ears as he followed. A single weak bulb burned at the foot of the dusty wooden stairway. The single, gate-protected elevator shaft was dark. The freight elevator was evidently parked at an upper floor.
Sergeant Allister’s eyes were bleak, hard, as he moved without hesitation to the narrow stairway. Not a sign of fear showed on his set face. The man was made of solid granite!
Joe prayed the sergeant wouldn’t look back at him. He knew his face must be chalk white. He dreaded the look of contempt that would come over Allister’s face if he glanced at him and realized the truth.
The brittle ancient wooden steps seemed to creak loud enough to awaken the dead as they inched upward. Joe knew that he and the sergeant would be clay targets for a hidden lookout in the gloom overhead. The sergeant, though—he was oblivious to the lurking danger.
The wild, desperate urge to turn and scuttle for safety ran through Joe’s aching body like a searing fire. Yet, somehow, he managed to keep a step behind Allister. He had to go forward with the sergeant! He’d die of shame if Allister ever discovered the truth.
Suddenly a startled face appeared from around the bend at the landing overhead. At the same instant Joe heard the reverberating report and saw the spurt of flame. Something like an angry bee sang past his head. Behind him he heard the slug rivet into decaying wood.
Sergeant Allister’s gun barked at almost the same instant. The face overhead disappeared. The sergeant pounded upward and Joe found himself moving along with him.
They rounded the bend, triggering at the rapidly scattering figures in the gloom. There were three of them, diving for the protection of huge packing cases that crowded the low-ceilinged room.
Joe fired at one of the scurrying figures, saw the man nose-dive to the floor and lie still. He heard a startled, pained gasp to his left. He saw Sergeant Allister crumple to the floor, and leaped to his side.
Allister’s face was white. “Got me on the kneecap—never mind—go after those rats!”
Joe heard a loud, splintering crash of glass. His head jerked up in time to see the two unharmed members of the Lou Fox gang plunge through a window at the opposite end of the long room. The fire escape, he realized.
Somehow, he found himself pounding across the floor towards the shattered window. He threw one leg over the sill. Below, in the darkness, two figures were visible, darting like monkeys down the steep steel ladder.
He plunged out on the landing, clattered downward. A spurt of flame blossomed below. A hot gust of air fanned Joe’s face. He triggered at one of the figures, heard a scream of terrified agony. The figure detached itself from the steep ladder, plummeted downward, and disappeared in the darkness.
The other figure reached the second floor landing. Darts of yellow flame spurted in rapid succession from his gun. Joe flattened himself against the steel stairway, then realized he was a perfect target standing where he was. He clattered rapidly downward, toward the figure below, triggering as he descended. The answering shots ceased abruptly.
When he reached the second floor landing, the figure lay in a crumpled, motionless heap. Joe bent, looked upon the twisted, white face of Lou Fox. He was dead.
When he returned to Sergeant Allister’s side a few moments later, the sergeant was sitting up, twisting a blood-soaked rag around his knee.
Joe couldn’t control the quivering of his lips as he told the sergeant that Lou Fox and his gang were through for keeps. His knees were suddenly weak.
Sergeant Allister managed a twisted, pained grin. “Son, you’re what I call a man after my own heart. It took real guts to go after those rats out there on that fire escape.”
This was too much for Joe. He laughed suddenly, an hysterical uncontrolled laugh.
“You’re talking about guts and me?” he cried. “You’ve got no idea, Sergeant! I’m the biggest fraud you’ll ever meet! I was scared stiff every minute we’ve been in this building! I’ve been scared stiff all my life of anything that smelled like danger! The only thing that’s kept me from showing it is that I’m even more scared of being called a coward!”
Sergeant Allister grinned. “Sure, danger scares you, son. What do you think it does to me?”
“You! Why, you’re the guy they say doesn’t know what fear is!”
Sergeant Allister’s right eyelid drooped in a roguish wink. “That’s a reputation I got burdened with years ago. And all these years I’ve been scared to death the other guys would find out what a fraud I am. Everyday I die of fear. Fear, son? Why, that’s part of courage. Real guts is when you’ve got the sense to be scared like hell and still have the moxie to deliver the goods.”
TRACKS IN THE SNOW
Samuel Mines
Policeman Koster takes the trail of an escaped convict!
A POLICE car with siren wailing like a banshee fled up the street. It hurled itself through the curtain of falling snow and was gone, leaving only the distant shrieking wail behind it.
With his hand on the door knob, “Square Deal” Finchley, boss of the 16th A.D., paused to look after it. A reason for his nickname, Finchley’s face was square, hard, with knots of muscles at the corners of his jaw, and a tight, ungenerous mouth. A man doesn’t get to be a political boss without being hard.
He waited, no expression on his face, until the sound of the siren had faded. Then he pushed open the door, upon which was lettered “AC POLITICAL CLUB” and went inside.
The noise and smoke and warmth enveloped him. A couple of hangers-on, playing pool at a table near the window, stopped their game and caught the boss’ eye as he shook snow from his coat. One of the players jerked a thumb toward a closed door at the back.
“Copper inside, waiting for you, Boss.”
Finchley glanced at the door, allowing one eyebrow to lift slightly in a rare gesture of surprise. Then he crossed the room and entered the inner office.
A uniformed policeman, sitting in a chair alongside Finchley’s desk, glanced up. He was a big young man, tanned, rugged, with the look of the farm about his weathered skin and clear blue eyes.
“Oh, it’s you,” grunted the politician. “What do you want, Koster? Decide to join the club after all?”
“I filed that under the heading of bribery,” the cop answered in a level tone. “Some day I may give you some trouble over it, Square Deal.”
“Once a yokel, always a yokel,” Finchley said impatiently. “Why don’t you go back to the country, Bernie? You’re out of place in the big town!�
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“I’ll file that under the heading of ‘Advice, unused,’ ” Bernie Koster replied. Finchley’s patience was running out. “What’d you come in here for?” he demanded. “To play guessing games?”
“No. To tell you something. Baby Face Hynes is back.”
“What’s that to me?”
“Plenty. He worked for you and nobody else. If that killer is back it means you sent for him.”
“You’re crazy.”
THE policeman appeared to reconsider.
“Maybe you didn’t send for him. Maybe he came back himself. Either way he’d come to you. He needs a place to stay—food, protection. You’re the only one who could or would give them to him.”
“Look,” said Finchley, turning to hang up his coat. “I’m tired of this. I’ll take two tickets to the policeman’s ball, and you run along. I’m busy.”
“Did you hear sirens just before you came in?” Bernie Koster pursued, as though he hadn’t heard. “Hynes has been seen—in this neighborhood. There’s a ring around the section by now that a flea couldn’t get through.”
“I still say,” Finchley interrupted, “what’s that got to do with me?”
Koster shook his head.
“I can’t get the idea out of my mind that if Hynes is here you’ve seen him.” Finchley selected a cigar from his desk, bit off the end and lit it. He blew smoke in Koster’s face.
“How much longer is this gonna go on?” he inquired.
The patrolman got up.
“Put your hat and coat back on, Square Deal,” he said. “I want you to take a little walk with me.”
“Where to?”
“I’ll show you.”
“There ain’t a legal reason in the world I gotta go,” the boss said. “You ain’t got a warrant.”
“As a public-spirited citizen you’d like to see Baby Face Hynes caught, wouldn’t you? He’s a dangerous killer, and you’re suspected of giving him aid and comfort. Would you want the police to think you’re uncooperative in apprehending him?”