Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  “Well, she inherited all her Dad’s dough. He was Rosemont, the tea bag king, or something. And when she made out her will, she thought she’d do something worthwhile. She decided to give most of her money to the tallest and prettiest girl in town, a girl who wouldn’t stay home like she did, but who would certainly get some fun out of the money.”

  “Really?” said Jackie. She was incredulous.

  “Yeah. She wrote letters to all the girls’ colleges and high schools in town and to the model agencies. To make a long story short, she finally decided to give you the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” I paused and did some calculating. “Let’s see. You’re six feet three—that’s seventy-five inches. So you get about ten thousand dollars an inch. Not bad, huh?”

  Jackie’s face was flushed and her eyes glistened. “It’ll be weeks before I really believe it,” she said. “What a crazy two days these have been. The nightmare turned into a dream.” She paused and then asked: “But why did Mr. Jessop say I had only inherited fifteen thousand dollars?”

  I had been wondering about that, too. “The way I’ve got it figured,” I said, “is that he had his own little plan to beat you out of the rest of your dough. I guess he didn’t know about El’s here. He was going to give you the fifteen thousand dollars and probably get you to sign a tricky paper giving up all your rights to the inheritance. He figured you’d be so happy to get the fifteen thousand dollars you’d sign anything.”

  “And I would have,” she said.

  We stopped for the signal at Market and Kearny Streets. “What’re you going to buy first?” I asked.

  “A bed,” she said. “A bed long enough so I won’t have to sleep tied in a knot. And, on second thought, I think I’ll buy two of them. One for you and one for me!”

  My eyebrows were up under my hat somewhere. I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant—but it sounded fine.

  BLIZZARD-BOUND CRYPT

  Edward A. Herron

  In the lawman’s weakening fingers lay the key that would open up the road to freedom—or seal him in a blood-chilled tomb.

  DEPUTY Marshal Royal kept his prisoner well up in front, breaking trail down the Innoko River for the six dogs who came panting along the crusted snow. Each night, moving warily, he hobbled Louer and let him eat by the fire. Afterwards he slipped handcuffs on him, stuffed him into a sleeping robe, and fastened it tightly about his neck.

  “Not taking any chances, are you?” Louer asked as they completed the nightly ritual. Out in the cold darkness one of the dogs moved uneasily, and the six furred heads lifted.

  Royal shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a job. Might as well do it the right way as the wrong—and have you slitting my throat.”

  Louer’s lips parted beneath his black mustache. “Interest you in a thousand dollars? Forty-eight hours would see me into the delta of the Kuskokwim. Nobody’d ever find me in there.”

  “Forget it.”

  “The hero type.”

  “What do you mean, hero? I’m not the guy that caught you. All I’m doing is taking you down to be hanged.”

  Louer was silent, and between the two men hunched in their robes the fire dropped lower. Royal looked up at the stars and the flat disc of the moon. One of the stars wavered and fell in a tremendous zig-zag. He blinked, and his mind crawled into action. Across from him, Louer spoke in the darkness.

  “Saw it too, eh? Remember what they used to say in school—about shooting stars meaning death?”

  “Save your stories for the hangman, Louer. I’m tired. Good night.”

  The fire gutted and became red eyes winking. There was a movement outside the dull glow of the embers and one of the dogs came padding through the clearing, sniffing cautiously at Louer’s robe, then went back to its bed of spruce boughs. Royal pulled his head deeper within the robe as the temperature started to sag. At the edge of the clearing a spruce suddenly cracked with a startling pop.

  Royal raised himself on one elbow, straining toward Louer, but the prisoner was silent. The deputy marshal rubbed the back of his head against the soft fur of the robe. He closed his ears to the small sounds of the night, and sleep came over him like an extra blanket.

  He woke from sleep screaming, fighting the entangling folds of the robe, threshing about, rolling over and over until his cheek touched a hot ember of the fire, and he snapped into wakefulness. Louer was cursing at him, calling his name.

  “Royal! Royal! Blast you, wake up! If you’re going to kill yourself open these handcuffs first! You hear me? Royal!”

  The deputy marshal sat upright, shaking his head, rubbing his cheek where an ember had burned it. He grinned sheepishly in the darkness.

  “Okay, Louer,” he called, “I’m sorry. Got to dreaming about how you did in that guy up on the Dishna River. Gave me the horrors.”

  “Yeah,” Louer snarled, “but I killed him quick. Did you ever think what’d happen to me if you got yourself killed off while I was still trussed up like a rotten pig? Did you know I’d die out here by bits, with maybe the dogs eating me before I was dead? How’d you like to be trussed up here with a fool deputy heaving himself around like a mad man, throwing himself in the fire? Why’n’t you give me a fighting chance?”

  “Go to sleep,” Royal called wearily, but as he adjusted himself in the robe the thought preyed on him. What would Louer do? Would he go mad before the cold or the dogs got him? Or starve while he was cased like a mummy? All night Royal was wakeful, worrying.

  On the move next day with Louer running ahead, breaking trail, Royal was nagged by the thought.

  THAT night after they had eaten he snapped the cuffs on the prisoner, placing the murderer’s hands behind his back. Louer protested.

  “Let me have my hands in front of me. Then if anything happened to you, I still could get out of the robe somehow and have a chance against the dogs.”

  “Yeah,” Royal agreed, “and the same way you might find a chance to splatter my head with a rock while I was sleeping. No, thanks. You’re the guy that got yourself in this mess.” He took the axe and walked over to a clump of spruce to cut boughs on which to spread their robes.

  He was nervous, swinging the axe in short, choppy strokes, wincing when the steel bit into a knot and sent an angry shake along the axe handle to tug at his wrists. He was conscious of Louer’s eyes upon him—too conscious.

  “Look out there!” Louer yelled.

  Royal half-turned his head, and the axe glanced against the hard trunk and shot downward to his instep. He shuddered with the quick stab of pain and stepped back, watching the blood spurt upward.

  “The axe,” he said uncertainly, “I’ve cut myself.”

  He stumbled to the fire, kneeling, his fingers moving about the gash in his mukluk. Louer bent over, fascinated, staring down at the thick red flow bubbling like a miniature artesian well and tumbling off the mukluk. Royal shifted his foot, leaving a cherry-red stain on the snow. He started to speak, but the words became entangled in his tongue and only a low sound of disbelief came out.

  “You’ll bleed to death,” Louer whispered hoarsely, straining his arms against the handcuffs. “You gotta stop that bleeding.” He lifted his dark lean face anxiously. “Do something! Quick!”

  Royal pressed his fingers about the wound, and the blood came faster. He could feel the strength drain from him with the angry flood. Once he’d heard that a man who lost half his blood was doomed. The way the blood was coming, he’d lose all he had. He took his handkerchief and sopped at the stream, fighting the panic that mounted within him.

  “Press on your groin, man!” Louer yelled at him. “Quick! That’s it! Now hard! Hard!”

  The angry spurt slowed to a sluggish stream. Royal lifted his head, looking to the dogs, to the sled, and to Louer, who leaned forward, panting with excitement.

  “Tourniquet’s next,” Louer snapped.

  Royal looked about the fire for a stick, and fumbled with one hand to pull the belt from his trousers. His fingers lifted f
rom his groin, and immediately the blood came to life again. He was like a man transfixed, with death threatening at every move.

  “Unlock these cuffs!” Louer pleaded. “Let me out of here, Royal! For God’s sake, man, let me out of these the cuffs!” Royal snapped his head back, his fingers pressing even harder against the artery. He leaned heavily against a spruce, fighting the impulse to slump to the ground. How much blood had he lost? With an effort he limped over to Louer and fumbled with the key until the cuffs unlocked.

  HE TURNED away, almost liking the lethargy that came over him. Slowly he fastened the belt about his thigh, wadding a handkerchief and placing it over the artery while he began languidly to twist the spruce stick in the belt. Behind him he could hear Louer fighting the knots in the cord that bound his ankles, but he didn’t bother to turn his head.

  He felt a heavy, rough hand upon his shoulder, and knew that the same hand was diving within his parka, fumbling for the gun in his shoulder holster. Next, he thought, would come the crushing blow on the head. He twisted on the tourniquet, then he slid off into darkness . . .

  When he fought his way upward through the gray clouds of unconsciousness, the doctor at the mission hospital was putting the final knot on a pure white bandage encasing his foot. The doctor nodded to him.

  “Glad to see you coming around, Royal. Keep this foot quiet.”

  Royal could see the white coat floating toward the door, then the voice came again. “That fellow who brought you in asked me to give you this message when you came around. ‘Forty-eight hours.’ That’s all. ‘Forty-eight hours.’ Quite a character. Want to send a telegraph message to the marshal downriver?”

  Royal’s fingers gripped the sheet beneath him. He tried to struggle upward. “Yes. Yes. Tell him—” He bit down on his tongue. “How long’ve I been here?”

  “Since yesterday morning.”

  The deputy dropped his head back on the pillow. How long was forty-eight hours? “Tomorrow,” he murmured, “tomorrow I’ll give you a message for the marshal.” Then he pretended to sleep.

  DEATH BRINGS DOWN THE HOUSE

  Larry Holden

  She had never been beautiful, and now what was left of her flamboyant charm lay huddled and smashed on the sidewalk. The hotel roof was a long way up, and she had come all the way down, her shriek streaming behind her like the tail of a comet. The crowd bubbled around her. Binnie Bailey had made a dramatic exit—but there was no applause, no whistling, no stamping of feet, no cheering.

  And there were no encores.

  The detective from headquarters slapped his hand with the folded theater program and scowled down at it. His name was O’Grady and he looked it—red hair, freckles and a bulldog jaw, a tough cop. Only this time he didn’t look so tough; he just looked unhappy.

  The program said:

  BINNIE BAILEY in “EARLY TO RISE”

  With Joey Coy

  Produced by Sam Bennett

  Sam Bennett sat hunched on the edge of the bed in his hotel room, his hands dangling between his plump thighs. He had a round face, plump cheeks and blue eyes, a face made for jollity. He, too, looked unhappy. As did the miniature, cigar-smoking comedian, Joey Coy, who restlessly prowled the room, touching everything in it, lifting lamps, moving chairs, looking behind the very pictures on the walls. Even on the stage, Joey Coy was never still for a minute.

  Sam made a weary gesture with his hands and looked up at O’Grady. “It’s a serious thing, calling it suicide, lieutenant,” he said reproachfully. “How can you tell it was suicide? Did she have a sign around her neck? There are things to consider.”

  Joey Coy poised for a moment, waved his heavy cane and squeaked, “The insurance!” He glowered at O’Grady, then trotted across the room and peered into the wastebasket.

  “Comes suicide,” said Sam, “comes no insurance.”

  O’Grady raised his head and said sharply, “You two seem to have got yourselves in an uproar over the insurance. How come?”

  Sam protested, “Not for us, lieutenant. It’s for Binnie’s little girl. She’s with the show too. Ten thousand is a lot of money.”

  With gloomy amazement, O’Grady watched Joey Coy empty the wastebasket on the rug and poke through it with his cane. He shook himself and looked back at Sam Bennett.

  “I’ll look at it your way for a minute,” he said. “If it wasn’t suicide, what was she doing up on the roof at this time of night?”

  Joey Coy screamed, “She liked roofs!” Sam was again the interpreter. “Always after opening night Binnie goes up on the roof, sits on the edge and swings her legs. It quiets her down, she says. She feels like she was flying right up into the sky, and the sky, she says, is the most peaceful thing there is. Anyway,” he pointed out, “why should she do the dutch? She comes out of retirement and everybody says, don’t do it, Binnie, you’re too old.

  “So what happens? She’s a hit. On top of that, she owns twenty-five percent of the show, and the show’s a hit, too. Ten weeks already we’re sold out in New York, and we just opened in Newark. We killed them in Newark opening night. We killed them in Buffalo, and we killed them in Albany. We’ll kill them in New York.” His face twitched. “Would have,” he amended.

  Joey Coy interrupted savagely, “We’ll kill them in New York. Look, Sam, I got it all figured out. I take over most of Binnie’s business in all three acts. I dress up like a dame and come out and do her songs. I’ll be sensational!”

  Sam looked resigned, hopeless. He moved his hands about a quarter of an inch. “We hope,” he muttered.

  “I’ll kill them,” Joey told O’Grady. “Ask Sam. He knows. I’ve been in his last fifteen turkeys.”

  “Now, Joey, be serious. Please.”

  Joey was serious. “Ten turkeys,” he said. He picked a scrap of cloth from the wastebasket, admired it and thrust it into his pocket. He turned around and looked at Sam. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to bed.” He trotted out of the room.

  Sam caught O’Grady’s puzzled glance. “You don’t want to mind Joey,” he said. “All he ever thinks of is the show, and he’s always picking up props, like that wastebasket business. He finds the damnedest things and makes them look funny. To me. On the stage his stuff’s getting a little familiar. He can’t carry the show in New York.

  “I’ll have to get a new lead,” he went on despondently. “Someone like Merman. Someone you can hang a show on and she carries it. Did you see Binnie? Terrific! She carried the show. Without her it’s just another turkey. Ten weeks in New York and we fold. She was as good as Merman. I thought I had a winner this time. Haven’t had one in years. And I’m tired of turkeys.” Sam had aged.

  O’Grady had the program all smoothed out in the palm of his hand and he was staring at it thoughtfully. “Maybe it wasn’t suicide,” he conceded. “How many people knew she went up on the roof all the time?”

  “Comparatively speaking, nobody. There are over a hundred million people in the country, and only a hundred of us knew about it.” His eyes suddenly flew wide with thought. “What’s that again? You mean, she was pushed?” he said incredulously.

  “You’ve eliminated all the reasons for suicide, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t say—”

  “I’m saying it. I’m saying it’s a possibility that has to be looked into. This daughter of Binnie Bailey’s, for instance. She gets that quarter interest in the show now, doesn’t she?”

  “And what’s it worth? Strictly the neck of the turkey.”

  “Is she a talented kid?”

  “Talented? How should I know? Maybe she could cook.”

  “In other words, she couldn’t carry the show in Binnie Bailey’s place. Is that the idea?”

  “She couldn’t carry programs for the show. For ten weeks maybe people come because she’s Nora Bailey, Binnie’s kid. She sings and she understudied. Binnie wanted it that way. Between you and me, lieutenant, that little girl didn’t want any part of the show. Of any show. She’
s strictly from mustard. Talent? No talent. But Binnie snapped the whip and the kid’s on the stage, hating it. Only because she loves her mother.”

  O’Grady accepted the last statement as propaganda. “I think I’ll have a little talk with her,” he said. He folded the program and put it in his pocket.

  Sam went to the door with him, his shoulders sagging, his eyes mournful. “I should talk to you some more,” he said. “Binnie didn’t jump, and she wasn’t pushed. She fell. You’ll see.” He shook hands solemnly with O’Grady before closing the door.

  And the moment it closed, the door of the room beside it opened and Joey Coy skipped out, looking like a musical comedy conspirator. He put his finger to his lips, rolled his eyes and beckoned O’Grady into his room.

  Inside, he stood close to the detective and whispered, “The old man.” He prodded O’Grady’s stomach with his forefinger, winked significantly.

  O’Grady said, “What old man?”

  “What old man!” Joey Coy looked surprised, “Nora’s old man, the guy Binnie was hitched with. Stuck with. A souse. He follows the show around like a bad debt.”

  He stepped back and interestedly riffled through a wallet he held in his hand. Startled, O’Grady recognized the badge pinned to it and snatched it from the comedian’s hand.

  “Another stunt like that,” he said grimly, “and you’ll be wearing your ears in your pocket. Now cut the comedy and stop hinting around. What about this old man?”

  Joey Coy grinned impishly. “A souse, see? A barfly.” He staggered in a circle around O’Grady, illustrating a drunk. Any other time it might have been funny. “What happens is this.” He poked at O’Grady’s stomach again and the detective stepped back. “What happens is this, whenever he thinks Binnie is looking the other way, he comes to the stage door and mooches a sawbuck from Nora.