by Jerry eBooks
By the time he got up again, the alcove was empty. There was a doorway leading to the alley alongside the building. The door was open . . .
Corcoran stared stupidly at Margie Zaine’s sprawled form. Death’s waxen mist was on her Madonna face. Her handbag was open and empty. The money she had taken from Spot Shelton’s office wall-safe was now gone.
Shelton, who had threatened her . . . Shelton, who had worn a yellow solitaire diamond on the ring finger of his white, effeminate hand . . .!
Corcoran snapped out of his daze. He was thinking of Harry Greer, now. Maybe the bank-teller would be next on Shelton’s list of victims. Maybe it was already too late—Sprinting out into the night, Corcoran grabbed a passing owl cab. It zipped him to Greer’s apartment-house, an unpretentious three-story structure with exterior fire-escapes marring its old-fashioned red brick façade. Corcoran raced up to the second floor. He reached the bank-teller’s door and pounded on it. “Greer—let me in! It’s me, Corcoran—and hell’s to pay!” A muffled pistol-shot answered him. Then a heavy thump, as of a body falling. And finally, silence.
Corcoran hit the door. It bruisingly rebuffed him. He backed away and smashed at it again, putting his full two hundred pounds behind the impact. This time the portal gave way. He stumbled into the room.
An open window framed the iron fire-ladder just outside. In the room’s center lay Harry Greer, breathing heavily, with his eyes closed. Thick clotted blood wept from a raw hole in his left shoulder. A thin drift of gun-powder-smoke eddied in the dull light from a table-lamp. Corcoran ran heavily to the window; stared outward, downward. He couldn’t see anybody. He returned to Greer and worked over him. At last the teller opened his eyes. “God . . . my shoulder . . .!” he groaned faintly. “Who drilled you? Was it Shelton?”
“I . . . don’t know! I was . . . getting ready to . . . start for Margie’s place . . . and a shot . . . came from . . . the window . . . Greer sat up weakly. “What are you . . . doing here? My God . . . if Shelton shot me . . . he may go . . . gunning for Margie . . . You should have . . . stayed with her . . .”
“I’m sorry, kid, but Margie—Margie’s dead.” Corcoran tried to break the news to him gently. “Take it easy while I try to do something to fix this shoulder of yours.”
“Margie . . . dead . . .?” The teller pushed Corcoran away. “Do something . . .!” he cried hysterically. “Call the caps . . . trail that dirty rat . . . get him . . . kill him . . .!” His lips twisted vengefully.
Corcoran said: “Yeah. Trail Shelton. That’s a large order. He’ll be on the lam for sure, now. He must’ve got loose in his office; reached Margie’s place ahead of us. Then he blasted. He killed her—and thought he killed me, too. So he came here to bump you. But just as he fired at you from the window, he heard my voice out in the hall. He realized he hadn’t croaked me. And now he knows he’s in the soup; knows my testimony will convict him. He’ll go into hiding.”
“You’ve got to find him!” Greer sobbed. “Get going! I’ll phone the cops. Move, blast you!”
Corcoran went out. It was going to be tough, trying to locate Spot Shelton. Corcoran didn’t know where to start. Then he got an idea. He found a drugstore and a phone book. He looked up Jackie Allan’s name and found it. He made a note of her address. A taxi took him to a bungalow court. He rang her bell. When she opened the door, Corcoran drew his automatic and shoved the muzzle against her. He said: “You’re pinched for murder, baby.” She was wearing lounging pajamas. Her wrists were red and chafed from the wire with which she’d been trussed back in Shelton’s office. There were marks on her ankles, too. The ankles themselves were slender and dainty, to match the rest of her.
She said: “Pinched . . . for murder? What do you m-mean?”
He backed her into the little living room and kicked the door shut behind him. He pushed her onto the divan and stood over her, glowering. “What happened after I left Shelton’s joint?”
“Why—why—I managed to spit that gag out of my mouth. I yelled for help. People came in and untied me and Shelton, too. Spot brought me home.”
Corcoran said: “Straight home?”
“Yes.” She seemed puzzled.
He said: “You’re a liar, baby. You hated Harry Greer’s guts because he ditched you. You hated Margie Zaine for taking him away from you. So you gunned the both of them, to get even.” It was preposterous, of course. Corcoran knew that. But he wanted to throw a scare into Jackie Allan.
All the color drained from her cheeks. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she said.
“Margie’s dead. You killed her. You tried to kill me. And you put a bullet through Harry Greer’s shoulder.”
“I—I didn’t! My God, I wouldn’t—” She reached up and grabbed his gun-arm. “D-don’t point that thing at me. And you can’t believe I’d—”
He looked at her, steadily. “There’s just one way you can buy yourself out of this mess, baby. I want you to tell me where I can find Shelton.”
From the hallway a voice growled: “That’s easy, snoop. Here I am. And this thing in my hand isn’t a saxophone. It’s a rod. It shoots bullets.”
Corcoran said: “How did you get in here?”
“I’ve got a key,” Shelton said. “Why not?”
“You’ll be getting a key to the hot squat before long,” Corcoran said.
“I gathered that. I was home listening to the radio when I heard a bleat go out for me on a murder rap. That’s why I’m here now.” He looked at the blonde girl. “Why did you kill Margie, babe?”
“But I didn’t—I didn’t! That’s what I was trying to tell this copper—”
“That’s okay. I understand the setup.” The gambler glared at Corcoran. “You’re not arresting her, snoop. I won’t let you.”
Shelton shifted his gun to his left hand, doubled his right. He hit Corcoran on the button. Twice. Hard. Corcoran’s knees buckled. He took the count.
When he awoke, Shelton and Jackie were gone. The house was all upset, as if a hurried job of luggage-packing had been accomplished during the private detective’s unconsciousness. Corcoran felt his bruised jaw. The flesh wasn’t cut.
He stumbled out of the cottage. He walked four blocks before he found a cab. He gave the driver Greer’s address. “And step on it—to save a guy’s life!” he panted. Seven minutes later he burst into Greer’s apartment. Greer had contrived to bandage his nicked shoulder. He stared at Corcoran. “What—?”
“Shelton’s still on the loose. He’s got a gun. He may be on his way here to finish you!” Corcoran said. “But we’ll trap him.”
“H-how?”
“Have you got a roscoe? He took mine.”
Greer opened a desk drawer. He brought out a revolver. Corcoran snatched it and jammed it three inches into the bank-teller’s belly. “The jig’s up,” he said grimly. “You bumped Margie. Where’s the dough?”
Greer turned a pasty yellow. “Are you crazy?”
“Like a fox,” Corcoran snapped. “Listen. Shelton told the truth tonight when he said you only lost five hundred to him. When he told Margie you never intended to marry her. You were a smart skunk, Greer. You’d never swiped any dough from your bank. That was just a stall to make Margie fall in with your schemes.
“You planned to rob Spot Shelton. He looked like an easy touch. And you did a lot of ground-work before you pulled the strings. You first tried to work through Jackie Allan; but when she wouldn’t work with you, you ditched her. You took up with Margie. Margie fell for your line. She really figured you loved her, wanted to marry her. And she believed you when you said Shelton had gypped you out of thirty grand.
“That was a lie. And besides, Shelton’s dice are straight.
“. . . Well, after Margie agreed to help you, you hired me. We pulled the heist; got the dough from Shelton’s safe. Shelton made threats. You saw a chance to get the money, be rid of Margie—and pin her murder on Shelton.”
Greer gulped noisily. “You’re all wr
ong—”
“Nuts. You swiped Shelton’s diamond ring off his finger while he was tied to his chair, knocked out. Then you went ahead to Margie’s apartment house. You waited behind that drape. You wore Shelton’s ring when you shot Margie. All I saw was your gun-hand—and the ring.
“You didn’t drill me. You wanted me alive—so that I could testify it was Shelton’s hand I saw holding the murder-gun. You just conked me. When I came to and rushed here to your place, you fired a shot out your window, so I’d hear it. Then you fell on the floor and played possum. You wanted me to think Shelton had come here and drilled you.
“But the wound in your shoulder was from my bullet, Greer! I winged you when I shot through that drape after you drilled Margie!”
“No, Corcoran! You’re crazy!”
“Nuts! I should have guessed it right away, when I looked at your shoulder the first time. The blood had already started to clot. But I was dumb. I was dumb up to the time Spot Shelton slugged me on the jaw in Jackie Allan’s bungalow a little while ago. Then I saw the truth.”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“Shelton poked me with his right—but it didn’t cut my cheek. He wasn’t wearing his ring!
“That was the tip-off. Maybe somebody else had the ring. Not Jackie Allan, because her hands were smaller than the one I saw through that drape. And why didn’t Shelton croak me in Jackie’s bungalow when he had the chance? If he’d been guilty, he’d have drilled me to keep me from spilling. Instead, all he did was biff me. He just wanted a chance to get Jackie away—because he thought she was the killer. He loves her; wanted to protect her.
“Okay. Jackie wasn’t guilty. But if Shelton thought she was, it meant he was innocent himself. Get it? So that cleared everybody but you, Greer.
“You had motive: greed. You had opportunity. And you had my bullet hole through your shoulder. You also had a roscoe—which I just tricked away from you. Got anything to say now?”
Greer snarled: “You’ll never take me, Corcoran!” and swatted at the revolver in the private dick’s fist. Corcoran shot him through the other shoulder. “So you’ll suffer a little before they burn you,” he said. He was thinking of poor little Margie Zaine lying dead because she had loved unwisely . . .
A search disclosed the thirty thousand dollars that Greer had taken from Margie’s handbag. And Corcoran also found Shelton’s diamond ring, under Greer’s mattress. Corcoran phoned police headquarters. “Come and get the guy that bumped Margie Zaine,” he said.
“We’ve already got him. Spot Shelton. Picked him up with a blonde a while ago.”
Corcoran said: “Turn ’em loose. They’re clean. And you might tell Shelton that a dumb cluck named Corcoran would like an invite to the wedding . . .”
PARTING GIFT
Frank Ward
The jealous husband had a perfect plan to get rid of his wife and her boy friend—until Fate took a hand.
Pomfret walked slowly up the path to his front door, clicked his key in the lock and stepped into the warmth of his own hallway. For a moment he stood there in the semi-darkness, breathing hard, tilting his head, smelling the old familiar smells and wondering at himself for the thing he was about to do.
His wife, Eva, called down from upstairs, “Joe, is that you?”
Pomfret shivered and tightened his hand around the bulky object in his overcoat pocket. He said, as steadily as he could, “It’s me, honey,” and tasted for a brief moment a spasm of panic.
He took a cigarette from his breast pocket and tucked it between dry lips, dragging in the taste of the unlit tobacco. Then he took off his coat and hat and threw them over the packed bags lying near the hat-rack by the door, and with the package in his hand, walked stealthily out into the kitchen and opened the door leading down into his workshop in the cellar. He stood at the head of the wooden steps, feeling the hot rush of blood into his face and the dizziness in his head. He went down the stairs and turned on the light.
With the dry cigarette still waggling between his lips, Pomfret sat down at his bench. Carefully, he unwrapped the package, revealing an expensive bronze table lighter fashioned after a globe of the world, with the ignition plunger where the north pole should be, and the countries etched in neatly. Overhead, the echo of his wife’s footsteps jarred through the floor, hurrying him along. He pulled the cigarette away from his lips, tearing off a strip of skin, and reached over to the rack for a screwdriver. He unscrewed the filler cap, picked out the cotton wool, threw it in a wastebasket. From the rack where his reloading tools lay he took down a canister of pistol powder. Next he removed the wick from the lighter and fitted into its place a short, fast-burning fuse, and began pouring the powder into the base of the lighter.
He knew powders, he knew gas pressures. He knew what would happen when someone picked up the lighter, holding it close to the end of the cigarette, and pressed the plunger for a light. They’d get a light, all right, a light that would show them the way into eternity. Without air space, the hundred-odd grains of powder compressed into that bronze base would be as deadly as a hand-grenade. Pomfret had seen it work once before. Just four grains of powder jammed down by an improperly hand-loaded bullet to the bottom of a cartridge case, without air space for the expanding pressure of the gas. He still had the wreckage of a once perfectly good heavy-frame revolver in one of the drawers in his filing cabinet.
When he had screwed the cap back in place he picked up the lighter, carrying it as cautiously as he would have carried a bottle of nitro-glycerine, and walked up the stairs. He felt as weak as if he had spent the afternoon running around the block. He closed the cellar door behind him and leaned his back against it, hard, until his shoulder blades ached from the contact.
He went over to the tap for a drink of water. Then he walked slowly back into the living room and placed the lighter gently on the cocktail table, where no one could miss seeing it. He knew how it would react on Harvey. He knew it would be the first thing Harvey, a chain-smoker, would pick up. He closed his eyes and thought about Harvey’s handsome face. Then he went out into the hallway and began putting on his hat and coat.
Eva came down the stairs, and Pomfret paused by the door, watching her, taking her in, gauging the full fluid motion of her body and the slow swing of her long tawny hair and the full rich beauty of her face, feeling again the desire for her and the need of her. He stopped then, and turned toward the living room and took a hesitant step.
She said, “What’s wrong, Joe?” and the sound of her voice clipped his resolution in half.
Pomfret laughed, the cracked sound of it echoing hollow and false in his brain. “Nothing at all,” he said lamely. “Tired, I guess. Had a hard day.”
She came to him and rested her hand on his arm. The touch of her pulled the trigger on his mind and the hatred in him welled up then and flowed fresh and potent until he thought he would kill her then and there, without benefit of gadgets or tricks or long-range plans, if she didn’t take her hand off him. He said, hoarsely, “Has Harvey called for his cigarette case yet, Eva?” and his keen, suspicious eyes probed hers for some sign of fear or admission of her guilt.
She took her hand away and color touched her cheeks. “For heaven’s sake, Joe, do we have to go through all that again? I told you he left it in the living room the last time he was here, and I took it upstairs to the bedroom so I wouldn’t forget to ask you to give it back to him when you saw him at the office. Isn’t that reasonable enough for you? Do you expect me to go down on my knees and beg for belief from my own husband?” Her voice was as tight as a plucked violin string, vibrating against the resistance in his mind.
He thought again of the lighter on the living room table. He let out his breath. The taste in his mouth was as sour and he wanted to be sick. Instead he reached for her and kissed her harshly, feeling the softness of her against him, the elusive, heady perfume, the taste of her lipstick. Feeling too the resistance that had been there for months now.
“Okay,” he sa
id quietly. “Okay, hon. Let’s skip it.” He opened the door and reached down for his bags. “I’ll be back,” he said, as if it mattered. “It may take time. Maybe a week or more.”
“You be careful of those Toledo blondes,” she said, smiling up at him. “I don’t know if I should trust you that far away from home.”
Trust me! he thought bitterly. You don’t know if you can trust me? He tried a laugh on, just to see if it would lit, and when it didn’t, he turned and walked quickly from the house to the oar. There was a harsh bitter nip of Fall in the air. The breaths he took crackled in his lungs and reminded him of football games and the sharp clean tang of mustard on hot-dogs and the closeness and warmth Eva had been to him then, before Harvey joined the firm and began his series of weekly visits, finally moving into the house next door. Pomfret almost tore the transmission out of the car getting it into second gear. As he passed Harvey’s house he saw the shadow of Harvey’s bulk against the windowshades, and he knew that before he reached the corner the big eager man would be sneaking slyly through the gate in the hedge to where Eva waited for him. He put the car into high gear and went down the street and turned the corner, out of sight.
Harvey grinned. He had a good-natured, boyish grin that worked well with some types of women. He stood in the middle of Joe Pomfret’s living room, staring at Joe Pomfret’s wife. There was sweat on his face. He said, “Look, from now on, it’s so much velvet, Ev. Everything’s going to be okay. It’ll all be over soon.”
He walked over to the table and spun a pack of cigarettes so that one flipped out. This he tapped on the table and put in his mouth. He picked up the bronze lighter and held it in his hand. “Neat little gadget,” he said, making his voice loud, as if to drown out his own thoughts and the ones in Eva’s mind. “Where’d you get it?”
She sat tensely on the edge of the studio couch, staring at her hands. The whip in his voice brought her head up and she glanced at the lighter, then shrugged impatiently. “I don’t know. Joe, I guess. He’s always bringing something home.” She wet her lips. “When, Harv? How long will it be?”