The E. Hoffmann Price Spice Adventure MEGAPACK ™

by Price, E. Hoffmann

  Bud Worley’s mob operated on Sacramento Street, just on the fringe of Chinatown. Behind the old gray building on the corner was a tangle of ancient alleys, and a fantastic huddle of old houses that offered an unlimited assortment of approaches and getaways. And on all sides were the hangouts of the junk peddlers, white and Chinese, who have infested that glamorous district since San Francisco became world famous for its Barbary Coast.

  A wizened derelict shuffled up the steep street that led from the Embarcadero. His suit had not been cleaned for years. He was a Skid Row bum outwardly, but there was a purpose behind the furtive movements that took him across the street and into a dingy alley below the neon lights that emblazed the main stem of Chinatown.

  He crept down the odorous gloom. Smuggled aliens were crammed in some of those foul warrens. In others, broken-down harlots made their last stand. Furtive pimps crouched in dark doorways. This was the sodden end of the trail that began in the glittering hot spots on Powell and Mason streets, or the gilded brothels disguised as fashionable apartments not many blocks distant.

  They lived for their junk. The need was so great that Bud Worley had a bigtime rival and countless minor competitors. There was Smoke Keenan, the ex-pug. He might have been a success, had he not kicked the gong himself at times. Not often, but once is too much.…

  It was one of Keenan’s men who catfooted down the alley. Irish Annie used a lot of the stuff, and so did her customers.

  “Wait a minute, buddy!” rasped a hoarse voice. A man emerged from the shadow of a pilaster. He snatched the bum’s collar. “Hold it!”

  The junk runner snarled. A skinny hand came out with a knife. Another man bounded from across the alley.

  “Let him have it, Spike!”

  The runner’s yell was cut short. A length of armored cable crunched down on his skull. He collapsed. The two dark figures rolled him against the wall. They squatted; Spike kept watch while his partner went through the dead man’s pockets.

  “Uhuh. Loaded with it.”

  “Take it?”

  “No. Scatter it. Teach these bastards a lesson. Maybe they’ll quit working for Keenan.”

  Later, the cops of the Chinatown squad found a bum with a crushed skull. Packets of snow, and several tins of opium were half trampled in the grime.

  “Maher,” said the patrolman to the sergeant, “when the hell they going to clamp down on that lousy Keenan? This is the brand he peddles.”

  The sergeant snorted. Busting rackets is no harness-bull’s job. A pavement pounder might as well learn that now as later.

  “One of Worley’s mugs done it, I guess,” he said. “But what the hell, Barney? We ain’t paid to make bum guesses. Not until a war pops up. Then maybe something’ll be done about it. When it gets to be a big stink.”

  Later, Spike and his partner were entering a side door of the gray house on Sacramento Street. They found Bud Worley in a room whose ornate luxury was a glittering contrast to the dingy exterior.

  He was dark and handsome, except for eyes set too close together; a suave, sleek fellow in costly imported worsteds.

  “Hi, Spike! How she going, Benny?” He thrust a humidor toward his grim-jawed sluggers. “Luck?”

  “Uhuh. Number ten conked,” Benny reported. “But listen, chief. We been going strong. Cripes, I don’t mind working. A guy’s got to eat. But we been overdoing it, and Keenan’s getting sore enough to blow the lid off.”

  Sitting somewhat apart from his chief, Rod Northup had been watching, stroking his straw-colored moustache. He looked like a collegian who ought to sell bonds. Thus far he had said nothing.

  “Let him fight if he’s got guts!” grinned Worley. “You mugs aren’t paid to think. Or you’d starve.”

  “I don’t know, Bud,” interposed Northup. “Just so much of that, and the cops can’t keep on reporting ‘John Doe Number So-and-So, fractured skull sustained as result of fall while intoxicated.’ And a war’ll raise hell.”

  Worley smiled amiably. He always did, particularly when doing a fine piece of shooting. He was so proud of his marksmanship that he often took needless risks to prove that he was the best gunner as well as the best organizer in the racket.

  “Well…why not?” he drawled. “Raise some hell. If Keenan ever pokes his nose out of that armored shack, I’ll snipe it off myself.”

  A long-barrelled revolver blossomed like magic from the tailored coat that disguised its bulk. He scorned automatics; a double action Colt was the thing. As he spoke, he abstractedly dropped it into line as though to shoot the wart off Spike’s chin.

  “Uhuh, I’ll cut the son down myself. Think I can’t, Rod?”

  Northup shrugged. “Sure you can. But for hell’s sweet sake, don’t. Live and let live. There’s enough for all.” He reached for a pearl-gray hat, carefully slicked back his wavy hair. “Be seeing you, Bud.”

  Northup reeked of hair tonic and shaving lotion. Worley chuckled, “You’re too damn handsome to live, Rod. Cheating on Mae again, huh?”

  “Nix, nix!” he protested, pretending horror. “Hell, don’t a guy have to have a bit of fun?”

  Worley straightened up, still smiling. But something about his expression made the two sluggers exchange glances.

  “You better stick to blondes, Rod. Just a friendly tip.”

  Rod Northup pulled a long face. “What’s the matter with Dora?”

  “I don’t say anything’s the matter. I just got a sneaking hunch she’s played around with one of Keenan’s gang. I don’t think she’s on the level.”

  “Oh, all right, all right,” conceded Rod. But as he headed for the door, he was adjusting his tie.

  “Jeez,” muttered Spike, as the door closed, “you think he’s dumb enough to play with a frill like that—”

  “Shut up!” snapped Worley. “Rod’s all right. He ain’t dumb. Now beat it, the two of you.”

  “Okay, okay!” Benny echoed Spike’s assent, and they both left.

  For a long time, Worley sat there, smoking monogrammed cigarettes. He knew better; a fellow never could entirely guard against absent-mindedly discarding an initialled butt in the wrong place, but he liked to flaunt handmade Turkish smokes that cost a dollar and a quarter for a small pack.

  Finally, he dialed a number. A woman answered. Worley recognized the brittle voice and said, “Hi, Mae. How about speaking to Rod?”

  “I don’t know where the dirty so-and-so is!” she snapped and hung up.

  Worley smiled quizzically and studied the ascending smoke from his cigarette. Rod and women just didn’t mix right. Suppose Mae got jealous and ratted? He uncoiled his lithe length and went to a lacquered cabinet a Chinese hop distributor had given him. From it he took a small ivory-mounted automatic, which he slipped into his vest pocket.

  Then he put on a dark hat, a brand new pair of rubber-soled shoes, and a cheap, dark coat. He left by a concealed panel that opened into a passage from which he finally emerged in the center of the block. Dense shadows concealed him until he reached an alley.

  Worley was worried. Rod and his floozies.… Rod could do with a lesson…but Rod was too well liked by the mob.… Worley frowned.…

  * * * *

  Dora Slavich’s apartment was neat, but very simple. Yet Dora radiated glamor. Somehow, her dark beauty made Rod Northup think of Persian gardens, tropical beaches, birds of paradise. When a Slavonian girl starts out to be lovely, she makes a job of it. Many have coarse features, square hips, stocky figures—but Dora was just right that way.

  And in every way. The natural flush of her olive-tinted skin scarcely needed makeup. Her great dark eyes were pools of mystery; long lashes shaded them just enough to keep Rod searching their depths as she sank back among the cushions, breathless from the kiss that still made a passion flower of her generous mouth.

&
nbsp; “Rod, darling,” she murmured, “I’ve trusted you a lot, haven’t I?”

  “Isn’t that a question!”

  His glance traveled caressingly along the lovely body that smiled through a low-yoked nightgown of coral crepe. She had her fingers laced beneath her lustrous black waves; and leaning back among the cushions threw her breast into luxurious roundness. Northup bent over her, drew her close. He kissed her and thrilled to the convulsive pressure of her arms winding about his shoulders.

  “Don’t,” she gasped, trying to free herself from his embrace. “I’m not trusting you that far—I won’t—”

  He drew back, bewildered by her sudden coldness. Her eyes, her dress, her voice had all been subtle promises.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you’d quit Bud Worley,” she whispered. “Get into a safer racket. Make books. Or gamble in the Peninsula night clubs. Or something.”

  Rod dimly sensed that that was not exactly what she meant. She was leading up to worming out details of Worley’s operations. Maybe she had not really broken up with one of Keenan’s men. Maybe the bitter quarrel had been a stall. Maybe Worley was right.

  But Rod was a sucker for women. He had to have her. She reminded him of a bird of paradise. That didn’t make much sense, but it sounded as glamorous as Dora looked. An allure and a mystery veiled her sensuous body. Every curve was a promise of something that no other woman could give him.

  Hell, promise her anything!

  She was looking up at him with glowing eyes. “Will you? Really?”

  “Nuts for Worley!” he growled. “He don’t own me! I’m his brains.…”

  He was, in a way. But that night he was not using them. And Dora was too elated by her triumph to use hers. Between kisses, she was tricking him into boasting to prove that he really was Worley’s brain.

  She did not notice the flutter of a window drape, nor the sudden intrusion of chilly air. She was too close in Northup’s arms.

  Her scream startled Northup, but he had no chance to go for the gun that lay on the end table near the lounge.

  A dark man stood on the fire escape and shot across the sill. His glittering automatic reached far into the room. Its sound was small and dry and deadly, like the incredibly rapid snapping of sticks. Few men could accurately direct the fire of that short barrelled weapon, but this one did.

  Rod dropped, coughing blood; his feet drummed against the rug. Dora had not a chance. She tried to duck, but her trailing gown was entangled with a dead man. When she jerked clear, it was too late.

  The remaining four shots drilled her breast. Warm olive curves spurted red. She dropped, clawing at the lacy yoke. The silk crêpe was sticky. It clung to her flesh, and red froth gurgled from her gaping lips.

  The man in the dark hat wiped the nickeled gat, flung it into the soft glow of the floor lamp. Pools of blood slowly reached for it.

  “Just like I figured,” Bud Worley told himself as he retraced his steps. “One job no mug could do…but now that it’s done, I guess those skirt-chasing bastards will think twice.”

  They would. And Worley was right: this was one execution he had to do himself. Any torpedo who had killed Rod Northup would sooner or later brag about it. Bad stuff. But a mysterious death, like a mysterious woman, has a peculiar grip on the fancy.

  Later, the new shoes, the hat, and top coat were consumed in an incinerator. They were beyond tracing, and so was the gun.

  * * * *

  In another apartment, a blond woman in a sea-green slip lay sobbing into her pillow. Finally, she sat up, twisting a soaked handkerchief. Mae Allen’s blue eyes blazed venomously, and wrath hardened her lovely face.

  “God damn him, I’ll fix his black-haired tramp! I’ll claw him till he’ll stay home for a week!”

  She peeled out of her slip and stood for a moment before the mirror. A wisp of silk clung to her hips. A net brassiere outlined finely modelled curves. Her stomach was flat, and the flesh that blossomed from her hose-tops was firm and shapely.

  “I guess I’m not good enough…the lousy—!”

  When she emerged from the shower, she was clear eyed, glowing; she dressed carefully. Mae had lots of time. Her wrath strengthened her as it surged to white heat. Very deliberately, she went into the kitchenette.

  There she found a knife. It was flexible, and keen from long whetting against a steel. When that Slavonian floozie got patched together, she’d never look the same again. Nor would that two-timing Rod be so popular.

  She was guessing. But Mae knew as well as though she had seen him enter the apartment before whose door she stood, half an hour later. Whispers seeped through racketland.

  She listened at the door. It would take a murmured endearment to give her the last touch. She worked the beveled latch-tongue back with the flexible bladed knife.

  Simple trick, when people forgot to install bolt-latches.

  A half stifled moan made her blood boil. But when she slipped into the room, she saw that it was the last sigh of pain. Dora Slavich had crawled to the telephone. There she lay, eyes glassy, teeth exposed in a grimace that made her beautiful features a horrible mockery.

  Mae dropped the knife. For a moment she stood there, swaying. She was cold all over. Then she rushed toward Rod. Half way, she checked herself. He was all soaked with blood. She dared not touch him.

  She had seen the ejected .25 caliber cartridges and the tiny gun. The wounds on the lovers told her the story.

  Mae picked up the pistol and the knife she had dropped. She wiped the doorknob and jamb. With her handkerchief protecting her fingers, she closed the latch. And as the automatic elevator took her to the street level, she told herself what she had instinctively realized.

  “No common torpedo did that job.” She was dry-eyed, though grief choked her. New fury had blotted out all resentment against Rod and Dora. “Those dirty little guns aren’t worth a damn except right close up. And from the way they were lying, whoever drilled them began shooting before Rod could get his gat off the table.”

  That took an exceptionally good gunner. She remembered that phone call from Worley; smiling, affable Bud. It fitted, like that.

  So she shrugged, laughed bitterly when the racket captain called the next day to offer condolences.

  “Thanks, Bud. Sure, it kind of hurts, but he might of known one of Dora’s sweeties’d get hot about it.”

  Mae was certain that she had convinced Worley. As for the police hunting the murder weapon, as the papers claimed: she said, “That’s good, isn’t it? Funny they’re not checking up on Dora’s girl friend. The one that found the two of them dead.”

  So Bud assumed that the untraceable weapon had been stolen by someone who saw no reason for adding it to the police collection. A gun is a handy thing to have, but awkward to buy. Some foresighted person had just made the most of an easy chance.

  He was right, but he did not realize how literally true his careless disposal of that question was. He now had his mob scared into line. His laugh became more affable, and his discipline more rigid, all the way from ’Frisco to Calexico.…

  * * * *

  A week later, Leadfoot Johnson was again pulling up to Blaze’s filling station for fuel and a load of junk. He was on the second floor, putting the stuff into a container that would fit into the trick gas tank of his car.

  “Well, toots,” he said to Nita, “How’s Torres behaving these days?”

  “Damn nice,” growled Blaze.

  “I’d watch that greaser,” Leadfoot lowered his voice. “A spic with a grudge is poison. His connections across the line make him more valuable than you. If he takes a notion to get square, all he’s got to do is knife you to Worley.” To clinch that, he told of the mysterious death of Rod Northup and Dora Slavich. He concluded, “If you asked me, and if I was
telling you, I’d say Worley done it personally.”

  Nita shivered and drew her robe closer about her shoulders.

  Blaze snorted, “Don’t worry about us, Leadfoot. But what’s eatin’ at Worley? Going kill-crazy?”

  “Jitters. G-men sniffing around. You see, he’s getting too big. Blotting out Keenan’s junk peddlers made him an all-time big shot out here. The damn fool. And he knows it, only he’s stubborn.”

  “And smart enough to see his way clear, I guess,” Blaze somberly added, as he helped stow the contraband. “Keenan taking it lying down?”

  “He might as well,” Leadfoot carelessly flung over his shoulder. “So long folks. Be back tomorrow night.”

  When Blaze rejoined Nita, she snuggled close.

  “Darling,” she said, “it’s getting worse. Murdering his buddy on suspicion. God, if we could only take it on the lam.”

  “How far?” Brusque and bitter.

  Nita’s shoulders sagged. Her sigh seemed to deflate her lovely body. “Blaze, we’re just like in those old pictures in a book I saw once. Some Italian fellow wrote it. All about hell. Devils prodding people back into the fire.”

  She shuddered at the gruesome impression Dante’s classic had made. And she was right. They were indeed the hopelessly damned. Lost if they revolted. Lost as surely if they stayed. Northup’s fate clinched that.…

  * * * *

  Leadfoot Johnson loved his work. The deep-throated roar of the engine, the eerie whine of the supercharger, the whistle of tires: these were music to him. The money of it was nothing.

  He would as soon have hauled passengers, if he could have made cakes and eggs that way. His work made him forget he had been an also-ran on the big tracks. He was in a racket, but he was no mobster; just a racing driver who did an Indianapolis grind every other night. This was something Worley did not suspect.