Murder for Two

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Where’s the envelope, Perry?”

  “Where’s the girl? How do we know she’s all right,” Casey said.

  Harry backed to the door of the bedroom and opened it. “Say hello, sister. Tell ’em how you feel.”

  “Karen!” John Perry said. “Darling, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” the girl called. “Oh, yes, John.—John, what do they want? What have they done to you?”

  Perry couldn’t answer this. Emotion choked him and his quick sob was one of relief and gratitude. He forgot where he was and started for the bedroom and Harry reached out and spun him back.

  “The envelope, pal,” he said.

  Casey glanced back. Nossek had a gun in his hand now. Harry, still holding the front of Perry’s coat, motioned Mugsie to the bedroom door.

  “Here,” Perry said and yanked the envelope from his inside pocket. “Now let me see her.”

  “In a minute,” Harry said. “Sit down.” He gave Perry a push. “Go on now.”

  Perry did not seem to understand. “You got the envelope. What more do you want?” he said and started for the bedroom, his jaw set and fists clenched.

  Harry let him pass and then reached out and slapped him on the side of the head with the barrel of the gun. Casey stiffened. Nossek moved in front of him, the gun pointed right at Casey’s stomach.

  “Go ahead, tough guy. I wish you would.”

  Casey stopped and tried to put down the anger that had been suddenly fanned into a hot, corrosive blaze. He saw Perry put both hands to his head and double over as the pain hit him.

  “We want to see what’s in the envelope,” Harry said. “Now sit down before you get me sore.”

  Perry backed to a chair and sat down on the edge of it, still holding his head. Harry ripped open the envelope and thumbed unhurriedly through the papers there.

  “Bingo,” he said, and nodded to Nossek.

  He put the envelope in his pocket and took out a small length of sashcord. When he had fashioned a noose he stepped back to Perry and tapped the top of his head with the gun.

  “Put your hands out, pal.”

  Perry looked up. There was a tiny trickle of blood on his ear and his teeth were clenched. Then Casey saw he wasn’t going to obey and spoke up:

  “You’d better do what he wants.”

  Perry looked at him.

  “Or shall we lay you out first?” Harry said.

  Perry held out his hands and watched despondently as the loop tightened about his wrists. Harry took two more turns and put a half-hitch in the end. He pulled the youth to his feet, unfastened his belt, and pulled it from its loops, spinning Perry as it came free.

  “Now down on the floor,” he ordered.

  By this time Casey knew there would be no chance for him. Resentment still churned inside him, but he could see what the score was and was not surprised. He had known he could take no chance with Karen Harding’s safety and he had come simply because he wanted to be sure Perry wasn’t tricked. What was happening now was to be expected.

  Nossek and Harry had the envelope, which was what they were hired to get, and they had planned well. They were tying up Perry and they would do the same thing to him so that there could be no possibility of pursuit. By the time he or Perry could get to a telephone it would be too late, and the fact that Karen Harding answered but made no attempt to come out of the bedroom suggested that she too had been bound, to a chair, probably, or the bed. He watched Harry secure Perry’s ankles with the belt.

  “I’m sorry about the envelope, Johnnie,” he said.

  “Flash!” It was Karen Harding. “Flash! Is that you? How did you get here?”

  “He came along for the ride,” Nossek said, “and now he’s going to get it. Mugsie! Come on, Harry, give him a hand.”

  Harry had put his gun away. He gave Nossek a knowing glance and moved up with Mugsie. Casey stood there, his eyes on the gun in Nossek’s hand, knowing it was no good to put up a scrap now. Without that gun the odds would be tough but not unbeatable; the way things were he was out of his class and he knew it. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that he had accomplished what he came for. The girl was all right. Perry had lost the envelope but that couldn’t be helped.

  He watched Mugsie and Harry come up on either side of him. Each took one of his arms in both of their hands and he kept his muscles loose and waited for Nossek to get out the rope or tape or whatever it was he was going to use.

  The big blond was grinning now, his lips flat against his crooked teeth. Casey didn’t like the grin. Nossek was pretty pleased with himself but that grin looked vicious.

  “So you’re a tough guy,” he said to Casey. “You had to come along to prove it, huh?” He was moving slowly, his feet flat against the rug. “Well, I eat tough guys. How tough are you, anyway?” he said and chopped abruptly with his left fist.

  It was too late when Casey saw the blow coming. He could move his head a little and he did, just enough to save his front teeth. The fist hit him below the cheekbone and cut the inside of his mouth. His head snapped back and then he saw that Nossek was going to let him have it again.

  All that resentment and frustration had been building up in Casey for a long time. He had been bitter about his own inadequacy, but there had been nothing he could do about it and he had figured on taking his licking. Then in one short second all that was changed and no longer was he frustrated and bitter and resentful, but outraged and furious.

  It may have been the taste of blood in his mouth or the shock of the blow; it may have been the thought of the blows that were to come and his own helplessness, or perhaps it was just Nossek’s face with his sadistic grin and ugly, crooked teeth. Whatever the reason the dam of Casey’s self-control cracked wide and without knowing exactly what he was doing or even thinking that he might bring it off, he stepped back and kicked at the gun.

  It was a crazy idea and that may have helped. It caught Nossek flat-footed and the kick was good and the gun sailed end over end across the room.

  The rest of it was more or less automatic. With his rage driving him and all else forgotten save the grinning face in front of him, Casey bulged his shoulder muscles and in pulling back for the kick brought both arms across his body.

  Mugsie held on. So did Harry. But they weren’t as husky as Casey and they weren’t braced for any such move. Together they came off balance, swung forward, and slammed into each other, bumping heads and shoulders. As they hit, Casey jerked both arms and they came free and then, as nearly as a man might do two things at once, he shifted and swung two hard hooks, leaning with them, first left and then right, crossing them in front of him.

  The power in those hooks came all the way from his thighs. They didn’t have to travel far. The left hit Harry’s jaw knocking him backward and out of the way; and the right caught Mugsie flush on the button. Mugsie had never been hit like that in the ring. Mugsie went down as though his feet had been jerked from under him. He hit on his face and lay where he fell. And that left Nossek.

  It doesn’t take long to slam home a couple of hooks and Nossek couldn’t be blamed if he hadn’t been able to help. He’d felt the gun torn from his grasp and then Harry and Mugsie were in his way and now, a second later, they were on the floor.

  Casey stepped over Mugsie and moved in close. “All right,” he grunted, jabbing with his left. “Let’s see who’s tough and who ain’t.”

  Nossek took the jab and moved back. His pale eyes were still ugly but they had changed too. They weren’t gloating any more. They were wary and a little afraid as he set himself and swung his right.

  It was a Sunday punch and Casey, still moving, stepped inside and threw another left. Nossek’s head went back and he swung wildly and Casey took the punch on the side of his head, lowered his shoulders, and ripped a right and left wrist-deep into Nossek’s stomach.

  Nossek said, “Whoosh,” and gagged and bent over.

  Casey hit him on the chin. That put Nossek out but Casey did
n’t know it and he was still so mad he couldn’t think. And that was a mistake. He reached for Nossek to hold him up and someone yelled:

  “Casey!”

  The voice was high and there was fear and urgency and despair in it and Casey clung to Nossek and turned his head, his spine an icy column and his scalp tight.

  All he could see was Harry, and now he knew how stupid he had been, how unthinking his rage. For Harry was sit ting up, his brows a black twisted line above his nose, and he had that automatic almost level.

  Casey had a lot of muscle packing his big frame and he used it all in one last, instinctive effort, desperation taking the place of his anger. Still with that good hold on Nossek, he pivoted. With the last fiber of his strength he pulled the man across him and grabbed with the other hand to hold him there.

  He was still moving when the gun hammered at his ears. Nossek’s torso jerked. There was a quick, sharp shock, as though Casey himself had been hit, and as the jolt passed, Nossek was still. Then, as Casey tried to hold that dead weight in front of him, a second report slammed through the room and the smell of powder was in the back of his throat and he wondered why he felt nothing, why there had been no second jolt.

  He felt the man slip from his sweaty hands and tried to hoist him again. He heard something thud to the floor. Someone cursed softly and it was Harry and he had tipped over sideways and was trying to reach for his fallen gun with his left hand.

  Casey dropped Nossek and jumped. He knocked Harry sideways and scooped up the gun; then, straightening and trying to get his breath, he saw John Perry. Flat on his stomach, his elbows braced, the gun that Casey had kicked away from Nossek in his bound hands. He was still watching Harry.

  Casey looked down at the gun he had and now his fingers were trembling as reaction hit him. He tried to speak and had to swallow to clear his throat. He was still breathing hard and his shirt was soaked and clinging to his back and only now did he begin to feel scared, to see what a fool he had been. Karen Harding’s voice, crying out from the bedroom, pulled his thoughts back to the moment.

  “John. John!”

  There was terror in that voice and a note of panic. Casey looked at Perry and Perry looked at him and his face was white and sick. He tried to speak but no words came.

  “Answer me, John! Flash—”

  “He’s all right,” Casey called. “We’re both all right.”

  “Oh,” the girl said. “Oh—”

  “Be with you in a minute.” Casey put the gun in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said to John Perry. “I guess this is my lucky day.”

  “He would have killed you,” Perry said, the sickness still upon his face.

  “Yeah,” Casey said. “He sure as hell would.” He stepped to Harry, who was sitting up now, glowering and holding his upper arm with his left hand.

  “You bastard!” he said. “You lucky bastard!”

  “That’s what everybody says,” Casey said, and reached down and pulled the envelope from inside the man’s coat.

  He put it in his pocket and went to John Perry. It took but seconds to get the belt off his feet, another half minute to release the hands. He was going to tell the other to go get the girl and then he thought it would be better if he did it himself. He glanced about, saw that Mugsie was pushing himself to a sitting position.

  “Watch them,” he told Perry, “and don’t be scared to pull that trigger again.”

  Karen Harding, fully dressed except for shoes, lay flat on the bed. Her ankles had been bound by a towel, her wrists were tightly taped, and a length of rope had been passed around and under the bed, crossing just below her shoulders so that she could not sit up or lift her arms.

  Casey made himself grin. He pretended he didn’t see the frightened eyes, the strained, white mouth.

  “Hi, chicken,” he said. “Everything’s okay. If I let you up, will you behave?”

  That approach helped. “Oh, Flash,” she said. “Is John—”

  “John is very busy,” Casey said and got out his pocket knife.

  He cut the rope first and it fell off and she sat up. He untied the towel and when he took it off she was going after the tape on her wrists with her teeth. When he saw that she had already started an inch or so of the bandage he asked her if she wanted him to cut it off or unwind it.

  “Unwind it,” she said, and Casey did, freeing the last few inches with one good jerk. “There.—Now wait a minute,” he added when she started to stand up. “Hadn’t you better go in the bathroom and fix yourself up a little?”

  “But—” She looked at him uncertainly and he kept grinning.

  “John’ll be in here just as soon as I phone the lieutenant. You can’t go out there now and he can’t come in until I relieve him, so you might just as well—”

  She had started for the doorway to the living-room and he put out his hand and stopped her. “Not now,” he said. “We had a little trouble.”

  She watched him, a frown sliding over her young face, and erasing some of her concern. When she saw he wasn’t going to let her out, she turned toward the bath.

  “All right,” she said.

  Casey leaned toward the bedside table and picked up the telephone.

  “Where are you?” Logan asked a few seconds later.

  Casey told him. He said that Logan had better bring a couple of men and an extra car, and not to forget the ambulance.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  JUST BECAUSE IT’S EASY

  LIEUTENANT LOGAN didn’t ask for many details until after he had taken care of the more pressing matters. Harry, whose arm wound was not serious, had been hustled off to the receiving-station under police guard; Nossek, with Harry’s slug in his back, had been rushed to City Hospital in a serious condition. Mugsie, a little stunned by the whole thing but none the worse for wear, waited outside in a police car, and now Logan got the complete story from Casey and Karen Harding.

  “What did I tell you?” he said finally.

  “You told me lots of things,” Casey said.

  “With that luck of yours I could sneak into Germany and take Hitler single-handed.”

  Casey grinned at him. “You’re jealous.”

  “You can say that again too.”

  “Just because I figured this thing out—”

  “You figured it back there at Perry’s place, yes. And you did all right too. Only when you have a guy on each arm and one of the toughest thugs in Jersey in front of you with a gun in his hand—”

  “I was mad,” Casey said. “Nossek made me sore.”

  Logan shook his head sadly. He looked at Perry and Karen Harding and spread his hands.

  “I ask you,” he said. “They made him mad.”

  “Well, they did.”

  “That was a mistake,” Logan said. “That I admit. It was a tactical error. But if it hadn’t been for that fool luck, if it hadn’t been for Perry here, you’d be right where Nossek is—or maybe in the morgue.—Well, there’s no use going into that. Let’s see what’s in the envelope.”

  Perry passed it over. He was sitting on the arm of Karen Harding’s chair, one arm lightly on her shoulder and her hand in his. He didn’t look tired any more, nor defeated nor hopeless. He didn’t even look pale.

  “Casey isn’t the only one who was lucky,” he said. “Byrkman saved just about everything.”

  Casey sat down on the davenport beside Logan. Perry had told him what was in the envelope but he hadn’t actually seen the proof. Now he saw that there was a two-page typewritten letter with Byrkman’s signature on the bottom of the second page, and an agreement signed by Matt Lawson and John Perry and dated nearly sixteen months ago. The agreement made the whole thing pretty clear, for in this contract it was stated that John Perry was to receive fifty percent of all royalties on his Everflow formula.

  The letter itself rounded out the picture. Casey skipped the introductory paragraph and got to the part that interested him.

  … Mr. Lawson promised to pay me three hundred a mo
nth if I would make out the two sets of contracts with different terms and help switch them on Mr. Perry. But knowing Mr. Lawson, it seemed best to be sure he carried out his promise and so while he was saying good-by to Mr. Perry I took the contracts into my office and put the one Mr. Perry thought he was signing into my desk, telling Mr. Lawson that I had destroyed it.… Mr. Perry should never have gone to prison. It was Mr. Lawson who made the assault. He said he’d break every bone in Mr. Perry’s body if he ever made trouble, and when Mr. Perry wouldn’t leave Mr. Lawson knocked him down twice and kicked him …

  “So,” Logan said and glanced over at Perry. “That assault business was the way you said it was.”

  “And he’ll get a pardon?” Karen Harding said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Logan said, “but if you want my guess, I’d say he would.”

  “Turn the page,” Casey said.

  “Have patience, my son,” Logan said and turned to the second page of the statement.

  About a month after I had left Mr. Lawson certain things happened that made me realize that I should take steps to protect myself and that is the reason for this letter. I intend to go to Morris Loeb, the lawyer who has drawn up my will, and give him an envelope containing the copy of the contract and this statement. I will tell him that it is to be kept in his safe and delivered immediately upon my death, regardless of the cause.

  I realize that this is a bad way of righting the wrong I am guilty of. There’s no backing out now and this is merely my protection. The next time Mr. Lawson threatens I shall tell him of this envelope. Should he be responsible for my death or disappearance, he will be exposed …

  Logan folded the papers and put them back in the envelope. “I’ll keep this a few days. This is evidence.”

  “I wish you would,” John Perry said.

  “And how do you stand with Lawson now?” Casey wanted to know.

  Logan rose, pocketing the envelope. He rubbed his hands and tipped his head slightly, looking down his nose at Casey.

  “One thing about this business, when the breaks begin to come we sometimes get them good. I told you about the bellboy that had seen Lawson go into the hotel and leave a few minutes later. Well, Mr. Lawson came back after that.”