E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Here it is!” exclaimed Slade, after five minutes of digging. He jerked a carbon copy from the center drawer. “A letter to the surety company that bonded the contract, telling them to pay off on account of the fraud. In other words, Union Wood Products is sunk—the bonding company’ll burn ’em alive and—”

  And then things happened in a dizzying blur of split second ac­tion. A click, and the faint screech of a hinge. Nancy’s scream. Slade whirling. The blast of a pistol, and the searing scorch of lead. A stocky, red faced man, automatic in hand, standing in the threshold. The killer had come back for the carbon copy of Jim’s report.

  Slade ducked as the pistol again jetted flame. Something hit him in the shoulder like a sledgeham­mer. Nancy hurled a filing basket.

  As the third shot blasted the plaster from the wall, Slade recov­ered and crashed home, driving the enemy into a corner. But he was dizzy from pain and the loss of blood, and the red-faced man was desperate. He felt his strength slipping.

  Another pistol blast. As Slade forced himself to a final effort, he saw Nancy sink into a chair, clutch­ing the red stain that blossomed from her side.

  Slade’s fingers closed on the armed wrist just in time to deflect the descending barrel He wrench­ed, and hammered home with his free fist. Red Face’s head snapped back. He was out cold.

  “Oh, Dan—!”

  Valene’s voice. She had arrived at the height of the party.

  Slade staggered to his feet. Va­lene’s face was pale and her eyes blazing. She dropped the smoking stand which she had picked up just too late to brain Red Face.

  “I’m all right,” said Nancy, pulling herself out of her chair. “That shot just raked me—Oh, you’re bleeding!”

  “Nuts!” grumbled Slade. He picked up the keys that Red Face had dropped at the threshold: Tilford’s missing ring. And then the police followed the janitor into the office. Slade eyed Valene, and con­centrated on Wolmanized wood.

  “Damn’ near a hundred thou­sand graft. This buzzard tried to beg off, but Jim couldn’t give him a break. Finally he sat down and wrote the letter to the bonding com­pany himself, to keep the mess strictly private in case he relented.

  “Put off mailing it, hating to sink the fellow, even though he had pulled a fast one. And that cost Jim his life. That’s what I make of it,” he concluded.

  “Now if you want to check his finger-prints and see if he tinkered with that self luminous highway marker, go to it. But his coming up here with Jim’s missing keys is enough.”

  And that held the police. Before Red Face recovered, he was getting more from the cops.

  There was a three cornered ex­change of glances as Tilford’s friend and two widows stepped to the hall.

  “I guess we’d better get patched up a bit,” was Slade’s suggestion.

  Nancy’s glance was curious as she said, “I’ll call a cab, Dan. It was only a scratch. You take care of Mrs. Tilford.”

  Then a brief, deadly crossfire as blue eyes clashed with black.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” asked Slade, as Valene caught his arm.

  “I knew you’d end up here, prob­ably with her keys,” said Valene. “So I came up—to tell you—you wouldn’t listen—that Jim and I wrote that note. He knew he couldn’t give me to you. Even if we broke, you’d steer clear of me, just for the looks of things.

  “So he faked that message to catch us at it and make you like it. And to give Nancy a break. Jim knew you really liked me a lot.”

  And that was a lot for Slade to digest at one bite. He shot a long look at Nancy, then said to Valene, “Once the doc picks the lead out of my frame, you and I are going home—to give me a chance to find out what it’s like with a clear con­science!”

  NIGHT IN MANILA

  Originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, Oct. 1935.

  The broad-shouldered American who lolled in his chair and stared somberly at the colorful whirl of dancers in the ballroom of Chow Kit’s cabaret was still sober, though he had spent all evening challenging native liq­uor to do its worst. His white duck suit was still neat, and he was clean-shaven, but his craggy, bronzed face was drawn and deeply lined, and his blue eyes were haggard.

  Lieutenant Dan Slade, posing as a dis­honorably discharged soldier, had come to Manila to find out how Datu Ali, the Moro rebel down in Jolo, was getting United States government ammunition.

  Chow Kit was the answer: but try and prove it. His fleet of inter-island trad­ing boats had a dozen times been searched for contraband, but in vain. The only remaining move was to get the low down on that crafty Chinaman by a flank attack directed through the chain of dance halls and bawdy houses that made him wealthier every day.

  Slade spat disgustedly as he saw Chow Kit emerge from the private office of the cabaret. Suave, immaculate in a shan­tung suit, his slanted eyes inscrutable as the moonstones that gleamed in the only ring that adorned his long-nailed, thin hands. The Chinaman was sizing up the colorful whirl of bailarinas whisked about the pavilion by dancing soldiers, sailors, and white civilians.

  Exotic girls of every shade from wal­nut to old ivory. Malay, Japanese, Chi­nese; Eurasians, and mestizas whose touch of Spanish blood gave them an in­flaming glamour that no white woman can have. Those girls had the inside rumors of Manila—but try to get at the truth behind their dance hall smiles!

  Chow Kit, seeing that business was good, turned back to his office, leaving Slade to continue pondering on a bed­room and bottle approach to of government ammunition.

  Presently the office door again opened. The gift who emerged could have no more than a drop of Malay blood. The slant of her dark eyes was scarcely perceptible, and the faint flare of her delicate nostrils was just enough to be exotic. And as she picked her way to a table near Slade’s, the Ameri­can sensed that he was getting a break. She had the run of Chow Kit’s office, and she might warm up to a white man, and tell him things.

  Bell shaped sleeves, and a scarf of in­credibly fine piña cloth about her shapely shoulders, and the tall, glistening combs that adorned her high piled, blue black hair gave an oddly foreign touch to the apricot satin of an evening gown, cut low in front, and lower in back. And the piña scarf cast a tantalizing mist about the warm, firm curves that smiled at Slade as she reached across her table for a match.

  His glance shifted from the pert breasts that rounded out the shimmer­ing bodice, lingered along the inviting curve of her waist and the blossoming richness of her sleek hips.

  “Let’s dance, chiquita,” he proposed as he caught her hand.

  Agata Moreno’s clinging, supple curves aroused more than Slade’s hope of information. At the end of the dance, as she headed for her table, he coun­tered, “Nuts on that notion! Let’s go home and talk—”

  “About how nice a shack we can keep on thirty pesos a month?” mocked Agata in English almost devoid of accent. “Don’t be stupid, Dan.”

  “Thirty pesos, hell! Wait till I fell you who I am, and then we’ll get your suitcase and spend a week or two in Baguio.”

  Slade, short circuiting all arguments, headed Agata toward one of the square, bamboo houses on the main street of the village just off Paranaque Road. They’re primitive things, these nipa shacks, with floors of split bamboo. The cracks between the slats made plumbing unneces­sary, and they’re high enough up on stilts to give a free range to the scaveng­ing pigs and chickens. Agata’s shack, however, was ritzy. She had wicker furniture, and an American style bed in­stead of a grass mat.

  Agata’s eyes narrowed speculatively as she regarded him for a moment. Then she said, “Let’s not talk about Baguio. Why don’t you go back to the States?”

  His story had spread. She was sorry for him.

  “To hell with the States! Not after the deal I got. Just pure luck I didn’t get three years and a kick, instead of a straight bobtail. So I’m staying. From
now on.”

  In the Islands, jobs for white men are as scarce as bailarinas who can say no. A nipa shack and a Tagalog girl to hustle the groceries is the only career left to a white drifter. Slade was paving the way for someone to hint that a rebel­lious Moro datu down in Jolo could use desperate American renegades as well as stolen ammunition.

  Agata’s dark eyes were troubled. She was white enough to sympathize with the American outcast in a way no native woman could. Which made her valu­able.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she whispered as she seated herself on the arm of his chair. “Go back. While you can.”

  “Go back with me?” proposed Slade.

  Her brows rose, but her smile contra­dicted the shake of her head.

  “Sure you’ll go,” Slade urged. “As soon as I can raise enough money for the two of us to travel.”

  And that was an offer that few mes­tizas can decline, coming from a white man, even if he is a renegade.

  Agata’s smile was becoming more per­sonal, but she hesitated.

  “We’ll get married,” he added. That was the ultimate bait. And the only way a bobtailed soldier could raise transpor­tation across the Pacific would be in some illicit enterprise. She’d talk to Chow Kit, now. “How about it?”

  And before Agata could answer, Slade’s arms closed about her. Despite her parrying gesture, he found her un­willing lips. Unwilling—but only for a moment. She broke away, but only to be drawn closer, to have her mouth seared anew by that savage kiss.

  Agata was a fragrant armful, and as Slade’s embrace tightened about her, he forgot that he was searching for infor­mation. Her slender hands clawed at his face, but he evaded their attack, kissing her throat and shapely shoulders; and as he shifted back again to her crim­son lips, she no longer struggled, but clung to him. Each supple, rounded curve was quivering, and as one hand probed the sleek folds of the apricot satin skirt that was working its way over her knees, Agata shuddered, and sighed luxuriously.

  Slade broke away long enough to catch a fresh breath, but her questing lips fol­lowed his.

  “Don’t! Not tonight,” she begged; but her dark eyes were misty with prom­ise. “And not here. Stay away from here, Dan! It’s dangerous.”

  Still holding Agata in his arms, Slade emerged from the wicker chair and headed for the further room, where a whirring electric fan was spraying a cool breeze across an acre of white counterpane.

  “What are you afraid of?” Slade re­torted, striding towards the threshold.

  “Chow Kit,” she tremulously whis­pered. “He’s been making a play for me ever since I came here. I just about convinced him that I do nothing but dance—but if he suspects—oh, don’t you see, I won’t be able to stall him off any longer—I’ll have to leave here—he’ll kill me—and you—”

  That rang true; which made Agata all the more worth a play. But as Slade barged across the threshold with his clinging, quivering armful, the mu­nitions situation in Jolo became quite unimportant.

  “Don’t…you’ll get my dress all rumpled up…”

  Well, that might arouse Chow Kit’s suspicions. Slade’s embrace relaxed.

  And then Agata let out a yeep that shook the nipa thatch. The sudden flurry of arms and legs caught Slade off balance and the treacherous footing of bamboo slats did the rest. He clutched at empty air and crashed to the floor. As he gained his knees, he saw the cause of Agata’s sudden alarm: not Chow Kit but a bronzed American with shoulders as broad as a box car and a face like Gibraltar on a stormy night.

  One glimpse of Agata’s dismayed rec­ognition and the newcomer’s wrathful amazement told Slade that Granite Face was very much at home in that shack. Nor was there any time to spring the one about waiting for a street car; not after the ankle-to-hip display of ivory tinted flesh that had greeted him as he reached the threshold.

  Granite Face crossed the room like a carabao charging through a cane brake. Slade escaped utter demolition by flinging himself clear of a devastating fist that would have lifted him through the roof.

  Sock!—Slade’s return bombardment. The explosion caught Granite Face like a pile driver, but it was like spraying a roman candle against the side of a bat­tleship. They closed in as Agata, get­ting her legs, the counterpane, her streaming hair and other odds and ends untangled, gained the floor on the far side of her bed.

  It looked as though she was scream­ing, but Slade couldn’t hear. A sizzling hook had turned his head into some­thing that sounded like a dozen cathedral bells shaken up in a basket; and the stranger’s wrathful words were like thunder out beyond Corregidor, only louder and dirtier. Slade, lighter, was quicker on his feet; but his efforts were as useful as assault and battery against a locomotive.

  The nipa shack now resembled the center of a China Sea typhoon, a roar­ing confusion with sound effects by Agata and the splintering furniture. They clashed in a savage clinch that ended in a power dive that carried them both under the table. They emerged, whirling. Then Slade broke clear, bounded back, side stepped, and gained enough space to time the bailarina’s jealous lover.

  Smack! Granite Face took it, but it knocked him boarey-eyed and loop-legged. Slade followed through, fists hammering. Another concussion. For an instant the iron man looked silly. Slade’s guard lowered. And that was a mistake. The refreshing pause was just long enough to let the enemy decide that swapping punches was an error. He recovered and flashed from a crouch. It was like feeding time at the zoo, with Slade at the receiving end.

  The world became a blurr of bamboo slats, overturned furniture, nipa thatched ceiling, and Agata’s bare legs viewed from the oddest angles…and then the room began blackening; but Slade’s muscles still worked, though with a blind, instinctive stubbornness. He relaxed, absorbed a crushing punch, then got his hold. It was good. Granite Face cata­pulted half way across the room. Slade followed through—but so did Agata.

  The three met in one spot Something sizzled past Slade’s ear as he plunged forward to finish Granite Face. It smashed down on his shoulder, numbing him to his ankles. Agata, swinging the standard of a floor lamp, had missed her aim—and her boyfriend got the works.

  The bailarina knelt for a moment be­side her victim in error, then dashed in­to the other room to get water. Slade retrieved a cigarette case and wallet, au­tomatically thrust them into his pocket.

  Then he saw the fun was just begin­ning.

  Half a dozen brown men came swarm­ing up the veranda stairs and into the living room. Tagalog bouncers, drawn from the dance hall by the riot. At their heels was Chow Kit, narrowed eyes flashing from Slade’s battered face and torn tropicals to Agata’s streaming hair and rumpled gown. He chuckled silkily as she started, yeeped, and dropped the tumbler she was filling. The shock troops charged, clubs and bolos flailing.

  Slade snatched a chair and slashed out at the advance guard, but the short, broad blades and pounding staves were too much for one man so near the end of his strength. He was forced back, raked and battered. They were now flanking him right and left. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Agata’s hand—but he had no time to wonder what her contribution would be this time.

  It looked like payday on Paranaque Road—

  And then the lights flickered out. Slade, milling the splintered remains of the chair, ploughed through the enemy’s line. A long bound carried him to the veranda; and another flung him clear of the pack. He landed in a heap at the foot of the compound palisade, stum­bled over a stray pig, and headed east. Native legs were not long enough to break his lead. As he reached the high­way that led toward the Walled City, a grin crinkled his battered face.

  For some reason, Agata had given him a break.

  Nearing Cuartel d’Espana, he hailed a Red Diamond. As he board­ed the cab, he fumbled for his wallet. He drew two from his pocket. For a moment he was perplexed; then he un­derstood.

  The extra it
em was Granite Face’s roll.

  Slade went through the contents. The wallet belonged to Captain Rupert Dwyer, Post Quartermaster at Fort McKinley. He had charge of enough am­munition to equip a datu’s army. Lord knows how many thousand rounds were stored at McKinley for the coming tar­get season.

  It proved nothing, but it was a strong hint.

  And one card among the others that filled a compartment of that wallet up­holstered with five hundred peso notes seconded the growing conviction that Captain Dwyer was not entirely what a well-regulated officer should be. “Nomura-ro” was engraved across the center of the card. Beneath it was a street address. At one end was a col­umn of Japanese, and in a corner were the words, “Shigashi San—O Shoku Kabu.”

  Nomura-ro was the name of the last word in aristocratic brothels; and Shi­gashi San was the lady who had given the captain that card. The words that followed her name indicated that she was the reigning beauty of the house.

  Such luxury might not be beyond the means of a captain, but Slade’s suspi­cions became more pointed as he recol­lected that the Nomura-ro belonged to Chow Kit; that it catered to the wealth­iest sports of Manila; and that a patron who had established himself followed the oriental custom of running a charge ac­count.

  What an officer does with his spare time is his own business; but once his taste for Asiatic diversions became noised about in the somewhat strait-laced military circles, it would be some­what too bad. Evidence of indebtedness to Chow Kit would be more than enough to finish his career.

  Chow Kit could thus demand govern­ment munitions as the price of discre­tion.

  All this flashed through Slade’s mind as he stepped into his room and set to work obliterating the marks of bat­tle.

  An hour later he was presentable. And Shigashi San’s card, being unmarked by any handwriting, would get him an audi­ence with the lady without arousing sus­picion as to his right to be received. She wouldn’t scratch or scream, and she’d know plenty about Captain Dwyer.