The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s & '40s

by Otto Penzler

  “Yes,” was the best I could answer. Damn it all, was I getting nerves? Was I still listening for the sharp report that would tell me The Flame was— But I pulled myself together and looked hard at O’Rourke.

  “Don’t put a tail on me tonight,” I said.

  “No.” He seemed to think, and then, “No, I won’t. But remember what I said about the district attorney himself not getting out of here tonight without my Okay.” And raising his voice as he walked with me to the stairs, “Brophey, see Williams to the corner and let him ride—alone.”

  I chewed over O’Rourke’s last crack about the district attorney not getting out. I didn’t get it then, unless—unless—. But certainly, after the cards O’Rourke and I had dealt each other over the years, he couldn’t distrust me. As to holding out on him, he couldn’t resent that. It had been our way of playing the game, always. If you don’t talk to any one, you can’t suspect any one of giving your plans away. When things go wrong, then, you can lay your finger smack on your own chest and nail the guy who’s to blame. That much is gospel.

  CHAPTER XX

  AT MARIA’S CAFE

  I had a little time to kill and entered an all night drug store, called up my apartment. Not actually expecting that Jerry would be back, you understand, but just not bent on missing any tricks. Jerry had not returned yet. I hoped he had spotted and, maybe, followed the man who had run when Colonel McBride was grabbed.

  Then I drove around the town a bit, just getting the air. And I didn’t exactly do any thinking, that is, constructive thinking. But, mostly, I never do. The Flame had certainly pulled a Houdini on the police and Sergeant O’Rourke. Was she still hidden in that house, or had she walked smack through the police net unseen, or had she bought her way out?

  There’s nothing fantastic about bribery. It’s a matter of how much, and the type of man the receiver of the bribe is. You don’t have to know him first. It works, from a ten spot to a strange speed cop, to a grand for a police captain, who has found the stock market a sucker’s game, but hasn’t recognized himself as that sucker yet.

  The Flame was clever. There are no two ways about that. She had gotten into the house, maybe, even arranged that bit of kidnaping. Doctor Michelle Gorgon had picked himself some rare talent when he picked The Flame and—my hand went to my breast pocket. Damn it, I was still carrying around that envelope containing that bit of change and the jewelry which I had been requested to turn over to Eddie Gorgon.

  Maybe The Flame would answer some questions at the Cafe Maria. The Flame had already intended to meet me there, before she popped out of that closet. And you know—. Well, we’re all a bit of a fool, I guess. Somehow I wasn’t worried so much about The Flame any more. A guy gets cocky at times. I had held her, told her I loved her. And—she loved me. There were no two ways about that. Any lad who had held The Flame as I did—. But the time was drawing near, so I sped over to Maria’s Cafe.

  According to my custom I left my car around the corner, walked leisurely down the block, spotted the darkness of the entrance, and went to the little side door down a few steps and knocked.

  The door opened almost at once. I nodded as I recognized the bartender.

  “Hello, Race.” He opened the door far enough for me to slip into the dimness of the hall, but spotted almost at once the bulge in my right jacket pocket.

  “Gawd!” he sort of laughed. “And me thinking it was just an affair of the heart.”

  “There’s a lady waiting to see me, Fred?” It was half a question, half a statement.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “The little room back of the bar.”

  “Any one in the bar?”

  “No. The Federal officers have closed us up.”

  “You’re a nice boy, Fred.” I followed him into the bar. “I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to you.” No threat. Just a warning in my words.

  “Cripes!” He slowed, and looked at me. “You ain’t got nothing up your sleeve, I don’t know about?”

  “Nothing up my sleeve. Be sure there’s nothing up yours.” I followed him to the door in the rear, down another hall and to another small door.

  “You weren’t dragged in here.” Fred gave me the words over his shoulder. “And the door ‘out’ ain’t barred and locked now.” He put a hand on the knob. “What do you say? Got a change of mind? Want to beat it?”

  “Do your stuff,” was my say.

  “Right!” He spun the knob, shoved open the door and chirped, “The gent to see you.” He turned quickly, pushed by me and closed the door after him. I heard his feet slipping over the uncarpeted floor of the outer hall.

  The room was like any other back room of a speak-easy. A single dome light hung from the ceiling, giving a sharp light. There were eight or ten tables, plain wooden armchairs drawn close to them. Not piled up on top, for they wouldn’t be doing any cleaning for a bit. The room still reeked of bum hooch. The open window on the alley didn’t help much. There was an old fashioned mantel to one side, above a fireplace that had been bricked up, and a battered but shining silver loving cup supposedly in the center of that mantel.

  And, alone in that room, was The Flame. No dirty masculine get-up now. Silk stockings, black skirt, and a tight fitting, worsted sweater coat affair. To crown that off she had a beret cocked on the side of her head, and a cigarette perched jauntily between her lips.

  “You did turn up,” she said. “But then, you would. You always were a fool for courage. Sit down.”

  I walked to the window, closed it, and pulled down the heavy shade. I’d rather chance slow death by poison air than a bullet in the back. There was another exit, with a key in the door. I spun the key and turned the knob. It locked all right. An alcove recess, with dirty curtains, proved to be a blind. Just a closet with shelves. Across from that was the door I had entered by. There was no key in the lock. I kicked a chair in front of the door, stuffed a cigarette into my mouth, saw that The Flame was close to the mantel, so dragged up a chair and sat beside her. I could see the window and the door with the chair against it, and had the alcove on the right.

  The Flame started. It was the old racket all over again.

  “Race, I’ll make you a proposition. I’ll chuck the Gorgon outfit if you do. I’ll chuck the city. We’ll cross the pond, hop down to the Riviera, and—”

  “Same old hoey,” I cut in. “Florence, you’ve given that to any guy you wanted to make— make for the time being—make and then break.”

  “Yes.” She nodded very seriously. “I have. Because I’ve always thought of it. Thought of it with you, Race.” A hand crept across the table and rested on one of mine. “We could meet every day, spend long evenings together, understand each other—and bust up the show or stick together for life. There’s something big between us, something I never understood. There’s been times when I wished you were dead. Times—”

  “Florence,” I cut in, “I’m here for one purpose only. Your promise. I want to know where—”

  “Yes, that’s so.” She seemed to be listening. “It’s not a good place to talk names here. But, somehow, I wanted you to know.” She leaned forward now, and barely whispered the words. “I don’t know about you, sometimes you simply blunder through things. I’ve hashed up my life; maybe I wouldn’t go if you wished it, maybe I’m hell bent for destruction. But you’re looking at a woman now, not a girl. A woman that’s going straight to her death, who’s got to go through with it.”

  I didn’t like that talk. Somehow I believed it though. Somehow—. And I stiffened. There, slightly to my left, the knob of a door was turning—the door I had pushed the chair against. I didn’t say anything to The Flame. I simply laid both my elbows on the smeared table, my hands up close to my chin, one hand also close to the shoulder holster beneath my left armpit.

  The door moved slightly too, very slightly, not enough to even push the chair—that is, the chair by the door. But it moved my chair—or, at least I moved my chair enough to bring me directly facing that turning
knob which put my back to the alcove closet, and left me just about on the opposite side of the table from The Flame.

  The Flame looked up as I moved. The color seemed to suddenly drain out of her face. Her fingers half reached for her handbag upon the table, hesitated, and she stretched her hand to the mantel and lifted down the loving cup, looking it over. Then she read aloud the inscription on it.

  “To Eddie Gorgon,” she read, very slowly. “On the occasion of his return to the Maria Club—August 27th—1929.” She read it in such a low voice, such a forced, almost ominous voice, that it startled me. But I remembered that dinner too. It was the day Eddie Gorgon was released from the Tombs, when the jury failed to convict him for the murder of an East Side laundry man, who had courageously fought against the then notorious Laundry racketeers.

  The door knob quit turning. The door gave a sudden jerk and a voice spoke behind me, by those curtains, from the little alcove closet that I thought had no “out.” Yep, I had let that door take my attention.

  “Don’t move,” said the voice of Eddie Gorgon. “This time, Race, we’ll be satisfied with the bullet in your back, where the bullet in any rat should be found. That a girl, Florence. Read him again what’s on the cup.”

  Trapped? Certainly. Trapped like a child. I could hear Eddie Gorgon cross the floor; knew that he stood a few feet behind me. And there I was, with my right hand under my left armpit, the fingers clasping a gun that I—I could never use. Why hadn’t I made sure of that closet? Certainly, those shelves in it hid another door. Was it my stupidity, or my conceit, or my belief in The Flame, or—.

  I looked at Florence. I wanted to see how she took it. I wanted to see if at the last minute she would regret my death. I wanted—. And her face was deathly white. She had betrayed me into the hands of the enemy and was paying a price for it. But a hell of a lot of good that would do me now.

  “Show him the cup. Read him again what’s on the cup.” Eddie mouthed the words. “Just once more, then I’ll let him have it.”

  The girl moved the cup. Her eyes sought mine, mine hers, until the cup blocked them both. Yes, the cup blocked them both. And I saw something else. I saw the sinister, rat-like eyes, the twisted lips, and the gun too, the gun held in a steady hand but a thin hand. For Eddie Gorgon seemed long and gaunt—some sixteen or more feet tall, and his arm was as thin as a match stick. And I knew. I was looking at Eddie’s reflection in the polished surface of the oval cup.

  It was in my mind to draw, swing and fire. All that, of course, while Eddie Gorgon pressed the trigger of his gun. It couldn’t save my life. He was too close to miss, too close not to have a chance to fire several times. Just the one chance that I might take him over the hurdles with me.

  There was no use to make excuses to myself. Eddie Gorgon had entered that closet while some lad attracted my attention at the moving door. No, I wasn’t proud of that moment. There might be one excuse for it, and the worst kind of an excuse. My own vanity. Perhaps subconsciously I had thought that once I had told The Flame I loved her I was safe. That the ambition of her life was realized, that if she could have me she would never think of—. And then just one thought. He travels farthest who travels alone. But The Flame was talking.

  “Easy does it, Eddie,” she said. “Race might talk. You know what he might tell, what your brother wants to know. What—”

  “This is my show,” Eddie snarled in on her. “Look the rat in the eyes, kid. Watch ‘em dim. Not a move, Race. Keep them elbows so I can see them. Just a single jerk of your shoulders, and out you go.”

  And what was I doing? Just sitting there waiting for death to strike through the mouth of a blazing gun held in the hand of an underworld rat, a common murderer, I had told Jerry.

  No. Plainly in that cup I could see the long, gawky form of Eddie Gorgon. My elbows never moved their position on that table. But my hand moved—my fingers moved. Already my right hand had pulled my gun from the shoulder holster, eased it out and shoved it up toward my shoulder. And The Flame still held the cup in her hands—very steady.

  Would I try one quick jerk and a shot over my shoulder at Eddie? Maybe I’d have to. The reflection in that cup was clear enough, the features of Eddie, the skinny appearing extended arm, the snub-nosed automatic, the barrel of which appeared long enough, as reflected in that cup, to be a rifle barrel. And—.

  “Don’t shoot yet, Eddie,” The Flame said. “I got him here for you, didn’t I? I want him to answer a question.”

  And my gun crept slowly higher up my left shoulder, my arm never moving, my elbows steady upon the table—just my wrist curling upward and my head moving slightly sideways, slowly sideways. I hoped Eddie was far enough behind me not to see my gun—at least, until it had crept up and over my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” snarled Eddie Gorgon. “But what about me? You made a deal with me. You let me horn you in with us Gorgons, played me for a sucker until Michelle came along, and then what, then what? I got a mind to snuff you, too.”

  “It’s all the same.” The Flame seemed to half appeal. “It’s the same business, the same racket. I have to listen to Michelle just as you have to listen to him. Whether you brought me in or he brought me in, I’d be working for him just the same. I—”

  “That may be Michelle’s idea, but not mine,” said Eddie quickly. “He could have your mind, but not me. I was staking your body, not your mind. Besides which, I still think you’ve got a yen for this dick. I’ve played the game, taken orders, done Michelle’s dirty work. But no man can take my woman. No, by God! not even Michelle. And Michelle would never know but it was an accident if I knocked you over.”

  My gun was higher, right on my shoulder now. Not over enough to show, Just—. The face of Eddie looked so long and lean in that cup, the eyes were so close together.

  “Eddie,” and The Flame’s voice was soft and low, “don’t talk like that. I saw in Michelle only your interest. I saw only—”

  “I seen your face and I seen Michelle’s there in your apartment, when you stuck me up. His talk of ‘in the abstract!’ Well, the abstract wasn’t in his eyes then. He was just a man who wanted a woman, my woman, and you were just a woman who wanted a man, a bigger man than Eddie Gorgon. You knew what Michelle might mean to you, and you dropped me. Michelle didn’t want no mind, he wanted a body. You sold yourself to me, I paid you cash. And, tonight, after the dick, Williams, crashes out I’ll—.But he’ll take it first.”

  And my gun was up. I won’t say that I read the will to fire suddenly in Eddie’s reflection in the cup. I won’t say that I recognized it in his voice, though I think I did. I won’t even say that The Flame’s sudden shrill cry did the trick.

  But she did call out.

  “Now, Race!”

  Zip! Like that. My finger closed upon the trigger—and I threw myself forward on the table.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE MAN IN THE WINDOW

  There were two roars, a clang like a bell in a shooting gallery—and I was on my feet. If the cup didn’t betray me I had placed a hunk of lead smack between Eddie Gorgon’s eyes.

  And Eddie Gorgon stood there, his mouth hanging open in surprise. I jerked up my gun to fire again, but I didn’t fire. Eddie’s gun hung by his side, then his fingers opened and he dropped it to the floor. Not a mark of a bullet on him. No hole in the center of his forehead. And I saw his eyes just before he folded himself up like a jack-knife and sank to the floor. Eddie Gorgon had died on his feet, and only a missing tooth or two in the mouth that hung open, and the tiny bubbles forming on his lips—red bubbles—told me where the bullet had gone. Not exactly a perfect shot, maybe, but a serviceable one just the same. I’m no miracle man.

  After all, Eddie Gorgon had meant to kill me, and he was dead. I shrugged my shoulders. The thing I had pressed that trigger to do had been accomplished.

  The Flame was on her feet too—and clutching the cup to her. She was very white and very shaky, and I noticed that she turned her head from the body. I saw too tha
t the cup had a hole in it—that the first two letters of the word EDDIE were missing. That was the bell-like ring then, as Eddie’s bullet hit the cup.

  “Did you—? He didn’t hit you, Florence?” I was close to her now, supporting her trembling body and placing the cup on the table.

  “No, no. It was the cup—saved me. His cup—saved me—and you too.”

  “You saved my life, Florence. I—. And after trapping me here.”

  “Fool, fool,” she cried out, beating me away as I would have held her. “I’ve taken on too much and can’t think it out. You, you won’t think. It seems impossible and too grotesque to believe, but we must believe it, must. I’ve never trapped you.” And suddenly pushing me from her and backing away:

  “You have nothing to thank me for, Race. He had to go. He had to die. Brains—brains— brains. And it took the animal in Eddie to nearly ruin everything. I can’t die yet. I mustn’t die yet. I’ll die with him, as she died with him, for she died. Damn his soul, what a living death she died!”

  Which was all confusing to me, you’ve got to admit.

  The Flame didn’t raise a hand this time to stop me as I went toward her. She didn’t need to. It was her face, the distorted hatred of it, or was it fear, that I took for hate, or perhaps it was horror. Anyway, I held my ground and simply looked at her, turned, and picking up the cup wiped it clean of finger-prints and placed it back on the mantel.

  “We better get out of here, Florence. The shot, the man by the door. The bartender, Fred, and—”

  “You can be sure that there is not a soul in this house tonight, right now. If the shot was heard, it was heard outside.” She clutched at her throat and half glanced at the body.

  “He’s lying there,” she said. “After all, he was human. Made by the same hand that made you and me and Michelle, and even good people we read about. I must lie like that some day. Soon— very soon—and I know it—and go on toward it. But he’s lying there, Race, a human, like you and me. Is he dead?”