The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

by Penzler, Otto

  A hand touched Sarah on the shoulder. She turned, looked up through her veil at the face of the gentleman with the wart.

  “Madam,” said the gentleman, “I wish to apologize for accusing you of stealing my diamonds. I was wrong!”

  “That,” said Sarah, “is perfectly all right, perfectly all right.”

  The man with the wart leaned closer. He stared down into the face behind the polka dots of Sarah’s veil. He said: “Madam, I—” and suddenly wrenched the veil away, brushing aside the clutch of Ben Todd’s fingers.

  The man with the wart stared down into the eyes under Sarah Watson’s bristling brows. He said, very slowly, and lingeringly:

  “Ah!”

  Sarah said nothing. The thin lips under her incipient mustache curved slightly.

  The gentleman with the wart began to talk with a rush of words. He said:

  “I see! I remember you! I know you now! You took them and you passed them over to him back here and he jumped with them. What a dummy I’ve been!—A dummy! I see it all now! A dummy! Not a man, but a—”

  The plane bumped. Dust fanned past its windows from the whirring propeller. There was another bump.

  The man with the wart took one more moment to glare balefully into Sarah’s eyes. He said: “You think you’re damn smart, yes, but I’ll outsmart you yet, you old harridan.”

  And then he rushed to the door at the rear of the plane, wrenched it open, and leaped while the plane was still gliding down the runway. In the silence which followed the cessation of movement and sound, Sarah Watson’s voice said hoarsely: “The gent who lost his diamonds seems to be in a hurry to get some place.”

  The car carrying Sarah Watson and Ben Todd away from the airport sped along the wide, white boulevard. Ahead of it, another car sped— far ahead.

  Ben Todd took his clenched hands off his knees for a moment and turned to Sarah. He said:

  “He may make it yet. If he’s as smart as I am, he knows just about where that dummy landed.”

  Sarah Watson unfolded her hands, opened her capacious handbag, stared at herself in the bag’s mirror. She said: “Becoming hat, this. It’s my Sunday hat.”

  “Sarah, for the love of—listen, that guy with the wart is gaining. He’s going to get there long before we do. He’s going to get there and he’s going to find that dummy, and he’s going to get that necklace. Sarah, you’ve got to think of something!”

  “I am thinking of something,” said Sarah, snapping her bag shut. “I’m thinking we’d better tell the driver to slow up a bit.”

  “Listen, you! You gone batty? Can’t you see that guy is eating up the road?”

  “Bennie,” said Sarah calmly, “some day you’re going to have a nervous breakdown. Now listen. You may think you know just where that dummy landed and probably the gent with the wart thinks he knows, too, but things look different from the air, Bennie, and I’m betting the gent with the wart is going to spend a long time searching for that necklace …” Sarah broke off and leaned forward to the driver.

  “Driver,” she said. “Take the next turning, please. And don’t go so fast. My partner’s a bit nervous.”

  “Who wouldn’t be nervous!” yelled Ben Todd, “with an idiot woman like you! Slow up and let me out of here, driver. I’m going to get another car and go after that guy …”

  “You’re going to stay right in this car,” said Sarah firmly. “Take the next crossing, driver— the one that leads to the police station.”

  IV

  Sarah Watson strode into police headquarters, her fingers on Ben Todd’s arm. Ben Todd’s pallor was excessive and his forehead was dewed with sweat.

  “Captain,” said Sarah to the man behind the desk, “I’m Sarah Watson. Here’s my card. This is my assistant. We’re here to put you on the trail of the murderer of Dolores Flores.”

  “Already?” said the man behind the desk. “We just got it over the wire that they’d found that dame dead on the train to Chi.”

  “Let me talk, Captain. I’m in a hurry. I was on that train. I had the berth opposite the murderer’s. I meant to keep my eyes on him all night because I knew who he was. I’d seen his photo in the police files at home. Wait, let me talk, Captain.

  “I meant to watch him, but my eyes got stuck together for a few minutes and when I opened them, I saw the murderer sneaking back into his berth from somewhere. He was in his shirt sleeves. He had something red on his cuff, his right cuff. It’ll be there yet, when you get him.”

  “Blood, eh? Where is this guy?”

  “Not blood, captain. There was no blood. The girl was strangled to death. When I found her, dead, in her berth, her handbag was lying open beside her. There was a lipstick in it, blood red, and uncapped. The metal case of the lipstick had printing on it that said the lipstick was made special for Dolores Flores. Your chemists will be able to match that lipstick up with the red smudge on the murderer’s cuff, Captain, when you get him.”

  “Say listen, where is this guy? Where do we get him?”

  “Let me talk, Captain. The murderer got that smudge on his cuff, of course, when he put his thieving hand in the girl’s purse to steal her valuables. I would have got the same smudge on my own—er—hand, if I had put it in. But of course, I didn’t. Fingerprints, you know, Captain. Now, Captain, if you’ll just send a squad car out with a half dozen men with guns. There’s a big red brick factory about ten miles southwest of the airport here.”

  “The Furness factory,” said the Captain.

  “The name don’t matter,” said Sarah. “The point is, you’ll probably have to beat the woods that lie south of the factory. The murderer will be in those woods, doing some beating himself, for something he lost. You’ll catch him easy, Captain. Those woods are big and they’re thick, and the murderer don’t know just where to look. He’s a dark man, the murderer, with black eyes, and a wart on his chin with two hairs sprouting out of it and—”

  “Warty Capruccio! He’s been up for murder before, and slipped clear.”

  “The same, Captain. Well, Captain, you’ve got my card and you can reach me if you want to, though you won’t have a smidgin of trouble convicting Warty without me, I’m sure. I’m in a hurry now, Captain, because I’m on a job, and it ain’t finished yet.”

  Sarah Watson and Ben Todd emerged from the building which housed the local police. Ben Todd was not only perspiring, he was gnawing his nails.

  “Sarah, here comes a cab. I don’t know what in hell’s name you were up to in there, wasting time, setting the cops on that guy’s trail.”

  “Time,” said Sarah, sententiously, “is never wasted when it’s used to bring a criminal to justice.”

  “You should talk about criminals! Listen, you imbecilic old battle-axe, we may have time yet to repair the damage you’ve done. If we hire a plane, we can get there before the cops get there … Sarah, stir your stumps! We’ve got to get that necklace …”

  “Bennie,” said Sarah, “you can go hire a plane if you want to. But it ain’t worth it, especially as we couldn’t charge it to Mr. Hecker’s expense. The necklace that dummy took down to earth came from the five and ten, Bennie, and it cost me a dollar. It ain’t worth retrieving, because it’s already charged to Mr. Hecker, anyway. I had it ready to drop in that poor girl’s purse, in case I managed to steal the string she had.”

  “Sarah! Do you mean to say you fumbled getting the imitation string from the murderer?”

  “I never fumble anything, young man,” said Sarah, and opened her purse.

  Ben Todd stared down at the coiled, glittering thing in the bottom of Sarah’s purse. He had put his hand out toward the purse. Sarah snapped the purse shut. She advanced to the curb and signalled a taxi. She said: “The thing to do now, Bennie, is to get the first train out of here for home. I’ve got a date with Mrs. Adolph A. Hecker.”

  “Mrs. Hecker! Why you damn, double-crossing old …”

  “Mrs. Hecker,” said Sarah, “is a very fine woman, even if she is marri
ed to Mr. Hecker. Mrs. Hecker has promised me ten thousand dollars for this necklace, Ben Todd.”

  Sarah Watson stepped into the cab. Ben Todd stepped after her and flopped on the seat. Ben Todd took his head in his hands. He said:

  “My head, my poor, poor head! I knew before this thing was over you’d have us tied up in a mess of double-crossing, triple-crossing knots!”

  “Bennie,” said Sarah, firmly. “You wrong me. I engaged to do a job for Mr. Hecker and I intend to do it. Of course, Mr. Hecker shouldn’t have lied to me. If you had eyes in your head, Bennie, you’d have seen him lying. Ten per cent seemed excessive to him, Bennie, until he happened to remember that the necklace he wanted to recover was paste, nothing but paste. Oh, well, all men are alike! Let’s see now … Ten thousand from Mrs. Hecker, and two hundred from Mr. Hecker, and expenses from both of them.”

  “Sarah Watson! How in hell are you going to collect two hundred from Mr. Hecker when you haven’t got a necklace to turn over to him—when you’re turning the necklace over to his wife?”

  “Simple,” said Sarah. “Mrs. Hecker is turning the imitation over to me, Bennie, when she pays me the ten thousand. The imitation has been in Mrs. Hecker’s wall safe ever since Mr. Hecker put it there, after Dolores Flores—poor girl—stole the real necklace under Mr. Hecker’s eyes. Let’s see now … ten thousand and two hundred and …”

  The doors of the Citizens’ Savings Bank swung open, letting in morning sunshine. A woman in rusty black strode across the tiled floor and halted at a depositors’ window. A long legged young man entered behind her and strode to another depositors’ window. With perfect timing the two shoved bank books and sizeable wads of bills under the wickets of their respective windows.

  A door at the side of the banking room slammed. The slam echoed against the vaulted ceiling. Sarah Watson turned, leaning her elbow on the sill of the window. Her bristling brows lowered over her eyes as she watched the pompous figure of the bank’s president come toward her across the tile floor.

  The president came very close. His pale eyes lifted and regarded Sarah bleakly. He said:

  “Mrs. Watson, that necklace you returned to me an hour ago—that necklace for which I’ve already paid you two hundred dollars and an exorbitant expense account—that necklace, Madam, is nothing but—”

  “Nothing but paste,” said Sarah. “A clever imitation, but paste. Well, Mr. Hecker, that’s what you asked for, and that’s what you got.”

  The clerk shoved Sarah’s bank book through the wicket.

  He peered around Sarah’s bulky figure and addressed himself, in a loud and cheery voice, to the president of the bank.

  “Mr. Hecker,” he said, “I thought you’d like to know. Mrs. Watson has just made a very nice deposit, very nice indeed. Mrs. Watson must have put over a very shrewd piece of business this time, I think.”

  Gangster’s Brand

  R T. Luman

  LIKE MOST OF the authors who worked for Gun Molls magazine, nothing is known of P. T. Luman, except in the negative. He never published a novel, his name appears in no reference book, and no information could be gleaned from the Internet, where there were numerous references to P. T. Barnum, with whom it seems unlikely that there was a connection.

  His pulp publisher did think enough of his story to feature it on the cover of the magazine, where it also is first in the table of contents.

  While it would be untrue to compare its literary quality to that of Hammett, Chandler, Woolrich, or the other great pulp writers of the era, “Gangster’s Brand” has a narrative that never slows for an instant. Since the author presumably was paid the standard rate for this lower-rung magazine, which was a quarter-of-a-cent a word, he may have been tempted to do a little padding to earn just a little more (as Charles Dickens, in another era, was famous for doing), but, if so, he obviously resisted the temptation.

  “Gangster’s Brand” was first published in the August 1931 edition of Gun Molls magazine.

  Gangster’s Brand

  P. T. Luman

  TWO SMALL, TRIM FEET, then shapely legs in sheer silk, swung below the fire-escape in the dim light of the area way. They swung only for an instant and then dropped, ten feet to the concrete pavement below. The girl staggered from the shock, and then, picking herself up, swung back into the shadow of the big apartment building, hugging the wall as she regained her breath. A wicked-looking gat glistened in her right hand as her snapping black eyes riveted on the iron door above her through which she had reached the fire-escape and safety.

  Carlotta Wynn, active member of “Mort” Mitchell’s mob, waited expectantly for the opportunity to plug the guy or guys who had spoiled one of the prettiest lays the gang had had for many a month.

  A shadow moved behind her, far back in the areaway in which she stood. The gat in the girl’s hand swung around like lightning.

  “Stick ‘em up,” she said through gritted teeth, or I’ll—!”

  “Out of here, quick, kid,” responded a guarded but agitated voice, and Mort Mitchell himself motioned the girl to his side. With Mort leading, the rod and the moll stole through the shadows to a doorway in the wall surrounding the court and slipped through as Mitchell threw the door open cautiously.

  They were in the alley behind the big apartment. A half-block away was their getaway car, planted there a half-hour before with “Needle” Sam Schwartz at the wheel and with the engine running. They hustled to the corner of the alley and looked around the protecting wall cautiously. The car was there, and Barry Crandall, the fourth of the mob, was stepping into the front seat with the driver.

  “Take the right-hand side of the street and hit for that car as fast as you can make it,” whispered Mort, “I’ll take the left-hand side—and watch!”

  The girl’s gat was hidden under her light coat now and she walked quickly to the car. Mort hopped into the seat beside her just as Needle Sam stepped on it and the big car jumped away from there.

  There was cursing a-plenty as the car dashed through side streets where traffic cops would not bother them. For the third time in two weeks Mort Mitchell’s mob had been within an inch of grabbing off some of the softest-looking hauls in their history. And for the third time, just as everything was right for the heist, something had gone wrong. The fall guy was wised up— and Mort and his mob had gotten nothing for their carefully laid plans.

  Mort and his mob were being double-crossed and every one of them knew it. After the curses came silence as the minds of the four recalled the mysterious jinx which seemed to have fastened itself upon the mob. Three times—and every one the same. Even as the roaring car sped toward their hideaway the four looked at each other curiously and askance. Suspicion, even between members of the mob against each other, was growing. The same thought came to all. Somebody in the mob—or somebody in a position to know their movements—was a rat!

  Mort Mitchell, thinking deeply, was puffing feverishly on his cigarette as the car pulled into the garage in back of “Dapper” Dan’s speakie, where the gang hung out.

  “In the back room,” Mort said curtly as they climbed from the car, and the four slipped through the passageway between the garage and the farthest back room of Dan’s. Mort Mitchell was going to find out, and that very night, too, if he could, just who was putting his mob over the jumps of failure. He sat at the end of the table and nodded to Dapper Dan, who appeared at the signal which came with their entrance.

  “Send a bottle of rye and some soda, Dan,” said Mort grimly, “and then go out and forget we’re here. Don’t let anybody disturb us, for this ain’t no mass meeting. This is a secret party that may end seriously for somebody!” His dark eyes snapped as he looked into the faces of his mobsters. The bottles were brought and the door snapped shut behind Dapper Dan. Mort poured himself a stiff shot of rye and shoved the bottle down the table to the others. They poured and drank, and Mort, throwing his hat on the nearby desk, faced them again.

  Mort didn’t look the part of the mobster any more
than Carlotta Wynn looked the role of a moll. He was tall and thin, but of a deceptive thinness which concealed his tremendous strength. His hair was dark brown and his eyes almost black, with a particular snap and keenness. His clothes were of expensive material and conservative cut; clothes such as a broker might select.

  The girl could have walked into the Ritz on his arm and seemed perfectly in place. She was of medium height and slender, but sinuous figure. Her features were small and regular, set in skin of marked smoothness and whiteness. The whiteness of her skin was emphasized by her silky black hair and eyebrows and black flashing eyes, which were large, almost round, giving her an appearance of innocence, of surprise.

  Needle Sam and Barry Crandall, the other two at the table, however, looked their parts. Sam’s face was fat, with close-set eyes. His suit was flashy, of extreme cut. The first and second fingers of his right hand were stained deeply by the cigarettes he smoked in every waking moment. Sam was a chauffeur par excellence—nothing else. He thought he was a hard rod, but he wasn’t. He just was about the best driver in the city, for he knew every short cut in traffic, he drove like a charioteer and he never had accidents. They didn’t pay in his business.

  And Barry Crandall was a rod who had graduated from a lowlier beginning. There had been days when he did not scoff an opportunity to lift a wallet or even bend a lead pipe over an unsuspecting head. Now, however, he was in faster company and was Mort Mitchell’s right hand— and Mort wasn’t a piker.

  Mort’s handsome face was turned on the other three.

  “Well,” he asked, sarcastically, “who spilled it?”

  None answered.

  Mort’s expression grew hard and ominous, as he went on:

  “One slip-up can happen. Two might happen, but three times means—” He looked intently into the faces of the moll and the two other rods. “Three slips—and each one almost spelling curtains for me—mean a rat!”