Steve calmly lowered his arms, reached into a pocket, and took out a pack of cigarettes. He put one between his lips, lit a match, and cupped it to his face. With a deep scowl he turned away, as if he didn’t want to look at this murderer any longer.
As he turned, Steve’s left hand moved quickly and lifted a signal flare from a number of them racked on the wall. When he turned around again, the signalman seemed ready to shoot. Steve’s hands were behind his back. Suddenly one of them came forward. It held the signal flare with a sputtering fuse, burned down to the point where the flare would ignite.
As the flare started to burn, Steve hurled it. Molten chemicals were given off. The room became brilliantly red with the flare. The signalman fired twice, but he was half blinded, half apprehensive of the sputtering cylinder. He missed. Steve had moved rapidly and he was coming at the man now, well under the threat of the gun.
They collided with force enough to send the spy reeling backwards. Steve grabbed his gun hand, gave it a hard twist, and the weapon rattled to the floor. In the distance Steve heard Number 74 roaring in.
He closed with the spy, smashing home several good blows and taking just as many, until his senses reeled under the punishment. He had to keep going. If the spy scored a lucky hit, he’d quickly snap on whatever kind of a projector he used to send the image of a dead engineer on his screen of smoke. Number 74 would grind to a halt and not long afterward, the freight would smash into it.
Suddenly the spy whirled and picked up a stool. He was getting desperate, too. He swung the stool at Steve’s head, hit his shoulder. Steve went down on his knees. Again the stool was raised, but this time Steve rolled out from under, and before the spy could get his balance, Steve had him around the legs. He crawled on top of the man and smashed home short, hard punches. He held the man there until Number 74 went roaring past. Almost on her heels came the long, heavily loaded freight. When it had passed by, Steve arose and let the spy get to his feet also.
Steve said, “You murdered Pop. He found the cylinder you used to create your screen smoke. He didn’t know what it was, but you were afraid he might show it around so you killed him. Testing your ghost device on him was just a rehearsal.
“You got a picture of Midford from an old newspaper reporting the wreck. You used that in flashing your image on the screen. It was easy enough to get Pop’s picture from his apartment where you killed him.
“What you intended to do to that freight and to those people on the passenger train, was ghastly, but it didn’t happen. You did succeed in killing Pop though, and what I’m going to do to you is just punishment for that crime. Put up your hands because when I get through, you’ll be in a prison hospital for some time before they carry you to the chair.”
I DIE DAILY, by H. Wolff Salz
Originally published in 10-Story Detective, April 1945.
In the fog-choked darkness, the warehouse loomed like a spectral bluff. Not a sound broke the brooding midnight silence.
Joe McCabe was sure the stool pigeon’s tip that Lou Fox and his boys were working the Sayer warehouse tonight was a bad steer, until he and Detective Sergeant Allister stumbled over the lifeless figure of Officer Jordan in the cobblestoned alley! The patrolman had been shot in the back, a typical Lou Fox touch.
A strange truck stood at the loading platform, and confirmed the obvious conclusion that the warehouse crooks were at work within the ancient mildewed building.
Joe McCabe saw Sergeant Allister grope for his gun. His heart began to pound with a fierce, painful velocity. He opened his mouth to suggest that maybe one of them had better go back to the car and radio headquarters for assistance. Instead, he clamped his mouth shut, biting into his lower lip to keep from speaking.
He knew he was scared stiff. It was that same paralyzing fear that had always numbed his body at the first whiff of danger. The fear that made him hate himself.
It had always been that way. He remembered how it had been when he was a kid of ten, and Butch Cleary, the block bully, had demanded a piece of his candy bar. Joe had been afraid of Butch. But he would have died if the crowd of kids who had been drawn to the impending battle like flies to sugar had realized how scared he was. He had waded into Butch, landed a couple of punches, then found himself stretched on the sidewalk with a swelling, bleeding nose.
Butch got the candy, but the other kids helped Joe to his feet, enthusiastically pumped his back, and praised him for his bravery in standing up to Butch. They had never discovered what a coward he was.
Then in high school, Joe remembered the fear that had seized the pit of his stomach when Judy Allister had asked him if he was going to try for the football team. But he had been even more afraid of her scorn if she discovered that the mere thought of football scrimmage frightened him.
He had gone out for the team, made it, played each game with a dread that numbed his body. Somehow he had managed to do things the right way at the right time and they called him a star. Neither Judy nor his teammates had ever learned the truth.
Now, he was on the detective force, teamed up with Sergeant Mike Allister, the most fearless cop on the force; a man who was said to hate a coward with a cop’s badge as much as he hated rats like Lou Fox. And it was Judy Allister, Mike’s daughter, whom Joe wanted to marry. That was why he had tried so hard to get on the force in the first place. Judy had always said that the man she’d marry would be like her dad.
Joe McCabe’s teeth bit deeper into his lip. What a fraud he was! Trying to pass himself off for a man like Mike Allister, a man who didn’t know the meaning of fear!
Joe felt Sergeant Allister’s grip on his arm.
“Draw your gun, son. Those rats are up on a higher floor on the other side of the building. That’s why we don’t see any lights. We’ll give them a surprise party.”
The palm of Joe’s hand was sticky as he fumbled for the gun in his shoulder holster. Like a man walking in his sleep he found himself moving forward at Allister’s side.
The warehouse loading door was unlocked. Sergeant Allister eased it open, shouldered inside. A pulse hammered in Joe’s ears as he followed. A single weak bulb burned at the foot of the dusty wooden stairway. The single, gate-protected elevator shaft was dark. The freight elevator was evidently parked at an upper floor.
Sergeant Allister’s eyes were bleak, hard, as he moved without hesitation to the narrow stairway. Not a sign of fear showed on his set face. The man was made of solid granite!
Joe prayed the sergeant wouldn’t look back at him. He knew his face must be chalk white. He dreaded the look of contempt that would come over Allister’s face if he glanced at him and realized the truth.
The brittle ancient wooden steps seemed to creak loud enough to awaken the dead as they inched upward. Joe knew that he and the sergeant would be clay targets for a hidden lookout in the gloom overhead. The sergeant, though—he was oblivious to the lurking danger.
The wild, desperate urge to turn and scuttle for safety ran through Joe’s aching body like a searing fire. Yet, somehow, he managed to keep a step behind Allister. He had to go forward with the sergeant! He’d die of shame if Allister ever discovered the truth.
Suddenly a startled face appeared from around the bend at the landing overhead. At the same instant Joe heard the reverberating report and saw the spurt of flame. Something like an angry bee sang past his head. Behind him he heard the slug rivet into decaying wood.
Sergeant Allister’s gun barked at almost the same instant. The face overhead disappeared. The sergeant pounded upward and Joe found himself moving along with him.
They rounded the bend, triggering at the rapidly scattering figures in the gloom. There were three of them, diving for the protection of huge packing cases that crowded the low-ceilinged room.
Joe fired at one of the scurrying figures, saw the man nose-dive to the floor and lie sti
ll. He heard a startled, pained gasp to his left. He saw Sergeant Allister crumple to the floor, and leaped to his side.
Allister’s face was white. “Got me on the kneecap—never mind—go after those rats!”
Joe heard a loud, splintering crash of glass. His head jerked up in time to see the two unharmed members of the Lou Fox gang plunge through a window at the opposite end of the long room. The fire escape, he realized.
Somehow, he found himself pounding across the floor towards the shattered window. He threw one leg over the sill. Below, in the darkness, two figures were visible, darting like monkeys down the steep steel ladder.
He plunged out on the landing, clattered downward. A spurt of flame blossomed below. A hot gust of air fanned Joe’s face. He triggered at one of the figures, heard a scream of terrified agony. The figure detached itself from the steep ladder, plummeted downward, and disappeared in the darkness.
The other figure reached the second floor landing. Darts of yellow flame spurted in rapid succession from his gun. Joe flattened himself against the steel stairway, then realized he was a perfect target standing where he was. He clattered rapidly downward, toward the figure below, triggering as he descended. The answering shots ceased abruptly.
When he reached the second floor landing, the figure lay in a crumpled, motionless heap. Joe bent, looked upon the twisted, white face of Lou Fox. He was dead.
When he returned to Sergeant Allister’s side a few moments later, the sergeant was sitting up, twisting a blood-soaked rag around his knee.
Joe couldn’t control the quivering of his lips as he told the sergeant that Lou Fox and his gang were through for keeps. His knees were suddenly weak.
Sergeant Allister managed a twisted, pained grin. “Son, you’re what I call a man after my own heart. It took real guts to go after those rats out there on that fire escape.”
This was too much for Joe. He laughed suddenly, an hysterical uncontrolled laugh.
“You’re talking about guts and me?” he cried. “You’ve got no idea, Sergeant! I’m the biggest fraud you’ll ever meet! I was scared stiff every minute we’ve been in this building! I’ve been scared stiff all my life of anything that smelled like danger! The only thing that’s kept me from showing it is that I’m even more scared of being called a coward!”
Sergeant Allister grinned. “Sure, danger scares you, son. What do you think it does to me?”
“You! Why, you’re the guy they say doesn’t know what fear is!”
Sergeant Allister’s right eyelid drooped in a roguish wink. “That’s a reputation I got burdened with years ago. And all these years I’ve been scared to death the other guys would find out what a fraud I am. Everyday I die of fear. Fear, son? Why, that’s part of courage. Real guts is when you’ve got the sense to be scared like hell and still have the moxie to deliver the goods.”
MAHATMA OF MAYHEM, by Robert Leslie Bellem
Originally published in Thrilling Detective Magazine, April 1948.
CHAPTER I
MAN WITH A GUN
I was moving toward the Brown Derby for a snifter of Scotch and a bite of supper when an object much firmer than a banana dug into my spine and a masculine voice behind me said huskily: “Take it easy, brother, or I’ll blast a cavity in you as big as the Holland Tunnel.”
For an instant I thought it must be some dimwit’s idea of a practical joke, for nobody but a shmoe would poke a gat in your back on the corner of Hollywood and Vine at eight o’clock in the evening with the sidewalk full of witnesses. At least that was my first reaction, but I changed my mind when I caught the metallic click of a gun’s hammer being cocked. Then I realized I was up against a bozo who meant business.
“I said take it easy,” he repeated, breathing the words down my neck and emphasizing them with another jab of his roscoe. “Unless you want your tripes ventilated.”
Since I didn’t want to have my tripes ventilated on such an elegant California night, I slowed my pace to an easy stroll and presently drew to a halt at the curb; leaned indolently against a convenient lamp post and assumed an air of casual disinterest. I wanted to turn around and confront the character with the cannon, but I suppressed the impulse. He sounded like a man with an itchy trigger finger, and experience has taught me I’m far from bullet-proof.
“Okay, New York,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m taking it easy, as requested. Now kindly tell me what this is all about.”
“Where do you get that New York stuff?” the husky voice sharpened. “You don’t know me. You ain’t even copped a look at me yet. So what’s with this New York routine?”
I said: “Elementary, pal, elementary. For purposes of comparison you mentioned the Holland Tunnel a moment ago. The Holland Tunnel is strictly New York. Nobody but a native of Gotham would speak of it so glibly, off the top of his mind. Therefore you’re a New Yorker.” I didn’t bother to add that his accent reeked of the Bronx; that would be giving away trade secrets. And after all, does Gimbel tell Macy?
“Clever, ain’t you?” the voice growled admiringly.
“Private dicks have to be clever to stay in business, and by a curious coincidence I’m a private dick.” I made my tone mild, to lull him.
Then I bunched my muscles and leaped straight up, grabbed at the lamp post and clasped it to my bosom the way a monkey climbs a coconut tree. Simultaneously I lashed back with my brogans—and had the satisfaction of feeling both heels slam into a flabby stomach. The impact was immediately rewarded by a moan and a sudden expulsion of breath, like the whoosh of air escaping from a punctured tire.
Releasing my grip, I dropped back to the sidewalk and swung around face to face with the Gotham gunsel. As faces go, his looked pretty painful. His thin lips were twisted in a sickened grimace, his muddy brown eyes were as dull as tarnished pennies and he was doubled over like a case of ptomaine poisoning. With his left hand he was clutching at his damaged midsection, while the nickel-plated rod in his right drooped forlornly and forgotten.
I swooped for the weapon, got it, stowed it in my pocket. Then I straightened him out of his cramped crouch and supported him with a counterfeit tenderness that was exclusively for the benefit of a few dozen assorted passersby who had stopped to stare.
“One side, folks,” I said pleasantly. “My chum, here, is very sick. We were rehearsing a movie routine that backfired, so make way while I take him to first aid.”
That’s one nice feature about Hollywood—you can get away with almost anything if you say it’s for pictures. The crowd opened up and I nudged my anguished captive around the corner where my coupe was parked. “In with you, bub,” I said grimly. “Before you get hurt.”
“I already got hurt,” he whinnied, massaging his battered equator and crawling aboard my bucket. “Man, the way you can kick!”
I wedged myself under the steering wheel alongside him. “I’ve doubled for practically everything else,” I said. “In case you aren’t aware of it, my name is Nick Ransom.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’m a snoop.”
“I know that, too.”
“And before I went into the private eye racket, I was a stunt man in the galloping snapshots,” I continued. “I ran a firm called Risks, Incorporated, specializing in spurious thrills at fifty bucks per broken neck. That’s in case you’re wondering how I was able to shinny up that lamp post and give your abdomen a helping of shoe leather.”
He said bitterly: “Go ahead, boast. I deserve it. The Mahatma warned me you was a tough baby to handle. I should of knowed better than to get so close to you, but I was careless. Now I guess you’ll be turning me over to the bulls, huh?”
“Not quite yet,” I said, and set fire to a cigarette, blew smoke in his puss. “First we play a little game entitled questions and lumps. I ask you questions, and if you don’t sing the correct ans
wers you get lumps. Do I make myself clear to you?”
“Yeah.” He shivered visibly, though the night was warm. “Too clear.”
“Good,” I said. “Now then, your name.”
He made a sour mouth. “This will slay you. Reginald Percival Clancy. Now go ahead and laugh. Everybody always does.”
I was in no mood for jokes. “Okay, Reginald,” I said, without cracking a smile. “Next we take up the matter of this Mahatma you mentioned. You say he warned you I’d be tough to handle. That indicates you’re working for him and he hired you to pull a stickup on me. Right?”
“Not a stickup. A snatch. You know, a kidnap caper, sort of. I tried to pick you up when you left your apartment a while ago but you drove off too fast and got away from me. So I tailed you in a taxi and caught up with you here. There wasn’t no real harm in it, though. That is I mean—”
“Whoa. Not so fast. Go back a little. Who is this Mahatma? What’s his square monicker?”
Reginald Percival Clancy made a vague gesture. “Mahatma Guru is what he calls hisself. That’s all I know. I only been working for him a few days.”
“Oh, come now!” I said “Mahatma is Indian for instructor, and Guru means almost the same thing. Mahatma Guru? That’s like saying Professor Teacher. Don’t dish me that brand of double-talk, Reggie. It will only buy you bruises.”
He sulked. “Look, it ain’t my double talk, it’s his. The Mahatma’s I mean. I’m leveling with you, gumshoe. He calls hisself Mahatma Guru, and he reads horoscopes or something. Claims he can see the future.”
In my business it pays to keep a line on all the phonies floating around, but Mahatma Guru I’d never heard of.
“He must be new out here,” I said.
The Noir Mystery MEGAPACK ™: 25 Modern and Classic Mysteries Page 23