“Aggie,” he said gently. “Did you take the sleeping tablets?”
The blue eyes blinked. “Tablets?”
He nodded. “Did you take some?”
“No. Just the milk Vivian fixed for me this morning. It — tasted funny.”
“Milk!” Mario gripped Aggie’s hand. “Can you tell me the rest — everything that happened last night?”
She nodded. The words came slowly, half-whispered. “Vivian phoned me last night. She asked would I like to spend the night with her. She knew I didn’t like to be alone. I told her about the gun in the bureau, but I was still a little afraid so I said yes. I wrote you a note and took a cab—”
Mario interrupted. “I knew it! I knew you must have left a note!”
“Yes,” said Aggie weakly. “Well, when I got here Vivian and Bob Hern were drinking. Bob was as stiff as the bottle. I excused myself and went right to bed. This morning when we got up, Vivian fixed me the milk. I drank it and then the phone rang and — and it was you, Mario, but—”
Aggie shook her head drowsily. “I got so sleepy I dropped the glass. And that’s all — that’s all I remember...”
Mario straightened up. “It’s enough, honey.”
He returned to the living room and introduced himself to the two patrolmen. Then he turned to Vivian and his voice was steady.
“Vivian, were you over at my apartment last night?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re sure, absolutely sure?”
“Of course. You think I’d lie to you?”
In reply, Mario drew the crushed brass lipstick from his pocket.
Instantly, Vivian’s hand snatched at it. “Where’d you get that! I threw it out the win—” She snapped off the sentence, realizing she’d said too much.
Mario kept his voice low, but there was a cutting edge to it. “You killed Bob Hern, Vivian. And you fed Aggie the sleeping tablets, trying to make it look like she tried suicide after shooting Hern. You got Hern drunk and took the keys from Aggie’s purse after she was asleep. You took Hern to our place and shot him with the gun Aggie mentioned was in the drawer!”
“No!” Vivian’s slim fingers seized Mario’s arm. “Don’t say such things!”
Mario yanked his arm away. “You dropped the lipstick in our bedroom and it got stepped on, putting a smear on the rug. So you tossed the broken tube out of the window.”
He strode back into the bedroom and yanked open the closet door. A dozen pairs of feminine shoes were in colorful rows on the floor.
On the sole of a green alligator pump he found a smear of orange.
“That proves it, Vivian,” he said.
She glanced at the shoe — and her lower lip trembled. “I know, Mario. I... I was such a fool. That Bob Hern — I hated him! He thought I was swell to have fun with, but when it came down to marrying me—” Her voice broke.
As Mario stood watching, she clamped her arms around his neck. “Anyway, Mario, I never loved him. I’ve always loved you! I couldn’t stand it when Aggie got you — and I thought if I killed Bob Hern then I could marry you!”
“A hell of a lot of sense that makes!”
“It’s true!” she cried. “I loved you so much I didn’t want to kill Aggie because I was afraid they might accuse you! That’s why I called the ambulance right after she took the milk. I was sure they would arrest her. And Mario—”
Mario spoke through tightly closed teeth. “You didn’t want to save Aggie. You waited as long as you could before calling the ambulance. You knew when I phoned you that I was trying to find her before I reported the murder. And you wanted to be sure I wouldn’t have a chance to prove Aggie was innocent!”
“Yes, Mario.” Vivian’s warm, perfumed lips brushed his cheek. “Mario,” she whispered anxiously. “You’re a policeman. You can think of some way of getting me off, can’t you, honey?”
He broke away and shoved her against the door. “No!” he exploded.
Vivian’s mouth became warped. She was suddenly a snarling, scratching she-cat. She threw herself at him.
He caught her wrist and held the shuddering, shrieking weight of her off at arms’ length until the two patrolmen got handcuffs in place.
They led Vivian to the door. She brushed a strand of yellow hair from her forehead. She slipped a hand inside the arm of the younger patrolman, the handsome one with the neat mustache.
“I like policemen,” she said. Her violet eyes looked up at him softly. “I’m going to especially enjoy riding to the station with you...”
But Mario didn’t hear her. He was sitting on the edge of Aggie’s bed, holding her hand and smiling down at her.
Always Leave ’Em Dying
by Jim T. Pearce
Vincent, top dog in a murdered gang-czar’s pack, was slated for the Sing-Sing dog house — unless he could persuade a hotsy honey to toss him a bone.
When the desk clerk gave me the message, I knew it was trouble. “Mr. Bradford wants to see you,” he said. “He wants to see you in his room at three o’clock. You better go up now. It’s three already.”
“Don’t worry, Jack,” I said. “I’ll get there.”
I would too. The way things stood in the organization now, it wasn’t smart to play hard-to-get when the boss called. So I got back into one of the elevators and said “ten” to the boy.
Boss Tom Bradford’s suite was on the tenth floor. The Little Man and I had apartments on the ninth. Beefer was on the fifth. Shultze and Ransy, two strong-arms, had basement apartments. Bradford’s girl, Helen, lived in a bungalow on the outskirts.
I stepped out onto the thick green carpet on the tenth and walked slowly toward Bradford’s door. I was in no hurry for the bad news. A small-time racketeer, Chip O’Brien, was trying to muscle in. The police were cracking down. Bradford was suspicious of all the boys. Only no news could be good news.
I rapped lightly on Bradford’s door. It swung open a bit. I pushed it a little further and stuck my noggin around the edge. I was right. Trouble sprawled across the center of the heavy, yellow rug.
Bradford lay face down, hands at his side, palms up, and feet wide apart. He must have fallen like a bag of cement. The cause was a small, dark hole in the back of his graying head.
I settled back on my heels and closed the door a little. I didn’t want to go in. Beefer, Little Man, and I were Bradford’s top men. Of late, Bradford hadn’t been feeling at all kindly toward any of us. I didn’t want to be the one to find the corpse.
On the other hand, the clerk and the elevator boy knew I was up here. I shoved the door open and walked in.
Bradford was a well-built man in his early fifties. He had probably been a pretty husky, tough youth. Later he had picked up some fat, and his hair started to go gray. Once he had been as tough and wild as they come. But he had gotten away from that and started using his brains, of which he had plenty.
Six years ago, this city had been a hodge-podge of small gangs striking inefficiently at each other. The strongest of these gangs was under Beefer Logan. Then Bradford moved in with his two thugs, Shultze and Ransy, and a complete system of blackmail. He soon had nearly complete control of the city’s underworld. The key to his tightly-knit organization was his phenomenal blackmail file. Bradford never told any of his men where he kept it.
I bent over his body and felt his wrist. He was dead all right. But he was still warm.
I stepped around the body to see if there were anything else unusual. I looked about the room. Everything was in place. It was a neat room done in light colors. Soft, heavy green easy chairs, a matching sofa, yellow pine tables and bric-a-brac were tastefully arranged about the room.