My lunge for the .38 under the table didn’t succeed. Haskin’s and Brix’s service revolvers roared one after the other.
I crumpled onto the dirty floor. My .38 was a shadow a foot from my nose. All I could do was look at it.
After a long time Haskin’s voice swam in a whirlpooclass="underline"
“Hand me that brief case, Murphy. There should be something very interesting in it. And Brix, call the doc. I want to save this crumb for trial.”
Murder Is the Best Policy
by Albert Simmons
A curvaceous cutie spoiled insurance-salesman Len Martin’s holiday — when she let her throat be cut to prove...
Chapter One
Boardwalk Bier
If I hadn’t been such a wise guy and tried to finagle the boss out of a holiday in the mountains, I wouldn’t have gone to the beach and ended up with a beautiful but dead blonde in my lap. I know that sounds a little paradoxical — but then murderers don’t pay much attention to the English language, either.
The boss is a cunning old guy named Mike Hartley who looks like a sweet old gent but is really a louse. He’s got a small office down on Nassau Street with a sign outside which says Insurance. For six weeks now, I’ve been working for him and I’ve yet to write my first policy — except one with my name on it which the old man insisted I take out, “just in case you drop dead or something.”
A rule of the firm, he called it. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if somebody had insured Mike Hartley against insurance, because I haven’t seen a signed policy cross his desk yet either.
Where the slimy old guy gets his cash I’ve yet to figure out, but as long as he keeps paying me the green stuff once a week, why should I care?
“Look, Mr. Hartley,” I blurted out rather bluntly, “I gotta have a vacation — I need it.”
Mike Hartley’s cold eyes slithered over my hundred and ninety pounds, all six feet of it; his smile was crooked but he looked pleased.
“So poor over-worked Len Martin needs a holiday, huh? Well, young feller, I was just thinking the same thing.”
I had expected a fight. I just looked surprised and said nothing.
“Tell you what, Martin — hop on the bus and run down to Atlantic City for a few days.”
“Atlantic City!” I cut in. “Who wants to go to the beach? I was thinking about the Catskills.”
“Since when do I pay. you to think around here, Martin?”
It was a rotten crack, and he knew it. But it was true just the same. That’s the way he wanted it. He did the brain work — I did the leg work. But he also did the paying. So it didn’t bother me — much.
I started to get up, and then his voice took on the sound of No. 40 oil running down the drain.
“Now listen here, Martin, as long as I’m going to pay all your expenses, why should you care where you spend your vacation?”
That picked me up a lot, so I didn’t stop to think that it was way out of character. I mumbled. “Hey, you’ve got something there.”
Then he slipped a thick sealed envelope out of the desk drawer and handed it to me like it was the answer to the atomic bomb.
“Now you’ve got something there, Martin,” he grunted. He squinted at my open mouth. “Just a little something you can do for me,” he explained, “while you’re on vacation.”
I might have known there was a catch. It was going to be a vacation with pay all right — but with work, too.
“Just a couple of policies for a client,” he said. “All you have to do is get her signature. There’s nothing too difficult about it.”
I took the envelope from him and eyed the red sealing wax all over the back of it.
“What’s in it?” I asked sarcastically. “Radium?”
The old man shifted a little uneasily.
“I just told you — policies to be signed.”
I pointed at the sealing wax. “What’s the secret? What am I supposed to do, wear dark glasses when she signs ’em?”
“Oh that!” He laughed nervously. “Well, this client is a little — er, peculiar. She wants to keep this strictly between herself and the insurance company.”
“And you,” I added.
“Naturally. I’m her broker.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I sung out again. “Look away while she’s signing them? And what if there are questions to ask about the policy? How am I to—”
He cut off short with a wave of his pudgy hand. “There won’t be any questions, Martin. And besides, I’m just following her instructions. After she’s signed the policies, you can read every line for all I care. But remember—” he wagged a forefinger at me sternly — “I want those policies signed. And call me when you get there.”
“Dames!” I muttered disgustedly to myself and looked at the name written on the envelope. Then I promptly came alive. It read: Miss Ethel Winters, Boardwalk Hotel, Atlantic City. If she was the gal I had to do business with, maybe a vacation at the beach might turn out to be just that.
I remembered her all right. She’d been in to see the old man only a few days ago, and this wasn’t the kind of a gal you forget easily. She was a sweet-looking blonde with short hairdo and long legs.
It didn’t take me long to pack, and after phoning the Old Man what time I was leaving, I grabbed a taxi to 60th Street. Four and a half hours after I got on the bus, I arrived in that vacation paradise, Atlantic City.
My first stop was the Boardwalk Hotel, and after I registered — with a little assistance from a ten spot — I showered and changed.
“Call me when you get down there,” the Old Man had said. So being the kind of a guy who follows orders — it was a throw-back to my army training, I guess — I called him.
After a while I heard him pick up the receiver at the other end, and his squeaky voice said, “Hello.”
“Hello, Mr. Hartley,” I started to say, “I just got down—”
“Don’t bother me — I’m busy,” he grunted and slammed down the receiver.
I banged the phone down and kicked the waste-paper basket half way across the room. Then I picked up the phone again.
“Connect me with Miss Ethel Winters, huh?”
“Who’s calling, please?”
I tossed my name into the mouthpiece and got a surprise.
“Oh, Mr. Martin. She’s expecting you, sir. She left word for you to go right up, just as soon as you came in. Room 412, sir.”
I clicked the receiver back in its hook, but nothing clicked with me. The Old Man hadn’t said that she was expecting me. I tucked the sealed envelope into the inside pocket of my sports jacket, and with a final tug at my tie and an approving glance at the mirror, I opened the door and walked out into the hallway — and smack into the biggest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.
He just stood there, his little pig eyes boring right through me. Did I say big? This guy was a cross between Gargantua and Mr. Joe Young. I didn’t like the way his brown fedora sat on the back of his bullet-shaped head; or the flat gorilla nose; or the long arms that hung almost to his knees, with the hairy hunks of meat at the end of each of them. I started to close the door, and then he spoke.
“Never mind that, bud. Get back where you came from.”
Now if he had meant New York City, I’d have been glad to oblige. But he didn’t. He meant my room.
“What’s up?” I asked. “What’s the beef?”
His huge fists clenched, and his eyes got harder — if that was possible.
“You’re up, bud, but not for long. And when I get through with you, you’re going to be the beef, ’cause that pretty face of yours is going to look like hamburger, get me?”