Liddell reached past her, dropped ice into each of the glasses, drenched it down with brandy. “Who’s Lou?”
The girl accepted a glass, swirled the liquid around the side. “My husband.” She made a face, took a swallow of the brandy. “He’s crazy. That’s one of the reasons I have Stanley with me all the time. Lou would kill me, if he could lay his hands on me.” She turned the full power of her eyes on Liddell over the rim of her glass. “Aren’t you worried?”
“Why should I be? In the first place, I didn’t know you were married. I’m here on business.”
The girl stiffened, her eyes grew wide at the sound of a key in the lock. The door pushed open and a tall, thin man stood in the doorway, his hand sunk deep in his jacket pocket. When he grinned, it consisted merely of the peeling of his lips back from his discolored teeth. “I told you I’d catch you at it some night, baby,” his voice was low, lethal. “I saw that punchdrunk bodyguard of yours leave. I’ve been waiting for you.”
The blonde seemed to shrink back against the cushions. “Get out of here. You have no right in here, Lou.”
The cold grin was back. “No right in my wife’s apartment?” The eyes hop-scotched from the girl to Liddell and back. “No jury would blame me for what I’m going to do.”
The blonde licked at her lips. “You’re crazy, Lou. You couldn’t get away with it.” She watched wide-eyed as the man shuffled closer.
“Before I do, I’ve got something for you.” He stopped in front of the girl, slashed the back of his left hand across her cheek.
She moved with lightning speed. Her hand darted under a cushion, re-appeared with an ugly short-snouted .38. Lou swung his hand in an arc, knocked her head to her right shoulder, back handed it into position.
The gun bounced out of her hand, fell to the floor at Liddell’s feet.
“Stop him, Johnny, stop him. I can’t take any more beatings. Kill him!”
Lou moved clumsily toward the gun, stopped as the private detective scooped it up, held it in his fist.
“Quick! Before he kills us both,” the girl screamed.
“Anything to accommodate a lady.” Liddell squeezed the trigger five times. The gun jumped in his hands as it belched flame. The other man seemed to stagger under the impact of the slugs. His mouth fell open, blood spurted from between his teeth, ran down his chin onto his shirt. He grabbed at his midsection with bloodstained hands, fell forward.
8
The blonde got up, tried to turn him over. She sank her hand into his pocket, looked up with stunned eyes. “He had no gun, Johnny. He was unarmed. It... it was murder.”
Liddell stepped toward her. The blonde straightened up, backed away. “No, no don’t touch me.” She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shook.
“You wanted him dead, didn’t you?”
The girl dropped her hands from her face. “But don’t you understand? It’s murder.” She kept her eyes averted from the man on the floor. “The shots! The police will be here.” She ran to the window, pulled back the curtain, looked out. “You’d better get out. Get out of town someplace where I can meet you.” When he didn’t move, she ran to him, caught his lapels, shook him. “Didn’t you hear me? You’ve got to get out of here.”
“What about him?”
The girl caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Stanley will take care of him. He’s devoted to me, he’ll do anything I say. But he hates you after what you did to him. You’d better not be here.” She started pushing him to the door, stopped as if in an afterthought. “But I don’t have any money—”
Liddell stuck his hand into his breast pocket, pulled out some bills. “Here. Here’s a thousand. There’s lots more where that came from.”
The blonde wadded it, stuck it down the neck of her negligee. “Hurry. The police will be here!”
Liddell grinned at her. “You’re psychic, baby. The police are here.” He pulled open the door. Inspector Herlehy walked in. “Pretty good, eh, inspector?”
The color drained slowly from the girl’s face. “What is this?”
Liddell ceremoniously turned over the gun to the inspector. “I shot that character on the floor five times at close range.” He walked over to where the man lay, stirred him with his foot. “On your feet, Buster. It’s time for the curtain call.”
Lou struggled to his feet, glared at the girl. “I knew you’d pull it once too often,” he growled. He was a macabre sight, his face and shirt stained blood-red.
“You’d better sit down,” the inspector told him. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.” He looked at Liddell, nodded. “You had the gimmick pegged. I haven’t seen it used in years.”
“Okay, so you made a fair pinch,” the blonde turned her back, walked over to the end table, poured herself a drink, downed it neat. “I suppose the money was marked so you’ve got an attempted extortion rap.” She looked at Liddell. “You still haven’t told me who you are, mister.”
“Johnny. Johnny Liddell. I’m the private eye Terrell hired this morning to help him out of this mess.”
“A lot of good you did him,” she snapped.
“Whose idea was the cackle bladder for shakedowns? Yours or Leeman’s?”
“Come again?”
Liddell grinned at her. “That gimmick was old when you were in rompers, baby. The old-time con men used to use it to cool down a mark who started to yell copper. The inside man would provide a gun loaded with blanks, the con man would have the thin rubber bladder filled with chicken blood between his teeth. When he bit the bladder it gave the effect of hemorrhaging from the mouth.”
“Okay, so you’re real smart. It still only adds up to a year if you get the conviction.”
“That’s right. A year, and then they electrocute you, baby.”
The blonde started. “What are you pulling?”
“How’d you know Terrell was dead?”
“I — the radio. You ought to listen to it once in a while. The midnight news, wise guy.”
Liddell shook his head. “Terrell’s identity wasn’t given out to the papers. Only the killer could have known who he was.” He looked to Herlehy. “Right, inspector?”
Herlehy nodded.
“No. You got it wrong. I didn’t kill him. Stanley did. He—”
“Stanley might have strangled him or beaten him to death. He would never have used a gun. Besides, it had to be someone Terrell trusted to get him to go down into that dark foundation. He was too scared to go down there with anyone but you.”
“Why me?”
“He thought you had been taken in by Leeman, too. He was going to tell you about how Leeman hadn’t died six months ago. Then he got wise, didn’t he, that Leeman was only your stooge, that you were head of the shake racket.”
The blonde sneered at him. “Okay, Rover boy, let’s go. I want to find out whether it was a fit of temporary insanity or whether I was defending my honor.”
The Pigeons
by Hal Ellson
There wasn’t much to do in the Reformatory, and Hop was happy just watching the pigeons — until Al came along...
There were always pigeons there, winging into the sky or plummeting past the windows of the Boys’ Reformatory ward into the unreal distance of the world below. During most of the year the pigeons were birds of passage which nested elsewhere, but when spring came and the windows folded outward, the pigeons founded their nests on the ledges between screen and glass. They seemed to know it was safe, that the windows would not be closed again until autumn, and that no hand could harm them. The screens were made that way because of the patients, but sometimes, at some of the windows, the noise the patients made disturbed them.