Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

“Here. Take this, quick!”

Out of the glove on his left hand he slipped a small white paper containing some sort of powder, which he thrust at Paul.

“It’s a deck of coke, you fool!” he said impatiently, when Paul looked at it blankly. “Frenchy says you’ll need it, that your last sniff must be worn off by this time. He was afraid you’d break down without it.”

Paul took the paper.

“And here. Take this, too.”

Gisling had unbuttoned the top button of his Chesterfield. From the inside pocket he took a small, compact, black automatic. “Put it in your pocket!”

Paul obeyed. “What... what am I supposed to do with it?”

Gisling snorted. “All you hopheads are the same! As soon as the stuff begins to wear off, you get to be dumb clucks! What’s a gun for, sap? What do you think I brought that writ for? You think it’s going to do you any good to be arraigned before a judge? Connaught can’t set you free. Even if you could beat this Groh rap, you’re wanted in two States, as well as by the Feds. Frenchy was a dope to use you at all!”

Paul Tyler saw that Hastings and his daughter were conversing near the window, scrupulously refraining from any attempt to overhear what was being said.

“All right, all right,” he said to Gisling, almost unconsciously falling into the tones he assumed a hood like Baby Face Matt Squeer would use. “So tell me what I’m supposed to do with the gun. You want me to take it out and start shooting right now?”

“No, you sap. But you’ve got to make a break. That’s your only chance if you don’t want to fry. Wait till you get downstairs with Fowler. Then let him have it in the back, and scram outside. Two of Frenchy’s boys will be waiting for you in a car at the curb. Get in and they’ll take you to a hide-out. Give Frenchy the gun you got from Groh, and then Frenchy will take care of getting you out of the country. Or better still, slip me the gun now, before Fowler comes back, and I’ll take care of it.”

“You mean the gun I killed Groh with?” Paul asked innocently.

“No!” Gisling replied with rising viciousness. “I mean the gun you got from Groh. You know damn well what gun I mean. I was a fool to promise Frenchy I’d come here. I should have known enough to keep out of it the minute he told me you were a snow bird! I mean the gun you killed Groh for. Did they frisk you? Did they get it from you? Or did you stash it?”

Paul Tyler was growing wiser by the minute in the ways that are devious. “They didn’t get it,” he said.

Just then Fowler came back in, and Hastings and Helen came over from the other side of the room. Fowler put a pair of handcuffs on Paul’s wrists and said, “Come along. And I only hope you try to make a break for it!”

Murray Gisling said, “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes, Mr. Hastings. Then we can go down to Judge Connaught’s chambers together.”

Paul understood why Gisling wanted to remain behind. The mouth-piece didn’t want to be downstairs when the prisoner made his break.

Fowler took Paul by the arm and growled, “Come on, rat!”

They started for the door, and Helen Hastings called out, “Wait. I’m coming along. I’ll take you in my coupe, and Father and Mr. Gisling can follow in his.”

Paul said urgently, “Don’t bother, Miss Hastings. You—”

The words were practically rammed down his throat by Fowler’s fist. The big detective hit him in the mouth, and Paul felt his teeth cutting through his upper lip.

Fowler snapped, “Nobody asked you for advice. And remember, I got to take the blame for marking you up, so I might as well have a little more fun. Better not give me any more reason to smack you around!”

He dragged Paul out, and called back to Helen Hastings, “I’m sorry, Miss Hastings, but I won’t take him if you go along. There’s the chance that Frenchy’s mob may try to spring him, and I don’t want you in danger!”

Helen glared at Fowler, but she didn’t argue with him. She watched them get into one of the two self-service elevators that served the building, and Paul’s last glimpse of her showed him a queer, calculating light in her eyes.

On the way out to the elevator, Paul had managed to slip one of his two handcuffed hands into his side pocket and extract the automatic, led in his right hand.

Fowler was looking at him peculiarly as the cage slid downward. When the cage was at the eighth floor, the big detective put his finger on the stop button, and the elevator came to rest between the seventh and eighth.

“Now!” he barked. “Maybe I couldn’t work you over right up there, with Hastings and that dizzy daughter of his watching. But no one’s here to stop me now!”

He gripped his heavy service revolver by the butt, raising the barrel in the air over Paul’s head. “You talk, mugg, or I’m gonna slice your pretty face to ribbons. Where did you cache the gun you took from Groh?”

“I tell you, I didn’t get any gun!” Paul protested.