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

“Yes. It was a practical joke, that’s all.”

“Your lawyers will have a very tough time finding twelve good men who will split their sides over it.”

“It’s the truth. We all thought the thing was full of blanks. Larry was in on the frame-up. We were going to scare the pants off Meyer Levinson who gets deathly sick when he sees blood.” He shivers all over, though it’s over seventy in the stairwell.

“We arranged to fake a quarrel. Larry was to claim I’d been cheating, and I was supposed to resent it and fire at him point-blank. Larry planned to fall across the table and splash some red across his shirt front. Then Zara and I were to beat it into 801 and leave Meyer with Larry.” He laced his fingers together to keep them from quivering. “It didn’t — come out that way. Larry is dead and I’m going to get mine.”

The elevator door interrupts him; it clangs open and the house dick, Mike Rubin, stamps out, dragging another lug with him.

“Here,” he hollers, “here’s your runaway buddy.”

Mike’s face is the color of raw beef; his tie is a little on the soiled side, but you should get a close-up of Roy Zara.

He must of been run through a mangle. He has a cut on one of his thin cheeks; his nose is swollen and he needs a couple of new chewers in the front row. His coat collar is torn and that silk shirt with the freak long-collar points is just something for the ashcan.

“I catch him trying to run to the nearest exit,” growls Mike. “I hadda teach him to walk, like the sign says. He had a wad of dough on him big as a house.”

Up to now, the only thing I had against Roy Zara is those black drapes they call Windsor ties, which label him a phony from scratch. A crook can have his map altered as easy as Europe these days, so it’s no bargain being a camera eye. Me, I play a different system. I never forget a tie or the neck it’s on. And right now, I remember brushing against something soft and silky when I take that nose dive a ways back. It must of been Zara’s arty neck piece.

No doubt about it; this mussed-up musician put the dot on my eye. Those teeth he lacks match the cuts on my dukes. The dough-ray-me Mike took off him was probably the ducats he picked up off the table when Del Grave was shot. Zara’d been big loser; probably he figured this was a chance to get it back.

I shove Hipper Dipper ahead of me into 803 and Mike drags the orchestra leader after us.

The Louse is sitting on the sofa with the quart in one clutch, my gun in the other. The gun is pointed at Levinson, who is sitting with his elbows on his knees, studying his shoe-tips. He glances up when we come in, but goes right back to inspecting his shoes.

The frill stares at Zara’s mashed-up face and goes two shades paler under the new make-up she’s put on. She shrinks away from Hipper Dipper as if he had smallpox. The comedian doesn’t even know she’s in the room; and Zara is too bug-eyed, trying to see where Del Grave’s body has been put, to pay her any attention.

I point to the bathroom. “Peek in there on the tile, Mike.”

The big gumshoe gets a glimful and turns green around the gills. “I better call the wagon and put away the dog who done that.”

“Keep your shorts on, fella. The Medical Examiner would only mark him dead on arrival and that’s no scoop. The homicide squad would just tie us all in tanglefoot and mumble in their long gray beards about expecting to make an arrest within twenty-four hours.”

“Can you do better, Vince?”

“I can take a crack at it.” I produce the automatic. “Now this is the heater that croaked Del Grave. It belongs to the long drink of water acting moody over there on the couch. Name is Meyer Levinson.”

“Did Levinson shoot him?” Mike asks.

“According to Mister Frinkey, here,” I give Hipper Dipper a dig in the ribs, “he is the bright boy who held the shooter in Del Grave’s puss and tickled the trigger. Mister Frinkey says it’s all a mistake; he thought the gun was stuffed with blanks.”

“Anyone who would point a pistol at a pal, press the button and call it accidental,” puts in the Louse, who by this time is plastered right up to the ceiling, “would stab you in the back and claim he was only sharpening his knife.”

Hipper Dipper clears his throat, nervously. “It was a gag. We were ribbing Levinson.”

Mike snorts disgustedly, so I fill in some of the details for him:

“It seems Levinson gets crawly when he sees blood; the boys figured he’d do nip-ups if the gun went boom and Del Grave fell down and spilled a lot of red paint on his shirt-front.”

“Didn’t you ever hear of a practical joke before?” snarls Zara, nasty-like.

“They got one up-river,” Mike comes back. “Gives you the hot-foot in a great big way.”

“What I am getting at,” I keep right on, “is this: How come one cartridge in this automatic had the sting left in it?”