Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

Clark put down the bottle, after having offered me another drink. “For a guy your size, you’re a pretty good man,” he conceded.

I said thanks and left it up to him.

“I always figured you a smart guy, too,” he continued, “but I don’t get you trying to ease a bum rap off on me.”

I propped a cigarette between my swollen lips and got it lighted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Clark. But this is straight dope — if I knew anything to hang on you, I’d do it now.”

His eyes narrowed. “I suppose next you’ll tell me you didn’t square yourself with the cops by giving them the letter I wrote to Maxine?”

I was brave. I guess I didn’t think he’d hit a man in my condition. “Look, Clark. If the police have that letter and can prove you killed those people, they’re doing it without any help from me. But more power to them.”

Johnny snorted. “You’re a helluva detective!”

I laughed. With my mouth it hurt me more than it did him. “You’re no prize yourself. Incidentally, where are you getting all this bum dope?”

“I got a telephone call,” he explained. “Some dame said you were going to turn a letter over to the D. A. to clear yourself—”

“A dame?”

“Uh-huh.”

I got it.

“Come on, Johnny.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the door. “I want you to meet a lady!”

The clerk behind the desk at Marion’s apartment was a highly nervous little guy with a marcelled blond toupee. When Clark and I ground our elbows into the desk, our battle-scarred pusses upset him frightfully.

“Inform Miss Trenton she has guests,” I told him. “Mr. Clark and Mr. Fowler.”

He complied and turned to us triumphantly: “Miss Trenton says she can’t see you gentlemen right now.”

Clark reached across the desk and thumped his narrow chest with a forefinger the size of a small salami. “You call the lady back and tell her to expect us.”

We started for the elevator, but the Filipino boy slammed the doors in our face. There was nothing to do but take the stairway. Marion lived on the fourth floor. Jumping up those stairs two at a time was no casual sport for a couple of guys who kept in shape by resting one foot on a bar-rail. When we levelled off on her floor, my head felt as if I was caught between a benzedrine and a bromide. Clark wasn’t any better off. We reeled down the hallway to her apartment.

The door was slightly ajar, so we didn’t wait for an invitation. That was more than just a social error. If I hadn’t been so damned lightheaded, I don’t think I would have been sucked in. But I was, and there we were, stranded in the center of Marion’s living room. The lady herself was between us and the door with a .32 that made the idea of trying our entrance over again sort of silly.

She closed the door quietly. “So nice of you gentlemen to call,” she said. “Please be seated — on the davenport, if you don’t mind. And keep your hands in sight — on your knees, I think would be fine.”

Marion was standing with her back to the door. She acted as if she knew what she was doing. She wasn’t going to come close enough for one of us to jump her, and at that range she couldn’t miss. The chips were very definitely down, and we all knew it. It was her play.

“To what am I indebted for this charming visit?” she asked, adding, “As if I didn’t know.”

I smiled, or tried to. “We thought you might be a good kid and tell us about Maxine and Wally.”

She thought about it for a minute. Her gun didn’t waver. Neither did Clark or I. “Wally killed Maxine, then lost his nerve,” she said, calmly. “I had to kill him.”

“Why did Burke kill Maxine?” Clark found his voice.

Marion shrugged. “I asked him to — she’d done enough to spoil our lives.”

“You lying devil!” Clark exploded, half-rising.

The muzzle of Marion’s gun pin-pointed the second button on his vest and he sank down beside me. He was very mad, very dangerous, but he knew he was on the wrong end of the gun.

“So what are you going to do about us?” I asked.

“Anxious, Marty?” she chided.

“No, just curious,” I replied. “I don’t suppose you can get any more for killing four people than for two, but up to now you’ve been a pretty smart baby about these things. I just wondered how you’d figured this one out.”

“Well,” she said, “there’s really no point in keeping you in suspense. I’m going to shoot you with Clark’s gun, which he is going to toss over to me in a minute. Then I’ll shoot Clark with this one.”

“I suppose I’m thick, but I’m missing the point. It’s an interesting switch, but what does it accomplish?”

“I’m disappointed in you, Marty,” she replied, “but I think when the police find a certain letter Clark wrote to Maxine in your pocket, they’ll believe you and he got in a row, he shot you, and then in self defense, I shot him.”

“Good, good. Then you’ve had the letter all the time?”

“Naturally.”

If I had to be in this kind of a jam, Clark was a good man to have on my side.

“What if I don’t toss my gun over, lady?” he asked. “I hate to spoil your act, but I think you’re taking a lot for granted.”