Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

I wasn’t trying to be any hero. It was just sort of something I had to do. I whipped the light rod back and then forward. I watched the plug flash across the room toward Gus Berkaw and I saw it hit his hand in a perfect cast. I pulled back on the pole as though to hook a striking fish.

Gus Berkaw screamed and the gun fell from his hand. I held the line taut, his hand, hooked solidly, pulled out the full length of his huge, beefy arm toward me.

“Don’t try to move. Stand still, Gus, or that plug will rip out half of your hand.”

He did that, his face all twisted with the pain of the hook barbs sunk deeply into his flesh. The rest of the crowd closed in around him. Gus Berkaw’s legs gave way with him, then and he sunk down onto the floor, holding his wounded hand with the plug still in it. He kept mouthing curses, incoherantly and tears wormed down his dark, meaty cheeks.

Then, before anybody could stop her, Irma Wenzel stepped toward the gun that had been flung from Gus’ hand. She bent and scooped it up, her eyes flashing hatred.

“Get out of the way!” she said harshly.

Pete Saterlee and Eric Fabian stepped swiftly out of her path. Chief Quimby yelled something at her but she didn’t seem to hear. Holding the revolver in both hands, her face as stiff and drawn as though it had been bathed in alum, she walked close to Gus Berkaw. She shot him in the head at close range. Before the echo of the gun shot faded from the room, she turned the smoking barrel toward herself. That second shot was muffled, somewhat.

I turned and caught Lee Marlow as she fainted.

There was no trial, of course. There was no one to try. All the principals involved were dead. The whole affair had the township of Boone buzzing for a long time and there was a lot of talk that the thing had been twisted around and some angles covered up because a couple of rich and influential men like Pete Saterlee and Eric Fabian were involved. But that wasn’t so. It was just like I’ve told it. What did they want; how much worse could it possibly have been?

It took a long time for Lee Marlow to get over the whole thing. But I waited. She was worth waiting for. And we never talk about it at all. Mrs. Hoyle and I.

We don’t go out fishing very much, either. If we do, it’s with an old bamboo pole and worms. We don’t have a dog, either. Not that we don’t like dogs, but there are some things that are hard to forget.

The Slay’s the Thing by Phil Richards

Ex-playwright James Greer gave flop space to the local parasites — so his guilt complex could wear a halo.

* * *

It was a hot, sticky night and even the air was sweating. But Rawne, turning west on Twenty-second Street, looked cool enough. Everybody else was parboiled. Brown-stone stoops were draped with people too fagged to stagger to the corner tavern. They stared languidly at Rawne as he strutted airily along.

Halfway down the dusty block he spoke to a wispy little man leaning against the brick wall of an apartment house. The little man was bald and he had a straggly gray mustache. He wore a pink-striped silk shirt dabbed with green paint, and the sleeves were cut off near the shoulders. His arms were muscular. He was nursing a perspiring bottle of beer.

“Good evening, Mr. Rawne,” the little man said. He polished his moist skull with a calloused hand. “Hot, isn’t it? I hear Mr. Greer has Blown Smoke in the seventh race at today and goes to the fifty-dollar window with a stack of win tickets. Mr. Greer doesn’t visit me and pay six months back rent.”

Rawne blew a cloud of smoke. “You’re the superintendent, Schmidt,” he said. “You’ve known the bum for years. He’s got dough. Reach him quick. Because fellers he don’t owe are fellers he don’t know.”

Rawne went down two steps into a spotless foyer. He pressed the button opposite the brass name plate James Cullen Greer. There was no click to the front door’s lock release. Schmidt came in jingling a large ring of keys. He let Rawne into a gloomy hall lit by a small bulb.

“Whenever I ask Mr. Greer for the rent,” Schmidt said, “he gives me his speech on the brotherhood of man, but now that Blown Smoke pays sixteen forty, I think Mr. Greer resigns from the lodge.”

“You’re sharp, Schmidt,” Rawne said, and bounded up the creaking stairs.

The odor of cabbage and ham hocks mingled with the mustiness of old walls and gave the house a lived-in smell. The white paint in the wall niche at the top of the first flight was mottled with cigarette burns. At the landing Rawne glanced down. Bottle tilted to his mouth, Schmidt was looking up at him. Two more flights, and Rawne stopped before a door marked 4A. Inside, a woman’s voice was raised in angry tones.