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

“Lissen, Benjy, this guy is just screeching it out. He don’t even know what he’s saying, so how can he be lying?”

“Check,” Slabbe said.

“When Max goes back to the car, Nikki’s shivved. How d’ya like that? The guy which was working on Pola must have still been there or have been hanging around when Max and Nikki come in. He figured Nikki could tab him and when she went back to the ear, he slid a knife into her.”

“What did Max do next?” Slabbe pressed.

“He was stuck with Nikki dead in the car, see, and all this killing was out of his line. He got the shakes and drove the car to his garage and then went out and drank till he got up some more nerve, then went back and took off the seat covers, wrapped the girl up and started off to drive her out in the woods somewheres and plant her. This was when Tommy and Happy caught up with him. Does it check? Was there this Nikki girl’s body in his car?”

“Yeah, there was, Charlie. Did you call an ambulance for Max?”

“Uh-huh. What next?”

“How long ago was It that Happy and Tommy headed back to town?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes,” Charlie judged. “They were sailing, too, going somewhere in a hurry. Cripes, if I should’ve stuck with them I’m sorry, Benjy.”

“No, you couldn’t let Max die, I guess,” Slabbe agreed without enthusiasm.

“But he probably will, anyhow,” Charlie repined. “And now we lost Happy and Tommy.”

The office door opened and two men stood in it, looking at Slabbe. Slabbe stopped chewing for five seconds, felt the phone in his hand getting slippery from sudden sweat. He started to put it down. Charlie’s voice said: “Maybe we can pick them up again, huh?”

“We did,” Slabbe said.

Save for the gun in his hand and the somewhat glassy set of his blue eyes, Tommy Rex still looked the man about town. His natty gabardine jacket, slacks and brown-and-white shoes hadn’t been dirtied at all. He looked sharp. Happy Lado was different, dumber, duller, without imagination. He was the type to beat to death anyone who got in his path, figuring that if they died they couldn’t have been important anyhow.

Tommy ordered gently, “Get behind him,” and stood flat-footed in front of the desk. Happy Lado’s permanently grinning lips tightened, and he glided out of Slabbe’s line of vision. Slabbe felt the displacement of air. A hand came delicately over his shoulder and whisked away his .38. Very carefully, he picked up his quart of beer and swallowed. As he was taking it away from his lips, Tommy nodded and Happy’s hand licked out in a slap that put the beer into Slabbe’s lap. Slabbe jerked instinctively.

Tommy leaned over the desk and casually moved his gun barrel four inches to Slabbe’s left temple. Pain blurgeoned in Slabbe’s skull and the nerves of his eyes, disorganized for a second, registered bright red. A choking sound started down in his chest and he heaved up.

“Shoulder!” Tommy Rex barked at the man behind Slabbe. Slabbe felt Happy’s gun barrel bite deep in his shoulder.

“Nah-h-h,” Tommy spat. “The collarbone.” Happy Lado’s gun rose and fell again, this time on the muscles sloping down from Slabbe’s neck. Slabbe felt pain scream through his arm and shoulder, then they were numb.

“The other one,” Tommy ordered.

Slabbe bellowed, “I’ll be damned if you do!” and threw himself backwards against his chair. He hit it and carried it four feet into the wall behind him. He knew he’d missed Happy as his head hit the wall and the red blaze engulfed his eyes again. He tried to fight to his feet again, but was vaguely aware that both men were now in front of him, slashing with their guns.

The first half dozen blows laced Slabbe’s head and torso with agony. Then his nerves went numb and he felt only the push, not the cut, of the gun barrels. Tommy and Happy seemed to be dancing around him, though he knew they were planted solid. He could hear the thick sound of their breathing and smell the stench of their sweated bodies. He remembered what Charlie Somers had said about Max: “Even if he lives, his old lady’ll never recognize him again!” He started to pass out.

The blows stopped.

Slabbe felt blood trickling down his face. His mouth was suddenly liquid, and he knew he was retching. He tried to turn his head, felt it sag laxly. The heel of a hand snapped his chin up.

A snarl said: “Where’s the stuff, peeper?”

“Give him a second; he can’t hear yet. Case the place.”

Desk drawers rasped out and hit the floor. The filing cabinets clattered. Bottles clunked out of the refrigerator. Slabbe kept his eyes closed tight, playing possum but not needing to act much to do it. He tightened the muscles in his stomach, released them, tightened them again and again. Pain came back dully throughout his thick torso. He ground his teeth but welcomed it — it takes strength of a kind to feel pain.

He could recognize Happy’s voice now when the twisty-lipped man rasped: “They ain’t here — but they gotta be!”