A Century of Noir Read online

  People turned and stared at him. A girl down in front of him turned about and looked into his eyes. They both gave a start, then he cried:

  “Violet!”

  “Jack!” she answered, and the tone of her voice made him think that she had missed him almost as much as he had missed her, and that was a whole lot. “Where have you been all these years?” she asked, and there was reproach in her voice.

  He wanted to tell her all about it, as a man does when he is in love but she stopped him with a gesture. It was not because she didn’t want to hear him, but she didn’t want to be rude to the man who was escorting her.

  So she said: “Come around to the house and tell me about it this evening.” She spoke like she would be breathless in anticipation until they met that night—at least that was the way she sounded to him.

  Jack went around to the Kappa house or the Omega house, or whatever house it was, that evening about eight o’clock. A girl met him in the foyer and took his hat and coat, and when he mentioned Violet, she said “Oh yes,” and took him into a dimly lit reception room.

  There were several girls and a couple of young men grouped in a circle on the carpeted floor. Violet got up from the davenport where she had been sitting and took him by the arm.

  She said, “The matron is away and we were planning to play some stud poker on the floor. Come on, it’s great fun.”

  But Jack hesitated. He was slightly embarrassed, for he only had a dollar and ten cents to his name and he didn’t want to win, but he couldn’t afford to lose for that dollar and ten cents was his meal ticket. One of the girls went out for a deck of cards and Jack took advantage of the delay to edge Violet over to a settee in a corner where there wasn’t much light.

  He tried to kiss her but she told him to wait until some of the gang cleared. And then suddenly, before either one of them was really aware of it, she was in his arms and their lips were sealed together. He had been away six weeks and six weeks is a long time when you are young and in love. Jack realized then that he loved her a lot more than he had any business loving anyone with his capital amounting to only a dollar and ten cents.

  A girl came into the room then and called Jack’s name, jarring him out of the ethereal loveland of Violet’s arms back to the cold concreteness of reality. The girl told Jack that there was someone at the door to see him and Jack got up reluctantly and went out into the foyer.

  A huge policeman with a hard bronze face and slitted eyes awaited Jack. The policeman wore a high blue helmet pulled down over his forehead and the brass buttons of his leather-belted overcoat gleamed like lobster eyes in the softened light of the foyer. The policeman held a three foot nightstick in his right hand and a dull black service revolver in his left. The round muzzle of the gun was pointing at Jack’s stomach, and Jack felt goosefleshy about the nape of his neck.

  The policeman commanded Jack to stick up his hands. Jack stretched his arms ceilingward. Then the policeman asked Jack if he knew how to pray. Jack nodded, wondering what it was all about, and getting kind of angry at the policeman’s bulldozing methods.

  The policeman told Jack to get on his knees and pray. Jack frowned, beginning to get a little frightened. He dropped to his knees, still holding his hands above his head. The policeman pushed the revolver straight into Jack’s face—and Jack sat up in his bed yelling bloody murder.

  The guy across the darkened cell turned over in his bunk and said “Aw, pipe down, mugg, and let a guy sleep, will ya?”

  And then suddenly Jack realized that he wasn’t a freshman in a nice old college, and he wasn’t in love with a pretty girl called Violet, that he didn’t even know such a girl, that he was just convict number 10012 in a dark, chilly cell, and he had eaten too many beans at supper. But for hours afterward he lay there silently cursing the huge policeman who had made him realize this.

  CARROLL JOHN DALY

  Race Williams pretty much started it all. You take your Hammetts, Chandlers, Cains, MacDonalds (John D. and Ross Macdonald)—and you’re still talking Carroll John Daly (1889–1958), the creator of Race Williams. Because no matter how you gussy up, trick up, Seriously Literaur-ize the private eye novel, the source will always be the inimitable, reckless antics of Race Williams, who never met a man he didn’t want to kill.

  Frequently published in pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective, Daly broke away from the genteel sleuthing of his predecessors, bringing the dirty streets and double-dealing criminals onto the magazine pages. His short story “The False Burton Combs” is acknowledged to be the first hard-boiled detective story. In more than fifteen novels published from the 1920s to the 1950s, his detectives lived by their own moral code, punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent.

  Just Another Stiff

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Corpse on Me

  The door of my private office crashed back, and the man hurled himself in. Jerry, my assistant, was following him, grabbing at his right arm. Then followed the prettiest bit of gun-work you’d want to look at.

  Both the man’s hands moved at once; both of them held guns. The left one was trained on me. The right one crashed with a thud against bone, and I saw the blood on Jerry’s forehead start to trickle down before he sank to the floor and lay quietly there. My visitor’s foot moved too, and the door was kicked closed.

  Some entrance!

  I was caught with my coat off—and that’s no figure of speech. It was warm. My shoulder holster was sporting a gun, but it was over on the bookcase. A bad set-up for a guy who fancies himself with heavy hardware and should be ready day and night? I don’t know. I had a gun fastened beneath my desk that was handy enough. Well, nearly enough.

  But I was getting a good look at this smart duck. He was high class on the outside—that is if expensive scenery makes for high class. Spats, a ninety-buck suit, a twelve-dollar hat. Things had happened to his face. Someone must have taken a sledge hammer and knocked his nose flat into the middle of it.

  My hands went up and he spoke. “You don’t have to play any Hold-Up-Your-Hands game with me, Race Williams. If you have any wish to use a gun, why go ahead and use it. How’s that?”

  I nodded and said that was fine. I wondered what he’d do if I slipped one hand under the desk, let my gun drop into it. Then I wondered what I’d do. I’d have to raise my hand to shoot; he only had to press a finger on a trigger—either trigger. So I waited—and lived on.

  “So you’re Williams. The wise dick, Race Williams—smartest gunman in the racket. You didn’t think a guy could come from across the pond and put the finger on you—lay you right on the spot.”

  “Across the Atlantic?” I tried.

  He shook his head. “The Orient. Don’t know my face, eh?”

  “Well—” I looked at that thick-lipped, flattened puss of his and said: “Maybe I knew it before you had it renovated.”

  He didn’t get that last crack, and maybe it was just as well. He didn’t look like a guy who’d take a joke, and I was in a pretty position to take a face full of forty-fives.

  There was my own forty-four sprung nicely beneath my desk. Just an outward thrust, an upward jerk, and the pressure of a finger. I’ve done it before and gotten away with it, and I’d have done it then. But this guy could do things with guns and the best I could hope for was a double death. Besides he looked like a man who wanted to talk. And if he wanted to talk, I wanted to listen; he wouldn’t be the first lad who’d talked himself to death.

  “Brother,” he said, “you’ve got a chance to live if you do exactly what I tell you. Don’t go around with the wrong people. You understand that?”

  “Sure”—I looked straight into his eyes—“sure, I understand that. What’s the show?”

  “The show is dope. Millions of dollars’ worth of narcotics coming into the country through Morse and Lee, Fifth Avenue jewelers. Coming in easily until you killed Frank Morse, saved Conklyn Lee’s life after he had discovered the racket Frank Morse was running. Then you even wi
sed up the real owner of the firm—the girl, Mary Morse—and for the time being put the easy money out of business.”

  “Anything else I did you didn’t like?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The killing of Gentle Jim Corrigan, the man who started to take Frank Morse’s place—that’s why I came.”

  “You were a long time coming.” I stopped and looked toward Jerry. “How about putting the boy on the couch.” And when he only grinned, “He may come to and bother you.”

  He laughed—a very assured laugh. “He won’t come to for a bit, and if he does, he won’t bother me.” For a fraction of a second his head jerked toward Jerry, his eyes rolled. And I took the chance. My right arm shot slightly forward, my fingers touched metal, and a forty-four dropped into my hand.

  Did he see me? I knew that he didn’t, for his guns never changed—nor did either of his fingers tighten. He went on talking.

  “Certainly, we were a long time coming. A long time figuring out the set-up, and making new plans. You see, we figured that after the first shooting you would be out of the case, because Mary Morse didn’t have any money—and wouldn’t have until she was twenty-one. So she couldn’t hire you. But somehow you fell for her blue eyes, and took a hand in things. And now—”

  He went for his inner jacket pocket. He simply crossed his left arm, tucked the gun under his right armpit—never took his right-hand gun off me—and pulled out a long folded piece of paper. He tossed it on the desk before me. I had to move my gun into my left hand as I leaned forward to reach it. I didn’t dare come up shooting then, for he was leaning far over the desk.

  “Look that over,” he said.

  He waited while I read it. It was hot stuff—a written statement of everything that had taken place in the dope-smuggling game. My protection of Mary Morse; her own knowledge of what was going on; the fact that her stepfather, Conklyn Lee, also knew; and that I, too, had kept such information from the government. It was all there right up to the shooting of Frank Morse. It looked like a confession that awaited only my signature.

  Where did he get his information? Mary Morse wouldn’t talk and ruin the Morse business to say nothing of being accused of helping her uncle. Conklyn Lee wouldn’t tell for the same reason. Then it must be—

  “Where did you get this information?” I asked Flat-Face.

  From his indifference, I knew I was never supposed to live to repeat his answer. He said simply, and without hesitation: “The little lady known as the Flame supplied the information. But take a sheet of paper, copy that document there in your own handwriting. That will assure us that in the future, you’ll stay out of this case—stay away from Mary Morse.”

  It wasn’t the time to laugh, so I didn’t. Up to date, the Morse case had not only paid me nothing, but had actually been a loss. I had thought it was over. Oh, she had buzzed me a few times on the phone, tried to see me, and then—like that—a dead silence. Which suited me, I guess.

  I looked at Flat-Face’s gun, thought, “Now is the time for it,” pulled up my right hand and started to reach for the pen. The left with the gun in it was ready to follow, when he leaned far forward and killed that motion. “Get paper! What’s the matter with your left hand? Are you a cripple?”

  I dropped my gun onto my knees, and brought up my left hand. And I was right. If black had showed against the white of my hand I would have been dead, for his eyes were glued on that left.

  For a moment I was glad I hadn’t chanced death—I mean chanced his death, for mine would have been sure. Then I wasn’t so glad. I was beginning to copy the paper. Hell, I know it’s the proper thing for a real hero to throw out his chest, tell the guy that the sweet child, Mary Morse, came first and die like a man. But the hard thing to do is live like a man—if you’re in a position like I was. I wanted to see a turn of his head, a second’s lowering of that gun—and I wouldn’t bore him with any more conversation. But I guess the main reason I was exercising my penmanship was because I was simply writing, Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

  After watching my moving fingers a while, he said: “You’re making good time, Williams. Turn the paper around so I can see what you wrote.”

  I breathed easier. This was the break. He’d have to look down at that paper, and when he did—Simple? Sure. It’s just playing a waiting game, having a bit of patience. I swung the paper around, slid my left hand back to the edge of the desk.

  “There you are. Just what you—”

  His eyes never lowered. They stayed right on my hands. He said simply: “Put both your hands in the air—both of them.”

  I did, and he looked down at the paper—just a quick glance. Then his right hand moved with incredible speed. I felt more than saw that the gun turned in his hand as he gun-whipped me. Sure—he just tore a thin line down the side of my face, dug backwards, and gouged out a hunk of flesh almost beneath my ear. Mad? Of course I was. This lad’s technique was perfect.

  His voice never raised as he said simply: “Take another sheet of paper and try again.” And when both my hands were once more on that desk, and a fresh sheet ready, “Listen, Williams, the cops know I’m in town. They’re looking for me. You write it and sign it and I’ll pass down the back stairs and be safely hidden away. They can’t possibly suspect I’m here at your office. Don’t write it—and I’ll blast your head off or maybe simply cut your throat.”

  He parked a gun then; his left hand shot beneath his jacket and out again. Silver streaked in the light—and there was a long-bladed knife sticking in my desk.

  He said: “That might as well have been in your chest—or in your throat!” And his crooked mouth twisting, “Though I like cutting throats from behind—it isn’t such a mess. I mean for the cutter.”

  Now, as I wrote, he leaned forward and picked up the knife. He was trying to see, but no matter how he bent, the writing was still upside down. So he pulled a fast one.

  “Keep on writing word for word, Williams. A mistake, and I’ll let the whole thing go. To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t like the looks of a couple of men outside your office building. They looked copper, and they smelled copper.” He was moving around the desk as he spoke.

  “Look here”—I kept my right hand on the desk, but let my left slide naturally off it and onto my knees as I turned and faced him—“how do I know that you won’t kill me after it’s written?”

  “You don’t know—only that I tell you and that my gun would make too much noise.”

  The knife! I thought of the knife then, and I knew what he intended to do, just as if he had told me himself. Once the final word was written, once my signature was there, it would be a single stretch of his arm behind my back, a sharp twist of his wrist and he’d cut my throat.

  Then what? Why, they’d have that girl, Mary Morse, under their thumbs, have her money, the cellar of her great store to keep their dope in. The famous house of Morse and Lee that was beyond suspicion would become a huge central receiving and distributing point for the narcotic trade. And I signed that paper—with all the threats, intimidation, blackmail and extortion that were contained therein.

  The killer—with the knife in his left hand the gun in his right—was coming around the end of the desk. He was going to pass almost in full view of me. Would he see the gun? Would he see it before his body was directly in the line of my fire? Of course he would. I wouldn’t dare move the hand that held it; I wouldn’t dare move the arm or the shoulder that controlled that hand. Suddenly he moved forward, was directly before my gun—and he saw it.

  Sure he saw the gun! He couldn’t help see it. It was spewing orange-blue flame as soon as enough of his body was visible. It wasn’t a nice shot; it wasn’t a clean shot. But then it wasn’t meant to be. It spun him as if he were a top. His own gun exploded, tore into the bookcase behind me. For a moment he swung back toward me and his gun was stretched out in his hand. And that was all of that. I squeezed lead once more and made a hole where his flat nose had been.
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  He was further away this time, but he was dead—dead right there on his feet. I saw it in his eyes, saw the light go out of them as if you’d switched off an electric bulb, just before he collapsed there between the desk and the window.

  A voice said: “Nice work, boss. You don’t often let me in on the kill.” It was Jerry, half up on one knee.

  “He let you in on it and—” I paused, picked up the original paper and the copy I was making and started to tear them up. A door slammed. Heavy feet beat across the outer office and once again my private door burst open. I slipped my gun into my pocket as a face appeared in the doorway—the hard, weather-beaten face of my worst enemy on the police force. Yep, you guessed his name. It was Iron Man Nelson. All the things I had pulled on him and taken my laugh at, at the time, didn’t seem quite so funny to me now with those papers clutched in my left hand.

  Inspector Nelson saw Jerry who was getting slowly to his feet; saw the deep cut in his forehead, the blood beginning to dry on Jerry’s face, and for the first time in his life Nelson was solicitous. Evidently he thought I had been knocking Jerry around and he was going to make the most of it. Apparently Iron Man Nelson hadn’t heard those shots. He’d come in for some other reason. Of course, he wasn’t in a position to see the body of Flat-Face.

  “What did this man, Williams, do to you, son?” Iron Man had an arm around Jerry, and the “son” sounded as though a couple of other words were missing. “He smacked you with a gun, eh? Well that’s a pastime of Williams’.”

  “Mr. Williams was showing me a new gun-twist,” Jerry lied easily, though I knew his head was near busting as he bathed it at the water-cooler. Before Nelson could blow up he added: “Then I tried it on him and—”

  I dropped the papers into the ashtray, lit a butt, and tossed the match in after them.