D. Champion - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 30, No. 2 — July 1947)

It was a swell job, all right; only it wasn’t fun.

They got down to the lobby and stepped out into a mob of eddying, sweating, convention-enjoying humanity.

O’Hara said: “Look, Clancy, can you stay put right by the newsstand for five minutes?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” said Clancy. “I’m always around.”

“Yeah,” O’Hara said. “But where? I’ve had the newly-elected officers rounded up twice and lost ’em each time because I had to hunt you. I’m going to do it again and if you’re missing this time, Mister Clancy, I’ll drown you in a tray of your own developer.”

Clancy looked at Miss Melba, the girl behind the newsstand, with drunken admiration. “Don’t worry about me leaving here — I like that blond scenery.”

O’Hara bumped, threaded, elbowed his way through the jammed lobby. He found the new president in the barber shop, just winding up a manicure. He dug two vice-presidents and a recording secretary out of the coffee shop; he hauled the membership secretary and the treasurer out of a crap game in Room 301. And he shooed them all toward Room A, off the ballroom.

He went back to the lobby. A small, trim girl with wide-set hazel eyes and a quirk to her mouth intercepted him.

She said: “Hi, space grabber!”

O’Hara said severely: “Public relations counsel to you, Miss Ames.”

Tony Ames said: “How goes it, Ken?”

“Swell, kitten. This job is the nuts.”

She looked at him shrewdly, shook her head. “You can take your hair down with mama. You hate the job, don’t you? It’s put more wrinkles in your forehead in a week than you got in seven years at the Trib. Why don’t you come back with us, Ken?”

“And have that gang down there give me the horse-laugh for a year? Braddock told me it wouldn’t be a month before I’d sneak up to him at the city desk and beg for my job back. Anyway, this is a swell deal I have here. How about dinner here with me tonight, kitten? You can eat twice as much as usual on account of I get half rates.”

“O.K., mule. But business before calories.” From her pocketbook she took the Diplomat press release that O’Hara had sent out the previous night. She said: “I note that this dive of yours—”

Interrupting, O’Hara made a grimace of horror. “Please, please — the Diplomat is not a dive. At the very worst, it’s only a joint. Proceed.”

“Staying at the Diplomat dump is one Rex Miller of Midland City, who is — in your words — a noted gang buster. What gang did he ever bust?”

“There’s a great story in him, angel face,” said O’Hara. “It seems that back in Midland City vice has been rampant, as the editorial writers would say. So the good citizens, including most of the ministers in town, formed a committee to force the city administration to clamp down and kick the racket boys out. Not long after that, one of the ministers on the committee got into his car, stepped on the starter and was blown to bits. That was carrying things a bit too far. The state attorney general stepped in and appointed a special prosecutor to handle the investigation. Rex Miller is that individual. You ought to get a swell interview out of him. By ‘swell’ I mean one that mentions the Diplomat at least three times.”

“Braddock said two hundred words and the Diplomat gets one mention if it doesn’t slip my mind. Why is Miller out here?”

“He mentioned something about visiting a sister who’s at college out here. Come on — I’ll try to locate him for you.” He turned, took a few steps and stopped. A lean and youngish man was edging his way through the crowd. He had a bony face, curt lips, a good jaw and a clear direct gaze. It all added up to a not unpleasant total. O’Hara said: “There’s the lad now.”

With Tony trailing him, O’Hara angled across the lobby and intercepted the lean, youngish man. “Mr. Miller—”

Miller halted, faced around. “Hello, O’Hara.”

O’Hara did the introductions and Tony Ames said: “We’ve heard about your fine work in Midland City, Mr. Miller. If you have a little time—”

The curt-lipped young man glanced at his wrist watch, seemed for a moment hesitant. Then he said: “I can give you only a very few minutes. Let’s find a spot out of this traffic.”

Tony clicked high heels alongside Miller toward an alcove and O’Hara turned and jammed his way over to the newsstand to collect Clancy. Clancy wasn’t there.

“Hell’s bells,” said O’Hara. He bit off other words that might — or might not — have shocked the newsstand blonde. “Where is that guy, Melba?”

Melba said: “Who — Clancy?”

“Yeah, where’s Clancy?”

A fat man who was buying cigars seemed to think this was very humorous. He chuckled, sending out a wave of bourbon fog, and said: “It sounds like Clancy’s missing, friends.”

Melba said: “He was here a minute ago, Ken. Wait a second.” She waved at a passing bellboy, sang out: “Mike, where’s Clancy?”

The fat drunk thought that was even funnier. He said: “Lemme find Clancy for you, sister.” He raised his voice and it wasn’t a small voice. “Where’s Clancy?” he yelled.

Somebody over on the other side of the lobby thought it was funny, also. He yelled back: “Where’s Clancy?”

A lot more of the delegates decided they had something there and wanted to know where Clancy was and inside of thirty seconds the idea had captured most of the conventioneers in the lobby as something screamingly comic.

“Where’s Clancy?” they demanded separately in chorus.

Melba held her hands over her ears and grimaced at O’Hara.

Dahlman, the assistant manager, popped out of his office near the newsstand. He was a dandified, precise little man and he looked as though the noise was tearing his nerves into little strips. He shouted: “What is this? What’s going on? Who started this pandemonium?”

Melba pointed mutely at O’Hara and Dahlman screamed above the din: “What do you mean, O’Hara, by starting an uproar like this?”

O’Hara scowled at the pretty little man and said: “Nuts, Mr. Dahlman, I didn’t—”

“And is that any way to speak to your superior?”

A bellhop erupted from the jam and said: “Hey, O’Hara, I seen Clancy.”

“Where?”

“He was going downstairs to the men’s lounge with a guy about five minutes ago, a kinda hard-looking mug. He was carrying his plate case and camera.”

O’Hara said, “Thanks, kid,” and ducked around the newsstand, leaving Dahlman with his mouth open ready to say more.

The stairs to the washroom went down in smooth, marble terraces besides the elevator shaft. O’Hara had a hunch and he took the marble steps three at a time.

He slapped the leather-padded swing doors out of the way and went into the outer room of the lounge. There wasn’t anyone there, not even Hamfoot, the shoeshine boy.

He slammed through a second set of leather-padded doors and there were three guys there. One of them was Clancy, who didn’t seem to know or care where he was. He was on his back with his head beneath one of the washbowls. Blood and saliva drooled out of his open mouth.

Ernie, the dark-faced man from 907, was crunching photographic plates under one heel very deliberately and methodically. He had already kicked Clancy’s camera to bits.

Hamfoot trembled and jittered in one corner and his black face was a pale gray.

Ernie looked coldly at O’Hara as he crunched the last plate on the floor. He had a gun in his hand and he said: “Hello, press agent. Get the hell outa my way!”

The dark-faced man apparently had been accustomed for a long time to the respect a gun should command. He took it for granted that O’Hara would get out of the way so he walked toward him, toward the door. O’Hara did step aside. But when Ernie came even with him, he kicked the gun out of Ernie’s hand in one fast whirl of movement, using the follow-through of the kick to bring his right popping at the swarthy jaw. The right went high, smacking Ernie on the temple; but it had enough steam to slam him against the wall.