Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

She walked across the room, disappeared in the bedroom. Liddell leaned back on the couch, lit a cigarette. After a few moments, the blonde re-appeared in the bedroom door. “Jackpot! He was there.”

Liddell pulled himself out of his seat. “How fast can you get dressed?”

The blonde grinned at him. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On how fast you want me to get dressed.” She raised her hand to her neck, fumbled with the zipper. With a quick motion, she unzipped the front of the gown. Her full, tip-tilted breasts spilled out. “There’s really no hurry. Monti can’t get away until midnight. He’ll meet us then.”

Liddell walked closer to her. He could smell the faint perfume of her body. He slipped his arm around her waist, covered her mouth with his. Her body melted against his, almost unbearably hot.

After a moment, she put the flat of her hands against his chest, pushed herself free. She slid the gown back off her shoulders, stepped out of it. Her legs were long, softly curved. Shapely calves became rounded thighs above the knee. Her high-set hips converged into a narrow waist and a stomach as flat as an athlete’s. She stood in front of him proud, assured of the impact of her loveliness.

Liddell dropped back on the couch, caught her wrist, pulled her down into his lap. She reached up, buried her fingers in his hair, pulled his mouth down to hers. Her lips were soft, eager.

After a moment, he pulled back, breathed hard. “I’m glad there’s no hurry, baby.”

She smiled at him. “We only have two hours,” she told him. She caught his tie, loosened it, unbuttoned his collar. She pulled his face down again.

Several hours later, Johnny Liddell slid the big convertible through the midnight Park Avenue traffic as easily as though it were a baby carriage. Alongside him, the blonde sat quietly, her tight curls ruffled by the breeze. At 93rd Street, he skidded to a screeching stop, drummed impatiently on the wheel, glared at the red light that stared back imperturbably with one eye.

“Do you think Monti will talk, Johnny?” She asked.

“One way or another.”

The light blinked green. The convertible shot forward.

Liddell concentrated on his driving, pushed the car as fast as the traffic would permit. Slowly, the character of the neighborhood changed. Huge, flashy apartment houses gave way to less pretentious apartments, then to tenements. There were fewer chauffeur-driven cars, more jalopies and trucks.

“116th Street, eh?” Liddell glanced at the street signs whizzing by. “Only a few more blocks now.”

A minute later, he swung the car in a skidding turn off Park Avenue toward Fifth, screeched it to a stop at the curb halfway down the block. He studied the house numbers, compared them to a pencilled notation and pointed to one across the street.

“That’s the number.” He pushed open the car door, stepped out. “You wait here. I think he may talk, if there’s just the two of us.”

He crossed the street, climbed the three stone steps that led to the vestibule, stood there for a moment looking around. An odor compounded of equal parts of Spanish cooking, unwashed bodies and inadequate sanitary facilities assailed his nostrils. He walked through to the inner hall, started up the badly lighted stairs to the second floor.

He struck a match, found a small card alongside the door to the front apartment with the name “Monti” scribbled on it in pencil. He blew out the match, put his ear to the door. There was no sound from the other side. He knocked softly, reached inside his jacket, loosened the .45 in its holster. There was no response from inside the room.

He reached out, rapped his knuckles against the door again. This time when he got no answer, he tried the knob. It turned easily in his hand. He pushed it open, waited. There was a rush of stale air spiced with a smoky, unpleasant smell. Nothing else.

The room itself was in complete darkness. He tugged the .45 from its hammock, transferred it to his left hand. Slowly he walked in, right hand groping along the wall for a switch. He strained his eyes against the wall of darkness, listened for any. sound that might betray the presence of another. The only sound in the room was that of his own heavy breathing.

Suddenly, his fingers hit the switch. He snapped it, spilled sudden yellow brilliance into the hallway. At the same moment, he dropped to his knee, brought the .45 into firing position.

A man stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his arms above his head, his thick fingers curled like claws. A gag clenched between his bared teeth cut ridges in the side of his face, his eyes were blank and staring. Two thin wires attached each of his thumbs to opposite corners of the door frame. A dozen or more cigarette burns and the number of small, ugly-looking icepick wounds on his bare chest were evidence that his death had been neither quick nor merciful.

Johnny Liddell walked over to where the dead man hung, put his hand against the side of his arm. It was still warm.

He squeezed past into the kitchen, checked the other rooms, satisfied himself that the killer had left. He walked back to the dead man, was staring at the number of wounds when a voice rang out.

“Hold it, Buffalo Bill.”

Liddell froze.

“Drop the artillery and turn around real slow.”

Liddell let the .45 hit the floor with a thud, turned around. Two uniformed policemen stood in the doorway. The younger cop held a riot gun in his hand, its muzzle pointed at Liddell’s belt buckle. The older covered him with a .38 special.

“Kick the iron over this way,” the older cop ordered. When Liddell complied, he looked past him at the body. “Been having yourself a ball, eh?”

“I just got here,” Liddell grunted.

“Be our guest. Stay awhile. I got a hunch Homicide’s going to want to have a long talk with you.”

“Act your age. This guy’s been stabbed. They’re not making .45’s with pointed ends this season.”

The older cop bent over, picked up the .45, hefted it in his palm. “What’s this for? You wear it just to make your coat hang straight?”

“It’s licensed. I’m a private cop on an investigation for Seaway Indemnity. I’ve got papers in here that say so.” He motioned at his breast pocket.

The two cops exchanged glances; the older walked over to Liddell, stuck his hand into his breast pocket, pulled out his wallet. He riffled through Liddell’s credentials, copied down a few notations in the worn leather notebook he carried in his hip pocket. “I guess he’s okay, Vince,” he told his younger partner. He handed the wallet back to Liddell, scratched the back of his neck. “Know who he is?”

Liddell shook his head. “I was supposed to meet a guy here. A guy named Monti. Lulu Monti. I never saw him, so I don’t know if this is the guy.”

“Looks like it.” The older cop walked over to the body, pointed a thick forefinger at a tattoo on the inside of the arm. “The initials are L. M.” He stared at Liddell curiously. “You didn’t know the guy but you had to see him in the middle of the night. What about?”

“A squeal. He was supposed to finger the guys who were looting cargoes Seaway insured. The company was getting hit too hard and too often.”

“A stoolie, huh?” The cop grinned. “Not a pleasant way to grow old gracefully.” There was a screeching of brakes in the street below. The cop walked to the window, looked down. “Here’s Homicide. It’s their baby now.”

The man who led the Homicide detail didn’t fit the usual pattern of Homicide detectives. He looked more like a fugitive from a Varsity football squad, with his broad shoulders and bristly, crew-cut hair. As he walked in, he was chewing on the stem of a bulldog briar. He nodded to the two uniformed men, flicked a brief glance at Liddell.