Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

“Just because you were assigned to an investigation doesn’t mean you’re supposed to risk running up against a killer, Helen.”

“After the slimy specimens I’ve been running up against, a murderer’ll be a relief. This chasing up and down subways and elevateds to trap exhibitionists, those hours of sitting through double features to nab mashers in the act — that’s not only hard work, it kind of gets you to thinking half the world’s made up of perverts.”

“Yair. But that’s the sort of stuff only a woman can handle. Homicide isn’t for the Women’s Bureau, it’s a man’s job.”

“It’s my job to put a stop to any matrimonial agency that’s doing business like this — to see that love-hungry women don’t get murdered when they figure on getting married.”

“You find the man. We’ll put a stop to it — without your getting into it.”

“That would suit me swell. But it might not work. I may have to get into it, to find the evidence necessary to convict.”

The lieutenant put his fists on his hips and glared. “Hey! You don’t mean you’d go so far as to marry the murdering so-and-so?”

“I’ll go as far as I have to, Jerry. Maybe you’ve forgotten I had a sister who fell for a slimy snake like this Stanton. Alice turned on the gas one night — without lighting it. I found her body. I hate men like that worse than those phoney abortionists I rounded up this spring. At least those girls knew they were taking a terrible chance. These poor, misguided love-seekers don’t even realize their danger until it’s too late.” There was a dull, hurt look in the gray eyes. “But so far, there’s been no proof that any of these women wound up with any legal certificates. No record of any licenses at City Hall, even.”

“God’s sake, Helen! You know the regulations forbid any infraction of ordinances in attempting to trap a criminal!”

“Nothing criminal about getting married, is there, Jerry?”

He opened his mouth, shut it again, glared at her. When he spoke, it was in the tone of a commanding officer. “You let me know before you go through with any damn nonsense like that, hear?”

She saluted, stiffly. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

He wasn’t more than a minute behind her in leaving the office. The police clerk by the rail in the outer room spoke out of the corner of his mouth to a plainclothesman one-fingering on a typewriter. “Geeze! The Lieutenant musta just swallowed a cup of carbolic or something.”

“Teccard? He always looks like that when the Dixon dame gives him ‘No’ for an answer. He’s been carryin’ the torch for her so long, he sleeps standin’ up, like the Statue of Liberty.”

The detective-lieutenant drove his department sedan up Broadway to Twenty-eighth, studied the directory board in the lobby of a ten-story office building, pushed into the elevator.

The Herald of Happiness was housed in a single room at the rear of the third floor. The door was locked, but there was a bulky shadow moving against the ground glass. He rapped.

The man who let him in was fat. Tiny purple veins laced the end of a bulbous nose. The eyes that searched the lieutenant’s were slightly bloodshot.

“You the proprietor of this agency, mister?”

“I am, sir. T. Chauncey Helbourne, if I can be of service to you. You are a subscriber?”

“I’m from police headquarters.”

“What, again? I’ve already put up with a distressing amount of annoyance from a Miss Dixon...”

“You’ll be putting up with a prison diet, if you’re not careful.”

“Prison! You can’t frighten me, sir. I run a legitimate business.”

“Nuts! You come close to being a professional panderer. Don’t tell me you have a license, it doesn’t cover complicity in fraud!”

Helbourne’s neck reddened. “I won’t be bulldozed by any such tactics, officer!”

“Lieutenant. Lieutenant Teccard.” He surveyed the cheap furniture, the unpainted rack of pigeonholes along one wall.

“It makes no difference to me if you’re the commissioner, himself. I have influential connections at City Hall, too. And my records are always open for inspection by authorized parties.”

“O.K. I’m an authorized party. I’ll have a look at any letters that’ve come in here the last week or so.”

The fat man waved vaguely at the row of green-painted files. “Help yourself. It would take me a couple of months to locate ’em. I don’t file by dates.”

“I’ll make a start at it.” Teccard pulled out a steel drawer marked L. He ran his thumb along the tabs until he came to one with the letters LO, took out all the folders in that section. “How many letters you rake in, per day, mister?”

“You mean the preliminaries?”

“What the hell is a preliminary?” There was a folder with the name Mary Lownes at the top. It was empty, except for an envelope in Helen’s handwriting, addressed to Herald of Happiness — and a clipped-out advertisement.

Helbourne picked up a proof-sheet of a page. “Subscribers are allowed one free advertisement to each subscription, plus as many answers to other advertisements as they wish. Our only restriction is, these replies to ads must be addressed to the box-number of the Herald.” He pointed to one. “Any letters coming in, addressed to that box-number, are copied and sent along to the advertiser, no charge. Without the name or address of the sender, naturally.”

Teccard slid the folders back in place. “The old come-on. What do you tap them for giving out with the address?”

The proprietor of the Herald frowned. “Our fee is five dollars.”

“At each end of the transaction? Five from the snappy skirt who wants the address of some dope who’s given her a line of mush? And another five from the dope himself, if he wants to get in touch with her direct?”

“I don’t like the way you put it, Lieutenant.”

“Catch them coming and going, don’t you! Next thing you know, you’ll catch five years in the pen.” Teccard drifted toward the rack of pigeonholes. There were letters and folded carbon copies in most of them. Under each space was pasted a copy of some Herald advertisement.

Helbourne watched him sullenly. “I’m not responsible for what my subscribers do after I’ve performed an introduction.”

“Hell you aren’t! You’re wide open for prosecution. You were warned some New York crut has been rooking old maids from upstate, using you as a go-between.” There was a cubbyhole with two letters, over an advertisement reading:

seeks companionship of amiable, sober businessman, under fifty, with quiet tastes. One who would appreciate a better-than-average table and a comfortable home. Not wishing to be supported, as have slight means of own. Able and active, though slight spinal injury. Brunette, thirty-one, former trained nurse. Box LL27.

Helen was a brunette — the age and the references to the spinal injury and having been a nurse clinched it. Teccard reached for the letters.

The fat man caught his arm. “You’ll have to get a court order, if you’re going to ransack my mail, Lieutenant.”

Teccard disengaged the pudgy fingers. “One side, mister. A minute ago you told me to help myself. I am. You want any trouble, I’ll see you get plenty.” He crackled the letters open. The first one read:

Dear Miss Box LL27.

Your ad made a great deal of an appeal to me. I am a farmer, widower five years now, age forty-six. It’s a seventy-acre fruit farm, paying good, too. I have a piano, radio, Chevrolet, nice furniture. The part about better than average cooking appealed to me.