Тэлмидж Пауэлл: The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mysteries!

“You’re a fool, Smith!”

“Four thousand?”

Well, I’d never thought the boss would do that. I’d sooner look at Newell’s gun than have Smith do this kind of business. “Cripes, boss, don’t do it! We—”

Newell said, “I must be crazy, but I’ll give you three grand.”

“It’s a deal,” the boss said.

That must have made Newell happy. He laughed. “I’ve heard different about you, Smith, but I guess you like dough as well as the next one.”

“Money is money, no matter what type hand handles it.”

This was slaying me and I’m not kidding. Me and Smith maybe don’t do everything real gentle, but having him do this was like finding out there is no Santa Claus. “Boss...”

Newell threw the light more on me. “The gorilla doesn’t like your way of working, Smith.”

“He will,” the boss said, “when I whistle.”

I got it then. Newell put the back end of the pencil flash in his mouth. He still kept his light on us, but having the flash in his mouth freed his left hand. He used the hand to drag out a pocketbook that was just about busting with dough. He put the pocketbook between his knees. He got three one grand bills from it with his left hand. I was set.

Newell moved closer to hand the three grand to the boss.

He let the gun point away from me a little. That was bad. I was on my toes, just like in the good old ring days. The boss reached out for the three grand. He whistled real soft between his teeth.

I let go. It was a wallop that would have floored the champ ten or twelve years ago. Newell saw it coming, tried to swing the gun. The gun got all tangled up in the boss’ fingers. My knuckles smashed Newell’s cheek and the flash popped out of his mouth. He staggered, but he hung to the gun.

The boss twisted. I stepped in and hit Newell again. It was fine. The punk nearly left the floor. He sailed clear across the small room. I heard him hit the floor.

The boss picked up the flash, threw it on Al Newell.

Newell made a couple of tries and got his pins under him. The boss kept the gun on Newell. I picked up the slim punk’s dough, put it back in the pocketbook, and handed it to him.

His eyes were nasty looking in the light from the flash. “I’ll remember this, Smith!”

“Tish, tish, such talk — when I’ve got the gun.” He cocked his head, looked at Newell a minute. “It will be a shame, Newell, a downright shame.”

“What do you mean?”

“That face of yours, it’s so handsome.”

Newell lost some of his fire. “Listen now, Smith...”

“Willie will make mincemeat of you, Newell — unless you tell us the whole story of the guy in the closet.”

“Now look here, Smith! You’d better watch your step. It wouldn’t be healthy if you set that gorilla on me!”

“Indeed it wouldn’t — for you. Come now, tell me. You killed Droyster to get the dog track, didn’t you? Dance found out and you killed him to cover it.”

“No, Smith, you’re all wrong.” He was sort of having trouble with his voice. It kept shaking like a hula dancer. “I swear you’re wrong! I didn’t even know Dance was dead until my lawyer came to headquarters tonight to get me out of jail.”

The boss didn’t say nothing for awhile. Then he said, “Okay, Al, if that’s the way you want it. How many of your boys are outside?”

“None, Smith, I came alone.”

“Very well. We can’t stay here all night. If you want to be stubborn, we’ll have to have a little tea party someplace. Would you like some tea, Willie?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“No, Smith, don’t do it.” He was nearly crying.

“Take him in tow, Willie,” the boss said. “And if he gets away, I’ll have your hide.”

I grabbed Newell by the shoulder. He was scared silly. He let me turn him around. I got his left arm in a hammer hold. I got my gun in my other hand and planted it in the middle of Newell’s back. He was in a bad way.

The boss turned off the light. “Let’s go.”

We went out the front again. I almost had to hold Newell up while the boss locked the door. We were out on the porch of the little house. The moon was playing around behind clouds.

“Listen, Smith,” Newell begged, “I’ve seen a couple of guys you have worked over and I don’t want it. I’ll tell you all about Droyster, if you’ll make this elephant turn me loose. You’re right, it wasn’t suicide. It was the most fantastic—”

And that’s as far as he got. Somebody in a patch of bushes not ten feet away had a gun. He used it. It sounded like an earthquake, the gun going off. Newell slammed into me when the slug hit him. Then the somebody made a quick take off out of the bushes. Before me or the boss could get our roscoes going, the somebody was already around the corner of Droyster’s big house and gone.

Smith snapped, “We’ve got to get out of here.” Lights went on in the big house. “Hurt bad, Newell?”

“In the side.”

“Let’s get the guy, boss,” I said.

“We’d never catch him now. Better let Newell go, Willie, he should get to a doctor.”

A door slammed up at the big house. Somebody yelled. More lights went on.

I turned Newell loose. He wobbled off, nearly on his last legs.

“You and me, boss?” I said. We were already legging it across the lawn.

“We’re going on a little errand. Too bad we couldn’t have hung onto Newell. But if we had tried, he might have died on us.”

“What kind of errand, boss?”

“We’re going to dig a grave, Willie.”

Me and the boss shinnied over the iron fence that was supposed to keep people out of the graveyard. I didn’t much want to move when we got inside the fence. There wasn’t nothing but tombstones and graves all around. The way the moon was shining didn’t make them look any better.

“Do we just have to do this, boss?”

“Of course. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing — I guess. I sort of would like to get out of here, though.”

He laughed and gave me a push with his hand. I wished I could laugh. I wonder what it is like to have a regular job so you can sleep at night instead of messing around in graveyards with a killer loose someplace and the cops just praying for a chance to get you in the little room at headquarters.

I followed the boss. He looked at tombstones every little bit. Finally he pointed to a big chunk of some kind of fancy stone, marble, I guess.

“This is it, Willie. Start digging.”

We had gone by Smith’s apartment on the way down here. The boss had found a short-handled spade way back in a closet. He had once used the spade for flower beds, but we wasn’t planting petunias now.

He handed me the spade. I took off my coat, wiped the sweat off my face, and went to work.

I was about three feet down when I heard the voice. “What are you doing there?”

Then a light smacked me. I turned around gentle-like. I couldn’t see the guy holding the light.

He said, “Are you the same one that was here last night?”

I shook my head. Where in hell was Smith? I took a step toward the light.

“Hold it!” the guy said. “I’m the caretaker here and I’ve got a gun on you. One more move and I’ll give it to you.”

He wasn’t kidding.

He went on after a minute, “What’s so interesting in that grave, anyway?”

What the devil could I say? I didn’t know what he was talking about even if my throat and tongue hadn’t been so numb.

“Didn’t you hear me?” he growled. “Last night somebody came here and now you. Why?”

I shook my head again. Damn that Smith!

Then I saw the shadow behind the caretaker. Smith hit him hard with his automatic. The sound of the gun on the caretaker’s skull sort of made me sick. He dropped his light and fell on the loose dirt I had dug.