Тэлмидж Пауэлл: The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries

“Her Dagger Before Me” was originally published in Black Mask , July 1949

“The Wind Of Fear” originally published in 15 Story Detective , August 1950

“Murder Goes To The Dogs” originally published in Smashing Detective Stories , March 1952

“The Beautiful Miss Borgia” originally published in Dime Detective Magazine , August 1952

“Deadliest Enemy!” originally published in Detective Tales , October 1952

“A Beautiful Babe And Money” originally published in Manhunt , October 1957

“Next!” originally published in Manhunt , March 1957

“Midnight Blonde” originally published in Manhunt , May 1957

“Lead Cure” originally published in Manhunt , July 1957

“Return No More” originally published in Manhunt , January 1958

“The Dame Across The River” originally published in Manhunt , April 1958

“Murder Method” originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , January 1961

“Somebody Cares” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , December 1962

“A Break In The Weather” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , August 1963

“The Favor” originally published in Manhunt , September 1957

“The Seven Year Hitch” originally published in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine , August 1966

“Last Run of the Night” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , January 1967

“A Friendly Exorcise” originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazin e, March 1968

“A Truly Honest Man” originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , September 1972

“Parole Violation” originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , May 1973

“Welcome Home, Pal” originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , June 1973

“The Jury Caper” originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , July 1974

“A Change Of Heart” originally published in The Executioner Mystery Magazine , August 1975

“Classified” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , December 1977

“A Mother’s Heart” originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , December 1981

Welcome to our third collection of Talmage Powell crime tales.

Talmage Powell (1920–2000) was one of the all-time great mystery writers of the pulps (and later the digest mystery magazines). He claimed to have written more than 500 short stories (and I have no reason to doubt him — I am working on a bibliography of his work, and so far I can document 373 magazine stories... and who knows how many are out there under pseudonyms or buried in obscure magazines!) His pen names included Robert Hart Davis, Robert Henry, Milton T. Lamb, Milton T. Land, Jack McCready, Anne Talmage, and Dave Sands. Some (like Robert Hart Davis) were “house names” shared by many different authors. (Bill Pronzini also wrote as “Robert Hart Davis,” for example.) Powell’s work appeared in Dime Mystery, Black Mask, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Magazine, Manhunt , and many, many more.

He wrote his first novel, The Smasher , in 1959. He went on to pen 11 more novels under his own name, 4 as “Ellery Queen,” and 2 novelizations of the TV series Mission: Impossible . Clearly, though short stories were his first love.

Enjoy!

— John Betancourt

Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

Originally published in Black Mask , July 1949.

I had been on a divorce case, shadowing a man most of the night before; so I didn’t do anything about the screaming telephone for the first few seconds except try to swim back down in the sticky molasses of sleep and wish whoever was calling would go away.

The phone kept snarling. After a minute I was wide awake and in that state going back to sleep in the muggy, noonday Florida heat was out of the question.

I heaved myself on the edge of the bed and shouted at the phone, “All right, I’m coming!”

The apartment was sodden with heat; I’ve been in Tampa a long time but I never got used to the heat.

While I’m padding toward the phone, I might as well tell you who I am.

The name is Lloyd Carter, age forty-four. I’m beginning to add an inner tube around my middle, and I don’t like to be kidded about the way I’m starting to bald on the crown of my head. I live in a run-down apartment on the edge of Tampa’s Ybor City. The bed is lumpy, the furniture old. It’s just a place to sleep. I got in the private detective business twenty one years ago. I never intended to make it a lifetime career, but I guess now I will.

I’ve never married, which is maybe what put the pickles in my disposition. I had a girl when I was young, in New York, that I might have married, but she ran off with a punk I was trying to nail. He was cornered in Indiana by state police, made a run for it, but a fast freight got in the way of his automobile. She was in the car.

New York wasn’t the same after that, and I came south. I’ve been with Southeastern Detective Service over sixteen years...

I picked up the telephone.

“Lloyd?”

It was the old man’s voice. Henry Fayette, who ramrodded Southeastern, should have retired a long time ago. He’s seen too much of the seamy side of life streaming through his agency. It’s in his voice. But he never could retire because he’s a spender and is always scratching hard to keep the wolf at arm’s length.

“Lloyd,” his tired voice said, “I want you to come to the office right away.”

I didn’t argue. He’d known how late I’d worked last night. If he hadn’t had to call me, he wouldn’t have.

I went in the bedroom and dressed. Baggy slacks, sweaty sport shirt. And the knife under my left armpit. I’m naked without the knife. My work puts me across the tables now and then from Ybor City characters. The only weapon some of those lads understand is a knife.

I was going to have to get my laundry out today. I wrote a note for the girl, left it on the kitchen table. I opened the ice box, drank a pint of beer, and headed for the office. The heat was terrible. Already beads of sweat were like a film of hot oil all over me.

The agency’s offices are in a sagging brick building that was young when Tampa was young, on the lower end of Franklin Street. I opened the door to Henry Fayette’s office. He was behind his desk, a tall, gaunt, rawboned gray man in a gray tropical suit. He stood up. The girl sitting at the end of his desk watched me cross the office. Without looking directly at her, I sized her up.

She wasn’t exactly plain, but she wasn’t beautiful, either. She was tall and slim, with nice enough figure and face and rather drab brown hair. Just a girl who could lose herself in a crowd, with a sort of hungry look on her face that might mean she was hungry for food — or love. Her clothes, white linen frock and bag, indicated she had enough money to eat regularly.

The chief introduced us. Her name was Allen Buford.

“Lloyd,” Henry Fayette said with a small, tired gesture of his hand, “Miss Buford wants us to do something about her stepmother and a chap named Buddy Tomlinson. You might repeat the details, Miss Buford, to Lloyd as you told them to me.”

She sat on the edge of her chair, hands in her lap, and gave me the details. Her voice was calm, even, but it was belied by the cold fire deep in her eyes.