Стюарт Стерлинг - The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

“Brother Murder” first appeared in the December 2, 1939, issue of DFW.

Father Orion was the Prophet of Truth, with Death as the greatest Truth of all — but Mike and Trixie were unbelievers

I was doing sixty-eight on the Ventura highway, north of Los Angeles, when the siren wailed behind me — and you could have had all the fun for a kippered herring.

Sixty-eight on that smooth open highway through the orange groves — and when I heard the siren and looked in the rear-view mirror, the motorcycle cop was coming like a bee to a flower.

“Whoa, Mike,” says I, and stood the long fast coupe halfway on its nose at the edge of the pavement.

He rolled alongside, killed the engine and wanted to know sarcastically: “Going somewhere?”

“Points east,” says I. “Did the sunshine make me reckless for a moment?”

“It made you murderous at that speed!” he snapped. “Name, please!”

“Harris,” says I.

“First name?”

“Michael Harris.”

“Red hair,” says he, peering in at me. “Sawed-off and wisecracking.”

“Is this a beauty contest?” I gave him.

“It’s a pinch,” he informed me coldly. “We’ll go down the road and get it over with. I came out here looking for you.”

“Not me,” I told him. “No one knew I’d be along this stretch of road.”

He was glancing in a small notebook.

“Blue Packard coupe,” he read off. “New York tags. Sawed-off redhead named Mike Harris driving.” He pocketed the book and grinned nastily. “If I hadn’t been out this way looking for you, I wouldn’t have caught you splitting the road open. Which makes us even for my trouble. Over sixty-five — and that’ll cost you huckleberries, young feller.”

“Okay,” I said sourly. “Huckleberries it is. But why look for me?”

“The Los Angeles office of the Blaine International Agency want you to telephone,” he said. “Drive on.”

So I drove on — and they took huckleberries away from me. When I put a call through to Lew Ryster, manager of our Hollywood office, I was fit to tie.

Lew sounded relieved when he heard my voice. “So they got you, Mike! I wasn’t sure what road you were taking out of the state, and your next address being New York, I put out a general call for you.”

“They got me all right,” I said through my teeth. “And try to explain my fine on your expense sheet, wise guy! I’m not taking the rap for it!”

“What fine?” says Lew.

“The cop who came out looking for me slapped a speed charge on me!”

Lew haw-hawed.

“Cackle like a Death Valley jackass!” I said. “I’m heading on to New York. We’ll settle my fine from there.”

“Wait, Mike!” Lew yelled. “Your vacation’s canceled! I telephoned New York. And now you’ve been formally notified!”

“You Judas!” I howled. “You had my vacation canceled?”

“I’ve got a job for you,” says Lew. “It’s important, Mike. Murder, I think.”

“There’ll be murder if I get near you!”

Lew said: “Get back here fast. I’m waiting for you, Mike.”

I slammed the receiver down and blistered the phone booth. But when you worked for the Blaine Agency you were in harness. The Agency had discipline and a tradition of breaking cases fast. An assignment to a case put you to work fast or else.

So I drove back to Los Angeles to meet murder.

There’s a cold-blooded touch to murder. Crooks, thieves and swindlers are mostly ordinary people with ordinary weaknesses. A lot of us would like to collect from life the easy way.

But we’re all born knowing murder is out of bounds. And you never know what angles a murder case will turn up. Dangerous angles sometimes. Two murders can’t draw much worse penalty than one murder. Long ago I’d decided that after the first murder, a second one comes easier — so look out for murder, Mike.

Lew Ryster was waiting in the Hollywood office, big and pink-faced as ever, with the usual striped collar, natty suit and expansive confidence that clicked with the Hollywood trade, which was mostly theft, blackmail and body-guarding.

“What’s on your mind, Rat?” I asked as I shoved a paper cup under the water cooler.

Lew grinned. “I had to do it, Mike. No hard feelings, I hope.”

“Later,” I said, “we’ll settle that. Who murdered whom?”

Lew stood up and took his Panama from the desk.

“I’ve an appointment, Mike, and I was hoping you’d get here in time to come along. Let’s shove off.”

So we shoved off from Hollywood and Vine in my car — and over on Sunset Boulevard, Lew ordered me to stop before the Greek-colonnaded front of J. Conwell Smythe’s Sons, Morticians.

“Did you read my mind?” I growled as we got out. “A funeral parlor is exactly where I’d like to leave you!”

Lew chuckled. “Kid, you’ll thank me for this before you’re through. Did I tell you there was a two grand reward for anyone who broke this case?”

“You wouldn’t,” I said, “if you could figure a way to collar the dough... And what does the score have to read before the reward is paid?”

We were inside by then. A long, lean, lugubrious lassie of some forty winters met us.

“Yes?” she said, and thawed visibly as Lew grinned.

“I have an appointment here with Mr. Farnson,” Lew beamed in his best Hollywood manner. “Ryster is the name.”

A faint flush appeared in her pallid cheeks.

“Mr. Farnson is in Room Three, with two other gentlemen. He is expecting you, Mr. Ryster. If this other gentleman will have a seat, I will show you to Room Three.”

“He’s here to meet Farnson also,” says Lew carelessly, and when he grinned again her doubtful look vanished and we all went back to Room Three.

The heavy scent of flowers filled the small room into which we walked. Three men in there had been talking in low tones; and one of them — the tallest — said: “I was wondering if you’d come.”

“Sorry if I’m late, Mr. Farnson,” says Lew — and I saw the old Hollywood chuckle start and freeze off as Lew realized where he was.

Two floor lamps in the back corners of the room dusted indirect light against the ceiling and down in subdued dimness, down over the flower sprays and the pinkish coffin resting just beyond the men...

She might have been sleeping in the coffin — that girl whose peaceful, life-like face rested there on a satin pillow surrounded by a chaste froth of lace.

They had dressed her in what might have been a wedding gown of white satin, and she was heart-stoppingly natural, even to the little splash of good-natured freckles still luring along the bridge of a small tippity nose. Her mouth had once been built for laughter — and now it never would again smile.

But the spell of her was there in the room, even on the mortician’s lean lady, who lingered inside the door eyeing the coffin for a moment, and whispered: “So lovely — and we have never brought out a face so well.”

Farnson, whose mustache was a white military line against his heavy, full-blooded face, snapped: “Enough, Madam! This meeting is not an exhibit of your skill!”

She faded out in pallid silence and closed the door and the stocky-chested man on Farnson’s left speared me with a disagreeable stare, jerked his head at me and grunted: “Who’s this guy?”

A cop. He was smeared with copper from sparse, sandy hair to thick-soled shoes — and he didn’t like us. He didn’t like Lew Ryster who could handle a tight spot coolly when he had to. And who did now.