The Pulp Hero Read online

  “It’s damned unusual. There’ll be objections, I’m afraid.”

  “Objections? Certainly. We’ll override ’em, that’s all. Mr. Monday, you are chairman of this council. When l accepted your commission you promised me full cooperation and unlimited backing for my wishes, however fantastic and unusual. Is that true?”

  “It is.”

  “Very well… Make the arrangements for me.” Mr. Monday’s aristocratic old hand closed into a taut fist. He nodded grimly.

  “I’ll attend to it personally. If it becomes necessary I’ll go directly to the President of the United States!”

  CHAPTER II

  MENACE OF THE ACE

  At precisely a quarter before seven that same evening every chain radio station in the country suddenly went dead. In New York City the municipal WNYC stopped likewise without warning.

  Dinner music ceased in the middle of a bar. Sport announcers choked off in mid-sentence. “Yale, six, Princeton, nothing—” Silence. Not a sound except the squeals of two-bit stations in the low bands. Nothing doing. No ads, no prize contests, no crooners. The carrier waves were dancing into space from their steel towers without any program noise.

  For sixty seconds this strange silence continued. Then sound flowed suddenly back to the airways. The curt voices of announcers were heard.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have interrupted our regular program for a few minutes, by order of the Federal Radio an important message which will be broadcast immediately. There will be no local station announcement. Please stand by.”

  Silence. Then Tattersall Lacy’s voice. Low, cultured, clearly distinct in every spaced syllable, “Attention. Please listen carefully. I am broadcasting a message for the ears of one man—the gentleman who calls himself the Scarlet Ace. Any member of his organization who hears this message is requested to notify the Scarlet Ace at once, in the event that he is himself not listening. The message follows: The disk was received. The victims are alive. The challenge is accepted. I will repeat.”

  The slow voice reiterated the three cryptic sentences. A pause.

  “That is all. Thank you, and good night.” Listeners stared at one another as the loud speakers renewed their accustomed noisy bleat of jazz and song.

  “What did that mean?” George Public asked his wife. “Do yuh s’pose it’s a gag? A build-up for some magazine with a brand-new mystery program?”

  There was no answer. Nobody knew. But a lot of hard-boiled gentlemen of the press did their damnedest to find out. Their damnedest was not enough. The Federal Radio Commission had nothing to say. The broadcast officials were dumber than oysters at high tide. Wise city editors pulled wires, but the ends of the wires were loose and came in without anything attached.

  Nothing. Not a rumble. Heywood Broun kidded the mystery in his newspaper column and Walter Winchell kidded Broun. And that was all that happened.

  Whoever the suave party on the radio might be, he had very definitely hung up on curious America.

  * * * *

  A one-armed faker worked his swift graft down the crowded aisles of the subway express that was thundering northward toward Times Square. On the lap of every passenger he tossed an envelope containing a nail file and a printed plea for a dime. Suddenly his lack-luster eyes flicked with attention. He leaned closer toward a pimple-faced man in a grey cap. The sleepy passenger sat up and nodded.

  “The day?” whispered Pimples.

  “Twenny-thoid,” said the one-arm salesman.

  “The hour?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  “The place?”

  “Same.”

  One-Arm left. The man in the cap got up presently and walked to the side door.

  The train roared into Times Square. The pimple-faced passenger took the shuttle to Grand Central, changed to a southbound Lexington local and got off at 33rd Street, the nearest station to the Cloud Building.

  Meanwhile the same colloquy that had taken place in the subway was repeated in the traffic of Lafayette Street, almost in the shadow of the Municipal Building. A Stutz town car snaked cleverly alongside a light delivery truck. The Stutz was driven by a trim chauffeur in a dark uniform and cap. The windows were lowered and the passenger sat hunched forward, watching the delivery truck. He was an aristocratic looking young man in formal morning clothes and a top hat.

  The dirty faced truckman grinned across at the formal young man. Suddenly his grin froze. He asked a brief tight-lipped question:

  “The day?” he mumbled.

  The answers were given him. He glanced northward where the tall shaft of the Cloud Building pierced the sky like a landmark. The truck rattled northward.

  The Stutz took a different route. It drove into a garage and the man in the top hat got out. He emerged in a few minutes behind the wheel of a light tan coupe. He drove with easy skill, cutting corners lazily as though he were killing a little time before an appointment somewhere.

  There were others who seemed to be interested in that two o’clock rendezvous. Diagonally opposite the Cloud Building a new skyscraper was being erected. An ironworker rode aloft on a swinging girder and stepped inward at the 18th floor. While the chains were being loosened he walked across rickety planks and conferred with a tall friend of his in greasy overalls. When he shot earthward again, his feet anchored in chains over the huge metal ball of the derrick tackle, he left a silent and serious eyed confederate high above him…

  Tattersall Lacy was a man of precise habits and it was two o’clock almost on the dot, when he drove up the ramp from the basement entrance of the Cloud Building and turned into Sixth Avenue. He was on his way to a conference with District Attorney Marvin and he was driving his own car, a fast little convertible roadster, with its top down as a tribute to the excessively warm weather.

  As he reached the first street crossing a tan coupe swerved in between the L pillars, just ahead of him. The major frowned with annoyance and his hand twisted the wheel. Unfortunately, a light delivery truck chose that awkward moment to swing sideways into view and close the gap he had aimed for.

  His foot jammed the brake as a palm waved from the tan coupe in a stop signal. Lacy couldn’t stop; his momentum was too great.

  He banged into the car ahead, and the two automobiles side-swiped an L pillar and locked together in a crashing mess. The tan coupe received the brunt of the collision. Its floor was wrenched violently open and a dapper young man in a top hat sprang out. He was pale with rage. He shook his fist in Lacy’s face.

  “You almost killed me, you fool!” he shouted. “Didn’t you see my hand? You’re drunk and reckless! Where’s there an officer?”

  Lacy’s eyes grew hard.

  “Just a moment, my foppish young friend. That truck over there caused the trouble.”

  “Oh, yeah?” The truckman leaped belligerently from his seat. “Nuts! Try to frame me, Mister, and I’ll pop you one on the nose!”

  A small crowd was beginning to ring the disputants. Two policemen appeared with remarkable promptness.

  “He’s a liar,” the truckman kept shouting. “He was speedin’ along like a bat outa hell. Ast some o’ these guys, Officer.”

  “That’s right,” a new voice muttered. “I seen the whole thing.”

  The eye-witness grinned virtuously and mopped his damp pimpled face with a grimy handkerchief. The gaping crowd pushed closer. A couple of ironworkers from the nearby construction job had wriggled behind the policemen. One of them whirled about and made a vicious gesture.

  “Git back youse! Who the hell yuh think you’re pushin’?”

  His brawny companion was scanning the crowd vigilantly, his right hand deep in his overall pocket.

  “Shut up everybody,” said one of the policemen suddenly.

  The cop’s roving eye had noted a Stutz town car standing motionless at the curb a few yards away. It was
empty except for a chauffeur in a dark uniform and cap.

  “You want this fella arrested?” the cop growled.

  “I certainly do,” said the man in the top hat. “He’s guilty of gross carelessness and reckless driving.”

  “Look here, Officer,” snapped Tattersall Lacy.

  “Shut up! You willin’ to appear against him an’ make a charge?”

  “Yes. I’ve got two witnesses—the driver of the delivery truck and this gentleman here.” He nodded toward the pimple-faced man who looked surprised and pleased at the description. “I insist that you make an arrest.”

  “Okay. Move back everybody.”

  White with anger, Lacy felt himself pushed smoothly along.

  “My God, somebody will suffer for this, Officer!” he protested. “This thing is a barefaced swindle; a conspiracy to collect fraudulent damages.”

  “Git in there,” said the cop. “Where’s them witnesses?”

  He nodded heavily to the uniformed chauffeur of the Stutz.

  “This car’s bein’ commandeered, Buddy. Drive to the West 28th Street Precinct house.”

  Like a man in a bad dream Lacy found himself plunked in the center of the rear seat, a policeman on either side of him. He was in a cold rage. He’d fix these officious apes as soon as he had a word with the precinct captain.

  The man in the top hat took one of the folding seats; the pimple-faced witness the other. The driver from the delivery wagon hopped up front with the chauffeur. Lacy was suddenly suspicious. This whole thing looked queer entirely too pat and smooth.

  The Stutz began to crawl slowly from the curb.

  As it did so there was a noise of pounding feet and the milling crowd parted. A third policeman came racing into view. He was the traffic man from up the avenue. He ran alongside the car as the chauffeur meshed gears.

  “Hold on, here! What’s the matter? What’s goin’ on?”

  A bluecoat shoved his head out of the car.

  “Okay, Paddy. Just a pinch for reckless drivin’. Go ahead, chauffeur.”

  “Whaddye mean, Paddy? Wait a minute! Who are you?”

  He sprang to the running board and peered inside. His eyes fixed with swift suspicion.

  “I thought so. A couple o’ phonies! What’s the idea o’ the cop suits? You guys takin’ a movie?”

  The car leaped forward.

  “In the gutter, louse!” snarled a shrill voice, and the muzzle of a black automatic spat flame.

  The patrolman on the running-board cringed backward, felt his weak fingers slip. He crashed bleeding to the pavement. The heavy Stutz shot round a corner and streaked east. The dying patrolman lifted his heavy head and watched the license number vanish.

  People were bending over him, shouting in his ears. His eyes were glazed now. He mouthed numerals at them.

  “Write ’em down… Write ’em… Write…”

  The glazed eyes went blank. Blood trickled from the corner of his stiffened mouth and stained the asphalt with a bright red smear.

  Somebody said, tremulously, “Jeeze!”

  The big Stutz roared away. It dodged from avenue to street, clipped corners, under the deft guidance of its uniformed chauffeur.

  Behind it the groping hand of the law began to feel out like the aim of a blind man. Clutching, groping… A license number shrilled into the central switchboard at police headquarters and the noisy teletypes began clicking in every precinct station in Greater New York.

  The short wave radio alarm began to spit viciously. “Grey town car, Stutz model, blah, blah, blah… Manhattan serial letter, license number blah, blah, blah…”

  Radio cars flicked into action like terriers on a scent. Block the ferries! Bottle up the bridges! Plug the Holland Tunnel! Cop killers in a Stutz with smoking guns. Dangerous’ Big grey Stutz…

  Tattersall Lacy knew nothing of this wild alarm. Indeed, he was barely conscious of the motion of the fleeing car. A savage blow on the skull had toppled-him headlong as he had grabbed for his shoulder holster. A lap-robe was tossed hastily over his sprawled form.

  Voices filtered dimly to his blurred eardrums.

  “The finger’s on us, you damn fool! What didja have to smoke that bull for?”

  “Could I help it, Pimples? He had us cold. He was pullin’ his roscoe when I slipped him the heat.”

  “You coulda slugged him, dope.”

  “Aw, nerts! Stop cryin’ an’ gimme a butt. Cripes, we’re crawlin’. Why don’t Charlie step on it?”

  “Shut up, you apes.” The man in the top hat sounded bitter.

  “Keep an eye out for Moe and the Packard,” he ordered curtly. “There he is now. Slow down!”

  The Packard was close to the curb, barely crawling. The Stutz drew alongside. The man in the top hat flung open the door.

  CHAPTER III

  BRIDGE TRAP

  The ex-driver of the delivery truck grinned and followed him across to the Packard. He carried a couple of police caps in his hand; and over his arm was draped two blue uniform coats. Inside the Stutz the fake cops were hurriedly pulling on grey caps and sliding into blue-serge coats.

  The Packard jerked forward, turned into Third Avenue and roared downtown under the noisy L structure. The Stutz streaked grimly for the bridge. It crossed the plaza and shot up the approach. A sturdy, bronze-faced German-American, with a traffic wheel on his blue sleeve, saw the Stutz racing toward him. He was Eagle Eye Gus Sonnenschein of Traffic Squad A. He had held the bridge post for years because of the uncanny accuracy of his eye and his memory. He had a sweet record. A hundred and ninety-seven tabbed cars.

  His blue eyes narrowed as he saw number one ninety eight coming.

  Up went a white-gloved palm. The other reached for his weapon.

  The Stutz roared faster. A twist of the wheel sent it hurtling directly at Eagle Eye Gus. He missed being run down by a whistling inch. Backward he sprang and sprawled on the pavement. Bullets whined over his head. He scrambled up and emptied his weapon at the vanishing car. Terrified chauffeurs stopped dead in their tracks. The air was shrill with the squeal of brakes.

  Sonnenschein raced to a motionless Triangle cab and sprang to the running-board. The hackman stepped hard on the gas.

  The chase roared grimly under the spidery cables high above the East River. The Stutz was having trouble with the press of traffic in the narrow vehicle runway. The Triangle cab was gaining, gaining—

  * * * *

  Tattersall Lacy awoke under a lap-robe on the floor of the Stutz to a dazed realization of a tremendous racket of banging explosions. The folding seats had been snapped up. Pimples was on his feet, staring out the side window, his wrist was jerking with the recoil of a flaming gun. The two phony bulls on the back seat were firing out the rear window, crouched apart, swearing horribly.

  Suddenly there was a dull thwack and one of the cops pitched silently forward on top of Lacy. Daylight filtered through a round hole in the car’s body where the man’s ribs had been pressed, a moment before. The Stutz was rocking and bouncing like a mad thing.

  Feebly Lacy shoved aside a corner of the lap-robe. A stiffened hand lay close to his face and beside it a dropped gun. The major’s own gun was gone; he reached quietly for the substitute.

  Pimples saw the gaunt major rising like a ghost from the embrace of a dead man on the floor. The thug whirled from the window with a shrill oath. Lacy squeezed. He saw the pimpled mask of rage drip crimson. With a swift twitch of his left hand he released the catch behind him and heard the door bang open.

  The whole thing was like a phantasy of horror. A bullet from the rear seat spat past his ear. He saw a jouncing taxi on the other side of the Stutz, with a policeman hunched on the running-board, scattering lead from a flaming muzzle.

  “Pull over!” Eagle Eye Gus was shouting. “Pull over!”

  The
brakes of the Stutz squealed. It lost headway. As it slowed Lacy sprang out the open door and landed on his face on the asphalt paving.

  The Stutz had slowed for a grim trick. Swing and ram the taxi! The kidnapper missed his wild thrust, veered away and skidded crazily toward the frail barrier of the railing. The murky East River flowed sluggishly hundreds of feet below.

  Lacy held his breath with a sick shudder. Swaying on bleeding knees in the roadway he saw the Stutz scrape the railing and swing back as the driver spun his wheel desperately to the left. The front wheels twisted and locked. The big car skidded toward the inner railing.

  It turned completely over in a giant somersault, crashed through the guardrail of the inner runway where shining trolley-tracks glittered. The overhead feed-wires bounced it like a rocking toy.

  Lacy’s dry throat whispered: “God above!”

  The Stutz was a-dazzle with blinding blue light. It flared and crackled like an incandescent bug. Then the short-circuited wires snapped and dropped the seared wreck to the shining trolley track below.

  As Lacy staggered to his feet he heard the thud of police brogans and something hard and cold was thrust inta his belly with a force that made him gasp with pain.

  “Stick ’em up!” roared Patrolman Sonnenschein. “You’re one of ’em. I saw huh come outa the car.”

  A beefy hand twisted in his collar. He backed away.

  “Hold on, Officer! Let me explain… I’ve got credentials…”

  A police car came streaking along the bridge roadway with a wild whoop of its siren. Bluecoats hopped out.

  “Okay, Maguire,” Lacy’s captor grunted. “Got one of ’em. Went out the door on his mush just before the crash.”

  “Nice work.” Maguire turned and stared with expressionless face at the scorched wreck of the Stutz. “Jeeze, what a mess!”

  Another bluecoat ambled up.

  “Four stiffs in the bus,” he volunteered. “Two of ’em with bullets in the gut—all four of ’em fried on both sides.”

  The battered major was beginning to recover his breath.

  “Just a moment,” he suggested icily. “Will one of you uniformed master minds reach into my vest pocket and examine the folded document you find there? I’m beginning to get a trifle weary of holding my hands aloft.”