The Pulp Hero Page 6

  Inside the parked sedan Farino said thickly: “So what?” The bandage was still over his eyes.

  “Will you keep that trap of yours shut?” his companion snapped.

  A Chevy went zipping past and turned the distant corner. The moment it curved from sight it accelerated and made a loop around the next block. The street lapsed into dim quiet again.

  Farino stumbled blindly out of the sedan with a hand on his companion’s arm. He growled, “Go easy, mug! I can’t see!” The pair disappeared into the alley.

  They had hardly vanished when a light delivery truck rolled past the sedan. Tattersall Lacy dropped catlike out the back.

  He struck with the quiet speed of a cobra. Before the brain of the startled chauffeur could telegraph a cry to his lips, Lacy had wrenched open the door. The butt of a blue .45 Colt crashed once on the close-cropped skull. The thug collapsed without a sound.

  Lacy caught him savagely, dragged him upright, bent him over the wheel with his limp hands on the spokes. Just a sleepy guy in a parked sedan. Only he didn’t snore.

  Men were dropping silently from the open back of the truck. Ex-marines, every one. Tough babies in civvies. Veteran leathernecks who had shot the works from Paris Island to Belleau Wood and back again.

  One of ’em carried a sledge. In his hands it looked like a tooth-pick. Private George Jackson. Two others gripped Tommie guns with the drums snapped into place. All of ’em had Colts.

  Pat Harrigan was there, his red hair blowing in the wind like a torch. Weaver was there, his nervous little face pinched into cold lines of pleasure.

  The Iron Major was the first man through the alley.

  There was a tiny paved space in the rear and the blank brick wall of the warehouse that backed it. The forces of Amusement, Incorporated, crouched warily in the shadow. Lacy tiptoed up three wooden steps and turned the knob of the back door warily, carefully, for a full minute. Locked!

  He backed away from the barrier and gestured curtly. The marine with the sledge trotted up, planted his feet solidly and struck a thunderous blow. Three impacts took scarcely more than double as many seconds. The third smashed in the door.

  The hammer expert swayed aside with a grunt and the marines piled through the opening behind Lacy.

  The two yeggs from the sedan were standing flatfooted. Tough Tony Farino glared at the attackers with red-rimmed murderous eyes. The bandage was gone from his eyes but his brain moved slowly.

  His pal with the light eyebrows had a quicker brain. That’s why he died first.

  As the gun in his wrist jerked upward, Tattersall Lacy’s bullet drilled the center of his forehead and blew out the back of his head. Farino whirled with a scream and darted like a scurrying rat into another room. The door slammed as a marine dove for it and a key rasped in the lock. The marine jumped sideways as a bullet from the penned killer ripped through the wooden panel. Lacy nodded and a Tommie gun muzzle swung in line with the door. The gunner began a brisk riveting job—top to bottom, left to right. Papapapapapap! Splinters flew from the wood.

  “Come out fast with your hands up!” Weaver shouted.

  There was silence for a moment. Lacy turned away suddenly and tiptoed through the hall. His trained ears had caught the creak of a loose board overhead. He ran to the front of the hall and crouched against the wall, staring up the dusty staircase.

  A man was peering intently over the upper banister rail. A man with no face. A scarlet mask with narrow slits for eyes. As the gun upstairs barked Lacy dropped flat and rolled over and over like a tumblebug, out of range. He heard the race of feet overhead and the slam of a door.

  Somewhere behind him on the ground floor he could hear Tough Tony’s voice crying out faintly in abject surrender.

  The major shouted in a trumpet-tone: “Sledge! Front and center with the sledge!” and leaped up the rickety stairs three at a time.

  The front room on the second floor was locked; he couldn’t budge it. Then the sledge-swinger arrived and got to work. He battered the door grimly from its fastening. Ripped it away from bolts and hinges. Lacy straddled the ruin and went in headlong.

  The room was empty. The Scarlet Ace was gone.

  For a moment the major’s jaw sagged in wonder. The room was sealed; there was only the ruined and jagged doorway for exit. How in the name of… Suddenly his thin lips smiled.

  The man with the sledge said: “What’s that, sir?”

  It was a faint sound somewhere within the walls of the room. A sound like an enormous mouse scurrying behind lath and plaster. Lacy circled the walls like a terrier sniffing a bone. The north wall echoed hollow. Under the flowered wallpaper the major’s knuckles rapped wood.

  He said, harshly: “Smash through it, Jackson!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A dark, narrow recess appeared. A platform inside the wall. Scarcely more than twelve inches wide. Barely wide enough for a man to squeeze into. Lacy squeezed in. Steps led below. It was pitch dark beyond the first two or three. He struck a match awkwardly in the narrow space and peered. The steps looked solid.

  “Careful, sir!” Jackson said faintly.

  The major said dryly, “Quite so,” and descended, his wedged body scraping the smooth sides of the secret staircase. At the bottom his fumbling hands touched a barrier on all sides except the way he had come.

  He struck a fresh match. No sign of a door or a knob. Probably another damned panel with a cunningly hidden spring release.

  He shoved futilely with his shoulder. No use. Nor would a sledge be any help at all in such a narrow coffin-like space. There was not room enough to swing it. The slippery Scarlet Ace had effectively vanished like a frightened fox just as the jaws of the hunting-dogs were ready to crunch.

  Suddenly Lacy uttered a stifled oath. He heard the faint throb of a motor. He turned awkwardly and squeezed up the narrow tunnel to the opening. Pat Harrigan was in the room above, his big face alight with the lust for more battle.

  “Did you get him?” Pat cried. “Where is he? What happened?”

  Lacy pushed past him and ran to the window. He knew with a feeling of baffled despair what had happened. He snapped up the shade and punched open the shutters.

  The parked sedan was gone from the curb. The unconscious body of the chauffeur that Lacy had slugged lay huddled in a dark splotch on the sidewalk. The fleeing Scarlet Ace had dragged him from the wheel in one mad heave and pitched him headlong to the sidewalk. He lay there like a sawdust dummy, with his legs bent grotesquely. But the sedan was gone. And with it the Scarlet Ace, the cleverest and deadliest criminal of the organized underworld.

  Lacy hurried downstairs and ran into Charlie Weaver in the hall.

  “We’ve got Farino!” the panting Weaver informed him. “He gave up damned quick. Threw his gun away, and came out on his hands and knees like a dog.”

  “Where is he?”

  Tough Tony stood on his feet in a corner of the room glaring hideously out of bloodshot eyes. His empty gun lay on the floor. His captors moved aside and Lacy faced the killer from Boston.

  “Ten grand, Tony. You didn’t earn it, after all. Do I look like the photograph?”

  Farino stared somberly at him.

  “I’m just a sap. A pushover,” Lacy murmured. “Don’t you remember? We talked about it. I met you this morning. Chased your girl back to Boston and gave you a cigarette to smoke.”

  “You?” the killer gagged. “That guy was you?”

  “None other, my stupid friend,” said the calm, cultured voice. “Take a good look at me. The name is John Tattersall Lacy.”

  The dull eyes of the killer swam with malignant hate. His whole body seemed to stiffen, to swell in size. Suddenly his hand flashed out of sight for an instant and reappeared. As he leaped steel glittered in his hand.

  Lacy dodged the murderous sweep of the knife and closed with the th
ug. He caught the plunging wrist and bent it backward. They swayed panting together like wrestling bears in a fierce double-hug and no man in the room sought to interfere.

  Tony screeched suddenly. A shrill yelp of agony. The knife went sailing end over end and landed with a clink on the floor. The fingers of the major tightened on the killer’s throat. They stayed there. After a while Farino fell and Lacy with him; but the viced fingers never relaxed. When they finally uncurled Tough Tony never moved. His face in death wasn’t peaceful.

  The major arose in the midst of a dead silence and dusted his clothing with a small, finicky gesture. No one said anything.

  He turned to Weaver. “How long is it since Jackson smashed in the back door, Captain?”

  Weaver looked at his wrist watch. “Four minutes and twenty seconds, sir.”

  “Hmmm… Brisk work, gentlemen. Where’s Cartright?”

  “Here, sir.”

  “Any police interference?”

  Cartright’s voice sounded bashful and embarrassed. He was a tall six foot kid with a reedy voice. The men in the barracks called him Susan. But only behind his back. The kid could fight with his fists like a longshoreman.

  “No, sir,” Cartright reported in his high voice. “No police interference. There was one cop, sir. I hit him in the jaw.”

  “Knocked him out?”

  “Yes, sir. I—er—laid him in the alley.”

  “Hmm… Regrettable. Quite regrettable.” He kept his face and his lips coldly sober. “Captain Weaver, get your men back to the truck at once.” Weaver barked a swift order and the room emptied.

  Lacy tarried a moment. He stared somberly down at the bodies of Farino and the man with the light eyebrows. Two dead snakes, but the major sighed with chagrin as he stood over them.

  The king snake had wriggled away. The Scarlet Ace had slipped through the trap.

  He eyed Farino without pity. The only good gunman was a dead one. And Tough Tony was pretty dead. There’d be no ten grand in his murderous clutch. No sinister ace of diamonds tucked neatly on Tattersall Lacy’s bullet-riddled body. The Scarlet Ace would have to keep his blood-red calling card for a while.

  The major smiled pensively. He prided himself on his politeness, his correctness in social matters. He took a card from his pocket and bent briefly over the body of Mr. Tough Tony Farino. There was no name on the pasteboard but the Scarlet Ace would understand.

  A playing card. But not the ace of diamonds. No ace at all.

  The joker.

  SCARLET ACE: HELL HOUSE, by Theodore A. Tinsley

  Originally published in All-Detective Magazine, July 1933.

  Major John Tattersall Lacy was seated comfortably in the spacious library of his duplex penthouse suite in the towering pinnacle of the Cloud Building. The door opened soundlessly. A hesitant figure came in. It was Private Caxton, one of the ex-marines on the secret payroll of Amusement, Inc.

  Caxton clicked his heels together and snapped a salute. There was a wavering smile on the man’s lips, a peculiar furtive boldness in the way he stepped forward.

  “Halt!” the major barked. Tattersall Lacy’s face tightened with annoyance. He laid aside the copy of the Cavalry Journal he had been reading.

  “You wanted to see me?” he said in a cold voice.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You obtained permission from Sergeant Hogan to do so, I presume?”

  “N-No, sir.”

  The cold voice turned icy.

  “Then what the hell do you mean by leaving your quarters and intruding on me without the sergeant’s permission?”

  The man in the tan-colored shirt and gray civilian trousers hesitated and wet his dry lips. He knew perfectly well that he had no right to be there, that his quarters were confined to the barrack area in the rear of the duplex penthouse. Yet he continued to smile queerly and he took another step forward.

  “It’s something so absolutely important, sir,” he muttered, “that I had to see you right away. I—er—”

  A heavy step sounded in the doorway. A voice cried sharply: “About face, Caxton!”

  It was Sergeant Hogan. The anger of the major was reflected in Hogan’s honest eyes. As Caxton faced slowly about, the sergeant said awkwardly to Lacy: “I’m sorry, sir. I saw him going down the corridor, but I never dreamed he’d have the gall.” Then to the interloper, “Get back to your quarters, Caxton! Report at once to your corporal and tell him I said—”

  “Look out!” the major roared.

  Caxton’s right hand flicked swiftly with a .45 automatic in its grasp. Hogan’s startled jump was a second too late. The heavy slug struck him in the arm and spun him around. He fell bleeding to the floor, his left hand tugging weakly at his own holstered weapon.

  The intruder whirled instantly like a cat. His eyes were blazing with determination. The heavy gun in his taut grip spat twice and bullets ripped through the brown leather of Lacy’s chair.

  The major was on the other side of the table, crouched vigilantly. Caxton’s murderous attack on Hogan had been wholly unexpected, as swift as a stab of lightning. But the major’s brain worked equally fast. His lean body hurtled from his chair barely an instant before the bullets drilled the leather. As he dropped to one knee his gun slid into his hand and he fired under the table at the fleeing Caxton.

  The shot was hasty and it missed. Caxton hurdled the fallen Hogan and was instantly out in the hall, racing with clattering feet toward the kitchen in the rear wing.

  Hogan stirred weakly on the rug. “Get him,” he groaned. “Get the dirty—”

  Tattersall Lacy’s face was a sickish pallor. Treachery! One of his own trusted men! A marine and a traitor!

  As he sped down the hall, gun in hand, his silver whistle darted to his lips and he blew a shrill blast. He sprang at the kitchen door and rattled the knob fiercely. It was locked.

  The sound of the major’s whistle brought armed men pouring up the stairs from the squad room. Lacy jumped past them and ran toward the heavy dining room doors. They were locked.

  “Steady, men!” the major roared. “Caxton’s running amuck with a gun. He shot Hogan a moment ago. He’s either stark raving crazy or a filthy traitor! Break down those dining room doors!”

  Rifle butts began to thud against the stout oaken panels. A marine appeared from the squad room, hastily snapping a drum on a Tommie gun. Lacy’s finger jerked imperiously.

  “This way, Corporal! McManus! Jackson!”

  He ran with them around the L of the corridor to the kitchen door.

  “Blast it off its hinges, Corporal!”

  He could hear the steady thudding of rifle butts at the dining room’s oaken barrier. It would take time to break through that solid timber. Here was the place to attack! The traitor was bottled up inside these two connecting rooms. Swinging doors inside the kitchen led directly to the locked dining room.

  The corporal nodded at Lacy’s crisp order and pointed his businesslike bullet mill. Ratatatatatat! The Tommie sprayed the door apart like rotten cheese. Holes gaped, splinters flew, the lock melted away.

  “Cease firing!”

  Lacy’s own shoulder gave the final push that sent the wrecked door tottering from its snapped hinges.

  He sprang forward. McManus and Jackson leaped after him. Lacy’s long legs carried him with a rush across the tiled floor of the kitchen. He batted the swinging doors open and raised his weapon for a final duel with the crazed Caxton.

  Caxton wasn’t in sight.

  The dining room was empty. Outside the locked doors the steady thudding of rifle butts made a dull thunder like sneering mockery in Lacy’s ears.

  “The terrace!” he thought savagely. “What a fool I was to forget the terrace! He’ll try to double back into the penthouse through the library windows and blast his way to the elevator or flee down the enclosed stairs of t
he fire tower…”

  Lacy crossed the dining room and threw open the wide French windows. Cool air gushed in his face and there was a brilliant reflection of sunlight from the paved terrace. Again he paused in bewilderment. The terrace was bare except for the blinding sunlight and the blue arch of empty sky. No sign of Caxton…

  A queer call from McManus spun the fuming major around with his Colt level and steady.

  McManus was crouched at the outer edge of the terrace, peering cautiously over the top of the low palisade of wooden stakes. His left hand was gesturing fiercely, insistently.

  “For God’s sake!” McManus shrilled softly. “Look, sir! He’s nuts. He’s a maniac!”

  A single story below the major’s terrace a smaller projection jutted. Caxton was down there, poised backward on the dizzy edge. Below his teetering heels was a sheer, hideous fall to a distant canyon where pedestrians were tiny dots, where cross-town cars were slow moving bugs.

  Caxton was like a swimmer braced on his toes for a back dive. His arms were stiffly outspread to balance himself. His face was staring upward and his stark eyes glared murderously at the major with the lust to kill.

  Tattersall Lacy sucked in his breath sharply. Not at the man’s hideous peril. Not at the gun in his hand. It was the belted harness Caxton was wearing. The fool was strapped in a parachute pack!

  He must have climbed into the thing in the dining room in the few minutes respite he had.

  Madman, nothing! He must have deliberately hidden the thing beforehand as the only possible mode of escape from a desperate murder. He was going to jump a thousand feet into a city street!

  The wild daring of the planned escape, the swift attempt at treacherous murder in the very heart of the major’s guarded headquarters. Only one man could be responsible for this. The Scarlet Ace! The mysterious “Master” who had sworn to kill Tattersall Lacy and destroy Amusement, Inc. forever.

  Lacy’s lips jerked quickly to McManus, the man at his side.

  “Get downstairs fast in the elevator and get out into the street. I’ll try to temporize with this fellow. If he jumps and doesn’t smash to jelly, get in close to him. Don’t try to collar him! Shadow him if he gets away. Don’t lose sight of him. Report back to me by phone when you can. You’re on continuous duty until relieved. Understand?”