5 Detective Novels, Summer 1952 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Thrilling Publications
Published: 1952-07-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

THE agency op wasn’t sympathetic. He scrutinized the vicious bruise that began on O’Hanna’s cheek-bone and angled up into his haircut. “What are you, anyway?- A house dick or the tin duck in a shooting gallery?”

O’Hanna hated him. He didn’t say much, for just then the phone rang. “Never mind, I’ll take it.”

Fencer shrugged, and brushed at the goose down adhering to his conservative business suit. “I shouldn’t have said a tin duck. They don’t grow feathers.” He stepped over and hauled down the window sash.

“Hello?” O’Hanna was saying.

The operator told him, “We called Indian Prairie. Miss Beale hasn’t any friends or family there. It’s one of those things—the Indian Prairie Central says no one there even knows anybody named Kitty Beale.”

“Bad news?” Fencer questioned.

O’Hanna said, “So-so.” He walked to the door. “Oh, hell, I won’t hold out on you. If we’re both running for the office of house dick here, I’m willing to start from scratch with you.”

“Well?”

“Kitty Beale isn’t a schoolteacher from the Corn Belt,” O’Hanna said. “Now we can go on from there, and may the best man win.”

Fencer looked genuinely grateful. “That’s white of you. Maybe sometime I can give you a break. I hope so.”

O’Hanna nodded, opened the door, and came to a dead stop. His Irish-blue eyes explored the sixth floor corridor, in both directions, incredulously.

“Anything wrong?” Fencer’s tone was friendly, now.

“No.” O’Hanna marveled that his voice sounded friendly, too. “Not a thing.”

There wasn’t, either—visibly. The corridor looked as fresh and tidy as the day it had originally been painted and carpeted.

“Well,” the agency dick said, “good luck to you, old chap.”

“Same to you,” O’Hanna said. He stepped out, pulled the door shut and glared at it. “Rat!” he remarked under his breath. “Louse!”

He was probably taking a damned fool chance, O’Hanna told himself. He hurried back to the Cobb suite anyway.

Doc Raymond, with shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, sat beside the patient who was in bed in his bedroom.

“How is he?” O’Hanna asked.

Raymond turned both thumbs down. “With his heart, he’s lucky to be alive. Another six months on his brand of liquid diet, and he’ll be a dead man. In his condition, he might just as well drink embalming fluid in the first place—cheaper and quicker.”

Cobb’s voice issued through the towels which swathed his face. “Nuts, Doc. Higher-priced specialists than you gave me that song-and-dance years ago. I can kill a quart a day and still outlive all of you sour-pussed sawbones.”

Doc Raymond shrugged, walked across the room, and straightened a picture on the wall. “Your mistake. The quart a day is killing you.”

O’Hanna peeled layers of towels, cold ones, off the patient’s putty-colored features. “What about the girl?” he demanded.

“I can’t remember,” Cobb said vaguely. “That’s always the way after a binge. I can’t ever remember what I did. Was there a girl?”

“You picked her up in the lobby,” O’Hanna said.

“That wasn’t any girl—that was my wife,” Cobb said. “It’s the last thing I do remember.”

“Ice-pick,” O’Hanna suggested hopefully.

“It’s no use.

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