The Spicy Mystery MEGAPACK ® by Hugh B. Cave & Victor Rousseau & Ellery Watson Calder & Atwater Culpepper & Norman A. Daniels

Author:Hugh B. Cave & Victor Rousseau & Ellery Watson Calder & Atwater Culpepper & Norman A. Daniels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, menace, mystery, sex, sadism, spicy, pulp
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

GUNFIRE AT SCARLANI’S, by Atwater Culpepper

Originally published in Spicy Detective Stories, December 1935.

Out from the lightless void that was Ludlow Court a girl came running. Her heels clicked unsteadily over the gouged pavement as she gathered her skirts high above her knees and lunged forward, head down.

Denver Street was but little better lit than the black alley that led into a rampart of warerooms, manufacturing lofts, and storehouses. Save for faint street lights economically spaced, the only spot that relieved the gloom was the winking neon sign over the entrance to the Golden Dragon, Luigi Scarlani’s third-rate night-club.

It was a quarter past one. Dan Randolph had just ascertained that, dubious about pulling out his watch in so unsavory a neighborhood.

He noted that the girl’s black dress had been ripped to the waist, and all but wrenched off her shoulders. A fragment of torn pink silk hung drunkenly out beneath the black garment, and the light revealed two undulating pink-tipped hemispheres, altogether unconfined now, as the girl stumbled around the corner.

Randolph stepped in front of the fleeing figure and blocked her way.

“What’s the matter, sister? What’s chasing you?”

The girl nearly crashed into him. “Get out of my way, sap!” she panted. “For God’s sake—” She darted to one side, and slid into a deserted doorway, where she flattened herself against the wall.

Randolph followed. The girl caught at his arm and dragged him into the concealing blackness. “Keep your trap shut!” she hissed fiercely. Her fingers gripped his wrist till it hurt.

From the lightless alley whence she had just emerged came the almost noiseless sound of creeping footsteps. Steps that sounded as if rubber-soled feet were being lifted and put down catlike. A black shape crept around the corner of the building, hugging the wall—

From the black alley came a coughing report, a spat of orange flame. The crouching figure lurched headlong, then fell heavily across the narrow sidewalk, arms flung outward.

Even as they watched the limp figure, it was scraped over the asphalt. Someone in the alley was dragging the victim back by the feet. All to be seen was a hat lying on the curbing, and a little pool of something wet that looked darker and more glistening than the sidewalk.

“I told you to keep out of this!” the girl whispered fiercely. “See what you just missed getting!”

Randolph licked his lips nervously. Death, even sudden and violent, was nothing new to him. But this sudden bumping off from the darkness tautened every nerve and muscle in his body, and he felt cold sweat moistening his armpits.

The street once more took on the hush of a morgue. The only sound was the throbbing whine of violins high up where the light shone under the tightly drawn curtains of the Golden Dragon, the faint pulse of drums, the moan of a saxophone played slightly out of tune. Jazz that sounded faintly out into the night, while below in the darkness a man lay dead.

The girl freed his wrist abruptly, and crept toward the sidewalk.

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