Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 10 — January 1939)

Dusty Death by Jackson Gregory, Jr

The fingers of the dead reach out to point a killer.

Big Bill Meadows tossed the check for his dinner and his last four-bit piece onto the rubber mat along side the cash register. When the girl behind the register glanced up at him, he winked at her. She pretended not to notice him, but all the same she was smiling when she handed him his four cents change. Big Bill did that to women — for several reasons they always smiled at him.

He picked up the four pennies and laughed. “That’s a lot of money for a single man, sister,” he said. “How about helping me spend it later on?”

The girl laughed too. “Well, I don’t get through here until eleven o’clock,” she said.

“Swell,” he told her. “I’ll be looking at you in two hours. And say, you better keep this for me; I might spend some of it.” He slid the pennies out of his big hand into the palm of her little one. He grinned at her again, then turned for the door.

Two men were coming in through the door when Big Bill was starting out. He acted as though they didn’t exist and walked right into them and through them, sent them staggering out onto the sidewalk.

“Hey, you!” one of the men yelled. “What the hell’s the idea!”

There was still a grin on Bill Meadows’ face when he turned around and said: “Feel like making something out of it, buddy?”

The man looked at Bill’s heavy jaw, at his thick, broad shoulders and the flat, narrow waist; he looked at the biceps that filled the arms of his blue coat. Then he mumbled:

“Well, you might look where you’re going once in a while.”

Deep laughter rumbled up out of Big Bill’s chest. “Sorry, buddy,” he said. Then his right hand flicked up from his side, knocked the man’s hat off, sent it spinning into the gutter.

Still laughing, he turned his back to the men and strode up the street. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and then pulled them out again because there wasn’t any money in those pockets to rattle.

His legs carried him in long strides through the people who were moving on the sidewalk. He was headed for a place where he could get all the money he’d want for the next few days. Here in the biggest city he had ever been in there was money every place that was his for the taking.

Big Bill wasn’t hiding out. Sure he had driven an ax into the skull of a fellow logger up in the big timber country, but what the hell? While things were blowing over, he’d stay here in the city and have a good time. And that meant money.

Two blocks up the street he stopped in front of a pawnshop. He had spotted the place yesterday, looked it over from the outside and even gone inside and pretended that he was going to buy a camera. So he knew what he was going to do and how to do it.

He swung the door open and stepped inside. As he was closing the door behind him, he flipped on the catch so that it locked. The old man behind the counter at the back of the shop looked up at him as he strode down between the glass cases. The old man had a round head like a pool ball and round eyes that looked big behind his thick-lensed glasses.

“Hello, Pop,” Big Bill said. He leaned on the counter and grinned at the old man.

The pawnebroker squinted at Bill Meadows and grinned back. “Say, you’re the guy what told me the joke about the woman and the two dogs.” He chuckled.

“That’s me, sure enough,” Big Bill said. “Listen, Pop, I got to have a suitcase, and I got to have a good price on it. Think you can fix me up?”

“Can I fix you up?” The old man rubbed his hands together in evident pleasure. The middle finger of his left hand was a stump — a caloused stump that ended where the first knuckle should have been.

“With the best price in town,” he said. “You come on with me. The suitcases are in the back room.”

Bill knew that the suitcases were in the back room. He followed the old man through a narrow door.

It was a dusty, cobwebby place, that room. The walls were crowded with shelves loaded with dust-covered odds and ends. On one shelf were stacked half a dozen suitcases. The old man pointed and said:

“There, son, take your choice. You pick out the one you like and then we’ll fix the price.”

“Let’s see that one.” Big Bill pointed to one high on the shelf. “The tan one up there.”

While the old man got a ladder and climbed up for the suitcase, Big Bill spotted the light switch. Then the old man came down with the bag, wiping the dust off the leather with his hands.

The pawnbroker said, “This is the best piece of luggage in the shop, son.”

Bill grinned. “Yeah, that looks pretty good.” Then he drove his fist at the pawnbroker’s face.

The old man saw it coming and tried to duck. Fear made him fast, a lot faster than Bill would have guessed he could ever be. But he wasn’t quite quick enough. The blow caught him on the side of the cheek, sprawled him backward. He fell on his hands and knees on the floor.

The old man was squealing like a frightened rabbit. When he tried to get to his feet and run he looked so funny and scared that Big Bill laughed out loud. Then he jumped on the old man.

It was even funnier when the old man tried to fight back. He threw his arms around Bill and tried to wrestle with him. Then he began to pound Bill’s face. The old man’s glasses were off and his eyes popped out big and round with near-sighted fright.

Big Bill left his hand over the pawnbroker’s mouth while he rolled him over onto his face. Then he put both his knees in the middle of the man’s back and began to pull up with both hands on his head. He didn’t have to pull very hard because the neck was thin and scrawny. It broke easily.

After Big Bill had pulled on a pair of black cotton gloves, he carried the pawnbroker across the room and tossed him into a dark corner. Then he took the suitcase and threw it on top of the man. He took a couple of more suitcases down off the shelf and threw them on top of the body, too. He found an empty cardboard box and covered up the old man’s feet with that.

There was gray dust from the floor on Big Bill’s knees. Carefully he brushed it off of the blue serge. Then he turned off all the lights except the dim night bulb up at the front of the shop. It glimmered over the drawer in the back of the counter where the old man kept his cash.

Big Bill went straight to that drawer, jerked it open and scooped his gloved hand into the metal box that held the money. He stuffed all the paper into his left-hand pocket and let the coins rattle into his right pocket. He grinned at the jingle of the cash and the weight it made in his pocket.

He looked through the windows at the front of the shop. There were a lot of people on the street. They didn’t stop to look in, but one of them might see and remember him if he went out that front door. But there was an alley running behind this building, so there would be a door opening out on it.

The coins in his pocket made a merry sound when they chinked together. He looked around the shop. He could see the dim shapes of the many things that were collected there. Anything that he wanted here was his, and it made him feel good to know that, but he didn’t want any of it. He was too smart to take anything that could be traced to him.

He was thinking all this, and thinking too how lucky he was to have been born with a smart-thinking head as well as a hard-hitting body, when he heard a sound. It was a sound that made the muscles in his body jump out into sharp, quivering ridges and brought his legs into a crouch. Somebody was pounding on the front door.

He pushed his body tight against the back wall where the shadows were heavy. Outlined in the door he could see the thick form of a uniformed cop. The cop was shading his eyes and peering into the dimly lighted shop.

Big Bill dropped down behind the counter. He had to get out of there, get out fast and without being seen.

As he crept toward the narrow doorway, he heard the cop calling: “Matt! Oh Matt! Open up! It’s me, Joe.” Then he was in the back room and groping toward the door that would let him out on the alley. He passed the pile of suitcases and saw that the old man’s hand with its missing middle finger had flopped out into the open.

Three blocks away from the shop, Big Bill stopped in front of a gum machine and looked at himself in the mirror. He brushed dust off the front of his coat, grinned at himself. He was plenty pleased with the way he had pulled off the job. They’d never be able to trace it to him. The old man was dead, and there wasn’t so much as a slug in him to point to who had killed him. Yeah, the whole thing had been pretty slick.

It was still a little more than an hour before the girl in the restaurant would be through work. He decided he’d just sort of wander back toward the pawnshop and see what was happening there.

As he walked up the street, he stuck his hand into his pocket and let the coins trickle through his fingers. He’d really be able to show that girl a big time tonight.

A block from the pawnshop he crossed to the opposite side of the street. The door to the shop was standing wide open and all the lights inside were burning, but Bill didn’t want to stand there staring.

Just ahead of him and directly across the street from the shop was a bar. He walked in there and sat on one of the stools in front of the bar. By turning his head and looking out through the window he could see right into the shop.

The bartender came over. He was young and blond and looked bored with his job.

“Rye with a beer chaser,” Bill said.

Big Bill poured whiskey into the glass until it bulged up higher than the rim. Then he pushed the bottle toward the bartender and said: “Better join me.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” The barkeep added a dash of bitters to his. “Here’s how,” he said.

The whiskey felt hot and made saliva pour into Bill’s mouth. He rolled his tongue around with pleasure.

“That’s damn good,” he said. Then he reached for his beer. He was sucking in the foam when he heard the long, high wail of approaching sirens.

He wanted to look across the street, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Must be a fire.”

“Yeah.” The bartender walked over to the window and looked up and down the street. Bill looked too. He saw a cop standing on the curb in front of the pawnshop; probably the same one who’d been pounding on the door.

“What the hell? They’re stopping at Matt’s place,” the barkeep said, staring at the radio car that pulled to the opposite curb. The cops piled out of the car, and an ambulance pulled up behind them.

Big Bill watched the men in the ambulance haul out a stretcher and follow the cops into the pawnshop. Then he poured himself another full drink.

The bartender was still looking out the window. “Wonder what happened,” he said.

“Guess somebody got hurt.” Big Bill was doing some wondering too — wondering why the ambulance if the old man was dead. If the old pawnbroker were alive — but he couldn’t be.

A crowd was gathering across the street in front of the shop. Bill reached in his pocket for two half-dollars, tossed them on the bar.

“Keep the change,” he said. “Guess I’ll go over and see what’s going on.”

“How about coming back and telling me?” the barkeep asked. “If you’ll do that, the drinks’re on me.”

“O.K.” He strode out of the place and across the street. As he reached the crowd, it parted to let the ambulance men through with their stretcher. Lying there, his head still twisted to the side, was the pawnbroker. He looked dead all right.

Big Bill tried to get closer, but the pack of the people kept him back. Before he could break through, the old man had been shoved into the back of the ambulance. Bill watched the ambulance scream up the street.

The crowd began to thin out. The cops came out of the building and stood beside the prowl car. One of the radio cops said, “Don’t take it so hard, Joe. We’ll get the guy.”

“Yeah.” Joe said dully He was the big cop that had pounded on the door.

The patrolmen drove away and Bill grinned as he looked at the cop called Joe. Those dumb heels would never guess that he was the guy they were looking for.

When Joe walked to the front door of the shop and locked it, Bill strode over to him.

“Hello,” he said “Was the old man hurt bad?”

“How’d you feel if somebody broke your neck?” Joe said, biting his words off sharp.

“Broke his neck!” Bill shook his head slowly. “Say, that is bad. Was he dead?”

“No,” Joe said.

Big Bill’s body grew tense. The old man was alive! His eyelids drew together as he thought what that meant. He forced himself to say: “I’m sure glad to hear that. He looked pretty bad when they brought him out.”

When Joe spoke, it was more to himself than to Big Bill. He said: “The doc says he isn’t going to come out of it, not even enough to say who murdered him. He couldn’t even recognize me. He couldn’t do anything but groan when we moved him.”

“Gawd, that’s tough.” Bill said. He felt the warm glow of security inside of him now that he knew that the old man had not said anything and never would. “That’s sure tough,” he said again. “Did you know him?”

“Yes,” Joe answered. “I knew him. The squarest guy I ever did know. I know his wife, too, and his kids.”

“That’s hell,” Big Bill sympathized. “Makes you feel lousey just to think of it. Say, come over and have a drink with me. It’ll make you feel better.”

The cop looked at him for a minute, then said: “O.K.” They walked across the street shoulder to shoulder.

When they came in through the door, the bartender said: “Hello, Joe. What happened over there at Matt’s? I couldn’t see.”

Big Bill sat on a stool. Joe leaned against the end of the bar, explained:

“Some rat broke Matt’s neck, broke it just to get the few lousy dollars Matt had in his drawer.”

“No! What a hell of a thing to do!”

“It sure is!” Big Bill said. “Better break out that whiskey.”

The cop was nervous. He killed his drink, filled his glass again. Carrying his whiskey, he crossed the room. Bill watched him in the mirror behind the bar. The cop pulled the plunger on a pin-game machine a couple of times. He pulled a handful of change from his pocket, looked in it for a nickel. Then he turned back toward the bar.

Joe stopped suddenly, staring. The muscles of his face knotted. The whiskey glass in his hand dropped to the floor. Big Bill, watching him in the mirror, saw that the cop’s eyes were focussed on his back.

“Where’d you get that?” Joe asked, his voice so low and hoarse that it was almost a whisper.

“Get what?” Bill swung around on his stool. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“On your back.”

Bill twisted his neck around to look in the mirror. Stamped in dust in the center of his blue coat was the imprint of a hand. It was a sharply outlined impression. The middle finger was a stump.

Big Bill stared at it, and the sweat began to come out on his body. That was the old man’s hand, reaching back from the grave to damn him. He rubbed his hand across his face, and then turned to the cop. Joe had moved over so that he stood between Big Bill and the door. His face was deadly calm.

Big Bill slid off his stool and stood on the floor, his hands balled up at his sides. His legs bent at the knees as his body settled into a crouch.

“Well!” he grated.

“So you killed him,” Joe said softly. “Matt left that on your coat when he tried to fight you off.”

Big Bill looked out at the street. It was empty. His eyes traveled back to Joe’s face. “So what?” he said.

“You’re under arrest,” Joe said.

“Think so?”

“Give me a chance to kill you,” Joe breathed. “I’d like that! I’d like to send you to hell for what you did to Matt.”

Big Bill had dropped lower into his crouch. Now his legs snapped straight, his body launched through the air toward the cop. His arms were stretched wide to clamp around the body of the man before him.

His arms slashed through empty air. Joe, tense and waiting, had side-stepped. As Big Bill grabbed at the bar to catch his balance, the cop’s fist hammered into the side of his face, drove him sprawling to the floor.

He bounced to his feet, shaking his head. The cop, standing with his back to the window, was looking at him. Joe’s eyes were as hard and cold as the metal of the gun he gripped in his right hand.

“So you’d like a chance to kill me!” Big Bill yelled. “Well, let’s see you do it.” He grabbed at one of the stools at the bar, tore at it frantically. It was bolted down.

“Cut it out!” Joe yelled. “Get away from there before I kill you!”

As he ripped the stool loose from the floor, Big Bill laughed, shouted out his laughter in the face of death. He swung the stool high over his head and started for Joe.

The gun in Joe’s hand jumped as flame and lead jabbed out of the snout. Big Bill kept coming, the grin on his face lopsided with pain. Joe’s gun crashed again.

Bill’s shoulders jerked as the second slug tore into his body. The chair flew out of his hands and crashed through the glass of the door. Going slower now, blood jetting out of his chest, Big Bill staggered forward. His arms were stretched wide, his fingers were distended claws.

“Stop!” Joe shouted. “Stay where you are!”

He didn’t stop. His face distorted as he started coming faster. Joe fired twice point-blank, then hurled himself out of the way.

Big Bill went past him, his head bent low his body leaning forward. He was blind with pain and approaching death. One thought inflamed his mind — there was a man that he had to get.

All of his dying strength went into one final lunge. His feet left the floor and he dove forward. His great body smashed through the plate-glass window, went sprawling onto the sidewalk outside.

Joe looked out through the gaping hole. It was very quiet, and the smell of burnt powder was acrid in his nostrils.

He stared down at the big man on the sidewalk. A penny had jumped out of the man’s pocket and was rolling toward his head. Blood was flowing out of the man’s mouth, and when the penny struck the thick stream, it fell over and stopped rolling.