Black Mask (Vol. 33, No. 4 — November 1949)

Crime Waits for No Man by Edward Van Der Rhoer

Helpless in a locked closet, watchman Strang had to plan a hot finish for the metal robbers.

Joe Strang punched the time clock, checking with his wrist watch to make sure that he was on schedule, and moved off again on his rounds. He went through the darkened and empty administration office, with its long, vacant rows of desks, and stopped at the water cooler for a drink.

The wide plate-glass windows revealed the deserted, wind-swept street, lashed by sheets of rain that rebounded off the cobblestones like waves pounding a rocky shore. The arc-light on the corner was a lighthouse in a sea of darkness.

Beneath the street lamp a man stood huddled in a dripping slicker, a soaked fedora pulled down over his face to keep off the rain.

Hell of a night for anyone to be out, Joe thought. If it was him. he wouldn’t be standing on any street corner in the rain. No sir — not little old Joe! He had a vision of how cozy it would be on such a night in the one-room apartment, Margie sitting across from him with her sewing and the kid playing with his new red fire engine on the rug.

The picture of Margie, wistful face framed by shoulder-length chestnut hair with firelight glints in it. head bent over the socks she was mending, brought a smile to Joe’s lips.

He left the administration office, limping down a long dark corridor, his lamp picking out the way ahead of him. The leg was hurting again — it always did in wet weather. His limp became more pronounced, reminding him. against his will, of the part of his leg that had been left behind in Europe. That damned artificial leg, that damned, lousy leg!

Joe fished for his bunch of keys, found the right one, and unlocked the door at the end of the corridor. The beam of his lamp picked out a narrow stairway. He stopped abruptly and listened. Was that a noise he heard?

He listened but heard nothing other than the gurgle of water in the rain-spouts. That’s how it was sometimes, a man got so he was afraid of his own shadow, hearing funny noises where there were no noises, seeing danger where there was no danger!

Joe climbed the steep stairs. It was hard on his leg, going up and down stairs, but he gritted his teeth and ignored the pain. He’d show Denny! In his mind’s eye, he conjured up a vision of Pat Denny, the head watchman — redheaded, brawny, two-fisted, but scared of any man who was near his size and would stand up to him.

Denny watched him constantly, looking for the slightest mistake or sign of weakness on his part, and thought that Joe was not aware of his scrutiny.

Denny didn’t talk much to Joe, but Joe heard what he said to the other men. “This is no job for a gimp! We need a whole man to protect the property around here — not a cripple like Strang!”

But the others didn’t see it Denny’s way. “Joe has guts,” they said. “Don’t you worry about him. He’ll hold up his end!”

I’ll show that bum! Joe thought angrily, recollecting what Denny said about him. He climbed the steps doggedly, ignoring the stabbing pains in his leg.

There was a skylight at the very top. Joe checked to see that it was firmly bolted. The drumming of rain against the thick glass was very loud, almost deafening. Wearily, he moved down again — two hundred steps to the bottom of the circular staircase. He had climbed these steps so many times that he knew their number exactly.

Retracing his route, Joe went back along the dark corridor, locking the hall door behind him. Passing through the administration office in the opposite direction, he noted that it was still raining without any sign of a letup. The man had disappeared from under the street light on the corner.

Beyond the administration office he came to a stairway which gave access to the upper floors. When he reached the second floor landing, a trifle out of breath, he thought for an instant that he heard quick, light footsteps in the hall. His hand crept to his gun, and, extinguishing his lamp, he stood motionless a moment, listening.

After a brief interval, he found the light button in the dark and snapped it on. The hall was abruptly flooded with light, and, to Joe’s disgust, he saw the gray shape and long tail of a rat scurrying around a corner at the far end of the corridor.

Joe snorted indignantly to himself. It’s funny what tricks imagination will play on a guy. As long as he had been on the job, he could never get used to the noises rats make in the dark.

He found the right key on his chain and unlocked the first door on the left. It was a storeroom filled with neat stacks of copper ingots. Flashing the light about the storeroom, he assured himself that everything was in order and withdrew, listening for the click of the spring lock as the door snapped shut behind him.

His next stop was the photo-engraving lab. The pungent odor of chemicals immediately assailed him, and he wrinkled his nose with distaste. He noticed nothing wrong in the lab, so he limped along the line of high benches to the darkroom in the rear.

There had been a damaging fire that originated in the darkroom the year before, and the watchman who failed to detect the fire in time had gotten his pink slip.

Joe inspected the darkroom with special care. He checked it once and then, still not satisfied, checked it over again. If there was any fire, little old Joe wouldn’t get caught napping, so Denny could have the pleasure of giving him the gate. Not on your life!

It was funny how a guy got hunches sometimes. Like when you get a hunch on a horse, and it comes in at a hundred to one, but you don’t get a bet down on it. Joe felt that way now. He had the same feeling he’d had that day at Montefiore when his leg was shot.

But he looked everywhere and couldn’t find anything wrong. The darkroom was in apple-pie order. He went out, feeling that he must have missed something, but he couldn’t tell what. Just before he reached the door, he stopped short. He knew suddenly what he had missed — the windows! The black shades were drawn, as usual, but he was conscious of a faint draft of air.

Joe rushed to the windows. The first two were securely locked, but the third had a neat, rectangular hole in the lower pane of glass, through which the air was entering. The screen enclosing this window on the outside had been ripped off and was hanging loose, blown by fitful gusts of wind against the side of the building. Six feet below this window was the roof of the power plant.

Joe, drawing his gun, silently cursed the company for not having heeded the advice of the watchmen to install burglar alarms on the second floor. In the presence of danger, Joe was thinking more clearly than he had ever thought at any time in his life before.

There was no doubt in his mind that one or more intruders had come into the building through this window. Somewhere in the darkness, they were waiting for him.

Slowly and stealthily, Joe inched toward the door. Just as he reached it, the light in the hall went out. Joe leaped through the door and snapped two shots in the direction of the light switch. He heard the sound of shattering glass, but no answering thud.

Joe crouched in the darkness, his throat tightened into knots, his breath coming in short, jerky gasps. This wasn’t good — this wasn’t good at all! His ears, sharpened by darkness, listened for any tell-tale sound that might warn him in time.

Behind him, suddenly, there came the scrape of a shoe. Joe whirled to face a shadow descending upon him. He came to grips with it, and felt a solid, muscular body twisting away from his frantically grappling arms. In this struggle, Joe lost his gun, heard it strike the floor and skitter away from him.

He struck at the shadow with all his might. His hand crunched against a hard head, and he felt a sharp twinge of pain all the way up to his shoulder. He struck again with his left hand, and this time there was a satisfying solid impact, and a gasp torn from the lips of his unknown adversary. The shadow disappeared.

Joe crouched on the floor, groping for the gun. Too late, he became aware of a movement behind him. He attempted to swing around, but his bad leg buckled under him, and he sprawled on the floor.

Before the raised gun barrel descended on his head, Joe had a momentary vision of Margie, her eyes dark with foreboding, bidding him goodbye at the door of the apartment. “Joe, be careful!” And Joe, laughing as he said, “Careful! What have I to worry about?”

Then the star-shells exploded. They were from the German batteries up in the hills, above the valley—

When the fog lifted and the dull pain ebbed away, Joe came to himself again, seated on the floor, holding his throbbing head between his hands.

“He’s comin’ to, Davey.”

Joe looked up, but his eyes refused to focus for a moment. Then he saw three men standing over him — two nattily dressed in dark business suits, the other a sallow-complexioned, hatchet-faced fellowed in a dripping yellow slicker.

“He don’t feel so good now — too bad!” growled the man in the slicker, rubbing an ugly welt that was turning from red to blue over one eye.

“What’ll we do with th’ bum, Davey?”

Davey, the man in the slicker, rubbed his pointed chin thoughtfully.

“Should I slug him again?”

“Naw, don’t bother,” said Davey, more coolly. “Get his keys, an’ Rocky an’ me will dump him in that empty storeroom over there. One of his keys oughta lock the door. Then we can start loadin’ them copper bars on the truck.”

Joe lay stunned on the storeroom floor where he was thrown like a sack of meal. He was only vaguely conscious of the grating noise of the key turning.

After what seemed like a long time, he crawled to his feet and staggered groggily over to the door. He yanked on the knob, but it did not give. Then he backed off several feet and hurled himself against the solid oak. His body slammed hard against the unyielding wood, and the breath went out of him for a moment.

When he got to his feet again, he knew it was no use.

It occurred to him to search his pockets. He found a package of matches, but nothing else of use. He struck a match. The tiny flame barely illuminated four bare walls. There was no window. Then the match sputtered and went out. Dizziness overwhelmed him suddenly, and he sat down, his back propped against the wall.

Outside, in a dark courtyard, shadowy figures were loading copper ingots on a truck backed up to the delivery platform. A man in a slicker stood in the shelter of the building, rain pattering softly around him. “All loaded on?” he yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth.

Another man came out and stood in the rectangle of light outlined by the doorway. “Not yet, Davey. There’s a little more on the way.”

“What’s that?” Davey said suddenly. He held up a hand for silence, and the men on the truck stopped working. Far away there was clearly audible the high-pitched shriek of a siren.

“Cops?” said the man in the doorway.

Davey listened. “I think it’s all right,” he said. “Sounds like fire-engines.”

Gradually, the sound of the siren grew louder and louder. Soon it was possible to distinguish other sirens. They seemed to be coming closer.

“Take it away!” yelled Davey, leaping on the running-board of the truck.

The truck rumbled over cobblestones, through a narrow alley and out into the street. At that instant, a hook-and-ladder fire truck, approaching at high speed, drew across the path of the other vehicle. There was the horrible, squealing noise of skidding tires, and finally an ear-shattering crash.

When a police patrol car arrived at the scene a few minutes later, Davey was just dragging himself away from the flaming wreckage of the truck, which had crashed into a brick wall, missing the hook-and-ladder. Two curious policemen were interested in asking him a number of pertinent questions...

“If there hadn’t been a fire,” remarked Pat Denny, with a sneer, “those crooks would have gotten away with nearly ten thousand bucks’ worth of copper bars!”

Joe Strang didn’t answer.

“How come you didn’t discover the fire, Strang?” Denny demanded nastily.

“What fire?” Joe asked quietly, watching the face of Foster, the plant superintendent.

“What fire?” bellowed Denny, the red veins swelling in his bull-like neck. “What fire do you think? What’s the Fire Department doing here?”

“It’s very simple,” Joe said, speaking louder than necessary for Foster’s benefit. “When they locked me in that storeroom, they knew there were no windows in there and the door was solid enough so I couldn’t break it down. But they forgot about one thing — the sprinkler system.

“If you climb up and hold a lighted match against the sprinkler head, the wax melts and the sprinklers go off. Also an alarm is set off at the firehouse.”

Joe didn’t have to say any more. He saw the look of baffled rage on Denny’s face, and the smile that turned up the corners of Foster’s mouth.