Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol.122, No. 6, October 1, 1938

Fainting Cop by Edward S. Sullivan

O’Toole was off to a bad start, but he caught his men at the first jump.

Red-headed Patrolman Tom O’Toole shook his head viciously, like a bull, but the splitting pain still hammered at his forehead and his eyes still winced from the searing daylight.

“Gee, are you lucky, copper!” the blue-coated ambulance interne was saying as he dabbed away with an iodine swab. “Shot at with a Tommy gun, and all you get is the tip of your ear clipped off and a few bruises. Look at that other fellow now—”

Tom growled deep in his throat and the interne shut up. No need to tell him he was lucky. No need to tell him about Bill Regan, lying there in the wrecked radio car with his throat and face shot away.

The crowd was pressing around, staring at Tom, murmuring. Beefy detectives were bustling about, importantly.

Tom closed his eyes as the interne worked on him. The red fog was lifting a little, and everything was coming back to him with crystal clarity. The radio alarm — bank holdup... officer shot — that had come while he and his partner, Bill Regan, fellow-rookie, were loafing along in their patrol car, through the Northern Police District. The bark of the radio: “Tan sedan. They’re heading east on Hayes Street.”

The wild dash, skidding through traffic, to head off the bandits. The turn into Hayes Street on two wheels, and the speeding tan sedan, on the wrong side of the street, suddenly looming before them—

The rending crash that hurled O’Toole against the dashboard, as the two cars met head on. Then he was tumbling out on the street, clutching a shotgun. A fleeting glimpse of Bill Regan slumped over the wheel. The car tilted at a crazy angle.

Dazed from the crash, Tom had lurched against the car, drunkenly — and that lurch saved him. Bullets plucked at his sleeve.

The two bandits were out in the street, unhurt. One of them had a Tommy gun. Purple silk masks hid their faces.

Tom let go with both barrels of the shotgun, then ducked behind the car and blasted at them with his service revolver. The gunman must have been as dazed as Tom was from the shock of the collision; the deadly Tommy vomited orange flame but the bullets whanged into the asphalt, or into the side of the wrecked car.

The other man, clutching a black satchel, grabbed the machine-gunner’s arm, yelled at him, ran down the street. The gunner hesitated, and Tom stared into his eyes — eyes aflame with murder-lust. His mask had slipped and yellow teeth were bared in a snarl. His nose, Tom noted irrelevantly, was only half a nose. One nostril had been torn away by some old wound.

Then Tom’s gun clicked on an empty shell. The killer raised the black snout of the Tommy gun again. Flame spat. A bullet clipped Tom’s ear—

Metal groaned suddenly, stridently. Something whammed into O’Toole’s back and flung him flat on the pavement. A big shadow lay over him.

The gunman ripped out an oath, turned and ran, jerking the purple mask back on his face.

Numb from shock, Tom realized what had happened. The police car, that had leaned with its nose up against the other wreck, had fallen back on all four wheels and knocked him under it.

He clambered out, wiping blood from his face. Then he saw Bill Regan, lying in the seat with his face and throat a red pulp from the Tommy gun bullets. A hole right through the middle of his star—

He took one step, fumbled at his belt for cartridges. Then his stomach seemed to fall away. The street spun in a red pin-wheel.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the runningboard of the ambulance, and sirens were wailing all around him, and people running.

He remembered the whole thing now — it all flashed in front of him like a colored lantern-slide.

“...Sure lucky,” someone was saying, behind him. “The other guy sure was blasted...”

Then a man was pushing through the crowd, leaning over Tom, grabbing his shoulder. The grizzled, hard-bitten face of Pete Winthrop, Captain of Detectives.

“They got away,” Tom managed weakly. “They ran west on—”

“We know that.” The captain clipped his words off short. “They commandeered a car and got clean away, with ten thousand dollars in that satchel. How do you feel?”

“I... I’m all right. But Bill — he’s dead.”

“Yes, he’s dead,” the captain nodded shortly. “It’s a miracle you’re not dead yourself. But we’ll get the killers. Don’t blame yourself, kid. You couldn’t have done much better, in the face of a Tommy gun. Listen, can you describe either of the men? They both wore those purple silk masks when they robbed the bank.”

“One was short and thin — the one with the satchel — the other... he—” He was the one who’d turned Bill’s face into that sickening pulp.

A wave of blackness surged over Tom suddenly. He closed his eyes tight, struck his head with his fist.

The captain shook him roughly. “You’re in no condition to talk now. Let them take you to the hospital and fix you up. Then report to my office as soon as you can.”

O’Toole opened his eyes, looked into the gray-steel eyes of the captain. Those eyes regarded him quizzically, speculatively. Then Winthrop clapped him on the shoulder and wheeled away.

Dazed, he let himself be led inside the ambulance.

“...Sure lucky,” the interne was muttering.

Sitting like a wooden man, Tom O’Toole let the doctors work on him while he stared at the wall.

Bill Regan was dead. Regan, with whom he had studied for the civil service and joined the force less than a year before. Regan, whose wife was sister to O’Toole’s wife. The heart and face smashed out of him while he lay helpless, unconscious.

And Captain Winthrop blamed Tom for the escape of the killers. He had not said it in so many words. He had spoken kindly, clapped him on the back. But his eyes — the eyes of a nail-hard veteran of a score of gun battles, had betrayed what he could not but feel. One man dead, and the other with only a nick in his ear and a cut on his forehead. And lying in a faint, like a girl, while the killers got away.

Captain Winthrop would say nothing. O’Toole’s buddies at the station would say nothing. They would shake his hand, slap him on the back. Lucky Tom. They wouldn’t say what was in their minds, what was beating at O’Toole’s tortured brain.

They couldn’t know the cruel force of that first smash on his forehead, the crashing impact of the falling car on his back. It was too complicated to explain. They would look at him strangely when he told of that wave of blackness that swept up from his stomach—

And Kitty O’Toole — she would welcome him home hysterically, thanking God that he was alive — and all the while her sister, Molly Regan, would be sitting in the corner, tearing at a tear-soaked handkerchief, following Tom O’Toole with haunted eyes.

A strong hand lifted him to his feet. “You’ll be okay now, young fellow. Boy, you were certainly lucky—”

Tom dusted off his blue uniform, stood for a moment blinking in the sunlight of the hospital steps. With the return of motion, of life and breathing in the open air, his mood of self-condemnation turned to white-hot fury against the killers. To get his hands on those rats!

They had both worn masks. But the Tommy gunner’s mask had slipped, and Tom had seen his face. He would never forget that half-nose, those snarling lips. If he could pick it out from the pictures at the B. of I. — at least describe it fully to Captain Winthrop.

There was a cab standing at the curb. Tom hurried down the steps.

“Say, just a minute, officer.”

Tom scowled at the little man who had laid a hand on his arm. The fellow blinked up at him half humorously. He carried an overcoat slung over one shoulder. Another guy who thought he was lucky, probably.

“Say, ain’t you the cop that was in that shooting?”

“Yes,” the big redhead said, “and I’m busy.”

“Take your time, big boy!” The little man smiled brightly.

Tom suddenly went cold. He felt the round muzzle of a pistol jammed against his ribs. The little man was holding it under the overcoat.

“Easy takes it, copper. Turn around and walk over to that cab.”

Tom’s muscles tensed. His mind raced. A lunge, a twist of his big wrist, and he stood an even chance of overpowering the little gunman.

Then the rising rumble of rage died in his throat. He relaxed slowly. This man, he told himself, was in league with the killers, somehow. Could he be one of them himself? He was the same general build as the man who had run off with the satchel. There had been plenty of time for him to have gone home and changed clothes. He wanted to take Tom somewhere. Would he lead him to the man with the half-nose?

“Okay.” The voice didn’t sound like Tom’s own. He walked stiffly to the cab. The little man prodded him urgently with the gun, followed him in, seated himself on the cop’s right.

“Drive out Lincoln Way, toward the Beach, then I’ll tell you where to go,” he told the driver. Then he slammed the glass partition. The cab slid out into traffic.

“Now what’s up? Where are you taking me?” O’Toole demanded.

The little man’s eyes danced. “Don’t you know?”

“No.”

“Well, you see, some friends of mine are in trouble. They might get in worse trouble, one of them especially, if they were picked up and you were around to identify them. You might even recognize their pictures. You saw one of them close-up, when you weren’t supposed to see him. So they asked me to fix it up for them. Now do you get it?”

Tom’s lips compressed. He felt the gunman reached over, take the service revolver from his holster. It was unloaded, anyway. He had not thought to reload. It wouldn’t make any difference now.

“You mean the man with the half-nose is afraid I got too good a look at him?” The little gunman nodded. He held the gun steadily, pressing into Tom’s side.

“That’s it. You’re smart. The job went off okay, except that you got a look at my friend’s face. My other friend had sense enough to keep his mask up.”

“So you’re taking me for a ride. Then I’m the only one that can identify—”

The little man giggled.

“That’s just it. Exactly. Too bad, but my friend doesn’t like to take chances.”

Blood pounded in Tom’s temples. He cursed himself for a fool. He had had his chance to battle this runt on the hospital steps, and he had passed it up. Now he had bungled things worse than ever. He was the only man who could identify the killers and he was riding to his death.

“What are you going to do?” he asked the gunman finally.

The little fellow’s eyes danced.

“No harm in your knowing. I’m going to find a nice quiet sand dune, out by the beach, where we can be all alone, and let you have it. We’ll be all alone. The driver, here, is a good friend of mine.”

O’Toole looked out the window. They had just cut through Golden Gate Park, and were whizzing along Lincoln Way’s broad pavement.

“We’re getting near there,” the little man said. “Quiet, now.”

He leaned over and slid back the glass partition, keeping his eyes on O’Toole.

“You can take us to Fortieth Avenue and Quintara,” he told the driver.

The cabby nodded vigorously. The talkative gunman settled back in his seat. He glanced at Tom’s set face, opened his mouth, then closed it again.

O’Toole was staring out the window with unseeing eyes. His brain was racing furiously. There was a chance — he had once been on radio patrol in this neighborhood—

Where Lincoln Way crossed one of these outlying avenues, there was a bump, a sizeable bump. Tom remembered it well. It was a deceptive bump, that you couldn’t see till you were on top of it. Tom recalled with a pang the time he had been riding along here with Regan, and he had almost gone through the top of the car when they hit the bump at full speed. Bill Regan had laughed over it for a week. Thirty-fifth Avenue, that was it.

Tom looked at the blue street-sign as they flashed past a corner. Twenty-eighth.

He turned to his captor. “Can’t you tell him to step on it?” he said hoarsely. “If I have to take it, I want it quick.”

“Don’t worry,” the gunman smiled. “We’re going fast enough. We don’t want to pick up any motor-cops.”

The gun was still jammed against Tom’s ribs. He edged sidewise, to ease the pressure a trifle. The gunman did not notice the movement.

Thirty-first — Thirty-second — the street-signs flashed by. Tom O’Toole tensed his muscles, braced his feet against the folded extra seats. Thirty-fourth—

Tom drew his head low between his shoulders. Blood was pounding in his temples. He looked ahead, saw the deceptive undulation in the pavement.

“Hey!” he yelled suddenly. “The driver! What’s he—”

Jerking forward, the little man automatically put his hand to the glass partition.

“What the hell—” he snarled.

The driver half-turned his head, took his eyes from the road. Tom braced his legs. The speeding cab lurched, dipped dizzily, leaped into the air.

The gunman, with a hoarse gasp, sank deep in the seat, then bobbed up like a jack-in-the-box. Tom, braced for the bump, threw himself to the left and clamped his hands on the little man’s gun-wrist.

There was a crashing explosion, a shattering of glass. The bullet had gone through the window. Brakes screeched. Wriggling like an eel, the little man jerked the pistol up. Tom let go of the wrist with one hand, jammed the barrel down and back.

A bone cracked in the little man’s hand. He screamed like a woman. There was another smashing report. The little man’s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth again, snapped it shut, and slumped in the seat.

Tom looked down. The slug from the reversed gun had torn a bloody hole in the man’s stomach.

Tom grabbed the gun, whirled around. The cab had stopped now. With a startled cry, he jerked his head back, flung himself flat, just as a rattling roar blasted his eardrums.

The driver had turned his full face, and he was the man with the half-nose. The tommy gun, balanced on the back of the seat, belched fire. Madness flared in his eyes. He shifted the gun—

Tom jerked up the little man’s pistol, fired point-blank at the snarling face.

The tommy gun stopped abruptly. The killer, eyes still wide, tipped slowly forward. Where his half-nose had been, there was a crimson welter of blood.

He tumbled slowly over the seat, lay in a heap beside Tom. The Tommy-gun fell and cracked against the dead man’s skull.

Tom turned to the little man. He was dead: a red rivulet trickled from his mouth. Something caught Tom’s eye. He dipped a hand in the little gunman’s breast pocket, drew out a bright purple silk handkerchief.

The little gunman, then, was the other Purple Mask bandit. They had hidden their identity, figuring shrewdly that Tom would come quietly, thinking they would lead him to the actual killer.

Tom leaned over the front seat. On the floor was the black satchel.

As he climbed out of the cab, he grinned crookedly, blinked and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“How Bill Regan would have laughed if he’d seen the little guy hit that bump,” he said aloud.