Primal Spillane: Early Stories 1941-1942

Spy Paper

“Oswald, you have no more grey matter in that apple head of yours than that little mouse you feed cheese to when you think I’m not looking! As the city editor on this newspaper, I demand some news instead of the stuff you’ve been dishing out!”

“Noits to you, chief,” said Oswald, shaking his finger under his fat boss’ nose, “you wouldn’t know a piece of news if it crawled under your wig. Which, by the way, is very cockeyed at the present speaking!”

Hiram Klink. the C.E., shook his head to readjust the phony hair, took a deep breath like a frog, then screamed. Finally he quieted down to a roar, looking like he wanted to wring the juice out of Oswald.

“Spies I want. That’s news. Get me some spies!”

“Aw, don’t be stupid. Where am I gonna get some spies. Maybe I should spread out spy fly paper and they will walk on it, huh?”

“Don’t get funny! I give you twelve hours to get me some spies to write about, or you are demoted to chief galley washer in this shebang. Now go spatch some cies. I mean catch some spies, you worm brain!”

Ossie sat down to figure that one out. When the chief got mad. he wanted what he wanted or it was too bad. But where the dickens could you pick up some spies at this hour. Offhand, he didn’t know any. He knew a lot of people, but recently he didn’t meet any spies. And it was eleven P. M. — any decent spies would be home in bed. Oh, woe, what to do?

It can be said that when Ossie set himself to do a thing, he did it in a hurry. Sometimes the results were kind of messy and lawsuits flew around the place like bats in a church tower, but there was news to be had, even if he made it himself. So, Oswald Chippenblock stretched his long, lanky framework and eased out of his swivel chair.

“Grrrr.” he growled, “twelve hours to catch a spy. When I get him I will make old bald head eat him feet first... with his shoes on! Now I wonder what kind I’ll catch, German, Jap or Eyetalian?”

So Oswald ambled down to the morgue where all that’s dead is the roaches on the wall. That’s the place where the newspaper files all the old clippings which they’re too sentimental to throw away. He looked up spies under “S,” but the ones that were listed had all been caught at one time or another. That was luck for you. Why couldn’t the cops and the F.B.I. play fair and leave a few for somebody else lo catch?

Just a little disgusted, Ossie went to leave, but as he passed the file boy’s table, he spotted a rival newspaper that carried a comic strip he sort of liked and picked it up. Idle curiosity made him turn the page, and there, beaming up at him with a big, toothy grin was the fat face of someone who seemed awfully familiar. The guy was holding a little war refugee in his arms like a cat holds a mouse before clipping off its head.

Something was wrong here, but what? Then Ossie got it. He went back to the “S” file and dug and dug. Papers flew like confetti. The file clerk would puncture him full of holes should he see this. Nevertheless, Ossie dug some more, then, yelping like a coyote what has sat on some cactus needles, dashed back to the paper... Sure enuf... this was the same guy! One said, “Acquitted of spy activity,” dated 1929, and the other, “Outstanding citizen founds home for baby war refugees.”

Hmmmmm! There must be a dead herring in this woodpile, it smelt so bad. Ossie poked at his ear with a pencil. “Daggone!” he said to the morgue room. “Here is my spy, now all I have to do is find him, get some evidence on him, get him arrested... all in, let’s see,” he consulted his watch, “ten hours and seven minutes! Plenty of time, plenty of time! Think I’ll have a soda first.”

About an hour later, Ossie pulled up in front of a good-sized mansion with a clatter and banging of his old jaloppy that shook all the leaves off the trees even though it wasn’t fall yet. Squirrels yipped and ran for the air raid shelters. A big guy in a monkey suit... he was a butler... opened the door and peered out, Ossie grinned. Probably thought dive bombers were overhead. The lizzie did that to people.

“I am Mr. Chippenblock from the Daily Chronicle.” He flashed his press card like reporters do in the movies. “I would like to see Mr. Hauser.”

The butler scowled. “Mr. Hauser has retired.”

“Well, untire him! Anyway, there’s a priority on tires. Tell him the Chronicle awaits and will not wait long, and unless he wants his pan spread all over the funny page section, he had better come down and be interviewed!”

The speech got the butler. Big boy finally figured that maybe Ossie knew what he was talking about and went upstairs after the “Mawster”... fancy talk for the head of the domicile.

In about twenty minutes a big bundle of fat flowed down the stairs and greeted Ossie with a mouthful of phoney teeth. “How are you. sir? Sit down. Have a cigar. Always happy to accommodate the press, y’know. Now, what is it that you wish?” Ossie recoiled before the fast chatter, but bounced back with a spiel of his own.

“About those kids. Good human interest story, y’know. Like to hear all about them. How they escaped from the dirty Nazis...”

Hauser’s eyes narrowed a little tiny bit at that, and Ossie caught it.

“Where they came from and all that sort of stuff.”

“Pouff pouff, very simple, my good man. Poor little tykes. They we’re shipped over here from France, so that English bombs wouldn’t snuff out their lives.”

Inside, Ossie was smiling, although it didn’t show on his face.

The fat boy just couldn’t help getting back at him with that crack about the English. “There’s nothing spectacular about it all.” Hauser went on, “I just keep them here until someone adopts them.”

Oswald was doing some heavy thinking. His brain jumped about in his skull like a frog on a hot rock. Ideas went skittering around his noodle like ants in a hill. Finally, after a minute’s concentration, Ossie got a grand idea. If this guy was a spy, here’s where the dirt comes out!

Hauser must have seen the intense look on his face, because he asked, “Something the matter?”

“Nope! I just thought that the Nazis could ship a lot of valuable information to their agents over here by letting those kids carry it. No one would expect a baby to carry the stuff, and nothing would happen to them if they did!”

WHAM! Something big, heavy and hard clonked off Ossie’s bean like a Yankee fireball into a catcher’s mitt! The reporter jerked like a fish, threw up his arms and relaxed into a coma punctuated by occasional snores.

The butler eyed the bent poker and peered at Ossie. “Maybe he’s dead. I hope?”

“You nitwit,” screamed Hauser. “Now what are we gonna do with the corpse!”

The butler heard a snore and smiled evilly.

“He’s not corpused yet, just asleep. Let me finish him.”

“Nothing doing. This is a new rug. Drag him upstairs and tie him up. In the morning we will dispose of him in the usual manner.”

The butler hooked a beefy hand in Ossie’s collar and up he went. From the general looks of things, Ossie’s immediate future wasn’t!

Groaning lightly, Ossie returned to this world. He tried to look around, but the dark got in his eyes so he couldn’t see anything. In a minute, he found he was tied up, but that was no trouble for him. He reached into his back pants pocket and dug out his nail clippers, and in two shakes he was a free man. Ossie struck a match.

Why, the dirty so-and-sos stuck him in the nursery! All over the place were cribs full of kids! He walked over to the nearest one. It was chilly in here and the kid was half uncovered.

But as Ossie went to throw the cover over the kid, he stopped. Something was the matter with its back. He touched it... and saw what it was. A piece of microfilm was pasted to the back with flesh-colored collodion. He never would have seen it if it wasn’t for the fact that the skin didn’t wrinkle under it! Pretty smart, these Jerries, but not smart enough.

Ossie tore the leg off a chair and stalked out to the hall. From the other end came jerky tones that might have come from a hog farm. Ossie took the hogs first. He sneaked to the door, opened it, and tip-toed to the bed. He shook Hauser lightly, and the rat sat up, the rolls of fat wobbling about his chins.

Ossie waved the chair leg like a bat, then swung for all he was worth. It was a homer in any game! Hauser went, “Ug!” and flopped back. Now for the butler. Dragging the limp hulk of the Nazi behind him, he opened big boy’s door, and in ten seconds flat hit another homer with the lug’s head. After that it was simple. The phone brought the cops, the cops brought the newspapers and that brought Hiram Klink, the C. E.

There were enough uniforms in the house to fight the war, and in no time Hauser and the butler were cooked geese. In came Klink. So far he didn’t see Ossie.

“Spies I want and I get them, but do I see that no good reporter of mine? No! He is fired to pieces. Never again will he report for me, not even the weather!”

Mike Gutler, boss of a rival news sheet, grinned. “Well, he can work for me, then, O.K.?”

“Take him, he’s all yours!”

Just then Ossie came from behind a curtain where he was hiding. Klink turned to a cop and asked “Who caught these bandits?”

“Some guy named Chippenblock, lucky stiff!”

“WHAT!”

Ossie walked out then and nodded at his ex-boss.

“See you sometime, Chief. I’m over the limit. Took me twelve hours and six minutes to catch them. I guess from now on I work on Gutter’s rag.”

Klink turned green, then orange with purple borders... tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Aw, Ossie. don’t be hasty... I was only fooling... Ossie, listen to me. OSSIE!... O-S S-I-E! Don’t leave me! A raise you get. Twenty, thirty!” When the ante reached forty... Ossie joined the Chronicle again.