The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™: 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

The Two-Faced Corpse

Originally published in New Detective, April 1952.

“Hank Torgen’s got a place called the Zero Club,” Malory told Lonigan. “We’ll go there.”

The place was locked up tight. Malory banged and waited. After a minute, he banged and kept on banging. A key rattled suddenly in the lock on the inside, and the door was jerked violently inward away from Malory’s persistent knuckles. A Galento-type guy with shirt sleeves rolled back off hairy forearms stood in the opening.

“What the hell’s the idea, trying to knock the door down? You looking for a fat lip, maybe?”

“We’re looking for Hank Torgen, goon. Now tell us he’s not here.”

“Okay. He ain’t here.”

“That’s a good boy. Now we’ll just come in and look around.”

The fat guy cocked a hairy arm and moved forward. Malory waved a badge under his flat nose, and the cocked arm came down.

“Oh. Coppers.”

“Yeah. You must be new around here, goon.”

“That’s twice you’ve called me goon. Lay off.”

“Sure, goon. Take my advice. Learn to recognize the right faces.”

Malory pushed in, Lonigan at his heels. They went down a short hall, past the check stand, into the main room of the club. Later on, at playtime, it would be soft-lighted and crammed with ersatz gaiety. Now it didn’t have its makeup on. Glitter washed out in gray light. About as gay as a crutch.

In a back hall that abandoned all pretense of luxury, Malory knuckled a door and pushed in without waiting for an invitation. From behind a desk, a man with a broad, rocky face looked up from under craggy brows. His eyes were the color of slate and looked about as hard. When he saw who his visitors were, he stood up. Five feet eight or nine, vertical. Horizontal, there wouldn’t have been much difference. Built to last.

“Hello, Malory. You didn’t give me time to say come in.”

“I knew we’d be welcome.”

“Sure. Any time, Malory. Find a chair.”

Malory did. Lonigan stayed by the door, standing. Sitting behind his desk again, Hank Torgen reached for a bottle.

“Drink?”

“No, thanks. Ask me some time when I’m not official.”

“I never see you when you’re not official.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s right. It’s hell to work for a living, isn’t it?”

A smile brushed Torgen’s lips. Really just the shadow of one. There wasn’t any humor in it.

“I know my line. I’m supposed to say I wouldn’t know. You might be surprised. I might work harder than you think.”

“Maybe. There are lots of ways to make a living. I guess you could call any of them working. Seen Trixy Vincent lately, Hank?”

The slate-colored eyes were suddenly very still. So was the blocky body. Only the lips moved.

“Come off, Malory. Trixy took a powder over a year ago. You know that.”

“Sure. I know. Right after the Cornelius Jewelry Store heist, wasn’t it? I always had an idea Trixy might have crossed someone on that job. You sure you haven’t seen him?”

“I haven’t seen him. I haven’t been looking.”

“No? Neither have I. But I’ve seen him just the same. In an apartment out on Eighteenth. He’d had a job of plastic surgery done. Didn’t look like the same old Trixy at all. It was him, though. Right here in town all the time, Hank.”

“This a joke, copper?”

“Not to Trixy. He’s dead. Someone gunned him.”

A long sigh hissed between Torgen’s stiff lips. He stirred in his chair, and a little life returned to his eyes.

“Tough. Thanks for telling me, Malory. I’ll want to send flowers.”

“I thought you would. You with friends all last night, Hank?”

“You’re wasting your time. I’ve always got friends around.”

“Sure,” Malory said, getting up. “A guy as popular as you never has to worry about being lonely. Or guilty. Thanks, Hank. See you around.”

He went out, collecting Lonigan at the door. In the car, he took the wheel himself and drove slowly around the block. Not quite all the way. On the side street coming hack, he pulled to the curb and stopped.

“Hank’s black Cad was at the curb,” he said. “Heading this way. He’ll he crossing the intersection pretty soon. We’ll wait.”

Hank Torgen sat quite still at his desk for a long time, looking across the room at nothing with blank eyes. He was thinking that Trixy Vincent had got a facial. Now Trixy was dead. Murdered. The way Hank saw it, you could go three ways from there. One: Trixy was killed by a new connection. Someone he’d met after changing his identity. Two: he was killed by someone who had caught up with him from behind. Three: he was killed by someone who had been in on the fade from the beginning. Someone who’d known him with both faces all along.

It was the third way that appealed to Hank. It put a name in his head. It gave him someone to start with. Getting his hat, he went out of the office and down the short hall into the large main room of the club.

The goon was behind the bar, mixing himself a drink. Hank was tempted to give him hell for letting the coppers through but decided against it. After all, it was a lucky break that the coppers had made it. They had put him back on the trail of half a million bucks worth of ice that he’d just about kissed good-by. Without speaking, he went on through and out to the Cadillac at the curb.

Driving across town, he pulled up in front of an apartment house that had the name Corinthian Arms chiseled in stone above the front entrance. Inside, he rode to the fifth floor and knocked on a door. When the door opened, he entered without speaking. He was in a nice room, but he wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. The blonde who followed him in from the door was even nicer. Tall. Wearing soft satin pajamas that let the softer curves of her body show off. A face that fell into the beauty class if you didn’t object to eyes and a mouth on the hard side. She was called Pepper. That wasn’t her real name. Trixy Vincent had tagged her that because her last name happened to be Minter. Trixy always had a taste for the cute.

Hank turned in the middle of the room and looked at her. There was usually a certain light in the eyes of men who looked at her. There was one in Hank’s too, but it wasn’t the right light.

“Hi, baby.”

“Hello, Hank. Long time no see.”

“Yeah. I’ve been busy. I guess you have, too.”

“Not especially.”

“No? I’d call gunning an old boy friend being busy.”

“You’re going too fast, Hank.”

“Okay. I’ll play games for a minute. Trixy Vincent has turned up. Dead. No news to you.”

“It is, Hank. I swear it is.”

He took two quick steps to reach her. The back of his heavy hand smacked her mouth, flattening red lips against white teeth. She took it without flinching, watching him with eyes that slowly filled with hate as a drop of blood appeared on her lower lip. The tip of her pink tongue slipped out to remove it.

“Don’t bother to lie anymore, baby. I’ve got it figured. You were in the fade with Trixy. You’ve known all along that he had his face changed and stayed right here in town. After Trixy peddled the ice, you were going to take a powder together. That’s what Trixy thought. Not you. Maybe you didn’t like Trixy so well with a new face. More likely you just liked the money Trixy got from the ice better than any face. Pretty smart, letting him peddle the stuff for you before you did the job. You killed him, baby. You have the idea that no one would recognize the body? A smart cop caught the facial right away.”

“You’re all wrong, Hank. I didn’t know anything about Trixy’s facial.”

He hit her twice more. Once on the left side of the head with his right hand. Again on the right side with his left hand. Hank’s hands were big and hard like rock. Her knees buckled a little inside the satin pants, and a whimper escaped her bruised lips.

“You’re lying, baby. You’re a cheap little liar. You know what happens to dames who lie to Hank Torgen.”

“I’m not, Hank. I swear I’m not.”

He spun away from her and went to work on the apartment. Looking everywhere a smart dame might have cached a wad of skins. Not carefully. Not bothering to leave anything as he found it. When the living room was a shambles, he moved into the bedroom.

Pepper stood in the middle of the living room and listened to him work. The hate inside her was almost more than she could bear. There was a .38 in the drawer of the table beside her bed. She wondered if he could get it and kill him, but she shook her head and stayed in the living room. She’d always had a level head. Smart. She’d figure a way to get him. Later and good, without any danger to Pepper.

He came out of the bedroom and stopped in front of her. His eyes were burning with fury, but his voice was slow and patient, as if he were reading a lesson to a dumb kid “I’ve just started. If those rocks have gone through. I’ll find out. If they have, it means a lot of lettuce is somewhere around. Hank Torgen’s lettuce. You say you didn’t have anything to do with it. If you didn’t, you’re lucky. If you did, I’ll be back. Don’t bother to run. One rat got away from Hank Torgen. It won’t happen again. The facial Trixy bought himself was nothing, baby. Nothing to the one you’ll get. For free.”

Wheeling, he went over to the door and out.

Pepper stood in the wreckage of her apartment and went on thinking from where Hank had left off. She was smart. Smarter than Hank. He had got as far as her and bogged down. She was already way down the line. The minute he’d mentioned the facial, the perfect answer had jumped into her head. Hank’d get to it later. The smart cop, too. In the meantime, a smart girl could sew it up. A smart girl could always use the money Say — two hundred grand, maybe. She said it and liked the sound of it.

Pouring herself two fingers of rye, she slugged it down neat. In the bedroom, she got out of the satin pajamas and into street clothes. From the floor where Hank had dumped it, she retrieved the .38. Rejecting her purses with zippers, she found one with a simple catch and slipped the .38 into it. Then she went out to the telephone in the living room and rang the garage downstairs.

“Miss Minter speaking,” she said into the mouthpiece. “Please get my car ready to go out. I’ll pick it up, myself, in the garage.”

She went down the service stairs at the rear of the building. Half an hour later, she was standing before the front door of a brick house in a fashionable suburb. Beside the door was a neat little, bronze plate that said: Maurice Connerly, M. D. Pepper had been here before. The night Trixy Vincent had to have a slug dug out of his leg. She opened the door and stepped into the hall.

No one was around. Ahead of her, the right side of the hall took to the stairs and went up to the second floor. The left side was the low road, going straight back to a closed door at the end. She took the low road to the door and knocked. A voice told her to come in.

The man she found on the other side of the door had a thin, dark face below thick, dark hair that was turning silver at the temples. He lifted an eyebrow and waited, looking at her.

“You’ll remember in a minute,” she said “Minter. Pepper Minter. I came here once with Trixy Vincent.”

“You seem to have something on your mind. I’ve no idea what it is.”

She followed him to the desk, standing close enough to watch his hands.

“It’s no use, butcher. You don’t have to be smart to figure this one. A year ago Trixy Vincent took a powder with half a million dollars worth of ice. For that much he was willing to do it right. Knife work and everything. But it didn’t work. Last night he was murdered. Either Hank Torgen or I would have loved the job, but someone beat us to it. You, butcher. Trixy finally peddled the ice, and you killed him for what it brought.”

“You must he insane.”

She took the .38 out of her purse and pointed it at him.

“It had to be someone who knew Trixy with his new face. You’re the one. You knew because you gave it to him. There was even a chance that no one would recognize the corpse. Tough luck for you that a smart dick was on the case, he spotted the stiff for Trixy right away. Tell me, how much did Trixy get for the ice?”

He laughed again and lifted his shoulders. He’d already decided that it wouldn’t do to let her go away alive.

“You know how it is with a fence. You’re lucky to get half.”

“It’ll be plenty for a mink coat. Get it.” Placing his thin hands flat on the desk, he started to rise slowly.

“I think not. And you can put away the gun now. I don’t like it. Even with a beautiful girl behind it, I don’t like it.”

She shot him in the right shoulder. The force of the slug slammed him back into the chair.

“You’ve made mistakes, butcher. You’re making your biggest one right now. Or would you enjoy being shot to death by inches?”

He lay back in the chair, holding his smashed shoulder and looking up at her with a sick pallor in his thin face. When he nodded wordlessly at the top right drawer of the desk, she went around quickly and jerked it open. It was there. Just lying there like so much paper. Four thick packets. One by one she dropped them into her purse. Then she lifted the .38 again.

“I said fifty percent. I meant of the value. Sorry, butcher.”

This time she shot him in the head. Without waiting until he had slipped out of the chair onto the floor, she dropped the .38 into the purse with the money and moved swiftly toward the door.

Putting the gun away was a mistake. She didn’t have time to get it out again when Malory stepped in and waved his own at her. He stopped just inside the door and looked at her bitterly.

“I wish you hadn’t done that. Killed him. I mean. I don’t like sending pretty women to the chair. It makes me feel bad.” Pretty, he said. As far as anyone could see, she was. But not inside. Inside, she was suddenly old and incredibly ugly. Like death. He kept on looking at her, shaking his head a little and sighing.

“I had a doctor in mind from the start. But I didn’t know which one. I thought maybe Hank Torgen would get the same idea and show me the way. I should have known better. Hank’s too dumb. Not you, honey. You’re smart. As soon as you got in the game, I had it won.”

She found her voice then. It fitted her inside better than her outside. Hoarse and ugly. Killed with a desperate fear.

“Look, copper. There’s plenty in this bag. Cops don’t make much money. Half of this would be a lot of money for a cop. Just for letting me get out of here. No one would know you didn’t come too late.”

He shook his head again. Regretfully. “Sure. No one but Lonigan out there in the hall. It’s tough that Lonigan has to be along. Sorry, honey. Thanks just the same.”