The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

The clock on the city hall was booming the hour of nine in the morning when Ken Corning pushed his way through the office door. On the frosted glass of that door appeared the words: “Kenneth D. Corning, Attorney at Law — Enter.”

Ken Corning let his eye drift over the sign. It was gold leaf and untarnished. It was precisely thirty days since the sign painter had collected for the job, and the sign painter had collected as soon as his brush had finished the last letter of the last word of that sign.

The credit of young attorneys in York City wasn’t of the best. This was particularly true of young lawyers who didn’t seem to have an “in” with the administration.

Helen Vail was dusting her desk. She grinned at Ken.

He reached a hand to his inside pocket.

“Pay day,” he said.

Her eyes glinted with a softness that held a touch of the maternal.

“Listen, Ken, let it go until you get started. I can hang on a while longer...”

He took out a wallet, started spreading out ten-dollar bills. When he had counted out five of them, he pushed the pile over to her. There were two bills left in the wallet.

“Honest, Ken...”

He pushed his way to the inside office. “Forget it,” he said. “I told you we’d make it go. We haven’t started to fight yet.”

She followed him in, the money in her hand. Standing in the doorway, very erect, chin up, she waited for him to turn to meet her gaze.

The outer door of the entrance office made a noise.

She turned. Looking over her shoulder, Ken could see the big man who stood on the threshold. He looked as though his clothes had been filled with apply jelly. He quivered and jiggled like a jellyfish on a board. Fat encased him in layers, an unsubstantial, soft fat that seemed to be hanging to his bones with a grip that was but temporary.

His voice was thin and falsetto.

“I want to see the lawyer,” he shrilled.

Helen turned on her heel, called over her shoulder: “All right, Mr. Corning. I’ll enter up this retainer.” To the man she said: “You’ll have to wait. Mr. Corning’s preparing an important brief. He’ll see you in a minute or two.”

The pneumatic door check swung the door to.

Ken Corning turned in his swivel-chair and sent swift hands to his tie. From the outer office sounded the furious clack of a typewriter. Three minutes passed. The roller of the machine made sounds as the paper was ripped from it. The door of the private office banged open. Helen Vail pushed her way in, in an ecstasy of haste, crinkling a legal paper in her hands.

“All ready for your signature,” she said.

The pneumatic door check was swinging the door closed as Ken reached for the paper. On it had been written with the monotony of mechanical repetition, over and over: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.”

The door completed its closing. The latch clicked.

“Get his name?” asked Ken.

“Sam Parks. He’s nervous. It’s a criminal case. I’d have kept him waiting longer, but he won’t stand for it. He’s looking at his watch — twice in the last sixty seconds.”

Ken patted her hand.

“Okey. Good girl. Shoot him in.”

Helen walked to the door, opened it, smiled sweetly. “You may come in now, Mr. Parks.”

She held the door open. Ken could see the big man heaving his bulk free of the chair. He saw him blot out the light in the doorway as the girl stepped aside. He was signing a paper as the big man entered the office and paused. Ken kept his eyes on the paper until the door catch clicked. Then he looked up with a smile.

“Mr. Parks, is it?” he asked.

The big man grunted, waddled over to the chair which was placed so close to the new desk as to invite easy intimacy. He sat down, then, apparently feeling that the chair was too far away, started hitching it closer and closer to the desk. His voice was almost a shrill whisper.

“My wife,” he said, “has been arrested.”

Ken laid down the pen, looked professional.

“What,” he asked, “is the charge?”

The big man’s shrill voice rattled off a string of swift words: “Well, you see it was this way. We had a place, a little restaurant, and the officers came busting in without a warrant... tell me, can they come into a place without a warrant, that way?”

Ken replied crisply: “They did, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Okey, then they can. They’re not supposed to, but they did, they do and they can. What happened?”

“Well, that was about all. They claimed we were selling booze.”

Ken’s voice was sharp.

“Find any?”

“A little.”

“How much?”

“Ten or fifteen gallons.”

“Then they arrested you both?”

The fat man blinked glassy eyes.

“Just her. They didn’t take me.”

“Why?”

He fidgeted, and the layers of fat jiggled about.

“Well, we sort of outslicked ’em. There had been a guy eating at one of the tables. He got wise as soon as the first man walked in on the raiding party. He ducked out the back. I sat down at his table and finished up his food. The wife pretended she didn’t know me, and asked the officers if she could collect my bill before they took her. They said she could. I paid her fifty cents for the food and gave her a ten-cent tip. Then they closed up the place, took the booze away with ’em, and put me out. The wife said she ran the place alone.”

Ken Corning twisted a pencil in his fingers.

“I’ll want a retainer of a hundred and fifty dollars,” he said, “and then I’ll see what I can do and report.”

The glassy eyes squinted.

“You ain’t in with the gang here?”

“I’m a newcomer.”

The man opened his coat, disclosed a wrinkled vest and shirt, soggy with perspiration. He pulled a leather wallet from an inside pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and a fifty. The wallet was crammed with money. He tossed the money carelessly on the desk.