The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

Some woman screamed out “No!” at the top of her lungs. It must have been me, they were all turning their heads to look around at me. The next thing I knew, I was outside in the corridor and a whole lot of people were standing around me. Everything looked blurred. A voice said, “Give her air, stand back.” Another voice said, “His sister. She was on the stand earlier in the week.” Ammonia fumes kept tickling the membranes of my nostrils. The first voice said, “Take her home. Where does she live? Anybody know where she lives?”

“I know where she lives. I’ll take care of her.”

Somebody put an arm around my waist and walked me to the creaky courthouse elevator, led me out to the street, got in a taxi after me. I looked, and it was that dick, Burns. I climbed up into the corner of the cab, put my feet on the seat, shuffled them at him. I said, “Get away from me, you devil! You railroaded him, you butcher!”

“Attagirl,” he said gently. “Feeling better already, aren’t you?” He gave the old address, where Chick and I had lived. The cab started and I couldn’t get him out of it. I felt too low even to fight any more.

“Not there,” I said sullenly. “I’m holed up in a cheap furnished room now, off Second Avenue. I’ve hocked everything I own, down to my vaccination mark! How d’you suppose I got that lawyer Schlesinger for him? And a lot of good it did him! What a wash-out he turned out to be!”

“Don’t blame him,” he said. “He couldn’t buck that case we turned over to the State; Dar-row himself couldn’t have. What he should have done was let him plead guilty to second-degree, then he wouldn’t be in line for short-circuiting. That was his big mistake.”

“No!” I shrilled at him. “He wanted us to do that, but neither Chick nor I would hear of it! Why should he plead guilty to anything, even if it was only housebreaking, when he’s innocent? That’s a guilty man’s dodge, not an innocent man’s. He hasn’t got half-an-hour’s detention rightfully coming to him! Why should he lie down and accept twenty years? He didn’t lay a hand on Ruby Reading.”

“Eleven million people, the mighty State of New York, say that he did.”

I got out, went in the grubby entrance, between a delicatessen and a Chinese laundry. “Don’t come in with me, I don’t want to see any more of you!” I spat over my shoulder at him. “If I was a man I’d knock you down and beat the living hell out of you!”

He came on, though, and upstairs he closed the door behind him, pushing me out of the way to get in. He said, “You need help, Angel Face, and I’m crying to give it to you.”

“Oh, biting the hand that feeds you, turning into a doublecrosser, a turncoat!”

“No,” he said, “no,” and sort of held out his hands as if asking me for something. “Sell me, won’t you?” he almost pleaded. “Sell me that he’s innocent, and I’ll work my fingers raw to back you up! I didn’t frame your brother. I only did my job. I was sent there by my superiors in answer to the patrolman’s call that night, questioned Chick, put him under arrest. You heard me answering their questions on the stand. Did I distort the facts any? All I told them was what I saw with my own eyes, what I found when I got to Reading’s apartment. Don’t hold that against me, Angel Face. Sell me, convince me that he didn’t do it, and I’m with you up to the hilt.”

“Why?” I said cynically. “Why this sudden yearning to undo the damage you’ve already done?”

He opened the door to go. “Look in the mirror sometime and find out,” was all he said. “You can reach me at Centre Street, Nick Burns.” He held out his hand uncertainly, probably expecting me to slap it aside.

I took it instead. “O.K., flatfoot,” I sighed wearily. “No use holding it against you that you’re a detective. You probably don’t know any better. Before you go, gimme the address of that maid of hers, Mandy Leroy. I’ve got an idea she didn’t tell all she knew.”

“She went home at five that day. How can she help you?”

“I bet she was greased plenty to softpedal the one right name that belongs in this case. She mayn’t have been there, but she knew who to expect around. She may have even tipped him off that Ruby Rose was throwing him over. It takes a woman to see through a woman.”

“Better watch yourself going up there alone,” he warned me. He took out a notebook. “Here it is, One Hundred Eighteenth, just off Lenox.” I jotted it down. “If she was paid off like you think, how you going to restore her memory? It’ll take heavy sugar...” He fumbled in his pocket, looked at me like he was a little scared of me, finally took out something and shoved it out of sight on the bureau. “Try your luck with that,” he said. “Use it where it’ll do the most good. Try a little intimidation with it, it may work.”

I grabbed it up and he ducked out in a hurry, the big coward. A hundred and fifty bucks. I ran out to the stairs after him. “Hey!” I yelled, “aren’t you married or anything?”

“Naw,” he called back, “I can always get it back, anyway, if it does the trick.” And then he added, “I always did want to have something on you, Angel Face.”