The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

It lay across the curb, feet and knees in the street, rag-covered torso flattened on the sidewalk: a tot of three, chubby, with light olive skin and eyes black as a starless night. There were three welling holes staggered across the tiny back and from somewhere beneath rivulets of scarlet inched along the dusty cement like accusing tentacles. A chubby little fist moved convulsively, aimlessly. Barnaby laid one of his great calloused hands over the baby hand, squeezed it, then looked up.

A sea of sullen faces met his frowning gaze; haunted faces with frightened eyes that stared. They formed a thick circle around him, ringing him in with the dead baby, with Sergeant Duane and the crazed mother whose agonized wails stabbed his consciousness.

“What happened here?” he demanded. “Come on, can’t anybody speak?”

He saw they were afraid; their silence showed that. They stared dully at him, then looked at each other. It made him mad. He rocked back on his haunches and grabbed the arm of a little urchin of some eight years.

“You saw it, kid,” he snapped. “Tell me about it!”

The youngster squirmed, rolled his eyes and, when he saw he could not escape, opened his mouth to speak. A sudden wild shriek from the hysterical woman froze the words in his tiny throat. Barnaby turned his head and met Duane’s eyes.

“Take her inside!” he commanded.

As Duane dragged the woman away, the cop on the beat panted up; a moment later the police driver joined them. They drove back the sickened audience and Barnaby once more turned his attention to his child witness.

“Now tell me what happened, kid,” he urged quietly.

Sweating and trembling the little chap stuttered out a vivid word-picture of the tragedy. Barnaby absorbed it in dribbles, disconnected fragments that years of bitter experience had taught him to assemble...

A group of children had been playing in the street, happy to be free of school. They hadn’t heard the big car until it was almost on them. Then, laughing, they had darted for the sidewalks. Nipper was the dead baby’s name. There had been a man walking along the sidewalk in front of little Nipper; it was apparent that he was the object of gunfire. But he had vanished between two buildings just before the hail of lead came to chatter little Nipper’s life away. The car hadn’t stopped; nobody had taken the number. It had all taken place so quickly...

Captain Barnaby released his grip and the little boy shot from his hand like a freed arrow to vanish into the black maw of a tenement. Barnaby rose, removed his battered fedora and combed his unruly hair with gnarled fingers. His lips moved in a bitter curse that was half prayer. Then the ambulance swerved around a nearby corner, so he left the broken baby and tramped into the house where he had seen Duane take the mother.