The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

1

Casey, ace photographer of the Globe, Flash Casey, as everyone from the copy boy to Captain Judson of the Homicide Squad called him, stood scowling down at a photographic enlargement spread on the table before him.

Big shoulders hunched above his lean waist, reddish hair ruffled, eyes narrowed and frowning, he cursed in a steady monotone of disgust.

The little man at the corner desk, busy making records of his prints, stopped work long enough to glance over at the big cameraman and grin.

“Whatsa bellyache, Flash?”

“Plenty,” Casey growled. He rapped a big, bony fist on the barely dried photo. “Here I get an inside tip on that racetrack layout raid and me and Wade crash in just as they are pulling it. I shoot one — this one.” The fist rapped again. “Then Haley and his pals throw us out. I knew there must be something more we missed, so I duck in a back way and shoot another through the washroom door, and this time the cops steal the plate off me before they put me out again.”

“Well, ain’t that one you got any good?”

“A pip, but that other one musta—”

“Hell,” the little man said, fretfully, “Blaine don’t have to know there was another one, does he?”

A slow grin drove the scowl from Casey’s homely, strong features.

“You’re saying something, Tim. He don’t have to — unless he asks me. Guess I better get it in to him.”

He gathered up the print and started towards the door.

“And tell him how good it is,” the little man jeered. “Aw, you guys make me—”

The jangling telephone bell cut him off.

Casey, passing it, took up the receiver.

“Yeah — Casey.”

The voice of Lieutenant Logan of the Homicide Squad answered him.

“Listen, Flash. I just talked with Haley. He tells me you sneaked into the washroom of that race-track dive.”

“What about it?”

“Did you come across the airshaft — from the Blue Grass Products office?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’m down there now. I want to see you.”

“When? I’m busy and—”

“I don’t care a damn whether you’re busy or not. Get out here right away or I’ll send somebody after you.”

Casey said: “Aw—” and pronged the receiver.

His eyes were thoughtful as he walked into the city room, but lighted up as he approached the city editor.

Casey said: “Boy, this is a honey,” and laid the eight by ten photographic enlargement on Blaine’s desk.

The city editor pushed up in his chair, slid his forearms across the desk top and glanced at the print. It was an exceptionally clear reproduction of the interior of a race-track layout, taken a few seconds after the police had staged a raid an hour previous.

The camera had caught the major part of the room, with its blackboards, loud speaker, cashier’s cage; most of the milling crowd of forty or fifty people, half of them women. Casey, a look of satisfaction on his thick face, leaned down and pointed to specific features of the picture, as though he was afraid Blaine would miss them.

“There’s Captain Judson,” he said, “and Haley, the louse.” He moved his forefinger to a stocky man with a white, fatty face who was just coming out of a door on which the word, Men, was barely legible. “And get a load of Mike Handy.”

Casey’s forefinger moved to a smartly dressed and obviously frightened lady who had thrown one arm around the neck of a plump young man with a tiny mustache: Lee Fessendon, son of the new owner of the Globe, brother of the managing editor. A fellow who, though married, continued to retain his reputation of man-about-town.

“Young Fessendon.” Casey’s voice was humorously disgusted. “Takin’ an afternoon off.” He straightened up, grunted. “Made a hell of a fuss about it, wanted the plate.”

Blaine leaned back in his chair and his clasped hands made a cradle for the nape of his neck.

“This all you took?” he said finally.

“It ain’t all I took.” Casey’s mouth dipped at the corners and his brows knotted in a scowl as he thought of the second picture he had taken, of the trouble he had surmounted to get it.

“But it’s all I got,” he growled. “Haley and a couple of his dicks took the other one away from me.”

His brows flattened out. “But what’s the matter with that one? It’s exclusive — and it’s good, ain’t it?”

“Very good,” said Blaine sardonically. “Very good indeed; only we can’t use it.”

“Can’t use it?” Casey exploded. “Who says we can’t?”

Blaine would have been poor copy for the movies. He did not look the part. He was too well dressed, and he had no eyeshade. Slender, distinguished looking with his prematurely gray hair, he had a lean, hawklike face and small gray eyes that met Casey’s in a cold, contemptuous stare.

“I do,” he said, and his voice was thin, abrupt.

“Oh.” Casey’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s how it is?” He thrust his hands deep in his trousers pockets, brought his chin down on his chest and surveyed Blaine from under bushy brows. “If anybody’d told me this an hour ago, I’d called him a liar.”

“Told you what?” said Blaine irritably.

Casey made no direct answer. Leaning stiff armed on the desk, he made a bulky figure with a thick, upward-arching chest, and tousled hair that was peppered with gray at the temples and too long at the back. A squarish face, set, thin-lipped now, held dark eyes that were narrowed and smoldering.

“The only thing I ever liked about you,” he said flatly, “was that you played ball. You protected confidential channels, but you never squashed a story or picture because it was about a friend of somebody’s Aunt Emma. But Fessendon’s got your number, huh? When he cracks the whip—”

“You interest me,” sneered Blaine.

Casey pointed at the picture on the desk. “Lee Fessendon got caught out of school with one of his women. He’s scared to take a bawling out from his wife, huh?”