The Slickers (3 page)

The bartender recognized him and went a little ashy. Tex's face was as grim as an Indian's.

“WHERE'S BRONSON?” said Tex.

“I … I dunno. I ain't been—”

“Where's Bronson?”
roared Tex, snatching hold of the man's white coat.

“He … he ain't here,” gasped the bartender, badly shaken.

Tex, oblivious of the men in the room, strode toward the rear door which he knew would lead to his late prison. He had seen other doors branching off that one.

Entering the dingy room, he saw a door open on the far side. With three quick, catlike steps he went up to it, pressed it gently back as though air had blown it that way, and peered in.

A man with a face as narrow as a knife blade was sitting on the edge of an iron cot. His hot eyes were thoughtful as he stared at the smoke which coiled up from his marijuana cigarette. His white shirt was crisp and the cuffs and collar were unbuttoned.

It was the man who had collided with Tex in the station.

Tex stepped in and stood there, hands in his pockets, looking pensively at his victim.

The man started up. Tex gently pushed him back to a sitting posture. The man's eyes darted hopelessly toward his jacket which hung from a nail.

“Where is it, sonny?” said Tex.

“Where's what?” whined the victim.

“My old pal Judge Colt. Come on, sonny.”

There was a certain quality in Tex's gaze which pinned the young man down as though he had an Apache arrow through him. Tex walked sideways toward a rough bureau. The pickpocket tried to rise excitedly. Tex calmly sat him down again.

With quick fingers, Tex rifled the bureau. The first thing which came to light was his six-gun. He balanced it fondly, spun it a couple times and then cocked it with a horny thumb. He dished up his wallet and a packet of papers and pocketed them. In the corner he spotted his paper suitcase, still closed up.

“All right, sonny,” said Tex. “When's he come in?”

“Who?”

“Your boss.”

“In about … He never comes in here.”

“In about an hour, you say? All right, sonny, we'll just sit down and wait a spell. You ain't restless, are you? Bad for the heart to git restless, sonny. You just sit there in sight of the door smoking that cigarette and we'll wait for Bronson.”

Tex sat down behind the door. The pickpocket tried to sit still but he kept itching in various spots.

An old alarm clock on the bureau ticked away minutes very slowly. Tex seemed quite complacent. He had reached the deadly calm stage when he could hit nickels at a hundred yards with a
.45
. He had felt like this numerous times before, always just before a killing.

Two hours passed before Bronson showed up. He came in with a quick, nervous step, heading straight for the pickpocket's bedroom.

Bronson stopped in the door and fanned himself with his
bowler
hat. “We got to make tracks, Gino. They let the old fool loose and he'll—”

“Who'd they let loose?” said Tex, standing up.

Bronson's jaw sagged. His hand darted for his shoulder. A horrible click filled the room. The six-gun under the horny thumb was at full cock. Bronson stared straight down the tunnel.

“We'll go for a walk,” said Tex, slowly chewing his words. “Sonny, you git on your coat and come right along. And you can carry that suitcase while you're about it.”

Tex herded them toward the barroom. He heard a door hinge creak behind him.

Tex rolled sideways.

An automatic spat flame out of the shadows.

Tex sidestepped again.

The hard-faced young man in the checkered suit had come in through the back entrance. He was leaning far to the right, trying to chop down on Tex's elusive shape.

The six-gun roared.

The checked suit was rumpled. It caved forward very slowly, getting pink just over the heart. Tex heard the cloth and the gun hit the floor. He had already turned to see Bronson hauling at his own automatic.

Tex fired for the man's wrist. The gun flew out of the holster and hit the ceiling. Bronson grabbed for his arm.

Men were scurrying around out in the barroom. Tex did not know how much time he had left.

With a quick push, Tex slammed Bronson back against the wall.

“This,” said Tex, “is going to be a short and sweet execution. I ain't got no time for formalities. This is coldblooded murder.”

“Owwww,” moaned Bronson.

The pickpocket, Gino, cowered in the corner.

“You want to talk, Bronson?” said Tex.

“Go … go to the devil!” Bronson shouted in his pain.

The door bulged inward and suddenly men burst into the back room. Stepping hurriedly away from them, Tex had them covered before they saw him.

It was the police lieutenant and the detectives Smith and Haggarty.

“Stand back, you
jaspers
,” barked Tex. “This is my roundup.”

“Put up that gun, you fool,” yelled the lieutenant.

Haggarty foolishly tried to get at his own
roscoe
. Tex sent his hard hat sailing into the air with a snap shot.

The lieutenant, Smith and a police officer who had followed them in stood very still with open mouths. Haggarty was somewhat foolishly feeling for his bowler.

Tex backed further away and turned to Bronson. “I said this was going to be coldblooded murder. And that's what it'll be, cops or no cops. Make your peace, Bronson.”

With a slow downthrow, Tex began to pull the trigger. The six-gun leaped back and up. A button flew from Bronson's coat.

Everybody in the room let out a breath.

Tex clucked his tongue and muttered, “Can't seem to hit nothin' anymore.”

“Do something!” wailed Bronson.

Tex swept down again with his gun. Bronson was twisted half away from him. The roar of exploding powder blasted the room. Bronson's necktie fell in half at the knot.

“Damn it,” muttered Tex, “I'm gittin' old.”

He raised the gun a third time and brought it slowly down. Bronson was paralyzed. His jaw was hanging open as if he had a billiard ball between his teeth. His eyes were glassy.

Tex fired.

A button flew from Bronson's sleeve.

“I'll talk!” screamed Bronson. “Quit it! I'll talk. Listen,” he begged, “that guy murdered Temple.” He pointed at the faintly stirring mound of checked suiting.

“How do you know?” said Tex, casually sighting the gun again.

“Don't! Don't shoot. I know because I told him to.”

“I don't believe you,” said Tex, bringing the gun lower and lower and squeezing the trigger as he did so.

“No, wait, listen. I'm telling the truth, so help me! I been shadowing Temple. I been after him for six months. I knew he was sick and I knew he'd send for you. So I shadowed you from Arizona to New York. I waited until you were almost there and then I ordered Johnny to knife him.

“I had Gino pick your pocket in the station. I had Johnny come back and hold us up to make it look like I was still your friend. I called the cops when you went up to the hotel.”

“I don't believe it,” said Tex, starting to sight the gun again. He was twenty feet or more from Bronson, but, to Bronson, the gun was apparently ten inches from his chest.

“I had to kill him,” wailed Bronson. “He was buying up all my copper stock. He was trying to wreck me and I had to kill him before he ruined me. Honest, that's it. And I picked up Gino and Johnny here in New York and I paid them to—”

Gino squeaked liked a rat and tried to dive out. The lieutenant caught him and floored him with a blow to the jaw.

Tex motioned toward the checked suit and Bronson. “I suppose you gents,” he said to the lieutenant, “have got enough sense to look after the rest of this. Me, I've got to catch a train for Arizony.”

“Not so fast,” said the lieutenant. “You're going to stay here as a
material witness
. This ain't cleared up well enough for me yet.”

“See this?” said Tex, shaking a yellow slip under the lieutenant's nose. “That's a telegram from John Temple saying that he was afraid he would be killed and wanting me to come to New York. I'm Tex Larimee, sheriff of Cactus County, Arizony.” And so saying, he carefully pinned his recovered star upon his chest.

“Oh,” said the lieutenant, faintly. Then, in a louder voice, “Why the hell didn't you show me that in the first place?”

“I had to get it back,” said Tex in a louder voice than ever. Then, quietly, Tex reached into Bronson's pocket and extracted a roll of money. He counted off two hundred and thirty-five dollars, the amount which had been lifted from him, and then carefully put the rest back in Bronson's coat.

“I've got to catch a train,” said Tex.

“Wait a minute,” said the lieutenant, an admiring smile on his face. “You sure can shoot. We thought we were pretty good around here. Of course, I never would have let you get away with that unless I thought you had some exact purpose in mind.”

“Of course not,” said Tex. “By the way, you better go read up on guns. All of you.”

“Why so?” croaked Haggarty, surveying his blasted hat.

“Because,” said Tex, opening up Judge Colt and throwing out six brass cartridges, all empty, “because there's a limit to everything. This thing's been empty for the past five minutes.”

So saying, he carefully adjusted his black hat, picked up his
paper suitcase
and spat carefully within an inch of the lieutenant's shoe.

He marched out of the door, through the barroom, heading in a beeline for Pennsylvania Station, jumping to the right and left to avoid the taxicabs.

“More and more,” muttered Tex, wrestling his bag away from a thieving redcap, “more and more I think I like Arizony.”

Murder Afloat

CHAPTER ONE

Ominous Summons

T
HIS
is Captain Simmons, Clark. I've uncovered the information you want. Come up immediately.” As Bob Clark, ace operative of the Narcotics Squad, US Secret Service, listened, his long fingers tightened about the cabin phone receiver. His eyes, like hard steel, bored into the bulkhead before his face. He had received his summons to death!

“Yes, sir,” he clipped.

The
SS
Cubana
rolled gently in the dark swell. An orchestra played in the salon, while cocktail glasses clinked at the bar. Laughing female voices floated across the decks, tauntingly.

In front of Bob Clark's porthole, a man in trim evening clothes had stopped. The flare of the match held to a cigarette illuminated a face as sharp as a blade, eyes as black as the night. Clark was not thinking of the face, but he remembered it.

Gently he replaced the receiver and got up. From his valise he took a
Police Positive .38
and a handful of shells. Drawing his gray felt hat down over his right eye, he stepped out on deck and strode forward, every nerve alert.

He had been expecting this, but the manner of its coming had been strange. In spite of the gaiety aboard the
Cubana,
he knew that death stalked the trim promenades.

The summons had been abrupt, but Clark had known immediately that he stood close to the portals of death. The voice—smooth, oily—had not been that of Captain Simmons!

Only one man aboard this ship had known that Clark was a Secret Service operator on the trail of a million and a half dollars' worth of dope. That man was the captain. Tonight, late, the captain had promised to give Clark the information as to the identity of the shipper.

But now Bob Clark knew that his light polished shoes were carrying him straight into ambush. Yet he could do nothing but go.

He ascended to the bridge. Then he stopped and watched for a moment. The captain's cabin lay but a few feet down the dark passage ahead. Clark stiffened.

Somewhere in that passage, above the roar of wind and engines, he had heard the
snick
of a gun hammer being cocked. He eased into the shadow and peered ahead.

This, then, was the trap. A crude, coldblooded attempt to murder him. Clark paused an instant to wonder where Captain Simmons might be. Had anything happened to him?

From the rack above his head, Clark took down two life preservers of the jacket type. Stringing them together, he made a panel about two feet wide and five feet long. Suddenly he thrust it out into the passage.

The preservers jerked. A
slug
whined off steel and out to sea. The passage flared with a sudden light, but the sound of the gun was merely a cough, the muffled sound of a silencer.

Clark dropped the preservers and stepped back. The riddled
kapok
stuffing made a dark mound on the planking. In an instant the would-be murderer would come up to investigate. And then …

Clark drew his .38 and balanced himself against the roll of the ship.

Footsteps were coming toward him, cautious, slow, like the padding of a lynx. A black form stopped over the life preservers. Clark lunged.

He jabbed the muzzle of the gun into yielding ribs. Then the revolver was slapped to one side. A fist caught Clark under the ear. He realized that he was fighting a man of tremendous strength.

Clark's antagonist was a shimmering haze before his face. He strove to encircle the other with his arms. He battered at the face with his gun barrel. He tried to shoot, but each time his finger swept down on the trigger the gun was forced aside.

The ship rolled, making footing uncertain. Clark's opponent seemed everywhere at once.

The Federal man's hands clutched at the padded shoulders of the black overcoat. Something gave way. Abruptly, Clark lurched backward, striving to keep his feet. The empty overcoat was in his hands. The passage was deserted.

“Gone!” Clark snorted in disgust, and threw the black wrap over his arm. He strode on down to the captain's cabin. Outside the door, he hesitated, intending to knock, but through the cracks he could see no light. An almost tangible, crouching silence lay within. An odor, acrid and disagreeable, was in the air. Burning flesh!

Clark kicked in the door and fumbled for the light switch along the wall. He found it and shot it on. Captain Simmons lay on the floor, his face twisted and gray with agony. The master of the
Cubana
was dead!

Clark jabbed his glance about the room. He sidestepped until his back was no longer toward the door. Then he turned to the body.

Simmons' shoes had been removed. A pile of matches lay beside the rumpled rug, some of them still smoldering. The soles of the captain's feet were black and charred. Clark understood then how the information about his presence aboard the
Cubana
had been obtained.

“The inhuman fiend!” he gritted. “He tortured it out of poor Simmons!”

He saw then that Simmons' fingers were tightly wrapped about a pencil. Evidently he had died slowly, horribly, but had been possessed of such great strength of will that he had forced himself to try to write out a clue to the crime.

A pack of playing cards had been spilled off the desk in the struggle. Clark noted that one of the cards was lying near Simmons' hand. It was turned face up—and it was the ace of spades.

He inspected the pasteboard under the light. On its surface, so faint as to be almost indiscernible, were several scrawled letters.

“Madame Sev——” the captain had written. After that the pencil had slid off the card.

Bob Clark did not need the last of the name.

“Madame Seville!” he finished the name aloud. “That's the information he had for me!”

That name was the key to a million and a half dollars' worth of dope which was reported to be aboard the
Cubana
at the time of her sailing from Havana.

Madame Seville was a notorious woman ally of the greatest dope smuggler in the
West Indies
. With the ring identified, Clark expected little difficulty in rounding up its members aboard the ship.

He would go to the first officer immediately and inform him that the captain was dead. Then, with the help of others, he would ferret out each and every suspected man on the
Cubana.
The time had come finally to crush this wholesale importation of heroin and opium. The
Cubana
was taking her last load north.

He noted the time on his wristwatch. Something made him jerk his head up to the ship's clock above the captain's desk. The hour was eight, and Clark estimated that he had been in the room for a period of at least three minutes. Something was wrong about the clock. He frowned and stared at its polished metal face. Then he knew. It had not struck eight bells.

“That's funny,” he muttered, as he stretched his hand up toward the brass cylinder, intending to remove the face.

But Clark's hand never reached the dial. His back was not exposed to the door. A jog in the wall prevented that. Nor could he see the entrance from where he stood. But he heard the creak of hinges and whirled. Gun in hand, he leaped toward the panel. But he was too late.

The door was slammed and locked before he could reach it!

Clark whirled to the porthole. It was closed with a metal cover. Nevertheless, he darted out his hand and shut off the light.

The
Cubana
was lunging on through the sea without a captain, and Bob Clark, ace operative of the Narcotics Squad, was a captive on the bridge.