10-Story Detective Magazine, April 1946 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PASE an aa she’d said there was a man on this bus, aman he knew, a man who was going to kill her son, he gave the faces around him a good look. She’d been mistaken, of course. There was no face there familiar to him. Un- less—There was a face just now turn- ing his way, just now revolving slowly. Then it found his direction. For a mo- ment its eyes slowly brushed his. He felt he’d been drenched in cold phlegm. AU RIGHT, he had the creeps. And he kmew why. It was because he’d seen the face before, under horrifying circumstances, But where had he seen it? When? Why did he remember it like that? With a hard tingle at his finger- tips? With a spongy thickness in his throat? The face belonged to a little guy—a little guy who seemed concocted solely of legs and arms. Slawter thought if it weren’t for his clothes there would be no body t only a knot of hinges where his limbs joined on. His face was big, flat and loose, with eyes that looked like they’d been screwed in. It was a pale, grey face without a neck. Maybe it was a picture he’d seen and was remembering? Maybe he’d never seen the likes of that living face before. Maybe it was an ugly bit of nightmare lingering over into reality—a goblin’s face from some bad dream? Only the icy barbs stabbing Slaw- ter’s spine said, “No!” “No, you’ve seen him before! Don’t you remember?” It was the voice of the black throb that pulsed his memory shouting at him, questioning. But he couldn’t remember, Not just then. He was watching when the little man unfolded a newspaper and spread it over his gourd-like chest, gobbling its edges in his pale, haixy hands, and began peer- ing into it. He was like some outcast gnome then, little, slack and humped. The bus was slowing down for Bix- tand Avenue at the end of the run when suddenly the crooked one lowered the paper and looked over it at Slawter. Just his face showed, framed against the black drop of the night-filled win- sow behind him. Just his big, flabby face with its thumbed-in eyes. Slawter choked back a gasp, His fngertips stopped tingling. The ice in kis back turned to fire. Because right 10-STORY DETECTIVE——-___-_—__--____- then he remembered. He’d seen that face Later he’d seen it again. .. The chim- ney pots! The hard, blue-lipped moon behind the slow-falling snow! Vale! His hawthorne bud. The hard the snow-layered roofs, The twisty, silver | gleam of the knife in the air, Fane’s knife, driving at him, splitting the snowflakes! He drew a tight breath, The three- “Thank heaven for this chance,” he whispered to the pulse in his hot brain. Slawter followed Masser Fane off the bus. This wasn’t his stop. He lived in an apartment house a dozen blocks back. He’d stayed on the car because, thi ing it over, he hadn’t wanted to let kind-faced old lady down. Don’t tet kill my boy, she’d said, and like a foo he’d thought her hysterical. Masser Fane crossed the avenue and entered Jake Romine’s Cafe. It was near- ly midnight, Jake was preparing to close shop. Nobody was inside except Jake when Fane went in. As Slawter en- tered, Fane took a stool at the end of the counter. He was closing the door be- hind him when Jake looked over from where he was counting the day’s take at the register and saw Fane. The crooked one was looking at Jake when Jake looked at him. His slack face didn’t alter as their eyes met. But Jake’s face did. It quit its usual expression entirely, draining of color. Slowly its mouth sagged, pulling the under lip away. Jake’s teeth was a saffron gash against the pastiness of his cheeks, Slawter took a booth and was looking at the back of Fane’s head when he or- dered. “Soup,” Fane said, and put a lony slim umbrella he carried on the counter in front of him. Jake stared at him a moment, not mov- ing or speaking, then he turned like a blind man and shuffled into the kitchen. Fane took a bag of potato chips from his coat and began munching on them. In a few minutes Jake returned and put down the soup. i SEF ComicloOokKs (S@