10 Story Detective, July 1942 — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

glimpse of the pile of bills the cashier shoved across to him. Shor caught sight of me and slapped his hand over the money and stuffed the fortune hastily into his pocket. He tossed a grin at me. “Hello, cop- per. I see you’ve also succumbed to the dure of the greyhounds.” “They’re very entertaining if you know in advance how they’ll run.” “That’s a cop for you,” he said. “His graft has to be a sure thing.” I would have liked to have smacked him. Not especially for that crack, but because I’d been itching to since the day I’d pulled him in for the murder of his girl friend. But I didn’t want a minor scandal, so I showed him my back, and stepped to the end of the line, This time I was the one being watched cashing a ticket. Not by Shor; he’d headed straight for the exit. It was Detective Bill Raft, lean- ing against the side of a beer stand and making indolent smoke rings. When I’d placed the money in my wallet, he strolled over to me. “So the very moral New York cop who hates gambling doesn’t mind tak- ing a little profit for himself,” Raft said softly. “Merely an experiment in criminoi- ogy,” I told him. “I was always curi- ous to find out how much five dollars brings when one’s on the inside.” ‘““Tot as much as it should have,” he said, watching me closely to see how I could take it. I played along. ‘‘That’s beeause poor dumb Mark Gregg did too much talking before he died.” “That’s just about it. He shot off his mouth to the killer.” I sighed. “Your attempts at being subtle are depressing. You’re wast- ing your time tailing me.” “Vm getting paid for it.” “All right, then you're wasting the city’s money,” I said. Outside the kennel club, 1 paused for a couple of minutes in indecision and then took a taxi back.to Miami Beach. To heli with 1t. 1 thought. ’m 10-STORY DETECTIVE——_——— hore on vacation. And I stopped off at a movie theater. In the lobby a cute little blonde in a white nurse’s hat was collecting money for the Red Cross. I nearly bowled her over by handing her all my winnings, It wasn’t that I was particularly noble, but there are some things a guy can’t do without hating himself, and holding~on to dishonest dough is one of them. The picture wasn’t bad, but don’t ask me what it was about. I left be- fore it was half over and taxied over to the County Causeway. It was no use, I told myself. I was like a fire- horse who auivers at the sound of an alarm. In addition, this particular murder was beginning to affect. me directly, at least in the eyes of the lo- cal police. I arrived at Augie Shor’s Club be- tween shows. The place was four- fifths empty and the musicians radiat- ed boredom as they lounged on the bandstand. I went to the bar and or- dered a rum Collins and, drink in hand, turned to have a look. ZRPETTY BOYER was ata table with three middle-aged couples. They seemed astounded that they weren't having a wild time, although they were obviously impressed by the fact that Betty Boyer had been dele- gated to pep them up. She was doing a terrible job of it. Her smiles were sickly and foreed when any of the men spoke to her and she couldn’t keep her fingers from drumming on the table. A runt in a dazzling slack suit ap- peared in the doorway and swept the place with his eyes until he found Betty. I realized then that she’d been watching for him. He nedded unhap- pily at her and sidled alorg the wall rast roums. Betty excused herge!f and went arter him. I was abou! heli a minute behind. I opened the coor 2 coupie of inches and saw Betty and the runt standing in a corridor in front of a door marked n¢ came to @ door leading to the MIGoOo (C(O) S (C(O) nn