Pulp Fiction, 1938 · page 44 of 116
10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 44: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is **story prose** from a pulp detective magazine titled "10-Story Detective." The page depicts a scene in a bar where a character named Lee, apparently a newspaper man, pawns a diamond pin to the bartender Charlie for drinking money. The tension escalates when Lee spots a dangerous criminal named Greasy Nordile entering the bar via the mirror behind the bar, suggesting an impending confrontation. The dialogue establishes that Nordile has threatened Lee's life, and Lee's calm request for "a whiskey straight" implies he expects trouble.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ine f pi 7 i) le ohald! >, ne . fs 4 wit by hy "| it LS Bala) ae eta ‘ yi * « ¢ vA. { fis who " Cie i ye 4 vi vb Ly 7 ‘an si i r J BO ARTE RAS Be ba" Hole yt a Val ee tay ‘ Q ’ ’ 4 : ‘ iu : ‘ . ia) Fe f v . WisiwaL! 7 14 ; 7 uy Vins Hi un é ; AY tO MIT pu a Pe Yai ae it ey Dis eW Ge \ \ ee eed ay Way) aes EE TOP t y, M4 ph F or) , 5) i Ge CUS eM On ENC RAT mae © I ‘ RIVA P UN Atay veer Wietre am nek 4 % Ia Uae -10-STORY DETECTIVE— words of one syllable, dearie, this drink’s on the house.” Charlie sniffed but reached for the proper containers and the correct in- © gredients. He threw the cocktail to- gether with pre-war dexterity, placed the glass on the wet mahogany bar and slid it a good ten feet until it stopped directly in line with Lee’s elbow. “What I calls accuracy,” said Lee and sipped of the drink gratefully. He added, “And potency.” He smacked his lips. “You shouldn’t ought to come here, - Lee,” chided Charlie seriously, eyes wrinkled with worry lines. “You’d oughta know that Greasy Nordile has got the Indian sign out on you. He said only yesterday that it was cur- tains for you when he got you. You’d oughta know that Greasy is—” “Aw, a Bronx cheer for the punk,” said Lee carelessly. He downed the last sip of his half-and-half and then his lips made a sound, an expert ren- dition of the Bronx razz. “But you’d oughta—” began Char- lie ominously. Lee shoved himself back from the bar, surveyed Charlie through critical eyes, He said, “Charlie, when the hell are you going to quit murdering the New Deal’s English? You ain’t never go- ing to learn nothing anyway. You oughta be smart like I am, Charlie. Course I haven’t any money, but I got something just as good. ‘What,’ I can hear you say, ‘does the little man mean by that?’ Well, Charlie, I'll tell you. I have no money, but I do have something worth money. A real dia- mond pin, my boy, a real diamond.” Charlie sighed as Lee’s fingers sought his tie and came away with a stickpin of filigreed white gold in which reposed a single diamond of modest size. Lee laid the pin before him on the wet bar. “Even a pawnbroker’ll let me have a ten spot on it, Charlie. You let me have a sawbuck and I’ll buy some _ drinks. Come pay day, Ill return and take it up and you'll have done your good deed for the week, boy scout. Do we trade?” Charlie sighed again. “Aw, take a coupla drinks and pay me when you get the jack,” he suggested. The diamond pin was Lee’s last re- sort for a drink. Charlie had it half the time, when it wasn’t in the till of some café, and knew there was no way of refusing to lend the newspaper man the money. He reached for the pin. Suddenly he stopped the movement of his arm, and Lee looked up into Charlie’s face. What he saw made him stiffen and his eyes went over Char- lie’s shoulder to the mirror of the back bar. In the back bar mirror was framed the entrance door thirty feet away. It had been pushed wide and a man stood in the space, two others behind him. It was Greasy Nordile! “T tol’ you, kid, I tol’ you!” hissed Charlie and casually began wiping his way down the bar, working stead- ily away from Lee. A small clock, inset in the wood of the back bar, showed two-thirty in the morning. Greasy Nordile, framed in the mirror, stood talking to his men. Lee could see his lips move even at that distance. Lee said, voice steady, “A whiskey straight, Charlie. Make it snappy. It may be the last one I’ll ever have.” Lee’s fingers reached forward a bit and curled around the diamond stick- pin where Charlie had dropped it upon the entrance of cease Nordile and his men. REASY’S men were walking around the place. Greasy eyed them expectantly. They prowled through the washrooms, stockrooms and the kitchen. They nodded to Greasy. Charlie and Lee were alone. Greasy smiled malevolently. Charlie slid a whiskey glass brim- _ ming with Canadian Club to Les | and then poured a nip for himself. —