Pulp Fiction, 1938 · page 59 of 116
10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 59: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Second-Hand Suicide" by Harry Widmer This is story prose from a pulp-fiction magazine novelette. The page depicts the opening of a hardboiled crime narrative about young Willy Moore, a struggling man living in a dingy five-dollar-a-week room who is visited unexpectedly by a character named Vesey. The story's subtitle indicates Willy is vulnerable to exploitation by a criminal operator. An illustration at the top shows a violent scene with two men fighting, and the page includes a decorative initial letter beginning the narrative.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
second-Hand Suicide Novelette a! The Irishman’s fist crashed on his jaw. By Harry Widmer The kid wanted easy money, bright lights and the glamour q| gitls. He wes ripe—ready to be plucked by a vicious dealer in destinies who ruled a metropolis. OUNG WILLY MOORE was down in the dumps. His boyish face was set in brooding lines. His eyes looked down rather than straight ahead. Even his feet seemed to reflect his mood as he doggedly climbed the narrow staircase to his dingy hall room above. Grumbling to himself he opened the door to his five-dollar-a-week cub- by hole. Halfway across the thres- 57 hold he came to a dead standstill. There, sprawled out on his bed, was a pimply-faced man. At Willy’s en- trance, the man tossed aside a news- paper and bared a row of yellow teeth in a grin. “Lo, kid.” He lazily came to a sit- ting position. Willy stepped forward eagerly. “Why—hello, Vesey. Gee, this is a surprise.” The man called Vesey dragged deeply on the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Say, kid, ya look tired. Jes’ gettin’ home from comicbooks (ee)