10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

—" os 5 x =< ; = : >. ae — o. 2 cS Se = ; yy ' words like $2—___——___—__—_—_———10-STORY DETECTIVE us pile out, The truck slowed up enough to allow us to scramble aboard; then we were off again. I looked up at Shorty in the camera crane. Two bullets had entered his head right above his left eye. He was dead, - Somewhere on the outskirts of town, we pulled into a deserted lot where two new cars were waiting for us, In the scramble to get the money from the sound truck into the other ears, I snitched the used reel of film out of the camera and stuffed it un- der my coat. I found a couple of bottles of developing fluid, too, and I stuck those in my pocket. I don’t know what I had in mind, but some- thing told me these things might come in handy. This whole business took only three or four minutes, and then we were on our way once more and breathing easier. That is, the gang were. I was- n’t. I was just beginning to really sweat. : We half-circled the city and came back into it via the Brentwood-Holly- wood route. By this time everybody Was sO much on edge they were ready to draw guns and shoot each other for nothing. It was a relief when we final- ly got to this apartment house and holed in. Everybody just flopped somewhere in a chair and stayed there. About five o’clock that night it be- gan to rain. Jake sent one of the boys out for some food and a case of booze. When the fellow came back with the _ stuff he also had a bunch of newspa- pers, some of them extras, with stories of the job splashed all over the front pages. I grabbed one and felt my heart sink when I saw my picture, big as life, smack in the middle of the page. HE STORIES of the affair all ran about the same. They used “daring,” “audacious,” “heinous,” etc. They told about my part in the crime—how completely my presence had fooled everybody, Read- ing about it in the papers like that, I could hardly believe I had been pres- - ent. That is until I came to the part where they told about finding Shorty’s body and about the horror of Shorty’s wife when they told her. That hit me right down to my in- sides. I made up my mind to make it up to that woman as much as pos- sible—at least to clear Shorty’s name —if I lived to get the chance. We had drinks all around and shot the breeze about the stuff in the pa- pers. Then I asked Jake what he in- tended to do about me. He gave me a long look through half-closed eyes and pursed his lips. “T don’t know, brother,” he said. “Give me my cut of the dough, and I’ll see you later,” I said. “You can’t do that, Jake!” some- body jawed. “This guy’s as hot as a baked potato! He’d be spotted any- where. Look at his pitcher all over the papers!” The others began to mumble and toss me dirty looks. A couple of them were for slitting my throat right on the spot and being done with it. I began to think my finish was getting pretty close when Hammy pointed to the bulge of my coat made by that reel of film. He wanted to know what it was. I told them. “The reel?” Jake said. “Whatcha got that for?” “It’s a damn good thing for you and your pals that I did get it,” I snapped. “If I hadn’t, the police would have found it in the camera, and your maps as well as mine would have been plastered all over the papers. You guys sure are smart!” “Okay, wise guy,” Jake said. “Just for that we’ll ail have another drink like real pals. Tomorrow we may have to cut your heart out.” The apartment had two bedrooms. Half of us were to go to bed and sleep until morning; the other half had to stay up and keep an eye on things. I was in the shift that hit the hay first. My head had hardly touched the pil- cComichbooks