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

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

3——____—_—_————-10-STORY DETECTIVE ing ceaselessly under the lighted arch. It was a balmy summer evening and the waterfront Romeos were out in force, squiring small girls, tall girls, girls with big hips and girls without any at all. Rambling merry- makers whose incessant babble was like the steady sound of surf against the music and noise from the amuse- ment pier. Inside the bar a small radio hummed to life, snapped on by the bartender, and a sharply staccato voice burst from the loudspeaker, rattling out an eight p. m. news broad- east from a small local station. Mill- ard didn’t change his position, but listened with one ear. The voice was saying: “... Apparently vanished into thin air, escaping without leaving any trace behind. However, he is believed to have headed back toward this vi- cinity and may have reached the city by now. The police department is running down several anonymous tips that have been received naming Fitz’ whereabouts, but up to a late hour these had led to nothing. “As listeners to our earlier broad- casts know, Eddie Fitz escaped while en route to San Quentin on the train, slugging one of his guards and jump- ing through a window somewhere this side of Santa Barbara this afternoon. “Fitz was recently convicted when tried for conducting a string of book- making and gambling establishments throughout the city. His indictment was one of the first steps taken to rid the city of vice and graft under the new regime of Mayor Peters, who went into office on the recall election of last winter. “Fitz was reputedly the head of a syndicate of gamblers that controlled the former city administration, and his conviction was a feather in Mayor ' Peters’ cap, following as it did the shakeup and purge in the police de- partment... .” The voice switched to another sub- ject, but was cut off by the bartend- er’s fingers on the dial. He pushed a cloth up the mahogany toward Mill- ard, said conversationally : “That was a serewy thing for Fitz to do. I always figgered the guy had brains.” “He’s no dummy,” Millard agreed, turning halfway from the open door- way and putting one hand possessive- ly about the almost empty stein of flat beer before him. “Maybe he had some unfinished business to attend to before going away to college.” HE bartender was brawny and white-haired, with tough scarred lips. He nodded knowingly. ‘Yeah. Well, he hadn’t better come around here. The beach is lousy with cops on the lookout for him.’ He reached to get a elipped sheaf of papers from the back bar, put it down before Mill- ard. “You want to sign our petition?” Millard glanced obliquely down at the papers, sighed. ““Another one of those things, huh? No, I don’t want to sign it.” “Why not?” the bartender demand- ed in truculent surprise. “Because”—Millard was gazing out through the doorway again—‘“that’s a petition asking for the secession of the beach towns from the city. The beaches are part of the metropolitan district now, under the city admin- istration. Since Peters went into of- fice, the heat’s been on—and he’s run the gambling syndicate to cover down here at the beaches. It’s making its last stand now. “It—or Bonelli, who stepped up to the number one spot since Eddie Fitz’ trial—is behind these petitions. If they can get enough names to di- vorce the beaches from the city, the syndicate will take the lid off and run wide open down here—bookie joints, bingo parlors, gambling ships three miles out, and what not.” “So what’s the matter with that?” the bartender growled. “It’d be good for business. You don’t look like one of these here now lousy blue-nose re- formers.” Gomichbooks.cGom