10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

49 ———_—_—_—_———_——_10-STORY DETECTIVE— city’s worst criminal element. Whis- pers went around that men had been shot to death in Tieless Tony’s when the place was crowded, yet the police had never been able to find a witness who would testify. Backwash of depravity as it was, careless rich patronized the gambling joint of Durga, mainly because it gave them a thrill. Hoke Martin never doubted but that young Lindsey might be held prisoner somewhere in that building. Squaring his shoulders, he crossed the street and rapped on the door. A panel in the portal slid back. A leer- ing face, whose sunken jaws denoted toothlessness, peered out at him. “Getting particular these days?” Martin asked. The toothless one looked worried for an instant. Martin got the impres- sion that he was pushing a button. “That’s all right,” the detective said. “Let ’em know I’m coming. [ don’t mind. But open up.” Grinning sheepishly now, the tooth- less man closed the panel and opened the door. With his right hand in his coat pocket, nestling the gun there, Martin walked in. Down a short corridor he strode, ahead of the lookout, and paused in the entryway to the main downstairs room. The glances which were cast in his direction seemed casual enough, but Martin eaught an undercurrent of tenseness. The chances were that a majority of the nearly two dozen men in that room were armed. They were wary- eyed and subtly insolent. And the women with them, Martin knew, could be just as deadly when they chose to be. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, the detective strode to the bar and confronted Tieless Tony. “Old-fashioned,” he ordered. Tieless Tony smiled doubtfully. “H’lo, Martin.” His collar was open and thick black hair showed on his chest. He produced the drink and set it on the bar. “T want to see Durga,’”’ Martin said, taking a swallow. “Durga 9 “You heard me, Tony. Don’t get funny, Slick Steve Durga. Send some- body for him, or ring a bell, or what- ever you do. But get him. Now.” “Okay, Martin,” Tony said in a peeved voice. “Okay. No use to be so nasty about it. Pll get him.” And he called over a waiter and sent him for the gambler. The detective turned around, lit a cigarette, and hooked his elbows on the bar. His eyes, squinted behind the smoke that drifted up from the ciga- rette, roved the room as he waited. Many of the men here he knew by reputation, A few were small-timers, hangers-on, but most of them were exactly what they seemed to be. They were killers. “Kind of you to call, Martin!” Slowly the detective turned his head. His right hand still nestled in his coat pocket, and he made no at- tempt to conceal the bulge. Lick STEVE DURGA stood not four yards away. The gambler’s eyes were cold and remorseless. His nose was thin, a little hooked. His mouth was like a bloodless slit in a piece of shark’s flesh. “Hello, Durga.” The gambler came forward, confi- dent and apparently fearless in the company of his henchmen. “Some- thing you wanted, Martin?” An ominous quiet reigned in the big room, All conversation at the tables had ceased. All eyes were turned in their direction. “Sure,” Martin agreed, in a tone loud enough for all to hear. “I want something. Or somebody. I came here to get Nelson Lindsey’s son.” The silence grew more tense. Be- hind the bar, Tieless Tony’s breathing came in short audible hisses. “Young Frank Lindsey?” Durga asked, raising his eyebrows. Gomicdooksacom