10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

23—____—__—__—_———_10-STPORY DETECTIVE he’s a terrtble sculptor. He can hardly carve soap.” It was warm in the car. My eyelids started sagging. I snuggled into the cor- ner, and the last I recall was Lizzie say- ing bitterly, “Arbutus L. Nosegay, you’re such a sparkling date!” DON’T know how far we drove. Lizzie woke me up by clouting me in the face with her handbag. I got out of the car in a dark street of rattletrap houses which I didn’t recognize. The street was more like an alley, only a block long. She had found parking space for her little coupé, although the curbs were lined with automobiles. Big babies. Some of them had uniformed drivers sitting on the running boards. She led me up a brick sidewalk to a stilted clapboard house. But instead of climbing the stairs we passed underneath them to the base- ment door, Inside the door, Bakosh was sitting at a card table, accepting fifty bucks from everybody who came in. “Welcome to our little soiree,” he greeted me. “I’d like to talk with you privately later. Go right in. After, of course, your...” I forked over fifty bucks. “And another fifty dollars for Lizzie?” Lizzie said, “I get in for free, because I’m part of the local color. Come on back and meet the screwbalis.” The general motif of the rear room was blindness, We had to grope. In the center stood a round ice cream parlor table and a single kitchen chair, under one red bulb which was the only light. Mulberry curtains covered the walls. They stifled the chatter of the twenty or thirty people in the place—I couldn’t count them accurately because of the dimness, They were just shapes behind cigarette glows. “What's all this?” I asked Lizzie. “Bohemia, you merry little man. Don’t you recognize the types?” I did, when I could see better. Most of the guests were women, the never- see-forty-again kind, loaded with ice and toting fifteen-inch cigarette holders. Some wore slacks and others wore shoul- derless creations, but they all managed to have a skintight look around the eyes and ratty hair-dos. In the gloom, I could- n't make much out of the men present, except that they were well upholstered | and pontine for trouble. 4 Bakosh came into the smoky room and clapped his hands. “General Vadragno has been delayed, meseteurs et mesdames. But he will appear presently, and, I assure you, bring a most interesting message. Meanwhile, joy!” Joy got off to a draggy start. Some- body brought around a tray of wine. A half dozen of the ladies took turns sit- ting at the ice cream parlor table under the crimson light and reciting poems about the ego which they must have com- posed themselves. In a lull, Lizzie succeeded in finding a . radio among the shadows and tuned in & dance band. We started gliding around to the schmalz, and this was more like it. She whispered: “Arbutus Nosegay, you’re carrying 4 flask in your pocket.” “Ssh! This flask shoots bullets.” I got a fresh grip. “Lizzie, am I missing the point of this jamboree?” “T don’t know what the point of these | parties is. No one ever tells me any- thing, because they think I’m a dumb bunny. I am, too. But I’ve done my part. I brung you.” Bakosh came into the shadowy room and snapped off the radio irritably. “Dancing!” he snorted. “When we have matters of the utmost importance!” He waited for the dancing feet to still. “And ‘now I present to you General Vadragna, who has made his way to America to ad- dress us!” He hitched up the mulberry curtain. General Vadragno stepped into the crim- | son room and clicked us a salute. With a ery of affection, Bakosh kissed the gen- eral on both wrinkled cheeks. There was a momentary rapt hush, then the din of applause wafted around the padded room like wings beating. The general marched to the ice cream parlor table and began to make his speech. We all sat on the floor to listen. His sky- blue uniform sported a breastful of cam- paign ribbons. He had a brace ef jack-o- lantern mustachios that got in his way when he talked. These, together with his | heavy accent, made him damn-nigh unin- telligible. But I gathered he had come recently from Kovnia, where he had been a white hope of the guerrillas, just to give us a little spiel. He had come by rowboat and fishing smack and submarine. — aaa its oration, from = turned into