10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

be. Bullets on the Downbeat By Emil Petaja "M JERRY KOR- KUS. I work the juke boxes. You know, those boogie- woogie bandits you hear in every two-bit blasting their insides out by the hour. The night I’m telling you about, it was raining. Now I mean that really wet stuff that crawls right under your skin. It was around ten, and I was anxious to get home to my wife and kid. I got to hand it to Maxine. She’s the one what set me straight. And I mean, just in time, too. Another year and the rackets would of had me sewed up tight. Them, or else the little grey room with the bars. Joe Makopolous’s Eats. That’s what the sign said. It was my last stop. As I tried to make a dive in real quick, with my arms loaded down with platters and tools, I crashed sideways into a big guy in a black slieker. My pile of records skidded. I juggled around like a seal with a ball on his nose. Caught them just in time. -“Sorry, bud. Go ahead,” the big guy said, stepping aside. I ducked in. When the big guy came through the door I gave him the once over. As he flung off his poncho, I caught the gleam of a badge on his chest. Then I looked higher up and recognized that homely map. It was Cop Otto Svenson. “Hello, Korkus,” he said, cheerfully. “TI see you come up in the world.” I set my load down on the counter. “What's it te you?” I snapped back. For a little guy I got: quite a big tem- per. I was remembering a small episode _ what happened two years ago. My slight- ly large size ears commenced to burn. I don’t spill no love on that big flatfoot. I been playing it clean and straight, Hot lead beats the jive when hep-cat gunmen swing a juke box Joe in a bump-off groove. bar and eat joints, - Ie since I did my little stretch. I don’t got to kow-tow to any dumb Swede copper. “Nothing,” the big copper said easily, squatting his broad torso on a stool and nodding at the redhead behind the coun- ter for coffee. “I yust want you to know there ain’t no hard feelings.” I liked that. I sure did! He didn’t have no hard feelings! He didn’t... This is how it was in a nutshell. See. The Marrino mob framed that Sikov dame’s bump-off on me. You read about it in the papers. Cop Otto Svenson fell for it like a ton of bricks. It was Maxine who convinced them my alibi was.on the level, but strictly. If Svénson’d had his way, I’d be working the rock pile right now, instead of the juke boxes! And he didn’t have no hard feelings! My thin lips curled back a little, but I didn’t bother to answer him. He sat there sipping his coffee and grinning at me like one of them there Chessy cats. “Dumb copper!” I muttered, turning to the flashy juke box in the corner. WENT to work. The machine really needed juicing up. And a couple of the wires were cockeyed, too. I know my stuff with machines and all that there, but right now I was in a hurry and anxious to get home. There was another reason why I was nervous, too. A bunch of high sehool punks came bouncing in from the movie around the corner. They e¢lustered around the juke box like a drove of them there bees. “Have you got that new number, Jumping Jiminy Jive, have you, huh?” a freckle-face wanted to know. “Yeah! It’s strictly in the groove!” | his girl friend said, chewing a wad of gum like it was a matter of life or death. Another punk dame, with a mess of hair like that there Vermonica Lake, -_—— ow EComicbhoo cS