10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

wi) B21 eh LAA Cs i 4 r OO ORY DESL — He handed the man the bills and shoved him out the door. “Well? Well?” snarled Kandelin. “What do you make of it?” “T still say she didn’t,” Flax said quietly. “And with a two thousand dollar fee hanging on it, I ean’t afford to bet the wrong way. So long, Mr. Kandelin. I’ve got a job of tailing to do.” AN DIEGO’S streets were deserted under the wet hissing lash of rain squalls that swept out of the night from the Pacific. Not that there was much traffic near the old Traveler’s Club anyway. The Club had been built in a part of the city now given over to warehouses and junkyards. Cold -trickles of rainwater fingered Flax’s spine, He pulled up the sleeve of his raincoat and peered at the luminous face of his watch. Eleven, thirty-six. Time enough. The man he had tailed into the building was five minutes ahead of him. ife slipped across the alley. A door on the boarded-up service wing of the shab- oy building let him in. By the smell of the air, Flax knew that the place was now used as a ware- house. Dust everywhere, The odors of. burlap sacking, machine oil, and pine packing cases mingled. He shucked out of his raineoat to get rid of its rustling noise. A light flickered dimly against the rafters of the service wing. He crept toward it. A nail head sticking out of a packing case caught in his blue serge and twanged like a harpstring. “Reach!” the word came in a cobra’s hiss. “Reach or I'll . The muzzle of a gun hung in the dark- ness, right under his nose. “O.K., O.K.,” Flax said easily. “I’m not making a play.” “You can say that again!” a familar voice sneered. The man lifted Flax’s gun out of his shoulder holster deftly. “Go up there by the candle!” Flax obeyed. “Turn around,” grunted the other. “Well, well. If it isn’t the big- hearted shamus who handed over forty of Kandelin’s clams for a bum steer!” “No, chum,” said Flax, grinning. “I paid forty of Kandelin’s clams to tail you here.” He looked around. They stood in the office of the club, an alcove set back be- tween the service wing of the building and the main lounge. A candle on the floor flickered in every draft of air. Looming blackly in the back wall was a huge steel vault. It was shut. Flax faced the fat, pallid gunman grimly. “Where is she?” he demanded. The Latin kept his belly gun steady, s0 Flax could look down the barrei. “I don’t mind telling you,” he whis- pered. “Since you ain’t gonna tell. any-. body else.” He laughed nastily. “Know who I am?” Flax shook his head, “Scarlatti. You remember, the mob that stuck up the Agua Taliente money truck a few years back.” Flax eyed the man steadily. “Wanted for the murder of Frankie Dunmier and a few other little whimsies. Right?” Searlatti licked -his lips. “That’s just the frosting on the cake. Anyway, to ~ make a long story short, as the guy says, I been hidin’ out on the Bast Side. You know, New York.” “Let’s get back to the girl, Scarlatti. Where is she?” Scarlatti’s eyes Shamed: He _ grinned, “In there,” he said, with a jerk of his chin toward the black door of the steel vault. “You mean you shut her in that vault?” Flax snapped. “Don’t you know she’ll smother in there?” “Slow but sure,” Scarlatti whispered. “She’s gonna go out the hard way, like she deserves!” He thrust the muzzle of the gun out viciously. “No, you don’t! Stand still!” Flax steadied himself. “How long’s she been in that vault?” Searlatti laughed. “What time is it now ?” “Eleven forty-five.” “Since just after dark. That’s pretty near six hours, Gettin’ kind of stuffy in there by now, I guess.” “Six hours!” Flax whispered. “She won’t be good for much more of that, Scarlatti. Why kill her?” | “She doubled on me, She crossed me up white I was hidin’ owt. Married another max. Now I’m gonna pay off. She’s gotta find out what it means to round on me. I'll show her!” “Wait a minute. You mean this girl had anything to do with a lug like you?” “{ liked her the first time I saw her, see? She was my type of woman. She |