10-Story Detective, June 1945 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

30-—_____—_———10-STORY DETECTIVE than anybody. We'll take the bus, Ham- bone.” Wy" ARRIVE at the Smooitzig flat just as an M. D. is leaving. “How’s the patient?” I ask. “Think he’ll pull through. Had a nar- row ueak, mister.” ell get another relapse,” I says. “TI mean those kind of ailments are in the laps of the gods, huh, Doc? I guess he is as well as can be suspected, huh : “Yeah. Don’t excite him now.” “Not much,” I says, and ete as ne scratching his noggin. “Let's “I would knock first,” Noonan says. “We are not enterin’ a washroom,” | I knock and Mrs, Smootzig answers the door. She is a nifty looking blonde who would look like & million in a fur coat. She knows it, Louie, and aiso knows she is about to own one, “We are from an in- surance company,” I says. “Just want to ask Rudolph a question or two.” ‘Nuta ! had “Who said that?” Hambone gulps. “Oh, it is just the parrot next door,” the bionde says. I see she has a booklet on California in her hand. We are shown into the bedroom. A character with a head as round as a bowl- ing ball is propped up in bed and looks as healthy as the city garbage dump. Smootzig has close-cropped hair like a Kraut, and two little eyes the color of roofing slate. I inquire as to his state of health. “What's it to you, Buster?” the citi- zen snarls. “Who did you say they was, Baby?” : “Insurance—” “T was kiddin’,” I says. “I am a cop, Where was you the night a doll named Anastasia Furbish was rubbed out? Was - you in a house where you had to fight a parrot an’ got scratched and got this psit— Physito—parrot fever? ‘“Hambone, you ransack the joint for a blue sweater and see if it has been bit- ten by anything like a parrot. An’ if you got scratches on your anatomy some place, Smootzig—well, there’s nearly forty grand in this house or where you stashed it, you—” Get him, Babe!” the patient yelps. Mrs. Smootzig throws a very heavy wa- ter pitcher at Hambone. It grazes the big lug’s skuil. Now if Mrs, Smootzig had hit him anywhere else, Louis, Hambone would not have recovered so fast. He shakes his dome, rushes the dame, picks her up, and throws her out into the next room. He locks the door. It is not very smart on Hambone’s part _ not to have broke at least one of the dolls _ legs as she comes in the room again via a fire escape with a Roscoe in her hand. She does this while Mr. Smootzig is fir- ing at us from his sickbed, having fore- seen a possible visit from the gendarmes. Me and Noonan are barricaded behind a dresser we have turned over. But it is not made of good wood, and bullets are doing a nice job vetting through it. But for once one of us has brought ar- tillery along. Hambone Noonan shoots an earring right off Mrs. Smootzig, taking a generous piece of earlobe with it, The doll screeches and fires blind. She comes close enough to her own hubby’s doms with a slug to put him to sleep. The bullet also went through the crown of my hat on its way into a picture of Mrs. Smoot- zig’s ma which is hanging on the wall. “Quite a billiard shot,” I yelps. “You give up, Madam, or we will have to ven- tilate your foundations, an’ you know | they are hard to git.” Mrs. Smootzig gives up and falls into the room. Her male partner recovers, picks up his marbles, but sees we have his Betsy. “Oh, you jughead,” he wails at his spouse. “If you hadn’t gone an’ asked about suin’ the guy next door—awright, it is no mink coats, no diamon’s, no ny- lons—” “And soon no husband,” [I says in a very cold-blooded fashion. ‘“Hambone, the only place Anastasia an’ Isolde ever went to was the delicatessen. This vicious person kept askin’ them questions. “I bet he cased that brownstone well. It was Horatius he underestimated, though. Imagine, it gives him psisit— parrot fever. Well, we will look for the blue sweater and the moolah and close the case.” We found all we wanted, Louie, Mrs. Smootzig did not know Rudy had knocked off the old babe, until he had to tell her so she would keep away from the wih bad Sid Hooze. “We sure solved this one pretty,” Ham- bone says to me in front of the D. A. “We? Uh-er-sure,” I gulp. Well, you keep punchin’ over there, Louie. We will stick right in your cor ner until the last round. Even my Uncle Putney give blood at the bank las’ time, but they found they could not use it as it tested one hundred proof like Old Crow. It started to ferment quick, _ Eva went out with a Seabee a couple of nights back. She had to pay a bistro bill of seven bucks as the tar left his wal- let in New Caledonia. Did that babe git stung? Hurry back, Louie. As ever, —s- Alvin Eomicboo (E()