15 Story Detective, April 1950 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

“Eh, that Conky had a big mouth,” blurted out the big gunman. . “Shut up,” Slip told him gruffly. Well, Conky Jacobs may have had a big mouth but according to the papers it wasn’t saying anything. Because when the police fished him out of the river, a few days ago, he had a bullet hole in the back of his head. “That jockey talks too much, Slip,” mouthed the big guy, with an unpleasant grin. “Just like Conky, huh?” “You got something there,” growled Madden and he turned and started to wall across the studio. I didn’t. like the tone of his voice or the fast glance he flashed at his big gunman—so when I saw the gun come out my brain did a few quick nip- ups, I dug way back and came up with something out of the Arabian Nights, and my tongue got all nice and loose. “Tell your boy to put away his cannon, mister,” I yelped nervously at Madden. “Conky Jacobs may be a corpse but he can still tall.” Slip turned with a curious expression on his tight face, so I kept punching at the opening. “We've got him on wax, Madden,” I said, and I swallowed hard at the fanciful tale I was pitching. “Yeah—Conky Ja- cobs on a disc—and he sure sings a nice tune.” I don’t know why a hep mobster fike Slip Madden would swallow a story that we'd persuaded Gonky Jacobs to put his rat squeal on a record—but he not only swallowed: it, he almost choked on it. Without another word the mobster turned and took off out of the studio with the gun-toting hunk of beef right in back of him. I sucked in a lungful of air from way down in the vicinity of my shoe-tops and then fired it out in noisy relief. “That was close,” I breathed. “Yeah, yeah,” Bud replied irritably and his eyes focused on me in a strange way. I ignored the worried expression on the disc jockey’s face and started towards the control room, Half way up the short flight of steps I stopped as Bud muttered under his breath; = : “T don’t get it, Johnny.” ,. I chatted back over my shoulder, “You don’t get what, Bud?” “T thought I’d kept the Conky Jacobs deal pretty well under the table,” he began. “Huh?” I open-mouthed at hin. “How the devil did you find out about that record?” CHAPTER TWO Bud White’s in Hot Water! O THERE you have it. My fairy tale about Conky on wax had back- fired on me. I’d stumbled in with my eyes closed, but now they were open wide—with fear. Sure, I admit it, I scare easy. I’m no FBI man and I don’t have a yen for playing button, button with mob- sters., “T didn’t mean for you to get mixed up in this, Johnny,” Bud told me as he nib- bled hatf-heartedly at a hunk of toast, “but you're in now so I might as well tip the whole thing to you.” We'd finished the broadcast at 4 A.M. and as usual we joined the Broadway crowd at their pet histro. Bud wiggled his fingers at a couple of Radio City characters across the room and told me how Conky Jacobs had put the squeal.on Slip Madden and his new racket, Only Gonky hadn’t known that he’d been talking to Bud and a hidden microphone. Now he was dead, but his voice was still very much alive. As the little disc jockey talked I learned a lot of things I hadn’t known before. For one, how he came up with so many gang- land scoops. He was a guy who followed the police school of thought on the use- fulness of pigeons, for instance. Only he Gomichbooks (EO)