5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

THIS WILL SLAY YOU O’Hanna looked at Fred Fencer’s short, stout, neatly business-like self. “I’m a sap,” he said bitterly. “I deserve all the hard luck I know I’m going to get out of this. But okay—come on.” They exited into the corridor. “What’s it all about?” Fencer wanted to know. “Who’s Leland Cobb?” O’Hanna growled. “A headache. A headache wrapped up in a million bucks.” “He sounded alcoholic,” Fencer said, “as if he might be in his cups.” _“Heh,” O’Hanna said. “You’re lucky if it’s only the cups. Leland Cobb gen- erally winds up down in the cuspidors.” Endicott caught up with them at the elevator. “A sad case.” He _ sighed. “Such a burden for his wife. I feel very sorry for Charlotte Cobb.” “Four,” O’Hanna told the elevator flunky. He scowled at the flunky’s uni- formed shoulders as the panel cage climbed. “Charlotte is the aspirin in the case. The guy’d get cured a damned sight faster if she wasn’t around, sooth- ing the edge of the headache.” He led the way along the fourth floor corridor. “If it wasn’t for her, somebody’d’ve slapped Leland down long ago, slapped some sense into him, maybe.” “Fighting drunk?” Fencer asked. Qa said, “No. He’s got bour- bon on the funny bone. He pulls gags. Last time he was here, he fished an imitation mouse out of his soup—in front of the whole dining room full of guests.” He pulled up, drummed his knuckles on the door of 402. It opened. The man on the other side of the doorknob swayed as he stared out. “Good ol’ ’Hanna,” he articulated thickly. “Johnny-on-a-spot ’Hanna.” Leland Cobb was stewed lik? an oys- ter. He was even the bloodless gray color of one. His blurred, watery eyes were nondescript. Hair and eyebrows were mongrel. Life had failed to en- grave any lines of character into Leland Cobb’s face. Instead, the life he led had puffed the features into bloated vacuity. “Whew!” muttered good old O’Hanna, fending off an attempted embrace as he entered the room. “John ’Hanna,” Cobb was proclaim- 63 ing. “Besh frien’ a man ever had.” “Baloney. You hate my guts, and al- ways did,” O’Hanna said. “What’s on your mind, besides the corn juice?” “Show you.” Cobb started across the room. His gait resembled that of a man riding an imaginary rockinghorse. He _ bobbled and weaved and wound up clutching the foot of the bed for support. His free hand circled a couple of times, and then pointed down shakily. “Thash it. Thash there.” O’Hanna, Endicott, and Fred Fencer stared at the red stains on the hotel carpet. The size of pennies, the crimson spots began in the middle of the room and led to the closed clothes closet door. “Sh’ body,’”’ Leland Cobb blurted. “Sh’ dead body in there.” O’Hanna cried, “Holy hell!” He whipped out a handkerchief, covered the closet door knob carefully before he twisted it open. Endicott was suffering, aloud. “A body! Oh, my God! This is awful. The publicity—” Leland Cobb made a sound of “wah- wah-wah.” He collapsed on the bed and hid his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. “What the hell?” Fred Fencer puzzled. The agency dick’s eye-glassed glance flashed at Cobb suspiciously. Then he folded his short, stout figure to its knees. He thumbnailed into one red stain, dug up a bit of crimson residue; sniffed, and finally tasted it. “It’s a good grade of tomato catsup,” he decided. Endicott’s thin frame jerked. His Adam’s apple slid into a _ prolonged rumba. “C-catsup?” he faltered. “For a fact,” Fencer said, grinning. “There ain’t any body, O’Hanna. It’s just one of the guy’s polluted gags.” Leland Cobb rocked on the bed, his face that of a laughing gargoyle. “Joke!” gurgled. “Good joke on Johnny O’Hanna!” Endicott wasn’t amused. He glared at O’Hanna in the closet doorway. “Mike, you fathead! Do you realize I nearly died of heart failure because you couldn’t tell a practical joke from a murder? Thank God, one of us is smart enough to know blood from catsup, any- way.” AMICLOOO@ S @) (C(O) (C(O) mM