5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

KILLER COP The first one, the one who'd killed Bill Curry—he had had the gun in his hand and was firing it when Ed McGinley shot him again and again. That was all right; that was justified. Six months later, the second one, in an alleyway beside a car with the tell- tale license that told Ed McGinley it was stolen. He’d had a gun in his pocket, that one, when Ed McGinley heard the feet pounding behind him and knew only that he had to shoot before Bill Curry died. Well, tha} wasn’t so bad. A gun in his pocket that he was reaching for, a stolen car, a long record. “Cop Kills Again,” the headlines had said. The third one, just a month ago. Vas- co. A kid, eighteen. Sure, he’d been in and out of the reformatory; sure, he was an addict; he was known as a brutal, wild youth; he had had a knife in his fist. When Ed McGinley had seen the knife, he’d known only that those foot- steps echoed in his ears and that Bill Curry was beside him again, dead Bill Curry. The newspapers had ignored the knife, and the record, too. “Killer’Cop Slays Once More,” they’d screamed. Now Frank Enright. So Detective McGinley was Ex-Officer McGinley now. Bill Curry’s ghostly footsteps would echo no more. The ghost was back in its grave, and Ed McGinley was licked. : All these things Ed McGinley pon- dered while he waited for the redhead to bring a glass of beer. All those headlines he read once more. But they didn’t mean much beside the headline yet to be writ- ten. Then Sarah came in with the beer. “Where’s the boy?” he asked her. “He’s in school, McGinley,” she said. “School. Remember? The place you played hookey from.” They laughed again. Aiea the way they’d always been, Sarah and Ed, even when Bill was still around and they’d lived in the same neighborhood. Laughing and kidding each other while Bill was in the kitchéh, pouring the beer, or down the street at Fat Edith’s to fetch a new supply or out on a different shift from Ed’s. Great friends, Ed and Sarah. But they’d never be anything more 53 now. Sure, two people can want the same thing with all their hearts. But when you’ve stood beside her husband and let him die, you can’t very well ask her to marry you. Nor when you're a killer three times. Nor when you're out of a job. That morning Ed left before eleven. “Come around again, McGinley,” she told him when he got up to leave. “Soon. The boy will be sorry he missed you.” Well, maybe he would. Just maybe. Ed bought a newspaper and read it on the streetcar. Only the top hoodlums get a front-page obituary these days. Frank Enright was a punk; his story was buried inside. | Yeah, a punk, all right. One sentence to Pontiac for assault, one to Joliet for robbery. No big-time connections, ap- parently. He lived on Grand Avenue near Erie, a rough and tough and tum- bledown neighborhood, and he had been rough and tough but a punk neverthe- less. And he was dead now. There was nothing about a cop being suspended. That was departmental news, not for the public press yet, thanks to Captain Souder: Ed rode on south, out Western Ave- nue, and then over on 71st Street and to the first block west of Ashland. It’s funny how you can reach the same spot from two different directions and not recognize it. You can drive your partner home, going west, and park in front of his house and you can chase a fugitive down an alley and into a back yard, going south, and not realize that you’ve reached the same place. Ed walked into the back yard, where the killer had crouched and whispered his name and shot at him. This was it, beyond a doubt. Then he went out to the street again and as he was passing the side of the house, he saw the blonde. Framed in a window that looked down on the gate, she was watching him gravely, her eyes brown and big, her hair a startling, artificial yellow, her mouth wide and smeared with bright red, her face pale with heavy make-up. She smiled at him and waved, although he’d never seen her before. When he rang the front bell, she an- swered the door. GomiilGcbaoo S @) (C(O)