5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

4 FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE “I’m looking for George Bland,” he old her. She said, “Come in,” and she closed the door behind him and put the chain on. “Is George home?” “No,” she said. “But ! am.” CHE sat in a chair, carefully arranging S her short skirt so that a bare white leg showed up to the knee. A generous figure, Ed noticed, and generous with what she displayed of it. “So you’re the great McGinley,” she said. “I hear your rich uncle just died.” Languidly, leaning forward so that the skirt slipped up even more, she said, a | love to spend money, McGinley.” Ed said uncomfortably, “What time will George be back?” “Not for a long time, handsome, if that’s what you’re getting at. Let’s talk about the money.” Ed said, “You’re way ahead of me. The richest uncle I ever had died in the poorhouse.” She laughed. “Maybe it was an aunt.” “Tell George I was here, will you?” he asked. She got up too. “Listen, handsome,” she said, “I’m serious. I mean it. We could have a high time on fifty Gs. You and me.’ “Sure,” said Ed. “If I had fifty Gs. Suppose you tell me something, first.” “Like what?” “Like what you see out of your bed- room window.” For a moment she stared at him specu- latively. Then she said, “It’s a nice bed- room, handsome. Try it sometime. And it’s a nice window. You look out of it and you see the birds and the bees and the flowers. You’d be surprised the things those birds and bees do.” “What else do you see? At night, for instance.” She shook her head. “Nothing, copper. If you don’t know, I don’t either. I like to live.” With a decisive motion she took the chain off the door. “1’ll tell George you were here.” “And you didn’t see anything, last night maybe?” “Not a thing.” Then she pressed close to him. “But if you want to get rid of some of that money, McGinley, little Dottie is the girl who'll help you spread it around.” Chapter VI D McGINLEY’S third stop that day was back north to the Grand Ave- nue neighborhood, where cops are poi- son and informers don’t last long. A tough neighborhood. But if you want to know about a man, if you want to know who his friends are and, more specifical- ly, his enemies, you hit his home vicinity. If you want to know who might kill Frank Enright, you hit the bars he probably patronized. Ed McGinley picked up his first bit of information with his third beer. It was a sloppy, crummy joint, a block from Enright’s rooming house, and the sloppy, dirty bartender eyed Ed askance and said, “Enright? Yeah, sure, I knowed him. I knowed all his pals, too.” “T’d like to talk to one of those pals,” Ed said. “Tell you what.” The bartender wiped at an imaginary spot on the bar. “You go two blocks down the street here, see, and around the corner, and they’s a little tai- lor shop. Rocco’s. Well, Rocky, he knows a lot about Enright. Ask him.” “Thanks,” Ed said. “I'll try that.” He finished the beer and went two blocks down the street and around the corner. Rocco’s, the window said. You walk into a spot like that with your eyes open and you never know what. But it was a chance he had to take. Rocco’s was small enough, with a few bright bolts of cloth on a table, a few dingy glass cases, and Rocco himself be- hind a small counter. Short and stocky, he was in his shirt-sweater, and the muscles of his enormous tanned arms bulged. He was talking on the telephone when Ed McGinley walked in, and Ed turned over a bolt of cloth with a bright blue stripe running through it. Rocco said, “Okay, Pete,” and hung up the phone and approached Ed. Looking for a suit, mister?” he asked. “Could be.” Ed pushed the blue stripe aside and turned up a pea-green bolt with a herringbone weave. “What have you got in mind?” “Depends on what goes with it.” AMTCLOOO eo (C(O)