5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

90 from another position. “I fell for it. Me falling for one like that. Must have been because I didn’t credit an amateur like you with sense enough to try it. I could have used you in my outfit, Mead.” “I was too busy, flying C-54s over the Hump,” Mead grunted back dourly. He was back of the cougar now, twen- ty feet away. “You won’t be flying any more of them after tonight.” “You won’t be going on any more patrols, either,” Sam Mead half snarled. He kept straining his eyes back over his shoulder toward the house and won- dering about’ Burke. Where was the man’? .Was he in the yard, too? Why hadn’t he cut in? Maybe too many of Horton’s guns were in the house, and Burke didn’t dare leave. Mead turned his attention down below again. epee lights of the plane were flooding up the driveway, and in the stretch of darkness between lay Joe. He couldn’t cross that broad avenue of light. He’d have to be good to get past Mead and behind him. Mead started crawling again, moving along past a row of rose bushes. He worked his way onward for forty feet, then froze as movement came from his right. He threw the second spade, and to his surprise four shots—from a pistol —answered. Sam Mead swung the gun and squeezed quick. Three shots. He heard a scream, saw Burke’s body fall- ing, a blur in the night, then fell flat himself as the machine-pistol cut away a half dozen roses within a foot of his head. “Two down, one to go,” he yelled to Joe. “And, Joe, you’re not fooling me now. That burp gun is empty. I’m com- ing in. You weren’t packing a pistol that I could see.” He rose and crashed his way through the bushes, ignoring the thorns. He trotted across a bed of flowers and plunged straight into the bushes whence had come the last burst of fire. A man’s figure rose up out of the leaves. He caught a glimnse of two arms swing high and threw up the submachine gun across his face as the Schmeisser came crashing down. “Damn you!” Joe panted, and then FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE they closed in. Sam Mead knew his man. Scientific dirty fighting. He instinctively twisted his body, and not a minute too soon. Joe’s foot drove into his hip, and Mead grabbed it. He fell, twisting, wrenching hard, and felt the bone snap and heard Joe’s grunt of pain. But he was still afraid of this man. Afraid to close with him. A mistake would be fatal. So Mead jumped to his feet, still gripping Joe’s ankle. He began to swing Joe in a circle while the man cursed and tried to free himself. No man but a person of Mead’s build could have done it. He walked thirty yards, still half swinging, half dragging his victim until, again, the stone cougars loomed up in the darkness. : By now Joe knew his purpose. He fought the harder against this implaca- ble, hard-bitten man whom he and his friends had so badly underestimated. A final cry that was half curse broke from him as his body swung and his head and shoulders smashed into the wide-open, stone-fanged mouth of the ominous cougar. Then Mead let him down. He stood there a moment, panting, wiping at a trickle of blood on his cheek where one of the rose bush thorns had penetrated. He heaved a big sigh. swal- lowed, and bent over, heaving the broken man over one shoulder. Lights were still on everywhere as he strode in through the kitchen and on into the huge living room. The girl and her father seemingly had not moved. They stared as he dumped Joe onto the carpet. Blood covered one side of Joe’s face, and his left leg was twisted queer- ly. He was breathing. » “What happened?” Horton demanded. “We thought a new war had broken out down there. There’s not a gun in this house that I could find—they hid them somewhere—or I’d have been down to help you. Where’s Burke and that other fellow ?” “In purgatory, I hone.” Sam Mead answered. “Got a drink? I need one.” “You bet I’ve got a drink,” Horton said, reaching toward glass-enclosed shelves. “Habanero. A Mexican hrandy T’ll match against any in Europe.” CoOMmiclooo S (C@)