5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

22 to get out of the eabin, even with the door locked. The window shutters weren’t built to stand a lot of pounding. Then Clay would have a mile walk to the nearest telephone. Give the San Francisco police ten minutes to clear a teletype to Sacramento—and the license number of Owen’s convertible would be hot—and every cop on the Peninsula would be looking for him to pass. Ted took no chance on being picked off in the San Francisco bus depot, either. He left the bus in South San Francisco and rode a streetcar the rest of the way to “Butcher-town,” stayed on the car until it passed the Crest Meat Company plant, a large, raw brick build- ing like the other packing houses that backed up to Hunter’s Point Navy Yard. Crest had a splashy entrance to the business office, a lot of chrome and plate-glass. It looked like a diamond choker on a dirty neck. As the street- car rattled by, Ted saw a couple of char- acters stalling around on the corner. They were trying to look as though they belonged in Butchertown, but they had “cop” written on them like a govern- ment inspection stamp. So Dick Clay had come to and kicked his way out of the cabin. All right. What, Ted asked himself, did he do now? He had to get into the plant. A few blocks farther down the line he dropped off the streetcar, without any firm conclusion about his next step. Ted crossed the street to a bar and squandered a nickel on a call to his of- fice. When the switchboard operator at Crest Meat Company plugged in on the line, he gave himself a North Beach ad- dress, and asked to speak to Miss Tobey. The girl told him Miss Tobey was at lunch and asked if there was a mes- sage. Ted said, hung up, glanced at his watch. It was twelve-forty-five. He’d packed a lot into that morning, enough so it should be seam-sprung. The word that Loreen was at lunch had been welcome. At least, she hadn’t been in an accident while driving Steve last night. Nothing she couldn’t walk away from. There was probably some other perfectly logic- al explanation why Steve hadn’t been in the cabin. “No message. Thanks.” He FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE But Ted had to know what it was. Loreen usually went to lunch about twelve-thirty. There were only a couple of places in the neighborhood where she’d eat—a diner down the block from where Ted had made the call, or Tony Pinta’s Bar & Grill. He walked by the diner and saw that she wasn’t at the counter. That left Tony’s, a quarter of a mile back the way he’d come—past the plant. Ted waited for a streetcar, saw the two men still in front of the Crest Meat Company. The two cops. Tony Pinta’s was first a bar. In Cali- fornia, the law says a bar must also serve ‘hot food, and Mrs. Pinta knew how to put together a really sensational minestrone, and her spaghetti sauce was as good as any in town. There was nothing wrong with the roast beef sand- wiches, either. Mrs. Pinta served her food in a little room behind the space reserved for the bar and shuffleboard table. There were half a dozen high, old-fashioned booths. Most of the time, Tony carried the food out himself; sometimes it was Mama. Ted walked rapidly through the bar, hoping he wouldn’t be recognized by any of the guys drinking their lunch. He wasn’t. Nobody yelled at him or tried to drag him over for a quick one. Business was good for Mama Pinta. OREEN was in a corner booth. She wasn’t alone. All Ted could see was the back of the man’s neck. That’s all he had to See. He knew who it was, by the deep, tanned wrinkles in the neck, the graying, brindle hair. Bennett—the boss—manager of the San Francisco branch of the Crest Meat Company. A big, good-looking lug with a million-dollar front. He had a few bucks cash to back it up, too.- A fifty- thousand-dollar home in Palo Alto, which he’d finished paying off last year, for one thing. A couple of Cadillacs, a sailing yacht. Quite a boy. Ted slid into the booth on Loreen’s side of the table, grinning. “How’s the minestrone this afternoon ?” “]__J—” gasped Loreen, surprised. “Never mind,” he said. “I'll have some. And a roast beef sandwich,” he added to Mama Pinta as she waddled GOMIGIOo S (CO) im