5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

for nothing. But she shook her head. “Thanks,” she said, “and good-by.” I watched the coupé pull away, realiz- ing that I didn’t know where she lived or a blessed thing about her. But I meant to find out. Then I turned and went into the hotel. The clerk soaked: me fifteen a day for a little single and told me I was lucky to get it. The register had a smear of oil on it. The lobby resembled a minia- ture stock exchange—lease hounds buy- ing, selling, and trading. I recognized several of them and several scouts from the major companies. It was a wildcat field,dout the big fel- lows were beginning to come in. That would mean pipe lines, development, progress, and it also meant that the little fellows would move on. It was an old story. First the oil tramps with their little rigs and thin bank-rolls, then the gamblers, the girls, and the camp followers, and then the majors—order, law, and development. I’d seen it a thousand times. Four men spoke to me on the way to the elevator. In:half an hour, everyone would know that Mike Foster was in town. That was the way with oil camps. You didn’t need a newspaper. The grapevine telegraph served instead. My phone rang a dozen times while I was shaving. Pals from other days, saying hello, trying to sell me leases, offering me a job, or trying to borrow money. I said I’d see them all later, and hurried. I wanted something ta eat be- fore I delivered the package to Peyton. ig WAS three minutes of eight when I finally knocked at Peyton’s door. A heavy voice told me to come in, and I pushed the door open. Then I tried to back out, because the room was swarm- ing with cops. Here was trouble, and I’d sworn off trouble. “Wait a minute,” a big, red-faced man barked. His captain’s uniform looked mussed and dirty, and one of the gold buttons was missing. “I must have come to the wrong room,” I said, still backing. “Come here!” They reminded me of five vultures, ene on a limb, waiting for something to die. FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE “Who are you?” the red-faced man demanded. I told them. I told them that I was just in from looking for a job. I denied knowing Peyton, even when they took me into the next room and showed me the gray-haired man on the bed. Some- one had beaten in his skull, using a blunt instrument. He’d been dead for ten or fifteen minutes. That put me in the clear. I’d been kidding the cashier in the hotel dining room for the last half hour. I wasn’t worried so much for myself, but the package the girl had given me to deliver was still in my pocket. “T remember now,” one of the cops said suddenly. ‘‘You’re Mike Foster.” I looked at him. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, and I knew I’d seen him somewhere. But where? The captain picked up interest. “You know this lug?” The cop nodded. “Sure, that’s Mike Foster. They used to call him ‘Investi- gating Mike.’ Why, out in Bakersfield, they had a double murder which the cops couldn’t touch, and Mike solved it in two days. He can smell murder a mile away, and he comes running.” I cursed him under my breath. “Them days have gone forever, ” I told them. “I’ve reformed.” “You’d better,” the captain growled. His name was Hammond, and he thought that he was tough. There was a window behind me, one that opened on an air shaft. My room opened on the same shaft. I was afraid they'd search me, so I backed carefully to the window and when they weren’t watching, let the package slide into the shaft. The captain hadn’t forgotten me. After a few minutes, he came back and started the questions all over again— whether 1 hadn’t known Peyton, what I was doing up there. I told him I was looking for a job, that a man in the lobby had suggested that I see Peyton. One of the other cops spoke from the far side of the room. “Say, Skipper, I saw this lug getting out of Judy Garron’s coupé.” The captain’s face got black with rage. COMiICoOOe ‘a S (C0) mM