5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

up a drunk anid, because he was nicely dressed and unarmed, they drove him home. At 10:30, Bland said, “Head west on Seventy-first. My wife’s sick, and I want to see how she is.” So Ed drove silently to 71st and turned and drove west until they came to a street with trolley tracks and a blare of neons and flashing electric signs and heavy traffic—Ashland Avenue. Soud- er’s territory. “We’re out of our area,” Ed said qui- et] y. : “So what!” Bland snapped. “I told you, my wife’s sick.” sf CROSS Ashland Avenue they went, a block and a half, and Bland said, “Pull up here by the street light.” For fifteen minutes Ed waited, listen- ing for the radio call that would send them spurting back to their district.’ It didn’t come, and after those fifteen min- utes, Bland returned and they circled and drove back to the area where they belonged. Routine, that was all. A deadly rou- tine that would stretch on and on until, sooner or later, it would blow up in Ed McGinley’s face, explode on him with the flash of his own gun. At midnight, they stopped in front of the station, and two new cops, the third shift, climbed into the car, two more men Ed never had seen before, two more men who stared at him curiously and said not a word. He wrote out his report and handed it to Lieutenant Heston. “Nobody shot tonight, McGinley ?” He didn’t answer. Nobody shot to- night, lieutenant. But almost. Off duty, he hiked all the way back to Laflin Street, where they’d picked up Frank Enright. He went into the area- way and flashed his light around. He clambered over the board fence and through the back yard. He’d hoped he might find a gun or a knife or burglary loot. Anything that would incriminate Frank Enright. Any- thing that might, in some vague way, justify the murderous passion that had gripped him while his gun was pointing at the quaking, cornered man. Nothing was there. Nothing at all. FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE Chapter III O ED McGINLEY went home. He lived with his brother and sister- in-law in a big old house on the North Side. By one o’clock, when he reached it, the house was dark, the family asleep. In his lonely room, Ed stared out the window into the darkness. Once again in his mind he saw the little man dart from the car, run between the ‘houses. Once again he heard the phantom foot- steps echo behind him, footsteps no oth- er man could hear. Killer-cop. Killer-cop he would be again, he knew, no matter what he tried. Killer-cop for the fourth time when the next man ran into a corner and turned and faced his gun. Until then, there was nothing ahead of him but the dull routine of a squad car. The routine of quiet little streets in a quiet residen- tial neighborhood on a quiet, deadly pa- trol. With a man beside you who fin- gered his thick lips and spoke only when he had to. The second night it was a street fight between two young men who’d had more liquor than they could handle. A com- plaint from a woman about her neigh- bor’s noisy brats. A burglar alarm that kept ringing and ringing because of a short-circuit. On and on while people ate their din- ners and did the dishes and put the kids to bed and called the cops with every shadow they couldn’t recognize. Until, at eleven, Bland said, “Head west on Seventy-first.” They crossed Ashland again and parked in front of Bland’s house. Some day, Ed knew, their call would crackle out while he was parked there, and he’d have to blare his horn and bring Bland on the run. Or some day, perhaps, Bland’s wife would get better, and they wouldn’t have to stop. But not that night. Bland came out, and they swung around again toward Ashland Avenue. A block from Ashland, they heard the shot. It came from their left, from a dark, lonely street. Then another, and a third. Then the clack of high heels and a woman running toward them. “Don’t stop!” Bland cried. “Don’t be a sucker!” GoMmilGebsoo S @) (C(O)