''And That's How It Was, Officer'' - Ralph Sholto (best value ebook reader .txt) 📗

should be doing. It's far too dangerous for a girl."

"Or anybody else," Bag Ears moaned. There was a bleak look on his face. "I don't like playing around with a guy like Hands McCaffery or friends of a guy like him. It's a good way to collect your insurance."

"She's heading for Higgins Drive," Joy observed.

Which was entirely true. The roadster had made a turn on two wheels and was going west.

"But our honeymoon," I said, plaintively.

"Yeah," Bag Ears repeated, "what about our—your honeymoon?"

Joy's eyes were sparkling. She turned them on me. The car lurched. She returned her eyes to the road. "Yes, darling. Our honeymoon! Isn't it wonderful?"

"But this isn't it! This isn't what people do on their honeymoons."

"Oh, you mean—but don't worry about that, darling. We'll have plenty of time for—"

"Lemme out o' here," Bag Ears moaned. "I got a date to take Red Nose Tessie to the movies."

Joy apparently did not hear him. "I wish we had all the parts to this puzzle. It looks as though somebody put somebody on the spot for a rubout. But it would seem that somebody else got the same idea but didn't know that somebody else was going to achieve the same result in a more spectacular way and—"

"I think you've figured it out most accurately."

"Some of it fits together. Uncle Peter was no doubt responsible for the Zinsky boys coming to our reception. We'll get the dope on that when we catch up with him. But the blonde must not have known what was going to happen, so she tipped Hands off that he could find the whole Zinsky mob at the reception. He decided it would be a good place to settle certain matters of his own."

"But why did Uncle Peter want them there?"

Joy glanced at me with love in her eyes. "Darling, we're going to be wonderful companions through life, but most of the fun will be strictly physical. Mental exercises aren't your forte."

"When Red Nose Tessie makes a date with a guy," Bag Ears said, "she expects the guy to keep it."

"The blonde Cora is no doubt heading for a rendezvous with Hands McCaffery," Joy went on. "And she's taking our dear uncle with her."

"Okay," Bag Ears replied. "So we mind our business and keep our noses clean and live a long time."

Joy was weaving through traffic, trying to keep the roadster in sight. "Turn on the radio," she told me. "There might be some news."

I snapped the switch and we discovered there was news indeed; an evening commentator regaling the public with the latest:

"—an amazing mass phenomena which leading scientific minds have pronounced to be basically similar to the flying-saucer craze. Relative to that—you will remember—otherwise reliable citizens swore they saw space ships from other planets hovering over our cities spying on us.

"This phase of the hysteria takes an entirely different turn. It seems now that these otherwise entirely reliable citizens are seeing other citizens explode and vanish into thin air. The police and the newspapers have been deluged with frantic telephone calls. In the public interest, we have several persons here in the studio who claim to have seen this phenomena. Your commentator will now interview them over the air. You—you, sir—what is your name?"

"Sam—Sam Glutz."

"Thank you, Mr. Glutz. And will you tell the radio audience what you saw?"

"It wasn't nothing—nothing at all. That is—this guy was running down the street like maybe the cops was after him—I don't know. Then—there wasn't nothing."

"You mean the man disappeared?"

"He went pop, kind of—like a firecracker only not so loud—and then pieces of him flew all over and they disappeared and there wasn't nothing—nothing at all."

"Thank you, Mr. Glutz. And now this lady—"

"Turn it off," Joy snapped. "The blonde's pulling up."

This was evident to all three of us. "And by a cop yet," Bag Ears marveled. "Looks like they're going to give theirselves up."

It was Uncle Peter who got out of the car and approached the traffic officer standing at the intersection.

"What'll we do?" Joy asked. "Do you want to try and keep the old goat out of jail or shall we let him go to the chair as he deserves?"

The possibility stunned me to a point where it was hard to think clearly. "Good Lord, Joy! Think of the scandal! I don't care about myself, but Aunt Gretchen would never live it down! She'd be black-balled at all her clubs and—"

"Then," Joy replied sweetly, "I'd suggest you get out and slug that cop quick and grab Uncle Peter before he makes a confession."

I had come to the cross-roads, so to speak. The necessity of a weighty decision lay upon my shoulders. Was blood thicker than water? Was I justified in breaking the law—assaulting an officer in order to keep my uncle from becoming a blot on the family name?

I decided, grimly, that one owed all to one's relatives and I was halfway out of the car. Then I paused. Uncle Peter did not seem to be making a confession at all. He chatted easily with the officer and indicated my Cadillac with a movement of his thumb. Something passed from his hand to the hand of the policeman and the latter looked toward us and scowled.

"Uncle Peter is pulling a fast one," Joy said. "The cop's coming after us!"

I was uncertain as how to proceed now. I watched the scowling policeman approach our car while Uncle Peter got back in with the blonde Cora and drove away.

"Are you going to hang one on him, sweetheart?" Joy asked.

"What—what do you recommend?"

"I've got a hunch that if you don't, we go to the pokey and Uncle Peter will be left free to blow up everybody in town."

I don't believe the officer meant to arrest us but at the moment my mind wasn't too clear and I accepted Joy's point of view.

I doubled my fist as the officer approached. He wasted no time in getting acquainted. He said, "How come you guys are tailing those guys? You figuring a stickup or something?"

It was now or never. I hunched my right shoulder and aimed a stiff knockout jolt at the officer's jaw. It wasn't too good a target because he had a lantern jaw and it was bobbing up and down as he munched on a wad of chewing gum.

But I did not connect. As my fist completed but half its lethal orbit, the officer blew up in my face! He went pop, just as so many others had gone pop at our wedding reception; his entire anatomy flying in all directions, to turn into a cloud of sooty smoke and mix with the elements.

I was frozen with consternation. But not Joy. Instantly she dragged me back into the car. "Don't you get it? Uncle Peter gave him that stick of gum!"

"You're damn right!" Bag Ears stated. "The old monkey's gone clear off his trolley. Maybe he plans to clean out the whole town!"

Joy, her eyes slitted, was weaving in and out of traffic so as not to lose track of the blue roadster. "It's as plain as your nose! He's hand in glove with McCaffery and that blonde is bird-dogging him around town and pointing out McCaffery's enemies. Uncle Peter is knocking them off like clay pigeons."

I was amazed at this revelation, but was also thunderstruck by the underworld jargon flowing so easily from Joy's luscious lips. "Angel," I gasped. "Where did you learn to talk like that? Those underworld terms!"

"I read all the true detective magazines I can get my hands on," she said. "They're good fun, but that's beside the point. We've got to nail Uncle Peter and nail him quick, or Aunt Gretchen will ring up a nice big zero in the social world."

"How about nailing him without me?" Bag Ears suggested. "It's nine o'clock and Red Nose Tessie never likes to miss none of the show."

"I'm sure, Bag Ears," Joy said, "that Tessie would sympathize with our efforts to keep Uncle Peter out of the electric chair."

"I doubt it," he replied dubiously. "Tessie's brother got burned in Frisco for knocking over a bank clerk and Tessie never even attended. Let him fry in his own grease was what she said about it."

"Nevertheless," Joy said, "I have no time to stop and let you out."

A fast, fifteen-block chase followed. Once we lost the blue roadster completely, but, by sheer luck, picked it up three blocks further on as it came wheeling out of a side street.

We were in a quiet residential section now, so there was no one to interfere as Joy skillfully forced the roadster to the curb. I jumped out and leaped swiftly toward the driver's door.

The blonde sat behind the wheel with a sullen look on her face. "What is this?" she asked. "A stickup?"

"Don't be vulgar," I replied. "We are here to take charge of my uncle. This weird slaughter must cease!"

Joy was by my side now, but Bag Ears hung back as though somewhat worried about the possible consequences of our act.

I heard him muttering: "What if he can just shoot the stuff in your eye maybe? What if a guy doesn't have to swallow it—?"

Joy's gayety was again coming to the surface. Her eyes were bright and I was struck by the fact that she seemed to thrive on this sort of thing. "Hello, Blondy," she said. "Get out from behind—"

The blonde's eyes threw sparks. "Who you think you're talking to, you lard—"

"Not Truman," Joy said. "Now get—"

I seized Joy's wrist. "Angel! He's gone! Uncle Peter isn't here!" I stared at Joy in horror. "Do you suppose he inadvertently chewed some of his own gum?"

Joy did not reply. She shouldered me aside, opened the car door and surprised me by getting a very scientific grip on Cora.

"Okay—where is he? What did you do with him?"

"He's not here!"

"Any fool can see that. Did he blow up?"

"Of course not. He went to keep a date."

The blonde jerked herself loose from Joy's hold and was sullenly straightening her clothing. "I don't see why you and Pretty Boy have to stick your big noses into this. It's none of your business."

"We're making it our business."

"You don't seem to realize," I said stiffly, "that Uncle Peter is very dear to me. He has performed some horrible deeds, and as his loving nephew—"

The blonde seemed puzzled. "You're off your crock! Pete's okay. He just entered into a little private deal to help out Hands McCaffery. I don't see where it's anybody's business, either. If he wanted your help he'd ask for it!"

It made my blood run cold to hear this girl refer so casually to the wholesale slaughter that had been going on around us. I strove to find words to shame her, but Joy cut in. And apparently my dear wife was more interested, at the moment, in the details of the affair rather than the morals involved.

"McCaffery and Uncle Peter haven't got any deal," she said to the blonde. "You lie as easily as you undress. If they had an arrangement to knock off all those parties at our wedding reception, how come McCaffery brought a machine gun along?"

The blonde had an answer. "Hands was a little doubtful. He didn't think Pete could do it—blow people into thin air just from something they et. He was willing to go along with the gag but he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to rub out the Zinsky gang—or as many as he could hit—if the gimmick didn't click. That's why he brought the Tommy—just in case."

Joy turned to me. "It fits," she said. "I've been trying to give Uncle Pete the benefit of every doubt, but it looks as though you've got a mad dog sniffing at the trunk of your family tree."

Cora frowned. "You've got him all wrong. He's not—"

I continued with the questioning. "You are denying that Uncle Peter had anything to do with this deadly serum that disintegrates people before one's eyes?"

"I'm not denying it."

"Then it