UC-NRLF
B 4 097 309



LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
LIFORNI





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Give 'em the Ax





Give 'em the Ax
mm
By A. A. FAIR nascerets
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers
NEW YORK
By arrangement with William Morrow & Co.


Second printing, October, 1944
COPYRIGHT 1944
BY WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


233513
A63 22 Gs
1944
Give 'em the Ax
M723526


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Chapter One
As I GOT OFF the elevator and started down the corridor,
the old familiar surroundings took me back to that first
day when I'd made that same journey, looking for a job.
At that time, the sign on the door had read, B. COOL,
CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS. Now it read, cool & LAM,
with the name B. Cool in one corner, and DONALD LAM
down in the other. There was something reassuring
about seeing my name on the door. It was as though I
really had something to come back to.
I pushed open the door.
Elsie Brand was pounding the keyboard of the type-
writer. She turned and looked up over her shoulder, her
face automatically assuming the welcoming smile with
which one reassures the nervous clients who call to see
a private detective.
I saw the expression jerk off her face. Her eyes
widened.
“Donald!”
"Hello, Elsie.”
“Donald! My, I'm glad to see you. Where did you
come from?”
"South Seas, and various places.”
“How long are you ... When do you have to go
back?”
“I don't.”
"Not ever?"


GIVE 'EM THE AX
“Probably not. I'm supposed to have a check-up in
six months."
“What happened?"
"Bugs—tropical bugs. Okay if I take it easy for a
while, live in a cool climate, and don't get too excited.
Bertha in there?”
I jerked my head toward the door of the office that had
B. COOL, PRIVATE, lettered on the door.
Elsie nodded.
“How is she?"
"Same as ever.”
“How's her weight?"
"Still keeping it at one hundred sixty-five, and hard as
barbed wire.”
"Making any money?”
"She did for a while, and then she got in sort of a rut.
Things haven't been coming so well lately. Guess you'd
better ask her about that.”
“Have you been sitting there hammering that type-
writer all the time I've been gone?"
She laughed. “No, of course not.”
"What do you mean?"
"Only eight hours a day."
"Seems like pretty much of a rut to get into. I thought
you'd have quit the job and gone into an airplane fac-
tory.”
“Didn't you get my letters?"
"They didn't say anything about staying on the job.”
“I didn't think I had to say anything."
“Why?"
She avoided my eyes. "I don't know. Guess it's my con-
tribution to the war effort.”
"Loyalty to the job?”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
“Not to the job,” she said, “so much as Oh, I don't
know, Donald. You were out there fighting and-well, I
wanted to do what I could to hold the business to-
gether.”
The inner office buzzer made noise.
Elsie picked up the receiver on the telephone,
switched it over to Bertha Cool's office, said, “Yes, Mrs.
Cool.”
Bertha was so mad the receiver couldn't contain all of
her voice. I could hear the rasping, angry tones over
where I was sitting. “Elsie, I've told you to talk with
clients only long enough to find out what they want,
then call me. I'll do the talking for the outfit.”
“This isn't a client, Mrs. Cool.”
“Who is it?"
"A-a friend.”
Bertha's voice rose a full octave. “My God! Do I pay
you to hold social soirees in the office, or do I pay you to
get out a little work once in a while? For God's sake
... a friend! ...A... Well, I'll soon fix that!”
The slam of the receiver in Bertha's office threatened
to pull the telephone out by the roots. We heard the
pound of two quick steps, then the door was jerked open
and Bertha stood on the threshold, her glittering little
eyes sharp with anger, her big jaw thrust out.
She flashed a swift look to get my bearings, then came
barging down on me like a battleship trying to ram a
submarine.
Halfway there, her eyes managed to get the message
to her angry brain. :
"Why you little devill” she said stopping as though
her feet had frozen to the floor.
For a moment she was glad to see me, then you could


GIVE 'EM THE AX
see her catch herself. She certainly wouldn't let anyone
know it. She whirled to Elsie and said, “Why the hell
didn't you tell me?”
Elsie said demurely, “I was trying to, Mrs. Cool, when
you hung up. I was going to tell you that ..."
“Humph!” Bertha snorted her into silence. She turned
to me. “It's a wonder you wouldn't send a wire."
I used the only argument that would impress itself on
Bertha's mind. “Wires cost money."
Even that didn't dent her. “Well, you could have sent
one of those tourist messages. You get a low rate on
those. You come busting in here and ..."
Bertha broke off, her eyes on the frosted glass panel of
the corridor door.
The head and shoulders of a feminine figure were sil-
houetted against the glass, a chic slender woman, evic
dently young, and either because it was a mannerism or
because of the way she was standing, the head was perked
slightly to one side, giving it a jaunty appearance. -
Bertha muttered, “Damn it! Clients always do catch
me in the outer office. It's undignified. Looks as though
we weren't busy.”
She grabbed up a bunch of papers from Elsie's desk,
struck a businesslike poise, started pawing through the
papers.
But the visitor didn't come in.
There was a long matter of seconds which seemed
minutes during which the silhouette was pasted against
the frosted glass, then abruptly the shadow went on
down the hall.
Bertha Cool slammed the papers down on the desk.
“There you are,” she said. "That's the way things have
been going lately. The damned little tramp will prob-


GIVE 'EM THE AX
ably go on down the hall to the Transcontinental De.
tective Agency and spill her troubles there."
I said, “Cheer up, Bertha. Perhaps she's just nervous
and is coming back.”
"Well,” Bertha snorted, "something about the place
didn't seem right to her. She was all set to come in, and
then she didn't come. It didn't sound like a business of-
“: fice. Elsie, you start pounding that typewriter. Donald
you come in the private office. Remember, Elsie, if she
comes in she'll be nervous. That type won't wait. She'll
sit down for a minute, then pretend she's forgotten some-
thing and jump up and run out, and that'll be the last
we ever see of her. She's wearing a little hat on one side
of her head with a ..."
“I got a good look at her silhouette,” Elsie said.
"All right. The minute she comes in let me know.
Don't stall around. Reach for the telephone. After all, I
can't go out in the corridor and grab 'em the way they
do when a customer stops in front of a pawn shop. Inde-
cision. Never could understand it myself. If you're going
to do a thing, why not do it? Why start and stop and back
and fill and mince around? Donald, come inside. Let
Elsie get to work on that typewriter.”
Elsie Brand flashed a glance at me and let me see the
quiet amusement in her eyes, then she was pounding
away again at the typewriter.
Bertha Cool put her big strong hand under my arm
and said, “Come on, Donald, get in the office and tell me
what this is all about."
We entered Bertha Cool's private office. Bertha strode
around the desk and slammed herself down in a creak-
ing swivel chair. I sat on the arm of a big overstuffed
chair.


6
GIVE 'EM THE AX
Bertha looked me over, said, “You've toughened up,
Donald.”
"I've been toughened.”
"What do you weigh now?"
“A hundred and thirty-five."
"You look taller.”
“I'm not taller. It's the way they made me stand.”
There was a moment's silence. Bertha had an ear
cocked for noises in the outer office but there was no ces-
sation in the muffled pounding of Elsie Brand's type-
writer.
"Business not so good?” I asked.
“Terrible!” Bertha grunted.
"What's the matter with it?"
"Damned if I know. Before you came along, I was
making a living piddling along with a lot of picayunish
cases, little shadowing jobs, divorce cases, stuff of that
sort. Mostly I got my business by catering to the domes-
tic relations work that other agencies wouldn't handle.
Then you came along. First rattle out of the box you
threw me into the big time—more money, more risk,
more excitement, more clients and then you enlisted
in the Navy and for a while I carried on all right. Then
something happened. I haven't had a worthwhile case in
the last year.”
"What's the matter? Don't people come in any more?”
“They come in,” Bertha said, “but somehow I don't
impress them. They don't do things my way, and I can't
do them your way. I'm sort of a hybrid.”
"What do you mean, you can't do them my way?"
“Look at that chair you're sitting on," she said.
"That's a good example.”
"What do you mean?”
"After you became a partner you went down and


GIVE 'EM THE AX
spent a hundred and twenty-five dollars on that chair.
Your theory was that you can't win a client's confidence
when he's uneasy, and that you can't get a person to con-
fide in you when he's uncomfortable. You let the client
sit down in the depths of that chair, and it's as though he
was sitting on top of the world in a feather bed. He
settles back and relaxes, and starts talking.”
“Well, doesn't he?"
“He seems to do it for you, but he doesn't do it for
me.”
I said, “Perhaps you don't make the people feel com-
fortable.”
Bertha's eyes glittered angrily. "Why the hell should
I? We paid a hundred and twenty-five bucks for the
chair to do that. If you think I'm going to squander a
hundred and twenty-five dollars just in order to ..."
She broke off in midsentence.
I listened, and for a moment couldn't hear anything.
Then I realized that Elsie Brand had quit typing.
A moment later the buzzer sounded on Bertha Cool's
phone.
Bertha snatched the receiver off the cradle, said cau-
tiously, “Yes?" then in a low voice, “is that the woman
who ... Oh, it is? . . . What's her name? . . . All
right, send her in.”
Bertha hung up the telephone and said, “Get out of
that chair. She's coming in.'
"Who?”
“Her name's Miss Georgia Rushe. She's coming in.
She ..."
Elsie Brand opened the door and said as though grant-
ing a great concession, “Mrs. Cool will see you immedi-
ately.”
Georgia Rushe weighed about a hundred and four-


GIVE 'EM THE AX
teen. She wasn't as young as I'd thought when I had sized
up the shadow on the door—somewhere around thirty-
one or thirty-two, and she didn't carry her head on one
side. That cocking to one side of the head that we'd seen
when she stood at the corridor door must have meant
that she was listening.
Bertha Cool beamed at her and said in a voice that
dripped sweetness, “Won't you be seated, Miss Rushe?"
Miss Rushe looked at me.
She had dark, emotional eyes, full lips, high cheek
bones, a smooth olive skin, and very dark hair. The way
she looked at me you'd have thought she was about to
turn and run out of the office.
Bertha said hastily, “This is Donald Lam, my part-
ner.”
Miss Rushe said, “Oh!”
"Come in, come in,” Bertha invited. "Sit down in that
chair, Miss Rushe.”
She still hesitated.
'I gave a deep yawn without making any attempt to
cover it, took a notebook from my pocket, said casually,
"Well, I'll go cover that matter we were talking about
or," I added as an afterthought, turning to Miss Rushe,
"do you want me to sit in on this?”.
I made my tone sound somewhat bored as though an-
other job would be just another chore. I heard Bertha
gasp and start to say something, but Georgia Rushe
smiled at me, said, “I think I'd like to have you sit in
on it,” and walked over and settled herself in the big
chair.
Bertha's face was beaming. "Yes, yes, Miss Rushe.
What is it?"
“I want some help."
"Well, that's what we're here for.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
9
She toyed with her purse for a minute, crossed her
knees, carefully smoothed her skirt down, her eyes avoid-
ing those of Bertha.
She had nice legs.
Bertha said enticingly, “Anything we can do ..."
Georgia Rushe hastily averted her eyes.
I took a notebook from my pocket and scribbled a
note to Bertha Cool. “Quit being so eager. People want
results. No one wants to hire a big-boned woman de-
tective who's all sticky with sweetness.
I tore the page out of my notebook and slid it across
the desk to Bertha.
Georgia Rushe watched Bertha pick up the note and
read it.
Bertha's face got red. She crumpled the note, slammed
it in the wastebasket, glowered at me.
“Okay, Miss Rushe,” I said casually, “what's your
trouble?”
Georgia Rushe took a deep breath and said, “I don't
want to be censured.”
“No one is going to censure you.”
"I don't want to have to listen to any moral lectures."
"You won't.”
She glanced apprehensively at Bertha and said, “A
woman might not be as tolerant."
Bertha smiled all over her face, said coyly, “Oh, my
dear,” then suddenly remembering my note jerked her-
self back into character and said abruptly, “To hell with
that stuff. What's on your mind?”
"To begin with,” Georgia Rushe said determinedly,
"I'm a home wrecker.”
“So what?” Bertha asked.
“I don't want to listen to any moral lectures when you
hear what I've done."


10
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“Got enough money to pay our bills?" Bertha asked.
“Yes, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be here."
Bertha said grimly, “Go ahead and wreck 'em all you
want, dearie. What do you want us to do? Scout out good
homes for you to wreck? We can do it.”
Miss Rushe laughed nervously, then said after a mo-
ment, “I'm glad you're taking it that way, Mrs. Cool.”
Bertha said, “Homes aren't wrecked. They wreck
themselves.”
Georgia Rushe said, “I've been with Mr. Crail for
nearly four years now.”
“Who's Mr. Crail?” Bertha asked.
“Ellery Crail, head of the Crail Venetian Blind Com-
pany."
. “I've heard of the company."
"Since the war we've taken 'over a lot of war con-
tracts in wood cartridge containers, and things of that
sort."
"How long's he been married?”
"Eight months.”
I settled back and lit a cigarette.
Georgia Rushe said, “I started working in the person-
nel department. At that time, Ellery was married. His
wife died shortly after I came to work. It left him rather
dazed. I don't know how much he loved her, but he cer-
tainly missed her when she was gone. He's a man who
would love a home, a great big, loyal, stouthearted man
who is so fair and square himself that he just can't
imagine anyone being otherwise."
She hesitated for a moment, then sighed deeply, and
went on, “After a while he began to get over the first
numbing shock of the grief, and-well, I saw a little
something of him.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
11
11
“You mean he took you out?” Bertha asked.
“We went out to dinner once or twice, yes."
“Theater?"
“Yes.”
“Call at your apartment?”
"No."
“You at his?”
“No. He isn't that sort.”
“When did his present wife meet him?"
Georgia Rushe said, “I was run down from overwork.
We'd had a lot of problems to deal with. Mr. Crail
thought I should take a long vacation and suggested I
leave for a month. When I came back he was married.”
"Slipped a fast one over on you?”
Georgia Rushe's eyes blazed. “He was the victim of a
shrewd, scheming, designing, hypocritical, sniveling,
mealymouthed individual, if you can flatter a negative
personality like that by calling her an individual.”
“She gave him the rush act?” Bertha asked.
“Very much so.”
“How did it happen?"
"It all began one night when Mr. Crail was driving his
automobile back from work. He doesn't see too well at
night, and it had been raining and the streets were
slippery. Even so, I don't think it was entirely his fault,
although he tries to make out that it was. There was a
coupé immediately ahead of him, and a signal changed
and the coupé came to a sudden stop. The brake light
wasn't working. Of course, Irma swore that she put out
her hand to signal a stop, but she'd swear to anything
that would feather her own nest.”
"Irma is the girl?"
“Yes.”


12
GIVE I VE
EM
'EM THE AX
"What happened?”
"Mr. Crail bumped the back of her car—not particu-
larly hard so far as the actual damage to the automobile
was concerned. Fifty dollars would have covered both
cars."
“Personal injuries?” Bertha asked.
"Some sort of a spinal injury. Ellery jumped out of his
car and ran up to the car ahead. He started apologizing
as though it had been all his fault, just as soon as he saw
the car was operated by a woman. And Irma Begley
looked up at Ellery's big strong face, and into his sympa-
thetic eyes and determined she was going to marry him
—and she didn't lose any time.”
“The sympathy racket?” Bertha asked.
“Apparently, a little bit of everything. Ellery's wife
had died and he was lonely. He'd grown to depend on
me a lot more than he realized, and then I'd gone away.
Afterwards, I found in the files a wire he had sent, asking
me if I could possibly cut my vacation short and return.
For some reason the wire was never delivered. If it had
been, it might have changed my whole life. As it was, he
thought I simply hadn't answered."
I looked at my watch.
Miss Rushe hurried on. “Well, Irma Begley was very
nice about it, but she thought that Mr. Crail would pre-
fer to have the car repaired himself so that he'd be cer-
tain he wasn't being victimized, and Ellery thought that
was very very fair and considerate, so naturally with true
magnanimity he had the whole damn car overhauled.
Everything a mechanic could find wrong with it was
fixed. Then he returned it to Irma, and by that time,
Irma was beginning to have headaches so she went to see
a doctor, and the doctor took X-rays, and then it ap-


GIVE 'EM THE AX
13
peared that her spine had been injured. And she was so
brave and so sweet and so self-effacing about the whole
business!
"Well, of course, Irma let Ellery see that she wasn't
in any position to support herself without work, and so
Ellery insisted on footing bills, and of course no one
knows just how it happened, but I returned from a
month’s vacation to find my boss on his honeymoon!"
“How long ago?"
"Six months.
“What happened then?"
"Well, at first the boss seemed sort of dazed with the
suddenness of it all. He was particularly embarrassed
when he was with me. He felt that he owed me some sort
of an explanation as to how it happened and yet he was
too much of a gentleman to say even a word about it."
“What did you do?” Bertha asked.
“I was too angry and hurt to make things easy for him.
I told him I was going to quit as soon as he could get
someone else to take my place. Well, he couldn't get any-
one to take my place, and then he asked me to please
stay with him and-and, well, I did.”
“When did you determine you were going to be a
home wrecker?”
"To tell you the truth, Mrs. Cool, I don't know. At
first I was completely crushed. I felt that the bottom had
dropped out of everything. I didn't realize how much I
was in love with Ellery until after—well, after things
seemed to be irrevocably broken.”
"I know," Bertha said. “I'm trying to find out the
facts.”
"Well, after all, Mrs. Cool, I don't know as it's im-
portant, because that doesn't enter into it except inci-


* 14
GIVE 'EM THE AX
dentally. I wanted to get that over with first because I
didn't want you to find out about it afterward and start
getting upstage on me.”
“But you've made up your mind you're going after
Mr. Crail?”
"I've made up my mind that I'm not going to put any
obstacle in the way of his going after me.”
“And he's showing some indications?”.
"He's dazed and he's hurt. He's wandering around in
a fog."
“And beginning to gravitate toward you for guid-
ance?"
Georgia Rushe met Bertha Cool's eyes. “Let's be frank
about it, Mrs. Cool. I think he's realized that he's made a
terrific mistake—and I think he realized it very shortly
after I came back.”
"But he's too loyal to do anything about it?”
“Yes.”
"Yet you think he may do something?”
“He may.”
“And if he does, you're going to make it easy for him?"
Georgia Rushe said determinedly, “That little schem-
ing trollop stole him from me. She deliberately played
her cards so she had him all tied up before I got back.
I'm going to steal him back."
Bertha said, “All right, we have the background. Go
ahead and tell us what's on your mind.”
"Do you know anything about the Stanberry Build-
ing?"
Bertha shook her head, then said, “Wait a minute. It's
out on Seventh Street, isn't it?".
Georgia Rushe nodded. “A four story building-
stores on the lower floor, offices on the second floor, the
Rimley Rendezvous on the third floor and apartments


GIVE 'EM THE AX
15
for Mr. Rimley and some of his executives on the fourth
floor.”
“What about the Stanberry Building?”
“She wants Ellery to buy it for her.”
“Why the Stanberry Building?" I asked.
“I don't know, but I think it has something to do with
the night club."
"What is there about the night club that makes the
building such a marvelous investment?”
“I don't know. Pittman Rimley has four or five places
scattered around town. I think he's the only one who's
been able to make a success out of combining a lunch
trade, swinging into an afternoon pickup business, and
then operating as a night club. He rotates his floor shows
and seems to do a very good business.”
“What do you mean a pickup business?” Bertha asked.
“Afternoons,” she said. “Women gravitate into these
Rendezvous joints for a cocktail and there's dance music
and pickups."
"Crail has money?" I asked.
She said evasively, "I think the Venetian blind busi-
ness has been very profitable.”
"He has money?”
"Yes—quite a bit.”
"And just what do you want us to do?".
She said, “I want you to find out what's back of it all.
She's rotten to the core, and I want you to find out what's
going on.”
Bertha Cool said, “All that's going to cost you money.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred dollars for a starter.”
Georgia Rushe was coldly businesslike. “To just what
does that two hundred dollars entitle me, Mrs. Cool?”
Bertha hesitated.


16
GIVE 'EM THE AX
I said, “It entitles you to ten days work.”.
“Less expenses,” Bertha snapped, hastily.
“What can you find out in that time?” Georgia Rushe
asked.
Bertha said crisply, “We're detectives, not clairvoyants.
How the hell should I know?"
That seemed to be the right answer. Georgia Rushe
opened her purse. “No one must know that I'm back of
this,” she said.
Bertha Cool nodded. Her greedy little eyes fastened
on the purse.
Georgia Rushe took out a checkbook.
Bertha fairly shoved the fountain pen into her hand.


Chapter Two
BERTHA HELPED HERSELF to a cigarette, şaid to me, "Well,
that's the way it goes."
"It's okay."
“Just a little piddling case for a woman who's eating
her heart out, and has an exaggerated idea of what a
detective agency can do."
“It's okay, Bertha.”
"When you went away,” Bertha said, "you'd got us
into the big time stuff. Damned if I know how you did
it. You could take even the most insignificant little case,
and before you got done it developed into big business
and big money. Then after you left, I could take what
seemed to be the biggest case and it would peter out into
little business and little money. I did all right for a
while. Two or three cases went just as though you'd been
here. And then the bottom dropped out and it's been a
whole procession of little stuff like this."
"Don't bother about it. I'll take over on this.”
“What are you going to do?”
"Consult the Bureau of Vital Statistics, get whatever
dope is available on the present Mrs. Crail, find out
where she lived before she was married, make an investi-
gation there, find out where she lived before that, try to
find out why her sudden interest in the Stanberry Build-
ing."
"That's a lot of leg work," Bertha said.
17


GIVE 'EM THE AX
19
"I wanted a little information about a woman who
used to live here.”
“What about her?”
"A Miss ... Miss ..." I made a great show of
having forgotten the name and fished a notebook from
my pocket, ran my finger down the page and said, “A
Miss Latham ... No, wait a minute. That isn't the
one." I ran my finger down a few more lines and said,
“Begley, Irma Begley.”
“She used to live here. She got married.”
“Do you know whom she married?”.
“No, I don't. I think it was a pretty good match. She
was rather uncommunicative.”
"You were manager at the time?"
“That's right.”
“Know anything about her—who her folks were?
Where she came from, or anything?”
"No. She didn't even leave a forwarding address when
she left. I found out afterwards she'd gone down to the
post office and taken care of that herself.”
“Isn't that rather unusual?”
“Yes. They usually leave a forwarding address in case
anything happens to come here."
I said, “Well, how about when she rented the apart-
ment in the first place, she must have given some refer-
ences?"
"Oh, yes.”
“Suppose we could look them up?”.
“Just what was your name?" she asked.
I smiled at her and said, “You won't believe me.”
"Why not?”
"It's Smith.”
"I don't.”


20
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“People seldom do."
“Won't you come in, Mr. Smith?”
“Thanks.”
The manager's apartment was on the ground floor and
was overfurnished and smelled of sandalwood. A Chi-
nese incense burner on a table in the center of the room
was sending out wisps of white smoke. There were too
many pictures on the wall, too many chairs, too many
tables and too many nicknacks.
“Won't you sit down, Mr. Smith?”
“Thanks.” I offered her a cigarette. She took one and
I held a match.
"Just why did you want to know?"
I looked blank.
“I mean what's the object in getting the information?”
I said, "Shucks, I don't know. They never tell me.
Just hand me a list of names, tell me to find out certain
things. It may be she's applied for an insurance policy,
or it might be an old bill, or perhaps she's inherited
money and they're trying to locate her to close up an
estate.”
"She was a very nice girl," the manager said.
I blew out cigarette smoke and said, “Uh huh.”
“Very quiet as I remember her, and kept very much
to herself. No wild parties.”
“That's nice."
"She wasn't the type that would have any unpaid
bills.”
“Then it can't be an unpaid bill,” I said.
“But you don't know what it is?".
“That's right. Someone wants to know, that's all.
That's my business, investigating. I get a dollar a name
and furnish my own expenses.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
21
She said, “I have a few people I'd like to know about.”
“Give me their names. I'd have to turn them in
through the office. I don't know just how the office
handles it. There's some charge for a retainer. You have
to guarantee so much business in the course of a month
or a year or whatever it is, and, of course, they charge
you more than a dollar. A dollar is my cut.”
She said, “Well when you put it that way, it's not
worth much to me to find them, because you can't get
blood out of a turnip. Let me see what I can find.”
She opened a drawer in a flat-topped desk, pulled out
some cards and started riffling through a classification
marked “Ba-Be.”
After a moment, she found the card she wanted,
pulled it out, said, “That's right, Irma Begley. She lived
at 392 South Fremington Street before she came here.”
“Give any references?" I asked.
“Two. Benjamin C. Cosgate, and Frank L. Glimson.”
"Any address?”
The manager said, “It's a downtown business address
—and that's all the information we have about her ex-
cept that she paid her rent promptly, and was listed as a
good tenant.”
“All right, that's all I need,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
The manager said, “If you can get enough of them in
a day, you should be able to make money at that.”
I said, “You have to keep jumping around.”
“Yes, I hadn't thought of that. Paying your own ex-
penses makes a difference. How much information do
you have to get?"
"Oh, enough to let them know whatever it is they
want to find out. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's
quite a job. Most of the time you can count on an aver-


22
GIVE 'EM THE AX
age of forty-five minutes to a name. Well, I've got a'
couple of more names in the neighborhood—try to
group them all together.”
“I hope you find what you want, Mr. Smith,” she said.
“Thank you," I told her.
A telephone book in a near-by drugstore showed me
that Benjamin C. Cosgate was a lawyer, Frank Glimson
was a lawyer, and there was a firm of Cosgate & Glimson.
I started to call them, then thought better of it and
postponed it until after I'd driven once more to the
courthouse.
This time I looked at the Register of Actions, Plain-
tiff, and read through so many names that I all but
passed up the one I wanted, but there it was: Irma Beg-
ley versus Philip E. Cullingdon. I made a note of the
number of the case, told the deputy clerk I was a lawyer
looking up some of the old records and asked for files
on the case.
There was a neat little complaint, a demurrer, an
amended complaint, a demurrer to an amended com-
plaint, and a notice of dismissal. Attorneys for the plain-
tiff were Cosgate & Glimson.
I skimmed through the complaint. It stated that on
the fifth day of April, 1942 while the plaintiff had been
driving and operating a motor vehicle in a careful and
law-abiding manner, the defendant, without due or any
regard for the safety of other vehicles or the occupants
thereof, had so carelessly, negligently, and unlawfully
driven and operated his automobile over, along, and
upon a certain public highway known as Wilshire Boule-
vard, that he had caused his said automobile to collide
with the automobile driven by the plaintiff; that as a
result of said collision, plaintiff had sustained a perma-
nent injury of the spine which had necessitated the pay-


Chapter Three
AT ONE TIME the Rendezvous idea had swept the coun-
try like a plague. Night clubs built up a fine afternoon
trade, catering to women between thirty and forty who
wanted romance. Some of these women were grass
widows on the make. Some of them were married women
who kidded their husbands and, perhaps themselves, pre-
tending they'd been shopping and had “just dropped in"
for a drink.
It was a nice racket for the night clubs who found
themselves suddenly catering to a very profitable after-
noon business—for a while. Then the grief began to
catch up. The men who hung around didn't do the
places any good. The general nature of the setup began
to leak out, and the first thing these places knew, they
were writing the answers in red ink.
Most of them began to put drastic regulations into
effect—no unescorted women, no table hopping.
The Rimley Rendezvous kept open and, as nearly as
I could tell, there were no restrictions, which was inter-
esting.
Because the Stanberry Building was on the edge of a
congested business district, it was hard to find a parking
place. There was a parking lot in the middle of the next
block, and I was heading for it when I got a break. A
taxi moved out from in front of the entrance to the
24


GIVE 'EM THE AX
25
building and I spotted a space between the painted
strip of curb which marked the loading zone and taxi
stand and a big Cadillac parked just behind. There was
barely room to squeeze in. I didn't intend to stay long
and acted on the assumption the big Cad might belong
to one of the big shots. I squeezed the agency car up
pretty close. After I got out, I saw it was even closer than
I'd thought, but I left it there anyway.
The elevator shot me up to the Rimley Rendezvous
a faint hint of heady perfume, deep carpets, subdued
lights, dreamy music, swift-moving, solicitous waiters
an atmosphere of clandestine class, coupled with se-
curity and stability.
A swell setup.
I had a Scotch and soda. It was served in an amber
glass so I couldn't see how pale the drink was. Even if
Pittman Rimley was paying twenty dollars a bottle for
his Scotch, he could still make money at the prices he
was charging and the amount of liquor he was putting
in the drinks.
The place had a marvelous orchestra, quite a few
women and a sprinkling of men—the fat-faced executive
type who had stayed over from the merchant's lunch, the
poker-faced guys with long sideburns who kept their
stomachs lean and hard, and tried to look like movie
actors. It never had been much of a spot for the younger
type. That class couldn't stand the tariff.
A voice came drifting over my shoulder. The accents
were those of routine seduction, “Cigars—cigarettes?"
I turned around and got an eyeful. She was about
twenty-three with a skirt that stopped two or three
inches before it reached her knees, a fancy white apron,
a blouse with wide, flaring collar and a low V in front.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
27
know her, that it's important. Wait until they go to get
her and then hang up.”
"Anything else?”
"Nope. That's all.”
“Any messages you want to leave for Bertha?”
“Tell her I'm down here."
“Okay, Donald. Good to hear your voice.”
“Good to hear yours. Good-by.”
I went back to my table. The waiter was hovering
around as though I hadn't been drinking my liquor fast
enough. So I finished it up and ordered another.
The drink came just about at the expiration of the
seven minutes.
I started looking around. The head waiter summoned
one of the underlings, said something to him and the
man nodded, moved very unobtrusively over to a table
where a woman and a man were sitting. He said some-
thing to the woman and she got up and excused herself.
At first I couldn't believe it. Then I saw from the way
she walked as she headed toward the telephone that she
must be the one I wanted. There was a little one-sided
hitch to the walk. It wasn't a limp, it was simply a vague
stiffness as the back got in just one position.
But she wasn't anything like Georgia Rushe had de-
scribed her. She wasn't any anemic little milksop. She
was all woman, and she knew it. The cardigan suit was
smooth over well-shaped hips; her chin was tilted at a
saucy angle, and there was pert independence in the way
she carried her head. When she walked, men turned to
look at her and, in that environment, that alone spoke
volumes.
While she was out at the telephone I looked at the
man who was with her. He was a tall drink of water with


GIVE 'EM THE AX
all the robust sex magnetism of a marble slab. He looked
like a bank cashier with a passion for exact figures on
paper. You couldn't picture him as getting enthusiastic
over any others. You felt certain his fingers knew their
way around on the keyboard of an adding machine. He
was somewhere around fifty with the expression amateur
theatrical players like to assume when they're taking the
part of an English butler.
A couple of minutes later, Mrs. Crail returned to the
table. The man who was with her arose and seated her
with punctilious, unsmiling formality. Then he settled
back in his seat and they talked in low tones.
For all of the expression on their faces, they might
have been discussing the National debt.
I left the table once more, sauntered to the telephone
booth and again called the office. Elsie Brand told me
Bertha Cool was in now, and I told her to put Bertha on
the line.
“Hello,” Bertha said. “Where the hell are you, lover?”
“Down at the Rimley Rendezvous.”
“Are you still there?"
“Yes.”
"That's a hell of a way to work on a case,” she said
angrily, “sitting at a table guzzling drinks on the ex-
pense account and ..."
"Shut up,” I interrupted, “and get this straight. Mrs.
Ellery Crail is here with a man. I don't think they're
going to stay long. I'd like to know who the man is. Sup-
pose you stick around the outside, pick them up when
they come out and tail them.”
"You've got the agency car."
“You have your personal car, haven't you?”
“Well . . . Yes.'


GIVE EMTHE AX
29
I said, “Mrs. Crail is about twenty-eight. She weighs a
hundred and twelve pounds. She's five foot four and a
half inches tall, is dressed in a black dressy suit, a large
black straw hat with a red doodad on it, red reptile shoes
and a red bag.
"The man who's with her is fifty-two, five feet ten, a
hundred and seventy-one to a hundred and seventy-five,
double-breasted bluish gray suit with a white pin stripe,
long nose, long jaw, an expressionless map, dark blue
necktie with a red pattern in big S curves, edged with
white, sandy complexion, eyes either gray or light blue,
I can't tell which at this distance.
"You can pick up the woman by watching her walk.
She swings her legs from the hips. But when she swings
her right leg, the left side of her back has just a slight
hitch. You'll have to watch sharp to notice it, but if you
watch sharp, you will notice it.”
Bertha, somewhat mollified, said, “Well, that's all
right, if you've got them spotted. I'm glad you've accom-
plished something. I'll come right down. You don't
think I'd better go inside the club and wait?"
“I wouldn't. I'd wait on the outside. It might be a
little too noticeable if you got up and went out at the
same time they did. They may be just a little suspicious
after that telephone call that didn't materialize.”
"All right, lover, I'll take care of it."
I went back and sat down at the table. The waiter, I
noticed, was watching me rather closely.
“Cigars-cigarettes?”
The voice with the smile was right over my shoulder.
I turned and looked at the legs. "Hello,” I said. “I just
bought a pack of cigarettes. Remember? I don't use them
up that fast.”


30
GIVE 'EM THE AX
She leaned slightly forward, said in a low voice, "Buy
another one. You seem to enjoy the scenery, and I want
to talk with you."
I started to make a wisecrack then caught the expres-
sion in her eyes and reached in my pocket for another
quarter. “It's a fair exchange,” I said.
She placed a package of cigarettes on the table, leaned
forward to take my quarter and said, “Get out!”
I raised my eyebrows at her.
She smiled tolerantly as though I'd made some verbal
pass, and tore off the corner of the cigarette package for
me. She took out one and extended it to me. “You're
Donald Lam, aren't you?” she asked, striking a match.
This time I didn't need to raise my eyebrows. They
popped up by themselves. "How," I asked, "do you
know?"
“Don't be silly. Use your head. You've got one."
She leaned forward and applied the match to the end
of the cigarette. “Leaving?"
"No."
She said, “Then for Heaven's sake, circulatel Pick up
some of these women who are looking you over with
purring approval. The way it is now, you stand out like
a sore thumb."
That was an idea. I realized suddenly that unattached
men didn't drop into the Rendezvous simply to sip a
highball. But I was still worried about how the cigarette
girl had learned my name. I'd been in the Southwest Paid
cific for some eighteen months now. And before that I
didn't think I was particularly well known as a figure
about town.
The dance orchestra started making noise. I picked
a young vivacious looking brunette a couple of tables


GIVE 'EM THE AX
31
over. She seemed just a little too demure as I walked
over.
“Dance?" I asked.
She looked up at me with a well-simulated expression
of haughty surprise. “Why ... aren't you being just a
little abrupt?”
I met her eyes and said, “Yes."
That brought a laugh. “I like abrupt men,” she said,
and arose to extend her arms to me.
We danced half around the floor without saying any-
thing. Then she said, "Somehow you aren't the type I
had pictured.”
"What do you mean by that?"
“The way you sat over there frowning into your drink
-you looked melancholy and belligerent.”
"Perhaps it was belligerency.”
"No. I was wondering about you. Oh, I suppose I've
given myself away that I was watching you."
"Any harm in watching me?"
"One isn't supposed to admit it.”
I didn't say anything and we danced some more. Then
she laughed and said, “I was right all the time. You are
belligerent and melancholy.”
I said, “Let's talk about you for a while. Who are the
two women with you?"
"Friends."
"You surprise me.”
She said, “The three of us go around together quite a
lot. We have something in common.”
“Married?"
"Well. . . . No, not that.”
“Divorced?"
“Yes.”


32
GIVE 'EM THE AX
We danced some more. She said, "You don't come
here very often, do you?"
"No."
“I haven't seen you. I wondered—something about
you. You don't look like the sort of man who does come
here. You're hard and-well, there's nothing aimless or
smirking about you.”
“What about the men who come here?” I asked.
"Most of them are no good. Occasionally you see
someone who is-interesting. It's once in a blue moon.
There, I'm giving myself away again.”
“You like to dance, and occasionally you find a part-
ner here, is that right?".
"That's about it.”
The music stopped. I took her back to her table. She
said coyly, “If I knew your name, I'd present you to my
friends."
“I never tell my name.”
"Why?"
“I'm not the sort you'd like to present to your
friends."
“Why?"
I said, “I'm married. I have three children who are
starving. I can't support my wife because I spend my
afternoons in places like this. Time and again I've made
up my mind to cut it out. But I just can't do it. I'll be
walking along the street and see a beautiful face and
figure like yours headed into one of these joints, and
immediately I go plunging in after it, spending my last
cent just for the pleasure of talking with you, holding
you in my arms while I dance around a crowded floor.”
We were at the table now. She laughed and said,
“Girls, I think his name is John Smith. He has the
most delightful line."


GIVE 'EM THE AX
33
Two new feminine faces looked up at me with amused
interest.
The head waiter stood close to me. "I beg your par-
don, sir.”
"What rule have I violated now?" I asked.
“Nothing, sir. But the manager asked me to present
his compliments and ask you to join him for a few mo-
ments. It's quite important."
"Well, I like that!" the girl with whom I had been
dancing said.
The waiter remained silently insistent at my elbow.
I smiled at the three young women, said, “After all,
I can be back, you know," and then followed my guide
out through the main doorway, through a curtained
doorway into an anteroom, then through a door marked
Private which the head waiter opened without knock-
ing.
He said, “Mr. Lam for you, sir," and retired, pulling
the massive door closed behind him.
The man who was seated behind the big polished wal-
nut desk looked up from some papers and his eyes hit
mine; hard, dark, restless eyes that threw out the mag-
netic fire of a dynamic personality.
A smile softened the heavy mouth. The man pushed
back the swivel chair and came around the desk.
He wasn't particularly tall and he wasn't fat, but he
was thick all the way through, thick-chested, thick-
necked, and a body that went straight up and down, with
few curves. A tailor had done a marvelous job on him,
and there was a well-groomed appearance about his hair
that indicated a barber had spent quite a bit of time in
painstaking toil. Every hair was smoothly tailored into
place.


34
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“How are you, Mr. Lam? My name is Rimley. I own
the place.”
I shook hands.
He sized me up thoughtfully, said, “Sit down. Care
for a cigar?”
“No thanks. I smoke cigarettes."
He opened a humidor on his desk. “I think you'll find
your favorite brand here. I ..."
"No thanks, I have a package in my pocket I want to
get smoked up."
I fumbled in my pocket. It occurred to me that it
might be very bad business, at the moment, to let him
know about that second pack of cigarettes.
"Well, do sit down and make yourself comfortable.
Care for a drink?”
“I've just had two of your Scotch and sodas."
He laughed and said, “I mean a real drink.”
“Scotch and soda," I said.
He picked up a desk telephone, flipped over a switch
and said, “Two Scotch and sodas, my private brand.”
He clicked the switch off and said, “Just back from the
South Pacific, I understand.”
“May I ask how you know?"
He made arches out of his eyebrows, “Why not?”
There wasn't any answer, so I went back to first prin-
ciples. “I've been away for quite a while. While you were
in business when I left, I don't think I'd ever been out
here. It just happened I hadn't ever dropped in.”
“That is why your present visit interests me.”
“But how did it happen you knew who I was?"
He said, “Come, come, Mr. Lam. We're realists, both
of us.”
“Suppose we are?"


GIVE 'EM THE AX
35
"Put yourself in my position. In order to run a place
like this, one has to be on the black side of the ledger.
One has to make money."
“Naturally.”
"In order to make money, one has to put himself in
the position of his customers. What do they come here
for? What do they want? What do they seek? What do
they get? What do they pay for? Obviously, Mr. Lam, if
you'd put yourself in my place, and remember I am
trying to think in terms of customers' wants, you will
readily understand that the unannounced visit of a pri-
vate detective is—well, it's something to be reported to
me.”
“Yes, I can see that. Do you know all the private de-
tectives?"
"Certainly not. But I know the ones who are smart
enough to be dangerous.”
“How do you segregate?”
“I don't. They segregate themselves.”
"I'm afraid I don't follow you."
“Being a private detective is like following any other
profession. The incompetent ones have a tendency to
weed themselves out. The ones who can just get by re-
main unknown, with only a nominal business. The ones
who have what it takes begin to attract attention. They
begin to get more and more business. People begin to
talk about them. I know all of those.”
“You flatter me.”
"Don't be so damn modest. Before you enlisted in the
Navy, you'd made quite a name for yourself, a little guy
with guts-guts and brains; a daring operator who
played a no limit game and always brought his clients
out on top. I watched your career with a great deal of


36
GIVE 'EM THE AX
interest. I thought I might need you myself, sometime.
"And then, of course, there's your partner, Bertha
Cool. Rather an outstanding figure.”
“You've known her for some time?”
“Frankly, I never bothered with her until you teamed
up with her and organized that partnership. Bertha was
on my list, of course—one of the few agencies that would
take domestic-relations cases. But nothing that needed to
occupy my personal attention. She handled routine stuff
in a routine way. Then you came along and you began
handling routine stuff in a very unconventional manner.
The cases you handled ceased to be routine.”
"You know a lot about me,” I said.
He nodded calmly, matter-of-factly as one agreeing
with an obvious fact. “I know a hell of a lot about you.”
“And why am I honored this afternoon?"
Knuckles tapped on the door.
“Come in,” Rimley called.
I noticed a slight movement of the right side of his
body, heard a muffled click. The door opened and a
waiter came in bearing a tray with glasses, a bottle of
Johnny Walker Black Label, a container filled with ice
cubes, and a big quart bottle of siphon water.
The waiter put the tray down on the corner of the
desk, walked out without a word. Rimley poured two
big slugs of whisky into the glasses, dropped in ice cubes,
squirted in soda, handed me a glass.
“Regards,” he said.
“Regards," I replied.
We took a sip from the glasses. Rimley swung around
in the chair, smiled and said, “I hope I don't have to dot
the i's and cross the t's.”
“You mean that you don't want me here?”
"Definitely.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
37
could, anythiting the
"Is there,” I asked, "anything you can do about it?"
His eyes were hard now, but his lips were still smiling.
“Quite a bit,” he said.
"I'm interested. Barring the minor subterfuges of tell-
ing me the tables are all engaged, or instructing the
waiters not to wait on me, I don't see anything very
subtle or very effective that you could do.”
He smiled and said, “Have you ever noticed, Lam,
that the persons who talk about what they're going to do
very seldom do what they say they're going to do?”
I nodded.
“I never talk about what I'm going to do. I do it. And,
above all, I wouldn't be so foolish as to tell you what I
was going to do to keep you from being a regular visitor.
Working on some particular case?"
I smiled and said, “Just dropped in because I wanted
a little social life.”
"Obviously,” Rimley said smiling, "you can appreci-
ate the reactions of my customers if someone should
point you out and say, 'That's Donald Lam of the firm of
Cool & Lam, private detectives. They're one of the firms
of diners who would very suddenly remember they had
engagements elsewhere.”
I said, “I hadn't exactly thought of that particular
angle.”
"Suppose you think of it now, then."
We sipped our drinks.
"I'm thinking of it,” I said.
I wondered if Mrs. Crail and her escort had left the
place yet, and if Bertha Cool was on the job. I also
wondered if Pittman Rimley's aversion to private de-
tectives might not be due, at least in part, to the fact that
he may have had some idea that a sale of the building in


38
GIVE 'EM THE AX
in the event in case have a chaus in process of
which his club was located was in process of negotiation
—and did his lease have a clause that changed its terms
in the event the premises were sold?
Rimley said, “Well, don't let it get you down, Lam.
How about freshening up your drink?"
He reached across for my glass with his left hand, held
the bottle of Scotch over the glass, gurgled in amber
liquid and squirted in siphon water.
I don't know just how it happened that my eyes
dropped down for a casual glance at the very expensive
wrist chronometer with its sweep-second hand circling
the dial, but they did. It was a big watch and only a big
man could have worn it, but it was a watch that could
keep time to a split fraction of a second.
The watch said four-thirty.
I did mental arithmetic. It couldn't have been that
late. I wanted to look at my own watch, but somehow it
didn't seem to be just the thing to do.
Rimley freshened up his own drink, smiled at me
across the brim of the glass. “After all,” he said, "just so
we understand each other."
“Certainly,” I told him. “That's all that's necessary.”
I looked around the office very casually.
There was a clock on top of a filing case, one of those
nautical affairs mounted inside the spokes of a bronze
wheel.
I waited until Rimley was looking at something else
then flashed my eyes back for a quick glance at the face
of the clock.
The time was four thirty-two.
I said, “You must have your problems running a place
of this kind.”
"It isn't all gravy," he admitted.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
39
“I suppose you get to know your customers pretty
well?"
“The regular ones, yes.”
“Have trouble getting liquor?”
"Some.”
“I've got a client who wants to bring suit against some
people for an automobile accident. Know any good
lawyers?"
“Is that the case that you're working on now?"
I simply smiled.
"Pardon me,” he said.
“Know any good automobile accident lawyers?" I
asked.
"No."
"Guess there are some pretty good ones around.”
“There should be.”
I said, “Well, it's nice liquor and I've enjoyed my visit.
I suppose you'd prefer I didn't go back to my table.”
"Go right ahead, Lam. Make yourself at home. Enjoy
yourself. Relax. Have a good time. And when you leave,
don't bother about the check. Just get up and walk out.
There won't be any check. But don't ... come ...
back!”
He'd been holding me with liquor and talk. Now both
the liquor and the talk had dried up. It was quite all
right for me to go back to the Rendezvous—now. Why
had he been so anxious to get me out of the place a few
minutes before and was so willing to let me return now?
Could it be because Mrs. Ellery Crail and her escort had
left?
I tossed off the last of the drink, got up and extended
my hand. “Nice meeting you,” I said.
“Thank you. Make yourself at home, Lam. Have a


40
GIVE 'EM THE AX
good time, and I wish you every success with whatever
case you happen to be working on. Just remember to
work on it some place other than here."
He followed me to the door and bowed me out.
I went back to the main dining room.
I knew I didn't have to look. I did it just to make
sure.
The table where Mrs. Ellery Crail had sat with the
unsmiling individual in the double-breasted gray suit
was vacant.
I looked at my watch.
The time was three forty-five.
I didn't see my cigarette girl, so I asked a waiter
casually, “Cigarette girl here?"
“Yes, sir, just a moment.”
A girl came toward me, legs, apron, tray, but it wasn't
the same one.
I bought a package of cigarettes. “Where's the other
girl?"
"Billy? Oh, she went home an hour early today. I'm
filling in for her.”
My girl friends over at the other table kept looking in
my direction. I went over there. I didn't dance but just
chatted for a minute. I was, I told them, being arrested
for nonsupport of my wife and seven children. I was
going to have to arrange bail, and could they do some-
thing to keep me out of jail?
I saw they were puzzled, and interested. And the
waiter came along again. Mr. Rimley's compliments and
would my friends care to join me in a drink on the
house, some champagne, perhaps, or some of that Black
Label Johnny Walker?
The young women stared as though they were seeing


GIVE 'EM THE AX
41
and hearing things. “My God,” one of them said, "he
must be the Duke of Windsor!”
They all laughed.
I smiled at the waiter. “My thanks to Mr. Rimley," I
said. "Tell him that I enjoyed his hospitality, but I
never drink more than I can hold comfortably. However,
my friends will probably accept a drink on the house.
I'm leaving.”
"Yes, sir. There's no check, sir. Mr. Rimley's taken
care of that.”
"So I understand. But I suppose a tip would be in
order?"
He seemed positively embarrassed. “If you don't
mind, sir, I'd rather not.”
I nodded, turned and bowed to the three most
startled women in the city. “A business appointment,” I
assured them gravely, and walked out of the main dining
room.
I recovered my hat from the hat-check girl and she was
perfectly willing to accept the two-bits I handed to her.
I took the elevator to the ground floor, tried to be
nonchalant as I walked out and headed for the agency
car. I'd misjudged the owner of the big Cad. Not only
had he gone out before I did, but he'd calmly shoved his
car into low gear and pushed the agency car forward so
that it was right in front of the entrance of the building.
A cab had moved into the place where the Cad had been
parked.
A cab driver walked over to me. He had a broken nose
and a cauliflower ear. "Your car?"
“Yes.”
“Get it the hell out of here."
"Someone shoved it out here. I didn't leave it here."


42
GIVE 'EM THE AX i
He spat insultingly. “I've heard that one so many
times it put this tin ear on me. I had to let a passenger
out of my car way out from the curb. It cost me a dollar
tip."
He held out his hand.
I regarded the outstretched hand gravely. “You mean
you lost a dollar?”
"Yeah.”
I reached for the door of the agency car. "I'm sorry,
Buddy. I'm going to make it up to you.”
“That's the general idea."
I said, “I'm from the income tax department. Take it
off your return and tell the department I said it was
okay.” I started the motor.
He lunged toward me, met my eyes, hesitated.
I slammed the car door shut and drove off.
It was four twenty-three when I got to the office.


Chapter Four
BERTHA CAME IN just before five. Her cheeks were
flushed, her eyes glittering. She jerked the door open,
strode into the office, took one look at me and said all in
one breath, “Donald, why the hell don't you go in the
private office and read the newspaper?”
"I've seen the newspaper.”
"Well, sit in there and twiddle your thumbs then
Don't sit out here. It takes Elsie's mind off her business.”
"She's been typing right along," I said. “Anyhow it's
quitting time.”
"Well,” Bertha snapped, “it takes her mind off her
business just the same. I'll bet she's been making mis-
takes."
She strode over to the typewriter, looked at the last
two pages Elsie had done and pointed an accusing finger.
“There you are," she said. “An erasure, another erasure.
Here's a third one."
"What of it?” I said. “Rubber companies pay divi-
dends out of selling typewriter erasers. They know that
stenographers are going to make mistakes once in a
while. Three mistakes on four pages isn't too much."
"Humph! That's what you think. Look at these."
She ran through several other pages. There wasn't so
much as the evidence of an erasure on them.
I looked at Elsie. Her cheeks were flaming red.
43


44
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“A fine detective you are," Bertha grunted. “Come
in.”
I started to say something but Elsie's eyes were plead-
ing with me not to, so I followed Bertha into the private
office.
"A hell of a mess," Bertha said angrily, slamming back
the cover of the humidor and helping herself to a ciga-
rette.
“What's the matter, did you miss them?”.
“No, I picked them up all right. She's Mrs. Ellery
Crail and she's driving a Buick Roadmaster that's regis-
tered in her name. The man with her is Rufus Stan-
berry. He's the man who owns the building. He lives at
3271 Fulrose Avenue in the Fulrose Apartments. That's
a swanky place with lots of liveried servants and a lot of
gingerbread on the lobby entrance. He drives a big
Cadillac.”
I said, “It looks to me as though you've done a pretty
good job, Bertha. What's the trouble?”.
"Trouble!” Bertha all but screamed at me. “Of all the
dirty damn messes!”
“Go ahead, unburden yourself.”
Bertha, controlled herself with an effort, said angrily,
"God knows what it is. I guess it's a knack you have
—something like an evil eye. Whenever you start in on a
case, it never runs smooth. Something always goes sour.”
I fished out one of the packages of cigarettes I had
bought from the girl at the Rendezvous and shook out
a cigarette.
Bertha's hand jerked toward the humidor on the desk.
“Use one of these, lover, during office hours. I charge
them to office expense.”
I conveyed my cigarette to my lips, put the pack


GIVE 'EM THE AX
45
back in the pocket, struck a match and said, “This is on
the expense account, too."
“How come?"
"I bought it from the girl at the Rendezvous."
Bertha started to say something then thought better
of it.
I took all three packages from my pocket, placed
them on the desk.
Bertha glowered. “What the hell's the idea?”
“Nothing," I said casually. “They're my brand, and
she had pretty legs, that's all.”
Bertha all but choked.
“Go ahead,” I invited.
“Damn you,” Bertha said, “I don't know whether you
realize how much you irritate me.”
I met her angry eyes. “Want to dissolve the partner-
ship?"
"No!” she yelled.
“Then shut up,” I said.
We locked eyes for a minute, then I gave her a chance
for a diversion. “What happened when you shadowed
Mrs. Crail?”
Bertha took a deep drag at the cigarette, exhaled, said,
"I sat out in front of the Rendezvous. I've been there
perhaps five minutes when the door opens and these
two people come out. You've described them to a tee.
It's like shooting fish in a rain barrel.
“They stand in front of the building for a minute,
then separate. The man looks at a wrist watch, then gets
in a big Cadillac. The woman goes tripping down the
street. I have to make up my mind. I pick the man.”
I nodded. “The man was the one I wanted.”
Bertha's eyes glittered at me. “You'd jammed the


46
GIVE 'EM THE AX
agency car right up against this big Cad, and he just
shoved it the hell out of there without even trying to
inch his way out. Made me so damn mad I all but gave
him a piece of my mind.”
I didn't say anything.
"You shouldn't have left the agency car there. You'd
squeezed right up against this big Cad.”
I took a drag at the cigarette.
"Well," Bertha went on, “I tailed this Cad. He drove
pretty fast to Garden Vista Boulevard. Then he went
down the boulevard and damned if there wasn't some
car tagging along behind me! I took a gander, and it was
Mrs. Crail following this Cad.”
I raised my eyebrows.
"Well, I pulled off to the right to see whether she was
trying to tail me, and she slowed right down, waiting for
some other car to move in. She didn't want to get close
enough to the Cad so the driver could see her.”
“So what did you do?” I asked.
"Well I was in something of a spot, so I swung clean
over to the right hand traffic lane and trailed along in
the blind spot of the Cad and to one side of Mrs. Crail's
Buick.”
“Good stuff,” I said, "unless they happen to turn left."
"Well,” Bertha snapped, "he turned left.'
“And you lost him?"
Bertha said, "Shut up! I'm not that dumb!".
She puffed angrily at the cigarette for a moment, then
said, "When I saw he was going to turn left, I slowed for
the car that was directly behind me to go on past, then
I was going to cut across to the left-hand lane of traffic.
The car behind me was driven by a buck-toothed little
bitch who didn't like the way I was driving. She slowed
when I slowed, then suddenly pulled up abreast of me


GIVE 'EM THE AX
47
and yelled at me, something about why didn't I tell her I
was going to spend my two weeks vacation in that one
spot, then gave it the gun and shot on past.”
"And then?” I asked.
"And then,” Bertha said, “she looked to see where she
was going just a little too late. Another car coming from
the opposite direction was making a left-hand turn. I
don't think this trollop ever saw him until half a second
before the crash. Even then she might have put on the
brakes and saved herself, but she was going fast and she
tried to whip around the corner to the right and cut
inside of him. She didn't make it.”
“Anybody hurt?"
“The man wasn't, but the woman with him pulled a
faint. They blocked me absolutely and completely.
There was traffic behind, and this mass of wreckage right
square in front of me."
"And that was when Stanberry turned left?”
"Don't be silly," Bertha said. “Traffic at that inter-
section was all jammed to hell. It took a cop five minutes
to get it moving. And the buck-toothed trollop flagged
a taxicab that was swinging left into a parking station
and rode away just as calmly as you please, leaving her
goddamned car right in my road."
"Without getting the names of witnesses, or seeing
who ...?"
Bertha said, “She gave her name and address to the
driver of the other car, and she went over to Stanberry's
car, got his name and address, then went around to the
other cars. She even came to me. That was while traffic
was jammed. It was through her that I got Stanberry's
name and address.”
"How come?"
“Traffic was all snarled up. The traffic coming toward


48
GIVE 'EM THE AX
town on the boulevard kept inching past and you
couldn't bust into it with a chisel. Stanberry seemed
very decent about it. Of course the cars behind were
raising hell. The driver of the other car didn't go
around any, but he was writing down license numbers.
The buck-toothed biddy was turning on personality
and getting names and addresses. I saw she had Stan-
berry's name in her book so when she came to me, in-
stead of telling her to go to hell, I smiled sweetly at
her and told her I'd be glad to, but that she'd have
trouble spelling my name, and I'd better write it down
for her.”
"What did she do?"
“Did just what I hoped she'd do,” Bertha said. “She
gave me the little notebook and told me to write it down.
The name directly above mine was Rufus Stanberry,
3271 Fulrose Avenue. I fumbled around with her pencil
getting a good look at the names and addresses so I'd
remember them, and then I'wrote down a name for her.”
"Your own?” I asked.
Bertha glared at me. “Don't be a fool. I thought up
the damnedest Russian spelling I could think of and
gave the first address that popped into my head out in
Glendale, smiled sweetly at the pop-eyed little wench,
and handed it back to her. Then I started signaling for
the traffic behind me to get out of my way and tried
backing up."
“And then what?"
"And then,” she said, “I had to argue with some damn
bird behind me who couldn't back up because there
was somebody behind him who wouldn't back up. There
was a lot of tooting horns, and I lost my temper. I tried
to slam the car back and locked bumpers with some
dumb egg who had come up too close behind me, and


GIVE 'EM THE AX
49
this traffic cop came along and poured acid all over every-
body, and the damn horse-toothed cluck that had caused
the whole business gave a sweet smile to the traffic cop,
caught a taxi that was turning left into a hotel parking
stand over on Mantica and went away and left her heap
right in the street.”
“What did you do?"
Bertha said, “I finally stood on my damned bumper
while the other man lifted on his, and got the cars loose.
By that time ..."
“Did the woman get Mrs. Crail's name?"
"Sure. It was a couple of names above Stanberry's. I
saw it was there. I didn't bother with the address because
we have it. I was trying to find who the man was.”
"Did Stanberry see Mrs. Crail's name?”
"No. I'm the only one who wrote down my own name
in the book. She'd done the writing on the others, also
their license numbers. You can bet I didn't write my
license number for her."
“So what did you do when you got free of the other
car—come directly back here?"
“No. I figured she'd probably be taking Stanberry
home, so I beat it out to 3271 Fulrose Avenue. I cased
the joint and found it had a private switchboard, hung
around there for a while, and then when they didn't
show up, I decided to hell with it and came back to the
office. What did you do?"
I said, “I got kicked out of the Rimley Rendezvous.”
"Flirting with women?”
"No. The manager invited me in, bought me a drink
and told me to get out and stay out.”
"He's got a crust.”
"He's right,” I said. “He's running a joint where mar-
. ried women drop in for an afternoon pickup, where a


50. GIVE 'EM THE AX
few tired businessmen hang around after the merchant's
lunch to do a little casual dancing. A private detective
is as welcome there as a case of smallpox on an ocean
liner.”
"How did he know you were a private detective?”
“That,” I said, “is what gets me. He knew it. He knew
my name, knew everything about me, knew all about
you.”
“Did he know what case you were working on?” Ber-
tha asked.
. I said, “I'm wondering whether he put two and two
together; that call for Mrs. Crail, and then no one being
on the telephone; the fact that Mrs. Crail and Stan-
berry must have left at just about the time I was being
entertained in the office, and then all of a sudden Rim-
ley wanting to terminate the interview. That could have
been after he'd received a signal that Mrs. Crail had
made her getaway. I don't think it occurred to anybody
that you'd be waiting outside to pick them up, and ..."
The telephone rang.
Bertha Cool scooped up the receiver. I heard Elsie
Brand's voice coming through, then a click and another
voice. Bertha was all suave smiles. “Yes, Miss Rushe,"
she said, "we're making progress. Mrs. Crail was at the
Rimley Rendezvous this afternoon with Mr. Stanberry.”
There was silence for a while, then Bertha said, “I'll
let you talk with Donald. He's here."
She passed the phone over to me and said, “Miss
Rushe wants a report.”
I picked up the telephone. Georgia Rushe said, "Do
you have anything to add to Mrs. Cool's information,
Mr. Lam?"
"I think so," I said.
“What?"


GIVE 'EM THE AX
51
I said, “You say the present Mrs. Crail was formerly
Irma Begley, and she got acquainted with Ellery Crail
Through an automobile accident?”
“That's right.”
“Crail struck her car?".
“Yes.”
“She sustain personal injuries?”
“Yes. A spinal injury.”
"Think she really has it?”
"It seems to have been definitely authenticated by
X-rays.”
I said, “Well, she probably got it a year or so earlier
in another automobile accident. If we could prove that,
would that mean anything to you?”
“Would it!” she said ecstatically.
"Well, don't get excited about it, and don't try any
amateur detective work. Let us handle it.”
"You're sure about this other automobile accident?"
she asked.
"No, of course not. It's simply a lead.”
“How long will it take you to find out?”
I said, "It depends upon when I can locate the other
party to the accident, a man named Philip E. Culling-
don, and find out what he says.”
“How long will it take you to do that?”
“I don't know. I'm starting on it right away.”
She said, “I'll be waiting to hear from you, Mr. Lam.
You folks have my telephone number up there. Call me
at once in case you find anything. At once, please.”
“Okay, I'll let you know,” I said, and hung up.
All of a sudden Bertha began chuckling.
“Why the amusement?” I asked.
Bertha said, “I'm thinking of the way that little strum-
pet bawled me out when she went past, and then came


52
GIVE 'EM THE AX
back with that sickly sweet smile when she wanted me
to be a witness for her. And I'm also thinking of the
sweet time she'll have when she goes messing out around
the address I gave her in Glendale trying to find a
woman by the name of Boskovitche.”


54
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“I'm trying to find out something about Irma Beyley,
the plaintiff in the action.”
“What about her?"
“I want to find out about the nature and extent of her
injury.”
He said, “I guess she was injured all right. The doc-
tors say she was doctors on both sides. Somehow, I
never felt right about that case.".
"What about it?”
He scratched his head.
I did a little prompting. I said, "I notice from the
complaint that it was filed just about eleven months
after the date of the accident. Were any previous de-
mands made on you?”
Cullingdon said, "No. That's because the woman
didn't think she was injured at first, didn't think it was
anything serious. She had a little trouble, I guess, which
gradually got worse. She went to a doctor who gave her
some routine treatments and didn't think much of it;
then finally she went to a specialist who told her she'd
developed a complication from an injury she'd sustained
-an injury to the spine.”
"And that went back to the automobile accident?"
He nodded.
“So then she got some attorneys and sued you?”
Again he nodded.
“And your insurance company made a settlement?"
“That's right.”
"At your suggestion?”
"As a matter of fact,” Cullingdon said, "I was quite
a bit put out about that. I didn't want the insurance
company to settle it—not for any big sum.”
"Why not?”
"Well, I didn't think it was my fault.”


56
GIVE 'EM THE AX
surance people tomorrow and ask them if there's any
objection. If there isn't, I'll telephone your office and
let you know how much it was.”
“Will you tell me who carried your insurance?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I think I've told you
about all I want to-going at it blind this way.”
I said, “It's an interesting case.”
"What interests me,” Cullingdon said, “is what you're
investigating. Do you think there was something fishy
about it?"
I said, “Don't get that idea through your head. I might
be just checking up on her general financial responsi-
bility.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Lam,
unless she spent that money foolishly, she should be a
pretty good credit risk for anything within reason. She
got a mighty nice settlement out of the insurance com-
pany."
“Thanks," I told him. “You get in touch with them
tomorrow, and give our office a ring and tell us how
much it was in case there's no objection. Will you?”
"Okay, sure."
We shook hands. I went down to the agency car and
was just switching on the ignition when I saw another
car pull up to the curb behind me and stop.
The young woman who got out of that car was a
slender-waisted, smooth-hipped, easy moving package of
class. I looked at her twice. Then I recognized her.
She was the girl who sold cigars and cigarettes at the
Rimley Rendezvous.
I switched off the ignition on my car, lit a cigarette
and waited.
It was about a five minute wait.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
57
The girl came out, walking rapidly, pulled open the
door of her car and jumped in.
I got out of my car and raised my hat with something
of a flourish.
She waited while I walked over to stand beside the
door of her car. "You have to have a license for that,
you know," I said.
"For what?”
“For acting as private detective."
She flushed and said, “You certainly do get around,
don't you?”
"So so. Not half as much as I should have.”
"What do you mean by that?”
I said, “I'm a dumbbell when it comes to being a pri-
vate dick.”
“Looking at it from my angle, you don't seem to be
dumb.”
"I am.”
"Just why?”
I said, “The county clerk's office is closed now."
“Well?"
I said, “I thought I was smart. I checked back on the
Register of Actions, found where Irma Begley had been
the plaintiff in a suit to recover damages from an auto-
mobile accident and thought I'd done something smart.”
“Hadn't you?”
"No."
“Why?"
"Because I quit.”
"I don't get you.”
I said, “As soon as I found where she had been a
plaintiff in one suit, I made a note of the name of the
defendant, the attorneys for the plaintiff, and walked
out."


58
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"What should you have done?”
“Kept on looking.”
“You mean ...
“Of course I do." I grinned at her. “I'm hoping you
weren't as dumb.”
“Why?"
I said, “We can pool information and it will save me
going to the county clerk's office tomorrow.”
She said, “You're smart, aren't you?”
“I'm just telling you I'm dumb.”
She said, “There are four actions that I know of.”
“All under her own name?”
“Of course. She's not crazy that way.”
"How did she really get the spinal injury?”
"I don't know."
“How long have you been checking on it?”
"I... Some little time.”
"Why?"
She said, “You ask a lot of questions, don't you?"
I said, “Are you going to ride with me in my car? Am
I going to ride with you in your car? Or have I got to
follow you to see where you're going and what you do
next?"
She thought that over for a moment then said, “If
you're going any place with me, you're going in my car.”
I was careful to walk around the front of the car so
she couldn't start out without running over me, opened
the door on the right-hand side, slid into the seat behind
her, pulled the door shut, and said, “Okay, drive care-
fully because I'm always nervous with a strange driver.”
She hesitated for a matter of seconds, then accepted
the situation. “Do you,” she asked bitterly, “always get
what you start after?".


GIVE 'EM THE AX
59
I smiled and said, “You'll feel better if I say yes, won't
you?"
"I don't give a damn what you say,” she said angrily.
“That simplifies it,” I told her, and kept quiet.
After a while she said, “Well, what do you want, and
where are we going?”
"You're driving the car," I told her. “And I want to
know all the answers.”
"Such as what?”
"What are your hours at the Rendezvous?"
She jerked her face around in surprise. The car wob-
bled on the road. She snapped her attention back to the
car, said, “Well, of all the questions."
I didn't say anything.
She said, “I go on at twelve-fifteen. I'm supposed to be
dressed, or undressed, whichever you want to call it, and
on the floor by twelve-thifty. I work until four o'clock,
then I come back at eight-thirty and work until mid-
night.”
“You know Mrs. Ellery Crail?”
“Of course.”
“Why the ‘of course?'”
"She's there a great deal.”
"Do you know the man who was with her this after-
noon?"
“Yes.”
"Now then,” I said, “we begin to get into the big
money questions. Why were you interested in checking
up on Mrs. Crail's past?”
"Just as a matter of curiosity.”
“Your own curiosity, or the curiosity of someone else?”
“Mine.”
"Are you that curious about all people?”


60
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"No."
“Why this particular curiosity about Mrs. Crail?”
"I wondered about her-how she got her start.”
“We wouldn't, by any chance, be going around in
circles, would we?”
“What do you mean?"
“I asked you why you're checking up on her. It's curi-
osity. I asked you why the curiosity. You say it's because
you wondered how she got her start. All of those words
mean just about the same thing. Let's try some new
meanings for a while."
“I'm telling you the truth."
"Sure you are. What I'm interested in is the reason
back of the curiosity.”
She drove along for awhile apparently debating how
much to tell me, then abruptly said, “What did you
find out from Cullingdon?”
I said, "He wasn't suspicious when I called on him.
He was interested, and he was going to ring his insurance
people and find out if it was all right to tell me the
amount of the settlement. I suppose after you talked
with him he thought things were coming pretty fast.”
"He did.”
"What did he tell you?"
"He asked me questions about where I lived, and
what my name was, and why I wanted to know."
“And you lied to him?"
“Oh, certainly. I told him I was a newspaper woman
getting material for a feature story on certain types
of automobile accidents."
“And he asked you what paper?"
Her face colored. “Yes.”
“And then rang up the city desk?"
"How bright you are!"


GIVE 'IM THE AX
61
“Did he?"
"Yes.”
“And that was when you walked out?"
She nodded.
I said, "Well, the fat's in the fire now. If you hadn't
called there, it's a ten to one shot he'd have called me,
and told me the amount of ..."
“What were you after?" she asked.
“The amount of the settlement.”
She made a little deprecatory gesture. “The amount
of the settlement,” she said, "was seventeen thousand,
eight hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
It was my turn to look surprised. “What were you
after?”
“Copies of the X-rays of the injuries, of course.”
I thought for a minute then said, “I beg your pardon.”
“What do you mean?"
“I mean that I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so
dumb. I had just learned about those other cases, and
the full implications didn't dawn on me at once. I guess
my mind's a little sluggish-a little out of practice.”
“What'll the insurance company do?" she asked.
“They may start an independent check-up of their
own.”
There was savage triumph on her face. “That
wouldn't make it so bad,” she said, and then added, “if
they did it soon enough."
I said, “You still haven't accounted for your curi-
osity.”
“All right,” she said angrily, “in case you're so damn
dumb, which I don't think you are, Mrs. Crail was about
to purchase the Stanberry Building, buying out old
Rufus Stanberry."
I nodded.


62
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"Well,” she said, “use your head.”
“You mean there's something in Rimley's lease about
a purchase?"
"I believe so.”
"In case of a bona fide sale the lease is terminated?”
“Within ninety days.”
"And you're working for Rimley-getting-a line on
her so her hands will be tied?”
“In a way, yes."
“Just what's your connection with Rimley?"
"Is that a crack?"
"If you want to take it that way, yes."
She said, “Pittman Rimley is nothing to me, except in
a business way, in case it's any of your business, which
it isn't. But I own the hat-checking concession outright
as well as the cigar, cigarette and candy concessions.”
“Do you have to work at them yourself?" I asked.
"I don't have to for financial reasons, if that's what
you mean, but when you've got a business it's a lot better
if you keep on the job yourself.”
"You don't mind-the working conditions?”
"You mean the costume? Don't be silly. I have nice
legs. If other people like to look at them, it's all right
by me. I'm still the mistress of my own affections."
"You mean that after she bought the building, Rimley
would have to negotiate another lease and that would
enable him to either terminate your concessions or raise
the ante?”
“Something of that sort.”
“So Rimley knew about Irma Crail's past and gave you
the information and told you to look it up, is that right?”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “Let's not talk
about Rimley.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX 63
I let it go at that. “You say that Irma Crail had pulled
this stuff before?"
"Several times.”
"Where?”
"Once here, once in San Francisco, once in Nevada
and once in Nebraska.”
“Using her own name each time? You're sure of that?”
“Yes.'
"And how did you get this information?"
She shook her head.
I said, "All right, it's a reasonable inference that Rim-
ley gave it to you. Now, let's go on from there. What
was the name of this man you just called on?"
She frowned, “Covington.”
I shook my head. “Cullingdon.”
“Yes, that's right.”
"You didn't remember it very well, did you?”
"I'm not so good at remembering names.”
"In other words, you hadn't been familiar with the
name for a very long time.”
“What makes you say that?” -
"Otherwise you'd have remembered it.”
"I'm just not much good at names.”
"Speaking of names?" I said and waited.
"You want my professional name or my real name?"
"Your real name,” I said.
"I thought you would.”
“Do I get it?”
"No."
“What's your professional name?”
“Billy Prue.” She switched on the headlights.
“Nice name,” I said. “It doesn't mean anything."
“Do names have to?"
wrofessional han the headlighboining.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
65
After four or five minutes, she eased the car into the
curb. "It's been nice knowing you."
I said, “Don't bother, I'll wait.”
“You'll have to wait a long time."
"That's all right.”
“What are you waiting for?"
"Waiting to hear why you were so curious about Mrs.
Crail.”
"Well,” she blazed angrily. "Sit there and wait then!”
She flounced out of the car, walked around behind the
machine, took keys from her purse, latchkeyed the door
of an apartment house and went inside.
I was very careful not to turn my head, but by watch-
ing from the corner of my eye, I could see that she
stopped after a few steps and remained standing there
in the dimly lit lobby. She stood there for one minute-
two minutes. Then she melted into the shadows and was
gone.
Three minutes later and the door opened. A figure
that clutched a knee-length fur coat tightly about her
came running down the stairs toward the car.
I got out and started around politely to open the door.
Cold fingers grabbed my wrists. “Come,” she said in
a hoarse whisper. “Please come-quick! Oh my God!”
I started to ask her a question, then took another look
at her face, changed my mind and plodded along behind
without a word.
The door had clicked shut, but she had the latchkey
in her right hand. Her left hand was clutching the coat
about her.
She unlocked the door and walked through a lobby
which was but little more than a wide place in a hallway,
climbed three steps, walked down a carpeted corridor,


66
GIVE 'EM THE AX
entered an automatic elevator that wheezed and rattled
up to the fourth floor.
She led the way down the corridor, paused before a
door on the left. Once more her latchkey clicked back
a lock and she pushed the door open. The lights were
all on.
It was a three room apartment, if you classified a little
kitchenette as a room. It was on the street side and cost
money.
Her purse, gloves and the jacket she had been wearing,
lay on the table in the entrance room. There was an
ash tray on that table with a single cigarette about half
smoked. Through an open doorway I glimpsed a bed-
room, and on the bed saw the skirt and blouse she had
been wearing.
She followed the direction of my eyes, said in a hoarse
whisper, “I was just changing my clothes-getting ready
to take a bath. I flung on the first thing I could find to
cover me up."
I looked again at the fur coat.
The left hand that was clutching it had puckered up a
bit of the coat. Through it I could see the pink of satiny
flesh.
“What's the rest of it?" I asked.
Wordlessly she crossed over to the door of the bath-
room, then hung back.
"Please,” she said, "you do it."
I opened the door and looked inside.
The bathroom light was on.
The body of the man who had escorted Mrs. Ellery
Crail to the Rimley Rendezvous that afternoon was in
head back against the sloping end of the bathtub, the


GIVE 'EM THE AX
67
eyes about two-thirds closed, the lower jaw hanging limp
leaving the mouth partially open.
Telling the girl to keep back out of the way and reach-
ing for the lifeless wrist was only a mere formality.
Rufus Stanberry's heart was as still as a churchyard on
a frosty morning.
Even in death, however, he had that shrewdly calcu-
lating leer on his face. The man might have been mak-
ing an audit of eternity
"He's ... dead?” she asked from the doorway.
“He's dead," I said.


Chapter Six
WE WENT BACK to the bedroom. She was shaking with
nervousness.
I said, "Sit down. We have a little talking to do."
“I don't know a thing about it," she said. “You know
as well as I do that I wasn't up here long enough
to ..."
I said, “Let's let that go and start with facts. What
happened?"
“I've already told you. I came in here and started
to undress. I headed for the bathroom, switched on the
lights and ... and ..."
“You switched on the bathroom light?” I asked.
"Yes.”
“You're sure it wasn't on already?"
"No. I switched it on, and then I saw him and
well, I just ran back and grabbed the first thing I could
throw around me and ran down to get you.”
"Pretty much of a panic?"
“What do you mean?”
"You were frightened?”
"Of course."
"You didn't know he was here?"
“No, I ..."
"Take another look.”
“I ..."
“Go ahead. Look.”
68


GIVE 'EM THE AX
69
I pushed her over to the bathroom door. She grabbed
at the side of the door. The coat fell open. She had on a
bra, panties and dark lustrous stockings. She gave a
short, sharp exclamation and kept clinging to the side
of the door, not bothering about the coat. “Take a good
look,” I said.
She said, “What is there to sec? Just a dead man in a
bathroom.”
She twisted out of my grasp, darted back to the bed
room.
I carefully closed the bathroom door. “Where's the
telephone?"
“Right there."
"Oh, yes,” I said. I sat down and took one of the
packages of cigarettes she had sold me that afternoon
from my pocket, shook a cigarette a third of the way out,
extended it to her, “Smoke?”
“No, I ..."
I took the cigarette from the pack, tapped it on my
thumbnail, put it in my mouth, lit it and settled back
in the chair.
“The telephone,” she said. “It's right there."
I nodded.
“Aren't you going to call the police?"
“Not yet.”
“Why?"
"I'm waiting."
“For what?'
"For you.”
“What about me?"
"To think up a better story."
“What do you mean?"
I said, “The police won't believe that story of yours.
That will make it bad—for you.'


GIVE 'EM THE AX
71
ment. I take it that key opens the spring lock on the
door downstairs?"
She nodded.
I said, “You kept the key out because you wanted to
enter your apartment. You came up here and entered
your apartment. Then what did you do?"
"I'm telling you I started to change my clothes
and ..."
I said, "The natural thing was to have closed the zip-
per and dropped the key container back into your
purse."
"Well, 1... Well, certainly. That's what I did.
Good Heavens! I didn't have to tell you every single soli-
tary move I made, did I? I put the keys back in the purse,
put the purse on the table. I walked across to the bed-
room. I switched on the bedroom lights. I was undress-
ing before I'd made two steps in the bedroom. I kicked
off my skirt. I went to the bathroom. I opened the door
of the bathroom ..."
"Go on from there."
“I switched on the lights and saw that man and didn't
even stop to take a good look at him. I dashed
down ..."
"Did you know he was dead?”
"No, of course not. I wasn't certain but what he might
have been waiting for me."
“To harm you?”
"Well, yesor perhaps
I said, “They make passes at a girl in your position?”
“Don't be silly, they make passes at attractive women
in any position."
"Most men think you're easy because you wander
around and show your legs?"


GIVE 'EM THE AX
73
key to the apartment in your hand when you came
downstairs showed that you knew you were going to
have to use it.”
"Certainly, I knew I was going to have to use it to get
back into the apartment house and also into my apart-
ment. There are spring locks and automatic door closers
on both doors.”
I said, “And you knew you were going to have to use
it. That's why you kept it in your hand, why you went
in and tossed the purse on the table. Then you went
into the bedroom, tossed the keys over on the bed,
slipped out of your skirt, blouse, and jacket, wrapped
up in the fur coat, popped your head in the bathroom
to make sure the body was still there, then grabbed the
keys and ran down the stairs."
“Phooey!” she said scornfully, picked up the tele-
phone again and said, “Now I'll dial Police Headquar-
ters.”
“And on that pillow,” I said, "which is a very soft
one, you can see the place where the keys landed when
you tossed them onto the bed.”
“Why, I...” She dropped the telephone receiver,
jumped up and ran to the door of the bedroom, looked
inside and then came out saying scornfully, “What a
smart detective you are. The bed is covered with a bed-
spread that completely covers the pillows. Even if I'd
thrown the keys on the pillows there wouldn't have been
enough indentation through that heavy bedspread to
have let you see what it was.”
“That's right.”
“Then what did you mean by saying there was an
indentation there?”
I said, “If you'd actually been telling the truth and


74
GIVE 'EM THE AX
the keys had been in your purse all the time, you
wouldn't have rushed to the door in a panic to see if
there actually was an indentation there.”
She thought that over for a moment, then sat down.
I said, “So much for the police. From my own view-
point, there are other things that don't check. You
were anxious to let me see that you had on just panties
and a bra under the fur coat so as to give authenticity
to your story. And you were very suddenly in a great
dither to find out something about Irma Crail-some-
thing that you could use as actual proof in case you had
to, and you were trembling all over when you came out
of Cullingdon's apartment. You were so nervous you
could hardly shift the gears in your automobile. The way
I put that together, you came home, took off your
clothes, went to the bathroom, saw the body of Rufus
Stanberry in the tub, convinced yourself he was dead,
sat down and thought for a moment, smoked that one
cigarette about half through (the one single long stub
with the red lipstick on it in this ash tray) put your
clothes back on and went out, being very, very careful
to leave absolutely nothing which indicated you'd
already been in your apartment and discovered the
body. You overlooked the cigarette.
"Then you went to Cullingdon's in very much of a
hurry. You'd found I'd been there and that upset your
plans. I picked you up as you came out, and that both-
ered you still more. You sparred for time while you
were doing some thinking—you needed some witness
to show that you had entered your apartment innocently
and this dead man was occupying your bathtub. After
all, why wouldn't I be a better witness than someone
you'd pick up to back your play. I'd be sincere and dis-
interested. I'd tell a story the police would believe. So


GIVE 'EM THE AX
75
you elected me as the fall guy. You drove up to the apart-
ment house. You got out with your key in your hand.
You went upstairs. You put the key down on the bed,
leaving your open purse on the table in the other room.
You jumped out of your skirt and blouse, put the fur
coat on, gave a quick look to see everything was as
you'd left it in the bathroom and then came down and
pulled your act on me. You thought I'd fall for it, tele-
phone the police and vouch that you'd gone up to your
apartment, hadn't been gone more than two or three
minutes and ..."
She said wearily, “All right, what do you want? Give
me a cigarette.”
· I gave her a cigarette. “I want the truth,” I said.
"All right, it happened just about the way you thought
it did. I didn't realize the keys would betray me."
"You found him here just before you went out to see
Cullingdon?"
“Yes.”
"Know who he was?"
“Of course.”
"Found out he was dead?”
“Yes.”
“And did what?"
"Naturally, I thought Mrs. Crail was playing me for a
fall guy. He'd been with her. Now he was in my apart-
ment-dead. I didn't like the smell of it. No one could
prove I'd been here. I decided to go out, get what I
could on Mrs. Crail and then go to see her and call
for a showdown-or else pick up some witness who could
come to the apartment with me and—well, sort of give
me an alibi. Then you showed up and, while I was an-
noyed at first, I finally decided you'd be a good witness.”
I said, “You're not going to like my next question.”


76
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"What is it?”
I jerked my head toward the bathroom. “He ever been
here before?”
She met my eyes. “Yes.”
“Social or sexual?”
"Neither."
“No passes?”
“That wasn't what he came for."
"But he did make passes?"
"He tried an awkward clumsy approach, just to see
if it would get him anywhere. He seemed almost relieved
when he found out it wouldn't."
“What did he want?"
"Wanted to find out whether Rimley was doing a good
enough business to stand for a boost in rent."
“Did he find out anything?"
“Not a thing."
I said, “Let's go take another look at that body.”
“We aren't supposed to touch it, are we, until ...?"
"No," I said.
We went back through the bedroom and into the
bathroom. She was calmly practical now, with no trace of
panic in her manner.
As well as I could without disturbing the body, I
looked it over. Evidently he had been killed by a single
hard blow on the left temple with some object that had
left an oblong depressed fracture of the skull. I looked
in the right-hand inside pocket of the coat. There was a
billfold in there. It was filled with folding money, lots
of it. I put it back. The side pocket on the left held a
notebook. On the front page the words had been written
in pen and ink, “Rufus Stanberry, 3271 Fulrose Avenue.
In case of accident notify Archie Stanberry, 963 Malolo


GIVE 'EM THE AX
77
Avenue. My blood type is 4." I closed the book, slipped
it back in the pocket.
I saw an expensive wrist watch on his left wrist. I
looked at the time. It was five thirty-seven.
I consulted my own watch. ·
The time was exactly six thirty-seven.
That did it. I backed away from the body as though it
had had leprosy.
"What's the matter?" she asked, watching me. “What's
wrong with the watch?”.
“Nothing," I said, and took her out to the other room.
"It's all right. We call the police now.”


Chapter Seven
THE TWO OFFICERS from the radio prowl car who got
there first to hold things in line until Homicide could
arrive asked only a few sketchy questions. Then Homi-
cide showed up and we told our stories. Nothing else
happened for about an hour, then Sergeant Frank Sel-
lers came strolling in, his hat on the back of his head,
a soggy cigar half chewed to ribbons in the side of his
mouth.
"Hello, Donald,” he said. “Damn glad to see you're
back.”
We shook hands. I introduced him to the girl.
They'd taken our stories down in shorthand. Sellers
had evidently had a transcript and familiarized himself
with it before he arrived on the scene.
He said, “Too bad that you had to come back and
stick your nose into a murder case first rattle out of the
box, Lam. As I gather it, you're working on a case?”
He jerked his head toward Billy Prue. “Business or
social?”
"Confidentially it's a little of both. That's not for the
press—and it's not for Bertha.”
He looked Billy Prue over, said, “Now as I understand
it, she parked her car down in front and went up to
change her clothes."
“That's right," she said in a low voice.
“You two were going out to dinner?”
78


GIVE 'EM THE AX
79
I nodded.
"She didn't know you well enough to invite you in,”
Sellers said, "and she didn't want to keep you waiting
very long, so she was in a hurry?”.
Billy Prue said, with a nervous little laugh, "I was
undressing almost before I'd got through the door. I
started for the bathroom andand found that."
“What did you do with your keys when you came
in?” Sellers asked casually.
"Put them in my purse,” she said, “and dropped the
purse on the table.”
"And when you ran out, what did you do take the
keys out of the purse?”
She met his eyes steadily, “Certainly not. I grabbed up
the whole purse, tucked it under my arm and dashed
out of the place. Then after I got Donald to come back
with me, I opened my purse, took out my keys and un-
locked the door.”
Sergeant Sellers heaved a weary sigh. “Well, folks,
I guess that's all. We may want to ask you some more
questions later on. Guess you can go on out to dinner
now."
“Thanks,” I told him.
“How's Bertha these days?"
“Seems to be the same as ever," I said.
"Haven't seen her for a while. Well, now that you're
back, I may see her more frequently."
His grin was maliciously significant.
Billy Prue asked, “Are the--are the police through
here?”
"Not yet,” Sellers said. “Don't worry, everything will
be all right. You've got your keys, haven't you?”
“Yes.”
“All right, run along to dinner and have a good time."


80
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Sergeant Sellers stayed in the apartment, watched us
from the doorway as we walked down the corridor to the
automatic elevator.
"Well,” Billy Prue said with a sigh as we entered the
elevator, "that's that.”
I pushed the button for the ground floor. “No talk.
ing,” I warned.
The elevator rattled to a stop. A plain-clothes man
on guard in the lower corridor passed us through with
a nod. There was a uniformed officer on duty at the
doorway. Billy Prue's car was parked where we had left
it. There was white dust on the steering wheel and the
door catches where the police had gone over it for
fingerprints. Aside from that, it was exactly as we had
left it.
Without a word, I opened the door of the car. She got
in with a swift all-of-a-sudden grace and with a twist of
her supple body, adjusted herself behind the steering
wheel. I slid in the seat beside her and slammed the door
shut.
We moved away from the curb.
“All right, sucker,” she said.
I didn't say anything.
"You stuck your neck out,” she said. “You're in it as
deep as I am now, and you've got nothing further on me.
You can't say a word without getting yourself in bad.”
"So what?"
“So," she said, “I do you the extreme courtesy of tak-
ing you back to where you left your automobile-that is,
if you're nice. Otherwise, I'd dump you out on the
street.”
“Rather a hard-boiled attitude when I've stuck my
neck out to help you, isn't it?"
“That,” she said, “is what you get for being a sucker."


GIVE 'EM THE AX
81
I leaned back against the cushions, took a cigarette
package from my pocket, shook out one. “Cigarette?" I
asked.
askot while I'm drive satching her prohimes. Then
I lit one and smoked, watching her profile.
Her eyes blinked rapidly two or three times. Then
I saw a tear come out and trickle down her cheek.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
She drove the car with a certain savage carelessness at
an increasing speed.
“Nothing."
I kept on smoking.
She turned a corner. I saw we were headed for the
Stanberry Building and apparently the Rimley Ren-
dezvous.
"Change your mind about taking me back to where
my car is?"
“Yes.”
"Why are you crying?"
She pulled into the curb, slammed the car to a stop,
groped in her purse, pulled out some cleansing tissue
and wiped her eyes. “You make me so damn mad,” she
said.
“Why?"
“I wanted to see what you'd do. I pulled that gag on
you that you'd been a sucker just to see what happened.”
“Well?"
“Nothing happened, damn you. You took it for
granted that I was right. You thought I was the kind
that would do a trick like that, didn't you?"
“That's what you said."
"You should have known I was trying to get a rise
out of you."
I watched her clean up the traces of her tears. “I'd


82
GIVE 'EM THE AX
kill myself before I'd do anything like that for a man
who befriended me. Darn few of them have ever taken
the trouble, unless they wanted something very obvi-
ously and very immediately."
I still didn't say anything.
She flashed me one look still hot with hurt and anger.
Then she snapped her purse shut, adjusted herself in the
driver's seat with a quick angry flounce and started driv-
ing again.
We stopped in front of the Stanberry Building.
I said, “Pittman Rimley doesn't like me.”
“You don't need to go in. I've got to report. You
can wait here.”
"And then?"
“Then I'll drive you out to where you left your car.”
I thought that over. “Going to tell Rimley I was with
you when you notified the police?"
"Yes. I'll have to do that.”
I said, "Go on up. I'll wait if it isn't too long. If it is,
I'll grab a cab. Better lock your car just in case."
She looked at me sharply, then locked the ignition.
“Some day,” she warned, “I'm going to jar you out of
that detached, don't-give-a-damn pose.”
I waited until she was inside, then got out and looked
for a taxi. If I'd been parking in a taxi zone one would
have whizzed up inside of ten seconds. As it was, I waited
ten minutes then started walking down the avenue. I'd
gone five blocks before I found one.
I got in, gave the address of Cullingdon's place where
I'd left the agency car. I paid off the cab, started the
agency heap, and drove to the office-fast.
The office was dark when I arrived.
I called Bertha's apartment. She didn't answer. I sat
down in the dark to do a little thinking.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
83
After about ten minutes, I heard the pound of heavy
steps in the corridor. A latchkey jabbed the door. The
lock clicked back, and Bertha Cool flung the door open.
"Where the hell have you been?" she asked.
"Places.”
She glowered at me.
"Had dinner?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I haven't.”
Bertha heaved herself into a chair. “When it comes
time to eat, I eat. I've got a big dynamo running and it
takes fuel to keep it going.”
I shook the last cigarette out of the package, crumpled
it, and dropped it in the ash tray.
"Well, we've run slap bang into a murder case."
“A murder!"
I nodded.
Bertha said, “Who was bumped off?"
“Rufus Stanberry."
“Where? How? Why?”
I said, “The place was the apartment of the cigarette
girl who works at the Rimley Rendezvous. Her stage
name is Billy Prue. As to the how, the process was very
primitive and very simple. It consisted of hitting the
man a very hard blow on the temple. It's the why that
complicates things."
“Well, what's your best guess?"
“Either the man knew too much, or ..
“Or what?” Bertha snapped as I paused. “Go ahead.”
“Or," I said, "he knew too little.”
Bertha glowered at me. "Just like one of those news
commentators,” she snorted. “You state the perfectly ob-
vious, so it sounds profound as hell.”
I devoted my attention to smoking.


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After a minute Bertha said, “You do get the agency
in the damnedest things.”
"I didn't get the agency into it,” I said.
"You may think you didn't, but you did, just the
same. I'd have handled this case, and it would have
turned out to be nothing beyond the little routine job
of checking back on a woman's record, finding nothing
that would have been of any benefit to our client,
and ..."
“The minute you started to check," I said, "you'd
have found something that would have been of the great-
est interest to our client-something about Mrs. Crail.”
“What?”
I said, "She's a professional malingerer."
"What have you got on her?”
"Some of it's hearsay. There's a case of Begley versus
Cullingdon. Going back a while before that, I under-
stand there are other cases in San Francisco and in
Nevada.”
“Fakes or injuries?” Bertha asked.
"No, that fake stuff is too risky. She suffered an injury
all right, probably in the first accident, found out how
easy it was to collect and decided it was easier than work-
ing for a living. She'd wait for an opportunity to have
just the right sort of accident, one where she didn't stand
too much chance of getting busted up. She could tell the
insurance company representative very bravely that she
had just been shaken up a little; that she didn't want a
cent-goodness nol It wasn't her fault, of course, but
her injuries weren't enough to bother about. Then after
the lapse of a few months, she'd go to a doctor and com-
plain of symptoms, then recall she'd been in an auto-
mobile accident, although she'd almost forgotten about
it. The doctor would send her to a lawyer, then there'd


GIVE 'EM THE AX
85
be a great hubbub. It would seem that she'd suffered a
spinal injury and thought at the time she'd just jarred
a rib loose and it would heal right up."
“Couldn't they catch her at it?”
“Not very well. She'd wait until just before the ex-
piration of the statute of limitations before she'd file
suit. X-rays would show she had an injury. She's an at-
tractive girl. She could do things in front of a jury. In-
surance companies would settle. Cosgate & Glimson
handled her last case."
"Why did she quit it?”
“Because it got too risky. She'd done it several times,
and insurance companies have a way of comparing notes
on those things. In all probability, she didn't intend to
use the same racket to get herself a husband because,
obviously, she couldn't tell by the way a man was driving
a car whether he'd make a good matrimonial catch. But
when she had this accident with Crail's car-well, it
developed Crail was a good matrimonial catch, so she did
her stuff.”
Bertha said, “Well, we've done two hundred dollars
worth of work for our client. Stall around for a couple
of days picking up the record on these other cases, then
we'll put the information in the hands of Miss Georgia
Rushe and let her handle Mrs. Crail any way she damn
pleases. We'll just check out of it and keep from getting
mixed up in that murder. You aren't mixed up in it, are
you, lover?”
"No."
“I'm beginning to think you are."
"What makes you think so?"
“The way you say you aren't. Is there a girl in it?”
"Not in it. He was found in this girl's apartment.”
"You say it was the cigarette girl?”


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“Yes.”
“The one who sold you three packages of cigarettes?"
“That's right.”
“Humph," Bertha said, then suddenly swung her head
around to let her eyes glitter into mine. “Legs?”
“Naturally.”
“I mean pretty?"
“Very.”
“Humph," Bertha said, then after a moment added,
“Now you listen to me, Donald Lam, you keep out of
this, and ..."
Knuckles sounded on the door of the office.
I said to Bertha, “Call out through the door that
you're closed up."
Bertha said, “Don't be silly. Perhaps it's a client with
money."
I said, “I can see her outline through the frosted glass.
It's a woman.”
“All right, then, perhaps it's a woman with money."
Bertha marched across to the door, shot back the bolt
and pulled the door open.
A young woman on the threshold smiled up at Bertha.
She looked like a million dollars net with a fur coat
and a big collar that came up to frame her face. She
carried her own Dun & Bradstreet rating on her back,
the sort of client who can really finance an investigation.
Bertha Cool's manner melted like a chocolate bar in
a kid's fist. “Come in,” she said, “come in! We're closed,
but since you've taken the trouble to come up here,
we'll see you."
“May I ask your name, please?” our visitor asked
Bertha.
I could see Bertha looking at the girl with a slight


GIVE 'EM THE AX
87
frown as though she might have seen her before, or was
trying to place her.
"I'm Bertha Cool,” Bertha said, "one of the partners
in this agency, and this is Donald Lam, the other part-
ner. Now you're Miss ... Miss ... Miss ..."
"Witson,” the young woman beamed. “Miss Esther
Witson.”
"Oh yes,” Bertha said.
"I wanted to talk with you, Mrs. Cool, about ..."
“Go ahead,” Bertha said, “talk right here. Mr. Lam
and myself are at your service. Anything we can do
for you ..."
Miss Witson turned large blue eyes at me. Her lips
slid back along prominent teeth to show how pleased she
was.
Bertha recognized her then. “Fry me for an oyster!"
Bertha exclaimed. “You're the woman who was driving
the automobile."
"Why, yes, Mrs. Cool, I thought you knew. I had
quite a time finding you. You remember you gave the
name of Boskovitche.” And Miss Witson threw back
her head and let the light gleam on a whole mouthful
of horse teeth.
Bertha looked at me with an expression of trapped,
exasperated helplessness on her face.
"There's some dispute about responsibility for the
accident is there, Miss Witson?" I asked.
She said, “That's a mild way of expressing it."
“No serious damages, are there?” Bertha chimed in.
"That's a mild way of describing it.”
"Just what do you mean?” Bertha demanded.
She said, “The other car was driven by a Mr. Rolland
B. Lidfield. His wife was riding in the car with him.”


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"But the cars weren't badly damaged, were they?"
“It isn't the cars,” Miss Witson explained. “It's Mrs.
Lidfield. She claims she suffered a severe nervous shock
and she's placed herself in the hands of her physician,
leaving her husband to do the talking for her-her
husband and her lawyers.”
"Lawyers!” Bertha exclaimed. "So soon!"
"A firm of attorneys who specialize in that sort of
thing, I understand-Cosgate & Glimson. The doctor
got them.”
I glanced at Bertha to see if the name registered.
It didn't.
“Cosgate and—what was that other name?” I asked.
"Cosgate & Glimson.”
I glanced at Bertha, slowly closed my left eye.
“Humph!" Bertha said.
"I wanted you to help me out, Mrs. Cool.”
“In what way?”
“Telling what happened.”
“It was just another automobile smashup,” Bertha
said, glancing uneasily at me.
“But you know that I was driving very slowly; that I
was behind your car for two or three blocks; that you
slowed down almost to a snail's pace and I went around
you ..."
"I don't know any such thing," Bertha said.
“And,” Miss Witson went on triumphantly, “you
tried to get out of it by giving an assumed name when
we wanted you as a witness. That won't do you any good,
Mrs. Cool, because I took down the number of your car.
And I guess the only reason I did that is because I saw
Mr. Lidfield writing down the numbers of all the cars
that were near by. So they'll call you for a witness any-
way, which, after all, Mrs. Cool, means that you'll have


GIVE 'EM THE AX
89
to take one side or the other. You'll have to make up
your mind which car was in the wrong."
Bertha said, “There's nothing for me to make up my
mind about. I don't have to take sides with anyone."
“There were some other witnesses?" I asked Miss Wit-
son.
“Oh yes.”
“Who were they?”
“Lots of them. A Mr. Stanberry, a Mrs. Crail, two or
three others.”
I said to Bertha, “That would make it very, very in-
teresting-hearing what Mrs. Crail would have to say on
the witness stand about that.”
Bertha's jaw pushed forward. She said, “Well, I can
tell you one thing. The car that whipped around to the
left was going like a bat out of hell. He saw that Stan-
berry's car was going to turn to the left, so he thought
there was a chance for him to cut his own car sharp
to the left and go through all the other traffis.”
Miss Witson nodded and said, “I had the right of way
on him. I was the first one in the intersection. I was on
his right, and he was coming from my left, so I had every
right to keep right on going—the right of way, you
know."
Bertha nodded.
"And,” Miss Witson went on triumphantly, “I didn't
hit him at all. He's the one who hit me. You can see
from the marks on the car that he ran right smack
into me.”
Bertha was suddenly friendly. “All right, Dearie. I
wouldn't worry about it if I were you. The man was
speeding across an intersection, and Mrs. Lidfield sounds
to me like a gold digger.”
Esther Witson impulsively gave Mrs. Cool her hand.


go
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“I'm so glad you feel that way about it, Mrs. Cool, and
you don't need to worry about the time you put in being
a witness. Of course, I can't make any promise, because
that would look as though I were trying to buy your tes-
timony. But I realize that you're a professional woman
and that if this is going to take some of your time, well
...” She smiled sweetly. "You know, I always try to
be very fair in my business deals."
“Don't you," I asked abruptly, "carry insurance?"
Miss Witson laughed. “I thought I did, but it seems I
didn't. I guess I was a little careless about that. Well,
thank you ever so much, Mrs. Cool, and you can rest
assured that ... Well, you know, I can't say anything,
but. ..."
She smiled significantly and wished us a good night.
Bertha sniffed the air. “That perfume,” she said, “costs
about fifty bucks an ounce. And did you notice that
mink coat? That's what you have to do in a detective
business, Donald darling. You have to establish contacts,
particularly among the wealthy."
I said, "I thought you told me she was a buck-toothed
pop-eyed little bitch who ..."
"She looks a lot different now," Bertha said with
dignity.


Chapter Eight
THE PLACE I WANTED turned out to be a three story brick
apartment house with a stucco front. It didn't have a
switchboard. The front door was kept locked with a
spring catch, and there was a row of bell buttons with
speaking tubes and cards.
I'd picked out the name, STANBERRY, A. L., and pressed
a button. After a few seconds, a speaking tube emitted a
shrill whistle. A moment later, a voice said, “What do
you want?”
I put my mouth up to the speaking tube. “Archie
Stanberry.”
“Who wants him?"
“My name's Lam.”
“What do you want to see him about?”
“You guess.”
“Newspaper?”
"What do you think?”.
The buzzer sounded on the door, and I pushed it open
and went in.
Archie Stanberry's apartment was 533. An automatic
elevator that really moved whisked me up to the floor. I
walked down to apartment 533 and tapped on the door.
Archie Stanberry was about twenty-five or twenty-six.
His complexion was about the color of pie crust that
should have been left in the oven another fifteen min-
utes. His eyes were swollen and red from crying, but he


92
GIVE 'EM THE AX.
was trying to be brave. The apartment was swank and
looked as though Archie had lived there for some time.
"It's been an awful shock to me,” he said.
“Of course.”
I didn't wait for an invitation, but walked on in
calmly, picked out a comfortable chair, sat down, took
out one of the packages of cigarettes Billy Prue had sold
me, jiggled out a cigarette, lit it, said, “What's your rela-
Cel.
“He was my uncle.”
“See him frequently?"
"We were inseparable.”
I pulled a notebook out of my pocket. “What's your
draft status?"
“Four F,” he said, bristling defensively. “And I see no
reason for giving you details.”
I grinned at him and said, “Neither do I.”
That made him feel better.
“When did you last see your uncle?”
“Yesterday night.”
"Ever hear him speak of Billy Prue—the young
woman who lived in the apartment where the body was
found?”
"No."
"You didn't know that he knew her?”
"No."
“Know what he was doing there?”
"I don't,” Archie said, “but I can assure you that what
ever it was, it was something that was on the up-and-up.
My uncle was a paragon of virtue.”
He mouthed the words as though he'd been making a
nominating speech.
"Lived here long?" I asked.
!


GIVE 'EM THE AX
93
"Five years."
“Who owns the building?"
“Uncle Rufus.”
“Left rather a considerable estate?"
He said almost too hastily, “I don't know. I know very
little about his financial affairs. I've always gathered
that he was affluent.”
"You work?” I asked.
"At present,” he said, “I am not working in the sense
of having employment. I am doing research work for an
historical novel.”
“Ever had anything published?" I asked.
He flushed and said, “I don't think that needs to enter
into it."
I said, “I thought you might like the publicity—that
was all.”
He said, “This is an idea for an historical novel that
appealed to Uncle Rufus.”
“He was financing it?" I asked.
For a minute the eyes avoided mine, then came back
to look at me-bloodshot, restless eyes that seemed afraid
of something. “Yes,” he said, “and now I suppose I'll
have to drop it.”
“What's it about generally?”
“The Coast Guard.”
"And historical?”
“Back to the days of the real Merchant Marine,” he
said with a note of enthusiasm coming into his voice.
“Back when San Francisco was a real port, a real city that
had ships from all corners of the world crowding in
through the Golden Gate. Days that are past, but days
that will come again when once more American mer-
chandise begins to move in American bottoms, when you


GIVE 'EM THE AX
"Yes."
"A little cinder or something," he said.
He twisted a handkerchief, moistened the end, went
over to a mirror and pulled down the lid of his right eye.
"Perhaps I can help you,” I said.
"Perhaps.”
He rolled his right eye up. There was a little brown-
ish speck down at the very bottom of the eye. I speared it
with the handkerchief, and he said, “Thanks.”
We went back to our chairs and sat down.
“Have you any clues as to—as to how it happened?"
he asked.
I said, “I'm not with the police. I'm private.”
"A private detective?"
“Right.”
“May I ask who employed you, what your interest is,
why you ...” He stopped and looked at me.
I said, “I'm interested in a very incidental angle. I be-
lieve your uncle was about to sell the Stanberry
Building."
“I think he was.”
“Did he say anything to you about it?"
"Just generally. I knew that a sale was pending."
“Know what the price was?"
"I don't know, and if I did, I see no reason why I
should communicate the information to you. After all,
Mr. Lam, it seems to me that you're being rather imper-
tinent in your inquiries.”
“How old was your uncle?”
“Fifty-three."
“Ever been married?"
"Yes.”
“Widower?”
“No. There was a divorce.”


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“How long ago?"
"About two years, I believe.”
“You knew his wife?"
“Oh yes, of course.”
“Where is she now?"
“I don't know.”
“Did she get the divorce, or did he?"
“She did.”
“A property settlement?”.
“I believe so, yes. Really, Mr. Lam, this is taking the
inquiry very far afield, don't you think?”.
“Did you tell the police any more than you told me?”
"I don't think I told them as much. Your questions
are rather-rather personal.”
“I'm sorry," I said. “You see I ...” I choked in mid-
sentence, coughed, gagged, muttered, “Bathroom,
quick!”
He ran to a door, opened it. I lurched through. He
ran across the bedroom, opened the bathroom door. I
went in, waited five seconds, then opened the door. I
could hear his voice in the living room. He was tele-
phoning.
I took a quick look around the bedroom. It was neat
and well kept. The closet was filled with clothes. A shoe
shelf had nearly two dozen pairs of shoes all neatly
treed. On the inside of the closet door were two necktie
racks that must have held something over a hundred
neckties. On the dressing table, brushes and comb were
neatly arranged. The brushes were clean and so was the
comb. There were, perhaps, a dozen framed photographs
on the dresser, or hanging on the walls. Directly across
from the bed was an oval space measuring about twelve
inches the long way, about eight inches the other, just a


GIVE 'EM THE AX
99
His shoulders sagged as though both lungs had gone
flat.
“What . . . what do you want?”
“The truth, naturally.”
“Lam, I'm going to tell you something I've never told
anyone else—something that I've never expected to ad-
mit to a single soul.”
I didn't say anything, but just sat there waiting.
He said, "I dropped in at the Rendezvous every once
in a while. It's only natural that I should have.”
“Getting material for your novel?”
"Don't be silly, I was getting relaxation and looking
around. When a man is doing a lot of brain work, he has
to do some playing."
"So you played around with Billy Prue?”
“Will you please let me finish?”
“Go ahead.”
“Billy Prue sold me cigarettes. I looked her over and
thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had
ever seen.”
“So you made passes?"
“Naturally. And I got absolutely nowhere."
“Then what?”
“Then I became even more seriously interested, and
I'm afraid my uncle-well, I'm afraid my uncle didn't
approve of the manner in which I was doing what he
called losing my head.”
"What did he do?"
“I don't know, Mr. Lam. I give you my word of honor
that I don't know.”
“But what do you think?"
“I don't even think.”
I said, "Perhaps I can do some thinking for you.”


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The telephone was ringing as I entered. I closed the
door, went into the bathroom, washed my hands and
face and waited until it had quit ringing. Then I walked
back to the telephone and said to the switchboard op-
erator, “Don't call me any more tonight.”
The operator said, “I'm sorry, I told this party that
you didn't answer. She seemed very much disturbed, said.
it was a matter of the greatest importance.”
· "Woman?” I asked.
The girl downstairs said it was.
I changed my mind and said, “All right, go ahead and
ring if the call comes in again. I'll take it."
I hadn't taken time to unpack when I'd checked in.
Now I threw my grip on the bed and started taking
things out. One thing about the Navy, it teaches a man
to cut his possessions down to the minimum.
I yawned, turned down the bed and got out my pa-
jamas.
The telephone rang.
I answered it.
Bertha Cool's voice said, “Well, for Christ's sake!
What's the matter with you? Are you getting so damned
high hat you can't call your boss on a matter of busi-
ness?"
“Partner," I said.
"All right, partner then. Why the hell didn't you call
me when you came in?”
“I was busy."
"Well, you're going to be busy. You're in a hell of a
mess. Get over here."
"Where?"
“My apartment."
I said, “I'll see you in the morning."
Bertha said, “You'll see me now or you'll wish the hell


GIVE 'EM THE AX
103
you had. Frank Sellers is over here and the only thing
that's keeping you out of the hoosegow right now is the
fact that Frank is my friend. Of all the damn fools, try-
ing to cut corners with the cops. I don't know why the
hell I should worry about you. I should let you get
thrown in the can. It might do you some good.
“Put Sellers on the phone,” I said.
Bertha said, “You'd better come over.”
“Put him on the phone.”
I heard Bertha say, “He wants to talk with you.”
A moment later, Sellers' voice rumbled into the tele-
phone.
I said, “Listen, Frank, I'm all in. I don't want to go
round and round with Bertha over some trivial techni-
cality. Now suppose you tell me what's the beef.”
Sellers said, “You know what the beef is, and don't
pull any of that innocent stuff with me, or I'll push your
teeth down your throat. I'm sticking my neck all the
way out to protect Bertha in the thing, and it may break
me at that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?"
"You know what I'm talking about. Of all the damn,
dumb places to plant the murder weapon, that was it."
“What murder weapon?”
“The hand ax, dope.”
"And where am I supposed to have planted it?" I
asked.
"Don't make me laugh,” Sellers said.
“I'm kidding on the square."
"Don't be a sap,” Sellers told me, "you're in so deep
now, the only way you can get out is by coming abso-
lutely clean. If you don't do that, you're going to take a
little ride with me, and you're both going to lose your
licenses. Now then, how soon can you get over here?”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
105
to keep Bertha out of it, but you're in. And you're in
bad.”
“Wait until you hear what he says,” Bertha snapped at
Sellers. “Don't go pushing your weight around on Don-
ald.”
Sellers said somewhat sullenly, “I'm not pushing any
weight around, I'm telling the boy, that's all.”
“Well, you don't need to tell him," Bertha said bris-
tling with belligerency. "He's got more brains than
you'll have if you live to be a thousand.”
Sellers started to say something, then changed his
mind and sipped his drink.
Bertha's eyes were suddenly solicitous. “You're white
as a sheet, lover, what's the matter. You aren't letting
this get you down, are you?”
I shook my head.
Bertha said, “You were supposed to take it easy. You
told me that yourself. You-have you had dinner?”
Her question caught me by surprise. I thought back,
trying to remember what I'd done with my time and
then said, “No. Come to think of it, I haven't.”
Bertha said, “That's just like you, coming home half
sick with your system full of tropical bugs and your re-
sistance run down, under orders to avoid excitement and
take it easy, and you go stir up a murder case and then
go without your dinner.”
Bertha glowered at the two of us, then said, “Now,
damn it, I suppose I've got to cook something for you.”
“There's a place down the street,” I told her, “that's
still open. I'll see what the law has to say, and go down
there."
"That joint!” Bertha snorted, and moved out toward
the kitchen, her big body flowing along with a smooth
grace inside of the loose house dress.


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I said, “I'm darned if I know."
"You'll have to do better than that,” Sellers said.
"The little bastard's telling the truth,” Bertha an.
nounced.
"How do you know?” Sellers asked.
“Because,” Bertha flared at him, “if he was telling a
lie, he'd have one that sounded convincing as hell, and
he'd have it all ready. That business of saying, 'I don't
know' is because he's either dumb or innocent, and he
isn't dumb.”
Sellers sighed, turned his eyes back to mine.
I said wearily, "Okay. Let's start in at the beginning.
I got the agency car. I went down to the County Clerk's
Office to look up some records. I fooled around the
Bureau of Vital Statistics. I went out to the Rimley
Rendezvous. I got kicked out and came back to the office.
Then I went out to look up a witness and left the car
parked there ..."
"You'll have to do better than that,” Sellers said. “On
the witness, I mean.”
"A witness that doesn't have anything to do with the
murder."
“You're in a jam, Donald.”
I said, “All right. This witness lived out on Graylord
Avenue.”
“What number?”
I said, “Nix on it. You'd rock the boat."
He shook his head and said, “It's the hammer they
killed him with, Donald. I'm standing between you and
the D.A.'s office right now."
I said, “Philip E. Cullingdon, 906 East Graylord
Avenue."
"What's he got to do with it?”
“It's another case.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
109
"What time did you get out there?”
“I don't know.”
"How long were you there?"
I rubbed my chin and said, “I can't say, Frank. Long
enough for an ax to have been planted, I guess.”
“Cullingdon, eh?” Sellers said.
I nodded.
Sellers lurched up from the little bench in the break-
fast nook, hitting the table and all but upsetting the
drinks.
Bertha looked up from the stove and said, “Damn you,
Frank Sellers, if you spill any of that whisky I'll brain
you. That's customers' whisky."
He didn't even look at her, and went in to the tele-
phone. I heard him turning the pages of the telephone
book, then after a while heard the sound of the dial on
the telephone and low-voiced conversation.
“You're in Dutch,” Bertha said to me.
I didn't say anything. There was no use.
· Bertha tore off a paper towel, folded it, put it on the
top of a shelf over the stove, put the bacon on that to
drain, poured a little thick cream into the eggs, beat
them up, dumped them into the frying pan and started
stirring.
The whisky felt warm in my stomach and I didn't feel
quite as much as though someone had pulled out the
plug and let all of my vitality drain out through my toes.
"You poor little bastard!” Bertha said sympathet-
ically.
“I'm all right.”
"Have another drink.”
“I don't want any more, thanks.”
"Food's what you need,” Bertha said. "Food and rest."
Sellers hung up the telephone, then dialed another


120
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"I'm telling you I don't know anything at all about
it.”
I drove along slowly and said, “Let's look at the thing
this way. You go out to Cullingdon's. You're frightened.
You want a witness. You take me back and pull a razzle-
dazzle about finding Stanberry's body. Then you go to
Rimley's and I duck out as you could have known I
would. I walked a half a dozen blocks before I found a
cab. The cab took me up to 906 South Graylord Avenue
and I picked up my car and drove back to the agency,
had a talk with my partner and then drove out to see
Archie Stanberry."
"Well?" she asked as I stopped.
“There was plenty of time for Rimley to have the
murder weapon dropped in my car before I got there,"
I said.
“And you think he dashed out and planted the weapon
and ...?"
"Don't be silly. He simply picked up the telephone
and said to someone, ‘Donald Lam's car is parked out
at go6 South Graylord Avenue. It would be a swell place
for the police to discover the murder weapon because
Billy Prue had him with her when the body was dis-
covered. The police will think he's mixed up in it
and ...!"
“Baloney!” she interrupted.
I said, “I know-it's easy to pull that stuff.”
“If you'd use your head for a minute, you'd realize
that that would be the last thing on earth that Pittman
Rimley would do. The minute you are brought into it,
that attracts attention once more to me. That's why they
had me down at the D.A.'s office and gave me such a
grilling. I couldn't understand it, unless it was because
you had double-crossed me.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
121
I pulled the car into the curb and stopped. It was a
quiet, business street with virtually no traffic and a few
lights. The little one story store buildings were all closed
up.
"Is this where I get out and walk?" she asked nerv-
ously.
I said, “I've got something to say.”
“Go on and say it."
I said, “I went out to the Rimley Rendezvous. You
told me to get out. I didn't get out. The head waiter
sent me in to see Rimley. Rimley told me to get out and
stay out."
"Well,” she said, “tell me something I didn't know al-
ready."
I said, “Rimley's wrist watch was an hour fast. The
clock on his mantel was an hour fast.”
She sat absolutely motionless. I don't think she was
even breathing.
“Is that something new?” I asked.
She kept perfectly still.
I said, “We found the body of Rufus Stanberry in
your bathtub. His wrist watch was an hour slow.”
“What does Mr. Master Mind deduce from that,” she
asked, trying to be facetious and making a botch of it.
"From that,” I said, “I deduce that Rimley was build-
ing himself an alibi. He arranged to have his clock and
his watch an hour fast. Probably Stanberry had been in
there. Perhaps shortly before that Stanberry went into
the rest room and took off his wrist watch when he
washed his hands. The rest room attendant was under
orders to set the watch an hour fast.”
She said without any particular expression, “An hour
fast?"
"That's what I said.”


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"But you just said that when we found his wrist watch,
it was an hour slow."
"Do I have to dot all the i's and cross all the t'sh!"
"You'd better. Since you started making i's and t's
you'd better finish them up artistically."
I said, "Rimley was working out a slick alibi. Stan-
berry went in to see Rimley after his watch had been
tampered with. Rimley took occasion to call Stanberry's
attention to the time. Stanberry didn't realize it was that
late, but he checked his watch with Rimley's clock. And
then to reassure him, Rimley showed him his wrist
watch. From there on it's just a case of too many cooks
spoiling the broth.”
“What do you mean?"
I said, “When you discovered Stanberry's body, you
knew that his watch should be an hour fast. You didn't
know what time it was because you don't wear a wrist
watch. You simply took it for granted that Stanberry's
wrist watch was an hour fast, so you set it back an hour.
But someone else, who also knew that the wrist watch
was an hour fast, had already set it back an hour."
She was silent for so long that I looked at her to see
if she might have fainted.
“Well?" I asked.
“I haven't anything to say—not to you."
I said, “Okay,” and started the motor.
"Where are we going?”
"Back to Bertha Cool's apartment."
“What's at Bertha Cool's apartment?"
"Sergeant Frank Sellers of Homicide."
“And what are you going to do there?"
“Tell him what I told you and let him do the talking
from then on. I've been a sucker long enough.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
123
She stuck it out for a dozen blocks, then reached over
and twisted the key in the ignition. “Okay,” she said,
"shut it off.”
“Going to talk?”
“Yes.”
I eased the car into the curb and settled back against
the cushions. “Go ahead.”
She said, “I'd get killed if they knew I told you this."
“You'll be arrested for first-degree murder if you
don't.”re hard whemother spel
"You're hard when you want to be.”
I fought against another spell of shivering as the cold
damp fog penetrated into the marrow of my bones, and
managed to say threateningly, “I'm as hard and as cold as
the back of a barred jail door."
She said in a tone of resignation, "All right, what do
you want to know?"
“Everything."
She said, “I can't tell you everything, Donald. I can
tell you the things that concern me. I can tell you enough
so that you'll realize you're not being framed. But I
can't tell you the things that relate to others.”
I said, “You tell me the whole story here and now and
without waiting for reinforcements or you get a third de-
gree from Sergeant Frank Sellers. Make up your mind.”
She said, “That isn't fair.”
"It's fair to me."
“It's not fair to put me in that position.”
“Make up your mind. I've stuck my neck out for you
a couple of times. Now I'm getting tired of it. You can
start paying me back, beginning right now.”
She said, “I could get out of this car and start walking
away. You wouldn't dare try to wrestle me back into it.”
"Try it and see what happens.”


GIVE 'EM THE HE 125
AX
AX
"What would be said?”
“A nice little threat and orders to pay money in cash
to his dear nephew, Archie. After that there might be an
anonymous letter or two, but usually that first telephone
call was so devastating the rest was just a mop-up that
Archie could handle.”
I said, "Archie's eyes were all swollen with tearful
grief-induced by breaking open a cigarette and putting
a little grain of tobacco in each eye. I had to help him
get one out. I saw the broken cigarette on his dresser."
She didn't say anything.
I said, “Archie had had your picture on his wall.”
"He'd taken it down, hadn't he?" she asked quickly.
“Yes. He said it was a pin-up picture he'd bribed your
publicity photographer ...'
"Blackmailed was the word he should have used,” she
said bitterly. “Archie's a poor sap. His uncle had brains
-dangerous brains.”
“And where did Rimley come in? Don't make me
laugh by telling me he was blackmailing Rimley.”
“He was, in a way. But, of course, it was indirect.”
"How?"
"Blackmailing Rimley's clients, using the Rendezvous
to pick up stuff that he could use later. But he was able
to keep under cover and do a lot of his stuff before we
found out what was happening. It was the Crail deal
that really put us wise. And, of course, Rimley had quite
a stake in that. His lease lapsed within ninety days after
a bona fide sale.”
"So Mrs. Crail really didn't want to buy, and Rimley
really didn't want to have Stanberry sell. Is that it?"
"Something like that."
"What's the rest of the deal?”


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"How did you work it?"
She said, “About a month ago, I got an apartment in
the Fulrose Apartments. I was very careful never to go
there except when I knew Stanberry was out. And even
then, I only stayed there overnight once in a while so
the maids would find the bed had been slept in. My story
was that I was a newspaper woman who was working on
a story and commuting between here and San Fran-
cisco. When I get ready to give up the apartment, it's
going to be because I find that I'm in San Francisco so
much of the time it will be cheaper to stay at a hotel
whenever I happen to be back here."
“Go on with the rest of it.”
“That's just about all there was to it. He had his
drugged drink, got groggy and started for the bathroom.
Then he got sleepy and half fell in the bathtub. I slipped
the keys out of his pocket. We already knew that the
combination of the safe was written in his notebook so
it would look like a telephone number. Rufus Stanberry
never trusted anything entirely to memory.
“It was duck soup. I simply whizzed out to the Fulrose
Apartments, went up to my apartment, then down the
hall to his, opened the door with his key, spun the com-
bination on the safe and cleaned it out of everything
that was at all incriminating to anyone. We put Rufus
Stanberry out of the blackmail business in one clean
sweep.”
“Then what happened?”
“You know. I got back to my apartment. He was
dead."
“What did you do with the keys?”
She said, “I put them back in his pockets.”
“Then what?"


GIVE 'EM THE AX
129
She said, "I telephoned Rimley. He told me over the
telephone to beat it out right away to Philip Culling-
don's place and find out everything he knew about an
Irma Begley who had shaken him down in an automo-
bile accident."
“Did you ask him why?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?"
"That Irma Begley was Mrs. Crail.”
"Who told you about the amount of the settlement
and about those other actions?”
“Rimley did.”
“Over the telephone?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he tell you to do after that?"
"He said to get out and get the stuff on Mrs. Crail,
then I was to pick up some witness, very casually, make
it seem accidental if possible, and go to my apartment
and discover the body."
“So you picked me as a witness?".
“After you horned in on my play I thought that you
might make a swell witness. The trouble was you were
too good. You figured things out because of that key."
"Why the sudden interest in Mrs. Crail?” I asked.
“Because Mrs. Crail was with him in the Rendezvous.
She went out when he did. And when Stanberry's car
pulled away, Mrs. Crail was following it.”
"How do you know?”
“Rimley told me.”
“How did he know?"
"I don't know.”
“And you think Rimley thought Mrs. Crail was im-
plicated in the murder?"


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Startled, I tried to pull away.
She crushed me to her, said in my ear, “Get hot! A
prowl car just swung around the corner. We've got to
be necking. If they catch you and me parked out
here ..."
She didn't need to say any more. I kissed her.
She mumbled, “Don't be so damned platonic."
I hugged her a little tighter.
Her full red lips half parted, clung to mine. Her body
pushed itself up against mine.
I heard a car stop.
“You're not in Sunday School,” Billy Prue muttered.
I warmed up to my job. A flashlight beat on my face.
A hard-boiled gruff voice said, “What the hell's coming
off here?"
I released Billy Prue and blinked into the flashlight.
“What the hell's the idea?” the man said. “This is a
business street."
Billy Prue gave him one look, then covered her face
with her hands and started to sob.
The flashlight darted around through the car. “Let's
have a look at you,” the cop said.
I held my face up to the beating rays of the flashlight.
He took in the smeared lipstick, the rumpled hair, the
necktie that was pulled to one side, said, "Okay, get the
hell out of here and try an auto camp next time.”
I started the car and drove away fast.
Billy Prue said, “Gosh, that was a squeak!"
“You thought that up quick,” I told her.
"I had to. My God, Donald! Does it always take you
that long to get going?
I started to say something and then the chill of the
fog and the emotional build-up that had come when
Billy Prue started necking hit me with the force of a


GIVE 'EM THE AX
133
sledge hammer. I was shivering all over. I tried to stop
the car, but before I could get it stopped I was wobbling
around the street.
“Say, what the hell's the matter with you?” Billy
asked.
I said, “The tropics turned my blood to water and —
and you started it boiling."
I brought the car to a stop.
Billy Prue pulled me out from behind the steering
wheel. “Listen,” she said, "you're going to bed. Where
do you live?”
“Not my apartment,” I told her. “You can't take me
there.”
"Why not?"
“Frank Sellers will be having it watched.”
She didn't say anything, just started the car.
“Where?" I asked.
"You heard what the cop told us.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
135
"I've been shopping. There's a store down the block."
“What time is it?"
"How the hell would I know?” she said. “I don't
carry a watch. You remember you pointed that out to
me yesterday night when you were trying to pin a
murder on me?".
Almost instantly all of the various ramifications of
the Stanberry murder came crowding back into my
mind.
I said, “I've got to telephone the office.”
She said, “You'll eat before you do a thing. The bath-
room's all yours. Don't be too long about it because
I'm cooking waffles.”
She went back in the kitchen. I went into the bath-
room, had the luxury of a hot bath, dressed, combed
my hair with a pocket comb, and went out to the
kitchen. Billy had grub cooked, and I was really hungry.
She watched me with wide, thoughtful eyes. "You're
a good kid, Donald,” she said.
"What have I done now?”.
She smiled. “It's the way you didn't do the things
you didn't lo,” she said, “that makes you a gentleman.”
“How are we registered?” I asked.
She said nothing, simply smiled at me.
I ate quite a bit before my stomach suddenly went
dead on me, right in the middle of taking a bite.
I pushed the plate back.
Billy said, “Go out there and sit in the sun. If the
woman who runs the place comes over and talks with
you don't be embarrassed. We haven't any baggage and
she thinks we're living in sin but she's got a boy in the
Navy.”
I went out and sat in the sun.


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The auto camp was out of town on the rim of a valley
that stretched away to where a tracery of white snow-
capped mountains hung against the deep blue sky.
I settled back and relaxed.
The woman who ran the place came over and intro-
duced herself. She had a son who was on a destroyer
somewhere in the South Pacific. I told her I had been
on a destroyer myself, that I might have seen her son,
might have even talked with him without knowing his
name. She sat down beside me in the orange blossom
scented sunlight and we both kept quiet, each respect-
ing the thoughts of the other. After a while Billy Prue
came out and sat down beside us. Then Billy said we
had to go and the woman who ran the place made some
excuse to get away so she wouldn't embarrass us by
letting us know that she knew we didn't have any
baggage.
Billy slid in behind the wheel of the agency car and
started back toward town.
“Cigarette?"
“Not while I'm driving, Donald.”
“Oh yes, I forgot.”
We were almost at the Rendezvous when she sud-
denly asked, “How much are you going to tell your
friend Sergeant Sellers about what I've told you?”
“Nothing."
She slid the car in to a place at the curb and stopped.
Soft gentle fingers that somehow had a lot of strength
in them squeezed mine. "You're a good egg, Donald,”
she said, “even if ..."
“Even if what?" I asked as she stopped.
She opened the car door. “Even if you do talk in your
sleep. Good-by, Donald.”


Chapter Twelve
I DROVE THE car to the parking place across from the
office and went up. It was half past twelve when I
latchkeyed the door of the office. Elsie Brand was out
to lunch.
I heard the sound of a creaking chair from Bertha's
private office, then heavy feet on the floor and the door
was jerked open.
Bertha Cool stood in the doorway looking at me with
icy exasperation.
"You!” she said.
“That's right.”
“Why, goddamn you!” Bertha said. “Who the hell do
you think you are, and what the hell do you mean by
taking a powder? Here I thought you were all in. You
looked like a ghost. I slave my fingers to the bone cook-
ing eggs and bacon for you and you start philander-
ing ..."
“Do you want to quarrel in the outer office where
clients can hear us?” I asked, dropping into a chair and
picking up the morning paper.
"You irritating little impudent cold blooded ingrate.
Bertha used an eight dollar bottle of whisky to square
things with that flatfoot from the police force, and you
go ..."
I jerked my head toward the transom. “People walk-
ing up and down the corridor can hear you, Bertha.
137


138 GIVE 'EM THE AX
Perhaps some possible client is standing outside ..."
Bertha raised her voice. “I don't give a damn how
many clients are standing outside. I'm going to tell you
this, and you're going to listen to it. If you think you
can come back here and ..."
A black shadow formed on the door of the office. I
pointed my finger at it.
Bertha checked herself with an effort.
Someone tried the knob of the door.
Bertha took a deep breath. “See who it is, lover.”
I put down the paper, crossed the room and opened
the door.
A middle-aged man with a prominent bony nose, high
forehead and big cheek bones looked past me with gray
eyes that twinkled shrewdly over the rims of half
glasses and said, “Mrs. Bertha Cool?”
Bertha Cool's manner mellowed. “Yes. What can I
do for you?”
The man reached in his pocket. "First, permit me to
introduce myself. I am Frank L. Glimson, senior partner
of the firm of Cosgate & Glimson, attorneys at law. And
now, Mrs. Cool, I want you to do something for me."
He extended a paper to Bertha.
Bertha took the paper mechanically and said, “We do
a lot of work for lawyers, Mr. Glimson. We rather
specialize in that field. Donald, put down that news-
paper. This is my partner, Mr. Glimson, Donald Lam.
He's been in the Navy. Just back, and already hard at
work. Now what was it you wanted? Something in
these papers?"
Bertha unfolded the papers.
“Why— Why— Fry me for an oyster! Why, damn
you for a ...!"
ha


GIVE 'EM THE AX
141
“What the hell is this, bribery or blackmail?” Bertha
asked.
“My dear Mrs. Cool! My dear Mrs. Cooll”
“Don't you my dear me,” Bertha said. “What the
hell's the idea of this thing anyway?"
“We want your deposition, Mrs. Cool. We feel that
we are entitled to have your evidence perpetuated so
that when the case comes up for trial we will know
exactly what we have to contend with. In so many of
these cases, Mrs. Cool, the evidence has a habit of
jumping around. You'll think you have a good case,
and then when you get in court. ... But after all,
Mrs. Cool, you are a woman of the world, and you
understand these things.”
"I don't understand a damn thing about it,” Bertha
said, “except that I'm not going to be dragged into it.
If you can show any negligence on my part, I'll eat it!”
Glimson threw back his head and laughed. “You ex-
press it so quaintly, Mrs. Cool. But you're going to feel
rather foolish explaining in court why you gave the
name Boskovitche!”
The telephone rang. I moved over to Elsie's desk and
answered it.
The voice that came over the wire was vibrant with
eager excitement. “Hello, hello. Who is this?”
"Donald Lam talking."
"Oh, Mr. Lam! This is Esther Witson. You know, the
Miss Witson who was in that automobile accident, and
who called ..."
“Yes, I know.”
"I want to talk with Mrs. Cool.”
"She's busy now. It might be better if she talked a
little later."


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“But can't she come to the telephone just long enough
to ..."
I said, “She's busy now. It might be better if she
called a little later."
Esther Witson thought that over for a moment, then
said, “Oh, you mean that she's busy in connection with
--something that has to do with that case?”
“Yes.”
She said, “I wonder if you could answer my ques-
tions, Mr. Lam.”
"I'll try.”
“Is a hatchet-faced lawyer by the name of Glimson
there?"
“Yes."
“Talking with her now?”
“Yes.”
"Oh, Mr. Lam, I wonder if you could get this message
to Mrs. Cool. My lawyer said that Glimson is trying to
make Mrs. Cool a party so he can take her deposition,
and that if Mrs. Cool would agree to whatever it is that
Glimson wants without committing herself as to what
her testimony is going to be, it would be the best way
to trap Glimson in what my lawyer says is sharp prac-
tice.”
I said, “I'll see what I can do."
"I'll come over a little later and explain things in
detail,” she said.
"I'll let you talk with Bertha,” I said, and motioned
to Bertha.
"I'll take it later," Bertha said.
“Better listen to this, Bertha. You can make up your
mind later, but listen now.”
Bertha moved over to the phone, said, “Hello," then


GIVE 'EM THE AX
143
listened. After a while she said, "All right. Good-by,"
and hung up.
She turned to Glimson. “Where do you want to take
this deposition?"
He beamed at her. “We can take it right here, Mrs.
Cool. I'll have a notary who is also a shorthand court
reporter move right in. It won't inconvenience you at
all, only a few minutes—a few simple questions ..."
“What time?"
“I had suggested three o'clock, but ...”
“All right,” Bertha snapped. “Make it three o'clock,
and get the hell out of here so I can work.”
Glimson's hand shot out. He shook my hand. He
shook Bertha Cool's hand. He nodded his head and
backed out of the office still nodding.
“The dirty damned shyster,” Bertha said when the
door closed on him.
I said, “Wait until after three o'clock this afternoon
before you say anything. And you might start thinking
over what you're going to say. I think he may be an
automobile lawyer.”
Bertha glowered at me. “Any time that bony-faced
bastard thinks he can rattle me, he's got another think
coming. Automobile lawyer my foot! I'll show him a
thing or two."
“It's okay by me,” I said, and picked up the paper
again.
Bertha glowered at me and was just starting to say
something when Elsie Brand fitted her latchkey to the
door, opened it and then seemed surprised as she saw
Bertha and me there.
"Oh, hello! I'm not interrupting, am I?”
Bertha said angrily, “Damn it, do we always have to


144
GIVE 'EM THE AX
hold our conferences here in the outer office? What the
hell do we have a private office for?"
Elsie Brand said, “Sorry," in an impersonal tone of
voice and crossed over to her typewriter.
Bertha turned to me, “We got interrupted,” she said,
sudden anger in her eyes. “Where the hell did you sleep
last night? Frank Sellers said you ...".
She broke off as the outer door opened.
The man who entered was a broad-shouldered com-
petent individual who at the moment looked as awk-
wardly self-conscious as a man at the ribbon counter of
a department store. “Mrs. Cool?” he asked.
Bertha nodded.
"Mr. Lam?”
I got to my feet.
“My name,” he said, “is Ellery Crail.”
Bertha flashed me a glance, said hastily, “Come in.
We were just on the point of going out-that's how you
happened to catch us in the outer office. But we'll post-
pone it.”
“I'm sorry to interfere,” Crail apologized, “but I'm
exceedingly busy and ..."
“Come in,” Bertha said, "come right in.”
We filed into the private office. Bertha seated herself
behind the desk, indicated a chair for me on her right,
seated Crail in the big comfortable clients' chair.
Crail cleared his throat. “In a way,” he said, “I'm
not consulting you in your professional capacity.'
"No?” Bertha asked, her personality withdrawing it-
self behind a hard shell of incipient hostility. “Then
what do you want?”
Crail said, “You were, I believe, a witness to an auto-
mobile accident yesterday.”
“Oh, that!” Bertha said.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
145
“For reasons of my own," Crail went on, “I would like
very much to have that case settled out of court, have
the matter compromised and dropped.”
Bertha pricked up her ears. Shrewd calculation glit-
tered in her eyes. “Just how,” she asked, "did you pro-
pose to go about it?”
Crail said, “I don't want to approach the attorneys
on either side, but it occurred to me that you, being a
professional woman, might be in a position to arrange
for a cash settlement so that the entire matter would be
dropped."
“May I ask what's your interest in it?” I inquired.
Crail said, “That's a question I'd prefer not to
answer.”
I said, “One of the parties to the accident wrote down
the license numbers of the cars that were near by."
Crail changed position in the big chair. “Then you
know the answer.”
"What,” Bertha demanded, "would be in it for me
—for us?”
“I could,” Crail said, “arrange to give you five
hundred dollars if you could settle the matter for
twenty-five hundred. That would make a total ex-
penditure on my part of three thousand dollars."
“In other words,” Bertha said eagerly, "you'll pay
three thousand dollars to settle the case, and anything
we can get between the amount of the settlement and
three thousand dollars will ..."
“I didn't say that,” Crail interrupted with dignity.
“I said that I would be willing to pay you five hundred
dollars to effect a settlement up to an amount of
twenty-five hundred dollars.”
"Suppose we get a settlement for two thousand dol-
lars?”


Chapter Thirteen
ESTHER WITSON CAME barging in, her face filled with
toothful smiles. A couple of steps behind her, a pudgy
man about two-thirds bald beamed amiably at us behind
horned-rimmed glasses. He had bluish-green eyes, an
appearance of beefy solidarity and a manner which was
consciously dynamic. It was as though he'd been reading
books on how to impress people and had remembered
just about all he had read. A short red mustache, ragged
and stiff as a bottle brush, separated his nose from a
thick upper lip. His thick fingers clutched the handle
of a brief case.
“My lawyer, Mr. Mysgart, John Carver Mysgart. He's
handled my legal interests for years,” Esther Witson
said.
Mysgart bowed so that the light from Bertha's window
reflected from the shiny expanse of his bald dome.
“This is Mrs. Cool,” Esther Witson went on, “and
this is Mr. Lam.”
Mysgart shook hands. He was, he announced, very
pleased to meet us both.
"Won't you be seated?” Bertha asked.
Esther Witson said, “They've served papers on me.
I brought my lawyer along because I wanted him to
explain the legal aspects of the situation.”
She turned to Mysgart and beamed at him.
Mysgart cleared his throat. The amiable expression
148


150
GIVE 'EM THE AX
lawyers naturally didn't tell you that. They wanted to
force you to testify in their favor, to intimidate you,
to browbeat you. However, we've worked out a perfect
defense to their little scheme, Mrs. Cool. My client was
not only blameless throughout, but she is a generous,
warm hearted, sympathetic woman who has a keen
appreciation for the inconvenience to which you have
been subjected.
“Mrs. Cool, my client, Esther Witson, has told me that
she will defray the expenses of making a legal appear-
ance for you. In other words, I am instructed by my
client to file an answer on your behalf and proceed as
your attorney until the matter is disposed of and it will
not cost you one red cent—not one red cent, Mrs. Cool.
My client will defray the entire cost of the action.”
Bertha beamed all over her face. “You mean I won't
have to hire any lawyer?”
“No, Mr. Mysgart will appear for you. He'll take care
of everything," Esther Witson said.
"And it won't cost me a cent?”.
“Not a red cent," Mysgart repeated.
Bertha heaved a sigh of relief and reached for a
cigarette.
There was a moment's silence while Bertha lit up. I
could see Bertha struggling for a diplomatic approach.
Abruptly she blurted, “How about settling the case?”
“Settling it!” Mysgart said mouthing the words as
though forcing himself to say something utterly repre-
hensible. “My dear Mrs. Cool, there is nothing to settle
-absolutely nothing.”
Bertha coughed a couple of times, looked over to me
for help.
I didn't say anything.
Bertha said, “After all, you know, lawsuits are ex-


GIVE 'EM THE AX
151
pensive. And it occurred to me that in order to avoid
all of the trouble of litigation—well, you know, I might
make some offer of settlement to the plaintiff's lawyer
to see if he'd wipe the whole thing off the books."
"Oh don't do that! For Heaven's sake, don't do that,
Mrs. Cool! That would be an admission of liability on
your part. That would jeopardize the entire case. That
would be inconceivably disastrous!"
"Well,” Bertha said, “I'm a busy woman. I can't take
the time ..."
"Oh, but it isn't going to cost you anything," Esther
Witson interrupted. “Mr. Mysgart will represent you
at every stage of the proceedings and there won't be any
charge—none whatever.”
“But there's my time,” Bertha said lamely. “I thought
perhaps—well, you know, I'd offer them a thousand or
two and see what they did.”
Mysgart and his client exchanged glances of incredu-
lous amazement.
“You mean you'd offer it yourself out of your own
pocket?”
“Why not?”
“But why should you?” Mysgart said. “Can't you
understand, Mrs. Cool, the only reason on God's green
earth that they have made you a party defendant to this
action is so they could take your deposition and bully-
rag you into distorting what had happened so that it
would be in their favor. It's a very shrewd and a very
desperate trick. They put you in the position of being
a defendant faced with a large contingent liability, and
then assure you that if your testimony is the way they
think it is going to be, they will dismiss the action
against you. It's very plainly an attempt to influence the
witness."


GIVE 'EM THE AX
153
There's nothing slobby about me. Get the hell out of
here!"
“And,” Esther Witson went on, “because I didn't
know what you were going to do, and was trying to get
past you, I was lured out into the intersection and ..."
“My dear young lady,” Mysgart said, on his feet now
and between her and Bertha Cool, "you mustn't, you
simply mustn't make such statements.”
"I don't care,” Esther Witson screamed. “It was all
her fault, and as far as I'm concerned, she's the one
that's responsible for the whole business.”
Bertha Cool said, “You were so damned anxious to
bawl me out that you damn near twisted your neck off.
You weren't even looking where you were going. All I
saw was those horse teeth of yours ...”
"Don't you say anything about my teeth, you fat
swill barrel!” a
Mysgart got the door open into the corridor. “Please,
Miss Witson, please-I beg of you."
Esther Witson yelled back over his shoulder. “I didn't
want you for a witness, anyway. I hate fat stupidity.”
"Keep your lips over your teeth as much as you can,
Dearie,” Bertha said. “You look like hell when your
mouth is all the way open.”
The door slammed.
Bertha, her face almost purple, looked at me. “Damn
you,” she said, "you did that. Sometimes I could rip
you apart just to see what makes you tick-only you
don't tick. You're too smooth. You're just a lot of damn
wheels running in an oil bath. God how I hate you!"
I said, “Your cigarette's burning the desk.”
Bertha snatched up the cigarette end, ground it out
in the ash tray and glowered at me.
I said, “It had to come out sooner or later. It's better


Chapter Fourteen
IT WAS PRECISELY three-seventeen when I returned to the
office.
The deposition was under way. A court reporter sat
at Elsie Brand's desk, taking down everything that was
said in shorthand. Bertha Cool was on the witness chair
looking rather triumphant. The man of about fifty with
a weak chin and eager greedy eyes who sat next to
Frank Glimson would be Rolland B. Lidfield, one of
the plaintiffs in the case.
As far as possible, John Carver Mysgart had inter.
posed his bulk between Esther Witson and Bertha Cool.
He had Esther parked pretty well behind him and he
was scribbling furiously on a notebook as I opened the
door, evidently taking down something he wanted to
ask Bertha when it came his turn.
They all glanced up as I entered. Then Glimson went
on with his questioning. His hands were out in front of
his chest, the fingers spread apart, tips touching. His
head was tilted back slightly and his bony face was a
complete mask. “Now, Mrs. Cool, tell us exactly what
you did.”
“I slowed my car at the intersection,” Bertha said,
"and then I heard this raucous horn blowing behind
il glanced up as his hands were mouching. His
me."
“Yes, yes, go on."
155


156
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“And then Miss Witson swung her car around me out
into the middle lane of traffic.”
“And what did she do, if anything?”
"She started giving me a tongue lashing because she
didn't like the way I was driving.”
“She stopped her car to do this?" Glimson asked.
"She did not. She was shooting around me with a
heavy foot on the throttle.”
. “She was, of course, facing you,” Glimson said as one
who makes a statement rather than asks a question.
“I'll say she was facing me," Bertha said.
“You saw her eyes?”.
"I saw her eyes and her teeth."
Esther Witson moved in her chair.
Mysgart reached back and made little pattie-cake
gestures with his hand to quiet down his client.
Glimson's eyes held a flashing glint of triumph. “Then
when Miss Witson drove past you, she was looking at
you and talking to you. Is that right?"
“That's right.”
“Let me see if I have understood your testimony cor-
rectly, Mrs. Cool. I believe you said that when you came
to the intersection you brought your car almost to a
stop.”
"That's right.”
"Now let's not misunderstand each other. When Miss
Witson went past you, she was looking at you and talk-
ing to you, and your car was at the intersection, is that
right?"
“Yes.”
“Then the front of her car must have been well into
the intersection?”
“Well, yes.
"While she was looking at you and talking to you?"


GIVE 'EM THE AX
157
“Yes.”
“And all of this time she was traveling at a high rate
of speed?"
“She was stepping on it. She had a heavy foot on the
throttle.”
“And when did she turn around to look where she
was going?” Glimson asked.
"Well, all of a sudden, it seemed to hit her that she
hadn't been looking ..."
“Note an objection,” Mysgart said, “that the witness
cannot testify as to what seemed to have been passing
through my client's mind. She can only testify ..."
“Yes, yes,” Glimson interrupted. “Just tell us the
facts, Mrs. Cool, not what you think.”
“Or what she thinks my client thought,” Mysgart
added sarcastically.
Glimson glared at him.
Mysgart wiggled his upper lip so that his mustache
scratched his nose.
"Well, she suddenly turned around and there was
this other car right on top of her," Bertha snapped.
"You mean the car which was being driven by Mr.
Rolland B. Lidfield, the gentleman sitting at my right?"
“Yes.”
"And this car driven by Mr. Lidfield was turning to
the left, was it not, so that it was headed up Mantica
Street in a northerly direction?"
“That's right.”
“And Miss Witson, with what you have described as
a heavy foot on the throttle, charged her car blindly into
the intersection of Garden Vista Boulevard and Mantica
Street directly in front of the car driven by Mr. Lid-
field. Is that right?”
“That's right.”


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Glimson settled back in his chair and lowered his
hands until they rested across his stomach. He turned
to Mysgart with a benign expression, “Would you care
to cross-examine?”
Esther Witson stirred uneasily in her chair.
Mysgart made another little blind patting gesture in
her general direction and said, “Certainly."
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Mysgart retorted with heavy sarcasm.
Mysgart shifted the position of his chair somewhat.
Bertha Cool glanced at me with a triumphant expression
as much as to say that no damn lawyer was going to mix
her up, and then turned her eager little eyes on Mysgart.
Mysgart cleared his throat. “Now let's just go back
to the beginning and see if we get this straight, Mrs.
Cool. You were proceeding in a westerly direction on
Garden Vista Boulevard?”
“Yes.”
“And how long had you been driving westerly along
Garden Vista Boulevard before you came to the inter-
section of Mantica Street?”
“Eight or ten blocks, perhaps.”
“Now at the intersection of Mantica Street, you have
testified that your automobile was in the extreme right-
hand lane, the lane that is next to the curb."
“Yes.”
“And how long had it been in that lane?”
"I don't know.'
"You wouldn't say for eight or ten blocks?"
"No."
"Some of the time you had been over on the extreme
left-hand lane, the one that's closest to the center of the
road, hadn't you, Mrs. Cool?”
“I suppose so.”


GI GIVE 159
VE
LE
'EM THE AX
“And part of the time you had been in the middle
· lane?"
"No."
Mysgart raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You're
certain of that, Mrs. Cool?”
“Absolutely certain," Bertha snapped.
“At no time at all, had you operated your car in the
middle lane? Is that right?”
“That's right."
“But you had been over on the left-hand lane?"
“Yes.”
“And at the time of the accident you were over on the
right-hand lane?"
"Yes.”
“Then,” Mysgart said with elaborate sarcasm, "will
you be so kind to tell us, Mrs. Cool, how you could
possibly have got from the left-hand lane to the right-
hand lane without driving over the middle lane?”
“I may have crossed it," Bertha said.
“Oh," Mysgart said with well-simulated surprise,
"then you did operate your car on the middle lane?"
“I went across it.”
“Straight across?”
“Yes."
“Then am I to understand you turned sharply and
crossed the middle lane at a right angle?”
“Don't be silly, I angled over to the right-hand lane."
“Oh, then, you turned abruptly in front of oncoming
traffic?”
"Certainly not,” Bertha said. “You can't mix me up.
I eased my way over.”
“Taking perhaps a block in order to complete your
maneuver, or two blocks, or three blocks, or four
blocks?”


GIVE 'EM THE AX 161
tered into angry, inarticulate sounds. The court reporter
looked up.
"Come, come,” Mysgart said, “try and answer that
question.”
Bertha said, “I've told you what happened.”
"Exactly. You have told me two different things, Mrs.
Cool. I'm really trying to find out which is correct.”
Little beads of perspiration appeared on Bertha's
forehead. She said, “All right, have it your own way.”
“No, no, not my way,” Mysgart interposed hastily,
“your way, Mrs. Cool. And may I caution you that you're
under oath, so this time try and tell the truth.”
“All right,” Bertha screamed at him, “I was on the
left-hand lane. I crossed over the middle lane to the
right-hand lane. Now what's wrong with that?"
“A great deal might have been wrong with it,” Mys-
gart said condescendingly. “It depends on how you did
it. Did you give any signal before you cut across the
right-hand lane?"
“No, I didn't.”
"Did you look behind?"
“Of course I looked behind.”
“Turned your head?”
“No. I glanced in the rearview mirror.”
“And, because of the angle at which your car was
being operated, you couldn't see the road down that
lane. In other words, since you had turned your car
sharply to the right, your rearview mirror only showed
the vehicles directly behind you. What I am getting at,”
Mysgart said soothingly, “is that you didn't see the car
operated by Esther Witson which was coming behind
you?”
“No, I didn't,” Bertha admitted.


162
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"When did you first see it?".
“When I got over to the right-hand curb and stopped.
Then I looked up in the rearview mirror and saw her
right behind me."
“Oh, you stopped?”
“Yes, I stopped,” Bertha said angrily. “Now try and
twist something out of that.”
"Did you give a stop signal when you stopped?"
"Yes, I did.”
"How?”
"I put my arm out of the window on an angle.”
"Your whole arm?"
“My whole arm.”
“And gave a stopping signal?"
“A stopping signal,” Bertha asserted.
“Now why did you stop, Mrs. Cool? You didn't have
any passengers to let out at the curb, did you?"
"No."
“And you knew that this wasn't a parking place?"
“Of course.”
“You were right at the intersection?”
“Right at the intersection.”
“And there was a traffic signal on Mantica Street?”
“Yes.”
“And that signal was in a position that held traffic
open for travel along Garden Vista Boulevard?"
“That's right.”
“And yet you stopped?”.
"Well, I just about stopped.”
"Not whether you just about stopped, Mrs. Cool. I
want to know whether you stopped.”
“Well, I–I may have been moving very slowly.”
“But a moment ago, Mrs. Cool, you said you stopped."
“All right,” Bertha shouted at him, “I stopped, then.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX 163
“Brought your car to a dead stop?"
“To a dead stop, if you want it that way.”
“Not the way I want it, Mrs. Cool, but what did you
actually do?”
“All right, I stopped my car.”
“To a dead stop?”
“I didn't get out and stick up my finger and sight
along the edge of it to see if the car was moving,” Bertha
said sarcastically.
“Oh, I see,” Mysgart said as though that explained
everything. “I think you misunderstood me, Mrs. Cool,
or I misunderstood you. As I get your testimony now,
you aren't absolutely certain whether your car was at a
dead stop or whether it was moving?"
"That's right.”
“But you did give a full arm signal that you were
going to stop?”
“That's right.”
"A stop signal?”
“That's what I said.”
"And that's what you meant?"
“Of course that's what I meant.”
“Now let me ask you again, Mrs. Cool, why did you
stop? You didn't intend to park there."
Bertha said, “I intended to turn left as soon as this
other car got around me.”
"Oh, you intended to turn left? Did you convey your
intention by means of any signal?"
“Certainly."
"You mean you gave a left-turn signal?”
“That's right.”
“And how did you do that, Mrs. Cool?”
"How does anyone do it?"
"No, no, Mrs. Cool, I want to know how you did it.”


164
GIVE 'EM THE AX
Bertha said, “I stuck my left arm out of the window-
straight out.”
“A full arm signal?”
“A full arm signal.”
“And then you saw this car behind you.”
“Yes.”
“For the first time?"
“Yes.”
“And you wanted that car to go around you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you convey your intention to the driver of that
car by means of any signal?”
“Certainly.”
"What did you do?”
“I motioned her to go ahead.”
"How?”
“By waving my arm.”
“Just what do you mean, by waving your arm, Mrs.
Cool?”
Bertha thrust her arm out and made a series of circu-
lar motions.
“Let the records show," Mysgart said, “that Mrs. Cool
at this point extends her left arm and makes a series
1 of circular motions—motions which go higher than her
head when the arm is elevated, and down almost to the
floor when the arm is lowered. That's right, Mrs. Cool?”
“That's right,” she said, and then added sarcastically,
"I'm glad you've got something right.”
“And as soon as she received that signal, Miss Witson
drove around you. Is that right?"
“Drove around me, giving me a piece of her mind,”
Bertha said.
"Now your window was down on the left-hand side,
was it not?”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
165
"Yes.”
“And how about the window on Miss Witson's car?--
Careful now, Mrs. Cool. I don't want to trap you. I
simply want to test your powers of observation, and see
what you can remember. Was the right-hand window on
Miss Witson's car down or up?"
Bertha thought for a minute then said, “It was up."
"You're positive?"
“Positive.”
“All of the windows on the right-hand side of Miss
Witson's car were up?"
“Yes.”
“All the way up?"
“That's what I said.”
“And exactly what did Miss Witson say to you? What
words did she use?”
A gleam of triumph came into Bertha's eyes. "You're
not going to trap me that way,” she said.
Mysgart raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if the windows on the right-hand side
were up, I couldn't hear what she was saying, and you
know it as well as I do. I could see her talking.'
“But you couldn't hear the words?”.
“Naturally not. Not with the windows up."
“Couldn't hear any words?”
"No. Well, I heard ... no, I won't swear to it.”
“Then how do you know that Miss Witson was giving
you what you have referred to as a piece of her mind?”
“I could tell it by the expression on her face.”
“You didn't hear a word she said?”
"No."
“Then when you say she was giving you a piece of
her mind, you're depending upon mental telepathy.”
“I could see the expression on her face.”


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GIVE 'EM THE AX
shorthand notebook. Esther Witson smirked at Bertha
and walked out. Mysgart scratched his nose with his
mustache.
Swiftly the people thinned out until Bertha and I
were alone once more in an office that seemed something
like a prize ring after the contestants had left.


Chapter Fifteen
BERTHA COOL CAREFULLY closed the door. “Damn you,"
she said. “You got me into that. Why didn't you tell
me what I was going up against?”
“I tried to, but you told me that no damn lawyer
could rattle you."
Bertha just glared at me, reached for a cigarette.
I took one from my pocket and settled down into the
client's chair.
Bertha said, “How the hell can anyone remember all
those little things? You can't remember what you were
doing and just how many seconds lapsed and all that
sort of stuff.”
I said, “I'm interested in Esther Witson. She'd been
tagging along for eight or ten blocks. Now you remem-
ber she ..."
There was a timid knock at the door.
I said, “If that happens to be Mysgart, don't loose
your temper."
Bertha looked at me helplessly. “If it's that damn
lawyer,” she said, "you . . . you do the talking, Lover.”
I opened the door.
Mysgart said, “May I come in?”
“Come on in,” I told him, and indicated the client's
chair.
Mysgart smiled at Bertha Cool. “I trust there are no
hard feelings, Mrs. Cool.”
171


172
GIVE 'EM THE AX
I answered for Bertha. “No hard feelings,” I told him.
"It's all a matter of business.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lam. I'm glad you appreciate my
position. My client is a little impulsive—as so many
women are.”
Bertha simply glared at him, and blew smoke out
through her nostrils.
“Cigarette?” I asked Mysgart.
“Thank you."
I passed over the humidor. He took one and lit it.
“Is Mrs. Lidfield badly injured?” I asked.
He made a little grimace and said, “You know how
those things go. If she gets a settlement she'll be running
around spry as can be. If she doesn't she'll be in bed for
a year. Glimson is a shrewd one. He specializes in this
sort of stuff.”
"You're no slouch, yourself,” I told him.
He grinned.
Bertha said, “Of all the goddam ..."
I said to Bertha, “Excuse me. If you're going to handle
it, I'll go out.”
I started for the door.
“Don't go, Donald.”
I hesitated a moment, looked meaningly at her.
“I'll keep quiet,” Bertha promised.
"I took my hand off the knob of the door.
Mysgart said hastily, “Mrs. Cool said something about
being willing to effect a settlement in the case so she
wouldn't have to be a witness."
She's been a witness now," I said.
Mysgart opened his brief case, fumbled around,
brought out some papers and started looking at them
very studiously. He said, “I think it might be possible
to settle the case. I think that's the reason Glimson


GIVE 'EM THE AX , 173
wanted to rush ahead with these depositions. I think
he wanted to get some kind of a settlement.
"Well,” I said, "anything you want to make.”
He looked at me in surprise. “You mean that you
don't want to make any settlement now?"
“Not particularly.”
“Why, Mr. Laml I don't want to precipitate an argu-
ment, and I trust we can handle this in a business spirit
and in a friendly way, but the evidence now shows that
Mrs. Cool was quite negligent according to her own
testimony. She was stopping at an illegal place, at an
illegal time, in an illegal manner, and giving conflicting
signals for two illegal maneuvers as well as this waving
signal.”
I said, “How about your own client? If Lidfield was
driving his car fast then, he must have been in the inter-
section before Esther Witson entered the intersection.
So then it was up to her to look out for him.”
Mysgart said, “I will admit that there are some puz-
zling aspects to the case.”
“They aren't puzzling Glimson any."
Mysgart sighed. “I was hoping,” he said, “that a way
would present itself by which we could get the entire
matter cleared up.”
“How much does Glimson want?”
“Oh, I haven't the faintest idea.”
I kept on smoking.
“If you folks would make some contribution,” Mys-
gart said, “my client might be prepared to make some
contribution, and between us we might get the situation
straightened up."
I said, “Why don't you quit beating around the
bush?"
Mysgart scratched his nose with the red mustache.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
175
office somewhere. It may take me a minute to get him.
Just hold the line.”
Bertha clapped her palm over the mouthpiece of the
telephone and said, “It's Georgia Rushe and damned if I
hadn't forgotten all about her. What are we supposed
to be doing for her-oh yes, that investigation of Mrs.
Crail. It's up to you to talk to her, Lover. You're good
at making things up on the spur of the moment. Thank
Heavens I had sense enough to stall her along and tell
her you weren't immediately available. Start thinking
and I'll tell her that you're busy dictating and she'll
have to wait a minute.”
"I'll talk to her,” I said.
"Well, think up something good,” Bertha told me.
Bertha took her hand off the mouthpiece and said,
“He's dictating, Miss Rushe, but he'll be here right away.
He . . . Here he is now ... What? What's that?”
Bertha scowled portentously into the mouthpiece.
“Say that over again,” she said. "Say it slow.”
Bertha listened for as much as thirty seconds, then
said, “You're sure that's what you want? Well, if that's
the way you feel about it. Poor child, you're crying!
Now listen. You better talk with Donald. He's here. He
wants to talk with you.”
Bertha once more clapped her palm over the mouth-
piece.
“Take it, Donald. She's nuts, too!”
I took the telephone, said, “Lam talking, Miss Rushe.”
Georgia Rushe poured words into the telephone with
such rapidity that it was difficult to understand them. It
was a steady stream of almost hysterical sound.
“I want you to call everything off, Mr. Lam. I want
you to stop it. Don't do another thing. Let it go just as
it is. I'm sorry I ever started it. I didn't realize what it
rted it. I ding, Let it o want


176
GIVE 'EM THE AX
would lead to or I wouldn't have done so. And don't
worry about the two hundred dollars. Simply keep that
and forget about the whole thing. Only don't- don't
under any circumstances ever let on that I employed you
to do anything. And please, please stop everything right
now. Don't do another bit of work. Just stop whatever
you're doing. Quit the whole business.”
“May I ask why you've reached this decision, Miss
Rushe?"
"I can't tell you. I can't tell you a thing in the world
about it. I don't have time to discuss things. I don't want
to. Just let it go, please.”
I said, "Perhaps you'd better come into the office per-
sonally and confirm these instructions."
"You don't need them confirmed. They're all right.
You do just as I tell you. Surely it doesn't need any sig-
nature before a notary public to tell you to quit work.
What's the matter with you people! What are you trying
to do, anyway? Just quit it. I tell you I want you to
stop. Don't do another thing. Just forget the whole
business. Keep the money. Stop right there."
She was keying herself up to an hysterical pitch.
“But, Miss Rushe, we're just beginning to get some
really valuable information. We're getting ...".
“That's what I was afraid of. That's why I want you
to stop. Stop right now. I don't want anything more.
I'm ... I'm going away. I'm ... I'm not going to
be here. You won't see me again-ever."
· I heard the sound of a choking sob at the other end of
the line, and then abruptly the receiver was hung up.
I dropped my receiver back into the cradle.
“What do you make of it?” Bertha asked.
I looked at Bertha gravely and said, “As nearly as I


178
GIVE 'EM THE AX
"Oh, but you can't do that! You can't do that! I've
already made the settlement!”
"On the basis of a thousand dollars?" I asked.
“Just a minute,” he said. He came up out of the cli-
ent's chair with a rush. “Just a minute now. Don't go
away! Just a minute now!"
He was out through the door like a fleeting shadow.
Bertha looked at me and said, “Whatever Georgia
Rushe said over the telephone doesn't affect the job we
are doing for Mr. Crail.”
I said breezily, “Well, let's not be narrow-minded
about it-particularly when we're dealing with an auto-
mobile lawyer."
Bertha batted her eyes at me, said suddenly, “I love
you, you little bastard. I have the greatest admiration
for the thinking machine that's back of your eyes and
you make me so goddamn mad I could kill you a dozen
times a day. You ..."
Mysgart's timid little knock sounded on the door, and
this time he didn't wait for an invitation to enter, but
having made the knock as a matter of formality, he
twisted the knob, opened the door just far enough to
accommodate his pudgy body, and slipped into the
room, closing the door silently behind him. He was nod-
ding his head. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were
dubiously apprehensive.
"It's all right. I've got it fixed. It's all settled. My con-
gratulations to both of you. You've worked out a very
fine settlement. You've extricated yourselves from a very
precarious position. It's all right. Five hundred dollars
will do it. I've explained to the parties that the cash
will be immediately forthcoming."
I said, “Mrs. Cool will want releases signed by Mr.
Lidfield, Mrs. Lidfield, and Esther Witson."


GIVE 'EM THE AX
183
hurriedly. “Miss Witson's bank is down the street four
or five blocks, and if we hurry, we'll be able to get in
the side door. They know Miss Witson very well down
there, and ..."
Glimson said to Lidfield, “Give me a list of your wit-
nesses."
Lidfield was rather apologetic. He said, “I just wrote
the license number of every car that was around there
that I could see.”
I said to Glimson, “Of course after your client gave
you the license numbers of these automobiles, you had
them investigated and have the names of the owners?”
Glimson sighed reluctantly, opened his brief case and
took out a typewritten sheet of paper which he handed
to me without a word.
The teller looked at me inquiringly.
I nodded.
They grabbed the money and started for the door of
the bank, anxious to get down to Esther Witson's bank
while they could still get in.


Chapter Sixteen
I CROSSED OVER to a phone booth and telephoned the
office.
Elsie Brand answered the telephone.
“Hello, Elsie.” I asked, “How's the blood pressure?"
"Pretty high.”
"Okay. I've got a little thinking to do. If there'll be a
rise in blood pressure in the office I'll go over and sit
in the car while I think things out."
“Personally,” Elsie said, “I'd recommend the car. The
open air will be restful. There still seems to be the
question of where you were last night."
“Okay. Thanks. Be a good girl.”
"It seems almost compulsory,” she said, and hung up
before I could ask her what she meant by that crack.
I went across to the parking lot, sat in the agency car
and took out the loose-leaf notebook pages I'd received
from Esther Witson in connection with the settlement.
The name of Mrs. Crail wasn't on there. The name
of Rufus Stanberry wasn't on there. The name of Bosko-
vitche wasn't on there. That whole page of the notebook
was missing. There were half a dozen other names and
license numbers. I put them to one side for a minute and
looked at the list I'd got from Lidfield.
These were just license numbers, but on the type-
written sheet which Glimson had passed over, these
: 184


GIVE 'EM THE AX
187
the floor below-steps, the banging of a door, the sound
of a voice. The second floor itself was silent as a deserted
courtroom after the defendant has been sentenced to
death and the judge has gathered his papers and gone
out to play golf.
I pushed open the door marked, PRESIDENT.
Ellery Crail sat at his desk, his chin over on his chest,
his big competent hairy hands clinched so tightly that
the afternoon light which filtered in from the big win-
dow touched the taut skin over the knuckles into high
lights.
He didn't hear the door open, and he didn't look up.
He was staring with steady-eyed concentration, his face
dark with tortured thought. He might have been hyp-
notized, sitting there in the rigid immobility of a trance.
I walked across the thick carpet. And it wasn't until I
was seating myself in the chair opposite the desk that he
saw me, looked up with a frown of annoyance and then
as recognition flooded his features said with sudden irri.
tation, “You!”
I nodded.
“How did you get in?”
“Walked in.”
“That door's supposed to be locked.”
I said, “Let's get in touch with Georgia Rushe.”
“She isn't here. She left early. She's gone home.”
I said, “She's taking a powder.”
It took a moment or two for the full effect of my
words to dawn on him. Then he said, “Powder! Good
Heavens, Lam, not that!”
I said, “I was using a slang expression of the under-
world. It means skipping out-taking what is known as a
runout powder."
“Good God, I thought you meant ...”


GIVE 'EM THE AX 189
odors of ancient cooking, the irritating fumes of defec-
tive gas heaters.
I held back slightly and Crail led the way.
His finger found the button opposite a piece that had
been cut from a calling card printed in Old English let-
tering, Georgia Rushe.
Nothing happened.
The lock on the outer door was a little better than
most of them. I had a passkey I thought would fit it, but
I didn't want to show my hand just then. I pressed two
or three buttons at random and, after a moment, there
was the distinctive buzz from the inside which indicated
that someone was pressing a button which controlled
the electric catch on the door.
I pushed the entrance door open.
The number on Georgia Rushe's mailbox showed
that her apartment was 243. There may have been an
elevator in the back part of the hall, but I didn't wait
for it. I started climbing the stairs and Crail, climbing
with the effort of a heavily muscled man, came lunging
along behind me. I took the stairs two at a time.
No one answered when I knocked on apartment 243.
I looked at Crail. His face was drawn and haggard.
Even in the dim light of the stuffy, smelly hallway, I
could see the dead white pallor of his skin and the deep
lines that etched themselves down from his nostrils to
the corners of his mouth.
I saw no reason for being namby-pamby about it. I
took a leather key container from my pocket, slid back
the zipper and shook out my skeleton keys.
The first one did the trick. The lock clicked back and
we went in.
It was near the back of the building on the north side.


190
GIVE 'EM THE AX
A little single apartment that had two narrow windows
that furnished a small amount of ventilation. The only
cross ventilation was through an adjustable transom over
the top of the door.
A light was on in the apartment, and the globe was
powerful enough to make the room seem rather bright.
It was a conventional single apartment with a disappear-
ing wall bed behind a glass-knobbed gray painted door.
The overstuffed chair had seen better days and the up-
holstery had been pounded down with use until it was
hard and lumpy. The davenport had probably been
refinished a couple of times and was in need of a third
treatment. The faded carpet was worn almost through to
the floor by the table, and two deep circles marked where
the foot of the bed would rest when it was lowered. A
drawer was open in a little all-purpose table which
would, at night, be by the side of the bed. A pine table
stained a dark mahogany was in the center of the room.
On it were a few magazines.
A woman's hat and coat lay on a chair. The door of
what had once been a closet was wide open to disclose a
little sink and a two-burner gas stove over which was a
small-sized electric refrigerator and a shelf containing
a few dishes and glasses. A door which had a built-in full-
length mirror was evidently the door to the bathroom.
On a straight-backed chair was a suitcase about half
packed, the lid being raised to disclose the feminine gar-
ments on the interior.
Crail heaved a deep sigh of relief. “She hasn't left
yet,” he said.
I looked the place over and said, “Whenever the
management goes to the extent of putting in brilliant
light globes, you know the place is dark as hell in the
daytime," and switched out the lights.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
191
Instantly the place became dark, gloomy and depress-
ing. What afternoon light filtered in through the win-
dow was so badly dispersed that it gave the place an at-
mosphere of gloomy unreality.
I noticed a knifelike ribbon of light coming from
under the door of the bathroom.
Crail said, “For God's sake, switch that light back on.”
I clicked the switch.
“Well," Crail said, “she's probably gone out to get
something. She's packing. I guess we ..."
"What do we do?”
"Wait.”
I said, “Okay, sit down.”
Crail took the lumpy overstuffed chair and tried to
fidget himself into a position that was comfortable.
I walked over to the occasional table which would
be by the head of the bed when the bed was let down,
and looked in the open drawer.
There was a small bottle in there with the cap un-
screwed. The bottle was empty. The label said, “Lumi-
nal."
I thought for a moment, looked at my watch then
said to Crail, “What time did she leave the office?”
"About four-ten," Crail said. “She said she wasn't feel-
ing well and wanted to go home. I told her to go ahead.”
I said, “Did you notice anything peculiar?"
"About what?"
“About the way she said good-by.”
He looked at me with tortured eyes, then nodded his
head slowly.
I didn't ask him what it was, but he volunteered the
information. “There was a certain feeling in the way
she said it. Something of finality. I guess she read my
mind.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
193
didn't know anything about it. 1-I mean what I wanted
it for. I damn it, Lam, I was such a despicable cad that
I followed my wife. I wanted to know-well, I thought
she had an engagement to meet someone, and I won-
dered-well, you know, that Stanberry Building."
"I know," I said.
He didn't say anything for a while.
I said, "When you realized your wife was in trouble,
you decided that it didn't make any difference what it
was, you were going to stand by her. But you knew that
Esther Witson had got her name and address as well as
the license number of the car in connection with that
automobile accident, so you wanted it settled.”
He didn't say anything.
I said, “Life is a peculiar phenomenon, or rather a
whole series of phenomena. Lots of times it's hard to do
something without hurting someone.”
I saw him look at me searchingly, but I kept my pro-
file to him and kept on talking abstractly. “Lots of times
in affairs of the heart, you have to hurt either one per-
hurt several people. But when you have to choose the
person you don't want to hurt, you sometimes get
hypnotized into choosing the person who doesn't want
to be hurt. Do you get what I mean?”
"I don't see what this had to do with it,” he said.
I said, “Sometimes a woman who really loves you will
remain in the background so that you don't realize the
full extent to which you are hurting her. On the other
hand, there are lots of women who are adept at putting
it up to you in terms of 'I don't want to be hurt.'”
"What the hell are you talking about?” Crail asked.
"Your wife,” I said, and stopped talking.


GIVE 'EM THE AX
195
and has made statements that implicate Cosgate & Glim-
son. Ask them if they care to make any statements. And
keep them away from the telephone."
"This Georgia Rushe," Sellers said, “will she talk?”
“No. The party you want is Ellery Crail."
Crail, just emerging from the bathroom, said, “What's
that? Who's mentioning my name?"
I said, “I was trying to get some hot coffee sent up.
We'd better get her out of the bathtub and see if we can
put some cold water on her.”
I hung up.
Crail and I lifted her out of the bathtub.
“She's drugged!” Crail said. “We've got to do some-
thing!”
I said, "Put some cold towels on her forehead and on
her chest. I tried to get some hot coffee sent up, but they
won't send it. I'm going down and bring up some black
coffee."
Crail looked desperately at the kitchen and said, “Per-
haps we can make some coffee here.”
“We haven't time. There's a restaurant down the
street," I said, and bolted out of the door, leaving Crail
behind with Georgia Rushe.


202
GIVE 'EM THE AX
She was looking at me with eyes that were wells of dis-
may.
"Sit down in that chair,” I said. “Don't movel Don't
make a sound no matter what happens. Do you prom-
ise?"
"If you want me to."
“No matter what happens! Understand?"
“Yes. Anything you say, Donald.”
The bell didn't make any more noise.
I opened the door to the corridor, made certain the
spring lock was working. “No matter what happens,
don't make a sound. Understand?"
She nodded.
I pulled the door closed, dropped down on my hands
and knees and put my ear to the crack along the floor.
I was in that position when I heard faint steps down
the corridor. I moved slightly, and the steps suddenly
stopped.
I got to one knee, felt in my pocket for my collection
of skeleton keys, took them out and tried out one on
the lock.
The steps sounded again.
I whirled with the guilty start of someone who has
been detected in an unlawful activity.
Sergeant Sellers was right on top of me.
“So,” he said, “got a key to the joint, have you?"
I tried to whip the keys back into my pocket.
Sergeant Sellers' fingers clamped my wrist.
"Well, well, well,” Sellers said as his other hand
snapped the key container out of my nerveless grasp. "So
your agency plays around with skeleton keys, does it,
Bertha?"
Bertha said, “Damn you, Donald, I told you a long
while ago to get rid of those. They'll get you in trouble.”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
203
I didn't say anything.
"What,” Sellers asked, “is the big idea?”
I said, “I wanted to get in for a look around.”
“I gathered you did. How long have you been here?"
"I don't know-four or five minutes, maybe.”
“That long?"
I said, “I rang the bell three or four times to make
sure there was no answer, then I—well, I got in through
the outer door.”
“Then what?"
“Then I came up here and knocked. Then I listened
for quite a while. I didn't want to take chances on going
in until I was sure the place was empty.”
“It's empty?” Sellers asked.
“Yes. I think she moved out.”
“Then why did you want in?"
“I wanted to check something about the position of
the bathtub.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see where two people would have to
stand if they lifted the body into the bathtub. It would
take two men to ..."
"Don't kid yourself,” Sellers interrupted. “I've busted
the case wide open.”
"You have!”
“Yes. I want that jane.”
“Why?”
"We've identified the hand ax. She bought it at a
hardware store three blocks down the street.”
I tried to make my voice sound unconcerned. “She's
probably at the Rendezvous now. You didn't go out on
that ambulance case?”
He grinned. “I thought that could have been a red
herring, Donald. I wanted this Prue girl.”


204
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“But someone went out to that Orleans address?"
"Sure.”
“And they won't let Crail get away?”
“No, sweetheart, and you won't get away, either.
Come on. We're going places.”
"Do I get my keys back?”
“Naughty, naughty."
"Take the damn things and throw them away,” Bertha
said angrily. “I've warned the little devil about that.”
Sellers said, “Come on, quit stalling."
I followed them down to the street. I said, “I'll take
the agency car and ..."
“The hell you willl” Sellers said. “You'll stay right
here, my lad, until I've put the bracelets on that little
girl's wrists. You won't pull any slick little job of getting
in to a telephone and tipping her off ..."
"The bracelets on her wrists!"
"Sure. What did you think?"
"Don't let him stall you,” Bertha said. "He knows.
He's a smart little bastard. He was going to tip her off.
My God, how he falls for women! That's the trouble
with him.”
Sellers said, “Listen, Donald, she's the one who did
the killing. Don't get tangled up in it."
I looked at him and laughed. “Anyone could have
picked up the hand ax,” I said.
Sellers rose to the bait. “I've got the deadwood on
her. Under an assumed name she rented an apartment in
the Fulrose Apartments. She's had it for a month, always
being careful never to go in except when Rufus Stan-
berry was out. She's been searching his apartment. The
day of the murder, just after Stanberry had been
bumped off, she showed up and made a good job of it.
She went through the safe that time."


GIVE 'EM THE AX
205
“How do you know?"
"Archie Stanberry tells me some things are missing
from the safe.”
"But how do you know she did it?"
He laughed and said, "She was smart when it came to
going through Stanberry's apartment. She didn't leave
any fingerprints. But she wasn't smart when she lived in
that apartment under an assumed name. Hell, it
wouldn't have done her any good anyway. She couldn't
have lived there for a month without leaving finger-
prints."
"You mean you've found her fingerprints in that
apartment?”
"Sure. The one she rented under an assumed name.
What's more, the manager and one of the clerks identify
her photograph absolutely.”
“Gosh!" I said.
"Don't let it get you, lover," Bertha said cheerfully.
“She never was anything but a little gold digger with
pretty legs."
“How did you get wise?" I asked Sellers.
"Shucks, there was nothing to it. You went out to
see this man Cullingdon. She went out to see Culling-
don. Your cars were parked side by each, or end to end
—whichever you want to call it. She knew where your
car was. She knew whose car it was. You let her drive
you away. After you left her, she had ample time to drive
out and ditch the murder weapon in your car. She
thought she was being smart as hell when she did it. It
was one of those things that looked good at the time, but
it stuck her head in the noose."
Bertha said suddenly, “Listen, Frank, I don't want to
go back with you after you've made the pinch and have
Donald in the car with that little tart. Suppose Donald


206
GIVE 'EM THE AX
and I take the agency car and follow right along behind
you. I'll see that he doesn't telephone.”
Sellers thought that over for a moment and said,
“Okay."
He walked over to the agency car with me.
I reached in my pocket for the keys. A sinking feeling
developed in the pit of my stomach. I'd left the car keys
and my driving gloves on the table in Billy Prue's apart-
ment.
"Well?” Bertha said.
I know now how people feel when they get stage
fright. There probably wasn't anything I could have said
then that would have stalled the thing off, but if there
had been, I couldn't have said it. I was absolutely
tongue-tied. I just stood there fumbling through my
pockets.
“Where are they?" Bertha said.
“I must have dropped them there on the carpet when
I took these other keys out of my pocket.”
Bertha looked at Frank Sellers.
Frank Sellers said softly under his breath, “Why you
dirty double-crosser!”
The next second I felt his left hand grab my wrist.
I saw the flash of steel and heard the ratchet of hand-
cuffs. Steel bit into my wrists.
"All right, wise guy,” Sellers said. “I gave you a chance
and you couldn't take it the easy way. You have to do it
the hard way. All right, that's the way we're going to
play from now on. Come on, Buddy, you're going back
upstairs."
I said indignantly, “What the hell's eating you? Those
keys are somewhere there on the carpet in front of that
door and ..."
“And I've just noticed,” Sellers said, “that you aren't
u


208
GIVE 'EM THE AX
Bertha looked from me to Frank Sellers. "Listen,
Frank,” she said, “suppose ..."
"Nothing doing," Sellers said roughly.
“But Frank ...".
"Shut up,” he said. “And this time, we all ride in my
car.”


Chapter Eighteen
SELLERS ONLY STOPPED long enough to fit my keys to the
lock on the agency car to make sure they worked. Then
he loaded us into the police automobile, turned on the
motor and kicked in the siren.
It was a hell of a place in which to have to think, but
I knew that I had to think, and think fast. By the time
we reached Headquarters, it would be too late to do
any good.
The siren was screaming for the right of way and the
car was building into speed. We flashed past a street
intersection. My eyes noticed the name of the street we
were on. It was Mantica Street.
Ahead of us and on the left was a rather swanky apart-
ment hotel. A couple of taxicabs were parked in front.
One of the drivers looked up curiously as the siren went
screaming by. I had a glimpse of a twisted, broken nose.
The next street was Garden Vista Boulevard and
Frank Sellers was bracing his car for a screaming turn.
"Frank!” I yelled at him.
He didn't even turn his head.
The tires screamed the car around the turn.
"Frank, for God's sake stop!"
Something in my voice caught his ears, made him ease
his foot on the throttle. "What is it this time, a stall?"
“The murderer of Rufus Stanberry,” I said.
“I've got her right here."
209


GIVE 'EM THE AX
211
as for anybody. For the love of Mike, don't pull us in
and get a splash in the newspapers and then have to
hide your face.”
“Don't worry about my face,” Sellers said. “Tell me
about that murder weapon.”
I said, “The only way it could have been put in the
car was by someone who didn't know what car it was
who it belonged to.”
“Nuts!” Sellers said.
“And,” I went on, "there was only one way that
could have happened and that was that my car happened
to be the most convenient and the most accessible place
for the murderer to have put it, and there's only one way
that could have happened, and that was when my car was
parked at the Rimley Rendezvous and I tried to be a
smart Aleck and squeeze in in front of the car behind me
on the hope that it wouldn't go out before I did. But the
guy in the car behind me wasn't that sort of an egg. He
simply stuck his car in low gear and pushed mine out
into the taxi zone and went on his way. And a taxi driver
damn near beat me up over it when I came out-and
that taxi driver was sitting in a cab at that hotel a couple
of blocks back on Mantica Street. That's probably his
regular stand. And the handle of that hand ax had been
sawed off so it would fit in a woman's handbag.”.
“And what the hell's all that got to do with this
pinch?” Sellers asked.
"Don't you see?” I said. “Don't you get the sketch?
Remember that accident at Mantica Street and Garden
Vista Boulevard? Figure out the time element. Now
then, if you want to be a smart dick-be smart, and if
you want to be dumb—be dumb. I've said everything
I'm going to say. Put the keys back in the ignition,
Bertha.”


212
GIVE 'EM THE AX
Bertha said, “But I don't get it, lover. What the hell
has the taxicab got to do with ..."
"Put the keys back in the lock,” I said. “Sellers has
a chance now to either cover himself with glory, or make
himself the prize damn fool of the force.”
Sellers said, “I'm not making myself a prize damn fool
of anything—not with the stuff I've got on this Billy
Prue.”
“You haven't got a damn thing on her except coinci.
dence," I went on. “Billy and I were having an affair
before I left. She knew I was coming back. I couldn't be
with her in the apartment where she was living without
having Pittman Rimley blow my guts out. She got this
apartment in the Fulrose Apartments so we could be
together. It was a love nest. That's where I was last night,
and why Bertha couldn't find me.”
“You son-of-a-gun,” Bertha said half under her
breath, and put the keys back in the ignition.
Frank Sellers sat there for as much as thirty seconds
without saying a word. Then he pressed his foot on the
starter button, slammed the car into gear and made a
U turn in the middle of the block. The siren started
wailing again and the red spotlight blinked on and off.
We swung around the turn from Garden Vista Boule-
vard into Mantica Street and the broken-nosed cab
driver was still at the wheel of his car.
Sellers braked the car to a stop alongside the taxi
driver.
Shifty little eyes glittered out from either side of the
broken nose.
"What's eating yuh?" the cab driver asked.
Sellers said, “Yesterday afternoon there was a smashup
on Mantica Street and Garden Vista Boulevard. Know
anything about it?”


GIVE 'EM THE AX
213
"I heard it.”
“Pick up a fare right afterwards?”
Broken nose frowned, then said, “Yes. What's it to
you?"
“Man or woman?”
"Woman.”
“What did she want?”
The glittering little eyes met Sellers' for a moment,
then shifted.
Sellers suddenly threw open the door of the car,
walked around and stood with his broad shoulders hulk-
ing against the side of the taxicab. He whipped open the
door of the cab. “Come out of that,” he said to the
driver.
Broken nose sized him up, hesitated.
Sellers' hand shot forward, took a good grip on the
necktie and shirt of the cab driver. He gave a jerk. “I
said come out!”
The cab driver came out and was suddenly respectful.
"What is it you want?” he asked.
"Your fare. What about it? Who was it?”
“A woman,” he said. “She wanted me to shadow a
couple of cars that she said would be coming around the
corner.”
“Keep talking,” Sellers said.
"When the car came around the corner on Mantica
Street, we followed along. Then I noticed a second car
was tagging after the first. I told my fare about it. She
said never mind the second car, to stay with the first
one. It was only about three blocks. They stopped down
here at an apartment house. A man went in. The woman
in the other car drove away. My fare told me to wait. We
waited for about ten minutes.”
“Go ahead."


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214
GIVE 'EM THE AX
“Then a jane came out of the apartment, jumped in
a car and drove away. My fare got excited. She got out,
handed me a five dollar bill and said, 'That's for security
on the fare.' She walked into the apartment house and
was gone about ten minutes in all. Then she came back,
got in the cab and said, 'Drive to the Rimley Ren-
dezvous.'
“We drove up to the Rimley Rendezvous. Some bas-
tard had parked a car where it took up most of the cab
space. I said, “Wait a minute and I'll bust this car out
of here!' But she didn't wait. She got out. She had to
walk clean around the parked car. She walked around it
and on into the Rimley Rendezvous. A guy came out and
climbed into the parked car. I tried to shake him down
for a buck. He wouldn't shake. I had five bucks for a
sixty cent ride, so I let him pull the old stall about hav-
ing been shoved ahead into the cab space.”
“Notice anything peculiar about this woman's hand-
bag?” Sellers asked.
The cabbie looked at him with a certain dawning re-
spect in his eyes. “She had something pretty heavy in
her handbag. It stuck out. I thought it might have
been ..."
“A rod?” Sellers asked as the man hesitated.
"Perhaps a hammer or a small hand ax?”
Sudden realization showed in the little eyes. “Hell,"
the cabbie said disgustedly, “that's what it was—and me
wondering if it was a rod!”
“What did this woman look like?” Sellers asked.
"Not bad looking,” the driver said appreciatively.
“Nice legs, swell hips, nice complexion. Teeth a little too
big, that's all. Horse-toothed when she smiled.”
“Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha exclaimed under her
breath.


216
GIVE 'EM THE AX
Bertha's jaw dropped.
Crail said, “I guess you know what happened-Lam
seems to, anyway. I was suspicious of my wife and Stan-
berry. I wondered why she was so eager to have me buy
the Stanberry Building at a price that my banker said
was about three times too high. When she went out yes-
terday afternoon I-well, I decided to follow her. It was
a decision I reached all at once. My car wasn't there, but
I knew that it would be all right with Georgia Rushe if
I borrowed her car. I borrowed it.
“I'm not going to tell you all that happened. Lam
knows, anyway. I followed my wife. I saw the accident. I
saw enough to know that she was deliberately following
Stanberry. I went back to the office. Georgia didn't even
know I'd borrowed her car-and then I read about Stan-
berry being murdered and . . . well, I put it up to my
wife.
“She admitted that Stanberry had been blackmailing
her. She wouldn't tell me what it was about. Well, you
know I wanted to be a strong silent man. I wanted to
be an understanding husband. I didn't ask any questions.
I decided to back my wife to the limit. I knew that she'd
be called as a witness in that automobile accident. I de-
cided to have the case settled so that it could never be
shown that her car was trailing Stanberry's. I came to
you to get the case settled.
"And then Lam showed me how life can't be lived
that way. You can't sacrifice yourself to keep from hurt-
ing someone if by doing so, you're hurting someone else
a great deal more. And ... well, I had a talk with her,
and this time I wasn't just a big sucker. I had in the
back of my mind the knowledge of Georgia lying uncon-
scious in a hospital, knowing that she had tried to take
her life because of me, and I saw a lot of things in a