Corpse on the Grill

Blows rained on the Marshal’s face and neck, fingernails clawed viciously at his eyes. But he held on to the windpipe in his grasp, squeezed the murderer’s midriff punishingly with his leg-hold. It was over in less than sixty seconds. The man went limp. Pedley let the deadweight sag to the floor, crouched down beside it. He fished through the man’s pockets, found the key to the handcuffs, let himself loose. Then he ripped the tape from his mouth, jumped for the faucet, turned it on and drank from the icy cascade that poured down on him.

First, he locked the killer’s wrist to the pipe from which he, himself, had just won release. Then he dragged the unconscious figure under the shower. There was a deep groan; the man opened his eyes and stared up with a mixture of cold malignity and shocked astonishment.

“This is where we came in,” Pedley growled, “with me damn near out on my feet and you wandering around like you’d lost your best friend.”

“What’s the matter with you?” snarled the man on the floor. “I come down here, find you kayoed and wonder whether I ought to call a doctor. And you tear at me like a wildcat. What’s the idea?”

“Idea is, it’s all over, Biddonay. All except the little room where they sit you with your back to a switchboard.”

“Because I tried to save your life?”

“Because you tried to kill me, you potbellied buzzard. And tried to make it look as if your partner fixed my wagon, instead of you. How the hell did you get out of the hospital?”

“What difference does it make whether I stayed in the hospital?” The fat man walked on his knees around the water pipe the way a dog roves on a chain. “I been takin’ it, all night, now. From the fire, from that louse, Yalb. And now you. I’m the big loser in this thing—”

“I thought you were, until I got my gray matter going. You said you were all washed up. Remember?”

“Well...”

“You were. Only before the fire. Not after. You’re practically broke, way I figure it. You mentioned the take was okay at the restaurant. But you didn’t seem to be spending much dough on wine, women or such. And when I saw that row of Moody’s Manuals there in the bookcase in your office, I should have known.”

“I’ve had ’em for years,” Biddonay protested.

“You got the 1941 edition damned early, then. The guys who use Moody’s much are generally stock-market brokers or suckers who think they’re wise boys.”

“Is it a felony to own securities, now?”

“Your trouble was you didn’t own ’em. Maybe you had ’em, but you lost ’em.”

“Okay, crystal gazer. Suppose I am strapped. What of it?” Biddonay nursed his wrist, where the bracelets chafed it.

“Why, you might have tried to get more dough. The logical place for you to try and get it would be to gyp your partner. And if you figured you’d gone as far as you could, along that line, without being found out, you might try to get out of your fix by putting Krass out of the way.”

“I never even saw Herb,” Biddonay jeered, “after he left the place at midnight.”

“You wouldn’t have to. You could get Krass in a jam by killing that wrestler in such a way that everyone would pin the blame on your partner. That would send Krass to the burner and leave you to take over the Ice-taurant. Including any funds of Krass’s which you may have stolen, to date.”

“You fat-headed fink!” the restaurant man yelled. “I never knew anything about this Greek wrestler!”

“Oh, sure. Sure you did. Jewett knew you did.”

“You couldn’t even get Herb to believe a frame-up like that.”

“Maybe I could, fat boy. I could point out to Krass that you’d heard him talking on the phone to that wrestler. That would have told you where your partner was supposed to meet the Gorilla and cross his palm with silver.”

“Ha!” Biddonay chuckled hoarsely. “And again ‘Ha’!”

“You like it? Here’s more. You beat it over to this hotel where they had the date. You got there before Krass did, maybe quarter of twelve or so. The Greek was there; you gave him some song and dance about Krass meeting him in your rooms above the restaurant. Right?”

Biddonay stared at him, slack-jawed. “You son of a—”

“Well, it’s close enough. Anyhow, you got Gorilla Greg to come back to your rooms. After the joint closed you got him to come down to the cafe, prob’ly on a pretext of meeting Krass then. When you got him there, you killed him, chopped him up into soup meat, put the legs and arms on the fire so it would look as if the murderer was trying to conceal his crime — though you weren’t — and then hung the torso up in the coldbox. That’s the story, isn’t it?”

The light in the garage was stronger, now, but Biddonay’s face seemed to be still gray, like the sky at false dawn.

“I suppose I cut that steak out of the wrestler’s back, too?”

“Who else, Biddonay? You heard about the threat Krass made, about serving Suzie’s husband to her on toast, if he caused too much trouble.”

“Hell! If you ain’t just been hitting the pipe and dreaming this up, whyn’t you slap me in a cell?”

“I want to get a coupla things straight first, fatso.”