Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Annual, No. 3, 1973

Results, however, continued negative and I began to doubt the wisdom or ultimate success of Talbot’s action. It seemed very much a needle-in-haystack gambit, with the added handicap of no knowledge of our quarry’s description or, for that matter, any assurance he’d continued on-the-town following his crime.

Talbot, though, continued his visitations. Further, in the more pretentious spots which featured cloakrooms he began to not only speak with the hatcheck girl but also to inspect the cloakroom itself. Pondering such a maneuver, I suddenly recalled Julie had managed a few personal words with her brother.

“What’s with the cloakroom bit?” I asked her as Talbot maintained such an inspection at a particularly flashy club. “Did you tell Ed something?”

She assented. “I made a suggestion.”

“What sort of suggestion?”

“About the man we’re looking for,” Julie said.

Abruptly, the notion which had nagged me recurred; Julies “suggestion,” I now knew, had been her true motivation from the beginning. I sighed, said, “Maybe you’d care to tell me—”

I broke off. Ed Talbot had emerged from the confines of the cloakroom carrying a brown topcoat, was talking with the girl in attendance, his features tight, expectant. The girl nodded, looked over the club’s patrons hesitatingly for a moment, then pointed toward the bar.

Talbot turned, began purposefully threading his way through the assemblage. After a moment, his quarry became evident: a sharp-featured character in an off-the-rack brown suit, occupying a stool at the center of the bar.

The man was at ease, nursing a drink, idly surveying the crowd. His casual gaze flicked over Talbot, then did a double-take, hardened. Due to the risk of shooting an innocent customer, Talbot had not drawn his service revolver, but the grim expression on his face, his evident intent both shouted his identity to the hood. Decision flared in the man’s eyes; as Talbot had surmised, he had disposed of his own gun, but he abruptly used his shot glass as a weapon, flung it hard at Talbot’s head.

What followed has only one word: Pandemonium. Women screamed, men shouted as the hood leaped from his stool, attempted to fight his way through the crowd.

He almost made it. Talbot had ducked the shot glass, but still was six feet from the bar when the hood bolted.

Talbot whirled, lunged after the man. The hood was bulling clear. And then he struck a chair, stumbled, went down. Talbot collared him and that was it—

“Suppose he’d sat tight, tried to brazen it out?” I mused after a patrol wagon had answered Talbot’s summons and we were leaving the scene in the lieutenant’s car.

“He read me and panicked,” Talbot said, “but even if he hadn’t, the stuff that was in his topcoat pockets would have tied him in.”

In the excitement, I’d forgotten the cloakroom business. I glanced at Julie, then back at Talbot.

“All right,” I conceded, “what stuff?”

Talbot relaxed at the wheel.

“That’s your cue, Sis,” he told Julie.

Now that it was all over, Julie was regaining a bit of her normal spirits.

“Sample tubes of hair dressing and shaving cream from Susan’s selling case,” Julie informed me simply. “When Ed told us she’d left her case on the seat of her car, I figured that mugger would find it, ransack it and likely pocket what he could use. That’s why I suggested Ed’s checking cloakrooms, then questioning the attendant if he came up with anything.”

Elementary, Watson? I suppose so. But only Julie had thought of it. Not her keen-minded detective brother. And certainly not her tag-along husband.

Ed Talbot chuckled briefly as he caught my comprehension, then sobered. “Sis,” he said, “I’d like to bring up a point you sort of touched on before.” He hesitated, then went ahead. “Both Paul and I have discussed it with you Lord knows how often, and while I grant you weren’t responsible for everything that happened tonight, it just proves how unpredictable your doggoned matchmaking can be.”

In the glow from the dash, Julie’s eyes were big and round and very earnest.

“I know,” she answered gravely, “and I promise. From now on — never again.”

The declaration was nice to hear, but in the shadows Julie’s hands were concealed in the folds of her coat. Her fingers might have been uncrossed, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Happy Hour Holdup by Jack Forrest Harry

Behind me a dead man sprawled in his blood: ahead the road blocks were waiting. I grinned. I had a deadly weapon — the chic little babe beside me.

* * *

The neon sign said Happy Hour Night Club.

As a club, night or otherwise, it was a crock. There were only two people in the whole joint when I squeezed through the door, including the bartender himself, and he was old enough to be my grandfather’s papa.

The other was a chick, young, a looker, one I’d go for if I had time.

I didn’t.