Talmage Powell

Forget-Me-Not Killer

Chapter One

Out of the World

Waking again was like swimming in a sea of dull pain. My head felt hot, my limbs heavy. I tried to open my eyes, and couldn’t. For a moment it struck me only as being queer. Then I realized my face and head were heavily bandaged. I could feel the strips of gauze by raising my leaden hands and touching the cloth with my fingertips.

I had no way of knowing whether it was night or day, winter or summer. I hadn’t the least idea of where I was. I had come from — where? Slowly, a horrible coldness started waving up over me, shaking me so that I wanted to scream.

In the name of mercy, who was I?

I was lying on a bed. I heard the springs creak as I tried to rear up, to tear the bandages from my face in sudden terror. Two hands gripped my shoulders, forcing me back. A voice called:

“Doctor Maddigan! Doctor Maddigan, please!”

The sound that followed the woman’s crisp, professional voice was that of softly clicking heels. Then other hands were added to the woman’s, pushing me against the mattress.

“Let’s behave now, Mr. Smith!” a man’s voice commanded.

“Where am I?” I said hoarsely, my voice muffled by the bandages.

“In Asbury Hospital. I’m Doctor Maddigan, and Miss Phillips, your nurse, is right beside you in case you want anything. There is really no reason for you to begin acting up again.”

“Again?”

“Almost every time you awake. You don’t remember? Well, that isn’t uncommon. Lie quietly and it will all come back to you. Physically, you’re just about ready for discharge, and I’m glad to say this waking is the most normal so far.”

“But I...” I flinched a little as I felt a needle bite my arm. Gasping, I tried to get this Doctor Maddigan to talk to me, to answer my questions. But he uttered only soothing nothings, and gradually I felt the drug taking effect, dragging me back into that awful maw of blackness. I wanted to scream again. This clammy coldness that gripped me seemed as if it would never leave me.

“Quiet now, Mr. Smith... that’s it... it’ll all come back... come back...”

When I woke again, I had the feeling I had been dreaming. I lay in sheets wet from the sweat of my body and tried to remember the dream. But it stayed just beyond the edge of my mind. Then, as I became fully conscious, the terror returned greater than ever, for I knew it was no dream I was trying to recall. It was my past. It was I! That was it — I was trying to remember me!

Smith, they had said. Doctor Maddigan and Miss Phillips. Asbury Hospital. At least my mind would function. I could remember that much of it, the last awakening. But behind that awakening was a thick, black curtain that I could not penetrate. I — as I — had never existed!

I tried to keep a strong grip on myself. I lined up all the facts I did know. The name was Smith. I had obviously been in an accident of some kind, evidenced by bandages and hospital. I knew I spoke English. My mind seized on the fact that I knew somehow that Asbury Hospital was in the city of Wiltonville.

Beyond that, memory was a myriad of tantalizing wraiths. Like a terrier, my mind pursued each memory as it boiled over into my consciousness; then memory would flee down the rathole of forgetfulness.

The third awakening found me calmer, conditioned to the fact that I remembered nothing. It also found me feeling much stronger, and I knew even before I touched my face or opened my eyes that the bandages were gone.

“Hello, darling!”

I had only to turn my head a little to see her. She was standing right beside the bed. Tall, sleek, a creature with cool blue eyes, heavy red lips that would pout easily, and blonde hair flowing down to the silver fox neckpiece about her shoulders. Darling, she had said. Smith, I thought, you’re some boy.

From the woman, I shifted my gaze to the man beside her. He was average height. His face was narrow and cold, his eyes a cruel slate-gray. All in all, he looked dapper and deadly, a fit companion for the woman.

He asked her: “Is his new face handsome enough, Marlene?”

“Hasn't he always been?” She gathered my hand up in both of hers, pressed my palm against her cheek. “Darling, it’s been such a fearful time! I was afraid I had lost a husband.”

That cut it. I almost fell off the bed. I was too numbed, staring at her, to speak. She used a long, carmine-tipped finger to trace the outline of my cheek and jaw. “I’ll have to get used to the new face, being near you, darling. They’ve done a good job, don’t you think, Felix?” She looked up at the man.

Felix was regarding me with his slaty eyes. “He doesn’t look much like the old Dash Smith, but you can’t kick, Chief. When the lake cottage burned, it was a miracle the young people in the parked car got you out of the place. This Doctor Maddigan worked a couple of miracles himself, saving your eyes, and giving you any kind of face at all.”

“The face,” I creaked. “Could I see it?”

Marlene held a purse mirror out to me. I took it, stared at the image of me. There were still pink scars of surgery around the jaws and forehead. A rather ordinary face aside from that, but completely strange to me.

Doctor Maddigan came in with the remark that I should rest now. Marlene rose. “Don’t worry about a thing, Dash. Mr. Varden is attending to everything.”

I watched Felix Varden and Marlene go, with a mixture of feeling. One had called me boss, the other — husband...

The next morning I was up and around in my room a little. Doctor Maddigan seemed worried that I still remembered nothing.

“I’m sure everything will come back to you in time. A familiar face, sound, or smell might bring memory flooding back when you least expect it.”

“The newspapers reported the fire I was in?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “there was a great deal in the papers about you.”

“If I should read that?” I suggested.

He pondered a moment. “It might help at that. I’ll have Miss Phillips bring them in.”

That day I got acquainted with myself through a pile of back issues of the local papers. It was all there, the account of the fire that had burned me about the head and shoulders so nearly to a cinder, the rehash of a good bit of my past:

LOCAL RACKETS BOSS ESCAPES DEATH IN FLAMES

The writer of that piece had a droll sense of humor, implying that the inferno itself had rejected me. It spoke of the crocodile tears of Marlene’s grief when news of her husband’s mishap had reached her. She had been located that night at a swank nightspot in the company of Felix Varden.

I let the papers fall slowly to the floor beside my chair. I sat looking out into the golden sunlight. I tried to feel the personality of Dash Smith. I couldn’t. I knew I did not like the man I had met in the papers. Yet I was that man. Obviously, I was wealthy, feared and reviled. I slumped, feeling tired, wondering why the flames hadn’t finished their job...

My hair still had not begun to grow back the day I left the hospital. Marlene same for me, with Felix Varden. I slipped my arms about her, kissed her because she seemed to expect it. I felt nothing for her. I wondered if this lack of feeling had sent me to that lonely lakeside cabin the night of the fire?

Varden drove a heavy, rich black sedan, obviously mine. We passed through streets that were strange and yet that had an aching familiarity about them. Varden drove with quick, abrupt gestures. I suspected he could move with the speed of a striking snake. I knew he must be one of my most valuable men.

Marlene sat beside me, sheathed in black silk and jewels, chatting about friends who had called, the redecorating she’d done on the apartment, anything that came to her mind. There was an air of tension between the three of us.

Varden stopped the sedan before an ornate apartment building of cream-colored brick. A doorman hopped to the curb, opened the car door. He gave me an odd look, and Marlene whispered:

“It’s Mr. Smith!”

The doorman practically brushed the carpet with his palms to the elevator for us. As we rode up, Varden said.

“Some of our business associates are chaffing to see you. Shall I bring them around tonight?”

“No,” I said, “later. I’m tired.”

I didn’t miss the expression in Varden’s eyes, nor the glance he swapped with Marlene. For the first time I wondered why that fire had started in the lake cottage that night, and what was behind it. Varden’s own innate coldness caused my skin to prickle in his presence. A keen sense of warning told me not to let Felix Varden know how really helpless I was.

I let Marlene precede me into the apartment. There was a long living room, a sunken dining room with windows banked at one end. Like a Hollywood movie set, I thought.

“I’m sure we could all use a drink,” Marlene suggested.

I cut my eyes, helplessly lost, about the room. “You play hostess, Marlene.”

I watched her swing a section of the wall out to form a miniature bar. Felix Varden raised his glass in a toast:

“To the suckers!”

It took me a moment to echo it, and I saw the puzzlement deepen in his eyes. He set his glass down, drink finished. “Look, Chief, you’re acting spooky. You must be all in. I’ll chase myself now, see you tomorrow.”

As soon as the door closed, I turned to look at Marlene. How did Marlene and I live?

But I needn’t have wondered. Turning to her, I found her face was cold, as if she had dropped a mask of pretense.

“I saw the way you were looking at Felix — and he noticed it, too. I suppose now it will start all over again.”

“What will start, Marlene?”

“That’s like you, Dash. Pretending everything is just fine when thoughts are crawling through your mind. I warn you, Dash. I didn’t know what an utter ego-maniac you were when I married you, but I won’t take any more of your persecution.”

I looked at her. “What if I just got out of the whole thing?”

Her full, red lips curled. “Even Dash Smith would know better than that. The organization never lets a man go. Especially a man in your position. You wouldn’t want to land in the bottom of the river, your feet in a tub of cement, any more than I would. But I’m not afraid of what you can do to me any longer! I made up my mind while you were in the hospital that I was through taking your persecution!”

“You got any more to say?”

“No.” Her voice dropped. She sagged in a big club chair, tired, not half so beautiful under her heavy make-up. “That’s all I have to say.”

“Then I think I’ll take a walk,” I said.

I had to get out in the fresh, clean air. I was certainly jammed up in a lot of things I needed to remember. I recalled the newspaper stories about Dash Smith. They said I’d come from the wrong side of the tracks, from Eastland Street. There should be plenty of the familiar over there, perhaps something that would bring back my memory. I climbed in a taxi.

I found nothing to help my memory on Eastland Street, only that tantalizing familiarity of the teeming streets, crowded tenement buildings. I walked all the way to the end of the street, where they had tom down a block of buildings and transformed the area into a small park. I was tired from my long, slow walk down East-land. I sank on a bench, lighting a cigarette and watching squealing kids splash in a wading pool.

A little girl came wobbling down the cement walk on roller skates. She was clutching a doll in the crook of one arm, waving her other frantically to keep her balance. I grinned at her serious efforts.

As she neared my bench, she lost her battle, each skate going in opposite directions at once. She pitched forward full length on the walk.

Rushing to her, I scooped her up and set her on the bench. She was trying hard not to cry. I shook out my handkerchief to wipe the ugly cement-burn on her palm and cheek.

“Thank you so much for helping her! I’ll take her to the Park Supervisor to get the skinned places dressed right away.”

I looked up. A young woman, small, with aburn hair, hazel eyes and a chin that was nice and firm. She bent to the six-year old tot. “Now, hadn’t you better let mommy hold your hand again?”

“But I almost made it, Mommy. Didn’t I, mister?”

“A little more practice, with your mommy’s hand, and I’m sure you’ll skate rings around those other kids.”

“Mister,” she said candidly, “you broke my dolly.”

“Peggy!” her mother said.

I followed Peggy’s glance. There was the doll on the walk where my heel had crushed it in my haste to get to her. I picked up the broken toy.

Peggy’s chin quivered. “I guess I’ll have to have a dolly funeral. She was only learning her ABC’s, too.”

Over her mother’s objections, we three took Peggy’s dolly to the park supervisor for repairs. As we left his office, Peggy looked up at me. “Is he like my daddy, Mommy?”

“Peggy, you should never—”

“My daddy’s gone away for ever and ever, asleep,” Peggy told me gravely.

I shot a glance at the woman walking beside me. Her glance met mine, and there was an old pain and cold anger, a helpless anger she had not learned to accept and live with.

“We’d been married a year,” she said quietly. “Bill had a small shop. He refused to pay protection and—” she spread her hands — “the hired hoodlums of a man called Dash Smith shot Bill down inside — inside his shop.”

Chapter Two

Mind Over Mayhem

Dash Smith. Cold inside, I looked at her. But even if Sally Blanchard had ever seen Dash Smith, she wouldn’t recognize me now after Dr. Maddigan’s surgery had given me a new face.

There wasn’t anything to do, but go on trying to be natural with Sally and her daughter. I spent the afternoon with them. I wondered if in my old life, I’d ever known a time as nice.

They lived near the park with an aunt who cared for Peggy while Sally worked. I knew that I was the cause of all their heartbreak. I was behind it, my orders had caused the death of Sally’s husband. I had no right even to want to see Sally again. But I knew I did want to, more than anything in the world.

“My name is Green,” I lied. “Eddie Green.”

What would she say if I told her my name was Dash Smith? I looked at her. I knew only that the accident had changed this man they called Dash Smith, racketeer. I was already making up my mind to right the terrible wrong I had done Sally and Peggy Blanchard, even if I had no idea of how I could accomplish such a thing.

Sally put out her hand. As I held it, I took off my hat. Peggy said. “You don’t have any hair, Mr. Green!”

I felt color seep in my face. “Like your dolly,” I said. “I had an accident, too.” Until then, I hadn’t thought of the hairline scars on my face, the missing hair.

Sally smiled. “We’ve had fun, Mr. Green, and you look very distinguished.”

“Eddie,” I said.

“A very real pleasure, Eddie.”

She agreed I could come back and I spent the rest of the day thinking about Sally. I made up my mind to look up the records on Bill Blanchard, and find out what I could do — even if it meant bucking the organization.

That night, Marlene came in our Hollywood-set living room all dressed up to go out. I made the excuse of being tired. Marlene said sullenly, “I was cooped up here all day while you were out—”

“Look,” I broke in, “go out and have some fun.”

“And take a beating when I get in?” she snarled.

I saw the hatred she couldn’t quite keep masked in her eyes. And the greed, too, I saw that. Greed for pleasure, excitement, for riches around her. For that she stayed married to Dash Smith.

“I promise — no beating. Because it happens I don’t care where you go.”

Her eyes went icy. For an instant there was a deadly challenge unspoken between us. Then, with a toss of her hair, she turned, left the room.

Alone in the apartment, I prowled it. Nothing brought back memory. There were no records of Dash Smith’s protection rackets.

The buzzing at the door brought me back to the living room. I opened the door. A short, stocky man in a rumpled gray suit let a look of contempt grow on his face as he brushed by me into the living room. He had a heavy, tired face, but his eyes were cold, reflecting strength and purpose.

“Alone, Smith.”

“Do I know you?” Something stirred in me, I knew him! But it remained just beyond the rim of consciousness!

“Don’t hand me that, wise guy! As Detective-Sergeant Saul Levine, I’m calling officially about the disappearance of Lieutenant Les Quincy. Better you should have fried in that cottage, Smith. Because you’ve tangled with something too big this time. Always before it’s been dirty nightclubs, crooked gambling, protection rackets, and numbers rackets milking the poor. You got a nice new face — you should have stayed hidden behind it, Smith — and run for your life!”

He moved up to me, his eyes so cold they were burning, and jabbed his words at me with a finger in my chest. “You think you’ve played it smart. Les Quincy was working on you, and disappears, like that!” He snapped his fingers sharply. “But we know you killed him, don’t we, Smith? Just as you killed a lot of other guys that got in your way. Did you plant him in the river? Bury him deep someplace?”

“Stop it!” I was shaking all over.

Saul Levine laughed coldly. “You’re going soft, Smith! You don’t look like yourself, hairless and changed with that new skin. Maybe that fire did something to your insides. Maybe I should run you in and grill the truth out of you — but your crooked lawyer wouldn’t let you stay in five minutes, would he?”

Sergeant Levine strode toward the door. “But I’ll be back, Smith! I’ll be back and when I get you, no lawyer will be crooked or smart enough to get you off!”

When the door had slammed behind the short, heavy cop, I sank slowly in a chair. Dash Smith, racketeer, murderer. I buried my face in my palms. The skeins of the web were too many, too strong. I must never see Sally Blanchard again...

The group that gathered in my apartment the next day might have been smooth business men. Strange faces to me, mention of strange places and strange names. I mumbled greetings, shook hands, mentioned I was still woozy from the long hospitalization. As they spoke to each other, I gradually learned to identify the three or four key men.

Tony Morales who spoke of the profits of the Gilded Lily Club. Brian Connell who boasted of the speed with which he could obtain a writ of habeas corpus from old Judge McCloud. Blackie, a little man who mentioned having hired two more out-of-town men on the protection squad. And Felix Varden. He was very much there, speaking in a whisper to Marlene in a corner.

I let Varden do all the talking. It was easy. He enjoyed taking over. He chuckled with understanding when I said, “I’m naturally behind on things. I’ll listen until I get up to date.”

I listened, sickened to the things these men had been accomplishing in my name. Saul Levine had spoken the truth — and Marlene and Varden were guessing it. Thousands from the numbers. More from the protection rackets of Blackie. A young man beaten when he accused the Gilded Lily of running crooked gambling.

I wondered how long before all of them knew that Dash Smith was going soft. What would happen to me then? It must be mighty lonely at the bottom of the river, your feet in a tub of cement...

When there was a lull, I said directly to Blackie down the table from me: “On this Blanchard killing, Blackie. I want restitution made to the widow. In full. I don’t care how you do it.”

I heard sharp gasps along the table. Blackie came forward on his chair. “Boss, are you crazy?”

I tried to remain cold. “It’ll take the heat off,” I said. “That thing never was done right.”

“There are easier ways to take the heat off than payin’ out money!”

I came up out of that chair and snarled down the table. “Lay off that stuff, Blackie. Whatever you’ll do, you’ll do when I order it, and not before.”

My anger was real enough, because I knew I had said too much. Now, I’d put Sally in danger. If Dash Smith’s name still stood for anything, I was going to use it for her protection. My anger had the effect I desired. I could see it in their faces. Even Varden looked a little white, and he sank back in his chair, watching me. I knew he was thinking, the old Dash Smith is back, and he’s still on top as boss...

“All right, Boss,” Blackie said soothing, “Okay, Dash. What you say goes.”

I nodded. I sat there while business was concluded. There was respect in their voices when they filed out. But I was trembling down in my gats. I knew something was going to break and it was going to break fast.

“Coming to the cocktail party?” Marlene said. Varden was waiting, coat across his arm, at the door.

“I’ve had all of them I can stand for a little while,” I said. “You go ahead — with Felix.”

I could feel their eyes wondering and uncertain as I turned my back on them and walked to the window. I heard the door close and click locked. I stood looking down at the wide street below.

Standing there, with the last rays of the sun bathing the street below redly, I felt a memory beating against the dark wall of my mind. I clenched my hands, trying to will the memory into my conscious mind. I closed my eyes, and felt sweat break across my forehead. I could sense the memory of a dark alley, feet running, panting of breath. Then the memory was gone.

I sank on a chair, shaken, exhausted. Dr. Maddigan had tried to cheer me up when I left the hospital, but I sensed from his words that he was thinking of amnesia victims that remained that way for years, for life.

I left the apartment. I began to walk along the darkening street, moving without direction, I told myself. I knew I had no right to see Sally...

It must have been the way the black sedan cruised slowly past me that was the warning. I felt the hackles rising along my neck. I stepped in closer against the wall, and took longer steps. Instinctively, I felt in my pockets. I was unarmed.

I kept moving. I turned a comer. It was Eastland Street. At the end, near the park, was the apartment where Sally lived with her daughter and her aunt. I told myself savagely I wasn’t carrying any more horror to them, and I wheeled about on the walk.

At that instant the big car pulled into the curb, and two hoodlums leaped to the sidewalk. As they came in upon me, they tried to conceal their automatics against their sides.

“All right,” I said evenly, “who’ll be first?” I had backed against the brick wall in the darkness. I had shoved my hand in my topcoat pocket. I was pulling a bluff. But suddenly, with the blood pounding in my veins, I wasn’t afraid. I felt nothing for these two gunsels but old contempt — contempt that came from somewhere deep inside me.

They stopped. With the guns in their hands, these hoods stopped. The squat dark one moved a little to the left. I could see they were trying to crowd me, and yet neither wanted to make the first move.

“Now wait a minute, Boss,” the slender one said. “We just got a message.”

“From Blackie?” I said, watching them still edging toward me.

“Yeah. Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s it, a message from Blackie. He said—”

His eyes telegraphed his movements. As the gun came up, I leaped for him. I brought the side of my hand down across his wrist. At the same time, I pulled his body between me and his squat friend.

His gun hit the walk as Squatty fired. I felt the impact of the bullet drive Skinny back against me. Shoving his body hard into his companion, I clutched up the fallen automatic and leaped across the walk to the protection of the sedan.

Squatty fired again. I felt my shoulder go on fire, and I spun about and snapped off a shot. I heard the bullet splat against the brick wall, but it took the fight out of Squatty. He moved back against the brick wall, gun level.

I could feel the hot stream of sticky blood under my coat. I moved away, my head dizzy as I lurched along the darkened street. So they were out to get me. Blackie thought he was big enough now to send hired gunsels to cut down Dash Smith in the street.

My head was spinning. I knew I had to get back to the apartment and call a doctor. I had to get fixed up before I could face Felix Varden again, or even Marlene.

I stumbled into an apartment house, and painfully climbed the stairs. I knocked on the door, but that was all I could do. A black curtain slid down over my eyes and I was out cold.

Chapter Three

Cold-Deck Showdown

I came out of it in a clean white bed. I was looking up into Sally’s face. “It’s all right, Eddie,” she was saying. “I called in little Doctor Conway from downstairs. He’s a tired little man who has seen a lot of things. He turned in a report you shot yourself in the shoulder while cleaning a gun.”

“But we want to know the truth, young man. What really happened?” I looked at Peggy’s Aunt Lettie. Small and wrinkled, she wore a vinegary expression, but you learned that expression hid a heart as big as a mellow pumpkin.

I had no idea if I’d been seen entering Sally’s apartment. All I could think was I had to get out of there before I caused her any more trouble.

But at the moment, I had no choice. I was too weak to move. I could only lie there being cared for by Sally and her aunt, or looking over all Peggy’s playthings that she brought in to cheer me up.

I felt like I was resting on a keg of lighted dynamite. I made up my mind to tell Sally the truth about who I was. But the longer I stayed there, being cared for and loved as Eddie Green, it made telling the simple truth more impossible.

The second day, while Sally was at work, I slipped out of the apartment. I grabbed a taxi and went to Dr. Maddigan. He wasn’t hopeful about my lack of memory. He even suggested further treatment. But I had no time now for doctors.

When I left the doctor’s office, I was sure I recognized fat Saul Levine, the detective-sergeant. So he’s tailing me, shadowing me doggedly, I thought, probably even knowing that I am staying with Sally and her aunt.

I caught a taxi and rode to my own apartment. I used my key and when I walked into the front room, Felix and Marlene were there, as casual as though I’d been out for five-minutes stroll. But I didn’t miss the quick look of caution that passed between them.

“I’ve been looking things over,” I told them evenly. “I figure now that not many of the boys recognize me, it would be a good time to check up on things.”

I saw the color seep from Varden's face. His slate eyes flashed. I smiled grimly to myself. I knew a warning would go out as soon as Varden got away from me.

“There’s one other thing,” I told Varden. “A couple of Blackie’s out-of-town hoods tried to jump me. One of them is dead. If it happens again, Blackie will be one of the dead. Will you tell him that for me, Felix?”

Felix nodded numbly. “I’ll tell him, Chief,” he said. “But Blackie’s in fine. There musta been some mix-up.”

I just looked at him. His gaze fell away under mine.

“I’m going out for a while,” I told Marlene. Then I turned back to Varden. “I don’t want to be followed, Felix. I've been pretty nice to you since I got out of the hospital. But get this. If I’m followed, I’ll hold you responsible.”

He only nodded, without speaking.

As I left the apartment, I knew that Marlene and Felix Varden were hatching some plan. But it wasn’t ready yet. Felix was still afraid of Dash Smith, and the plan had to be perfect, fool-proof and final before Felix Varden would touch it. Meantime, he would nod and yes me.

Sergeant Saul Levine, in a taxi, pulled away from the curb as my own cab left it. I knew what I had to do. Whether it lived in my memory or not, my past was catching up with me. Saul Levine trailing me, Blackie daring to make a move, Marlene and Varden watching. I had to tell Sally the truth, and it would be the last time I would ever see her...

I bought some trinkets at a store on the corner near Sally’s place. Dropping them in my pocket, I made a few false trails to throw off anyone who might be trailing me. When I thought it was clear, I hurried up the back way and rang Sally’s doorbell.

You'd have thought I was somebody, the reception I got there. Aunt Lettie managed a vinegary smile and hoped I was stronger. Peggy squealed with delight. I tossed her in the air and let her fish inside my coat pockets for the trinkets, a toy wrist watch, a packet of balloons that blew up into funny-looking men.

Only Sally didn’t speak. She only smiled at me, and that was enough. It ripped me to pieces inside.

“Come on, Sally,” I said. “Get your hat. We’re going to an Italian restaurant for supper.”

We were half through our meal when Saul Levine came in without even looking at us. He sat alone at a table across the room.

I looked at her. My throat was dry, my palms were sweaty. “There's something I have to tell you, Sally. I can’t put it off any longer.”

“Tell me,” she smiled.

I looked about the place and shook my head. “When we get home,” I said. She nodded and patted my hand. I never felt lonelier in my life...

We entered the darkened front room of her apartment. From the street outside enough light flowed in from corner lamps and neon signs to suffuse the room in a hushed, unearthly glow.

“We’ll be real quiet,” Sally whispered. “We won’t wake Peggy or Aunt Lettie.”

“Don’t even turn on the lights,” I said, catching Sally’s arm as she reached for the lamp switch. I wanted the darkness of the room to hide me from my own words. “Sally, there’s something I have to say to you.”

She turned. The dim, soft oval of her face was very close to mine. “Eddie!” she whispered softly. Her arms were soft about my neck, her lips sweet against my mouth. “I never believed it could happen to me again, Eddie, until I met you!”

She misunderstood! She thought I was asking her to marry me!

I was trembling. My lips felt parched. I was thinking, never tell her! Take her and run. As Levine had said, run for your life! For what life would I have without Sally, no matter how long I lived? But I knew better. I knew it had to be right for Sally. I had to have the courage to make it right, no matter how much it hurt her at first, or what it cost me.

“Sally.” My voice was so hoarse I hardly recognized it. “Did you ever see the man who caused your husband to be killed — did you ever see Dash Smith?”

She looked up at me wonderingly, and nodded. “But, Eddie, what has that to do—”

“I’m Dash Smith,” I broke in. “Sally, I never meant for it to be like this. I love you, deeply, with all my heart. You’ve got to believe that.”

She spun away, snapped on the lights. The sudden white blinded me. When I could see, her face was a stranger’s. I put my hands on her arms. I felt her go taut, move away from me. The way she shrugged away twisted my insides. There were no tears, recriminations, accusations. There was only that stark stillness in her face as she stared at me.

“Sally...”

“Don’t speak, Eddie. There’s nothing to say.”

“You love me, Sally.”

“I love a boy named Eddie Green. With all my heart and soul. And with all of me I loathe Dash Smith who wrecked my life. Please. Just go. I’ve dreamed of killing you. Now I know I can’t do that. But I never want to see you again!”

There was nothing left for me to do but turn and go. Woodenly. Like a walking dead man.

Marlene and Felix were in the apartment when I got back there. They were having a drink together. The gayness in Felix Varden’s smile should have warned me.

Varden stood up as I crossed the room. I stood over Marlene. “You like this guy pretty well, don’t you?”

“Dash, whatever—”

“I’m not blind! Well, take him! I’m through, understand? Finished.”

“There’s only one way to quit,” Varden said in a cold, dead voice.

I spun. He had slipped a gun from his shoulder holster, was holding it on me.

“The talk of the mob has been Dash Smith going soft,” he said. “You were right. I found out tonight. Even Blackie wasn’t afraid to step out of line against you. He did try to have you killed. Ever since the fire, the talk has been you’re through. Well, that fire saved you then, Smith. I guess you knew that? Yes, I’m sure you suspected. I thought we — Marlene and I — would have to kill you at the first chance when you came from the hospital. But with Smith going soft, I decided to play a wait-and-see game.”

“You want control? And Marlene?”

“I want everything.” he said simply. “I started in your organization as a numbers runner. I set my eyes on the top. Even before that cottage fire, I was about ready to move in and take over, with key men in the- mob seeing things my way. I figured you were beginning to suspect when I discovered you were quietly salting money away in secret before the fire. Well, none of it will do you any good, Smith. You’re finished all right. But not the way you mean!”

Under the prodding of his gun, I moved toward the door of the apartment. For the second time, a discovery hit me hard. So hard it almost toppled the blank wall to my memory. With the gun in his hand, Felix Varden was no longer fearful to me. He was just another hood, and for him, I felt only contempt.

I heard him speak to Marlene. “My car is in the alley. When I’m through with this, I’ll be back. I never left here tonight, understand?”

Marlene’s face was white, her lips like blood. She said, “You can depend on me to alibi you, Felix!”

I guess her one aim in life was always to be sure she picked the winner.

The stairs were long, the alley dark. I saw the hulk of Varden’s car before us.

“Here are the keys,” he ordered. “You’ll unlock the heap.”

It was my last chance. I reached for the keys, but caught his wrist instead, spun his body with a snap, my other hand stabbing for his gun. Lithe and quick, he jumped back, slashed my forehead with his gun barrel. I shouted in hoarse rage, trying to close in on him. My shoulder was on fire from the bullet wound.

But Felix Varden was cautious, too. He was afraid of the noise of gunfire here in the confines of the alley.

He struck me again, and I staggered back. The next blow of the gun barrel across my temple knocked me nearly senseless.

Then I was waking again. Waking with an urgency, with lights blurred and flitting against my closed lids. But there were no lights. My eyes snapped open to darkness, the darkness of the alley. The scrape of feet, the gasping for breath came from two men locked in struggle near me. I pushed my way up the wall. In the dim light of the alley, I saw the shadowy figures sway.

One of them fell. It was Sergeant Saul Levine.

As Varden brought up his gun, I lunged against him. I carried him back hard against his car. I saw his gun coming in a sweeping arc. I threw up my hand to ward it off. Then Levine was moving behind me. Varden groaned and doubled from Levine’s blow.

Levine looked at me. “I heard a man shout in here, the sounds of a struggle. I was covering your apartment, Smith. But I don’t want any thanks for coming to your rescue.”

Through the blinding pain in my head, only one thing was clear, a fact that wrung my throat. I said thankfully, “The name isn’t Smith, Sarge. It’s Quincy. Lieutenant Les Quincy.”

He snorted. “You’ll have to think up a better one than that!”

“No,” I said quietly. “We’ll just go to headquarters and check my fingerprints against those of Les Quincy on the civil service records.”

It took some explaining, but when it was over, the boys at headquarters threw a party for me. I’d been hot on some of Dash Smith’s rackets. I’d cornered a stoolie who would talk and had gone out to his lake cottage to pick up Smith that night.

But he’d known he’d just about played out his rope, known too that Marlene and Varden were going to take over his organization.

He’d salted away nearly a hundred grand for a rainy day. And it was raining plenty in his life. He’d slugged me that night as I had approached his lake cottage.

Then and there, he’d seen what he believed a safe and sure way out. Dash Smith would die, and he would be free forever with a hundred grand. Free from the long shadow of the law and the vile shadow of intrigue in his own organization.

It was so simple and logical, a far lesser brain that Smith’s could have thought it out. We were the same build, the same coloring. He’d loaded me with his identification, watch, ring, clothes, removing all trace of Lieutenant Les Quincy. He’d seared the prints from my fingers, which accounted for the bad burns I’d suffered, then he’d set the dry, flimsy lake cottage afire, sure that the flames would finish his work.

When the young couple had pulled me out of the burning cottage, no one who knew Smith saw my face until it came through the ordeal of skin grafting, surgery, and from under the heavy pile of bandages.

I had looked different, but they had expected that, and hairless and changed, I had looked nothing at all like Les Quincy, the lieutenant of the Rackets Squad.

It was a face that belonged to no man. But it belonged to me now, and I was proud of it. I was glad too that memory had been trying to come back, that the doctors said it would have returned in time.

Felix Varden’s blows to the head there in the alley had only hastened things, brought memory back at once.

Levine said, “We’ll get Smith, Les, and when his organization starts cracking, it’ll go like a rotten melon.” He smoked thoughtfully a moment. “And Marlene — attempting to pick only winners will end up an also-ran. She’ll be lucky to get a job singing her blues in a cheap club after this.”

That night I went back to Sally’s place. I saw that she had been reading the papers. They were scattered over the couch. We stood a little awkwardly for a moment in the living room. Tears brimmed on her lids, and then a smile broke on her lovely face.

“There is only one question,” she said. “Does Lieutenant Les Quincy have a wife?”

I laughed. “He does not. But he will have shortly,” I said.

Content

Talmage Powell
Forget-Me-Not Killer

Chapter One Out of the World

Chapter Two Mind Over Mayhem

Chapter Three Cold-Deck Showdown