My Gun is the Jury

I pressed down on the accelerator and a hail of lead spit from the front of my custom-built Maxwell. I was in a hurry, and I didn't want any lousy pedestrians standing in my way. I knew if any simple-minded cop tried slipping me a traffic ticket, Fats Lambo, my pal at the D. A.'s office, would shove it down his regulation-conscious throat. And I was mad. Damn mad! The dirty killer who'd fed arsenic to my pet parakeet was going to get it in the gut. I was going to feed him .45 dumdums till he sank through the pavement without a bubble.

I gave the squeeze to a Yellow Cab and skidded to a halt at a stoplight. I was thankful to the garage mechanic who'd stripped down a new Jaguar and put its motor under the hood of my Maxwell. It was good for laughs.

I sat there waiting for the light to change, playing Russian Roulette with my snub-nosed Smith and Wesson just to while away the time. The cabbie I'd squeezed onto the curb started calling me dirty names. I didn't like that. I stepped out of my heap and yanked open his door. I started from the pavement, plunged my fist into his fat belly and played Kitten on the Keys with his spinal column. He gave a moan that was sheer music. I rammed my fist into his mouth and his teeth clattered on the floor like loaded dice. He asked me why I did that. My reply was a quick kick into his end zone that left him spewing like a punctured football. I yanked one of his arms from its socket and clubbed him over the head with it. He started to protest, so I delivered five staccato eye pokes with the precision of a hopped-up pneumatic drill.

I wouldn't have been so easy on him if the light hadn't changed. Charitably, I slammed the door on his jugular vein, stepped back into my cleverly disguised Jaguar and drove off laughing like hell. Like I said, I was mad.

My office is right off Broadway, so I pulled my heap into the bus stop I'd had specially painted for me. No buses run on that street. It's one of those ingenious ideas of mine that keeps me three steps ahead of the next guy. I got out of my heap and walked to my office building three steps ahead of the next guy. Jose, the elevator man, greeted me with an ingratiating grin.

"Good t' see ya back, Mr. Sledge," Jose said. "Ain't seen ya around fer three days."

"Good to be back, Jose," I countered. Jose is a good Joe.

He ran me up to my floor, and on the way out of the elevator, I gave him a good-natured slap on the shoulder that left him laid out on the floor with a busted clavicle.

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Sledge," he mumbled. "You're a swell fella." He lay there looking up at me with that same goddamned ingratiating grin.

"Don't mention it, Jose," I called back throatily. I've always been a sucker for the little guy.

I've been in the gumshoe racket long enough to mistrust doors. You never can tell but what some cheap hood is standing behind one ready to blow out your esophagus. So I climbed through the transom and jackknifed down into the office, lacerating my forehead in the process.

"Well, Reginald Sledge--it's about time you're getting back!"

The voice sent a Beethoven symphony caroming up and down my spine--Beethoven's Fifth in C Minor it was. I could feel the hair on the nape of my neck tingling like a Vitalis shampoo. I picked myself up off the floor. Elmira, my devoted secretary, was standing there in a low-cut kimona. Her breasts threatened to tear through the cloth at any moment and fall gingerly to the floor. Falsies. She tried to look mad, but I knew she had a secret passion for me.

"You two-bit shamus!" she growled. "I ain't been paid for two months and you go blowing your wad around like an uptown snow peddler. Why you no good, phony son-of-a-b ..."

I grabbed her by the wrists and drew her so close we were playing footsie, kneesie, and ribsie simultaneously. Her pulse was pounding faster than a kettle drummer with D.T.'s. I ground my lips into hers. She squealed ecstatically and fell limp into the chair.

"I'm yours, all yours!" she gasped.

"Nuts!" I said.

She passed out moaning on the floor. That's how I affect dames. Treat 'em mean and they love it.

I went over to the filing cabinet and pulled out my file on well-known parakeet killers. Any rat that would kill a parakeet deserved rubbing out in the nastiest way possible. I pulled out my file on Nastiest Ways Possible. I was still plenty burned up. I'm a mean guy.

The first folder I opened contained a note from Fats Lambo, my pal at the D.A.'s office. You're getting warm, Reggie, it read. I had to grin. I hated to. But I had to grin. Fats always knew what I was up to. But no flat-foot was going to stand in my way this time. Not even the D.A. himself. He'd have had my badge long ago if I hadn't caught him running a floating scrabble game in what was supposed to be a legitimate bookie joint.

I had dozens of parakeet killers on file. But no clues. I decided to call on Fats Lambo, my pal at the D.A.'s office.

Fats was mixing up a batch of Pousse Cafes when I walked in. He gave me a fish eye as I pocketed six of his Panetelos, bolted down four Pousse Cafes and poured out three fingers of bourbon for a chaser.

"Reggie," he said, "you're headed for trouble. Big trouble! Every newspaper in town is headlining this parakeet killing. The pressure's on the D.A. from the Mayor's office, and the Anti-Cruelty To Parakeets Society is raising holy hell. Now you're messing in the act--threatening to show the D.A. up, threatening to make a fool of him, like you always do. The D.A. don't like it. He's sore. Plenty sore!"

I grabbed Fats by his Countess Mara tie.

"Listen, slob," I snarled, "when I get through with the guy that killed off that poor little parakeet, you'll have to sop him up with a blotter to prefer charges. Vengeance will be mine. Mine!" A faint demoniacal growl rumbled from my throat. Jeez, I was mad.

Fats picked up a scissors from the desk and cut the tie that was strangling him.

"Now calm down, Reggie," he pleaded. "I know you're my friend. I haven't forgotten that box of Wheaties you sent me last Christmas. Now look, don't mention it to a soul, but the D.A.'s got a tip that he thinks might lead to the killer. I can't tell ya-what it is, but ..."

He reached into his pocket and brought out some cheese straws. Deftly, he arranged them into letters on his desk. I leaned over and saw that they spelled out a name--a girl's name.

"Thanks, Fats," I said, winking. "Thanks a lot!"

I blew the D.A.'s office, but not before catching the ardent stare of Fats' secretary. It said, unmistakably, I am mad for you, Reginald Sledge!

Sharlene dePlush was the name Fats had spelled out for me with the straws. The phone book told me that Sharlene dePlush lived in an apartment on Park Avenue. Instinct told me that I'd better pack a rod. I had a bazooka sewn into my coat to resemble a displaced shoulder blade. When I got to her apartment, a bright boy running the elevator asked me my business. He smartened up after I fed him a knuckle sandwich and a mouthful of bloody Chiclets. We cruised up to the penthouse with me tapping out the directions on his skull.

The dePlush apartment opened readily after I pumped five slugs into the door and kicked it off its things. What I saw inside was a vision of loveliness that sent blood rushing to my head. I quickly applied a tourniquet to prolong the ecstacy of the moment. I gave her a good once-over--then I gave her a twice-over, just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. This broad was real class. She was wrapped in an erminetrimmed negligee of sheerest silk. Her hair cascaded off her shoulders and lay in soft ringlets on the floor, harmonizing beautifully with the carpet. Her diamond-studded garters and foot-long cigarette holder were in perfect taste. She sat on a chaise lounge, sipping a glass of homogenized milk.

"H'ya," I said, putting every ounce of meaning possible into the expression.

I could see that I'd said the right thing. She got up slowly and undulated toward me with her hips waving a naughty reply. Her negligee slipped from her shoulders and she stood there with her breasts trained on me like twin Colt automatics. Her arms snaked around my waist. She giued her facile body firmly to mine and nuzzled her mouth to the side of my face. Her sharp, hot tongue darted a message into my car that Morse never of. It said collect. (continued on page 32) My Gun (cont. from page 29) Tiny needles pricked insistently up and down my body. It was only my British tweeds. Then I remembered that I was Reginald Sledge, Private Orb--tough, imperturbable, and goddamned mean, too!

I stiff-armed her back onto the chaise lounge.

"Look, Sharlene," I said, "I'm Reginald Sledge, Private Orb! I'm here for just one thing--a rotten, dirty, lousy parakeet killer." My lips curled menacingly. I'm a mean bastard. She shot me a demure smile and poured me out a glass of homogenized milk. It was delicious.

"You're a funny boy, Reggie," she said. I could tell I was getting to her.

"Yeah?" I remonstrated.

She kept talking, feverishly. "I've known a lot of mean bastards in my life, but you're the meanest, toughest bastard of them all, and I must have you!"

I surveyed the situation coolly. If she thought I was going to be a pushover, she had another thought coming. Dames are always trying to put the make on me, damn it. I decided to be subtle.

"You can't have me, Sharlene, because, frankly, you're only half safe."

Subtle as I'd been, she got the point. She dropped me like a three-second grenade and ran shrieking off into the bedroom calling me dirty four letter words--even interspersed a few five letter ones I'd never heard before. I could see that my charm had lost its magic, so I picked up the door, screwed it back on its hinges, kicked it down again, and walked out. Let's face it, I'm a creature of habit.

Back in my heap, I made a bee-line for the D.A.'s office. Fats Lambo was sitting there behind his desk. His secretary threw off all her clothes when I entered, but I didn't give her a tumble. The minute Fats caught my eye he started shaking faster than a hand at an Elk's convention. Sweat dripped mucilaginously down his grotesque body and all the ugliness of his distorted soul revealed itself. His bulbous stomach contracted nervously under the pressure of my bazooka. I pressed it in hard.

"How did you know I did it, Reggie?!" he croaked.

It was a moment of heady exultation. I had only a few seconds to gloat jubilantly. After that Fats Lambo would be in limbo pounding on the gates of hell. A malicious grin spread over my face, contorting it into a horrible mask of righteousness. I sneaked a glance at my face in the mirror. It even scared hell out of me.

"It was easy, Fats," I sneered. 'I was just kidding with that rod routine when I walked in. You gave yourself away just now when you asked how I knew you did it. I was smart enough to catch on immediately. Farewell, you louse!"

I squeezed the trigger of the bazooka triumphantly. A staggering roar shook the room as my atomic warhead seared into his flaccid belly. What had been Fats Lambo a moment before was now a blob of viscid flesh contaminating the floor. I kicked the blubbery remains and loped out the door laughing like a madman. My kind of job has its sunner moments.

My next stop was the corner drugstore--it just took a moment. I walked out into the street and grabbed a hack. I gave the cabbie the address of Sharlene dcPlush and leaned back in happy anticipation.

This time I brought along a bottle of chlorophyll. If Sharlene played her cards right, I might be had after all.

I kicked the door off its hinges.