Strip for Violence | Page 6

rundown farm by such a fancy
handle--to his niece, one Marion Lodge. The case meant a lot to Guy
because a bank was handling the estate and if he showed fast action on
this, they'd give him some real important cases. After a lot of
remembering what buddy-buddies we'd been in the army, Guy wrote he
could only afford a hundred bucks, and would I kindly break my back
and locate the gal. There was a check enclosed and a snapshot of the
girl. The check looked prettier than the gal--she was an
ordinary-looking, big kid of about twenty-one, with an overlong nose,
and black hair that hung in corny curls. Guy gave me her last known
address, as of 1949, on the lower West Side.
"Get your book out."
"I'll come over," Anita said, although the office was so small I could
dictate from one end of the room to the other without raising my voice.
She came over, moving her hips like a lazy heel-and-toe walker, sat
down beside me, her skirt above her knees. She had on an interesting
perfume. I sent Guy a letter saying I'd do my best and to airmail me any
info on Marion Lodge's background, education, birthmarks, and what
she was supposed to be doing in New York.
Then I knocked off a couple of mild dunning letters to remind several
storekeepers they were behind on their ten bucks a month for "Darling's
Protective Service."
I was in the middle of another letter checking on a character who had
skipped town with a partly paid for TV set, when the door opened and a
mailman came in--a big lumbering fatso with thick graying hair. He
asked, "You the dick?"

"What's wrong, a due letter?" I asked, noticing he didn't have his bag
on his wide shoulders.
He shook his head, giving Anita a fast going over, which she enjoyed.
"Naw, I'm here on business." His voice went with his bulk, a deep,
rumbling voice.
"Grab a chair and tell me about it."
He glanced at Anita, then back at me. I said, "Miss Rogers is one of my
most trusted ops, in on all my good cases." Anita slipped me an amused
look, told him in a hammy slinky voice, "Rest your load, big boy."
He slid into a chair opposite me, and from the hesitant look on his face
I knew he was having wife trouble. After a while you can spot things
like that I was absolutely wrong.
Ê
He said, "Johnson is my name, Will Johnson, see? Want to see you
about this." He dug into a pocket of his blue-gray uniform and carefully
took out a small envelope, out of this came tissue paper wrapped
around a sliver of cloudy dirty-looking stone. It was less than half an
inch long, almost paper thin, wide as a match stick. As I picked it up he
said, "Careful, don't break it, see?"
"What is it?" I asked.
"Rock of some kind. Get this, Mr. Darling, there's no mystery or crime
involved here, just curiosity. Want to find out where this rock came
from."
"What makes you so curious?" I asked as Anita took the sliver from my
hand, fingered it, smelt it. He sighed. "It's a silly story. About a month
ago I come home and was sitting in my living-room, reading. Was
about four in the afternoon, see? I hear a sharp noise at the window,
then over my head. I go over and there's a small, clean hole in the
window pane, another in the metal Venetian blinds. Back of where I

was sitting we got one of them imitation fireplaces and a copper vase
on top of it There's a dent in the vase and on the floor I find this little
hunk of rock. See, at first I didn't think nothing of it, was sore about the
hole in the window. Then I start thinking this sure had a hell of a
force.... Excuse me Miss...."
"Sure," Anita said sweetly, "you mean it had a goddamn hell of a lot of
force."
Johnson blinked and I told him, "Miss Rogers takes shots --in the
head--to make her sound rugged. The rock had plenty of force, so
what?"
"So what? It went through glass, a metal blind, made a dent in the
copper vase over my head--see, it might have killed me!"
"You think somebody is trying to murder you?" I asked as Anita
became bug-eyed.
Johnson shook his big head. "No, no, only telling you why I got so
interested in the rock. Nobody hates a postman. Like I say, it's been on
my mind so much. Thelma, that's my wife, she says 'Willie, stop
thinking so much about it, see a detective before you get a nervous