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The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

“Homicide, Inc.” was originally published in F.B.I. Detective Stories, October 1949.

A Note from the Publisher

Richard Deming (1915–1983) was an American pulp writer who specialised in mystery and detective fiction. In addition to original novels, he found a lucrative niche writing books based on movies TV series (such as Dragnet) and also ghost-wrote no less than ten “Ellery Queen” novels. In addition to numerous stand-alone books and stories, he created series featuring Manville (Manny) Moon and Matt Rudd. This volume provides a great sampling of his work. Enjoy!

— John Betancourt

Homicide, Inc.

Originally published in F.B.I. Detective Stories, October 1949.

MacDonald Sprague sat sidewise at the bar, frankly admiring the grave-faced blonde who sat with an escort a few feet away. But the admiration was entirely a surface veneer covering his cold loathing for the woman.

She looks more like a kitten than a murderess, he thought, studying the grave oval face with its slightly upslanting eyes. It was a face that seemed constantly to hold the promise of a smile which never materialized, a poker face, concealing all that lay behind it, yet somehow suggesting that if the mask were lifted, only laughter and innocence would be revealed.

It was hard to imagine those soft lips tensed in a cruel line and that tiny hand deliberately pumping bullets into a man. So hard that a strange reluctance mixed with the loathing in Mac’s mind for the women he believed had killed his brother.

With his hat tilted back at a jaunty angle and with a glint of satanic humor in his eyes, no one would have suspected MacDonald Sprague’s thoughts were composed of anything but admiration. He had rehearsed his part until everything about him was carelessly jaunty: his dress, his speech, his expression — even the way he moved in sudden controlled bounces. In physical appearance he only faintly resembled the deceased killer whose name he had assumed, but his personality was an almost exact copy.

The girl, though obviously aware of his scrutiny, seemed neither offended nor gratified, apparently accepting male admiration as a matter of course. But the man seated beside her did not share her indifference. Repeatedly he scowled at Mac, and once made as though to rise, but was stopped by the girl’s small hand touching his arm. Though it was the merest touch, he subsided immediately.

The movement re-emphasized to Mac that he was playing a game so dangerous, the slightest slip would make it fatal. For the girl’s scowling escort was Thomas Cougar, sometimes referred to as “The Strangler” because of his rumored proficiency with his pale, powerful hands.

Thomas Cougar was a tall, raw-boned man with an oddly narrow face with gray skin stretched so tightly it gave him a mummified appearance, an effect heightened by sparse, nearly colorless hair and eyebrows. Momentarily the mocking smile on Mac’s lips died as his eyes unconsciously dropped to the man’s enormously long and narrow fingers, which played with the stem of a cocktail glass. A mental image of those hands reaching for his throat caused Mac to shift his gaze hurriedly back to the girl.

The Town House was one of those glittering cocktail lounges of chrome and artificial leather, new but cheap, and already beginning to tarnish on the edges. It was the kind of place where the fringe of the underworld gathered — not actual criminals, but grifters and racetrack touts and petty gamblers. A forty-foot bar ran along one wall, and facing it along the opposite wall ran a forty-foot leatherette-upholstered bench before which, at spaced intervals, were set tiny cocktail tables. The blonde and her escort sat behind one of these a dozen feet closer to the door than Mac.

At this hour of the afternoon there were few customers, Mac was gratified to note, for the scene scheduled to occur at any minute was designed solely for the lovely blonde murderess. The fewer interested spectators, the better. At the moment, aside from Mac and the couple, two men seated at the bar near the door were the only customers.

George Doud slammed open the street door and stalked in exactly on schedule. Without glancing at him, Mac drained his beer, set down the glass and slid from his stool, as though preparing to leave.