BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY JOHN GLASBY

      The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos

      The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos

      The Mystery of the Crater: A Science Fiction Novel

      Rackets, Inc.: A Johnny Merak Classic Crime Novel (#1)

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1956, 2005 by John Glasby

      Copyright © 2013 by the Estate of John Glasby

      Originally published under the title, Blood on My Shadow

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      CHAPTER ONE

      DEATH AND A LADY

      I guess it was to be the kind of arrival in the country that Maxie had always planned. After all, he had been away for seven years, and maybe he thought that if he came straight in on the normal air service from Mexico City to Los Angeles, he’d throw most of the sharks wide of the scent. There were plenty of them still around, even after seven years, but the majority of them would be expecting him to sneak in like the rat he was.

      Maybe they didn’t have the kind of connections I had. Maybe they even figured there would be plenty of time once he did arrive because, big as Los Angeles is, there’s no place for even a rat to hide if the Big Boys are after your blood.

      In the old days Maxie had been the principal owner of a string of motels scattered throughout the coastal resorts south of Los Angeles, with a share in plenty of other interests, all of them strictly legal and above board. But he had always been one of the kingpins of the Underworld Organisation until he had crossed them up seven years ago and skipped over the border.

      Now they were waiting for him, somewhere, ready to take everything they could lay their hands on once they caught up with him. They’d take his money and his women and then give him the once-over, just for laughs.

      In the end he wouldn’t be Big Maxie anymore. Just a has-been who’d made two fatal mistakes: double-crossing the Organisation in the first place and then coming back, looking for trouble instead of playing it safe and staying where he was.

      A man cannot walk away from the Organisation after spitting right in their faces and hope to stay in one piece for long. Maxie Temple was somewhere on that plane coming in to land, and within minutes he’d be stepping off and walking into trouble. Big trouble.

      But maybe he knew all this and had his own plans. Not only for himself but for the Organisation also. The thought made me uneasy.

      I slipped my hand into my pocket, closed my fingers around the .38, and tried to make myself look inconspicuous. A gun was easy to get, but its possession was, of course, a felony. But I’d had this particular weapon for seven years. There was little chance of it being traced back to me if anything went wrong.

      A little nagging thought was nibbling at the edge of my mind and I forced myself to concentrate on it, to bring it out into the open. There was a man standing by the newsstand, a paper between his hands, hiding his face almost entirely. Once or twice he seemed to be glancing unobtrusively in my direction.

      The fourth or fifth time it happened, I turned my head slightly and paid some attention to him. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him at first sight. He was just a type.

      You find his class nearly everywhere. Square-framed, a wide-brimmed soft hat pulled well down over his eyes, shading the upper half of his features. A clipped moustache over thin lips that were clamped into a tight, hard line. A special type of man, when looked at more closely. A hoodlum of the lowest breed. And there was no need for me to think twice about the reason for him being there at that particular time and in that particular place. He lowered his paper as he caught me watching him, then sauntered over.

      “Waiting for somebody?” He stood square and straight, eyes faintly amused, looking at me, hoping I’d start something, ready for a fight.

      I swung round and looked into his narrowed eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

      There was no doubt in my mind that he was somebody who knew me and had probably been tipped off as to why I was there myself, but I didn’t recognise him at the moment. There must have been thousands like him in Los Angeles wandering from bar to bar, doing dirty work for the Big Boys, sweeping aside those minor crooks who happened to be in the way of the Organisation.

      And it looked as though a few of the big shots were moving in already. Rolling forward with the irresistible quality of some giant steamroller to smash Big Maxie and everything he stood for, utterly and completely. But first they’d have their play with him.

      “You’re Johnny Merak, aren’t you?” he said, speaking between his teeth. “My guess is that you’re here to get Maxie Temple, right?”

      “What’s that got to do with you?” I asked. I didn’t know the hoodlum, but he sure knew plenty about me, and if there wasn’t to be any hitch in my plans, I’d have to get to know what his particular game was.

      “You came down here from uptown less than an hour ago. Your car’s parked a couple or so blocks from here. Seven years ago you were in on the big deals with Maxie before he hit out for Mexico City. Since then you have been up on a three-year stretch in Big Q for something Maxie framed up, just to keep you out of the way. Now you want to get even with him, maybe even try to clear yourself. That’s the way of it, isn’t it?” There was something ugly about his face as he thrust it up to mine.

      “Well, I’ll be dammed,” I said softly.

      “You will be if you don’t make yourself scarce, bud.” He licked his lips impatiently with a dry hunger. “We don’t want you in on this deal. That clear?”

      “Just who is it you’re working for?”

      “Could be we’re both working for the same people, only they’ve just decided not to trust you.”

      “You’re lying in your teeth, punk,” I muttered thickly. “I work for nobody but Johnny Merak. Tell your bosses that. And I’m not scared off so easily.”

      He laughed. An ugly sound. “I was just waiting for you to say that. The guys I’m working for don’t want anything to go wrong. Maybe you’re just a little man, but they seem to think that you might be able to louse up this deal, so I’m here to keep an eye on you. They wouldn’t want you to do anything stupid.”

      I guessed what was coming next. Land yourself into something dirty and you’re bound to run into people who’re the same. You can’t expect anything else. We were almost alone now. A couple of guys were standing in the main entrance to the lounge, but they were looking intently the other way. They obviously didn’t want any trouble, I decided.

      This fellow would be a dirty fighter, I’d figured, hoping to cripple within seconds, stiffened fingers in the eyes, all his weight behind a swift punch to the belly and no holds barred. All these little thoughts had been running through my brain while we had been talking.

      Before he could move, I reached over, wrapped my fingers tightly around his left wrist, pulled his arm so that his head went well down, slipped my other arm swiftly under his downstretched elbow, across the back of his neck, then pressed. Turning him swiftly, my right knee came up and hit him hard in the pit of the stomach. His breath gushed out in a single, agonised bleat and he made funny whistling noises as he tried to suck in air.

      There was a gun in his pocket. I could feel it as I swung his body towards me sharply. So they hadn’t been kidding. They were playing for keeps, meaning to get rid of me if I didn’t play ball. Hell, I thought, they must want to get hold of Maxie pretty badly.

      Before the hoodlum could recover his bounds, I dropped his hand and hit him twice with my bunched fist. Once to the heart, then on the tip of his square jaw. If it hadn’t been for the urgency, I might not have been quick enough to get rough like that.