COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1951 by Sydney J. Bounds

      Originally published under the title, A Coffin for Carla

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      For Mike Shine

      CHAPTER ONE

      The car was a Lincoln. It was wide as a tank, and streamlined; the nose was curved, the tail narrowing to a cigar-shape. The steel plates had been reinforced, painted a drab olive-green, and the windows were curved and bulletproof. It was not the sort of car an honest citizen would need in his daily chores.

      The car sped through the narrow dimly-lit streets of Manhattan’s East Side and turned into the Bowery. It stopped outside a dingy shop with boarded windows. The sign over the door was old, the paintwork flaked, but the words were still legible:

      JOE MAZZINI

      Coffins to Order

      Two men and a girl got out of the olive-green Lincoln and walked across to the shop. The girl was very young and very beautiful, and she looked as out of place in the Bowery as a mouse in a cat’s home. But appearances can be deceptive.

      She had raven-black hair, short and bobbed, an oval face that was smooth and dark complexioned, wide eyes with jet-black pupils, and perfectly shaped lips brightly coloured with crimson lipstick.

      The evening gown she wore was whiter than snow and didn’t need shoulder straps for support, not in the way it conformed to the mature curvature of her figure. The gown flattered her slim waist and tapering hips, dropping about her ankles. She had high-heeled shoes that sparkled diamonds, and sheer silk hose. She might have been anywhere from nineteen to twenty-one, and she had the beauty of youth and maturity combined.

      For an instant, she passed through the bright beam of the Lincoln’s headlamps, and the white dress hung like a pellucid net about her, revealing slender limbs, and curves of grace and beauty.

      Her bare shoulders were dark-skinned, half-covered by a white fur wrap, and she carried a tiny handbag of black leather. The way she walked, swaying from the hips, and the eager light in her jet-black eyes, revealed a suppressed excitement. She wasn’t tall, but what there was of her was just as perfect as a woman can be.

      Her two companions would have passed as typical Bowery thugs. One was broad and heavy, slow of movement and thinking. He wasn’t particular about his dress, and wore brown shoes with a blue suit. His face was wrinkled and scarred, his nose flattened and his eyes dull. He looked capable of carrying out simple orders, if they were spelled out in words of a single syllable.

      The other man dressed flashily. His royal blue tie clashed with a beige shirt, which clashed in turn with a fawn jacket with wide lapels and razor-creased slacks of bright green. His face was lean and hard and shadowed by the brim of a Fedora hat. He was no taller than the girl, but he swaggered as if he knew how smart he was.

      All three went into the shop on Nugget Street in New York’s Bowery. A passage led to a workshop littered with planks of wood, joiner’s tools, and half-completed coffins. There were shavings on the floor, and an unpleasant smell in the air.

      The girl’s nose didn’t wrinkle at the smell; she might have been used to death.

      “Hi, Joe,” she said in a soft drawl. “This is a business call.”

      Joe Mazzini laid down a chisel and looked up. He didn’t look as if he were pleased by the call. He was thin and bony with a grey face and a twitch about his mouth. His feet shifted almost as much as his watery eyes.

      “Wotcher want?” he said, looking from the girl to her two companions. He seemed more than a little uneasy about something.

      The girl held out an immaculately manicured hand. Her nails were crimson to match her lips.

      “Five hundred bucks,” she said casually.

      Joe looked down at the floor and scuffed wood-shavings with his foot. His twitch was giving him trouble.

      “I can’t pay it, Carla,” he mumbled. He had to moisten his lips before he could go on. “I can’t pay anymore.”

      Carla smiled bleakly. Her jet-black pupils contracted to pinpoints as she looked at Joe Mazzini. She loosened the fur wrap about her throat and leaned on a coffin.

      “Warm in here,” she drawled. “Shouldn’t be surprised if you had a fire one day, Joe. All this wood—make a swell bonfire. Now, for five hundred bucks, you get protection against fire. A sort of insurance policy.”

      “I can’t pay,” said Joe Mazzini, “not any longer.”

      Carla frowned, and how she managed to do it without looking any less beautiful is just one of those things.

      “Why not, Joe?” she asked softly. “You’re doing good business. Why, we’ve put some business your way ourselves.”

      She glanced at the unfinished coffin.

      “Old Rory,” she said, nodding towards the coffin. “He stopped paying insurance—then a car knocked him down. His relatives are paying for the coffin, aren’t they?”

      “It’s not that,” Joe mumbled. “I’m paying insurance to another outfit, these days.”

      There was a sudden hush. It hung over the room like midnight over a graveyard. Then the flashily-dressed man began to swear. The words he used would have made an innocent girl blush—Carla heard him out without blinking an eyelid, then said:

      “Looks like you’ll have to convince him there’s only one sound insurance company in the Bowery, Nick.”

      Nick tipped back his Fedora and smiled coldly. He took a step forward, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. It was then that a new voice said:

      “I wouldn’t bother.”

      Nick stopped as if he’d trodden on a rattlesnake. Carla turned to see a man come through the door at the rear of the shop. He was strikingly handsome and quietly dressed in a grey lounge suit. His hair was blond, his eyes blue, and he sauntered forward with confident ease. His voice and manner suggested culture; he might have been a movie hero right off the set. Debonair was the word Carla thought of.

      He strolled across the workshop, swinging a gold-tipped cane, and smiling. His blue eyes lingered over Carla, admiring the perfection of her figure.

      “May I introduce myself?” he said politely. “Rufus Waldemar, representing the Traders’ Insurance Inc. Mr. Mazzini has just transferred to our list.”

      Carla didn’t say anything. She was looking at Rufus Waldemar and trying to make up her mind about him. The man with the dull eyes and slow-thinking brain didn’t say anything either. He waited for orders. Nick snarled savagely.

      “You think you can cut in on our racket? You tailor’s dummy! I’ll carve you into little pieces!”

      Rufus Waldemar smiled gently. Not a blond hair fell out of place. He was calm, unruffled, as if he were dealing with a naughty child. He swung his gold-tipped cane jauntily, pushing wood shavings along the floor.

      “I’m sure,” he said pleasantly, “that you won’t wish to give trouble. My presence here is to point out that Mr. Mazzini is now under the protection of Traders’ Insurance Inc.—and that we are in a position to give protection to our clients. You see my point?”

      Nick swore virulently.

      “You cheapskate!” he snarled. “You think you can scare us off? You couldn’t scare a three-year-old! Joe’s paid us protection money for a couple of years—and he’s going on paying. You can’t cut in on us and get away with it!”

      Rufus Waldemar looked at Nick the way a professional looks at an amateur.

      “But we have,” he said quietly, swishing