On a personal note, I originally bought the dead-tree edition from Amazon.  This 2.8 pound doorstop proved nearly impossible to read, so I had to buy it again for the Kindle just to get through it.  For this amount of money, I might as well have gone to a bookstore. ^[0]  Learn from my mistake — do not buy the paperback.

Private detective Shaley is idling idly at his desk when he hears screaming from the lobby.  His secretary Sadie is trying to push a “fattish” ^[1] woman out the door because Shaley said he didn’t want to see anyone this morning.

She was sent here by her brother Bennie Peterson, a bellman ^[2] at the Grover Hotel.  She says, “He just lost a dime, Mr. Shaley.  And now Mr. Van Bilbo is going to have him arrested.” Seems Bennie had delivered a drink to a room and got a shiny new dime ^[3] as a tip.  As he was flipping it in the air like George Raft ^[4], he dropped it in front of a door.  Van Bilbo caught him and accused him of looking through the key hole ^[5].  Bennie instructed Sadie to have Shaley tell Van Bilbo there was no funny business.  She tells him where Bennie is hiding out under the cryptic Ben Kenobiesque alias of Bennie Smith.

After she leaves, he tells Sadie he is going to get Bennie for involving him in a blackmail caper.  About a week ago, a woman was killed at the Grover.  Sadie says the woman’s name was “Big Cee” just like my ex-girlfriend.  She had been mixed up with some gangsters.  She had come out here to hide, but it didn’t work.  The newspaper ^[6] said Van Bilbo, a movie director, had heard the story and paid for her funeral.

Shaley drives his “battered Chrysler ^[7] roadster” to the studio to see Van Bilbo.  “There was a group of Indians ^[8] standing in a silent motionless circle in front of the big iron gate.”  Through the gate, he sees his friend Mandy working and says “I need you today, oh Mandy.” ^[9]  He let’s Shaley in and after the chauffeur with the “swarthily dark face” ^[11] beats it, they are alone.

Shaley asks, “Why all the war-whoops ^[8] outside?”  Mandy explains they are extras.  He tried to tell them there was no work today and to go to Wigwam Depot, “but they just grunt at you.”  He then suddenly asks Mandy who “Big Cee” was.  Mandy says, “Her name was Rosa Lee once.  She worked with the old man on some serials back in ’09 or TO”. ^[12]  That seems to satisfy Shaley who turns to leave.  Mandy is less satisfied and tells him not to target Van Bilbo or “I’ll kill you deader than hell!”

Shaley finds a phone-booth ^[13] and checks in with Sadie.  She says the no–neck no-name woman from that morning called to thank Shaley for getting Bennie that job in Phoenix. She told a caller where he could find Bennie for the interview as bellhops are so uniquely skilled that they sometimes must be recruited out of state.

Shaley high-tails it to Bennie’s hide-out.  A “fat ^[1] man in a pink shirt” tells him which room.  He uses a skeleton key ^[14] to quietly enter his room.  Seeing Bennie has been stabbed several times, he backs out and heads over to see the no–waist no-name woman at her job at Zeke’s Tamales.

He sneaks in the back door.  The Chef, “a short, fat ^[1] man with a round face” knows him.  Laughably, Shaley says no-ankles no-name’s “brother has been murdered . . . and you’ll have to tell her.”  Shaley heads back to the studio to see Van Bilbo.

He confronts Van Bilbo with a story that he admittedly half makes up on the fly.  Big Cee ran a joint (i.e. brothel) in Cleveland.  Some local “politicos” closed her down because f*ing the citizens is their job.  She came to California with “some affidavits” and planned to shake them down.  “But they didn’t want to play that way.  They sent a guy after her, and he biffed her.”  And afterward, I guess, he killed her.  Big Cee had given the affidavits to Van Bilbo, and Bennie knew it.  There is some Hollywood gun play.  Yada, yada . . . the swarthy guy did it.

After the last story, this one was short, breezy fun.

Post-Post:

• [0] Old brick buildings where they used to sell books and over-priced coffee.
• [1] Gravitationally-challenged.
• [2] Luggage-management person.
• [3] Still only $1.83 in 2017, cheapskate!
• [4] Gangster archetype from 1930s movies.
• [5] Old-fashioned security device used to secure a door before hackers could open every door in the hotel at once.
• [6] Archaic delivery system for 24-hour old news.
• [7] I flagged this, but imagine my surprise to learn that they are still in business.
• [8] Native Americans
• [9] 1970’s song by Barry Manilow ^[10]
• [10] 1970’s singer
• [11] A person of indeterminate color, although I think we can rule one out.
• [12] I don’t know what TO means and can’t even guess at a reasonable typo.
• [13]  Literally a booth with a phone inside.  Crazy, man.
• [14]  A key capable of opening many locks.
• First published in the April 1934 edition of Black Mask.
• Also that month:  Jane Goodall born.