Free Corpses in the Cellar by Brad Latham

twice, before falling to her
     side.
    It was dark when he left, and he held her for a moment, kissing her. “I told you I don’t expect you to come back to my world.
     For just this one time, I’ll always be grateful,” she told him. “But there is another possibility—someday,” and she smiled
     uncertainly, bravely, “someday I may come to
your
world.”
    He looked at her, at the strong chin, the determined mouth, the fierce eyes. “I’m sure you will,” he told her, meaning it.
     “I have no doubt of that.”
    Outside it was cool and pleasant, the night air rushing at him as he opened the heavy front door. And then something else
     rushed at him, once, then twice.
    He was already on the ground, .38 in hand, before the second bullet screamed past him, as he strained to see into the black.
     “Throw down your gun,” he yelled from the cover of a hedge, but there was no answer.
    He waited, gun at the ready, one moment, then two, and finally edged out toward the sidewalk, then straightened up, as his
     eyes, now used to it, searched the black. No one was there.

Chapter Nine
    Jimbo Brannigan sighed and tilted his chair against the wall as the report went into his hands. “Thanks, Phil,” he said, and
     then studied the sheet of paper.
    After a moment, he looked up at Lockwood. “Where did you say you found those slugs?” he asked.
    “I already told you, Jimbo,” Lockwood said. “Picked them out of the wall of an apartment house in Brooklyn, Martense Street,
     between Nostrand and Rogers.”
    “Mmm,” Brannigan sighed. “Brooklyn.”
    “Come on, Jimbo, what gives?”
    The big detective sighed again. “Peculiar caliber, that’s for sure.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like eight.”
    “Eight caliber?” Lockwood asked, astonished.
    “So they tell me,” Brannigan murmured, not too happily.
    “There’s only one pistol that fires that kind of bullet.”
    “They tell me that, too.”
    “A Baby Nambu.”
    “That’s the ticket.”
    “Christ. A Japanese job. Yellow peril time, maybe?”
    “Could be. Any orientals involved at The Palms?”
    Lockwood stared at Brannigan. “No. Not that I know of. But what makes you think whoever was firing at me was connected with
     The Palms?”
    Brannigan produced the two slugs Lockwood had brought him. Then he held out another.
    Lockwood looked at Brannigan, then at the misshapen pieces of metal. “I don’t get it. Where’d you find that one?”
    Brannigan’s eyes went opaque, professional. “Eddie Black. The patrolman who discovered the fire at The Palms.”
    “Black? Black’s the one with the Baby Nambu? Or—?”
    “Or
. You’re right about the
‘or’,”
Brannigan grunted.
    “Someone plugged Eddie?”
    “Yep.” Brannigan began searching through his rumpled clothes for a pack of cigarettes.
    “Dead?”
    “Right between the eyes.”
    “Jesus. Smoke burns?”
    Brannigan stopped searching. “Got a butt?” he asked.
    Lockwood handed over the Camels, and Brannigan jammed one into his mouth, then half-apologetically took a few more, dropping
     them into the misshapen pocket inside the breast of his jacket. “Been a rough day,” he said. “Don’t know when I’ll get out.”
    “Take the pack, Jimbo,” Lockwood said. “But was Eddie shot up close?”
    “That’s what the coroner says. Enough smoke on him, you’d think he was gettin’ himself made up for a minstrel show.”
    “When? Where?”
    “About three A.M. Eleventh Avenue and thirty-seventh.”
    “They tried to kill me and then they killed him.”
    “Seems like it.”
    “And with him—there’s a good chance he knew whoever it was, to let them get that close.”
    “That’s a fairly reasonable conclusion,” Brannigan offered, “But as you know, not necessarily so.” He leaned over his desk.
     “What’s happening with your investigation, Billy-boy? Anything new turn up?”
    “Not much,” Lockwood admitted. “I’ve already filled you in on most of it.”
    “Not Mary