Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 38, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 April 1936 — Page 37

APRIL 24,1936.

-*"■■■■ Today'* Short Story - IT HAS TO HIT HOME By Caroline Appleton & Bob Bohan

THE day he put on his uniform for the first time, Patrolman Rine also squeezed on the arrogant, case-hardened professionalism of the quack. It was tolerated for a while as a rookie breach of departmental good manners. But at length It began to appear that Rine was that kind of guy. "COP KILLED BY BANDITS—" “COP KILLED BY HIT AND RUN DRIVER—” These headlines, crying to a docile and preoccupied public to realize a situation, cause the average cop to take a hitch in his pants, grip his stick hard and at least feel moderately abused. But not Patrolman Rine. As one after another of his fellows went up on the posthumus honor roll, Patrolman Rine would comment tersely: "So what?” This summarization of the martyrdom of the dead did not endear Patrolman Rine to the living. Rine didn't know any of the men on the posthumus honor roll. He worked in a quiet, residential precinct in which nearly nothng ever happened. He had 25 years to do on the job. He seemed to thrive on unpopularity. His rejoinder to all raves, peeves, taunts and eulogies was a maddening “So what?” The men of his precinct felt toward Rine much as a man feels toward the one clean shirt in the drawer on Saturday night—that one which is inevitably a misfit but which nevertheless must go on. 0 a a BUT in sfrite of himself Patrolman Rine had a friend. Name of Ninety. Ninety was a mongrel pup -who lived in a garage and should had sense enough to have apprehended his fate. But Ninety was not a garage dog by choice! The garage was to him but the vulgar mfans of subsistence—food and shelter. By temperament, Ninety was a cop lover. Uniforms bewitched him. He awaited with trembling excitement the change of tours and he played no favorites among the cops who shared Post, Ninety for which he had been named. Those who fed him hamburgers took no precedence over Patrolman Rine. who did not feed him anything —not even the kind word which is popularly supposed to be a canine’s due. Patrolman Rine. for his own part, ignored Ninety as thoroughly as possible without stepping on him. Patrolman Rine was not to be won over by ardent eyes of gold-flecked brown, which were Ninety’s one claim to pulchitrude. Patrolman Rine saw only a mangy, flea-bitten pup whose appearance reflected on the good taste of his owners and on that of Patrolman Rine's own side partners, who claimed for the dog almost legendary qualities of loyalty and intelligence. 000 Nevertheless, Ninety would not be discouraged from showering Patrolman Rine with adoring awe. It happened a few moments after Rine had relieved his side partner and had commenced his own tour of duty. Ninety was already whirling about him in frentied circles of greeting; circles whose outer rims ran up on doorsteps and around ash cans and which skimmed wide loops a third across the street. Once, briefly. Ninety sat down on a doorstep ard panted happily. Then presently he elected, like a well-trained deg, to sit down in the gutter and pr.nt there abstractedly, his pink torgue flapping. Ninety was momentarily absorbed in dog problems of his own. He did not see or hear, apparently. the big car that swooped around the corner on two wheels, skidded riotously leftward across the street to the forbidden zone, clipped Ninety neatly and heaved him high in the air. The shrill, almost human shriek of agony that yipped from Ninety’s throat was followed instantly by a wild, unholy peal of laughter from the flying car. The little dog in the air turned a grotesque somersault and dropped almost at trolman Rine's feet. Rine stood shocked into petrefaction for the fraction of a minute it took for the car to scud around the next comer and disappear. He had not had time to register morn than three things in that crowded space of seconds. No time for license numbers, color, make or ype of car—certainly none for driver or passengers. But he had seen the ricious swipe that seemed to have been aimed at Ninety and had tossed the dog into the air; he had noted the curb Jumping swerve of the wheels and—above all—that laugh. That laugh—harsh, braggart. void of decency—a strident yowl with a queer fillip at the end. Patrolman rine, frozen, stood staring down at the crumpled UtUa body at his feet, dead looking j

as only a dog can look dead. Rine knew then, without knowing how, that some day he would connect with the man who had done this—the man who had laughed like that. Patrolman Rine had in his throat that which made it difficult for him to reply. But his reputation was so unpleasant that his partner gave him no benefit of doubt, saying scathingly: "I bet you saw it, huh? The guy that’d hit a dawg like that'd hit a blind man wheelin’ a baby cagriage—!” To which Patrolman Rine, recovering his voice, replied succinctly: "So what?” He walked off without further conversational exchange. He went back to the station house and took down all the alarms carefully. Everything. Holdups, stolen cars, hit and runs, etc., noting all descriptions meticulously. He preserved the records of that night, and the records of many nights to come. In the ensuing months and years he compared and cross-referenced them, but nowhere could he find any allusion to a laugh like that which he had heard from the car that ran down little Ninety—a laugh that was to ring in his ears for the rest of his life. f 0 0 0 PATROLMAN Rine ceased to concentrate on his arches. He was on duty 24 hours of every day, and he frequently strange places in ms quest. Cabarets and burleycues, farces, amateur nights and penny arcades—all of which was exceedingly young and ingenuous of him, as he realized later. By and by Patrolman Rine found himself turning into a policeman. He met people, he saw people and by and by he got to be interested in people, as behooves a polieman. To watch thir faces and their actions and to get used to the idea that putting two and two together does not necessarily make four, but is likely, in criminal calculation, to come out three, or five. And in due course he made an overwhelming number of excellent and meritorious arrests which had nothing whatever to do with the demise of Ninety, the dog. But Patrolman Rine prospered according to his just desserts. He was promoted, and again, and yet again Before he had been gfeven years on the job he had been made a firstgrade detective. Now, by this time, of course, you have surmised that Patrolman Rine's awakening to a full and proper sense of his duty as a public servant brought about the most sensational capture of the most notorious criminal ever recorded in the annals of the New York’s Finest, and you are correct. Patrolman Rine—or rather, Detective Rine, apprehended and brought to justice the notorious Poker Pan Donlon, slayer of five and co-slayer of numerous others whose unsolved murders had linked che department for years. 000 IT was for that arrest, and rightly, that Detective Rine was propromoted to first grade. But it left something in him deeply unsatisfied. For he hadn't been looking for Poker Dan Donlon all these years. The man for whom Detective Rine hsa been looking for years was the man who. in hitting the dog. Ninety. had hit home—the man with the hyena laugh who had run over a little dog cn Post Ninety on the night of Jan 17, seven years ago. No. Detective Rine was not wholly satisfied with the greatest* and most meritorious arrest of his career, that of Poker Dan Donlon, Rine had. to be sure, entered a house in which Poker Pan Donlon and four of his henchmen were firmly entrenched with three machine guns and an arsenal of minor lethal weapons, and Detective Rine had performed this feat practically without benefit of gas bombs and very nearly alone and singlehanded. That was pretty good. Rine had to admit., himself. But the following morning at the lineup found him wan and depressed because he was no nearer his goal than he had been seven years before. o*o HIS dejection was acute by the time the trial of Poker Pan Donlon had exhausted the resources of all concerned, and Poker Pan Donlon and his cohorts were headed for more deaths, this time thoir own, in the electric chair. But Detective Rine was downcast. When the prisoner. Poker Pan Donlon. rose to receive the verdict of the jury. Detective Rine wasn’t even thinking about the case any more. Dimly he heard the words: "Guilty of murder in ths first degree." There was an Instant of acute silence. Then a wild, unholy laughter tore through the crowded courtroom—a harsh, braggart laugh, void of decency, a strident yowl with a queer flllp at the end. Detective Rine swung about convulsively to confront the source of that laughter for which he had been seeking these many years. It came from Poker Pan Donlon shouting defiance at his doom. THE END. (Oopyrttnt, me, New* 'Syndicate Cos., Ine.j

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

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FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—

WHATARE s up f Bur 1 (v'OULO f BUT, f "itHJR CASE IS NEXT, •rorowmf )TO THE I ) ? LOt 's' COOk "-'l me, if thet V U b ° e G 4? f Gum We im here, guilty wrowg- )thb/re cow- a lohs UOTL owe for ) L sTSt®. 1 .

WASHINGTON TUBBS II

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ALLEY OOP

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BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

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TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN

Despite all his urging, no tribesman would impart to Tarzan the secret of the Taloned Death, for fear that the wrath of the Terrible Spectre would alight upon him who was their greatest friend. For several days there was peace and quiet in the village of Gowando.

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The villagers whispered happily to one another. “The Taloned Death has fled. It fears Tarzan. Tarzan is mightier than the Evil Thing.” The ape-man, too, began to believe that the mysterious killer had been halted. Then it appeared again—more terrible than ever.

With Major Hoople

OUT OUR WAY

/l CAN'T SEE WHY YOU \ / £ KNOW, \ / TUCT'3 CULTURE, \"\ /ALLEC.S> UDOK. UP TU' \ ( &UT I \ / CURLY —TU MOR£ i / CREEK. FEzR. A MILE,TO \ \ JUST CAN'T / ( CULTURE NOUGHT, 1 I SEE IF TWER'S A COW \ V HELP IT. J TU HAPPIER. YOU 1 1 ER. ANYTHING IN IT, \ 1 ARE HUNTIN' T \ WHEN VOU KNOW,A®, \ F£Ci -5 j ■X \ WELL A3 I DO, THAT \ \ TO &E UNHApPV / /\A. vA RUNNIWTHRU / > \ A&OUT J —< kfm , —,, —,

SEE HERE, BUDDIE. THIS ISATOU&M , DANG YOU, JEFF PICKET' THAT \ NA ODI TOWN, AND A MAN’S POCKETS AIN’T/VOURE RIGHT, MONEY AIN'T SAFE AND YOU Vl; 'Vj* NO PLACE TO KEEP $40,000. HERIFF. I'LL KNOW IT AIN'T. PUTITINAOANKj IT 'f tr /*;Y ( .. TUCK IT IN My I'LL GIT A CAGHIER OVER \ l LL A V TONteKT

I MERELY HOPED TO AROUSE H\S I CANT EMCOURAGE H\M , AWO I CURIOSVTY EMOU6HTO MAKE HVVA STAY; CANk'T DISCOURAGE VA\M \\F HE ENER OH.AOOEER LOGGER'BUT, MY*. HE E\ViOS OUT THAT XT'S A PUT-UP VMXRED HOME AMD GOT A MONTH'S 008 HE PROBABLY WALL "" LEANE OF ABSENCE OHH , UOHAT \*o\\ \ \ DO ????? HE BOUGHT A LOT OF TOOLS -EMERYTHXMG .EXCEPT A PACR MUXJE , AN>D S r V 1 -jiAOTEO \Ki TO Q\&

A hunter inspecting his traps was slain! A courier on his way to a neighboring village was struck down! Each victim bore the telltale marks of the Taloned Death! Once more the mysterious jungle killer was abroad, in seeming defiance . of the mighty Jungle Lord.

—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan carefully surveyed the victims, but no clue could he find to aid him in tracking down the mysterious Thing that killed apparently for the love of killing. Fury seized him. “I shall solve this mystery,” he declared. "I’ll destroy this thing—or be destroyed!”

. COMIO PAOB

—By Williams

—By Blosscr

—By Crane

—By Hamlin

—By Martin