The Big Heat

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It was eight o’clock at night when the phone rang. A detective lifted the receiver and said, “Homicide, Neely speaking.” He listened a moment, frowning slightly through the smoke that curled up from the cigarette in his lips. “All right, we’ll send someone out right away,” he said. He put his cigarette on the edge of the scarred desk and picked up a pencil. “What’s your name and address?” he said. He put the cigarette back in his mouth and began writing on a pad at his elbow.

There were three other detectives in the large, shabby, brightly lighted room. Two of them were playing cards at a desk beside the long bank of green filing cases. The third, a tall, well-groomed man with a long, intelligent face, paced the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. On a bench just inside the wooden counter that ran the length of the room sat a uniformed patrolman and a Negro. The Negro, who was young and solidly built, seemed to be trying to shrink inside his cheap, brown suit.

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