“What’d you hock to get the dough, golden boy?” I ask him.
He leers at me. “From in back of the sugar bowl in the cupboard, if it’s any of your business, Johnny.” It wasn’t any of my business, but I was having the jitters worrying about whether or not Buster would show. I knew that this time she wouldn’t arrive like the horses do in the Westerns. He was just medium noisy when a little kid clomped down the steps and peered through the window.
I said to Simmonds, “Bud, you better finish your drink and blow. And put that chain on the door. That kid is off to tip Buster, and this time your wife won’t be around to save you. You remember Buster?”
“What I don’t remember, Alice told me. And I’m staying. That monkey won’t touch me.”
“No,” I said, “he won’t touch you. He’ll just put you in the hospital for two weeks while he makes a play for your wife. Buster’ll be real gentle, he will.”
Simmonds grins at me and shows me the butt of a small automatic. He drops it back in his pocket and says, “I loaded little sweetie pie last night. She’s only a twenty-two, but I can put all seven shots into your eye from across the room. I’m ignoring the monkey, but he lays a hand on me and he gets it.”
“Look, Simmonds,” I say, “you’re not the type.”
“Maybe I’m just starting to be the type.”
I guess it was my fault. As predicted, Buster shows up in five more minutes, blowing hard from hurrying. Two old guys are sitting at a table near the window. The five of us is all there is.
Buster isn’t smiling. He stops about six feet from Simmonds and says, “Turn around and look at me, punk. I’m going to rough you up a little.”
That was my cue. I should have said, “He’s got a gun, Buster.” That’s what I should have said. But I was too busy remembering the look in Mrs. Simmonds’ eyes and too busy remembering the jobs that Buster had done on numerous clients and customers. I had my mouth open, but nothing came out.
I saw the kid’s hand dart down into his coat pocket, and he whirled, yanking the gun out as Buster rushed him. There was a small snapping noise. The kid was yanking at the trigger and nothing more was happening when Buster hit him. I expected Buster to pull the punch, but he was like a wild man.
You ever see anybody killed with one smack? It makes a sight and a sound that’s right out of this world. You don’t want to see it twice. The kid flew back against the bar and crumpled to the floor. Somehow, I knew he was dead.
Buster gave me a weak ghost of his usual smile, pawed at his throat, mumbled, “What the hell?” and folded slowly down across Simmonds’ body. One of the old guys tried to get out by way of the plate-glass window.
I was alone and the room was beginning to smell of death by the time the cops got there. I was the only witness they needed.
Buster got one hell of a big funeral. I didn’t go. I stayed right behind my bar and got tight. There was a couple of things I wanted to forget.
One thing was the way Alice Simmonds acted. You see, I went upstairs right after the two of them were pronounced dead. I expected her to be working, but she wasn’t. She was home. She opened the door and held her hands up to her mouth, her eyes wide, and said, “Is he—?”
I gave it to her quick and caught her as she fell.
I carried her over to the sofa, and as I laid her down, some little brass things spilled out of the pocket of her skirt. Six of them. Six little .22 shells.
She opened her eyes dreamily and stared up at me and murmured, “I gave him a sporting chance, which is more than he ever gave me.” Then she acted like she wanted to bite off her tongue, and looked sick when I handed her the shells.
Another thing I want to forget is Ray saying, “Damn if I can understand why a guy would expect to knock off Buster Pasternak with one dinky little bullet. That’s all he had in the gun, you know. Nicked the heart.”
They made a routine check for fingerprints, and when they found hers as well as his, it didn’t mean a thing to them.
She’s gone now. Moved out.
Sometimes on sunny afternoons when I see a slender woman walking on the other side of the street, I think it’s her and I run to the window, but it never is. It just never is.
Maybe one of these days, when Angelo fires me again, I’ll see if I can locate her.
Verdict
(“Three’s a Shroud,” New Detective, January 1949)
Chapter One
Appointment With Death
Chowder gave me the assignment one hot afternoon in Chicago. I like to stay in shape and that morning I had gone three fast sets of tennis with a pro at the club. It was one of those afternoons. Chowder was at the big desk he keeps in the front room of his apartment, and I was in sweat shirt and shorts over on the couch. Chowder was going over the coded reports from the outlying districts. Syndicate business.
Gloria was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside me, hunched over a magazine. I had my right hand on the nape of her neck, running my fingers up through her bronze hair. Gloria is a good kid, but not too bright.
Her drink was on the floor beside me, and her cigarette smoke was curling up through the still air. She has never gotten it through her head that I don’t smoke or drink just because I don’t like the tastes involved.
I’ve told her that a gentleman is a guy with none of the minor vices, but she merely gives me a blank look.
Chowder got his name because he started in a political way in some small New England town trying to buy the voters with free chowder and beer at picnics. He has a flat white face, no hair and a little mouth like an upside-down U. He is a very rough man indeed.
“Go down to the bar and buy yourself a drink, Gloria,” he said.
She gave him a look of quick annoyance. “I like it here.”
I took my hand away from the back of her neck, put my palm flat against her ear and pushed. She sprawled over and jumped up, hopping mad.
Before she could start yapping, I said, “Do like the man says, honey.”
She walked to the door with an insolent strut that showed off certain clothing concessions she had made to the Chicago summer weather. The door banged behind her.
“Sit up when I talk to you, Wally,” Chowder said.
I swung around to a sitting position, yawned and smiled at him. He rapped a report with the back of his fat white hand.
“Now you go to work,” he said.
“Who gets roughed up?” I asked.
He stood up, frowning. “Wally, we got an investment in you. You know that.”
I didn’t know it. For a little AWOL, hijacking and black-market stuff in West Germany, they had given me ten in Leavenworth. The reviewing authority had set me loose after thirty-seven months. With a dishonorable discharge on the record, people like me had best make some contacts in Leavenworth for work on the outside, or else settle down to a life of manual labor. My army background had given me some skills useful to the organization, and I knew who to go to when I was released.
I had been here with the syndicate for a little over a year at five hundred a week, and had drawn only four assignments in that time, each one involving using muscle on people who felt that they deserved a larger slice of the sucker money than the organization was willing to give them. Oh, there had been a lot of small errands for Chowder. Go leave off the Continental and pick up the Mercedes. Stop on the way back for that case of wine.
In the real action, I had given them their money’s worth.