“You George Erickson?” the little man asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Tony Ransome. With the Buffalo police. Got Chief Murphy’s okay to ask questions about the killing Wednesday night.”
“Yes?”
“Understand you knew the guy who stuck up the Missouri Cafe.”
The dark eyes stared straight into Tony’s face. “Afraid you’ve been misinformed.”
Tony shook his head. “You left the Blue Goose with him a few hours before the robbery.”
Erickson’s expression did not change. “Oh, that. We did leave at the same time, but we weren’t together.”
“Witnesses say you were.” Tony estimated the man, then hazarded, “For quite a while.”
“That’s not true,” Erickson said calmly. “We talked not more than a minute in front of the Blue Goose. Then I came back to the store and he went on to the bookshop.”
“What you talk about?”
“Nothing, really. I’d just met the man five minutes before. He asked where Short’s bookshop was and I told him.”
“Ask where the post office was too?”
The druggist shook his head.
“Have a letter in his hand?” Tony asked.
“A letter? Don’t remember any... Yes, now that you mention it, I believe he did.”
“But he didn’t go to the post office when he left you?”
Erickson’s voice developed an edge of impatience. “He may have. I didn’t watch where he went. He asked about the bookshop, so I assumed he intended to go there.”
“Where is this bookshop?”
“Over the bingo hall next to the fire station. Block and a half east.”
“Where’s the post office?”
“One block west.”
“Thanks,” Tony said, and left the store.
Outside two women standing by the show window furtively glanced at him, then peered through the window into the store.
“That must be the Buffalo detective,” one said to the other in a whisper she mistakenly believed would not carry. “Do you think Mr. Erickson—?”
The little man was gratified to learn how quickly his seed was taking root.
At the post office he found a plump, gray haired woman sorting mail behind the counter.
“You the postmistress?” he asked.
“That’s me,” she admitted.
“Were you here Wednesday afternoon?”
“All day Wednesday.”
Tony said, “Notice a man come in to mail a letter who wore a green corduroy jacket trimmed with leather, denim pants and a pork-pie hat with a hole in it?”
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m from the Buffalo police.” He produced his badge. “I have the local chief’s permission to ask questions.”
She examined him interestedly. “Chasing a crook?”
“Sort of,” Tony said non-committally. “Remember the man I described?”
She shook her head. “Nope. What’d he look like?”
“He was about twenty-eight years old, had a nose with a crooked bump on it and a scar through one eyebrow. Kind of good-natured, but beat up face.”
She shook her head again. “Sorry. Don’t think he was in. Think I’d remember it too, because I really wasn’t very busy at all on Wednesday.”
“Were you here alone?”
“Yep. My mail clerk’s been sick for a week.”
“Any place in town aside from here a guy could mail a letter?” Tony asked.
“Just the mailbox in front of the place. Most people come on in when the post office is open.”
“Thanks,” the little man said.
IV
Green paint blanked out all of the wide show window next to the fire hall, except for an oblong section through which a poster proclaimed: MONDAY, THURSDAY, SATURDAY — 30 REGULAR, 10 SPECIAL GAMES — 5 TO 100 DOLLAR PRIZES.
Over a doorway beside the bingo hall hung a sign reading: SMOKE SHOP UPSTAIRS. But at the top of the stairs there was no evidence of any tobacco business. Instead of the usual token front room engaged in selling cigarettes and cigars, the stair head led directly into the bookshop.
A race was in progress as Tony entered, for a man wearing a phone headset stood in front of a large blackboard droning the positions of the horses at each quarter. Seated on a dozen of the approximately fifty chairs facing the blackboard, a mixed audience of men and women listened to the results.
Ringing the walls were a series of long, narrow tables littered with racing forms and turf news, and several men sat at these, concentrating on dope sheets and paying no attention to the race currently being run. Behind a cashier’s cage to the right of the blackboard sat a young red-headed man wearing horn-rimmed glasses.
Approaching the cashier, Tony said. “I’m with the Buffalo police. Got Chief Murphy’s okay to look into the Larson killing. Trying to check back on the bandit’s movements the day of the robbery, and understand he was in here.”
The customer-greeting smile on the red-head’s pale face faded to blankness. Behind their glasses his colorless eyes examined Tony deliberately.
“He wasn’t here,” he said in a flat voice.
“You Harry Short?” the little man asked mildly.
“No.”
“Like to talk to Mr. Short.”
The redhead said in a toneless voice. “Sorry. He’s busy.”
Casually Tony put one hand on the swinging gate next to the cashier’s cage. “That his office over there?” he asked.
In one quick movement the cashier swept off his glasses, laid them in front of him and stepped in front of the gate. From an advantage of three inches he stared down at the little man with his jaw outthrust.
Tony’s eyes brightened with an interested, almost eager look, and gently he massaged his left fist with his right palm. Then he dropped the fist to his side and slowly began to push open the gate.
The cashier drew in his chin. “Wait here,” he said, turned abruptly and ducked into the office door Tony had indicated.
Almost immediately he was back, followed by a thick-set, heavy-shouldered man with a long, jaundiced face and a crew haircut. The redhead slid back on his stool and replaced his glasses, and the yellow-faced man pushed open the swinging gate to come out into the main room. At that moment the race ended, there was a sudden burst of conversation from the audience and people began to crowd up to the cashier’s cage, either to collect their winnings or lay bets on the next race. The yellow-faced man stood quietly examining Tony until the hubbub subsided sufficiently for his voice to be heard.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
Tony said, “You Harry Short?”
The man nodded.
“You run this place?”
Short nodded again.
Tony repeated what he had told the cashier.
“You got a bum steer,” Short said. “He wasn’t in here.”
“Witnesses say he was.”
“The witnesses are wrong.”
“Fellow wore a green corduroy jacket with leather trimming,” Tony said mildly. “Denim pants and pork-pie hat.”
“He wasn’t here.”
“Maybe you just didn’t see him.” Tony turned to the cashier. “Recognize that description?”
The cashier stared at Tony stonily and Harry Short said, “Jack didn’t see him either. Take a walk, Shorty.”
Tony’s eyes flicked over the other’s chin at “Shorty,” but his tone remained amiable. “Remember the guy?” he asked Jack.
The yellow of the big man’s complexion deepened to orange, and he reached spread fingers for Tony’s shirt front. But before they could bunch the material together into a ball, the little man’s left whipped around like a swinging bat, and the crack of a line drive sounded and the big man sat on the floor. When his eyes uncrossed, he focused them blearily on the little detective.