by Jerry eBooks
“How does Dixon fit in?” Mahoney asked.
“Dixon is not his name. He’s Rappoletti’s older brother. He built this place as a hunting camp and the gang thought they were safe here. They never robbed a bank in Florida, seldom this side of New Orleans. So Florida should be safe for them to hide in.”
“My God!” Mahoney said slowly. “The Rappoletti mob, right under my thumb. And I never knew—”
Connor said, “They got too cocky. They let this punk come to town, after laying low for years. That drugstore was a perfect front. ‘Dixon’ could provide them everything they needed.”
BILL was watching Helen. “I get it,” he said. “You saw this lookout in the drugstore. He recognized you. Dixon told him you’d just come east from Texas, which was no secret.”
“No,” Helen said. “That’s the trouble. I didn’t recognize him. I should have, but I didn’t. But he knew me. He came to the house under the pretext of hunting metal for the salvage drive. Naturally I let him inside. The next thing I knew, I was bound in his ear.”
“If he recognized you,” Mahoney said, “I wonder why he didn’t kill you then?”
“I delayed him, threw him off,” she said. “I played as dumb as I knew how. He talked about the bank, but I said I’d never been in the town in my life. He wasn’t quite sure of himself; wanted to wait for Rappoletti to come back from Starke and let him decide.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about that holdup?” Bill demanded. “You never mentioned it. Why not?”
“I tried to forget,” Helen said; “It fa no pleasant memory.”
“I’ll bet!” Connor broke in. The reporter was scribbling furiously. “Come on, Cap,” he urged. “I got to get to a phone!”
“Take it easy,” Mahoney advised him. “There are a few more things.” Bill told how he’d been blackjacked while he examined the typewriter in the drugstore. “Now,” he added, “I know who phoned me—threatened to kill Helen. It was ‘Dixon.’ ”
“I cheeked the machine,” Mahoney said, “with the note. You left the note in your house. We found it when we got there. You were gone. That match-paper business was a bum clue. I called the Lauderdale Chief and he vouched for the restaurant. I looked for you and learned from the newsie that you went into Dixon’s and hadn’t come out. We had a lead. The typing matched the note. But it took too damn long to find this place. What led you to Dixon’s? You beat us there.”
“Two things,” Bill answered. He looked at the druggist, held tightly by two policemen. “Dixon’s eyes were twin black beads in a paste-white face. “In the first place, when I talked to him in the store, he asked if Helen had come back. Later I remembered that no one but you, Connor, and I knew that she was missing. When he asked me, the papers weren’t yet out.”
Mahoney said, “What was the second thing?”
“He told me she came into his store at nine o’clock the night before. He said she bought a pack of cigarettes. But afterward, I found two cartons in our side-board. That set me thinking, and I remembered—”
“Nice work,” Mahoney said. “We could use you on the force.”
“Not a chance,” Helen broke in. “He has his job cut out. I’ll run the drive-in for the next few years. The Navy has given him a commission. The letter came yesterday. That,” she smiled proudly, “takes a priority, even over me!”
THEN LIVE TO USE IT
Greta Bardet
Old Mary never spent any of her money, so it must be in this room, Annie thought. And Annie could use that money . . .
ANNIE’S flushed, bloated face shone with anticipation while she searched the dirty room. The money was sure to be hidden somewhere among the filth, rags and collection of junk. It sent her heart pounding every time she wondered as to how much Dirty Mary might have hidden here among the trash. Her face screwed up with hypocritical distaste as she shoved fat fingers through a pile of foul rags.
Mary sure earned her name, Annie thought with self-righteous disgust, but that did not keep her from feeling through every inch of the slime. A cockroach scrambled across her hand unnoticed, for her mind was occupied with finding the money before Mary returned.
She had known Mary Mawson for a long time now. In fact she had cultivated the friendship. How many nights had she sat with the old crone, drinking rot-gut, trying to get her drunk enough to tell her where the money was hidden. But somehow it was always Annie who got drunk first. That damned hag thrived on the stuff; she could drink half a dozen cronies under the table and walk off with the bottle.
And since Annie didn’t get anywhere, she finally made up her mind to tackle the affair in another manner. She was through making up to the hag, tired of feeding her liquor, tired of being nice. She wanted that money and nothing was going to stop her!
Annie had an idea the sum of money would be large. Mary never spent a cent. Every day she would leave her hovel at the crack of dawn, with that burlap bag slung over her shoulder. All day long she would trek through the city, hunt through garbage cans, ash barrels, waste paper boxes, through alleys . . . everywhere! She’d go about her work singing, or swearing, or muttering to herself, depending upon how she felt. And no matter how she felt, she looked a sight!
Whenever she found a dress, it went on right over the others she wore. She’d wear at least three hats at one time. She looked so poverty-stricken that the sympathy of passersby were easily aroused, and coins would often be dropped into her grimy hands.
For years the old scarecrow had gotten money every day, and on cold and rainy days, the coins easily doubled or tripled in amount. Then there was the selling of the junk she found. Surely in her perambulations through the city she would often come across valuable things. She had hinted that upon occasion she rolled drunks, and sometimes found pocketbooks and wallets. More than that Mary would never reveal. It was only as she said it, in that crazy way of hers, with her eyes gleaming with satisfaction, that Annie knew her findings must have been large.
Here in this cellar room beneath the stairs, in this room of filth and stink, that money must be hidden. And Annie continued her search through the various drawers of the broken, lopsided furniture. She searched through the straw and newspapers that was Mary’s bed. Through rags, through papers, through everything, inside and out, she shoved her hands, poked her fingers, but found nothing.
In desperation, since she was nervously conscious of the close of day which would bring Mary back, Annie rummaged through everything all over again. But not a single coin, bill, or anything of value turned up.
Disappointment sagged through her. Irritation sharpened the ugly lines of her face as she stood there, her fists dug in the fatness of her waist, and knew she had to face the inevitable fact. If the money was not here in the room, it could only be in one other place—on Mary’s person.
It was logical; and Annie had guessed from the beginning it would be on Mary anyhow. She had searched the room so thoroughly, just to make certain that the money was not here. It meant, then, that the money went wherever Mary went, sewed perhaps in one of those many underdresses. And that meant . . .
Annie wanted that money! She was determined to have it, no matter what the cost. She vaguely realized she was young no longer. Being ugly in the bargain made it difficult to make the man she loved notice her, not to talk of his falling for her. She was crazy about Joe Thompson who hung around Mick’s Poolroom Parlor all the time. There was only one way to make that guy and keep him . . . with money! If there was enough of it, who knows? He might even get to marry her. She’d hook him, one way or the other. All she needed was money and a couple of gladrags.
THE money being on the old woman’s person, made it a little more difficult. But only just a little! Annie was quite ready to take a long chance. She had little imagination, and like all criminals, the possibility and consequences of being caught never occurred to her.
She’d just have to kill Dirty Mary, but what the hell?
Then she heard Mary’s off-key singing; the shuffle of
her feet as she lumbered down the basement stairs. The way she sang and hee-heed to herself told Annie that it had been a lucky day.
She went over to the table where lay the heavy hammer she had brought alone for just this eventuality. She wrapped her fat fingers around the handle, stepped back next to the door, pressed against the wall, and waited.
The shuffle came closer; Mary began to sing a spiritual, but it broke off as a spasm of coughing seized her. The door opened, and in crept the ragged figure, bent over with coughing.
The open door hid Annie from her view. She dumped the burlap bag on the floor, and straightened, while the door slowly shut behind her.
Annie waited a moment, weighing the hammer in her hand, getting just the right grip around the handle. Then, with fired eyes, her face distorting with killer’s lust, she raised the hammer and came for the defenseless crone.
The aged creature must have heard her, for she spun around with much more agility than her crippled body warranted. She seemed to take in the situation instantly. Her eyes went wild, and she put up her hands to ward off the blow. But too late. Annie brought the hammer down sharply, with all her strength. It embedded itself in the old woman’s skull.
With a double-toned shriek that sounded more like the yelp of a canine, she sank to the floor. Screaming, her hands went over her head, as though trying to plug up the blood that fountained from the wound. Annie brought the hammer down again; the screams choked off; Mary rolled over on her back, and lay still.
Annie straightened, filled her lungs with air, while she wiped the sweat from her brow with her arm. She looked down, saw that the woman was dead, and dropped the hammer. She got down on her hands and knees, and got to work on the filth that was Dirty Mary’s wearing apparel.
Cold-bloodedly, without compunction, she ripped off the first dress, examined it minutely, from seam to seam, searching for signs of sewed up money. But there was nothing but dirt. Satisfied that it concealed nothing, she tore off the next dress. And the next.
Surely the next one! It had to be someplace! Her searching fingers began to tremble, as her eyes filled with worry. A cold fear closed around her heart, not fear of having slain the woman, but fear of not finding that money.
Only one dress now covered the incredibly fleshless bones of the dead woman. Only one dress. She was almost afraid to touch it, for fear her crime was in vain.
Then with a lunge, half anger, half anxiety, she clawed her hands around the last dress, and ripped it away. Nothing!
With a cry of outraged wrath, she sprang up, flung the dress to her feet, then got down on her knees again, and re-searched every bit of the vermin infested clothes.
She ironed, pressed, flattened, patted every inch of the cloth against the stone floor—nothing!
Wild anger charged through her as she got to her feet. Then with bewildering swiftness things began to happen. Behind her the door flew open, and policemen charged into the room with drawn guns. Panic seized her, she tried to force her way through, but her efforts were in vain.
Mary’s screams had attracted a child playing at the top of the cellar stairs. He had called his mother, who had crept halfway down the cellar stairs, only to rush up again and call the police.
In her cell, sometimes later, the lawyer who had been appointed to defend her, told her why she had not found the money. Mary had been wise enough to bank it. She had accumulated a little over $5,000 in cash.
“So what!” Annie cried bitterly. “It ain’t gonna do me no good now.”
The lawyer smiled. “That’s true. It isn’t going to do you any good. Y’know the autopsy showed that Mary Mawson had cancer of the lung. She wouldn’t have lived long. Not longer than a few weeks.”
“Ain’t that too bad!”
“Yes it is rather. She must have thought you were her friend. You visited her, drank with her. She liked you, Annie.”
“So what?”
“Oh nothing. Thought you’d like to know she left a will, leaving all her money to you.”
THE END
GIVE THE GUY A CHANCE
Thomas Thursday
An ex-con has a hard time getting a job.
Warden John Crane’s talk to the departing Jimmy Gaylor—No. 26974—was short, practical and fatherly. “Jimmy,” he said, “every man who serves his term and leaves this institution goes out with a smear on his character. I like to believe—and I know I hope—that their stay here has proved to them that crime does not pay, never has paid, and never will pay.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy Gaylor, standing erect before him.
“Outside, Jimmy, you will find it difficult to get employment,” went on the gray-templed warden. “You will have a hard task in making a place in the world. But, please, Jimmy—take the knocks and the cuffs like a man. Don’t become bitter, like so many others, and return to crime. The weak ones do that but never the strong. Be strong, Jimmy, for your own sake, your mother’s and mine.”
“I was just wondering, Warden,” said Jimmy, “if I should say frankly to possible employers that I have been in prison for five years?”
“By all means,” replied Warden Crane. “And, Jimmy, I’ll tell you why. Sooner or later your secret will be discovered. Unfortunately, the chief duty of some people is to mind everybody’s business but their own. If you care to, you may refer employers to me.”
“Thank you, Warden,” said Jimmy. “You’ve been swell and I’ll try not to disappoint you when I’m on the outside.”
Now Jimmy was again on the outside and still young, having just turned 25.
And he had long planned to go back to Center City, his home town, and face the gossip and the stares of the citizens. Okay—he had it coming, but it was comforting to think that he had not murdered any one. True, he had been dumb enough to accompany Ratsy Meegan on the job when Robert Sands was killed in his small gas station.
But Jimmy’s part had been a minor one. He just sat there and kept the motor running, waiting for Ratsy to come out. It would just take a second said Ratsy and no one would be hurt. Such jobs were push-overs, according to him.
However, Robert Sands was not the kind of man who could be pushed by the Ratsy Meegans of the world. He tried to knock the gun out of Ratsy’s hand and Ratsy let him have it right in the center of the temple. When Sands fell to the concrete floor Ratsy raced to the cash register and found two one-dollar bills and a fifty cent piece. Then he rushed to the car and, at the gun point, ordered Jimmy Gaylor to step on it.
Jimmy, badly frightened, had lost control of the car at the first turn, two blocks from the gas station, and crashed into a milk wagon. Both Ratsy and Jimmy were unhurt but badly stunned when Officer Hanan found them. So for the sum of $2.50 an honest man was killed, a crack-pot gangster was executed in the death chair, and Jimmy Gaylor paid with five years of his life in the penitentiary. But within that five years Jimmy had ample time to realize that soft money is always hard.
The first person to recognize Jimmy when he reached Center City was Officer Hanan. The rotund cop had added considerable weight, probably at the expense of the fruit stands along his beat.
“Welcome home, Jimmy,” greeted Hanan. “See that you keep your nose clean!”
“I will,” grinned Jimmy, “even if I have to borrow your dirty handkerchief to do it.”
Five years can do a lot to a town like Center City. For one thing, it can take on a greater population and it can remove many of the old crowd. Jimmy was glad to note so many new faces, faces that didn’t know him for an ex-con. His father had died while he was in prison and his mother was now running a boarding house. Mrs. Mary Gaylor, now nearing sixty, was sure that her son was innocent of the whole thing, regardless of how people had talked. Mothers are like that. She told Jimmy when he reached home that he should just take it easy for a few weeks, rest and eat well. Mothers are also like that.
Jimmy, however, was neither a bum nor a loafer. He had worked from the age of 16, steadily, right up to the time of his arrest, and h
ad been assistant shipping clerk for the McAdams Packing Company. Two days after reaching Center City, Jimmy decided to go around and see his old boss, Henry Petersen, the superintendent. He wanted a job, any old job, just for a start.
“Well, well, well,” greeted Petersen. “If it isn’t Jimmy Gaylor! Glad to see you, Jimmy!”
“Got a job for me some place, Mr. Petersen?” asked Jimmy. The heavy, blue-jowled face of Henry Petersen changed like a thermometer that had just been soaked in ice cubes.
“Well—er—not just now, Jimmy. Perhaps if you come around when business picks up. You know how it is, Jimmy.”
Yes, Jimmy thought he knew how it was. He had anticipated just such a run-around. Petersen had no intention of giving him a job and Jimmy knew it. So Jimmy read the want ads in the Center City Courier and chased around town answering them. Most of the times the jobs were filled before he had reached the place but far too often the jobs he might have gotten were lost when Jimmy offered Warden John Crane as a reference.
“Oh, I see,” remarked one oily-haired pompadoured personnel clerk. “That makes it rather complicated. I’m afraid that—ah—well, you understand, I’m sure. Sorry!”
“Sure,” said Jimmy. “I know how it is.”
About a week later Jimmy heard that the Center City Manufacturing Company was going to turn its big plant into making defense material. He was one of the first to get in line to make out an application. When he came to the reference line, he filled out—John Crane, Warden State Penitentiary.
He waited two weeks but was not called for an interview. He observed that others, who had applied after him, were now employed. A tinge of bitterness began to creep into his thoughts but he recalled the plea of Warden Crane and tried to forget about it.