Bruno Fischer

by J. Max Gilbert

  “We’ll stop horsing around,” Handsome said amiably. “Five hundred bucks on the line for the bag.”

  That shook me. My throat was dry. I said: “I’m not in the business of selling bags which don’t belong to me.”

  “Then what do you want?”.

  “I want to be left alone.”

  Handsome stepped back. He sighed. “We don’t want to get tough, but show him how we can, Larry.”

  The squat man casually slid a hand under his left shoulder and brought out a black snub-nosed automatic pistol. He let me take a good look at it lying on his broad palm and then stuck it into his jacket pocket. His hand held it there.

  This was the real thing. It was not only a man with a gun. It was a man who carried a gun under his shoulder, in a holster, professionally. He would know how to use it and be quick to use it if he decided that he had to. A killer.

  A boy darted into the mouth of the driveway. A second boy followed him, tagged him, and fled with the other after him. A car went by with its lights on. Handsome ran a tongue up to the razor-thin line of his mustache. “Suppose we go into the garage,” he said.

  He went first. I followed and stood against the wall. The squat man called Larry stopped just inside the door. It was a lot darker in the garage. Handsome found the light switch and snapped it. He stuck his head through the open sedan door, pulled it out, opened the front door, looked inside, straightened up. He walked completely around the car. He squatted and looked under it. He raised the lid of the built-in cabinet in which I kept tools and tire chains and old tubes and all the other stuff which accumulates in a garage. Then he came back to me.

  “Where is it?”

  I tried to make myself sound unafraid. “In the police station. I’dd just come back from there when' I saw you in the driveway.

  “Nuts! You wouldn’t lug that heavy bag when you have two cars right here. Besides, your wife told me you’d left the house only about ten mintues before. Let’s have the key to the trunk.”

  “I lost it,” I said.

  Larry spoke for the first time. “You’re a big guy, sport. Let’s see if you can touch the ceiling.”

  I raised my hands. Handsome went through my pockets and relieved me of all the keys he could find. He let the keys drop to the floor except the two which were obviously car keys. He tried each of them in the sedan trunk, and then turned to me with a scowl. He didn’t say anything. He went outside and used one of the keys to unlock the coupe door and the other to unlock the coupe trunk.

  He returned to the garage and stood looking at me with his hands in his pockets. His shoulders were huddled as if against cold. “Where are the sedan keys?”

  “I lost them,” I said.

  Larry poked the gun muzzle harder against the pocket. “How’d you like a slug in the guts, sport?”

  I shook my head. “That won’t get you anywhere.”

  “A hero, eh?”

  “No,” I said. “But you won’t do it. The shot will be heard and you’ll have to run for it.”

  “There are ways I don’t have to be noisy; sport,” Larry suggested softly.

  “My death won't give you the bag.”

  “Stow it, Larry,” Handsome said. He ran a thumbnail over his mustache. “His wife told me the bag was in the garage. When I offered him fifty bucks for it, he figured it must be worth a lot more. He saw I didn't drive away, so he had an idea I'd be back and locked it in the trunk. The reason I know it's in the trunk is that he hasn't got the keys on him. A guy always carries his car keys. He threw 'em away when he saw us coming.”

  “You should've been a detective in the movies, the way you figured it out so neat,” Larry sneered. “Okay, so it's in the trunk. All we do is break the lock.”

  Handsome kept frowning up at me, but he spoke to Larry. “He turned down half a grand for it. Why?”

  “You're the mastermind,” Larry said.

  Handsome looked at the coupe, then at the sedan, then at me. “This house you live in isn't so swell, but you have two practically new cars. What's the answer, Breen?”

  My raised arms were getting tired.

  I lowered them. Larry didn't object.

  “The coupe in the driveway isn't mine,” I said. “It's a demonstrator.”

  “A what?”

  “The car we use to demonstrate to customers. I'm an auto salesman.”

  Light leaped over the area just outside the garage. Esther had turned on the kitchen light, but the open garage door blocked us out from the kitchen windows. Handsome walked to the edge of the door and looked at the two lighted windows.

  Larry said: “All right, mastermind, what do you say now?”

  Handsome came back with only one hand in a pocket. His other was on the mustache. It was his left hand now. There didn't seem to be a gun in either pocket after all. Larry's was enough.

  “Who do you work for.?” Handsome asked.

  “Redfern Motors on Atlantic Avenue. We sell Planets. Are you interested in buying one?”

  “A comedian,” Larry grunted. He glanced sideways at Handsome. “Ever hear of 'em?”

  “No.” It was very still in the garage.

  Handsome was again searching for something in my face. “I didn't pay much attention to what the guy told me. He still had the jitters.”

  That was over my head, like most of what was happening. Automatically I asked what guy.

  “Howard Pine, the guy whose car hit Ray Teacher,” Handsome replied.

  “I got his name and address out of the paper. He told me he saw the cops stick Ray's bag into this car. Something else he told me I didn't pay attention to. He said he thought Ray got out of the sedan that a few minutes later drove him to the hospital. This sedan. The one your wife drove.”

  “That's crazy.” My voice was so thick it had trouble passing my throat.

  “Teacher was crossing the street and walked in front of this car. Howard Pine probably didn't see him until he hit him.”

  Handsome went on as if I hadn't spoken: “Pine said Ray got up from the road and walked over to the sedan and spoke to your wife and then got in. Why straight to her car? It figures up. It shows why you wouldn't take half a grand for the bag and why you locked it, in the trunk and threw the keys away.”

  “I wish I knew what you were talking about,” I said.

  Larry took his gun out of his left pocket and held it flat against his broad left palm with his finger on the trigger and his thumb on the safety catch.

  “This guy needs opening up.”

  “Plenty,” Handsome agreed. “He can tell us lots of what we want to know. But not here.”

  Esther's voice made my insides jump. She called from the kitchen door: “Are you in the garage, Adam?”

  She had seen the light, of course.

  “Keep her out of here,” Handsome whispered harshly.

  I nodded. On that we could agree.

  “I'll be in soon, baby,” I said loudly.

  “Did you see the man who came for the bag?'' she asked.

  “I'm giving it to him now.”

  There was a silence. The kitchen light went out and I breathed again.

  “We're dopes,” Larry said. “His wife drove the car this afternoon. I bet she's got a set of keys of her own.”

  My hands clenched. I was going to hit Larry. Maybe that solid frame of his wouldn't go down or he'd shoot me before I completed the swing or after, but I was going to hit that jaw.

  “Don't you think I thought of that?” Handsome said testily, “Sure, she's got keys, but we're keeping women out of this.”

  Larry snorted. “I can make her hand them over.”

  I was trembling. I was going to hit him. I couldn't tell them that I had thrown the keys in the grass. Esther would see us search for them and she would come out to ask what we were after. No matter what I did, she would be in it. I was going to drive my fist into his thick jaw.

  “I know what you can do to a woman.” Handsome's voice was thin with anger. “Only
you're not. Get that into your head.”

  Larry shrugged. I relaxed a little.

  “Then how's this?” Larry said, “We drive away this sedan with the bag in it and take Breen along with us. I don't need no ignition key to start it. All I do is disconnect — “

  “And what about the coupe parked in the driveway?” Handsome cut in.

  “You got the key to that. We drive it out and then — “

  “Sure, sure. And drive my car away from the front of the driveway. It'll be like a parking lot where you drive cars in and out. Every kid in the neighborhood will come and watch us. And Mrs. Breen will come out to see what's going on.”

  “Okay, mastermind, what's your idea?”

  “To do it nice and orderly without risk,” Handsome said. “We want the bag and we want a long private talk with Breen. You take him out to the Coney Island place in my car. Think you can handle him alone?”

  .Larry laughed through his nostrils. “This mug?”

  “I'll stay behind and work on the trunk. I've never seen the car lock I couldn't open without a key.”

  “So open it now and we'll all go together.”

  Handsome glanced toward the street. “We've wasted too much time already. I'll take maybe ten more minutes to get this trunk open.”

  “So somebody will come,” Larry said. “That don't scare me.”

  “You'd like to use that rod of yours.”

  “On the big shot it'd be a pleasure.”

  “Use your head,” Handsome said.

  “That was a stall Breen gave us that he'd received a phone call from him. Why would he call Breen if Breen is part of the outfit? He figures the bag is as safe with Breen as it was with Ray Teacher.”

  “Then we got plenty of time,” Larry argued.

  Handsome chewed his mustache. “I know women. Mrs. Breen will wonder what's keeping her husband. Or she'll worry because he doesn't come right back and she'll come out here.”

  “So she's still bothering you?” Larry sneered.

  “Women complicate things. I don't want to be burdened by her. Breen might get frisky if she comes in, and I don't want shooting, not here and not before we get the bag. You beat it with him. I'll close the door and put out the light and work by flashlight. If she looks out the window again, she'll see the garage dark and figure we're gone. Or if she or anybody else comes, I'll be alone and can pull a bluff.” Handsome showed strong white teeth. “Careful and smart — that's the way I like to do things.”

  “Don't be too smart, that's all.” Larry returned his gun to his pocket. “Get going, sport,” he told me.

  My shoulders left the support of the wall.

  The garage light went out. The door creaked shut.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Twilight was deepening into night, but I was distinct enough to Larry. He walked behind me until we passed the demonstration coupe and then he stepped to my right side, not close. Within a split-second he could send a bullet into me through his pocket, though to anybody seeing us we were two men simply walking up a driveway.

  One light was on in my house, in the nearer of the two living room windows. I stopped. Through the frilly curtains I saw Esther snuggled in the English club chair, reading by the light of the floorlamp. The radio was on. A comedian whose voice I did not know was telling a joke.

  I had only a view of one rounded cheek. The rest was hair and a braid. Her head was raised from the book; she was listening to the joke. My throat clogged. It was a time to kiss my wife and daughter good-bye.

  Larry stepped behind me and gave me a slight shove with his empty hand. I continued walking and he hurried back to my side. The comedian reached the point of his joke with a rising inflection that ended in a strident giggle, and everybody in the radio studio laughed. And the radio in Gillette's house and other nearby radios audible through open windows also laughed, so that laughter filled the evening. Nobody

  could be that funny.

  Gillette was backing his car to the other side of the street. The headlights swept by us and fixed on his driveway and he rolled his car in. A young man and woman approached us with their arms about each other. All up and down the street there were people sitting in front of stoops', or standing, or getting into or out of cars. It was the way it had always been with the coming of darkness on a pleasant evening. It was ridiculous that none of them should know what was happening to me or that I couldn't let them know.

  “You're driving,” Larry said.

  I slid across the wide seat of the convertible and let my hand drop negligently on the handle of the door on my left. I would push the handle down and fall against the door. My weight would open it and I would spill out with the car between myself and Larry.

  “Don't try it, sport,” Larry said.

  The gun was out of his pocket, held low and hidden from the street by his body. He was way ahead of me, knew more possible tricks than I could think up. The value of experience. He got into the car with his face and gun toward me. He reached behind him to close the door and sat with his back against it, facing me, the gun resting on his left thigh. I wondered how many times he had done it before.

  “Drive to Coney,” he said. “Take it nice and easy.”

  I drove. The car rolled sweetly and powerfully. I looked at my hands on the wheel. They were even bigger than Larry's and probably as hard. They were steady, but the knuckles were white. I loosened their grip a little and looked sideways at Larry, sitting solid and invulnerable with the gun in his left hand.

  “You're making a mistake,” I said.

  “I haven't any idea what's in the bag.”

  “Then why didn't you take five C's for it, like you was offered?”

  “You wouldn't understand.”

  “We aim to understand a lot more. You're the guy who can tell us.”

  “You'll be wasting your time.”

  “I've got plenty of time.” He grinned. “All I need is a knife and a couple hours with you. There'll be nothing you won't tell me then.”

  I wet my lips. “Tell you what.?”

  He shot a .glance behind him and brought his gaze quickly back to me. “Let's start with Tilly's. What's the

  setup there?”

  “I never heard of Tilly.”

  “Don't give me that. We know they're working out of the Badmont place. We’ve never been there because he kept us south. He thinks he’s too much big-shot. Never told us much. Only let us do the dirty work and paid off in peanuts. Well, we’re here now and we got the bag. What d’you say, Breen?”

  “I don’t understand gibberish.”

  “You don’t understand what?”

  “Never mind,” I said emptily: “You won’t believe me.”

  “I’ll believe what you say after I get a little knife-work in on you.”

  There was nothing I could say that would make any difference, so I said nothing. I turned left on Ocean Parkway. A light stopped us. Larry gave another quick glance through the rear window. That was the only sign of tension he showed.

  After a few minutes he said: “Hey, you’re going too fast.”

  The speedometer needle was at forty and rising. I passed a couple of dawdling cars. I hunched over, the wheel and gunned the motor.

  The gun poked into my ribs. His other hand turned off the ignition. Rapidly the car lost speed. There was nowhere to wreck the car unless I wrecked another car with it. We rolled to a stop.

  “Not so smart,” Larry said disgustedly. “You figured a copper would pick you up for speeding. Next you’d try passing a red light.”

  I sat gripping the wheel, wanting to break it with my hands.

  “Or maybe wreck the car,” he went on. “You seen that in the movies. You kill or cripple yourself as likely as me, or I put a slug in you before you hit anything, so where’s the percentage? Start her up!”

  I obeyed. Keeping the gun pressed against my side, he reached his other hand up and tilted the mirror toward the right. Then he sat back against the door.


  “Turn off on Bay Parkway,” he ordered, “and don’t do more than fifteen if you don’t like to eat lead.”

  At McDonald Avenue he told me to 1 turn left. I drove between pillars of the Culver Line Elevated. Gravesend Avenue it used to be called before its name was changed. That was a terrific joke for anybody who could appreciate it. I couldn’t.

  It was a good street for a murder. There were unwholesome looking fields. There were small decaying vegetable gardens which in spring and summer were cultivated by Italians who came to them evenings and weekends from distant homes. There were trains rumbling overhead. A body could be dumped out of a car and not found till morning, or dragged a few feet into a field and not found for a week. But it wouldn’t happen here. Larry was anxious to get in some knife-work first. Gravesend Avenue, and my grave at the end of it would be somewhere in Coney Island.

  We were almost there. Ahead I could see the orange lights of Belt Parkway and on my left was the massive bulk of Coney Island Hospital. It had to be now, within the next minute or two. I was going too slowly to wreck the car,

  “Yeah, we’re being tailed,” Larry said suddenly. He turned his body squarely , to me, “What d'you know

  about it, sport?”

  I looked back. A pair of headlights were a couple of hundred feet behind us. They didn't come closer.

  “You keep asking about things I don't know,” I said.

  “Listen, sport. When we stopped on Ocean Parkway, that heap behind us stopped. When we turned off, it turned off, and turned off again to this street. We're going slow and it's going slow. What d'you make of it.?”

  “It's your show,” I said.

  “Yeah, my show. We'll have a look. Pull over.”

  I slipped the car between two elevated pillars and stopped it at the curb.

  Larry's flicking eyes divided their attention between me and the mirror. I turned. The car behind us seemed to hesitate. Suddenly it gathered speed. I looked at Larry. He was leaning toward me, looking at me and at the same time through the left window, waiting for a glimpse of whoever was in that other car. “Remember, you get the first slug,” he told me tightly.