Bruno Fischer

by J. Max Gilbert

“Yes.”

  “But these men are killers, Vital and the others. Can't they investigate you and find out that you never did anything wrong in your life?”

  “They did,” I said. “This morning, I think, Woodfinch had an idea I was one of the gangsters. By this afternoon he found nothing shady in my record, so he figures it another way. When Vital offered me five hundred dollars for the bag, I realized that it must be immensely valuable and I picked up a tire iron and killed him and hid the bag. Then I made up a cock-and-bull story about Larry and Crooked Nose and being taken for a ride and knocking out Larry. The thing is that I can’t prove that Larry exists. They think he’s only a red herring.”

  “But they didn’t arrest you.”

  “They don’t think they have enough evidence yet.”

  I felt her stiffen against me. “Lieutenant Woodfinch asked me so many questions. If Raymond Teacher had been in my car before the accident. If I had seen this man Larry. If I heard anything in the garage. He went on and on like that.”

  “That’s why he kept me at headquarters,” I said. “He wanted to speak to you without me around.”

  “Darling, the real murderer is going to call back. If we let the police know, they’ll be able to trace the call as soon as it comes and capture him.”

  “Funny,” I muttered.

  She tilted her head back. “What do you mean, funny?”

  “This man who killed Vital is no dope. Why should he stick his neck out telling us he’d call back? Unless — “ I paused.”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless he has reason to believe I wouldn’t be anxious to give him away. Or unless he has nothing to be afraid of.”

  “But he did kill Vital?”

  “I can’t see it any other way,” I said. “You’re right, though. We should call the police before he calls back.”

  She took her arms away from me and together we went down the stairs. The phone rang before we reached the hall.

  We looked at each other. Esther closed her eyes and gripped the banister. I went down the remaining stairs. “Hello?” I said into the mouthpiece.

  “Adam Breen?” that agonizingly slow voice said.

  “Yes?”

  “You know now that the bag’s no good to you.”

  Esther had come to my side. I looked at her without quite seeing her: “What is it?” she whispered tensely. “You turned so pale.”

  “Hello, Breen?” the dragging voice said.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I heard myself say.

  “You can’t use the bag. I’ll give you a grand for it.”

  “I haven’t got it.”

  “That’s the top price, Breen. Take it or your life isn’t worth a dime.”

  “You have the bag,” I said.

  “Save that for the coppers.' Do we do business?”

  “I can’t, I tell you. I swear — “

  “Then it's your funeral,” he said.

  There was a click at the other end of the line.

  “Listen,” I said. “Wait. Let me — “

  I stopped talking into the dead phone. Slowly I hung up and stood facing the wall.

  Carol demanded: “Who called up? Who’d you speak to, huh, Papa?” She had come out to the hall.

  Esther whirled. “Get into the kitchen!” she snarled. “And stay there!” Carol’s mouth went slack. Her mother had never before spoken like that to her. She darted back into the kitchen.

  I heard Esther breathing hard at my side. “Darling, did he say he didn’t have the bag?”

  “He offered me a thousand dollars for it.”

  “Then he couldn’t have murdered Jasper Vital!”

  “The murderer has the bag.” I jerked myself erect. I slammed my fist into my palm. “Goddam it, what am I going to do? I can’t make anybody believe I haven’t got it.”

  Esther was staring up at me as if she had never seen me before. “Darling, you can be honest with me.”

  I met her dark, sick eyes. I wanted to yell, but I kept my voice low. “You too?” I said hoarsely.

  “I didn’t mean that.” She was hard against me, sobbing against .my chest. “Oh, God, I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  Tenderly I patted her hair. “Forget it, baby. We say all sorts of foolish things when we’re scared.”

  Carol timidly poked her head into the hall. “Mommy, aren't we going to have supper?”

  “In a minute, dear,” Esther told her without turning ^her head. “Go back into the kitchen.”

  Carol’s head vanished. Esther stepped out of my arms and sniffled. I handed her my handkerchief. She said with the handkerchief to her eyes: “Maybe he’ll call again. Hadn’t we better let the police know right away?”

  “I’m not going to tell the police.” The handkerchief remained at her eyes. “Why not?’ she muttered.

  “What will I tell the police?” I said. “That the man I’ve been insisting murdered Vital and took the bag hasn’t got it after all? That’ll be almost as good as a confession.”

  “You’re going to keep quiet about it?”

  “I don’t see what else I can do.”

  She took the handkerchief from her face. Her eyes were dead. There was not even disbelief in them, not even horror. She said listlessly, “I’m going up to wash my face,” and turned to the stairs.

  I lighted the cigarette I had wanted for a small eternity.

  The smoke was harsh and bitter in my throat.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mr. Redfern said: “You can’t kid me, Mr. Z. Your schedule of a corpse a day is a phoney.”

  His fleshy face was set in stern, hard lumps. His cigar was as inflexible as a naked flagpole sticking from a corner of his mouth. I looked blankly at him as I got out of the demonstration coupe which I had driven home Monday evening. A little matter of murder had prevented me from returning it and showing up for work until now, Wednesday, nine A.M.

  “You’re falling down, Mr. Z.,” Mr. Redfern said. “Here the week is almost half over and only one murder so far,” Abe Silvers and one of the other mechanics had come over to this side of the maintenance room. They stood with their fists on their hips and mouths poised to grin as soon as they got the point of the gag. Mr. Redfern’s humor was the sort that built up to a terrific letdown, but he was the boss, so we laughed. Nobody laughed now.

  “All right, it’s funny,” I said, “whatever it is.”

  “Who’s trying to be funny?” Mr. Redfern tapped my chest with a pudgy forefinger. “You were trying to be Monday. You phoned me and I told you, a mysterious man was asking questions about you. Then you gave out with wise-guy stuff about being Mr. Z. with a schedule of corpses every day but Sunday. And what happened a few hours later right in your garage?”

  He sounded angry about it.

  Abe Silvers said eagerly: “Gee, Adam, what’s it about? The cops were here yesterday and looked all over the place, like we had something hidden here.”

  “They acted like maybe I was a criminal,”'Mr. Redfern complained. “Like I was Mr. Z.’s boss. They asked me about you. That I can understand; a man was murdered in your garage. But why did they want to know all about my business?”

  I walked across the maintenance room to the office. Mrs. Hesterberg turned from her typewriter; her eyes glittered excitedly at me from behind her black harlequin glasses. Since Monday night I had achieved glamor.

  “You had plenty of excitement,” she said tentatively, as an opening wedge for detailed conversation.

  “Plenty.” I hung up my .hat and went into the showroom.

  Mr. Redfern tagged after me. He removed his cigar with a flourish, stepped close to me, made his voice low and confidential. “Now we’re alone, Adam, you can tell me. I know you’re in trouble.”

  “Yes.”

  “I asked you the same thing when you phoned me Monday evening,” he reminded me triumphantly. “But all you gave me was wisecracks.”

  “I didn’t know then that I would be in trouble.” />
  A plump hand went to my shoulder. “Adam, you’ve been working for me a long time. I gave you your job back without question when you came out of the army, and gave you a salary even though there weren’t any cars to sell yet. You can talk to me like to a father.”

  It was easier to tell him than not to. I left a lot out, especially about the man with the dragging voice who had phoned me twice. Even so, his hand withdrew from my shoulder before I was quite finished. Although he didn’t move, all of him seemed to be withdrawing.

  “There it is,” I said. “It mightn’t sound reasonable, but that’s not my fault. Do you still want to help me?”

  He frowned uneasily. “The police — well, I couldn’t interfere with them — I mean even if I was in a position to.”

  “There’s one thing,” I said. “Those two crooks changed their attitude toward me when I told them I worked here. They got the notion I knew something important. Why?”

  “My God, what did you get me into?” Mr. Redfern burst out. “Yesterday the police were here and turned the place upside down. They had a warrant, but they wouldn’t tell me what they were looking for. What will happen to my reputation if police keep coming in here —” He stopped. His eyes widened. “They were looking for that bag. My God, they think I’m hiding it for you!”

  “Or that I came here late Monday night and hid it because I work here and have a key. But that doesn’t explain why Jasper Vital and Larry thought I was a gangster too when I told them that I worked for you.”

  “My God, what are you saying? Did , you tell the police that?”

  “I had to.”

  Mr. Redfern said bitterly: “You don’t care what you do to my reputation as a businessman.”

  “All right, fire me.”

  He looked at me with his mouth working, as if it were practicing for words as soon as his brain released them. Then he said weakly, “I guess we’re ‘'both excited,” and went into the office.

  After I swept the showroom and polished the four floor models, there was nothing to do but wait for customers. In front of the store a streetcleaner was running his broad broom along the curb. In fiction, detectives who shadowed a suspect liked to disguise themselves as streetcleaners, but the trouble with that idea was that I’d known this particular streetcleaner since before the war. The man studying the hardware display across the street was a better candidate for a shadow, though my favorite at the moment was the elderly gentleman doing nothing for a long time except sit behind the wheel of a parked car. Or there could be more than one, crooks as well as cops waiting for me to lead them to the bag.

  For all I knew, I was surrounded by shadows watching every move I made. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

  When I returned from lunch, Mr. Redfern was singing the praises of the Planet convertible to a young couple who were so obviously newlyweds that they inspired benign smiles. Mr. Redfern stepped away from them and intercepted me at the office door.

  “Mr. Weaver there is waiting for you,” he told me.

  A man was sitting deep in one of the showroom wicker chairs. He looked up at me from an illustrated Planet folder on his knees. I didn’t know him.

  “What does he want?”

  “What do you think we sell here?” Mr. Redfern snapped. “A car. A friend of yours gave him your name and he said he’d wait till you got back from lunch. He’s been waiting half an hour already.”

  I hung up my hat in the office. When I returned Weaver was standing beside the four-door sedan. He was a short, slim man with a blank face. He wore his clothes too tight, and the width of his shoulders was largely padding. .

  “I guess you’re Adam Breen,” he said when I came up to him.

  “You said somebody gave you my name?”

  Instead of answering that, he patted a fender of the sedan. “This is a neat little job. How much?”

  “Thirteen-sixty, F.O.B. Who did you say recommended me?”

  He looked past me to Mr. Redfern and his two customers and then smiled up at me. I’m wondering how much you like your wife and daughter.”

  It was gibberish. “What?” I said.

  “I bet you’d feel pretty bad if anything happened to them,” he tossed casually at me and sauntered around the hood of the car.

  His voice wasn't slow and dragging. I had never heard it over the phone. There was more than one, of course — an organization. I hurried after him. He had the front right door open and his head was inside, examining the dashboard. Just another customer looking at a floor model.

  “The bag?” I whispered hoarsely. “Is that what you want to know about?”

  He straightened up. He didn't have to. His patiently waiting smile was enough.

  “Can’t I make you people believe that I don’t know a thing about it?” I said.

  “That’s a pretty little wife you have,” he observed pleasantly. “And a sweet little daughter.” And he sauntered to the street door.

  With a hand on the doorknob, he turned to look at me. He was giving me this last chance. I could knock him, down with one blow. I could wring his neck with my two hands. And then what? Call the police and tell them: Here, arrest this man because he asked me if I cared for my wife and daughter. If anybody was arrested, I’d be the one, for assault and battery, and Mr. Redfern and the newlyweds would testify that I had started it without provocation.

  I forced myself to remain where I was, and he went out, closing the door behind him. He strolled past the window with his hands in his pockets and his mouth puckered as if whistling.

  Mr. Redfern strode indignantly over to me. “Why did you let a customer go out so quick?”

  “What?”

  “He came to buy a car. He told me. He waited for you half an hour and then you let him go in two minutes. What kind of salesmanship is that?”

  “He only wanted to know prices,” I muttered.

  I went into the office. Mrs. Hesterberg was typing. I scooped her phone off her desk and dialed my home number. There was no answer. There usually wasn’t at that time because Esther went shopping or visiting after lunch. So far there was no urgency. They were trying to scare me into handing the bag over without fuss or trouble. Working on my nerves. That took time. They’d do that for another day or two before they started getting tough.

  “Is anything wrong?” Mrs. Hesterberg asked.

  I was sitting with one thigh over the corner of the desk and holding the dead phone forgotten in space. I cradled it.

  “Wrong?” I said. “Everything is wonderful.”

  She stared at me through her harlequin glasses, and I went into the maintenance room to get away from her. The next time I called home I did it from the corner drugstore where Mrs. Hesterberg wouldn’t be able to heckle me. Still no answer. And if she had been home, what would I have said to her? Lock yourself and Carol in the house and .don’t open the door to strangers? I unwound myself from the booth and returned to work. ’

  Two boys hardly old enough for driver’s licenses came in with money in their pockets to buy a used car. They were bright boys. They practically took three or four jalopies apart before they decided on a real buy for one-ninety. By that time it was after four. I let Mrs. Hesterberg handle the bill of sale and walked to the drugstore.

  Esther’s voice over the wire loosened my insides.

  “How’s everything, baby?” I asked, trying to make myself sound like a husband taking a few minutes off for an idle chat with his wife.

  “That man — you know — who didn’t call again. My heart stops beating every time I hear the phone ring.”

  “Forget him. He must have found out by now he made a mistake. How’s Carol?”

  “I’m worried about her. She hasn’t come home from school yet.”

  For a long moment I stopped living.

  “Adam?” Esther said. “Were we cut off?”

  I cleared my throat, but I couldn’t get the deadness out of it. “Does she always come right home from school?”

  “We’ve got
to do something about that child. Twice last week she went straight from school to play with friends without coming home first. I tell her and I tell her, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

  “Why don’t you call the homes of her friends to see if she’s there?”

  “I did, those I know. But it’s the beginning of the term and she’s made new friends.”

  “I’m coming right home.”

  “Don’t be so upset, darling. I’m sure she’s all right. After all, she’s done it before.”

  “I’ll be right home,” I said, and hung up.

  Esther was standing on the front steps. She came down to the sidewalk to meet me.

  “So she hasn’t come home yet,” I said woodenly.

  “I told you it happened twice last week and it turned out all right.”

  “It’s four-thirty.”

  “She was out till five one day last week.”

  “Dammit, this isn’t last week!” I felt my voice crack. “It’s my fault. I should have called for her at school. I should have gone straight to the police when Weaver — “

  And then I saw her. She was running toward us with a doll half her own size clutched to her chest.

  “Papa, Mommy, look what I have!” she shouted when she was still several houses away.

  I ran to Carol and swung her up in my arms. The doll was squeezed between us. She pulled it free and waved it at Esther.

  “Mommy, look what I have.”

  “Carol, where were you? “ Esther tried to sound stern, but there was vast relief in her tone.

  “Papa’s general bought me this beautiful doll.”

  “My what?” I said.

  “Your general. Your general in the army. Don’t you remember him, Papa? He said you were his bravest soldier.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Esther said.

  “Papa’s general. He took me for a ride in his car and bought me ice cream and bought me this doll. He paid thirteen dollars for it, Mommy.”

  “Can you make sense out of what she’s saying, Adam?”

  I held Carol closer to me. I said dully, “Let’s go into the house,” and I carried Carol and the doll into the living room and sat down on the couch with her on my lap.