Bruno Fischer

by J. Max Gilbert

  Esther stood watching Carol remove the doll’s bonnet. She was merely puzzled. She didn’t know yet how frightening a doll could be.

  I ran my fingers through the doll’s golden curls. “It’s a lovely doll, Carol,” I said. “When did you meet the general?”

  “When I got out of school. He asked Betty McCarthy if she knew a girl named Carol Breen and I heard him and said I was Carol Breen and he said he was your general. Papa, he said you were his bravest soldier, in France and you’d told him all about your little girl and the first chance he got he came to see me. And we got in his car —”

  Esther said, anxiously now: “Carol, don’t you know better than to get into a car with a strange man?”

  “He wasn’t a strange man, Mommy. He was Papa’s general. Of course he didn’t-wear a uniform, but Papa doesn’t wear a uniform any more either.”

  “Where did he take you when you got into his car?” I asked.

  “He took me for an ice cream soda. He was very nice. He asked me if I wanted another soda, but I was full and I said no, thank you.” She looked up at Esther for approval. “I was very polite, Mommy. I said no, thank you.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, dear,” Esther muttered. Her eyes were becoming afraid.

  “Then he took me for a long, long ride in his car,” Carol went on happily. “Then he took me in a toy store and let me pick out anything I wanted. Wasn’t that nice of him? I picked out this doll. He paid thirteen dollars for it. Isn’t that a lot of money, Papa?”

  “Yes, Carol. How did he speak? I mean, did he speak very, very slowly?”

  “Oh, yes, very slow. Like Dinah Jane’s mother. You know how slow Dinah Jane’s mother talks, don’t you, Mommy?”

  “Oh, God!” Esther said.

  Her face had disintegrated into a blur of tragedy. She knew now. There was no way I could have spared her.

  “What happened then?” I forced myself to ask Carol.

  “Then he drove me home.”

  “I didn’t see you get out of a car.”

  “I got off at the corner. He was in a hurry.”

  This man Weaver had merely asked if I cared for my wife and daughter. He himself had merely bought a little girl ice cream and an expensive doll and than had taken her home. There had been no crime, not even an expressed threat. They were only making me die a thousand deaths.

  “Adam, what does it mean?” Esther said shrilly.

  I should have put my arms around her and held her to me and given her lying words of comfort. But there were still questions to ask Carol. I patted that soft little hand. “What did he look like, Carol?”

  “Why, Papa, don’t you know what your general looks like?”

  “I had several generals. Did he tell you his name?”

  Her smooth brow creased. “I don’t think he did.”

  “Was he fat or thin? Tall or short?”

  “Oh, very tall,” she replied brightly.

  “Taller than I am?”

  “Oh, much taller. I bet he was eight feet tall.”

  “Tell me—” I said, and stopped.

  The phone was ringing.

  The crack of doom will be the ringing of a phone. Esther put her hands to her face.

  “Oh, God!” she said.

  I stood up, I went out to the hall and looked down at the phone and after a few seconds I picked it up.

  “Breen,” the dragging voice said. “This is the general speaking. How did your charming daughter enjoy my company? You won’t see me next time I take her driving. Nor her either. Not for a long time, if at all. But that’s up to you.”

  “Use your head,” I said. “How can I, give you something I haven’t got?”

  “Is that your answer?”

  “I can’t give you any other. Please . . .”

  The line went dead.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Scavuzzo’s spine rested on the edge of a tilted chair and his heels on the edge of a desk. He and another plain-clothes man I had seen in my house the night of the murder were listening to racing results barked out of a tiny table radio.

  Scavuzzo grinned at me over his left shoulder when I asked for Lieutenant Woodfinch. “If you want a cop, Mr. Breen, I happen to be one too.”

  I closed the door behind me. “Somebody tried to kidnap my daughter.”

  “Tried?” Scavuzzo sounded as if he wished I would go away and let him listen to the racing results. “You mean a strange man gave her candy and patted her head?” He switched his grin to the other detective. “It’s a funny thing about strange men, Perc. They like to give little girls candy and pat their heads. Downstairs they get a complaint a day about guys like that.”

  “Once I stopped to talk to a little girl,” Perc said reflectively. “All I did was ask her her name and her old lady charged out at me with a carving knife and yelled for the cops. The only thing that saved my life was I proved to her I was a cop myself.”

  I said in cold rage: “It was ice cream and he bought her a doll. He wasn’t a stranger, although I’ve never seen him. He’s the man who phoned me about the bag Monday night, the man who said he was Raymond Teacher’s brother.”

  Scavuzzo’s feet thumped off the desk. “Is this on the level, Mr. Breen?”

  “What the hell do you think I came here for? He didn’t only try. He actually did kidnap her, for about an hour and a half. Then he let her off at the corner. A little while later he phoned me and said the next time he wouldn’t bring her home.”

  “Wait a minute.” Scavuzzo reached over to click off the radio. “He told you more than that. He told you why.”

  I wet my lips. “He said he wanted the bag.”

  “So?” He looked at the other detective, then turned back to me. His mouth was tight, his eyes hard. “This is the guy you claimed killed Vital and took the bag.”

  “It seems I was wrong. For some reason, he thinks I have it.”

  Scavuzzo stood up and started past me. He stopped. “Hell, Mr. Breen, I thought at first you were handing me the usual gag to throw suspicion away from yourself. I wouldn’t kid man about his daughter being snatched.”

  He left the office. Perc turned on the radio. Music had replaced the staccato voice. He clicked the switch, restoring silence, and picked up a newspaper.

  “Where did he go?” I burst out. “Isn’t anything going to be done?”

  “Hank is handling it.”

  “Hank?”

  “Hank Scavuzzo. Sit down. You make me nervous.”

  I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t stand. I prowled the office and ate cigarettes.

  Scavuzzo returned after a couple of eternities. “The lieutenant wants you to wait for him. He’s eating his supper.”

  “Is he crazy?” I said. “My wife and daughter are home alone.”

  “I sent a man to watch your house. They’ll be safe. How about coming along with me for a bite to eat, Mr. Breen?”

  “I’d rather go home and come back in an hour.”

  “That’ll take too long. There’s a restaurant next block.”

  There were probably ways of keeping me in the police station for a few hours at least, so I didn’t protest again. Before we left, I called Esther on one of the office phones. I told her that the house was being guarded and that I would hang around the police station because the police thought they knew who the kidnaper was and were going to arrest him. The lie would make it easier for her to be alone at home with Carol until I returned.

  In the restaurant I found that Scavuzzo wasn’t a bad sort of guy when he stopped being a cop, except that after a while I realized that he hadn’t stopped. He was applying technique to put me on amiable terms with him, in the hope that during the companionship of a meal I’d say something I’d be on guard to hold back in the police station. When that got him nowhere, he started- to talk about kidnapings.

  “Remember the Cantor case a couple of years ago?” he said. “For a week it practically took the war news off the front pages.”

  “I was ov
erseas.”

  “Well, then, let me tell you about it. This Cantor was a dress manufacturer who lived over in Borough Park. Still does for all I know. One day he got an extortion letter in the mail. The usual thing. Shell out twenty grand if you don’t want your son hurt. How old is your daughter?”

  “Almost seven.”

  “That’s about what Cantor’s boy would be now. He was five then. Most of those extortion letters come from crackpots who are bluffing, but Cantor didn’t take a chance. He was rich enough to hire guards, so he did. For six weeks they watched the kid day and night. But there was never a second extortion letter and a kid can’t be watched all his life, so he pulled the private detectives off the job. Two nights later the kid was snatched.”

  The pie I was eating turned to straw in my mouth. “While he was coming home from school?”

  “Right out of his bedroom at night. Like the Lindbergh snatch. The kid slept in the nursery on the ground floor. In the morning he wasn’t there. All Cantor found was a note telling where to leave twenty grand. Cantor had the dough. He didn’t say a word to the police. He left the twenty grand where he was supposed to and went home to wait for his son. He waited a day and a night and then went to the police.”

  “Was any trace of the boy ever found?”

  Scavuzzo took a hearty drink of coffee and smacked his lips. “Nobody ever saw him again. The whole country was in on the hunt, but it got nowhere. My idea is that the kid was killed even before the money was collected so the snatcher wouldn’t be bothered with him. He vanished along with the money and the kidnaper. That’s where it ended two years ago and that’s where it still is.” He sighed. “Let’s go back.”

  Lieutenant Woodfinch arrived twenty minutes after we returned to the Homicide Squad office. He split a nod between Scavuzzo and me, hung his hat on the coat-tree, sat down behind his desk, unfolded his tobacco pouch, started carefully and methodically to load his pipe.

  I couldn’t stand it. “What the hell do you care about me and my family?” I yelled at him. “You’ve got to eat your supper first. You’ve got to fill your pipe first.”

  Woodfinch struck a match and leaned back, his face in repose. “I’m listening, Mr. Breen.”

  While I told him, he puffed placidly on his pipe.

  “You ought to be able to identify him without trouble,” I said. “That slow voice of his and his height. My daughter described him as being a lot taller than my six-two. She said eight feet, but even considering the exaggeration of a child

  “She didn’t exaggerate by so much,” Woodfinch broke in mildly. “I’d judge him at around six-seven.”

  “You know who he is?”

  Scavuzzo, perched on the corner of a desk, said: “George Moon.”

  I spun toward him. “So you’ve known all along?”

  “Sure,” Scavuzzo said, grinning. “Raymond Teacher was one of George Moon’s boys.”

  I turned back to Woodfinch. “Then why isn’t he here? Why hasn’t he been arrested?”

  “Take it easy, Mr. Breen.” Woodfinch seemed to find his pipe suddenly’ distasteful. He held it away from him. “What did he do? Buy your daughter ice cream and a doll. That’s no crime in any book.”

  “You could at least have brought him here. You brought me here yesterday without any charge against me.”

  “I’ll have a talk with him, but what do you think he’ll say?”

  “Who is he?”

  “A crook like Raymond Teacher, only he’s a big shot.” He flung the pipe angrily into the ashtray — coming from him, a startling sign of emotion; “He’s been operating out of Brooklyn for a long time.”

  “With no convictions, I bet,” I said sourly.

  “With a couple of suspended sentences. He’s poison for a lot bigger men than you.”

  I dropped down into a chair and took out cigarettes. “Yesterday I’d described his voice to you — it’s not a usual voice — and. you knew all about Teacher, so you must have known that it was George Moon who’d phoned me Monday night and pretended to be Teacher’s brother and was after the bag.”

  “I went to see Moon yesterday, and he—”

  “Went to see him! I guess he’s too important a crook to be brought to a police station like an average citizen.”

  “I went to see him,” Woodfinch said patiently. “He denied that he’d ever heard of you or was interested in Teacher’s bag or had even known that he had one. Whether or not I believed him has nothing to do with it. I’m helpless without evidence. And now it’s clear that he hasn’t got the; bag, which means he didn’t murder Vital.” And he stared at me.

  “Which leaves me,” I said bitterly. “Only it doesn’t. Why do you insist on overlooking Crooked Nose?”

  “According to your own story, he was tailing you and the man you call Larry when Vital was murdered.”

  “How do you know just when Vital was murdered?” I argued, “It could have been right after Larry and I had left Vital alone in the garage. Crooked Nose was hanging around. Say when he saw us drive away he went into the garage and murdered Vital and took the bag. He knew about the Coney Island place Larry was taking me to, and after he had the bag he rushed after us. I was driving slowly; he could catch up to us without trouble. Or it could have happened after I knocked Larry out on McDonald Avenue. I told you I took a long way back home. Say Crooked Nose beat me back to the garage and found Vital about to leave with the bag and murdered him only a few minutes before I returned.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Woodfinch said.

  “What’s silly about it? It’s conceivable.”

  “I’m talking about you being silly. Or thinking I am. I’m not a dope, and I know George Moon isn’t. He’s a shrewd and careful operator. He doesn’t make mistakes, especially not if he’s being driven to something as serious as kidnaping. There’s a reason why he’s so dead sure you have the bag.”

  “I haven’t got it.” I was beginning to sound like a cracked phonograph even to myself.

  Woodfinch said without looking at me: “Remember the Cantor kidnapping?”

  “Scavuzzo told me about it.”

  “Yes.” Woodfinch started to unroll his pouch and suddenly dropped it and leaped to his feet. His face was livid.

  I gaped at him. “Damn it, Breen, what’s the matter with you? I’ve got two daughters of my own. I wouldn’t put one of them in that kind of danger for ten pigskin bags filled with gold.”

  “Neither would I.”

  He sank back into his chair in sudden embarrassment at his outburst and. picked up his pouch and pipe. His voice was quiet when he spoke again. “Give us the bag. That’ll take Moon’s heat off you.”

  “Wouldn’t I give it to you, now if I had it? Or to Moon? Or sell it to him if I’d been holding out for money?”

  He studied me for a long time. He looked tired, but not nearly as tired as I felt.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Breen,” he said presently. “Yesterday I couldn’t make up my mind about you, but I can’t see Moon acting without being sure.”

  “I ought to be surprised that you don’t doubt that Moon threatens to kidnap my daughter.”

  “It could have been another one of your red herrings. I didn’t have a leisurely meal, as you think, Mr. Breen. Before I came here I was at your house, talking to your wife and daughter. Your daughter especially. Children that age don’t lie convincingly.”

  I slammed my fist down on his desk, making the ashtray jump. “Then why don’t you do something about Moon? Or is he too important a crook? I’ve lived, in Brooklyn long enough to know how big shot crooks are treated, even when they don’t own the administration and the local political club. You didn’t bring Moon to your office the way you did me. Not even now you don’t. You called on him with your hat in your hand. You said: ‘Please, Mr. Moon, begging your pardon, but if you have a few minutes to spare, would you be terribly offended if your humble servant asked you — ’”

  I stopped. It wasn’t any use. If they had got sore or t
ried to cut me off, I would have let them have it with both barrels. But both of them just sat looking at me rather sadly. I suppose they didn’t like it any better than I did, but they liked to hold onto their jobs.

  After a silence Woodfinch spoke to his pipe. “I’d move on Moon in a minute if I had something I could make stick. The bag might give me it.”

  It was a merry-go-round. Words were only bringing us back to the same place.

  “All right,” I said, “assume that I’m a murderer and have the bag and think more of what’s in it than I do of my daughter. My daughter is still entitled to police protection.”

  “That’s not Homicide business, but we’ll see that she gets it.”

  Scavuzzo slid off the desk and came to the side of my chair. “I’ll tell you what you’ll get, Mr. Breen. Your house will be watched day and night. Your daughter will be taken to school and called for. When she plays in the street, a plain-clothes man will hang around. Maybe Moon will get her even then; cops are only human. Or he’ll decide to snatch your wife instead while we’re guarding your daughter. Or he’ll just wait. I told you about the Cantor boy. They had him guarded for six weeks, and two days after the guards were pulled off the boy was gone.”

  “God!” I said and leaned toward Woodfinch’s desk. “Suppose I send both my wife and daughter away? I have a sister in Newark.”

  “It would take Moon an hour to find out where they are,” Woodfinch told me. “And remember, it’s not just Moon. He has an organization.”

  For the first time in my grown years I wanted to put my face in my hands and weep.

  “I haven’t got it,” I said, and my voice sounded piteous in my ears.

  Woodfinch shrugged. “We’ll do what we can. But if I were in your place — “ He waved his pipe and restored it to his mouth.

  I put on my hat.

  They didn’t say anything. I walked to the door.

  “Don’t be a damn fool, Breen,” Lieutenant Woodfinch said to my back.

  Without looking back at him and Scavuzzo, I went out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I walked toward home through quiet, dim streets, and considered how I could kill George Moon. There was no need to try to be clever; no matter how I worked it, Lieutenant Woodfinch would know at once that I had done it. George Moon had to die. The way to see to it that he did was to get a gun and shoot him.