Bruno Fischer

by J. Max Gilbert

  I asked him for another cigarette. He held a light for me. I put my head back against the pillow and blew smoke at the ceiling,

  “What about the bag?” I said. “You must know what’s in it.”

  “The fact is that I never heard of it until you told Lieutenant Batterman about it after we fished you out of the reservoir. Lieutenant Woodfinch didn’t mention it to the newspapers and I’d never spoken to him.” Mawrey ran the side of his thumb through the deep cleft in his chin. “As for Tilly and Lamb and the others, they aren’t saying. Even Beezie recovered from his jitters and lost his memory. They never heard of a bag. They never heard of a hot car racket. They never heard of a couple of men you and the Crane girl say were murdered.”

  “Weren’t the bodies found?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why do they say they put Molly and me in the reservoir?”

  “That’s the only charge they’re being held on so far. It was just a gag, they say. Jasper Vital was one of her dearest pals, Tilly says, and she wanted to make you confess that you’d killed him. No harm, meant, of course; you’d have been pulled out before you could drown. But I’m not worried about evidence. Those cars in the lot won’t stand up under a thorough check. And sooner or later one of the gang will start spilling his guts to cop a minor sentence for turning state witness. That always happens when there’s a gang.”

  The nurse came in with my lunch. Mawrey watched me eat. He waited until the nurse left and then said: “The Crane girl isn’t a writer.”

  ‘‘No?”

  “She claims she’s your girl friend. She says she was on the way to pick you up in her car when Larry slugged you. You saw a chance to pretend you were snatched by Larry so that Moon would let your wife and kid alone. She says that then she went to Tilly’s with you because she’s that way about you.”

  I said nothing. Humbly I bowed before a super-salesman. If ever I went into the business of selling broken-down jalopies, I’d want to hire her to persuade customers that they were practically new cars. She could sell anything.

  “Don’t worry, Breen,” Mawrey said with half a leer. “The police haven’t anything to gain by telling your wife of your extra-marital activities.”

  I think I blushed. “So why bring it up?” I said.

  “There’s something else. Lieutenant Batterman called up her father this morning to make sure she was who she said she was. Purely routine.”

  The lamb chop stopped halfway to my mouth. I waited.

  “Her old man’s a doctor in Baltimore,” he said. “When Dr. Crane heard it was the police asking about his daughter, he said he wasn’t surprised that she was in trouble and wasn’t interested and hung up.”

  My teeth closed over the bone. I chewed the meat off and spoke with it in my mouth. “Dr. Crane doesn’t approve of his daughter playing around with a married man.”

  “Is that all it is?”

  “That’s all,” I said and chewed.

  He studied me through smoke and then stood up. “Be seeing you,” he said and went out.

  The only thing wrong with that meal was that there wasn’t enough of it. I rang for the nurse and prevailed on her to bring me a second helping of lamb chops and potatoes, and also a robe and slippers. She conceded that a man with my appetite was strong enough to leave bed, but I wasn’t to leave the room before Dr. Cadmar said so. In robe and slippers I sat in the chair and meekly gnawed chops until she left. Then I made for the door,

  I didn’t reach it. The door opened from the outside and four big men oozed in. Booth Mawrey was one of them and the other three were cops. With the car-lot in one state, Molly and I in a hospital in another, and Jasper Vital murdered in Brooklyn, it was a jurisdictional tangle. Lieutenant Batterman was there for the State of New York, a sergeant named Harrison for the State of New Jersey, Booth Mawrey for the insurance companies, and Detective Scavuzzo had come up from Brooklyn for the City of New York.

  “I didn’t get your complete statement last night, Mr. Breen,” Lieutenant Batterman said. “We’d like it now if you’re strong enough.”

  That room hadn’t been constructed to hold five over-sized men, including myself, and I talked against a solid semicircle of bodies. But they weren’t hostile bodies. For the first time since Monday I had a feeling that cops weren’t necessarily boogeymen.

  When I finished, Lieutenant Batterman nodded approvingly. “You’ve been very cooperative. But there’s one thing we’re not sure of.”

  “The bag?” I said. It always came back to that.

  “That’s another thing, but not as important just now. An hour ago we found both bodies by looking for a spot which had recently been dug up. There was, of course, no trouble identifying George Moon, and from your description we know that the other one is Larry Goodby. Milton Curry confessed that he shot Goodby. We had him cold; he knew that slug in Goodby’s head will match his rifle. He claims he shot Goodby in self-defense.”

  “That’s not the way it was,” I said.

  “We know it wasn’t. You and Miss Crane made separate statements and they agree in every detail. But what about Moon?”

  “I told you I found him dead in the bathroom.”

  “Tilly claims you stuck the knife in George Moon. Her story now is that they put you and Miss Crane in the reservoir to make you confess.”

  I said: “If she was sure I’d killed Moon, why did she want to make me confess? To turn me over to the police?”

  Their faces showed that they liked what I said. They were the faces of pals, guardians of the law who were being paid to protect men like me from criminal gangs. It was pleasant to be invited by the police back into the family of respectable citizens.

  Scavuzzo spoke for the first time since he’d said hello to me. “They’re not kidding anybody. They were after the bag,”

  “What do they say about it?” I asked.

  “They’re not saying any more than they have to,” Batterman told me. “But they will. We’ve got every one of them on plenty of charges already. Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Breen.”

  I gave them time to disperse outside and then stuck my head out of the room. No nurse was in sight. I padded up the short hall to the small, square lobby. An old, old woman knitting a glove sat behind a bleached oak desk. Her gnarled hands made the intricate arrangement of needles flash as she listened benignly to Detective Scavuzzo. His hat was in one hand and his cigar in another and he punctuated a sentence with a low, nasal laugh. He was probably quite a card with old women.

  The solidity of his bulk so near the exit brought back to me the choking feeling of being hunted.

  I went up to him. “Are you waiting for me?”

  He lifted his head. “You want to ride back with me? A cab’s picking me up to drive me to the train.”

  “Didn’t you come to Badmont to arrest me?”

  He put his hat on his head and his cigar into his beefy face and nodded toward a bench. Together we walked the few steps to it, but we didn’t sit down. “You going to make us extradite you because you’re in another state?”

  “As soon as they let me out I’m heading for Brooklyn.”

  Scavuzzo beamed suddenly and thumped my arm. “I was just kidding about extraditing you. Stop worrying, Mr. Breen, We know you haven’t got the bag — not if you didn’t open your face when they put you in the reservoir. And if you haven’t got the bag, you didn’t kill Vital. Besides, Mawrey told me your story about Larry Goodby taking you for a ride was on the level, so that’s another reason we don’t think you killed Vital. Maybe if there were a couple of things you told us that didn’t stand up in cross-checking we’d get tough. But it all does, Mr. Breen, it does”

  “What about Lieutenant Batterman?” I asked.

  “He’s satisfied. When he wants you for a witness, he’ll send for you. The same goes for us.” He looked at his watch. “That cab should be here.”

  I turned to the phone booth in a corner and then back to Scavuzzo. “Would you mind lending me
a nickel?”

  “Sure thing. You want to call the missus, eh?” He dug change out of his pocket. “You’ll need more than a nickel.”

  “I just want to get the operator, then I’ll reverse charges. Thanks.”

  I felt myself tighten up as I folded my legs into the booth. Then I heard the operator ask Esther if she would accept the reversed charges and I couldn’t wait and blurted: “Esther!”

  “Adam! Oh, darling!” And at the other end of the wire Esther began to sob.

  The operator discreetly retired. I said: “Didn’t somebody call you to tell you I was all right?”

  “Yes, a newspaper reporter. A Miss Crane who had visited me just before you — you disappeared.” Her voice cracked. She strove to control it. “Miss Crane tried to reassure me but why didn’t you call yourself? I couldn’t believe that you weren’t at least terribly injured.”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “How are you, darling?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be home in a few hours.”

  “But what — “ Esther’s voice shifted from the mouthpiece. I heard her say: “Yes, yes, it’s Papa. Of course . . . Darling, Carol wants to speak to you.”

  Then there was Carol’s voice, shrill and excited. “Papa, what happened? Where are you, Papa?”

  I couldn’t speak. I gulped and forced words out. “How are you, sweetheart?”

  “Papa, where are you?”

  “I was away on business. I’ll be right home.”

  “Papa, I missed you.”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” I said thickly.

  Esther came back on the wire. “Darling, listen, I found it.”

  “It?”

  “The bag.”

  I had left the booth door open a few inches for air. Now I closed it. I stared at the phone.

  “Adam, are you there?” Esther said.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the garage.”

  “The garage?”

  “You didn’t put it there, Adam?”

  I said wearily: “You think I did?”

  “No. Oh, I didn’t know. I was so frightened and worried and confused.”

  “Did you get in touch with the police about it?”

  “I couldn’t,” she said slowly. “I was afraid that — that . . .”

  “That I’d hidden it there and that you’d give me away?”

  “Darling, please don’t talk like that I told you how confused I was. I thought I should look inside first. I couldn’t open the lock, so I cut the bag.”

  “Don’t let that worry you,” I said. “The police will understand.”

  “But, darling, there’s nothing in the bag.”

  “It’s empty?”

  “I mean there’s nothing valuable. Just a bunch of old tools.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  There was a brittle silence. Then Esther said: “Don’t you see what the police will think? They’ll think you took out whatever was in it and put some old tools in to give it weight. Oh, darling, I’m so — “

  I laughed. “It’s all right, baby. You can stop thinking that I stole what was in the bag.”

  “I don’t. Please don’t think I do.”

  “Stop worrying. There never was anything else in the bag.”

  “But, darling — “

  “I said it’s all right. I’ll be home in a few hours.”

  “Hurry!”

  I hung up and left the booth. The old, old woman in white looked up from her knitting.

  “Which room is Molly Crane in?” I asked.

  “Molly Crane?” She chewed on the name and came to a decision, “She’s that very pretty girl. She left an hour ago. No, more than an hour. At least an hour and a half.”

  “Did she leave a message for me?”

  “You’re Mr. Breen, aren’t you? Room Six.” She peered at an absolutely blank pad on the desk. “There is no message.”

  By a matter of seconds I beat my nurse and Dr. Cadmar into my room. The doctor looked me over and wanted to know what a healthy man was doing in a hospital. I said the same thing was bothering me. The nurse brought in my clothes neatly pressed and the contents of the pockets in an envelope, and a bill from the hospital. I threw on my clothes and paid the bill and headed for home.

  They heard me unlock the door and they ran out into the hall from the kitchen. I gathered Carol up with one arm and threw my other arm about Esther. Carol’s mouth was on my cheek as I dipped my head to kiss Esther. I was home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Papa, where were you?” Carol said. “Why were you gone so long?”

  “I was away on business, sweetheart.”

  I set Carol down and put both hands on Esther’s hips. She looked as if a vampire had been feeding on her. With a sob, she pushed herself hard against me and I . . .

  “Papa, Allen Gillette said the police are going to arrest you.” Carol tugged at my sleeve. “Allen’s a big liar, isn’t he, Papa?” She hopped on one foot. “The police aren’t going to arrest you, are they? Huh, Papa?”

  “Nobody wants to arrest me,” Without moving my body from Esther’s, I fished a handful of change out of my pocket. “I meant to bring you a present, Carol, but I didn’t have time. Here’s some money. Go to the candy store and buy yourself something.”

  “All for me?” Avidly she counted the money. “A dollar and forty three cents! Can I buy ice cream, Mommy?”

  Esther lifted her head from my chest. “It’s too near supper, dear. Buy a toy.”

  “Let her buy ice cream,” I said, “Buy anything you want, Carol.”

  “Gee, Papa!” Skinny legs flashed, the door slammed, and Carol was gone.

  I chuckled. “I don’t think I’d want her out of my sight so soon. As long as it isn’t for more than a very little while.” I looked down at Esther. “Was it tough while I was gone, baby?”

  “Oh, darling, why didn’t you at least phone me? You can’t imagine what I went through.”

  I led her into the living room and sat on the club chair and pulled her down on my lap. She cuddled on me as soft and cozy as a kitten. I told her about those three days. Not quite everything. I skimmed over the worst of it, especially in the holes, and I didn’t stress Molly Crane. The way I told it, Molly was a newspaper reporter who had no interest except in an exclusive story, and she had been something of a nuisance to me.

  “And all the time the bag was in the cabinet in the garage,” I said. “If I had known, we could have been spared everything that happened after1 Monday night.”

  Esther’s head twisted on my arm. “How did you know it was in the cabinet? I didn’t tell you.”

  “Where else could it have been in the garage?”

  “Who put it there?” she said thinly.

  “Jasper Vital just before he was murdered.” I stroked her hair. “You can stop suspecting me, baby,”

  “I didn’t . . .” She paused and then said weakly: “I was so confused. Everybody was so sure you had the bag and when I found it hidden in the garage cabinet and nothing in it but a bunch of tools and other things you’d have in your business.

  “How did you find it?” I asked. “Early this morning Allen Gillette asked to borrow your tire pump to pump up his football. I told him it was in the garage, but he couldn’t find it. I went back with him and looked in the cabinet. You know, how it’s crammed with old tubes and rags and tire chains and everything else you stuff into it. I dug down and found the pump. I also found the bag on the bottom in a corner.”

  “Where is it now?”

  She got ofl my lap and we went out to the hall. The bag sat deep in the hall closet. She had unbuckled the two leather straps and had slit the bag lengthwise near the lock. I lifted it by the bottom and carried it into the living room and set it on the table. I pulled the slit apart and started to take out the contents.

  “That’s it, of course,” I said. “Adam, do you mean that those things are valuable?”

  “More valuable than if the bag had be
en filled with gold. To them, anyway.”

  I explained the stuff to her. There were tools for removing serial and motor and license numbers and dies for impressing new numbers on motor blocks and car frames and license plates. There were numbering machines like those used by Motor Vehicle Bureaus and special inks and blank bills of sale and registration blanks from at least a dozen states.

  “That’s how they did such a thorough job disguising the stolen cars,” I said. “The serial and motor numbers of a car are like a person’s fingerprints; they’re the one sure method of identification. They’re stamped on the block or frame or dashboard, depending on the make of car and the year. The carburetors and generators are also numbered. They obliterated the numbers on the blocks or wherever they were and stamped on different ones with the dies and changed the license plates and put in new carburetors and generators. In effect, they altered the basic identity of the cars.”

  “But the new numbers wouldn’t be registered at the Motor Vehicle Bureaus,” Esther pointed out.

  “No, but the job they did was good enough for practical purposes. It could get by ordinary inspection by a cop. Even an expert like Booth Mawrey found his list of stolen cars useless when he tried to match them with the cars in the lot. Registration, bill of sale, license, serial and motor numbers, everything appeared to be in order. But only because they had these tools. That was why they had stopped working when I was there. They couldn’t go on until they got the bag back, and they’d do anything at all to get it back.”

  “And I thought they were just a bunch of old tools.” Esther started to giggle. When she didn’t stop, I shook her. She tossed her head and drew in her breath. “I’ve been holding off hysterics for days,” she said.

  “There's no reason for it now,” I told her “We have the bag and we know who murdered Jasper Vital.”