“Don’t you dare follow me, Willie, or
I’ll call a cop,” she sniffed.
Willie dropped his head in his hands. “What started this, huh?” he mumbled,
then felt the waiter’s breath on his neck. “Awright, I’m goin’. There is nothin’ that don’t happen to me. I’m goin’ . . .”
“Two bucks, pal,” Henri growled. “You drove four customers away. Hoggin’ a table fer almos’ a half hour. Two bucks or I slug you.”
Willie paid and hurried out, ears as red as fire pails, the scathing remarks of the other patrons flaying him limb from limb. Walking south, he wondered if the army could use 4F’s for occupation purposes. Willie was sure two years on Iwo Jima would just about get him readjusted.
If things did not pick up in more ways
than one, he mused, he would look into the matter thoroughly. Reaching his rooming house, Willie was introduced to a certain returned G.I. by his landlady.
“It is my nephew, Roscoe Pertle, Mr. Klump. He was tellin’ me about all the things you can catch in the Pacific like elephantitis, crud, dengue an’ cat fever, malaria an’ cholera an’ things!”
“Pleased to meet you,” Willie gulped. “Ain’t it wonderful to be in the U.S., huh? No matter what troubles you got, it is worth every bit, even Gertie M— well, g’night.”
The next morning, in his office, Willie was perusing a letter from a company offering a selected group of citizens first chance to invest in an uranium mine recently discovered near Rahway, N. J., when the phone rang. Willie answered it.
“This is Gertrude, William. I want to let you know I still think you are abdominable. You are a no-good . . .”
“Look,” Willie snapped. “Maybe I’ll call you sometime, Gertie, when I have the hives. I will invite you up to see my itchin’s. Ha! I am busy. G’bye.”
Just as he hung up it occurred to Willie Klump that Gertrude Mudgett still possessed the earnings of his lifetime. He picked up the public utility gadget and called her back.
“I was kiddin’, Gert,” Willie said desperately. “We could talk this over, huh?”
“Soon as I git proof you’ve cast me aside or are thinkin’ of it, William Klump, I will sue for heart balm,” Gertie announced acidly, then broke the connection with a bang that put bees in Willie’s ear-drum.
UST forty-eight hours later, another call came for Willie. It was closing time and
he had just about finished reading the latest edition of his favorite comic book.
“Hello,” the president of the Hawkeye said. “This is the Hawkeye Det . . .”
“Forget the buildup, Willie. This is Hardhat. Look, come on over for a rummy game as Kelly’s luck is runnin’ bad. Fer two nights we been takin’ him an’ we figure you should have a chancet t’ git even with the jerk too.”
“I dunno,” Willie said. “Awright, I’ll be over. In about twenty minutes.”
Once more Willie sat across the table in the back room of the midtown precinct station, matching wits with his pet allergy, Satchelfoot Kelly. At nine p.m. Willie was in the red by over two bucks and had thirty- nine cents in his pocket. Satchelfoot Kelly picked up a king Willie had tossed away and immediately spread his hand on the table.
“Pay me,” Kelly grinned, just as the door, opened.
“It’s murder,” Willie gulped.
“How did you know, hammerhead?” a gruff voice snapped and the rummy players stared at the cop. “Yeah, a guy calls up an’ says there is a body over on Eleventh an’ Forty-eighth with two bullet holes in it. It’s in an alley nex’ to a garage an’ . . .”
“Well, what are waitin for?” Willie yelped, and grabbed for his hat.
“Yeah!” Satchelfoot kicked back his chair and yanked Hardhat Hanrahan out of his. “Let’s go.”
They were halfway to the scene of the rubout when Kelly discovered Willie Klump wedged in between himself and Porky Gibbs.
“Who said you could come?” he snapped. “You pay me two bucks an’ then git out of this boiler.”
“You talk of money at a time like this, Kelly?” Willie said. “Murder has been done. Anyways, who horned in a rummy game one night when he wa’n’t invited? Didn’t he, Hardhat?”
“Look,” Hanrahan said. “Willie might help, Kelly, and at times like these, we can use a laugh. After all, private detectives go along with famous detectives in books.”
“Awright,” Satchelfoot growled. “When you put it that way, boys. What time is it, Willie?
“The time? Oh, I left my watch home, Kelly,” Willie said. “I changed to my other suit an’ . . .”
“I bet Sammy has it ag’in,” Satchelfoot said. “If Gertie ever found out you—hah, I figure you’ll pay that two bucks I just won from you. I give you twenty-four hours, Willie.”
“Don’t make me hate you worst than I do,” Willie yipped, “or there’ll come a night when detectives will be on their way to brief a dead ringer for you, and where would you have a double unlest it was livin’ in a tree. What do you use for a heart, Satchelfoot?”
They found the corpse in the areaway near the garage. A mangy dog was sniffing at its expensive oxfords. The defunct, it was clear to all present, had been a citizen of some standing before he had been flattened for all time.
“They sure ain’t clothes you git from where I do,” Willie ventured. “Aviation Tailors, Inc. You get one of their suits after the first flight. It is the longest stairway I ever. . .”
“Shutup!” Satchelfoot Kelly snapped. “An’ keep your hooks off everythin’, Willie. H-m-m, here is an identification card of the Order of Mooses. The stiff’s name is Mervin DeMurrage. An’ they didn’t knock him off for his lettuce as it would take a quart of mayonnaise to cover this bankroll. Here is another card, a business card. It says he is connected with Atomic Advertisin’ Airs, Inc.”
“Then just take the cadaver to the freezin’ locker,” Willie said, “No jury would convict any citizen who killed one
who wrote stuff like I heard last night on the radio. This is the way it goes, Satchelfoot, I ask you . . .
“Sipple’s Seltzer makes me feel jus’ ri- i-ight,
“Even tho’ I was drunk all n-i-i-i-i-ght! “Hango-o-overs are a pleasure noo-o-o-
w,
“Set ‘em up, Mike, again—an’ ho-o- ow!”
ATCHELFOOT clamped a hand as big as a dried codfish over Willie’s mouth.
He hit William Klump on top of the head with his fist and made Willie’s Truly Warmer look like a truffle.
“You go psycho oncet more, Willie, and I’ll freeze you for an hour. Hardhat, you cover him an’ if he as much as . . .”
“I only was lookin’ for a motive,” William Klump protested. “Go ahead an’ solve this crime yourself an’ then I will believe Hitler was persecuted t’ death. This loser was not shot here as what business would he have in an alley? I bet he was dumped here after gittin’ dragged in from an auto an’ maybe if we take his coat to a lab an’ see if upholstery fuzz is stickin’ to it, why . . .”
“Then all we got t’ do,” Porky Gibbs sniffed, “is t’ check on the upholstery of every boiler in Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx an’—what would we do without him, Satchelfoot?”
“You’ll know in a minute!” Kelly yelped and wiped his face with a very fancy hanky he had borrowed from the defunct. “Because if he says just one more word he will be as stiff as the other one. Give me that flash, Hardhat, as we might find a clue.”
“It better have teeth,” Willie said. “If it can’t bite you, you would never. . .”
“Ye-e-e-e-eow!” Satchelfoot screeched. “Git it offen me! Git that d—d mutt offen my leg!”
“I thought we chased that pooch away,” Porky grunted and finally kicked it in a tender spot and sent it yiping up the alley, where it cleared a fence eleven feet high. Satchelfoot Kelly played the flas
h on his right calf and Hardhat lunged forward and grabbed at a piece of pasteboard that was close to one of Kelly’s big feet.
William Klump dived in too and there was a hollow sound as two heads collided. Willie picked up his marbles first and saw that Kelly had snagged the little square of pasteboard between thumb and forefinger.
“Gimme that!” Willie snapped and snatched it from Satchelfoot’s fingers. “It is one thing to tell Gertie I hocked the watch, but you ain’t goin’ to prove it, Satchelfoot. You git this pawn ticket from me an’ it’ll be over two dead bodies.”
Satchelfoot Kelly assumed a threatening Henry Armstrong pose, noticed a very dangerous light in Willie’s eye, a piece of kindling wood in Willie’s right fist and suddenly calmed down.
“Look, let’s quit clownin’, huh. We better git down to business.”
“I’m for it,” Willie agreed.
There were no tangible clues. The body was removed, after a brief diagnosis by the coroner, and the next day bright and early, William Klump was hovering in the corridor outside Atomic Advertising Airs, Inc., when Satchelfoot Kelly appeared.
“Hah, so you did figure I might have some brains,” Willie sniffed. “You are goin’ to cross-examine his boss, like I suggested, Kelly.”
“There is nothin’ to it,” Satchelfoot growled. “Only a top detective never overlooks a possibility, even a suggestion from a mental deficient.” He walked in with Willie on his heels and braced a very tearful blonde, who was reading about DeMurrage’s demise in the tabloid on her desk.
“I’m from headquarters, Babe. I want t’
see the big boss.”
“It is awful,” the doll wept. “Who would want to wipe out such a gorgeous hunk of male as Merv? He was just beginnin’ to make passes at me. Oh, I hope they trap that fiend—the second door to the left, Mister.”
They went into an office through a door marked Ogilvy Tumbril, President. Ogilvy was chewing a cigar to ribbons and tearing a telephone directory in half. He took a swift gander at Kelly’s badge.
“Yeah, sit down,” he snapped. “I was hoping you’d get here. There may not be anything’ in this, but we got a threatening letter a week ago from a crank named— wait till I find the letter. Here it is. From a Jonas Q. Fusky. I’ll read it.
“‘Dear Sirs: it has come to my attention through a radio column that you have a writer of radio ad jingles named Mervin DeMurrage, who has written most of the stuff they sing on programs.
“I am a recluse, which is my own business, and have come to hate the world outside so I stay in all the time. But I am goin’ to be driven out again if this DeMurrage doesn’t stop writing those nerve-wracking silly songs. Will he take twenty thousand to stop?
“If not, I’ll have to take more drastic measures. When I keep the radio off until they are finished, I can hear them from a hundred sets in the apartment next door.
Please advise. Jonas Q. Fusky’.” “Did you?” Satchelfoot asked.
“We refused, as we have a gold mine in these jingles, Mister,” Tumbril snapped. “Who’d ever think anybody would be so screwy he would . . .”
“Recluses are nutty,” Willie said. “I had a aunt oncet who was one. She got so bad she used to train a rabbit to sit on her head. She said she looked good with her hare up. Ha-a-a!”
“Did you have to bring him?” Tumbril
ground out. “You’d better check on that screwball. I mean Fusky. I have his address here.”
“He could of done it,” Kelly mumbled. “It couldn’t happen in a book, but truth makes a bum out of friction, Mr. Tumbril. I could think of worst murder motives.”
“Let’s go,” Willie said.
“This is where we start hatin’ each other as usual, Willie. You are not goin’ to git any credit for this job so scram. Or I’ll call up Gertie an’ tell her to go to Sam’s hockshop an’ . . .”
“I’m goin’, Satchelfoot,” Willie said. “I
never saw nobody so vindicative.”
ILLIE left the building and walked slowly across town and then negotiated seven blocks south and finally came to his office. He grinned as he sat
down.
“Kelly will git nowhere as that motive is too silly for even me to think up.” He took half a loaf of day-before-yesterday’s bread I from a file cabinet, got out a jar of peanut butter and made himself a sandwich. The telephone rang and he clutched it hopefully.
“Hello, Mr. Klump?” a voice said sweetly.
“At your service,” Willie yelped. “Missin’ Persons Traced. Private inv . . .”
“We are taking a survey, Mr. Klump. Do you listen to the Sipple’s Seltzer program? How many times a week? Do you find it good on the morning after? Do you. . .”
Willie banged the receiver on its hook. “If I was Tumbril, I would look up
steamships to Okinawa. Maybe Kelly will hit on somethin’ after all, the big tramp! Tomorrer I’ll check over want ads. Until the big shots of crime reconvert, it looks like I will close up. I better make up with Gert or I don’t eat.”
He reached for the phone. In a few moments, he heard Gertie’s voice.
“It is Willie,” he said.
“Who ast you? I am not interested, William Klump. Right now I have no doubt you have got your arms around a redhead,” Gertie sniffed. “I would not put one past you.”
“Listen,” Willie said. “We are bein’
silly.”
“Go ahead an’ kiss her, Willie. I hope you catch leprosy,” Gertie snapped and hung up.
“What makes me such a stinker?” Willie sighed.
The evening papers contained new developments anent the assassination of the radio network Gershwin. Satchelfoot Kelly had apprehended Jonas Q. Fusky, had found a witness who stated that on the night of the crime, about seven p.m., he had seen the eccentric emerge from the rooming house.
“Yes,” the witness was quoted as having said. “And only about a week before he told the landlady his nephew Alfred came back from overseas an’ gave him a present of a Heinie Luger, which is a pistol that packs a wallop.”
Kelly had immediately contacted the boys at ballistics and they had examined the bullet taken from the torso of the late Mervin DeMurrage and had unanimously agreed that it had been fired from a Luger. What was more, Jonas Fusky had admitted leaving his room for the first time since D- Day to go looking for DeMurrage. He had carried the Luger.
“I intended to threaten him once more,” Fusky admitted. “I couldn’t find him. Maybe I had murder in my heart, but if everybody that did got electrocuted, we wouldn’t have citizens enough left in this city to make the subways pay. I want my lawyer.”
“I will never kid Satchelfoot ag’in,” Willie moaned. “How would I know he’d of took me serious. Fusky ain’t got a chance as such circumstantive evidence will hold up even in a kangaroo courthouse.”
He flung the paper aside when an ad depicting a delicious sugar-cured ham caught his eye. Willie felt the pangs of hunger and rummaged in his pockets. He had seventeen cents and the pawn ticket. He eyed the redemption slip caustically at first, then leaned forward and stared at it close.
“Huh? It is not the one I . . . I didn’t lose. . .”
Willie jackknifed and explored a trouser cuff with a hooked finger. It came up with another pawn ticket.
“Well, what do you know?” he gulped. The alien bit of thin cardboard said: Hymie’s
1967 Seventh Avenue. Best Prices.
Willie got out paper and pencil and scribbled notes. Fruity thoughts that came to him quickly generally departed twice as fast and seldom if they ever came back.
“Who’d ever think anybody dressed like the corpse would ever have to hock anythin’!” he exclaimed as he scribbled. “No wonder Kelly didn’t tumble there could be two pawn tickets in the same alley?
“Why would a character like
Mervin DeMurrage be short of funds? Huh, three reasons maybe—bangtails, cards and dames! How can you find out? Why, by takin’ the pawn ticket to Hymie’s, you dope, Willie!”
Just eighteen minutes later, Willie entered a pawnshop on Seventh. He tried to be calm as he slid the ticket across the counter between a bull fiddle and a stuffed lynx.
“I come t’ redeem that,” Willie said.
YMIE was a little citizen with a goatee and he wore bifocals and seemed nearsighted indeed. He picked up the ticket and disappeared for a few moments. He came back with a diamond bracelet that rocked Willie back on his
heels.
“Fifteen hundred bucks, Buddy,” Hymie said.
“Let’s leave us stop pretendin’,” Willie gulped. “I am from police headquarters.”
“I am not a fence, Buddy,” Hymie choked out. “I do an honest business. I was sure it couldn’t have been you who brought it here you maybe redeem it for somebody, no? Was it hot, huh?”
“Let me look at it, Hymie,” Willie said. “I remember. He was a han’some guy lookin’ like he was strictly from Hollywood,” Hymie said. “Ah, such a topcoat he had on! I offer him fifty dollars for the coat. Such a piece of goods I never .
. .”
“To Lucille from Harcourt,” Willie said. “It is engraved all around the inside of the bracelet, Hymie. That citizen who hocked it was named Mervin. You put it back an’ sit tight, see? Don’t you say one word about it as if this leads to a crime, I will grab you as an accessory.”
“What else would I do but shut up?” Hymie sniffed.
Willie spun on his heels, then whirled about again and stared at Hymie.
“I just thought of somethin’, pal,” he said. “Now this Mervin DeMurrage is dead, who else could redeem the wrist rocks, huh? Only the babe who—why am I tellin’ you? Oh, I know. Look, it is the way we detectives figure things out, Hymie.
“The doll will wonder what become of the pawn ticket and maybe will even go to the undertaker’s and pick up a guy’s clothes, huh? If she got the arm dazzler from a sucker named Harcourt, why would Mervin DeMurrage have it, Hymie?”
The Willie Klump Page 6