The Willie Klump

by Joe Archibald

  “Just the same I will let you go with me in about an hour, Satchelfoot,” Willie said. “For oncet I am goin’ to take some protection this time. Of courst if you want to pass up some limelight—”

  “The way things have been goin’ with me I’d fall down an airshaft t’ git a break, Willie,” Kelly said in a very tired voice. “If I won’t git nothin’ elst, I might git a yak yak out of it.”

  “Leave us finish these jelly doughnuts an’ coffee an’ we’ll set forth,” Willie grinned. “Forgers ought t’ stay in blacksmith shops, Satchelfoot. I wish Penrod had stayed around longer, as if I could of got hold of one of Gertie’s checks, maybe he could of worked on it.”

  “Penrod Snerr—a forger?” Kelly yelped.

  “Don’t never judge no book from undercover, Satchelfoot,” Willie warned. “Poison berries from the outside do not

  look as if they carry mickeys inside, do they?” He put the coffee pot in the washstand and reached for his hat. “You got your gun, Satchelfoot?”

  HEY went out. Half an hour later they left the elevator at 87 ½ Fifth Avenue

  and entered the Kismet Importing

  Company.

  “Kismet means your fate,” Willie quickly explained. “I hope ours ain’t bad.” The brunette looked up and frowned at

  Willie. “Now, what do you want?”

  “Maybe seein’ about importin’ the likes of you from somewheres,” Willie replied. “I am Detective William Klump and would like to see a former client of mine, Buford Hake. Satchelfoot, you stay outside.”

  “You ain’t kiddin’,” Kelly said, and ogled the doll.

  “She’s comin’ in with me,” Willie said, just as Buford Hake opened a door and thrust his noggin out.

  Hake said, “I have some letters t’

  dictate, Baby—er—why, hello, Klump!” “Very familiar with the stenog, huh?”

  Willie said, all business. “I would like to see you an’ your secketary to clear me up on some things.”

  “I can’t imagine what they’d be,” Hake said in a huff. “Awright, come into my office.”

  Willie stepped aside and let the brunette in ahead of him. He selected a nice leather chair and sat down. Miss LaMotte leaned against the door and Willie looked up quickly when he heard a sort of a snapping sound.

  “Don’t mind me, Klump,” Hake grinned. “I always snap my knuckles.”

  Willie breathed easier and the doll moved away from the door and picked herself a chair.

  “All right, hurry it up, Klump,” Hake said.

  “I won’t shilly-dally,” Willie said. “Your stenog here used t’ work for a Mr. Slapnicka, huh?”

  “So what if I did?” the brunette asked

  William Klump.

  “An’ jus’ before that, you quit Mr. Hake here,” Willie went on. “I looked at the record. He give you a referendum an’ it was a nice sendoff.”

  “Take an A for your report card, flatfoot,” Miss LaMotte snapped.

  “Get to the point!” Buford Hake ground out.

  “You’ll be sorry,” Willie said. “It looks like Miss LaMotte took a check from Slapnicka’s book when she left and had plans for same. Three grand worth, huh? When a certain citizen signed Mr. Slapnicka’s name to it, after writin’ in the amount, an’ give it to you an’ the doll here, Mr. Hake, your stenog maybe planted a light kiss on it. I’ve seen dames git that fond of clams.” He glanced at the brunette and grinned. “Tsk, tsk, you jus’ bit off a fingernail, hah?”

  Mr. Buford Hake began to display ants in his slacks, but he said: “So far this is a swell radio program, Klump. Are you absolutely nuts?”

  “That is a matter of opinion,” Willie sniffed. “I looked over the stuff Penrod left in his bag after he’d scrammed from the Elko. And why did he? Because you was out to fix his wagon with Eggie Getz packin’ the rod. You hired Eggie to knock off Penrod because Penrod forged a check on you, ha! Because on the papers I found in his bag was one covered with your name, Hake. He had to practice up on it like all the others. You maybe didn’t give him enough of the three grand you got on Slapnicka’s check, an’ you couldn’t report the forgery he pulled on your name because then Penrod would tell the cops on you about the Slapnicka check. How right am I so far?”

  “Look, Boo,” the girl said, “this guy knows too much.”

  “Shah-h-h-hd up!” Buford Hake said to the brunette, and Willie had to snicker.

  “Boo is a cute name, ha!” Willie

  Klump said.

  “Go on, Klump,” Buford Hake said, and tried the drawer of a desk and found it came out nice and easy. Willie Klump knew why, but wasn’t Satchelfoot out there with a big gun of his own?

  “Then after you stopped blowin’ your top, Hake,” Willie said, “you realized that if you knocked off Penrod you would be rubbing out the goose who laid the gold eggs as there was no end to the dough you could make with the forger. But for some reason you couldn’t call Eggie off, after you’d sent him out on the kill, and so you sent for a private dick to hunt Penrod down but fast. Then when Eggie finally reported for his dough you got so mad you knocked him off with the gun he give back to you.”

  “How such a dopey Dilldock could dope out all that,” the brunette secretary began.

  “Baby, shut up!” Buford Hake growled. “Awright, Klump, go an’ prove it all. Ha-a-a-a-ah!”

  “Well, first,” Willie said. “We got a check downtown with stain of lipstick on it. A doll can also leave fingerprints. I can hear her now when Penrod showed you two that check for three grand. ‘Come to Mama,’ she mos’ likely said an’ kissed it on its way to the till. Not many dames use that lipstick, huh? If that ain’t enough, there is a gun in that drawer of your desk that has already erased two citizens. Figurin’ nobody could possibly suspect you of anythin’, you didn’t get rid of the cannon as they’re hard to get these days without signin’ your name. Did I forget to say your prints will be on that check, too? How about the check the late Penrod Snerr

  forged on you, Hake? How much was it for? I bet it’s in your pocket right now. But all we need is the gun. You out there, Satchelfoot?”

  The doll laughed. Willie heard Kelly trying the door.

  “It’s locked, Willie!” Kelly yelled. Then Mr. Buford Hake came out of his

  chair holding the gun and he complimented Miss LaMotte. “Nice goin’, baby. Crackin’ my knuckles, ha! He didn’t tumble that the noise was you lockin’ the door. We’re gettin’ out by the fire escape. I thought that escape would come in handy when I rented this office.”

  ATCHELFOOT KELLY began to hammer at the door and Willie wished

  he hadn’t been such a good guesser and had brought Kelly in with him.

  “Hurry up an’ let him have it!” the doll said without batting a dark eye. “I’ll be in the car, Boo darling!”

  “Lemme in!” Satchelfoot yowled. “Willie, open up!”

  “Shoot through the door, Kelly! The dame is right in front of it!”

  Buford Hake spun around and threw lead at the door just as the brunette leaped out of the way of Satchelfoot’s shots. Willie Klump uncoiled and then leaped at Hake and knocked him for a row of cancelled checks. The gun flew out of his hand and skidded across the linoleum toward the brunette who bent down to retrieve it, but William Klump had stayed on his feet and now he came in low and hit the brunette right in the midriff with his noggin and she turned a back somersault and hit the dust with her new look up over her head.

  “Willie, open up!” Satchelfoot screeched.

  “Wait’ll I can, will ya?” Willie gasped out. He staggered over to the door and unlocked it and Kelly burst in. “That was

  the dumbest thing you ever done, Willie!” “Huh? How did I know he didn’t really

  crack his knuckles?” Willie protested. “Didn’t you hear the lock snap?”

 
“I was eatin’ peanut brittle,” Satchelfoot said, and nudged Buford Hake with one of his number fourteen shoes. “Tsk, tsk, Willie, make the dame respectable as where are your manners?”

  “My head is sure splittin’, Satchelfoot. She must wear a steel foundation,” Willie sighed. “Well, let’s call some more cops.”

  Satchelfoot did. Then he looked askance at Willie. “I couldn’t never git away with it. Fingerprints, says you. They probably wouldn’t show up enough on a check to mean anything.”

  “Citizens who are cornered believe criminal science can do anythin’, Kelly,” Willie said. “All I banked on was that it was the doll’s lipstick on the check an’ that Hake wouldn’t throwaway the gun. I am dumb, I admit, but I got imagination it looks like.”

  “I been tryin’ to find out what it was,” Detective Kelly said, and helped the brunette to her feet.

  They were down at headquarters not long after that and Buford Hake had to sing, what with Miss LaMotte being so anxious to sound off to save her own epidermis.

  “Yeah, I met Penrod Snerr about three months ago. I used to know him back in Kansas City. He did a stretch once for signin’ a name to a check and while in the can he got mad at himself and practiced writin’ signatures so’s he wouldn’t get caught again. He showed me samples, even of the warden’s handwritin’, and they were perfect.”

  Buford Hake took time out to sneer at his doll and wipe his pan. “Bein’ a confidence man, an’ Penrod knowin’ I was, I made a deal with him. I had a front like a man of distinction and he didn’t, so

  he sat back out of sight an’ did the forgeries. I only cut him in for five C’s on the Slapnicka deal, an’ so he goes an’ forges one of my checks for a grand an’ takes a powder. I lose my head, boys, and hire Eggie Getz to look for him an’ bring him back alive. Then I remember Eggie sometimes takes happy dust and I get panicky an’ hire Klump here to look for Penrod Snerr, too, hoping he will catch up with Snerr before Eggie does. Seein’ as how cops kept a close watch on Eggie most of the time I told the torpedo not t’ communicate with me in no way until he had found Penrod. Well, he did, and he said Penrod pulled a heater on him and so he blasted the ginzo.”

  OW about lettin’ me talk, hah?”

  the brunette piped up truculently. “You done enough already with that

  kisser of yours!” Hake yelled. “That blamed lipstick tied up a dame to Slapnicka’s check an’ got even a gland case thinkin’.”

  “I’ll ignore that,” Willie sniffed.

  “They ain’t puttin’ me in no hot sofa!” the doll snapped. “I wa’n’t even an accessory. Eggie came back an’ told this lug what he’d done to Penrod. Hake thought of a million bucks on the wing an’ he ordered Eggie to hand over his gun in case the cops frisked him. Then he shot Eggie and took him out and dumped him

  in a vacant lot. Sure, Hake planted me in Slapnicka’s office so’s I could swipe one of the guy’s personal checks.”

  “I guess we got everythin’,” the D.A. said. “But I don’t guess the public will believe how.” He looked at Willie Klump and sighed deeply. “Only the ones, maybe, that believe the crime programs on the radio. Well, take the prisoners away, boys.”

  “An’ I even paid Klump fifty bucks to put me in this pan of smelts,” Buford Hake gulped.

  “Git me a mouthpiece,” the brunette yipped.

  “I’ll take some phenobarbital,” Satchelfoot Kelly groaned.

  Gertie called Willie up the next morning and congratulated him and then told him about the beef she had with a bank.

  “They said I didn’t have no more dough in the joint, Willie,” she griped. “An’ me with at least a dozen checks left in my book.”

  “Wha-a-a-a-a?” Willie yelped. “We’ll see about that, Gertie. Maybe crime don’t pay, but they will. Meet me at Lex an’ Forty-fifth in ten minutes.” He reached for his hat. “It looks like nothin’ is honest. No wonder the U.N. feels like givin’ up sometimes.” And Willie headed out the door.

  DYING TO SEE WILLIE

  GERTRUDE MUDGETT walked into the office of the Hawkeye Detective Agency, Inc., just as the president, William J. Klump, was having

  his lunch.

  “Have a jelly doughnut, Gert,” Willie greeted her cordially. “The coffee will be cooked any minute now.”

  “Huh, I must say!” Gertie sniffed. “This is certainly a delusionment, Willie. The private eyes on the radio, like Fats McGlone, have beautifully furnished pesthouses and a varlet. You are about as glamorous as a tomcat casin’ an alley for a fishhead.”

  “Them fakers!” Willie bridled. “Every place they go even if it is on the steps of a parsonage, they stumble over a corpse. They open their door of a night and there is a stiff wearin’ their favorite dressin’ gown. Only morons believe that dribble.”

  “Whicht means I am one, hah?” Gertie yelped. “It is just perfessional jealousy with you an’ you know it, Willie Klump! Look at Aloysius Kelly for instance who is workin’ on a big murder and robbery what took place last night! He’s what I call a detective, Willie!”

  “Huh? Tell me more, Gert!”

  “I met him in the subway this mornin’,” Gertie said. “He was on his way uptown to investigate a suspect might’ve known about the crime. Somebody killed the watchman at the Pusey Plastic Novelties Company just acrosst the Harlem River an’ they also took forty grand from the safe whicht looked like a punch job to Hardhat Hafey of the Safe an’ Loft Squad but maybe wasn’t. Kelly says it looked like some gee knew the combo of the crib only it turns out nobody knew it but the vice-president an’ the cashier an’ who would suspect them? The watchman was slugged by a piece of pipe or somethin’ an’—”

  Willie held up a hand. “Take time out, Gert,” he suggested. “That is the way you git blood pressure. Then go on an’ tell me the rest.”

  “I certainly will not as he give it to me in strict confidence,” Gertie said. “If everybody blabs what they hear, how could the crooks git caught?”

  “A good question,” Willie sniffed. “Satchelfoot Kelly is handicapped enough as it is, not havin’ a brain. That shnook couldn’t find a moose in the museum of natural history.”

  “I don’t intend to sit here an’ have you insult my friends, William Klump!” Gertie snapped. “Go chaste a skip tracer, as that is your speed!”

  WILLIE shook the punch off and put half a jelly doughnut back in the bag for future reference. “Say, ain’t Hardhat married?”

  “He is,” Gertie said loftily. “Some men do git married, Willie!”

  “An’ others join the Marines,” Willie said. “I must talk to Hafey. I guess that plastered novelty company would like to git forty grand back.”

  “Don’t make me laugh!” Gertie Mudgett snorted disdainfully and picked up her warbag. “An’ wipe the powdered sugar off your face, Willie!”

  A few minutes after Gertie had taken her leave the president of the Hawkeye called up a certain number downtown and finally got Hardhat Hafey.

  “Hello there,” Willie said. “I just called to tell you what a swell wife you got, Hardhat. I saw her for the first time las’ Saturday night as you two walked into the Blue Pelican on Fifty-Ninth. Platinum hair, huh? An’ what bookie or dope peddler you coverin’ for to buy her a fur coat like that?”

  “Er look here, Willie!” Hardhat gulped at the other end of the wire. “You know I showed you a pitcher of the babe I married. That was a cousin from out in Kokomo an’ I was showin’ her the sights.”

  “Ha-ha!” Willie replied.

  “Awright, you blackmailer!” Hardhat yelped. “What’s the bite?”

  “It is just I might want to know all the angles about the Pusey job,” Willie said. “Of courst you marryin’ a’ girl she should be broad minded, Hardhat, an’ wouldn’t mind you buzzin’ with a cousin.”

  “Willie, I will meet you in Hogan’s at five,” Hardhat sa
id.

  William Klump hung up. Sometimes he wondered if he was as dumb as most people claimed he was.

  He was in Hogan’s tavern at five sharp and Hardhat Hafey, a six-inch shiv in each eye, was waiting. “Hello, worm,” he said.

  “Flattery won’t get you nowheres,” Willie said, and sat down. “All is fair in love until you marry ‘em, Hardhat. What’s with Satchelfoot Kelly?”

  “Well, we cased that joint after the holdup, Willie,” Hafey divulged, “an’ it did look funny. The dial was knocked off like with a mallet or somethin’ an’ the spindle pushed back only the sockets wa’n’t broken like they should of been. We figure the cashier might of worked with crooks an’ he told ‘em to be sure it would look like a punch job when they was finished. Kelly is still investigatin’ the character’s background an’ livin’ habits an’ such. I give you my word it is all I know, Willie!”

  “Have another beer,” Willie said. “Was it an old safe, Hardhat?”

  “It sure wasn’t, Willie. It was one of them Burpson’s. The D.A. says they are tough babies to bust open. Now I hope I can trust you, Willie, not to tell about—”

  “Hardhat!” Willie exclaimed, “What kind of a detective you think I am?”

  “Do you mind if I don’t answer that one?” Hardhat sniffed.

  “Not at all,” Willie grinned. “Well, I

  must be goin’.”

  William J. Klump was ducking into a subway just three minutes later when who should come out of same but Aloysius “Satchelfoot” Kelly, a citizen Willie had always loved the way he did the withholding tax and calves’ brains a la mode.

  “What are you snoopin’ around for, you poor man’s Sam Spade?” Satchelfoot snarled.

  “I lost a collar button,” Willie said. “You have any luck briefin’ the cashier?”

  “If there ever was a deader end than that one I just hit my dome against, I don’t know where it could be unlest it was sittin’ on your shoulders,” Kelly griped. “That character Barnaby an’ his wife repair Gideon Bibles in their spare time. The cashier has had two suits the last six years an’ has been to one movie. What would he want with forty grand?”