Murder Money

by Jay Bennett

  Eddie kept looking at Al’s face, at the alert brown eyes and the jet black hair that was just beginning to show signs of gray. The stocky, hard body in the neat-fitting suit. He knew, the suit well; it had once cost two hundred dollars at Leighton’s. Once, four years ago.

  “You don’t look too good, Eddie.”

  “Maybe I haven’t been sleeping too good.”

  “Have a drink on you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He went away from the door and over to the kitchen closet. He took out a bottle of rye. Al sat down at the table and ran his hand over the pile of newspapers.

  “You going in for reading?”

  “Just passing the time.”

  Eddie swept the papers to the floor with his big hand and set the bottle down. He put two dusty glasses on the table and sat down across from the stocky man.

  “Here’s luck.”

  “Luck,” Eddie said.

  The two drank silently. Al took a cigarette out, lit it and smoked steadily, his manicured nails gleaming in the thin sunlight. Outside, it had begun to snow. Soon the sun would fade out completely.

  “You have much dough?” Eddie said.

  Al’s brown eyes bored into the big, open face. “You know I don’t, Eddie.”

  “Just asking.”

  “If you need a hundred, I can give you that. But I’ll be squeezing hard.”

  “I didn’t call you here for a loan,” Eddie said.

  “Then why ask about money?”

  “Just interested in how much you have, Al. That’s all.”

  “You’re in a crazy mood today, Eddie.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  Al’s voice rose just a bit. “You know how flat I am. Whatever I made out of you went with the wind. Fast women and slow horses, isn’t that what Joe E. Lewis says?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Eddie picked up the bottle and poured the drinks again. Some of the liquor spilled over onto the dirty oilcloth. Eddie reached his hand over and rubbed it away. “I had slow women and fast horses and still I ended up with nothing.”

  “You gave yours away, Eddie. Every bum come along and you gave it. I told you a million times not to.”

  “Drink up and shut up,” Eddie said.

  “At least I got fun out of mine.”

  “Yeah. You got fun. A whole houseful of it.”

  “Why is it you don’t like Laura?”

  “Why is it you never married her?”

  Al drank and then shrugged. “Maybe because I never got around to it.”

  “Maybe that’s why I never liked her,” Eddie said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Someday I’ll spell it out for you.” “You’re in a crazy mood today.”

  “That’s twice you said it and twice I don’t like it. Lay off.”

  Al’s brown eyes flashed «but he didn’t say anything. He waited silently until Eddie had finished his drink before he spoke. “You said it was something special.”

  “That’s right.”

  Eddie sat looking at him, then slowly rose. “Wait here. I’ve got something to show you.”

  “What is it?”

  Eddie’s gray eyes were quiet and almost cold. “Keep your pants on.”

  Eddie went into the bedroom and over to the bed. He lifted up the mattress and drew out the brief case. His shadow loomed on the drawn shade.

  “Come on in, Al.”

  He stood waiting, the brief case in his hand, a thin smile on his lips. Al paused on the threshold and then came slowly into the room.

  “I found a brief case,” Eddie said.

  “And?”

  Eddie silently opened it and dumped the money onto the white bed. It lay there in the half-light of the small room.

  “Christ!” Al whispered.

  “A hundred grand.”

  “Christ.”

  “A hundred grand, Al. I counted it over and over again. An even hundred grand.”

  Al slowly approached the money, then he stopped and stared at the big man, his mouth open. His hands hung loose at his sides.

  “Like it dropped from the sky, Al. It’s real. Put your hands on it and feel it. It’s real as all hell.”

  “You found it?”

  “In a cab. A guy left it there.”

  Al reached down and lifted some of the bills. He sat down on the bed and looked up at Eddie, his face still slack with amazement. The silence of the room hung about them.

  “A Spanish guy tried to get in the cab. I threw him out. He left the brief case on the seat. You should’ve seen the way he ran out in the street after me. Like he had just lost the world.”

  Al’s fingers played with the feel of the bills. Slowly, slowly. His eyes set upon Eddie’s face.

  “I didn’t know what he was so excited about. Didn’t even know the case was on the seat until it was too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “To give it back to him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sure, I would’ve given it back to him.”

  “Yeah. I guess you would’ve.”

  Al held a hundred dollar bill in his hand, and slowly let it flutter down to the floor. He sat looking down at it, his face now quiet and absorbed.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I guess you would’ve.”

  “I even went back looking for the guy. But it was no dice. He had disappeared.”

  Al stooped over and picked up the bill again. He held it close and studied it carefully.

  “Looks okay to me. Although I’ve seen some really good counterfeit jobs.”

  “It’s not counterfeit.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I cashed a ten at the corner newsstand. That guy can spot a phoney bill a mile away. He’s a whiz at it.”

  Al dropped the bill down into the pile and picked up a few more and examined them. Eddie leaned against the old dresser and watched him. Outside, the wail of a siren sounded, built up into a scream, and then steadily died away. Only the sound of Al’s fingers remained. Then even that stopped. The green money gleamed dully in the shadowy room.

  “A hundred is the highest. The rest is small denominations. It’s not phoney, I tell you. And there hasn’t been a word about it in the papers. I found it three days ago. No, today starts the fourth day.” He stood there nodding his large head, and then he said, “The fourth. I’ve had a hundred grand for four days. It’s a helluva feeling, Al. A real helluva one.”

  “You look in the lost and found columns?”

  “I got every newspaper that’s out. The Times, the Trib, the News, all of them. Not a word.”

  “Nothing about a lost brief case?”

  “Nothing.”

  Al sat looking at the money and shaking his head.

  “It would hit the headlines. A hundred grand lost in a cab. You’d hear it on radio, television. A guy doesn’t lose a hundred grand in a cab every day.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it all the time. I can’t come up with the answer, Al.”

  “You’ve been thinking about turning it over to the police?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “But you’re not going to do it?” “What would you do?”

  Al lit a cigarette and didn’t answer. A sliver of light played over the stray gray hairs of his dark head. His brown eyes were somber.

  “You think it’s clean money?” Eddie asked.

  Al smoked silently and didn’t answer.

  “Why in the hell didn’t the guy go to the police? That’d be the first “thing he’d do, wouldn’t he?” Eddie’s voice became sharp and driving. “But he didn’t! That’s the point. He didn’t. And why in the hell should I?”

  “You’re changing, Eddie. For a hundred grand, you’re changing.”

  Eddie’s face flushed, and he turned away from his friend’s steady gaze. “Maybe I am. But I tried to find the guy. I made the cabbie go back there.”

  “Yeah. You told me that.”

  Eddie turned fiercely. “What the
hell are you so high and mighty about? You’d keep the money and run.”

  “Maybe I would.”

  “Sure you would,” Eddie said. “You wouldn’t stick in a room for three days like you were in a cell. Thinking all the time. Trying to find the right way out. You’d just take off. Like a bat out of hell.”

  “If I knew I could get away with it.”

  Eddie turned away and went over to the window, drew the shade aside a bit and stood looking out at the falling snow. Al remained on the bed, the money about him, his eyes coolly appraising the huge silent figure.

  “It’s funny what a hundred grand will do to you,” Eddie said bitterly.

  “You’re broke. It’s that and the hundred grand. The two things come together, kid.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What did you call me up here for?”

  Eddie kept looking at the steadily falling snow. He didn’t speak. A thin smile played on Al’s lips. “Just to show me a hundred grand?”

  Still Eddie didn’t speak. Al picked up a sheaf of the bills and dropped it into the brief case. The sound caused Eddie to swing around.

  “Why, Eddie?”

  Al’s quick, alert fingers gathered up another sheaf and then held it poised over the mouth of the leather case. “Is it because you decided to keep the money and you want me to help you?”

  Eddie shrugged his shoulders, his face twisted with torment.

  “It’s too much for you to handle, isn’t it, Eddie?”

  “I don’t know yet what I want to do.”

  Al shook his head. “You know. But you don’t want to tell yourself yet. That’s all it is.”

  Slowly, steadily, Al was putting the money back into the case. Every now and then he’d glance up and note the fighter’s face. When he was done he snapped the case shut and stood up.

  “Okay, you want me in on it?” His voice was cool and businesslike.

  “I guess that’s why I called you,” Eddie finally said.

  “That’s why.” He picked up the brief case and motioned to him. “Let’s go into the kitchen and talk it over. I could use a drink after this.”

  “I could use one, too,” Eddie said, following him out of the room and into the kitchen.

  Al dropped the case onto the table and sat down. He watched sardonically as the big fellow went over to the door and tried the lock.

  “You locked it when I came in, Eddie.”

  Eddie flushed and said nothing. His fingers closed over the neck of the whisky bottle and slowly tilted it; the amber liquid spilled into the two glasses. Al held his hand up and Eddie stopped pouring.

  “Luck,” Al said and held up his glass.

  “Luck.”

  They drank and put the glasses back onto the dingy table. The glasses stood like two little sentinels flanking the flat brief case, the blue smoke of Al’s cigarette curling over them.

  “This is the fourth day,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  “And nothing.”

  “Nothing. Like I picked the money out of the air.”

  Al’s fingers drummed on the oilcloth of the table. The nails glimmered in the dimness of the room. His thick lips were pursed. Slowly he shook his head. “No hundred grand comes from the air. There’s always somebody behind it Who’d want it back pretty bad.”

  “But not a word, Al. Not a sign.”

  “Because they haven’t found you yet. That’s why.”

  Eddie breathed out low without saying anything. The glasses winked coldly. Al inhaled and let the smoke out of his thin nostrils in two sharp streams. His nose was straight and thick, but the nostrils delicate. His lips were full, almost cruel. A thin scar threaded down from a high cheekbone to his jaw. His brown eyes were somber under the overhang of the black eyebrows.

  “Maybe they’re not looking,” Eddie said.

  “They’re looking.”

  Al reached out and struck the case repeatedly and emphatically. All the time his eyes were filled with hard thought. His hand stopped and rested, palm down on the brown leather. There was a little gold head imprinted on one of the sides of the case. Al’s thick forefinger rested idly upon the tiny emblem.

  “I figure it’s gambling money,” Al said. “That’s why the police are out of it. That’s why there’s not a hint in the newspapers. That’s the last thing they’d want is for anybody to find out about it.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Eddie said.

  Al examined the little gold head. “This could mean something, or nothing.”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “You say the guy was Spanish?”

  “Couldn’t speak English for beans.”

  “That doesn’t make him Spanish.”

  Eddie’s eyes flashed, his big face reddened. “I tell you he was Spanish.”

  “Okay,” Al smiled. “Just take it easy. You’re on edge, kid.”

  Eddie glowered at him silently. The shade of the narrow window rustled and was quiet again. Al reached for the bottle and started to pour whisky into his glass.

  “Not for me,” Eddie said. “I’ve had enough.”

  Al set the bottle back into place, then lifted his glass and drank slowly, letting the liquor roll in his mouth. The thin scar on his face deepened.

  “There’s a big numbers racket going on in Spanish Harlem. You know that, don’t you?” Al asked.

  “I know they play the numbers.”

  “They play it hard. Real hard.”

  His hand tapped the case in emphasis. “I’d say this was numbers money.”

  The shade rustled again and Eddie turned sharply toward it.

  “It’s getting cold here,” Eddie said. He got up and went to the window.

  “You’re cold inside,” Al said.

  Eddie reached under the shade and shut the window tight. Then he came slowly back to the table, his eyes avoiding Al’s, and sat down again. Al picked up the bottle, leaned over and poured a drink into Eddie’s glass. This time Eddie didn’t protest.

  “You should’ve called me sooner. Instead of sitting here and sweating it out. You’re out of rhythm, kid. Your coordination is shot. Just like you were before your last two fights.”

  Eddie suddenly slammed the glass down, spilling the liquor over the brief case. “Shut up. Don’t bring that up. Don’t ever bring that up again. That’s gone. Don’t get it back into my mind again. I can’t take it.”

  “It’s gone,” Al said. “Forget about it.”

  He waited till the tautness left Eddie’s face and his body relaxed again.

  “But there’s one thing you’ve got to get into your mind. If we’re going to get away with this, you’d better start settling down. Otherwise we’ll flop before we’ve even started.”

  And he added, “To flop means to die, Eddie. Chew on that a while.” Eddie silently watched him take out a handkerchief and deftly, almost fastidiously, wipe the wetness off the brief case. Al slowly folded the stained handkerchief and put it back into his pocket.

  “I say it’s gambling money,” Al said. “If it was robbed, the papers would’ve been screaming about it. It could be bookie money, but I got a feeling against that. You say the guy was Spanish, so I go along with the numbers. He could have been finished making his pickups from the different numbers banks, or just starting out to make deliveries. I’d say, with a hundred grand, he was just finished picking up.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Eddie said.

  “You got any other thoughts?”

  “Just that the guy had no right to the money. Else he’d be hollering to the sky about it.”

  Al glanced at the brief case and then up at Eddie, a cynical smile on his lips. “He’s got a right to it,” he said. “Maybe the law says he hasn’t. But that don’t mean beans to him or the boys with him.”

  Eddie looked away and was silent. Then he sighed and said in a low, puzzled voice, “But there’s something I can’t make out.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The way the guy acted
. I know hoods. I know them long enough. You can’t be a fighter without knowing them. It’s the way he acted. Like he was more surprised and . . . and almost scared. Maybe not scared. I . . . I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “It must’ve all happened in a flash. You say you threw him out of the cab and . . .”

  “Yeah,” Eddie cut in eagerly. “That must’ve been it. Happened in a flash. Before he knew it he was standing in the street and I was riding off. Just like that.”

  He snapped his large fingers and let his hand rest on the table again. His gray eyes were bewildered as he slowly shook his head. “I don’t know, Al. Maybe I’ve been with this too long. I don’t know any more where the truth is.”

  He got up and went to the window, lifted the shade a bit and looked out at the relentless snow. His figure towered in the small room. “Sometimes I feel like taking the money and heaving it out the window.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Eddie kept looking at the snow and didn’t answer.

  “You know what’s ahead of you? The nothing road. All you got are two big fists and nobody will buy them. Nobody.”

  Eddie’s back tensed as if it had been struck. But he didn’t turn. Al smiled grimly and went on. “This is the big find, don’t you see it? The big find. And you and I are going to keep it that way.”

  “The big find.”

  The scar on the manager’s face was now stark red. “Yes. Yes. Now tell me. Does anybody kpow about this?”

  Eddie turned to him. “How the hell could anybody know?”

  “The cabbie?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Good.”

  “Never even knew the case was there. When I got out I hid it under my overcoat.”

  “That’s using your head. But why did you do it?”

  Eddie came close to him and stopped. He stared at Al questioningly. Then he said slowly. “What do you mean ‘why’?”

  Al gazed up steadily, a sardonic smile in his eyes. “You didn’t know the hundred grand was in the case, did you?”

  Eddie shook his head. “Not till I got up here.”

  “But you were already hiding it. Why?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  Al laughed softly and said evenly, “We all have larceny in our hearts, Eddie. Some of us hide it better than others, that’s all. But it’s always there.”

  Eddie’s face flushed.

  “It’s there,” Al said.