Three by Cain

by James M. Cain

  “And who did you show it to?”

  “Nobody.”

  “And who did you tell about it?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Come on! How about Jansen?”

  “About you, I’ve told nothing, and I can prove it.”

  “O.K., prove.”

  “Were you there? At the meeting?”

  “I heard it.”

  “You noticed I made that announcement myself?”

  “Saving Jansen from criminal libel?”

  “After I called Dietz and made sure that what you told me was true, I didn’t have to worry about libel. No, I was thinking about myself. I was making sure that I, and nobody else, got the credit. I wanted to be certain that Mr. Jansen, if he gets elected, will have to do a lot more about me in the shape of a job than he would have to do if I was just a girl that handled secretaries, and had slips filled out. In that case I wouldn’t be telling anybody the source of my information, would I? You see, I’m hoping for more tips.”

  He sat down and studied her intently. Relaxing, she sat down, not far away, on the same hard little sofa. Suddenly he asked: “Outside of my name, do you know who I am?”

  “No.”

  “I’m Sol Caspar’s driver.”

  “Then—you’re Sol Caspar’s driver.”

  “And that’s O.K. with you?”

  “It certainly gilt-edges your tips.”

  “And it don’t bother you that I drive for him six days a week and then on my day off I call you up and give you tips?”

  “I’m willing to believe you have your reasons.”

  “I got plenty of reasons.”

  “Then—I’m glad to know that.”

  “I’d rather fight him clean, right out in the open, the way you fight him. I’d be perfectly willing to quit my job, and tell him straight out what I’m up to, than knife him in the back this way. But if I could quit my job I wouldn’t be fighting him at all. I’m not looking for trouble. He even laughs at me because I don’t like trouble. But he won’t let me quit. If I quit, it’s curtains for me, and that’s why I’m here with you. He asked for it. I didn’t.”

  “I’m very glad to know that.”

  “O.K. Now who are you?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to know.”

  “I was born in Ohio, and raised there, just across the river from Kentucky. I went to school there, and high school, and college, and law school. Then I heard of a job in Lake City, and applied for it, and got it, and came here.”

  “What kind of a job?”

  “With a law firm, Wiener, Jacks, and Myers. They pay me a salary, about as good a salary as young lawyers get, more than you might think from this.” She waved her hand at the apartment. “I only keep part of my salary for myself. And—I’ve got to have still more money. I simply must have it.”

  “Why you more than somebody else?”

  “I told you it’s a long story.”

  “More family history?”

  “It’s been going on a long time, and I’d rather not go into it. Anyway, Jansen came along. I’d done a little work for him, settling claims. And he was thinking about running for Mayor. And I was thinking about a job, one of those heavenly city hall jobs where you come down once a week to sign papers, and hold your regular job just the same. And—I guess I egged him on.”

  “For the dough?”

  “Not entirely. I think he’s a fine man, fit to be Mayor, a hundred times better than Maddux. Just the same—”

  “The dough is the main thing?”

  “Now I feel like a heel.”

  “No need to feel that way. Listen, if it was just idealism, I might give you tips, but I’d be plenty worried. I don’t believe in that stuff, and I don’t believe in people that do believe in it. Now I know it’s the old do-re-mi, that’s different. O.K., June. We can do business.”

  “I’m afraid it is idealism, just the same.”

  “You said it was dough.”

  “Yes, but not to have it, or spend it, or whatever people do with it. Money, just as money, doesn’t mean much to me. But as a means to an end, as something that will permit me to deal with—a certain situation—”

  “Back home?”

  “It might be. Well, money for that purpose is important to me. Then it will mean something to me.”

  “Are you out to get it or not?”

  “Indeed I am.”

  “That’s all I want to know.”

  She got the solemn frown on her face again, as though she wanted to make clear that it was no ordinary greed that prompted her present activities, but he ran his finger up the crease between her brows. She laughed. “I want to be an idealist.”

  “O.K., so I’m a chiseler.”

  “Oh, say crook.”

  “A chiseler, he’s not a crook.”

  “He certainly isn’t honest.”

  “He’s just in between.”

  Two days before, when Lefty had said it, Ben had obviously been annoyed. Now, just as obviously, he was beginning to be proud of it. She laughed. “Anyway, we’re both walloping Caspar.”

  “I hope we are.”

  “But look how we’re walloping him.”

  She got a paper from the alcove, and came back with it. It was a midnight edition, and all over the front page was the story of how the Castleton detectives had raided the Globe Hotel and grabbed three of the bandits without bothering to get in touch with the Lake City police. Ben seemed surprised that only three bandits were bagged, and she explained: “The other one, the one that was shot, had been taken away before the Castleton police got there.”

  “Alive?”

  “We think so.”

  He was already reading the news story, but she pointed to the editorial, also on page 1, and he read it with her, their heads nearly touching. It attacked Castleton savagely, but went on to say that the charges made by Miss June Lyons, a speaker at the Jansen meeting, were too serious to be ignored. An investigation of the Lake City police department should be made, and if Mayor Maddux wouldn’t act, the Governor ought to. “It’s the first time, Mr. Grace—”

  “Call me Ben.”

  “It’s the first time, Ben, that either of the big papers has taken us seriously. The little News-Times does what it can, but this is the Post! If I just had a little more dirt …”

  “You are waking up, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll say I am.”

  She was breathless, tense, eager. For a second their eyes met, and it seemed queer that he suddenly got up, instead of taking her in his arms, which he certainly could have done. He stood uncertainly for a moment, then picked up his hat. “One thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell Jansen to put a private guard on here. Outside, at least two men, day and night. I’d do it, but they’d know me. Ring him soon as I go, and have him attend to it tonight. Tonight, see? That’s necessary, after what you did, and a Lake City police guard is the same as no guard at all. You hear me?”

  “All right, I’ll call him.”

  “I’ll ring you tomorrow. With maybe more dirt.”

  “I’ll see you soon, Ben.”

  “That’s right. Soon.”

  C H A P T E R

  3

  Lefty sat down with Ben next morning as he was having breakfast in the Savoy Grill. A toothpick indicated he himself had already eaten, and he began without preliminaries: “Well, it’s war.”

  “Blitz or sitz?”

  “Blitz, I’d say. Sol and Delany.”

  “What’s Delany done?”

  “You heard what happened last night?”

  “I’m reading about it.”

  “If it was just tipping that girl, O.K. It wasn’t friendly, but after them sharpshooters you seen with Jansen, Solly knew what to expect. But about an hour before the Castleton bulls got there, a Delany guy shows up, a guy that takes care of his horses, over at the Jardine stables. And he takes Arch Rossi out. He takes him out of the Globe and over t
o the Columbus. Sol, he don’t like that. If the kid has to die, he could die just as good in Castleton, couldn’t he? In a hospital, with good doctors taking care of him? Dumping him in the Columbus, right in Solly’s own hotel, Solly takes that personal.”

  “So?”

  “He’s taking steps.”

  “Where is Delany?”

  “He’s in Chicago, but he’ll come back.”

  “If coaxed?”

  “On proper inducements, he’ll come.”

  “Where’s Rossi?”

  “I don’t exactly know.”

  Lefty stared vacantly at the hat stand across the room, laid the toothpick in an ashtray. “So it’ll be an O.K. war, if that’s getting us anywheres, and Solly, of course, he’ll be nice and happy. Just the same, it’s not Delany.”

  “Then who is it?”

  “I figured it might be you.”

  As Lefty turned his cold, vacant stare full on Ben’s face, Ben lit a cigarette. He let the match burn for a moment, and from the interested way he looked at it, one might wonder if he was testing, to know if his hand was trembling. When there was not the slightest flicker, he blew the match out, and asked languidly: “You tell Sol that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He didn’t believe it.”

  “But you, my old pal, you believe it, don’t you?”

  “Listen, Ben, I’m your pal, but this ain’t the candy business. In this racket you can’t take chances, and if you’re crossing us, the pal stuff is out. Couple of things look pretty funny to me. If there was a couple of sharpshooters with Jansen the other night, both pals of Delany, why didn’t you know it? Seemed a little off the groove that Solly had to find that out. And why would Delany start something? He’s sitting pretty. On the bookies he gets his cut and it’s not hay. He’s got a nice daily double and he don’t even have to stay here and watch it. Why would he bust it up?”

  “And that leaves me, hey?”

  “It could.”

  “Nuts.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Lefty, you’re playing it safe, you got to do that. You got to feed me a lead and watch my face, just like I’d do for you, just like all pals got to do to each other in this swell business we’re in. But you don’t really think it’s me. If you did you’d just rub me out and that would be that. Even if you halfway thought it was me, you’d have fed me a phoney just now, on where you’re keeping Arch Rossi, and then if I ran to her with it you’d have me. When you didn’t do at least that much I know you’re not really bearing down.”

  “O.K., Ben. But it’s somebody, and I’m worried.”

  “I’m a little worried myself.”

  “Then we’re both worried.”

  “Pals?”

  “Two beers, and they’re on you.”

  Around nine, when Ben went back to his hotel, the day clerk said a lady had called, twice. He went to his room and dialed June, getting no answer. In five minutes his house phone rang, and when June spoke he gave her the number of his outside phone. Only when she had called him on this did he let her go ahead. “Something’s happened, Ben.”

  “O.K., give.”

  “It’s the boy that took Rossi out of the Globe.”

  “And what about him?”

  “He showed up at Jansen’s about an hour ago, and Jansen called me. I wouldn’t let them come to my apartment, but I met them outside, and—I don’t know what to do with him. He’s been wandering around all night, and he’s afraid to go home, for fear he’ll be killed, and he can’t go to the police, because they’re hand-in-glove with Caspar, and—”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In a drug store, and he and Jansen are outside—”

  “Don’t say who I am, but get him to the phone.”

  In a few moments the boy was on the line, and Ben talked with the stern tone of a Governor, or at the very least of a prosecuting attorney. “What’s your name?”

  “Herndon, sir. Bob Herndon.”

  “And what’s this about Arch Rossi?”

  “Nothing, sir. I swear I never knew he was mixed up in the Castleton robbery. Me and Arch, we went to school together, and we was buddies. Then I didn’t see him for a while, and then yesterday he called me, over at the Jardine stables, where I work for Mr. Delany.”

  “Bill Delany or Dick Delany?”

  “Mr. Bill, sir.”

  “What do you do for him?”

  “I take care of his horses, sir, all six of his polo ponies and his two thoroughbred mares. Of course I got to get help exercising them, but—”

  “O.K., so Arch Rossi called you?”

  “Yes sir, he said he’d been hurt in a car accident, and he was in Room 38 at the Globe, and would I call a taxi and come over and get him out of there. I thought it was kind of funny, and I couldn’t do anything till six o’clock, when I was off, but then he called again, and when he said he had plenty of dough I called a cab and went over there. There were three other guys there, and they cussed Arch out and told him to get out and stay out. So I figured if it was a car accident, maybe the car was stolen. Then from the way Arch began talking in the cab I knew he was shot. Then when we got to the Columbus and I was helping him in through the service entrance I heard somebody say: ‘Holy smoke, here comes one of those Castleton rats,’ and I looked around and it was a guy that runs the Columbus for Caspar by the name of Henry Hardcastle.”

  “You know Henry Hardcastle?”

  “I seen him at the track plenty of times.”

  “He know you?”

  “I’ll say he does.”

  “Herndon, what are you lying to me for?”

  “Mister, I’m not lying.”

  “If Rossi was shot, why would he be leaving the Globe, unless he got orders? And if it was orders, why don’t you say so? And if you’re working for Caspar, what’s the big idea, going to Mr. Jansen and handing him a lot of chatter about being afraid to go home?”

  “I don’t work for Caspar.”

  “Then it don’t make sense.”

  “It makes sense if you heard what Arch was saying in the cab. He was shot, see? And he was laying up with three guys that he was afraid would knock him off just to get rid of him. And nothing was being done about him except a bum doctor would come in every day and tell him he was getting along swell. But from the way the other three were whispering he knew he wasn’t getting along swell, and he figured his only chance was to get to Caspar, so—”

  “O.K. Now it makes sense. Go on.”

  “That’s all, except when I tumbled to what it was all about I beat it, and when I got home my sister was yelling out the window at me to go away, that they were after me, and I had to beat it again. And I been beating it ever since, and I don’t know who you are, Mister, but if you got some place I can go, then—”

  “Is the lady still there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Put her on and get back to the car.”

  When June answered again, Ben spoke rapidly and decisively. “O.K., the first thing you do, you shoot this bird over to Castleton. Have Jansen take him over in person, and start at once. As soon as they’re gone, get over to Jansen headquarters, call the Castleton police and let them know what’s coming. Then sit tight. Be at Jansen headquarters all day, just in case.”

  “Have Jansen take him in person?”

  “That’s it. We’re playing in luck, terrific luck. This Herndon, he’s just a lug that curries horses. But he curries them for Delany, and that’s all we need. Solly fell for it last night, and he’ll keep on falling for it if we just let him. We got him chasing his own tail and he don’t know it.”

  “I’m terribly excited.”

  “Get going.”

  “I’m off.”

  Hanging up, Ben sat down on the unmade bed, his watch in his hand. At the end of fifteen minutes he dialed the Pioneer. “City desk, please … Hello, you want a tip on that bandit, Arch Rossi?”

  “What do you think?�
��

  “O.K., I can’t tell you where he is, but I can tell you where his pal is, and if you hop on it, maybe you can get some dope from him.”

  “I’ll bite, where is he?”

  “Castleton.”

  “Why?”

  “Caspar was after him, for dropping Rossi at the Columbus. He was afraid to go home, and he went to Jansen. So Jansen’s taking him to the Castleton cops, for protection and maybe some evidence. They started ten or fifteen minutes ago, in Jansen’s car.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Little Jack Horner.”

  “O.K., Jack. Thanks.”

  When the first editions came out, it developed that the newspaper had done what Ben no doubt expected. It had chartered a special plane, and had reporters and photographers waiting when Jansen walked into Castleton police headquarters with Herndon. In the big room, Ben and Lefty read silently, studied the pictures of Jansen, of Herndon, even of Rossi, in a blown-up snapshot that somebody had dug up. The buzzer kept sounding, and Lefty kept jumping up to admit various personages: Jack Brady, secretary to the Mayor; Inspector Cantrell, of the Police Department; James Joseph Bresnahan, ace reporter for the Pioneer; photographers, bellboys, telegraph messengers. The Bresnahan interview broke for the financial edition, and Lefty began to curse when he read it. It was mainly Bresnahan, in an F. Scott Fitzgerald picture of Caspar, as though he were a great Gatsby of some credit to the town. But it was quite a little Caspar, too, in an interview that gave no names, but intimated all too plainly that if the citizenry wanted to know more about Rossi, or of the various scandals that had recently rocked the town, it might ask a certain society racketeer who knew much more than many might think.

  In the five-star final, there was a picture of Dick Delany, standing beside his car, about to depart for Chicago, where, it was explained, he would interview his brother, as special correspondent for the paper, and find out what truth there might be in the Caspar charges, or in the various rumors that were flying around. When he saw this, Ben managed a fair imitation of a snicker. “Say, that’s a laugh—they’re hiring Dick Delany to drive over to Chicago and interview Bill on what Solly’s saying about him.”