"Who is this?" Johnny asked sharply.
"We haven't got time for that stuff. I asked you a question, do you want Cragg alive?"
"You haven't got Cragg," Johnny retorted.
"Oh, no? If he's with you, put him on the phone."
"All right," said Johnny. "Suppose he isn't here. What do you want from me?"
"I'll call you back. I ain't havin' this call traced."
The phone went dead. Johnny hung up and scowled at the phone. He scooped up the coins and looked around the room. He walked to the bathroom and saw the washing Sam had done the day before. On a sudden impulse he took down from the shower curtain rod one of the socks and poured the coins into it, shaking them down into the foot. He tied a knot into the top half of the sock, then taking down the other socks, threw the entire pile into a corner of the bathroom.
The phone rang out in the bedroom. He went back and picked it up.
"All right," said the harsh voice, "listen careful. Leave your hotel and walk slowly down Forty-fifth to Seventh Avenue. A Lucky Clover taxicab will come along and "
"Oh, go back to Peekskill," snapped Johnny, slamming the receiver back on the hook.
The phone rang again instantly. Johnny jerked it off the hook. "Go to hell!" he snarled.
The voice of James Sutton exclaimed, "I say, Fletcher, that's no way to talk to a man."
"Oh, you!" growled Johnny. "Somebody else just called and I thought he was calling back."
"I'd like to talk to you," Sutton said. "I wonder if you could come over to my digs at the Barbizon-Waldorf."
"Can't right now. Busy."
"I'll make it worth your while."
"I'll try to make it in about an hour."
"All right, but sooner than that if you can. This may be important. It's something about Lester Smithson that I don't think you got at the Harover Club."
"Oh, you know I've been there?"
Sutton chuckled. "You scared the hell out of Whittlesey. An hour, then?"
Johnny agreed and hung up. He left the room and rode down to the lobby. The policemen were still there and Lieutenant Madigan sat in a far corner, reading a newspaper. Johnny looked around, saw Eddie Miller near the desk and walked up to him.
"Gosh, Mr. Fletcher," Eddie said. "I tried to warn you, but Mr. Peabody spilled it."
"I know, the louse."
"Mr. Cragg phoned from Peekskill. He said he was in jail up there."
"He isn't any more. That's why the cops are here. Sam 98
broke out of jail and the Peekskill cops called the New York police."
"Ouch!" said Eddie. "Then Mr. Cragg is really in trouble."
"He is, and there isn't a thing I can do for him right now. He's somewhere between Peekskill and here and if he shows up they'll grab him."
"If I see him first, I'll try to give him the high sign. If only Peabody . . . which reminds me, I know the reason he's so sore. Some crook got into his room and swiped one of his suits, his best one, he claims."
"Serves him right."
"He thinks you stole it."
"Me? Would I do a thing like that?"
Eddie hesitated before replying. "No, I don't think so. But Peabody's really burned. I know he went into your room with his passkey, but apparently he didn't find the suit there. He thinks now that you sold it."
"I didn't sell his old suit," Johnny said, slightly accenting the word sell, "but it's an idea. If he doesn't lay off me, I might just do something like that one of these days. I've got to go out now. If Sam does happen to come in while I'm gone and the cops grab him, try to get in a word to him. I'll get him out if I have to bomb the New York police department. He can't stand jails."
"That's what he said."
Johnny nodded and stepped up to the desk. He laid a five-dollar bill and a single on the desk and said to the clerk, "Have you got a roll of dimes and two rolls of pennies?"
The clerk was somewhat surprised, but took the bills. "I think I can spare them."
He opened the cash drawer and brought out three rolls of coins. Johnny tore off the paper wrappings and emptied the coins into his right-hand trousers pocket. Eddie Miller stood nearby, puzzled. Johnny grinned at him and left the hotel.
Across the street, a Lucky Clover taxicab was double-parked, facing Seventh Avenue. Johnny put his thumb to his nose and walked toward Sixth Avenue. A harsh voice yelled after him but Johnny continued on to Sixth Avenue.
A bus was waiting for the light and Johnny clambered aboard. A short time later he got off the bus, walked to Fifth Avenue and entered the Chateau Pelham.
The switchboard operator recognized him instantly. "Miss Cummings? I'll see if she's in." She spoke into the phone, then nodded to Johnny.
"You may go up."
Johnny headed for the elevator, then J. J. Kilkenny came
ato the lobby. He passed the switchboard operator and came ip to Johnny just as the door of the automatic elevator opened.
"Have you been announced?" Johnny asked sarcastically.
The pride of the A.A.A. stepped into the elevator.
"I got words to say to you."
"Why don't you write me a letter?" asked Johnny. "Then
can read and appreciate your words at my leisure. Right iow I'm pretty busy."
Kilkenny punched the button for the fourth floor and the ar went up. Kilkenny sized up Johnny. He was obviously oaking a tremendous effort to contain himself.
"I notice," Johnny pointed out, "you knew what floor."
"I know," Kilkenny said tautly. "I know a lot of things."
They got off at the fourth floor and Kilkenny pressed the buzzer of Alice Cummings's apartment. She opened the door. Ihe was wearing a street suit that had probably cost in the ;eneral neighborhood of three hundred eighty-five. She looked ery nice.
"Oh," she said when she saw Kilkenny with Johnny.
Both men entered the apartment. "Miss Cummings," ohnny said promptly, "you know that you're responsible for urniture and glass breakage."
"That's right," the girl said, looking at Kilkenny. "I'm in nough trouble with the apartment house people right now. rhey've given me notice to move. I don't want a big bill added in."
"Don't crowd me," Kilkenny said to Johnny. "I've already ost my job on account of you."
"Which job?" Johnny asked.
"You know damn well which job," snarled Kilkenny. "The me with the Acme Adjustment Agency."
"Good. That'll be a load off Sam's mind. He won't have to vorry about that old mandolin rap. I thought maybe you were eferring to the other job." Johnny indicated Alice Cummings.
Alice Cummings flared. "Have you brought those coins, Letcher?"
"If you've got the seventeen dollars ready."
She got her purse from a table and opened it.
Johnny said, "I warned you, you're losing money on the leal."
"I want what's mine, that's all."
Johnny shrugged. He reached deep into his trousers pocket tnd brought out the handful of pennies and dimes. He held hem out to Alice Cummings. She put the seventeen dollars n bills on the table and cupped both hands to take the coins.
Johnny, looking closely, saw that her nostrils were wide and hat she was breathing heavily with suppressed excitement 100
"And now, Mr. Fletcher," Alice Cummings said coldly, "I've seen enough of you to last me for some time."
"Well," said Johnny. "I'd like to talk to you a moment— alone."
"I have nothing to say to you."
"I think you have. And I know I've got something to say to you."
"Nothing you can say could possibly interest me."
"Let's put it this way," Johnny said. "You made an arrangement with our friend Kilkenny here to, ah, retrieve a certain object from my hotel room. A goose bank."
"Beat it, Fletcher," snarled Kilkenny.
"Your cheap hoods ripped the hell out of my room," Johnny went on calmly. "They didn't have to do that to find the bank, because it was handy. But they didn't want the bank
alone— they were looking for something that had been in the bank."
"Breakage or no breakage," Kilkenny said thickly. His hands came up and he started for Johnny. The latter moved quickly around behind a table on which rested a nice china bowl containing flowers.
"Here goes the furniture," Johnny warned.
"Stop it, you two," cried Alice Cummings. "If you have to fight wait until you're outside."
"You heard the boss, buster," Johnny said.
Kilkenny stopped.
Johnny pointed at Alice Cummings. "The real reason I came over is because a certain party came to see me. He said you'd telephoned him and offered to sell him something. Do you know who I mean?" he demanded.
Alice Cummings looked sharply at Johnny. "What do you know about—that?"
"Everything."
She hesitated, then her eyes went to Kilkenny. "Why don't you come back in a half hour?"
"I'm here now," Kilkenny said bluntly. "You're not going to pull a fast one on me."
"You'll get your money," Alice said, beginning to show her claws to the former bill collector.
"I'll get it, all of it," Kilkenny snapped. "I've stuck my neck out on this job and I want what's coming to me."
"You'll get it."
"I don't think Fletcher knows one damn thing. He's got a big mouth, that's all. He'll make you think black is white and he'll steal the fillings out of your teeth."
"I like you too, J.J.," Johnny said.
Kilkenny bared his teeth, but suddenly wheeled toward the door. "I'll be back in a half hour and I'm warning you, don't y any double-cross on me." He went out.
Johnny said, "Carmichael, Senior. I'm working for him." "Why? Why should he employ a man like you?" demanded lice Cummings.
"Maybe it's because he trusts me."
"You? You're nothing but a two-bit chiseler and sharp looter."
"Baby," said Johnny gently, "that's rough talk. You're too tautiful for talk like that. Why, you're the sort of doll I could go for myself ... if I could afford it." "I could go for you, too," Alice conceded. "If you had
lough of what it takes. But since you haven't "
"Has Flanagan got it?"
The name rocked her back on her heels. "Who?" "Harry Flanagan, the one and only. The gigolo. . . ." That did it. Alice flew at Johnny. She struck him a stinging ip on the face. "You filthy . . .!" she screamed. She tried to ap Johnny again, but caught both her wrists in his hands. "Whoa, Nellie!" he cried. "You called me a two-bit chiseler, it I never took a quarter from a doll in all my life. Harry ianagan's been taking everything he could get from you that you were able to squeeze out of Jess Carmichael. And he's been giving it to another doll."
"That's a he!" screamed Alice. She raked Johnny's shin with ;r high heel, causing him to wince. "That's a dirty, filthy he." Again she tried to use her heel on Johnny, but he shoved ;r away so violently she would have gone over backwards ;cept that her back was to the wall and she collided with that. "Flanagan's a louse and everybody on Broadway and Forty-ghth knows it except you." "Get out of here, get out of here!"
"You got everything you could out of Jess Carmichael and en when he got fed up and buttoned up his wallet you were rough with him. Or maybe he caught you and your fine any Flanagan together ..."
The new trend frightened Alice Cummings out of her blind ge. "That isn't true. Harry didn't kill him. He didn't. I know ! didn't."
"He's got a good chance of frying for it," Johnny said. "No! You're wrong. You—you mustn't put the police on any. He had nothing to do with it." She ran forward, toward e table on which she had deposited the coins Johnny had ve her. "It's here—Jess told me. He gave me the bank and i told me that if anything happened to him to give the bank 102
to his father. He said that the old man would know who—who hurt him."
"There was no note inside the bank. I looked."
"It wasn't a note. It was . . ." She stopped, realizing that she was going too far. She made a tremendous effort to compose herself. "You said—Mr. Carmichael had come to you about—about my phone call to him."
"He told me you tried to shake him down for fifty thousand," Johnny said insultingly.
"That's a lie. I—I wanted to sell him the bank and"—she pointed at the coins—"those. It said in the paper this morning that he'd spend his last dollar to—to find the person who murdered his son. Fifty thousand isn't anything to him. He's probably worth fifty million. Jess told me it was—in the bank —and all I wanted to do was to give this to his father."
"Didn't you get enough out of him?" sneered Johnny. "Mink coats, jewelry, this apartment—the money you gave Harry Flanagan."
She was sensitive about the name Flanagan, wincing again when Johnny tossed it at her.
"Leave Flanagan's name out of this," she said. She became suddenly vicious again, "and you can tell that old goat that the price is going up. Tomorrow it'll cost seventy-five thousand."
"Tomorrow," said Johnny, "you can eat that small change. And the limping goose bank, too. Although I suggest you use some salt and pepper on it. I imagine your stomach is pretty tough, but the bank is made of bronze and it may be a little hard for even you to digest."
"Get the hell out of here!" cried Alice Cummings.
"Baby," said Johnny, "I'm going."
He opened the door and went toward the elevator. She ran after him.
"Wait!" she called.
Johnny punched the button for the elevator.
"A rivederci! Auf wiedersehen —good-bye."
The elevator door opened.
"Forty thousand. Tell Mr. Carmichael I'll take forty thousand ..."
Johnny grinned nastily and pushed the "down" button.
On the first floor he walked through the lobby, winking at the switchboard operator. Outside the apartment house, Kilkenny stood by the door. And at the curb was the Lucky Clover taxicab, with Harry Flanagan standing by the door.
"All right, Fletcher," Flanagan sang out. "I'm through monkeying around with you."
Kilkenny closed in from the side. "Now, you and me are going to have this out!" he snarled.
Johnny danced aside. "Do you boys know each other? You're both being played for suckers by Alice Cummings."
Flanagan and Kilkenny had apparently never met before. Both looked at each other with hostile eyes.
"Who're you?" barked Flanagan.
"Punk!" sneered Kilkenny.
"Good-bye, now," called out Johnny. He turned and ran swiftly down the street. Both Flanagan and Kilkenny made as if to take after him, but each was suspicious of the other. When he reached the corner, Johnny stopped and looked back.
Flanagan and Kilkenny were facing each other, both gestic-lating angrily.
21
Sam Cragg was free, but he was thirty-five miles from New York City, without a nickel in his pocket. And the Law was after him. He ran from the rear of the jail to a street and he walked swiftly down the street and then ran through another alley. It wouldn't be long before the police would be after him. Die old tramp would yell the moment he thought Sam was clear of jail and not likely to return.
They'd be after him. He walked swiftly up another street, cut through a third alley and saw railroad tracks. This was safer than the highway, he thought. A train.
Of course he had no money, but Johnny and he had ridden the rods in the days of old. A freight train was all Sam needed.
A long platform was ahead of him. There were two or three people waiting for a train. Sam went up to one of the men. "When does the next freight train go through here?" he asked politely.
"Freight train? I don't think I've ever seen a freight train on this line."
"All railroads have freight trains," insisted Sam. "How else would they move their freight?"
"Search me. All I know is that there's my train coming right now."
A train, pulled by an electric engine, rolled smoothly into the depot. The few passengers on the platform began to board it. Sam looked around him, caught sight of a blue
uniform at the far end of the platform. He sprang for the steps of a car, scrambled in.
The train began to move. Sam went in and found a seat. The conductor entered the front of the car, scanned the tickets 104
of the passengers, stuck into the metal wedges beside the windows. He took a ticket from a new passenger, came down to Sam.
"Ticket?"
"Huh? Uh, didn't you get my ticket at the last station?"
"I don't believe so." said the conductor. "I'd have left the slip there." The conductor indicated the ticket wedge by Sam's window. It was empty.
"I was sure I gave it to you," grumbled Sam.
"I'm sorry, you didn't."
Sam began to search his pockets. Deliberately he explored his coat pockets, then stood up and went through his trousers pockets. The conductor waited patiently.
"I know I bought a ticket," Sam insisted.
"You may find it later."
"Yeah, sure—I'll give it to you later. When I find it"
"I'm afraid I'll have to have it now. Or the price."
"How much is it?"
"To Grand Central? A dollar ten."
"Okay, I'll pay." Sam thrust his hand into his trousers pocket, showed exaggerated alarm. "Holy smoke!" Quickly he reached into his breast pocket. "My wallet!" He snapped his fingers. "I left it at home on the piano."
"You have no money then," said the conductor, "and no ticket."
"Tell you what, buddy," Sam suggested, "I'll pay you tomorrow."
The conductor had played the game all the way. But he was an old hand at this sort of thing. He said nastily, "You'll get off at the next station."
"I can't," cried Sam. "I've got to get to New York. It's— it's important."
"You'll get off," snapped the conductor, "or I'll kick you off."
"You and who else?" challenged Sam.
The train was already slackening speed for the next stop. The conductor pointed to the door. "Out!"
"I asked you, who's going to make me?"
"I'll call a policeman," the conductor said. "It's against the law to try to swindle the railroad out of a fare."
The word "policeman" was enough for Sam. He got up meekly and went into the vestibule. When the train stopped he stepped off to the platform. The conductor swung out and kept his eye on Sam until the train was moving again.
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