The Fabulous Clipjoint

by Fredric Brown

  Only I couldn’t get mad at Claire.

  Sure she’d given me the runaround, but she’d told me she was doing it. She’d told me why.

  After last night, I thought, I could never be really mad at Claire. And when I’m married and settled down and have kids and grandkids, I thought, there’d always be just a little bit of love left over for my memory of her.

  I got out before I made an ass of myself by starting to bawl or something. I walked over to South Clark and caught a street car north.

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  Chapter 13

  I knocked on the door of Uncle Am’s room and his voice called out, “Come on in,” and I did.

  He was still in bed.

  I asked him, “Did I wake you up, Uncle Am?”

  “No, kid, I been awake half an hour or so. I been lying here thinking.”

  “Claire’s gone,” I said. “She left town — I think.”

  “What do you mean, you think?”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. Uncle Am doubled the pillow under his head to raise it up, and he said, “Tell me about it, Ed. Not the personal passages. Skip those, but tell me everything that gal told you about Harry Reynolds, and what happened about Dutch last night, and what happened this morning. Just start at the beginning, from the time you left here yesterday evening.”

  I told him. When I got through he said, “My God, kid, you’ve got a memory. But don’t you see the holes in it?”

  “What holes? You mean Claire changed her story about herself, yeah, but what’s that got to do with what we’re working on.”

  “I don’t know, kid. Maybe nothing. I feel old this morning, this afternoon, whatever it is. I feel like we’ve been chasing our tails and getting nowhere. Hell, maybe you got more sense than I have. I don’t know. I’m worried about Bassett.”

  “Has he been around?”

  “No, that’s what worries me. Part of what worries me. Something’s wrong, and I don’t know what.”

  “How do you mean, Uncle Am?”

  “I don’t know how to put it. You’re nuts on music; let me put it this way. There’s sour note somewhere in a chord, and you can’t find it. You sound each note by itself and it’s right, and then you listen to the chord again and it’s sour. It’s not a major or a minor or a diminished seventh. It’s a noise.”

  “Can you come closer to saying what instrument it is?”

  “It’s not the trombone, kid. Not you. But listen, kid, it’s in my bones; somebody’s putting something over on us. I don’t know what. I think it’s Bassett, but I don’t know what.”

  I said, “Then let’s not worry about it. Let’s go ahead.”

  “Go ahead and do what?”

  I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. He grinned at me.

  He said, “Kid, you’re starting to grow up. It’s time you learned something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “When you kiss a woman, wipe off the lipstick.”

  I wiped it off and grinned back at him. I said, “I’ll try to remember, Uncle Am. What are we going to do today?”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Neither have I. Let’s take the day off and go slumming down in the Loop. Let’s see a movie and then have a good dinner and then go take in a floor show. Yeah, we’ll pick one with a good band if there are any. Let’s take the day and evening off and get our perspective back.”

  It was a funny time, that afternoon and evening. We went places, and we enjoyed ourselves, but we didn’t. There was a feeling about it like the quietness of the air while the barometer drops before a storm. Even I could feel it. Uncle Am was uneasy like a man waiting for something and not knowing what he’s waiting for. For the first time since I’d known him, he was a little crabby. And three times he called the Homicide Department to try to get Bassett, and Bassett wasn’t there.

  But we didn’t talk about it. We talked about the show we saw, and the band, and he told me more about the carney. We didn’t talk about Pop at all.

  About midnight we called it a day and broke up. I went home. I still felt uneasy. Maybe it was partly the heat. The hot wave was coming back. It was a sultry night and it was going to be hot as the hinges tomorrow.

  Mom called out from her room, “That you, Ed?” When I answered, she slipped on a bathrobe and came out. She must have just turned in; she hadn’t been asleep yet.

  She said, “I’m glad you came home for a change, Ed. I wanted to talk with you.”

  “What is it, Mom?”

  “I was in to the insurance company today. I took them the certificate, and they’re putting it through, but the check’s got to come from St. Louis and they say it’ll be a few days yet. And I’m broke, Ed. Have you got any money?”

  “Just a couple of bucks, Mom. I’ve got twenty-some dollars in that savings account I started.”

  “Could you lend it to me? Ed, I’ll give it back as soon as the insurance check comes through.”

  “Sure, Mom. Anyway, I’ll lend you twenty of it. I’d like to keep the few odd dollars myself. I’ll draw it out tomorrow. If you need more than that, I’ll bet Bunny could lend you some.”

  “Bunny was here this evening awhile, but I didn’t want to bother him about it. He’s worried; his sister in Springfield’s going to have an operation early next week. A pretty bad one; he’s going to take off work next week and go there, he thinks.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “But if you can give me twenty, Ed, that’ll do all right. The man said the check’ll be only a few days.”

  “Okay, Mom. I’ll go to the bank first thing tomorrow. ‘Night.”

  I went in and went to bed in my room. It felt funny. I mean, it seemed like I was going back there after having been away for years. It didn’t seem like home or anything, though. It was just a familiar room. I wound the clock, but I didn’t set it to go off.

  Somewhere outside, a clock struck one and I remembered it was Wednesday night. I thought, just about this time a week ago Pop was getting killed.

  Somehow it seemed a lot longer time than that. It seemed a year, almost; so much had happened since then. It had only been a week. But I thought too: I’ve got to get back to work. I can’t keep on staying away from work much longer. It’s been a week. Next Monday I’ll have to go back. Yet going back to work, I thought, would be even stranger than coming back to this room to sleep.

  I tried not to think about Claire, and finally I went to sleep. It was almost eleven when I woke. I dressed and went out to the kitchen. Gardie had gone out somewhere. Mom was making coffee; she looked like she’d just got up.

  She said, “There’s nothing in the house. If you want to go to the bank now, will you bring some eggs and some bacon back with you, Ed?”

  I said “Sure” and went out to the bank and got stuff for breakfast on the way back. Mom cooked it and we’d just about finished eating when the phone rang. I answered it, and it was Uncle Am.

  “You up, Ed?”

  “Just finished breakfast.”

  He said, “I finally got Bassett — or he got me. He called up a few minutes ago. He’s coming round right away. Something’s going to break, Ed. He sounded like the cat that ate the canary.”

  “I’m coming over,” I said. “Leave in a few minutes.” I went back to the table and picked up my coffee to finish it without sitting down. I told Mom I had to meet Uncle Am right away.

  She said, “I forgot, Ed. When Bunny was here last night, he wanted to see you, and because he didn’t know when or where he could get in touch with you, he left a note. Something in connection with his going down-state next week.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I think I put it on the sideboard, in the
living room.”

  I got it on my way out and read it going down the stairs. Bunny had written: “I guess Madge told you why I’m going to Springfield this week end. You said a guy named Anderz who had sold insurance in Gary had moved to Springfield, and you’d wanted to see him. Want me to look him up while I’m there and interview him for you? If you do, let me know before Sunday, and tell me what questions to ask.”

  I stuffed the note into my pocket. I’d ask Uncle Am, but he’d said he didn’t think the insurance agent would be able to tell us anything. Still, it might be worth a try if Bunny was going anyway.

  When I got there, Bassett was just ahead of me. He was sitting on the bed. His eyes looked more tired and washed-out than I’d ever seen them. His clothes looked as though they’d been slept in. He had a flat bottle in his pocket, wrapped in brown paper, twisted above the cork.

  My uncle grinned at me. He looked cheerful.

  He said, “Hi, kid, shut the door. Frank here is about ready to explode with news, but I told him to hold it till you were here.”

  It was hot and stuffy in the hotel room. I tossed my hat on the bed, loosened my collar and sat down on the writing desk.

  Bassett said, “We got the gang you been looking for. We got Harry Reynolds. We got Benny Rosso. Dutch Reagan is dead. Only —”

  “Only,” my uncle cut in, “none of ’em killed Wally Hunter.”

  Bassett had opened his mouth to go on. He closed it again and looked at Uncle Am. Uncle Am grinned at him. He said, “Obvious, my dear Bassett. What else bright and cheerful could you have been going to say with that tone of voice and that look on your ugly mug? You’ve been letting us pull chestnuts out of the fire for you.”

  “Nuts,” Bassett said. “You didn’t get near Harry Reynolds. You never saw him. Did you?”

  Uncle Am shook his head. “You’re right. We didn’t.”

  Bassett said, “I gave you more credit, Am. I figured you for a smart guy. When you found out Harry’d been interested in your brother and started out after Harry, I gave you rope. I thought you’d lead us to him, maybe.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  “Nope, you didn’t. You disappointed me, Am. You never got to first base. We found him. Look, Am, the minute you brought up that gang, I knew they were in the clear. Maybe it was a dirty trick not to tell you, but they were wanted for the bank job in Waupaca, Wisconsin. They’d been identified by Waupaca witnesses. The reward was posted for them. And the Waupaca job was the evening your brother was killed.”

  Uncle Am said, “Sweet of you, Frank. You got my hundred bucks, and you get the reward, too. Or do you?”

  “I don’t, damn it. I wasn’t the one that got ’em. If it makes you any happier, Am, I been tooken too. Nobody gets the reward on Dutch; he’s cold meat. Benny was caught out of the state, and who got Reynolds? The beat coppers!”

  “Did you lose much, I hope?”

  “Half a G on each of them. They haven’t got the Waupaca money yet. Forty grand. There’s a ten-percent reward on that. Four G’s.” He licked his lips. “But, hell it’ll turn up in a safe-deposit vault someday on a routine check. There’s no lead I can follow to it.”

  “That’s nice,” said Uncle Am. “How’s about my hundred bucks back? I’m getting low on cash.” He opened his wallet and looked into it. “I got only a hundred left out of four hundred I came here with.”

  “Nuts,” said Bassett. “I rode along with you guys; I gave you your money’s worth. I told you everything I was going to do.”

  Uncle Am said, “I’ll bet you give it back.”

  “You’ll bet?”

  “Twenty bucks,” Uncle Am said. He took out his wallet again, pulled a twenty out of it. He handed it to me. He said, “ ‘The kid’ll hold stakes. Twenty says you’ll give me that hundred bucks back voluntarily, of your own free will, today.”

  Bassett looked at him and then at me. His eyes were half closed, hooded. He said, “I should never bet a man at his own game. But —” He took out a twenty and handed it to me.

  Uncle Am grinned. He said, “Now how about a drink out of that bottle?”

  Bassett took it out of his pocket and opened it. Uncle Am took a long drink and then I took a sip for sociability. Bassett took a long pull and then put the bottle on the floor by the bed.

  Uncle Am leaned back against the wall, next to where I sat at the desk. He said, “How did the gang get caught?”

  “What’s the difference?” Bassett asked. “I told you none of ’em —”

  “Sure, but we’re curious. Tell us.” Bassett shrugged. “Dutch was found dead early this morning, at dawn, in an alley back of Division. They found Reynolds fast asleep in the building Dutch was back of. Dutch was right under his window.”

  I leaned forward, and Uncle Am took my arm and pulled me back. He kept hold of my arm.

  “How do you figure it?” he asked Bassett.

  “Reynolds didn’t, that’s for sure. Probably Benny. Reynolds would never leave the corpse under his own window. But the whole gang was double-crossing each other. Reynolds’ woman — we find she lived at the Milan Towers — crossed the whole bunch of them.”

  “Who was that?” Uncle Am asked.

  “A dame who went by the name of Claire Redmond in Chicago We think her right name was Elsie Coleman. She came from Indianapolis. According to reports, she was quite a looker.”

  Uncle Am squeezed my arm tight. His grip said, “Steady, kid,” Out loud he asked very casually, “Was?”

  “She’s dead, too,” Bassett said. “Benny killed her last night, and got caught on the spot. It was on a train, in Georgia. We got a long-distance call from there this morning. Benny sang plenty when they caught him cold with a shiv in the dame.”

  “And the burden of his song?”

  Bassett said, “He followed her from Chicago. He and Dutch each figured she had the mazuma and that she and Harry were figuring to cross them. Meanwhile, they must’ve crossed each other. Benny must have killed Dutch, because he left Dutch’s body where it would lead to Harry Reynolds getting caught. Only he doesn’t admit that, or hasn’t yet.”

  “You got side-tracked, Frank,” Uncle Am said. “Why’d he knife this Elsie-Claire Coleman-Redmond?”

  “He thought she was lamming with the dough. Maybe he was right; I don’t know. Anyway, he was following her. She had a compartment on the train. Sometime during the night he got in and was searching for the hay. She waked up and yelled and he knifed her. But there happened to be a couple marshals in the car. They nailed him before he could get out of the compartment. But the dough wasn’t there.”

  Uncle Am said, “Hand me the bottle, Frank. I’ll have another sip of that mountain dew.”

  Bassett picked it up and handed it over. He said, “Mountain dew, hell. That’s good Scotch.”

  Uncle Am drank and handed it back. He said, “So what now, Frank. What you going to do now?”

  Bassett shrugged. “I don’t know. Keep the case on the records. Go to work on something else. Ever occur to you, Am, that maybe this was just a straight holdup-slugging after all, and that we’ll never get the guy who did it?”

  Uncle Am said, “No, Frank, that never occurred to me.”

  Bassett took another pull at the bottle. It was half empty already. He said, “Then you’re nuts, Am. Listen, if it was anything else, then Madge did it. Incidentally, the insurance company’s holding that check till I give them the green light. But I guess the only reason I stalled is I haven’t seen this Wilson guy yet. Maybe I’ll see him now and get it over with.”

  He got up, went over to the washbasin. He said, “I’m dirty as a pig. I better clean up a little before I go out again.”

  He turned on the water. I said to Uncle Am, “Bunny left a
note. He’s going to Springfield Sunday. He says — here —” I’d found the note by then and handed it to him. He read it and handed it back.

  I said, “Shall we have him see the guy?”

  Uncle Am shook his head slowly.

  He looked at Bassett and took in a long breath and let it out slowly. Bassett was wiping his hands on the towel. He put his glasses in a case in his pocket and rubbed his eyes.

  He said, “Well —”

  “About that hundred bucks,” Uncle Am said. “How would you like to know where to put your hands on that forty grand from Waupaca? Would you pay a hundred bucks to know, even if you had to go out of town to get it?”

  “I’ll pay a hundred to get four grand, sure. But you’re kidding me. How the hell would you know?”

  “Pay the hundred bucks,” Uncle Am said.

  “You’re crazy. How could you know?”

  “I don’t know,” Uncle Am said. “But I know a guy who does. And I’ll guarantee it.”

  Bassett stared at him awhile, then his wallet came slowly out of his pocket. He took out five twenties and gave them to Uncle Am. He said, “If this is a runaround, Am —”

  Uncle Am said, “Tell him, kid.”

  Bassett’s eyes switched to me. I said, “The money was mailed in Chicago a few minutes after eleven o’clock yesterday.Claire sent it on ahead of her. It was addressed to Elsie Cole, General Delivery, Miami.”

  Bassett’s lips moved, but he didn’t say anything I could hear.

  I said, “I guess you win your bet, Uncle Am.” I handed him the two twenties I had, and he put them in his wallet with the ones Bassett had given him.

  Uncle Am said, “Don’t take it so hard, Frank. We’ll do you one more favor. We’ll go over to Bunny Wilson’s with you. I’ve never met the guy.”