by Isaac Asimov
“How much was taken, ma’am?” the officer asked.
She paused a moment, then managed to reply, “Thirty-three thousand dollars,” before losing consciousness again.
She hadn’t been able to say much, but it was enough to raise the mugging from the level of a relatively minor offense, as such things go, and give it the stature of a major crime. Four detectives were dispatched to the hospital emergency ward to be on hand when she could speak again; and an equal number of newspaper reporters and television newsmen converged upon the hospital, too.
When she was wheeled from the treatment room, Mrs. Hartman looked like a mummy. Both of her arms and one leg were in heavy casts and her head was swathed in bandages. She was awake, though, and able to answer a few more questions. Detective Sergeant Kendris, a burly man in his forties, did all the talking. The people from the news media had to make do with what they were able to overhear and the photos they could take.
“Mrs. Hartman, can you hear me all right?” Kendris asked.
“Yes,” the woman replied weakly.
“You told the officer where you were found that you had been robbed of thirty-three thousand dollars. Is that right?”
“Yes...”
“How did you happen to have so much cash with you?”
Mrs. Hartman hesitated, as though seeking the right words. Then she confessed, “I’m... I’m a foolish old woman. I don’t always show good sense. Once every year, and sometimes twice, I draw all my savings from the bank. I keep the money at home for a few days, to look at it and touch it, then put it back in the bank. This time...” her voice trailed off weakly “... I lost it all.”
“Did you recognize the thief?”
“There were two of them, but I’d never seen them before. And I’m not sure I’d know them if I saw them again. It all happened so very fast...”
At that point the sedative the doctor had administered took hold and she went to sleep.
“If you have any more questions. Sergeant Kendris,” the nurse said, “you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
The next afternoon, Kendris stormed into the hospital, looking like an angry bear, but he didn’t get to speak to Mrs. Hartman. She slept all day, and the doctor refused to allow Kendris to awaken her.
The following day, Kendris returned again. He had calmed somewhat, but he was still visibly angry. Mrs. Hartman was propped up in bed and a high-school-age hospital volunteer was reading to her from the newspaper. Kendris asked the girl to wait outside while he talked to Mrs. Hartman.
“All right,” he demanded once they were alone, “what was the idea of lying to me?”
“I... I don’t know what you mean,” she answered.
“Come off it! You know what I’m talking about — your imaginary thirty-three thousand dollars. The robbery was all over the newspapers and television, but when I went to the bank to see if they had a record of the serial numbers on the money, I learned you’ve never had an account there. The only time they see you is when, like the day before yesterday, you stop in to cash your Social Security check. Why did you lie?”
The injured woman’s hands opened and closed and opened again in a gesture of helplessness. “I didn’t want the thieves to get away with it. I... I wanted them to pay for what they did to me.”
“But you didn’t have to lie,” Kendris persisted. “Don’t you know we’d have worked just as hard, made exactly the same effort, to recover your Social Security pension as we did for the larger amount?”
When she didn’t reply immediately, Kendris had time to examine what he’d just said and to see how ridiculous it was. As long as it had been believed that thirty-three thousand dollars had been stolen, there had been four detectives assigned to the case, and reporters to record their every move; but now he was the only one officially assigned, and that would last only until he returned to the office and put his report in the Unsolved File. At least he had the grace to be embarrassed.
“Oh, that isn’t what I meant! I’m sure the police do their best regardless of the amount lost,” Mrs. Hartman said, but to Kendris’ ears the words had a hollow ring. It made him all the more ashamed to have this beaten-up old woman show more concern for his feelings than he’d shown for hers.
“Look,” he said, cutting the interview short, “let’s just forget the whole thing.” He began moving toward the door. “If anything turns up, you’ll be notified,” he said, and then he was gone from the room.
The young hospital volunteer returned. She picked up the newspaper she’d set aside when Kendris arrived, and sat beside the bed.
“Would you like me to read some more?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” Mrs. Hartman answered. “Read the part about the murders again.”
“But I’ve already read it four times,” the girl protested.
“I know, but please read it again.”
The girl cleared her throat and then began. “Police investigated a disturbance in an apartment at 895 Seventh Avenue at about ten last night and found two men, William White and Jesse Bolt, who shared the apartment, dead on the living room floor, the result of a knife fight. Neighbors said the men had been arguing and fighting most of the day, each accusing the other of cheating him out of an undisclosed amount of money. The knife fight in which they killed one another was the climax of the day-long confrontation. Both men had long arrest records. Police are continuing their investigation.”
Mrs. Hartman smiled behind her bruised lips. “Please, read it again,” she said softly.
The Good Lord Will Provide
by Lawrence Treat and Charles M. Plotz
State Penitentiary
April 3
Dear Judy,
It’s been a whole year now, a whole long year without you. But I been a real good prisoner staying out of trouble like a cat stays away from water. They all say I’ll get my parole next April, plenty of time to put in a crop. So hang on, you and Uncle Ike. The only thing bothering me is I ain’t heard from you in so long. Why? What’s happening?
Judy, it’s not like I done anything wrong. All I did was drive that car. I didn’t know they had guns and itchy fingers, I didn’t even know them good. They was just a couple of city fellas hanging around a bar and I got chinning with them and happened to let drop I was the champeen stock car racer of Hadley County. I done a little bragging maybe. I musta told them I could just about drive a car up the side of a wall and down the other side and if they wanted to see how good I was, why come on out and look. Which they did.
Maybe I was a little stupid but when they allowed they’d pay me right then and there to take them to the bank next day and then on out to the back hills where there was no roads, which they said they wanted to do just for the hell of it — well all I did was ask how much. And when they told me I plumb near keeled over. Because it was almost as much as we needed for that mortgage payment. I figured money was money and if they were taking a lot of it out of the bank, why wouldn’t they be generous? What I didn’t know was they didn’t have no account there.
So I reckon I was real stupid. But stupid or not I sure was lucky because if I’d stayed with that pair much longer I’da got killed too. But they paid me to get them out of town and up into the hills and after I done that I took off and come straight back to you.
When Ike heard the news on the radio he knowed right off it was me at the wheel of the car. Nobody else could have outdrove and outsmarted the cops and I bet I could have got clear off to Mexico or maybe China if I’da wanted to. And if the airplanes hadn’t spotted me like they did that pair. But I done what I was paid for, so I come back where I belonged. And if they took fifty thousand like the papers said or a million I wouldn’t know. I was waiting out in the car and all the money I ever seen was what I give you. And like I said, I got it the day before and it wasn’t stolen from the bank. Not that bank anyhow.
The sheriff kept asking me where the stolen money was. After all the two bank robbers was dead with no trace of the money and a
ll the sheriff had was me. Just a poor dumb farmer with a knack for handling a car.
But I don’t want to worry you with all this. I’m real lonesome for you like I said. So when are you coming up here to visit me? And how are you and how’s Ike and the farm?
Your loving husband
Walt
R.F.D. 2, Hadley
April 10
Dear Walt
I got your letter and the reason I ain’t come to see you is that I just don’t have the money for the trip. Besides I got to do all the chores now. Uncle Ike’s down with the rhumatiz again and Doc Saunders says he won’t be up and around until the warm spring weather sets in and that’s not liable to happen until May. And when Ike’s feeling puny he wants me around all the time and all he does is complain and tell me everybody’s out to take the skin off me. He even tried to chase George off the place when George came around in his new car to ask me out for a ride. And I sure needed to get away from the farm for awhile.
George was real nice to me too. He wanted to know how I was getting along without you and if I missed you much. Well I said it was kind of lonesome, there was things a girl needed sometimes and who was around except Ike? Seems George got my meaning wrong but I straightened him out real good. Afterwards I told him right out that we was liable to lose the farm unless we got that mortgage installment paid and how could I pay it until I got a crop in? And I said that what with George getting promoted to be vice president of the bank he could maybe do something. He said he’d see what he could manage and that was about as far as we got. Anyhow it was nice getting away from Ike for awhile, specially when George took me to dinner at that new place in town.
Walt, I wish you was a banker too.
Your loving wife
Judy
State Penitentiary
April 15
Dear Judy,
I know it’s hard on you and with Ike to take care of it’s even worse. He’s tetchy enough when he feels good but when he’s got the aches he’s enough to try the patience of a saint. But the good Lord will provide, Judy, and I know what I’m saying.
About George and the bank holding off — you want to get it writ down. So next time you see him you want to ask him about Ruthie Watkins which I found out about from a guy up here named Ernie Taylor. Ernie, his business is selling letters. And like he says, if I got a cow or a bushel of wheat I can sell them, can’t I? So why can’t he sell letters?
Ernie and me get along fine because the both of us we’re innocent men and we shouldn’t ought to be here. But as long as we are we talk about things and Ernie happened to mention some letters he got hold of which George writ to this Ruthie Watkins. So maybe you better mention them to George next time you see him.
Your loving husband
Walt
R.F.D. 2, Hadley
April 22
Dear Walt,
George took me out to dinner again and we talked about a lot of things. And like you told me to I just happened to mention Ruthie Watkins and then I said about the mortgage and how it ought to be writ down. And the very next day I got a letter from the bank promising to hold off until autumn but I don’t know what good it’s going to do. Because next time I was out with George, Ike got hold of some of that while mule stuff and after that he got the idea he ought to go riding in the tractor. Which he did, as far as that big ditch on the west side. Ike didn’t get hurt bad, just a bruise or two that he’s relaxing from, but you ought to see what’s left of that tractor. So how do I make that mortgage payment in the fall with no crop coming in? And if I don’t pay up we got no farm.
I’m tired, Walt. I’m plumb tired and just about at the end of my tether. You said the good Lord will provide — but how? How?
Your loving wife
Judy
State Penitentiary
April 28
Dear Judy,
You got to be patient like I said and if you’re real patient the Lord will provide. Because He come to me in a dream and He said that there was something buried in the south field that would take care of us. So you tell Ike to get over that rhumatiz of his. Tell him I only got a year to go and then I’m going to dig up that something in the south field and after that everything’s going to be all right.
Your loving husband
Walt
R.F.D. 2, Hadley
May 4
Dear Walt,
I don’t know just how to tell you this but I guess I’ll just set it down the way it happened.
You know how Ike hates the law ever since they come around and took you away. So when the sheriff and six deputies showed up the day before yesterday Ike tried to chase them away. He got up out of bed and ran all over the place looking for his shotgun, only I had it hid. Then he yelled at them and called them all kinds of names and they finally grabbed him and tied him up for a spell, so he never did see what they done. He’s spry again, all that running after the deputies loosened him up and now he’s as good as ever. But I don’t rightly know what the sheriff come for and you’ll never tumble to what those deputies of his done.
Walt, they went down to that south field and the six of them spent the whole day digging and then they come back the next day and kept on until they dug up just about every inch of that field. And I never did see any six men look so tired and they sure was mad. I asked them lots of questions and one of them — I think he come all the way down from the prison — he allowed as how all your mail gets read. Walter, what did he say that for?
Your loving wife
Judy
State Penitentiary
May 7
Dear Judy,
Now plant.
Your loving husband
Walt
Boomerang
by Harold Q. Masur
The thin man on the witness stand fumbled with the edge of his necktie. He had been Raynor’s secretary and one of the two men present in the district attorney’s house the night he’d been murdered.
I asked him: “The day Raynor was killed, didn’t he tell you he had enough on the defendant to hang him?”
“Objection!” Sam Lubock, the defense lawyer, had leaped to his feet, thick-jowled face flooded with color.
“Sustained,” snapped Judge Martin. He said it without even glancing at me.
That’s how it had been all through the trial — Lubock making objections, the judge sustaining them. And this was supposed to be a court of justice. The lady outside, weighing scales in her hand, must have been laughing in her stone throat. Only there was nothing funny about it.
Lubock grinned and sat down beside his client.
I looked at the defendant, and a white sheet of fury blazed through me. There was no doubt in my mind that he had murdered my chief. District Attorney Raynor, the one man I had worshiped and respected.
Judged by certain standards, Frank Hauser was a success. He had made and kept three fortunes, had done it over the sweat and toil and blood of a hundred men. Night clubs, clip joints, slot machines, numbers, protective societies — anything that paid big dividends.
He was a slender man, smooth and oily, cold and deadly as a rattlesnake. He sat there, smiling contemptuously, a stain on the community. Any time he pulled the strings, a couple of politicians danced.
And then, quite suddenly, two months ago, a reform ticket had placed Dan Raynor in the district attorney’s office. Dan Raynor was not for sale. Nobody had that kind of money. Alone, Raynor was not dangerous. But teamed with his special investigator, Tom Gahagan, they menaced the organization, the very existence of Hauser’s machine.
Gahagan was all cop. Ploddingly, meticulously, he’d piled up the evidence against Hauser, enough to send the man to the gallows, and some half dozen big shots with him.
So of course Raynor had to go. The evidence had to be blown out of the safe. And Gahagan — well, that was the question. Where was Gahagan? The only man who could tie Hauser to this rap.
At the bottom of the river? Bought off? Hiding? I didn’t know,
and it probably wouldn’t do much good if I did.
Because this was one murder case that was fixed. Good and tight. Hauser was going to go scot free.
The jurors had been bought and paid for. I’d known that since the second day of the trial. What’s more, Hauser was the man who’d hoisted Martin to the bench. And the judge was going to protect him even if he had to rewrite the rules of evidence. With Gahagan missing there wasn’t anything I could do.
What I really wanted though, was to get Gahagan up there on the witness stand. I wanted him to shout his testimony until the bailiffs dragged him from the chair. Sure, it wouldn’t hang Hauser, but the spectators would hear it, the reporters would hear it, and maybe the world would learn what was going on in this beautiful city of ours.
You see, Gahagan had been in the district attorney’s home that night Raynor was killed. He had been in another room, but at the sound of the shot he’d caught a fleeting glimpse of the car as it rocketed away down the street. He had recognized it as Hauser’s.
But — Gahagan — was — missing—
I clenched my fists. Fifty grand! A hundred grand! That kind of money was chicken feed to Hauser. But it might turn the head of even a man like Gahagan.
I know. It had been offered to me. I was still weak from temptation. But if I’d ever accepted a bribe from Raynor’s killer, it wouldn’t have been much fun living with myself.
The weapon that had smoked down Raynor had been tossed through the window of his study. It was an old Colt army automatic, millions of which had been manufactured, practically impossible to trace. It had already been introduced into evidence. I picked it up and showed it to the thin man on the witness stand.