She nodded. “And I’d like to ask you some.” She looked at her companion. “If Mrs. Crowder will—”
“Call her Hotcha,” I said. “We’re all among friends. Sure, she’ll come along, too.”
The Randall woman said, “Aren’t you the cut-up?” and took my arm.
In my office I gave them chairs and said, “Before I ask you anything I want to tell you something. Furman didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered.”
Ethel Furman opened her eyes wide. “Murdered?”
Hotcha Randall said, as if she had had the words on the tip of her tongue right along, “We’ve got alibis. We were in New York. We can prove it.”
“You’re likely to get a chance to, too,” I told her. “How’d you people happen to come down here?”
Ethel Furman repeated, “Murdered?” in a dazed tone.
The Randall woman said, “Who’s got a better right to come down here? She was still his wife, wasn’t she? She’s entitled to some of his estate, isn’t she? She’s got a right to look out for her own interests, hasn’t she?”
That reminded me of something. I picked up the telephone and told Hammill to have somebody get hold of the lawyer Wheelock—he had stayed over for the inquest, of course—before he left town, and tell him I wanted to see him. “And is Wally around?”
“He’s not here. He said you told him to keep out of sight. I’ll find him, though.”
“Right. Tell him I want him to go to New York to-night. Send Mason home to get some sleep. He’ll have to take over Wally’s night trick.”
Hammill said, “Oke,” and I turned back to my guests.
Ethel Furman had come out of her daze. She leaned forward and asked, “Mr. Anderson, do you think I had—had anything to do with Lester’s—with his death?”
“I don’t know. I know he was killed. I know he left you something like half a million.”
The Randall woman whistled softly. She came over and put a diamond-ringed hand on my shoulder. “Dollars?”
When I nodded, the delight went out of her face, leaving it serious. “All right, Chief,” she said, “now don’t be a clown. The kid didn’t have a thing to do with whatever you think happened. We read about him committing suicide in yesterday morning’s paper, and about there being something funny about it, and I persuaded her to come down and—”
Ethel Furman interrupted her friend. “Mr. Anderson, I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Lester. I left him because I wanted to leave him, but I wouldn’t have done anything to him for money or anything else. Why, if I’d wanted money from him all I’d’ve had to do would’ve been to ask him. Why, he used to put ads in papers telling me if I wanted anything to let him know, but I never did. You can—his lawyer—anybody who knew anything about it can tell you that.”
The Randall woman took up the story. “That’s the truth, Chief. I’ve been telling her she was a chump not to tap him, but she never would. I had a hard enough time getting her to come for her share now he’s dead and got nobody else to leave it to.”
Ethel Furman said, “I wouldn’t’ve hurt him.”
“Why’d you leave him?”
She moved her shoulders. “I don’t know how to say it. The way we lived wasn’t the way I wanted to live. I wanted—I don’t know what. Anyway, after the baby died I couldn’t stand it any more and cleared out, but I didn’t want anything from him and I wouldn’t’ve hurt him. He was always good to me.
I was—I was the one that was wrong.”
The telephone rang. Hammill’s voice. “I found both of ’em. Wally’s home. I told him. The old guy Wheelock is on his way over.”
I dug out the phony reward circular and showed it to Ethel Furman. “This is what got him into the can. Did you ever see that picture before?” She started to say “No,” then a frightened look came into her face. “Why, that’s—it can’t be. It’s—it’s a snapshot I had—have. It’s an enlargement of it.”
“Who else has one?”
Her face became more frightened, but she said, “Nobody that I know of.
I don’t think anybody else could have one.”
“You’ve still got yours?”
“Yes. I don’t remember whether I’ve seen it recently—it’s with some old papers and things—but I must have it.”
I said, “Well, Mrs. Furman, it’s stuff like that that’s got to be checked up, and neither of us can dodge it. Now there are two ways we can play it. I can hold you here on suspicion till I’ve had time to check things up, or I can send one of my men back to New York with you for the check-up. I’m willing to do that if you’ll speed things up by helping him all you can and if you’ll promise me you won’t try any tricks.”
“I promise,” she said. “I’m as anxious as you are to—”
“All right. How’d you come down?”
“I drove,” the Randall woman said. “That’s my car, the big green one across the street.”
“Fine. Then he can ride back with you, but no funny business.”
The telephone rang again while they were assuring me there would be no funny business. Hammill said, “Wheelock’s here.”
“Send him in.”
The lawyer’s asthma nearly strangled him when he saw Ethel Furman. Before he could get himself straightened out I asked, “This is really Mrs. Furman?”
He wagged his head up and down, still wheezing.
“Fine,” I said. “Wait for me. I’ll be back in a little while.” I herded the two women out and across the street to the green car. “Straight up to the end of the street and then two blocks left,” I told the Randall woman, who was at the wheel.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To see Shane, the man who’s going to New York with you.”
Mrs. Dober, Wally’s landlady, opened the door for us.
“Wally in?” I asked.
“Yes, indeedy, Mr. Anderson. Go right on up.” She was staring with wide-eyed curiosity at my companions while talking to me.
We went up a flight of stairs and I knocked on his door.
“Who is it?” he called.
“Scott.”
“Come on in.”
I pushed the door open and stepped aside to let the women in.
Ethel Furman gasped, “Harry,” and stepped back.
Wally had a hand behind him, but my gun was already out in my hand. “I guess you win,” he said.
I said I guessed I did and we all went back to headquarters.
“I’m a sap,” he complained when he and I were alone in my office. “I knew it was all up as soon as I saw those two dames going into Fritz’s. Then, when I was ducking out of sight and ran into you, I was afraid you’d take me over with you, so I had to tell you one of ’em knew me, figuring you’d want to keep me under cover for a little while anyhow—long enough for me to get out of town. And then I didn’t have sense enough to go.
“I drop in home to pick up a couple of things before I scram and that call of Hammill’s catches me and I fall for it plenty. I figure I’m getting a break. I figure you’re not on yet and are going to send me back to New York as the Detroit hood again to see what dope I can get out of these folks, and I’ll be sitting pretty. Well, you fooled me, brother, or didn’t—Listen, Scott, you didn’t just stumble into that accidentally, did you?”
“No. Furman had to be murdered by a copper. A copper was most likely to know reward circulars well enough to make a good job of forging one. Who printed that for you?”
“Go on with your story,” he said. “I’m not dragging anybody in with me. It was only a poor mug of a printer that needed dough.”
“Okay. Only a copper would be sure enough of the routine to know how things would be handled. Only a copper—one of my coppers—would be able to walk into his cell, bang him across the head, and string him up on the—Those bruises showed.”
“They did? I wrapped the blackjack in a towel, figuring it would knock him out without leaving a mark anybody’d find under the hair. I se
em to’ve slipped up a lot.”
“So that narrows it down to my coppers,” I went on, “and—well—you told me you knew the Randall woman, and there it was, only I figured you were working with them. What got you into this?”
He made a sour mouth. “What gets most saps in jams? A yen for easy dough. I’m in New York, see, working on that Dutton job for you, palling around with gamblers, and racketeers, passing for one of them; and I get to figuring that here my work takes as much brains as theirs, and is as tough and dangerous as theirs, but they’re taking in big money and I’m working for coffee and doughnuts. That kind of stuff gets you.
“Then I run into this Ethel and she goes for me like a house afire. I like her, too, so that’s dandy; but one night she tells me about this husband of hers and how much dough he’s got and how nuts he is about her and how he’s still trying to find her, and I get to thinking. I think she’s nuts enough about me to marry me. I still think she’d marry me if she didn’t know I killed him. Divorcing him’s no good, because the chances are she wouldn’t take any money from him and, anyway, it would only be part. So I got to thinking about suppose he died and left her the roll.
“That was more like it. I ran down to Philly a couple of afternoons and looked him up and everything looked fine. He didn’t even have anybody else close enough to leave more than a little of his dough to. So I did it. Not right away; I took my time working out the details, meanwhile writing to her through a fellow in Detroit.
“And then I did it. I sent those circulars out—to a lot of places—not wanting to point too much at this one. And when I was ready I phoned him, telling him if he’d come to the Deerwood Hotel that night, some time between then and the next night, he’d hear from Ethel. And, like I thought, he’d’ve fallen for any trap that was baited with her. You picking him up at the station was a break. If you hadn’t, I’d’ve had to discover he was registered at the hotel that night. Anyway, I’d’ve killed him and pretty soon I’d’ve started drinking or something, and you’d’ve fired me and I’d’ve gone off and married Ethel and her half-million under my Detroit name.” He made the sour mouth again. “Only I guess I’m not as sharp as I thought.”
“Maybe you are,” I said, “but that doesn’t always help. Old man Kamsley, Ben’s father, used to have a saying, ‘To a sharp knife comes a tough steak.’ I’m sorry you did it, Wally. I always liked you.”
He smiled wearily. “I know you did,” he said. “I was counting on that.”
HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER
I knew what a lot of people said about Loney but he was always swell to me. Ever since I remember he was swell to me and I guess I would have liked him just as much even if he had been just somebody else instead of my brother; but I was glad he was not just somebody else.
He was not like me. He was slim and would have looked swell in any kind of clothes you put on him, only he always dressed classy and looked like he had stepped right out of the bandbox even when he was just loafing around the house, and he had slick hair and the whitest teeth you ever saw and long, thin, clean-looking fingers. He looked like the way I remembered my father, only better-looking. I took more after Ma’s folks, the Malones, which was funny because Loney was the one that was named after them. Malone Bolan. He was smart as they make them, too. It was no use trying to put anything over on him and maybe that was what some people had against him, only that was kind of hard to fit in with Pete Gonzalez.
Pete Gonzalez not liking Loney used to bother me sometimes because he was a swell guy, too, and he was never trying to put anything over on anybody. He had two fighters and a wrestler named Kilchak and he always sent them in to do the best they could, just like Loney sent me in. He was the topnotch manager in our part of the country and a lot of people said there was no better anywhere, so I felt pretty good about him wanting to handle me, even if I did say no.
It was in the hall leaving Tubby White’s gym that I ran into him that afternoon and he said, “Hello, Kid, how’s it?” moving his cigar further over in a corner of his mouth so he could talk.
“Hello. All right.”
He looked me up and down, squinting on account of the smoke from his cigar. “Going to take this guy Saturday?”
“I guess so.”
He looked me up and down again like he was weighing me in. His eyes were little enough anyhow and when he squinted like that you could hardly see them at all. “How old are you, Kid?”
“Going on nineteen.”
“And you’ll weigh about a hundred and sixty,” he said.
“Sixty-seven and a half. I’m growing pretty fast.”
“Ever see this guy you’re fighting Saturday?”
“No.”
“He’s plenty tough.”
I grinned and said, “I guess he is.”
“And plenty smart.”
I said, “I guess he is,” again.
He took his cigar out of his mouth and scowled at me and said like he was sore at me, “You know you got no business in the ring with him, don’t you?” Before I could think up anything to say he stuck the cigar back in his mouth and his face and his voice changed. “Why don’t you let me handle you, Kid? You got the stuff. I’ll handle you right, build you up, not use you up, and you’ll be good for a long trip.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I said. “Loney taught me all I know and—”
“Taught you what?” Pete snarled. He looked mad again. “If you think you been taught anything at all you just take a look at your mug in the next looking-glass you come across.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and spit out a piece of tobacco that had come loose. “Only eighteen years old and ain’t been fighting a year and look at the mug on him!”
I felt myself blushing. I guess I was never any beauty but, like Pete said, I had been hit in the face a lot and I guess my face showed it. I said, “Well, of course, I’m not a boxer.”
“And that’s the God’s truth,” Pete said. “And why ain’t you?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s just not my way of fighting.”
“You could learn. You’re fast and you ain’t dumb. What’s this stuff getting you? Every week Loney sends you in against some guy you’re not ready for yet and you soak up a lot of fists and—”
“I win, don’t I?” I said.
“Sure you win—so far—because you’re young and tough and got the moxie and can hit, but I wouldn’t want to pay for winning what you’re paying, and I wouldn’t want any of my boys to. I seen kids—maybe “some of them as promising as you—go along the way you’re going, and I seen what was left of them a couple years later. Take my word for it, Kid, you’ll do better than that with me.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, “and I’m grateful to you and all that, but I couldn’t leave Loney. He—”
“I’ll give Loney a piece of change for your contract, even if you ain’t got one with him.”
“No, I’m sorry, I—I couldn’t.”
Pete started to say something and stopped and his face began to get red. The door of Tubby’s office had opened and Loney was coming out. Loney’s face was white and you could hardly see his lips because they were so tight together, so I knew he had heard us talking.
He walked up close to Pete, not even looking at me once, and said, “You chiseling dago rat.”
Pete said, “I only told him what I told you when I made you the offer last week.”
Loney said, “Swell. So now you’ve told everybody. So now you can tell ‘em about this.” He smacked Pete across the mouth with the back of his hand.
I moved over a little because Pete was a lot bigger than Loney, but Pete just said, “O. K., pal, maybe you won’t live forever. Maybe you won’t live forever even if Big Jake don’t never get hep to the missus.”
Loney swung at him with a fist this time but Pete was backing away down the hall and Loney missed him by about a foot and a half, and when Loney started after him Pete turned and ran toward the gym.
Loney came back to me g
rinning and not looking mad any more. He could change that way quicker than anybody you ever saw. He put an arm around my shoulders and said, “The chiseling dago rat. Let’s blow.” Outside he turned me around to look at the sign advertising the fights. “There you are, Kid. I don’t blame him for wanting you. There’ll be a lot of ‘em wanting you before you’re through.”
It did look swell, Kid Eolan vs. Sailor Perelman, in red letters that were bigger than any of the other names and up at the top of the card. That was the first time I ever had had my name at the top. I thought, I’m going to have it there like that all the time now and maybe in New York sometime, but I just grinned at Loney without saying anything and we went on home.
Ma was away visiting my married sister in Pittsburgh and we had a nigger woman named Susan taking care of the house for us and after she washed up the supper dishes and went home Loney went to the telephone and I could hear him talking low. I wanted to say something to him when he came back but I was afraid I would say the wrong thing because Loney might think I Was trying to butt into his business, and before I could find a safe way to start the doorbell rang.
Loney went to the door. It was Mrs. Schiff, like I had a hunch it would be, because she had come over the first night Ma was away.
She came in laughing, with Loney’s arm around her waist, and said, “Hello, Champ,” to me.
I said, “Hello,” and shook hands with her.
I liked her, I guess, but I guess I was kind of afraid of her. I mean not only afraid of her on Loney’s account but in a different way. You know, like sometimes when you were a kid and you found yourself all alone in a strange neighborhood on the other side of town. There was nothing you could see to be downright afraid of but you kept halfway expecting something. It was something like that. She was awful pretty but there was something kind of wild-looking about her. I don’t mean wild-looking like some floozies you see; I mean almost like an animal, like she was always on the watch for something. It was like she was hungry. I mean just her eyes and maybe her mouth because you could not call her skinny or anything or fat either.
Crime Stories Page 101