Crime Stories

by Dashiell Hammett

  “What’s the pitch here,” I asked, after he had hung up the phone. “You grabbed the boy a bundle of blanks.”

  Action looked out the window and his ruddy face took on an even darker shade of red.

  “I didn’t pick any blanks,” he muttered, half to himself. “Things haven’t been breaking right for me lately and I’ve been dipping into the kid’s dough. As a matter of fact, I didn’t make any bets at all today.”

  “You mean,” I gasped, “you’re suckering the kid out of his dough?”

  “If not me, some other sonova bitch.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Action was not always as brutal as on this day. If he was doing well, he’d give the kid a fair shake. But somehow he didn’t make out too often and the kid suffered. A wide swath was cut in the kid’s roll but he never complained and he took it regularly on the chin. One day the apparently limitless wad began to thin out and the kid dropped the play.

  “Action,” he said, “I want your advice on a business venture.”

  “What kind of business, kid?”

  Vittorio blushed. “I know you’ll laugh at me but I’ll tell you anyway. I want to book small bets like laying ten to one against a guy hitting a homer in a particular game. Herb Roddes has been drawing a fat take with that pitch in my math class.”

  Action smiled gently, “It’s your dough, Vit, and your life. To show you I have no ill will towards you, call me tomorrow and I’ll feed you a bet.”

  The kid almost purred at Action’s gesture and floated out of the poolroom on an inflated cloud of if-money. He called Action at three the following afternoon, right after the ticker had announced a homer for J. DiMaggio.

  “At ten to one, Vit, I’ll put a deuce on J. DiMag to hit a homer today. Thank you kid and good luck.”

  The kid didn’t make out too well on his venture and went bust after the first day. Action took his twenty-dollar payoff and roughed the kid’s hair with his fingers.

  “You’re wasting your time, Vit, when you work with a small roll. You’ve got to begin fat or you just can’t make it.”

  The kid’s big black eyes had grown bigger and more desperate looking. His gestures had become quicker and reflected an overwrought inner tension that threatened to consume him.

  “I can get dough, Action,” he offered. “At least I can get stuff that’s worth dough. If I do, Action,” he pleaded, “would you hock it for me, old friend?”

  The old friend hocked the kid’s books and when the books began to run out, little items that came from the home. But tie clasps and confirmation rings don’t bring in much. The kid laid a big turnip of a gold watch on the table one evening. Action hefted it and gasped.

  “It’s a ton weight, Vit, for sure. It’ll bring in at least ten or fifteen for the gold alone.”

  “Not the gold, Action. Just hock it. I got to get it back later on. Get me fifteen for it and you can keep five.”

  The pawnbroker offered twenty on a loan and commented happily on the weight of the gold case. Action was upset over what he had to do but he did it. The Frammis-We-Pay-Highest-Prices-for-Old-Gold Company gave him forty bucks for the gold and tossed the unwanted works into a trash basket.

  The kid accepted his ten with delight and ran through it in a day. He was feverish when he left that evening and Action solicitously made him bundle up against the autumn winds. He phoned Action that night.

  “I just got to get the watch back tomorrow, Action. Something has come up and I just got to return it. Lend me fifteen bucks old pal and I’ll return it to you first chance I get.”

  “I ain’t even got the five you gave me,” muttered Action.

  “You don’t understand,” half screamed the kid, “I got to get it back. It ain’t a maybe situation anymore!”

  “Must or maybe, I ain’t got the dough.”

  “I’ll get it somehow and give it to you tomorrow so that you can get it back for me.”

  Action wrestled inside for a bit.

  “Did you hear me, old friend, I’ll get the dough to you somehow.”

  “No use, kid, the watch ain’t hocked. I sold the gold and the works were scrapped. There’s no way of ever getting it back.”

  The kid gasped. A sick despairing whine came wailing over the wire in a heartrending keen and the phone clicked off.

  Action didn’t show at the poolroom the next day, but it didn’t matter. Neither did the kid. In a few days, Action seemed to have forgotten that Vittorio had ever existed.

  I mentioned the kid to him a year or so later and he told the story of the watch. I sat down on the nearest curb and tried to hold down a cantankerous stomach. Action drew his cigar out of his mouth, slowly bubbled bolls of smoke in a gray, upward spiralling arch.

  “One thing bothers the hell out of me,” he said, “what in hell ever became of the kid?”

  DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

  Guy Wayne, American soldier of fortune, is instructor in the army of the tuchun, or military governor, of a western Chinese province, holding a colonel’s commission. With him are two white noncoms—Hank, a small, dried-up, heavily mustached, bowlegged oldish man, and Bingo Kelly, a big, slow-moving, good-natured husky.

  Early one evening while Wayne is lying with his head in the lap of the tuchun’s favorite wife, Hank climbs through the window to tell him a peeping servant has carried the news to the tuchun. Wayne tells the woman she will have to run away with them, but she has her own idea of how to take care of herself. She tears her clothes, disarranges her hair, and begins to scream rape. Hank wants to cut her throat, but Wayne, half-amused, says no. Hank throws her down on the floor, rolls her up in rug, and they stow her away, upside-down, out of sight. Wayne blows a kiss at her as he and Hank drop out the window.

  Strolling through the streets, returning the salutes of Chinese soldiers, apparently chatting casually, with only the side to side shifting of their eyes denoting watchfulness, they go to where Wayne has left his car. Wayne gets into the car while Hank goes off afoot. Wayne rides outside the town, to where Bingo is drilling a machine-gun detachment. After a low-voiced conversation between the two white men Bingo marches his detachment over a hill, out of sight of the town, and spreads them out facing the town, their guns tilted high in the air.

  By the time Bingo has his men placed, Hank appears around the hill, riding a horse, leading two saddled horses and a small pack train. Wayne nods to Bingo, who roars a command at his men. They begin firing, their bullets going high in the air over the hill and down on the sand between it and the town. Wayne and Bingo, slowly at first, then swiftly, move to join Hank, mount, and ride away without attracting the machine-gunners’ attention.

  When the tuchun’s men, hurrying from town in pursuit of Wayne, see the barrage the machine-gunners are laying down, they halt in confusion. The machine-gunners cannot of course see them over the hill. By the time officers have made a wide detour and have stopped the machine-gun fire, the three white men are far away and night is falling.

  For days Wayne and his companions travel northward through Mongolia, intent on reaching the Yenisei River and traveling down it to the Siberian Railroad. Their way lies through wild, windswept country; they have friendly encounters with native herdsmen, less friendly ones with roving bands of Chinese, Russian, Mongol horsemen, but Hank has brought along a couple of machine guns and plenty of ammunition, so they hold their own.

  At length they come to the outskirts of a fairly large town. They bury their machine guns and most of their ammunition before entering it. As they approach the town they are overtaken by a large limousine, which bears down upon them with screaming siren and no slackening of speed, compelling them to scramble off the narrow road. As the limousine goes past, Wayne catches a glimpse of a beautiful woman’s face looking haughtily out at him.

  In the town, they have no sooner found lodgings than they are taken before the local authorities to explain their presence. Hank, acting as spokesman and interpreter, tells a straight story of their leaving
the tuchun’s service, and the authorities apparently are satisfied. The three men are allowed to go back to their lodgings.

  There is a note brought to Wayne. Curtly worded, it summons him immediately to the house of a W. Ruric, by whom the note is signed. He resents the tone of the note, crumples it into a ball, tosses it into a corner of the room, and tells the messenger that is the only answer. Half an hour later the three men are arrested and thrown into a cell, where they spend the night. Hank, engaging one of their guards in conversation, learns that they have been arrested as deserters from the Chinese army and will probably be sent back to the tuchun.

  Late in the morning, the woman they saw in the limousine visits them. She is accompanied by a dandified man whom she introduces as Mr. Verner. Speaking unaccented English, she says she is Wanda Ruric, and asks Wayne why he did not answer her note. He explains that he thought it was from a man and resented its tone. She apologizes for the note’s curtness and explains what she wanted.

  She has some mining concessions in the interior, inherited from her father, and some months ago had sent a Dutch engineer with laborers to begin operating the mines. Since then she has heard nothing of them. The country in which the mines are located is wild and peopled by fanatic natives who might easily resent strangers’ presences there and refuse to recognize the authority of the government granting the concessions. She wants to know what happened to the engineer and his force. From what she has heard of Wayne and his companions she thinks them the men to find out for her. She will pay well. Will they take the job?

  Wayne says, “Sure,” but they are in jail and will probably be sent back to China. She assures them that is easily fixed, thanks them sweetly, and goes away. In a very few minutes the three men are released and go back to their lodgings. Wayne sends Hank out to learn what he can about Wanda Ruric.

  Meanwhile, in her luxurious residence, Wanda is listening to Verner, who is arguing that she is making a mistake in trusting the three adventurers. She replies that there is nothing else she can do, since she can find no natives able to do the job and he—Verner—is too definitely a city man, as well as too ignorant of Mongolia, to be of much use. Verner persists in his objections until finally she says: “All right, I’ll go too—to keep my eyes on them.” Verner protests, but she is stubborn, so he says then he will go too, to which she agrees.

  Hank returns to his companions with the information that Wanda Ruric inherited tremendous wealth from her father, a Russian engineer, and has been managing his various enterprises since his death; that she is through her wealth and influence practically the ruler of the town and surrounding country; and that Verner is a recent arrival from either London or New York, where he seems to have been her father’s financial representative.

  Wayne nods, says: “Uh-huh! I guessed that. When we didn’t pay any attention to her note she had us thrown in jail, and only let us out when we promised to be good and to do what she told us. Now we’ll go back to her and tell her what she can do with her job and let her throw us in the can again if she wants.” The others are dubious, but they follow Wayne back to the girl’s house.

  There, before they can speak, she tells them she and Verner are going with them. Hank and Bingo are all against this, but Wayne, still angry at the means she had used to make them accept her offer, and knowing how tough the expedition will be, sees in it a chance to pay her back, and agrees readily. The three adventurers leave and begin to prepare their caravan, which will now be quite a large one, since Wanda must take along a maid and all sorts of things.

  Verner leaves Wanda’s house furtively and, speaking the native language with evident familiarity, sends some thugs he can depend on to join the expedition. Wayne and his companions, confident of their ability to handle men, are willing to hire any who seem tough and experienced enough, so Verner succeeds in packing the caravan fairly well with his own men.

  The expedition gets under way. Hank and Bingo complain about its size and the slowness with which they travel, but Wayne seems content. The first night out, after they have pitched camp, he makes a play for Wanda, in a very casual and off-hand way. She repulses him haughtily, reminding him that he must keep his place as hired man. He shrugs indifferently and transfers his attention to her maid, with whom he has better luck until Wanda angrily separates them.

  As they get into wilder country things begin to go wrong. Pack animals—assisted by Verner’s crew—die, stray off, stampede, and are only recovered after hours’ work. Hank, who knows something of the country, tells the others he thinks the guides are leading them astray. There are fights between Verner’s men and the other natives in the caravan, and the others are driven into deserting. The country becomes wilder and wilder, the natives they encounter more and more hostile, often stirred up by Verner or his messengers. Verner conceals from Wanda and the three adventurers his intimacy with the country through which they are passing and sticks to his city-man-in-the-wilderness role.

  The three ex-soldiers have continual trouble with their men, can keep their guides on the right route only by constant threats, and have to take turns standing guard at night. One night Bingo discovers Verner in friendly conversation—in the native tongue—with the unfriendly lama of a temple near which they are camping. Before he can tell the others, Verner has him killed, then sending away the last of their guides.

  They go on. Wayne continues to play with the maid to infuriate Wanda. She tries to even things up by making a play for Verner, but quickly stops him when he gets too enthusiastic in private. Verner knows then that she is falling for Wayne. There is growing antagonism between him and Wayne, and between her and Wayne. Wayne pretends serene indifference to this, as to the rest of their troubles.

  Few pack animals remain now, but Wayne insists that no matter what else is discarded, they must hang on to their machine guns and ammunition. He throws out most of Wanda’s luggage, cuts Verner short when he protests. She is too proud to protest, too hell-bent on not letting him see how hard the journey is for her, and insists on leaving her maid behind in one of the villages they pass.

  They come at length—travel-worn and bedraggled—to Wanda’s mine and see that it is being worked. White men appear—not Wanda’s engineer. Before Wayne can stop her, she rides up to the men and haughtily asks them what they are doing on her property. Verner rides after her, and then Wayne and Hank—some distance behind, since they had dismounted to set up their machine guns—but none succeeds in heading her off. When the men at the mine see Verner, one of them calls him a double-crossing so-and-so, and shoots him down. A battle starts. Wayne succeeds in getting the girl back, though Hank is shot while covering their retreat. Hank and Wayne set up their guns and finally clear out the mine, though Hank dies as soon as the battle is won. Wayne’s remaining men have fled, as have all the enemy. He and Wanda are alone. He blames her for Hank’s death, telling her if she had let them get their guns placed before stirring up the enemy they need have suffered no casualties. She breaks down, goes completely to pieces. Wayne relents then and soothes her tenderly.

  They remain at the mine several days, recovering their strength. Then they begin the homeward journey, carrying as much provisions as they can, since there are no pack animals—theirs fled or were ridden away during the battle—and automobiles—of which there are several—are useless in the country through which they must pass. In spite of the hardships encountered, both find the return trip quite endurable, since they are now admittedly in love with each other. Presently they reach a village where they can buy horses and further provisions, and finish their journey without more trouble.

  Home, the girl resumes the management of her business affairs; her lost haughtiness, imperiousness, begins to return. She and Wayne quarrel. He says this life isn’t for him—he’s going to run along and catch that Siberian train for Moscow and America. She angrily tells him to go if he wants, that he’ll always be a tramp, etc., etc. He goes.

  Next morning she comes to him—contrite—while he is lo
ading his pack animals, begs him to stay. He says no; her life isn’t his; she was swell when they were tramping, but he can’t stand her manner when she is in her normal setting. She says all right, she’ll go with him, tramping, just as she is. He looks quizzically at her, nods, saddles a mount for her. She gets on it and they head north. They ride along in silence a little while, he phlegmatic, she defiant, determined, then gradually begin to talk, recovering their former relationship. Presently, riding side by side, he puts an arm around her, kisses her. Their horses halt. He rubs his chin, looks back towards the town, looks sharply at her, grins, says: “Well, after all, if you’d promise honestly to behave—to stop being the Queen of Sheba—maybe we would be more comfortable back there.” She laughs and promises. They turn and go back.

  FRAGMENTS OF JUSTICE

  I

  When his stiffening legs began to propel the lawnmower so waveringly that the lawns were often irregularly marked by thin curving lines of unclipped grass—like raw recruits in their first “company front”—and the hedges often went untrimmed for days while he waited for weather favorable to the wrapping of his fingers around the handle of the pruning-shears, the Park Board pensioned Tim Gurley. His pension was just large enough to pay for meals and a bed at a very modest boarding-house, with a little left over for tobacco. Some day he would need clothes, but not many, and not for some months. His failing sight and hearing obviated the necessity of any expenditures for amusements.

  Within a week Tim Gurley had settled into the habits of his new life. He would get out of bed at six or six-thirty in the morning, and putter around his room until seven-thirty, when breakfast was ready. After the meal he would leave the house for the public square—two blocks away—that had been his charge until now. There, he would sit on a bench—preferably one facing the sun; or, on very warm days, he would sit on the grass itself—sometimes talking to other old men who were almost indistinguishable from him both in appearance and history, but more often sitting silent and alone, neither wholly awake nor wholly asleep. On cool days he would leave the square for the ledge that ran around the Public Library, where he could sit on the sunny side, with the broad building behind him fending off the wind. When it rained, he stayed at home.