“Is that a nice way to talk?” protested the dealer. “I've been doing business here for many years and my prices are fair. Why, I could name you...”
“Never mind naming anything. I'm not going to take an oriental jazzing from you or anyone else.”
“And don't start telling us how you started in somebody's backyard,” chipped in Vera.
“We're not interested. You second-hand car dealers are all alike. You sit in your shacks with your fingers crossed, waiting for a sucker to come along.” She paused and ran a hand over a fender, admiring the paint-job. “You can have the car for $825. Take it or leave it.”
I gave her the high-sign to keep out of it. “$775 and its yours. But not a cent less.”
Than came the haggling. The dealer came up to $700, Vera came down to $790 and I began plugging seven and a half. We deadlocked there.
“Before I let it go for seven hundred, I'll wreck it and collect the insurance,” stormed my sweet little wife.
The man got sore at that, and I can't say I blame him. “All right, forget it. I don't do business that way.”
“Suit's me! Come on. Let's get out of this clip-joint.” I let her lead me away a little. She was very upset and began to cough. I had to take her into the office for a drink of water. When she came out of the spell, she was white as a sheet. “Look, Vera,” I said. “Take it easy. You're going to gum the works. Let me handle this thing alone and I'll chisel every dollar possible. Sit down here and read the newspaper. If we go away now we'll only have to try some other guy.”
Vera was very angry but she realized I was right. She told me in no uncertain terms what the dealer could take for himself and snatched up the newspaper. I stayed with her for a minute before going back.
“Your wife has quite a temper,” observed the dealer.
“Yeah well to get down to business, you know damned well that car books for plenty. I'm no greenhorn. I want at least $750.”
“Seven is tops, Mr. Haskell. My mechanic says she's pumping oil. Needs rings too, a valve job, a new head gasket and a general tune-up. That costs dough.”
“But you've got a honey of a radio in there. Don't forget that.”
“I'll give you $700.”
“$740.”
“$700.”
We argued about thirty minutes longer, me building up, he tearing down. We went over every detail of the bus from stem to stern. I made him get down on his hands and knees to inspect the new rubber; I slapped him in the face with the special spot and foglights; I switched on the radio; I made him feel the swell leather upholstery; and before I got done I had the guy believing the buggy was a Rolls. When we were both completely worn out, we hit a compromise—his price, $700. We shook hands and he was just pulling out his blanks for the Motor Vehicle Department when Vera came out of the office.
“No sale,” she said. “I've changed my mind.”
“What!”
“I've decide we'd better keep the car, “she smiled. Come along, Charlie. I'll explain it to you later.”
Disgust showed all over the dealer's face. “Well, I'll be...” he began.
The smile faded from Vera's eyes and they hardened into that flinty glaze I had learn to fear. “Shut your mouth,” she snapped at him. “I guess I can keep my own car if I want to.”
“But Vera,” I protested, “what the...?”
“You shut up, too. Come on.”
I went along with her, not daring to cross her. That would have been a sucker play. God knows what she might let slip if we battled it out in public.
Driving home she sat quietly, refusing to answer my questions. However, when we arrived at the apartment, she showed me the newspaper she had been reading while I fought it out for second place with the dealer. A certain article provided interesting reading, especially since it was about me.
MAN'S BODY FOUND IN DITCH NEAR LOCKHART BY TELEPHONE LINESMEN
Police Suspect Foul Play
August 17th (AP) Yuma. Police here reported today the discovery of the body of a young man in a ravine bordering U.S. 70, approximately seven miles west of Lockhart Arizona. Telephone linesmen Paul Oak and G. Travell, who were repairing in the vicinity, were attracted to the remains by the abundance of buzzards continually alighting in the one spot. Descending the pole upon which they were perched, they made their way to the bottom of the ditch and stumbled over the remains, half covered with brush.
Calling the nearest State Police barracks, the linesmen then stood guard over the body until the authorities arrived from town. The body was that of a man of thirty to thirty-five, shabbily dressed. Marks on his forehead led the police to suspect he had been clubbed to death, or perhaps hurled from a speeding automobile.
Identification, the investigators admit, will be difficult, due to the condition of the body. However, near the corpse searchers found a suit-case containing a soiled change of clothing and papers identifying the owner as one Alexander Roth. Police are busy checking this for possible clues.
No valuables were found. This is the fourth case of apparent homicide to be unsolved in the neighborhood, which is a desolate expanse of uninhabited wilderness and {Continued on page 32)
I tightened up as I continued to read. I wasn't accustomed to seeing my name in the paper. While the article was in the second section and squeezed in among a lot of cooking recipes, I had the feeling that now I was a public figure—too damned public to suit me.
I wondered if any of my old friends back in New York were reading about me and maybe saying what a shame it was I died so young.
And Sue... Holy Smokes! If Sue ran across that piece she would think I'd been murdered, too! I had to see her soon and let her know it was all a mistake. It would be cruel not to.
“Well,” I said, looking up at Vera after I finishing the article for the third time. “I still don't savvy why you changed you mind about selling car. Seven hundred bucks is seven hundred bucks.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied, lighting a cigarette and smiling one of her poisonous smiles. “But seven million bucks, that's something else.”
“Seven million!”
“Right the first time. Six naughts.”
Was I right about her being wacky? Seven million dollars.
“Lady,” I said, “maybe you've got the wrong idea. You own a Buick, not the factory. ”
“Just turn the page.”
I stared at her blankly.
“Go on. Turn it.”
I did as she asked and instantly I knew what was up. The next page was the Society News, and while the printing was no larger than in the rest of the paper, the name Haskell leaped out and hit me between the eyes.
HASKELL NEAR DEATH
MILLIONAIRE EXPORTER IN CEDARS OF LEBANON, VICTIM OF PNEUMONIA
August 9th. Charles J. Haskell, noted sports enthusiast and president of the Wilmington and San Pedro Exports, Inc., lies close to death after a three weeks siege of bronchial pneumonia. Doctors have little hope of recovery...
I didn't have to read any more.
“I won't do it,” I said.
“You will!”
“Damned if I will. Think I'm crazy?”
“You'll do it, all right.”
“It's impossible, I tell you. No one could get away with an act like that. They'd be wise to me in a minute.”
“Don't be yellow. You look enough like him. No kidding, you almost had me fooled for a while.”
“Oh, Vera. Don't you think a father would know his own son? And there must be other relatives—the girl for instance. She'd find out.”
“The father won't have to know you. We'll wait until he gives up the ghost. He's an old geezer. He won't pull through. And as far as the girl's concerned: she hasn't seen you in fifteen years or more. She couldn't have been older than eight or nine when you left. Now look, it's not as tough as it sounds. You've got all kinds of identification—the car, letters, his licenses...”
“I couldn't get away with it.”
“The
old boy has scads of dough. Look in the paper, here. Personal fortune assessed at over fifteen million! He'll leave plenty, I tell you.”
“He may have cut off his son. How do we know? Nope, it's out, Vera. I won't have anything to do with it.”
Seeing how determined I was, she began to play upon my sympathy. She told me all about herself and her past, little incidents that were touching, if they were true: how all her life she had been given the dirty end of the stick; how she had to slave for whatever she received, and how she had always been pushed around like an animal. Then, to top it off, an M.D. had pronounced her death sentence.
“Why do you think I was heading out west for?” she asked bitterly. “Because I want to break into movies and become Gertie Glamour? I'll tell you why, if you want to know. I'm out here for my health, that's why. The sawbones in Kansas City said I wouldn't last a year if I didn't get out to the right kind of climate. And even if I did, he said he couldn't promise much. Yes, that's right. My lungs. They're like Swiss cheese.”
“Gee, that's too bad, Vera.”
“Oh, I'm not crying about it. But you can bet your life I'm going to live before I croak. I'm going to have all those things they dangle before you in the movies, diamonds and fur coats and breakfasts in bed. I'm going to be just as stuck-up as the rest of them.”
“But—”
“No, don't interrupt me, Roth. For the first time in my life I see a clear way to the big money; and you're going to help me, like it or not. I'm going to ride down Broadway in a Duesenberg, then across to East 100th Street. That's where I was born, Roth. Ever been over in that section? It's tough as hell there. A stranger takes a chance of getting his block knocked off if he walks through there at night. Well, there's a tenement on that street that I'm going to buy, see? I'm going to pay cash for it and put the landlord out on his heine, the way he put my mother out on hers. I'm going to...”
I let her rave on but her spiel didn't move me a bit. The more I considered her idea, the more ridiculous and impossible it looked. The chances seemed to grow longer, like Jack's beanstalk. Besides, there was Sue to think about. She was the soul of honesty, and even if I did get away with it, I'd be all washed up with her.
“I'm sorry, Vera. I'll do anything within reason. But not that. So forget it—or get yourself another stooge.”
“You sap!” she yelled at me. “You'll be fixed for life as Charles Haskell. You can take your inheritance and go away. No more worrying about the rent. No more sweating and scheming and chiseling and wondering where your next meal's coming from. Think of that, Roth. ”
“I can earn my own living.”
“Living? Do you call what you're doing living?”
I resented that remark. I wanted to tell her what a fine musician I was, how once I had brought down a high-school auditorium with a Brahms Concerto. I controlled myself, though. She'd never believe it. She'd only give me the horse-laugh.
“I get along,” I said sullenly.
“I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll even split fifty-fifty with you.” Darned big of her! She said that last as if she was making some big sacrifice. Sure. She was. The sacrifice was me. It wouldn't be any skin off her back if I was caught pulling the stunt. God bless her generosity—but nuts. “No. And that's final.”
“We'll wait until we read that the old man's dead. Then you show up—as if you read in New York that he was sick.”
“What if he doesn't die?” I didn't really care whether he died or not—because nothing she could say or do would make me go into a thing like that—but I was trying to punch holes in her brainstorm.
“He's sure to die. I know he will. Something tells me.” Something told me, too. Those Haskells were always dying at the wrong time.
But as much as I insisted I was not going to have any part of it, Vera was taking it for granted I would. She didn't talk a great deal about it after her one outbreak, but I could tell her mind was not on her cards when we played casino that afternoon. She missed lots of moves and I beat her easily. Not only that, I noticed that she kept looking at Haskell's watch every few minutes. I was aware that she was just trying to kill time between newspaper editions.
As for myself, I was doing plenty of heavy thinking, too. I knew Vera well enough by this time to realize she was one of the most stubborn mules in the world. If she thought an idea was good, she'd try it at any cost.
That meant I would have to prove to her it was screwy... and it wouldn't be easy. That it was dangerous and almost certain to end in disaster wouldn't bother her much. All she had to lose was me.
“Vera,” I pleaded, “don't you realize if I'm caught they'll want to know where I got the car and stuff? Then they'd have me on a murder rap.”
“If you're smart, you won't get caught.”
I hadn't counted much on that angle, so I tried another.
“And if I am, don't you realize you'll be out, too?”
She seemed more interested in that. She looked up from her hand immediately. “How will I be out?”
The bitch. I could get caught and hanged for all she cared. But let her drop a dollar and it was a catastrophe. “You'll be out the seven hundred we could have grossed on the car.”
She didn't say anything to that for a second and I began to hope. A slight frown and narrowed eyes made it clear that this bit of it had not occurred to her before. “Really, Vera,” I went on, “you'd be an awful chump to throw away all that dough on a dizzy long-shot. Let me sell the Buick tomorrow. With the money it'll bring, and with what you've already got, a clever kid like you can run it up in no time. Then we'd both be in the clear.”
“I'd be in the clear anyway.”
“Maybe, maybe. If I got caught I'd be good and sore at you, you know.”
You mean you'd squeal?” I saw her eyes begin to blaze and I knew I'd put my foot into it. “No, not squeal, exactly. I meant..”
“Never mind what you meant. Even if you did tell the cops I was in it with you, what could they do to me? They might give me the same medicine they'd give you but I'm on the way anyhow. All they would be doing would be hastening it.”
“All right. But think of the seven hundred you might lose. You'd kick yourself around the block if it got away from you.”
She paused a moment before speaking. There was a little war going on inside her. Should she pocket her winnings or parley? “I'll take the chance,” she said.
I shrugged, as if her decision made no difference to me. I didn't want to let her know that behind my mask I was furious. I felt like clipping her one and when she was on the floor taking that skinny neck in my hands and throttling her. “You're being foolish,” I remarked, keeping my voice even. “That's how people wind up behind the eight-ball. Once they get a few dollars they become greedy and want more.”
No reply to this.
“Caesar—you know, that Roman general—got his for being greedy. He wasn't satisfied and the final wind-up was he took the count.”
Still no answer. I might as well have been talking to a stone wall. But it was a good sign, I thought. Maybe what I was telling her was sinking in (I hoped).
“A couple of days ago you didn't have a dime. Why, you were so broke you couldn't have gotten into a pay-toilet. Now you've got over seven hundred bucks with seven hundred more in the offing. Take my advice and don't try for more.”
Vera's answer to that was a disgusted groan. She threw down her cards. “I'm tired of this game. Let's play Fantan.” Realizing now that she hadn't even been listening to me, I burned and got up. “Play solitaire,” I growled.
“O.K., if that's the way you feel about it.”
“That's the way I feel about it.” I flopped on the couch, yanked one of the pillows away and threw it into a far corner. It came close to knocking a picture off the wall.
“Getting sore and throwing things won't help, Roth. For Heaven's sake, I'm really doing you a favor. I help you out of a jam by keeping my mouth shut, I show you how to make yourself some soft money, and wh
at thanks do I get?”
“Thanks?”
“Sure. Would you rather I call the cops and tell them you killed a man and stole his money?”
“I didn't kill anybody!”
“You did.”
“I didn't, God damn it, and you know it!”
“All right, then. Suppose I call the police? If you're innocent, what have you got to be scared of?”
“Call them, you bitch! Go ahead, call them! See if I care. At least they'll give me a square deal!”
“You want me to call them?”
“You heard me. But I'm warning you. If I'm pinched, I'll swear you were in on it! I'll say you helped me! If I burn for it, I'll get even with you!”
“You wouldn't dare.”
“No? Then try it and see. Call them.” All this was about half an hour before she died and the conversation, while not particularly cool, was at least pitched low. However, as the minutes passed, and more obstacles to the plan popped into my head, the air got blue. Each word coming from our lips snapped like a whip.
I reminded her that as Charles Haskell I didn't even know my mother's name, whether Dolores' birthday was in September or May, where I had attended school, the name of my best friend, whether I had an Aunt Emma or not, if I had ever owned a dog, my religious denomination, or even what the “J” in my name stood for. I also pointed out that the original Haskell bore a scar on his wrist.
“His people never saw that scar,” retorted Vera. “He told me he ran away right after putting out the kid's eye.”
“Yes,” I agreed heatedly, “but his father knew he was cut. There would have to be something on the wrist to show.”
“So what? The old man's dead—or will be, I hope, by tomorrow morning's paper. Anyway, you could cut yourself a little, couldn't you? Christ, for seven million I'd let you cut my leg off.”
“No. Turn me in, if you want, but I won't get mixed up in it. Besides, Haskell was a hop head. Maybe he wasn't the man's son at all. Maybe he dreamed all this, for all we know.”
“Well, dream it or not, you won't be dreaming when the law lay hands on you. They've got a cute gas-chamber waiting for you, Roth—and extradition to Arizona is a cinch...”
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