And Now the News

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “No prints—only Maggie Athenson’s,” said Brophy for the fifteenth time. “No gun. No yellow Caddy. And just like you said—a will in Cassidy’s favor, and papers showing a business deal that Cassidy could have engineered to fail, putting Maggie in debt for almost what the insurance was worth. No proof of anything anywhere. It all points to Cassidy, and you—”

  “I’m his alibi,” said Howell sleepily. “I know. I’m absolutely certain that he was on his way to knock her off when I met him in the store. Damn it, she was talking on the phone. He got the busy signal and then I did. She’d only been dead a few minutes when we got there, which means she must’ve been killed while I was talking to Cassidy in the store. The only thing I can think of is that someone just rubbed her out to do Cassidy a favor.”

  “He hired the killer.”

  “He did not. Not Careful Cassidy. Listen, Brophy, I know that apple. I know how he thinks. If he was going to do a job like that—and he was—he’d do it himself. I’ll tell you one other thing I’m sure of. He’s leaving town. The money’s going to Halpern—his lawyer, you know—the guy who handled that false-arrest case for him. Unless I’m dead wrong, Cassidy will disappear, his lawyer will collect for him, Cassidy will get the money and we’ll never be able to trace him.”

  “Didn’t you say he carries a rod? Let’s get a look at it.”

  “Are you kidding? He’d like nothing better. Believe me, any time Cassidy holds out a chance like that, it’s bait. It could be bluff, but it’s probably bait. If we move in on him and search him, we’ll find him clean as a whistle. No, Brophy—you can’t handle Cassidy like anyone else. He doesn’t move until he’s sure of his loopholes.

  “If we do the obvious thing with him, just once, the least that will happen is that he’ll get off without a scratch and leave a couple of much-advertised damn fools behind him. The worst that can happen is as bad as you can dream up. Anyhow, I don’t want to play with him. It’s what he wants. Somewhere there’s a chance to close on him and get rid of him for good. Somewhere …”

  “It says in the books that every murderer makes at least one mistake,” said Brophy, sententiously.

  Howell snorted. “Not Careful Cassidy. He figures every least little angle. He does everything like that. Lend me a cigarette.”

  Brophy sighed and passed over his tattered pack. Howell took it absently, looked at it. Suddenly his eyes went round and he sat bolt upright. Brophy stared aghast at this completely unusual phenomenon—Howell with his back straight.

  Howell threw the cigarettes on the floor, shoved his feet into his shoes, and without waiting to lace them, galloped out of the room.

  “Hey! Come back here—” Brophy stopped, helplessly, and listened to the slithering pound of Howell’s feet as it diminished down the short flight of steel-bound steps. “Either that guy gets real bright or he makes sense,” he muttered. “Never both.”

  Brophy picked up the cigarettes, lit one, and sat down to wait …

  Howell burst into the drugstore and skated to a stop down the smooth floor. The clerk faced him across the counter. “Yes, sir,” he said briskly.

  In spite of himself Howell glanced at the clock. It was 4 A.M.

  “Do you stand at attention when you sleep?” he asked. “No one should be that wide awake at this time of the morning. Listen—remember when I was in here before?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Did you notice that big man in brown I was talking to?”

  “Yes, sir. He came in just a minute before you did. He seemed to be in a hurry. He went straight to the phone booth.”

  Howell grunted. He fumbled in his pockets. “Lend me a dime. While you’re at it, lend me two dimes.”

  “But, sir, I can’t afford to—”

  “You’re the guy always wants to do something for someone! Come on,” snapped Howell, extending his hand.

  “Very well,” said the clerk stiffly. “But this comes out of my own pocket.”

  “All right, all right. It has your heart’s blood on it. Gimme.”

  Howell took the coins and ran to a booth. The clerk watched wall-eyed while he dialed a number, listened, put the receiver down on the shelf, and, leaving it there, stepped into the next booth. There he put in the second dime, dialed, listened again, put this receiver down too, uttered a wordless shout and ran out.

  The clerk waited until his lower jaw stopped swinging, shut his mouth with an effort, and went to the booths. He hung up the two phones. Each returned a dime. He stood looking out into the night with slightly glazed eyes, his lips set in tight lines.

  A few minutes later, Howell strode into the lobby of the Cheshire House. The brutal-looking character stood where he had been before, his eyes on his book.

  “You,” said Howell.

  The man turned his face up and followed it reluctantly with his eyes. “M-m-m?”

  “That big man who was with me before. Did you ever see him before?”

  The man nodded.

  “Tonight?”

  The man shook his head.

  Howell hesitated, thinking rapidly. The man took the opportunity to go back to his book.

  “Hey,” said Howell suddenly.

  The man started at the crackle of his voice, stamped his foot and said, “Goodness gracious, can’t a fellow get a moment’s peace? What is it now?”

  “Well, smash my tea tray,” said Howell. “I only wanted to ask you if that big man could have gone out of here without your seeing him.”

  “Of course he could. Don’t I have enough to do without watching every single human soul who goes in and out of here every minute? How can I answer the telephone and make out cards and hand out keys and write down morning calls and answer silly stupid questions and watch everyone who comes and goes too? What do you think I am?”

  Howell stepped back a pace from this tirade. “We won’t go into that,” he said. He turned away, paused, said, “Try The Bobbsey Twins at the Circus next. It’ll kill you,” and raced out.

  In the corridor of a lush apartment house uptown, Howell stopped and regarded the wide unpanelled slab of a door. Soundproofed, he thought. He sighed; and pressed the buzzer. Nothing happened immediately. He waited patiently, not ringing again. Finally the door opened a crack.

  “Who is it?”

  “Howell.”

  “Ah,” said Careful Cassidy. “I half expected you. Come in.”

  “Thanks,” said Howell.

  Cassidy closed and locked the door behind him. “Drink?” he asked.

  “Nope.” Howell, holding his breath, lounged through the foyer and instead of continuing into the living room, turned sharply left into a bedroom. As he expected, there was a packed suitcase in the middle of the floor and another one open on the bed. Drawers and a large clothes-press were open.

  Howell made no comment, though Cassidy was obviously waiting for one. The detective silently and forlornly slumped into a chair.

  Cassidy said, easily, “Mind if I go ahead with my packing?”

  “Gosh no,” said Howell. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  Cassidy smiled at that, and went to the open suitcase. “What’s on your mind? Did you get the guy with the Cadillac?”

  “Nope. I was wondering if you had a lead, Cassidy. Any lead. You knew the woman.”

  “I’d like to help,” said Cassidy with his mouth.

  “She left you a pile of dough. Why should someone do you a favor like that?”

  “It’s fate, Howell. Why do some people win sweepstakes?”

  “Brophy would like to see you, Cassidy.”

  “I’d like to see Brophy, too. A nice guy. But I have to catch a 5:30 plane.”

  He turned from the bed and went to get some shirts from a drawer. When he turned back there was a .38 Smith and Wesson in Howell’s slack hand. Cassidy put the shirts in the suitcase with exquisite care.

  “Howell,” he said in a soft, almost affectionate tone, “you wouldn’t play it like that, would you?”

 
; Howell looked across and up at the big man, then at the gun in his hand. “What’s the matter, Cassidy? Jumpy? This thing doesn’t work. I just wanted to look at it.”

  Calmly he broke the gun, shook out the cartridges, and tossed them over onto the bed. He raised the gun, still broken, and sighted through the breech end of the barrel at a lamp.

  “Can’t figure it out,” he said idly, and put the gun down on the end-table. “Lend me a cigarette, Cassidy.”

  “Some right there on the end-table,” said Cassidy. “Help yourself.”

  “I don’t see ’em.”

  “I could’ve sworn I left a full pack there. Here—I have more.” From one of the bureau drawers he withdrew a carton, got a pack from it. Out came his keys, and the little sharp knife. Carefully he slit the pack, knocked it on the back of his hand, and tossed it to the detective. “You can keep ’em.”

  “I will. Thanks. Now let’s go down and see Brophy,” said Howell.

  Cassidy regarded him thoughtfully. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re under arrest.”

  “What for?”

  “Let’s say for breaking the law.”

  “That’s childish, Howell. Don’t ask for that kind of trouble. I specialize in it.”

  “I’ll take my chances. If you are that sure of yourself you’ll come along. Call your lawyer first if you want to.”

  Cassidy looked at him and then at the suitcases. “You tempt me,” he said sincerely. “But I’ve got a plane to catch. I won’t call you, Howell. Better forget it. But it was a nice try.”

  Howell moved his shoulders deeper into the chair cushions. “You’re under arrest,” he said again. “You’ll come with me, and if you resist you’ll take the consequences.”

  He half closed his eyes—and under the lids saw Cassidy’s gaze flick to the revolver on the table and then to a large box of bath talc in the open suitcase.

  “I’m taking that plane,” said Cassidy.

  Howell and his chair immediately pitched forward. The detective pulled in his head like a turtle, and his round shoulders struck the floor as he got his feet on the seat of the chair. As he rolled forward and felt his spine on the floor, he snapped his body and legs straight. The chair catapulted, bottom side first, over the bed and into Cassidy’s chest.

  Howell completed his forward roll, tucking up tight until his feet were under him again, and dove into the same trajectory as the chair had taken. He struck Cassidy just as the big man had fought clear of the chair, and they all crashed to the floor together.

  Howell’s left hand found the angle between Cassidy’s neck and shoulder. He sank his thumb agonizingly behind the collarbone while with his right hand he cupped Cassidy’s chin and slammed the big man’s head against the floor.

  Cassidy roared like a wounded bear and brushed Howell off with one sweep of a thick arm. Howell did not resist, but let himself roll and checked himself squatting on the tips of his toes, with his arms wide and his hands lightly on the carpet on each side, ready, catlike, to leap in any direction, including up.

  Cassidy leaped on him, aiming a murderous kick. Howell went down like a high-speed photograph of a Moslem at prayer, and came up under the kick with his hand on Cassidy’s ankle. Holding it, he stood up.

  Cassidy’s momentum carried him around in a beautiful half-gainer and the big man landed resoundingly on the back of his head. Howell let go and the huge body collapsed and lay twitching. Breathing too hard to swallow, Howell went around Cassidy to the bed and fell on the powder-box. He twitched off the cover, dug his hands into the talc. The gun was in there, all right—a .38 automatic. As his fingers closed on it Cassidy hit him from below and behind.

  Howell flicked his wrist and sent the gun flying across the room. Cassidy’s arms closed around his thighs. He flung himself recklessly sidewise and smashed the powder-box into Cassidy’s face.

  Cassidy uttered a terrifying, retching gasp as he inhaled a large lungful of the powder, released Howell’s legs, and began clawing at his face as he reared back on his knees.

  Howell stood up. Cassidy’s head came just to the level of Howell’s hollow chest, just a little lower than the ideal place for a punching bag. Howell took very careful aim, hauled off and landed an inline, steam-driven powerhouse punch that collapsed the big man like a balloon.

  Hauling the heavy hulk next to the bed, he sat it up, pulled the hands together behind it, and handcuffed them after passing the cuff chain around the leg of the bed. Then he went to the phone.

  Halpern, the lawyer, had sharp eyes, profile, teeth and trouser-creases. He sat next to Cassidy in the night court, fussing soothingly over his blackly furious client. Across the aisle Howell lounged and Brophy jittered.

  The judge fined a frightened-looking man twelve dollars for throwing a bottle at his wife, after assuring him that his bad aim had saved him a lot of money, and called up the next case. Halpern leaped to his feet.

  “Your Honor, I submit that my client has been falsely arrested on vague and negligible charges. I demand that he be immediately released, that the case be thoroughly investigated, that the offending officers be disciplined, and that the municipal government give him restitution for the battery, indignity, and anguish which he has suffered.”

  “Who is the arresting officer?”

  Howell climbed wearily to his feet. From his pocket he extracted a pack of cigarettes. “These yours?” he asked Cassidy.

  He handed them to Halpern. Halpern and Cassidy huddled over them for a moment, whispering. Finally Cassidy gave an affirmative grunt.

  “Opened by you?” pursued Howell.

  Cassidy said, “I always open ’em that way. So what?”

  Howell took the pack and slouched with it to the bench. “If your honor will read the small print on the side of the package …”

  The judge looked strangely at Howell, took the pack, adjusted his bifocals and squinted at the cigarettes “… manufacturer of the cigarettes contained … complied with all the requirements of law … every person cautioned not to use either this package for cigarettes again or the stamp thereon again, nor to remove the contents of this package without destroying said stamp under the penalties provided by law in such cases.”

  “That was ground for the initial arrest, Your Honor,” said Howell. “Since I did not know the penalties referred to, I relied on my own judgment to bring this man into court so that the court could determine the treatment of such a case. You will notice that the package is slit open at the bottom, and the stamp is untouched.”

  “Trivial!” screamed Halpern. “This is a civil complaint, not a criminal one. I ob—”

  “I’m not finished,” said Howell mildly.

  “Proceed,” the judge said to him.

  “Mr. Cassidy resisted my arrest,” understated Howell, “and in the course of doing so unearthed this—” and from his pocket he took a bulky object wrapped in his handkerchief and put it on the bench—”this .38 automatic. I submit this as direct evidence to my charge of the murder of Miss Maggie Athenson.

  “You will find that a ballistics test of this gun identifies the bullet which killed Miss Athenson; that the gun is registered in the name of Mr. Cassidy; and that a skin test of Mr. Cassidy’s hands will reveal that he has fired a weapon within the past eight hours. I shall present further evidence when I have had an opportunity to write up a full report.”

  A paling Halpern turned to a dough-faced Cassidy and slowly raised his hands, palms upwards, in one long, eloquent shrug.

  Back at headquarters, Howell said: “Brophy—lend me a cigarette.”

  Brophy handed over the pack, resignedly. “What was with the telephone gimmick?” he asked.

  “One of those simple little things no one ever bothers to tell you,” grunted Howell when he had his cigarette going. “Cassidy had a very shrewd idea that a dick would be around, but out of sight. He’d goaded Maggie into asking for protection before and he knew that when it was refused a man would be aro
und anyway. Maybe he even knew it would be me. He always did have fun playing with me.

  “What he probably did was to force Maggie at gunpoint to ask for the protection. When she hung up he killed her, went straight across to the drugstore, staying out of sight of that pantywaist at the hotel desk, and dialed her number. So the phone rang and rang and rang.

  “When I came into the store he left the booth, leaving the receiver off the hook, and conned me into calling the same number. He very neatly shunted me into another booth when I called her. Since the phone was already ringing, I got a busy signal instead of a ring, and assumed she was on the line.

  “It works—I tried it on my home phone. Then when I went back to dial her again, Cassidy just reached back into the other booth and hung up that phone. This time I got a ringing signal that nobody answered.”

  “I’m damned,” breathed Brophy. “But—how did you ever shake him loose from the gun?”

  “That,” said Howell, and shuddered. “I had to play that just so. I had him on a charge—that cigarette-stamp thing. It was flimsy as hell, but it was a legal angle he hadn’t figured on. If I could get him into headquarters I could get a skin-test.”

  “But how did you know you’d find the gun?”

  “Oh, the gun had to show! I broke mind, and then told him he was under arrest. He had the murder gun, and he was certainly going to take it with him when he lammed, so he could get rid of it. Once my rod was out of the picture, he had to figure on using his if it came to using one at all. Only thing was, I had to play it so that he’d locate the gun for me but wouldn’t get a chance to use it. Otherwise, where’s your skin-test?”

  Brophy groaned. “Too close. You’re out of your mind, Howell.”

  “Not me,” grinned Howell. “I can go home now and sleep easy without worrying about guys who like to slap false arrest charges on hard-working bulls.”

  The phone rang. Brophy picked it up. He grunted twice, laughed briefly and said, “Okay. I’ll tell him.” He cradled the phone and looked up into Howell’s face with an indescribable expression.