The Sunday Pigeon Murders

by Craig Rice

  The Sunday Pigeon Murders

  Craig Rice

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  Cast of Characters

  AND THE PAGES ON WHICH THEY FIRST APPEAR

  BINGO RIGGS, an enterprising young man

  HANDSOME KUZAK, who remembers everything

  MR. PIGEON, a nice little man, but a trouble-maker

  HARKNESS PENNEYTH, an antique dealer and ladies’ man

  BABY HARRIGAN, a very wonderful hat-check girl

  WILKINS, Penneyth’s servant

  JUNE LOGAN, a very gorgeous gal

  ART FRANK

  MARTY BUCHOLTZ

  }

  a couple of gangsters

  MA HARRIGAN, a landlady whose bark is pretty bad

  LEONORA PENNEYTH, a brassy blonde babe

  RUFUS HARDSTONE, a pompous and greedy lawyer

  LOUIE, a retired burglar who likes to keep his hand in

  RINALDO JUAN PABLO SIMON BOLIVAR TINAJA, poet, patriot, and loyal friend

  DAPHNE FULLER

  FREDDIE FULLER

  }

  two badly behaved brats

  FENLEY GIBBS FULLER, a grade-A heel

  STEVE STONE, proprietor of the exclusive Swan Club

  CHAPTER ONE

  A police car sirened madly up Central Park West, and the pigeons at the foot of Bolivar Hill rose in a protesting and noisy cloud. Sixty seconds later they had calmed down and returned, and the small man in the inconspicuous gray suit went on feeding them.

  Bingo Riggs snapped a picture of a large woman in a flowered print dress, while his partner, Handsome Kuzak, presented her with a postcard and said, “See how you’d look in the newsreels, ma’am, an action picture of you has been taken—” His voice stopped suddenly when the woman dropped the card and walked on out of earshot.

  Handsome sighed, picked up the card, blew the dust from it, and put it back with the others. “It’s terrible hot. Let’s take time out for a beer.”

  “At one o’clock Sunday! You’re out of your head.” Bingo aimed the camera at a couple coming down the walk, took a second look at them, and changed his mind.

  The little triangle of sidewalks at the foot of Bolivar Hill was crowded with strollers and sight-seers and littered with peanut shells, cigarette butts, and odds and ends of paper. But business had been rotten, in spite of the crowd. Maybe, Bingo thought, it was the heat.

  “Want I should take the camera now?” Handsome asked wistfully.

  Bingo shook his head. When they worked together, though Handsome was the professional photographer of the pair, he had the job of handing out the cards. Twice as many women accepted the cards from Handsome and remembered to send them in with twenty-five cents for the photograph.

  “I don’t take as good pictures as you do,” Bingo said, “but on the other hand I’m not six foot one, and I don’t have wavy dark hair and a gleam in my eye.”

  “G’wan,” Handsome said. “I haven’t any gleam in my eye.” He blushed.

  “Well, I have,” Bingo said. “Only nobody ever notices it.” He wished that he weren’t short and skinny, with sandy hair and a sharp, thin face.

  He pointed the camera at a family party who ignored him. Two giggling stenographers accepted one of the cards.

  “That makes two today,” Handsome said gloomily. “I wish we had the other camera.”

  “We’ll get it out of hock next week,” Bingo promised. He looked thoughtfully at his partner, felt in his pocket, and fished out a coin. “All right, bring back a couple of bottles of beer. I’ll work solo till you get back.”

  Handsome brightened, took the coin, and disappeared in the direction of the street. Bingo spotted a couple studying a Famous Guide to New York, quickly took a picture, and said, “Send your photo to the folks back home, taken right in Central Park, at the foot of Bolivar Hill.” The man took the card, smiled, and put it into his pocket. Bingo smiled back and began looking around for more tourists.

  Behind him a woman’s voice said, “Look, Elaine, this is the very spot that Mr. Pigeon disappeared from, seven years ago next Sunday—”

  Bingo wheeled around fast, snapped the camera, and handed the woman a card. “Get a real souvenir,” he said. “Your picture taken on the very spot Mr. Pigeon disappeared from.”

  “Oh!” the woman said. She took the card, looked at it, and put it into her purse.

  As she walked away Bingo snapped a tourist family, gave out a card, and said, “This is the very spot Mr. Pigeon disappeared from, seven years ago next Sunday. You’ll want your picture as a souvenir—”

  Three pictures later he’d upped it to, “One of the great mysteries of the age, folks. Seven years ago next—”

  “—an action picture of you taken on the very spot where Mr. Pigeon was last seen, seven years—”

  Or, with a fair imitation of The Shadow, “Who knows where Mr. Pigeon went? It was just seven years ago next Sunday when—just a minute, lady, your picture—”

  It was twenty minutes before Handsome came back with the beer. Bingo mopped his brow, swung the camera over his shoulder, and led the way up the path and flight of stone steps that led to the statue of Simon Bolivar at the top of the hill. It was a steep climb, and fee was breathless when they reached the top, where a round grass plot was circled by a sidewalk and ring of benches. One of the benches was empty. Bingo sank down on it and gazed at what he recognized as a poem, in what he guessed was Spanish, scribbled on the sidewalk in chalk. The word libertador was the only one he could identify, but that was enough. “A nice sentiment,” he said approvingly.

  He found an opener in his pocket, snapped the cap off the bottle, removed the cigarette that had been pasted to the left-hand corner of his lower lip, and drank deeply.

  Handsome took the opener and opened his own bottle. “How was business?”

  “Swell,” Bingo told him. “There’s only two frames left in the camera, and I’ve run out of cards. Say, who the hell was Mr. Pigeon anyway, and what happened to him?”

  Handsome closed his eyes for a few seconds. “August 17th, 1934. It was a Friday. The story broke in the second edition. Page three, column two. In the final edition it was on page one, with a two-column picture Louie Jenks took of the statue up here in Central Park.”

  Bingo sighed and waited. That was the way Handsome’s mind worked. And Handsome never forgot a thing.

  “I was working for the News then,” Handsome went on. “And the next day, August 18th, I lost thirty bucks on a horse named Sweet Marie, and Mr. Pigeon’s partner said he thought that Mr. Pigeon had been kidnaped. It was in the middle of a heat wave. I tried to get a picture of Mr. Pigeon’s partner, but he wouldn’t let me in. His name was Harkness Penneyth. I tried calling him for an appointment and that didn’t work either. His phone number was Columbus 7–4642. That was the week the city editor’s mother-in-law died, her name was O’Sullivan, and she lived in Reading, Pennsylvania. August 20th, the insurance company offered a reward of $10,000 for finding Mr. Pigeon. Mr. Pigeon had a big insurance policy, half a million bucks, made out to his partner. That’s a lot of dough.”

  “You fascinate me,” Bingo said. “But what was the city editor’s mother-in-law’s first name?”

  Handsome looked surprised and slightly hurt. “Geraldine,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d care.” He closed his eyes again for a minute. “August 21st, 1934. That’s the day an armored car was held up in Brooklyn. The loot was $427,950.”

  “That’s a lot of dough too,” Bingo said. “But what does it have to do with Mr. Pigeon?”

  Handsome blinked. “Nothing. I just happened to remember it. It was at Nineteenth and Bay Streets.”

  “You’re wonderful,” Bingo said admiringly, reaching
for the beer bottle.

  “I’ve got a memory,” Handsome admitted modestly.

  “Only,” Bingo added, wiping his lips, “I still don’t know what happened to this Pigeon guy who whipped up a lot of business for us today.”

  “Nobody does,” Handsome said in a surprised tone. “You ought to read the papers once in a while. It was in the Mirror this morning.” Again he closed his eyes and took a long breath. “Three columns in the left-hand corner of page seventeen. There was a picture of Mr. Pigeon, too. If he doesn’t show up by next Sunday, his partner gets that half-million bucks from the insurance company.”

  Bingo rose. “Your memory is wonderful, but you’ve got no sense of timing. Absolutely no head for business.”

  Handsome looked up unhappily. “Did I do wrong?”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this before we started out? We could have gotten rid of these cards an hour ago.”

  “You mean,” Handsome said in a surprised tone, “you mean people want their pictures taken here just because Mr. Pigeon—”

  Bingo looked at him, shaking his head. “It’s wonderful, just that you lived to grow up. C’mon, let’s go home. And if you left a deposit on those beer bottles, bring ’em along.”

  They crossed Central Park West, walked a few blocks beside the park, turned west, walked a few more blocks, and arrived at an unpretentious brownstone front next door to Morrie Gelberg’s Shamrock Tavern. A pretty, black-haired girl in bright green slacks was sitting on the front steps, and Bingo paused.

  “Business was swell today.”

  She sniffed. “I’m sure Ma will be delighted to hear it.”

  Bingo scowled. “Tell her we’ll pay her something tomorrow sure. Hell’s bells, we don’t owe her so much rent. She just don’t have any faith in the business.”

  “If she had any more faith in it,” the girl said, “we’d all be starving.” She smiled at Handsome.

  Bingo started to answer, changed his mind, and went on up the steps. In the vestibule he paused and started to open the mailbox marked INTERNATIONAL FOTO, MOTION PICTURE, AND TELEVISION CORPORATION OF AMERICA. RIGGS AND KUZAK.

  “It’s Sunday,” Handsome reminded him.

  Bingo sighed and led the way up the shabby stairs to the third floor.

  The tiny two-room apartment (“furnished, with bath, kitchenette, and weekly maid service, suitable two”) was hot and stuffy. Bingo passed the camera to Handsome with one hand and began peeling off his clothes with the other.

  “We’ll develop ’em now,” he announced. “Those cards are gonna start coming in fast.”

  Handsome looked unhappily at the darkroom (which was also the bathroom). It was hot as a blast furnace and completely airless.

  “All right, get some beer first,” Bingo said, feeling in his pocket. “Four bottles. But don’t try keeping it cool in the developer like you did last time. I don’t care what you say, the flavor gets spoiled, no matter how tight those caps are stuck on.” He pulled off his dripping undershirt. “Lord, I wish I could take a bath.”

  “You can’t,” Handsome said. “The tub’s full of drying prints.” He pocketed the money and went out.

  The bathroom smelled of chemicals. It always smelled of chemicals. Bingo went to the remodeled closet that served as a kitchenette, filled the sink with cold water, and sponged himself all over. For a few minutes he stood in the middle of the living room, letting the water dry on his skin. Then he donned a pair of blue and white striped shorts, gathered up the Sunday papers from the rug, and settled down on the sagging davenport.

  Handsome returned with the beer, put two bottles and a glass beside Bingo, brought the opener from the kitchen, handed Bingo his cigarettes, and then disappeared into the improvised darkroom.

  Bingo stretched, catlike, and sighed contentedly. The beer was refreshingly cold, and by finding just the right location on the davenport, it was possible to be almost comfortable. And business had been good.

  “With my brains,” he murmured, “and Handsome’s photography, we’ll get rich.”

  He opened the second bottle of beer, leaned back on the cushions, wriggled his toes happily, and picked up the paper. Who had this Pigeon guy been, anyway? Page seventeen, Handsome had said. He turned to page seventeen.

  The photograph showed a small, smiling, very ordinary-looking man in a derby hat. “Have you seen this man in the past seven years?” the caption demanded.

  “Not me,” Bingo said. He began reading the story.

  Mr. S. S. Pigeon had been his name, but the newspapers had named him “The Sunday Pigeon.” That was because he was accustomed to spending his Sunday afternoons at the foot of Bolivar Hill in Central Park, feeding the birds that shared his name. “For twenty years,” the story read, “summer or winter, rain or shine, the Sunday Pigeon appeared at his weekly post, with bags of crumbs and grain.” In his weekday life, the Sunday Pigeon had been a prosperous importer of Oriental antiques, a partner in the firm of Pigeon and Penneyth.

  Then, for the first time in twenty years, Mr. Pigeon had appeared at his post on a Friday. Friday, August 17th, 1934. He’d spent the afternoon there, feeding his beloved birds. No one had ever seen him again.

  Next Sunday, August 17th, 1941, the Sunday Pigeon would be pronounced legally dead, and his partner, Harkness Penneyth, would collect the $500,000 insurance policy of which he was the beneficiary.

  Bingo Riggs yawned. Almost beats Judge Crater, he reflected. He finished the second bottle of beer and stretched. “Well, your missing partner has done us both a very nice piece of business,” he remarked to an absent and unknown Harkness Penneyth.

  He closed his eyes, thinking. If twenty-five per cent of the people who’d accepted cards sent in their quarters, he’d be able to pay up some of the rent and get Handsome’s camera back from Uncle Max. If fifteen per cent sent in, he’d just get back the camera. If ten per cent—he dozed.

  Bingo woke suddenly from a dream in which he rode over Central Park on the back of an enormous, gray bird, snapping pictures of a vast, cheering throng. Someone—he slapped out a quick hand and encountered Handsome’s face—was shaking him violently.

  “Wake up,” Handsome said excitedly. “Wake up and look.”

  Bingo blinked, yawned, and grunted. “Turn on the light.”

  Handsome reached out and switched on the floor lamp. His good-looking face was pale and drawn with weariness and dripping with sweat. “I made an enlargement. Look at it.”

  Bingo pushed himself up on one elbow, took the picture Handsome thrust at him, and stared at it stupidly. It showed a thin, grinning woman with glasses clinging to the arm of a plump, grinning man, against the background of the Sunday crowd in Central Park.

  “Did I take that?” he growled. “It’s a lousy picture. She’ll probably want her two bits back.”

  Handsome shook him again. “Wake up, damn it.” His voice almost broke with excitement. “Look. There.” He pointed to one of the figures in the background crowd.

  Bingo looked, started to speak, and shut up.

  “It is!” Handsome said. “It’s—the Sunday Pigeon!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “It’s a picture of the Sunday Pigeon!” Handsome repeated insistently, waving the still wet print under Bingo’s nose. “And we took it just this afternoon!”

  Bingo Riggs yawned, stretched, scratched behind one ear, and stared at the photograph. “Well, well,” he said, “imagine him turning up, after all these years.” He stretched again, started to turn over for another cat nap, and suddenly leaped to his feet.

  “The Sunday Pigeon! Handsome, we’re rich!”

  Handsome beamed. “That’s what I figured. I remember a fella in Pittsburgh—”

  “Gimme that photograph!”

  He all but snatched it from Handsome’s hand and sank back on the couch, staring at it. Yes, there he was, a small man in a gray suit, with a pleasant, half-apologetic smile on his face, just as he’d looked in those photographs taken seven years ago.


  “It’s him all right,” Bingo said.

  “Boy,” Handsome said. “That’s wonderful. How much do you suppose we could get for a genuine spirit photograph like this one?”

  Bingo blinked. “For a genuine which?”

  “It’s ectoplasm,” Handsome said, starry-eyed. “I read all about it in a magazine I picked up on the subway. That Pigeon guy must be dead after all these years. Spirit photographs.” He began to stutter a little. “Ectoplasm. Conan Doyle. That picture. The Sunday Pigeon.” He pointed to the picture, completely out of breath, and finally gasped out, “Money.”

  “You’re full of small potatoes,” Bingo said. “This isn’t any spirit photograph. The guy’s alive.”

  Handsome sat down and stared at him, his face suddenly tragic. “Aw,” he said. “For a while I thought we had something.”

  “We have,” Bingo told him. “We’ve got a picture we can sell to a press association. And for a lot more than two bits.” He gazed almost lovingly at the photograph. “A lot more. Handsome, we’ve got what is probably the only picture of a guy who’s been missing for seven years with everybody looking for him.”

  “I never would have thought of that,” Handsome said, admiringly. The light began to come back into his eyes.

  Bingo said, “Get a move on. Make some more prints. Glossies. And good ones. While I read over this story about the guy again. Maybe I can figure some angle to jack up the price even more.”

  “You’re an awful smart guy,” Handsome said admiringly. He picked up the print, looked at it, and shook his head sadly as he started for the darkroom. “This is sure going to be a blow to that poor Mr. Penneyth. Now he won’t get that half-million bucks next week.”

  Bingo stared at him for just half of a second, then bounded across the room. “Handsome!”

  Handsome wheeled around, his face puzzled. “Did I do wrong?”

  “Handsome—we are rich!”

  Again he grabbed the print from his partner’s hand. This time he stared at it almost worshipingly.

  “You beautiful little gold mine!” he breathed.