The Dead Ringer

by Fredric Brown

  “No, Am. He was a close-mouthed little son of a gun. But —well, little things he said and did added up to that he expected to come back with his pockets lined. Maybe not enough to retire on, but enough to take a good long rest and not work for a while.”

  “That was two weeks and five days ago, Flo. He was killed two weeks ago tonight—right about this time, I guess— Ummm—when he left here Hobart was just starting for Evansville. You think he went there?”

  “I don’t know, Am. I think the cops covered all the railway and bus stations trying to find out where he’d bought a ticket to. You’d think they’d remember a midget. But if they did remember him, they didn’t remember where he’d bought a ticket to. You think he went to Evansville, to Hobart?”

  Uncle Am shrugged. “Hard to figure how he could have been there— either in Evansville or with the carney. Dammit, a midget can’t hide; he’s too small to hide. He sticks out like a sore thumb. He must have been somewhere else until he turned up dead. Look, Flo, do you know how many suits he had?”

  “Yes. Three. Weiss said they found him naked. That right, Am?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, he wore a suit all right when he left here. He left his two other suits here, though. He traveled light; just took a briefcase with a few things in it. Toilet articles and maybe a couple extra shirts and sox and stuff. I think he left most of his linen here, but took some.”

  I said, “You’d think if he figured two weeks, he’d have taken more stuff than a briefcase would hold.”

  Mrs. Czerwinski looked at me and back at Uncle Am. She said, “He can talk, by God.”

  Uncle Am said, “And say things, too. The kid’s right, Flo. Wasn’t a briefcase traveling pretty light for a two weeks’ trip?”

  “Midgets’ clothes aren’t big, Am. You can stuff a lot of ‘em in a brief case. If he figured on getting by with the suit he was wearing and the shoes he had on— Besides, he didn’t really figure on two full weeks. Said he might be back in a few days, but it just might be longer so he paid two weeks. I’d’ a held his room anyway, but since he had the money I took it.”

  “Did he ever mention the Hobart shows?”

  “No. Not that I remember, anyway.”

  “Or anybody with Hobart shows? Weiss talked to everybody with it, but nobody there admitted knowing Lon. First, before he had a name, he showed everybody the picture— Say, did he show you?”

  “Sure. It was Lon all right.”

  “And then after he’d been here, he—or the South Bend cops —went all down the line again, with the name that time instead of the pic.”

  “Hell, Am, you know better’n that. Pour me another drink, will you? Outta several hundred carneys, however many Hobart shows have got, at least a dozen of ‘em would’ve come across Lon somewhere or other. But why would they stick their necks out—just to tell the coppers he’d been with the same show they’d been with, once.”

  “Sure, I figured that. That’s why I’m asking you, Flo, if he ever mentioned anyone with Hobart.”

  “Nope, Am. He never talked about the past, I tell you. And he didn’t get any mail, as far as I know, so he must not have kept up contacts. He didn’t really have any friends.”

  “Good Lord,” Uncle Am said. “How did he spend his time, outside of selling papers?”

  “He read a lot, and he liked movies. He saw a movie nearly every night. And every week he brought home a big armful of books from the public library. Yeah, if he wasn’t working, then he was either at a movie or in his room reading, or maybe writing poetry.”

  “Huh?” said Uncle Am. “Poetry?”

  “Sure, poetry. He was smarter’n most midgets, Am. Had an education, I think—or anyway he knew a lot; maybe just from reading so much. He was smart, Am. If he hadn’t been a freak, he might have made something of himself. But, outside of show biz, who’d hire a midget?”

  “About the poetry, Flo. He ever show you any of it? Was it any good?”

  “He never showed me, but I saw some of it. He never showed anybody, that I know of. But a few times, he’d forget to clear off the table he was working on and I’d see some of it when I straightened his room.”

  “Was it any good?”

  “How the hell would I know, Am? I’m no judge of poetry. It was funny stuff—I don’t mean the kind of funny that makes you laugh. Some of it I couldn’t understand, and some of it was—well, not so much sad as—uh—”

  “Bitter?” I suggested.

  “That’s it, Ed. That’s the word I wanted. Bitter. And a lot of it about death and stuff. It doesn’t rhyme. You want to read it, Am?”

  “Is it here? Didn’t the police take his stuff?”

  “No, it’s all in a trunk up in the attic, with the lock busted. When that Indiana copper was here, he and some other cops went through all of Lon’s stuff, with a fine-tooth comb, and said they didn’t find anything to help them at all. And none of it’s valuable to anybody else; they told me to hang onto it for a while in case somebody turned up to claim it. But nobody will.”

  “Flo, can we look through that trunk?”

  “Why, sure, Am. There’s a light in the attic. Damn if I’ll climb two flights of stairs with you, but I’ll give you the key to the attic and you can’t miss it; the door’s right opposite the head of the stairs that take you up to the third floor. And the trunk’s the little one with the busted lock, right near the head of the steps.”

  “Swell, Flo. Listen, it may take us a long time to go through it, so you go back to bed. I’ll slide the attic key under your door on our way out.”

  “But Am—I’ll see you again?”

  “I’ll drop back sometime tomorrow. I’ll be in town till noon, anyway. Say, how you fixed on Billboards? Back copies, I mean.

  “Got a few of ‘em. Two-three months back, anyway. Why?”

  “Did Lon read Billboard?”

  “No. I told you, Am, he was sour on show biz. And he didn’t have any friends to keep track of.”

  “Well—I guess I’d like to look at them anyway, Flo. We can do that up in the attic, too. Then, shall I leave them there?”

  “Or take ‘em along if you want to. I’m through with them, all but this week’s. I haven’t finished with that.”

  She pushed herself up out of the armchair and went over to a cupboard and opened it. There was a stack of about a dozen Billboards there, and she brought them back and put them on the table.

  She said, “There they are, Am, and here’s the key. But don’t go yet. I’m good for a lot of talk yet and there’s still some gin left. Here, I’ll pour ‘em while I’m up.”

  I tried to guard my glass, but didn’t get to it before she’d filled it again. She said, “Don’t be a pansy, Ed. That’s only your second. It’ll put hair on your chest. Say, Am, remember that blow down in Bridgeport? …”

  And they were off again. But not for so long this time; in about fifteen minutes Uncle Am made a break. I took the stack of Billboards and he took the key, and we got away.

  The trunk was where she’d said it was. When we opened the top all we could see at first was clothes. Two tiny suits were on top; one was fairly new and neatly pressed, the other—his work suit—shabby and almost worn out.

  Uncle Am found newspapers and spread them on the floor beside the trunk. He said, “Put the stuff here as we take it out, Ed, in order; then we can put it back the same way.”

  “Okay,” I told him. “But what are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know, kid. But maybe we’ll recognize it if it’s there. It won’t be anything obvious; Weiss has been through it before us. Hell, we probably won’t find a thing. But going through it will help us round out the picture, anyway. You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was beginning to get his idea, all right. The questions he’d asked Mrs. Czerwinski hadn’t got us a thing that had tied Lon Scaffold to the Hobart carney or had given us anything new about the murder. But we’d begun to see the midget as a human being instead
of an unknown quantity.

  I mean, he wasn’t just a picture any more. A picture of a dead wizened little face against a background of trampled grass. He was a man, with the thoughts of a nun, trapped in a pint-sized body that kept him from ever being a man, and he was bitter as hell about it. Taking out his bitterness by avoiding people and losing himself in books and movies.

  I thought, I’d like to have known him. If he was still alive, I’d like to try to get through that guard of his that Flo had told us about and try to make friends with him. He might have been interesting. If you could get under the bitterness, he might have had something on the ball.

  But it was too late to think about that. All that was left of him now was the contents of this little trunk and—buried in a Potter’s Field near Evansville—a dead little body.

  Uncle Am had picked up one of the two suits and was going through the pockets of it. I took the other and did the same. The one I had was the worn-out one. There wasn’t anything in the pockets except a broken toothpick in the breast pocket of the coat. I felt around the linings, too. And before I put it down I looked at the label.

  I said, “She was right about Toledo. This one has a Toledo tailor’s label in it.”

  Uncle Am nodded. “This one’s Cincinnati; bought since he came here.”

  We put them down on the paper, neatly. I don’t know why; he’d never wear them again. A year from now, probably, Mrs. Czerwinski would stuff them into the furnace.

  Under the suits were tiny shirts and children’s socks—those at least he could buy ready-made. And a tiny topcoat, overcoat and raincoat. Below them, underwear—child’s underwear, size six.

  We got near the bottom of the trunk. In one side of the bottom was an ancient portable typewriter—one of the old-time folding Coronas with only three rows of keys. It took up half of the bottom of the trunk. In the other half was a pile of papers and a ream of eight and a half by eleven bond paper, unopened.

  I took out the typewriter, looked it over, and put it down outside the trunk. There wasn’t any carrying case for it, but it seemed to be in working condition. Uncle Am was looking at the unopened ream of paper, examining the sealing; apparently he decided it hadn’t been opened and resealed, for he put it down without opening it.

  “There aren’t any books,” I said, “except this dictionary. Wouldn’t he have any books, if he read a lot?”

  “Not necessarily, Ed. Some people who read a lot don’t like to own books. Especially people who’ve traveled and figure some day they may travel again. Books are an anchor that tie you down, once you start accumulating them. I guess he felt that way, and got all his reading from the library.”

  I started to put the dictionary aside, and then remembered and riffled through all the pages, looking for any slips of paper or any markings or notes. It was a small dictionary, but it took quite a while to go through it thoroughly, and I was glad now that there weren’t a lot of books to go through; it would have taken all the rest of the night.

  Uncle Am had picked up the pile of papers, all eight and a half by eleven bond, a neat stack of it. I could see there was typing on it as he leafed through, most of it was in irregular length lines, like poetry.

  He said, “No letters, kid. He didn’t have any correspondence at all, it looks like. Well—”

  I went back to the dictionary and he started reading the poetry. I didn’t find anything in the dictionary and finally put it down and started examining the inside of the trunk, which was now completely empty. There wasn’t any false bottom or secret compartments.

  I sat back and watched Uncle Am. He was reading, and there was a funny expression on his face; I couldn’t quite tell what it was. He said, “Ed, will you stack the rest of the stuff back in? We can put this on top, last.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Is that all poetry? Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else. But—some of it’s good, Ed.” I started filling up the trunk. “How good?” I asked. “I don’t know. I’m not good enough to judge; I’m no poet. But off-hand, I’d say this isn’t great poetry—whatever that is— but that some of it is damn good poetry. It’s better than I expected.”

  He handed me over a piece of it. I read:

  The sere leaves of despair flutter down

  And heap about my feet and the roots of trees;

  A cool voice stirs them and they whisper

  With soft lute voices like the never-weres

  In dreams under a pale dawn.

  I read it twice. I said, “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just words.”

  “Sure it’s just words. What’d you expect—an organ background?”

  “Maybe it’s over my head. I don’t see anything in it. What are ‘lute voices’ and what are ‘never-weres’?”

  Uncle Am grunted. He said, “Don’t be so damned literal, Ed. How the hell would I know what ‘lute voices’ are? But someday you’ll run into a flock of ‘never-weres’; I’ll guarantee you that.”

  He handed me another one. Like the first, it didn’t have any title on it. The first line, I saw, was “Cover my coffin slowly.”

  It was very quiet there in the attic, and the far corners were dim and shadowed. For some reason, a little shiver went down my spine, thinking that he—the dead midget—had written this. It was silly; everybody dies sometime; everybody has his coffin covered, doesn’t he?

  I took time out to light a cigarette before I read it. Then I sat down on the spread-out newspapers. I read:

  Cover my coffin slowly

  That I may hear the thud of every striking clod

  With ears now dead to every other sound.

  And quiet shall I lie, nor dream.

  Soon, then, shall come the rains

  And make of earth one vast mud pie

  Wherein I shall be one of many raisins.

  So. That was all there was to it. I read it again and then handed it back. Uncle Am held out another, but I shook my head.

  “I don’t want to read any more of it,” I told him. “Too morbid. I don’t like it.”

  He glanced at me and then went back to his reading. I finished my cigarette, watching Uncle Am, and thinking—but not about him. About the poetry.

  I hadn’t liked that last poem, but I had a hunch I hadn’t been supposed to like it. There was something about it that made something inside me squirm, and maybe that was what the poem was supposed to do.

  Anyway, I thought of Lon Staffold sitting alone in his room, writing that, feeling that, and it gave me the willies, a little. And it had rained, in Evansville, since they’d buried him.

  And, damn it, the earth really was—if you thought of it that way—one vast mud pie, with the buried dead a million raisins in it.

  Finally Uncle Am put the stack of poetry back in the trunk, and closed it.

  He said, “Well—that’s that.”

  “Learn anything?” I asked.

  “About the murders, no. But I got to know why he wrote poetry.”

  “Am I supposed to ask why?”

  “I don’t give a damn if you do or not. I couldn’t answer you if you did. It’s something you can feel, but can’t explain. Like— Well, could you explain why you play trombone?”

  “I guess not. I see what you mean. Say, Uncle Am, I’ve been thinking about what Mrs. Czerwinski said, that I’ll never be a musician. I think she’s right.”

  He looked disgusted. “My God, kid. “You, falling for a mitt reading.”

  “Hell, I don’t mean because she said it. Only I’ve been thinking the same thing. I don’t intend to give up the tram, but I’m going to figure it for a hobby and not a profession. What it takes to be really good at it, I haven’t got. But I’m curious; what was her idea in giving me a reading at all?”

  “Ed, it’s why I dropped the mentalist racket. Even though it’s easier and pays more than running something like a ball game. But if you keep it up, you get to believing in yourself. Even when you know you’re guessing, there’s a feeling you get that there’s
something mysterious inside of you that tells you which way to guess. You make a few lucky hits, and that feeling grows. And pretty soon you’re believing in yourself.”

  I said, “She made a good guess on the music angle. Unless —well, the only way she could have known anything about me was through Weiss. He talked to her.”

  Uncle Am shook his head. “Weiss didn’t know I knew Flo; there’s no way we’d have come into the conversation. But hell, kid, that wasn’t an especially good guess, as guesses go. Most guys your age go for music, and a damn small percentage of them become musicians. The odds were with her both ways.

  “But in your case, because you play an instrument, it seemed to you like a miraculous hit. If you liked music—either hot or classical—it would still have gone over all right, even if you didn’t even play a mouth organ. She couldn’t miss.”

  He picked up the stack of Billboards and put them on his lap.

  He said, “Kid, that’s what makes the mentalist racket easy for anybody with the gift of gab. There are so many things you can say to anybody and hit close, even before they give you the slightest due. You can make predictions that are bound to come true, because the interpretation of them can be twisted to fit whatever really does happen. Oh, hell, we got to go through these Billboards. Get me going on mentalism again, sometime.”

  He divided the stack of magazines in his lap and gave me half of them. “Here, Ed. Get going.”

  “Want ads?”

  “Yeah, take them first; they’re the best bet. Especially the help wanteds, at liberties, and personals. Anything that concerns a midget. Or—well, we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, but we ought to know it if we see it.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I took the top one and went through the ads. There wasn’t anything there that I could find. In the second, among the at liberty ads, I found a midget. But he gave a name and a Birmingham, Alabama, address, so it didn’t look likely. Just the same, I checked it and turned down the corner of the page.

  In the third magazine, I found it. The ad we were looking for, I mean. I didn’t even have to look for it, because it was circled in heavy black pencil.