by Craig Rice
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“It’s Cullucio!” My voice seemed to ring through the trailer. “I knew there was something about him that was familiar. Stop him! Stop him!”
Biff began shaking me. I could see Mother rushing around getting a glass of water for me. Dimples had jumped up from the bed and was running toward the window. Gee Gee held my arm when I tried to open the door. Their faces and their movements were like a kaleidoscope. Hank’s face staring at me, Mother holding a glass to my lips. Biff’s arms holding me.
“Leave me alone, please.” I tried to push them away from me. “Don’t you see it all? Don’t you realize we’ve never seen them together? His house, all those expensive things in it. That carl When I saw his hands, I knew it. The black tufts of hair growing on the knuckles. You gave him the can of asthma powder, too. He has it right now and he’s gone!”
Biff was pushing me into the chair. No one made a move to stop Cullucio. They stared at me as though I had gone mad.
“Cullucio’s in Ysleta,” Hank said softly. “I just left him and I know. The doc is—well—it’s not supposed to be known, but the doc is his brother. I’ve known it all along, but there didn’t seem any point in telling it around town. Doctors in a town like this have to have a certain dignity. It doesn’t sound good to say his brother runs a saloon. Especially when they’re partners in that saloon.”
“But the names, Cullucio, Gonzales—”
“Those two names don’t even scratch the surface. They have a dozen more, all legal too, if they want to use them. That Gonzales in Mexico is like Smith in the states. Cullucio isn’t even a Mexican name. The doc’s all right though. I’ve known him since he first started practicing here. Cullucio’s all right too, in his own way, of course. Honest as the day’s long, but a funny sense of honesty—”
“Honest?” Gee Gee screamed. “What kind of people are these?” she looked wildly around the room. “Murderers, dope peddlers. Honest people yet!”
“Who said he was a murderer?” Hank asked.
There was no answer.
“Who said he was a dope peddler?” Hank said.
Then Biff spoke: “They must have gathered it from what I was telling them. I never got to the finish of it; they kept interrupting me all the time. I was telling them how I got suspicious when I saw the remains of the burned trailer, then I started from the beginning and—”
“Funny thing about that trailer,” Hank said slowly. He pulled at his chin and nodded his head thoughtfully. “I should have seen it myself. Had my eye on this trailer camp for some months now, and I let a thing like that slip by.”
Biff leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “Well,” he said condescendingly, “we all can’t see everything. Me, now, the second I look over the ground I know there’s something funny going on. Trailer burned to a crisp, car burned to a crisp, woods burned too, and still, the grass around the trailer hasn’t even been scorched. I don’t pay much attention to the smell of gasoline around the fire, cars and all, bound to be a smell of gasoline, but no flying spark could burn that trailer the way it was burned. No, sir. Then her moving in with us so sudden-like. Oh, I knew something was up all right. I just kept my eyes and ears open, and there it was. Plain as day. What a setup. Traveling around with a beauty shop. Covering all the border towns regularly. Having a couple guys in each town deliver the stuff she brought in, even looking like she does—”
“Damn shame you didn’t think of those things before the other two guys got killed,” Hank said. “If you’d come to me me in the first place this might have had a different ending. People oughta realize that’s what the law’s for. Like with Cullucio. He could have told me how he suspected his waiter. I would have gotten some of the boys to look around. But no. He goes and sends for a couple of his own. They mash in the face so we can’t identify the body. They know all along who’s guilty but they don’t give us credit for realizing it. That’s just like a crook. They keep lying so much themselves they don’t expect anybody’ll ever believe ’em.”
Gee Gee stood stage center with her hands on her hips. Her hair, I noticed, was beginning to turn a pale purple with a burnished effect at the part.
“Do you two baboons mean to sit there with your bare faces hanging out and tell me that Mamie Smith from Oologah murdered those men?”
“It’s Watova,” Biff said, “eight miles west of Oologah.”
“Yes, she did it all right,” Hank said.
Mother pushed Gee Gee away and took the floor.
“She couldn’t have,” Mother said. “I’m a judge of character and I know Mamie wouldn’t do anything so—so—well, so ungenteel. Not only that, but Gus, or whatever his name was, was killed in San Diego. Mamie couldn’t have killed him. Maybe the one named Jones, I don’t care about that, but she couldn’t have killed Corny either, because she was helping me with my asthma attack at the time.”
“Evangie,” Biff said softly. “Remember how Mamie arrived the same day we did? Well, she came in from San Diego. She killed Gus there, because he was trying to open a branch office and cut her out with the guys who really controlled this ring. She expected to find the heroin on the body, but it was gone. She had seen him go into our trailer and she figures he has the stuff there, which he did, only he doesn’t tell her where. She hides the corpse in our bathtub—”
“Why our bathtub?” Dimples asked. “I think that’s damn inconsiderate of her.”
“It was the first trailer near hers for one thing. Then, when she saw Gus in here, she thought he might be getting mixed up with us. She figured out the trailer business and she thought he was using ours, in cahoots with one of us—or all of us, for that matter—for the same purpose. She was almost sure of it when she saw Evangie bury the body that night. Then when Corny propositions her she thinks it is very nice indeed. Nothing like having a group of grifters falling out. It always leaves an empty spot for someone else, and Mamie had herself set up as that somebody else.”
“Are you telling me that Mamie, my friend, thought I was mixed up in that dope business?” Mother said coldly.
“I think she thought so at first,” Biff admitted. “But after she got to know you she couldn’t have. She wanted to get rid of Corny as soon as he gave her the bum steer about the heroin. Her idea was to put the handkerchief in the grave and let Hank find it. Then in a sweet-old-ladylike way she was going to say that she ‘thought’ there was something wrong with Corny and ‘admit’ she saw him bury the body. After all, he was there, he saw her bury the body. She was just doing a switch, and it would be his word against hers. But the law’s too slow. She can’t wait. She knows she’s dealing with a guy who wouldn’t sit still for anything but dough and lots of it. And he’s threatening. She waits until she has him alone, then she lets him take the knife in his back. She was with Evangie all right—that is, until Evangie gets the towel over her head. Then Mamie walks quietly to the office and waits until Corny comes out. Zoop, it’s over, she hotfoots it back to Evangie and asks her if she’s feeling better. Naturally, Evangie thinks she’s there all the time.”
Mother listened to Biff. A frown creased her forehead.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I caught her going through the girls’ things one day. I spoke to her, and she told me she would never do anything like that again. I knew she was a petty thief but I really thought I had made her see the light. She said she never had pretty things of her own and—”
“All she wanted,” Biff said, “was the pretty heroin.”
“Did she stab Joyce too?” Dimples asked.
“No,” Biff said. “Cullucio’s man did that. By mistake, of course. He thought he was hitting Mamie, see; she was in the room talking to Cullucio. The ‘boys’ were right outside the door, still protecting their boss. Joyce is listening, like I asked her to, and she hears Mamie threaten Cullucio. He’s scared to death anyway because of his dead waiter. When Mamie tells him that waiter was her man for Ysleta, he really goes. It’s a wonder
he didn’t kill her himself. She’s threatening to tell Hank, and Cullucio starts to struggle with her. That’s when Joyce tries to run away. Cullucio’s man thinks it’s Mamie running down the hall so he grabs out at her—”
“Grabs out with a knife,” Gee Gee said. “That’s cute, too.”
“Anyway,” Biff went on, “when Joyce gets to the trailer and tells me about Mamie being at The Happy Hour I drive like hell to get there in time. Cullucio would have killed her in a minute if she ever tried to frame him. Not because of himself but because of his brother. That’s what Hank means when he says Cullucio has a funny sense of honesty. He figures Mamie is a crook, his brother isn’t. If it’s a question of one or the other having to go, he’s not going to waste time thinking it over. I made him understand that nothing could happen to Gonzales, and we called Hank to come over and pick up the dame.”
“She was like a wild woman,” Hank said. He looked down at the four deep scratches on his hand. “Boy, did she put up a fight.”
“Well,” Mother said, “I hardly blame her for that. Three of you picking on one woman. I think it’s disgraceful. And now talking behind her back when she isn’t here to defend herself.”
“Defend herself?” Hank said. “Why she’s a—”
Mother put up her hand. “Please,” she said. “You’ve done quite enough. You don’t have to become deleterious. I would rather you left us now, I want to be alone with my daughter.”
The sheriff picked up his hat. He looked from Mother to Biff. Biff shrugged his shoulders again, this time hopelessly. The sheriff said good-by to all of us, then he left.
Mother waited until she heard his car leave, then she turned to me.
“Can you imagine me thinking about marrying at my age?” she said pensively. “It’s so perfectly silly. Why, I should have my head examined. To think of leaving you and Biff now that you need me.”
Mother went to the window and peered through the glass. “Here comes a car,” she said. “My, we really are having a lot of company tonight.”
“You might go so far as to say we are doing a helluva business,” Gee Gee said.
I thought at first the car was for Joyce, then I heard girlish giggling.
“Why, it’s a little doll house,” a woman’s voice squealed.
“What fun to ride all the way to New York in a trailer,” another voice said.
“Look how it hooks onto the car. Isn’t that cute! But aren’t you afraid to sit back when the car’s moving?”
Then I heard Mandy.
“Afraid?” he said loudly. “Of course not. Not with good old Biffola driving. Now here’s the front seat I was telling you about.” He was beginning to sound like a landlord showing off an apartment to a prospective tenant. “You see, there’s plenty of room for Millie up here. Now that Corny’s not with us any more I can double up with Biff on the army cot and Clarissima here can bunk with Gee Gee in the bedroom.”
Biff went to the door and opened it slowly. Mandy piled into the trailer with Millie and Clarissima,
“Look,” he said, shoving the girls under Biff’s nose, “I got us a couple new customers. We got it all figured out. We’ll go sixes on the expenses. Millie can help with the driving, too. They’re both on their way east anyway, so I figured as long as we had the room I’d just ask ’em to join us.”
“Sure,” Biff said. “Tickled to death to have you.” The words were there but not the music. A tight smile was as far as he went in the personality department.
“I just ran into a guy that said he owned The Blinking Pup,” Mandy was saying. “That guy had the nerve to tell me Dimples and Gee Gee were booked in his joint. I sure told him off. I told him no friends of mine would play a scratch house like that. He even let on like I might want to play it. Me? I’m no saloon actor. I know that now. I just wired the Gaiety and asked them if they could use one slightly used funny boy. That’s for me. No more saloons for Mandy Hill!”
Gee Gee and Dimples were showing the girls around the trailer. Mandy followed, explaining the points of interest as they went along.
Mother had begun to wheeze again. Biff poured a small mound of the asthma powder into the container lid and touched a match to it. When the flame died down, he reached for a towel and put it over Mother’s head.
“Here’s where we found the money,” Mandy said. “Joyce is in the bedroom or I’d show you where we found the body.” He had taken over Biff’s job of Joe Host and he was working overtime at it.
“Soon as the inquest is over,” he said, “we’ll be rolling along. Back to the Gaiety with a quick one-two.”
Mother’s breathing became easier. She took the towel from her head and folded it carefully over on the back of her chair.
“My, oh my, that was a bad one,” she said comfortably. Her smile was radiant, “You know, children,” she said, “I’ve been thinking—”
Biff moaned softly.
“Hold your hats, boys,” he said. “Here we go again.”
About the Author
Craig Rice (1908–1957), born Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig, was an American author of mystery novels and short stories described as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction.” In 1946, she became the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Best known for her character John J. Malone, a rumpled Chicago lawyer, Rice’s writing style was both gritty and humorous. She also collaborated with mystery writer Stuart Palmer on screenplays and short stories, as well as with Ed McBain on the novel The April Robin Murders.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1942 by Simon and Schuster, Inc.
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5176-7
This 2018 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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