by Various
I finished the last of my beer quickly and started to slide off the stool. He reached out and rapped on the bar. "Here, have another, Mac," he said. "On me."
I shook my head. "Sorry, got to catch a train out of here at midnight," I told him.
He glanced at the clock. "Plenty of time." I opened my mouth to protest but the bartender was already opening a bottle and pouring a Scotch for the stranger. And he was talking to me again.
"Football is worse," he said. "A guy can get hurt playing football, some of 'em get hurt bad. That's what the crowd likes to see. And boy, when they start yelling for blood it's enough to turn your stomach."
"I don't know," I said. "After all, it's a pretty harmless way of releasing pent-up aggression."
Maybe he understood me and maybe he didn't, but he nodded. "It releases something, like you say, but I ain't so sure it's harmless. Take boxing and wrestling, now. Call that a sport? Call that a hobby?"
"Well," I agreed, "people want to see somebody get clobbered."
"Sure, only they won't admit it." His face was quite red now; he was starting to sweat. "And what about hunting and fishing? When you come right down to it, it's the same thing. Only there you do the killing yourself. You take a gun and shoot some dumb animal. Or you cut up a live worm and stick it on a hook and that hook cuts into a fish's mouth, and you sort of get a thrill out of it, don't you? When the hook goes in and it cuts and tears -"
"Now wait a minute," I said. "Maybe that's good. What's a fish? If it keeps people from being sadists -"
"Never mind the two-dollar words," he cut in. He blinked at me. "You know it's true. Everybody gets the urge, sooner or later. Stuff like ball games and boxing don't really satisfy it, either. So we gotta have a war, every so often. Then there's an excuse to do real killing. Millions."
Nietzsche thought he was a gloomy philosopher. He should have known about double-Scotches. "What's your solution?" I tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "Do you think there'd be less harm done if they repealed the laws against murder?"
"Maybe." The bald-headed man studied his empty glass. "Depends on who got killed. Suppose you just knocked off tramps and bums. Or a floozie, maybe. You know, somebody without a family or relatives or anything. Somebody who wouldn't be missed. You could get away with it easier, too."
I leaned forward, staring at him.
"Could you?" I asked.
He didn't look at me. He gazed down at his bowling-bag for a moment before replying.
"Don't get me wrong, Mac," he said, forcing a grin. "I ain't no murderer. But I was just thinking about a guy who used to do it. Right here in town, too. This was maybe twenty years ago."
"You knew him?"
"No, of course not. Nobody knew him, that's the whole point. That's how he always got away with it. But everybody knew about him. All you had to do was read the papers." He drained his drink.
"They call him the Cleveland Torso Slayer. He did thirteen murders in four years, out in Kingsbury and around Jackall Hill. Cops went nuts trying to find the guy. Figured he came into town on week ends, maybe. He'd pick up some bum, lure the hobo down into a gully or the dumps near the tracks. Promise to give him a bottle, or something. Did the same thing with women. Then he used his knife."
"You mean he wasn't playing games, trying to fool himself. He went for the real thing."
The man nodded. "That's right. Real thrills and a real trophy at the end. You see, he liked to cut 'em up. He liked to cut off their -"
I stood up and reached for my bag. The stranger laughed.
"Don't be scared, Mac," he said. "This guy must of blown town way back in 1938 or so. Maybe when the war came along in Europe he joined up over there. Went into some commando outfit and kept on doing the same thing - only then he was a hero instead of a murderer. See what I mean?"
"Easy now," I said. "I see what you mean. Don't go getting yourself excited. It's your theory, not mine."
He lowered his voice. "Theory? Maybe so, Mac. But I run into something tonight that'll really rock you. What you suppose I been tossing down all these drinks for?"
"All bowlers drink," I told him. "But if you actually feel the way you do about sports, how come you're a bowler?"
The bald-headed man leaned close to me. "A man's got to have some kind of hobby, Mac, or he'd blow his stack. Right?"
I opened my mouth to agree, but before I could answer him there was another noise. We both heard it at the same time - the sound of a siren down the street.
The bartender looked up. "Heading this way, sounds like, doesn't it?"
The bald-headed man was on his feet and moving towards the door.
I hurried after him. "Here, don't forget your bag."
He didn't look at me. "Thanks," he muttered. "Thanks, Mac."
And then he was gone. He didn't stay on the street, but slipped through an areaway between two adjoining buildings. In a moment he had disappeared. I stood in the doorway as the siren's wail choked the street. A squad car pulled up in front of the tavern, its motor racing. A uniformed sergeant had been running along the sidewalk, accompanying it, and he came puffing up. He glanced at the sidewalk, glanced at the tavern, glanced at me.
"See anything of a big, bald-headed guy carrying a bowling bag?" he panted.
I had to tell the truth. "Why, yes. Somebody went out of here only a minute ago -"
"Which way?"
I gestured between the buildings and he shouted orders at the men in the squad car. It rolled off; the sergeant stayed behind.
"Tell me about it," he said, pushing me back into the tavern.
"All right, but what's this all about?"
"Murder. Over at the Bowling Convention, in the hotel. About an hour ago. The bellboy saw him coming out of her room, figured maybe he was a grab artist because he used the stairs instead of the elevator."
"Grab artist?"
"Prowler - you know. They hang around conventions, sneak into rooms and pick up stuff. Anyway, this prowler leaves this room too fast. Bellboy got a good look at the guy and notified the house dick. The house dick found this dame right on the bed. She'd been carved, but good. But the guy had too much of a start."
I took a deep breath. "The man who was just in here," I said. "A big bald-headed guy. He kept talking about the Cleveland Torso Slayings. But I thought he was just drunk, or rib -"
"The bellboy's description checks with the one a newsie gave us just down the street from here. He saw him coming this way. Like you say, a big bald-headed guy."
He stared down at the bowling bag. "He took his with him, didn't he?"
I nodded.
He sighed. "That's what helped us trace him to this tavern. His bowling bag."
"Somebody saw it, described it?"
"No, they didn't have to describe it. It left a trail. Notice how I was running along the sidewalk out there? I was following the trail. And here - take a look at the floor under the stool."
I looked.
"You see, he wasn't carrying a bowling ball in that bag. Bowling balls don't leak."
I sat down on the stool and the room started to spin. I hadn't noticed the blood before.
Then I raised my head. A patrolman came into the tavern. He'd been running, judging from the way he wheezed, but his face wasn't red. It was greenish-white.
"Get him?" snapped the sergeant.
"What's left of him." The patrolman looked away. "He wouldn't stop. We fired a shot over his head, maybe you heard it. He hopped the fence in back of the block here and ran onto the tracks. And smack into this freight train."
"Dead?"
The patrolman nodded. "Lieutenant's down there right now. And the meat-wagon. They're gonna have to scrape him off the tracks."
The sergeant swore softly under his breath. "Then we can't know for sure," he said. "Maybe he was just a sneak-thief after all."
"One way," the patrolman said. "Hanson's coming up with his bag. It rolled clear of the freight when it hit."
The ot
her patrolman walked in, carrying the bowling bag. The sergeant took it out of Hanson's hands and set it up on the bar.
"Was this what he was carrying?" he asked me.
"Yes," I said. My voice stuck in my throat.
I turned away. I didn't want to watch the sergeant open the bag. I didn't even want to see their faces when they looked inside. But of course, I heard them. I think Hanson got sick.
I gave the sergeant an official statement, which he requested. He wanted a name and address and he got them too. Hanson took it all down and made me sign it.
I told him all about the conversation with the stranger, the whole theory of murder as a hobby, the idea of choosing the dregs of life as victims because they weren't likely to be missed.
"Sounds screwy when you talk about it, doesn't it?" I concluded. "All the while, I thought it was a gag."
The sergeant glanced at the bowling bag, then looked at me. "It's no gag," he said. "That's probably just how the killer's mind worked. I know all about him - everybody on the force has studied those Torso Slaying cases inside and out for years. The story makes sense. The murderer left town twenty years ago, when things got too hot. Probably he did join up over in Europe, and maybe he stayed on in the Occupation countries when the war ended. Then he got the urge to come back and start all over again."
"Why?" I asked.
"Who knows? Maybe it was a hobby with him. A sort of a game he played. Maybe he liked to win trophies. But imagine what nerve he had, walking into a Bowling Convention and pulling off a stunt like that? Carrying a bowling bag so he could take the -"
I guess he saw the look on my face because he put his hand on my shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "I know how you feel. Had a pretty close shave yourself, just talking to him. Probably the cleverest psychopathic murderer who ever lived. Consider yourself lucky."
I nodded and headed for the door. I could still make that midnight train, now. And I agreed with the sergeant about the close shave, the cleverest psychopathic murderer in the world.
I agreed that I was lucky, too. I mean there at the last moment, when that stupid sneak-thief ran out of the tavern and I gave him the bowling bag that leaked. Lucky for me he never noticed I'd switched bags with him.
I wish to direct myself particularly to the realists among you. Dummies - the ones I know at any rate - can be quite vocal. May I ask that you never pooh-pooh the utterances made by them and other inanimate objects. If you, for example, should bark your shins on a chair that gets in your way, kick it, berate it, but, for heaven's sake, do not deny it its right to talk back.
* * *
...SAID JACK THE RIPPER
BY ROBERT ARTHUR
Two weeks before the annual opening, Atlantic Beach Park was a ghost town by night, wrapped in shadowed silence. A mist riding in from the ocean twined itself around the Ferris wheel, hid the deserted roller coaster, made the street lights into shimmering yellow blobs.
Inside the one big room of the rickety building that housed Pop Dillon's Chamber of Horrors - The Waxworks Museum Supreme - a dusty bulb on the end of a long drop cord gave a little light, but left the corners full of shadows that seemed to crouch as if about to spring. A lifetime in the carnival business had made Pop, a wizened little man, a night owl. Now he was getting his assortment of murderers, cutthroats, criminals and victims ready for the coming season - mostly a matter of brushing off the winter's dust or mending a few moth holes in the costumes.
Humming tunelessly, Pop adjusted the flowing necktie of Holmes, the Chicago murder king whose odd hobby had been to cut up pretty young women in his basement. Then he went on to John Dillinger.
"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream," Pop sang in a monotone to himself, "merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream ... Hello, Mr. Dillinger. You're looking fine. But what a condition to let your gun get into. Rusty!"
Dillinger didn't answer. Sometimes he did; sometimes he didn't. It depended on his mood. Pop was always willing to chat when one of his wax figures seemed in the mood, and he had had a number of interesting conversations with some of them, such as the ones he had with Jack the Ripper, who was naturally boastful. Others, though, never spoke a word - they were the silent types. Pop never tried to force them to talk - even a wax dummy had a right to privacy, he figured.
Pop was dusting Jack the Ripper, who with knife in hand kneeled over a female victim, a fiendish smile on his face, when he heard the front door open.
"Pop!" It was Hendryx, the beat cop, a friendly, burly young fellow who came forward into the circle of light as Pop turned. "Got something to tell you."
"Yeah," Pop said eagerly, curiously.
"Want to warn you. It happened just a couple hours ago."
"Yeah?"
"Your old pal Burke Morgan escaped. On the way to the Shore Beach Penitentiary -"
"Morgan escaped?" Pop's creased features registered dismay. "But he's going to the electric chair at midnight."
"Was going."
"You mean he's not?"
"He had the nerve to petition the Governor to postpone his execution. Said he wasn't well enough to be executed. Imagine that. He'd been in the prison hospital with something or other. What do you think of that for nerve?"
Pop could only shake his head.
"Of course the Governor said no. But the way it turned out, that didn't make any difference, far as Burke's getting out. So I thought I'd better warn you."
"That's bad," Pop said. "His escaping."
"It was all set. Then things start happening. The Governor he orders Morgan transferred to Shore Beach Pen when they find the chair up at the state pen's not working."
"But you said he wasn't going to be electrocuted -"
"He got away. Four guards in the prison van, and he got away. A big truck comes along, smacks into the van and knocks it over."
"Oh, that's very bad."
"They had to cut Morgan out of that van with acetylene torches. And these two guys that done it had machine guns - that's the way I heard it."
"Oh, he must be caught," Pop moaned. "My whole summer'll be ruined if he isn't."
"I wanted to warn you. They think he's wounded. And that's not going to help his disposition none. Well, I got to be on my way. Just wanted to tell you so you'd be on the lookout."
"My whole summer," Pop said dolefully. "Look over here, Hendryx, at this new display. It'll be a great drawing card, but only if Morgan is electrocuted."
"Should be going," Hendryx said as he followed Pop to a realistic electric chair set on a platform in the middle of the room. Then he asked, "What's the pitch, Pop?"
"Why, down in the workroom I'm making a wax figure of Burke Morgan. It's going to sit in that electric chair. Nice one, isn't it? And you know I got it quite reasonable from that theatrical supply firm down on Race Street."
"That girl holding the tray. That's supposed to be Alice Johnson, isn't it?"
"And sitting at the table is Pretty Boy Thomas. It's the same table he was eating at when Morgan stepped up to the window of the Briny Spray Oyster House down by the boardwalk and shot him because of their little argument."
"That sure looks like Pretty Boy, Pop. He sure looks alive - which of course he ain't."
"I'm going to call this exhibit, 'Burke Morgan, the Quiz Winner, Electrocuted as His Victims Watch.'"
"Good idea, Pop. But now I gotta get going. Just wanted to warn you. Case you hear anybody trying to get in, you'd better call us quick."
"That Burke Morgan's a vain one. Being on that quiz program just blew him up all the more. Always boasting how much he read on Crime and Criminals, so having that subject on the quiz was a natural for him. Just the same he did come to me to talk about my boarders."
"That's Morgan all right," Hendryx said.
"You know what he said to me? He said other criminals were illiterate and that's why they were always caught. And he tells me that he had killed twelve men - one whole dozen - and had never even been suspected."
"Okay
, Pop. Just you be careful."
Hendryx left. For a moment Pop looked gloomy as he walked over to the carefully set table where a handsome, curly-haired figure sat as if eating. Pop began to dust the dishes and silver and rearrange them.
"That's life, Pretty Boy," he sighed. "Get a nice exhibit worked out and then Burke Morgan has to escape. But maybe I can save it yet - reenact the murder maybe, when Morgan shot you just as you were eating oysters. What was that quarrel about between you two, anyway?"
He waited, but Pretty Boy did not answer. Probably Pretty Boy felt upset over the escape, too. Naturally, he'd rather have been part of an exhibit showing Morgan electrocuted than of one that re-created his own violent death.
Pop turned to the wax figure of Alice Johnson, a slender girl with dark brown hair and rather wistful eyes, the girl who had witnessed the murder. He straightened Alice's apron, made sure the tray was firm. Then he fluffed up her hair. "There," he said, "you look pretty, Alice."
He thought he heard her say, "Thank you," but he couldn't be sure. Alice was still extremely shy and hardly ever talked above a whisper.
Alice looked so pretty that Pop could not restrain himself from saying, "If only you hadn't screamed, Alice, Morgan might not have noticed you and shot you. But there, don't look so upset, I shouldn't have brought it up. I know it's a painful memory, but you'll be happy here with us, Alice, really you will. This summer you'll get to see thousands of new people, and they'll all admire you, you'll see. And after all, it was because you screamed that Morgan got caught."
Pop tactfully left Alice to recover her composure and went on dusting his way toward the darkest corner of the room. There he stopped. The figure standing there was out of place.
"Now, Burke Morgan," he said reprovingly, "what are you doing in this corner?"
"All right, Pop," the figure said softly. "Take it easy, don't make me kill you."
Pop's expression became severe. His figures were allowed to talk, but they weren't permitted to threaten him.
"Don't talk like that, Morgan," he said, "or I'll put you in a dark closet for a week. Besides, you're not finished yet. So you just go right back down to the workshop."