by Unknown
“Death Stops Payment,” Champion’s first Black Mask story, was published in the July 1940 issue.
Death Stops Payment
D. L. Champion
Anything to make a couple of grand—or even a plugged nickel. That was Rex Sackler’s code of life—and death. For he was equally quick to euchre lucre from the living or cash out of a corpse.
CHAPTER ONE
AFTER ALL—WHAT’S MONEY?
ARRIVED AT THE office at ten minutes past nine and received a surly good-morning from Sackler. He glowered at a story of the national debt in the Tribune and I sat down, lit a cigarette and grinned at him. His dyspeptic mood was no stunning surprise to me.
This was Wednesday—pay day. And Rex Sackler parting with money was as gay and light-hearted as Romeo taking his leave of Juliet.
I took the cigarette from my mouth and coughed politely. He lifted his head from the paper and stared at me with his dark sullen eyes. With nice delicacy, I scratched the palm of my left hand with the index finger of my right. Sackler folded the Tribune with great deliberation and sighed the sigh of a sorely tried man.
“Joey,” he said, “you’re a money grubber. A beaten slave of Mammon. Your job, to you, is a matter of dollars. Service, you know nothing of. Loyalty is beyond your limited ken. The noble pleasure of sheer altruism is something your material mind cannot grasp.”
That, coming from Rex Sackler, was uproarious. He had quit the police department because of his theory that a man of his talents could make a fortune as a private detective. To the regret of several people, he had been right. Not only was he competent but he could smell a nickel before it had left the mint. He possessed all the business instincts of a Scotsman, an Armenian trader and a bank vault. He made money hand over fist. He disgorged it with the reluctance of a slot machine.
I put out my cigarette and stood up. “I’m strictly a strong-arm guy,” I told him. “However, I can grasp the simple fact that you owe me some sixty-five slugs for last week’s wages. Do I collect?”
Sackler shook his head and this time his sigh came from the soles of his feet. He put his hand inside his breast pocket and withdrew his wallet as if it had an anchor attached. He counted out some bills with the meticulous care of a near-sighted croupier and laid them on the desk.
I put the money in my pocket. I said, very politely: “Now just what plans have you formulated for taking this away from me?”
He looked at me reproachfully. “Joey,” he said, “your misconstruction of my motives is incredible. Merely because I sometimes gamble with you for pastime, you appear to believe I really care about winning. Crass, Joey. And gauche. After all, what’s money?”
I picked that cue up fast. “Money,” I said, “is what you’ve got socked in every Postal Savings account in the city because you think banks are a wild gamble. Money is what you’d sell your grandmother to the Arab slave-dealers for. Money is what you reluctantly pay me every week, then devise schemes for winning back. Money—”
He wasn’t listening to me. He had taken a pair of dice from his pocket and was caressing them in his hand. There was a little click as he spun them over the desk blotter. I watched them come to rest, revealing a pair of deuces. Then I suddenly caught myself and walked to the window.
“Oh, no,” I said. “You can put those right back in your pocket. You’re not getting a nickel out of me this week, even if you offer a dime for it.”
I stood at the window showing him my back and contemplating the thrumming Madison Avenue traffic. I still heard the gentle click of the dice behind me and the gambling corpuscles in my veins throbbed nervously. Resolutely, I stared through the glass.
I turned only when I heard the door of the outer office slam. Sackler lifted his head like a hyena scenting prey. He adjusted his cuffs and cleared his throat, preparatory to the onslaught on the client’s pocketbook. Inspector Wolley of the Headquarters Squad strode into the room.
Sackler’s phoney smile of welcome faded. He reached for the dice again and said ungraciously: “Oh, it’s you.”
“It sure is,” said Wolley with loud affability. “And how’s business, Rex? How’s every little thing with the sharpest shamus in town?”
That speech coming from Wolley was far, far phonier than Sackler’s smile had been. As a general rule Wolley and Sackler go along like Martin Dies and a liberal thought. Sackler believed Wolley a pompous incompetent, which he was; while Wolley’s heart dripped envy every time he compared Sackler’s income with his own.
“Rex,” said Wolley, “I’d like to ask you a question. To settle a little discussion we were having downtown. Exactly why did you quit the department to go in business on your own hook?”
Sackler took a package of ten-cent cigarettes from his pocket and lighted one. Carefully, he replaced the burnt match in its book. When he answered he did not speak the truth.
“Public service,” he said virtuously. “With my talent it stands to reason I can accomplish more civic good than under the orders of a block-headed police commissioner.”
“Exactly,” boomed Wolley. “That’s just what I said. Now how about lending us a hand on the Capek case?”
Sackler blinked at him. I leaned forward in my chair and said maliciously: “Free, Inspector?”
“Well,” said Wolley as if he were the Chamber of Commerce and I was looking over the factory site, “we’re all working for the public good together. After all, what’s money?”
his magnificent indifference to money on the part of all hands was beginning to overwhelm me. But in spite of all this idealistic chatter, I knew damned well Sackler wouldn’t stir out of his chair to solve a tabloid cross-word puzzle until someone slapped a large bill on the desktop.
He was staring unpleasantly at Wolley. He resented the trap into which the inspector had led him. He took a deep breath and proceeded to squirm out of it.
“Wolley,” he said with a fine air of regret, “I’d like to help you. But it wouldn’t be fair to my other clients. You see, if they pay high rates for my services it isn’t right for me to work for nothing. It would offend them.”
Wolley grunted skeptically. “Well,” he said slowly, “I sort of thought of that myself. So I got together with some of the boys and raised a little purse for you.”
Sackler’s eyes gleamed. “A purse? How much?”
“A couple of hundred.”
Sackler looked insulted. The gleam went from his eyes faster than it had come in. I knew quite well he wasn’t going to let that two hundred get away from him. But he was going to indulge in some very fancy haggling first.
“That’s not much money, Wolley,” he said. “Make it five.”
“My God,” said Wolley. “Ten coppers put together don’t make as much money as you do in a year, Rex. Besides, we’re gambling with you. We’ll give you the two hundred free and clear. We ask no guarantees. Even if someone else breaks the Capek case you can keep the dough.”
That didn’t sound so bad. This Capek case was no cinch. Capek was a very odd character. With all the dough he’d piled up I suppose he had a right to be. He’d come to this country, a ragged immigrant boy, about fifty years ago. He’d rolled up his sleeves and gone to work—hard and successfully. Today, he controlled a dozen corporations and half a dozen banks. He was a strong, square-jawed character who possessed a great deal of pride and no friends. Hardly any acquaintances, save for a young guy named Rawson, who had once been his secretary and was now his partner.
Capek had been missing for about two weeks. His household on Long Island and the police suspected kidnaping, although no ransom demand had yet been received. Anyway, it made a good newspaper story and the whole police department was going nuts looking for Capek.
As Wolley’s unprecedented visit attested, they hadn’t had much success.
Sackler was looking at Wolley and there was a shrewd glitter in his eye. I knew quite well what he was thinking. As Sackler’s fees went, two hundred bucks was no fortune. But this was an opportun
ity to get it for nothing. I knew, moreover, that he was going to accept the deal ultimately, but first he was going to break his neck to have Wolley raise the ante.
“Three hundred,” he said, “and it’s a deal.”
Wolley drummed angrily on the desk with his fingers. He got very little more than three hundred a month. Sackler yawned elaborately and picked up the dice again.
The telephone jangled suddenly. I picked it up. It was for Wolley. I handed him the phone and he talked rapidly into the receiver, listened for a moment and hung up. He turned to Sackler, a wide grin on his face, and all the false affability had vanished from his voice as he spoke.
“Wise guy,” he jeered. “Just a shrewd business genius. Well, you just haggled yourself out of two hundred bucks, my friend. They’ve found Capek.”
Sackler dropped the dice and jerked his head up angrily.
“Where?”
“In the caretaker’s lodge on his own estate. And dead. Apparently a suicide.” But Wolley wasn’t interested in Capek anymore. He reverted to the subject nearest his heart. “But you—you could have had two hundred bucks just for sitting at your desk until that phone call came in. You wouldn’t have had to move a muscle of a brain cell.”
He walked to the doorway, grinning triumphantly, and added: “And it’s breaking your chiseling marble heart.”
The door slammed behind him and he was gone.
hether or not there were any cracks in Sackler’s cardiac region, I didn’t know. But I was very happy about it all. It wasn’t every day I was granted the privilege of seeing Sackler lose money.
He looked up suddenly, saw my grin and rolled the dice again. Double six came up.
“What do you say, Joey? Just one roll. For a buck.”
I hesitated. Sackler had been rolling craps with a fair degree of regularity this morning. Besides, if the law of averages hadn’t been suspended, I was due. I took a dollar from my pocket and laid it on the desk.
“Just once,” I said. “One fast roll. That’s all. Win, lose or draw.”
“Sure, Joey. Just one.”
Twenty minutes later when the outer door slammed for the second time that day, I was out precisely thirty-three bucks. Sackler snatched up the dice as our caller entered the room.
He was tall, well built, about thirty-five and exceedingly well dressed. He gave out a strong aroma of ready cash and Sackler came to point like a bird dog. I sat down sulkily at my desk and wondered why the hell I’d ever got in that crap game. In four years I’d never won a dime from Rex Sackler at anything.
The stranger nodded his head and said briskly: “Mr. Sackler?”
Sackler admitted his identity.
“I’m Rawson. Harold Rawson.”
Sackler’s face lit up. Wolley’s two hundred was water under the dam now.
“Rawson,” he said quickly. “Karl Capek’s partner?”
“Not anymore,” said Rawson briefly.
“Ah,” said Sackler like a doctor at the death bed, “that suicide. Very unfortunate. Very—”
“It wasn’t suicide,” snapped Rawson.
Sackler’s eyes opened wide. It was neither surprise nor shock, I knew. It was wholehearted satisfaction that here, indeed, was a fee.
“You’re sure of that?”
“Positive,” said Rawson. “I have information which precludes all suicidal possibilities.”
“Ah,” said Sackler again, “and you want me to find out—”
“I want you to find out who killed him.”
Sackler rubbed his hands together and gazed dreamily at his client.
“The fee,” he murmured, “will be twenty-five hundred dollars. In advance. Make the check out to cash, please.”
Rawson sat down. He took a fountain pen and a check book from his pocket. He said, “Quite satisfactory,” and proceeded to write. Sackler watched him happily. Then Rawson spoke again.
“I’m a little short of cash, Sackler. Been out of town on business. Just got back to find this awful tragedy. Can you let me have fifty in cash if I make the check out for that much additional?”
“Of course,” said Sackler, always willing to exchange fifty for twenty-five hundred. “Glad to oblige.”
He counted out five tens and picked up the check. “Now,” he said, “first, what is this information you have that makes you so sure Capek was murdered?”
Rawson stood up. There was a hard coldness in his eyes. “I shall tell you that tonight,” he said. “Can you be at the Capek mansion tonight, at nine o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” said Rawson. He turned and walked to the door. He paused on the threshold and for a moment his brusque businesslike air dropped from him.
“Karl Capek was a great man,” he said, and there was a peculiar huskiness to his voice. “He was my best, my only friend. And by God, I will avenge him!”
He swung around on his heel and marched into the corridor.
Sackler held the check in his hand as if it were a diamond he’d just picked up in the gutter, which it more or less was.
I stood over by the window bathed in envy. Here Sackler had just had twenty-five hundred dollars dropped into his avaricious lap while I was out thirty-three bucks of last week’s salary. If there was any justice in the world it never seemed to get around to this office.
“Joey, my lad,” said Sackler, “run over to the bank with this check. Get it cashed right away.”
That was Sackler all over. Whenever he got a check he rushed it over to the bank, cashed it and sank it in one of his Postal Savings accounts. Nothing short of the revolution was going to get a nickel out of him.
I sighed, put on my hat and coat, and went out into the street.
I returned half an hour later. I was grinning happily from ear to ear. There was a soothing, gloating sensation in my heart that almost made me forget about my thirty-three bucks. Sackler looked up as I approached his desk.
“Ah,” he said, “get to the bank all right?”
“And had a very pleasant trip,” I told him. “Here.”
I groped in my pocket and laid Rawson’s check down on the desk before him. He looked at it, then looked at me.
“Well,” he said testily, “where’s the cash?”
I smiled at him sweetly. “There isn’t any cash.”
“What the devil are you talking about, Joey? What do you mean there—”
“There isn’t enough cash anyway. Insufficient funds.”
He looked for all the world as if someone had slugged him over the head with a mallet.
“My God, Joey, you don’t mean—”
“I mean that Harold Rawson, who’s probably worth several hundred thousand times as much dough as you are, has given you a bum check. Moreover, you’ve been taken for fifty bucks in cash. I might add, I think it very, very funny.”
“My God,” said Sackler in an anguished tone, “twenty-five hundred and fifty bucks. I’ve been taken for twenty-five hundred and fifty bucks. I’m a ruined man. I—”
“Do we still keep that appointment at Capek’s joint?” I asked him.
“You’re damn right we do,” he said explosively. “I’m going to see that Rawson. He can’t do this to me. Good heavens, twenty-five hundred and fifty bucks is one hell of a lot of dough, Joey.”
“You’re actually out only fifty,” I pointed out. “That’s all you gave him in cash.”
He paid no attention to me. He buried his face in his hands and muttered over and over again: “Twenty-five hundred and fifty bucks, my God!”
In my book he was still out only fifty but in his present distrait condition all the arithmetic in the world wasn’t going to convince him.
CHAPTER TWO
YOU CAN’T GET CASH FROM A CORPSE
t was a raw blustery night as we drove through Long Island on the Grand Central Parkway. Sackler had recovered somewhat from his fiscal grief. He had arrived at the conclusion that it was a ghastly and horrible mistake, but nevertheless, a mi
stake. Considering Rawson’s position, his wealth, the fact that he was Karl Capek’s partner, I was reluctantly inclined to agree with him.
But I wasn’t so optimistic about my thirty-three bucks as Sackler was about his twenty-five hundred and fifty. All afternoon, I’d been racking my brains for some cinch bet which would enable me to win it back, without success. Now, as I heard Sackler humming gayly at my side in the car, I tried another tack.
“Hey,” I said, “I’ll make a deal with you.”
Sackler kept on humming.
“If Rawson makes good for you on that check, how about giving me back that dough I lost at dice?”
The melody died on his lips. “Why, Joey,” he said reproachfully, “they’re two entirely different things. Yours was a gambling debt. I couldn’t insult you by offering to return it.”
I sighed and said: “No, I hardly thought you could.”
We made the rest of the trip in silence. Some twenty miles out I turned through an elaborate pair of wrought-iron gates and drove through the heavily wooded estate of Karl Capek. The wind blew cold from the Sound and the sky was starless. It was a cold cheerless night that fitted in well with my own mood.