by Craig Rice
“Don’t you worry about Bingo,” Handsome said. “He’s crazy about a girl out in Hollywood.”
“He’d better be,” Herb muttered.
There was silence in the car until it had turned onto the concrete road that led into Thursday. A gloomy and uncomfortable silence. Then Herb unexpectedly warmed up.
“Cigarette?”
“Thanks, pal,” Bingo said.
“Thanks, you bet,” Handsome said.
They rode another half mile in silence, and then Herb said, “I wonder what scared Chris. Funny darn thing. I’ve known Chris Halvorsen since I was three years old—I was three when my folks brought me here from Keokuk—and I never saw him scared before.” He crushed out his cigarette in the convertible’s ash tray and said, “I sure wish I knew what was going on around here.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I’ll tell you what we could do,” Bingo said. “We could drive straight on, maybe get out of the state by morning. Then hole up in some little town and buy a can of paint and paint the car—gray, or green, or black, or something.”
“We could,” Handsome said, noncommittally.
“I don’t know what we’d do about the license plates. Maybe we could get a lot of mud over them. Or steal some new ones.”
“Mud would be better,” Handsome said.
“We still got the car and the luggage and about a hundred and seventy bucks. We could make it to Hollywood easy, and once we were there, everything should be O. K.”
“Sure,” Handsome said.
“Still, there’s two hundred thousand and something bucks buried somewhere around here.”
“Two hundred and seventy-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty-five,” Handsome said.
“Besides, our own thousand bucks which we want to get back, and Mr. Halvorsen’s turkeys, which we ought to help find, and Christine is a beautiful little girl.”
Handsome drove in silence for a moment. Then he said, “If we don’t make any stops, we could be in Nebraska by morning.”
“But we do own a house we could sleep in overnight,” Bingo said. He was silent for a moment. That house had been owned by a bank robber, now dead, and a man had been murdered in it not so many hours ago. “Unless maybe you’d feel nervous about staying there.” He hoped Handsome would say he didn’t want to stay there.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Handsome said.
Bingo drew a long breath. “Well, then—I do sort of worry about those turkeys. And there’s all that money. We just might be able to find it. Still, we could be in Nebraska by morning.”
“I’m sleepy,” Handsome said.
Bingo said, “Well, I guess that settles it. Can you find our house in the dark?”
“Easy,” Handsome said.
The convertible purred down the highway. Bingo leaned back against the seat cushions and half closed his eyes. So much—too much—had been happening in the last twenty-four—no, twelve—hours.
If they hadn’t run into that misguided turkey, they’d be in Omaha by now, comfortably asleep in a good hotel.
But without the chance of digging up two hundred thousand and whatever it was dollars in gold.
If they’d kicked in with the ten bucks for the turkey and driven on, they wouldn’t be mixed up in a small-town crime wave that might keep them stuck in Thursday County for days and days.
But they wouldn’t have met Christine, golden-haired Christine. Some day, out in Hollywood—
Whatever could have happened to those turkeys?
Bingo dozed.
He was awakened abruptly from a dream, in which Hollywood, pirates’ treasure, and beautiful blondes were all tangled up together, by the convertible coming to a stop. A little less than half awake, he realized the car door was being opened. He heard himself saying, still from the dream, “Turkey. Golden turkey.”
“Gobble-gobble-gobble.” Handsome’s voice said “Wake up.”
“I’m wide awake,” Bingo said, opening the other eye. He yawned, and stumbled out of the car. “Where are we?”
“Home,” Handsome said. He turned on the flashlight.
Bingo blinked at the shanty. It looked even more desolate than it had at first. He shuddered.
“Of course, we could be in Nebraska by morning,” Handsome said.
“When we’ve such a beautiful home of our own?” Bingo said indignantly. He wondered what, or who, they’d find in it this time.
Handsome whistled a bar or two of A Shanty in Old Shanty Town and led the way into the dreary building, flashlight in hand. It was full of dark and mysterious shadows. Bingo glanced around apprehensively. None of the shadows looked like murderers, or, more to the point, like their recent victims.
Handsome struck a match and lighted the oil lamp. A warm, pleasant yellow glow began to fill the little room. Bingo took off the blue-and-brown checked sport jacket and folded it carefully on top of one of the calfskin suitcases. Then he sat down on one of the battered chairs.
“This isn’t bad at all,” he said. “Not half bad.”
“I aired out the blankets first thing this afternoon,” Handsome said. “And cleaned out the coffeepot and the frying pan. There’s a can of coffee and a couple of eggs, and all that bacon.”
He went out to the pump, came back with a pail of water, and started the oil stove on his third try. A few minutes later the smell of boiling coffee and frying bacon filled the shanty.
“Anyone would think you’d been raised on a farm,” Bingo said admiringly.
“My aunt Mary Margaret lived in a cold-water flat in Brooklyn when I was a kid,” Handsome said, breaking an egg into the frying pan. “She had an oil stove her husband picked up at an auction sale. He was a great one for auctions. Once he came home with twenty-two seat cushions for Ford cars. And when the electricity was turned off because the bill wasn’t paid, she used an oil lamp. And half the time the water was turned off and she had to carry a pail over to the neighbor’s, a Mrs. Feldman. There were a lot of us kids at home, so most of the time one or two of us were at Aunt Mary Margaret’s. She only had four. Good thing we came back here tonight, after I washed up all those dishes this afternoon.”
He dished bacon and eggs onto plates, poured coffee, brought out a loaf of bread. “Bingo, I don’t think she’s so pretty.”
Bingo paused, a forkful of eggs and bacon halfway to his mouth. “Who?”
“That blond babe.”
“She is not a babe,” Bingo said sternly. “I’m surprised at you, Handsome. She’s a sheltered little country girl.”
Handsome said, “Oh.”
“And she’s beautiful,” Bingo added.
“Sure,” Handsome said. If Bingo said a babe—a girl—was beautiful, she was, and that settled it. Bingo couldn’t be wrong about anything.
The bacon and eggs and coffee, and the cheerful glow of the oil lamp, made all the difference in the world. While Handsome carried off the dishes and washed them, Bingo lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and admired his home.
“You know, Handsome,” he said dreamily, “I was afraid maybe you’d feel nervous about coming back here, after us finding that guy murdered here. I’m glad you don’t. Because it isn’t anything to be nervous about, really.”
“Course not,” Handsome said, rinsing out the frying pan. “Shall I save the coffee to warm up for breakfast?”
Bingo started to say, “No, make some fresh,” and then stopped himself. He said, “Maybe you’d better. We’ve got to conserve our resources until we dig up that buried gold. As I was saying. About us sleeping in a place where a guy was murdered just a little while ago. How many different rooming houses have we stayed in since we started the International Foto, Motion Picture, and Television Corporation of America?”
“Plenty,” Handsome said. He hung up the dishcloth and threw the dishwater out the door. “We were always getting thrown out because we hadn’t paid the rent, and I’d have to smuggle the cameras and stuff out somehow.”
“That isn’t what I
meant,” Bingo said. “It’s like this. We’ve slept in a lot of different rooming houses. Since we left New York we’ve slept in a lot of different hotel rooms. How do we know someone wasn’t murdered in one of those other places we slept in?”
“Could be,” Handsome said. “People are getting murdered all the time. There were eight thousand, two hundred and eight people murdered in the United States in 1940. That’s in the World Almanac, page 472, right at the bottom of the page in the right-hand column.”
Bingo drew a long breath. “That’s what I mean. That was in just one year. Multiply that by, say, thirty years. You can see it’s perfectly possible that one of those people could have been murdered in one of the places where we lived. You take that place on West Thirty-fourth Street. It’s easy to imagine—”
“Two hundred and forty-six thousand, two hundred and forty,” Handsome said.
“Huh?” Bingo said, bewildered.
“You said to multiply eight thousand two hundred and eight by—”
“Oh,” Bingo said. “Yeah. Well, that gives you an idea. Handsome, what I’m driving at is this. It never made you nervous to sleep in a place where somebody had been murdered. Because you didn’t know anybody had been murdered there. So, therefore, you shouldn’t feel nervous at sleeping here just because we happen to know that somebody was murdered here. If we didn’t know anything about it, and we’d just happened to move in here tonight, it wouldn’t bother us the least bit. We just wouldn’t think about it. See?”
He lit another cigarette, feeling rather pleased with himself. He didn’t know how his reasoning had affected Handsome, but it had certainly made him feel better.
Handsome sat down in the other chair. “My uncle, Frank Sklarski,” he said, “the one that works for the trucking company, always said that when an individual was murdered, that individual had to hang around the place where he’d been murdered, until the character who murdered him had been brought to justice.”
In spite of himself, Bingo shivered. He resolved to hang on to hardheaded reasoning, at all costs. “Your uncle, Frank Sklarski,” he began sternly.
There was a sound outside the shanty. Bingo’s voice didn’t die in his throat; it froze there.
Handsome glanced around. There wasn’t much available in the way of weapons. He picked up a poker and handed it to Bingo, who moved to one side of the door. He himself picked up the frying pan and stood on the other side of the door.
There were more sounds. Footsteps. Quick, resolute footsteps. They didn’t sound in the least as though they were being made by a ghost.
Bingo braced himself. The footsteps were slower now, as they came along the back of the shanty, toward the door. Footsteps, crickets, and leaves rustling. No other sounds. It might be the murderer coming back, it might be—anything.
This wasn’t New York, where you could pick up the phone and call the police. Or where you could stick your head out a window and bawl for help. Here, you were strictly on your own. Armed with a poker.
The footsteps sounded on the planking just outside the door. Bingo tightened his grip on the poker and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be watching when Handsome came down with that cast-iron frying pan.
If only they’d decided to drive on to Nebraska!
A feminine voice said, “This is a hell of a reception committee.” It was a warm, husky, pleasant voice. “What do you two clowns think you’re doing, anyway?”
Bingo opened his eyes.
She was gorgeous. Really gorgeous. Smoke-black hair, loose over her shoulders. An oval face, with skin the color of extra-thick whipping cream. Dark eyes, with lashes that could have been used to paint a house. A bright-red mouth, shaped like a valentine. And a figure that would have made Venus jump back into the ocean. She had on white sharkskin slacks, a red-and-white striped jersey that fitted her like adhesive tape, and white wedgies with red laces.
Handsome put down the frying pan at the exact moment that Bingo dropped the poker. Bingo recovered his voice first.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “We were expecting a burglar.”
“If I were a burglar,” she said scornfully, “I’m sure I’d have dropped dead with fright.” She flung a red-leather handbag on the table, put her fists on her hips, and said, “Well, if you’re through playing games. Where is he?”
“He?” Bingo said.
“Who?” Handsome said.
Her lovely eyes narrowed to slits. “Say,” she said suddenly. “You’re not Clancy.”
“Who?” Bingo said.
“I know an Ed Clancy,” Handsome said helpfully. “Drives a taxi, and lives on Staten Island. He’s got an uncle, Art Clancy, that’s a lawyer.”
“You boys will have your fun, won’t you?” she snapped. She hadn’t seemed to move, but suddenly there was an ugly little pistol in her hand.
“But I do know an Ed Clancy,” Handsome said, in a hurt voice. “He lives at two-thirty-four West—”
“Shut up,” she said. “Now, let’s play the next one straight. Where is he?”
“Where is who?” Bingo said.
She stared at him, at Handsome, then back again. “One of us,” she said slowly, “is in the wrong house.”
“Can’t be us,” Bingo said, “because we own this house. We bought it this afternoon. From a fella named Gus. We live here.”
“Say, lady,” Handsome added. “You haven’t seen a couple hundred lost turkeys, have you?”
She stared at him. “I begin to have the strangest feeling that I’ve wandered into a lunatic asylum.”
“I’ve got an even stranger feeling that we’re running one,” Bingo said. “We like you and we’re glad you dropped in to visit, but we wish you’d talk sense. Are you looking for someone and, if so, who?”
She sank into one of the battered chairs. “I don’t get this,” she said. “I don’t get it at all. What are you doing here? And who are you?” Her hand that held the gun relaxed in her lap.
“I told you,” Bingo said patiently, “we bought this house. This afternoon. From Gus somebody-or-other. Spot cash. And we’re—” He produced one of the business cards and handed it to her. “I’m Mr. Riggs and this is my partner, Mr. Kusak.”
“But—” She paused, frowned. “There’s something wrong. Terribly wrong. I was supposed to meet—somebody—here tonight. I had some trouble with my car, and it delayed me—hours. And now—”
“Tell me,” Bingo said, “who was this party you were supposed to meet? What did he look like?”
“He was—” Evidently she decided to skip the first question. “Medium height. Good-looking. Thick dark hair, and a dark beard. Very well dressed. Do you know him? Have you seen him?”
“Yes,” Bingo said. “Yes, we’ve seen him.”
“Bingo,” Handsome said. “Do you think the lady would like some nice hot coffee? It’s all made, and I can heat it up in a second.”
“I think she would,” Bingo said.
She stared from one to the other. “What gives here?”
“You look as if you need coffee. Handsome and me, we can tell a mile away if people need coffee. Do you want to tell us your name, or do we just go on saying ‘you’?”
“It’s—” She hesitated. “It’s Elayne—LaRue.”
“Very pretty,” Bingo said. “Did you think it up yourself, or did you win it in a poker game?”
“It’s a stage name,” she said stiffly.
“We guessed that,” Bingo said. “Now, do we call you Maggie, or Minnie?”
“Henrietta,” she said. “But my friends call me Henny. Henrietta Siller.” About a hundred and twenty seconds later she said, “What the blue-blazes are you so quiet about?”
Bingo didn’t answer. He tried to, but he couldn’t. All he could think of was that name, Siller, and the face of the very dead man it had belonged to. He sneaked another look at her lovely little face and then looked away, quick. Across the smoky little room he could see Handsome’s face, terribly pale, the jaw set.
She sipped the coffee, said, “Thanks,” and then, “Please, you guys. What is it?”
“Drink your coffee,” Bingo said. “It’ll make your hair curly.” He waited until she’d taken one more good-sized gulp, and then said, “Tell me, kid, was he your father or your brother?”
“Father. Was?” She set the cup down hard, and half the contents spilled over the oilcloth-covered table. Handsome ran for the dishcloth.
Say something, Bingo told himself, do something. Something. Somehow, you’ve got to break the news to this nice kid, this gorgeous girl. His voice was dead in his throat.
She gulped down the last half cup of coffee and said, “Who killed him? and where the hell is the money?”
“If we knew, we’d tell the sheriff,” Bingo said. “Listen. My dear Miss Siller.”
“Call me Henny,” she said.
“All right. Henny.” He felt cold and uncomfortable inside. “Your father. He was murdered. We—my partner and I—we found him.” Bingo gulped. “Here. Right here in this place.” He gulped twice. “He’d been shot through the head.”
If she fainted, he could grab her, quick.
She didn’t faint. She didn’t even turn pale. She bit her lower lip and said, “What so-and-so got here first? And where is the money?”
If she had fainted, and he had grabbed her, he’d have dropped her, right here and now, Bingo thought. That was no way for a girl to talk, under the circumstances.
“Bingo,” Handsome whispered. “Hey, Bingo.”
Bingo looked. There were tears on her face. Real tears.
He slid down on one knee, put an arm around her, and pulled her head down on his shoulder. Hot, wet tears ran down his neck. She trembled with soundless sobs.
“I never saw him,” she whispered, “never. And now, someone else—” She relaxed against the shoulder of Bingo’s checked sport jacket. “Damn. I mean damn.”
Bingo tightened his arm around her and said, “Now, look here, Henny—”