A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  I stuck the phone up in front of her and she said, “The panic’s on. Fade out.” I got the phone back to my ear just in time to hear the click as he hung up.

  The blonde was smiling at me. But she stopped smiling when I stuck my gun back in its holster, then juggled the receiver and said, “Get me the Hollywood Detective Division.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” the blonde said. “What you calling the cops for?”

  “You can’t be that stupid. Tehachapi for you, sweetheart. You probably have a lot of friends there. It won’t be so bad. Just horrible.”

  She licked her lips. When the phone was answered I said, “Put Lieutenant Bronson on, will you?”

  The gal said, “Wait a minute. Hold off on that call. Let’s . . . talk about it.”

  I grinned. “Now you want to talk. No soap. You can talk to the cops. And don’t tell me there isn’t enough to hold you on.”

  “Please. I—call him later if you have to.” She let go of the sheet and it fell to her waist. I told myself to be strong and look away, but I was weak.

  “You got it all wrong,” she said softly. “Let’s—talk.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t quite come off. I shook my head.

  She threw the sheet all the way back on the bed then, stood up, holding her body erect, and stepped close to me. “Please, honey. We can have fun. Don’t you like me, honey?”

  “What’s with that white-haired ape in my office? And what’s Apex?”

  “I don’t know. I told you before. Honest, honey, look at me.”

  That was a pretty silly thing to say, because I sure wasn’t looking at the wallpaper. Just then Lieutenant Bronson came on and I said, “Shell Scott here, Bron. Hollywood Roosevelt, room seven-fourteen.”

  The blonde stepped closer, almost touching me, then picked up my free hand and passed it around her waist. “Hang up,” she said. “You won’t be sorry.” Her voice dropped lower, became a husky murmur as she pressed my fingers into the warm flesh. “Forget it, honey. I can be awfully nice.”

  Bronson was asking me what was up. I said, “Just a second, Bron,” then to the girl, “Sounds like a great kick. Just tell me the story, spill your guts—”

  She threw my hand away from her, face getting almost ugly, and then she took a wild swing at me. I blocked the blow with my right hand, put my hand flat on her chest and shoved her back against the bed. She sprawled on it, saying some very nasty things.

  I said into the phone, “I’ve got a brassy blonde here for you.”

  “What’s the score?”

  “Frankly, I’m not sure. But I’ll sign a complaint. Using foul language, maybe.”

  “That her? I can hear her.”

  “Or maybe attempted rape.” I grinned at the blonde as she yanked the sheet over her and used some more foul language. I said to Bronson, “Actually, it looks like some kind of confidence game—with me a sucker. I don’t know the gal, but you guys might make her. Probably she’s got a record.” I saw the girl’s face change as she winced. “Yeah,” I added, “she’s got a record. Probably as long as her face is right now.”

  “I’ll send a man up.”

  “Make it fast, will you? I’ve got to get out of here, and this beautiful blonde hasn’t a stitch of clothes on.”

  “Huh? She—I’ll be right there.”

  It didn’t take him long. By ten-forty-five Bronson, who had arrived grinning—and the three husky sergeants who came with him—had taken the blonde away, and I was back in the hotel’s lobby. I had given Bronson a rundown on the morning’s events, and he’d said they’d keep after the blonde. Neither of us expected any chatter from her, though. After that soft, “I can be awfully nice,” she hadn’t said anything except swear words and: “I want a lawyer, I know my rights, I want a lawyer.” She’d get a lawyer. Tomorrow, maybe.

  I went into the Cinegrill and had a bourbon and water while I tried to figure my next move. Bron and I had checked the phone book and city directory for an “Apex” and found almost fifty of them, from Apex Diaper Service to an Apex Junk Yard, which was no help at all, though the cops would check. That lead was undoubtedly no good now that the blonde had warned Harrison. I was getting more and more anxious to find out what the score was, because this was sure shaping up like some kind of con, and I wasn’t a bit happy about it.

  The confidence man is, in many ways, the elite of the criminal world. Usually intelligent, personable, and more persuasive than Svengali, con-men would be the nicest guys in the world except for one thing: they have no conscience at all. I’ve run up against con-men before, and they’re tricky and treacherous. One of my first clients was an Englishman who had been taken on the rag, a stock swindle, for $140,000. He’d tried to find the man, with no luck, then came to me; I didn’t have any luck, either. But when he’d finally given up hope of ever seeing his money again, he’d said to me, of the grifter who had taken him, “I shall always remember him as an extrah-dn’rly chahming chap. He was a pleasant bahstahd.” Then he’d paused, thought a bit, and added, “But, by God, he was a bahstahd!”

  The Englishman was right. Confidence men are psychologists with diplomas from sad people: the suckers, the marks, that the con-boys have taken; and there’s not a con-man worthy of the name who wouldn’t take a starving widow’s last penny or a bishop’s last C-note, with never a twinge of remorse. They are the pleasant bastards, the con-men, and they thrive because they can make other men believe that opportunity is not only knocking but chopping the door down—and because of men’s desire for a fast, even if dishonest, buck, or else the normal greed that’s in most of us. They are the spellbinders, and ordinarily don’t resort to violence, or go around shooting holes in people.

  And it looked as if three of them, or at least two, were up against me. The other one, Pretty Boy Foster, was a bit violent, I remembered, and swung a mean sap. My head still throbbed. All three men, now that the blonde had told Harrison there was big trouble, would probably be making themselves scarce.

  But there was still the girl. The gorgeous little gal with black hair and light blue eyes and the chrome-plated pistol. I thought back over what she’d said to me. There’d been a lot of gibberish about $24,000 and my being a crook and—something else. Something about Folsom’s Market. It was worth a check. I looked the place up in the phone book, found it listed on Van Ness Avenue, finished my drink, and headed for Folsom’s Market.

  It was on Van Ness near Washington. I parked, went inside, and looked around. Just an ordinary small store; the usual groceries and a glass-faced meat counter extending the length of the left wall. The place was doing a good business. I walked to the single counter where a young red-haired girl about twenty was ringing up a customer’s sales on the cash register, and when she’d finished I told her I wanted to speak with the manager. She smiled, then leaned forward to a small mike and said, “Mr. Gordon. Mr. Gordon, please.”

  In a few seconds a short man in a business suit, with a fleshy pink face and a slight potbelly walked up to me. I told him my name and business, showed him my credentials, then said, “Actually, Mr. Gordon, I don’t know if you can help me or not. This morning I talked briefly with a young lady who seemed quite angry with me. She thought I was some kind of crook and mentioned this place, Folsom’s Market. Perhaps you know her.” I described the little doll, and she was easy enough to describe, particularly with the odd gray streak in her dark hair. That gal was burned into my memory and I remembered every lovely thing about her, but when I finished the manager shook his head.

  “Don’t remember anything like her around here,” he said.

  “She mentioned something about her father, and twenty-four thousand dollars. I don’t—”

  I stopped, because Mr. Gordon suddenly started chuckling. The cashier said, “Oh, it must be that poor old man.”

  The manager laughed. “This’ll kill you,” he said. “Some old foreigner about sixty years old came in here this morning, right at eight when we opened up. Said he just wanted to look his sto
re over. His store, get that, Mr. Scott. Claimed he’d bought the place, and—this’ll kill you—for twenty-four thousand dollars. Oh, boy, a hundred grand wouldn’t half buy this spot.”

  He was laughing every third word. It had been very funny, he thought. Only it wasn’t a bit funny to me, and I felt sick already. The way this deal was starting to figure, I didn’t blame the little cutey for taking a few shots at me.

  I said slowly, “Exactly what happened? What else did this . . . this foreigner do?”

  The manager’s potbelly shook a little. “Ah, he gawked around for a while, then I talked to the guy. I guess it must of taken me half an hour to convince him Mr. Borrage owns this place—you know Borrage, maybe, owns a dozen independent places like this, real rich fellow—anyway this stupid old guy swore he’d bought the place. For the money and his little grocery store. You imagine that? Finally I gave him Borrage’s address and told him to beat it. Hell, I called Borrage, naturally. He got a chuckle out of it, too, when I told him.”

  Anger was beginning to flicker in me. “Who was this stupid old man?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. I just told him finally to beat it. I couldn’t have him hanging around here.”

  “No.” I said. “Of course not. He was a foreigner, huh? You mean he wasn’t an Indian?”

  Mr. Gordon blinked at me, said, “Hey?” then described the man as well as he could. He told me he’d never seen the guy before, and walked away.

  The cashier said softly, “It wasn’t like that at all, Mr. Scott. And he left his name with me.”

  “Swell, honey. Can you give it to me?”

  Her face was sober, unsmiling as she nodded. “I just hate that Mr. Gordon,” she said. “The way it was, this little man came in early and just stood around, looking pleased and happy, kind of smiling all the time. I noticed he was watching me for a while, when I checked out the customers, then he came over to me and smiled. ‘You’re a fast worker,’ he said to me. ‘Very good worker, I’m watching you.’ Then he told me I was going to be working for him, that he’d bought this place and was going to move in tomorrow.” She frowned. “I didn’t know any better. For all I knew, he might have bought the store. I wish he had.” She glanced toward the back of the store where Mr. Gordon had gone. “He was a sweet little man.”

  “What finally happened?”

  “Well, he kept standing around, then Mr. Gordon came up here and I asked him if the store had been sold. He went over and talked to the old man a while, started laughing, and talked some more. The old man got all excited and waved his arms around and started shouting. Finally Mr. Gordon got a little sharp—he’s like that—and pointed to the door. In a minute the little guy came over to me and wrote his name and address down. He said there was some kind of mistake, but it would be straightened out. Then he left.” She paused. “He looked like he was going to cry.”

  “I see. You got that name handy?”

  “Uh-huh.” She opened the cash register and took a slip of paper out of it. “He wanted us to be able to get in touch with him; he acted sort of dazed.”

  “He would have,” I said. She handed me the note. On it, in a shaky, laboriously scrawled script, was written an address and: Emil Elmlund, Elmlund’s Neighborhood Grocery, Phone WI2-1258.

  “Use your phone?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  I dialed WI 2-1258. The phone rang several times, then a girl’s voice answered, “Hello.”

  “Hello. Who is this, please?”

  “This is Janet Elmlund.”

  That was what Pretty-Boy had called the girl in Pete’s; Janet, and Jan. I said, “Is Mrs. McCurdy there?”

  “McCurdy? I—you must have the wrong number.”

  I told her I wanted WI 2-1259, apologized, and hung up. I didn’t want her to know I was coming out there. This time she might have a rifle. Then I thanked the cashier, went out to the Cad, and headed for Elmlund’s Neighborhood Grocery.

  It was a small store on a tree-lined street, the kind of “Neighborhood Grocery” you used to see a lot of in the days before supermarkets sprang up on every other corner. A sign on the door said, “Closed Today.” A path had been worn in the grass alongside the store’s right wall, leading to a small house in the rear. I walked along the path and paused momentarily before the house. It was white, neat, with green trim around the windows, a porch along its front. A man sat on the porch in a wooden chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. He was looking right at me as I walked toward him, but he didn’t give any sign that he’d noticed me, and his face didn’t change expression.

  I walked up onto the porch. “Mr. Elmlund?”

  He slowly raised his head and looked at me. He was a small man, with a lined brown face and very light blue eyes. Wisps of gray hair still clung to his head. He looked at me and blinked, then said, “Yes.”

  He looked away from me then, out into the yard again. It was as if I weren’t there at all. And, actually, my presence probably didn’t mean a thing to him. It was obvious that he had been taken in a confidence game, taken for $24,000 and maybe a dream. I couldn’t know all of it yet, but I knew enough about how he must feel now, still shocked, dazed, probably not yet thinking at all.

  I squatted beside him and said, “Mr. Elmlund, my name is Shell Scott.”

  For a minute nothing happened, then his eyebrows twitched, pulled down. Frowning, he looked at me. “What?” he said.

  I heard the click of high heels, the front door was pushed open, and a girl stood there, holding a tray before her with two sandwiches on it. It was the same little lovely, black hair pulled back now and tied with a blue ribbon. She still wore the blue clam-diggers and the man’s shirt.

  I stood up fast. “Hold everything,” I said to her. “Get this through your head—there’s a guy in town about my size, with hair the same color as mine, and he’s pretending to be me. He’s taken my name, and he’s used my office. But I never heard of you, or Mr. Elmlund, or Folsom’s Market until this morning. Now don’t throw any sandwiches at me and for Pete’s sake don’t start shooting.”

  She had been staring at me open-mouthed ever since she opened the door and spotted me. Finally her mouth came shut with a click and her hands dropped. The tray fell clattering to the porch and the sandwiches rolled almost to my feet. She stared at me for another half-minute without speaking, comprehension growing on her face, then she said, “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Now suppose we all sit down and get to the bottom of this mess.”

  She said. “Really? Please—you wouldn’t—”

  “I wouldn’t.” I showed her several different kinds of identification from my wallet, license, picture, even a fingerprint, and when I finished she was convinced. She blinked those startling blue eyes at me and said, “How awful. I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Yes. Yes, indeed. Right now, I forgive you.”

  “You don’t. You can’t.” For the first time since I’d seen her, she wasn’t looking furious or shocked, and for the moment at least she seemed even to have forgotten about the money they’d lost. I had, I suppose, spoken with almost frantic eagerness, and now she lowered her head slightly and blinked dark lashes once, and her red lips curved ever so slightly in a soft smile. At that moment I could have forgiven her if she’d been cutting my throat with a hack saw. She said again, “You can’t.”

  “Oh, yes, I can. Forget it. Could have happened to anybody.”

  She laughed softly, then her face sobered as she apparently remembered why I was here. I remembered, too, and started asking questions. Ten minutes later we were all sitting on the porch eating picnic sandwiches and drinking beer, and I had most of the story. Mr. Elmlund—a widower, and Janet’s father—had run the store here for more than ten years, paid for it, saved $24,000. He was looking for a larger place and had been talking about this to a customer one day, a well-dressed man, smooth-talking, very tall, graying at the temples. The guy’s name was
William Klein, but he was also apparently my own Frank Harrison. It seemed Harrison was a real-estate broker and had casually mentioned that he’d let Mr. Elmlund know if he ran across anything that looked good.

  Mr. Elmlund sipped his beer and kept talking. Elmlund said to me, “He seemed like a very nice man, friendly. Then when he come in and told me about this place it sounded good. He said this woman was selling the store because her husband had died not long ago. She was selling the store and everything and going back East, wasn’t really much interested in making a lot of money out of it. She was rich, had a million dollars or more. She just wanted to get away fast, he said, and would sell for sixty-thousand cash. Well, I told him that was too much, but he asked me to look at it—that was Folsom’s Market—maybe we could work a deal, he said. So the next Sunday we went there; I didn’t think it would hurt none to look.”

  “Sunday? Was the store open?”

  “No, it was closed, but he had a key. That seemed right because he was—he said he was agent for it. Well, it was just like I’d always wanted, a nice store. Nice market there, and plenty of room, good location—” He let the words trail off.

  The rest of it was more of the same. The old con play; give the mark a glimpse of something he wants bad, then make him think he can have it for little or nothing, tighten the screws. A good con-man can tie up a mark so tight that normal reasoning powers go out the window. And getting a key which would open the store wouldn’t have been any more trouble than getting the one which opened my office.

  Last Sunday, a week after they’d looked over the store, Harrison had come to Elmlund all excited, saying the widow was anxious to sell and was going to advertise the store for sale in the local papers. If Elmlund wanted the place at a bargain price he’d have to act fast. Thursday—today, now—the ads would appear and the news would be all over town; right then only the widow, Harrison, and Elmlund himself knew about it. So went Harrison’s story. After some more talk Harrison had asked how much cash Elmlund could scrape together. When Harrison learned $24,000 was tops, why naturally that was just enough cash—plus the deed to Elmlund’s old store—to maybe swing a fast deal. All con-men are actors, expert at making their lines up as they go along, and Harrison must have made up the bit about throwing the deed in merely to make Elmlund think he was paying a more legitimate price; no well-played mark would think of wondering why a widow getting rid of one store so she could blow would take another as part payment.