Bruno Fischer

by J. Max Gilbert

  I pressed my dry tongue against the tip of the unlit cigarette in my mouth. This was the showdown. I had tried and failed. The only consolation was that Molly wasn’t here.

  “So you can’t talk?” Rufus’ voice was deadly quiet.

  “I told Tilly I’d talk to George Moon,” I said.

  “You’re already talking to us. Right now.”

  I lit my cigarette. I ran the risk that my hands wouldn’t be steady, but they were.

  “I’ll talk to George Moon,” I repeated stolidly.

  In the hall a dragging voice said: “Did I hear my name mentioned?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  He was so tall that he had to duck to get through the doorway. Not big. Just very long, built something like myself, but without my shoulders, and topping my own height by five or six inches. Suddenly everybody in the room was a midget.

  Lazily he came into the room. He wore no hat and a curly brown forelock dangled boyishly over his high, narrow forehead. His mild brown eyes looked at me over the heads of the others, then down at the gun Rufus Lamb held along his thigh, then down at Tilly's neat hairdo.

  “What's up.?” he asked in that slow voice which had been so terrifying when I had heard it over the phone. It was terrifying now too.

  Tilly said eagerly: “Did you get it?”

  “Not yet, Breen is — “ George Moon checked himself. His eyes, cautious now, were back on me. “Who're you?”

  I blew out smoke. “I'm a good mechanic. Before he was killed, Ray Teacher told me I could find a job here.”

  “He's a cop,” Rufus Lamb growled.

  “He's been acting like one.”

  “Let Tilly tell me,” George Moon said.

  While Tilly told him, I drew cigarette smoke into my lungs and tried to look merely patient. But my thoughts were frantic. I could no longer avoid making direct answers to questions, and I hadn't the knowledge to make up satisfactory lies.

  “Where's his wife?” George Moon asked when Tilly had finished.

  Tilly thought that she was still upstairs. Milton was sent to bring her down. I started to wonder again where she could have gone, and then I had more immediate worries.

  “Well?” Moon said to me.

  My stomach bounced, but my voice was reasonably calm. “If Ray Teacher were alive, he’d vouch for me.”

  “Convenient having a dead man recommend you. Where did you know him?”

  “Out west.”

  “The West is a big place.”

  “Frisco, I think. I’m not sure. I’ve been, all over.”

  “How long ago did you know him?”

  “Years ago.” I was like a man dancing barefoot on a hot stove, trying to keep both feet in the air at the same time. “For the last four years I was out of circulation. I was in the army.”

  “And before that?”

  I said sullenly: “There are things in my record I’d rather not talk about.”

  “Tell us the things you’re not afraid to talk about,” Moon persisted relentlessly.

  He had me hemmed in. Each evasive answer led to another direct question. I tried again. “What’s all the fuss about? If you’ve got a job for me, okay. If not, tell me and I’ll beat it.”

  “You won’t 'beat it,” Rufus Lamb said softly. “You know too much already. What are you throwing a bluff for if you’re clean? I can smell cop a mile.” He glanced up at Moon. “It’ll be dark soon, boss. We can take him back of the reservoir.”

  George Moon scratched his nose. There was silence. The boss was deciding my fate.

  Then there were feet coming down the stairs. Two pairs. Milton had found Molly and was returning with her. They would do to her whatever they did to me.

  Heads turned, all except Rufus Lamb’s. He kept his eyes and his gun on me. Milton entered first, shuffling into the room with his chinless face sagging like an idiot’s. Molly was right behind him. She stepped around him, sidled past Beezie, and turned at the end of the couch. Her pearl-handled automatic was in her hand.

  “It’s my play,” she said crisply.

  She had put herself-as far as possible from the others and to the left of Rufus Lamb. Her mouth was tight and her gray eyes were big with tension, but the steadiness with which she held her gun was impressive. At that moment nobody counted but the two who had guns, Molly and Rufus.

  “Drop your gun,” she ordered him.

  He was looking at her over his left shoulder. His body was between his gun and her; he was calculating his chance if he swung and shot. He must have been very fast with a gun, because I could see that he had decided to take the chance. His right shoulder drew up. His muscles coiled for the pivot. So I hit him.

  His eyes were off me, and my fist was on his jaw before he knew that I had covered the distance between us. He crashed against Tilly and jammed her against the radio cabinet. He bounced off her fatness and staggered. I hit him again. He sat down.

  “Hold it!” Molly barked.

  George Moon had started to shift his loose-jointed body toward her. She waved her gun at him and then brought it back to Rufus in a single fluid motion. Rufus was helpless for at least a tencount; his head sagged and his gun hand was useless. I stooped and plucked the gun from him. When I rose, I saw that Moon had made no further move. Molly and I had all the visible weapons in the room.

  There were two sounds, Beezie swearing and Tilly panting raggedly as she rubbed her plump hip where it had been slammed against the radio cabinet. Milton continued to catch flies with his mouth. Rufus held his long stubbed jaw in both hands and shook fog out of his head. George Moon completely relaxed, studied Molly's figure.

  “Let's get out of here,” I said hoarsely.

  Molly said, “Don't be absurd, honey,” and rested the backs of her calves against the arm of the couch. A few hours ago in our room she had been morose and irritable because she had been scared. Now that an actual situation had developed only a twitch at a corner of her eye indicated that she wasn't wholly at ease. She never stopped bewildering me.

  Then George Moon laughed. His laughter was as languid as his speaking voice. I backed to the window, my finger tight on Rufus' gun. What was there for Moon to laugh about? The guns were in our possession.

  “You're not cops,” Moon drawled. “Cops would have a pat story ready and pour it out as soon as they got a chance. Besides, you're too damn pretty to be a cop, sweetheart. Just a couple of babes in the woods trying to act tough.”

  Molly gave him her deluxe smile. “You'd be surprised at how tough Lou Darby's daughter can get.”

  That was sensational news to everybody but me and possibly Beezie. Tilly stopped rubbing her hip, Rufus took his hands from his Jaw, Milton's mouth hung wider.

  “So Lou Darby had a daughter?” Moon said, never taking his eyes from Molly. “Or did he?”

  “Only his close friends knew that he had a wife and child in Denver,” Molly said.

  “Yeah, Denver.” Rufus Lamb pulled himself up to his feet, and there was a look of wonder on his face. “A little white house — what was the name of that street?”

  Always there were traps in the form of questions. I pushed my gun out.

  “Atterkill Drive,” Molly said glibly and pulled her sweater down with her left hand.

  “Yeah, Atterkill Drive.” Rufus turned his head to Moon, “I visited Lou Darby in '35. Stayed three-four days in his place. Tried to talk him into coming east on a hundred grand heist. He thought it over and turned me down. There'll never be another guy who could case a bank like Lou Darby. He'd spend weeks just looking over the layout. He'd make blueprints and time schedules and the job would go off like clockwork. Did you know him, boss?”

  “No, but everybody's heard of Lou Darby.” Moon leaned against the air and measured Molly's body. I could see his eyes taking in the fact that here was enough woman for a man like him, and beautiful enough for a man of any size.

  Rufus went on: “Then after a job Lou’d ' go back to his little house in Denver and his wi
fe and kid, and nobody in town ever knew he was Lou Darby. His neighbors thought he was a retired businessman. I remember his wife, lots younger than him and a looker. And there was a yella-haired girl around thirteen.” He turned back to Molly. “What’s your name?”

  “Clara Darby,” she said. “My mother was Ann. I called my father Pops.”

  Rufus nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah, yeah. You was tall even then. Built like a matchstick. I never saw Lou again. He got it a year later.”

  “Two years later,” Molly said. “One of his boys sold him out to the cops. A rat named Shorty Wheel. The cops were hidden in the bank and they cut Pops down without giving him a chance.”

  Rufus clucked his tongue. “That’s the way I heard it. I used to know Shorty Wheel. A no-good rat.” He beamed at her. “I’ll be damned, Lou Darby’s girl!”

  She had everything a salesman needed — facts and glibness and confidence and sex appeal. She had sold Rufus Lamb, and through him the others, all except Tilly. I didn’t like the unyielding set of Tilly’s doughy face and the narrowness of her eyes.

  “And I came near pluggin’ Lou’s girl!” Rufus was saying. “That’s a sweet sock you got, fella.”

  It was a time for goodwill and gallantry. “I’m sorry I had to clip you,” I said.

  “Good thing you did. I'm mighty fast on the pivot. I would’ve put a slug in her.” Rufus frowned suddenly. He remembered that there was a great deal as yet unexplained. “Who’re you?” he demanded.

  “A guy who can take care of himself.” I left it in the air for Molly to pick up.

  She did. “He’s Bert Hemsley.”

  I would need a little black book to keep track of all my names. This one fell flat. It seemed to mean no more to any of them than it did to me.

  “An old-timer like you must have heard of Bert Hemsley,” she said to Rufus. “He was one of Pop’s boys. He was in on that last bank job when Pops was killed. Bert got winged in the leg and a few days later he was picked up by the state cops. He got out of the big house after a six-year stretch. A few weeks later we were married.”

  “Hemsley?” Rufus pondered. “Well, I didn’t know many of Lou’s boys. I never worked with him myself.”

  “Ray Teacher did for a while,” Molly said. “That’s how Bert happened to know him.”

  The first week I had sold cars I had learned that whenever sales resistance reared its ugly head you chopped it down by pointing out another virtue in your product. Molly had the technique down pat.

  “That’s right,” Rufus said eagerly. “Ray used to work with Lou.” He tossed me a grin. “Any of Lou’s boys are aces with me.”

  Tilly said: “You men are idiots.”

  She waddled to. the center of the room and glared up at Moon who towered ridiculously over her short, wide, body. “Idiots!” she said. “I see the way you're looking at her, George. You've fallen so hard your mind has stopped working.”

  The corner of Moon's mouth lifted. “Has Rufus fallen for her?”

  “Rufus has fallen for the idea that she's Lou Darby's daughter.”

  Rufus took it as a personal affront. “Well, she is. Hardly nobody knew where Lou lived and that he had a wife and kid. This here girl was only a kid when Lou was killed, but she knows the street and the names and that she called him Pops and everything. How'd she know if she wasn't his daughter? Besides, I seen her, didn't I? She's grown up now, but she had light hair and was built tall and pretty even then.”

  Tilly refused to backtrack. “So her father was Darby or the man in the moon. It doesn't explain the way they acted since they came here. Why didn't this man, Thomas Rover or Bert Hemsley or whatever his name is — why didn't he come right out and say who he was? Why was he acting like a spy? Why did they try to get a room here without saying anything about themselves?”

  They were good questions. I could see that they bothered Moon and Rufus. They bothered me a lot more, especially when I saw Molly's teeth worrying her lower lip. The gun had a comforting feel against my palm.

  Molly turned her head to me. “Should we tell them, honey?”

  Why ask me? I was merely a spectator like Milton and Beezie. “Why not?” I said, handing it back to her.

  She waved her gun at Moon. “Listen,” she said tensely. “A dirty doublecrossing stool pigeon got my father. I don't want the same thing to happen to me.”

  “So?” Moon looked around as if to make sure everybody was still in the room. “Nobody rats here.”

  “We heard talk in New York about Jasper Vital and Larry Goodby.”

  “That was different,” Moon said. “They tried to take over. What is it, sweetheart? A reward?”

  “Five grand,” Molly told him. “Did you hear of the payroll stickup in Nashville last week?”

  That did it. Beezie whistled. Milton's mouth closed and opened again. Moon looked at Molly without concentrating on her shape. Even Tilly seemed a trifle awed.

  “Twenty-three grand, wasn't it?”

  Rufus said admiringly. “Sure, a man and a woman. Masked. Got clean away. I read it in the paper.”

  Tilly sought to regain her stolen thunder. “They're hot. We can't have them here.”

  “There's no heat on us,” Molly said.

  “We worked it neatly, as neatly as Pops would have. Nobody saw us but two people, and our heads and faces were covered. The dough is stashed; we don't intend to touch it for at least a year. Pops always took his time about circulating money, even when it wasn't hot. We came on to New York and saw Ray Teacher, who was an old friend of Bert's. We didn't tell Ray much except that Bert was looking for a job. Ray said there might be something for us in Tilly's place. It sounded like a good place to hole up in for a while. Then Ray got killed. We came here anyway, but we didn't dare talk to anybody we weren't sure of. There's five grand reward posted on the Nashville job. Pops was sold out for less.”

  “Why the spying?” Tilly said rather weakly.

  It was time I asserted myself as part of the family. I’d had some little experience as a salesman myself. “Clara told you. We could trust George Moon —he’s too much of a big shot to go after a reward — but why should we trust a lot of people we didn’t know? Moon wasn’t here. I couldn’t feel comfortable unless I knew what the setup here was, so I went to Badmont to ask some harmless questions. Wouldn’t any of you have done the same thing in our spot?”

  “Why,” Tilly demanded, jabbing a fat finger at Molly, “did you pull a rod on us?”

  “Did I. pull a gun? I seem to remember that Rufus did first.” She dipped her little automatic and spread her smile around the room. “How did I know what was going on down here? Pops taught me to be careful — always.” The sale was completed. Molly had given us identity, established us as one of them. Tilly clicked her ring against her teeth and waddled to a chair.

  “Is that on the level, that you know cars?” Moon asked me.

  “All there is to know.”

  Moon nodded and sauntered over to Molly. “You and Bert are safe here, sweetheart,” he told her. “I can use a good mechanic.” And his eyes said that he could use her too, and her responding smile was not reluctant. I wondered what a husband was supposed to do about it.

  “Need that rod any more?” Rufus said genially.

  The gun was still leveled at his chest.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Do I?”

  Instantly the room was still. They all stared at me.

  Molly, said sharply: “Honey, George Moon’s word is good.”

  A sane man would have used that gun to get out of the house and keep going. But Molly was calling the turns. She had handled it fine so far, but I hoped to God she knew what she was doing from here on. And that what she wanted was what I wanted.

  I reversed Rufus’ gun and returned it to him butt first, “Thanks for the loan,” I said.

  He grinned and stuck the gun into his hip pocket. I pulled out cigarettes and passed the pack around. We were one big happy family of crooks. None of the
m could guess how alone I felt.

  “How about some supper, Tilly?”

  Moon said. “I’m starved.”

  So was I, considering that I hadn’t had a solid bite all day, but I didn’t look forward to Tilly’s cooking, not after sampling her coffee.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We ate at the big round table in the privacy of the sitting room; Milton waited on us, lugging in the food from the lunchroom where Tilly dished it out. We had canned tomato juice, and canned vegetable soup, and pot roast which fell apart on the fork, and boiled potatoes which were only slightly underdone. I had eaten worse meals in the army, but not often.

  Molly sat between George Moon and me. For all the attention she paid me, I might actually have been her husband. It wasn’t entirely her fault; Moon’s voice and eyes monopolized her. That gave me reason to sulk and stay out of the table talk, which was on dangerous ground — for me. They were discussing the exploits of Lou Darby. Molly handled-her end more than adequately. She could have written a book about him and all the minor crooks who had moved in his orbit.

  When the meat course had been served, Tilly came in from the lunchroom to join us at the table. She poured juice and soup down her throat and then glared across her pot roast at Moon. “Are you trying to drive us crazy, George? Did you get it or did you-come here without it?”

  Moon crossed his knife and fork on his plate and sat back. “Breen is gone.”

  “You mean he took a powder with the bag?” Rufus said.

  “The cops are sure Larry Goodby snatched him. You know Larry. He’ll work on Breen till he finds out where Breen planted the bag.”

  “That Larry,” Milton snickered. Like Tilly, he was now sitting at the table. “I’d hate to be in Breen’s shoes.”

  Moon’s features twisted to one side. He leaned forward, swept his eyes slowly past Molly and let them rest for a moment on me. He nodded to himself, having decided that there was nothing about this he did not want us, the newcomers, to hear. “A dick who was trailing Breen saw Larry slug him. Then while the dumb dick was chasing Larry or calling an ambulance or something, Breen drove off with a dame. A couple of witnesses said Breen was practically out on his feet. They say he didn’t seem to know what was happening when the dame shoved him into her car.