The Willie Klump

by Joe Archibald

  “You talk too much, Babe,” Lippy said. “I ought to pull out your tongue. Well, Spade, we got to git movin’ in about an hour. Better go have a look at the flatfoot.”

  Willie ducked away from the door. Punchy opened the door and looked in. He held a big Betsy in his fist. Willie swallowed hard and made a sound like a safe-tumbler dropping. “Le’s make a deal,” Willie said. “I—”

  “Read yourself a book, pal,” Punchy sneered. “Butch has some pips there. Be seein’ you.”

  Willie Klump nodded. He picked up a paper-covered tome entitled: The Skull in the Ashes. By Merwin Strong. Willie’s teeth chattered, and the book dropped from his fingers. He wondered if Butch collected black widow spiders.

  He went to the window and looked out. It faced the street. There was no fire escape outside, and one sidewalk is always as hard as the next. He could scream for help but he would be ready for the corpse groomer three or four seconds later.

  Willie Klump dropped his head in his hands and it occurred to him that this was really it. He wondered if Charon charged much of a bite on the Styx flatboat. He could see Gertie in black and standing beside a bier.

  He could see Gertie three months after that lifting a beer with the character who would help spend the lettuce he had garnered at the risk of life and limb. It was too much. Willie closed his eyes.

  IME galloped. Soon he heard Lippy McNitt and Spade give last instructions to Flo and Punchy. They should be back at eleven if all was well. It was now nine P. M. Punchy came in and

  cased Willie, leered, and went out again.

  Willie fumbled at the stack of comics Butch had discarded. He uncovered something that startled him. It was a slingshot. Willie Klump felt like David on a certain memorable day. Punchy out there was Goliath.

  “Huh?” Willie muttered deep in his rain barrel. “Well, even a rat puts up a fight. I wonder if there is ammunition about?”

  He began a careful, systematic search and was rewarded. There was a little sack of marbles in the drawer of the absentee’s dresser. Willie went to the window after pocketing the taws and migs and looked out. There was a cop standing across the street talking with a fruit stand proprietor.

  “H-m-m-m,” Willie murmured.

  Another bluecoat sauntered up, opened a box on a telephone pole, reported in, then joined the other policeman.

  Willie grinned wolfishly. He listened to the sounds out in the next room. Flo giggled. There was a gurgling sound and the clink of glasses. The president of the Hawkeye Detective Agency went to the window. He inserted a marble in its proper place and drew back on the elastic. He took aim and fired.

  Klack! The fattest of the two cops let out a howl and spun around like Leon Errol, executed some Ray Bolger steps and fell over a basket of peaches. William Klump chose another marble and let go

  again. The second policeman was bending over the first policeman and the missile splattered against his nether regions and sent him hopping like a scared bullfrog over the prostrate form of his brother in blue.

  The owner of the fruit stall pointed suddenly. The rotund policeman picked up his own marbles and stared over the Greek’s shoulder, slid his irate glance along the designating digit. Willie fired again and the Greek folded like a campstool and yelled, “Aw-w-w·w~wk!”

  Now both policemen were staring up at William Klump. A crowd started gathering. Willie stuck out his tongue at the law and put his thumbs on either side of his head and waggled his fingers.

  “Why, you—” the corpulent cop yelped, and started running. The other gendarme was on his heels.

  Willie bounced another marble off the pavement close to the bluecoats and then withdrew and waited developments.

  In the other room, Punchy was telling the blonde about the plans he had for her if anything should happen to Lippy.

  “Oh, yeah?” Flo fenced, and laughed. “Go take a look at the punk in there, Punchy. Then we’ll have another li’l drink.”

  Punchy unlocked the door and looked at William Klump. The private detective was sitting on the cot, looking over a comic book.

  “That’s a nice guy!” Punchy said, and shut the door again.

  “You got to take Butch along with me, Punchy, if you got ideas,” Flo said. “Wa’n’t his fault his old man got shot gettin’ over the wall. Have another li’l drink!”

  Willie listened intently and then the first sounds of the onrush of the law became manifest on the floor below. A pounding soon shook the door of the room

  outside, and a glass broke up on the floor. “Flo!” Punchy choked out. “It couldn’t

  of gone wrong this quick? They didn’t have time to—”

  “Look, silly, cops don’t come runnin’ at the likes of us yellin’ like Indians. Open up an’ make out you know from nothin’. Go ahead, Punchy. Say, you don’t think that flatfoot could have signaled them? I’ll get that dirty double-crosser! You answer the door.”

  Everything happened at once. Just as the blonde looked in on him, Willie let go with a marble. It hit the blonde right under an ear-ring, and she got rubber gams very quickly, reeled like a drunk and caved in. The cops were roughing up Punchy when Willie vaulted over the blonde and entered the living room.

  “Where is that wise guy, hah? Pull a Roscoe on us, will you? Hit him again, Mike! Look, there’s that sniper! Get him!” Willie held up his hand. “They are part

  of Lippy McNitt’s gang!” he roared. “I would of got shot if I’d yelled at you, so I got you here more diplomatic, yeah. Lippy McNitt, I said. His gang. They kidnaped me. I am William J. Klump. Lippy and the other crooks are goin’ to do a job in just fifteen minutes. We got to hurry!”

  The fat policeman pulled back his billy club just in time.

  “Yeah, Phil, this is Klump. I saw his pitcher in the Bronx paper. Sure, somethin’ is funny here. Tell us again, Klump!”

  “Lippy McNitt is about to lift a hundred grand worth of sparkling stones from a joint on Forty-ninth named Morganwitzes or some such name. We must hurry. Get a load of policemen! Get on that phone. Oh-h-h-h!”

  The fat cop went to the telephone. Willie yelled, “Look out!” and made a dive for Punchy who was lifting a Betsy off the floor. Willie silenced Punchy when

  he landed against the side of the dishonest gee’s head, feet first.

  The cop named Mike threw a shot close to the blonde, just in case. The tenement was in an uproar. A fat lady came in with a fire-ax. A little urchin was holding her skirts with one hand and had a super-atomic disintegrator pistol in the other.

  “Everybody be calm,” Willie said, putting a lamp shade over his head, and brushing off a pot of geraniums. “Nothin’ to be alarmed over. What am I sayin’?” Willie passed out cold.

  HEN he came to, the place was full of cops. Punchy and the blonde,

  Mike said, were already on the way to the bastile. There were two squad cars waiting outside and did Willie care to go along for the ride?

  “For heaven’s sake, let’s go!” Willie yelped. “You want they should finish the job ‘fore we get there?”

  The scene quickly shifted. Three very startled criminal characters rushed out of a doorway on Forty-Ninth Street fifteen minutes later and started shooting. Willie Klump crouched behind a police jalopy and watched Lippy McNitt absorb his lumps.

  Lippy was indeed a rough character, and he kept coming on.

  “No bulls can git me!” he was yelling. “He is quite an optimist, isn’t he?”

  Willie asked a bluecoat not far away. “He would stare a tiger in the eye an’ say no tabby cat could fool him. Oh, I can’t look!”

  The morgue limousine had to pick up Lippy and Spade. The third recalcitrant, Willie soon learned, would be quite a problem for a trio of M.D.’s. The cops took the sack of warm ice off Lippy before they put him in the bye-bye basket.

  “Lippy McNitt! What a haul!” a cop<
br />
  with a gold badge yelped. “Where is that

  Klump?”

  “Here,” Willie said, looked at Lippy, then swooned again.

  Willie was in the Forty-seventh Street Precinct Station when Satchelfoot Kelly and Hard Hat Hafey rushed in. The police matron was holding smelling salts under Willie’s nose.

  “It ain’t so, is it?” Kelly asked of a police lieutenant. “How could he?”

  “Brother,” a cop said. “You get him to tell you sometime. Lippy’s pals snatched him because he saw them cryin’ over a mother that died in a tavern one night. I mean she died in—I mean—well, it was tear gas they’d got somewhere. Then they found out Willie was a detective because his picture got in a paper because he made a speech—”

  “That’s enough,” Satchelfoot groaned. “It don’t make a bit of sense so I know he did it. Lippy McNitt, Spade Grogan, Punchy Pelky, Flo Slobodka—all in one night. Who lent him the bazookas?”

  “He only had a sling-shot,” a policeman said.

  “Yeah,” Willie said. “An’ Butch’s marbles. I wisht I could get all mine back. How much was Lippy worth, an’ not in the black market?”

  “Two grand, Klump!” a gendarme said.

  “It was not just hay he mowed tonight,” an assistant D.A. observed. “Klump, you have the thanks of everybody in New York.”

  “And I still got the horrors,” Willie gulped. “You know what? They was goin’ to put me in a furnace.”

  “An’ you would have walked away from the ash pit carryin’ a dish of chocolate ice cream,” Kelly snapped.

  “That’s absurb!” Willie sniffed. “Anyways none of this would have happened if you an’ Hard Hat hadn’t let them pals of Big Joe’s excape. Don’t you never do nothin’ right?”

  “Here’s where we come in, Kelly,” Hard Hat gulped. “We’d better go an’ let people forget, huh?”

  When most of the cops had gone, Willie’ plucked the assistant D.A.’s sleeve.

  “About that two grand. Could it git paid to me without nobody knowin’, especially my financee? It is like this—”

  “No chance, Klump. Everybody knows there was a reward out for Lippy McNitt.”

  “Awright,” Willie sighed. “Tell ‘em to make the check out to Miss Gertrude Mudgett. Her address is—” He gave it. “Well, I guess I will have to marry the dame unlest I die of malnutrition. Goodnight.”

  WHEN A BODY MEETS A BODY

  WILLIAM J. KLUMP, president of the Hawkeye Detective Agency, snapped off his portable

  radio in disgust one afternoon and deplored the punishment unseen audiences had to absorb these days.

  “So that was a detective story, huh?” Willie sniffed. “The corpse had spaghetti sauce spilled on his tie an’ the G-men had it analyzed an’ found it was sauce made only by one Eyetalian restaurant in Philadelphia and they went there an’ arrested a waiter an’ finally pinned a rap on him. It is silly!”

  He picked up a tabloid newspaper and reread the lurid details of a recent tragic hotel fire upstate. Nearly forty citizens had lost their lives and eleven others were listed as missing. One of the names of the defunct started a small humming sound in a remote cell of his noggin but it was of short duration.

  “Virgo Ginzer,” Willie mumbled. “Lives, or did, on East Ninety-ninth Street, New York City. Seems like I heard it some place before but I couldn’t have. I got to stop listenin’ to corny radio thrillers. I—”

  The door opened, and Willie spun around in his swivel chair. A feminine character, well garnished with cosmetics and wearing a cinnamon-colored fur coat, stood there and appraised him dubiously.

  “Don’t let nothin’ fool you,” Willie said. “The Hawkeye don’t put up a big front on purpose as it makes crooks think we are so dumb we couldn’t if we wanted to. Have a seat.”

  “I see,” the visitor said. “Physiology, huh?” She sat down and crossed her knees and Willie tried desperately to concentrate on Gertrude Mudgett, his perennial fiancée. “Yeah, they’re new nylons, Mr. Klump.”

  “Uh, er, now you come here on business, Miss—er—?”

  “Mrs. Louie Kropper. You find missing persons, Mr. Klump?”

  “If they ain’t too far away,” Willie said. “Well, about eight months ago that dope—my husband, that is—left me one night to git a pack of butts and I ain’t seen him since,” Mrs. Kropper said. “I don’t think he met with no foul play as it wouldn’t be my luck it should happen to him. I think he’s lammed out on me and no punk like him can do that to me and get

  away with it.”

  “You got a pitcher of the guy?”

  “Yeah, but not too good a one. Only a snapshot. Louie wouldn’t never get a real picture took,” Mrs. Kropper said.

  “What was his business?” Willie asked as the doll handed him a picture of a guy in a bathing suit. “Citizens generally work at the same thing no matter where they go.”

  “That’s smart, Mr. Klump. It looks like I come to the right place. Louie once ran a cigar store in Shamokin but it was only a blind to take horse bets,” Mrs. Kropper divulged, and touched off a third cigarette.

  “Not much to go on, this pitcher,” Willie sniffed. “But maybe I’ll get it blowed up an’ see what he really looks like. Now about my fee—”

  “Twenty dollars down. Mr. Klump. Five hundred when you turn him over to me,” Mrs. Louie Kropper snapped. “That’s what it’s worth to me.”

  Willie felt sorry for Louie, but then he thought of the amount of scratch in his wallet. “The terms are satisfactory, ma’am,” he said.

  “One thing will tag him, Mr. Klump. A mole behind his right ear. It’s as big as a nickel. He also bites his nails,” Mrs. Kropper said and tossed two ten-dollar bills at the president of the Hawkeye Detective Agency. “I’ll leave my address where I’m staying in New York.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Willie said. “We shall leave no stones unturned.”

  “Find him, Klump. I intend to put the worm under one,” Mrs. Kropper said. “Good afternoon.”

  ITTING back in his chair, Willie enjoyed the feel of the lettuce between

  his fingers. “Four P.M.,” he sighed. “Too late to start on a job today. Anyway I feel sorry for Louie.” He picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  Gertrude Mudgett said, “Hello,” and Willie said, “Hello yourself, sugar. I got an advance and so how’s about dinner this evening?”

  “I sure acquiesce, Willie.”

  “We got a bad connection, Gertie. Operator, I can’t understand a word she says! I—”

  “It means I will, lemon-head,” Gertie sniffed over the wires. “I keep forgetting you never got no further than elemental school. Pierre’s Rotisserie, huh?”

  “Wee,” Willie said. “At set hers. That’s seven P.M. in French.”

  At the appointed hour William J. Klump met Gertie in front of Pierre’s and he was just escorting her into the refueling cafe when a familiar and particularly repulsive voice brought him up short.

  Gertie said. “Why, it’s—”

  “I know,” Willie said as he turned his face to the left. I’m sure it is someone I hate.”

  “Aloysius!” Gertie snickered. “What a

  coincidence.”

  “It’s worst than that,” Willie groaned. “What are you doin’ here, Satchelfoot, to say nothin’ of what you are doin’ anywhere?”

  “Why I come here to get a half-sole job on my shoes, you flathead. I got to eat like anybody else.”

  “I could argue that point forever,” Willie sniffed.

  A few minutes later, Satchelfoot Kelly, from Centre Street, waxed garrulous over a plate of beef a la mode.

  “We’re on the trail of somethin’ big, Gertie,” the detective disclosed. “Can’t tell what it is, but even the Feds are on the prowl. I’m workin’ on a big lead right now an’ if I
have any luck I’ll be a pretty big guy in this town. But you don’t need to think I’ll pass up my old pals on the street—”

  “That won’t be good news to them,” Willie cut in. “You’re about as subtile as a belt over the head with a baseball bat. The only thing the G’s are workin’ on right now is that breakout from San Quentin where a guard was rubbed out, Gertie. One of the tough boys on the loose is Harry the Ox Hake. The character was doin’ thirty to life for murder, arson and bank robbery. Harry the Ox can bend a crowbar with his teeth and tear two telephone books in half at the same time.”

  “I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you, Aloysius,” Gertie said.

  “That is not enough.” Willie said. “You should better give him an ax and an atom bomb. If Satchelfoot catches Harry I will do a bubble dance any day at high noon in Times Square.”

  “Sour grapes,” Kelly sniffed. “Anythin’

  is possible.”

  “You ain’t kiddin’,” Willie snapped, “just look in a mirror.”

  “Shut up, Willie,” Gertie gushed. “You are just envious of Mr. Kelly. He is—”

  “Did you come into this joint with me or him?” Willie yelped, and customers began to stare.

  A big citizen in a tuxedo came over. “You seem to be the troublemaker here, mister.” He tapped Willie on the shoulder. “Who called this restaurant a joint?”

  “Who called this joint a restaurant?” Willie countered.

  “Outside, bum!”

  “Awright, I know where I ain’t wanted,” the private detective sniffed, and hurriedly made his exit.

  “You come back here, Willie!” Satchelfoot howled. “You ain’t stickin’ me with no check, you—!”

  The boy in the tuxedo ejected Aloysius Kelly. Gertie called the manager. “They flang out both my gentlemen friends and you don’t think I’m going to get stuck with the whole bite, Buster? You’ll hafta call the Marines!” she screeched.