Pierre called the cops instead, and Gertie was given her choice of washing dishes for the remainder of the evening, hiving up in the hoosegow, or leaving her wristwatch and ankle bracelet for security. Shorn of her jewelry, Miss Gertie Mudgett finally trudged home, mentally murdering Willie Klump and dissecting his cadaver. . .
WILLIE was at work very early the next morning, calling morgues, hospitals, and police stations but no one by the name of Louie Kropper had been seen
at any of the establishments.
“Guess I’ll have to git a list of all the cigar stores in the classified an’ check on them,” he said wearily. “Huh, me workin’ on a penny-ante skip-tracin’ job an’ Kelly on the hunt for Harry the Ox. There’s a chance he might be dumb lucky enough to fall over the criminal. Huh, the bang-tails are runnin’ at Jamaica right now an’ maybe Louie would be out there. With twenty bucks I could take a afternoon off to myself.”
So Willie went to Jamaica and on arriving was hailed by a citizen in loud clothes and with a louder mouth, who called him by name and slapped him on the back.
“You look familiar, pal,” Willie said. “All the same you got me.”
“There was the time you had me once, Klump. You forget? Me. Nolly Okum. You once grabbed me with my hand in a citizen’s pocket in the subway, an’ afterwards you went to sleep on the way to the hoosegow with me.”
“You see a guy around here named
Louie Kropper?” Willie asked.
“Never heard of the character, Klump. Say, wasn’t that tough about Virgo Ginzer gettin’ burnt up in that fire? His wife went up an’ identified him.”
“I was tryin’ to place him,” Willie said. “Ginzer? Huh, to think cops would forget him. He was a smart gee an’ they never could pin any thin’ on him or get him mugged or fingerprinted. They was sure he knocked off that wholesale drug company that night an’ took eight grand an’ a load of morphine. All the hopheads from here to Philly would tell you. I heard Ginzer dropped all his dough, includin’ his bar an’
grill, on the nags.”
“You knew him, huh?” Willie asked. “Not too good,” Nolly said. “Once I
was in his joint when some gorillas tried to shake him down with their own brand of booze. There was quite a brawl an’ Ginzer got hit with a bottle. They took three stitches in his noggin. But I got to be goin’, Klump.”
On the way back to Manhattan, Willie picked up a newspaper. It said that the law was fast closing in on Harry the Ox. Citizens were warned to act with extreme caution if they came upon the escaped convict, for Harry the Ox had once taught judo to G.I.s and had snapped a guard’s
neck at San Quentin as easily as he would have snapped a stick of macaroni.
UST five days later, William Klump was getting ready to lock up his office when
the phone rang.
He picked up the gadget. “Hawkeye Detective Agency. William J. Klump— what was that?”
“I said this was the morgue.” an eerie voice said “Wasn’t you the detective that was askin’ about a Louie Kropper a few days back?”
“I am.”
“Well, we got him any time you want to pick him up, Klump. He was found up near the Mt. Vernon line about two hours ago as stiff as a Harvard exam.”
Willie hung up. He consulted a notebook on his desk and found Mrs. Kropper’s telephone number. He dialed it and soon her voice tickled his ear. “Hello, Mrs. Kropper. This is Klump,” Willie said. “I have found Louie. Now try an’ get ahold of yourself as—”
“Oh, just wait until I get hold of him, Mr. Klump! Great work. Don’t leave him get away, I’m starting out right this minute for—”
“He’s at the morgue,” Willie gulped. “What’s he doin’ there? Wha-a-aa-a-t?” “That’s right. You better meet me down
there to identify him,” Willie said. Then he heard a thump. “I guess I could of been more tackful.”
Willie Klump met Mrs. Louie Kropper at the cadaver lockers half an hour later, and the deserted doll was very teary and weak at the knees. Together they went in and asked could they see the remains of Louie, and an attendant obliged and finally pulled out a drawer on which reclined a citizen departed from this world. Mrs. Kropper let out a yelp and caught Willie by the arm.
“It’s not Louie,” she said. ‘‘‘Is this a
gag, you dumb flatfoot?”
Satchelfoot Kelly and two cops joined the party. “What are you doin’ here, Willie?” Kelly barked like a terrier.
“Representin’ my client here, that’s what.” Willie sniffed. “I been lookin’ for Louie through my missin’ persons booreau for days. Why do they think this is Looie?” “Got his name in his hat.” Satchelfoot said. “Had a receipted hotel bill from
Trenton in his pocket.”
“Well, you’re crazy,” Mrs. Kropper snapped. “This is not Louie. I don’t have to look to see if he had the mole behind his ear even. And look at his fingernails. Louie always hit his off like they was made of chocolate.”
“Was this citizen murdered, whoever he is?” Willie asked Satchelfoot.
“He had his neck broke. It looks like he was throwed out of a car as he has no other marks on him to show he was struck by one.” Satchelfoot said “If the dame says he ain’t her husband, she ought to know. But it looks pretty screwy to me. I could believe in two John Smiths but not two Louie Kroppers. What’s the gimmick, sister?”
“Look, you ape,” Mrs. Kropper yelped. “Who are you accusing of what? I say it ain’t Louie and it ain’t!”
“Let me look at that stiff!” a voice squawked from some distance away. “Who ain’t got a right? If I been murdered I ought to make sure, huh? I’m Louie Kropper!”
They all stared toward a door that was opening. A character with his mouth hanging open and his eyes bugging out stepped into the cadaver filing room, and the doll let out a battle yell and went in swinging.
“So I got you at last, you rat!” she yelled.
“Claudie, listen! You stop that! I can explain everything, except being dead.”
“Grab those people!” a morgue flunkey
yelled. “We don’t want no trouble in here.” “Willie, what’s the score?” Kelly
pleaded.
“I wish I knew,” Willie gulped. “Somebody was murdered but it wasn’t Louie. He just proved it.”
USKY citizens finally subdued Claudie, and Louie Kropper got slowly to his feet and tested his front teeth, tried to open an eye that was closed tight,
and then limped toward the cops.
“Some chiseler’s been doubling for me,” he moaned. “Let me look at the stiff. Maybe I can tag him for you. Anybody got some bandaid or liniment?”
“Yeah,” Satchelfoot said. “Take a good look at the deceased, Kropper.”
Louie took a long gander, shook his head. “Don’t place him. This beats the aitch outa me, pals. Let’s go get a snort, Claudia, and bury the hatchet.”
“No!” Willie howled and wound his arms around the still embattled doll. “Kelly, git the fire-axe out of her hands. Louie, you better stay somewhere tonight where—”
“I know where.” Kelly piped after subduing the doll. “He is goin’ to be held for questionin’. I don’t like the looks of this whole business. Murder has been done an’ the corpse bears his name.”
“Lock me up,” Louie said. “I’ll kiss your hand.”
“Well, I found Louie,” Willie said to the irate babe. “You agreed to pay me fi—” “You found him?” Claudia screeched. “Try an’ chisel me for even a nickel,
Klump!”
“Pal, listen to me,” Louie sighed. “Don’t try.”
“I’ll take her to court,” Willie protested. “Stop making me git stitches in my sides laughing, Klump,” Mrs. Kropper
sneered.
Followed a day that proved to all
concerned that truth is crazier than fiction. Louie Kropper was released by the cops inasmuch as they could not prove a thing on him, and Louie’s ball and chain called Willie at noon.
“We’ve made up, Mr. Klump,” she said happily, “Drop around at seven P.M. and have a snort with us and pick up a C-note for what you did for us.”
“Thanks,” Willie said, “You help to put faith in human nature back in me, Mrs. Kropper.”
William Klump walked into a hotel room uptown at seven hells, and the Kroppers already had a bottle open. After downing one that rolled his eyeballs around in their sockets, the president of the Hawkeye Agency asked Louie how in the world would anybody else think of using the name of Louie Kropper.
“On the radio I wouldn’t believe it,” Claudia said.
“You know, I tried to think of an answer when that flatfoot Kelly grilled me this morning, Klump,” Louie said and tried to refresh his memory with a heavy belt of bourbon. “But nothing would come to me. .
. . Wa-a-ait a minute. I remember something. The reason I was so hard to find all these months was that I used another alias. I got a dozen of ‘em, Klump, my real name being Ronald Tish. So I meet a guy two or three months ago I ain’t seen in a couple years. He calls me Louie and I says to him lay off that one as I have tossed it away. ‘Pal, I am now Eddie McGinnity,’ I says.”
Willie sighed deeply and pawed his face with his hands. Louie kept on talking.
“But later on I took the name of Louie back again, the only one the wife here ever knew me by, see?”
“I wish I could follow you,” Willie groaned, his head full of cotton waste.
“So that guy I met, figuring I ain’t using that alias no more, picks it up as he
maybe needed a new one himself,” Louie Kropper said. “Baby, pour me another as I need it.”
“Me too,” Willie gulped.
“I wonder why Ginzer got in need of a phony name,” Louie said and tossed off a stiff hooker.
Willie spilled his drink down the front of his vest and nearly dropped the glass.
“What was it you just said, Louie? You said Ginzer?”
“Yeah. I did a job or two with him once,” Louie said. “Lost track of him until that day he—”
“That explains it then,” the doll said.
“It can’t,” Willie choked out. “It couldn’t of been Virgo Ginzer took the name. How could he be in the morgue now when he was rubbed out in a hotel fire upstate not more’n a week ago? His wife identified him. She brought back his wallet an’ his watch.”
“Gimme another drink, babe.” Louie said. “Klump is right. It couldn’t be Ginzer as Ginzer always had a black mustache and a gold tooth in front. I give up. When I heard it was me on the morgue slab I sure broke my neck to get there and find out.”
“The stiff broke his neck to get there, too,” Willie said, and gremlins with icy cold feet began to hold a track meet the length of his spine. He wondered what he was trying to think of and couldn’t.
“It’s a shame I ripped your new suit at the morgue, Louie,” Claudia said. “I’ll stitch it up later. You look whoozy, Klump. Here, take the bottle.”
Willie’s brains curled. Broken necks—
stitches—bottles!
“Say, did you pick up a racing form today, babe?” Louie asked his wife. Willie at once thought of Nolly Okum and of other things that scared him.
“Could I borrer paper an’ pencil?” he asked. “I have to put things down quick when they come to me as they don’t stay
long.”
“Humor him,” Louie said sotto voce to his mate. “Then pay him off and get him outa here.”
Willie jotted some words down on paper and when he had finished Claudia Kropper was handing him his hat and a C- note. He took both, thanked his hosts and hurried out of the room. An hour later he was in the morgue and looking down at a corpse once more. An employee of the city seemed quite irritable and asked Willie why didn’t somebody hurry up and claim ownership of the cadaver.
“I’m not used to handlin’ stiffs,” Willie gulped. “Would you examine his dome an’ see if at any time he got stitches in his scalp?”
“Awright, but why should anybody be afraid of these things. They can’t make no pass at a guy,” the attendant growled. He leaned over the remains and looked for what Willie had mentioned, and found it, and said, “Yeah, looks like about three stitches. You know him now?”
“I’ll let you know for sure inside of twenty-four hours,” Willie said in a voice that needed oiling.
William Klump’s next move was to go to a newspaper office and see an editor he knew. He found out that Ginzer’s widow lived in an apartment house on East Ninety-ninth Street and he went up there and saw the superintendent, and flashed the badge.
“I would like to ask you about a Mrs. Ginzer,” he said.
“A copper, huh? Yeah, I been wondering about that babe,” the super said. “She plays a squeezebox at an East Side joint named Minnie’s an’ Manny’s. Lost her husband in that hotel fire upstate.”
“Yeah,” Willie said. “You notice anythin’ suspicious about her?”
“Just one thing. That babe always went out a lot, as she was a stepper, but tenants
say she’s been living like a hermit since her husband was killed.”
“Maybe I’ll pay the doll a visit,” Willie said. “Cops can’t overlook nothin’. Thanks for the corporation.”
A few minutes later Willie Klump rapped his knuckles against a door, and a glamorous dish opened the portal just wide enough to get a gander at the private detective.
“Well?” she snarled.
“I would like to ask you a thing or two,” Willie said. “I am the law.”
“I got nothin’ to say to no flatfeet,” Mrs. Ginzer said quite impolitely. “Haven’t I been through enough? Beat it!”
“Wait, baby. Let the guy in!”
It was a male voice, and Willie was reminded of the noises he had heard once in the zoo at feeding time. His knees got rubbery, and good sense told him to turn and run for it.
“Okay, come on in,” the dame said, and Willie obeyed like a sleepwalker and crossed the threshold.
“Lock the door, baby!”
Willie saw the gee, then. Mrs. Ginzer’s guest had a head and neck of the same width and a pair of eyes that would worry Peter Lorre. He was built along the lines of a subway kiosk.
“Well, pal? So you was smarter’n the other cops, huh? Reckernize me?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to say,” Willie gulped, and knew that this was Harry the Ox.
“Why’d you let him know you was here, Harry?” the doll yelped.
“He did know, baby. Don’t be so dumb! I gotta take a chance he’s a lone wolf,” Harry the Ox growled, and flexed his muscles. “I wanted him in because nobody can liquidate a dope by remote control. He’s wise you once was my moll before you hooked up with Ginzer. So he came here figgerin’ he’d find me. Too
bad.”
“You broke Virgo Ginzer’s neck,” Willie choked out.
“See, babe? He knows everythin’.” “Don’t talk so much, Harry,” Mrs.
Ginzer snapped. “How do you know he does?”
“Shut up! Don’t tell me my business. I been cooped up here in the kitchen so long I’d even tear you apart with my bare hands if you needled me too much,” Harry the Ox said. “It is bein’ stir nutty all over again. I’m rubbin’ this flatfoot out in just a minute or two.”
“Yes, Harry.”
“No,” Willie gulped.
“Nobody’s goin’ to stop us from gettin’ that fifty grand, baby,” Harry the Ox ground out, and started rolling up his sleeves. “No cops are goin’ to get me again.”
No roscoes about, Willie thought desperately. Harry the Ox never had to be a noisy murderer. First, t
he judo expert had to get a hold on his man. Willie wasted no time, for he knew how brittle his neck was. He leaped at Mrs. Ginzer and sent her sprawling right in front of Harry the Ox who tripped over her and hit his massive chin on the floor. Willie was almost at the door when Harry the Ox got him by the ankle, and he was pulled down on top of the convict. Then Mrs. Ginzer brought a vase down on the wrong skull, and Harry the Ox blinked for a moment or two, called the doll the dumbest dame he’d ever known, and tried to stop Willie from tearing himself loose.
The private detective extricated himself, straight-armed Mrs. Ginzer like a Michigan ball carrier, and tore for the kitchen. There was a window there, but Willie saw right away that it could scarcely accommodate a midget and so he got set for a last stand. He heard Harry the Ox come tearing along the short hall, snorting
like a rhino, and Willie wondered how he would look with no head.
Then Willie saw the neat row of condiments. He quickly snatched up a white jar bearing a certain label, ripped the cover off and threw the contents at the kitchen door just as Harry the Ox barged through it.
Black pepper engulfed the noggin of Harry the Ox. He inhaled of it deeply and then went into convulsions. One of his sneezes blew a newspaper off the kitchen table. Harry the Ox coughed and sneezed and gasped for breath. Brine made his peepers opaque. Willie picked up a heavy rolling pin and cracked the dishonest criminal on the pate.
Harry the Ox spun in a half circle but did not go down. Willie repeated the treatment, and the judo dispenser sighed deeply and settled to the floor.
“You get him, Harry?” the doll called. “Yeah, babe,” Willie answered from
deep in his throat.
He picked up a sauce pan and took a stand just inside the kitchen door. Mrs. Ginzer thrust her head in. Bong! The widow dropped down beside the hulk of Harry the Ox. Willie reeled out of the room and to a telephone.
The Willie Klump Page 16
