The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  THE FILM

  Title: Brother Orchid, 1940

  Studio: Warner Bros.

  Director: Lloyd Bacon

  Screenwriter: Earl Baldwin

  Producers: Hal B. Wallis (executive), Mark Hellinger (associate)

  THE CAST

  • Edward G. Robinson (Little John Sarto)

  • Ann Sothern (Flo Addams)

  • Humphrey Bogart (Jack Buck)

  • Donald Crisp (Brother Superior)

  The film is as faithful as a Hollywood movie can be to a short story. The notion of a tough gangster finding the light in a monastery remains intact in the film, though a girlfriend has been added to Connell’s tale to provide humor and a little (very little) romance.

  Ann Sothern does her usual excellent job as a moll who is none too bright—but, then, neither is Little John Sarto. In one exchange, Flo is pasting travel stickers inside his trunks.

  “Look, Johnny, don’t it look elegant?”

  Sarto replies, “Yeah, it’s got class all right. Look, you dumb cluck, you got it pasted on the inside.”

  “Sure,” she says, “it gets scratched on the outside. Anybody’s smart enough to know that!”

  “Flo,” an exasperated Sarto replies, “sometimes you got me guessin’ whether you’re even a nitwit.”

  Casting the usually hard-boiled Robinson in the role seemed like an excellent idea, and it was, as he was perfect in the part. The studio’s first choice, however, had been the other tough-guy star of the era, James Cagney. Robinson had pretty much become typecast as a gangster and he was smart enough to know that would eventually kill his career, so he agreed to play the role in this humorous film in exchange for a promise to be cast as the star of a historical drama, A Dispatch from Reuters (1940).

  Not to give too much away, but in the five films in which Robinson and Humphrey Bogart appeared together, Brother Orchid is the only one in which neither dies. In the first three, Bullets or Ballots (1936), Kid Galahad (1937), and The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), Robinson had either killed or dominated Bogart. By the time they appeared in Key Largo (1948), Bogart had become a bigger star and turned the tables on Robinson.

  BROTHER ORCHID

  Richard Connell

  “BE SMART,” the warden said. “Go straight.”

  A grin creased the leather face of Little John Sarto.

  “I am goin’ straight,” he said. “Straight to Chi.”

  “I wouldn’t if I were you, Sarto.”

  “Why not? I owned that burg once. I’ll own it again.”

  “Things have changed in ten years.”

  “But not me,” said Little John. “I still got what it takes to be on top.”

  “You didn’t stay there,” the warden observed.

  “I got framed,” Sarto said. “Imagine shovin’ me on the rock on a sissy income tax rap!”

  “It was the only charge they could make stick,” the warden said. “You were always pretty slick, Sarto.”

  “I was, and I am,” said Little John.

  The warden frowned. “Now look here, Sarto. When a man has done his time and I’m turning him loose, I’m supposed to give him some friendly advice. I do it, though I know that in most cases it’s a farce. You’d think men who’d done a stretch here in Alcatraz ought to have a sneaking notion that crime does not pay, but while I’m preaching my little sermon I see a faraway look in their eyes and I know they’re figuring out their next bank job or snatch.”

  “Don’t class me with them small-time heisters and petty-larceny yeggs,” said Little John. “I’m a born big shot.”

  “You’re apt to die the same way,” said the warden dryly.

  “That’s okay, net, by me,” said Little John. “When I peg out I want to go with fireworks, flowers, and bands; but you’ll have a beard to your knees before they get out the last extra on Little John Sarto. I got a lot of livin’ to do first: I got to wash out the taste of slum with a lakeful of champagne, and it’ll take half the blondes in the Loop to make me forget them nights in solitary. But most of all I got to be myself again, not just a number. For every order I’ve took here on the rock, I’m goin’ to give two. I’m goin’ to see guys shiver and jump when I speak. I’ve played mouse long enough. Watch me be a lion again.”

  The warden sighed. “Sarto,” he said, “why don’t you play it safe? Stay away from Chicago. Settle in some new part of the country. Go into business. You’ve got brains and a real gift for organization. You ran a big business once—”

  “Million a month, net,” put in Sarto.

  “And you’re only forty-six and full of health,” the warden went on. “You can still make a fresh start.”

  “Using what for wampum?” asked Little John.

  “You’ve got plenty salted away.”

  Sarto laughed a wry laugh.

  “I got the ten bucks, and the ticket back to Chi, and this frowsy suit the prison gimme, and that’s all I got,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re broke!”

  “Flat as a mat,” said Little John. “I spent it like I made it—fast. A king’s got to live like a king, ain’t he? When I give a dame flowers, it was always orchids. My free-chow bill ran to a grand a week. They called me a public enemy but they treated me like a year-round Sandy Claws….But I ain’t worryin’. I was born broke. I got over it.”

  * * *

  —

  A prison guard came in to say that the launch was ready to take Sarto to the mainland.

  “Well, goodbye, Warden,” said Sarto jauntily. “If you ever get to Chi gimme a buzz. I’ll throw a party for you.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the warden. “I can’t let you go till I make one last attempt to start you on the right track. I know a man who’ll give you a job. He runs a big truck farm and—”

  He stopped, for Sarto was shaking with hoarse laughter.

  “Me a rube?” Little John got out. “Me a bodyguard to squashes? Warden, the stir-bugs has got you.”

  “It’s a chance to make an honest living.”

  “Save it for some cluck that would feel right at home livin’ with turnips,” Sarto said. “I got other plans.”

  The siren on the launch gave an impatient belch.

  “So long, Warden,” said Little John. “I won’t be seein’ you.”

  “You’re right there,” the warden said.

  Sarto’s face darkened at the words.

  “Meanin’ Chi might be bad for my health?”

  “I’ve heard rumors to that effect,” replied the warden.

  “I’ve heard ’em for years,” said Little John. “They’re a lotta rat spit. Plenty guys has talked about what they was goin’ to do to me. I always sent flowers to their funerals—you heard about that.”

  He chuckled.

  “A big heart of forget-me-nots with ‘Sorry, Pal’ in white orchids on it.”

  “All right, wise guy,” the warden said. “Go to Chicago. The sooner you get rubbed out, the better for everybody. You’re no good and you never will be.”

  “Atta clown,” said Little John Sarto. “Always leave ’em laughin’ when you say goodbye.”

  Laughing, he started out toward the big gray gate.

  Deep in the woods in an out-of-the-world corner of Michigan, squat, unkempt Twin Pine Inn hides itself. It was silent that summer night, and dark save for a single window in the taproom. Behind the customerless bar, Fat Dutchy was drinking his fourth rock-and-rye.

  “Stick ’em up. This is a heist.”

  The voice, low and with a snarl in it came from the doorway behind him. Up went Fat Dutchy’s hands.

  “Easy with the rod,” he whimpered. “There ain’t a sawbuck in the joint.”

  “Not like the good old days,” the voice said.

  D
utchy turned his head. Little John Sarto was standing there with nothing more lethal in his hand than a big cigar. Dutchy blinked and goggled.

  “Well, greaseball, do I look funny?” Sarto demanded.

  “No—no—boss, you ain’t changed a bit.”

  “I don’t change,” Sarto said. “Gimme a slug of bourbon.”

  Fat Dutchy sloshed four fingers of whisky into a glass. His hand trembled. Liquor splashed on the bar.

  “What you got the jits about?” asked Sarto.

  “You gimme a turn comin’ in like you was a ghost or sumpin’,” said Fat Dutchy. He wiped sweat from his mottled jowls with the bar rag. Sarto gulped his drink.

  “Business bad, eh?”

  “It ain’t even bad, boss. It just ain’t.”

  “Cheer up, pig puss. You’ll soon be scoffin’ filly miggnons smothered with century notes,” Sarto said. “I’m back.”

  * * *

  —

  Fat Dutchy rubbed his paunch and looked unhappily at the floor.

  “Things is different,” he said.

  Sarto banged his glass down on the bar.

  “If one more lug tells me that, I’ll kick his gizzard out,” he said. “Now, listen. I’m holin’ up here till I get my bearin’s. Soon as I get things set, I’m goin’ to town. But first I gotta contact some of the boys.”

  Fat Dutchy played nervously with the bar rag.

  “Gimme another slug,” Sarto ordered. “I got a ten-year thirst.”

  Fat Dutchy poured out the drink. Again his shaking hands made him spill some of it.

  “Here’s to me,” said Sarto, and drank. “Now, listen: I want you to pass the office along to certain parties that I’m here and want to see ’em, pronto. For a starter, get in touch with Philly Powell, Ike Gelbert, Ouch O’Day, Willie the Knife, Benny Maletta, French Frank, Hop Latzo, Al Muller, and that fresh kid that was so handy with a tommy gun—”

  “Jack Buck?”

  “Yeah. I may need a torpedo. When I fell out, he had the makin’s of a good dropper. So get that phone workin’, lard head—you know where they hang out.”

  “Sure,” said Fat Dutchy. He held up his hand and ticked off names on his thick fingers.

  “Ike Gelbert and Al Muller is in the jug doin’ life jolts,” he said. “Philly Powell and French Frank was crossed out right at this bar. Ouch O’Day throwed an ing-bing and was took to the fit house; the G-boys filled Benny Maletta with slugs and sent Willie the Knife to the hot squat; I dunno just where Hop Latzo is but I’ve heard talk he’s at the bottom of Lake Mich in a barrel of concrete. So outa that lot there’s only Jack Buck left and I don’t guess you wanna see him—”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s growed up,” said Fat Dutchy. “He’s the loud noise now. What rackets there is, Jack Buck’s got ’em in his pocket.”

  “I’ll whittle him down to his right size,” said Sarto.

  “Jack’s in strong. He’s waitin’ for you, boss, and he ain’t foolin’. The boys tell me it’s worth three G’s to the guy that settles you.”

  Sarto snorted. “Only three grand!” he said indignantly.

  “That’s serious sugar nowadays,” said Fat Dutchy. “I’m tellin’ you times is sour. Jack Buck has cornered the few grafts that still pay. He’s got a mob of muzzlers that was in reform school when you was head man. You ain’t nothin’ fo’em but a name and a chance to earn three thousand fish.”

  Sarto sipped his drink. Lines of thought furrowed his face.

  “I’ll stay here till I figure out an angle,” he announced.

  “Boss,” said Fat Dutchy, “I don’t wanna speak outa turn, but wouldn’t it be a smart play to take it on the lam for a while?”

  “Where to?”

  Fat Dutchy shrugged his stout shoulders.

  “I wouldn’t know, boss,” he said. “When the heat’s on—”

  “Yeah, I know,” cut in Sarto. “You’re smoked wherever you go.”

  “What are you goin’ to do, boss?”

  “I’m goin’ to hit the sheets and dream I’m out,” said Little John.

  Dog-tired though he was, he could not get to sleep. His mind yanked him away from dreams, back to prison, to the death-house, where men were lying in the dark, as he was, trying to sleep.

  “They got the bulge on me, at that,” he thought. “They know when they’re goin’ to get it.”

  He felt like a man reading his own obituary, complete but for two facts: where and when.

  He knew he was safe where he was, but not for long. They’d comb all the known hideouts. He tried to think of some friend he could trust to hide him. Name after name he considered and rejected. He had come to the ninety-sixth name and found no one he could count on when he fell asleep.

  * * *

  —

  A light in his eyes and a voice in his ear jerked him awake.

  A man was bending over him, smiling and saying:

  “Wake up, dear. You’ll be late for school.”

  He was a huge, soft-looking young man with a jovial freckled face. His suit was bottle-green and expensive. Sarto had never seen him before.

  “Up, up, pet,” he said, and waved at Sarto a big blue-black automatic.

  A second man watched from the other side of the bed. He was younger and smaller than the first man, and his flour-white face was perfectly blank. Sarto did not know him either.

  Sarto sat up in bed.

  “Listen, fellas,” he said, “if I get a break you get five grand.”

  “Got it on you, darling?” asked the freckled man.

  “Nope. But I can dig it up inside a week.”

  “Sorry. We do a strictly cash business,” the freckled man said.

  “I’ll make it ten grand,” said Little John. He addressed the pallid man. “Wadda you say, bud? Ten G’s.”

  The freckled man chuckled.

  “He’d say ‘no’ if he could say anything,” he said. “He doesn’t hear, either. His eyes are good, though. His name is Harold, but we call him Dummy.”

  Sarto held his naked, flabby body very stiff and straight.

  “Do your stuff,” he said.

  Dummy took his hand from his pocket. There was a pistol in it. The freckled man brushed the gun aside.

  “We don’t want to give this charming place a bad name,” he explained to Sarto. “For Dutchy’s sake.”

  “So that fat rat tipped you,” said Sarto.

  “Yes,” said the freckled man. “For a modest fee. Come along, baby.”

  * * *

  —

  They were speeding through open farm country. The speedometer hit seventy-five. Sarto closed his mouth and his eyes.

  “Praying?” asked the freckled man.

  “Naw!”

  “Better start, toots.”

  “I know nuttin’ can help me.”

  “That’s right,” said the freckled man cheerfully. “Nothing but a miracle. But you might pray for your soul.”

  “Aw, go to hell.”

  They turned into a rutty, weed-grown road. As they bumped along through a tunnel of trees, suddenly, silently Little John Sarto began to pray.

  “Listen! This is Little John Sarto of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. I know I got no right to ask any favors. I guess I got a bad rep up there. Well, I ain’t goin’ to try to lie away my record. Everything on the blotter is true. I don’t claim I rate a break. All I say is I need one bad and I’ll pay for it. I don’t know how; but look me up in the big book. It ought to say that when I make a deal I never run out on it. If I’m talkin’ out of turn, forget it. But I won’t forget if—”

  “Last stop. All out,” sang out the freckled man. He halted the car by a thicket of thigh-high brush.

  Sarto got out of the car. Dummy got out, too. He kept his gun against
Little John’s backbone.

  “Goodbye, now,” said the freckled man, and lit a cigarette.

  Dummy marched Sarto off the road and into the thicket. Abruptly, like a spotlight, the moon came out. Dummy spun Sarto around. Sarto could see his face. It held neither hate nor pity. Dummy raised his pistol. As he brought it up on a level with Sarto’s forehead, the breeze whipped a straggling branch of a wild rosebush across the back of his hand, and the thorns cut a wet, red line. For part of a second Dummy dropped his eyes to his bleeding hand. Sarto wheeled and dove into the underbrush. Dummy fired three quick shots. One missed. One raked across Sarto’s skull. One seared his shoulder. He staggered, but kept plunging on. Dummy darted after him. Then the moon went out.

  As Sarto floundered on he could hear Dummy crashing through the brush behind him. But Dummy could not hear his quarry. Dizzy and weak, the wounded man fought his frantic way through tar-black brush. Thorns stabbed him, briers clawed. A low branch smashed him on the nose, and he reeled and nearly went down. Bending double, he churned on. Then his head hit something hard, and he dropped, stunned for a moment. He reached out an unsteady hand and felt an ivy-covered wall. No sound of pursuit came to his ears.

  Painfully he dragged himself up to the top of the wall. Not a sob of breath was left in him. He straddled the wall and clung to it. Then he fainted.

  * * *

  —

  In the monastery of the Floratines, today was like yesterday and yesterday was like a day in the ninth century when the order was founded. Neither time nor war nor the hate of kings had changed their humble habits or their simple creed. Over the door this creed was carved: “Be poor in purse, pure in heart, kind in word and deed, and beautify the lives of men with flowers.”

  These were the words of the Blessed Edric, their founder, and, ever since his day, Floratines in every land had lived by them, harming no one, helping man, raising flowers.