The Library Fuzz

by James Holding

  * * * *

  A few days later, over a pizza and beer which he insisted on paying for, Randall told me the rest of the story. I suppose it was his way of thanking me for my help in what he was already calling The Henchman Case.

  “Cuyler was working for Crane Security when he had his heart attack and had to retire a year or so ago. But he only had his Social Security payments to live on because he hadn’t been with Crane long enough to qualify for a pension. So there he was, a widower, a semi-invalid with an uncertain future, and all alone in the world except for a niece in Minneapolis.”

  “Yum,” I said.

  “Shut up, Hal,” he said. “Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”

  “Continue, I urged him, “please.”

  “Cuyler is bitter at his rotten luck in being so poor so suddenly. He decides he’ll try to steal enough money from his old firm to live high on the hog for whatever time he has left. After all, they wouldn’t even pay him a pension, the ungrateful tightwads.”

  I said, “Where does your truck driver come in?”

  “Cuyler hired him to do the actual robbery. He hadn’t the nerve to do it himself.”

  “I remember the heist,” I said. “A Crane Security Express van loaded with cash for three or four payroll deliveries was cleaned out in the parking lot of some diner while the guards were having lunch inside.”

  “Slenski did the cleaning out. Cuyler waited around the corner in the getaway car. It was a cozy set-up. Cuyler knew all about the routes, schedules, pick-ups, and deliveries of the Crane vans; he also knew the guards on that particular van always stopped for lunch on Fridays at that diner and left the van unattended in the parking lot. He also managed to get keys to the van’s door-locks.”

  Something was bothering me. I said, “Two questions, Lieutenant. You told me we recovered the entire loot from the van robbery in Cuyler’s YMCA locker. So why hadn’t Cuyler spent any of it since the robbery? And what did the truck driver get out of the caper?”

  Randall said, “Cuyler was probably waiting for the heat to die down a bit before he began spending hot money. As for Slenski’s cut, it was five thousand dollars—a good hunk of Cuyler’s savings—paid to Slenski half beforehand and the other half when Slenski turned over the loot to Cuyler. Slenski went off home to Detroit, apparently pleased with his windfall. But he didn’t stay pleased very long. When he had a chance to think things over, he realized he’d been taken. And he decided not to hold still for it.”

  “So he tried to help himself to a bigger cut when he broke into Cuyler’s house that Sunday night?” I said.

  “Sure. Who else would make such a shambles of the place?”

  “So Cuvier figures he’ll try again. Maybe right away. And telling the cops is out for obvious reasons. Even though he suspects Slenski may cut up pretty rough on his next visit.”

  “That’s when he decided to write that letter to his niece, and to hide the key to his YMCA locker in your library book. He wanted his niece to know the score if anything happened to him.”

  “It seems to me it would have been simpler all around to send the key to his niece in the letter.”

  “It would. But Cuvier definitely intended to enjoy that money himself if he had the chance. And he was afraid, maybe, that his niece would get so curious about the key that she might find out he was a thief while he was still alive. And he didn’t want that.”

  I finished off my pizza and drained my beer mug. I said, “Come on, Lieutenant, you used to lecture me about the rules of evidence. What evidence—hard evidence—do you have that Slenski actually beat up Cuvier and caused his death? As far as you know and can really prove, Slenski is just a petty out-of-town thief who snitched a book from our public library here. Isn’t that right?”

  “No, it isn’t right.” There was honey in Randall’s voice. “Didn’t I tell you, Hal? We found a memo in Slenski’s wallet the day you turned him in. Oddly enough, the memo said: ‘The Henchman. Eugene Stott. Public Library,’ and was in the very same handwriting as our memo from Cuyler’s house. We knew we had him cold for Cuyler’s killing before we found the Scott loot.”

  “Mercy,” I said, “you do play them close to your vest, don’t you, Lieutenant?”

  “When we showed him we had him all wrapped up for murder, he sang like a canary to get his rap reduced. How do you think we learned all this jazz about the robbery?”

  “Routine police work,” I said, grinning. I was quiet for a minute, thinking. Then I said, “The real screwball in the whole mess was handsome Uncle Jeff, if you ask me.”

  “I’m not asking you. But why?”

  “That nutty letter to his niece for one thing. Telling her he was leaving her a legacy in a library book, then telling her to go to the police, for God’s sake, to be sure she got it. That was a great legacy to go to the police about! Three hundred thousand stolen dollars!

  Randall laughed. “Old Cuvier wasn’t so dumb, Hal.”

  “No?”

  “No. You’re forgetting the reward.”

  I was. It had been widely advertised at the time of the robbery. Twenty-five thousand to anybody supplying information leading to the arrest of the thieves or the recovery of the money. I said, “You mean Nancy Elmore gets the reward?”

  “Sure, said Randall. “The least I could do was to see she collected it. He paused. “Of course, Miss Elmore did see fit to write a big fat check for the Police Widows and Orphans Fund before she left for Minneapolis.”

  “How peachy for the Widows and Orphans,” I said. “But I found the key in the book, remember. I snagged the murderer for you. Don’t I get something for that?”

  “Sorry,” said Randall, his cat’s eyes showing amusement, “but you’re neither a widow nor an orphan, Hal. Will you settle for another beer?”

  “I guess I’ll have to,” I said sadly.

  THE YOUNG RUNNERS

  Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 1978.

  It was the worst kind of tenement. In the 1200 block of Gardenia Street. I checked my list to be sure I had the address right. Then I went inside, looking for a young man named Jasper Jones.

  In my capacity as a library cop, I’d been in the neighborhood before, trying to trace books that had been stolen from the public library. This time, however, I was on Gardenia Street merely to collect an overdue book. A routine call.

  Gardenia Street. The littered filthy hallway of the tenement didn’t smell like gardenias, believe me. Luckily the room I was looking for was on the ground floor. I rapped lightly on the door.

  It was cautiously opened a few inches by a once-pretty woman with a pale face and a do-it-yourself blonde dye job. She peered out at me with tired-looking eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m looking for Jasper Jones,” I said. “Is he here?”

  Sudden concern made her tired eyes even more tired. “Jasper? He’s not home from school yet. What’s he done?” she asked. “Has Jasper done something? Who are you?”

  I told her, and showed her my ID card from the library.

  “Oh,” she said, relieved. “Well, Jasper isn’t home yet, like I said. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re Mrs. Jones? Jasper’s mother?”

  “That’s right.” She perked up a little, fluffing her hair with one hand. She didn’t invite me in, though.

  “Maybe you can help me then. Mrs. Jones. If you can find Jasper’s overdue library book and pay me the small fine he owes on it, I won’t need to bother Jasper at all.”

  She said, “Jasper’s really a terrific reader for an eleven-year-old, Mr. Johnson.” There was pride in her voice. “And consequently, he gets so many books from the public library that I can’t even begin to keep track of them. So…

  “He borrows a lot of books, all right,” I agreed. “Our children’s librarian told me that. But this is the first time Jasper’s ever failed to return a book on time. So it’s no big deal, Mrs. Jones. With his excellent record I’ll even forget the fi
ne if you’ll just give me the book.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson.” Mrs. Jones sounded harried. “I’m trying to get dressed to go to work and I’m late, okay? Can’t you find Jasper and ask him about your book? I haven’t got time to look for it right now.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Where’ll I find him?”

  “Well, you can either wait here till he gets home, or you can probably find him in the park two blocks down. He usually stops there on his way home from school.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Jones.” I left her and went out and took a deep breath of the polluted outside air. It smelled as fresh as gardenias compared with the air in the tenement hallway.

  I walked the two blocks down Gardenia to Mrs. Jones’s “park.” It turned out to be a playground. No trees, flowers, grass, or rustic benches. Just a sun-baked expanse of bare beaten earth, enclosed by a chain-link fence eight feet high. At one end of the enclosure was a mounted basketball hoop, and I could make out the faint markings of old softball bases in the dust. A bunch of kids, some black, some white, all ages up to about 15, was having a high old time in a pickup basketball game beneath the single basket. There was a lot of yelling, jumping, and juvenile cursing, and a lot of wild set and hook shots that never came near the basket. Another bunch of kids was standing around offering comments and waiting for a chance to get into the game.

  It was evident that Jasper Jones wasn’t the only ghetto kid to stop here on his way home from school, because schoolbooks, homework papers, and bulging book bags were scattered on the ground along the inside of the wire fence. Three battered old bicycles, and one that looked almost new, were leaning against the fence went into the playground and walked along the fence past the books and bicycles toward the knot of nonparticipants in the game. They watched me come in unfriendly silence. I didn’t know whether their unfriendliness was because I was dressed so well for this neighborhood, or because they smelled cop on me. Probably the latter. I’d been a Homicide cop for quite a few years before I switched to the public library, and I knew that these street-wise ghetto kids could smell fuzz a mile off—even harmless library fuzz like me.

  I went up to a tall gangly black boy who had outgrown his windbreaker by six inches and said politely, “Can you tell me if Jasper Jones is around?”

  He treated me to a long thoughtful stare before he replied, “Who wants to know?” He wasn’t being arrogant or nasty, just cautious.

  “I’m from the public library and Jasper has an overdue book I want to collect,” I said. “Is he here?”

  “Yeah,” said the boy in the windbreaker, making up his mind. He turned and shouted toward the players, “Hey, Jazz! Guy to see you!” I could feel the hostility around me subside.

  The youngster who responded to this summons was small for his age. He had a shock of black unruly hair, a thin face with a pointed chin, and two of the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. The eyes were older than the kid. He said to the tall black boy who had called him out of the game, “Go in for me, will you, George?” I thought Jasper’s team would benefit by the change. For tall George was obviously better equipped as a basketball player than this short eleven-year-old that faced me.

  He was panting a little from his recent exertions on the basketball court. He led me away from the other kids a few steps and said, “Yeah? You want me?” His blue eyes looked me over.

  “If you’re Jasper Jones, I do. I came to get a library book from you, Jasper.”

  “Call me Jazz,” he said cockily. “Everybody does.” Then, “A library book?” he repeated. “I never saw you before, did I?”

  “Not that I know of. What difference does that make? I still have to collect the library book from you. It’s four weeks overdue.” I showed him my library identification card.

  “Oh!” he said. In some curious way his steady blue eyes seemed to be reassessing me. “Overdue? What’s the name of the book, Mister? You must be wrong. I never keep a book out too long.”

  “We sent you an overdue notice, Jazz. Didn’t you get it?”

  He looked blank. “Nope. I suppose Mom didn’t bother telling me. Anyway, what’s the book?”

  I said, “The Robber of Featherbed Lane. Remember it?”

  He shook his head. “Naw. I read ’em so fast I don’t even bother to look at their names, half the time.”

  “Well,” I said, letting some of my impatience show, “I’ve come all the way out here to get that book, Jazz, so let’s go back to your place and find it, huh?”

  Jasper looked over my shoulder into the distance. “No use going to my place,” he said uncomfortably. “It’s not there.”

  “How do you know till you look?”

  “I just know, that’s all, man.” He raised his eyes to mine.

  “That’s no answer. How do you know?”

  He frowned in thought. At length he said, “I guess I’ll have to tell you.” His expression was half hang-dog belligerent, half proud. “I’ve got this little business going on the side with your library books, man, and that particular book—”

  I interrupted him. “A little business on the side? What kind of business? Are you selling our library books?”

  He was scornful. “You’re not too sharp, are you, Mister? If I was selling your crummy books, how come none of ’em ever turned up missing before?”

  He had me there. “So what is this business of yours?” I asked.

  “I don’t sell your books, I rent them,” explained Jasper Jones blandly.

  I couldn’t keep from grinning at him. A rental library operated by an 11-year-old businessman with somebody else’s books was something I’d never run into before. I said as severely as I could, “You mean you rent all those books you get from the public library to other kids?”

  “Sure.” Unrepentant. “After I’ve read ’em myself, why not?”

  “Can’t they apply for library cards and borrow their own books—free?”

  “I save ’em a lot of time and trouble by letting ’em read mine. They pay me a nickel apiece and promise to put ’em in the library book-drop before the date on the card. And that saves me a lot of trouble. I don’t have to keep track of the dates and return ’em myself.”

  “Some racket,” I said. “Do you make much money at it?”

  He beamed. “I made enough the last coupla years to buy me that set of wheels over there.” He pointed proudly at the almost new bicycle leaning against the fence. There was a big book bag on the flat luggage rack above the rear wheel. Jasper, suddenly cautious, asked anxiously. “It’s okay for me to do that, isn’t it? Rent library books, I mean? Long as the books are back on time?”

  I laughed. “As far as I know, there’s no law against lending—or renting—public library books to other people besides the cardholder. Always providing, of course, the library gets its books back in good shape.” I fixed him with a stern look. “Which brings us back to The Robber of Featherbed Lane. Do you know which of your—ah—customers you rented that one to?”

  “Yeah.” He hesitated. “Solly Joseph. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Solly’s the class behind me at school. And Solly’s old man got drunk and tore your library book all to pieces because he didn’t want Solly reading anything about robbers, see?” Jasper sighed heavily. “So I guess I got to pay for the book, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “Or your mother or father or somebody.”

  He said, “I’ll pay for it myself. Mom never has any bread. She’s only working part time. And my old man went off somewhere a coupla years ago.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Three fifty. Kids’ books run kind of high these days. I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it,” he said with a chopping gesture. “I’ll collect it from Solly, don’t worry.” He took an old-fashioned coin purse from his jeans, opened it, and counted out $3.50 into my hand—two one-dollar bills and the rest in small change. “Is that it?”

  “That’s it.” I grinned at him. He was quite a kid. “Now you better get back in that basketball game, Jazz.
Your friend George just missed an easy layup.”

  Everybody at the library got a big kick out of my story about Jasper Jones and his book-rental operation. And about Solly Joseph’s old man getting drunk and destroying one of our children’s books because it might have a bad influence on Solly. Olive Gaston, head children’s librarian, was especially amused. “That little Jasper Jones goes out of here every Saturday morning as regular as clockwork,” she said, “with so many books in his book-bag he can hardly carry it. So that’s why he takes so many. He rents them. He always tells me it’s because he’s such a fast reader.”

  I turned in the kid’s $3.50 along with the day’s fines, and forgot about Jasper Jones until several weeks later when Lieutenant Randall, my former boss at the Police Department, brought the incident back to mind.

  We were having a pizza and beer together in Tony’s Diner, having met there at Randall’s suggestion. He made it clear, however, that I was not his guest; I could pay for my own pizza out of the princely salary the library paid me for being what he called a “sissy” cop. Randall has never forgiven me for leaving him and the Department and seeking a more literate, not to mention more literary, association.

  I started on my pizza and opened with my usual query, “Well, how many murders did you solve today, Lieutenant?”

  Normally he’ll answer this with a sour glance from his spooky eyes and a contemptuous belch if he’s drinking beer. Tonight, however, he replied promptly, as though on cue. “One,” he said.

  “One?” I raised my eyebrows. “A new record. Congratulations.”

  “Don’t knock it,” he said. “It lets me do you a little favor.”

  “A favor?” I stared at him. “You feeling all right?”

  “I feel fine,” he said, chomping on a large section of pizza to prove it.

  “Then for God’s sake,” I said, “tell me about it.”

  He shrugged, obviously pleased that I’d given him the lead. “Nothing much to it,” he apologized. “Routine stuff. Fellow got stabbed in a bar in a quarrel with a former girlfriend about his present girlfriend. He made it home and quietly bled to death. You remember that kind, don’t you? From when you were a real cop?” He underlined the word real with his voice.