The Fabulous Clipjoint

by Fredric Brown

  He said, “All right, shut that goddam alarm off. What do you want to know?”

  I saw some of the tension go out of Uncle Am; I hadn’t realzed it was there until it left him. He said, “You know what we want to know, pal. Just tell it your own way.”

  “Does the name Harry Reynolds mean anything to you?”

  Uncle Am said, “Just keep talking. It will.”

  “Harry Reynolds is a hood. He’s dynamite. Three weeks ago he was in my place, sitting at the back with a couple guys, when this Wally Hunter comes in for a drink. There are a couple guys with Hunter, too.”

  “What kind of guys?”

  “Just ordinary guys. Printers. A fat one and a little one. One I didn’t know, but Hunter called him Jay. The other one had been in with Hunter before; his name is Bunny.”

  My uncle glanced at me, and I nodded. I knew who Jay would be.

  Kaufman said, “They had just a drink around, and left, and one of the guys with Reynolds got up and left right after them, like he was going to follow them. Then this Reynolds comes over to the bar and asks me what the name of the guy who stood in the middle of the three of them was. I told him Wally Hunter.”

  My uncle asked, “Did he recognize the name?”

  “Yeah. I got it he hadn’t been sure till I told him the name and then he was sure, all right. He asks me where this Hunter lives, and I say I don’t know — which was the truth. He came in once in a while, maybe once a week, but I didn’t know where he lived.

  “So he lets it go at that, has a few more drinks and they leave. “The next day he comes back. He says he wants to get in touch with Hunter about something and next time he comes in I should find out where he lives. And he gives me a phone number, too, and says the minute Hunter comes in I should call that number and say Hunter’s there — but I shouldn’t say anything to Hunter about it.”

  “What was the phone number?”

  Kaufman said, “Wentworth three-eight-four-two. I was to leave a message if he wasn’t there. Same if I found out Hunter’s address from him; I was to call that number and leave the message.”

  “You say this was the next day?”

  Kaufman nodded. He said, “I take it he sent one of the boys to follow Hunter home, but he lost him. So Reynolds came back to get it through me. He let me know what’d happen if I didn’t — if he found out Hunter had been back and I hadn’t let him know.”

  Uncle Am asked, “Did this Hunter come in again between that night and the night he was killed?”

  “Nope, he didn’t come in for two weeks after that. Till the night he was killed. And that night everything happened like I told at the inquest except that I called the number. Hell, I had to. Reynolds would’ve killed me if I hadn’t.”

  “You talked to Reynolds personally?”

  “No, nobody answered the phone when I called that number. I called twice, once a couple minutes after Hunter came in, and again ten minutes after that. Nobody answered. I was damn glad. I didn’t want to get mixed up in it any more’n I had to keep Reynolds from burning me down. What’s your angle in this?”

  Uncle Am said, “Don’t worry about our angle. We won’t get you in trouble with Reynolds. What’d you tell Reynolds when you saw him?”

  “I didn’t see him since. He never came around. Hell, he wouldn’t. He got in touch with Hunter some other way. He — or one of his boys — must’ve been following Hunter that night, waiting outside while he was in here. He must’ve been —”

  The alarm went off and all three of us jumped. Uncle Am reached behind him and shut it off. He tossed the pillow back on the bed and put the little thirty-two on top of the dresser.

  He asked, “Where does Harry Reynolds live?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that phone number. Wentworth three-eigth-four-two.”

  “What’s his line?”

  “Big-time stuff only. Banks, pay rolls, stuff like that. His brother’s in stir, doing life, for a bank job.”

  My uncle shook his head sadly. He said, “George, you shouldn’t get mixed up with people like that. Who were the other lugs who were with Reynolds the night he was in your place last — the night Wally Hunter came in?”

  “One was called Dutch. A big guy. The other one was a little torpedo; I don’t know his name. Dutch was the one followedHunter out and lost him — I guess he lost him, or Reynolds wouldn’t had to come back the next day.”

  My uncle said, “That’s all you can tell us, George? Now you’ve gone this far, the more the merrier — if you get what I mean.”

  Kaufman said, “I get what you mean. If I knew any more I’d tell you, all right. I hope you find him, now. You got a phone number. Just don’t tell him where you got it.”

  “We won’t, George. We won’t tell anybody. We’ll go now, and let you go to sleep.” He started to the door, and I turned the knob to open. He turned back to Kaufman a moment.

  He said, “Listen, George, I’m pretending to play along with the cops on this; I may have to give them something. They can find Reynolds easier than we can if the phone number is a bust. But you keep that phone number under your hat. If Bassett comes around to see you, give him everything you gave me except the phone number. You were just to get Hunter’s address, and Reynolds would come back for it. Only he didn’t.”

  We went out and down the stairs, out into the clean night air.

  I thought, we have a name now. We know who we’re looking for. We got a name and a phone number. And this time we were up against the big-time. Hoods; not mugs like Kaufman.

  And we were going it by ourselves; Uncle Am wasn’t giving Bassett that phone number.

  Under the street light on Oak Street, Uncle Am looked at me. He asked, “Scared, kid?”

  My throat was a little dry. I nodded.

  He said, “so am I. Scared spitless. Shall we level with Bassett or shall we have some fun?”

  I said, “Let’s — try the fun.”

  | Go to Contents |

  Chapter 9

  The cool night air felt swell now. I’d been sweating. My collar felt tight and I loosened it and shoved my hat back on my head.

  It was reaction again, but a different kind of reaction. I felt taller. I wasn’t jittery, like after the tight we’d been in at the tavern.

  We walked south on Wells Street and we didn’t say anything. We didn’t have to. Somehow after what had happened, Uncle Am was a part of me and I was a part of him.

  And I remembered that phrase again — we’re the Hunters — and I thought, we’re going to do it. The cops can’t, but we can. I knew then that I hadn’t really believed it before. I believed it now. I knew it now.

  I was scared, yes, but it was a nice kind of afraidness — like when you read a good ghost story and it makes prickles run up and down your spine, but makes you like them.

  We cut east on Chicago Avenue, and we went past the police station with the two blue lights by the door. I looked up the steps as we walked past it, and I didn’t feel so good any more. Mom and Gardie would be having a tough time in there. Or had they taken them to the Homicide Bureau downtown?

  But Mom hadn’t done it. Bassett was way off on that.

  We rounded the corner to Clark Street. Uncle Am asked, “Cup coffee, kid?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But are we going to call that number tonight? It’s getting later.”

  “From now on it gets earlier,” he said. “A few minutes won’t matter.”

  We ordered a bowl of chili and coffee apiece, in the joint just north of Superior. We had our end of the counter to ourselves; two loud-voiced women down near the other end were arguing about somebody named Carey.

  The chili was good, but it didn’t taste good. I kept thinking about Mom. I thought, anyway they d
on’t use a rubber hose on women.

  Uncle Am said, “Think about something else, Ed.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Anything. What the hell.” He looked around and his eye lit on the handbag one of the women had lying on the counter. “Think about handbags. Ever think about handbags?”

  “No,” I said. “Why should I?”

  “Suppose you were a leather-goods designer. Then you’d be plenty interested. What’s a handbag for? It’s a substitute for pockets, that’s all. A man has pockets, and a woman hasn’t. Why? Because pockets — loaded ones — would spoil a woman’s shape. She’d bulge in the wrong places, or too much in the right places. Wouldn’t she?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Why, take handkerchiefs. Women do carry handkerchiefs in pockets sometimes, but little tiny ones, while a man carries big ones. And it isn’t because they have any less snot in their noses than men do; it’s because a big handkerchief would make a bulge. If they did carry big handkerchiefs, they’d carry them in pairs. But let’s get back to handbags.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s get back to handbags.”

  “The more a handbag holds the better it is, and the smaller it looks, the better it is. Now, how would you design a handbag that would be big and look little? That would make a woman say, ‘Golly, this bag holds more than you’d think’?”

  “I don’t know. How?”

  “I think the approach would be empirical. You’d design a lot of ’em just for looks and wait till you heard a woman say one of them holds more than you’d think. Then you’d study it to see why, and try to put the same thing in other bags.You might even reduce it to an equation. You know algebra, Ed?”

  “Not intimately,” I told him, “and the hell with handbags. They make me think of wallets. Was Bobby Reinhart telling the truth about Gardie giving it to him?”

  “Sure, kid. If he was lying, he wouldn’t tell one that could be checked on that easy. He’d say he found it, or something. But don’t let it worry you.”

  “It does, though.”

  “My God, why? You don’t think Gardie killed him, took the wallet and then gave it to Bobby, do you? Or that Madge killed him, left the wallet lying around loose, or gave it to Gardie, do you?”

  I said, “I know neither of them did it, but it looks damn bad. How did Gardie get the wallet?”

  “He didn’t take it with him, that’s all. Lots of guys leave their wallets home when they go out on a bender. They stick a few bucks in their pockets and leave their wallets safe at home. Gardie found it and glommed onto the money in it, and didn’t say anything. Even then it was dumb for her to give the wallet away — but if it was anything worse than that, she wouldn’t have taken the chance. She’d have put the wallet in the incinerator.”

  “She should have, anyway,” I said. “She’s pretty damn dumb.” Uncle Am said, “I’m not so sure, kid. She’ll get what she wants out of life. Most people do. Not all of them, but most people.”

  “Pop didn’t,” I said.

  “No,” Uncle Am said, “Wally didn’t.” He spoke slowly, as though he were choosing his words one at a time. “But there’s a difference. Gardie is selfish; she won’t mess up her life for the same reason Wally messed up his. If she marries the wrong guy, she’d just walk on him.

  “Wally was the kind of guy who loyal, kid, even to lost causes. He was also the kind of guy who should never have married at all. But your mother was a real woman, Ed, and he was happy with her. And she died before he got too restless, if you know what I mean. And Madge caught him on the rebound.”

  I said, “Mom is — oh, skip it.” I realized that I was going to stick up for her just out of loyalty. If I thought back about Mom and Pop, I remembered things, and Uncle Am was right. I was being soft, because she was in trouble now, and because she’d been different — a lot different — since Pop had died. But I shouldn’t kid myself that would last.

  Mom had been poison to him and she’d have been poison to any man as decent as Pop was. Or had been, before she drove him to drink. And even his drinking had been quiet and not ever quarrelsome.

  I finished my chili and pushed the bowl aside.

  Uncle Am said, “Not yet, kid. Let’s have another cup of coffee.” He ordered them. He said, “I’m trying to think out how to handle talking to that phone number. I think best when I’m talking about something else. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Ladies’ handbags?” I suggested.

  He laughed. “They bored you, huh? Kid, that’s because you don’t know anything about them. The more you know about something, anything, the more interesting it is. I knew a leathergoods worker once; he could talk about handbags all night. Like a carney could talk about carnivals.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “I’d rather hear about carneys than about handbags. What’s a blow?”

  “Short for a blow-off. It’s a show for inside money, usually inside a freak show. I mean, say, you pay two bits to get into the freak show, and the spieler takes you around the platforms and then starts an inside bally for another two bits or more to see a special show on the inside, down at one end of the top. Why?”

  I said, “I remember back at the carney you asked Hoagy to take over your ball game. He said he was sloughed and if Jake got a chance to use the blow after Springfied, he could get a cooch. What was he talking about?”

  Uncle Am laughed. “You got a memory, kid.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I remember something out of tonight’s talking, too. Wentworth three-eight-four-two. Have you got an angle yet?”

  “Any minute now. Back to Hoagy. Hoagy’s a sex spieler. The bally for the inside money at the freak-show top is a sex lecture with living models, for men only. Two bits each and money back if they’re not satisfied.”

  “What do you mean, living models?” I asked.

  “That’s what pulls in the mooches. They want to know, too. Oh, he’s got a nice spiel — but you could read it in any book on what a young man should know. And he does use living models, a couple girls in bathing suits. Discusses what types they are, as a reason for having them on the platform.”

  “Don’t the mooches want their money back?”

  “A few, a darned few. They get it, and so what? On a good night, he’ll still take in a hundred bucks up and over the nut.”

  “What’s the nut?”

  “The overhead, kid. Say your expenses on a concession run thirty bucks a day; well, you’re on the nut until you’ve taken in that much. The rest of it is profit; you’re off the nut.”

  I drank the last of my coffee. I asked, “Why would a bankrobber have been looking for Pop?”

  “I don’t know, kid. We’ll have to find out.” He sighed and stood up. “Come on; let’s start.”

  We walked down Clark Street to the Wacker and went up to his room.

  He moved the chair out from the wall before he sat down. He said, “Stand behind me, Ed, and put your ear down to the receiver. I’ll hold it a little out from my ear, and you can hear as well as I can. Use that memory of yours on what’s said.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What’s the angle?”

  “The hell with it. I’ll ad lib. What I say depends on what they say.”

  “What if they say ‘Hello’?” I asked him.

  He chuckled. “I never thought of that. I’ll wait and see.”

  He picked up the receiver and when he gave the number to the operator, his voice was different. It was low-pitched, gruff, with a completely different intonation. But I’d heard it before somewhere. It puzzled me for a second and then I placed it. He was imitating Hoagy’s voice; we’d been talking about Hoagy and that had been the first voice he’d thought of to imitate. It was perfect.

 
I heard them ringing the number. I leaned closer, resting my weight on the chair back to put my ear as near the end of the receiver as I could.

  It rang about three times and then a woman’s voice said, “Hello.”

  It’s funny, sometimes, how much you can tell — or anyway, guess — from a voice. Just one word, but you knew she was young, that she was pretty, and that she was smart. In all the senses of the word “smart.” And just from the way she said that one word, you liked her.

  My uncle said, “Who zis?”

  “Claire. Wentworth three-eight-four-two.”

  “Howya, baby?” my uncle asked. “ ‘Member me? This’s Sammy.” He sounded very drunk.

  “Afraid I don’t,” said the voice. It was considerably cooler now. “Sammy who?”

  “G’wan, you r’member me,” Uncle Am said. “Sammy. In at the bar th’other night. Look, Claire, I know ’sawful late to call you, ‘nall that, but, honey, I jus’ cleaned up a crap game. Took th’ boys for two G’s, an’ it’s burning a hole. Wanta see th’ town, Chez Paree, the Medoc Club, n’everywhere. Want th’ prettiest gal in Chi with me. Nothin’ too good. Might even buy ’er a fur coat if she likes rabbit fur. How’s ‘bout can I come out ‘n’ getcha in a cab an’ we’ll go —”

  “No,” said the voice. The receiver clicked.

  “Damn,” said my uncle.

  “It was a good try,” I told him.

  He put the receiver back on the phone. He said, “They don’t pay off any more on good tries. Guess I’m not so hot as a Romeo. I should’ve let you try.”

  “Me? Lord, I don’t know anything about women.”

  “That’s what I mean. Hell, kid, you could have any woman you want. Take a look in the mirror.”

  I laughed, but I turned around to the mirror over the dresser.

  I said, “I am getting a shiner. Damn Bobby Reinhart.”

  Uncle Am grinned at me in the mirror. He said, “On you it looks romantic. Save it; don’t put a steak on it. Well, now we try something that won’t work.”

  He dialed a number and asked for the Wentworth exchange clerk. He asked her for the listing on three-eight-four-two. He waited a minute and then put the receiver down with an “Okay, thanks,” that sounded discouraged.