The Shamus Sampler II

by Nick Quantrill

  Von Runck threaded his arm in mine and we strolled to the bar. Without a word the human tree trunk behind the counter shoved a large tumbler toward us. Von Runck retrieved the glass and escorted me across the room.

  “Where’d you find him?” I asked. “Ex-prizefighter or ex-wrestler?”

  “Right the first time.” He took a sip. “You may have heard of The Mule? No? Walter and I go way back.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Our time together began on the occasion of his very last bout. Or shortly thereafter.” Von Runck released my arm in order to gesture without spilling his drink. “The Mule always had brute force going for him. But he decidedly lacked grace of any kind, you see? The older he got, the more leaden his offense. So on this occasion, there he stood, fists like cement, and legs to match, trying to keep up with this Mexican sparkplug. The Mexican simply ran him in circles for three exhausting rounds before proceeding to fairly tear the skin right off the poor soul. Now, I should mention to you that I’m apt to wager a bit on the fights now and then. Quite a bit, actually. One of my weaknesses.”

  “I’m having trouble keeping up with them.”

  “I made an awfully, awfully large killing on the contest. And you know what? I actually felt quite guilty afterward. I had read that the Boxing Commission examined The Mule after the fight. The Boxing Commission ruled that The Mule had been pulverized just once too often. The Boxing Commission ruled that Walter would not fight another day. The Mule was permanently out of the running, so to speak.”

  “Or put out to pasture. So you put him in harness.”

  “He’s been with me ever since. We’ve been through a tremendous lot together.”

  “You mean you’ve put Walter through a lot.”

  “Yes, all right. Have it your way.” Von Runck threw back a shot from the tumbler.

  “But we’re wandering.”

  “I tend to do that. Have you noticed? Please forgive me.”

  “I’m not in any position to accuse or forgive.”

  “Hmm. That’s really very good. Bringing me back in line.”

  “Enough tap dancing. What do you mean you’re killing someone?”

  “Provocative, no? I am confessing to you that I, Simeon Von Runck, am taking a human life at this very moment. Even as we speak.” The last words he rendered flat and cold, in slow monotone.

  Von Runck tossed a good belt down his throat. Smiled into his glass. He looked me up and down with an ugly smirk. He fed off my response. He must’ve read it in my eyes.

  “I can see you take me in earnest. That truly pleases me, otherwise where would it get us? I should, I suppose, make myself as clear as possible. Just for emphasis, you see? Someone is about to die.”

  Sure, I could’ve cracked wise, but not when I saw the steely look in Von Runck’s eyes. The heavy lids slanted up at the ends, giving him a serious, somber quality. The small mouth, whenever he stopped drinking or yapping, returned to a thin-lipped smirk. I have to say he could muster a warm smile when he bothered, but his expression always wrenched back into that smirk. My gut registered the threat of Von Runck as no laughing matter.

  “Have I intrigued you at all?” he inquired.

  “You intrigue me just fine.”

  “But?”

  “It’s too early to make you out. I can’t decide whether you’re just plain evil or just plain cuckoo.”

  “Hmm.” He smiled into his drink. “Nevertheless. Somebody. Is. Being. Murdered.”

  I didn’t want to give in or let on, but by then we were trapped by his words. We’d gone too far. Von Runck had committed us both. “Why tell me?”

  “I should think a fellow like you would adore the opportunity of playing hero. The lone, stalwart knight, riding to do thrust and parry with the dragon. Rescue the princess and whatnot. Wouldn’t you like to do that?”

  “Sure, sure. Why me?”

  “Oh, that. I was given your name by a Mr. Jupiter.”

  “That crook.”

  “Mr. Jupiter holds you in the very highest regard. He failed to go into why.”

  “So I come recommended.”

  “Without hesitation.”

  “By a thug who puts on airs. Who runs a gambling house in the sticks where he’s safe from any real influence.”

  “Mr. Jupiter is a bit of a raconteur, is he not?”

  “I’ll just say I owe him a tap on the skull with a lead balloon.”

  Von Runck tilted his glass into smiling lips. I gave him a long, hard look. His smile grew self-satisfied. I decided to press the situation.

  “I think I’ll be going,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, really. How can you even consider leaving me? With life and death in the balance?”

  I knew Von Runck was right. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere and he knew it. “I could call the cops.”

  “Yes, contacting the authorities is one choice. We can entertain that idea. What exactly would you tell them? What could you show them? I, of course, would have to play perfectly innocent. I can do that, you know. They’d be in precisely the same predicament in which you find yourself. Wouldn’t that all prove such a terrible waste of valuable time? The wheels, you know, the wheels are already in motion, you see? Tick tock.”

  “Are you so bored you have to play games like this?”

  “The game is already afoot when we first come into this world. We’re all born with a death sentence, aren’t we, really? After all? I’m merely urging it on. Giving a little push, you see? Yes? Unless, of course,” he paused for a sip and emphasis, “unless you can stop it.”

  Von Runck took his sweet time about it, but we were getting somewhere. “So now we’re finally onto it. How exactly do I do that?”

  “By finding the victim, my dear!” He smiled with his head tilted to one side. “Your prey is already here. Someone, somewhere, in one of these rooms.” He threw back a slug. “I’ll introduce you to anyone, everyone. Ask me anything about anyone. I am here to answer your every question.”

  “Are you telling me this all pans out?”

  “With absolute certainty! Do you take me for ah, ah, a senseless killer? Murder on a whim?”

  “I can’t see any reason why not.”

  “Let me clear your mind on that count. Please! There is a perfectly justified motive in this instance.”

  “Uh-huh.” My eyes narrowed as I studied his. How do you figure this guy? “I could lean on you, try to make you tell.”

  “Hmm. Yes, you could. Of course I would try to stall you. Hmm. No, I don’t think that’s the best use of your time.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Not all that much, I’m afraid. Could be any time now. Really.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So who would you like to meet first? Tick tock, tick tock.”

  “How’s about meeting the victim?”

  “That’s good. That is very good. Yes.”

  I surveyed the mix of guests in the living room. I gave the adjoining dining room a quick look-see. What about the wait staff? House servants? The musicians?

  “Getting the lay of the land?” Von Runck took a sip. “Mm! I do hope you’re not counting yourself. Please! That wouldn’t be playing fair.”

  “Let’s play fair, by all means.”

  “Touchy, touchy,” Von Runck jested.

  Von Runck could have skipped that last thought and it would’ve been jake with me. I felt spooked enough without adding myself to the potential guest list. So I let it pass.

  It could be anyone in the entire layout? By a quick head count, that made it anyone out of 100, give or take. How far are you going to get just yapping with questions? How do you narrow down that field? The idea of interviews sounded like a wild goose chase. No, better skip all that and concentrate on Von Runck. He had all the dope I needed, didn’t he? If Von Runck was on the level, he’d be my only clue.

  “Do I learn anything else? Any more info?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”


  “But your plans are already in motion. Right now.”

  “Oh, most definitely.”

  “And you have a motive?”

  “Perfectly plausible.”

  So what had he already told me? Had he given anything away? I needed to start ruling out options, but fast. Something in the works, in the middle of a party, and the murderer all the time preoccupied with me and his thirst. I dismissed the idea of anything direct like gunplay. I dismissed anything requiring physical violence. Von Runck wasn’t that type of kook, he wasn’t up for it, and the idea of creating a bloodbath in the middle of a party seemed bizarre even for Von Runck—at the very least it would be in very bad form.

  Von Runck gazed into his drink, “Tick tock. I do wonder what he’s thinking.”

  I saw one choice that made sense. That’s if you can find any sense in lunacy. Poison. Von Runck could set that up in advance. The catch, of course, is that poison is indiscriminate. A revolver fires where you point it. How do you aim poison? You dump a bag of arsenic in the punchbowl and it’ll go after any gink who dunks his glass. So how do you control it? Either you find some gag to isolate the dose, or you get someone else to work it for you. I nixed the second option. I couldn’t buy the idea of Von Runck taking on a partner. Too much trouble. Too big an ego. Too much risk. Sure, Von Runck had found some kind of scheme. Something he could set up ahead of time. For all I knew it could turn out to be something deceptively simple.

  “Who would you like to meet first?”

  “I want to see the bedroom.”

  “My, my. Anyway, it’s locked.”

  “Off bounds?”

  “Entirely irrelevant. At least to this proceeding.”

  “How about the kitchen?”

  That actually caught Von Runck off guard. He turned and swayed lazily ahead. I grabbed him by the shoulder and told him I’d find it myself. He left me to it with a dismissive flourish of his fingers.

  I made my way from the living room through the dining room, through a swinging door, and down a short corridor. Another swinging door brought me to a shining, white service kitchen. Uniformed servers and cooks buzzed about preparing various finger sandwiches and the like, arranging desserts, stacking dishes and glassware, unstacking dishes, unstacking glassware. It was not unlike the organized chaos you find in a restaurant kitchen.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  I needed help, all right. I needed help finding something I didn’t know I was looking for.

  “Can I get you anything, sir?”

  I turned to the waiter in the monkey suit. “No thanks. Any of these people regular staff?”

  “Most are hired just for the evening, sir. Is there a problem?”

  I winked, “No fair guessing.”

  I threaded my way back through the corridor, the hall, the dining room, the living room. The kitchen didn’t fit. I crossed it off as all wrong for this murder plot. Besides, wouldn’t Von Runck want to be on hand to take in every detail? The fact that he didn’t follow me to the kitchen should have tipped me off PDQ.

  I approached Von Runck and reported, “I’ve seen enough.”

  “I should think you have. Ha! You are an amusing fellow.”

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  “Tick tock.”

  That damn “tick tock” of his annoyed the hell out of me.

  Poison. Control. I tried working backward from that. How else could it figure? I stepped to the center of the living room. The party swirled about me. The guests more animated. The music sped up. Pick out one person. Just one. Isolate a single victim. How is the victim isolated?

  I turned back to face my host. He parted his smirk with another shot of rye. I swiveled in the other direction, gradually, until I stood squarely facing the bar. I stepped across to the counter. I pivoted to view the entire room and all its contents, all its potential victims, its one potential criminal. I leaned my back into the wood frame and brought up my elbows to rest on. My thoughts kept spinning.

  The Mule leaned in close behind me, “What are you drinking, bub?”

  Through the crowd I caught glimpses of Von Runck. He slinked his way along the wall, pausing for a sip from his glass or to nod insincerely to a guest.

  “What are you drinking, Mule?”

  “Bourbon.”

  “I’m good. Anyhow, if you don’t mind my saying, you’re drinking enough for both of us.”

  That’s when it struck me. It started adding up and it started to click. Sure. I forgot about trying to dope out a penthouse full of targets. Nix all that. Instead, I turned the whole thing around. What if Von Runck wanted me to figure it out? Suppose, just suppose, crazy as it sounds, that he meant for me to piece it together. That’s why he got hold of me. That's what he had in mind all along. If that was true, call it a tall if, then the solution had to be basic. It had to be plain. Plain and in plain sight. With that lightbulb fully lit, I brought myself around to face Walter, The Mule.

  Talk about overgrown in every possible way—large head, broad body, thick limbs. A beer mug looked more like a shot glass when The Mule held it in one of those massive paws. The only small things about the Mule, strictly by contrast, were his nose and eyes. His nose looked flat and pinched on one side, and it jutted to the other side just where the bridge meets the eyebrows. His eyes, tiny and sparkling blue, hid in narrow, sunken slits enveloped by a swollen brow.

  “You always drink so much, Walter?”

  “I do lately,” he shrugged.

  “Yeah, I know. It helps, doesn’t it?” Sure I was fishing, but with calculated purpose.

  “I don’t know if I should talk about it.”

  I jerked my head over my shoulder and winked. “It’s okay, Walter. Von Runck sent me over.”

  “Isn’t he a swell guy?” “

  “Swell isn’t the word.”

  “Well, the doc, he gave me a powder for the headaches, but now they’re getting real bad. Worse than ever.”

  “And the booze helps.”

  “It sure does. Lucky I’m built so big or I couldn’t handle it.”

  He handled it, all right. He handled it with only the slightest hint of swaying.

  “I think you’re about the biggest guy I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m six-nine. I used to be.”

  “And you’ve got your own, special stock. Am I right?”

  “Mr. Simeon must a clued you in.”

  “He did. In his own fashion.”

  “He’s the nicest man I ever, ever met.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “My only pal. In this whole, stinking world.”

  “I’m thinking he’ll miss you, Walter.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long have you got?”

  “It makes me sore to think about it.”

  “That’s better than crying in your soup.”

  He hunched his oversized shoulders and sighed through his nose. “No one knows. Nobody really knows how much time I’ve got. Not long, I guess. Not a one of them knows.”

  “Sounds like a whole group.”

  “Oh, sure. Mr. Simeon told me to see as many docs as I wanted. He told me you have to see a second doc just to double-check the first doc. On account of it being so serious. You know how it is.”

  “Right as rain, Mule.”

  “I just don’t get how a thing like that can grow inside you.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Does it make any sense to you?”

  “No. No it doesn’t. I’ll tell you, Walter. I have enough trouble just trying to figure out people.”

  “Now that’s the truth. How about that drink, now?”

  “Sure, sure. Whiskey and soda.”

  “Ok.” The Mule prepared my drink with the greatest care, like it took all his concentration. There's no room for casual conversation during such an undertaking. Twice, briefly, he squinted his left eye and a wince overtook his mouth. He fought through it and served me with a kind of delicacy, placing the g
lass before me using two hands.

  The Mule eyed his own glass—empty. “Mr. Simeon put in this awful good stash of bourbon for me.” The Mule reached down to a cabinet behind him, then interrupted to bob back up. “Time to break open a new one.” He turned away once again, reached down, and came back with a fresh bottle. He poured himself a tall, stiff one. I gave the bottle the once over.

  For a moment we stood quiet, dismissing the festival surrounding us, each gazing upon the gleaming pool of alcohol before him.

  “What’ll we drink to, bub?”

  I meant to smile. I didn't pull it off. “Whatever you say, Mule.”

  “Aw, to my pal.” I heard the pride in his deep, scratchy voice. Not an inebriated, sentimental pride, but an honest pride, straight from the gut. “To Mr. Simeon. Who’s getting me out of all this mess.”

  “You really need his help?”

  “Can I tell you?” His voice fell low as can be. I leaned in close. “Those docs. They really scare me. They don’t mean to. I know that. They can’t help that. They told me the headaches are going to get worse. They’ll get something worse and then I’ll feel sick all the time. You get me? I’ll just become weaker and weaker and weaker—”

  “Sounds about as bad as it gets.”

  “I’ve been slammed plenty in this life. Mostly in the ring.”

  “Naturally.”

  “That’s the kind of thing I can take. I could always take it. Even when I lost bad. I could always take it and hold my head up. Know what I mean?”

  I gazed deep into Walter’s blues and never broke contact.

  “But this other stuff. It’s like it won’t never stop. So I take another drink. I’m no good at that kind of hurt, see? Aww, that’s not how I want to go out. I don’t think no one should have to go out that way.”

  I knocked back a good slug.

  “But I just can’t do it myself. I just can’t.”

  “So you need a little help.”

  “You probably find it kind of funny. A big lug like me. I didn’t know what to do until I told Mr. Simeon. He didn’t say ‘boo.’ Not one kick. He worked it all out. Told me not to worry about it. Told me not to think about it and he’d take care of everything. He said I won’t know it, I won’t feel a thing, but there’ll come a time when I’ll just drop off. I’ll just go to sleep. I’ll go to sleep and won’t have to wake up again. The pain’ll be gone for good and I won’t go through nothing bad no more.”