by Otto Penzler
Van Bilbo shook his head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I meet so many people … I don’t remember….”
Shaley shut the door and sat down in a chair. “I’ll tell you a story—a true one. One time there was a man who was a racetrack driver. He cracked up badly, and his nerves went haywire. He couldn’t drive any more. He came out to Hollywood, hoping to find something to do. He didn’t. He went broke. One day he was standing outside a studio. He’d pawned everything he owned but the clothes he wore. He was hungry and sick and pretty much down. While he was standing there a director came along. The director gave that man a ten-dollar bill and told him to go get something to eat. He gave the man a work-slip and let him work as an extra for a month, until he got on his feet again. I was that man, and you were the director. I don’t forget things like that.”
Van Bilbo made flustered little gestures. “It— it was nothing … I don’t even remember….”
“No,” said Shaley. “Of course you don’t. You’ve helped out plenty that were down and out and plenty that were in trouble—like Big Cee.”
Van Bilbo repeated: “Big Cee,” in a scared voice.
Shaley nodded. “That wasn’t very hard to figure out, knowing you. She used to work for you a long time ago. She was in a jam. She called on you to help her out, and you did. She was running a joint in Cleveland. She got in wrong with some politicos, and they closed up her place. She was sore. She got hold of some affidavits that would look mighty bad in a court record. She skipped out here, intending to hide here and shake the boys back in Cleveland down for plenty. But they didn’t want to play that way. They sent a guy after her, and he biffed her.”
Part of this Shaley knew, and part he was guessing; but he didn’t have to guess very much; with what he knew, the rest was fairly obvious.
Van Bilbo was staring at the door with widened eyes. Shaley turned to look.
A shadow showed through the frosted glass—a hunched, listening shadow.
Shaley slid the .45 out of his shoulder-holster and held it on his lap, watching the shadow. He went on talking to Van Bilbo:
“That was what happened and everything would have been closed up now and over with, only you and a bellhop, by the name of Bennie, put your fingers in the pie. Big Cee got scared somebody might be after her, and she called you in and gave you the affidavits to keep for her. Bennie saw you leaving her room, and, being a chiseler by trade, he got the idea that he might shake you down a little. He was curious about Big Cee, and he kept on watching the room. He saw the murderer go in and out. Then when he found out Big Cee had been knocked off, Bennie thought he was on easy street for fair.”
Shaley paused, watching the shadow. The shadow was motionless.
“Bennie planned to put the squeeze on both you and the murderer. He made a bad mistake as far as the murderer was concerned. This murderer wasn’t the kind of a boy to pay hush money. He’s a dopey and a killer. Bennie found that out and went undercover while he tried to get in touch with you through me. The murderer was looking for Bennie. In the first place, Bennie knew too much, and in the second place the murderer didn’t want Bennie putting the squeeze on you for fear you’d get scared and turn those affidavits over to the police.”
The shadow was moving very slowly, getting closer to the door.
Shaley went on quickly: “The murderer was trailing Bennie’s sister, trying to locate Bennie. He trailed the sister to me. He used my name to get the sister to give him Bennie’s address. He killed Bennie. But he hasn’t got those affidavits yet, and he wants them. He paid your chauffeur to quit, so he could get his job and be close to you without anybody getting suspicious. Come on in, baby!”
The glass panel of the door suddenly smashed in. An arm in a plum-colored uniform came through the opening. A thin hand pointed a stubby-barreled revolver at the two men inside.
Shaley kicked his chair over backwards just as the revolver cracked out.
Shaley’s big automatic boomed loudly in the small room.
There was the pound of feet going quickly down the hall.
Shaley bounced up, kicked his chair aside, jerked the door open.
The thin form in the plum-colored uniform was just sliding around the corner at the end of the hall. Shaley put his head down and sprinted.
He tore out through the door into the street in time to see the plum-colored uniform whisk through the swinging doors of the saloon.
Extras stared open-mouthed. A man with two heavy six-guns and a fierce-looking mustache was trying to crawl under the board sidewalk. One of the dance-hall girls screamed loudly.
Shaley started across the street. There was a little jet of orange flame from the dimness behind the swinging doors. The crack of the revolver sounded slightly muffled.
The horses tied to the hitching-rack reared and kicked, squealing frantically.
Shaley trotted across the dusty street. He had one hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. He had his automatic balanced, ready, in the other hand.
He got to the swinging doors, pushed them back.
The place was fixed up as a dance-hall and saloon. There was a long bar and a cleared space for dancing with a raised platform for the fiddler at the far end.
Shaley ducked suddenly, and a bullet from the back window smashed into the wall over his head.
He ran across the room and dived headlong through the window. He saw that he had made a mistake while he was still in mid-air. The man in the plum-colored uniform hadn’t run this time. He had decided to make a fight of it. He was crouched under the window.
Shaley tried to turn himself around in the air. He hit the ground on one shoulder and rolled frantically. And as he rolled, he caught a glimpse of a thin, swarthy face staring at him over the barrel of a stubby revolver.
There was a shot from the corner of the building. The man in the plum-colored uniform whirled away from Shaley, snarling.
Mandy was standing there, dumpily short, cigar still clenched in his teeth. He had a big, long-barreled revolver in his hand. As the man in the plum-colored uniform turned, Mandy pointed the revolver and fired again.
The man in the plum-colored uniform shot twice at him, and then Shaley’s heavy automatic boomed once.
The man in the plum-colored uniform gave a little gulping cry. He started to run. He ran in a circle and suddenly flopped down full-length. The plum-colored uniform was a huddled, wrinkled heap on the dusty ground.
Shaley got up slowly, wiping dust from his face. Heads began to poke cautiously out of windows, and excited voices shouted questions.
Van Bilbo came running—a small, frantic figure with the horn-rimmed glasses hanging from one ear. He ran up to Mandy, pawed at him.
“Are you hurt? Are you hurt, Mandy?”
Mandy said: “Aw, shut up. You’re like an old hen with the pip. Of course I ain’t hurt. That guy couldn’t shoot worth a damn.” He pushed Van Bilbo away.
Shaley said to the people who came crowding around: “This man is a dope fiend. He went crazy and suddenly attacked Mr. Van Bilbo. You can all testify that I shot in self-defense.”
Mandy was pushing away through the crowd. Shaley followed him.
“Mandy,” Shaley said.
Mandy turned around.
“Give me that gun,” Shaley demanded and jerked the revolver out of Mandy’s hand.
It was a single-action six-shooter. Shaley opened the loading gate, spun the cylinder. He punched out one of the loaded cartridges and looked at it.
The cartridge had no bullet in it. It was a blank.
“I thought so,” said Shaley. “You grabbed this one off one of the extras. You damn’ fool, you stood out there in the open with a gun full of blank cartridges and let that monkey shoot at you, just to give me a chance at him. That’s guts, Mandy.”
“Aw, nerts,” said Mandy uncomfortably. “I just didn’t think about it, that’s all. He got old Munn’s job and I didn’t like him anyway.”
Shaley glanced over where the
whiskered man with the two big six-guns was just appearing from under the board sidewalk.
“There’s a guy that thought, all right.”
Mandy scowled—
“Oh, them!” He spat disgustedly. “Them heroes of the screen ain’t takin’ no chances get-tin’ hurt. It’d spoil their act.”
Chicago Confetti
William Rollins, Jr.
WILLIAM ROLLINS, JR. (1897-1950) may at first glance appear to be just another standard pulp writer, working for a penny a word, as hard-boiled writers so often did in the 1920s and ‘30s. But there are more than a few points of unusual interest about him.
Although born in Massachusetts, he fought for the French in World War I, and his best-known novel, The Ring and the Lamp (1947), is set shortly after World War II—in Paris.
His first novel, Midnight Treasure (1929), featured a boy, much in the tradition of Huckleberry Finn, who helps solve a mystery in an adult novel. Rollins also wrote three stories for Black Mask in the 1920s featuring Jack Darrow, a 16-year-old crime-solving hero, when it was all but engraved in marble that children had no place in the hard-boiled fiction of the pulp magazines.
He also received acclaim for his novels that would be sure to make most readers take notice, including from the Saturday Review of Literature (stating that “Treasure Island’s best moments are rather pastoral” compared to the tension of Midnight Treasure); from the Boston Transcript (which claims that The Obelisk “often equals the best of Joyce”); and from Lillian Hellman (who hailed The Shadow Before as “the finest and most stimulating book of this generation”).
“Chicago Confetti” first appeared in the March 1932 issue of Black Mask.
Chicago Confetti
William Rollins, Jr.
Machine-gun bullets are so much Chicago confetti to Percy Warren, private dick
ENRY FULLER murdered? Sure, I know it!”
I looked at him over my cigar. I don’t like cigars, but all dicks, public and private, are supposed to wear them; and far be it from me not to have the right office furnishings when a prospective client comes in.
“Sure, I know it!” I said again, taking the weed out of my mouth for a bit of fresh air. “Don’t you suppose I take the Times and read the tabloids?”
“Well,” he said, “you see I’m his nephew.” He said it quiet, like he’d been used to being the old man’s nephew all his life; which I suppose he was. But to me it was like the lad’s telling me he was Santa Claus.
I stood up quick, and gave Santa a cigar from the other box. Then I sat him down in a deep seat that’s hard to get out of, and looked him over.
Considering he’d basked in the light of twenty million all his life, he didn’t have such a healthy tan. One of the studious kind, with goggles that made him look nearer forty than the thirty which I suppose he was. Thin light hair, thin body, thin-colored blue eyes … and yet, looking them over as he started talking, I got the feeling that, if necessary, he could lay down his “Iliad,” or whatever it was that guy Joyce wrote, and get to business. He was talking business now as he leaned over my desk—business that I like to hear.
“You see, Mr. Warren,” he explained in a slow voice, “the police are doing the best they can—”
“The police,” I muttered, waving them aside. That’s part of my business.
“Exactly. The police. But the family decided we wanted to leave no stones unturned to discover the—the—”
“—” I helped him.
“Exactly. The—that—that—”
“Bumped him off,” I finished.
“Exac—” He hesitated, frowning. “Well, not exactly “bumped.” There were no bruises on the body. He was shot with a revolver.”
“I know. In his own apartment. Monday evening about eight o’clock. Nobody present. You see,” I explained, “crime news is this bid-die’s society page. And you want—?” I raised my eyebrows questioningly.
“Your help, if we can have it.”
“Hmm.” I picked up a note book and studied its blank pages. Having just started in on my own, this was my first prospect. I nodded thoughtfully; shut the book and looked up. “Good,” I told him. “And now as to terms.”
Coleman Fuller (that’s what his card said; but it hadn’t meant anything to me when I first read it) stood up.
“If you can drive around with me to Mr. Bond’s—that’s our family lawyer—we can fix that satisfactorily, I think,” he said.
I glanced at the clock.
“How’s half an hour?” I asked; then, when he nodded: “I got a little business to transact. That’s Harley Bond, in the United Trust Building?”
“The same.” He bowed and crossed to the door. I stopped him as he opened it.
“By the way, Mr. Fuller,” I said; “how’d you happen to come to me? Satisfied customer, I suppose?”
He smiled, a little self-consciously.
“Well—not exactly,” he murmured; “you see—well, my cousin George and I looked through the book, under detective agencies, and we flipped a coin—that was George’s idea—to see whether we’d start at the top or bottom. The Z’s won, and yours was the first.” He laughed, sort of embarrassed, bowed again and went out.
I gave him time to get to the street and then jumped up, clamped on my hat and went out to the corner quick lunch, where I transacted my business. I was eating light those days. Fifteen minutes later I was in my snappy second-hand bus (I’m not telling what make; but it will rattle up to sixty) and in another ten minutes I was walking through the Gothic lobby of our latest Cathedral of Business. And there I meet young Professor Fuller himself again, standing at the foot of the elevators and talking to the dizziest blonde that never glorified the American girl.
He looked sort of flustered.
“On time, I see, Mr. Warren,” he murmured; and he said something to the girl that I didn’t hear, lifted his lid, and stepped into the elevator. I nearly lost the car looking after her as she went out. She wasn’t hiding much, and I didn’t blame her.
“Charming girl,” said Mr. Student as we shot up; “just an—er—acquaintance.”
“Well,” I shot back, stepping out at the thirteenth; “she may be an acquaintance to you, but if I had your luck in knowing her, she’d either be a friend or an enemy.” We walked down the corridor, and in a couple of minutes I was standing before Harley Bond, Attorney-At-Law, and one of the stiffest priced ones in our town.
I’d seen him before, of course, in and out of court—a small terrier sort of man of about forty-five. This was the first time I’d seen him so near to, though; and as he looked at me, across his desk as big as a banquet table, I noticed the little bags under the eyes I’d missed before, and I figured Mr. Bond liked his liquor, and liked it long. He had a pleasant smile, though.
“Glad to know you, Mr. Warren,” he said in that easy drawl of his that made such a hit in court. He stretched out his hand. “I’ve got to admit that if the family here had consulted me,” he added as we shook, “I would have recommended a better known agency, but—”
“We’ve never had a failure yet,” I broke in.
His eyes twinkled at that.
“I figured as much,” he said. Harley Bond was nobody’s fool. “However,” he sat upright, becoming serious, “now you’re hired, let’s get down to business. First—”
“—the terms,” I finished for him.
His lips formed in a silent whistle at that.
“I see a successful future ahead of you, Mr. Warren,” he murmured. “The terms, however, have already been fixed by Mr. Carl Fuller, Mr. Henry’s eldest brother. Ten thousand dollars to whomever finds and successfully proves the guilt of the murderer. To be paid on the sentencing.”
I nodded shortly and mentally waved the lunchroom goodbye. Then I turned to minor details.
There was little known about the murder, it seems, other than what the papers had stated. Henry Fuller had gone to his apartment, 38 Bradford Street, at seven-thirty Monday evening, to d
ress for dinner. At eight-thirty his valet, who had been on an errand for him (he had a dozen alibi witnesses) returned, to find him dead, shot through the heart. A doctor was called, who put the time of death at eight o’clock. Henry Fuller was unmarried. So far as was known he had no enemies.
“And the will?”
Mr. Bond coughed.
“The will divided the property equally among his two sisters and two of his three brothers,” he replied. “The third—John—had not been on the best of terms with him. Mr. John is—er—” Again the lawyer coughed, “the father of Mr. Coleman here.”
I turned to our young student, who so far had said nothing. He nodded solemnly.
“Exactly,” he murmured. “But I, myself, have been on the best of terms with Uncle Henry for over a year now. I think, if he had lived a little longer, he would have—well, er—”
“I see,” I delicately finished for him. “But he didn’t, so you’re out of luck.” I stood up. “And now, Mr. Bond, I’ll take a look around. You might give me the names and addresses of a few bereaved friends and relatives before I go,” I added.
I looked them up that afternoon, all the unfortunate kinfolk who were going to divide twenty million among them following the unhappy death of old Fuller. I didn’t expect to find anything, and that’s what I found. It wasn’t till early the next afternoon that I got around to the valet.
Jobson was his name. He was still sticking around the old man’s apartment, with the consent of the relatives, squeezing the last hour out of free lodgings until the advanced rent was used up and he’d have to move into cheaper quarters.
The building itself was a dingy affair, the kind only a millionaire can afford to live in, long, four storied, on an old aristocratic street. I had a job routing out the elevator-boy-of-all-work from where he was sleeping in an alcove by the switchboard, but at last I found him, and after a ten-minute ride up three flights, I stumbled along the dark corridor, discovered the right door, and finally was standing in the presence of the formidable Mr. Jobson himself.
