The Sunday Pigeon Murders

by Craig Rice

  “That’s nice,” Bingo said. “Who is he?”

  “His name’s Marty Bucholtz,” Handsome said. “He’s a mobman. He was tried for some killing that was mixed up with the numbers racket back in ’38. They acquitted him on March 2nd, the day they had the big flood in Los Angeles. Johnny Masters, the Gazette reporter, stopped me in the courthouse hall just after I took some pictures and told me there’d been something very funny going on with the jury. He had on a green tie. Johnny Masters did, I mean.”

  “What kind of tie did this Marty Bucholtz have on?” Bingo said. He felt another tingling along his spine. He’d guessed right about the driver of that car.

  “You mean the day he was acquitted?” Handsome said. “It was blue, with red and gray diagonal stripes. The girl had on a blue hat about the same color. I took an awful good picture of them, right after the verdict. They split up later, though.”

  Bingo drew a long, slow breath. “What girl?”

  “Why,” Handsome said, surprised, “the one we met tonight. Only she called herself Mildred Murray then, and she was a show girl in one of the big musicals. She must’ve changed it to June Logan. Personally I don’t think either one of them was ever her real name. I wonder why she and Marty Bucholtz split up.”

  “So do I,” Bingo said absent-mindedly. He hadn’t heard his partner’s last few sentences. Suddenly he caught up, and said, “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Handsome said. He hadn’t, for at least half a block.

  “The trouble with you,” Bingo said bitterly, “is that you never tell me anything. I don’t suppose you recognized this Mac, too, did you?”

  “Sure,” Handsome said. “Only his name isn’t Mac. It’s Art Frank, and he’s tied up with the big gambling syndicate. I don’t know why he called himself Mac.”

  “Maybe he just wanted to be incognito,” Bingo said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I didn’t know you wanted me to,” Handsome said. His voice sounded slightly hurt. He was silent for a moment and then said, “Did I do wrong?”

  Bingo kept his mouth shut for half a block. Then he said gently, “No, you did swell.”

  “O.K.,” Handsome said, in a relieved tone. He too waited half a block, and then asked, “What did you want to know for, anyway?”

  “Idle curiosity,” Bingo said crossly. Wasn’t there some old saying about a curious person killing an idle cat? Or was it that a curious cat led nine idle lives? He wasn’t sure. At the moment, he wasn’t sure about anything.

  It was late, and he was tired. Tomorrow would be another day, and he’d meet its problems when he got to it. Just a few problems, he reminded himself, simple ones. Dig up five dollars for the landlady, keep Mr. Pigeon quiet and under lock and key, find out who would get that half-million bucks and contact him, and get back that letter written to Harkness Penneyth. That was all.

  The last hundred yards to the rooming house seemed like a hundred miles. Maybe he should have let that babe drive them home after all. No, it wouldn’t be so good to have her find out where they lived. Especially after what Handsome had just confided in him.

  Once he’d deposited that big check, he promised himself, he’d never walk another step. Just from the door of some big, magnificent apartment building to a waiting taxi. That would be his daily exercise.

  Bingo was too deep in his meditations to notice that there was a car standing in front of the rooming house. When he did notice, just as he turned to ascend the steps, it was too late to do anything but stand and stare. The car was a light-gray convertible.

  June Logan leaned out and waved at the two of them.

  “Good night, boys,” she called. “Just wanted to make sure you got home safely. Pleasant dreams.”

  Before Bingo could close his mouth, let alone say a word, she’d started the car and roared away down the street. Bingo let his jaw sag for a full minute, let loose one brief, profane word, then he turned on his heel and led the way up the steps, speechless.

  “That’s the trouble with women,” Handsome said gloomily. “They aren’t satisfied with being pretty. They gotta be smart, too.”

  Bingo drew a long, half-sighing breath. “Well, that’ll be the last we see of women for a few hours, anyway.”

  He was wrong. They were no more than started up the dingy stairs before Baby’s voice called to them from the vestibule.

  “Hold it, pals. I’ve been waiting up for you.”

  Bingo paused and turned around. Baby was just closing the big sliding doors that led to the first-floor apartment she shared with her mother. She’d changed into bright-red house pajamas, and her black hair was pinned into a becoming topknot over her forehead, but her make-up was still on. She looked a pleasant combination of cute and beautiful.

  “Well, well,” Bingo said. “What are you doing home so early?”

  “I’m through work at midnight Sunday night,” Baby said, “and you know it. Now listen to me, Bingo Riggs.”

  “Tomorrow. Five dollars,” Bingo said. He turned and started up the stairs. “Too bad we can’t ask you up for a dish of tea, but it’s late—”

  “Wait a minute!” She reached up over the banister and caught his sleeve. “Ma doesn’t like the tenants to have visitors stay over night. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Who is he?”

  “Huh?” Bingo said, and then, “Oh. You mean Uncle Joe.”

  “Sure,” Handsome chimed in. “Bingo’s Uncle Joe.”

  Baby sniffed indignantly. “I don’t care if it’s his Uncle Tom. Ma doesn’t—”

  “Uncle Joe’s a very swell personality,” Bingo went on quickly and smoothly. “I want you to meet him as soon as he feels better.”

  Handsome put in, “He’ll be all right after a good night’s sleep.”

  “You mean he’s sick?” Baby said. Bingo saw that she was softening a little.

  “Poor fella,” Bingo said, shaking his head sadly. “It was the heat. He walked all the way up here from Central Park South to visit us, and it was a little too much for him. So when he dropped off to sleep, we decided to leave him be.” He paused, and added, “Tell your ma I’ll pay for his staying here, of course.”

  “If you’d just pay for your staying here,” Baby said, “she’d be satisfied.” Then she added, “Anyway, Ma don’t know that he’s here.”

  “You’re a very wonderful girl,” Bingo said, “and don’t think we don’t appreciate your not telling Ma about Uncle Joe, because we do. And that five bucks is as good as paid right this minute.”

  “Absolutely,” Handsome added, nodding his head vigorously.

  She looked up at them for a moment, trying to appear stern. Then she weakened, and smiled. “O.K. I’ll take your word for it.”

  Bingo looked after her a little wistfully as she went down the hall. Definitely a very superior type of girl. He didn’t blame her for preferring Handsome.

  In fact, he didn’t blame any woman for preferring Handsome. He puffed up the stairs two steps behind his partner, admiring and envying his broad shoulders and slim waist—built like a swimming champion he was, Bingo reflected—and the crisp dark hair at the back of his neck.

  On the second floor Bingo caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror and shuddered. The fact that the mirror was discolored and slightly rippled didn’t help any, either. But what dame was going to give a tumble to that sharp-featured, grinning guy with reddish hair and a pool-room pallor and gaudy clothes? Five feet five if he stretched, and skinny. Oh, well!

  You’ve got other things to do, he reminded himself sharply, besides chasing babes.

  He unlocked the door very quietly and signaled to Handsome to tiptoe in. It wasn’t necessary. The Sunday Pigeon was still sleeping like an infant. He looked a little like an elderly one, too, with his gentle face serene and faintly smiling, and his gray hair loose over his forehead.

  “Mr. Pigeon’s a nice little guy,” Handsome said. “Me, I like him.”

  “Me, I like him too,” B
ingo echoed. He tried to tell himself that he liked Mr. Pigeon for representing a half of a half-million dollars, but it wasn’t entirely convincing. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that he was growing to like Mr. Pigeon for himself alone.

  Sleeping arrangements for the night became a slight problem. Mr. Pigeon was tucked comfortably into Bingo’s bed, which was the better of the two in the furnished room. That left Handsome’s bed and the lumpy davenport, and no extra sheets or pillows.

  Logically, Bingo thought, he would take Handsome’s bed, and Handsome would sleep on the davenport. But Handsome was six feet long, and the davenport wasn’t. He, Bingo, would fit on it very nicely. Another disadvantage, he reflected, to being only five feet five.

  They made a fifty-fifty division of the bedclothes and decided it was no more than fair that if Bingo slept on the davenport, he should have the one pillow. Handsome rolled up an old bathrobe, stuck it under his head, and was asleep in thirty seconds.

  Bingo settled down on the davenport and tried to sleep. It wasn’t successful. The excitements of the day and the problems and promises of tomorrow kept chasing each other around his mind like the horses on a merry-go-round. Finally he gave up, got off the davenport, lit a cigarette, and began prowling restlessly up and down the room.

  For once, he was going to get into the big money. The thought was almost unnerving. Big money. He’d never even come close to it before.

  He’d never come this close to a murder before, either. That thought was even more unnerving.

  Find the person who’d collect that $500,000, and you’d find the murderer of Harkness Penneyth. Or vice versa. It occurred to Bingo again that the same person might, quite conceivably, want to murder Mr. Pigeon, too.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered to Mr. Pigeon. “We’ll protect you.”

  Mr. Pigeon was murmuring something in his sleep. Bingo leaned over, curious to catch the words.

  “Lucy,” Mr. Pigeon breathed. “Lucy!”

  Bingo got back on the davenport, with something new to puzzle about. “Now what the blazes,” he muttered, “did he mean by that?” Who was Lucy? He worried about it for a long time and, at last, fell fast sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bingo’s uncle Herman had been a remarkable and intelligent man. For twelve years he had reasoned, not only justly but accurately, that his late sister-in-law’s child was better off in the orphanage operated by the Sisters of Charity. They knew more, Uncle Herman decided, about the upbringing and educating of a small child than he ever would.

  Herman Kutz was only Bingo’s uncle by marriage, but he was still the closest relative Bingo had in the world. His paternal grandfather, a dour and pessimistic Welshman, had come to New York, met and married one Esther Simonofsky and, later, deserted her and her son. That son, when grown, had married one Mary Margaret McNamera (whose sister, Catherine Francis, had married Herman Kutz), and Bingo Riggs, christened Robert Emmett Riggs for his maternal grandfather, had been the result.

  Bingo’s father, named Hugh Moishe Riggs (a judicious blending of the family names of both sets of forefathers), had followed his errant paternal parent to the Pennsylvania mines and perished there. The lovely Mary Margaret had placed her year-old infant in the capable hands of the Sisters of Charity and vanished. That was the state of affairs when Uncle Herman became aware of his family responsibilities, though he did nothing about it for another twelve years.

  But Herman Kutz’s grocery and confectionery did well, especially during the dark days of the prohibition era, and he was able to salve his conscience from time to time with reasonably large anonymous gifts of money to the Sisters. Then when Bingo had reached the age of thirteen—an age when a boy might be expected to help out around a small grocery, and handle a newspaper route on the side—Uncle Herman had appeared at the orphanage, declaring that he had just learned of the existence of his nephew and offering to take him away.

  There were no objections to Uncle Herman’s offer. Bingo was a good boy, as boys go, intelligent, cheerful, anxious to please, but he was not a lovely child likely to arouse interest in prospective adopters. At thirteen, when Uncle Herman took him to the little two-story, frame building in Brooklyn that housed the grocery-confectionery and the Kutz household, he was a wiry, undersized, grinning lad with an already dented nose, big teeth, sandy red hair that stood straight up from his skull, and sharp, dancing eyes. It even took Uncle Herman and Aunt. Kate a little while to learn to love him.

  By all the rules, being an unwanted orphan, Bingo should have turned out to be either talented or brilliant and ended up rich, a pride and a joy to Uncle Herman and Aunt Kate. But something always seemed to stand in his way. By the time he had figured out how to make two newspapers sell where one had sold before, he’d lost interest in becoming head of the circulation department of the biggest newspaper in the world and was scouting around for new ways to make a fortune. It may have been that Bingo’s ambition was what stood in his way. He never could examine the smallest idea without trying to figure out how to make a million dollars from it.

  Uncle Herman was a kindly and a patient man. Over and over he explained to Bingo, “You don’t get rich by making a lot of money all at once. You get rich by making a little money every day for a long time.” Also, he pointed out again and again, “It ain’t easy to make a million dollars without making people a lot of trouble. And a million dollars ain’t no good if you have to make somebody too much trouble when you’re getting it.”

  Uncle Herman’s recipe for getting rich was to put away every nickel you didn’t absolutely have to spend. He allowed Bingo a dime a day of his own earnings for spending money and taught him no end of money saving tricks, such as making one streetcar transfer do the work of two or sometimes three, and making two telephone calls on one nickel by calling the operator and claiming to have had the wrong number. He showed Bingo, likewise, how to save postage on his Christmas cards, by addressing them all to himself, putting the names of the recipients in the left-hand corner, and mailing them without stamps, so that they would be “returned for postage.”

  Aunt Kate died when Bingo was sixteen, worn to a shadow by a lifetime of economy. Uncle Herman lasted two years longer. He had a comfortable little bank account when he died, and he left it to the Sisters of Charity.

  Bingo had grown up to be a spendthrift. Now, for the last ten years, he’d been trying to accumulate enough money, all at one time, to be a spendthrift with. It was a process that had taken him through barking for freak shows at Coney Island, “managing and promoting” a fortuneteller, selling silk stockings, magazine subscriptions, or kitchen brushes door to door, managing road crews that did the same, operating concessions at county fairs (he gave that up because he found he didn’t like the country), and, finally, going up and down Fifth Avenue with a camera “loaned” to him by See-Ure-Self, Inc. (“four dollar deposit required on all cameras loaned to photographers.”). Unfortunately, See-Ure-Self, Inc. collected 17½ cents of every quarter Bingo’s efforts brought in, thereby offending his sense of justice, and its manager made the mistake of attempting to tell Bingo on what streets he could and could not operate, arousing Bingo’s natural independence and leading to a bloody battle which ended his connection with See-Ure-Self, Inc. once and for all.

  That was when he’d met Handsome Kusak (grandchild of Bruno Kusak and Anna Benkowski on his father’s side, and Antonio Pinelli and Bridie Rafferty on his mother’s). Handsome (originally christened Boniface) was a newspaper photographer and had a tiny bank account. The International Foto, Motion Picture, and Television Corporation of America (“Hell, we’re gonna expand, aren’t we?”) was the result.

  This Monday, August 11th, Bingo woke from a dream in which Uncle Herman warned him against wrongdoing. “There’s plenty of honest ways in the world to make money,” Uncle Herman said sternly, “and don’t you hurt nobody’s feelings in doing it. And the easiest way to make money is to keep somebody else from getting it away from you.” In the dream, Uncle He
rman frowned at him like an avenging angel, borrowed two bits from him, and vanished in a cloud.

  Bingo woke saying, “Gimme back that two bits,” and sat up blinking, his neck stiff and sore from sleeping on the davenport. Handsome paused, halfway out the door, his face anxious and guilty.

  “I didn’t want to wake you up,” he explained apologetically, “and we gotta have some breakfast for the little guy.” He paused, scowling unhappily. “If I hadn’t took the two bits outa your pants, I’d’ve had to wake you up. Did I do wrong?”

  “No,” Bingo said. “You did fine.” He sank back on the davenport. “Can you get enough for breakfast with two bits?”

  “Oh, sure,” Handsome said. He glanced toward Mr. Pigeon’s bed and added, “He won’t wake up for a long time yet. Don’t worry about him.” He closed the door quietly behind him as he went out.

  Bingo lay gazing at the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his head. He wasn’t worrying about Mr. Pigeon. At the moment, he didn’t feel up to worrying about anything. And in any case, there were more immediate problems to be thinking about. All of them financial ones.

  He resolved to wait and see what Handsome brought up with the morning mail. Those pictures taken yesterday ought to have some results.

  At last he rose, sore and lame in every muscle, and limped across the room to look at the Sunday Pigeon. The little man was sleeping quietly and peacefully. He appeared to be very happy.

  And why shouldn’t he be, Bingo asked himself, he’s got the only good bed in the place.

  He considered getting into Handsome’s bed for another short nap. No, there was too much to be done today. Bingo yawned, stretched, winced, went into the bathroom that smelled of photographic chemicals, and began to shave, slowly and leisurely.

  There were big things ahead, he reflected, and he owed it to himself to dress the part. So, when he’d shaved and doused his face with scented lotion, he took a newly laundered almond-green shirt out of the bureau, put it on, and then donned the tan gabardine snappy-cut suit on which he was still paying seventy-five cents every Friday. Finally he tied a yellow, green, and rose print necktie with loving care, and decided, looking at the results in the discolored mirror, that he felt fairly well, after all.