by Lester Dent
He wanted to grab hold of her, shake some sense into her—but he forced himself to grin weakly instead. “Sure, honey, I know. It’s just that I lie here not knowing what’s going on and it makes me blow my top.”
“Well, it isn’t very nice.”
Walter bit back a curse. “I’m nuts about you, honey, you know that.”
“You’re awfully sweet when you want to be, Walter. I wish you would want to be all the time.”
“Kiss me, honey.”
She kissed him and he discovered her mouth tasted of eight-dollar-a-bottle Benedictine. So she had gotten her hands on more than just what it took to buy the new dress and the new hat. The Benedictine was a giveaway, because on special occasions she would buy a bottle and carry it around in her purse and nip at it. He suspected that someone had once told her Benedictine was the liqueur of quality folks, but had neglected to tell her it was supposed to be sipped out of thimble-sized glasses after dinner. Anyway, she had gotten hold of some money, and he had a good idea where.
“Vera Sue, I hope you didn’t go making any deals with this Brother guy. We can’t until we know more than we know now.”
“How do you mean, Walter?”
“He gave you some dough, right?”
She stroked her hair with her hand, and the innocent expression on her face told him she was trying to think up a lie.
“Look, Vera Sue, it’s all right with me for you to latch on to his money. I got no kicks, I want you to have dough, only you should talk it over with me first.”
“I was almost broke, Walter, and you were acting snotty.”
He controlled his fury with difficulty. “Well, like I say, I got no kicks. But baby, the only thing is, you and me are in this together, and we got to keep our eyes open. I know how to handle guys like Brother, so you better let me handle him. I’ll give you a sample of how I would handle him. He wanted me to give him some references, see, but he’s not going to get any names from me for nothing. I’m going to make him pay me five dollars a name. If he wants five names, it will cost him twenty-five bucks.”
Vera Sue’s expression became odd. “How much for each name, Walter?”
“Five dollars. He pays five bucks, or he won’t get a single name.”
Vera Sue’s mouth started twitching, and suddenly a shriek of laughter escaped her. She laughed so hard that she had to lean on the bed for support.
Harsh glared. “What’s killing you now?”
“Walter, you sure are some whiz-bang businessman.”
“Huh?”
She picked up a corner of the bed sheet and wiped the tears of mirth out of her eyes. “So, you can get five dollars a name. Five dollars.” She blew her nose in the sheet.
“Yeah, at least that much.”
“I got one hundred dollars, Walter. That’s what I got apiece for five names. Five hundred dollars. You say you can get five a name, but I got one hundred. What do you say to that?”
Harsh tried to sit up but his arm shot pain through his body and he lay back gasping. “You got five hundred?” What was there for him to say? He could not remember when any news had made him feel so sick and defeated. He swallowed some of his own saliva, and it tasted like gall. “Hand over my share.”
“What?”
“Hand over my share of what you got, baby. My half.”
She withdrew a step. “Your share is half of twenty-five bucks, Walter, if you got any share coming.”
“Don’t start pulling stuff like that, Vera Sue.”
“Listen, lover boy, I talk to dumb clucks any way I want, and you’re a dumb cluck, and also a cheap cluck. You’re a five-dollar cluck, that’s what you are.”
He struggled to a sitting position on the bed, ignoring the pain from his arm. “You watch out, or I’ll bat you one.”
She laughed nastily and buttoned the new coat over her new dress. “If that’s the way you feel, you can go to hell.”
She left the hospital room, not bothering to close the door. He fell back on the bed, causing his arm to hurt violently, and looked silently at the ceiling. Presently, when the nurse put her head in the door and looked at him and saw the expression on his face, she gasped and came in and thrust the thermometer in his mouth and took his pulse. She carried the thermometer to the window to examine it and shook her head, murmuring that if visitors excited him so much, he would just have to stop having them. Harsh bellowed at her, “Jesus God, get out of here and leave me alone!” This made the nurse angry, and instead of leaving the room, she forced him to take a drink of water, jamming the glass against his teeth hard enough that it grated. He swallowed some water. She placed the glass on the table and snatched an object off a chair. “Who left this here?”
Harsh looked and saw that she had picked up Brother’s briefcase. He had not noticed Brother had left it behind.
“They left it here for me to look at.” He turned his face away from the nurse so she would not see he was lying. “Why don’t you get out of here?”
The nurse shrugged, put the briefcase back on the chair, and left.
Harsh did not move a muscle for a while, thinking she might come back. He was furious about the five hundred dollar thing. He had as much right to the money as anybody, but getting it away from the greedy bitch was another thing. He found it incomprehensible that Brother should pay five hundred dollars for five names which Harsh had offered to give the man for nothing. It proved one thing, he decided, it proved Brother was no insurance company detective. No insurance company would hire a man who threw their money around in such a crazy way.
He became convinced the nurse was not coming back, and he turned crosswise on the bed, stretching out his serviceable arm for Brother’s briefcase. He was able to reach it and drag it onto the bed. It was not locked. He gripped the zipper tab with his fingers and pulled it open. He looked inside.
What is this thing? he thought. He lifted out a device with a leatherette covering. It was about the size of a cigar box for twenty-five cigars. On the outside were two knobs and a red light. When he accidentally tapped the device while handling it, he noticed the light glow.
He got it. The device was a battery-driven wire recorder. Since the light was glowing, it obviously was operating. There was nothing else in the briefcase.
More frosting on the cake, he thought.
He considered smashing the recorder against the floor or at least pulling the wire off the uptake spool and ruining it, crumpling it into a little metal wad—but in the end he just put the device back and returned the briefcase to the chair.
Let the bastard hear what he wanted to hear. Maybe it would mean getting to the bottom of things that much faster.
SIX
If Harsh retained any doubts about Brother being an oddball, they were removed when Brother paid a second visit. Harsh was lying with his eyes closed trying to doze. Four or five hours had gone by and he had more or less calmed down. He knew he needed rest. When he heard the door open, he supposed the nurse was back, and he kept his eyes shut until he heard the newcomer pick up the briefcase and heard the zipper rasp as it opened. Harsh lifted his head.
Brother was removing the little wire recorder from the case, and looking at Harsh with an expression of contempt. Without speaking he placed the recorder on the bed and turned one of its knobs. The recorder whirred as it rewound. Brother adjusted the knobs again. The recorder began to talk, playing back what Brother and Harsh had said on their first meeting. Then came what Vera Sue and Harsh had said to each other. The device evidently had a triggering mechanism so that it only recorded when there was sound being made in range of the microphone.
Brother shut it off. His lips twitched with amusement. “The young lady made a fool of you.”
Harsh had decided he was not going to let the man get his goat. “Did she?”
“She showed you up.”
“Well, if you say so.”
“Harsh, I can tell you something that may make you feel better. She did not have any idea of a
sking five hundred dollars for those names. Or asking anything. I merely made her the offer and she grabbed it.”
Harsh gave this some thought. “Can you prove Vera Sue didn’t make a fool out of both of us?”
“How is that?”
“You paid her five hundred dollars for something worth nothing. What does that make you? I may have been a dope, but I didn’t pay out five hundred for the privilege.”
Brother shook his head. “You miss the point.”
“I guess I miss it, all right. What is the point?”
“Everything has to be done my way.”
“That is the point?”
“Exactly. Everything has to be done my way. Remember that. When I ordered you to give me five references in return for twenty-five dollars and you refused, I paid the young woman five hundred dollars for the same information. I was teaching you a lesson. I hope you got it.”
Harsh reached out a hand and his fingers felt on the table for cigarettes. Dumb bastard, Harsh thought. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack and put it between his lips. I’ll be goddamned if I ever heard the like of this.
“Mr. Brother, you gave me something to think about, I admit that.”
“When I give an order, it must be obeyed without question or haggling. That is what I am trying to establish. Do you understand?”
“I don’t know how you could say it any plainer, Mr. Brother.”
“But do you comprehend?”
“Sure.”
“I doubt it, Harsh.” Brother’s eyes were contemptuous. “I do not think you are very good at comprehension.”
“If you want to think so, okay. You could be wrong, though.”
“No, Harsh. I have had you investigated thoroughly.”
Harsh lifted his hand, removed the cigarette from his lips, and looked at it. He did not want the man to see his expression. “I heard there was a private detective from Kansas City snooping around. Was he your boy?”
“One of them. One of about twenty.”
“I don’t know what you thought that would get you.” Harsh rolled the cigarette slowly in his fingers.
Brother smiled with dislike. “It got you something, Harsh.”
“It did? How is that?”
“It enabled me to arrange to protect you from the police in the matter of D. C. Roebuck.” The man’s teeth were small white chisel edges under his lifted lip. “Providing you cooperate, of course.”
Harsh closed his eyes. For a moment he thought he was going to faint. His hand holding the cigarette lay limp on his chest.
“Harsh, I am going to talk steadily for several minutes. Making explanations. Do not interrupt.”
Harsh’s mouth was becoming very dry. He merely nodded his head.
“Harsh, I have been searching for a man to fit a certain exact description. The man must look exactly like the picture you have seen. He must have O-negative blood. The man must be of near criminal character, and he must be for sale. To find such a man I set up a so-called foundation and offered a reward, twenty-five dollars, for each O-negative blood donor, and I have expended many thousands of dollars fruitlessly on the device. Finally a local policeman notified me of someone who had needed such a donor here. It was you. I had a firm of private detectives from Kansas City investigate you at once, as I have had every possible candidate investigated in the past. The detectives found you had crowded D. C. Roebuck off the road and he was killed. They found a man in a service station in Carrollton, Missouri, who saw Mr. Roebuck drive away in pursuit of you. I have had them pay the service station man in Carrollton a sum of money to be silent. My detectives also found that locally the police wished to charge you with statutory rape, and I have stopped that by obtaining a birth certificate showing Miss Crosby is over twenty-one years of age. I have sold your car, and you will receive the price of a new one. I have paid your hospital bill here. The private detectives have checked your references, and I find you are a borderline crook. I have paid off the detectives, and they are gone. In other words, you are satisfactory, Harsh. I find you acceptable. Therefore only one thing remains to be settled.”
Harsh slowly put the cigarette between his lips. He felt for the book of matches on the bedside table, bent a match back to light it one-handed, and held the flame to the end of the cigarette. He noticed his hand was unsteady. He took one puff, and after that the cigarette hung on his lip with the tip smoldering.
“Mister, you kind of took the wind out of my sails.”
“You have questions, Harsh?” A sneer curled his lip.
“Yeah, I got a bushel of questions, Mister. You say you bought the service station guy in Carrollton, but will he stay—”
“I will answer no questions whatever, Harsh. You have been told the essential facts. That is sufficient.”
Harsh frowned at the thin curl of blue smoke coming off the end of the cigarette. “You’re kind of a puzzle to me, Mister.”
“Are you for sale, Harsh?”
“Eh?”
“Are you for sale. You heard me.”
Harsh took the cigarette away to moisten his lips with his tongue. “I admit taking Roebuck off my neck is worth something. But will it stick? I got to know more about—”
“I am talking about selling yourself for dollars, Harsh.”
“Oh. Well, you hadn’t mentioned money, only Roebuck, and I thought you meant one favor in exchange for another.”
“I will never need a favor from a man of your caliber, Harsh.”
“Well, if you say so. But a man never knows.”
“I asked you if you were for sale, you fool.” The man looked at Harsh with eyes as cold and moist as those of a dead cow.
“I guess the answer is yes.”
“Good. It is settled.” Brother began buttoning his topcoat preparatory to leaving. “This is as far as our discussion need go.”
“Wait a minute.” Harsh stubbed out the cigarette. “Nobody said how much money we’re discussing.”
“I already know your price tag, Harsh.” Brother drew a package of money from his pocket and tossed it on the bed. “That is the full amount we are discussing. There will be no more. Count it. It is not yours until your job is done. I will be back later.”
The sheaf of currency was held by a rubber band. It had come to rest exactly in the middle of Harsh’s stomach. He could see it by looking down his nose. He did not touch it.
“Harsh.”
“Yes?”
“You are to be removed from this hospital and taken to another city. That will happen this afternoon.”
Brother swung and walked to the door, opened it and went out, closing the door behind him.
I’ll be damned, Harsh thought, wondering how much money was in the packet. His palms suddenly felt sweaty and he rubbed the right one on the sheet. He pulled the money to him and slipped off the rubber band and began to count. He counted off five or six bills and stopped. He took one of the greenbacks with his fingers and held it up to the light, turning it this way and that and speculating on whether it was counterfeit. He did not think it was phony. It was a one hundred dollar bill. His palm was still sweating and he rubbed it on the sheet again, then went on counting, moving his lips and concentrating. Halfway through the pile his hand shook so that he had to pause. Jesus, he thought. He had a coughing spell that wracked him and he wondered if he was out of his goddamn mind. He seized all the money and shoved it under the sheet and lay there breathing heavily. He began to have visions of the nurse coming in and jerking the sheet off him and finding the money and taking it away from him the way they had taken away his clothes. He must be dreaming. Oh hell if he was dreaming, he might as well get the full effect of the dream and finish counting the money. He began counting again and his lips felt very stiff when he tried to move them to frame the numbers. He began to hear the blood going through his ears like water in a faucet. Finally he finished counting the money and clutched it all together and put it under the sheet with him and rolled over on it so the money
was under his belly. He lay there having difficulty breathing. He felt the money pushing against the outside of his belly. Then he got the impression the money was penetrating right into his gut and making a lump like a barrel. The lump became as hot as fire. Then it began to melt and as it melted the gold fluid ran through his veins, ran through his veins into his throat, making him sick, making him have to vomit. He did not want to vomit on his bed. He lurched up but he had to let go anyway when he put his weight on his broken arm without thinking and the arm exploded with pain. He had to scream. The scream sounded like a fire engine to his ears. The whole hospital would hear the squall, he thought, and come running to take the money away from him. Oh, Lord. His bed was a mess. So this was how it felt, he thought, to get your hands on fifty thousand dollars.
PART TWO
SEVEN
The cablegram was delivered at eight minutes past ten o‘clock that morning and it put real terror into Mr. Hassam. Some minutes passed before he controlled his breathing to the point where he no longer took air into his lungs in shaky gasps. He memorized the name of the town, Kirksville, Missouri, where the cablegram had originated, and the name of the hotel, Colonial Motel, where the sender wished to be contacted, then he burned the cablegram on his desk ashtray. He sat staring at the ash.
Just burning the cablegram might not be enough, he reflected. You never knew. He kneaded the ashes in his palm to be sure he had thoroughly disposed of them. The paper smoke still hung in the office and it smelled enough like what it was, paper smoke, that anybody chancing to come in might recognize it. The president of the bank, the vice president, a clerk, anyone who came in would know paper smoke when they smelled it, and remember. He supposed anyone at the bank would be afraid to say anything, the situation of the government being what it was. But again, you never knew. Everyone was being careful to keep eyes and ears disconnected from mouths as long as the descamisada, the shirtless ones, still thought God had come down to earth and was running the government for their benefit. But the time of crisis was coming.
