The Man with the Magic Eardrums

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  “And it was my client, ‘Big Shoes,’ Mr. King, who drove the death car that night. And remember, a crook always gives his lawyer the true and complete low-down. Whether he’s guilty, that is; or whether he’s innocent. Now ‘Big Shoes’ tells me he positively did not know that night that ‘Blinky’ was to be erased. He was given to understand that the car he was driving—which car, Mr. King, left for East Minneapolis, Minnesota—an old hangout for Minneapolis gangsters in days long gone—was to meet a hijacked truck on what is today U. S. Highway No. 30, between Peshtowac Lake, Wisconsin and Indian City, Wisconsin. A truck coming up, by Highway No. 30, as of today, to Minneapolis from Oshkosh. It was supposed to be loaded to the gills with expensive silk from an Oskhosh jobbing house that jobbed all over Wisconsin, but which had gone into a receiver­ship, and the silk had been sold to another firm in St. Paul. The truck, however, was to be hijacked, see—just ahead of this town of Indian City, Wisconsin. By a quartette lying in wait on some small intersecting road that runs northward to Koontz Lake. U. S. Highway No. 30, as of today, it seems, crosses the Chippewa River somewhere between Indian City and Peshtowac Lake, and this silk—so ‘Big Shoes’ had been informed—was to be trans­ferred into the hold of a dirty old clamming boat on the Chippewa River, which boat would gradually transport it, over many weeks, and via the Mississippi, into Iowa, where it could be loaded at night aboard another truck—and sent into St. Paul. At least all this, you understand, was the story given to ‘Big Shoes.’ All he was supposed to do was to deliver these three extra men to help the crew of gunmen who would be on the hijacked truck to unload the silk in a big hurry. At the Chippewa River. Because of his old convictions, he wasn’t being asked to make any actual risks; just supposed to drop these other three men off—see?—and drive away. Back to East Minneapolis. As for ‘Blinky,’ he was to stand watch—on the river bank. Oh—it was all explained that way to ‘Blinky.’ And I guess the Big Chief of that day’s Minneapolis and St. Paul gangsterdom didn’t go into the finer details of why he maneuvered his men this way—or that way.

  “And so,” Steenburg continued, “‘Blinky,’ as it ‘happened,’ rode alongside ‘Big Shoes’ in the front seat. In back of ‘Blinky’ was this fellow ‘Killer.’ And back of ‘Big Shoes’ rode ‘Cokey.’ And only ‘Killer,’ it seems, had the real low-down on things—and had been instructed what to do.

  “And on a narrow deserted dirt road bringing them southward from U. S. Highway No. 6, as of today, to U. S. Highway No. 30, likewise as of today—somewhere around Flint Corners as I understand it—‘Killer’ did it! He took a gun from his pocket, there in the back seat—rose up a bit in the seat, behind ‘Blinky’—for ‘Blinky’ was looking partly downward at the time—calmly set it against the back of ‘Blinky’s’ head—or maybe held it off a few inches or so—and fired—and ‘Blinky’ fell forward dead. The bullet, as I gather it, went obliquely through ‘Blinky’s’ head—out his left eye—his one good eye, incidentally!—and lodged in the instrument board of the car. ‘Big Shoes’ stopped the car at once. And said—”

  “And said,” I put in mildly, “if your story is correct: ‘What the hell—“Killer?” Have you gone scrooey?’”

  “That’s just about what ‘Big Shoes’ tells me he did say, Mr. King. And then ‘Killer’ told him—and ‘Cokey’—that the silk hijacking job was the baloney—and that this was a one-way ride for ‘Blinky.’ And that his—‘Killer’s’—orders from the Big Boss higher up had been to dispatch ‘Blinky.’ Even then, ‘Big Shoes’ tells me, he couldn’t believe it. He thought it surely must be a private feud, So he backed the car up a deserted dead-end cross-road—a private lane, I guess it was. And went way up the narrow road on foot, and into a farmhouse. Where a few moments before they’d got their bearings from a blind farmer. A chap who was all alone at the time. And since the old chap was blind, and couldn’t legally identify anybody, ‘Big Shoes’ felt safe in using the other’s phone. Which he did. By permission. Called up his chief. In Minneapolis. And talked a little—very cautiously, you know, the way the old-time gangsters used to do. Using mostly code expressions. But he listened a lot more than he talked, it seems. And the chief told him, yes,—that those had been his orders: ‘Blinky’ was a double-crosser—and had to be erased.

  “So, ‘Big Shoes’ came on back to the car. In the meantime, however, ‘Killer’—acting under orders, it seems—had been severing ‘Blinky’s’ head. In the ditch, that is, where ‘Blinky’ had now been tossed. He used a razor sharp knife as far as he could—and then an axe, that he had under the seat, to sever the skull from the spinal column. The while ‘Cokey’ held a little pocket electric searchlight, and—”

  “Whoa, Steenburg! Not—not so fast. Why—why did he sever ‘Blinky’s’ head?”

  “For this reason—so ‘Big Shoes’ tells me. The Big Chief wanted the body to lie right there in the ditch—and be found next day—as a message to the rival gang organization who’d mighty soon be hep, that the ‘Blinky’ they thought they’d fixed so beautifully had received the count. But the Big Chief didn’t want ‘Blinky’s’ head to be found. For that head, you see, had one eye missing—that is, one eye was glass. To be sure, the glass eye could have been taken out—in fact, it actually subsequently was—but the coroner would soon find out that surgical work had been done in that particular eye-socket—probably the bunched eye-muscles I’ve spoken of. And the lid as well, I understand, was burned a bit—for ‘Blinky’d’ lost his eye originally through a splash from some caustic solution out of a vat. And so, you see, if the head were there, there would have been a clue to who ‘Blinky’ was. That is, the call would go out, in a thousand newspapers: ‘who knows a handsome collar-ad fellow—probably from up around Minneapolis and St. Paul—with one good eye—the left one—the other, the right one, glass, but capable of being manipulated and moved around by voluntary muscle action? And with a burned upper lid.’ And so forth. And so on. And somebody—the Big Chief was afraid, mainly, of some of this guy’s old ladies he used to squire around in Minneapolis—or even his wife in Minneapolis—with whom, however, ‘Blinky’ hadn’t lived for over 10 months—coming forward and identifying him then. And that would uncover dozens of leads, in the matter of people ‘Blinky’ was known to have met—hoodlums, see?—and through which he’d been inducted into gangsterdom. Besides all of which, the police would make inquiries all about Minneapolis—find out that there was such a handsome bird—and with such a defect—messing around, as a petty graft collector, or something, in gambling houses and nightclubs—and then they’d pull in all ‘Blinky’s’ closest associates—fellow hoodlums, naturally—and—”

  “Yes, I get it, Steenburg. I get it. Save everybody concerned a lot of trouble in the way of being questioned under the police greenlights—locked up—beaten up, maybe explaining their own obscure connections with ‘Blinky’—providing watertight alibis—and so forth and so on?”

  “Exactly, Mr. King. So the Big Chief told ‘Killer’ to bury the head someplace where the police couldn’t have it.”

  “And now the story falls together,” I commented. “They all drove, then, I take it, back to U. S. Highway No. 6—as of today—and thence—”

  “Not on your tintype, Mr. King, they didn’t! Not with that head—under the seat. And maybe some Wisconsin state motorcycle police looking for somebody else—on Highway No. 6. No, they wound their way zigzag along by a series of dark deserted roads which, it seems, run all the way westward from Flint Corners, Wisconsin, to north-south Highway No. 41, as of today! But when they shot through Wiscotown, Wisconsin, they knew they’d have to plant the head now—before hitting the wider, more populated highway.”

  “I see,” I put in. “And then, finding this pasture land, belonging to Henry Speevy, they drew up and buried the head—east of the poplar grove, I think you said—or 10 feet north of the 3rd fencepost from the west edge? For that’s not only the point where you told me Speevy unearthed the skull,
but the identical point where Speevy told me—well, to be quite frank with you, Speevy did tell me how he unearthed the skull right there.”

  “Correct, Mr. King. And ‘Big Shoes’ story, to me, of the burying of the head, tallies to a T with Speevy’s story to me—and to you—of the finding of the skull. Years later.” Steenburg paused. “Yes, they plucked out the glass eye from the head—and crunched it to pieces, later, a full mile away. Just before turning into Highway No. 41. But I’m speaking now of the burial of the head. They lifted up a square of sod in that pasture land—it was about 2 in the morning now—and not a soul stirring over the entire countryside—and they dug down silently into the ground till they had a hole big enough for the head. Then they dropped it down in, plastered back as much dirt as they could on it—and the sod on top of that. And blew. And a rain, moreover, came up towards morning, and washed away all traces. Even if Speevy wasn’t busy, at the time, harvesting on his farm. For this was the fall of that year, you see.”

  Steenburg paused.

  “Well, next day—so ‘Big Shoes’ tells me—the headless body of ‘Blinky’ was found. In the Wisconsin ditch. As left! And officially recorded as so found. Although there wasn’t a thing by which to identify who he might be. Lucky for them, as I told you, be hadn’t been living with his wife for 10 months. Hence he wasn’t in line to be reported missing. And—to advance this story a bit—the car, which was a stolen one, but with obliterated engine numbers and parts-stampings—had to be abandoned a few nights later, in a hurry, 60 miles from Minneapolis—and Minnesota—and that too was picked up, and records made showing signs of blood on it—and even the bullet was found in its instrument board. Just isolated facts, you understand, that became recorded in various police files—but which could never have any concrete definite connection with each other, unless—”

  “Unless, for instance,” I put in, “some of the missing links were supplied. Like the head itself—rather, that skull I’ve got—as it is today. That, that is, plus somebody’s—anybody’s testimony that such incident even took place!”

  “Correct,” nodded Steenburg. He was silent a moment, evidently gathering together the threads to finish his very tangled tale. “Well,” he continued suddenly, “this gang eventually broke up. By the fall of the next year, in fact. The Big Chief, ‘Big Shoes’ tells me, died. And after that, things in gangsterdom sort of went from bad to worse. My client, in fact, was glad to get out of it all. He jumped bail, as I told you, after this slugging match in that Wisconsin city, and went to Canada. ‘Cokey’ stayed on in Minneapolis—at least for a couple of years—and then went to New York City. In fact, my client has gotten a card or a letter from ‘Cokey’ every Christmas—both while up in Canada and while down in Illinois—for ‘Cokey,’ of course, knows my client’s Illinois name—and that he’s jumped the racket. It was ‘Cokey,’ in fact, Mr. King, who kept watch, those first few years, on that Wisconsin ‘rap’—as the crooks call it—for my client. ‘Killer’ went to Omaha, and was later—a year later—shot dead in a bank robbery. ‘Big Shoes’ tells me he read of that himself, up in Canada, and of the positive identification of ‘Killer.’

  “In the meantime, he says, the old days have been, for him, all a sort of wild dream. The woman he married treats him O.K. And he’s nuts about the girl kid he’s got. She’s pretty—I’ll say that myself! Everything’s been going hunky-dory for him. No police ever bother him—because, for one thing, he doesn’t even ever get into any of the big Illinois cities. Everything, as I say, has been going hunky-dory for him. Except that, Mr. King, only about ten days ago, a tramp stopped off at ‘Big Shoes’ farm. For a handout. And he proved to be a bird from out the ‘racket’—as I told you it’s called—there in New York City. Knew just everybody in the racket, there, from A to Izzard. Oh, ‘Big Shoes’ quizzed him a-plenty—and in fact, this chap could see with half an eye that ‘Big Shoes’ had been a ‘hood’ himself way back when—but he has nothing to blackmail ‘Big Shoes’ on—and anyway, from what I hear, he’s a right guy and wouldn’t if he could. But here’s the important point, Mr. King. He knew ‘Cokey’—the fellow, that is, whom you and I, Mr. King, are referring to here as ‘Cokey.’ Absolutely, ‘Big Shoes’ tells me, the same fellow. He checks on every one of a couple of dozen points. And this tramp had plenty to tell ‘Big Shoes’—after ‘Big Shoes’ put himself down as wanting to knew all about ‘Cokey.’ And ‘Cokey,’ from being a dope runner—who never touched the stuff himself—has dropped not only to being a dope peddler—but worse—has become an addict: is taking 7 grains a day! And living—so this tramp told ‘Big Shoes’—only 3 jumps ahead of the New York police. And—well—do you know what that means?”

  I wrinkled up my forehead.

  “Well—not exactly—no. What bearing does it have—on the rest—rather, the other surviving member of that one-way ride?”

  “It means, Mr. King, that it’s only a question of days—weeks at most—before ‘Cokey’ will be arrested for peddling—for drug using—for vagabondage. The police will lock him up—he’ll be deprived of his drug—they’ll let him go through the usual hell—he’ll scream and cry with the unbearable pains in his legs—and the thousands of devils tickling him with hot feathers—and at last, due to their lying promises that if he tells all he knows about all his past criminal activities they’ll give him a shot—he’ll do just that. Or else he’ll be so mad with the drug torture hunger that he’ll actually volunteer, out-and-out, on his own behalf, for just one hypodermic of morphine, to tell them something about an old Wisconsin murder. In either case, he’ll have to produce some­thing other than a pipe dream. And to deliver the goods, and get that hypo, he’ll give the whole law-down on the murder of ‘Blinky.’ Tell them, at least, exact where ‘Blinky’s’ head is buried. And the minute he spills only that much, Mr. King—it’s all up! For him. And for my client too. A fact! What I mean is, that the police, clinching that much of the story, will then play the morphine hold-out game on that poor wretch of a ‘Cokey’ ten times harder—till every detail is wrung out of him: who were on that ride?—where the members are today?—oy, ‘Cokey,’ I tell you, will sell every single detail—detail by detail, too—for hypodermics of morphine—till they’ve got it all.”

  “Well,” I said, “granting that he cracks—and I understand that the tightest-mouthed crook, if he’s on the dope, not only invariably cracks 100 per cent when his dope is held out from him, but sells out his own brother in the bargain, if he’s got one, and—well, granting that this ‘Cokey’ cracks—and that he tells such a story—and complete from A to Izzard, as I concede it finally will be—and that there is a record of an unidentified body picked up somewhere in a Wisconsin ditch—in fact, there’s been dozens of such in the past!—and that there is a record of a car found elsewhere—in Minnesota, or outside Minneapolis—with a bullet in the instrument board—it still seems to me that there is nothing to convict your man ‘Big Shoes’ of murder on. For one thing, he claims he knows nothing—”

  “As to that, Mr. King,” Steenburg interrupted, “that will do him no good whatsoever. In a court of law. He drove the death car. ‘Killer,’ the only man who could prove—even if he would prove!—that he alone, that night, knew that ‘Blinky’ was to be erased, is dead. As far as cold hard common sense goes—with a jury of 12 men—or a grand jury—or even a coroner’s jury—‘Big Shoes’ was equal in guilt with ‘Killer’—and equal in knowledge before they started out on that ride.”

  “I see.” I pondered for a second. “Yes, it is hard to digest the fact that ‘Big Shoes’ was only going to a tea party. Or a labor delivery job—to a hijacking crew—as I think you said he believed he was.” I paused. “Well, suppose that to check ‘Cokey’s’ story—that is, when he ultimately breaks—and into smithereens, too!—the Wisconsin state police, at request of the New York detective bureau, or the New York U. S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics, go and dig on Speevy’s farm. At the proper spot. And that t
hey don’t find the skull of the head that this addict has been telling about. They’ll, of course, beat hell out of Speevy—the Wisconsin state police here, I mean—even if he doesn’t tangle himself up four ways running—and he’ll admit that the skull was sold to me. And suppose then that they impounded—or replevined—or whatever is done in such cases—the skull from me, as evidence. Remember, I live in Minnesota—and I come under no damn laws about either holding or turning over such evidence to anybody. I can tell them, with impunity, to kiss my west end going east. Except, of course, that I’d have to turn the skull over. Yes. Well, suppose then they have it. So—what? What have they got? Nothing! For I’ve been reliably informed that by Wisconsin and Minnesota laws of some three—or is it four?—years ago, a murder lying over 3 months back, in time, of the proposed indictment therefor, has to be established legally as such by—now what’s it called?”

  “Corpus delicti identifactus,” Steenburg said promptly. “Quite correct. The law was passed in both states three some years ago. And it provides that corpus delicti, as in the past, is enough—for indictment—in a murder less than 3 months old. But farther back than that, the corpse has to be conclusively identified as that of some one definite person.”

  “All right,” I told Steenburg. “Then if they have the skull—what have they got? Nothing! For there’s no way on God’s green earth to prove that it’s ‘Blinky’s’ skull. I can tell you, here and now, that that skull has no dental bridgework. And today, moreover, it has no eyeballs! So that one, that is, can be said to be missing! Such surgery as was once used in removing that seared eye, and bunching those eye muscles, doesn’t leave any marks on the bony eye-socket. You know that. And there isn’t a jury on earth who would send ‘Big Shoes’ to the chair—on a cocaine-and-morphine addict’s story. Why, man, such a jury would know, too, all about the inter- and intra-gang hatreds that would be bound to hold over even today—from old days—and any lawyer could maintain that enemies of a reformed gangster, like ‘Big Shoes,’ had just planted a skull on Speevy’s farm—to shut ‘Big Shoes” mouth about some other old crimper even up some old score. Besides which, such a lawyer would then plead that the case be dismissed on the score of no corpus delicti identifactus—and the judge would have to throw the case out of court.”