“Well, you said you were taking a short-story manuscript of his with you to Buffalo—to sort of clean up a bit—and try and market?”
“Yes, that’s right. It hasn’t got his name on it, but—”
“That doesn’t matter. For you described the existence of the script before this point we’re now discussing even threatened to come up. Steenburg, I rather fancy that that manuscript would—but now you say ‘Big Shoes’ definitely has five hundred cash available—the same being, incidentally, only a fraction of what he and his kind have cost me?”
“Yes. It’s all ready and available, as I told you. He has it positively in hand. Plus transportation expenses for your messenger to boot! No more details—nor red tape—involved in his getting it—unless, perchance, it be the banker himself having to put the mortgage on record tomorrow—or something like that. As for ‘Big Shoes,’ the cash is absolutely in his possession.”
“And ‘Big Shoes’ will come up to Chicago for this ‘meet,’ you say—if I send a man down there? A man, that is, who would first pick up the skull in Evanston—and then ‘make the meet’—as you’ve put it?”
“Yes. ‘Big Shoes’ could come anywhere that was in Illinois only. Chicago was, he thought, the, most convenient for anyone coming down from Minneapolis. He could get up to Chicago tomorrow morning in a few hours. I—I could send him a long-distance message by slot-phone tonight—or early tomorrow, at downtown Buffalo—to ‘make the meet’ according to the fuller specifications I’ve already worked out—or according to any revised specifications you might lay out.”
“Yours are just as good as any I could work out,” I said. “Since your client has the jumps—God forbid that I give him triple-neurasthenia besides! The only really important detail is that money passes—for skull. Yes. But what are the rough underlying details for the ‘meet’—if I may ask?”
“Well, Mr. King, ‘Big Shoes’’—remember, he’s fearfully skittish—suggestion was that the messenger would stroll slowly and casually—between noontime and o’clock tomorrow—and like—like an out-of-town traveler—around the entire block containing the old post office there in Chicago—yes, the one facing Quincy Street. And would have, under his arm, a crimson shoebox—a few holes punched in it on each side—and the box containing the skull. He—yes, the messenger—would stick, in his strolling, solely to the side of the four bounding streets which run right alongside the post office building—but would draw up, occasionally, for 5 minutes or so, at each of the four corners bounding the place, as though deciding to take the next streetcar, perhaps, and be off—and while waiting for the hypothetical car, or whatnot, he’d be casually—”
“Listen,” I put in, “you’ve written it all out?—to the last detail?”
“All of it—yes—to the last detail. Which merely involves just the mutual identification when ‘Big Shoes,’ seeing the strolling or waiting messenger—or messenger’s crimson box—comes up. There isn’t much to it.”
“And it’s simple enough—that a dumb messenger couldn’t possibly fall down on any detail?”
“Absolutely,” said Steenburg. “Unless he was a moron!”
“And where oh where, might I ask, would one find a crimson shoebox—between tomorrow morning and the noon hour?”
“Where? Why, by smearing any old shoebox over with a bottle of Cartford’s Crimson Fountain Pen Ink.”
“To be sure! And the crimson box would mark the messenger as being the one with the right package?”
“Exactly. For there’d be lots of people with packages in the Chicago Loop in the general lunch hour. Both strolling around, and waiting for streetcars going this way—or that way. Anyway, Mr. King, the messenger would stroll casually around the block—and stand, occasionally, on the four corners—anytime or during the hour noon to 1 o’clock. The holes punched in the box would merely indicate, to outsiders, that he had bought a pet lizard, or horned toad, or something. And while standing—on any of the four corners—he might be waiting for a car—or for his wife—or any fool thing. And during the arrival of my client on the spot where he was, the messenger would be casually—”
“It’s all in the typed instructions, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, jumping over details which as yet we haven’t agreed will ever be fulfilled—no, we haven’t, Steenburg!—after the exchange of general civilities would take place, identifying each individual to the other, as it were, and which civilities would end, I take it, by the two moving up the street a ways to where there were no people, and ‘Big Shoes’ peeping inside the box at a theoretical ‘animile’ contained therein—” Steenburg was nodding emphatically “—and rolling the skull about with his finger perhaps—but how would he know that that skull was ‘Blinky’s’?”
“I explained to him,” said Steenburg, “about how the right nose aperture does not now contain the shingle-like appendage hanging down—and about the two inked letters on the back—and last but not least, Mr. King, he happens to know that a certain one of ‘Blinky’s’ teeth is missing, for he helped a dentist once who drew it. Plus—where another filling is.”
“I see. Well then, after checking on these simple points, he’d hand my messenger five hundred dollars? Rather—five hundred and sixteen dollars—figuring double railway fare over 500 miles?”
“Right. And will take the box—and leave. And all done up the street a ways, of course, from any corner where the contact might actually first take place. Right, Mr. King! You’ve got the beginning—and the end. And—but have you somebody you could trust to pick up the skull tomorrow in Evanston—and go to that ‘meet’?”
“Well,” I said, half facetiously, striving to get a few seconds, before answering, to think further on the matter, “I know a bright nervy girl in East Minneapolis who—well, I don’t believe she’d ever be willing to tote a crimson box around—no!—but she does own a lavender gripsack, a thing of leather, but stained so brilliantly that it screams aloud, and—”
“Well—that would do just as effectively, I’m sure,” granted Steenburg. “And are you willing then to have her—or anybody else, for that matter, whom you can trust—pick up the skull tomorrow in Evanston—and go to that ‘meet’?”
“Not—so—fast,” I replied. And pondered. “Steenburg,” I said at length, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. ‘If ‘Big Shoes’ shows me, by the script in your pocket, that he’s written a fiction story that has any decent degree of value other than sheer rot—I’ll know conclusively that he’ll be digging himself out a writing career—at least of sorts—and will never go back to crime again. A fact. I know writers, Steenburg, and would-be writers. I’ve a cousin who is one, of sorts. And my wife has a nephew who is one. Give a writer the bare taste of success—by magazine acceptance—and after that he’s utterly ruined for all such jobs as being a bank president, a millionaire’s traveling companion, or what-have-you! For he wants to do nothing else after that—but write more—and get more acceptances. Till, of course, Old Man Death accepts him—in the magazine called ‘The Grave.’ So—let me see your ‘Big Shoes’ script. I’m no editor. Or literary man. But I read the weekly story in the Turf Review—and the Track Digest, too. So I can at least read—like the man in the street. And if the story smells bad to me—which means then that ‘Big Shoes’ will doubtlessly get it back from all regular editors—from where he sends it—and thus ultimately drift back to the crime game for want of more absorbing interests—then I think I’ll tell you right here and now that he can wiggle out of this jam the best he can—himself. Whether it’s a matter of shooting a bird now in New York—or going to the chair in Wisconsin. But—if his yarn shows any promise—talent—or ability—I’ll have a man go on to Chicago tonight, and ‘make that meet’ tomorrow. And put ‘Big Shoes’ perpetually at ease.”
“Is—is that a bargain, Mr. King?” Steenburg inquired, almost exultantly.
“
I said so,” I retorted, a bit angrily. “Nobody has ever accused me of being a welcher.”
He was already withdrawing the script, though a bit nervously, from his breast pocket. And handing it to me.
“I’ll sit back and rest while you read,” he said. “It’s very short.”
I took the script and unfolded it. And why not? For after all, the vital hour of dawn in London—at which hour, and not before, it would be possible to start the wheels that might turn that execution—if, that is, they were startable!—yet lay sometime off, estimating from the hands of the clock across the room—and the fact that this was late October in London as well as in Minneapolis!—and that there was exactly 6 hours difference in time between the two places. And in the meantime, therefore, it was possible only, at best, to mark time. And so—
And leaning back in the swivel chair, I commenced the script. Not scenting in the least, as I did so, the exact manner in which my own Destiny was wound up with that thin sheaf of typewritten pages! And curious only, as I began the script, about two things: One, what that one crook locked in the closet was now thinking of—and, two, just what kind of a short story would be written by an ex-hijacker!
CHAPTER XVIII
A Short Story by an Ex-Crook!
THE SEARCH
—A Short Story—
The Eel was a dip. Otherwise known as a pickpocket. And a pickpocket of no mean ability. He always played solo—functioning as wire, stahl and block—all in one. He worked the shorts—the “shorts” being the streetcars—on famous West Madison Street, Chicago—those going east, and those going west!—and could even take a poke that was an “insider.” And weed it, if needs be, on the way to the door. That’s how good he was.
Careful, too! For he practically invariably carried a C-note—a $100-bill—folded four ways in his sock—for “fall money.”
The nickname of “The Eel” was due, of course, to his long-continued successful elusion of the ever-wakeful Chicago police. For he’d seldom had to beef out, in court, that he was up against a bum rap. Now and then, of course, in a jim-up on a short, he’d had to scram for it; once, in a blue moon, to actually take it on the sock-and-clout; and twice, when actually glaumed, he’d effected a “fix.” A couple of times he’d taken the fall—though for a fine only, and under the charge of d.c. only—disorderly conduct—since he’d smelt a rumble just before the pinch, and had done nothing, before being glaumed, but the jostle; and each time, however, he’d had the precious fall money in his sock—that C-note!—and so had been able to hit the pavements again. And once, in fact, he’d even lammed—from a certain bail bond in a court in far South Chicago—under the phoney handle “Peter Ibbetson” which he thought was a hell of a good handle, though he hadn’t the least idea where he’d ever heard of it. Of course, The Eel also possessed many other names such as ordinary untalented mortals bear—but they were many and various.
He cultivated the inconspicuous, in both action and appearance, and was 25 years of age.
Thus, The Eel.
Tonight—the precious fall money, that C-note, in his sock, which he’d gained from a juicy 20-sawbuck “lift” the week before—he edged along in the jostling home-going crowd on the West Madison Street car, until at every jolt of that “sardine express” his shoulders bumped those of a little wizened yet kindly faced old man, the tag on whose carpetbag bore the bold inscription, “Jonas Brown, Hemp Corners, Iowa.”
After his slender and skillful fingers had worked for a moment under cover of his own body, The Eel began to recede by degrees toward the door; in his own pocket now reposed Mr. Jonas Brown’s black wallet.
But he did not reach the door—at least in the manner he intended; for a mitt (hand, to you, brother!) that belonged to the brawny arm of plainclothesman Sean O’Flaherty closed on his collar.
“I’ve got ye this time, ye son of a bi—um—rascal,” said O’Flaherty, realizing there were ladies in the car. “I seen the whole game ye played on the old gent yonder, from beginnin’ to end. An’ now ye’ll hand me over that there black wallet, ye swine, and thin we’ll just dismount and call th’ wagon.”
Thus it came about that Jonas Brown, O’Flaherty and The Eel were shortly riding in the patrol wagon to the Desplaines Street station house.
Jonas Brown reached his dingy little West Madison Street lodging-house room that night later than usual, thankful that a certain $7700 that had been in his wallet was safe, and remembering the stern admonition of the desk sergeant to be in court next morning to add his testimony to that of Detective O’Flaherty’s, and regain his property.
For a long time, however, he lay in the dark thinking of the task he had set himself to perform, if possible, in this big strange city. And how he had at last found courage to come alone to Chicago to search for his long-lost son Danny, who just fourteen years before, at the age of 12, had run away from the home-farm because Jonas Brown, foolish father, had soundly thrashed the youngster for sneaking off to the circus and marching defiantly home again with a red star tattooed above a blue moon upon his sturdy young arm.
And he was thinking, too, how he had taken his tale to the Chief of Police here in Chicago, and had been permitted by the latter the run of the files of the “unidentified dead”—to see if by any chance he could trace the missing youth—perhaps through the very “disfiguration” for which he had so long ago punished and lost his son.
Next morning, bright and early, he was seated in the front row benches at the Desplaines Street police court, long before court convened, fretting inwardly because he must lose the entire morning—because he must be set back a half-day in the search for his boy.
But when, after several minor cases had been disposed of in their regular order, The Eel, having discreetly waived his jury rights, appeared from the bull pen and stood at the bar accompanied by a huge blue-coated officer, the usual crowd of curiosity seekers pricked up their ears; a pickpocket case was always interesting.
O’Flaherty told his story; then the old man was called up, and, after being sworn, related his simple tale—all about his coming to the city to search for his long-lost son, taking Chicago first because of the fascination that city had always seemingly held for Danny. The old man told how he had been riding on a Madison Street car; how he had felt for a wallet of his which contained $7700, the proceeds of the sale of his farm; how he had later heard a commotion, discovered the loss of his wallet, and had turned to see the prisoner now at the bar being held by the plainclothesman.
As soon as he was excused, he resumed his seat in the front row. Then the Judge looked at The Eel long and intently. Finally he asked him if he had anything to say.
The Eel shook his head sullenly. He realized that a clear case existed against him this time, and that he had no defense; he knew, though, that his treatment would be the same as that invariably accorded to dips, on their first fall for “larceny,” by easy Judge Freeman, up there on the bench—a sentence of exactly three months. And that, in fact, was exactly why he’d grabbed at the chance to take the rap—here in front of “Easy.” And he realized philosophically—as he always did—that not only must one expect an occasional setback in every “profesh”—but also that three months would soon pass.
Perhaps, though, “Easy Judge Freeman was in ill-humor that morning; possibly he had dined well but not slept well the night before. At any rate, he looked at the prisoner for a moment over the tops of his eyeglasses and said, tersely:
“The limit for you! One year—in the Bridewell.”
The Eel, startled out of his complacency, looked up at the Judge with a hurt expression on his face. A year! Wowie! That was a shock! Coming from “Easy” Freeman. A whole year—away from the sunlight and the green parks, from the movie theatres and the busy city streets, from the wine rooms and taxi-dance halls of Halsted Street; a year behind the dirty graystone walls of the Bridewell; a year!—when by all the rules of exp
erience, encountered by numberless others he knew, he had expected but three months!
“W’y—Eas—that is, Judge,” he began in an injured tone. His voice turned to a whine and the curiosity seekers, scenting possible theatricals, leaned forward still farther in their seats. “Why, Your Honor... a year. ...I never been convicted before...” But the Judge was already ordering the bailiff to call the next case.
The Eel raised his hands to the high edge of the Judge’s desk; there his fingers clawed nervously, beseechingly, futilely. His loose sleeves dropped to his elbows, exposing his forearms, slim and white; even the sleepy nodders in the rear of the courtroom could see the conspicuous tattoo-mark just above his left wrist—a blue crescent moon surmounted by a red star!
To the onlookers in the courtroom, the tattoo-mark suggested nothing—no new possibilities of dramatics, but their dying curiosity was suddenly jolted into life again. For the timid old farmer in the front row had seen it too. With an inarticulate cry he sprang to his stumbling feet and half fell against the prisoner at the bar, his trembling hands groping for The Eel’s slouchy shoulders.
“Danny—Danny, my boy—my long-lost son!” he gasped. “Have I found you at last?”
The Eel, taken completely unawares, swung ’round on him, superstitious fright and stark incredulity fighting for mastery in his face.
“What’s—what’s all this?” he shouted, fending off the pawing hands of the old man desperately. “Who’s this here crazy loon? I’m no son of his! Take him away from me,” he implored the staring throng.
“But—but Danny, the tattoo—the tattoo!” insisted Jonas Brown, wonderingly loosening his grip on The Eel.
“Oh, that?”—and The Eel held up and examined curiously his left wrist, as though the heathenish symbol pricked upon it had developed a new interest for him. “Why—that’s mine; I didn’t snitch it. I—but what’s your game, old man, anyhow? What you trying to put over on me, now?”
The Man with the Magic Eardrums Page 16
