The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  Carey Evers had retired not rich but with a lot more money then he'd be able to use during the rest of his life, and could think of no better way to spend it, and his time; as long as he remained strong and healthy enough, he'd keep on doing what he was doing. He loved it.

  In answer to a question, he told me that no, the actors didn't make any money out of it; they worked for the love of acting, for the fun of it, and some of them with the hope of learning enough to become professionals someday. And two kids out of the original group he'd started with four years ago were now doing bit parts in television, another was now an announcer on a Chicago television station.

  “Do you ever lend any of them money?” I asked, and then cut in before he could answer. “Wait. That's none of my business, but this is: Did Albee Nielson ever borrow or try to borrow money from you?”

  He nodded. “About three weeks ago, he came to me and tried to borrow five hundred. I turned him down. In the first place, I never lend money in amounts like that and in the second, I didn't believe his story, that it was for an operation for his father. I knew enough about him to know that his father was solvent, and I knew Albee was working steady---he was then---but playing the horses. I put two and two together.

  “And from what I've learned since, my addition was correct. In fact, in the week or so after that he apparently ran a few hundred more in the hole trying to get out.”

  “Was that the last time you saw him?”

  He nodded. “That was when we were casting the current play and I asked him if he wanted to try out for a part. He didn't. It was too bad; he's a pretty good actor. I'd say almost but not quite professional, or potentially professional, caliber. He had the lead role in two plays we've put on, strong supporting parts in several others.”

  “What else do you know about him? Especially his personal life?”

  He talked a while, but I didn't know any more when he'd told me all he could than I had when he'd started. Yes, Jerry Score was his closest friend, Honey Howard was his girl. And other things I'd already learned.

  I asked him if he knew where Jerry Score was today. It turned out in Hammond, Indiana, for the funeral of an uncle. “Went there a little early to have some time with his family. The funeral's tomorrow morning, and Jerry will rush right back for afternoon rehearsal. He'll probably come right from the train, so you'll do better finding him at the Graydon than trying his room. We start rehearsal at one-thirty.”

  “Will I be able to talk to him during rehearsal, or should I wait till after?”

  “During. He's not on stage all the time. Ed, would you like a ducket or two for the show, Thursday evening? Or any night through Sunday, for that matter; we run four days.”

  I told him I'd manage to make it one of the four but would just as soon kick through with a paid admission to help the cause.

  Then he asked me about me, and about being a private detective, and I got to talking. And was still going strong when suddenly I saw that it was ten of seven and reminded him about his appointment. He lost another half minute giving me a fight over the check---it was only for two drinks apiece---then gave up and ran.

  I paid the check and left more slowly because I was trying to decide whether to call on Honey Howard first, or after eating. I was beginning to get pretty hungry, but duty won when I realized I'd have a better chance of finding her in now than maybe an hour later when she could have left for the evening.

  It was another stone front; it was my day for stone fronts. One mailbox had two names on it, Wilcox and Howard, and the number six. But there was no bell button and the door wasn't locked so I went in and started checking room numbers, found Number Six on the second floor, and knocked.

  A tall, quite beautiful colored girl opened the door. But very light colored---far from Hershey-bar---so I felt sure she would be the Wilcox of the two names on the mailbox, Honey Howard's roommate. I asked her if Miss Howard was there. She said yes, and then stepped back. “Honey, someone to see you.”

  And Honey appeared at the doorway instead. Hershey-bar, yes, but petite and very beautiful, much more so than her tall, light roommate.

  I gave her my best smile and went into my spiel.

  “You might as well come in, Mr. Hunter,” she said, stepping back. I followed her into a nicely furnished, bright and cheerful double room pretty much like the one Uncle Am and I live in on Huron Street.

  “I'm willing to help if I can, Mr. Hunter,” she said, “but I hope this won't take very long. Lissa and I were just about to go out to eat.”

  It was the perfect opening. I said, “I'm ravenously hungry myself, Miss Howard. May I invite both of you to have dinner with me? Then we can talk while we eat, and it won't take up any of anybody's time.” I grinned at her. “And we'll all eat for free because I can put it on my client's expense account.”

  She gave a quick glance at her roommate and apparently got an affirmative because she turned back and returned my grin. “All right, especially if it's on Mr. Nielson. After the way Albee ran out on me without even telling me he was going, guess the Nielsons owe me at least a dinner. Let's go.”

  And we went, although first I instigated a conversation as to where they wanted to go so we could phone for a cab. But the place they wanted to go, I had in fact been intending to go anyway, was only two blocks south on Clark Street, only a few blocks away and they'd rather walk.

  It turned out to be a fairly nice restaurant, called Robair's. The proprietor knew the girls and came over to our table while we were having cocktails and I was introduced to him and he grinned and admitted that his name was really Robert but that he knew how the name was pronounced in French and thought it a little swankier to spell it that way. He was colored and so were the waitresses and most of the clientele, but I was far from being the only ofay in the place.

  When I started asking questions, Honey Howard answered them freely, or seemed to. Of course I didn't ask anything about her personal relationships with him; that was none of my business.

  She'd last seen him Thursday evening, two evenings before the time he'd been seen last. No, he hadn't said anything about going away anywhere, not even about a possibility of his going up to Kenosha to see his father. Nor anything about his job or a possibility of his losing it. But he had been moody and depressed, and had admitted he owed a bundle to his bookie and was worried about it. She'd told him she had fifty bucks saved up and wanted to know if lending him that would help. He'd thanked her but said it would not, that it was a hell of a lot more than that.

  No, she hadn't heard from him since. And she made that convincing by admitting she was a bit hurt about it. Quite a bit, in fact. The least he could have done would have been to telephone her to say goodbye and he hadn't even done that.

  No, she had no idea where he might have gone, except that it would have been another big city---like New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco. He hated small towns. Or maybe Paris---Paris was the only specific place he'd ever talked about wanting to go to.

  I considered that for a moment because it was the only specific place that had been mentioned thus far as a place he'd like to go. I asked Honey---we were Honey and Lissa and Ed by now---whether he spoke French. He didn't, and I pretty well ruled Paris out. With only eight hundred bucks and little chance of getting a job there, it would be a silly place for him to go, however glamorous it might look to him. Besides, with a sudden change of identity that left him no provable antecedents, he'd have hell's own time getting a passport.

  No, I wasn't going to learn anything helpful from Honey. Jerry Score, tomorrow, would be my last hope. And a slender one.

  We'd finished eating by then and I suggested a brandy to top the dinner off. Honey agreed, but Lissa said she had to leave; she worked as hat check girl in a Loop hotel and her shift was from eight-thirty on. She'd just have time to make it.

  Honey and I had brandies and, since I'd run out of questions to ask her, she started asking them of me. I saw no reason not to tell her anything I'd learne
d to date, so I started with Nielson's phone call and went through my adventures of the day.

  She looked at me a moment thoughtfully when I ran down, and smiled a bit mischievously. “Since you want to take a look at it, should we take a look together---at Albee's pad?”

  “You mean you have a key?”

  She was fumbling in her purse. “Pair of keys. Outer door and room. Just hadn't got around to throwing them away.” She found them and handed them to me, two keys fastened together with a loose loop of string.

  It was a real break, a chance to see Albee's pad and to have Honey see it with me. She'd be able to tell me how much of his stuff he'd taken, things like that. Besides, I could get in trouble using those keys by myself. But not if I was with Honey; if he'd given her keys he'd given her the legal right to use them, whether he was there or not. Even Mrs. Radcliffe couldn't object to our going up there, not that we'd alert her if we could help it.

  I bought us each a second brandy on the strength of those keys, then paid the tab and phoned for a taxi.

  The landlady's door stayed closed when we passed it, and we didn't encounter anyone in the hallway or on the stairs. Albee's room, No. 9, was the front one on the third floor.

  The moment I turned on the light and looked around I saw why Tom Chudakoff had called it a “padded pad.” Except for a dresser there wasn't a piece of furniture in sight, but the floor was padded almost wall to wall. In one corner was a mattress with bedding and a pillow. The rest of the floor was scattered with green pads, the kind used on patio furniture. In all sizes. You could sit almost anywhere, fall almost anywhere. Real cool.

  At the far end a curtain on a string masked what was no doubt the kitchenette, at one side there were two doors, one no doubt leading to a John and the other to a closet.

  Honey closed the door and was looking around. She pointed to a bare area of floor on which there was a small stack of LP phonograph records. “His portable phono's gone. And part of his records. I'll check the closet.”

  She kicked off her shoes and started for one of the doors. I saw the point; it made sense to kick off your shoes in here. Then you could walk in a straight line; it didn't matter whether you stepped on floor or padding. Luckily, I was wearing loafers and I stepped out of them and followed her.

  She was looking into a closet behind the door she'd opened and I looked over her shoulder. There were some clothes hanging there, but not many.

  “There were two suitcases in here, and a lot more clothes. He cleared out, all right. With his phonograph and as many clothes as he could get into the two suitcases. I think he probably went to Los Angeles.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  She pointed to one of the garments still in the closet. “His overcoat. He'd have taken that, even if he had to carry it over his arm, if he was going to New York. Or even San Francisco. It's an almost new overcoat; he just got it last winter.”

  “Why rule out Florida?” I asked.

  “He told me he went there once and didn't like it. And that was Miami, the nearest thing there to a big city. And he didn't like the South, in general. Or Southerners, or Texans.”

  I tried the dresser while she looked into the bathroom and reported his shaving things were gone. The top three drawers of the dresser were empty. There was dirty linen in the bottom drawer; he hadn't had room for that. I ran my finger across the top of the dresser; there was at least a week's accumulation of dust.

  “Doesn't seem to be any doubt he took off,” I said.

  Honey was disappearing behind the curtain that screened off the kitchenette. I wondered what she was looking for there. Not food, surely, after the big dinner we'd just eaten.

  Then she pulled back the curtain part way and grinned at me, holding up a bottle. “Anyway, he left us half a bottle of Scotch.”

  “Going to take it along?”

  “Not in the bottle,” she said. “I'll find us glasses. Pick yourself a chair, man.”

  I laughed and picked myself a pad.

  And jumped almost out of my clothes when a buzzer buzzed. Someone had just pushed the button under Albee's mailbox. I looked at Honey and she looked back, as startled as I was.

  My first thought was to ignore it and then I realized that, as this was a front room, whoever was ringing would know that there was a light on, that someone was here.

  I stood up quickly as it buzzed a second time. “I'll handle it,” I told Honey. “Stay behind that curtain out of sight,” I told her. I found the button beside the door that would release the catch on the door downstairs and held it down a few seconds.

  “If it's someone you know,” I told Honey over my shoulder, “come on out. Otherwise stay there.”

  It was probably, I told myself, some casual friend of Albee's who, happening by, saw his light on. If that was the case, I could easily explain, identify myself, and get rid of him.

  I stepped back into my loafers, for dignity, and waited.

  When there was a knock on the door, I opened it.

  I never really saw what he looked like. He stepped through the door the instant it opened and hit me once, with a fist like a piledriver, in the stomach. I hadn't been set for it, and it bent me over double and knocked the wind out of me, all the wind. I couldn't have spoken a word if my life depended upon it.

  Luckily, it didn't. He could have swung a second time, to my chin, and knocked me cold and I wouldn't even have seen it coming. But he didn't. He stepped back and said, quite pleasantly, “Red would like you to drop up and see him. I think you better.”

  And he walked away. Honey was beside me by the time I could even start to straighten up. She was the one who closed the door. “Ed! Are you hurt?”

  I couldn't talk to tell her that I couldn't talk and that that was a damn silly question anyway. She helped me to cross the room and to lie down on the mattress and she moved the pillow so it was under my head when I was able to straighten out enough to put my head down. She asked me if a drink would help and by that time I had enough breath back to tell her not yet, but if she wanted to help sooner than that she could hold my hand.

  I'd been partly kidding, but she took me at my word, sat down on the edge of the mattress and held my hand. And maybe it did help; pretty soon I was breathing normally again and the acute phase of the pain had gone. I was going to have somewhat sore stomach muscles for several days.

  What time I got home that night doesn't matter, but Uncle Am was already asleep. He woke up, though, and wanted to know what gave, and I made with the highlights while I undressed. He frowned about the Kogan goon bit and wanted to know if I wanted to do anything about it. I said no, that obviously he hadn't known Albee by sight and had made a natural mistake under the circumstances, and that what I'd got was no more than Albee would have had coming.

  I said, “I'll talk to this Jerry Score tomorrow, but I guess that'll wind it up, unless I get a lead from him. Up to now, the only thing that puzzles me is why old man Nielson still thinks there's a chance Albee didn't do what he obviously did do.”

  Uncle Am said, “Uh-huh. I didn't set the alarm, kid. I got to sleep early enough so I'll wake up in plenty of time. You sleep as late as you want to, since you can't see Score till afternoon.”

  I slept till ten. I was surprised when I got up to find a note from Uncle Am: “Ed, I've got a wild hunch that I want to get off my mind. I'm taking the car, and a run up to Kenosha. We won't bill our client for it unless it pays off. See you this evening if not sooner.”

  I puzzled about it a while and then decided to quit puzzling; I'd find out when Uncle Am got back. I took my time showering and dressing and left our room about eleven. I had a leisurely brunch and the morning paper and then it was noon. I phoned our office to see if by any chance Uncle Am was back or had phoned in; I got our answering service and learned there'd been no calls at all.

  I went back to our room and read an hour and then it was time for me to leave if I wanted to get to the Graydon Theater at one-thirty. Rehearsal hadn't started yet,
but Jerry Score was back and Carey Evers introduced us. He'd already explained about me to Score, so I didn't have to go through the routine.

  He was a tall blond young man about my age or Albee's. Maybe just a touch on the swish side but not objectionably so.

  And quite likeable and friendly. He gave me a firm handshake and suggested we go into the manager's office to talk. He wasn't in the first scene they'd be rehearsing and had plenty of time.

  The manager's office contained only a battered desk, a file cabinet, and two chairs. He took one of the chairs and I sat on a corner of the desk.

  His story matched what I'd learned from Honey and from everybody else. Yes, he was convinced Albee had taken a powder, and like Honey he was annoyed with Albee for not even having said so long before he took off.

  I asked, “He didn't even give you a hint when he gave you back the car keys that Saturday night?”

  “I didn't see him Saturday night. The last time I saw him was Saturday morning when he borrowed the car. He just dropped the keys into my mailbox when he brought it back.”

  I said, “But Lieutenant Chudakoff said that you said---” And then realized Tom hadn't said Score had seen Albee, just that Albee had returned the car keys.

  I asked Score if he'd been home Saturday evening and he said yes, all evening. But that if I wondered why Albee had left the keys in the box instead of bringing them upstairs to him, the answer was simple. Since he'd decided to lam anyway he wanted to keep his get-away money intact, and he'd promised Jerry ten bucks for use of the car on the trip to Kenosha. If he'd seen him he'd have had to fork it over.

  “The only thing that surprises me,” Score said, “is that the old man came up with the money for him. Albee hadn't expected it, had made the Kenosha trip as a last desperate chance. I think now that he'd have blown town even without capital if the old man hadn't come through. With a sudden stake, he just couldn't resist it.”

  I asked if he knew what had happened at the bookstore and Score said sure, Albee had told him. He'd been managing to drag down about ten bucks a week besides his salary all the time he had worked there. Just tried to drag a bit too deeply that Friday morning because he was desperate about his bookie bill, and got caught with his hand in the till.