Compulsion

by Meyer Levin

  I jumped. Another reporter?

  There stood a paunchy man in a brown suit. Hastily I asked, “You the undertaker? I’m from the Globe. The door was open so I… The cops said you had the boy here.”

  Mr. Swaboda advanced, frowning, but not antagonistic.

  “Any other reporters been here?” I asked.

  “Oh. You are from the newspapers.”

  “Did anybody identify this boy? Do you know who he is?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe you know? In the papers?”

  “All we got is a report of a drowned boy.”

  Again Swaboda shook his head. A glint of clever knowingness came into his eyes. “He is not drowned.” He pointed to the boy’s scalp, moving closer. “Even the police officer don’t see this. I am the one to show them.” Brushing back a lock of hair, the undertaker disclosed two small cuts above the forehead, clotted over, like sores.

  The scarehead flashed into my mind – ABDUCTED, MURDERED. MILLIONAIRE’s SON! And this time, surely, there was a sense of exultation in me.

  “Can I use your phone? I’ve got to phone my paper.”

  “Help yourself.” He followed me to the roll-top desk. “You know who is this boy’s family?”

  He might give away my story. I should have gone outside to phone. While hesitating, I noticed a pair of glasses on the desk, tortoise-shell. I picked them up. “They said he was wearing glasses. Are these the ones?”

  The undertaker took the glasses from me and smiled again. “These are not his glasses.” He carried them into the back room; I followed. Swaboda placed the glasses on the boy and turned to me triumphantly. I could see that the glasses were a poor fit; the earpieces were too long. “Police put these glasses on him,” he said. “I take them off.”

  I hurried back to the phone and got Tom Daly. “It’s him!” I said.

  “He’s been identified?”

  “No, but looking at the body, I got a hunch.”

  His voice dropped. “Look, kid, just tell me what you know for sure.”

  “For one thing, he’s a Jewish kid,” I said. “Anyway, he’s circumcised.”

  I could feel, in his instant hesitation, the stoppage people always had before things Jewish.

  “What about the kid’s glasses? Kessler said his boy didn’t wear any.”

  “They don’t fit him. Listen. They must be the murderer’s. He must have dropped them. Listen. He’s got bruises on his head-”

  “Wait, wait!” I heard him yelling my news to Reese. Then: “Stay there. I’ll call the Kesslers to come and identify him.”

  It was even said afterwards that but for my going out there just then, the murderers might never have been caught. It’s not a question of credit; indeed it has always bothered me that I received a kind of notoriety, a kind of advantage out of the case. Obviously what I did that morning was only an errand, and if I hadn’t gone there, the identification would have been made in some other way, perhaps a day later.

  In any case, the journalistic credit should have gone, not to me, but to Reese for connecting the two items on his desk. And the discovery goes back after all to the steelworker who walked across the wasteland and happened to see a flash of white in some weeds – the boy’s foot.

  There was much moralizing to come; providence was mentioned. I believe I have grown beyond the cynical pose of the twenties; I would not argue today that all existence is the random result of blind motion.

  It did happen that Peter Wrotzlaw, a steel-mill worker who usually went to his job by another path, deviated that one morning to pick up his watch from a repairman. At 118th Street there was a marshy area, a pond, with the water draining through a culvert under a railway embankment. Wrotzlaw mounted this embankment to cross the pond, and then he noticed the flash of white at the opening of the drainpipe.

  It was even said to be providential that Wrotzlaw had once lived on a farm, for in a submerged way his nature sense knew something strange was there, neither animal nor fish. He climbed down and, parting the weeds, recognized a boy’s foot. Bending low, he made out the whole body, crammed into the cement pipe.

  Just then, up on the tracks, a handcar appeared. Wrotzlaw shouted. The two railway workers stopped their car and came down. One spoke Polish.

  “Here, look!” Wrotzlaw explained. “Just this minute, I saw something white. I found this!”

  The railwaymen were wearing boots. The Polish one stepped into the water; it came just to his knees. He took hold and pulled out the body of the boy; he carried it to the water’s edge and put it down, the face turned to the grey, misty morning sky. “Is drowned. Poor kiddo.”

  How could the boy have got into the culvert? Maybe foolish kids, trying to play a game, crawl through the pipe. And this one got stuck and drowned.

  A kid of someone. A pity. “You ever seen him around here?”

  The two railroad men lifted the body to carry it up to their handcar. But then they asked, Where are his clothes?

  Wrotzlaw searched in the weeds. “Hey!” He picked up the pair of glasses, glinting there, and placed them on the boy. He searched farther along the downtrodden grass. “Stocking.”

  He held it up, a knee-pants stocking, a good one, new, not like the black cotton stockings of the neighbourhood kids, with mended holes at the knees.

  But no other clothing could be found. “Other kids maybe got scared, ran away, took everything.” Now the railwaymen said Wrotzlaw should come with them, to bring the body back to their railway yard. He would be late for his job, he protested, but the other Pole insisted.

  By the freight platform, men gathered. The yard boss called the police. A patrol wagon removed the corpse. “Unknown boy, drowned” was marked on the blotter, and the body was sent to Swaboda’s.

  Tom Daly called Kessler. Almost before Tom could hear it ring, the phone was picked up. “Yes? Yes?”

  “This is the Globe.”

  “Please. We are expecting an important message. Please don’t call this number. Please leave the line clear.”

  “But our reporter believes he has identified your boy, Mr. Kessler.”

  Charles Kessler had been sitting with his hand ready to the phone, waiting for the call promised in the special-delivery letter. He was a small-made man, always keeping himself neat and correct looking. In his solid house with his solid furniture it seemed an impossible thing that a kidnapping should have happened to him.

  He had always dealt with everyone to the penny, exact. Even when he had been a pawnbroker, long years ago, he had been proud of his reputation for honesty and exactitude, ninety-five cents on the dollar. In Chicago ’s wide-open days, when elaborate gambling saloons had studded the downtown area, he had kept his elegant little pawn office open far into the night to accommodate the princelings of the first great Chicago meat and wheat fortunes, who would pledge their diamond studs in order to go on with a game. It was thirty years since he had gone out of the loan business into real estate, but could this crime be some long-nurtured, crazed act of revenge for a fancied wrong?

  A man accustomed to dealing correctly and exactly in mortgage notes and debentures, how could he deal with a ransom letter? He wanted to deal with it precisely, not to deviate, not to take any risk. The letter lay there on the mahogany table, unfolded. It said he must keep the telephone line clear – a call would come.

  The letter itself proved that the kidnapping was real and not some crazy joke, as he had hoped it might be when he had come back from searching the school building last night-he and Judge Wagner-to find his wife sitting dazed by the phone. “Someone – a man. He said, Kidnapped, instructions in the morning. He said a name. I don’t know. A name…”

  A joke? Paulie was not a boy to play such jokes. Maybe some of his schoolmates? Or should the police be called? An alarm be sent out?

  Judge Wagner, a wise man, a man with connections, said, Wait. A big alarm might prove dangerous for Paulie – if it was really a kidnapping. Then all night long they had tried on the phone to reach
important people – the Chief of Detectives, the Mayor, the State’s Attorney.

  And early in the morning, Kessler himself had run to the door to answer the bell. A special-delivery letter. A name, Harold Williams. No use trying to recall anyone with such a name; it was surely a fake. “But why me?” All morning long Charles Kessler kept asking this of his friend Judge Wagner, of his brother Jonas. “Why me? I never hurt anybody. Why me?” And: “Who would do such a thing? Who? To a decent honest man, to a poor innocent woman, the boy’s mother…”

  There lay the letter. It was typewritten.

  DEAR SIR:

  As you no doubt know by this time your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him provided you live up carefully to the following instructions, and such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions even slightly, his death will be the penalty.

  1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either the police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigation, but do not mention this letter.

  2. Secure before noon today ten thousand dollars ($10,000). This money must be composed entirely of OLD BILLS of the following denominations:

  $2,000.00 in twenty-dollar bills.

  $8,000.00 in fifty-dollar bills.

  The money must be old. Any attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile.

  3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible in a heavy cardboard box, SECURELY closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.

  4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o’clock P.M. See that the telephone is not in use.

  You will receive a future communication instructing you as to your future course.

  As a final note of warning-this is a strictly commercial proposition, and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an infraction of the above instructions. However, should you carefully follow out our instructions to the letter, we can assure you that your son will be safely returned to you within six hours of our receipt of the money.

  Yours truly,

  HAROLD WILLIAMS

  Charles Kessler had hurried to the bank the moment it opened, and he had told them to make no record of the bills; he did not want to take any chances. What was ten thousand dollars for a life, his son’s life? Then there had been no sealing wax in the house, and he had almost sent his older boy Martin out to buy the wax, but caught himself in time and sent Martin and little Adele with the chauffeur to his brother Jonas’ house. Perhaps they would be safer there. And he had run out himself for the wax.

  One o’clock. Waiting for the call. Jonas with him, Judge Wagner with him. Poor Martha upstairs; the doctor had given her sedatives.

  The cigar box, wrapped in white paper, sealed, on the table.

  And now came this call from the newspaper, saying that Paulie was dead. How could it be possible that the boy was dead when the letter said he was safe and unharmed?

  Judge Wagner took the phone. He pleaded, “Please co-operate. Do not call…”

  But the newspaperman insisted there was good reason to believe the dead boy was Paulie. It seemed to be a Jewish boy.

  Then the Judge said, “I see.” He took the address of the mortuary.

  At that moment, Judd was sitting on a bench in the waiting-room of the grimy old I.C. station. A bareheaded college boy, alert-looking, with intense dark eyes, he kept one hand in his jacket pocket, on the final instruction envelope. He had just printed on it the words MR. CHARLES KESSLER, PERSONAL. Now he kept his eyes on Artie, who was at the ticket window. Artie would come toward him in a moment for the letter. And then Artie would board the Michigan City train, staying only long enough to deposit the letter in the telegraph-blank box in the last car. Then Artie would get off the train. They would phone Kessler, giving him only the address of the drugstore near the 63rd Street station. Kessler would have precisely enough time to get to the store and receive their second call, instructing him to board this train as it arrived at 63rd Street and to look in the telegraph-blank box in the last car.

  The man would just have time to rush aboard, find the letter, and read its instructions to go out to the rear platform and watch for the large building on the right-hand side, with CHAMPION MANUFACTURING printed on the wall. When the train came alongside that building, near 75th Street, the father was to toss the ransom package, as hard as he could, toward the factory. By then, Judd and Artie would be waiting in the Willys near where the package must fall.

  Having the package thrown from the moving train had been Artie’s contribution. He had come running over with the idea, all excited, one night about a month ago. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” The perfect end to the relays. And the beauty of it, Artie had explained, was that even if the victim’s father tipped off the cops, the two of them could be watching at 63rd Street to make sure no one but the father got on the train. And even if the cops knew what train it was, how could they, in that last moment, watch the entire length of the tracks all the way to Michigan City? The cops couldn’t drive alongside, either; there was no road directly alongside! Foolproof!

  All evening they had examined the plan. Great – the work of a mastermind, a superman! Judd had congratulated his friend while suppressing, in himself, the little question, Hadn’t Artie got the idea out of one of his detective magazines?

  Then, once this main part of the problem was solved, the foolproof system found, Artie had become impatient to set the day. “Let’s do it. Let’s do it.” But Judd had said that it had to be done perfectly; they had to pick the right train; they had to make a test run.

  Together they had come down to this station and chosen an afternoon train, so that there would not be too many passengers, and they had chosen a short-line train, going only to Michigan City, so no one would be likely to use the telegraph-blank box. And they had tested the train, sitting together – Artie by the window and he pressing against Artie – to get a good look, to select a spot for the “delivery”. There were mostly women on the train, biddies on their way back to Gary or Michigan City after their downtown shopping. On that ordinary train, among the dull little women on their everyday errands, he and Artie had been picking the spot where a ransom should be tossed to them!

  Or now, sitting here in the railway station, watching Artie, with his easy smile, stooping to the ticket window, and knowing why. And only the two of them knowing You could go through life carrying always your extraordinary deeds between you, sealed off from all the little people, and sealed together by your doing and your knowing!

  And sitting with his eyes on Artie, Judd must have told himself that he felt no different than on all their previous trips to this station. Just as during the months of planning it had seemed as if the thing would never happen, so it seemed now as though it had not happened. The thought habit of those months was stronger than the occurrence of a single day. All yesterday was a void, an intrusion, for yesterday had been a part of the deed that they could not have rehearsed. And today was like a going back to before the thing was done, like another rehearsal.

  The rehearsal with the dummy package, to see where it would land when thrown from the moving train… A few weeks ago, together on the train, watching the package land in an alley near that factory… And Artie crying happily, “Let’s do it, Jocko! Monday!” And he had told Artie, Wait. What about picking up the package? How could they be sure the alley would be clear?

  “Christ, people are always throwing crap out of trains.”

  Still, Artie had agreed to another delay, for another test. They would separate, one on the train, the other on the ground. How heavy would ten thousand dollars be? A whole evening they
had spent, laughing conspiratorially as they prepared an exact dummy package. Judd had calculated the weight in ones, fives, tens, twenties, calculated the best combination to fill a cigar box, for a box would sail good and solid. He had taken one of the old man’s perfecto boxes, and a magazine of the right weight to stuff inside. That awful Literary Digest. The next day, Artie had taken the package and boarded the train.

  Judd had posted himself in the alley, behind the factory with the windowless back wall. To test everything precisely, he had left his car only two hundred feet away with the motor running. And there came the moment when he saw the train, and Artie emerging to him on the rear platform, Artie first throwing away a cigarette, and then tossing the box. It rolled down the embankment almost to his feet. In a few minutes he was in the car, and at the next station meeting Artie. Still, he had temporized, “Maybe it’s not the best place. Someone could have seen me from the street.”

  And Artie had stormed, “It’s nearly summer, you sonofabitch. We’ll never do it if you keep on crapping around!”

  Judd wondered, now. Had he really meant that it should never happen? That one thing or another should delay them until the day he would be going away on his trip to Europe? And Judd was a little ashamed of his own past hesitations. For everything was working fine. Here now was Artie coming from the ticket window, wearing the easy smile whose meaning was known only to the two of them. As always, Judd felt illuminated by Artie’s smile. The real collegiate carelessness about Artie, the jauntiness of him in that jacket with the half-belt in back, the quality of ease that Judd himself could never acquire.

  Artie scooted past him as if they didn’t know each other. (Railway stations are full of detectives; best not be too conspicuous.) Judd arose, walked over to the magazine stand, and brushed against Artie, feeling as always the contact pulse through his entire body. But in that moment he had slipped Artie the letter, and now he watched Artie going through the wicket, having his ticket punched.