The Bigger They Come

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  ‘That’s what you think. Get out. I’m going to frisk you.’

  I sat tight behind the wheel. He put one foot on the running board, shot his left hand out and hooked his fingers in the collar of my shirt. ‘Come on out,’ he said, holding the gun menacingly in his right hand.

  I came out.

  He patted me, looking for weapons, then looked through the car.

  ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘both hands on the wheel. No funny stuff. If you want to be extradited, you’ll sure as hell be extradited.’

  ‘I don’t like your manner,’ I said, ‘and I resent this highhanded invasion of my rights. I=

  ‘Get started,’ he interrupted.

  I got started. We drove into El Centro, and he took me to the sheriff’s office. I was left in charge of a deputy while the officer and the sheriff did some talking. Then I heard them telephoning. After that, I was taken down to the jail. The sheriff said, ‘Listen, Smith, you’re a nice looking chap. You’re not gaining anything by pulling a stunt like this. Why don’t you go back and face the music. You may be able to square it.’

  I said, ‘I’m not talking.’

  ‘All right,’ he warned, ‘if you want to be smart.’

  ‘I want to be smart,’ I said.

  They put me in a tank with four or five other prisoners. I didn’t do any talking. When supper was served, I didn’t do any eating. Shortly after supper, the sheriff came back again and asked me if I’d waive extradition. I told him to go to hell and he went out.

  I stayed in the tank for two days. I ate some of the grub. It wasn’t too bad. The heat was awful. I didn’t have a newspaper and didn’t know what was going on in the world. They took me out of the tank and put me in a cell by myself. I had no one to talk to.

  On the third day, a big man with a black sombrero came in with the sheriff. He said to me, ‘You Peter B. Smith?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m from Yuma,’ he said. ‘You’re going back with me.’

  ‘Not without extradition.’

  ‘I have extradition.’

  ‘Well, I refuse to honor it. I’m going to say right here.’

  He grinned.

  I gripped the side of the cot and raised my voice. ‘I’m going to stay right here!’

  The big man sighed. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘it’s too God damn hot for strenuous exercise. For Christ’s sake, come on out and get in that car.’

  I yelled at him, ‘I’m going to stay right here!’

  He shoved me around. The Arizona officer snapped handcuffs on my wrists. I refused to talk, and they hauled me out of the jail and into the car.

  The big man put on a leg iron. ‘You asked for this,’ he said, mopping perspiration from his forehead. ‘Why can’t you be reasonable? Don’t you know it’s hot?’

  ‘You’re going to regret this as long as you live,’ I said. ‘I haven’t committed any crime and you can’t pin one on me. I’ll—’

  ‘Forget it. Shut up,’ he interrupted. ‘I’ve got a hot drive across the desert ahead of me, and I don’t want to hear the sound of your voice.’

  ‘You won’t,’ I said, and sat back against the cushions.

  We drove through the shimmering heat of the desert. The horizon twisted and danced in the rays of a blistering sun. The air was so hot it cooked my eyes in their sockets as boiling water boils an egg in its shell. The tires seemed to stick to the road, snarling a steady whine of sticky protest.

  ‘You would come at the hottest time of the day,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up.’

  I kept quiet.

  We drove into Yuma and went to the courthouse. The deputy district attorney said, ‘You made these people go to a lot of trouble, Smith. Where do you think it’s going to get you?’

  ‘They didn’t need to go to any trouble,’ I said. ‘If they think they’ve had trouble so far, wait until you see what they get.’

  ‘What are they going to get?’

  ‘I’m going to sue them for malicious prosecution, false arrest, and defamation of character.’

  He yawned and said, ‘Don’t pull that gag. You make me laugh. If it had been a new car, the situation would have been different. As it is, it’s a demonstrator. You’ve given it a few miles’ run. It hasn’t hurt the car any. But you made them go to the expense of extraditing you. That’s going to hurt.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t they cash the check I gave them?’ I asked.

  He laughed and said, ‘Because you’d been down to the bank and drawn all the money out.’

  ‘Nuts,’ I said. ‘That was the other bank.’

  ‘What do you mean, the other bank?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘You’re damn right I know what you mean. It’s the old flimflam game. You went down and handed out a line of soap. You deposited two thousand dollars in the bank. You left the check, knowing damn well they’d take steps to find out whether the check was good, but they wouldn’t cash it until you’d signed the papers and driven out with the car. You figured on getting the car delivered just a few minutes before closing time, beating it down to the bank and drawing out everything except two hundred dollars. You figured you’d have eighteen hours’ start before anyone found out the check wasn’t any good. But you beat your own time a little, and the automobile agency showed up at the bank about five minutes after you’d left with the money. They deposit every night just before closing time.’

  I stared at him, letting my eyes get big and my jaw sag. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said. ‘Do you mean they tried to cash my check at the First National?’

  ‘Why not? That’s the bank it was given on.’

  ‘No it wasn’t,’ I said. ‘That check was issued on the Bank of Commerce.’

  He showed me the check, marked with the telltale ‘NSF’ in red ink. I said, ‘Well, then, I drew the eighteen hundred out of the Bank of Commerce.’

  ‘Why all the talk about the Bank of Commerce?’

  ‘Because I have an account there.’

  ‘The hell you do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t have anything to prove it.’

  ‘I was going to take a long night ride,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want. to have my checkbooks on me. I put them in an envelope and addressed them to myself at General Delivery. You can go down there and find them if you don’t believe it’

  The officer and the deputy district attorney exchanged glances.

  ‘You mean this wasn’t a flimflam?’ the deputy district attorney asked.

  ‘Of course not. I will admit that I drew a sight draft on H. C.

  Helmingford. There isn’t any such man. I was going to beat it, into Los Angeles and take up that sight draft as H. C. Helmingford. But I didn’t defraud anyone with that sight draft. I simply put it in for collection.’

  ‘What the hell were you trying to do?’

  ‘Build up a banking credit,’ I said. ‘I wanted the bank to think I was important. There’s no law against that.’

  ‘But you gave the automobile company this check, and then drew out all of your balance except two hundred dollars.’

  ‘No I didn’t. That was on the other bank-or I sure as hell thought it was.’

  The deputy district attorney rang up the Bank of Commerce. ‘Has Peter B. Smith got an account there?’ he asked.

  He held the phone and waited a minute. Then I heard the receiver make noise in his ear. He deliberated for a minute, and said, ‘I’ll call you back in a few minutes.’

  He said, ‘Write your name.’

  I wrote Peter B. Smith.

  He said, ‘Write an order to the post office asking them to deliver to me any mail that’s addressed to you and held at General Delivery.’

  I wrote the order.

  ‘Wait here,’ the deputy said.

  I waited in the office for an hour. When they came back, the man who had sold me the car was with them. ‘Hello, Smith,’ he said.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘You caused us a h
ell of a lot of trouble.’

  ‘You caused yourself a hell of a lot of trouble,’ I said. ‘My God, you might have known it was all a mistake. Why didn’t you get in touch with me? If I’d been a crook, you don’t think I’d have left two hundred dollars in the bank, do you? I’d have taken it all.’

  ‘Well, what were we supposed to think tinder the circumstances?’

  ‘How did I know what you were going to think?’

  ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘You want that car. It’s a good buy. We want the money for it.’

  ‘You,’ I told him, ‘are going to get slapped in the face with a suit for false arrest and defamation of character.’

  ‘Nuts,’ the deputy district attorney said. ‘You can’t pull that stuff, and you know it. Maybe you made a mistake, but it was your mistake, not theirs.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Stick up for your taxpayers. I’ll import a lawyer. I’ll get someone to come in from Los Angeles.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Well, from Phoenix,’ I said.

  They exchanged glances.

  ‘Look here,’ the automobile man said. ‘This has been a mistake all around. It was your mistake. You drew your money out of the wrong bank, or gave us the check on the wrong bank. I don’t know which.’

  ‘I got mixed up,’ I admitted.

  ‘All right. You’ve had an unfortunate experience, and so have we. The governor wouldn’t issue extradition papers until we guaranteed to pay all expenses. That cost us money. Tell you what we’ll do, Smith. You give us a check for sixteen hundred and seventy-two dollars on the Bank of Commerce, and we’ll shake hands and forget it. What do you say?’

  I said, ‘I’ll give you the check on the Bank of Commerce because I always pay my bills. I’m sorry that mistake was made. But you had no right jumping at hasty conclusions and running to the police. That’s going to cost you money.’

  The deputy district attorney said, ‘You can’t get anywhere with the lawsuit, Smith. As a matter of fact, you’re technically guilty. If the automobile people wanted to, they could go ahead and prosecute you.’

  ‘Let them prosecute,’ I said. ‘Every day I’m in jail is going to cost them a lot of money.’

  The sheriff entered the conversation. ‘Look here, boys. This has been a mistake. Now let’s get together and do the right thing.’

  I said, ‘I wanted the car. I still want the car. I think it’s a good car. I’ll give him sixteen hundred and seventy-two dollars for it. I made a mistake and drew on the wrong account. That’s all.’

  ‘And you’ll let the rest of it go?’ the sheriff asked.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  The deputy district attorney said to the automobile man, ‘Don’t do a damn thing until you get a written release from him.’

  ‘All right,’ I surrendered, ‘draw up the written release, and pass the cigars.’

  The deputy district attorney typed out the release. I read it carefully. All charges against me were dropped. I agreed not to make any claims against the automobile people, and gave them a complete release of any cause of action I might have against them growing out of the arrest. I said to the deputy district attorney, ‘I want you and the sheriff to sign it.’

  ‘Why?

  ‘Because,’ I said, ‘I don’t know much about the procedure here, and I don’t want to waive my rights and then have something else happen. This just says the automobile people withdraw their charges. How do I know but what you might have a grand jury file against me?’

  ‘Baloney,’ the deputy district attorney said.

  ‘All right, if it’s baloney go ahead and sign. If you don’t, I don’t.’

  Everybody signed. I folded the agreement and put it in my pocket. The deputy district attorney gave me a blank check on the Bank of Commerce, and made it out for the price of the automobile. We all shook hands. The automobile man went back to his office. The deputy sheriff said, ‘God, it was hot coming across that desert!’

  I got up and started pacing the floor, scowling.

  The sheriff looked at me and said, ‘What’s the matter, Smith?’

  I said, ‘I’ve got something on my mind.’

  There was silence in the room. The two officers and the deputy district attorney were watching me with speculative eyes as I paced the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ the sheriff asked. ‘Maybe we can help you.’

  ‘I killed a man,’ I said.

  You could have heard a pin drop.

  The deputy district attorney broke the silence. ‘What was it you did, Smith?’ he asked.

  ‘Killed a man,’ I said, ‘and my name isn’t Smith. It’s Lam, Donald Lam.’

  ‘Say,’ the sheriff said, ‘you’re too full of tricks to suit me.’

  ‘It isn’t a trick,’ I said. ‘I came here to take the name of Smith and begin all over again. It wasn’t an alias. I just wanted to start life all over, but I guess you can’t do that not when you have a man’s soul on your conscience.’

  ‘Who did you kill?’ the sheriff asked.

  ‘A man by the name of Morgan Birks. You may have read about him. I killed the guy.’

  I saw glances fly around the table the way a ball team snaps the ball around the infield in between plays. The sheriff said in a kindly tone, ‘Maybe it would make you feel better if you told us all about it, Lam. How did it happen?’

  ‘I had a job,’ I said, ‘as a detective, working for a woman named Bertha Cool. Morgan Birks had a wife. Her name was Sandra, and she had a friend staying with her, Alma Hunter, a girl who’s a little bit of all right.

  ‘Well, I was hired to serve papers on Morgan Birks, but I saw someone had been choking Alma Hunter. I asked her about it and she said someone had been in her bedroom. She’d woke up just when he’d clamped down on her throat, and she managed to kick him loose. She was frightened to death.

  ‘She was a good kid, and I started to fall for her. We staged a little necking party in an automobile and I thought she was just what the doctor ordered. I’d have gone to hell for her. Then she told me about this choking business. I didn’t want her to stay there in the apartment alone. I put it up to her that I was going to sneak in and spend the night standing guard in the closet. She said I couldn’t do that because Sandra Birks slept in the same room. So I told her I was going to come and stay until Sandra got in.

  ‘Well, I went up there, and we talked for a while, and then I saw Sandra was going to be late so I told her to switch out the light and get into bed and I’d wait. I went over and sat down in the closet. I had this gun with me. I tried to keep awake, but I guess I dozed off a bit. I woke up some time in the night and heard Alma Hunter give a little scream. I had a flashlight, and I switched it on. A man was bending over the bed, feeling for her throat. When the flashlight hit him, he turned and started to run. I was pretty much excited. I pulled the trigger, and he went down for the count. I threw the gun on the floor and ran out the door into the corridor. Alma Hunter jumped out of bed and came running after me. The wind slammed the door shut. There was a spring lock on it. She couldn’t get back in to get her clothes. She said she’d hide until Sandra came in. We decided there was no use making a squawk to the police. We figured Sandra would help cover the thing up some way. Alma said she’d protect me. So I beat it.

  ‘Then I found that she was eying to take the rap for me, and I figured she could get away with it on account of self-defense; but the last I heard, things didn’t look so hot.’

  The sheriff said, ‘Sit down, Lam. Sit down, and take it easy. Now don’t get all worked up about it. After all, you’re going to feel a lot better when you’ve told us all about it. Now, where did you get the gun?’

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘is something else.’

  ‘I know it is, Donald, but if you’re going to tell the story, you’d better tell the whole story. It isn’t going to do any good just to get half of it off your mind. Think of how much better you’ll sleep tonight if you come clean and give us the whole thing.�
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  ‘Bill Cunweather gave me the gun,’ I said.

  ‘And who’s Bill Cunweather?’

  ‘I used to know him back East.’

  ‘Where back East?’

  ‘Kansas City.’

  In the silence that followed, I heard the deputy district attorney take a deep breath.

  ‘Where did you last see Cunweather?’ he asked.

  ‘He has a place out on Willoughby Drive.’

  ‘Do you remember the number?’

  ‘Nine hundred and seven, I think it is. He’s got his whole mob with him.’

  ‘Who’s in the mob?’

  ‘Oh, everybody,’ I said. ‘Fred, and all the rest of them.’

  ‘And he gave you the gun?’

  ‘Yes, when I decided to sit up in the room with Alma, I knew that I was going to need some sort of protection. I’m not big enough to protect any girl with my fists. I tried to get Mrs. Cool to give me a gun, and she laughed at me. So I went out to Cunweather. I told him the spot I was in, and he said, “Hell, Donald, you know where I stand. You can have anything I’ve got.’

  ‘Where did Cunweather get the gun?’ the deputy district attorney asked.

  ‘His wife was there,’ I said. ‘He calls her the little woman. He told her to-say, come to think of it, I guess I hadn’t better tell you anything about Cunweather. What difference does it make where I got the gun?’

  ‘You knew Cunweather in Kansas City?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What did he do there?’

  I narrowed my eyes, and said, ‘I told you we weren’t going to talk about Cunweather. I’m talking about me and about Morgan Birks. I guess you know all about it, or you can find out by getting in touch with the people in California.’

  ‘We know all about it,’ the deputy sheriff said. ‘The newspapers have been full of it. The girl was supposed to have shot him.’

  I said, ‘Yes, I know. She was taking the responsibility. I shouldn’t have let her do it.’

  ‘We’re pretty much interested in this gun,’ the sheriff said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘When did you get it?’

  ‘The afternoon of the shooting.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Well, I told Cunweather that I wanted a gun and he said he’d get me one. He asked me where I was going to be later on. I told him I was going to be registered at the Perkins Hotel under the name of Donald Helforth. So he said he’d fix it up to deliver the gun to me there.’