The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown (free ebook reader TXT) 📕

I watched all three of them. Most of all I watched Kaufman’s eyes. He’d have a gun back of the bar somewhere. I watched his eyes till I knew where it was. I couldn’t see it from where I stood, but I knew now just where he kept it.

I asked, “You guys want anything?”

It was the horse-faced one that answered. He said, “Not a thing, pal. Not a thing.”

He turned his head to Kaufman. He said, “Nuts to you, George. For ten apiece we should play for keeps?”

I looked at Kaufman. I said, “It was a dirty trick, George. Maybe you should move up the bar a few steps.”

He hesitated, and I let my hand slide another inch inside my coat.

He took three slow steps backwards.

I walked behind the bar and picked up his gun. It was a short-barrelled thirty-two revolver on a thirty-eight frame. A nice gun.

I swung out the cylinder and let the cartridges drop into dirty dishwater in one of the sinks built in back of the bar. I dropped the gun in after them.

I turned around to pick a bottle off the back bar. In the mirror I caught Uncle Ambrose’s eye. He was sitting there at the table, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He winked at me.

The most expensive stuff I could see was a bottle of Teacher’s Highland Cream.

“On the house, boys,” I said. I poured them each a shot.

Horse-face grinned at me. He said, “You wouldn’t want to give us our ten apiece outa the register, would you, pal? I figure we got it coming, from the dirty trick George played on us.”

My uncle had stood up and was strolling over to the bar. He came in between Horse-face and the big guy. He looked tiny, standing there between them.

He said, “Let me,” and took out his wallet. He took out two tens and gave one to each of the men on either side of him. He said, “You’re right, fellas. I wouldn’t want to see you rooked on this deal.”

Horse-face stuffed the bill into his pants pocket. He said, “You’re a right guy, mister. We’d just as soon earn this. Like us to?”

He looked at Kaufman, and the bigger guy looked at Kaufman, too. Kaufman started to get pale, and took another step backwards.

“Nope,” my uncle said. “We like George. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to George. Give us another shot around, Ed.”

I filled their glasses with the Highland Cream, and I put out two more shot glasses and solemnly put three-quarters of an ounce of white soda in each of them.

“Don’t forget George,” Uncle Ambrose said. “Maybe George will drink with us.”

“Sure,” I said.

I took a fifth shot glass and carefully filled it with white soda. I slid it along the bar toward Kaufman.

He didn’t pick it up.

The other four of us drank.

Horse-face said, “You’re sure you don’t want us to—”

“Nope,” my uncle said. “We like George. He’s a nice guy when you get to know him. You boys better run along now. The copper on this beat’ll be along soon. He might look in.”

Horse-face said, “George wouldn’t squawk,” and he looked at Kaufman.

We had one more drink around, and then the two muscle-boys went out. It was very chummy.

My uncle grinned at me. He said, “You ring it up for George, Ed. You poured six shots of Scotch—figure it at fifty cents a shot. And five white sodas, counting George’s.” He put a five-dollar bill on the bar. “Ring up three-fifty.”

“Right,” I said. “We wouldn’t want to be obligated to George.”

I rang it up and gave Uncle Ambrose a dollar and a half change. I put the five in the register.

We went back to the table and sat down.

We sat there fully five minutes before Kaufman got the idea that it was all over and that we were going to make like it never happened.

At the end of that five minutes a man came in and wanted a beer. Kaufman drew it for him.

Then he came over to our table. He was still a little green about the gills.

He said, “Honest to God, I don’t know anything about this Hunter guy’s getting bumped off. Just what I told at the inquest.”

Neither of us said anything.

Kaufman stood there a moment, and then he went back of the bar again. He poured himself two fingers of whiskey in a tumbler and drank it. It was the first drink I’d seen him take.

We sat there, straight through, until eight-thirty that evening.

A lot of customers came and went. Kaufman didn’t take another drink, but he dropped and broke two glasses.

We didn’t talk much walking back over Chicago Avenue. While we were eating, my uncle said, “You did swell, Ed. I— Hell, I’ll be honest; I didn’t think you had it in you.”

I grinned at him. I said, “I’ll be honest, too. I didn’t think so either. Are we going back there tonight?”

“Nope. He’s softened up pretty well right now, but we’ll skip it till tomorrow. We’ll take it from a different tack then. And maybe by tomorrow night we’ll put the screws on him.”

“You’re sure he isn’t on the level, that he’s holding back something?”

“Kid, he’s scared. He was scared at the inquest. I think he knows something; anyway, he’s the only lead we got right now. Look, why don’t you go home and turn in early? Get some sleep for a change.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m seeing Bassett at eleven. Nothing till then.”

“I’ll wait and see him too. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Uh-huh. After-effect. You put yourself in a tight spot back there. Your hand steady?”

I nodded. I said, “But my guts are shaking like a leaf. I was scared stiff, all the time I was doing it. I leaned against the end of the bar so I wouldn’t fall over.”

“You’re probably right about not sleeping,” he said, “but there’s a couple of hours between now and eleven. How do you want to kill it?”

I said, “Maybe I’ll drop in the Elwood Press. I want to pick up the checks Pop and I have coming—half a week, no, better than half a week, three days is three-fifths of a week.”

“Can you get them in the evening?”

“Sure, they’re in the foreman’s desk and the night foreman has a key. And I can get the stuff out of Pop’s locker, and take it home.”

“Uh-huh. And listen—there couldn’t be any shop angle to your dad’s being killed, could there?”

I said, “I don’t see how. It’s just a printing shop; I mean they don’t run off any counterfeit money or anything.”

“Well, keep your eyes and your brain open anyway. He have any enemies there? Everybody like him?”

“Yeah, everybody liked him. Oh, he didn’t have really close friends there, but he got along all right. He and Bunny Wilson used to see a lot of each other. Not so much since Bunny got put on the night shift and Pop stayed on days. And there’s Jake, the day-side foreman. He and Pop were fairly friendly.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’m meeting Bassett at the place on Grand Avenue where we saw him the other night. You be there around eleven if you want to join us.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

I walked around to the Elwood, on State Street up near Oak. It seemed funny to be going in there after dark, and not to be going to work.

I walked up the dimly lit stairs to the third floor and stood at the door of the composing room, looking in. There were the linotypes along the west side of the room, six of them. Bunny was setting type at the nearest one. There were operators at three of the others.

Pop’s was vacant. Not because he wasn’t there, I mean, but just because there are fewer operators on nights than there are machines and that one wasn’t used. I stood there for a few minutes in the doorway, and nobody noticed me.

Then I saw Ray Metzner, the night foreman, walk across to his desk and I followed him and got there just as he sat down.

He looked up and said, “Hi, Ed,” and I said, “Hi,” back and then both of us seemed stuck for something to say.

Bunny Wilson saw me then and came walking over. He said, “Coming back to work, Ed?”

“Pretty soon,” I told him.

Ray Metzner was opening the locked drawer of the desk. He found the checks and I stuck them in my pocket. He said, “You sure look like a million bucks, Ed.”

I’d forgotten how I was dressed; it embarrassed me a little, here.

Bunny said, “Look, kid, when you’re ready to come back, why don’t you ask them to put you on the night shift instead of days? We can use you here, can’t we, Ray?”

Metzner nodded. He said, “It’s an idea, Ed. It’s a good shift, pays a little more. And—you’re learning keyboard, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

He said, “You can get more practice, nights. I mean, a couple of machines are always idle. Any time it’s slack and we can spare you half an hour or so, you can go over and set for practice.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Maybe I’ll do it.”

I saw what they meant; I’d miss Pop more on the day side, where I was used to working with him. Maybe they were right, I thought. Anyway, they were nice guys.

“Well,” I said, “I’m going back to the lockers; then I guess I’ll run along. You got a master key that’ll open Pop’s, haven’t you, Ray?”

“Sure,” he said. He took it off his ring of keys and gave it to me.

Bunny said, “Fifteen minutes to lunch time, Ed. I’m going to have a sandwich and coffee down at the corner. Wait and have something with me.”

“Just ate,” I told him. “But, sure, I’ll have a cup of Java.”

Metzner said, “Go ahead now, Bunny. I’ll punch your card for you. I’d join you, but I bring my lunch.”

We went back to the lockers. There wasn’t anything I wanted out of mine. I opened Pop’s. There wasn’t anything in it except an old sweater, his line-gauge, and the little black suitcase.

The sweater wasn’t worth taking home, but I didn’t want to throw it away. I put it and the pica stick in my own locker and took the little suitcase. It was locked, so I didn’t try to open it there.

When I got home, I’d find out what was in it. I’d always been mildly curious.. It was just a dime-store type of cardboard case, about four inches thick and about twelve by eighteen inches. It had stood on end at the back of his locker ever since I’d been working at Elwood with him.

I’d asked him once what was in it and he’d said, “Just some old junk of mine, Ed, I don’t want to leave around home. Nothing important.” He hadn’t volunteered anything beyond that, and I hadn’t asked again.

We went downstairs and to the little greasy spoon on the corner of State and Oak. We didn’t talk much while he ate a sandwich and a piece of pie.

Then we lighted cigarettes and Bunny asked, “Have they— uh—got the guy yet? The guy that killed your dad?”

I shook my head.

“They don’t—uh—They don’t suspect anybody, do they, Ed?”

I looked at him.

It was such a hell of a funny way for him to say it. It took me maybe a minute to take that sentence apart and to see through it.