The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown (free ebook reader TXT) 📕
It didn't rate ink. No gang angle. No love nest.
The morgue gets them by the hundred. Not all murders, of course. Bums who go to sleep on a bench in Bughouse Square and don't wake up. Guys who take ten-cent beds or two-bit partitioned rooms in flophouses and in the morning somebody shakes them to wake them up, and the guy's stiff, and the clerk quickly goes through his pockets to see if he's got two bits or four bits or a dollar left, and then he phones for the city to come and get him out. That's Chicago.
And there's the jig found carved with a shiv in an areaway on South Halsted Street and the girl who took laudanum in a cheap hotel room. And the printer who had too much to drink and had probably been followed out of the tavern because th
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Bassett said, “I gave you more credit, Am. I figured you for a smart guy. When you found out Harry’d been interested in your brother and started out after Harry, I gave you rope. I thought you’d lead us to him, maybe.”
“But we didn’t.”
“Nope, you didn’t. You disappointed me, Am. You never got to first base. We found him. Look, Am, the minute you brought up that gang, I knew they were in the clear. Maybe it was a dirty trick not to tell you, but they were wanted for the bank job in Waupaca, Wisconsin. They’d been identified by Waupaca witnesses. The reward was posted for them. And the Waupaca job was the evening your brother was killed.”
Uncle Am said, “Sweet of you, Frank. You got my hundred bucks, and you get the reward, too. Or do you?”
“I don’t, damn it. I wasn’t the one that got ‘em. If it makes you any happier, Am, I been tooken too. Nobody gets the reward on Dutch; he’s cold meat. Benny was caught out of the state, and who got Reynolds? The beat coppers!”
“Did you lose much, I hope?”
“Half a G on each of them. They haven’t got the Waupaca money yet. Forty grand. There’s a ten-percent reward on that. Four G’s.” He licked his lips. “But hell, it’ll turn up in a safe-deposit vault someday on a routine check. There’s no lead I can follow to it.”
“That’s nice,” said Uncle Am. “How’s about my hundred bucks back? I’m getting low on cash.” He opened his wallet and looked into it. “I got only a hundred left out of four hundred I came here with.”
“Nuts,” said Bassett. “I rode along with you guys; I gave you your money’s worth. I told you everything I was going to do.”
Uncle Am said, “I’ll bet you give it back.”
“You’ll bet?”
“Twenty bucks,” Uncle Am said. He took out his wallet again, pulled a twenty out of it. He handed it to me. He said, “The kid’ll hold stakes. Twenty says you’ll give me that hundred bucks back voluntarily, of your own free will, today.”
Bassett looked at him and then at me. His eyes were half closed, hooded. He said, “I should never bet a man at his own game. But—” He took out a twenty and handed it to me.
Uncle Am grinned. He said, “Now how about a drink out of that bottle?”
Bassett took it out of his pocket and opened it. Uncle Am took a long drink and then I took a sip for sociability. Bassett took a long pull and then put the bottle on the floor by the bed.
Uncle Am leaned back against the wall, next to where I sat at the desk. He said, “How did the gang get caught?”
“What’s the difference?” Bassett asked. “I told you none of ‘em—”
“Sure, but we’re curious. Tell us.”
Bassett shrugged. “Dutch was found dead early this morning, at dawn, in an alley back of Division. They found Reynolds fast asleep in the building Dutch was back of. Dutch was right under his window.”
I leaned forward, and Uncle Am took my arm and pulled me back. He kept hold of my arm.
“How do you figure it?” he asked Bassett.
“Reynolds didn’t, that’s for sure. Probably Benny. Reynolds would never leave the corpse under his own window. But the whole gang was double-crossing each other. Reynolds’ woman —we find she lived at the Milan Towers—crossed the whole bunch of them.”
“Who was that?” Uncle Am asked.
“A dame who went by the name of Claire Redmond in Chicago. We think her right name was Elsie Coleman. She came from Indianapolis. According to reports, she was quite a looker.”
Uncle Am squeezed my arm tight. His grip said, “Steady, kid.” Out loud he asked very casually, “Was?”
“She’s dead, too,” Bassett said. “Benny killed her last night, and got caught on the spot. It was on a train, in Georgia. We got a long-distance call from there this morning. Benny sang plenty when they caught him cold with a shiv in the dame.”
“And the burden of his song?”
Bassett said, “He followed her from Chicago. He and Dutch each figured she had the mazuma and that she and Harry were figuring to cross them. Meanwhile, they must’ve crossed each other. Benny must have killed Dutch, because he left Dutch’s body where it would lead to Harry Reynolds getting caught. Only he doesn’t admit that, or hasn’t yet.”
“You got side-tracked, Frank,” Uncle Am said. “Why’d he knife this Elsie-Claire Coleman-Redmond?”
“He thought she was lamming with the dough. Maybe he was right; I don’t know. Anyway, he was following her. She had a compartment on the train. Sometime during the night he got in and was searching for the hay. She waked up and yelled and he knifed her. But there happened to be a couple marshals in the car. They nailed him before he could get out of the compartment. But the dough wasn’t there.”
Uncle Am said, “Hand me the bottle, Frank. I’ll have another sip of that mountain dew.”
Bassett picked it up and handed it over. He said, “Mountain dew, hell. That’s good Scotch.”
Uncle Am drank and handed it back. He said, “So what now, Frank. What you going to do now?”
Bassett shrugged. “I don’t know. Keep the case on the records. Go to work on something else. Ever occur to you, Am, that maybe this was just a straight holdup-slugging after all, and that we’ll never get the guy who did it?”
Uncle Am said, “No, Frank, that never occurred to me.”
Bassett took another pull at the bottle. It was half empty already. He said, “Then you’re nuts, Am. Listen, if it was anything else, then Madge did it. Incidentally, the insurance company’s holding that check till I give them the green light. But I guess the only reason I stalled is I haven’t seen this Wilson guy yet. Maybe I’ll see him now and get it over with.”
He got up, went over to the washbasin. He said, “I’m dirty as a pig. I better clean up a little before I go out again.”
He turned on the water. I said to Uncle Am, “Bunny left a note. He’s going to Springfield Sunday. He says—here—” I’d found the note by then and handed it to him. He read it and handed it back.
I said, “Shall we have him see the guy?”
Uncle Am shook his head slowly.
He looked at Bassett and took in a long breath and let it out slowly. Bassett was wiping his hands on the towel. He put his glasses in a case in his pocket and rubbed his eyes.
He said, “Well—”
“About that hundred bucks,” Uncle Am said. “How would you like to know where to put your hands on that forty grand from Waupaca? Would you pay a hundred bucks to know, even if you had to go out of town to get it?”
“I’ll pay a hundred to get four grand, sure. But you’re kidding me. How the hell would you know?”
“Pay the hundred bucks,” Uncle Am said.
“You’re crazy. How could you know?”
“I don’t know,” Uncle Am said. “But I know a guy who does. And I’ll guarantee it.”
Bassett stared at him awhile, then his wallet came slowly out of his pocket. He took out five twenties and gave them to Uncle Am. He said, “If this is a runaround, Am—”
Uncle Am said, “Tell him, kid.”
Bassett’s eyes switched to me. I said, “The money was mailed in Chicago a few minutes after eleven o’clock yesterday. Claire sent it on ahead of her. It was addressed to Elsie Cole, General Delivery, Miami.”
Bassett’s lips moved, but he didn’t say anything I could hear.
I said, “I guess you win your bet, Uncle Am.” I handed him the two twenties I had, and he put them in his wallet with the ones Bassett had given him.
Uncle Am said, “Don’t take it so hard, Frank. We’ll do you one more favor. We’ll go over to Bunny Wilson’s with you. I’ve never met the guy.”
Bassett came out of it slowly.
It was hot as the Sahara desert and getting hotter every minute as we walked over Grand Avenue. I took off my coat and carried it, and then I took off my hat and carried that, too. I looked at Uncle Am alongside of me and he didn’t even look warm. He was wearing a suit coat, a vest, and a hat. There must be a trick to looking as cool as that, I thought.
We crossed the bridge and there wasn’t even a breath of breeze off the water.
At Halsted, we went south a block and a half and turned in at the door of Bunny’s rooming house. We climbed the stairs and knocked on the door of his room.
Inside I could hear the bed creak. He shuffled to the door in slippers and opened it a crack, then wider when he recognized me.
“Hi,” he said. “I was just going to get up. Come in.” We all went in.
Bassett leaned against the inside of the door. Uncle Am and I went over and sat down on the bed. The room was like an oven and I loosened my tie and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. I hoped we wouldn’t be here long.
Uncle Am was staring at Bunny with a funny look on his face. He looked puzzled, almost bewildered.
I said, “Bunny, this is my Uncle Am. And this is Mr. Bassett, the police detective working on Pop’s case.”
I looked at Bunny and couldn’t see anything to be puzzled about. He had on a faded dressing gown over whatever he’d been sleeping in, if anything. He needed a shave and his hair was mussed, and he’d obviously had a few drinks the night before. But not enough for a heavy hangover.
Bunny said, “Glad to know you, Bassett. And you, Am; Ed’s talked about you a lot.”
I said, “My uncle’s a little screwy, but he’s a good guy.”
Bunny got up and walked over to the dresser and I saw there was a bottle there and some glasses. He said, “Will you gentlemen have a—”
Bassett interrupted. He said, “Later, Wilson. Sit down a minute first. I want to check up on that alibi you gave Madge Hunter. I let it go because of another angle. But I want to know now if you can prove what time it was you—”
Uncle Am said, “Shut up, Bassett.”
Bassett turned to look at him. His eyes got hot with sudden anger. He said, “Goddam you, Hunter, you stay out of my way or I’ll—”
He was taking a step toward the bed, but he stopped when he saw that my uncle wasn’t paying any attention to him, none at all. He was still staring at Bunny, with that funny look on his face.
Uncle Am said, “I don’t get it, Bunny. You’re not what I thought you’d be. You don’t look like a killer. But you killed Wally. Didn’t you?”
There was a silence you could have cut in chunks.
A long silence.
It stretched out and lasted until it became an answer in itself.
My uncle asked quietly, “You’ve got the policy here?”
Bunny nodded. He said, “Yeah. In the top drawer there.”
Bassett seemed to wake up. He went over to the dresser and pulled open the drawer. He reached under some shirts and groped around. His hand came out with a thick envelope of the type they keep insurance policies in.
He stared at it. He said, “Maybe I’m dumb. How could he collect on this? Madge is
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