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

Instead of asking a flock of questions, he just asked, “Well, what happened to you, kid?” and then listened while I told him all about it from the time I’d knocked on the door of their room and Pop hadn’t answered. Only thing I didn’t mention was Mom’s being dressed all but her shoes. That couldn’t have anything to do with it, and wasn’t any of his business. Wherever she’d gone, it didn’t matter any now.

When I’d finished, he sat there, not saying anything at all, just sipping at his coffee. I didn’t say anything, and neither did Mom. The phone rang, and I said it was probably for me, and went into the living room to answer it.

It was Uncle Ambrose. He had a room at the Wacker on North Clark Street, only a few blocks away.

“Swell,” I said. “Why don’t you come on around, right now? Mr. Bassett—the detective—is here.”

“Like to,” he said. “Is it okay with Madge, you think?”

“Sure. It’s okay. Make it right away.”

I went back to the kitchen and told them he was coming.

“You say he’s a carney?” Bassett asked.

I nodded. “He’s a swell guy,” I said. “Look, Mr. Bassett, mind if I ask you something, straight?”

“Shoot, kid.”

“What are the chances of the pol—of you finding the guy who did it? Kind of slim, aren’t they?”

“Kind of,” he said. “There’s almost nothing to go on, see? A guy who pulls a job like that takes a plenty big chance of getting caught—at the time he does it. He’s got to worry a squad car might go by—and they flash their spots down alleys in that district. He’s got to watch out for the beat cop. The guy he tackles just might show fight and get the best of him.

“But once he’s done it, see, and got away in the clear, he’s pretty safe. If he keeps his lip buttoned—well, there’s a chance in a thousand, ten thousand maybe, that he’s not got away with it.”

I said, “On a case like this”—somehow I wanted to keep it general; I didn’t want to talk about Pop—“just what would that one chance be?”

“Could be a lot of things. Maybe he takes a watch off the man he kills. We turn over the number to the pawnshop detail and maybe later it turns up in a pawnshop and we can trace it back.”

“Pop wouldn’t have had his watch,” I said. “He left it to be repaired a few days ago.”

“Yeah. Well, another way. He might have been followed. I mean, he might have flashed money in a tavern, so when he leaves, somebody leaves just after him. Somebody in the tavern might remember that and might give us a description, or even know the guy. See?”

I nodded. “You know where he was last night?”

“On Clark Street, first. Stopped in at least two taverns there; could be more. Had only a couple beers in each. He was alone. Then we picked up the last place he was; we’re fairly sure it was the last place. Out west cm Chicago Avenue, other side of Orleans. He was alone there too, and nobody left just after he did.”

I asked, “How do you know that was the last place?”

“He bought some bottle beer there to take home. Besides, that was around one o’clock, and he was found at about two. And then where he was found was between here and there, like he’d started home. Then there aren’t any taverns to speak of between here and there, along that route. The couple there are, we checked damn thoroughly. He could’ve stopped in one of them, but—well, what with the bottle beer and the time and everything, it’s odds on he didn’t.”

“Where—where was he found?”

“Alley between Orleans and Franklin, two and a half blocks south of Chicago Avenue.”

“Between Huron and Erie?”

He nodded.

I said, “Then he must have walked south on Orleans and cut through the alley toward Franklin. But—gosh, in that neighborhood, why’d he want to go through an alley?”

Bassett said, “Two answers to that. One is—he’d been drinking a lot of beer. Far as we know, he hadn’t drunk much else, and he’d been out and around from nine o’clock to one. A guy starting home with a skinful of beer might easy want to cut through an alley, although like you say, it’s no neighborhood to do it in.”

“What’s the other answer?”

“That he didn’t cut through the alley at all. He was near the Franklin end. So he could have walked over Chicago to Franklin and south on Franklin. He’s stuck up at the mouth of the alley, and the stick-up man, or men, take him into the alley, roll him there and then slug him. Those streets are pretty deserted that time in the morning. There’ve been plenty of holdups there under the el on Franklin.”

I nodded thoughtfully. This Bassett didn’t look like a detective, but he wasn’t a dumb cluck at all. Either of the things he’d said could have happened. It had to have been one way or the other, and the odds looked about even.

And they looked pretty slim for getting the guy who did it. Like he said, about a thousand to one against.

Could be, I thought, he’s smarter than Uncle Ambrose on things like this. He was smart enough to have traced Pop pretty well, and that was no cinch in a district like this. On Clark Street and on Chicago Avenue they don’t like coppers. Even the most of them who are inside the law.

When Uncle Ambrose came, Mom let him in. They talked a few minutes out in the hall and I could hear their voices but I couldn’t tell what they were saying. When they came in the kitchen they were friendly. Mom poured another cup of coffee.

Bassett shook hands with him and they seemed to take to one another right away. Bassett started asking him questions, just a few. He didn’t ask him whether I’d been in Janesville; he asked, quite casually, what train I’d come on and how service was coming back and some things like that. And little points he could check with the story I’d told him so he’d know if I’d been telling him the truth.

A smart duck, I thought again.

But I didn’t know the half of it until Uncle Ambrose started asking a few questions about the investigation. Bassett answered the first couple and then one corner of his mouth went up a little.

He said, “Ask the kid here. I gave him the whole story, such as it is. You two are going at it together. I wish you luck.”

My uncle looked at me, his eyebrows up just a trifle. Bassett wasn’t watching me, so I shook my head a little to let him know I hadn’t blabbed to the detective. A smart duck. I don’t know how he figured that angle so quickly.

Gardie came in and got reintroduced to Uncle Ambrose. Mom had sent her out to a movie, and I guess she’d really gone to one or she wouldn’t have been home so early.

I got a kick out of the way Uncle Ambrose patted her on the head and treated her like a kid. Gardie didn’t like it; I could tell that. Five minutes of old-home-week and she went off to her room.

Uncle Ambrose grinned at me.

The coffee was cold and Mom started to get some fresh, but Uncle Ambrose said, “Let’s go down and have a drink instead. What say, Bassett?”

The detective shrugged. “Okay by me. I’m off duty now.”

Mom shook her head. “You two go,” she told them.

I dealt myself in, said I was thirsty and wanted some Seven-Up or a coke. Uncle Ambrose said, “Sure,” and Mom didn’t squawk, so I went downstairs with them.

We went to a place on Grand Avenue. Bassett said it was a quiet place where we could talk. It was quiet all right; we were almost the only ones in there.

We took a booth and ordered two beers and a Coca-Cola. Bassett said he had to phone somebody and went back to the phone booth.

I said, “He’s a nice guy. I kind of like him.”

My uncle nodded slowly. He said, “He’s not dumb and he’s not honest and he’s not a louse. He’s just what the doctor ordered.”

“Huh? How do you know he’s not honest?” I wasn’t being naive; I know plenty of coppers aren’t; I just wondered how Uncle Ambrose could be so sure so quick—or if he was just talking through his hat.

“Just looking at him,” he said. “I don’t know how, but I know. I used to run a mitt-camp with the carney, Ed. It’s a racket, sure, but you get so you can size people up.”

I remembered something I’d read. “Lombroso has been dis—”

“Nuts to Lombroso. It isn’t the shapes of their faces. It’s something you feel. You can do it with your eyes shut. I don’t know how. But this red-headed copper—we’re going to buy him.”

He took out his wallet, and holding it under the table so the couple of men at the bar, up front, couldn’t see what he was doing, he took a bill out of it and then put it back in his hip pocket. I got a look at the bill, though, as he folded it twice and palmed it. It was a hundred bucks.

I felt a little scared. I couldn’t see why he would need to bribe Bassett at all, and I was afraid he was wrong, and offering it would start trouble.

Bassett came back and sat down.

My uncle said, “Look, Bassett, I know what you’re up against on a case like this. But Wally was my brother, see, and I want to see the guy who killed him sent up. I want to see him fry.”

Bassett said, “We’ll do our best.”

“I know you will. But they won’t allow you too much time on it, and you know that. I want to help any way I can. There’s one way I know of. I mean, there’s times putting out a few bucks here and there will get a song out of somebody who won’t sing otherwise. You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean. Yeah, sometimes it helps.”

My uncle held out his hand, palm down. He said, “Put this in your pocket, in case you get a chance to use it where it might get us something. It’s off the record.”

Bassett took the bill. I saw him glance at the corner of it under the table, and then he put it in his pocket. His face didn’t change. He didn’t say anything.

We ordered another round of drinks, or they did. I still had half my coke left.

Bassett’s eyes, behind the shell-rimmed glasses, looked a little more tired, a little more veiled. He said, “What I gave the kid was straight. We don’t know a damn thing more. Two stops on Clark Street; stayed maybe half an hour in each. That one last stop on Grand Avenue; where he bought the beer. Ten gets you one that was the last stop he made. If we could get anything, it ought to be there. But there wasn’t anything to get.”

“What about the rest of the time?” my uncle asked.

Bassett shrugged. “There are two kind of drinkers. One holes in some place and stays put to do his drinking. The other kind ambles. Wallace Hunter was the ambling kind, that evening anyway. He was out four hours and stuck around about half an hour—long enough to drink two-three beers in each of the three places