He blinked again. “I fully realize that, sir. It happened that even in my drunken state, I recognized my assailant — he had an odd nose — crooked — probably broken years ago. There once was a handy man in the apartment house who looked like that. At the time I figured the poor fellow was desperate, and since I hadn’t actually lost anything... why, I didn’t want to get him in trouble. Of course now, well.”
The rest was routine and hard work. My partner and I checked with the owners of the apartment house for a list of their former employees. Crooked nose was an ex-pug named Frankie Johns, a punk with a record of petty strong arm stuff. It took us less than two hours to pick up Frankie. An hour’s grilling and he told us he’d done the job for a syndicate guy named Archie, a big time hood. Archie had bodyguards and I took one on the eye while my partner lost a few teeth before we got them under control, cuffed Archie. We booked him for assault, fraud, evading taxes — and a dozen other charges. It turned into an important collar — before morning we had exposed an entire crooked racing ring, arrested seven guys.
Maybe you’ve read about the case in the papers. I got a commendation for the fast arrest, and I suppose it might help me get a promotion — some day; although I’m a detective first class now and only a brace of years away from retirement.
Meantime, while waiting trial, Archie confessed and the tax eagles swooped down on his safe deposit box, took $52,000 in taxes on that $92,000 hit. Mr. Brooks was not only cleared, but for his part in “informing on a tax delinquent” — or whatever the exact term is — the tax people gave him 10 % of the tax as a reward, or about five grand — which he needs like a hole in the head.
Oh, I’m not kicking... it was all part of my job, and there’s no way me and my partner could have ever got that reward. Still, it reminds me sometimes of that old popular song, you remember it? “Oh, the rich get rich and the poor get...” you take it from there.
Trick of the Trade
by Leo R. Ellis
It is a source of amazement to sociologists and other observers of the human scene... how hard people will work in order to avoid having to work. If this seems contradictory, read this little story for clarification.
No matter how far back I pressed against the locked door of Benny’s Bar and Grill, the rain still got to me. It was a cold, early morning drizzle that went through my flesh and turned my bones into icicles. A dismal day on which to get murdered, I thought, and the rain wasn’t the only thing that made me shiver. My nerves were jumpin’.
I weigh around a hundred and thirty pounds wringing wet — which I was now — and my cheap suit was trying to squeeze me up smaller. It had shrunk so I was numb. It was trying to choke me to death, which in a way would have been a blessing; Big Lou Costello would be cheated out of the chance to make an example out of me.
At eight Benny arrived wrapped to the ears in a slicker. “Della kicked you out earlier than usual this morning,” he said as he unlocked the door.
“Della didn’t kick me out,” I said through chattering teeth. “I left before she got home.” I bolted through the door and headed for my favorite stool at the end of the bar.
“She still after you to get a job?” Benny asked.
“That and other things,” I admitted. My wife, Della, works all night. When she gets in at seven, she usually stops by the couch in the living room and wakes me up. But this morning, with all my other troubles, I didn’t think I could take the lecture. Still shivering, I watched Benny wrap yesterday’s apron around his fat paunch, then fill the coffee maker. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cuff my java this morning, Benny,” I said.
Benny wiggled a finger down the neck of the coffee maker while he waited. “For a guy who has to cover a fifty dollar bet by noon or get clobbered, you ain’t in very good financial shape, Milo.”
“That I am not,” I admitted. “I am stony flat broke.”
Benny shook his head. “Lou is going to save money on this deal,” he said cheerfully. “He won’t have to use his goons on a shrimp like you, he can easily pulverize you personally.” The water was too hot for his finger, so he withdrew it and wiped it down his apron. “How come you was so stupid as to call in a fifty dollar bet yesterday with no cash to cover?” he said. “And especially to Big Lou, who you know loves to make an example of horse players who practice that dodge on him?”
“Big Lou is the only bookie who will take my bets anymore,” I said sadly. “If I lose him, I got nothing.”
“After noon today you ain’t liable to need nothing but a shroud,” Benny said as he watched the water go up into the top of the coffee maker. When it came down again, he brought a steaming mug of coffee over and set it in front of me. “You was a dope to let that drifter tout you on that horse. You know that, don’t you, Milo?”
I hugged the mug in my hands to warm them. “He claimed he was the jockey’s brother,” I said. “He said the race was in the bag.”
“That guy weighed over two hundred and eighty pounds,” Benny said. “He was bigger than I am.”
“Was he?” I said, “I didn’t notice. I must have been stoned.”
“You should also have figured out that if the guy was such pals with the Whitneys and Vanderbilts, he would have been out in the clubhouse caging champagne, not down here putting the bite on you for beers.”
“I guess so,” I said miserably, “maybe that tout put a hex on me. Anyhow, I call in the bet and I lose.”
With my hands warm, I started to sip the coffee to thaw out my insides as I desperately try to figure how I am to raise fifty clams by noon. I can’t run, because here I can eat and sleep on a couch in the living room. If I hide, Big Lou will get me sooner or later and be all the madder because he had to look for me.
Della is the only moneyed person I am personally acquainted with, and she is of no practical value to me now. Della has a good job as combination cashier and bouncer in an all-night dairy lunch, but Della is a miser. I don’t think she would put out any money to keep me from getting killed, and when I think of the insurance policy she took out, I’m convinced. Della buys things for herself, like that little doodlebug car she drives. I am also sure that she has a cash hoard in the cupboard under the sink, but I have been afraid to look; it would be characteristic of Della to have it boobytrapped to blow my arm off. Also, if any of that money was ever missing, I would fare better facing Big Lou and all his goons at once.
Only a few regulars drifted in and out of Benny’s that morning and I only give them a nod. I am so sunk in gloom I haven’t even looked at a racing form.
“It’s ten thirty,” Benny said, then came over and stood in front of me. “Now there’s nothing personal in this, Milo,” he said, “but I’m going to have to ask you to leave here before noon. I mopped this floor yesterday and—”
“Sure, Benny,” I said dully, “I’ll take my lumps out in the alley.”
“Thanks,” Benny said and poured me another cup of coffee.
I was about to drink it when the front door opened and a skinny stranger came in lugging something under his coat. At first I thought it was a bagpipe and groaned. When he got to the bar, the guy dumped it on the floor and I saw that it was a vacuum cleaner. He piled the hose, pipe and attachments on the tank, slapped his hat against his leg and said, “Give me a beer, Mac.”
“Vacuum cleaner business not so hot this morning, eh?” Benny said.
“Who’s going to let a guy with wet feet into her house?” the guy said. “I sold one yesterday, but I had to take this as a trade-in.” He kicked the cleaner on the floor.