“You think so, Sam?”
“Of course I think so! What do you think’s going to happen? The bad guy’s going to win? Don’t be ridiculous!”
8
On Tuesday morning Cotton Hawes went downtown to 1107 Ganning Street where the accounting firm called Cavanaugh and Post maintained its offices. Sigmund Reuhr had told the detectives he’d once been an accountant with that firm, and Hawes went there in an attempt to learn a little more about the respectably retired, sixty-five-year-old man who attended crap games in slum basements and who lied about them later.
Uptown, in a slum basement, one cop missed death by four inches and another cop missed staying alive by four inches.
The person Hawes spoke to in the firm of Cavanaugh and Post was none other than Mr. Cavanaugh himself, who was a portly gentleman with a handlebar mustache and a florid complexion. Sitting opposite him, Hawes found it difficult to accept Cavanaugh as an American businessman who had been born in Philadelphia and raised on that city’s brotherly South Side. Cavanaugh resembled a colonel of English cavalry, and Hawes fully expected him to yell “Charge!” at any moment and then push on to storm the Turkish bastions.
“You want to know about Siggie, huh?” Cavanaugh said. “Why? Is he in some kinda trouble?”
“None at all,” Hawes said. “This is a routine check.”
“What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?” Hawes said.
“A routine check. What do you mean by ‘routine check’?”
“We’re investigating a murder,” Hawes said flatly.
“You think Siggie killed somebody?”
“No, that’s not what we think. But certain aspects of our information don’t seem to jibe, Mr. Cavanaugh. We have reason to believe Mr. Reuhr is lying to us, which is why we felt we should look into his background somewhat more extensively.”
“You talk nice,” Cavanaugh said appreciatively.
Hawes, embarrassed, said, “Thank you.”
“No, I mean it. Where I was raised, if you talked that way you got your head busted. So I talk this way. I got one of the biggest accounting firms in this city, and I sound like a bum, don’t I?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what do I sound like?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“A bum, right?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay, we won’t argue. Anyway, you talk nice. I like a guy who talks nice. What do you want to know about Siggie?”
“How long did he work here?”
“From 1930 until just last year when he retired.”
“Was he honest?” Hawes asked.
“Right away he hits the bull’s-eye,” Cavanaugh said.
“What do you mean?”
“Though I wouldn’t say he was dishonest,” Cavanaugh said. “Not exactly, anyway.”
“Then what?”
“Siggie likes the horses.”
“A gambler, huh?”
“Mmmm, a gambler like nobody’s business. Horses, cards, dice, football games, prize fights—you name it, Siggie’s got a bet on it.”
“Did this affect his work in any way?”
“Well…” Cavanaugh said, and then shrugged.
“Was he in debt?”
“Once that I know of.”
“When?”
“1937.” Again Cavanaugh shrugged. “Listen, almost everybody in this city was in debt in 1937.”
“Was this a gambling debt?”
“Yeah. He was in a poker game and he lost three thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Hawes said.
“Even today it’s a lot of money,” Cavanaugh said. “In 1937 it was a hell of a lot of money.”
“What happened?”
“The guys who were in the game with him took his IOU. He had something like sixty days to meet the bill. You’ve got to understand that these were tough customers. I’m not trying to excuse what Siggie done. I’m only trying to explain that he was in a tight jam.”
“What’d he do? Dip into the company till?”
“Hell, no. What gave you that idea?”
“I thought that’s where you were leading.”
“No.”
“Then what happened, Mr. Cavanaugh?”
“He tried to shake down a client.”
“Reuhr did?”
“Yeah. He was working on the books for one of our clients and he tipped to a sort of a swindle. What it was, the company was doing some price-fixing, and he threatened to report it unless they paid him off.”
“That’s blackmail, Mr. Cavanaugh.”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Yes, exactly. What happened?”
“The client called me. I told them to forget about it, and then I had a long talk with Siggie. I ended up lending him the three grand, but I also got a promise from him that he’d never pull anything like that again.” Cavanaugh paused. “Look, can I level with you?”
“Sure.”
“Off the record? I know you’re a cop, but you’re not a T-man, so let’s talk straight for just a minute, okay?”
“Go ahead,” Hawes said.
“You didn’t say it was off the record yet.”
“If I say it, will that make it binding?”
Cavanaugh grinned. “Well, at least we’d have a verbal agreement.”
“Verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on,” Hawes said. “Samuel Goldwyn, circa 1940.”
“Huh?” Cavanaugh asked.
“Go ahead,” Hawes said. “Off the record.”
“Okay. In our business, in accounting, there’s a lot we see and a lot we forget we ever saw, you know what I mean? You’d be surprised how many cockeyed books in this city suddenly become balanced when it gets near tax time. My point is, I can’t afford to have some creep in the organization who goes around finding things in my clients’ books and then tries to shake them down. Word like that gets around very fast, you know. So I talked to Siggie like a brother. Siggie, I said, you’re a young man—he was a young man at that time, this was back in 1937, you know—Siggie, you’re a young man, and you’ve got a future with this company. Now, I know you like the nags, Siggie—still talking to him like a brother—and I know you sometimes get in over your head with gambling debts and this causes you to do crazy things. But, Siggie, I was born and raised on Philadelphia’s South Side, and that’s a very rough neighborhood, Siggie, just as rough as any of these guys you get into card games with. I’m going to lend you the three grand to pay off your friends, Siggie—still talking like a brother— but I’m going to start deducting ten bucks a week from your paycheck until the three grand is paid back, you understand? More important, though, Siggie, I learned a few tricks when I was a kid living in Philadelphia, and Siggie, if you ever try to shake down any more of my clients, Siggie, you are going to end up in the River Harb with a base made of solid concrete. Nothing is worse for the accounting business than some creep who has a long nose, Siggie, so cut it out, Siggie. This is a fair warning.”
“Did he cut it out?”
“Damn right, he did.”
“How do you know?”
“Look, I know my clients. If anybody from this firm was trying a shakedown, bang, the telephone would ring the next second. No, no. Siggie kept his nose clean from then on. Never another complaint from nobody.”
“That’s a little odd, isn’t it?”
“Odd? How?”
“Well, unless he kept winning from then on.”
“No, he still lost every now and then. Listen, there ain’t a gambler alive who wins all the time.”
“Then how’d he meet his debts?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mmm,” Hawes said.
“Was there gambling involved in this murder?” Cavanaugh asked.