“I’m sure I left the door locked,” I said foolishly.
“I brought a friend who talks to locks,” he explained pleasantly.
From behind him a long, sad-looking face peered over his shoulder and said querulously, “Cut the humor, Hank.”
Without glancing around, Hank said, “Sure, Keys.” Then he jiggled the gun at me and said, “On your feet, buddy.”
“Nuts,” I said without moving, “You won’t let that thing go off in an apartment house with paper walls like this one. Incidently, my name is Mister Moon.”
His college-boy grin came back. “Don’t bank on the thin walls. People always think it’s a backfire, and I get a kick out of shooting this thing off.”
His left fist clenched and he moved toward me casually. I kept my eye on the clenched fist, but I under-estimated him. Suddenly his gun snaked out and crashed alongside my head.
Half-stunned, I toppled sidewise off my chair, landing on all fours.
“Now get on your feet, buddy,” he said in a quiet voice. When the room stopped reeling, I got on my feet...
Chapter Two
The Big Flim-Flam
The first time I saw Raymond Margrove, the guy who got me in all this trouble, I didn’t believe him possible.
I don’t rent an office, since the only office work I do is interviewing clients, and renting space for that would be presumptuous for a private investigator with the few clients I get. I was sitting in my apartment listening to my bank account dwindle when he called.
He didn’t bother to knock, possibly because it would have required so much energy to lift his fat arm above the door knob. The door just opened and a stomach came into the room.
It wasn’t the biggest stomach I had ever seen, for once I saw a pregnant hippopotamus. But it was the biggest stomach I had ever seen outside of a tank of water.
“Have a seat,” I invited, gesturing toward the other easy chair, then changing my mind and pointing at the sofa.
The sofa was a better fit. He sat in the exact center, entirely covering the middle cushion and using up part of the one on either side. He must have weighed four-hundred pounds.
For a few moments he simply sat and wheezed, his multiple chins quivering and his huge stomach shaking with each breath. I waited for him to recover from the stupendous exertion of having climbed eight steps to my flat.
“Pardon my not knocking,” the fat man said when he had regained his strength. “Hope I’m in the right apartment. You’re Manville Moon?”
I admitted the charge.
“You know who I am, of course.”
I knew who he was. He was Raymond Margrove, the town Boy Scout. Specialist in good deeds. Every time a charity drive came along, Margrove’s picture appeared in the paper as fun chairman. He was also president of the Chamber of Commerce, secretary of a service club, and a director of the Business Men’s Association for Honest Government. In his spare time he eked out a living as president of the Margrove Business Equipment Company, Incorporated, which manufactured office safes and cash registers. He probably wasn’t worth a cent over a million dollars. I knew who he was, but didn’t particularly care for his assumption that I should.
“Never saw you before,” I said.
He looked completely surprised and slightly nettled. “I am Raymond Margrove.”
He waited expectantly until I said, “Never heard of you.”
This time his expression was amazed. But slowly the amazement died to be replaced by a faint smile.
“You’re putting me in my place, of course, Mr. Moon. I was warned you delight in deflating pomposity. And just yesterday my niece told me I had become a pompous old fool.” Heavy lips lifted to change the faint smile into a grin.
I said, “Now I like you better. Have a drink?”
“Thanks. Plain water, please.”
I moved to the sideboard, mixed two water highballs and handed him one. Then I lifted the lid of my cigar humidor and raised one eyebrow.
“No thanks,” he said. “Doctor’s orders.” He hefted his glass slightly. “Peculiarly enough, he says a little of this occasionally is good for my heart.”
As I set fire to my cigar, he dipped his hand in a side pocket, popped two chocolate creams into his mouth, munched them enjoyably and washed them down with a slug of his highball.
“Piece of candy?” he asked.
When I shook my head, he finally got around to his business.
“You are aware of the local mayoralty election coming up, I presume, Mr. Moon?”
I nodded.
“And the deliberate slander being circulated about the incumbent, Mayor John Cash.”
I elevated another eyebrow. “Slander?”
“The newspaper innuendos that His Honor is somehow connected with the gambling rackets — or at best neglects his duty by permitting them to flourish.”
“Is that slander?” I asked. “If you have time for a tour of the city, I’ll show you five-hundred wide-open bookshops, fifty dice and card games, and a one-armed bandit in every tavern.”
The fat man frowned, which pushed down the mass of fat beneath his jaw and produced another chin. “I am aware that the city is rife with gambling. However, I have reason to believe John Cash has no connection with it.”
I shrugged. “The police here are square. You couldn’t buy Chief George Chester with a million dollars. If the mayor gave orders, the cops would stop gambling in twenty-four hours. The only answer is, he hasn’t given orders. Personally, I intend to vote for Gerald Ketterer.”
He nodded agreeably, causing all his chins to quiver again. “Most people seem to favor the Reform Party candidate — and for the same reason you do. Until last night I intended to vote for Ketterer myself. In fact I have been instrumental in swinging him considerable support through the various civic organizations to which I belong. But last night I discovered there is a possibility that I and the rest of the public have been cleverly flim-flammed, and that Gerald Ketterer is an out-and-out criminal.”
He pursed his thick lips, and I waited with both eyebrows raised.
“Last night,” he went on, “Mayor Cash visited me secretly. He picked me because he felt I had sufficient influence to help him, if anyone could. After hearing his story, I decided influence was useless in a case such as this, and what we needed was an honest and discreet private investigator.”
“That’s me,” I said modestly.
He fixed somewhat bulging eyes on my face and said slowly, “Mayor John Cash is literally being blackmailed by Gerald Ketterer into losing the election.”
I asked, “How’s that again?”
“Somehow Ketterer got hold of some pictures taken at a party Mayor Cash attended about five years ago. A year before he became mayor. They show the mayor with a... ah... lady of some notoriety. Politically he could probably weather the storm even if they were published, for they aren’t actually damaging pictures. However, he was married at the time, and still is. He loves his wife deeply, and is sure she would leave him immediately if she saw the pictures. This is the hold Ketterer has over him. For three years Gerald Ketterer has forced John Cash to declare a hands-off policy on gambling, on the threat of sending his wife the pictures.”
I absorbed this along with the rest of my drink, leaned back and blew cigar smoke at the ceiling. “And now,” I said thoughtfully, “Ketterer is using the same lever to make Cash stand still under the accusation of being tied to the gambling ring. Sounds like the Reform candidate himself is the big wheel behind the gamblers.”
“Exactly my conclusion,” Margrove said. “And also what John Cash believes. As the situation stands, there is no doubt Ketterer will be swept in on the Reform ticket. He will make a gesture at cleaning up gambling; then when public interest dies, all the gambling places will quietly open again, more firmly intrenched than ever.”