He thought of trying to cash the bill in a place like this, but knew it couldn’t be done. It was too big to cash anywhere he knew of besides a bank, except maybe one of the big department stores. There again the money would go to the tube room, the girl would turn it over to somebody, and somebody would turn the serial number over to the banks, and a store detective would walk up behind Emil Fiddlemarch.
He was not unacquainted with certain places where a large denomination could be broken up without fuss, but the boys handling that kind of dough knew that Emil never owned a yard in his life, and besides, Luette and Terrin were acquainted with those same places.
Telephone calclass="underline" “If a little shrimp with a long beak on him comes in with a grand...”
While he bore his cross during the afternoon, the banknote journeyed from his shoe to his shirt sleeve, which he rolled up, carrying his coat because it was a broiling day. Its next stop was the inside of his necktie, where he pinned it. But the pin could catch and fall out, and so could the bill. It spent a few cozy moments under the lip of his spectacle case. He didn’t wear glasses; he had just found this thick-lensed pair lying on the low brick wall surrounding a Village church last Sunday morning. The gold frames might be worth selling, but Emil had hopes of their being advertised for yet. Their owner couldn’t possibly see without them.
Emil could figure things out.
Somewhere en route he acquired a needle and thread, and tailored the hot grand into the cuff of his trouser leg. But he had gotten used to the sweet velvety feel of it, and he had to get it out and count it again. It came out to a thousand iron men, even.
At length he salvaged a newspaper from a Keep the City Clean basket; since it was now quite dark he had little fear of being observed while he smoothed the leathery banknote out, laid it carefully between pages ten and eleven of the newspaper, folded the paper again and again and tucked it under his arm. He sat in Jackson Square looking down his nose and brooding.
The end of his day was approaching, and there was no place where he could safely keep that grand. When he went to sleep, some bum would come by and cop the newspaper. And tomorrow, when Luette and Terrin caught up with him... Bitter medicine: The only way to keep absolutely secret (1) is to have no secrets; (2) is not to do that which needs to be concealed.
He retrieved the banknote from the newspaper, which he dropped on the bench, and stood up. He shrugged his shoulders, folded up the grand and kept it in his fist, where it had been in the first place.
Going down 8th Avenue Emil happened upon a cop named Hutchinson, who was off duty and just strolling along the fence of Abingdon Square, batting his leg with his night-stick every other step.
“Here,” Emil said with animosity. He offered something and with his left hand rubbed his nose as though it itched.
“What is it?” Hutch asked, taking the folded bill.
“I found it; I’m turning it in.”
“What’s wrong with it? Is it phony?” Hutch asked, seeing that it was a piece of U.S. currency.
“Nope,” Emil said, turning away.
A little dumfounded at meeting an honest man face to face, Hutch called, “Hey! Where’d you find it?”
“A couple of feet off the ground!” Fiddlemarch snarled. Suiting action to his words, he broke into a run pell-mell up the avenue, and turned a corner.
The condition of Hutch’s feet being what it was, he couldn’t be bothered with guys in a hurry, besides suspecting that this was some kind of prank. He said, “Hell with him, then.”
Wherewith he examined the banknote under the next light. It had undergone considerable wear and tear, and looked as though it had been eaten by a goat and partially digested.
“A thousand fish!” Hutchinson ejaculated with awe. “Ho-ly sassafras!”
On the reverse of the banknote were still legible a couple of lines of writing in pencil. Liano was the name of a stiff who had been fished from the East River after being sighted, bobbing, from a Staten Island ferry. Emil Fiddlemarch could have discovered the same, and learned of the massacre in the Lisbon Bar, and how the cops found several thousand dollars mixed up with some groceries in the Lisbon’s refrigerator — all in the newspaper he had just discarded unread.
A lousy thousand iron men, orphan.
Murder for Pennies
by James Duncan
It’s “policy” with the Parson to clean up on — and with — the numbers game.
The beacon at the seaplane base was seven miles away, on the other side of the island, but because the moon was full with a blazing tropical fullness, the Parson could see it plainly from where he stood before the door of the little white cottage on San Pedro Road. He gave a last searching look up and down the street, an under-sized man with dark moody eyes and sharp chiseled features. Then with a shrug of his shoulders, he rang a bell next to the door.
It was hot. Cariba, a dot of marl and coral in the Caribbean, was always hot; panting, like a tiger lying in watchful repose. Even with the breeze, it was hot. But because it was outwardly a civilized, pleasurable, tight little island, under British rule, a queer melting pot of races and breeds from the four corners of the earth, Cariba was called “the little Paris of the Caribbean.”
Actually, the indolent breeze, pungent and heavy with the incense of papaya, ripening bananas, wild orange trees, humid with the smell of writhing gourd vines, somehow suggested how close to the surface was the sudden blind violence of the hot countries; the sheathed claws of the waiting watchful tiger.
There came the sound of footsteps in response to the Parson’s ring and then the door was opened. A tall man with a stubborn mouth stood looking down at the Parson. He had thin red hair and the sort of complexion, fair skin and freckles, that goes with hair of that color. He looked about, under and around the Parson without actually looking directly into his eyes.
“What d’you want?” the man said, mumbling as though he were shy.
One hand was loosely hidden behind his back. It held a gun.
“I want to talk to you, Tex,” the Parson said. His own face was expressionless, mild. It was this deceptive mild manner, his soft way of speaking and his delicate pious air which had earned him his curious nickname. But his outward appearance gave no warning of his skill in handling a 7.65 Luger; no hint to the amazing fact that mere mention of the Parson in certain quarters was enough to reduce both criminals and detectives to gibbering incoherence; for, in his time the Parson had outwitted crooks and police alike.
Without invitation, the Parson went past the man he had called Tex. past his gun into a small room furnished sparsely with a tropical regard for airiness. Tex closed the door, then followed the Parson in. His gun was now in plain view. He held it carelessly, lightly, like a man accustomed to guns.
“So you know my name,” he said quietly, “and you want to talk to me.”
The Parson said, “Yeah. I know your name, Tex Kent. I know all about you. You were Cig Wolfe’s triggerman. Sort of private executioner. That was three years ago. Cig Wolfe had New York sewed up. It was all his. Including the policy numbers racket. Remember the take on those numbers? Fifteen million a year. Oh, you paid off six hundred to one to winners. But didn’t the suckers pay, the non-winners! It was too good, if you get what I mean. The protection was O.K. Cig paid out heavy sugar to the right people. But there was competition. And Cig was rubbed out. Cig Wolfe, the biggest racketeer since Capone, kissed lead.”