He swung the door open and stepped inside. As he was closing the door behind him, he flipped on the catch so that it locked. The old man behind the counter at the back of the shop looked up at him as he strode down between the glass cases. The old man had a round head like a pool ball and round eyes that looked big behind his thick-lensed glasses.
“Hello, Pop,” Big Bill said. He leaned on the counter and grinned at the old man.
The pawnebroker squinted at Bill Meadows and grinned back. “Say, you’re the guy what told me the joke about the woman and the two dogs.” He chuckled.
“That’s me, sure enough,” Big Bill said. “Listen, Pop, I got to have a suitcase, and I got to have a good price on it. Think you can fix me up?”
“Can I fix you up?” The old man rubbed his hands together in evident pleasure. The middle finger of his left hand was a stump — a caloused stump that ended where the first knuckle should have been.
“With the best price in town,” he said. “You come on with me. The suitcases are in the back room.”
Bill knew that the suitcases were in the back room. He followed the old man through a narrow door.
It was a dusty, cobwebby place, that room. The walls were crowded with shelves loaded with dust-covered odds and ends. On one shelf were stacked half a dozen suitcases. The old man pointed and said:
“There, son, take your choice. You pick out the one you like and then we’ll fix the price.”
“Let’s see that one.” Big Bill pointed to one high on the shelf. “The tan one up there.”
While the old man got a ladder and climbed up for the suitcase, Big Bill spotted the light switch. Then the old man came down with the bag, wiping the dust off the leather with his hands.
The pawnbroker said, “This is the best piece of luggage in the shop, son.”
Bill grinned. “Yeah, that looks pretty good.” Then he drove his fist at the pawnbroker’s face.
The old man saw it coming and tried to duck. Fear made him fast, a lot faster than Bill would have guessed he could ever be. But he wasn’t quite quick enough. The blow caught him on the side of the cheek, sprawled him backward. He fell on his hands and knees on the floor.
The old man was squealing like a frightened rabbit. When he tried to get to his feet and run he looked so funny and scared that Big Bill laughed out loud. Then he jumped on the old man.
It was even funnier when the old man tried to fight back. He threw his arms around Bill and tried to wrestle with him. Then he began to pound Bill’s face. The old man’s glasses were off and his eyes popped out big and round with near-sighted fright.
Big Bill left his hand over the pawnbroker’s mouth while he rolled him over onto his face. Then he put both his knees in the middle of the man’s back and began to pull up with both hands on his head. He didn’t have to pull very hard because the neck was thin and scrawny. It broke easily.
After Big Bill had pulled on a pair of black cotton gloves, he carried the pawnbroker across the room and tossed him into a dark corner. Then he took the suitcase and threw it on top of the man. He took a couple of more suitcases down off the shelf and threw them on top of the body, too. He found an empty cardboard box and covered up the old man’s feet with that.
There was gray dust from the floor on Big Bill’s knees. Carefully he brushed it off of the blue serge. Then he turned off all the lights except the dim night bulb up at the front of the shop. It glimmered over the drawer in the back of the counter where the old man kept his cash.
Big Bill went straight to that drawer, jerked it open and scooped his gloved hand into the metal box that held the money. He stuffed all the paper into his left-hand pocket and let the coins rattle into his right pocket. He grinned at the jingle of the cash and the weight it made in his pocket.
He looked through the windows at the front of the shop. There were a lot of people on the street. They didn’t stop to look in, but one of them might see and remember him if he went out that front door. But there was an alley running behind this building, so there would be a door opening out on it.
The coins in his pocket made a merry sound when they chinked together. He looked around the shop. He could see the dim shapes of the many things that were collected there. Anything that he wanted here was his, and it made him feel good to know that, but he didn’t want any of it. He was too smart to take anything that could be traced to him.
He was thinking all this, and thinking too how lucky he was to have been born with a smart-thinking head as well as a hard-hitting body, when he heard a sound. It was a sound that made the muscles in his body jump out into sharp, quivering ridges and brought his legs into a crouch. Somebody was pounding on the front door.
He pushed his body tight against the back wall where the shadows were heavy. Outlined in the door he could see the thick form of a uniformed cop. The cop was shading his eyes and peering into the dimly lighted shop.
Big Bill dropped down behind the counter. He had to get out of there, get out fast and without being seen.
As he crept toward the narrow doorway, he heard the cop calling: “Matt! Oh Matt! Open up! It’s me, Joe.” Then he was in the back room and groping toward the door that would let him out on the alley. He passed the pile of suitcases and saw that the old man’s hand with its missing middle finger had flopped out into the open.
Three blocks away from the shop, Big Bill stopped in front of a gum machine and looked at himself in the mirror. He brushed dust off the front of his coat, grinned at himself. He was plenty pleased with the way he had pulled off the job. They’d never be able to trace it to him. The old man was dead, and there wasn’t so much as a slug in him to point to who had killed him. Yeah, the whole thing had been pretty slick.
It was still a little more than an hour before the girl in the restaurant would be through work. He decided he’d just sort of wander back toward the pawnshop and see what was happening there.
As he walked up the street, he stuck his hand into his pocket and let the coins trickle through his fingers. He’d really be able to show that girl a big time tonight.
A block from the pawnshop he crossed to the opposite side of the street. The door to the shop was standing wide open and all the lights inside were burning, but Bill didn’t want to stand there staring.
Just ahead of him and directly across the street from the shop was a bar. He walked in there and sat on one of the stools in front of the bar. By turning his head and looking out through the window he could see right into the shop.
The bartender came over. He was young and blond and looked bored with his job.
“Rye with a beer chaser,” Bill said.
Big Bill poured whiskey into the glass until it bulged up higher than the rim. Then he pushed the bottle toward the bartender and said: “Better join me.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” The barkeep added a dash of bitters to his. “Here’s how,” he said.
The whiskey felt hot and made saliva pour into Bill’s mouth. He rolled his tongue around with pleasure.
“That’s damn good,” he said. Then he reached for his beer. He was sucking in the foam when he heard the long, high wail of approaching sirens.
He wanted to look across the street, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Must be a fire.”
“Yeah.” The bartender walked over to the window and looked up and down the street. Bill looked too. He saw a cop standing on the curb in front of the pawnshop; probably the same one who’d been pounding on the door.
“What the hell? They’re stopping at Matt’s place,” the barkeep said, staring at the radio car that pulled to the opposite curb. The cops piled out of the car, and an ambulance pulled up behind them.