The other bill was the same. I stuffed the bills into my pocket. I could feel my hand shaking. Mug was looking at me.
“It’s good money,” he said. He laughed.
I put out my hand and he reached to pull the ring off. I felt my mouth getting tight. With my other hand I gripped harder at the rod above me. Mug’s fingers brushed against mine.
Suddenly, quickly, I grabbed for the bag on his chest. I gripped it tight and yanked. It broke loose and I felt it in my fist. My hand was in my pocket now. The bag, in my pocket.
Mug was startled. His eyes blazed at me. The scar on his knotted cheek flamed. I saw him wet his lips, slowly.
“That was bad, buster,” he said slowly. “Very bad.”
My breath came back suddenly. “It was the kid’s money,” I said.
Mug smiled tauntingly. “It was the kid’s money. So what! I murdered him. So what!” He laughed. “You can’t do anything about it.”
I gripped my rod tightly. One hand was free. Mug seemed to be arranging himself slowly, deliberately. He weaved both legs around the rods. One of his hands was free. Suddenly he let go of the rod with the other. He held the top of the car with the flat of his palms.
“Give me that money,” he said slowly.
The road sped below us. A few inches above our heads the heavy freight car lurched and clattered.
Mug’s arms leaped at me suddenly. I felt his steel grip at my neck. I held on tight with one hand. My free hand bashed down again and again at the side of his face. His fingers pressed hard at my throat. I continued beating his face. He shrieked curses above the noise of the train.
I struggled to suck in my breath. Mug’s hand clawed at my shoulder and neck as I twisted on the narrow rod. His whole body leaned across the whipping, speeding rails. I straightened my free hand. Tensed it still, till it trembled. With one sharp cutting blow I struck Mug across the back of the neck.
I didn’t hear him scream. I didn’t let myself, though the shriek filled my ears, splintering my senses with its noise. I closed my eyes, breathing quickly, almost hysterically. Holding on tight to the rod above me.
Every time I opened my eyes I saw his body hurled and knocked against the wooden ties, across the track. And the wheels. The wheels! I closed my eyes but it did no good. The picture was there. His body, the track. The sharp rushing wheels!
A piece of clothing that had been ripped away from him fluttered darkly in the breeze under the speeding freight car. For a while I just stared at it senselessly. Then I remembered the kid. The young red-headed kid, with a picture of his sister and a faraway look in his eyes.
I turned my head to look at the gravel speeding past. Sunlight sparkled cm it. The kid was dead, on the floor of a freight a couple of cars back. But I had the money. I could feel the stuffed bag bulge in my pocket.
And I had a picture with his sister’s address. I remembered her blond hair and her smile. All the way into the next stop, I kept staring at the lurching freight car bottom above me, thinking about what I would say to her, how I would explain.
Blackmail Backfire
by D. L. Champion
It was murder in the mail for Private-Eye Joey Graham when his boss Rex Sackler nobly gave up the ten-G reward.
Chapter One
Conscience Money
During the major part of my professional life, my salary has been paid and determined by Rex Sackler. What few raises I have gained have never been more than three dollars at a time and have been achieved only by dint of wearisome argument, bluster and minor blackmail.
However, on this particular Monday morning my bargaining position had been immeasurably strengthened. I was about to buttress my financial position at Sackler’s expense and for the first time in my life I did not fear the outcome of a monetary joust with the most niggardly man this side of Aberdeen.
I sang in my shower that morning; I whistled a lilting melody as I shaved. Of necessity I forsook music as I consumed my bacon and eggs. And after a second cup of coffee I headed for the office on springy feet.
Sackler was already at his desk as I entered our shabby suite. I gave him my heartiest ‘good morning’ and laid my paper on his desk. He grunted and snatched it up.
Several years ago he had pointed out to me, at some length, that it was foolish for each of us to toss a nickel away each morning for a paper. After all, he was in no great hurry to acquaint himself with the news of the world. He could contain himself until such time as I had arrived and handed over the journal which I had purchased from my meager salary.
As I crossed the room to my own desk, Sackler ran his long white fingers through his black hair, buried his corvine nose in the editorial page. I leaned back in my chair, put my feet on the scarred blotter and whistled a happy lay.
Sackler took his nose out of the paper and frowned. “Do you have to make that ghastly noise, Joey?”
“I am young,” I said. “I am exuberant. The sap of life courses through my veins.”
He made an unpleasant guttural sound. “You look as if you’ve come into money.”
“Ah,” I said, “you anticipate me. I’m going to come into money.”
“Where are you going to get it?”
“Probably from you.”
He assumed an expression of suspicion and pain.
“Or,” I added, “from Ralph Owens.”
He winced. For years Sackler had never faced a rival in the field of private investigation. Six months ago, Owens, a police lieutenant with a college degree had quit the force and gone into business on his own. He was a bright lad with connections. Certainly his income was not a fifth of Sackler’s, but Rex considered that Owens was snatching the bread out of his mouth.
He pulled himself together. He said in a strained voice, “What do you mean?”
“I saw Owens Saturday night. He offered me a job. Twenty-five percent more than you pay me. Plus a cut on rewards and big fees.”
That statement was no more than two-thirds true. Owens had offered me a job. He had offered me a slight percentage of the fees. But the salary was the same as I drew now. However, I saw no point in being too literal.
Sackler said, “Judas!” He buried his face in his hands and gave the general impression that my betrayal was more than he could bear.
I knew better. I did not doubt that he was suffering. But I know quite well that his agony was engendered by the fact that I was conducting an assault, upon his bank account.
In spite of the fact that his income ran well into five figures, he dwelt in a shabby, furnished room on the upper West side. He possessed three frayed suits. His only hat was a shapeless blob of felt.
His meals were consumed in a coffee pot which prepared all its food in a lard encrusted frying pan. His annual expense for amusement and miscellaneous was nil.
Each Wednesday he paid me what we laughingly called a salary; then devised various sure-thing gambling games in order to win it back. He succeeded more often than not.
His head was still bowed in sorrow at my perfidy when the door opened and Campbell Parry walked in. Of course, I didn’t know his name then.
He was a short man of middle age. His hair was graying and he wore a pair of gold rimmed glasses. His eyes were diluted blue, his chin weak and his manner deferential. He coughed quietly and Sackler took his head out of his hands.
Parry said, “Mr. Sackler, I have a small commission for you, if you will accept it.”