“Hell, you can drop the gag now. I asked for you especially. You are Jumpy, aren’t you?”
I considered the quivering condition of my hands, a residue of anger. “I certainly am,” I said.
The woman was still dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. She had cautiously resumed her chair at our table. “Take a walk, Brenda,” he told her. She got up without a word and went into the house.
Just as he leaned toward me to speak, the chauffeur appeared in the doorway and said, “Boss, phone.”
“Be right back, Jumpy,” he said.
I picked up the paper again to try to quiet my nerves. And then I saw the box on the bottom of page one. It was labeled Special Release. My mouth went dry as a buried bone as I read it.
At midnight last night the mangled body of Mr. Omar Dudley, Sales Manager of the Idle Hour Novelties Company, was found beside the right of way of the Middle Pacific Railroad just outside the village of Twopence, Nevada, where the deceased had fallen or been thrown from the crack streamliner the Red Chieftain. Phone contact with the conductor of the train after the discovery of the body resulted in positive identification when it was found that Mr. Dudley’s compartment was the only one unoccupied. A telephone call to Mr. Dudley’s employer in the east disclosed that Mr. Dudley was on a sales trip to Pacific City. Though it is not yet official, it is believed that Mr. Dudley was dead of stab wounds before he was dropped under the wheels. Every attempt was made not to alarm other passengers on the train, but the news that it was not suicide or accidental death came too late to enable the police to hold other occupants of the crack streamliner.
It is a proven fact that all successful salesman achieve their positions through an ability to think on their toes, as it were. Thoughts raced through my mind with unbelievable speed, and it was no time at all before I realized that my odd reception in Pacific City was due to the fact that I was believed to be the man who had called himself Smith and who, in tallness and slimness at least, bore a superficial resemblance to myself. Along with that decision, I also deduced that Smith had attempted to have me killed in his place. Had not the two men found him in the club car... I shuddered.
I thought of the killing on the train and shuddered again. I hastily folded the paper as the white-haired man returned to sit with me. He was now fully dressed.
“Now, look,” he said in a confidential tone.
“I am afraid,” I said, “that you must listen to me first. I am not your man. I am only...”
He looked beyond me and nodded. I turned around and saw the chauffeur standing not twenty feet away. He held a pistol in his hand and there was a bulky thing on the end of the muzzle which I took to be a silencer.
The words I was about to speak froze in my throat.
The white-haired man said softly, “Now get this, Jumpy, and get it very straight. We’re not fools out here. We know that there’s a damn good chance that the other side got to you and greased you. We don’t trust you any further than Brenda can throw that swimming pool. We asked Nicky for a good man for a special job and we requested you on account of your reputation. I’m going to tell you the job you’re going to do and you’re going to go through with it exactly the way I suggest. If you make one move we don’t like — just one move — I’m going to have George there give you a spinal with that little toy he’s got. It’s something George enjoys doing. Any out-of-line move you make will be evidence to me that you’re either trying to cross us on your own or Nicky is playing along with the other side. Now get on your feet and keep your back to George.”
Much to my astonishment, my trembling legs obeyed the command.
“How much did Nicky tell you?” he demanded.
My legs had worked, but my voice wouldn’t. I felt as though somebody had me by the throat. I felt the corners of my mouth lift. It was an instinctive grimace.
“Put your hands up and stop grinning at me,” he roared.
I couldn’t lift my arms. They hung by my sides like sacks of sand. I couldn’t change the expression of my face.
“I’m boss out here,” he said in a low dangerous voice, “Put those hands up and stop grinning or I’m going to tell George to shoot. One... two...”
I had heard that expression ‘paralyzed by fright’ but I had never believed that it was anything but the most gross exaggeration. With a respectable anatomical chart at hand I could have pointed to the precise vertebrae that would be separated by George’s bullet.
“Hell, you must be all right,” the white-haired man said. “I always heard you’ve got your share of nerve. Sit down and have some coffee.”
I sat down with an astonishing jolt that made my teeth click sharply. I reached for the coffee cup. My hand was oily with perspiration. My index finger slid through the handle on the cup. I lifted the cup to my lips and it chattered against my front teeth. The white-haired man looked at me sharply. Then he grinned.
“Say, that’s a good act!”
A salesman is resourceful. I put the cup down. But I couldn’t get my finger out of the handle. I tried to do so in an inconspicuous manner. The cup chattered against the saucer. I steadied the cup with my other hand and managed to pull my finger free.
“You can stop clowning,” the white-haired man said. “How much did Nicky tell you?”
“Nothing,” I answered truthfully.
Just then the little man with the shirt with the goldfish came out onto the porch. “Good morning, Mr. Artigan,” he said politely to the white-haired man.
“Sit down, Fish. You met Jumpy Anderson didn’t you?”
Fish sat down with a hurt expression. “Boss, I went with Artie and George and got him off the train, remember?” Fish shook his narrow little head sadly and clucked at me. “Boss, he smeared eleven guys lately and he don’t worry none. He carries his rod around in a box under his arm. Are you sure he ain’t nuts?”
Chapter Two
Bloody Business
My future course of action was clear to me. I would have to humor these most peculiar people until such time as I could place myself in the hands of the law. In the meantime I was miserable about what Martha, the girl I shall marry someday, would be thinking. There is no nonsense in our relationship. We maintain a joint savings account and each month we deposit a stated amount from our mutual earnings. When the figure reaches the goal we have set, we shall marry. In the interim years Martha says that it is her duty to keep herself from being so attractive that I shall get overly impatient. Thus she dresses very plainly, uses no makeup and permits me to kiss her only on the cheek — though her cheek, I must admit, is quite interestingly warm and soft, that is for such a tall, thin girl.
She would undoubtedly be taking the — day off from her work, prostrate with grief. It was my duty to escape from these odd people as soon as possible.
“Now then, Anderson,” Mr. Artigan said, addressing me, “let’s fill you in on the gaudy details. This is a semi-political pitch. We have had a sap on the string for some time, grooming him for the job of Mayor of Pacific City. The campaigns have already started and one month from today comes elections. This pigeon of ours is named Walter F. Dermody. He looks honest and reliable, which is what we want, but as soon as he’s in, he’ll start putting our people in the appointive slots, and before you know it, we’ll be raiding the joints, dumping the old-time collection of crumbums and taking over the city, which, I might add, is a three million a year jackpot at the very least. It is much cleaner way of taking over a town than by going around shooting the people who already own the profitable concessions.”