Talmage Powell
Homicide Hoax
Ralph Smith lifted his pale face from his palms as Chaplain M’Canless cleared his throat. He stirred on his hard cot, looking at the chaplain with blurred eyes. He swallowed the hard, startled knot out of his throat, wondering how long the skypilot had been standing in his cell.
“How do you feel, Ralph?” The chaplain’s robes made rustling noises softly as he came forward.
Smith’s rat face worked. “Not so good,” he said.
Chaplain M’Canless sat down beside him, laid his hand on the prison grey shirt that covered Smith’s quaking body. In three hours now Ralph Smith would die. For murder.
“I thought a prayer might help.”
The words of the chaplain brought the hint of a sneer to Smith’s hardened face. Then Ralph Smith heard the ticking of his watch. Like the beat of a heavy hammer on anvil, the steady march of throbbing time reminded him that in one hundred and eighty minutes the life would be jerked from him by high voltage electricity.
His face, strong with an evil, cruel strength, fell apart. His hands shook; perspiration squeezed from his pores like a myriad of pricking pins in the hands of tiny devils.
“Yes! A prayer!” he choked. “But first — let me tell you about it, chaplain. I’ve got to get it off my mind! It filled my head ’til I didn’t even hear you enter the cell.”
The chaplain quietly offered Ralph Smith a handkerchief. Smith mumbled, “Thanks,” and wiped his glistening face.
Ever hear (Ralph Smith said) of a guy being so smart he walked right into the electric chair? Oh, I don’t mean none of that perfect crime stuff where a killer makes one tiny slip and a smart dick spots it. My crime was perfect! It was too damn simple to have a loophole anywhere. I was so smart I covered every angle. The crime couldn’t have been pinned on me in a million years with Philo Vance, Sherlock Holmes, and all the rest of them working on it. I outsmarted everybody, Chaplain. Including myself...
It was late afternoon, months ago, when I walked into the small cafe on Maple Street. That was the very first step — walking into that café. I’ll never forget the way the sun was shining, all golden and warm, and sending the life just zinging through your bones. I especially can’t get it off my mind right now; for I’ll never see the sun shine again.
I tossed my smoke aside, giving it a flip and taking a gander at a blonde passing on the street. She smiled back, and I felt pretty doggone good when I went inside the gloomy little restaurant.
He was there, in a booth at the back. I’d never seen Sid Kilgo before, but I knew it was him. He was a big man, but his shoulders had a rounded, bent appearance, like he was lugging a heavy load. His eyes were that way, too. Full of pain, I mean. As I got closer to him, I could see the lines in his heavy face, the way he kept his mouth compressed, as if holding something in.
I slipped in the booth with him. “Kilgo?”
He nodded without speaking.
“I’m Smith. Ralph Smith.”
I lighted a cigarette as he looked me over. I guess there was something about me to make him wary. Maybe it was the way he looked at me and I had to look away. A guy told me once that I inspired distrust. I dunno about that, but more than one guy’s been afraid of me. I think Sid Kilgo was a little of both — distrustful and afraid.
But after a minute he said, “Let’s go in back.”
We walked back to his office. It was a small room, cluttered and stuffy. Just from looking at the joint you could tell a lot of work was done here.
From the small window I could see the large lot out in back. On the far side of the lot was a huge warehouse, a truck backed up to a loading ramp.
“Doesn’t look like much,” he said, with a wave of his hand toward the big lot, small fleet of trucks at one side, and warehouse.
No, it didn’t. But I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen enough of this and that business to know that the places where they’re really on the move are always the unimpressive places. When you see a warehouse going in for swank, you’ll always see a joint that is idle half the time.
He sat behind his desk and I took a cane-bottomed chair near him, sat down, and tilted it back against the wall.
“You know my business, Smith?”
“A little about it. You distribute liquor.”
“That’s right,” he said. He leaned over the desk, eyed me harshly. His voice was firm.
“And we don’t take advantage of the liquor shortage around here. You know as well as I do, Smith, that here and there over the country crooks are playing the liquor shortage for all it’s worth. We’re seeing a flurry of bootlegging that isn’t minor any longer.
“The people don’t notice it so much, this time. There are no gang killings and not enough trucks hijacked to take other news off the front pages. But the bootlegger is back, cleaning up. It’s up to people like us to stop him. We’re strictly legit in this outfit, Smith. I want that very clear from the beginning!”
“Sure,” I said, puffing on my fag. “I’m just a shipping agent and nothing more.”
Maybe he didn’t like my grin. He stood over me. “Remember, Smith, you got to keep your fingers clean around here — no poison booze, no cutting the standard brands. We’re fighting a little war all our own. If the bootlegger wins and the Drys come back, we’re going to see racketeers ramrodding towns, people taken for a ride, innocent people made to suffer, and graft like an ugly disease.”
“You make it sound big.”
“It is big!” He thumped his desk. “So damn big I’m taking no chances with it! Half my trucks are idle — but I’ll never run a single pint of bootleg booze under cover of night!”
“Sure,” I said.
Well, I thought to myself, every guy has a right to his own opinion. Me, I ain’t got any. Some people think Prohibition is the thing — maybe they’re right. I’m not arguing that. But as I left his office and saw all those beautiful trucks standing idle, I started having ideas. Did I tell you, Chaplain, that I’m a guy awful long on ideas?
I knew I’d have to play it careful. I was a stranger in town and began sounding things out — talking to drivers, saloon keepers. You know the sort of thing.
I never tipped my hand once, but before the month was over, I had a couple of Big Names in my little black notebook, the knowledge of which drivers needed dough the most, and so on. It was perfect. The Big Names would cover a smart guy; a few of the drivers would haul the stuff at night; the rest of the bunch didn’t even need to know what was going on.
In my dreams I saw hundreds of big, marching dollar marks; it was the sweetest setup I’d ever come across. Only one thing in my way — Sid Kilgo, who was too much a square John. I began thinking the problem over...
I watched Sid while I was working. He’d pass me with, “Hello, Ralph,” and I’d mumble back to him. Then I’d stare at his back until he was out of sight. Honestly, I began to hate the guy. Or maybe it was just the fact that he was so damn dumb and honest.
But I covered all that. Chaplain, maybe I should have been an actor. I played it neat. After a few days I would slap him on the shoulder, buy his lunch, tell him what a great guy he was. Then he invited me out to his house one night. And I knew I was making with the speed. I’d see the setup now from inside out.
He had a brick bungalow on a middle class street. Nice house. Venetian blinds in the living room, big, square modern furniture. As I walked in and shook hands with him, I was thinking. Hell, this joint is a dump compared to what he could have — to what I will have when I take over!
He was pouring us a drink when there was a faltering step at the doorway. I turned and saw a thin, old man. An ancient man. His body was like sticks in his blue suit, his face like leather that’s aged and wrinkled in the dark for a hundred years. He squinted at me, coughed, and Sid Kilgo said: