“Yeah, he didn’t have much,” the attendant said. “Want me to read this off?”
“Yes, please.”
“A dollar bill, and thirty-five cents in change. Want that broken down?”
“No, that’s fine.”
“Okay, let’s see. Handkerchief, switchblade knife, pint of Carstairs, almost empty, some rubber bands, package of Camels, two butts in it. Wallet with identification. That’s it.”
“A pint of Carstairs?”
I was thinking of the fifth of Imperial Joey had brought to me and how we’d killed it.
“Yep, that’s right.”
“And... a switchblade knife?”
“Yeah.”
“And money, too?”
“Say, you want me to repeat the whole damn list?”
“No, that’s fine. Thanks.” I paused. “Did they decide what killed him?”
“Sure. Hole in the head. Want to see him again?”
“No. I meant, what caliber pistol?”
“ .22. Why?”
“Just curious. I’ll be going.”
“Drop in again sometime,” he said.
I walked out into bright sunshine. For me, the beginning was in the morgue, after all, and I owed Lun Ching a debt. But the end was somewhere else, and I headed there now.
The door opened when I knocked and gave my name.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just came across something.”
“That’s all right.”
“May I come in?”
“Certainly.”
I followed her into the living room again, and I sat down in the same easy chair. I didn’t look at the floor or my clasped hands this time. I looked directly at her.
“Ever walk through the Bowery, Mrs. Tse?”
Her eyes were still troubled. “Yes?” she said.
“Often?”
“I know the neighborhood.”
“Do you own a gun, Mrs. Tse?”
She hesitated. “Why... yes. Yes, I do.”
“A .22 maybe?”
She hesitated again, for a long time. She sighed deeply then and lifted her eyes to mine. There was no expression on her face, and her tone was flat.
“You know,” she said.
“I know.”
She nodded.
“He deserved what he got,” she said.
“Joey?”
“Yes. Joey. He was your friend, wasn’t he?”
“My drinking companion, Mrs. Tse. A man doesn’t get to know much about anyone in the Bowery. Nor about what makes them tick.”
“How did you know? How did you know I... killed him?”
“A few things. A bottle of Imperial, for one. When Joey brought it to me, I never thought to ask where he’d got the money for it. That kind of money doesn’t come easy to a bum. When I saw his stuff at the morgue, there was another pint there, and more money. I knew then that Joey had hit it rich recently and his switchblade knife told me how.”
“Harry was stabbed,” she said tonelessly.
“Sure. Joey didn’t even know who his victim was. When Charlie mentioned it to him, Joey was probably drunk. He said, ‘So that’s who it was,’ without even thinking. Charlie thought Joey had only seen your husband’s murderer. He didn’t know Joey was the murderer.”
“And me? How did you come to me?”
“A guess, and a little figuring. A .22 is a woman’s gun.”
“I have a permit,” she said. “I go through the Bowery often. Harry thought... he thought I should have one.”
“What happened, Mrs. Tse? Do you want to tell me?”
“All right,” she said, and paused. “Charlie pointed out your... friend to me. Joey. I followed him to Cooper Square. I asked him what he’d meant by ‘So that’s who it was.’ He got terribly frightened. He said he hadn’t meant to kill Harry. I think he was drunk, I don’t know. He said he’d asked Harry for a dime and Harry refused. He pulled a knife and when Harry started to yell, he stabbed him. For a... a dime. He stabbed him for a dime.”
“He got more than just a dime, Mrs. Tse.”
“I couldn’t believe it, Mr. Cordell.”
She still couldn’t.
“For a dime!” she said again, and shook her head. “I took the gun from my purse and shot him. I shot him only once. Just once. Because he’d stabbed Harry, you see.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“So I shot him,” she repeated. Her voice was very small now. “Will you take me to the police?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“But...”
I got to my feet.
“Mrs. Tse,” I said, “we’ve never even met.”
I walked to the door, leaving her alone in the living room that faced a blank wall, leaving her alone because once upon a time I’d lost someone I loved, and I knew exactly how it felt.
It was hot in the street.
But it was hotter where Joey was.
Death Flight
This story was first published as “Ticket to Death” in the September 1954 issue of Argosy. It carried the Evan Hunter byline. I wrote it while I was still living in a development house in Hicksville, Long Island. I know this because the guy next door was a commercial airline pilot who provided much of the flight information in the story. “Death Flight” — my original title, and the one I’m using here — was an early shot at a more conventional p.i. story than the Matt Cordells. I later decided cops were the only people who had any right to be sticking their noses in murder investigations.
Squak Mountain was cold at this time of the year.
The wind groaned around Davis, and the trees trembled bare limbs, and even at this distance he could hear the low rumble of planes letting down at Boeing and Renton. He found the tree about a half mile east of the summit. The DC-4 had struck the tree and then continued flying. He looked at the jagged, splintered wood and then his eyes covered the surrounding terrain. Parts of the DC-4 were scattered all over the ridge in a fifteen-hundred-foot radius. He saw the upper portion of the plane’s vertical fin, the number-two propeller, and a major portion of the rudder. He examined these very briefly, and then he began walking toward the canyon into which the plane had finally dropped.
Davis turned his head sharply once, thinking he’d heard a sound. He stood stock-still, listening, but the only sounds that came to him were the sullen moan of the wind and the muted hum of aircraft in the distant sky.
He continued walking. When he found the plane, it made him a little sick. The Civil Aeronautics Board report had told him that the plane was demolished by fire. The crash was what had obviously caused the real demolition. But the report had only been typed words. He saw “impact” now, and “causing fire,” and even though the plane had been moved by the investigating board, he could imagine something of what had happened. It had been in nearly vertical position when it struck the ground, and the engines and cockpit had bedded deep in soft, muddy loam. Wreckage had been scattered like shrapnel from a hand grenade burst, and fire had consumed most of the plane, leaving a ghostlike skeleton that confronted him mutely. He stood looking at it for a time, then made his way down to the charred ruins.
The landing gear was fully retracted, as the report had said. The wing flaps were in the twenty-five-degree down position.
He studied these briefly and then climbed up to the cockpit. The plane still stank of scorched skin and blistered paint. When he entered the cockpit, he was faced with complete havoc. It was impossible to obtain a control setting or an instrument reading from the demolished instrument panel. The seats were twisted and tangled. Metal jutted into the cockpit and cabin at grotesque angles. The windshield had shattered into a million jagged shards.