The way he said that burned me, as though he were talking about some form of insect life. “Oh no-o, of course not,” I drawled, “it’s all just in the spirit of good clean fun, that’s understood. And now, what precaution do you propose taking? Sending them each a bullet-proof vest? Or maybe just a rabbit’s foot will do.”
I smiled tightly.
He’d never had much sense of humor. If he had, he’d have been in hysterics his whole life — at himself. “The idea will take a while to ferment,” he said seriously. “Premeditated murder always does. Probably nothing much will happen for a day or two, while they digest the thought that the other half-bill is theirs for the taking. Suppose Trainor and I keep an eye on this Dreyer, and you sort of stay close to our friend Casey. That way we can keep one another posted, the minute an overt move gets under way. Just give them rope enough to leave no doubt of their intentions, but be prepared to step in between as a buffer before the act is actually carried out. It shouldn’t be necessary to drag the police in at any time. The mere knowledge that three outsiders have read their minds and know what’s going on, should be enough to scotch the inclination once and for all. Nobody commits murder before an audience.
Trainor said: “I want one thing understood. I want positive evidence of murderous intent on the part of either one of them before I’ll consent to your claiming the money. I won’t have you jumping to the conclusion that just because Casey, let’s say, set out to look up Dreyer, he’s going to take his life. If he goes there provided ahead of time with a weapon, that’s another matter; you’ve won the bet. If he doesn’t, you haven’t proved anything. There’s nothing more normal than for him to seek out the other man, try to strike a bargain or come to some agreement with him, or even just talk the thing over with him out of curiosity. I want proof of a murderous intention, and, my friend, many a prosecutor has found out that’s the hardest thing there is to get!”
He could have saved his breath. I could have told both of them I didn’t think there was much chance of Casey or Dreyer approaching one another at all within the next few days. But I didn’t. They might have asked me why I was so sure, and I was in no position to answer. Ethically; I wasn’t troubled in the slightest. In reality the bet would end in a stalemate. In appearance, it would be decided in Trainor’s favor. That was all to the good. He could use that two thousand better than Fredericks, who was a louse anyway.
This was Thursday evening. They wouldn’t get the notes Fredericks had sent them until Friday morning so there was no reason to start keeping an eye on them until Friday evening. Since they both worked daytimes, Dreyer as manager of a chain grocery branch-store, it was only after working hours that they needed to be kept under observation. I may have felt privately that there was no reason for it even then, but I went through with it for form’s sake. We established, as points of contact by which to get in touch with one another in case of necessity, the saloon Casey frequented and an all-night drugstore on the corner below Dreyer’s flat. They were to call me or I was to call them, if anything got under way at either end that required quick action.
The wear and tear was pretty bad at my end, because of the quantities of rancid beer I had to keep drinking to “pay my rent.” The place was fairly well-filled up to about midnight, then the customers thinned until there finally remained only Casey and myself. He had been in there from eight on. I was obsessed with the slot machine again.
It was the barkeep who brought up the subject, after maneuvering his barcloth around for awhile. “Still got that thousand-dollar scrap ye found?” he asked, sleepy-lidded.
“Yeah, but not on me, don’t worry,” was the shrewd answer.
“What’d you do, put it in the bank?” asked the barman, scornfully.
“I tried to turn it in there, but they wouldn’t take it,” Casey admitted.
“What’d I tell ye! Why don’t you listen to reason? I’ll give you two bottles of rye for it, you pick the brand.”
“If it’s no good, what do you want it so bad for?” Casey asked, not unreasonably.
The white-aproned one tripped slightly over the answer. “I want it for a curayosity. Sure, what else would I be wanting it for?”
“Well, I’m hanging onto it, now more than ever! Take a look at this. This was in my mailbox when I left the house this morning.” I recognized the note Fredericks had sent him, in the mirror.
The barman bent over the counter, laboriously read it through with lip motions. “Hunh,” he said, “this must be meant for someone else. It’s got your own name down. What would they be telling you found it for? You know that already.”
“It got in the wrong envelope,” Casey said angrily, like a man who’s been cheated. “They must have sent one to somebody else, and I got his by mistake, worse luck! Anyway, it shows there’s another half to the bill, somebody picked it up just like I did, so I’m keeping mine.”
The barkeeper scratched his chin. He was doing lots and lots of mental double-crossing, I could see that in the mirror. “I’d be careful, Casey,” he said with friendly concern. “Have you got it in a good place? Somebody might try to take it away from you.”
“Let ’em try!” said Casey belligerently. “I’ve got it stuck away good, no fear. They’ll not get their hands on it in a hurry!”
The barman swatted a fly with his cloth. “I wouldn’t carry it around with me or anything like that, if I was you,” he advised by way of finding out.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it hidden in my room, where no one’ll find it.”
“Have ye, now?” The barman scratched his sandpapery jaw some more. “Have another, Casey,” he offered amiably. “This is on the house.” I made a point of carefully watching his hands as he drew the suds, but he didn’t try anything, just filled the glass, knocked its head off, set it up. Then he sort of drifted to the back, by easy stages. There was a telephone on the wall, just outside the washroom door. I watched him fiddling around with it, dusting off the dial slots. Who ever heard of anyone dusting off a telephone at that hour of the morning? He looked around to see if either of us was looking. Casey was squatting down playing with the tavern cat. I’d just put my fiftieth coin into the spiked machine.
A bell jingled back there, and then the barman fiddled around some more with the dial slots. You couldn’t hear what he said, through his funneled hand. Then he came back again up the bar by easy stages. Nice pleasant tarantula, he was.
Three beers later a couple of hard-looking customers came in. “Now, isn’t that a coincidence!” I jeered to myself. The barman didn’t make any further attempts to detain Casey after that. The latter had been saying for the past ten minutes or more that he was full as a pig and had to work tomorrow. He floundered out, and the two hard-looking customers went after him as promptly as a tail following a kite. I seemed to feel like leaving, myself, right around then. Who could object? That was my privilege.
There was beer coming out of Casey’s ears, so he wouldn’t have known it if a regiment had been at his heels. For my part, however, I overlooked the fact that the other two had only just about wet their whistles, and had all their faculties about them. Not that they glanced back or seemed to be aware of me or anything like that.
They turned in after Casey, at the dismal-looking 99th Street tenement entrance, and I did likewise. There was a spark of green gas flickering in a bowl at the back of the ground floor hall, and a cautious creaking coming from somewhere above on the stairs. I put my foot on the bottom step, and suddenly a shadow detached itself from the wall. The side of my face exploded into atoms, and it felt like the whole roof had fallen down on top of me. I grabbed at a leg, going down, folded it over my chest, and brought him down after me. A lot of noisy kicking, threshing and grunting went on all over the dirty hallway. It served its purpose. Even on 99th Street sounds of combat don’t belong inside houses. Doors began to open here and there on the floors above.