Somebody came down off the stairs in a hurry, jumped over the two of us, and made for the street, with a grunted admonition, “Beat it, Patsy, the whole house is awake!” Patsy tore himself from my embrace, stood up, kicked out viciously in the direction of my head just on general principle, then scampered out. Upstairs on one of the landings Casey was howling belligerently: “Come back and fight like a man, ye dirty snaik-thief, whoever ye are!”
It sounded like he still had his thousand-dollar bill which was all that really interested me. I picked myself up, then slipped away to avoid meeting the riot squad. So much for Friday night.
Saturday, at cocktail time, Fredericks was already acting a little less sure of himself. Even slightly worried, you might say. I told them what had happened, with just a slight distortion of the facts. I let them think I’d watched Casey put the two thugs to rout from across the street, instead of actually entering the building and taking a hand in it myself, so to speak.
Fredericks said, “That’s all right, but what I can’t understand is why neither Casey nor Dreyer have made a move toward one another. They’ve had nearly forty-eight hours now to think it over. We know that they both got the notes I sent. Dreyer’s a spineless jellyfish, he’ll dream and plan with his wife, but he won’t do anything about it. And she’s one of these goody-goodies herself — which is your luck, Trainor. I’ve really been counting on this Casey fellow, but he seems to be more inclined to passive resistance than aggression. Maybe,” he said hopefully, “he’s got the idea already, and it’s taking time to cook. If he doesn’t do something about it before Tuesday night, I’m out two grand!”
“Attaboy, Shylock!” I couldn’t help remarking.
Saturday night was a big night at the tavern. I took a chance and went back, even after what had happened the night before in Casey’s hallway. I felt pretty sure the two footpads wouldn’t show their faces there, and they didn’t. I stayed fairly close to the door, however, to reduce the risk of being ganged up on.
Casey however, did show up as though too dense to connect the attempt on him with his friend the bartender. Or maybe not so dense as he let on to be. When the crowd thinned out and he had the latter’s undivided attention, he related what had happened.
The barkeep was all innocent surprise. “And ye think ’twas that they were after, the thing ye found?”
“Think? I know damn well it was! I don’t mind telling you I’ve got myself a gun, and the next party that tries to break in my room like that is going to be a sorry man!” And he turned around and went out again, without saying good-night.
I didn’t linger myself. I didn’t want to be handed any mickey Finns for my timely interference the night before.
We compared notes again Sunday. Fredericks was biting his nails to the quick, figuratively speaking, at the lack of initiative the two parties were showing. “Only forty-eight hours left!” he mourned.
“I’m not even sure Casey actually did get a gun,” I said, rubbing it in. “I think he just said it for a bluff, to scare the bartender off. He must know he engineered Friday night’s visit. He saw the two fellows there in the place before he left. And whether he has or not, he’s keeping it for defensive purposes only, I could tell by the way he spoke.”
“Which is no consolation to you, is it Fredericks?” Trainor jeered. It didn’t, to judge by the disgusted look on his face, seem to be.
Sunday night Casey took no chances. He brought a bottle up to his room with him and stayed in close to his mutilated treasure, keeping an eye on it. I could see a dim light burning in his window from where I watched, pacing back and forth between corners on the opposite side of the street. I didn’t knock off until 4 A.M., when the lights went out in the Lucky Shamrock and I saw the bartender come out, lock up, and go home. He was alone, and he steered clear of Casey’s Hat, so I figured the latter’s gun-talk had had a salutary effect. Everything was peaceful and under control; Sunday seemed to be everyone’s night of rest, the way it should be. The lull before the storm, maybe. I went home grumbling to myself about not being cut out for a night-watchman.
Monday night was the last full night left. If anything was going to happen, it was then or never. That being the case, I was on the job early. Casey’s electrical repair shop closed up at about 10:30. He stopped off for something to eat, and then went straight up to his room again — without any bottle this time. Probably still had some left in last night’s. I girded myself up for a long vigil.
At eleven a messenger boy showed up and went in the building. It struck me as odd for a moment that anyone living in a dump like that should be on the receiving-end of a telegram, but I didn’t think twice about it. The lad came out again, and almost immediately the gaslight went out behind Casey’s window. A moment later he showed up at the street door himself, bound for somewhere. The message had unmistakably been for him just now. I saw him stop under a streetlight and read it over a second time, as though it puzzled him. Then he went on his way.
I had no choice but to tail him, and after the number of times he’d seen me in the Shamrock, it was no easy matter. I had to stay completely out of sight and yet not lose him. Luckily he didn’t ride to his destination, but went on foot. He walked a vast distance down Broadway to a certain well-lighted corner, then abruptly stopped there and went no further, as though expecting to meet someone.
I shrank back behind a protruding showcase just in time and watched him narrowly along the edge of it without sticking my nose too far out. He took the telegram out, read it for the third time, looked up at the nearest street sign as though to verify the location and nodded to himself. Fifteen, twenty minutes went by. He began to get more and more impatient, turning his head this way and that, shifting his feet. I could see him getting sorer by the minute. Finally he blew up altogether, balled the message up, slung it viciously away from him, stuck his hands in his pockets, and started back the way he’d come.
“Good work, boy,” I commended, “I’ve been dying to get a look at that myself!” I turned around and studied necktie patterns in the case until he’d gone by, then went over, picked it up, and smoothed it out.
JOHN CASEY
— 99TH street.
ON RECEIPT OF THIS GO TO NORTHEAST CORNER BROADWAY AND — STREET YOU WILL RECEIVE VALUABLE INFORMATION ABOUT OTHER HALF BILL.
A FRIEND.
“A stall!” I thought. “And the fool fell for it — went out and left the bill unguarded in his room! I bet it’s gone by now!”
That tricky barman must have engineered it, of course. But after all, what did I care whether he’d lost it or not? If the stunt had worked, at least it had worked without the aid of murder, so Trainor’s money was safe, and Dreyer was safe too — those were the only two angles I was interested in.
A belated suspicion of what was up must have dawned on Casey himself on his way back. He walked so fast that I never quite caught up with him after he left that corner. But I knew where he was headed, so it didn’t trouble me.
The light was shining silverly in his room when I turned down 99th Street again. For just one moment more the street clung to its slumbering serenity, then it came to life right before my eyes. The thing itself must have been over already, must have happened just before I turned the corner. Whole rows of windows lighted up suddenly in Casey’s building, heads were stuck out. A patrol car was already shrieking up the nearest avenue. It rocketed around the corner, dove at the building entrance as though it were going to crash its way through into the hallway. Just before it got there a figure came tearing out, saw it, swerved, and bolted up the other way. Some woman or other helpfully brayed down from one of the open windows, “Stop that man! Stop him! He just shot somebody!”