The man on the other side of Eddie coolly patted him all the way down one side, then down the other. Eddie hoisted his elbows, stood perfectly still till he was through.
“What’d you expect to find on him,” said Miller, “a water-pistol?”
They all had their drinks on Eddie, and when Miller saw him carefully stowing away the change from the ten-dollar-bill he asked curiously, “What do you do with yourself all day, punch-drunk?”
“N-nothing,” said Eddie, “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Miller.”
Miller said, “See my lawyer,” and turned his back on him.
They all ignored Eddie for awhile after that, and when they re-ordered left him out. Eddie waited for awhile, then took out his cigarette case, held it halfway toward Miller.
“Care for a smoke?” he said. Miller turned back toward him brusquely.
“Quit trying to play up to me,” he snapped. “It ain’t gonna get you a thing—” A cigarette popped up and he took it and put it in his mouth while he was speaking, “—make up your mind to that! Well, how about a light?” Eddie put the case down, struck a match, and Miller smothered his face in a puff of carefully aimed smoke. Eddie had a spasm of coughing that seemed to tear his chest in two; he choked down on it, afraid of antagonizing Miller.
Meanwhile the fellow on the other side of him had picked the case up, helped himself, and passed it on. They all tried the trick mechanism in turn, and by the time it had reached the third one it was already broken. He sent it skating back along the bar toward Eddie with the remark, “Why don’t you get yourself a good one?”
Miller took hold of it, looked at it, and said, “Where did you pick this up, outa the ashcan?”
“I got it at Dinglemann’s for two-fifty,” memorized Eddie.
“Remind me not to go there and get one like it,” Miller said to his nearest henchman. He deliberately dropped it on the floor, and when Eddie reached down to get it, his foot sent it coasting along toward the next man. They would have made quite a game out of it, only Eddie quit trying to retrieve it after the first attempt. He straightened up and sighed patiently. “It don’t feel playful,” commented Miller, and once again they all ignored him.
Miller smoked the cigarette Eddie had given him down to within a half-inch of his thumbnail, dropped it, and stepped on it. “How about adjourning?” he said, and they all filed out, one on each side of him, one in back of him, without saying goodnight to Eddie. The last one to leave, however, in passing behind Eddie, tried to startle him by perpetrating a gesture that doesn’t bear repetition. The barman howled appreciatively, then looked at Eddie, whose face bore no resentment, shut up and turned away ashamed.
As soon as they were gone Eddie picked up his cigarette case and went out to one of the telephone booths in the lobby. He called the Boss’ private number and there was no answer, Tommy and the Boss must be out. He sat down to wait for them to come back. He wanted to report that he’d done just what he’d been told to do before he went back to his room for the night.
Tommy and the Boss came home much earlier than they’d intended to.
“No sense hanging around that lousy joint any longer than we did,” the Boss remarked. “We were there, and everybody saw us, so that’s all that matters.”
Tommy had just turned in on the day-bed outside his chief’s door, when the phone buzzed. He got up again swearing and went over to it. Annoyance became stupefaction; he nearly dropped the receiver in surprise. It was Eddie. The guy was still alive!
“The Boss there?” Eddie asked humbly. “I just wanted him to know I did what he told me to. I’m going home now.”
Tommy had to park the phone and sit down in front of it to hold it straight. “Why you — what’d you do, fumble it?” he snarled.
“I bought ’em all a round of drinks and I offered Miller a cigarette first, and then all the others helped themselves,” wailed Eddie, “just like I was supposed.”
“And Miller smoked his?” Tommy snapped.
“Down to the end, I watched him with my own eyes—”
“How long ago was this?” Tommy interrupted, his face a livid grimace. It was just as well Eddie couldn’t see it at the other end.
“About ten minutes ago,” Eddie insisted. Something was wrong, and he could feel the axe dangling over his head again just when he thought he’d staved it off.
Tommy asked just one more question. “And what happened to Miller after he smoked it?” he snarled.
“He finished it, stepped on it, and went upstairs—”
“You lousy stumblebum, you’re lying through your teeth!” Tommy roared out, and rage at what he considered the underling’s transparent deceit getting the better of discretion, he added: “D’you know what was in that cigarette? Cyanide of potassium!”
Eddie gave a heave at the other end that carried clear across the wire. “Now are ya going to tell me what you did with it? The Boss is asleep in there, but wait’ll he hears about this! I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. He’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born!”
Eddie was nearly going insane at the other end. “As God is my witness, I saw him take it and I even lit it for him my—”
“Don’t try to tell me he got the right one! He woulda dropped like a log right at your feet long before he finished it! The cyanide was in a gelatin capsule in with the tobacco and the heat woulda melted it and the suction carried it into his mouth. You crummy, double-crossing punk, what’d you do with it?”
“I... I—” Only the narrowness of the booth kept Eddie from falling to his knees with fright. Terror of Tommy and the Boss was still uppermost in his mind though, ahead of another terror that hadn’t been identified yet. Anything was better than admitting he’d given the cigarette away of his own accord, bungled the thing by a positive action.
“—I musta dropped it going over,” he panted desperately. “I... I tried the catch on the thing to see how it worked, I remember now. Maybe it’s still there, maybe I can find it again — I’ll go back and look. Gimme a chance, will ya, Tommy? Don’t tell him! Gimme a little time! It must be lying there yet, nobody would pick up a cig’ret off the sidewalk—” Even while he spoke he knew he was lying, but he was half-hysterical. He didn’t care what he said if only he could postpone retribution.
“You better see that you get hold of it quick!” Tommy said in a cruel, grating voice that seemed to flay the wincing Eddie alive. “And bring it back here if you wanta square yourself! You know what that means, don’tcha?” he warned somewhat illogically but with enormous punishing-power. “If anyone gets hold of that cigarette, that makes you into a first-class murderer!”
He heard Eddie moan through chattering teeth. What he really meant was that they wanted it safely back in their hands where it couldn’t be used against them as evidence.
Eddie was in no condition to think clearly. Even an hour’s delay was better than hearing doom pronounced on him right now at the moment.
“I... I’ll get it for you!” he promised hoarsely, “I’ll find it and bring it back, I swear I will! I know just where it must be — only don’t tell him yet. For God’s sake let me look for it first and then tell him if you hafta!” His voice trailed off into a groan and he replaced the receiver with an arm that was shaking more than Tommy ever had in his life.
Chapter III
The Fugitive Is Death
Eddie was sweating like a mule when he staggered out of the booth and his lace was the color of clay. That guy in front of the cigar store half an hour ago — that poor harmless guy — was carrying around loaded death in his pocket — and Eddie had handed it to him!