W. R. BURNETT
‘Round Trip’
CRIME: Gangster
PLACE: Chicago, USA
YEAR: 1929
BRIEFING: The ‘twenties in America saw the rapid emergence of an entirely new form of criminaclass="underline" the gangster. These ruthless villains, who ruled by the machine-gun, took a stranglehold on vice, gambling and bootlegging in the biggest cities of the USA. The most notorious was undoubtedly Al Capone, nicknamed ‘Scarface’, who graduated from petty crime to controlling all the rackets in Chicago, with most of the local police and politicians on his payroll. His ruthless disposal of enemies and rebel gangsters was legendary. In Britain, the only real rivals to Capone were the Kray twins, Reginald and Ronald, whose ‘firm’ ran the London underworld in the ‘sixties with a similar mixture of threats, violence and murder.
AUTHOR: William Riley Burnett (1899–1981), an unpublished Idaho novelist and playwright before he moved to Chicago in the late ‘twenties and there found his true metier, is the man credited with immortalising the gangster in fiction. His novel, ‘Little Caesar’, published in 1929, is today regarded as the book which typifies the whole genre. A remarkable chronicle of the rise and fall of a tough Chicago gangster, Cesare Bandello, known as Rico, it was the first naturalistic crime novel as well as being the first piece of fiction about the power of the criminal underworld. Based on Burnett’s acute observation of Chicago’s gangsters and racketeers, it was an instant publishing sensation-selling half a million copies-and made the author a household name. ‘Little Caesar’ similarly revolutionised the movies when it was adapted for the screen in 1930, establishing Edward G. Robinson as a major Hollywood star. It set the benchmark against which all the subsequent gangster pictures have been judged, right up to and including ‘The Godfather’ (1972) and its sequels. Burnett’s later novels and screenplays set further standards in the crime genre, especially ‘Scarface’ (1931), with Paul Muni playing a gangster modelled on Al Capone; ‘High Sierra’ (1941), starring Humphrey Bogart as a former convict whose past crimes catch up with him; and ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ (1950), which was initially a movie featuring Sterling Hayden, and ten years later the inspiration for a groundbreaking TV series starring Jack Warden. ‘Round Trip’ is one of W. R. Burnett’s few short stories and has a special significance in that it, too, is about a gangster in the days of Al Capone and was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1929… the self-same year that ‘Little Caesar’ astonished readers of crime fiction everywhere.
THE STORY:
It was about ten o’clock when the lookout let George in. The big play was usually between twelve and three, and now there were only a few people in the place. In one corner of the main room four men were playing bridge, and one of the centre wheels was running.
‘Hell, Mr Barber,’ the lookout said. ‘Little early tonight, ain’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ said George. ‘Boss in?’
‘Yeah,’ said the lookout, ‘and he wants to see you. He was grinning all over his face. But he didn’t say nothing to me.’
‘Somebody kicked in,’ said George.
‘Yeah,’ said the lookout, ‘that’s about it.’
Levin, one of the croupiers, came over to George.
‘Mr Barber,’ he said. The Spade just left. He and the Old Man had a session.’
George grinned and struck at one of his spats with his cane.
‘The Spade was in, was he? Well, no wonder the Old Man was in a good humour.’
‘How do you do it, Mr Barber?’ asked the croupier.
‘Yeah, we been wondering,’ put in the lookout.
‘Well,’ said George, ‘I just talk nice to ‘em and they get ashamed of themselves and pay up.’
The croupier and the lookout laughed.
‘Well,’ said the croupier, ‘it’s a gift, that’s all.’
Somebody knocked at the entrance door, and the lookout went to see who it was. The croupier grinned at George and walked back to his chair. George knocked at Weinberg’s door, then pushed it open. As soon as he saw George, Weinberg began to grin and nod his head.
‘The Spade was in,’ he said.
George sat down and lighted a cigar.
‘Yeah, so I hear.’
‘He settled the whole business, George,’ said Weinberg. ‘You could’ve knocked my eyes off with a ball bat.’
‘Well,’ said George, ‘I thought maybe he’d be in.’
‘Did, eh? Listen, George, how did you ever pry The Spade loose from three grand?’
‘It’s a business secret,’ said George and laughed.
Weinberg sat tapping his desk with a pencil and staring at George. He never could dope him out. Pretty soon he said: ‘George, better watch The Spade. He’s gonna try to make it tough for you.’
‘He’ll try.’
‘I told him he could play his IOU’s again, but he said he’d never come in this place as long as you was around. So I told him goodbye.’
‘Well,’ said George, ‘he can play some then, because I’m leaving you.’
Weinberg just sat there tapping with his pencil.
‘I’m fed up,’ said George. ‘I’m going to take me a vacation. I’m sick of Chi. Same old dumps, same old mob.’
‘How long you figure to be away?’ asked Weinberg.
‘About a month. I’m going over east. I got some friends in Toledo.’
‘Well,’ said Weinberg, ‘you’ll have a job when you get back.’
He got up, opened a little safe in the wall behind him, and took out a big, unsealed envelope.
‘Here’s a present for you, George,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you a cut on The Spade’s money besides your regular divvy. I know a right guy when I see one.’
‘OK,’ said George, putting the envelope in his pocket without looking at it.
‘Matter of fact,’ said Weinberg, ‘I never expected to see no more of The Spade’s money. He ain’t paying nobody. He’s blacklisted.’
George sat puffing at his cigar. Weinberg poured out a couple of drinks from the decanter on his desk. They drank.
‘Don’t get sore now,’ said Weinberg, ‘when I ask you this question, but listen, George, you ain’t going to Toledo to hide out, are you?’
George got red in the face.
‘Say…’ he said, and started to rise.
‘All right! All right!’ said Weinberg hurriedly. ‘I didn’t think so, George, I didn’t think so. I just wondered.’
‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ said George. ‘Get your hat and I’ll take you down to The Spade’s restaurant for some lunch.’
Weinberg laughed but he didn’t feel like laughing.
‘Never mind, George,’ he said. ‘I just wondered.’
‘All right,’ said George. ‘But any time you get an idea in your head I’m afraid of a guy like The Spade, get it right out again, because you’re all wrong.’
‘Sure,’ said Weinberg.
After another drink they shook hands, and George went out into the main room. There was another table of bridge going now, and a faro game had opened up.
The lookout opened the door for George.
‘I won’t be seeing you for a while,’ said George.
‘That so?’ said the lookout. ‘Well, watch your step wherever you’re going.’
George got into Toledo late at night. He felt tired and bored, and he didn’t feel any better when the taxi-driver, who had taken him from the depot to the hotel, presented his bill.
‘Brother,’ said George, ‘you don’t need no gun.’