Frank Gruber
The Leather Duke
Chapter One
Mort Murray was the cause of it all. Mort Murray, publisher of Every Man A Samson, the book that had earned a livelihood for Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg for so many years. Mort Murray, that Rock of Gibraltar, that lighthouse on the rocky shore, that friend-in-need-is-a-friend-indeed.
Mort Murray had let them down. In their hour of need, he had failed Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg. Yes, he had failed to pay his rent and the sheriff had put a padlock on his door. So he had been unable to send the books that Johnny had ordered by Western Union, collect.
And now Johnny and Sam were walking the streets of Chicago homeless and hungry. They had caught fitful snatches of sleep in the Northwestern and Union Depots, but you can’t really get a good night’s repose in those places. The benches are hard and there are always policemen and station attendants to annoy you.
Things were bad.
Silently, Johnny and Sam turned north on Larrabee Street and silently they walked past the dingy factory buildings of the near North Side. People were working in those buildings, lifting barrels, wrestling crates and cartons, and operating whirring machines. It rained and snowed; sometimes the wind howled and sometimes the sun shone brightly. But those people in the buildings were oblivious to it all. They came to work at eight o’clock in the morning, they toiled all day and at five o’clock they went home. They went to work in these factories as boys and girls, they fell in love and were married. They raised children and the children in their turn went to work in the same factories. There was no end to it. Oh, yes, they changed jobs sometimes, these workers. They quit one factory and went into another. The work was the same, more or less, the pay was the same, a little more or less, and the hours never changed.
“Sam,” Johnny Fletcher said, as they walked along, “we’ve got to get a job.”
“Sure,” agreed Sam, then ten seconds later came to a complete halt. “What did you say, Johnny?”
“I said we’ve got to get a job. We’re up against it. I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I can’t see any way out of it. We’ve got to get a stake, and the only way is to get a job.”
“But, Johnny!” cried Sam. “You’ve never done any work, you’ve never held a job in your whole life...”
Johnny exhaled heavily. “Oh, yes, I have. In my youth, I had two jobs — not one, two. I worked in a grocery store once, delivering orders and another time — for five weeks — I worked in a bowling alley, setting up pins. What about you — have you ever worked?”
“Me? Oh, sure, before I started wrestling I had a job for a year, driving a truck.”
“What kind of a truck?”
“A sand and gravel truck. Sometimes I hauled a load of cement. That was easy, unloading those little hundred-pound sacks of cement.”
“Then this job ought to be a cinch.”
“Which job?”
Johnny pointed at a squat, five-story building across the street. “Towner Leather Company,” he read. “There’s a sign next to the door, Man Wanted.”
A shudder ran through Sam’s body. “No, Johnny, no,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not a leather factory.”
“What’s wrong with leather? It’s one of the most useful articles in the world. They make shoes with it. And the harness the farmers use on their horses is made of leather. Why, if it wasn’t for leather, the farmers couldn’t drive their horses and if they couldn’t drive horses, they couldn’t plow ground to raise potatoes and corn and wheat. No, Sam, we couldn’t live without leather.”
“Sure, Johnny, I admit it. Leather’s important. I’ve got nothing against leather. It’s just... well work...! We’ve been together a long time, Johnny. Twelve years. In all that time we ain’t never had to work before. You always figured out something.”
“I know, but I’ve been thinking lately — maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe it isn’t right not to work. Look at all these people in these buildings; they’re not walking the streets. They’ve got homes, they get three square meals a day. They save their money and when they get old they can quit working...”
“You mean they work like hell so they can quit working?”
“That’s right.”
“That shows how silly it is, Johnny. Why should we work all our lives, just so we can quit working? We’re not working now.”
“Your argument’s sound, Sam, but we haven’t had breakfast and we didn’t have dinner yesterday. Not to mention lunch. So we’re going in here and get a job.”
“Yeah, but it says Man Wanted, Johnny, man, not men. That means one, doesn’t it? Uh, which of us is going to take that job?”
“We could toss for it, if we had a coin, but since we haven’t, why not leave it to the gods? Or the foreman or whatever they call the fellow who hires men. We’ll both go in and ask for the job and whoever he picks, why that’s it.”
“But don’t you think he’d pick the first one to go in?”
“We’ll go in together. We’ll play it fair, right down the line. If I get the job I’ll meet you out here at five o’clock with the money and if you get it, I’ll be waiting for you. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” conceded Sam, “but I’ve got an awful hunch that I’m going to be the sucker.”
He drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, then followed Johnny into the building of the Towner Leather Company.
Inside, a short flight of stairs led to a glass-paneled door. Johnny pushed open this second door and they found themselves in an office where thirty or forty office workers toiled at various desks.
Immediately in front of them a young woman sat at a desk, which contained a small switchboard. She had taffy-colored hair, very nice features and plenty of what a girl ought to have. She looked inquiringly at Johnny and he brightened.
“Well, well,” he said, “this is a little better than I expected.”
“And what did you expect?” the girl asked coolly. “A two-headed octopus?”
“Touché,” exclaimed Johnny, “or as we say in Brooklyn, touch. I’m making a survey of what lonely men in Chicago do. Lonely men, who are strangers in town. Suppose this was Saturday night; where would such a man go for a little entertainment and, shall we say, fun?”
“Depends on the lonely man’s financial condition,” the girl said.
“Suppose we say the man has a... a couple of bucks?”
“Two dollars, eh? Then I guess he’d go to the Clybourn Dance Hall, or the Bucket of Blood as we call it on Clybourn Avenue.”
“Bucket of Blood, eh? Charming name. Mmm, well, suppose said lonely man had a larger stake, say about twenty bucks, where would they go then?”
“Oh, in that case he could go to the College Inn, or the Edgewater Beach Hotel, or even the Chez Hogan, on East Rush Street. Provided, of course, that he had a girl.”
“Ah yes, the girl. That’s important. But how could said lonely man who was a stranger in town find said girl to accompany him to said night spots?”
“Why, I guess he could stand on a street corner and whistle at the girls who passed. He’d probably get a few slaps in the face, he’d likely wind up in jail, but he might, he might just possibly get a girl and it would serve him right if he did. Now, mister, are there any other questions you want to ask?”
“Yes, what do they call you around here?”
“They call me, ‘hey you,’ on account of my name is Nancy Miller. Now, fun’s fun, but I’ve got work to do. Now, what are you selling and who is it you’d like to have say no?”
“Get ready for a surprise, Nancy. We’re selling — us.” Johnny beamed at the girl, who looked at him sharply. “There’s a little old sign outside the door. It says ‘Man Wanted.’ ”