“You talk pretty big for a factory hand,” sneered Lindstrom.
“I haven’t always been a factory hand,” snapped Johnny. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some counters to sort.”
Lieutenant Lindstrom gave him a wicked look, hesitated, then whirled on his heel and strode off. Johnny gave his attention to the counters on his bench. He picked them up, squeezed them, trimmed one now and then and piled them up in bunches.
From time to time Johnny sent a look off to the right where Sam Cragg was at his bench, squeezing and bunching up counters. There was a big scowl of concentration on Sam’s face, which did not lessen as the afternoon wore on. Sam was unhappy at his work.
Shortly after three Karl Kessler stopped at Johnny’s bench.
“How you coming along?” he asked.
“It’s a tough job,” Johnny said, “all these decisions.”
“Huh?”
“Every time I pick up a counter I’ve got to make a decision — is it heavy; medium or reject? Keeps your brain working.”
Kessler looked at him suspiciously. “Some fellas c’n do this in their sleep.” He picked up one of Johnny’s bunches of counters, opened it and tested each counter. “These are all right, for heavies.”
“Heavies?” exclaimed Johnny. “Those are the mediums.”
“Mediums? Where are the heavies?”
“The little pile in back.”
Karl Kessler scooped up a bunch of counters from the rear of the bench, tested them individually and scowled. “How do you figure these are different from the mediums?”
“They’re harder.”
“Ah-h,” grunted the assistant foreman in disgust. “These are all supposed to be heavies. They re seven iron, don’t come much heavier. You shouldn’t find more’n one medium out of twenty or thirty counters. Yours are running the other way.” He hesitated. “Better sort ’em all over. Here, I show you...” He scooped back an armful of Johnny’s “mediums,” began resorting them. “Don’t squeeze ’em too hard, you break down the glue. This is a heavy... and this... and this...”
“Guess I’m a little upset,” Johnny said, lamely. “I don’t usually run into a murder my first day on the job. That happen around here very often?”
Kessler shot a startled look at Johnny. “You kiddin’? Nothin’ like that never happened around here.”
“This Piper worked here a long time, didn’t he?” Johnny asked.
“Not so long, sixteen-seventeen years. Can’t figure it out, he wasn’t a bad guy, drank a little too much, bet on the horses, but outside of that, he was a good family man...”
“He was married?”
“Oh, sure, got three kids. I hear Mrs. Piper took it bad.”
“Women usually do take it pretty bad when their husbands are murdered.” Johnny paused. “Who’s your choice for who did it?”
Kessler looked carefully around and dropped his voice to a whisper. “He had a fight with the guinea, didn’t he?”
“Carmella?”
“Yeah, sure. You know these guineas, half of them belong to the Black Hand...”
“The Black Hand! I haven’t heard of them in twenty years.”
“Yah! This is Little Italy. The Death Corner’s only three-four blocks from here. Oak and Milton. They used to kill people there all the time.”
“How long ago?”
“Not so long. Twenty, twenty-five years ago.”
Johnny shook his head. The assistant foreman’s idea of time was out of this world. A man who’d worked at the factory fifteen years was a virtual beginner. He still used the pre-World War I epithet of “guinea” for an Italian and the Black Hand, which had been extinct for twenty-five years was still real in his mind.
The Towner Leather Company was Karl Kessler’s life. He had worked for the firm thirty-nine years. Two great wars had been fought in that time. The American way of life had changed. Poor boys had become millionaires in that time. Children had grown up, married and become grandfathers.
Johnny said: “Is it your idea that the Black Hand’s involved in this murder?”
“Who else? Carmella’s a Blackhander and him and Al Piper had a fight.”
“Carmella quit his job this morning; was that a result of the fight with Al Piper?”
Kessler frowned. “Well, maybe not exactly. Uh, he wasn’t much good around here. Never sorted more’n fourteen hundred pairs a day and when I told him he’d have to hustle up...” He shrugged. “He got sore and quit.”
“Fourteen hundred pairs a day,” mused Johnny. “Seems like a lot of counters.”
“Shucks, most of the fellas do two thousand pairs. Ain’t nothin’ for a man to do twenty-five, twenty-six hundred.” Kessler gestured to Cliff Goff, the horse player. “How many pairs did you sort yesterday, Cliff?”
“Twenty-three hundred,” replied Cliff Goff, “but it was a bad day. Hit some head leather seven and a half irons in the afternoon.”
“That’s bad?” Johnny asked.
“You’ll see, head stock is spongy, uneven. You get a counter made of heavy head stock and it’s like iron on one side and like mush on the other side. Here” — Kessler thrust his hand at the pile of counters — “look at this piece. Beautiful piece of leather, ain’t it? That’s shoulder stock, smooth, even.”
Johnson the foreman suddenly appeared from between two rows of barrels. He came up and halted between Johnny and Kessler. “How’s he doing?” he asked the assistant.
“Pretty good for a beginner,” replied Johnny.
“How many pairs have you sorted so far?” Johnson asked.
“About a thousand, I guess,” Johnny said. “More or less.”
“Less,” suggested Kessler. “About six hundred less.”
“That’s not very many,” Johnson said, “considering you’ve been at it since nine this morning.”
“Don’t forget we had a murder here.”
“I’m not forgetting it,” snapped Johnson. “But it’d be a good idea if you forgot it and thought more of your work. Remember, this is only your first day here.”
He stalked off. Kessler hurried after him, talking and gesticulating with both hands. Johnny looked after them and began to wonder if his career at the Towner Leather Company would be a very long one.
He slapped counters together, stood for awhile with feet planted far apart, climbed up on the high stool and took to standing again. His back ached from leaning over the bench and when he stood his feet hurt.
Four o’clock came and moved grudgingly to four-thirty. Sam Cragg deserted his bench and came over to Johnny. “We quit at five, Johnny,” he said.
“Don’t I know it? My neck’s stiff from twisting it to look at the clock.”
“Yeah, but what about some dough? We got to eat and get a place to sleep tonight. Don’t you think we ought to get a — an advance on our pay?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth, Sam. Wait here.”
Leaving Sam, Johnny headed out into the front part of the floor, where the row of molding machines were banging and pounding. He caught sight of the foreman just beyond, near the glue tanks.
“Mr. Johnson,” he shouted to be heard above the din. “How’s about getting a small advance on my pay?”
“Sorry, Fletcher,” Johnson replied. “That’s against the company’s rules.”
“But Sam and I are flat broke. We don’t even have money for supper.”
“You wouldn’t have had it, if I hadn’t given you this job, would you?”
“No, but we’d have taken it easy all day. We wouldn’t have been as hungry as we are now, after exerting ourselves all day.”
“You’ve got a point there,” conceded Johnson, “but it’s a rule of the company. You can’t make exceptions.”
“No, I guess you can’t,” said Johnny in disgust. He started to turn away, but Johnson called to him.