Frank Gruber
The Lonesome Badger
1
Joe Peel was pretty good at crossword puzzles. A three-letter word meaning rodent hardly ever took five minutes of his time, but his mind wasn’t really on the puzzle just now. Otis Beagle was the cause.
Beagle sat on the other side of the double desk, rocking his squeaking swivel chair back and forth. A big man, six three and crowding two ten with both feet on the scales. A fine figure of a man in a beautifully tailored blue pin-stripe suit, the sleeves of which barely revealed a set of simulated ruby cuff links. He wore a white broadcloth shirt and a gorgeous red necktie in which blazed a horseshoe stickpin with diamonds that you could scarcely tell from the genuine. On the little finger of his smooth left hand sparkled a four-carat diamond ring of matching glass.
Everything about Otis Beagle was big and flashy and phony.
He was reading the “Personal” column of the Sunday newspaper. Beagle had been studying the column for the better part of a half hour, so Joe Peel knew that he had reason to worry. Something was percolating in the big fellow’s brain.
And now it was coming.
Beagle cleared his throat. He lowered his newspaper and cleared his throat a second time, more noisily. But Joe Peel was scowling over his crossword puzzle by that time.
“Joe,” said Otis Beagle, “do you ever read these Personals?”
“Rat,” exclaimed Peel. “A rat’s a rodent and it’s got three letters.”
“All right, Joe,” said Beagle coldly. “Go ahead, work your stupid crossword puzzles. Don’t worry about a thing. And why should you? You’ve got an employer who gives you a pay check every week.”
Joe Peel looked up. “Did you say every week, Otis? This is Wednesday. Paydays on Saturday — and if you gave me my pay last Saturday I must have squandered it without knowing it.”
“I told you I was a little short last week. Don’t keep harping about it, Joe. You’ll get your money. You always have.”
“Sure, Otis, I’ve always gotten my money. A little late sometimes, but better late than never.” Peel crooked his elbow and laughed humorlessly up his sleeve.
“Very funny, Joe, very funny. And I’ll tell you something else that’s funny. You’ll probably laugh yourself sick. There isn’t going to be any pay next Saturday. Unless we get a case between now and then.”
Peel groaned and pushed away the crossword puzzle. “All right, Otis, an idea’s rattling around in your noggin. Spill it, but the answer’s no. I know that already.”
“You know a lot of things,” Beagle snapped. “Except how to bring business into the agency.”
“I’m listening, Otis. You were reading the Personal column in the Sunday paper. Go ahead. Elsie misses Jasper, wants him to come home. Dave Fimberg will write music for your song poem. And the Shark Finance Company will lend you money if you’ve got a nice steady job with a salary that they can garnishee.”
Beagle folded his newspaper and read: “Lonely? Join our friendship club. Introductions. Iowa Lee, Registrar, Box 202, Highland Station, Hollywood, Calif.”
“Why, Otis,” said Peel mockingly. “Have your blondes and brunettes and redheads all gotten wise to you?”
“Goddam you, Joe,” snarled Beagle. “Stop your clowning and pay attention. We need a case, a cash retainer.” Beagle slammed the newspaper on the desk. “These Lonely Hearts Clubs are rackets. Sure, they’re legal. But they’re rackets just the same. Iowa Lee, Registrar! Why, the very name’s a phony.”
“How do you know?”
“Whoever heard of anyone named Iowa? It’s sucker bait. There’re more people from Iowa in Los Angeles than there are in Des Moines. Retired farmers, small-town people. They come out here and they’re lonesome. Widows, widowers, old maids. They read these Personals and they come across the name Iowa. Nostalgia!”
“All right, I follow you, Otis. In fact, I’m ahead of you. So they spend a few bucks and meet a widow, or widower, as the case may be. Or a guy with halitosis meets an old maid. They might even get married. What business is it of ours?”
“Don’t be stupider than you have to be, Joe. You know very well what I’m driving at. These people are doing something that they know deep down they shouldn’t be doing. So they’re suspicious as all hell. They’ve got guilty consciences—”
“Say that again. About guilty consciences.”
Beagle had the good grace to blush a little. “I’m as honest as the next man, you ought to know that by now. But I like to eat good steaks and I prefer a comfortable living...”
“Sure, Otis, you’ve got the tastes of a millionaire and the income of a second-string bookkeeper.”
“A man’s known by the company he keeps,” growled Beagle. “Associate with people who’ve got money and some of it’s bound to rub off on you.”
“Yeah, and stick your nose in other people’s business and someone’s bound to bop it.” Peel held up his hand as Beagle began to show anger. “Okay, Otis, it’ll be my nose that gets bopped. It usually is. But go on — you were talking about these poor lonely people with guilty consciences.”
“People with guilty consciences are liable to... well, do I have to draw you a picture?”
“They’re liable to be in need of a private detective. Is that what you’re driving at?”
“Well?”
Peel regarded Otis Beagle with a fishy eye. “Now look, Otis, I know you well enough to know that you’ve got something more concrete in mind than going down to this Lonely Hearts Club in the bare hope of selling somebody a bill of goods.”
Beagle cleared his throat again. “As a matter of fact, Joe, uh, I’ve already done a little ground work, so to speak.” He pulled open the desk drawer and brought out a sheaf of papers that were suspiciously handy to his reach. He held up a seven by ten pamphlet of about twelve pages. “Exhibit A, a copy of Heart Throbs, the paper put out by Iowa Lee...”
“I’ll be damned!”
Beagle turned a page of the little magazine. “Listen to this: ‘Lonely widow, 65, with affectionate disposition, wishes to meet gentleman of similar tastes. Am considered attractive by my friends and own my own home. Have cash and bonds. HT48.’ ” Beagle snorted. “Two bucks for a listing like that and she’ll get a hundred answers. But here’s a better one.” He turned another page and read: “Attractive young woman, age 25, with $50,000 in cash, wants to correspond with exciting man 30–40. Object matrimony. Box 314.”
Joe Peel exclaimed, “If she’s twenty-five, attractive and has fifty grand, why does she have to advertise for a man?”
“That was the question I asked myself. Here’s the answer.” Beagle put down the Lonely Hearts booklet and picked up a sheet of buff-colored letter paper.
“You answered the ad?” cried Peel.
“Of course. Listen to this: ‘Dear Mr. Peel—’ ”
“Peel! You used my name?”
“Naturally,” said Otis Beagle.
“Naturally, hell!” howled Peel. He slammed back his swivel chair and leaped to his feet. “You got the gall of a starving hyena—”
“Joe,” Beagle said coldly, “listen to this before you blow your cork. ‘Dear Mr. Peeclass="underline" I don’t mind telling you that I received over 250 replies to my little advertisement but of all of them your letter intrigued me the most...’ ” Beagle lowered the letter. “What do you think of that? She picked my letter out of more than two hundred and fifty.”
“That I believe,” snapped Peel. “And that’s the one thing I give you credit for. You can throw the bull better than anyone I’ve ever met in all my life.”
Beagle tossed the letter to the desk. “Let’s cut out the shilly-shallying. The lady’s name and address is on the bottom of the letter. She’s worth fifty thousand dollars and she says she needs a strong man to lean on.”