“Why?” I asked with raised brows. “They’re safer where they are.”
“Perhaps, but if we simply turn the boys over to the police with the story that we captured them in the act of committing burglary, the story won’t draw more than a line or two on the inside pages of the papers. But if news of my burglar trap leaks out, some reporter may play it up as a human-interest story. And once the thing receives any publicity, it will be forever after useless.”
After thinking this over, I nodded. “I see your point. Okay, you peel that net off them while I keep them covered. I’ll let you get it out of sight before we phone the police. I doubt that the boys will care to mention how they were trapped to anyone, because it makes them look kind of silly.”
I drew my gun again.
The story did only rate brief mention on the inside pages of the local papers. Because they were both juveniles, the boys’ names weren’t even given.
Later, I got to wondering if there hadn’t been a potential page-one story in Mr. Olem’s device, though; not just because of its cleverness, but because of possible catches it might have made previously that went unreported.
I don’t know that it ever made any previous catches, of course. It’s pure speculation based on what may well be merely my overactive imagination, but young Joe Ramirez, Tommy Coster and Jimmy Elias still haven’t reappeared in the neighborhood, and none of the other Street Tigers seem to know where they are. They’ve dropped out of sight before, but never for this long. No one but me is likely to get worried about them, because Joe and Tommy don’t have any parents, and Jim’s father disowned him.
Also, it was odd the way that bandit pair in the witches’ masks so abruptly ended their crime spree. Their first night of activity they made three hits. It occurs to me as possible that they again planned three hits instead of only two on their second night out — and maybe the third was Olem’s Delicatessen.
If I hadn’t happened along just as the net dropped over the Gomez and Talley boys, I wonder if the break-in would have been reported.
For a time the seeming lack of any motive on Mr. Olem’s part stymied me. Then I started thinking about his experience of living with a native tribe in New Guinea in his youth. I looked up New Guinea in the encyclopedia and it is one of the few places left in the world where some natives still practice cannibalism.
After stewing about the whole thing for several days, I finally decided to continue my lifelong habit of minding my own business — but I’m not going to eat any more of Mr. Olem’s delicious sausage.
Cheers
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, February 1968.
I stayed out until 11:00 p.m., hoping the landlady would be in bed by then, but she had waited up, and her door opened just after I had sneaked past it.
“Mr. Willard!”
I flinched, then turned around to face her. She stood in her doorway, fat arms folded across her ample bosom, her eyes blazing.
“Yes, Mrs. Emory?” I said meekly.
“It is the seventeenth!”
“Yes, ma’am, I know we promised the back rent today, but the fight we had scheduled was postponed—”
“Fight, schmight,” Mrs. Emory interrupted. “I don’t think you’re ever going to have another fight. You and Mr. Jones either pay up or get out. Tonight!”
“At this hour? Be reasonable, Mrs. Emory. I guarantee that by noon at the latest—”
I was interrupted again, this time by the front door opening with a bang. I recognized my roommate and manager by his lanky legs. That’s all you could see of him because the upper part of his body, and even his head, was hidden by the huge pile of packages he was carrying.
I moved forward to relieve him of part of the load. In one of the paper bags I took from him, bottles clinked in an interesting manner.
Ambrose Jones peered around the remainder of the packages. “Ah, Mrs. Emory,” he said with amiable formality, “you’re looking particularly revolting tonight.”
If the packages hadn’t already given it away, his greeting would have told me that Ambrose had fallen into money. He always insulted the landlady when he was flush. His formal tone also told me he was half-stoned.
Mrs. Emory knew the symptoms, too, and ignored the insult because she knew it meant our back rent was forthcoming. She used her pass key to open the door, and we both dumped our packages on the nearest twin bed. With a flourish Ambrose drew out a roll of bills.
“Here you are, my benevolent gargoyle,” he said, counting out four twenties into the landlady’s outstretched palm. “Two weeks back rent and two weeks rent in advance.”
Mrs. Emory sniffed and left the room. Ambrose locked the door behind her and fanned the roll to show me that the twenties had been its lowest denomination. Most of the bills were fifties.
“How soon can we expect cops to be beating on the door?” I asked.
“Now, Sam,” he said reproachfully, “this represents the advance on a business transaction. One thousand dollars, less what I spent for purchases and paid to Mrs. Emory. We have four thousand more coming at the conclusion of the deal.”
The only thing I could think of was that he must have matched me with the champ and guaranteed that I would take a dive. No, that couldn’t be it. Why would the champ need a guarantee? I hadn’t lasted a full round in two years and hadn’t even had a fight in six months.
While I was going through these mental convolutions, Ambrose was opening packages. There were clothes for both of us. There were cold cuts, cheese, rye bread, pickles, caviar and smoked oysters. There was champagne, Scotch, bourbon and various mixes.
Ambrose stacked the comestibles on the dresser.
While he sorted out the clothing, his and mine, I made myself a thick sandwich.
Then I asked. “Who do we have to kill?”
“A fellow named Everett Dobbs,” he said brightly, and poured champagne into two water glasses.
I said, “Kidding aside, Ambrose, what’s the deal?” He raised his eyebrows at me, and popped a couple of smoked oysters into his mouth which he swallowed before saying, “I told you. Our client is a Mrs. Cornelia Dobbs, a handsome but fading nymph of middle age who has tired of her husband. I met her in a bar. After buying me several drinks she broached the subject of murder. She seemed to be under the impression I was a criminal type because the place was Monty’s.”
That was understandable. Monty’s is a waterfront bar where a large percentage of the clientele are criminal types.
“So you conned her out of a grand,” I said.
“Conned her? I accepted an ethically binding advance. Are you accusing me of being dishonest?”
I found shot glasses in the top bureau drawer, opened a bottle of bourbon and poured. We had several more each, along with cold cuts, cheese, caviar, smoked oysters and pickles. As we reveled, Ambrose explained the arrangements he had made in more detail.
Everett Dobbs was a retired real-estate speculator with about half the money in the county. He and his would-be widow lived in one of the huge homes in the Glen Ridge area. Dobbs spent most of his time at the Glen Ridge Country Club, however, and that’s where Cornelia Dobbs wanted us to “take” him.
According to Cornelia, her husband left the club promptly at eleven every night, almost invariably alone, and drove home. She had furnished Ambrose with a description of the man’s car and its license number. We were to wait in the parking lot, waylay him, and drive him off in his own car. One of us would drive Dobbs’ car, the other would follow in the jalopy Ambrose and I jointly owned. We would arrange some kind of fatal accident. Cornelia, of course, would have arranged an unbreakable alibi.