Night's Black Agents, page 5
Larsen turned up a king and raked in another pot.
“You can’t lose tonight,” observed Glasses, smiling—and winced because the smile hurt his cheek.
Larsen scowled. He didn’t seem pleased at his luck, or at Glasses’ remark. His pig eyes were moving in the same way that had given us the jim-jams earlier in the day. And I kept thinking, “Maybe he killed Inky Kozacs. Glasses and me are just small fry to him. Maybe he’s trying to figure out whether to kill us too. Or maybe he’s got a use for us, and he’s wondering how much to tell us. If he starts anything I’ll shove the table over on him; that is, if I get the chance.” He was beginning to look like a stranger to me, although I’d known him for ten years and he’d been my boss and paid me good money.
Then I heard the noise again, a little plainer this time. It was very peculiar and hard to describe—something like the noise a rat would make if it were tied up in a lot of blankets and trying to work its way out. I looked up and saw that the bruise on Glasses’ left cheek stood out plainer.
“My black bullet bets ten cents,” said Larsen, pushing a dime into the pot.
“I’m with you,” I answered, shoving in two nickels.,My voice sounded so dry and choked it startled me.
Glasses put in his money and dealt another card to each of us.
Then I felt my face going pale, for it seemed to me that the noise was coming from Larsen’s suitcase, and I remembered that he had put Inky’s automatic into the suitcase with its muzzle pointing away from us.
The noise was louder now. Glasses couldn’t bear to sit still without saying anything. He pushed back his chair and started to whisper, “I think I hear—”
Then he saw the crazy, murderous look that came into Larsen’s eyes, and he had sense enough to finish, “I think I hear the eleven o’clock train.”
“Sit still,” said Larsen, “very still. It’s only ten forty-five. My ace bets another ten cents.”
“I’ll raise you,” I croaked.
I wanted to jump up. I wanted to throw Larsen’s suitcase out the door. I wanted to run out myself. Yet I sat tight. We all sat tight. We didn’t dare make a move, for if we had, it would have shown that we believed the impossible was happening. And if a man does that he’s crazy. I kept rubbing my tongue against my lips, without wetting them.
I stared at the cards, trying to shut out everything else. The hand was all dealt now. I had a jack and some little ones, and I knew my face-down card was a jack. Glasses had a king showing. Larsen’s ace of clubs was the highest card on the board.
And still the sound kept coming. Something twisting, straining, heaving. A muffled sound.
“And I raise you ten cents,” said Glasses loudly. I got the idea he did it just to make a noise, not because he thought his cards were especially good.
I turned to Larsen, trying to pretend I was interested in whether he would raise or stop betting. His eyes had stopped moving and were staring straight ahead at the suitcase. His mouth was twisted in a funny, set way. After a while his lips began to move. His voice was so low I could barely catch the words.
“Ten cents more. I killed Inky, you know. What does your jack say, No Nose?”
“It raises you,” I said automatically.
His reply came in the same almost inaudible voice. “You haven’t a chance of winning, No Nose. He didn’t bring the money with him, like he said he would. But I made him tell me where he hid it in his room. I can’t pull the job myself; the cops would recognize me. But you two ought to be able to do it for me. That’s why we’re going to New York tonight. I raise you ten cents more.”
“I’ll see you,” I heard myself saying.
The noise stopped, not gradually but all of a sudden. Right away I wanted ten times worse to jump up and do something. But I was stuck to my chair.
Larsen turned up the ace of spades.
“Two aces. Inky’s little gun didn’t protect him, you know. He didn’t have a chance to use it. Clubs and spades. Black bullets. I win.”
Then it happened.
I don’t need to tell you much about what we did afterward.
We buried the body in the sea-grass. We cleaned everything up and drove fhe coupe a couple of miles inland before abandoning it. We carried the gun away with us and took it apart and hammered it out of shape and threw it into the bay part by part. We never found out anything more about Inky’s money or tried to. The police never bothered us. We counted ourselves lucky that we had enough sense left to get away safely, after what happened.
For, with smoke and flame squirting through the little round holes, and the whole suitcase jerking and shaking with the recoils, eight slugs drummed out and almost cut Anton Larsen in two.
The Inheritance
“This the room?” I put down my cardboard suitcase.
The landlord nodded. “Nothing been changed in it since your uncle died.”
It was small and dingy, but pretty clean. I took it in. The oak dresser. The cupboard. The bare table, The green-shaded drop light. The easy chair. The kitchen chair. The cast-iron bed.
“Except the sheets and stuff,” the landlord added. “They been washed.”
“He died unexpectedly, didn’t he?” I said.
“Yeah. In his sleep. You know, his heart.”
I nodded vaguely, and, on an impulse, walked over and opened the cupboard door. Two of the shelves were filled with canned stuff and other supplies. There was an old coffee pot and two saucepans, and some worn china covered with a fine network of brownish cracks.
“Your uncle had cooking privileges,” the landlord said. “Of course you can have them too, if you want.”
I went over and looked down three stories at the dirty street.
Some boys were pitching pennies. I studied the names of the stores. When I turned around I thought maybe the landlord would be going, but he was still watching me. The whites of his eyes were discolored.
“There’s twenty-five cents for the washing I told you about,” he said. I dug in my pocket for a quarter. That left me forty-seven cents.
He laboriously wrote me a receipt. “There’s your key on the table,” he said, “and one for the outside door. The place is yours for the next three months and two weeks.”
He walked out, shutting the door behind him. From below came the rackety surge of a passing street car. I dropped down into the easy chair.
People can inherit some pretty queer things. I had inherited some canned goods and the rent of a room, just because my Uncle David, whom I never remembered seeing, paid for things in advance. The court had been decent about it, especially after my telling them I was broke. The landlord had refused to make a refund, but you could hardly blame him for that. Of course, after hitch-hiking all the way to the city, I’d been disappointed to hear there was no real money involved. The pension had stopped with my uncle’s death, and funeral expenses had eaten up the rest. Still, I was thankful I had a place to sleep.
They said my uncle must have made his will just a little while after I was born. I don’t think my father and mother knew about it, or they’d have mentioned it—at least when they died. I never heard much about him except that he was my father’s elder brother.
I vaguely knew he was a policeman, that was all. You knowhow it is; families split up, and only the old folks keep touch, and they don’t talk to the young folks about it, and pretty soon the whole connection is forgotten, unless something special happens. I guess that sort of thing has been going on since the world began. Forces are at work that break up people, and scatter them, and make them lonely. You feel it most of all in a big city.
They say there’s no law against being a failure, but there is, as I’ve found out. After a childhood in easy circumstances, things got harder and harder. The Depression. Family dying. Friends going off. Jobs uncertain and difficult to find. Delays and uncomfortableness about government assistance. I’d tried my hand at bumming around, but found I lacked the right temperament. Even being a tramp or sponger or scavenger takes special ability. Hitch-hiking to the city had left me feeling nervous and unwell. And my feet hurt. I’m one of those people who aren’t much good at taking it.
Sitting there in my dead uncle’s worn, old easy chair with the night coming on, I felt the full impact of my loneliness. Through the walls I heard people moving around and talking faintly, but they weren’t people I knew or had ever seen. From outside came a mixed-up rumbling and murmuring. Far away I could hear a steam-engine grunting heavily; nearer, the monotonous buzz of a defective neon sign. There was a steady thumping from some machinery I couldn’t identify, and I thought I heard the whine of a sewing machine. Lonely unfriendly sounds, all of them. The dusty square of window kept getting darker, but it was more like heavy smoke settling than a regular evening.
Some trivial thing was bothering me. Something unconnected with the general gloominess. I tried to figure out what it was, and after a while it came to me suddenly. It was very simple. Although I usually slump to one side when I sit in an easy chair, I was now leaning straight back, because the upholstery was deeply indented toward the center. And that, as I immediately realized, must have been because my uncle had always leaned straight back. The sensation was a little frightening, but I resisted the impulse to jump up. Instead I found myself wondering what sort of man he’d been and how he’d lived, and I began to picture him moving around and sitting down and sleeping in the bed, and occasionally having some friend from the police force to visit with him. I wondered how he passed the time after he was retired.
There weren’t any books in sight. I didn’t notice any ashtrays, and there wasn’t a tobacco smell. Ft had probably been pretty lonely for the old man, without family or anything. And here I was inheriting his loneliness.
Then I did get up, and started to walk around aimlessly. It struck me that the furniture locked sort of uncomfortable all stuck back against the walls, so I pulled some of it out. I went over to the dresser. There was a framed picture on it, lying face down. I took it over to the window. Yes, it was my uncle, all right, for “David Rhode, Lieutenant of Police, retired July l, 1927,” was inscribed on it in small, careful handwriting. He had on his policeman’s cap, and his cheeks were thin, and his eyes were more intelligent and penetrating than I’d expected. He didn’t look so old. I put it back on the dresser and then changed my mind and propped it up on top of the cupboard. I still felt too nervous and sickish to want anything to eat. I knew I should have gone to bed and tried to get a good rest, but I was on edge after the day at court. I was lonely, yet I didn’t want to take a walk or be near people.
So I decided to put in some time looking through my inheritance in detail. It was the obvious thing to do, but a sort of embarrassment had been holding me back. Once I started, I became quite curious. I didn’t expect to find anything of value. I was mostly interested in learning more about my uncle. I began by taking another look at the cupboard. There was canned stuff and coffee enough for maybe a month. That was fortunate. It would give me time to rest up and hunt for a job. On the bottom shelf were a few old tools, screws, wire and other junk.
When I opened the closet door I got a momentary shock. Hanging against the wall was a policeman’s uniform, with a blue cap on the hook above and two heavy shoes jutting out underneath, and a night stick hung alongside on a nail. It looked lifelike in the shadows. I realized it was getting dark and switched on the green-shaded drop light. I found a regular suit and an overcoat and some other clothes in the closet—not many. On the shelf was a box containing a service revolver and a belt with some cartridges stuck in the leather loops. I wondered if I ought to do anything about it. I was puzzled by the uniform, until I realized he must have had two, one for summer, the other for winter. They had buried him in the other.
This far I hadn’t found much, so I started on the dresser. The two top drawers contained shirts and handkerchiefs and socks and underwear, all washed and neatly folded but frayed. They were mine now. If they fitted me, 1 had a right to wear them. It was an unpleasant thought, but practical.
The third drawer was filled with newspaper clippings, carefully arranged into separate piles and bundles. I glanced at the top ones. They all seemed to be concerned with police cases, two of them fairly recent. Here, I figured, was a clue to what my uncle did after his retirement. He kept up an interest in his old job.
The bottom drawer contained a heterogeneous assortment of stuff. A pair of spectacles, a curiously short, silver-headed cane, an empty briefcase, some green ribbon, a toy wooden horse that looked very old (I wondered idly, if he had bought it for me when I was a baby and then forgotten to send it) and other things.
Quickly I shoved in the drawer and walked away. This business wasn’t as interesting as I’d expected. I got a picture of things all right, but it made me think of death and feel shivery and lost. Here I was in the midst of a big city, and the only person I felt at all close to was three weeks buried.
Still, I figured I’d better finish the job, so I pulled out the shallow drawer under the table top. I found two recent newspapers, a pair of scissors and a pencil, a small bundle of receipts in the landlord’s laborious hand, and a detective story from a lending library. It was called, “The Lodger.” Would they want me to pay the rental on it? I guessed they would not insist.
That was all I could find. And, as I thought it over, it seemed very little. Didn’t he use to get any letters? The general neatness had led me to expect a couple of boxes of them, carefully tied in packets. And weren’t there any photographs or other mementos? Or magazines, or notebooks? Why, I hadn’t even come across that jumble of advertisements and folders and cards and other worthless stuff you find somewhere in almost every home. It suddenly struck me that his last years must have been awfully empty and barren, in spite of the clippings and the detective story.
There wasn’t any knock, but the door opened and the landlord stepped inside, moving softly in big, loose slippers. It startled me and made me a trifle angry—a jumpy sort of anger.
“I just wanted to tell you,” he said, “that we don’t like to have any noise after eleven o’clock. Oh, and your uncle used to cook at eight-thirty and five.”
“Okay, okay,” I said quickly and was about to add something sarcastic when a thought struck me.
“Did my uncle keep a trunk or box in the basement, or anything like that?” I asked.
He looked at me stupidly for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Everything he had is right here,” and he indicated the room with a sidewise movement of his big, thick-fingered hand.
“Did he have many visitors?” I asked. I thought the landlord hadn’t heard this question but after a while he came to and shook his head.
“Thank you,” I said, moving off. “Goodnight.”
When I turned back he was still standing in the doorway, staring sleepily around the room. Again I noticed how the whites of his eyes were discolored.
“Say,” he remarked, “I see you’ve moved the furniture back the way your uncle had it.”
“Yes, it was all up against the walls, and I pulled it out.”
“You put his picture back on the top of the cupboard.”
“That’s where it used to be?” I asked. He nodded, looked around again, yawned and turned to go.
“Well—” he said, “sleep well.”
The last two words sounded unnatural, as if dragged out with prodigious effort. He closed the door noiselessly behind him. Immediately I had snatched the key from the table and was locking it. I wasn’t going to stand for him prying around without knocking, not if I could help it. Again loneliness closed in on me.
So I had rearranged the furniture in the old pattern, and put the picture back in its proper place, had I? The thought frightened me a little. I wished I didn’t have to sleep in that ugly cast-iron bed. But where else could I go with forty-seven cents and my lack of gumption?
I realized suddenly that I was being foolish. It was perfectly natural that I should feel a little uneasy. Anyone would in such queer circumstances. But I mustn’t let it get me down. I would have to live in this room for some time. The thing to do was to get used to it. So I got out some of the newspaper clippings that were in the dresser and began to go through them. They covered a period of twenty years or so. The older ones were yellow and stiff and cracked easily. They were mostly about murders. I kept turning them over, looking at the headlines and here and there reading a little. After a while I found myself plunged into accounts of a “Phantom Slayer” who killed wantonly and for no apparent motive. His crimes were similar to those with which the uncaught “Jack the Ripper” horrified London in 1888, except that men and children, as well as women, were numbered among his victims. I vaguely remembered hearing about two of the cases years ago—there were seven or eight altogether. Now I read the details. They were not conducive to pleasant thought. My uncle’s name was mentioned among the investigators in some of the earlier cases.
That was by far the biggest pile of clippings. All the piles were carefully arranged, but I couldn’t find any notes of comments, except a tiny scrap of paper with an address on it, 2318 Robey Street. It puzzled me. Just that solitary address without any explanation. I planned to look it up some day.
It was night outside now, and the upward-slanting light from the street lamp made it easier to see the dust on the windowpane. There weren’t many new noises coming through the walls, just the low, sharp drone of some radio voices. I could still hear the buzz of the defective neon sign, and another engine was puffing in the distant yards. To my relief, I found I was getting sleepy. As I undressed and hung my clothes with uncustomary neatness on the kitchen chair, I found myself wondering if my uncle had arranged his in the same way: coat over the back, trousers over the seat, shoes underneath with the socks tucked inside them, shirt and tie draped on top of the coat.
I opened the window three inches from the top and bottom, then remembered that I seldom opened my bedroom window from the top, and did some more of the same wondering. I was thankful I still felt sleepy. I pulled back the covers of the bed, switched off the drop light, and jumped in.
