CHAPTER III

“In a Safe—in the Klondike Building”

Educated turned towards the doorway.

“I wish you luck,” was all he said.

But Big Gus reached out a hamlike hand—detaining him.

“Listen—Ej’cated—I know you feel you oughta beat it out of here now—but don’t. For—for Cri’ sakes! Nobody ain’t comin’ in here. And I gotta ask a few questions. I gotta. First: the gal spilled all what you’ve just told me, to this new gaycat—this Handsome Harry?”

“Right! Last night, Gus. She’s in love with him. And doesn’t dream he isn’t legitimate. A regular collar ad, I was told he is—and knows how to shove the salve—dish out the flattery—see? What she gave him wasn’t info, of course, such as the Tritt Mob is trying to get—or need; but, having got it, he passed it on to ’em—and by midnight; and one of ’em—Limpy Blaine, who’s a friend of yours—passed it on, even before dawn today, to a guy who’s a friend of yours as well as a friend of mine—Jerry the Snake. And—”

“Jerry—the Snake? Good old Jerry—but listen, Jerr—”

“He knew, Gus,” Educated put in quickly, “that ’twas going to mean the hot seat for you; so he came straight to Moundsville here—only an hour ago—knowing I was a trusty, and that he could get to speak to me privately, the warden being a pretty good guy, you know, and not making us trusties talk through the screen grating in front of the screws. Jerry’s got no pedigree, you know—and he said he was my mouthpiece, come to tell me about a big estate I was to catch a cut of. And the warden let me be with him a half hour. Alone. And Jerry gave me the whole story—quick—but not leaving a single fact out. He—”

“Now wait, Ej’cated,” begged Big Gus, passing a hand over his forehead. “Wait! Where—where is the sconce right now? In the City Hall, you say?”

“Oh no, Gus. No! All this happened in the S. A.’s old office—in some ancient building called the Klondike building—across the street from the City Hall. I told you the dinge looked his name up in the phone directory—and that brought the dinge there, you see. No, this is some office, Gus, in which Louis Vann—he’s the present S. A., though of course you’d know that, I guess—in which Louis Vann started his law practice years ago, and which, it seems, he still keeps today out of sentiment. And with everything in it exactly like it used to be. To the last piece of furniture—and the last picture on the wall, including, incidentally, the old diploma! Yes! And this young New Zealand broad—the one I told you whose old man did Vann some favor—well, she just takes care of this old office—she’s not his regular secretary in the City Hall. No! Though she knows all what to do—about evidence and all that.”

Big Gus was stroking his pockmarked bulbous nose. A thing he always did, rather than stroke his chin, when his mind was working desperately, intently. And he spoke.

“So that sconce, Ej’cated—is in Looey Vann’s old office, eh! In the old Klondike Building, heh? Why—that son-of-a-bitch!—I—”

“You’ve had personal dealings, have you?” inquired Educated, surprised, “with ‘Lock-the-Stable-Door’ Vann?”

“‘Lock-th’-Stable-Door’—Vann?” echoed Big Gus.

“Who—what—”

“Oh, that’s what Jerry the Snake says he’s known as, here and there about Chicago, you know. But only, of course, since he became the S. A.”

“Yeah—but w’y,” demanded Big Gus, “are they callin’ him that?”

“Why? Because, as I understand it, he always posts a man somewhere near, or around where, a job—a snitch, or a bump-off—has been pulled, to wait!”

“To wait! For what! For who?”

“Why, for the guy, of course,” Educated said, sardonically, “who pulled it—to come back.”

“Aw!—for Jesus Christ’s sake!” exploded Big Gus, disgustedly. “Comeback—f’r what? His lunch?”

“The story simply is,” explained Educated patiently, “that years ago, when Vann was a kid, he read some Nick Carter novel in which, somewhere, it said; ‘The criminal always returns to the scene of his crime.’ And it left its ineradicable impress on his consciousness.”

“Inyradical impress—okay—whatever that is! Well has he ever made a grab based on that beautiful the-ory?”

“Never, it seems. And that’s why those who are in the know up there in Chicago—and by that I mean the regular cops, on the force—give him considerable of a horse-laugh. Though not to his face. No. But here—you were intimating, when we ran off the track, here, that you once crossed arms with him—and in that same old office.”

“Exackly,” Big Gus admitted. “I was up in that ident’cal old office years ago—yeah, th’ one in that Klondike Building—when Vann was just startin’ out—I see him as a fast comer-up, an’ I try to slip him a retainer of a C-note to front for me in case of any jim-ups—but he wouldn’t play ball. Th’ white-livered bastard! Said if I had a pedigree—he couldn’t take me on. Which I had. So the deal was off. He—So-o? The sconce is in his office, hey?—in th’ old Klondike Building? An’ in his pete, to boot? Jesus—a plain ord’nary goddamn knobknockin’ job, that pete, if ever in Christ’s world there was such; and—listen?—Jerry told you pos’tive, now, that the sconce was took to that office?”

“Positively, Gus.”

“Well—but probably you wouldn’t know this—I wonder did the broad look at it? I—”

“She told Handsome no, Gus. The thought of the ‘thing inside,’ she said, was ‘disgusting’ to her. She only tore the paper open a little at one point—just enough to make sure that ’twas a sconce—and not a—a pincushion. Or—or a quart of Scotch. If you get me! To make sure the dinge wasn’t screwy—yes. And then she locked it in the safe—wrapped just as he brought it. And took that full deposition from him—everything he could tell or remember. Or that she could think to fish out of him. And had his signature mark witnessed by a couple of punks up the hall. One of whom, by the way, Gus, slightly knew the dinge. Enough so that she was able to notarize the deposition herself. And the deposition, it’s now—”

“Oh, t’ hell wit’ th’ deposition,” bit out Big Gus. “That don’t mean nothing. Not a goddamn thing. It’s—it’s th’ goddamn sconce—wit’ th’ surg’cal work in th’ snoot. An’ th’ bullet hole in it. An’—so th’ sconce—hm?—is in Looey Vann’s old ofhce—in th’ Klondike Building—an’ Vann not expected back ’til early tomorrow morning? Hm? By Chri—listen—this here now dinge who made this dep’sition—what th’ hell did you tell me the black bastard’s name was?”

“Moses Klump, I told you. And lives in a cottage at 3733 Vernon Avenue. A down-at-heel street—full of unpainted, rickety cottages, occupied today only by niggers. If now, Gus, you were only in touch with some mob who’d do a bump-off for you, you could—”

“I—could bump the dinge off? Christ, Ej’cated—that ’twouldn’t do no good—now that he’s made that goddamn dep’sition. In front o’ witnesses. An’ all that. Christ—no! It—but this here dep’sition, Ej’cated? Jus’ where is it? In th’ pete wit’ th’ sconce? If so, I c’n—”

“No, Gus. The S. A.—according to the girl’s story to this Handsome—has a small $3 lock-box in the Lasalle Day and Night Safety Deposit Vaults—in his and her name—that he instructed her to put any valuable papers in—in case of fire or anything. So she strolled over, after locking up the office, and stuck the deposition in the lock-box.”

“Oh yeah—yeah, I get it. Couldn’t stick no sconce in no $3 lock-box, eh? An’ anyway—in case of a fire—th’ sconce wouldn’t burn inside th’ pete anyway. Yeah—I get it. But the sconce is in th’ pete, eh? Jesus—le’ me get my lousy brains together. I’m—I’m dizzy. I’m—” Big Gus commenced thinking hard again, helping it along this time by passing a blue denim sleeve over his entire face. Suddenly he looked up.

“Ej’cated—you’re a frien’ o’ mine, ain’t you?”

“Certainly am, Gus. You did plenty for me—back in those days when I was a stockyards kid—and you were in the money—and my old man was bumped off on that job you and he were on. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have got through high school; though,” Educated added, bitterness dripping from his tones, “damn little good it did me—for I hate the goddamned Law today worse than you do—for bumping the Old Man off the way it did. Without his even having a chance to take it on the lam—and serve a short stretch. And—but enough of that! I’m your friend. So—even though your snatch wasn’t pulled by my mob—I’ll do anything for you. Personal. See?”

“Okay, Ej’cated. Now when you goin’ up to town t’ Moundsville—next—wit’ the Head-Gee?”

“Up to town? Hell—I’m going right in to Chi today, with him.”

“Into—Chi? Th’—th’ hell you are! And he’ll maybe leave you alone—wit’ th’ car—once or twice?”

“Hell—yes! A half dozen times. While he runs in here and runs in there. He knows I’m not going to lam—with only 60 days left—and take a chance on coming back and serving all my g. b. off time. I’ll be alone a half dozen times—from 10 minutes to a half hour each time.”

“Jesus—if that—if that ain’t the berries! It—Ej’cated, will you call a certain number in Chi—on th’ phone—and tell that there party—but all condensed-like—exact what you just told me?”

“Sure—sure—sure, Gus. Glad to. I’ll condense the whole thing on the way up to Chi in my, mind, so’s I can say it all quickly. And I—but who’s the party, Gus?”

And now, for the first time, Big Gus became regretfully silent. For never had he revealed what now he was going to have to reveal. But hopelessly scattered was his old mob—two serving The Book—life sentences—one in an Eastern stir, and one in a Western stir: two knocked off—killed—by G-men, and the remaining man’s whereabouts unknown—at least to him, Big Gus. And out of touch, moreover, he had been himself, now, for 10 long years, with other criminals—other, that is, than those who got stuck in here at Moundsville and became, for the time being, quite impotent beings. He shook his head. It was his only chance. And he surveyed Educated Brink curiously, as he spoke.