Ellery Queen - Cop Out

“No offense, Wes, no offense. Share the wealth is my motto. Talking about that, terrible thing about Tom Howland, isn’t it? They say he was in on it.”

“I wouldn’t know. Wally, I need a favor.”

“Oh?” Bagshott immediately stopped smiling.

“I’d like to inspect your safe deposit records.”

“What for?”

“I can’t tell you anything about it. Except that it’s important.”

“Well, I don’t know. You’re out of uniform-”

“Let’s say it’s undercover work.”

“No kid?” The banker leaned forward eagerly. “It’s about this stickup, isn’t it?”

Malone was quiet.

“Well, if you can’t. Okay, Wes, I don’t see why not, seeing you’re an officer of the law.”

“One thing, Wally. I’ve got to ask you to keep this absolutely to yourself.”

“You knew me, pal.” Bagshott winked. “Tightest snatch in town.”

He waved his Masonic ring and led the way to the rear of the bank. He dismissed the woman on duty in the Safe Deposit Department and unlocked a drawer.

“Here’s the check-in card.”

“The one they sign when they want to get into their box?”

“Isn’t that what you want to see?”

“Yes. But I’m also interested in your latest applications for box rentals.”

“How far back you want to go?”

“Yesterday.”

The banker looked startled. “Yesterday?”

Malone nodded.

“You mean to say-?”

“I’m not meaning to say anything. Just let me have them, would you mind?”

Bagshott took out three cards. He was so conscious of the hot breath of crime that he broke his own rule about never allowing himself to look worried. “Three new boxes rented yesterday,” he said with a careful look around. “They haven’t even been put in the master file yet.”

“I’d like to take these into one of the rooms.”

“Good idea. Sure thing.”

“Alone.”

Bagshott frowned. Then he walked quickly away.

Malone went into the nearest unoccupied cubicle and shut the door. He sat down at the desk and pulled the light chain and spread the cards and took Goldie’s letter from his pocket.

He spotted it at once. “Georgette Valencia, The Cascades, Southville.” The Cascades was a twenty-year-old housing development straddling the town line, in an unincorporated village policed on contract by the New Bradford department. Malone knew every family in the Southville district. No one of that name lived there. So the “Georgette Valencia” was a phony.

For confirmation, the Gs and Vs in the signatures on the application and check-in cards were identically formed with those in Goldie’s letter, the Gs with a squared-off bottom line instead of the usual curve, the Vs like hasty checkmarks. Even the small ts were the same, with the crossmarks tilted downward from right to left in a fancy swash.

No doubt about it, Georgette Valencia was Goldie Vorshek, alias Goldie Vanderbilt.

So I doped it right. Goldie hijacked the stolen payroll and stashed it in the one place where nobody else could get to it, a safe deposit box in the bank.

So now I’ve got the money back.

Well, not exactly got it back, but I know where I can lay my hands on it.

Not exactly lay my hands on it, unless…

Malone stowed the letter away, gathered up the cards, turned off the light and went out into the banking room. Bagshott was alone at his desk, talking on the phone. The moment he saw Malone he hung up. Malone laid the cards on the desk and said, “I’d like to get into one of your boxes.”

The banker looked around. “Sure, Wes,” he said. “Sit down, make it look natural. I mean sure, soon as you bring me the court order.”

Malone lowered himself into the chair, holding onto the corner of Bagshott’s desk. “You won’t let me see it without the judge’s authorization?”

“I can’t, Wes. You know the law.”

“Well, how about these cards? If I could just borrow them for a few hours-”

Bagshott stared. It was his banker’s stare, the fish eye. “There’s something funny about this. You trying to pull something, Wes? You know I can’t let any official records out of the bank. What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Which box is it?”

Malone got up and walked out.

He drove over to Elwood’s and sank onto a stool. The breakfast rush was over and the diner was almost empty. He was grateful that no one had the juke box going. His head was kicking up a storm.

He was famished. He had not been conscious of his hunger until this moment. I haven’t eaten in how long is it?

“Morning, morning, Wes,” Elwood said, slapping his rag around. “Some excitement.”

“I can live without it, Ave,” Malone said. “Double o.j., wheats and sausage, stack of toast, coffee.”

“You sound starved,” the old man cracked. “Like it’s your last meal.”

Malone tried to appreciate the joke.

“And peaked, too. Damn shame how they run you boys ragged.” Elwood went into his kitchen wagging his head.

Run ragged.

That’s for sure, Ave.

What do I do now?

I can’t go to the judge without telling him why I want the order, and if I do that I set Ellen and Bibby up for cemetery plots. Judge Trudeau is a stickler for the law books, people don’t mean a goddam to him, he’d have the house surrounded by state police in ten minutes. So I can’t get into the box. I can’t produce the money for Furia.

I can’t even take possession of the bank forms that along with Goldie’s letter would show Furia she rented the safe deposit box. And without proof that she doublecrossed him he wouldn’t believe me, it would be my word against hers, and I don’t go to bed with him. He’d get so worked up about what he’d think was a stall he’d likely shoot the three of us on the spot.

So where do we go from here.

Nowhere.

End of the line.

There’s just so much a man can do by himself.

It came to Malone suddenly that he had just thought a profound thought. It was the exact story of his life.

Ellen didn’t start calling me The Malone Ranger just for laughs. She tagged me good from the start. Wes Malone against the world and to hell with you, neighbor. Malone the on-his-own-two-feet guy, he asks nothing from nobody. Not even from the only man in the world he respects and trusts. Too proud, that’s Loney. Maybe too sore at the whole raw deal that began with the old man crawling into the sack every night giving nothing to anyone, not so much as a word or a look, and the mother cursing her life and taking with both tobacco-stained hands. So you grow up giving in spite of yourself.

Giving is giving out.

Taking is giving in.

Giving-out keeps you on top of the enemy.

Giving-in is crawling on your belly to the sonofabitch world.

Or is it? Is it being a loser to ask for a helping hand when you can’t make it any more on your own? What the hell else is the Marine buddy system but I’m-right-here-brother?

That’s why I was a lousy grunt.

That’s why I’m a lousy cop and husband and father. That’s why John and Ellen look at me the way they do sometimes, Bibby’s too young to know better.

I’ve been kidding myself. And shortchanging them.

But there’s the but.

Can I do it?

My whole life says no.

My whole life is my bag, that’s been my hangup. Now I’ve got to. No choices left. My back to the wall and Ellen’s and Bibby’s, too.

Their whole lives are on the line.

That’s what it comes down to.

Malone looked up at the diner clock.

Ten minutes past eleven.

Less than two hours to putup time.

He dropped a couple of one-dollar bills on the counter not bothering to wait for change I might chicken. And ran.