Dale Clark - Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 118, No. 2, March 19, 1938

A gripping story of Washington, where the cost of living is the highest of any city in the nation, and the cost of dying is often at bargain rates.

All day long the money had been flowing into the old house on Mount Vernon Highway; piles upon piles of greasy currency that passed through Greg Cooper’s hands for counting and dropped like waste paper into boxes. With the money came a mood. Across the room from him, Cooper could see Senator Bradford Weller sitting smugly behind his desk, his pepper-and-salt colored wig looking more false than ever and his narrow, greedy face relaxed.

Greed! That was the thing that came into the house with the money. That was the mood. It was in the senator’s face and it was like something living and tangible in the house itself; driving out all of the things that had existed here before it, even hatred. Cooper mopped the perspiration from his forehead with a limp handkerchief, his young face tense.

He was feeling it himself, the unsettling power of money in large amounts. His fingers fumbled as he checked the currency over. None of the bills felt crisp any longer. They felt greasy, slimy. They repelled him and, at the same time, attracted him. He found himself wanting them and, at the same time, wanting to escape from them.

“What is the total now, Cooper?”

The senator’s voice had the dry quality of rustling paper. Greg Cooper ran the tip of his pencil across the latest entry on the sheet before him.

“One hundred and fifty-four thousand, five hundred and fifteen dollars,” he said huskily.

The senator put his fingertips together, his elbows resting on his carved mahogany desk. The light of late afternoon came through the Venetian blinds and fell across him in bars. It was a kind light to a man of the senator’s years. It softened the pouches under his eyes and the slack lines of his mouth. If the room had not been crowded with currency, he might have looked benevolent. His eyes, however, were hard with money hunger and the light did not soften that.

“There will not be very much more,” he said. “It is not an impressive sum.”

“It is too much to be stacked in an old house.”

Cooper’s voice was sharper than he intended it to be, but he did not qualify the statement. His lean jaw was hard and there was a vast sincerity in the depths of his level gray eyes. He did not have to pussyfoot when he felt strongly about anything. He was one of those strange products of Washington, a senator’s secretary; a young man with legal training and newspaper experience, a sound body and a hard mind — too young to be a senator himself but with more knowledge of the senator’s job than the senator would ever have. Bradford Weller turned slowly in his chair.

“A man’s money is his own, Cooper,” he said, “and he’s foolish only when he lets others tell him what to do with it.”

Cooper shook his head. “That’s rhetoric. Save it for the voters. A man is foolish with his money any time that he takes it to a place where he can’t protect it properly. He’s being foolish with his life, too. People kill for money.”

The senator chuckled. “I have my private joke on you, Cooper. You are going to be surprised. And not you alone.”

His voice choked off into another chuckle. He was holding his chin against his chest and he had turned his chair so that the shadows hid his expression. Cooper shrugged and put his attention once more upon the sheets spread out before him.

The penciled figures were the piles of currency reduced to symbols; the record of the senator’s resources pulled into this house for some obscure reason. There were bank accounts that had been closed out, stocks and bonds that had been sold, debts that had been collected. In none of the transactions had a check figured. Every deal, at the senator’s insistence, had been closed in cash. And the cash was here in the study of the senator’s Virginia home — heaps of it.

The door to the big hall opened slowly and Cooper looked up. Hito, the Japanese man of all work, was standing there, his squat body bent slightly forward, his beady black eyes on the senator.

“A Misser Terry Black to see you. You see him, yess?”

His voice was a blend of hiss and lisp that hit the esses hard. The senator leaned back in his chair. “Terry Black? Ah, yes. Show him in, Hito.”

He turned to Cooper as the Japanese bowed out. “This Black,” he said doubtfully. “It’s that taxi fellow, isn’t it?”

Cooper nodded grimly. “It is. He saved your life in 1935. You’ve got him down as owing you five hundred dollars.”

“I’m letting him off for two hundred and fifty.”

“I know. I wrote the letter to him. It’s a shame to take a dime.”

The senator cleared his throat. “It’s my money, Cooper. Maybe you can afford to give away two hundred and fifty dollars. I can’t.”

Greg Cooper snorted. He remembered Terry Black very well; a depression down-and-outer without a job who had jumped off a park bench to knock a gun out of the hand of a man who tried to assassinate Bradford Weller. It had been quite a show. With the newsreel cameras grinding, Senator Weller had publicly presented Terry Black with a check for five hundred dollars and solemnly accepted the man’s note in exchange. He had been applauded for that; for saving the man’s pride while he paid him a reward. Nobody who read the newspapers or saw the newsreels took the loan angle seriously. Terry Black brought his wife and youngster to Washington and bought a taxicab. Now Bradford Weller was trying to collect.

The door to the big hall opened again and Terry Black came into the room. He was a slender man of medium height with lean jaws, high cheekbones and large eyes set deep. He was wearing a blue serge suit that was shiny from much pressing. He had a taxi driver’s cap in one gnarled hand and a creased envelope in the other. He bobbed his head rather awkwardly.

“How do you do, Senator. I... I got over as soon as I could.”

The senator half rose to extend a limp hand. “How are you, Black? Quite well, I hope. You are prepared to pick up your note, I presume?”

Terry Black swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. I didn’t have much warning. You told me, you know, that any time I had the money.”

Bradford Weller cleared his throat noisily. “That was two years ago, Black. I haven’t pressed you.”

“I know.” There was a strange expression in the taxi driver’s deep eyes. He laid the envelope on the senator’s desk. “It’s there,” he said hoarsely, “but, Senator...”

“Yes. What?”

“I’d appreciate it if you could wait a while. I had to get it from a loan shark. They never let go, those fellows. The interest—”

The senator waved his hand. “Quite impossible, Black. I need the money. I made it easy for you. Cut the note in half.”

He reached out one hand and drew the envelope to him. Terry Black watched it across the desk top and Greg Cooper watched Terry Black. There was perspiration heavy on Greg Cooper’s forehead again. He was, he knew, looking at an honorable man who met his debts when they were called; whatever the price to himself. The taxi driver’s shoulders slumped.

“All right, sir,” he said. “Thank you.”

He turned to go and his eyes rested on Greg Cooper’s desk and on the box beside it; the desk that was stacked with currency and the box that was filled with it. His slightly stooped figure became rigid. He stared hard and then his eyes swung back to the senator. Bradford Weller was counting the money that he had taken from the envelope and he did not look up. Terry Black swore under his breath, put his cap on his head and stalked from the room. Greg Cooper looked after him.