Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 6, June, 1953

About ten people, mostly men, were deployed around the body on folding chairs. There was silence while they stared at me incuriously for a moment, and then they continued to converse in low tones.

I was attending a wake.

The man beside me pulled out a plug of tobacco, bit off a chunk, started to put it away, reconsidered, and offered me some. I shook my head. He regarded me along the side of his nose curiously.

“You from the bank?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Friend of Kevin’s?”

I nodded sadly.

“Tough,” he said. “I hope they catch the hit-and-run driver that nailed him.” He shook his head. “Poor Kevin. He was carrying a bit of a load and he never seen them headlights. Plunk! Clouted him into the right field bleachers.”

He pulled a flat pint of Irish from his pocket, coupled it to his main intake, and irrigated his throat. He shoved the bottle at me. “Shot of whiskey, mister?”

I accepted the offer. Drinking with a man is the best way to gain his confidence. One small swallow was enough. It must have been distilled from old dynamite and I felt like an amateur sword swallower. The mumble of voices continued around us. Smoke hung like a disembodied cloud over the corpse. The room was nicely furnished. A thirty inch television set stood in one corner and the floor was soft with broad-loom.

“Where did the accident happen?” I asked.

My informant wiped his lips, recapped the bottle, and tucked it away. “Right outside. Not ten feet from his own front yard.” He heaved a melancholy sigh. “Hell of a way for a fightin’ Irishman to go. And so soon after he came into a bit of money.”

“Money?”

“From his Aunt Emily, saints preserve her, who passed away in the old country.”

I looked properly respectful. “When was that?”

“ ’Bout five — six months ago.”

“How’s the family taking it?”

No answer. He hesitated. He peered at me sharply, suddenly remote, suspicion incubating in his eyes. “You ask a lot of questions, friend. You a cop?”

“Me?” I put my back up as if I’d been insulted. I pointed to my feet. “Do I look like a cop?” A double wrinkle of doubt appeared over his nose. I said, “It’s just that I didn’t know Kevin very well. I met him in the tavern a couple of times and we knocked off a few together.”

That reminded him and he got out his bottle and took a long pull. I had one too. What my stomach needed was a special lining installed by the Bethlehem Steel Company. My informant produced a handkerchief and blew his nose violently.

“Ah,” he murmured, “poor Kevin. No family at all. Nobody but his friends to mourn for him.”

I nodded sympathetically. After a moment I stood up and paid my last respects. Then I departed.

Fifteen minutes passed before I could flush a cab out there in the suburbs. The cab took me to the railroad station and I ran for a train. Rattling along under the Hudson River I thought: Like hell it was an accident. Somebody pointed an automobile straight at Kevin Graham and gunned the engine.

This was a driver who really had a motive to run.

I concentrated. I took the known facts and weighed them against probabilities. I sifted and speculated and added an inference or two, and the case began to shape up. If only I could fill in one or two little pieces.

The scheme was a beaut, conjured with imagination and daringly executed.

The train took me to Manhattan. I got out of Penn Station at 33rd Street and went straight to Gracie Square. There was a doorman on duty this time. He performed and I went through. The elevator took me up to Lucille Gilian’s apartment and I rang the bell. I rang it long and hard.

She wasn’t home.

I extracted two ten dollar bills from my wallet on the way down. I tapped on the pane of glass and beckoned to the doorman and he joined me in the lobby. I fanned out the bills and hung them under his nose. He maintained a calm front, but his eyes were greedy.

“A bonus,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Easily earned.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you answer a few questions?”

He was willing. Money is the best tongue loosener I know. I pumped him about Lucille Gilian and he came up with answers. She was a mighty fine lady. Didn’t skate around with a lot of men at all. Concentrated mostly on one boy friend, a fine-looking gentleman. The doorman had used his eyes and he gave me a good description.

It fitted. Perfectly.

I tucked the double sawbuck into his breast pocket and walked out. There was a drug store on the corner. I went in and patronized the telephone booth. The switchboard operator at Max Gilian’s hotel put me through.

“How do you feel, Max?” I asked.

“Lousy. Did you find my two hundred grand?”

“Not exactly, but we may be able to salvage a big piece of it. Can you meet me?”

“Where?”

“At Hadley’s office.”

“What for?”

“He’s your lawyer, isn’t he, Max? What did you do with that gun?”

“Why?”

“Get rid of it. You’re on parole, remember?”

He made a suggestion, which I ignored, and told me he was leaving at once.

Hadley’s practice required a lot of front. His office was furnished expensively and with taste. The most decorative item, however, had not been manufactured in Grand Rapids. She sat behind a desk in the reception room, a voltage redhead built like the proverbial structure behind the farmhouse, tall, generously equipped, with sultry eyes in a petulant face. Quite a girl.

Yes, Mr. Hadley was in. She announced Max Gilian’s name and got us the green light. He was standing behind his desk when we trooped in, competent, debonaire, smiling.

He got us seated and produced smokes. Then he settled back in his foam-cushioned, leather-upholstered, posture-fitting chair and put his precise eyes straight at me.

“Well, Jordan,” he said, “I assume you have a report to make.”

“I sure have.”

He glanced approvingly at Gilian. “What did I tell you, Max. No grass growing under Jordan’s feet. I knew he’d get results. All right, counselor, let’s have it.”

Max was leaning forward, his heavy jaw tight, his eyes intent.

I said, “Okay,” and took a deep breath and crossed my fingers. “Here’s what happened. Somebody forged Max’s name at the Newark bank and got into his safe deposit box. The forgery was perfect, traced from a genuine copy of Max’s signature directly onto one of the bank’s official requisition slips.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Max growled.

Hadley was frowning. “I don’t understand. Those forms are signed in the presence of the attendant. How could anybody get away with it?”

“Collusion,” I said. “The attendant was reached. Somebody worked on him, showed him how it could be done, promised him a cut of the take, probably paid him in advance. The attendant was tractable. Here was a chance to make more money in one lump sum than he could ever hope to save in a lifetime. He decided to take a chance and he went along with the scheme.”

Gilian’s fists were huge and tight on his knees. He mangled the cigar between clenched teeth. His voice was harsh. “Who is this attendant? What’s his name? Where can I reach him?”

“It’s too late,” I said. “He’s dead.”

Max opened his eyes.

“He got it last night,” I said. “Hit-and-run driver. They think it was an accident. I know better. He was killed. Someone who knew his habits was parked outside his house, waiting for him to come home. And he was nailed when he stumbled half drunk across the street. Murder in the first degree. Premeditated and deliberate.”

Max cleared his throat noisily. “But why?”