Edward Hoch: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 111, No. 1. Whole No. 677, January 1998

Johnny blinked. “Well, of course I didn’t. You believe me, don’t you, Uncle Lucas?”

“I don’t know you well enough to say either way,” Hallam said bluntly. “You’re blood kin, so I want to believe you didn’t. But you’d best sit down and tell me about it.”

“Sure. Sure.” Johnny passed a hand over his face. “Pull up that stool.”

There was a three-legged stool in a corner of the cell. Hallam hooked it with a toe. He sat down as Johnny sank back onto the bunk.

Johnny took a deep breath before he began. He was pale, and Hallam could tell how shaky he was under the surface calm. Johnny had been named after his grandfather, but he didn’t have the strength of old John Hallam.

“You know about the radio station,” Johnny finally said.

Hallam nodded. “Know you used to own one, till you got fleeced out of it.”

“It was a swindle, all right,” Johnny said with some heat. “Nothing but a damned swindle. Ward offered to let me in on one of his cattle deals, but I had to put up the station as my part of the investment. Then it all went sour, and I lost the station. I didn’t find out until later that the company that took it over was owned by Ward, too. He was buying and selling cattle to himself and defaulting on his own agreements with himself. He was a sneaky son of a—”

“There’s always been wheeler-dealers in the cattle business,” Hallam said. “You got to watch out for sharpers, no matter what you’re doin’.”

“Yeah. You’d think I’d know that, as old as I am.”

Silently, Hallam agreed, but he didn’t say anything. Johnny had always been a little gullible, but he’d done all right for himself, getting in on the ground floor of the radio industry and building a profitable operation here in Fort Worth, at least to hear his mama tell it. Then he’d run into Kenneth Ward and tried to get too rich, too fast. That was the trail to ruination most of the time, Hallam thought, and it sure had been in this case.

“Anyway, Ward turned around and sold the station to somebody else while I was still trying to straighten everything out,” Johnny went on. “Shoot, I’d have gone into debt and bought it back from the new fella, only he’s not interested in selling. I offered to work for him and manage the operation, but he didn’t want that, either. I was out in the cold, after all I’d done to make that station what it is.”

“That’s mighty rough,” Hallam said. “What’d you do?” He knew from talking to Sarah when she had called him in L.A. what the official version of the story was, but he wanted to hear Johnny tell it.

“I was so mad I figured that if I couldn’t do anything else, at least I could take some satisfaction out of whipping Ward,” Johnny said. “I tracked him down to the Four Treys, that gambling club out on the Jacksboro Highway, and braced him there. We’d’ve had it out right there, but Buckston — that’s the boss of the joint — had his boys toss us out. Ward got in his car and left, and so did I. That’s the last I saw of him.”

“And later that night some fellas fishin’ in the Trinity below the Eagle Mountain Lake spillway found his body with a couple of forty-five-caliber slugs in the back,” Hallam finished.

Johnny shook his head. “The cops think I followed him and shot him, but I didn’t do it, Uncle Lucas. I swear I didn’t.”

Blood kin or not, the vow had the ring of truth to it. Hallam put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll poke around a mite,” he said.

Johnny stood up and grabbed his hand again, pumping it. “Thanks, Uncle Lucas. I know you’ll find out who really killed Ward. I’ve read all about those big murder cases you’ve cracked out in Hollywood.”

“Don’t believe all you read,” Hallam warned him.

Sarah Reeves drove out Camp Bowie Boulevard, named after the military base that had been located west of Fort Worth back during the World War. The First World War, Hallam corrected himself as he thought about where they were headed. The big ruckus going on in Europe and the Pacific right now sure qualified as the second one. Hallam gave a little shake of his head. The War to End Wars... shoot, he could have told anybody who’d listen that it wouldn’t work out that way.

This part of town wasn’t open countryside anymore. Houses and businesses covered most of it, even well beyond the Trinity River. Sarah lived out here, in a neat little frame house a couple of blocks north of the brick-paved boulevard.

As shook up as she was about her son being in jail, she was still happy to have relatives visiting, Hallam knew. She fussed over him and Beth, fixing supper for them and making sure they were settled in their rooms. After they had eaten, Beth sat down cross-legged on the floor in the living room, in front of the big cathedral radio, and turned the dials until she found what she wanted. She leaned forward and listened avidly to I Love a Mystery. She always claimed she could figure out the stories before the characters in them did, and Hallam had to admit that most of the time she was right.

While Beth was busy, Hallam stepped into the kitchen and picked up a dish towel to dry the dishes his sister was washing. He said, “If it’s all right with you, I reckon I’ll borrow your car for a while tonight.”

“Did Johnny tell you anything?” Sarah asked, keeping her voice low.

“Only what he’d already told you — and the cops. He argued with Ward, all right, but then Ward drove off and Johnny didn’t follow him.”

“The police are convinced he did.”

“Well, we’ll just have to un-convince ’em.”

“Of course you can use the car, Lucas. Anything you want. Anything that will help Johnny.”

“I can’t promise I’ll do the boy a bit of good,” Hallam said. “But I’ll sure try.”

Sarah took the dish towel out of his hands. “I’ll do that. You go clear my son’s name.”

Hallam snagged the car keys from the hook beside the back door, put on his fedora, and slipped out of the house. Beth might be annoyed with him for leaving that way without saying goodbye, but he didn’t want to waste any more time arguing with her.

Where he was going tonight was no place for a youngster.

The sign by the road was an oval that said simply “3333.” That was the street number of the big, sprawling white house at the top of the hill overlooking the Jacksboro Highway. Everybody in town knew it as the Four Treys. Hallam wheeled the roadster into the driveway of the place and found a place to park in the gravel lot, which was pretty crowded. The gambling club was doing good business. Hallam heard music and laughter before he ever got inside. Some of the windows were open on this warm summer night.

The shoulders of the man standing at the door strained the fabric of the tuxedo he wore. “Lookin’ for somebody, Pop?” he asked. His accent told Hallam he was either a Yankee or a Dallasite, which was about the same thing.

“Like a word with Mr. Buckston,” Hallam said pleasantly.

“This is a gambling club, not a conversation parlor,” the doorman said.

“So I’ve heard, but I don’t care to gamble. Rather talk.”

“Is that so? Beat it, Pop.”

“I can see you like to gamble,” Hallam said, still sounding mild.

The doorman frowned. “Whattaya mean?”

“You’re bettin’ that a big young fella like yourself s got nothin’ to fear from a feeble old coot like me. You’re bettin’ against the fact that even on my worst day, I could take a dozen punks like you ’fore breakfast.”

The doorman’s face hardened, and his hands clenched into fists. “You old bas—”

“And you’re bettin’ I won’t haul out the hogleg I’ve got under this coat and put a couple of slugs right through you.” Hallam moved his hand enough to make the threat seem real.