A. Fair: Shills Can't Cash Chips

I walked back to the supermarket, fitted my key to the ignition lock and drove back to the city, turned the car in and called Bertha.

“Where are you now?” Bertha asked.

“I’m back in town,” I said. “I’ve been to Colinda.”

“Donald, there’s something fishy about that case.”

“Are you just finding that out?”

“Now, don’t be smart. That secretary of yours, Elsie Brand, and those clippings you’ve been having her save.”

“What about them?”

“She’s been looking through the personal ads, trying to make a good job of it— My God, the way that girl worships the ground you walk on. What the hell do you do to women, anyway? What are you going to do, marry her? You’d better.”

“I will if you insist,” I said. “Of course that would make her a partner in the firm.”

“Make her what!” Bertha screamed into the telephone.

“A partner in the firm.”

“You go to hell. I’m not going to have any damn secretary marrying into my business.”

“All right then, I won’t marry her. What did she find out?”

“The insurance company has been running a blind ad.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an ad offering one hundred dollars for any witness who will testify as to an accident taking place at Seventh and Main Streets in Colinda on August thirteenth, involving a rear-end collision.”

“How do you know it’s the insurance company?”

“It has to be. Nobody else would have money enough to offer a hundred dollars a witness.”

I said, “Why would the insurance company want witnesses? They’re going to admit liability. They don’t have a leg to stand on as far as the liability is concerned.”

“All right, I’m telling you what’s in the paper,” Bertha said. “You better check in the Colinda paper and see if there’s anything in there.”

“Good idea,” I told her. “I will. I’ve got some news for you, Bertha.”

“What?”

“I’ve been wearing a tail.”

“ You have.”

“That’s right.”

“Where have you been?”

“Colinda, and back.”

“How do you know you’re being shadowed?”

“Rear-view mirrors and general observation.”

“Donald, what the hell goes on in this case?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Not yet.”

“Do you suppose they shadowed Lamont Hawley to our office?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said, “but he should.”

“Then there’s something back of this whole business. You’d better watch your step.”

“Oh, no,” I told her. “This is one of those nice conservative cases, remember? This is the kind of respectable work that you want us to handle.”

“The hell of it is,” Bertha yelled into the telephone, “this thing is loaded with dynamite and you know it! Why did that Hawley guy stop in the doorway and tell you there was an element of danger in the case? What the hell was he trying to do?”

“Trying to keep me from running head-on into something I couldn’t handle,” I said.

“Then why didn’t he tell us that when he was briefing us on the case, and tell us what it was?”

I was careful to wait until Bertha had finished talking so my shot would tell, and then said, “Because if he’d been frank with us, you’d have fixed a fee commensurate with the amount of work and danger involved. As it was, he suckered you into fixing a nominal fee. He’d have paid ten thousand just as quick as he’d have paid one, and—”

The inarticulate roar at the other end of the line could only mean one thing.

I gently hung up the telephone before Bertha’s screaming indignation could melt the wires in the receiver.

I picked up the agency heap and drove to my apartment, taking it easy and keeping an eye on the rear-view mirror. There was no tail.

I made it a point to get the morning newspapers when they came out late that evening. I looked in the personal ads. Sure enough, there was the ad, but this time they boosted the ante. The ad read: “Will pay $250 for contact with witness who saw rear-end collision 7th and Main, Colinda, August 13th at 3:30 P.M. Box 694-W.”

I clipped out the ad, pasted it on a sheet of paper and scribbled beneath it, call Mayview 6-9423 and ask for Donald.

I addressed the envelope to the box number on the ad and put it in the mail.

Mayview 6-9423 was the number of Elsie Brand’s private telephone.

I called her. “Hi, Elsie, how’s tricks?”

“Fine, Donald. Where are you?”

“I’m in town.”

“Oh, was there something you wanted?”

“Yes, Elsie. If somebody telephones and asks for Donald, be just a little cagey. Tell whoever it is that I’m in and out but that you’ll take a message for me. If they want any information or ask for my last name, tell them I’m your brother.”

“Are you supposed to be living at this address, Donald?”

“Perhaps.”

“Wouldn’t it be rather awkward, having a brother living in this single apartment?”

“Okay,” I said, “tell them I’m your husband.”

“That would be even more embarrassing.”

“All right,” I said, “which would you prefer, to have it awkward or to have it embarrassing?”

“Which would you prefer, Donald?”

“Better leave it just awkward,” I said. “Out of consideration for your feelings. Tell them I’m your brother.”

“Anything you say,” she said.

“Sleep tight,” I told her, and hung up.

The next day I went to the car rental place and got a Chevrolet sedan. I drove to Colinda.

As nearly as I could find out, no one had the slightest interest in my movements. Aside from normal traffic I had the road all to myself. I drove fast and I drove slow. I couldn’t find anyone following me.

I got to Colinda and bought a newspaper.

There wasn’t anything in the want ad column about advertising for a witness who had seen the August 13th accident.

I went to the traffic department at the police station and looked up the records.

There was a routine report that had been made by Carter Jackson Holgate on the day after the accident, mentioning that he had collided with the rear end of a vehicle at Seventh and Main Streets at three-thirty P.M.; that the other car involved was license number TVN 626 and was the property of Vivian Deshler, living at the Miramar Apartments; that damage had been estimated at $150 to the front end of Holgate’s automobile; that the damage to the rear of the other car had been “negligible.”

I drove out to the Miramar Apartments. Doris Ashley’s car was in the parking lot.

A little after two, she emerged from the apartment house and started walking with her characteristic short snappy stride to the parking lot.

I waited until her back was turned, started my car, drove to the supermarket, parked it and went inside.

Doris entered the market, picked up a shopping cart, made a few purchases and started toward the checker.

I walked up to the checker and lowered my voice. “Look, Buddy,” I said, “I’d like to open up a line of credit.”

He shook his head. “We’re cash.”

“But this would only be a short-term credit. I’d just like to have—”

He shook his head again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We just don’t give credit, not to anybody. We wouldn’t give credit to the President of the United States. We’re on a cash basis here. If you want to cash a check, that’s something else again. I can refer you to the manager. But no credit.”

“Not even for an amount up to five dollars?” I asked.

He shook his head vehemently.

I looked up and saw Doris Ashley standing there staring at me, taking in the whole situation. She couldn’t have heard the conversation but she saw the man shaking his head and saw me turning away.