Дэшил Хэммет - The Collected Dashiell Hammett

“Then, one afternoon in a fresh burg, we push over a garage, a pawnshop and a shoe store, and we get picked up.

“The bulls that nabbed us was loaded for bear, but — outside of running until we saw it was no use — we went along with them as nice as you please. When they frisked us they found the money from that day’s jobs, but that was all. The rest was cached where we knew it would be when we wanted it. And our guns was still under that pile of stones three. States away. We didn’t have no use for them any more.

“The guys we had stuck up that afternoon came in to look us over, and they all identified us right away. As one of ’em said there was no forgettin’ our faces. But we sat tight and said nothing. We knew where we stood and we were satisfied.

“After a couple days they let us have a mouthpiece. We picked out a kid whose diploma hadn’t been with him long enough to collect any dust yet, but he looked like he wouldn’t throw us down; and he didn’t have to know much law for us. Then we laid around and took jail life easy.

“A few days of that, and they yank us into court. We let things run along for a while without fightin’ back, until the right time came. Then our kid mouthpiece gets up and springs our little joker on them.

“His clients, he says, meaning me and Flogger, are perfectly willing to plead guilty to begging. But there is nothing to hold them for robbery on. They were in need of funds, and they went into three business establishments and asked for money. They had no weapons. The evidence doesn’t show that they made any threats. Whatever motives may have prompted the persons in the stores to hand over the contents of the various cash registers to oblige them — the kid says — has no bearing on the matter. The evidence is plain. His clients asked for money and it was given to them. Begging, certainly — and so his clients are liable to sentences of 30 days or so in the county jail for vagrancy. But robbery — no!

“Well, son, it was a riot! I thought the beak was going to bust something. He’s a big bloated hick with a red face and a pair of nose-pinchers. His face turns purple now, and the cheaters slide down his nose three times in five minutes. The district attorney does a proper war dance with the whoops and all. But we had ’em!”

The old man stopped with an air of finality. I waited a while, but he didn’t resume the story, if there were, indeed, any more to it; so I prodded him.

“I don’t see where that proves your contention,” I said. “There’s no using of the law as a weapon there.”

“Wait, sonny, wait,” he promised. “You’ll see before I’m through... They put their witnesses back on the stand again, then. But there was nothing to it. None of ’em had seen any weapons, and none of ’em couldn’t say we had threatened ’em. They said things about our looks, but it ain’t a crime to be ugly.

“They shut up shop for the day, then, and chased me and Flogger back to the jail. And we went back as happy a pair as you ever seen. We had the world by the tail with a downhill pull, and we liked it. Thirty days, or even sixty, in the county jail on a vag charge didn’t mean nothing to us. We’d had that happen to us before, and got over it.

“We were happy — but that came from the ignorance of our trustin’ natures. We thought maybe a court was a place where justice was done after all; where right was right; and where things went accordin’ to the law. We’d been in trouble with the law before, plenty, but this was different — we had the law on our side this time; and we counted on it stickin’ with us. But—”

“Well, anyway, they take us back over to court after a few more days. And as soon as I get a slant at the beak and the district attorney I get sort of a chill up my back. They got mean lights in their eyes, like a coupla kids that had put tacks on a chair and was a-waiting for somebody to sit on them. Maybe, I think, they’ve rigged things up so’s they can slip us two or three, or even six, months on vag charges. But I didn’t suspect half of it!

“Say, you’ve heard this chatter about how slow the courts are, haven’t you? Well, let me tell you, nothing in the world ever moved any faster than that court that morning. Before we had got fixed in our chairs, almost, things was humming.

“Our kid mouthpiece is bouncing up and down continuous, trying to get a word in. But not a chance! Every time he opens his mouth the beak cracks down on him and shuts him up; even threatening to throw him out and fine him in the bargain if he don’t keep quiet. “The man we’d gone up against in the garage was the proprietor, but the ones in the hock shop and the shoe store were just hirelings. So they leave the garage man out of the game. But they put the other two in the dock, charged with grand larceny, have ’em plead guilty, sentence ’em to five years apiece, and suspend the sentences before you could shift a chew from one cheek to the other. “ ‘If,’ the beak says in answer to our mouthpiece’s squawk, ‘your clients simply asked for the money and these men gave it to them, then these two men are guilty of theft, since the money belonged to their employers. There is nothing for the court to do, therefore but to find them guilty of grand larceny and sentence them to five years each in the state prison. But the evidence tends to show that these men were actuated simply by an overwhelming desire to help two of their fellow men; that they were induced to steal the money simply by an ungovernable impulse to charity. And the court, therefore, feels that it is justified in exercising its legal privilege of leniency, and suspending their sentences.’

“Me and Flogger don’t understand what’s being done to us right away, but our mouthpiece does, and as soon as I get a look at him I know it’s pretty bad. He’s sort of gasping.

“The rest of the dirty work takes longer, but there’s no stopping it. This old buzzard of a judge has our charges changed to ‘receiving stolen property’ — a felony in that state; we are convicted on two counts, and he slips us ten years in the big house on each, the hitches to run end to end.

“And does that old buzzard feel that the court should exercise its legal privilege of leniency and suspend our sentences? Fat chance! Me and Flogger goes over!”

Black Mask, March 1, 1924

Owen Sack turned from the stove as the door of his cabin opened to admit “Rip” Yust, and with the hand that did not hold the coffeepot Owen Sack motioned hospitably toward the table, where food steamed before a ready chair.

“Hullo, Rip! Set down and go to it while it’s hot. ‘Twon’t take me but a minute to throw some more together for myself.”

That was Owen Sack, a short man of compact wiriness, with round china-blue eyes and round ruddy cheeks, and only the thinness of his straw-colored hair to tell of his fifty-odd years, a quiet little man whose too-eager friendliness at times suggested timidity.

Rip Yust crossed to the table, but he paid no attention to its burden of food. Instead, he placed two big fists on the tabletop, leaned his weight on them, and scowled at Owen Sack. He was big, this Rip Yust, barrel-bodied, slope-shouldered, thick-limbed, and his usual manner was a phlegmatic sort of sullenness. But now his heavy features were twisted into a scowl.

“They got ‘Lucky’ this morning,” he said after a moment, and his voice wasn’t the voice of one who brings news. It was accusing.

“Who got him?”

But Owen Sack’s eyes swerved from the other’s as he put the question, and he moistened his lips nervously. He knew who had got Rip’s brother.

“Who do you guess?” with heavy derision. “The Prohis! You know it!”