Дэшил Хэммет - The Collected Dashiell Hammett

Lefty says, “Read what’s on it.”

On the back of the watch it says To Albert Pastor (which is the way Lefty writes his name when he has to) with the gratitude of the members of the Grocers’ Protective Association.

“Grocers’ Protective Association,” I say slowly, “that sounds like—”

“A racket!” he finishes for me and laughs and bangs my desk with his hand. “Call me a liar if you want, but back there in my home town, this little burg that ain’t got a quarter million people in it — but get me right, a swell little burg just the same — they got racketeers!”

I would not want to call Lefty a liar even if I thought he was a liar because he would have been heavyweight champion of the world before he left the ring to go in business with me if they did not have rules you are supposed to fight by in the ring and if he did not have a temper which kept him forgetting they had rules you were supposed to fight by. So I say, “Is that so?”

Lefty says that is so. He says, “You could’ve knocked me over with the District Attorney’s office. Big city stuff back there! Ain’t that a howl? And my old man being shook down along with the rest of them,” He reaches for the bottle of Scotch that he says is not good.

“Your old man is a grocer?” I ask.

“Uh-huh, and he always wanted me to follow in his own footsteps.” Lefty says. “and that’s the real reason he didn’t have no use for my fistic career. But that’s all right now — now that I retired from the arena. He’s a swell old guy when you’re old enough to understand him and we got along fine. I give him a sedan and you’d ought to see the way he carries on about it. You’d think it was a Dusenberg.”

“Was it?” I ask.

Lefty says, “No, but you’d think it was a Rolls the way he carries on about it. Well. I’m there a couple days and he lets off about these bums that’d been lining up the grocers round town — join the protective association or else, with not many takers for the else. It seems the grocer business ain’t none too good by its own self and paying alimony to these mugs don’t help it none. The old man’s kind of worried.

“I don’t say nothing to him, but I go off by myself and do some thinking and I think, what’s the matter with me going to see these babies and ask them do they want to listen to reason or have I got to go to work on them? I can’t see nothing wrong with that idea. Can you?”

“No, Lefty,” I say, “I can’t.”

“Well, neither could I,” Lefty says, “and so I did and they don’t think they want to listen to reason. There’s a pair of them in the protective association office when I come in — just about what I expected — they know the words, but they ain’t got the motions right yet. There was a third one come in after awhile, but I’m sweating good by that time and handy pieces has been broke off some of the furniture, so I make out all right, and the old man and some of the others get together and buy me this souper with some of the dues they’d’ve had to pay next month if there’d been any protective association left.”

He puts the watch and chain back in the box and carefully puts the box back in his pocket. “And how’s your father’s horse?” he asks.

I take the envelope with the money in it out of my pocket and give it to him. “There’s your end,” I say, “only Caresse’s not in. You know — the little fat guy around on Third avenue.”

“I know him,” Lefty says. “What’s the matter with him?”

“He says he’s paid so much for protection now that he’s got nothing left to protect,” I say, “and he won’t stand for the boost.”

Lefty says, “So?” He says, “That’s the way, soon’s I get out of town these babies think they can cut up.” He stands up and buttons his vest. “Well,” he says, “I guess I’ll go round to see that baby and ask him does he want to listen to reason or have I got to go to work on him?”

Collier’s, January 13, 1934, aka: To a Sharp Knife

On my way home from the regular Wednesday night poker game at Ben Kamsley’s I stopped at the railroad station to see the 2:11 come in — what we called putting the town to bed — and as soon as this fellow stepped down from the smoking-car I recognized him. There was no mistaking his face, the pale eyes with lower lids that were as straight as if they had been drawn with a ruler, the noticeably flat-tipped bony nose, the deep cleft in his chin, the slightly hollow grayish cheeks. He was tall and thin and very neatly dressed in a dark suit, long dark overcoat, and derby hat, and carried a black Gladstone bag. He looked a few years older than the forty he was supposed to be. He went past me toward the street steps.

When I turned around to follow him I saw Wally Shane coming out of the waiting-room. I caught Wally’s eye and nodded at the man carrying the black bag. Wally examined him carefully as he went by. I could not see whether the man noticed the examination. By the time I came up to Wally the man was going down the steps to the street.

Wally rubbed his lips together and his blue eyes were bright and hard. “Look,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “that’s a ringer for the guy we got—”

“That’s the guy,” I said, and we went down the steps behind him.

Our man started toward one of the taxicabs at the curb, then saw the lights of the Deerwood Hotel two blocks away, shook his head at the taxi driver, and went up the street afoot.

“What do we do?” Wally asked. “See what he’s—?”

“It’s nothing to us. We take him. Get my car. It’s at the corner of the alley.”

I gave Wally the few minutes he needed to get the car and then closed in. “Hello, Furman,” I said when I was just behind the tall man.

His face jerked around to me. “How do you—” He halted. “I don’t believe I—” He looked up and down the street. We had the block to ourselves.

“You’re Lester Furman, aren’t you?” I asked.

He said, “Yes,” quickly.

“Philadelphia?”

He peered at me in the light that was none too strong where we stood. “Yes.”

“I’m Scott Anderson,” I said. “Chief of police here. I—”

His bag thudded down on the pavement. “What’s happened to her?” he asked hoarsely.

“Happened to whom?”

Wally arrived in my car then, abruptly, skidding into the curb. Furman, his face stretched by fright, leaped back away from me. I went after him, grabbing him with my good hand, jamming him back against the front wall of Henderson’s warehouse. He fought with me there until Wally got out of the car. Then he saw Wally’s uniform and immediately stopped fighting.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “I thought — for a second I thought maybe you weren’t the police. You’re not in uniform and — It was silly of me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I told him. “Let’s get going before we have a mob around us.” Two cars had stopped just a little beyond mine and I could see a bellboy and a hatless man coming toward us from the direction of the hotel. Furman picked up his bag and went willingly into my car ahead of me. We sat in the rear. Wally drove. We rode a block in silence, then Furman asked, “You’re taking me to police headquarters?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Philadelphia.”

“I” — he cleared his throat — “I don’t think I understand you.”

“You understand that you’re wanted in Philadelphia, don’t you, for murder?”

He said indignantly, “That’s ridiculous. Murder! That’s—” He put a hand on my arm, his face close to mine, and instead of indignation in his voice there was now a desperate sort of earnestness. “Who told you that?”