Michael Collins - Shadow of a Tiger

I smoked, and looked around the back room, and looked out into the shop, and read the list of loot again. Not at once, not sudden, the odd fact seeped into my mind. There all along, it wasn’t exactly a bolt of lightning. In police work, not much is. Just something that began to chew at my slow mind as I saw a high shelf of suitcases in the back room. A vacant space in the row of suitcases sort of winked at me.

I rechecked the list of loot. Yes, one suitcase was on the list. Last entry. Naturally, all the missing junk had to be carried away in something. Obvious, very normal, of course.

For a burglar who came to rob the pawn shop?

A burglar planning to loot a pawn shop, stopped by an unintended murder, but with robbery in mind before he arrived?

If I planned a robbery, I’d bring my own bag for the loot. Wouldn’t anyone? Panic? But no bag or sack had been found in the shop. Only a missing suitcase from stock. So? So maybe it had not been a planned robbery at all.

I stubbed out my cigarette, lit another. Okay, I’d be scientific-make an assumption and see what it gave me. Assume-the killer did not come to rob the pawn shop. Why did he rob it, then? To make it look like a robbery-murder. A cover to hide the real motive. Illusion to make us look the wrong way.

Okay, did it help me? Who, why, when? No. Then what?

Well, if it was robbery only for cover, then the killer had no interest in the loot, didn’t care a damn about it. In fact, the loot was a danger to the killer. He would dump it fast.

Get rid of the loot before anyone caught him with it-but not so that it could be found easily. That could spoil the robbery illusion. So, get rid of it, make sure it wasn’t traceable to him, but make sure no one found it soon or ever.

Over a week now, and no loot found. So it had been well hidden-if I was right. Not in an alley nearby, not just tossed into a street-too easy for a chance pick-up and turn-in. Some garbage can? Garbage men look into suitcases, scavengers work all over the city hoping for a find like a suitcase, and the loot was a suspiciously odd bag. The sewers would be the first place the police would look, a suitcase doesn’t fit down a grating, and a man feeding handfuls into a sewer would be a stand-out sight.

A killer in a hurry to fade away. A suitcase of loot. Get rid of it nearby, make sure it couldn’t be traced back, and not have it found, hopefully, ever. Where?

A railroad baggage room? Police might check. Terminal or subway coin locker? Removed too soon, opened, reported. Hotel room, unclaimed baggage? They’d open the suitcase to look for identification and some address, and the contents would be very suspicious. Salvation Army? Maybe-but midnight or later?

Where?

I dropped the suitcase on Lieutenant Marx’s desk at nine-thirty the next morning. I’d had a good night’s sleep, and I was feeling good. As good as I could with Marty still gone and silent.

“It’s all there,” I said, “except two watches that were sold. I checked the list.”

Marx opened the bag. “Sold? Two watches?”

“Salvation Army,” I said. “It was turned over to a porter at the men’s flophouse near Cooper Square around one A.M. the night of the murder. Neat and smart, Marx. The man who handed it to the porter said he’d cleaned out his store, was leaving town early the next day, didn’t have time to go to the big main store, but wanted the Salvation Army to have the stuff. The mission people sent it to the big store the next day.”

I lit a cigarette. “I was on the doorstep this morning when they opened. They had a record of the donation, it took an hour to round up the stuff on the list. The two watches were sold, but that accounts for all of it except the Buddha. If Jimmy Sung had pulled a smart trick like taking it all to that mission, would he have kept out the Buddha you’d be sure to find and trace to the list of loot? No.”

“You can’t be sure, Dan. A drunk like Jimmy,” Marx said, but I could hear that his heart wasn’t really in it now.

“I can be sure,” I said. “That porter who took the bag at the mission is a black wino. He was half in the bag, never really saw the man’s face to remember, but he’s sure of one thing if you want to get him down here.”

“What’s he sure of?”

“That the generous donator was a ‘whitey,’ yessir. ‘Ofay all the way, sure not one of our yellow brothers!’ Couldn’t say what the cat looked like, but he was sure a whitey.”

“A wino won’t stand up as a witness.”

“He will with the rest, with Kandinsky breathing hard. Go ask the D.A. Jimmy didn’t take that loot, Marx.”

Marx looked at the suitcase. “You’ve got luck, Dan.”

“Sometimes it takes a little luck,” I said. “Your jails are full of poor slobs, guilty and innocent, who had no luck.”

“No system’s perfect,” Marx said.

“Besides, it wasn’t all luck. Science, deduction, right?” I said. “Here’s some more deductions. Jimmy Sung isn’t the kind of man who’d steal, and now you’ve got the loot and a man who says Jimmy didn’t have it. Jimmy’s not a stupid man, he wouldn’t have kept that Buddha from the loot, so Eugene Marais had to have given it to him as he says. If Jimmy had robbed that store, he’d have taken the cash, opened the safe. No jury will believe Jimmy Sung robbed the shop now, and what other motive could he have? Eugene Marais was his friend, a benefactor. We’ve got to believe, now, that Eugene was alive when Jimmy left. You can’t hold him, Lieutenant. You had some doubts anyway.”

“I guess so,” Marx said after a moment. “So the robbery was a cover for murder. We did wonder.”

“A panic job, sloppy. If you wondered, maybe you were working on something else? What?”

Marx shook his head. “Nothing sure, not yet. Just a few doubts. Keep working.”

I was waiting downtown when Jimmy Sung came out. He blinked in the sun, like one of his own Buddhas in work clothes, but didn’t stop walking. I fell in step along the hot, noontime street of the crowded, hurrying city.

“I want to talk to you, Jimmy.”

“I need a drink,” he said, not even looking at me.

He went straight to the first bar like a homing pigeon. The bartender served him his double vodka. Now his hands shook as he carried the glass to an empty booth in the long room of businessmen. I ordered a beer. In the booth, Jimmy took a long drink. And a second. Then he set the glass down, breathed.

“They let me go, hey?”

“They had to. You never robbed that shop.”

“You?”

“I helped, found the loot. They had doubts anyway.”

“No, you. Thanks.” He drank again.

“Thank the Marais women. They believed you.”

“Sure.” He finished his vodka.

“Jimmy, I want you to think about that night again. You were the only one to see Eugene Marais after ten o’clock.”

“That Charlie Burgos and Danielle was there.”

“But left before you. After that, you were the last to see Eugene Marais alive. You’re sure you don’t remember anything more than you’ve told me already?”

“Lemme think.”

Jimmy stood, walked to the bar. His hands were no longer shaking. He paid for another double vodka, came back to the booth. He drank, shook his head.

“No more than I told you. I left at eleven sharp, ran the bars, got drunk, went home.” He drank. “Maybe I saw Danielle and that Burgos out on the avenue around then, I ain’t sure.”

“Doing what?”

He drank. “Nothing. Just hanging around.”

I drank. “Okay, Jimmy. Who killed him? Any ideas? You knew him. Any enemies? Threats? Worried about anything.”

“Last week or so, he was kind of moody.”

“About what?”