Frank Gruber - The Talking Clock

“Sure, don’t I always? Now, what about a place to sleep tonight?”

“I was figuring on sleeping in the office.”

“You won’t have to do that. Sam’ll share his bed with you. Save you coming back in the morning. Let’s turn in now, fellows; we’ve got a big day ahead.”

The sun shining on his face woke Johnny Fletcher in the morning. He lay for a moment, looking at the two mounds on the bed beyond, then he whistled and sat up.

“Up, boys! It’s morning.”

He sprang out of bed and headed for the bathroom. When he came out later, shaved and whistling, Sam Cragg and Mort Murray were partially dressed.

“It’s after eight, Johnny,” Mort reminded. “Think you ought to call that bellboy?”

“Righto!” Johnny went to the phone and got Eddie Miller and asked him to come up. When the bell captain came into the room, he looked cynically at Mort Murray.

“Ringing in an extra sleeper, Mr. Fletcher? Peabody ain’t going to like that.”

“Lots of things Peabody doesn’t like, Eddie, my boy. This is a pal of mine and he’s in a jam. Unless I can, uh, lend him twenty bucks this morning, things are going to happen to him. So, Eddie—”

“Jeez, Mr. Fletcher! I had to borrow carfare this morning. You know what? I got in a kelly pool game with a couple sharks last night and they cleaned me.”

Mort Murray groaned and the light went out of Johnny’s eyes. “Eddie,” he said, sadly, “you disappoint me. If you must play kelly pool why don’t you play it with Sam here some time? He was the three-cushion champ of Bremer County, Iowa, once. Well, when do you think you can get twenty bucks?”

“Not before night, and maybe not then if things is slow today. You know, Mr. Fletcher, I’d give it to you if I had it. The shirt off my back!”

“That goes for me, too, Eddie.”

Eddie moved regretfully to the door. There he paused. “Say, Fletcher, how’d you and Sam get the new suits, if you was broke?”

Johnny waggled a finger at the bellboy. “That’s a secret, Eddie. A secret I hope no one’ll ever know.”

Eddie nodded, but there was a speculative gleam in his eye as he went out.

There was a film of perspiration on Mort’s face. “Jeez, I can’t go to the office. Carmella’ll be waitin’ there for me.”

“Sam’ll go with you. In fact, I’ll go myself, Mort, old boy…”

The door panels almost cracked under the pounding of a heavy fist. Then the door was flung open and Lieutenant Madigan strode in.

“Did I wake you up?”

“If I’d been dead you’d woke me up,” retorted Johnny. Then his face twisted into a grin. “But you’re welcome as the flowers in May. Look, Lieutenant, this is Mort Murray, as fine a lad as you’d find anywhere in this big city. He’s a book publisher. In fact, he publishes that little gem, Every Man A Samson, with which I’ve been making a living, such as it be, for the last ten years. And now, he’s in Dutch. He got into the clutches of a loan shark.”

“ ’S tough,” sympathized Madigan. “What’s his name?”

“Carmella, ah! That means Nick…”

“Nick who?” Johnny asked.

“Nick Bosapopolous, or something. He calls himself Nick Bos for short.”

“Nick Bos, did you say?” Johnny howled.

“Yeah, he controls half the loan-shark business in this burg. Everybody knows that, for all the good it does us…”

“Nick Bos, the sponge man, down on West Avenue?”

Lieutenant Madigan shrugged. “I guess he’s got a sponge business or something as a blind.”

“Holy Donald Duck!” cried Sam Cragg.

Johnny sat down heavily on his bed. “So that’s how he can afford seventy-five thousand dollars for a clock!”

“Huh?” said Lieutenant Madigan.

“Didn’t the Partridges mention him when you questioned them? Hell, Bos is knee-deep in the Quisenberry business.”

Lieutenant Madigan turned red in the face. “They didn’t say a word about him. They didn’t say much of anything. Partridge stuck to his alibi and the Quisenberry dame kept hollering for a lawyer. I finally turned them loose. Now, you talk, Fletcher. How’s Bos in this?”

“Let’s,” said Johnny, “go down and talk to him. Right now.”

“Suits me, we can have a chin on the way down. I got the limousine out front.”

Sam and Mort finished dressing and then they all left the room. In the lobby, Mr. Peabody was running his fingers over the seams of the furniture to see if the cleaners had missed any dust. He exclaimed when he saw Lieutenant Madigan.

“I knew it, Fletcher! You’re in trouble again.”

“You hope, Peabody! This isn’t a pinch. And I’ll thank you not to make slanderous remarks in hotel lobbies.” Johnny headed for the door, muttering to himself… “Only two days to the first. Will he be surprised!”

Detective Fox sat behind the wheel of the limousine. He knew Johnny and Sam from other days, but did not greet them with any great enthusiasm. Mort climbed in beside Detective Fox and the others got in back.

Madigan gave Fox the address of Bos’ office. As the car headed westward toward the express highway, he said to Johnny:

“My friend, Merryman in Hillcrest, called me this morning. Some bird claiming to be from the department called him last night… right after you left the Lucky Seven. What’s the angle, Fletcher?”

“Joe Cornish claimed he had a fight the night before with some burglars — when the Talking Clock was swiped. When I saw him yesterday he had some adhesive tape stuck on his face. Merryman said it was a dummy. Catch on?”

“Yeah! Cornish didn’t fight with burglars? So he swiped the clock himself?”

“I’d figured Bonita for it, at first. She wanted to sell it to Bos for seventy-five G’s on account of Old Simple Simon died broke and didn’t leave her husband any dough.”

“Why should she swipe the clock, when her husband was getting it anyway?”

“That’s it; he wasn’t. The clock went to the Rusk kid. It seems the old man had given it outright to his grandson, Tom Quisenberry, who was killed up in — I mean who died before the old man. The kid was married to Diana, so the clock belongs to her.”

“Why don’t people tell me these things?” exclaimed Madigan.

“Why don’t you ask around like me? So since I’m asking, how was this Cornish killed?”

“The popular way; a bullet. A .32. Right behind the ear.”

“A small gun,” grunted Johnny. “And behind the ear. Mmm.”

“It could be the dame. Well, I got a couple of men on her. She’s checked in at the Sorenson…”

“Partridge lives there himself.”

“I know; but they’re on different floors. I got a couple of men on Partridge, too. And… uh, Merryman’s talking to the girl out in Hillcrest. Which reminds me, that was a dirty trick of yours letting her slip by me last night. I got the fella though… Tamarack.”

“Where?”

“Oh, I was laying for him when he got to his apartment on East 57th. That’s how come I didn’t get around to you. He didn’t show up until 3 a.m. Drove the girl all the way out to Hillcrest. What do you make of Tamarack?”

Johnny shrugged. “He’s got a crush on that girl. With the Kid out of the way, he may win out, now.”

“He told me he’s practically run the clock factory the last two years. But Eric gave him his notice yesterday.”

“Eric? I’ll be damned. The mouse has become a tomcat. First he told off his wife, then he fired his old man’s pet. Looks like he’s going to take hold of things.”

Detective Fox said, over his shoulder. “Here we are, Lieutenant, but — Jeez, you know what place this is?”