Francis Nevins - Night and Fear

“You’ll both be eyewitnesses to the mechanics of the thing,” Fredericks promised. “Nothing will be done behind your back. There won’t be any bad faith in this. We’re all gentlemen, I hope.”

I spoke up sourly. “I got my doubts. You’re both vultures in tuxedos, if you ask me! I keep feeling like I ate welsh rarebit before going to bed, and ought to wake up any minute. And you’re as bad as he is,” I added bluntly to Trainor. “I thought you had more sense. You’re both a pair of bloodthirsty fools. Before you’re through, you’re liable to get two poor devils that never did you any harm in some kind of serious trouble, with all your theories. Why don’t you both put your money away, skip the whole thing?”

They turned deaf ears to me. Trainor waved his check in the air to let it dry, then dropped it on top of the twenty hundred-dollar bills.

Fredericks was smiling, pleased with himself, like a cat that expected to lap up a lot of easy cream. “We’ll let Evans here hold the stakes.”

“I won’t have any part of such a dirty, underhanded bet!” I flared.

“All right, if you won’t, then I’ll call the barman.”

He started to raise his hand. I slapped it down just in time. “What you’re doing’s bad enough as it is so try to keep it to yourselves! Haven’t you got any sense of decency at all? He’ll talk his head off to everyone that comes in the place. Here, give me the money, I’ll hold it for you.” I glanced up at the wall. “Next Tuesday at exactly midnight, one or the other of you gets it.”

I put it away in my own wallet. Then I called the barman, myself. “Bring me a shot of straight whiskey, I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth. And something for these two gents. My suggestion is chloroform!”

We drank in silence. I had the impression Trainor was already feeling ashamed of himself; would have crawled out of it if there was any self-respecting way he could have. At that, his side of the contention was the least offensive of the two. Fredericks had a smug, wise-guy look on his face, that made you want to plant a fist right in the middle of it.

He rang down his glass. “Let’s get going. Pick your street corner,” he said tersely to Trainor.

The latter said, “The busier the corner, the higher the ratio of average men. And the busiest one I know, night or day, is the corner of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street.”

Fredericks said, “All right, let’s go there. And a very good choice too. But before we start,” he added, “I’ve got to have a single thousand-dollar bill.”

“Money, eh?” I remarked. “So that’s how you’re going to work it.”

“The root of all evil,” he smiled unpleasantly. “The sure-fire motive that never missed vet, since the world began.” He tried to pay for the drinks we’d had.

“Mr. Fredericks’ money’s no good as far as I’m concerned,” I let the barman know, without any of the joviality usually associated with that remark. “It’s the wrong color.” I meant it was bloody.

He took it with good grace. “Very well,” he said. “Then this’ll pay for three Collinses in advance. See that you have ’em ready and waiting for us when we come in next Tuesday at midnight. Let’s see how good your memory is, now.”

He hailed a cab at the door and the three of us got in. “I think I know where to get a grand-note,” he remarked. A stony silence answered him. I couldn’t tell whether Trainor’s conscience was bothering him or he had already developed cold feet because of risking more than he could afford — maybe even more than he actually had. One thing was sure, Fredericks was the kind would prosecute criminally if he won and that check bounced back stamped “Insufficient Funds.” It was no joking matter. I happened to know that Trainor was keeping company with a certain girl, intended to marry her in the fall. His whole future, you might say, was the dotted line of that check.

We stopped off first at a fashionable gambling place. Fredericks told us what it was, I wouldn’t have known otherwise. It looked like any other swank apartment building. Well, for that matter it was, all but one certain apartment, that paid heavily for protection. We waited for him in the cab, as we weren’t known in the place.

The minute he’d gone in, I said to Trainor: “You’re not kidding me any. Can you cover that check, in case you have to endorse it next Tuesday night?”

“I won’t have to endorse it next Tuesday night. I’m winning this little pot.”

“That doesn’t answer my question! Nothing’s sure, and this whole set-up depends on the human equation, the most doubtful quantity there is. Well — have you got a thousand dollars?”

“I can just about raise it if I have to,” he admitted glumly, “by hocking my shirt and borrowing on my salary.”

“I thought so! You ought to have your head examined!” I took the check out of my wallet. “Here, take this back while you’ve still got the chance. I’ll tell him the whole thing’s off.”

“You open your mouth to him, about what I just told you,” he warned in a cold rage, “and I’ll punch your head in. D’you think I’d crawl to him, go begging for leniency? He’d rub it in every time he met me, never let me forget it. I’m going to take that two thousand of his and smear it all over his kisser, to show him what I think of him!”

I saw there was nothing I could do to dissuade him. “That’s sure an expensive way of expressing an opinion,” was all I said to that.

Fredericks came back again with a thousand-dollar bill they’d given him in exchange for ten hundreds.

“Now let’s get the ground-work laid. 42nd Street and Seventh,” he told the driver, “northwest corner.”

He showed it to us in the cab, by the flame of his cigar-lighter. It was new, crisp as lettuce. Notes that big don’t pass from hand to hand much, I guess. “You sure it’s not fake?” I couldn’t help asking. “That’d be a nice ironic twist, bring two people to the verge of murder over a phony bill.”

“It’s as good as though I got it at a bank. Their games may be fixed, but they don’t go in for queer money.”

“How you gonna work it?” Trainor wanted to know coldly.

“I’ll show you. Watch this.” He folded it neatly in half, edge to edge and carefully creased it by running his fingers back and forth over it. He took out a gold cigar-cutter and inserted the blade under the crease. He carefully severed the bill into two equal parts. “It’s valueless this way, isn’t it?” he told us. “There’s your motive right there. Two different people, each one gets half. Neither half’s worth anything without the other. Neither one will give up his half. A deadlock. Whichever one is the more aggressive and daring of the two will do something about it. That spells murder. Maybe both will at once. Tonight we plant the first half, with whoever Trainor here selects. You follow him, Evans, and get his name and address and all about him for the record. Tomorrow night, same time and place, we plant the second half. Then we make known to each party the identity of the other, who is all that is standing between him and a neat little windfall. Then you’ll see Nature take its course. And you say,” he sneered at Trainor, “that you can’t make a murderer out of any chance passerby on a street corner! Well, watch, between now and next Tuesday night — and learn something!”

“It’s a filthy scheme,” I said hotly. “Treating human beings like flies stuck on a pin! You’re going to start something that you won’t be able to stop in time, mark my words! There’ll be blood on both your heads.”

Our driver coasted down past the Rialto Theater entrance, looked around questioningly.

“How long are you allowed to park here?” Fredericks asked him.