Horace McCoy: The Mopper-Up (Short Story)

“Well,” Lovell said, “I've warned you. Now there's just one more thing: you want me to help you or not?”

“Thanks,” Bender said dryly. “I'll handle it. I wanna know all my trouble's in front.”

Lovell jumped up, his cheeks scarlet and asked him what the hell he meant by a crack like that. Bender told him it meant any thing he wanted it to mean.

His enmity was brutal and open and Lovell choked with rage. For a minute it seemed that the old over-ripe hatred between police chiefs and Rangers would come to a head. Lovell was excited but Bender was impassive and relaxed because he knew the Rondora chief wouldn't start anything. To have done that would have been mutely to testify to something Bender already suspected—that he was on Botchey Miller's payroll.

Lovell finally decided there wasn't anything he wanted to do about it. He said, compressed: “All right... all right...” and walked out, slamming the door.

For a moment Bender stood there looking at the door, the inside of him rising and falling slowly like an infallible barometer that recorded trouble close at hand. With a lurch the inside of him settled and he felt heavy... and in the next moment energy flowed into him as if he had drained it from the floor.

He rushed to the door, flung it open and went downstairs. The driver was waiting.

“Let's go!” he said.

Three miles out on the Amarillo road stood a two-storied, high-gabled house alone in the open country. Once upon a time it had been a pretentious dwelling but now it made no pretense. It was a mile beyond the frontier of the drilling rig lights.

This was Pack Patton's notorious dive—the Fishtail Club and it was lighted from top to bottom, making no effort to hide the secret of what went on inside. It was pretty generally known that in the basement was a big still and that upstairs were rooms and gambling apparatus.

Bender went up the wide front stairs two at a time but at the front door he was met by three men who had their hats off. One of them, heavy-set and with thick jowls, intercepted him as he started inside and told him he'd have to show his card. The other two men crowded around him close.

Bender said he didn't have a card and asked him who the hell he was. The man replied that his name was Patton.

“You're just the guy I'm looking for,” Bender retorted. “I see you was expecting me.”

Patton leered and said he always made it a rule to meet distinguished guests. He said he was sorry but the club was closed.

“You're— right it's closed,” Bender said. “It's closed for good. I wanna go in and look around.”

“Sorry,” Patton said; “you can't go in.”

Bender nodded.

“Yeah,” he said; “I'm going in.”

He started in and somebody grabbed his arm. Bender whirled around, reaching for his .38 with right hand and swinging out with his left. It struck something hard and they closed in on him and tried to throw something over his head.

He gave up trying to get the .38 and lashed out hard, struck one of them and heard him grunt. He fell back, still swinging and something hit him a powerful lick behind the head and he thought it was going to snap off. A white explosion ascended in front of him and he staggered. As he did he came out with his .45 from his hip pocket and shook his head desperately to clear the mists and locate one of his assailants. In a moment he saw a form before him and he leveled the .45 and squeezed the trigger.

The narrow alcove lighted in a great red glare, a man swore loudly, doubled up and pitched on to the floor. A moment later Bender saw a form running up the steps and was about to shoot when he recognized the driver of the taxi. He wanted to shout a warning but before he could the driver had swung a heavy tire tool against one of the men's heads and knocked him back against the wall. He followed it up swinging and grunting, the man trying to get his gun out and the driver banging away with the tire tool.

Tom Bender looked at the third man who stood before him and looked down the muzzle of his gun. It was Patton, his face contorted in the pale light.

“Get your hands up,” Bender rasped.

Patton swore and raised them and Bender reached out and searched him carefully. He took a nickel-plated pistol out of his coat pocket. The door surged with people from the inside who had been attracted by the shot and Bender yelled:

“Get the hell back in there!”

The men in the lobby groaned and the taxi driver came over beside Bender and said: “Where do we go from here?”

“Keep these guys right here,” Bender said, passing over Patton's gun. “I'm going inside.”

He pushed his way in. There were perhaps a dozen persons within the dance space, some of them women. Everybody was excited and several already had made their exits through the rear.

“Everybody beat it!” Bender said. “The joint is pinched!”

“By—!” somebody yelled. “There's a coupla guys out there dying! Why don't you call the ambulance?”

Bender looked coldly in the direction of the voice. “You call it,” he said. “I'm busy.”

He walked across the dance-floor to the steps leading upstairs. This was his element and his powerful figure dominated the foreground. He went up the steps and in the corridor he reached for his gun and walked on. He opened a door and stepped inside a brilliantly lighted room that was equipped with a dozen tables and gambling devices.

There were five employees inside, regarding him calmly. They seemed not in the least disturbed.

“All right, boys,” Bender said; “this is the finish. Get out.”

One of them asked if this was a pinch. Bender told him it wasn't if he got the lead out and beat it. Three of them marched out without a word, but the other two changed their eyeshades for hats and told Bender so long.

Bender followed them out, went down the hall and looked inside three other rooms. They were all dark, but from the light outside he could see they were comfortably furnished and all the beds wore silk spreads.

When he came back downstairs the lower floor was emptied. Employees had deserted Patton in his hour of need and he stood alone and captured by a taxi driver.

Bender went in the kitchen. The Negro chef was hurriedly putting on his pants and when he saw the Ranger he began to jabber and protest his innocence.

“Never mind,” Bender said. “You go on home and don't take any more jobs like this. How do I get downstairs?”

The Negro pointed to a door in the wall beside a big gas stove and Bender went over and opened it. A flight of narrow steps was revealed. Gun in hand, Bender rolled down them. The cellar smelled strongly of raw mash and before him he saw two great copper stills. The lights were on but nobody was there.

“Hey!” he yelled.

He came back upstairs. The Negro was on his way out.

“Anybody down there?” he asked.

“Naw, sir,” the Negro said. “They come up a while ago and went outside.”

“Sure?”

“Yes, sir, I'm sure.”

“Okey. Beat it.”

The Negro went out and left him alone in the kitchen. Bender looked around. In the corner was a basin of waste paper and trash. Bender grinned and went over and stood beside it. He put his gun in his pocket and lighted a cigarette.

He flipped the match in the trash box and came back to the lobby.

The taxi driver, charged with a sudden responsibility, was proving himself trustworthy. He had Pack Patton covered but there were a lot of people on the ground at the foot of the steps looking on with great curiosity. The man Bender had shot was stretched out on the floor on his face and there was another man slumped in the corner with blood pouring from his head.

“Get downstairs,” Bender told Patton. He said to the taxi driver: “Take him to the car and if he tries any monkey business let him have it.”