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small
son into the house.

I
went out into the hall. Esther was coming down the stairs. I told her
I was going out to the garage. I wasn't sure why, but I wanted to
have another look at that bag.

The
man left the support of the pole when I closed the front door behind
me. His eyes swept by me without stopping at me and then back to
Gillette. I stuck a fresh cigarette into my mouth and strode up to
him.

“
Got
a match?” I asked.

“
Sure.”
He dug a matchbook out of a pocket and handed it' to me.

His
nose wasn't very crooked. It was twisted only slightly at the bridge.
Mr. Redfern had been right about his chin except that it jutted out
to two points made by a cleft you could have put your small finger
into. His eyes were pale-blue and as blank as an infant's stare.
Fifty would be about the right age for him, though his compact,
muscular body looked younger.

I
returned his matches and said: “What do you want.?”

His
eyebrows went up. He seemed to be smiling, without a muscle moving in
his face. “Come again.?” he said.

“
Late
this afternoon you were in the Planet showroom where I work and asked
my boss about me without leaving a name. Now you're watching my
house.”

“
What
for?”

“
That's
what I’m asking you.”

He
laughed without uttering sound. “Is there a law against walking
through this street?”

“
You
weren't walking.”

He
tossed the matchbook from one hand to the other and back. “You're
a smart cookie, aren't you.?” That unblinking stare lay flatly
on me.

I
looked at Gillette polishing his car fifteen feet away. I looked
across the street at a couple of girls sitting on a stoop, at a
neighbor I knew only by sight sweeping the tiny stretch of walk up to
his door, at people strolling in the mildness of a fine September
evening. I was glad that, it was a nice street and that people were
on it and that it was not yet dark; I was bigger than Crooked Nose
and probably better with my fists, but I wouldn't have enjoyed
speaking to him on a lonely street.

“
I'm
not smart enough to know what you're after,” I said, “except
that you're up.to no good. Otherwise you'd tell me.”

His
fist snapped shut over the matchbook. It was a broad, strong fist
with dark hair curling up to the second knuckle. “You've got an
imagination, mister,” he said. He turned with easy grace and
sauntered up the street.

CHAPTER
THREE

Gillette
had got his son to go into the house. He waved the waxing rag at me
as I approached his car parked at the curb. He was a dumpy man with
his weight centered around his middle. His face could have been cut
out of a pumpkin and wasn't made for looking solemn,' but he tried
it. “Hey, Breen, that was a hell of an experience your missus
had this afternoon,” he said.

“
How
do you know about it?”

“
It's
in the paper. The Bugle. Just a little piece. It said a man was hit
by a car on Fort Hamilton Parkway and he died while your missus drove
him to the hospital.”

“
Did
it give her name and address?”

“
How
do you think I knew it was her?”

Crooked
Nose was out of sight. What could he do — walk around the block
and take up his watch from behind a tree, or call it a day and go
home?

“
It
must have given your missus a bang, him dying on her like that,”
Gillette was saying.

“
It
did.”

I
walked on to the candy store at the corner. I bored through the usual
crowd of young loafers hanging around the newsstand and pulled out
the last remaining copy of the Brooklyn Daily Biggie. There had been
a run on the paper tonight because the Dodgers had taken a
double-header from the Giants. I went into the store, bought a pack
of cigarettes, paid for it and the paper, and stood against the wall
and opened the paper.

I
found it on page three. There were only a couple of paragraphs. The
first gave the bare essentials, Esther’s story boiled down into
two sentences with so many dependent clauses that I had to read them
over to straighten them out. The second .paragraph gave names and
addresses. Raymond Teacher had been the dead man’s name all
right; he was a foreigner from the Bronx. Howard Pine, the man whose
car had struck him, was a local product from Schenectady Avenue.

An
accidental auto death wasn’t sensational news in Brooklyn.

I
folded the paper and tucked it under my arm and left the candy store.
Twilight was spreading mellowly over the street and even the shouts
of children were somehow softened. I passed Gillette brooding down at
an area on the front right fender he had waxed.

“
Why
don’t you let me sell you a new Planet?” I said.

“
When
they give them away as grab-bag prizes, I’ll be able to afford
one.” He rubbed more wax into the spot.

A
magnificent postwar Cadillac convertible was parked in front of my
driveway, blocking it. It had a Florida license plate. From a side
angle I saw a man behind the wheel. His hat was pushed away from the
back of his head. He needed a .haircut. A couple of more steps showed
me definitely that he was not Crooked Nose. He was younger and a lot
uglier in spite of the fact that his nose and chin were reasonably
normal.

Crooked
Nose had not reappeared.

I
turned my head the other way and saw a man walking down my driveway.
When he reached the demonstration coupe, he tried the door. I’d
locked it.

I
strode toward him. He heard me and turned and thrust both hands deep
into his topcoat pockets.

It
was too warm for a topcoat, but he was wearing one. It was tan camel
hair and looked like a lot of money, to match the Cadillac. So did
his suit under the open topcoat — shaggy tweed. He wore a tan
shirt and a black-and-white necktie with broad stripes running
lengthwise. His hat was unblemished pearl-gray. His getup wasn’t
to my taste, but on him it looked good. His build was boyish,
slender, but he carried it well. His face fitted the rest of him. It
looked as if it might have been turned out by a high-class shop which
went in for faces. The mustache under his high-bridged, matinee idol
nose was as thin and precise as the edge of a razor blade. He
probably fancied himself quite a lad with the women.

“
What
are you looking for?” I demanded.

At
the moment he was looking for it in my face. He took his time
answering, and then, didn’t answer my question. “Mr.
Breen?” he said.

“
So
what? That doesn’t give you the right to snoop in my car.”

He
smiled. If I were a woman, I might have gone crazy over that smile.
“I'm a friend of Ray Teacher. Was, I mean. I came for his bag.”

“
Are
you the man who phoned about the bag a little while ago?”

He
wasn't so good. He blinked and the smile faded before he brought it
back. “Sure,” he said.

“
Like
hell,” I said. “The man who phoned said he was Teacher’s
brother.”

“
Oh,
sure. But he was busy and asked me to drop around for the bag.”

“
Then
let him come for it tomorrow.” I didn’t like Handsome’s
eyes. They reminded me of Crooked Nose’s. You looked into them
and saw nothing.

He
said: “Ray Teacher’s brother is a guy who speaks so slow
you can die before he gets the next word out. Does that prove I’m
on the level?”

“
It
proves that you know him, but it doesn’t explain why you
sneaked down the driveway instead of going up to the door and .asking
for the bag.”

“
I
just finished speaking to your wife. She said the bag was in the car
and she thought you might be in the garage, so I went to look for
you.”

Over
my left shoulder I saw that the living room lights had gone on. Radio
music flowed out through the open side windows. Esther would be
sitting beside the radio reading a mystery novel. The man in the
Cadillac convertible parked directly across the driveway entrance had
his head turned toward us.

“
I’m
going to drive the bag to the police station,” I said. “You
can follow me. If you’re entitled to it, they’ll give it
to you.”

Handsome
took his left hand out of his topcoat pocket and ran the nail of his
thumb over his mustache. Portrait of a man in deep thought. Then he
said:

“
Why
make all this fuss over a bag with a few shirts and socks in it?”

“
Socks
and shirts aren’t that heavy.”

“
How
do I know what’s in it?” he said testily. “All I
know, my pal’s brother was killed by a car and he asked me to
do him a favor and pick up the bag. How would five bucks satisfy you
for your trouble?”

“
You
can get the bag for nothing at the police station.”

“
I’ve
got a date in twenty minutes. Ten bucks.”

I
said nothing.

“
Okay,
twenty. I’m in a hurry.”

“
Let’s
hear you come up to fifty,” I said.

“
Boy,
you’re a business man.” He reached into his hip pocket
for his wallet.

“
I
wanted to hear you offer fifty, that’s all,” I said. “You
told me what I wanted to know. Now beat it.”

Slowly
his hand reappeared without the wallet and slipped back into the
topcoat pocket. “A wise guy,” he said reflectively.

“
I
catch on after a while,” I told him. “That secondhand bag
isn’t worth fifty dollars or twenty dollars, especially not if
you’re legitimately entitled to it for nothing.”

Twilight
was spreading over the driveway. He stood very still. The handsome
face was suddenly washed-out, tired.

“
Never
mind the bag,” he said woodenly and stepped past me.

I
watched him walk up the driveway. He spoke to the man behind the
wheel through the window of the Cadillac and then opened the door and
got in. I tuned to the garage.

The
garage door Esther had left open in the afternoon was still open and
so was the sedan door. The pigskin bag was where I had left it on the
concrete floor. I lifted it with two hands and shook it. There was a
heavy, sluggish rattling, like big stones hitting each other.

I
looked up the driveway. The Cadillac hadn’t moved. The two men
in it were talking it over. Handsome wanted the bag too badly to
leave without another try. I thought of how he had not taken his
right hand out of his topcoat pocket.

Out
of my pants pocket I fished the ring on which were the two sedan keys
and I unlocked the trunk and put the bag inside. I locked the trunk
and looked over my shoulder through the open door and past the coupe.
They were getting out of the Cadillac.

They
came side by side down the driveway, and Handsome’s hands were
deep in his topcoat pockets. The other man was shorter, but very wide
all the way down to his ankles. His face was wide too, and especially
his nose which had a pulpy spread to it. He moved as solidly and as
relentlessly as a .heavy tank.

I
stepped out of the garage. My palm sweated against the metal keys
clenched in it. They saw me standing there just outside the garage,
and Handsome smiled, I turned my body as if to look into the garage.
To the left of the garage and in back of the house there was a tiny
yard covered by grass which I hadn’t cut in weeks. My body was
between my hand and the two men, and I hardly had to move my wrist to
flick the keys into the grass. In the gathering darkness my own eyes
lost sight of the keys before they fell.

They
were rounding the demonstration coupe before f turned back to them. I
remained where I was, waiting. Handsome came within a foot of me and
stopped. The other man stood at my side, not close, his body solid
and squat, his face heavy and broad and not pleasant. His right hand
hovered with apparent carelessness near the right lapel of his
jacket.

“
We’ll
stop horsing around,” Handsome said amiably. “Five
hundred bucks on the line for the bag.”

That
shook me. My throat was dry. I said: “I’m not in the
business of selling bags which don’t belong to me.”

“
Then
what do you want?”.

“
I
want to be left alone.”

Handsome
stepped back. He sighed. “We don’t want to get tough, but
show him how we can, Larry.”

The
squat man casually slid a hand under his left shoulder and brought
out a black snub-nosed automatic pistol. He let me take a good look
at it lying on his broad palm and then stuck it into his jacket
pocket. His hand held it there.

This
was the real thing. It was not only a man with a gun. It was a man
who carried a gun under his shoulder, in a holster, professionally.
He would know how to use it and be quick to use it if he decided that
he had to. A killer.

A
boy darted into the mouth of the driveway. A second boy followed him,
tagged him, and fled with the other after him. A car went by with its
lights on. Handsome ran a tongue up to the razor-thin line of his
mustache. “Suppose we go into the garage,” he said.