Trouble Is My Business

  I set a box on end, sat down, filled my own pipe, lit it, puffed a cloud of smoke. I waved a hand at the water and said: “You’d never think that ever met the Pacific Ocean.”

  He looked at me.

  I said: “Dead end—quiet, restful, like your town. I like a town like this.” He went on looking at me.

  “I’ll bet,” I said, “that a man that’s been around a town like this knows everybody in it and in the country near it.”

  He said: “How much you bet?”

  I took a silver dollar out of my pocket. They still had a few up there. The old man looked it over, nodded, suddenly yanked the long hair out of his nose and held it up against the light.

  “You’d lose,” he said.

  I put the dollar down on my knee. “Know anybody around here that keeps a lot of goldfish?” I asked.

  He stared at the dollar. The other old man near by was wearing overalls and shoes without any laces. He stared at the dollar. They both spat at the same instant. The first old man said: “Leetle deef.” He got up slowly and went over to a shack built of old boards of uneven lengths. He went into it, banged the door.

  The second old man threw his axe down pettishly, spat in the direction of the closed door and went off among the stacks of cordwood.

  The door of the shack opened, the man in the Mackinaw poked his head out of it.

  “Sewer crabs is all,” he said, and slammed the door again.

  I put my dollar in my pocket and went back up the hill. I figured it would take too long to learn their language.

  Capitol Way ran north and south. A dull green streetcar shuttled past on the way to a place called Tumwater. In the distance I could see the government buildings. Northward the street passed two hotels and some stores and branched right and left. Right went to Tacoma and Seattle. Left went over a bridge and out to the Olympic Peninsula.

  Beyond this right and left turn the street suddenly became old and shabby, with broken asphalt paving, a Chinese restaurant, a boarded-up movie house, a pawnbroker’s establishment. A sign jutting over the dirty sidewalk said “Smoke Shop,” and in small letters underneath, as if it hoped nobody was looking, “Pool.”

  I went in past a rack of gaudy magazines and a cigar showcase that had flies inside it. There was a long wooden counter on the left, a few slot machines, a single pool table. Three kids fiddled with the slot machines and a tall thin man with a long nose and no chin played pool all by himself, with a dead cigar in his face.

  I sat on a stool and a hard-eyed bald-headed man behind the counter got up from a chair, wiped his hands on a thick gray apron, showed me a gold tooth.

  “A little rye,” I said. “Know anybody that keeps goldfish?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “No.”

  He poured something behind the counter and shoved a thick glass across.

  “Two bits.”

  I sniffed the stuff, wrinkled my nose. “Was it the rye the ‘yeah’ was for?”

  The bald-headed man held up a large bottle with a label that said something about: “Cream of Dixie Straight Rye Whiskey Guaranteed at Least Four Months Old.”

  “Okey,” I said. “I see it just moved in.”

  I poured some water in it and drank it. It tasted like a cholera culture. I put a quarter on the counter. The barman showed me a gold tooth on the other side of his face and took hold of the counter with two hard hands and pushed his chin at me.

  “What was that crack?” he asked, almost gently.

  “I just moved in,” I said. “I’m looking for some goldfish for the front window. Goldfish.”

  The barman said very slowly: “Do I look like a guy would know a guy would have goldfish?” His face was a little white.

  The long-nosed man who had been playing himself a round of pool racked his cue and strolled over to the counter beside me and threw a nickel on it.

  “Draw me a Coke before you wet yourself,” he told the barman.

  The barman pried himself loose from the counter with a good deal of effort. I looked down to see if his fingers had made any dents in the wood. He drew a Coke, stirred it with a swizzle-stick, dumped it on the bar top, took a deep breath and let it out through his nose, grunted and went away towards a door marked “Toilet.”

  The long-nosed man lifted his Coke and looked into the smeared mirror behind the bar. The left side of his mouth twitched briefly. A dim voice came from it, saying: “How’s Peeler?”

  I pressed my thumb and forefinger together, put them to my nose, sniffed, shook my head sadly.

  “Hitting it high, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t catch the name.”

  “Call me Sunset. I’m always movin’ west. Think he’ll stay clammed?”

  “He’ll stay clammed,” I said.

  “What’s your handle?”

  “Dodge Willis, El Paso,” I said.

  “Got a room somewhere?”

  “Hotel.”

  He put his glass down empty. “Let’s dangle.”

  SEVEN

  We went up to my room and sat down and looked at each other over a couple of glasses of Scotch and ice water. Sunset studied me with his close-set expressionless eyes, a little at a time, but very thoroughly in the end, adding it all up.

  I sipped my drink and waited. At last he said in his lipless “stir” voice: “How come Peeler didn’t come hisself?”

  “For the same reason he didn’t stay when he was here.”

  “Meaning which?”

  “Figure it out for yourself,” I said.

  He nodded, just as though I had said something with a meaning. Then: “What’s the top price?”

  “Twenty-five grand.”

  “Nuts.” Sunset was emphatic, even rude.

  I leaned back and lit a cigarette, puffed smoke at the open window and watched the breeze pick it up and tear it to pieces.

  “Listen,” Sunset complained. “I don’t know you from last Sunday’s sports section. You may be all to the silk. I just don’t know.”

  “Why’d you brace me?” I asked.

  “You had the word, didn’t you?”

  This was where I took the dive. I grinned at him. “Yeah. Goldfish was the password. The Smoke Shop was the place.”

  His lack of expression told me I was right. It was one of those breaks you dream of, but don’t handle right even in dreams.

  “Well, what’s the next angle?” Sunset inquired, sucking a piece of ice out of his glass and chewing on it.

  I laughed. “Okey, Sunset, I’m satisfied you’re cagey. We could go on like this for weeks. Let’s put our cards on the table. Where is the old guy?”

  Sunset tightened his lips, moistened them, tightened them again. He set his glass down very slowly and his right hand hung lax on his thigh. I knew I had made a mistake, that Peeler knew where the old guy was, exactly. Therefore I should know.

  Nothing in Sunset’s voice showed I had made a mistake. He said crossly: “You mean why don’t I put my cards on the table and you just sit back and look ’em over. Nix.”

  “Then how do you like this?” I growled. “Peeler’s dead.”

  One eyebrow twitched, and one corner of his mouth. His eyes got a little blanker than before, if possible. His voice rasped lightly, like a finger on dry leather.

  “How come?”

  “Competition you two didn’t know about.” I leaned back, smiled.

  The gun made a soft metallic blue in the sunshine. I hardly saw where it came from. Then the muzzle was round and dark and empty looking at me.

  “You’re kidding the wrong guy,” Sunset said lifelessly. “I ain’t no soft spot for chiselers to lie on.”

  I folded my arms, taking care that my right hand was outside, in view.

  “I would be—if I was kidding. I’m not. Peeler played with a girl and she milked him—up to a point. He didn’t tell her where to find the old fellow. So she and her top man went to see Peeler where he lived. They used a hot iron on his feet. He died of the shock.”
>
  Sunset looked unimpressed. “I got a lot of room in my ears yet,” he said.

  “So have I,” I snarled, suddenly pretending anger. “Just what the hell have you said that means anything—except that you know Peeler?”

  He spun his gun on his trigger finger, watched it spin. “Old man Sype’s at Westport,” he said casually. “That mean anything to you?”

  “Yeah. Has he got the marbles?”

  “How the hell would I know?” He steadied the gun again, dropped it to his thigh. It wasn’t pointing at me now. “Where’s this competish you mentioned?”

  “I hope I ditched them,” I said. “I’m not too sure. Can I put my hands down and take a drink?”

  “Yeah, go ahead. How did you cut in?”

  “Peeler roomed with the wife of a friend of mine who’s in stir. A straight girl, one you can trust. He let her in and she passed it to me—afterwards.”

  “After the bump? How many cuts your side? My half is set.”

  I took my drink, shoved the empty glass away. “The hell it is.

  The gun lifted an inch, dropped again. “How many altogether?” he snapped.

  “Three, now Peeler’s out. If we can hold off the competition.”

  “The feet-toasters? No trouble about that. What they look like?”

  “Man named Rush Madder, a shyster down south, fifty, fat, thin down-curving mustache, dark hair thin on top, five-nine, a hundred and eighty, not much guts. The girl, Carol Donovan, black hair, long bob, gray eyes, pretty, small features, twenty-five to -eight, five-two, hundred-twenty, last seen wearing blue, hard as they come. The real iron in the combination.”

  Sunset nodded indifferently and put his gun away. “We’ll soften her, if she pokes her snoot in,” he said. “I’ve got a heap at the house. Let’s take the air Westport way and look it over. You might be able to ease in on the goldfish angle. They say he’s nuts about them. I’ll stay under cover. He’s too stir-wise for me. I smell of the bucket.”

  “Swell,” I said heartily. “I’m an old goldfish fancier myself.”

  Sunset reached for the bottle, poured two fingers of Scotch and put it down. He stood up, twitched his collar straight, then shot his chinless jaw forward as far as it would go.

  “But don’t make no error, bo. It’s goin’ to take pressure. It’s goin’ to mean a run out in the deep woods and some thumb-twisting. Snatch stuff, likely.”

  “That’s okey,” I said. “The insurance people are behind us.”

  Sunset jerked down the points of his vest and rubbed the back of this thin neck. I put my hat on, locked the Scotch in the bag by the chair I’d been sitting in, went over and shut the window.

  We started towards the door. Knuckles rattled on it just as I reached for the knob. I gestured Sunset back along the wall. I stared at the door for a moment and then I opened it up.

  The two guns came forward almost on the same level, one small—a .32, one a big Smith & Wesson. They couldn’t come into the room abreast, so the girl came in first.

  “Okey, hot shot,” she said dryly. “Ceiling zero. See if you can reach it.”

  EIGHT

  I backed slowly into the room. The two visitors bored in on me, either side. I tripped over my bag and fell backwards, hit the floor and rolled on my side groaning.

  Sunset said casually: “H’ist ’em folks. Pretty now!”

  Two heads jerked away from looking down at me and then I had my gun loose, down at my side. I kept on groaning.

  There was a silence. I didn’t hear any guns fall. The door of the room was still wide open and Sunset was flattened against the wall more or less behind it.

  The girl said between her teeth: “Cover the shamus, Rush—and shut the door. Skinny can’t shoot here. Nobody can.” Then, in a whisper I barely caught, she added: “Slam it!”

  Rush Madder waddled backwards across the room keeping the Smith & Wesson pointed my way. His back was to Sunset and the thought of that made his eyes roll. I could have shot him easily enough, but it wasn’t the play. Sunset stood with his feet spread and his tongue showing. Something that could have been a smile wrinkled his flat eyes.

  He stared at the girl and she stared at him. Their guns stared at each other.

  Rush Madder reached the door, grabbed the edge of it and gave it a hard swing. I knew exactly what was going to happen. As the door slammed the .32 was going to go off. It wouldn’t be heard if it went off at the right instant. The explosion would be lost in the slamming of the door.

  I reached out and took hold of Carol Donovan’s ankle and jerked it hard.

  The door slammed. Her gun went off and chipped the ceiling.

  She whirled on me kicking. Sunset said in his tight but somewhat penetrating drawl: “If this is it, this is it. Let’s go!” The hammer clicked back on his Colt.

  Something in his voice steadied Carol Donovan. She relaxed, let her automatic fall to her side and stepped away from me with a vicious look back.

  Madder turned the key in the door and leaned against the wood, breathing noisily. His hat had tipped over one ear and the ends of two strips of adhesive showed under the brim.

  Nobody moved while I had these thoughts. There was no sound of feet outside in the hall, no alarm. I got up on my knees, slid my gun out of sight, rose on my feet and went over to the window. Nobody down on the sidewalk was staring up at the upper floors of the Snoqualmie Hotel.

  I sat on the broad old-fashioned sill and looked faintly embarrassed, as though the minister had said a bad word.

  The girl snapped at me: “Is this lug your partner?”

  I didn’t answer. Her face flushed slowly and her eyes burned. Madder put a hand out and fussed: “Now listen, Carol, now listen here. This sort of act ain’t the way—”

  “Shut up!”

  “Yeah,” Madder said in a clogged voice. “Sure.”

  Sunset looked the girl over lazily for the third or fourth time. His gun hand rested easily against his hipbone and his whole attitude was of complete relaxation. Having seen him pull his gun once I hoped the girl wasn’t fooled.

  He said slowly: “We’ve heard about you two. What’s your offer? I wouldn’t listen even, only I can’t stand a shooting rap.”

  The girl said: “There’s enough in it for four.” Madder nodded his big head vigorously, almost managed a smile.

  Sunset glanced at me. I nodded. “Four it is,” he sighed.

  “But that’s the top. We’ll go to my place and gargle. I don’t like it here.”

  “We must look simple,” the girl said nastily.

  “Kill-simple,” Sunset drawled. “I’ve met lots of them. That’s why we’re going to talk it over. It’s not a shooting play.”

  Carol Donovan slipped a suede bag from under her left arm and tucked her .32 into it. She smiled. She was pretty when she smiled.

  “My ante is in,” she said quietly. “I’ll play. Where is the place?”

  “Out Water Street. We’ll go in a hack.”

  “Lead on, sport.”

  We went out of the room and down in the elevator, four friendly people walking out through a lobby full of antlers and stuffed birds and pressed wildflowers in glass frames. The taxi went out Capitol Way, past the square, past a big red apartment house that was too big for the town except when the Legislature was sitting. Along car tracks past the distant Capitol buildings and the high closed gates of the governor’s mansion.

  Oak trees bordered the sidewalks. A few largish residences showed behind garden walls. The taxi shot past them and veered on to a road that led towards the tip of the Sound. In a short while a house showed in a narrow clearing between tall trees. Water glistened far back behind the tree trunks. The house had a roofed porch, a small lawn rotten with weeds and overgrown bushes. There was a shed at the end of a dirt driveway and an antique touring car squatted under the shed.

  We got out and I paid the taxi. All four of us carefully watched it out of sight. Then Sunset said: “My place is upstairs. There’s a sc
hoolteacher lives down below. She ain’t home. Let’s go up and gargle.”

  We crossed the lawn to the porch and Sunset threw a door open, pointed up narrow steps.

  “Ladies first. Lead on, beautiful. Nobody locks a door in this town.”

  The girl gave him a cool glance and passed him to go up the stairs. I went next, then Madder, Sunset last.

  The single room that made up most of the second floor was dark from the trees, had a dormer window, a wide daybed pushed back under the slope of the roof, a table, some wicker chairs, a small radio and a round black stove in the middle of the floor.

  Sunset drifted into a kitchenette and came back with a square bottle and some glasses. He poured drinks, lifted one and left the others on the table.

  We helped ourselves and sat down.

  Sunset put his drink down in a lump, leaned over to put his glass on the floor and came up with his Colt out.

  I heard Madder’s gulp in the sudden cold silence. The girl’s mouth twitched as if she were going to laugh. Then she leaned forward, holding her glass on top of her bag with her left hand.

  Sunset slowly drew his lips into a thin straight line. He said slowly and carefully: “Feet-burners, huh?”

  Madder choked, started to spread his fat hands. The Colt flicked at him. He put his hands on his knees and clutched his kneecaps.

  “And suckers at that,” Sunset went on tiredly. “Burn a guy’s feet to make him sing and then walk right into the parlor of one of his pals. You couldn’t tie that with Christmas ribbon.”

  Madder said jerkily: “All r-right. W-what’s the p-pay-off?” The girl smiled slightly but she didn’t say anything.

  Sunset grinned. “Rope,” he said softly. “A lot of rope tied in hard knots, with water on it. Then me and my pal trundle off to catch fire-flies—pearls to you—and when we come back—” he stopped, drew his left hand across the front of his throat. “Like the idea?” he glanced at me.

  “Yeah, but don’t make a song about it,” I said. “Where’s the rope?”