The Bigger They Come Read online

  BERTHA COOL—ALWAYS CALM AND COLLECTING

  THE BIGGER THEY COME is hard, fast, and funny.

  You’ll find it startlingly original, and with an unguessable plot that is kept moving at an exciting pace by elephantine Bertha Cool, detective by accident, who has the assurance of a steam-roller and the language of a longshoreman; and by puny Donald Lam, who long since would have been among the missing except for his ability to think fasted than the next man—or woman.

  Then there’s a really brazen hussy who likes to answer to the name of Sandra, and a slot-machine entrepreneur named Morgan Birks. But these are merely the stars in a mystery complex of the swellest bunch of roughnecks you’ve ever read about.

  THE

  BIGGER

  THEY COME

  by A. A. FAIR

  (Erle Stanley Gardner)

  THE BIGGER THEY COME

  COPYRIGHT 1939

  BY WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, INC.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  BERTHA COOL – a sizable hunk of woman with the majesty of a snow-capped mountain and the assurance of a steam roller

  DONALD LAM – her ingenious assistant, a physical weakling, but a mental giant

  ELSIE BRAND – Mrs. Cool’s typist who was well versed in the art of dissembling and discretion

  ALMA HUNTER – beautiful friend of Sandra Birks, who believed a woman should know her place, and stay in it

  MORGAN BIRKS – an unfaithful husband being sued for what unfaithful husbands are usually being sued for

  SANDRA BIRKS – wife of Morgan Birks, who believed in spreading her affections around generously

  B. LEE THOMS – also known as Bleatie, Sandra’s shiftless, satirical brother, who looked for the worst in everybody

  ARCHIE HOLOMAN – young, eligible doctor, supposedly one of Sandra’s numerous admirers

  SALLY DURKE – blond, hard-to-get-at mistress of Morgan Birks

  THE CHIEF – also known as Cunweather, a mountainous, mysterious big shot who seemed to know the why of everything

  MADGE – also known as m’love, the chief’s wife-an impressive and impregnable fortress-in size and poise

  FRED – a henchman with a bashed-in nose and with the speed of a deadly cobra

  JUDGE RAYMOND C. OLIPHANT – an erudite judge who learned something from a witness

  Chapter 1

  PUSHING my way into the office, I stood just inside the door, my hat in my hand.

  There were six men ahead of me. The ad had said between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. If appearances were any indication, some of them were optimistic liars. For the most part, we were a seedy-looking outfit.

  A straw-haired secretary behind a typewriting desk banged away at a typewriter. She looked up at me. Her face was as cold as a clean bedsheet.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to see Mr. Cool.’

  ‘What about?’

  I moved my head in a comprehensive gesture to include the half-dozen men who were looking up at me in casually hostile appraisal. ‘I’m answering the ad.’

  ‘I thought so. Sit down,’ she said.

  ‘There seems,’ I observed, ‘to be no chair available.’

  ‘There will be in a minute. You may stand and wait, or come back.’

  ‘I’ll stand.’

  She turned back to her typewriter. A buzzer sounded. She picked up a telephone, listened a moment, said, ‘Very well,’ and looked expectantly at the door which said ‘B. L. Cool, Private.’ The door opened. A man, who looked as though he was trying to get to the open air in a hurry, streaked through the office. The blonde said, ‘You may go in, Mr. Smith.’

  A young chap with stooped shoulders and slim waist got to his feet, jerked down his vest, adjusted his tie, pinned a smirk on his face, opened the door to the private office, and went in.

  The blonde said to me, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Donald Lam.’

  ‘L-a-m-b?’ she asked.

  ‘L-a-m,’ I said.

  She jotted it down, and then, with her eyes on me, started making shorthand notes under the name. I could see she was cataloguing my personal appearance.

  ‘That all?’ I asked when she’d covered me from head to foot with her eyes and finished making pothooks with her fingers.

  ‘Yes. Sit down in that chair and wait.’

  I sat and waited. Smith didn’t last long. He was out in less than two minutes. The second man made the round trip so fast it looked as though he’d come out on the bounce. The third man lasted ten minutes and came out looking dazed. The door of the outer office opened. Three more applicants came in. The blonde took their names, sized them up and made notes. After they were seated, she picked up the telephone and said laconically, ‘Four more,’ listened for a moment, and hung up.

  When the next man came out, the blonde went in. She was in there about five minutes. When she came out, she gave me the nod. ‘You may go in next, Mr. Lam,’ she said.

  The men who were ahead of me frowned at her and then at me. They didn’t say anything.

  Apparently she didn’t mind their frowns any more than I did.

  I opened the door, entered a huge room with several filing cabinets, two comfortable chairs, a table, and a big desk.

  I put on my best smile, said, ‘Mr. Cool, I—’ and then stopped, because the person seated behind the desk wasn’t Mister.

  She was somewhere in the sixties, with gray hair, twinkling gray eyes, and a benign, grandmotherly expression on her face. She must have weighed over two hundred. She said, ‘Sit down, Mr. Lam-no, not in that chair. Come over here where I can look at you. There, that’s better. Now, for Christ’s sake, don’t lie to me.’

  She swung around in her swivel chair and looked me over. I might have been her favorite grandson coming in for a cookie. ‘Where do you live?’ she asked.

  ‘I haven’t any permanent address,’ I said. ‘Right at present I’m in a rooming house on West Pico.’

  ‘What’s your training?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I told her, ‘that does me any good. I had an education that was supposed to fit me for the appreciation of art, literature, and life. It didn’t have anything to do with making money. I find I can’t appreciate art, literature, or life without money.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-eight.’

  ‘Parents living?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not married?’

  ‘No.’

  She said, ‘You’re just a little shrimp. I don’t s’pose you weigh over a hundred and twenty, do you?’

  ‘A hundred and twenty-seven.’

  ‘Can you fight?’

  ‘No-I do sometimes, but I get licked.’

  ‘This is a man’s job.’

  ‘And I’m a man,’ I retorted hotly.

  ‘But you’re too small. People would push you around.’

  ‘When I was in college,’ I said, ‘some of the boys used to try it. They gave it up after a while. I don’t like to be pushed., around. There are lots of ways of fighting. I have my way, and I’m good at it.’

  ‘Did you read the ad carefully?’

  ‘I think I did.’

  ‘Did you consider yourself qualified?’

  ‘I have no ties on earth,’ I said. ‘I think I’m fairly courageous. I’m active, and, I hope, intelligent. If I’m not somebody wasted a lot of money giving me an education.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘When did he die?’

  ‘Two years ago.’

  ‘What have you been doing since then?’

  ‘Odd jobs.’

  Her face didn’t change expression. She smi
led at me benignly and said, ‘You’re a God-awful liar.’

  I pushed back my chair.

  ‘Being a woman,’ I said, ‘you can call me that. Being a man, I don’t have to take it.’

  I started for the door.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I think you stand a chance of getting the job.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Don’t be a sap. Turn around here and look at me. You were lying, weren’t you?’

  ‘What the hell! The job was gone anyway. I swung around and faced her. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I was. It’s a habit I have. Oddly enough, however, I prefer to have my prevarications called to my attention in a more tactful manner.’

  ‘Ever been in jail?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come back here and sit down.’

  That’s what pounding the pavement does for your morale. I went back and sat down. I had exactly ten cents in my pocket. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon. The employment agencies either couldn’t or wouldn’t do a thing for me. I’d finally resorted to answering the ads that looked just a little fishy on their face. That’s the last step.

  ‘Now tell me the truth,’ she said.

  ‘I’m twenty-nine,’ I told her. ‘My parents are dead. I’ve had a college education. I’m reasonably intelligent. I’m willing to do almost anything. I need the money. If you give me the job, I’ll try and be loyal.’

  ‘Is that all?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  I smiled.

  ‘Then I take it Lam isn’t your real name?’

  I said, ‘I’ve told you the truth. Now, I can keep on talking if you want—I’m rather good at that.’

  ‘I fancy you are,’ she said. ‘Now tell me, what did you really study in college?’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘But it was the way you answered questions about your college education that made me realize you were lying. You never went to college, now, did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t graduate?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You weren’t expelled?’

  ‘No.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Do you know anything about anatomy?’

  ‘No, not much.’

  ‘What did you study in college?’

  ‘Want me to improvise?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not now-yes, I do, too. This job needs a liar. It also needs a convincing talker. I didn’t like your first lie. It wasn’t convincing.’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth, now,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Quit it, then. Lie to me for a while.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Anything,’ she said, ‘only make it sound convincing. Build it up. Embroider it. What did you study in college?’

  The love life of microbes,’ I said. ‘So far scientists have only considered the propagation of microbes in terms of guinea pigs. No one has ever considered it from the standpoint of the microbe. Now, when I refer to the love life of a microbe, you are doubtless inclined to interpret it in terms of your own—’

  ‘I haven’t any,’ she interrupted.

  ‘—outlook on life,’ I went on smoothly without paying any attention to her interruption. ‘Now, given an even temperature, a reasonable amount of nourishing food, microbes become exceedingly ardent. In fact, the—’

  She held up her hand palm outward as though she were pushing the words back in my mouth. ‘That’s enough of that God damn tripe,’ she said. ‘It’s glib, but it isn’t good lying because nobody cares. Tell me the truth. Do you know one single damn thing about microbes?’

  ‘No,’ I told her.

  Her eyes glittered. ‘How did you stop them from pushing you around when you were in college?’

  ‘I’d prefer not to go into that-if you want the truth.’

  ‘I want the truth, and I want the information.’

  ‘I used my head. I have been called mean,’ I said. ‘Everyone has to protect himself in life. When he’s weak somewhere, nature makes him strong elsewhere: I figure things out. I always have. If a man starts pushing me around, I find a way to make him stop, and before I’m through he’s sorry he ever started pushing. I don’t mind hitting below the belt if I have to. I guess I even get a kick out of it. That’s because of the way I’m made. A little runt is apt to be mean.

  ‘Now if you’re through amusing yourself at my expense, I’ll be going. I hate being laughed at. Some day you’ll find it’s been rather expensive amusement. I’ll work out a scheme and get even with you.’

  She sighed, not the wheezy sigh of a fatigued fat woman, but a sigh that marked a load off her mind. She picked up the telephone on her desk, and said, ‘Elsie, Donald Lam gets the job. Clear that riffraff out of the office. Put a sign on the door that the position has been filled. There have been enough bums in the office for one day.’

  She slammed the receiver back on its hook, opened a drawer, took out some papers and started reading. After a few moments, I heard the scrape of chairs and muffled sounds from the outer office as the waiting applicants filed out.

  I sat still, speechless with surprise, waiting.

  ‘Got any money?’ the woman asked abruptly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and then added after a moment, ‘some.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Enough to last me,’ I told her, ‘for a while.’

  She looked at me over the tops of her bifocal glasses, and said, ‘Amateurish lying again. It’s worse than the microbes. That shirt’s in bad shape. You can get one for eighty-five cents. Throw that necktie away. You can get a good one for twenty-five or thirty-five cents. Get your shoes shined. Get a haircut. I suppose your socks are full of holes. Are you hungry?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t pull that line with me. My God, look at yourself in the mirror. Your complexion is like a fish’s belly.

  Your cheeks are hollow, and there are dark spots under your eyes. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten for a week. Go get yourself a good breakfast. We’ll figure twenty cents for that, and you’ve got to do something about a suit, but you can’t do that today. You’re working for me now, and I don’t want you to get the idea you can go shopping on my time. You can get a suit of clothes after five o’clock tonight. I’ll give you an advance on salary, and God help you if you double-cross me on it. Here, here’s twenty dollars.’

  I took the money.

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘be back here by eleven. Get started.’

  As I reached the door, she raised her voice. ‘Now listen, Donald, don’t you go blowing that money. Twenty-five cents is absolutely tops on breakfast.’

  Chapter 2

  THE SECRETARY was banging away on the typewriter when I opened the door of the office which said ‘B. L. Cool-Confidential Investigations.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Is-er-what is she, Mrs. or Miss?’

  ‘Mrs.’

  ‘Is she in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What,’ I asked, ‘do I call you besides “say”?’

  ‘Miss Brand.’

  I said, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Brand. I’m Donald Lam. Mrs. Cool hired me to fill the position mentioned in the ad.’

  She went on typing.

  ‘Since I’m going to work here,’ I went on, ‘I expect we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other. You don’t like me, and I don’t think I’m going to like you. You can let it go at that if you want to.’

  She stopped typing to turn over a page on her shorthand book. She looked up at me and said, ‘Oh, all right,’ and dropped her fingers back to the keyboard.

  I walked over and sat down.

  ‘Anything for me to do except wait?’ I asked after a few minutes.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Mrs. Cool told me to be back here by eleven.
’

  ‘You’re here,’ she said, and went on clacking away at the typewriter.

  I took a package of cigarettes from my pocket. I’d been without smokes for a week, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.

  The door of the outer office opened. Mrs. Cool came barging into the room with a trim-looking chestnut-haired trick a step behind her.

  I sized up my new boss as she walked across the office, and revised my first estimate of her weight by adding twenty pounds. She evidently didn’t believe in confining herself to tight clothes. She wiggled and jiggled around inside her loose apparel like a cylinder of currant jelly on a plate. But she wasn’t wheezy, and she didn’t waddle. She walked with a smooth, easy rhythm. It wasn’t a stride. You weren’t conscious of her legs at all. She flowed past like a river.

  I looked at the girl behind her, and the girl looked at me.

  She was trim-ankled, slender, and seemed to have her body and mind on frightened tiptoes. I had the impression that if I’d yell ‘Boo!’ at the top of my voice, she’d be out of the office in two bounds. She had deep brown eyes, sun-tanned skin-or powder-and clothes which were cut to show her figure and did. It was a figure worth showing.

  Elsie Brand kept right on typing.

  Mrs. Cool held open the door of her private office. ‘Go right on in, Miss Hunter,’ she said, and then, looking at me, went on in the same tone of voice, almost as part of the same sentence, ‘I’m going to want you in five minutes. Wait.’

  The door closed.

  I made myself as comfortable as possible and waited.

  After a while, the telephone on Elsie Brand’s desk buzzed. She stopped typing, picked up the receiver, said, ‘Very well,’ dropped the receiver back into place, and nodded at me. ‘Go on in,’ she said. She was back pounding the keys of the typewriter before I’d got out of the chair.

  I opened the door to the private office. Mrs. Cool was overflowing the big swivel chair as she sat hunched up against the desk, her elbows leaning on it. As I opened the door, she was saying, ‘no, dearie, I don’t give a damn now how much you lie. We find out the truth sooner or later anyway; and the longer it takes to find out the truth, the more time we get paid for this is Donald Lam. Mr. Lam, Miss Hunter. Mr. Lam hasn’t been with me long, but he has the qualifications. He’ll work on your case. I’ll supervise what he does.’