The limping goose Read online

  The Limping Goose

  To look at Johnny Fletcher, sprawled on the bed, with his hands under his head, you would have thought that he was doing a spot of plain ordinary loafing. But no, Johnny was really working. He was Thinking.

  In the bathroom, Sam Cragg splashed away as he washed out their socks and underwear. His stomach was growling, but he was reasonably happy. They'd missed breakfast and dinner the night before, but there'd be something to eat today. Johnny was thinking. He'd come up with something; he always did.

  And then the man banged on the door.

  Sam came out of the bathroom, holding a pair of dripping socks. He looked at Johnny, whose face was screwed up in thought as he stared at the dingy ceiling.

  "Somebody's at the door, Johnny," he announced. "Shall I see who it is?"

  "Yes," replied Johnny vacantly.

  Sam stepped to the door and opened it a few inches. A large, truculent-looking man pushed the door all the way open. "I'm looking for Sam Cragg," he announced.

  "You don't have to go lookin' no more," Sam replied cheerfully. "That's me."

  "Good for me," the large man said. He took a card from his pocket and glanced at it. "Three years ago you bought a mandolin from the Ajax Mandolin Company."

  "That's right," conceded Sam. "An' I got a beef against that Ajax Mandolin Company. They said a child could learn to play their music maker in two weeks. Well, I'm smarter than any child and I banged away at that dingus every day for three months and I couldn't get nothing but noise out of it."

  "The hell with that crap," the large, truculent man snapped. "The point is, you paid three dollars down on that mandolin and you were supposed to pay fifty cents a week on it. Only you didn't. So you owe forty-six fifty, plus interest, or a grand total of sixty-seven seventy-five. That's all I want from you, brother, sixty-seven seventy-five."

  Johnny Fletcher exclaimed petulantly, "For the love of Mike, Sam, can't you entertain your friends a little more quietly? I'm trying to think."

  Sam tossed the wet socks into the bathroom and wiped his lands on his trousers. "This ain't no friend, Johnny. He's tryin' to collect on that mandolin "

  "What mandolin?"

  "The one I bought three years ago, Johnny. You know— we hocked it in Duluth "

  "So!" roared the bill collector. "You pawned an article that you did not legally own. Mister, that's a penitentiary offense. Yes sir, you certainly made a mistake that time!"

  Johnny Fletcher sprang to his feet. "What the hell is this ill about?" He stabbed a lean forefinger at the man in the ioorway. "Don't tell me you're a bill collector?"

  "That's all I am, brother, just a plain ordinary bill collector. From the Acme Adjustment Agency, A.A.A., that's who. And, brother, have I got you fellows over a barrel. You just confessed that you committed a crime. So pay up—or go up!"

  Johnny rubbed his hands together. A smile played over his lips, but his eyes gleamed metallically. "Brother, a bill collector, lying to collect money from Johnny Fletcher. Ha ha ha!"

  "Ha ha to you. Funny, ain't it?"

  "No funnier'n a little woolly lamb trying to take away a nean wolf's dinner. Brother, as you say, you'd have better luck squeezing milk out of stones than you'll have trying to collect noney from Johnny Fletcher."

  The big bill collector leaned against the wall and showed ?ig teeth. "Well, now, you talk mighty pretty. Johnny Fletcher, tiuh? Supposed to be somebody, huh? Well, meet J. J. Kilkenny, i meaner man than a barrel of cats by that name. Kilkenny, he Killer, they call me. Just the roughest, toughest bill col-ector in the business, that's all. When I find them, they pay."

  "Now you're talkin' in my department," Sam Cragg declared. "Okay, Johnny? Or do you want to make some more chitchat first?"

  "Oh, let's not be hasty, Sam. The man just made a mistake, hat's all. We'll talk to him a little and we'll listen to him a Little."

  "The talkin'll be short and the listen'll be shorter," said J. J. Kilkenny. "In fact, it's over." He straightened, hitched up his rousers belt and took a step forward. "Sixty-seven seventy-Live or the party gets rough."

  He reached out a big hand. Sam took the hand lightly in

  lis own. Kilkenny smiled pleasantly, whisked his hand out of

  5am's, grabbed Sam's wrist and stepping quickly around behind

  Sam, attempted to pull the hand and arm around with him,

  to clamp on a hammerlock. That was what he intended to do. But Sam's hand and arm didn't follow Kilkenny. Instead, Sam stiffened his arm, gave a slight forward jerk and broke Kilkenny's hold. Then he turned, grabbed two handsful of Kilkenny's coat and shook the big bill collector.

  Kilkenny's hands flailed out, found Sam's head. Muscular arms went around Sam and tightened in a headlock. Sam turned easily in the headlock, reached over his left shoulder with both hands and, catching hold of Kilkenny's head, stooped suddenly.

  Kilkenny sailed smoothly over Sam's shoulders and hit the floor on his back, with a crash that probably broke a few electric light bulbs in the room below.

  When Kilkenny climbed shakily to his feet, Sam was leaning easily against the wall. "You want to make it two falls out of three?"

  Kilkenny shook his head groggily. "Let me think it over a minute. You're a ten-dollar skip. That's okay, I can exert myself for ten bucks. On the other hand, I might tear my suit throwing you and it might cost ten bucks to get it sewed up. There wouldn't be any profit left, would there?"

  "There wouldn't," interposed Johnny. "And there might even be a loss, if you had to have a doctor patch up a broken leg or two."

  "No chance of that. I can throw him, all right. That snap mare was just luck, because I wasn't expectin' it."

  "I've got news for you," said Johnny. "Sam can throw you all day long. And two more guys like you. Sure, you're big and tough. But not tough enough for Sam. He's the strongest man in the world."

  "Huh?"

  "Sam Cragg, alias Young Samson, the strongest man in the world. He breaks iron chains merely by expanding his chest. If we had a chain here, Sam would tie it around his chest and when I'd give him the word he'd draw a deep breath and slowly let it out and his chest would swell and swell until the chain would snap as if it were mere twine. And me, if I had any copies of Every Man a Samson, I'd be passing 'em out to the crowd and collecting two dollars and ninety-five cents for each and every copy."

  Johnny paused, sighed heavily. "That's what we'd do if we had a chain and if we had any books. But we ain't got a chain and we ain't got any books. That's why we're holed up at the Forty-Fifth Street Hotel until I can figure out an angle for making some dough, without any investment. And then you—a bill collector—come in here and try to collect money from us!"

  The bill collector nodded thoughtfully. "So you're broke. That's fine. You can't count it against me if the customer really ain't got the dough."

  "No," said Johnny, "but even if we had the money you couldn't get it from us. You're not a good enough man."

  "The hell I ain't. If you had the money I'd get it out of you."

  "Uh-uh," said Johnny cheerfully. "Even if Sam wasn't here you wouldn't get the money. I'd talk you out of it. Oh, I suppose you're all right as bill collectors go, but no bill collector could outtalk Johnny Fletcher."

  Kilkenny glowered at Johnny. "You think you're pretty good? You could take a bunch of cards like this every Monday morning—ten-dollar skips, brother, not the easy five-dollar ones—you could take ten-twelve cards like this every Monday, run down the skips and get the money, huh?"

  "I most certainly could."

  "Talk's cheap."

  "All right," said Johnny. "Look over your cards, pick one out at random, or pick one you've failed to locate. Give it to me and by this time tomorrow I'll
have the money."

  "For how much?"

  "For ten bucks. How's that?"

  "Brother," said Kilkenny, "you've just got yourself a little bet." He skimmed quickly through his little bunch of cards, extracted one. "Here's a nice little number. 'Alice Cummings, Chesterton Hotel.' She bought a fur coat from the Arctic Fur Company for sixty-nine ninety-five. She paid two dollars a week for twelve weeks, then skipped, owing forty-nine ninety-five. That was four years ago, come next November, so there's a little matter of thirty-four dollars interest, call it seventy-four dollars. You have the money here tomorrow at this time and you win yourself a nice ten-dollar bill. Fail and you pay me ten bucks—and I'm bringing the brass knucks with me, to collect. How's that?"

  "You got yourself a little deal, Mister," said Johnny.

  "You're the witness," Kilkenny said to Sam Cragg. "And no hard feelings, huh?"

  "Practice some holds," Sam said, "maybe we can go another fall tomorrow, huh?"

  Kilkenny scowled and went out. But the door did not close. Mr. Peabody, the manager of the Forty-Fifth Street Hotel, pushed it open.

  "See here, Mr. Fletcher!" he bleated. "I've just had a complaint from the occupants of the room below this one. What are you doing up here, jumping exercises? You knocked the plaster off the ceiling down below ..." 4

  Johnny made a vague gesture of dismissal. "Not now, Pea-body, not now."

  "What do you mean, not now?" demanded the hotel manager. Then he saw the wet socks on the bathroom floor. An expression of horror came over his face. "Washing again! How many times have I told you that we do not permit the guests to wash their clothing in the bathrooms?"

  "Oh, go 'way," cried Johnny. "Can't you see I'm trying to think? You're bothering me."

  "Very well," said Mr. Peabody sternly. "Think about paying your bill. Your three weeks are up tomorrow. You know the rules—three weeks' credit and out you go. So, think, think how you're going to get the thirty-six dollars you will owe me tomorrow."

  "That's what I'm working on," said Johnny.

  "Ah, so you don't have the money! I thought so. Perhaps I shouldn't even wait until tomorrow "

  "You'll get your money, don't worry. You've always gotten it, haven't you?"

  "No! I've had to lock you out of this room before."

  "Yeah," said Sam Cragg, "but you let us in again."

  "When you paid up. But one of these days I'll lock you out and you'll stay locked out. And that'll be a happy day for me."

  "Peabody," said Johnny, "I like you, too. But I've got work to do, so will you go and lock out some other people and let me alone ...?"

  "Until tomorrow," Peabody said darkly and went out.

  Sam closed the door on the hotel manager. He came back into the room and looked hopefully at Johnny. "You got an idea yet, Johnny?"

  "I think so."

  "Is it about food? A thick steak and French fries, maybe? And a big hunk of apple pie and three cups of coffee?"

  "Food? Haven't we eaten today?"

  "Uh-uh. No, Johnny. We didn't eat today and we didn't eat last night."

  "We've got to watch that. It isn't good for a man to miss his meals like that."

  "That's what I been telling you, Johnny. I keep telling you all the time, I don't feel good when I don't eat three squares a day. But we ain't got any money. Not even a dime between us."

  "A man doesn't need money to eat. Not when he's really hungry. Come on, let's eat."

  "How? Where? You know Peabody won't let us charge in the hotel dining room."

  Johnny held up the card he had received from the skip tracer. "The Chesterton Hotel has a nice dining room. Why don't we eat there?"

  "Anything you say, Johnny. I'm hungry enough to wash dishes—after I eat."

  Johnny got his coat out of the closet, and the two left the hotel. They walked to Sixth Avenue, excuse please, Avenue of the Americas, and turned left. On Forty-Eighth Street they turned left again and halfway up the block entered the Chesterton Hotel, which was slightly larger than the Forty-Fifth Street Hotel, but also slightly dingier.

  The Chesterton catered to the same kind of clientele as the Forty-Fifth Street Hotel, rack-track touts, chorus girls, would-be actors and actresses and the usual miscellany of Broadway characters and sharpshooters. Plus a few out-of-town people who came to New York now and then and sought cheap accommodations.

  There were eight or ten people in the lobby, but Johnny found a couple of vacant chairs. He sat down in one and gestured to Sam to take the other chair.

  "Why don't we go in the dining room and eat?" Sam asked anxiously. "I'm so hungry I could put salt on these leather chairs and eat them."

  "In a minute, Sam, in a minute. Ah ..."

  A bellboy turned away from the desk, glanced at a slip of paper in his hand and called out, "Paging Mr. Malkin. Mr. Paul Malkin, please."

  Mr. Malkin did not respond and the bellboy entered the adjoining dining room and called out a couple of times, then he returned and delivered the slip to the desk, where it was put into Mr. Malkin's key slot.

  "Now let's eat," said Johnny.

  Sam sprang to his feet and they entered the dining room.

  They had a nice lunch of soup, salad, New York cut steak, coffee and pie. Then the waiter brought the check. Johnny took the pencil and scribbled on it: Paul Malkin.

  "Your room number too, please," said the waiter.

  "Of course." Johnny wrote down 821, then reached into a pocket. He fished around for a moment, smiled and shook his head. "Don't seem to have any change. Here"— He picked up the pencil again and wrote on the check—"Tip, $1.00." 6

  "Thank you, sir," said the waiter. "I hope you enjoyed your lunch."

  "It was delicious!"

  "You said it," exclaimed Sam, smacking his lips.

  As they walked out of the dining room, Sam whispered nervously, "Let's get out of here fast!"

  "Why? Mr. Malkin's out of the hotel at the moment. And he isn't a regular here, or the bellboy wouldn't have had to page him. He'd have known him by sight. Relax, we've had a nice lunch, so now we get to work."

  He took the skip tracer's card from his pocket. "Miss Alice Cummings. Nice name. Well, let's see."

  He stepped up to the desk and accosted the clerk. "I'm from the Hotel Credit Bureau," he said. "I want to ask you about a guest who stayed here, mm, four years ago."

  "That's a long time ago," said the clerk. "What's the name?"

  "Miss Alice Cummings."

  A gleam came into the clerk's eyes, but he shook his head. "I don't remember her, but I'll see . . ." He went to the rear of his compartment and took down a ledger. Blowing dust off it, he returned and opened it on the desk.

  "Alice Cummings, eh? Let's see, now." He ran his finger down a page. "Ah, yes, Room seven fifteen. She lived here quite a while. Ah-hah, I thought so. The name did seem a little familiar "

  "You knew her personally?" Johnny asked.

  "Vaguely. A blonde, I believe. Or possibly a brunette."

  "Or maybe even a redhead?"

  "Could be. What hotel has she swindled now?"

  "She owed money here?"

  "Forty-six dollars, it says here."

  "At how much a week?"

  "Oh, her room was only ten dollars, but she ran up six dollars' worth of extras."

  "You mean you let her stay four weeks without getting any money from her?"

  "That's what it looks like. Of course, I don't remember the details now. In fact, I scarcely remember the young lady."

  "You know she was young."

  "All our female guests are young. Ha ha!"

  "But Miss Cummings was young?"

  "I seem to recall that, yes. I scarcely remember her, but I do somehow recall that she was, yes, quite young. In her early twenties. Some people might even call her attractive."

  "She didn't leave a forwarding address?"

  "Don't be ridic. I just told you she skipped without paying her bill."

  "How long had she stayed here alto
gether?"

  "Oh, quite a while. Four, no, almost five months. She paid for a while, then began to fall behind. She paid up, then finally got into us for forty-six, and that's the last we saw of her."

  "You held her luggage?"

  "What luggage?"

  "Trunk—bags?"

  The clerk grimaced. "A trunk worth two dollars. Full of newspapers."

  "What about her fur coat?"

  "Fur coat? What—how do you know she had a fur coat?"

  "It says so here on this card. She bought a fur coat from the Arctic Fur Company, on which she still owes a little tab of seventy-four dollars."

  The clerk looked sharply at Johnny. "How would you know that? You said you were with the Hotel Credit Bureau."

  "Me? Naw, what I said was that you were probably a member of the Hotel Credit Bureau. Me, I'm just a little old skip tracer."

  "A skip tracer! You've got a nerve trying to pump me for information."

  "Ain't I, though?" chuckled Johnny. He winked at the clerk and strode away.

  Sam trotted beside him. "This is fun," Johnny said.

  "Fun?" exclaimed Sam. "I couldn't hardly eat I was so nervous." He looked nervously over his shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

  "Just a minute."

  Johnny accosted a bellboy near the door. "Nice hotel you've got here, laddie."

  "What's nice about it?" asked the bellboy sourly.

  "Been working here long?"

  "Just a few months. Why?"

  "I'm making a survey on how long hotel employees keep their jobs. Who, besides the clerk, for instance, do you know that's been here for, say, four years or more?"

  "The doorman. He's got a sweet racket and he can take the guff."

  "Thank you, laddie. He's the man I want to talk to."

  The doorman stood outside the hotel, sneaking a quiet smoke. He would take a quick puff or two, then palm the cigarette as he held it behind his back.

  Johnny stepped up to him. "Mister," he said, "I've come to New York from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to find my sister 8

  who ran away from home five years ago, come Candlemas Day."

  "I'll bet," said the doorman cynically.