Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1967 (UK)

The Sucker by David Mutch

No one is more aware than a child of the “annoyance of a good example,” yet on a rare occasion a patient teacher may be accidentally rewarded.

It was a day that started bad and got worse.

It started bad before I’d gone on duty. In fact, I was just getting out of bed and into my uniform when the phone call came from the head of our minor baseball league. He told me that my appeal had been turned down flat, that we hadn’t turned up with enough players to field a team last Friday night so the game went to the other team by default. He was nice about it. He said he was real sorry, and that he admired a cop like me devoting so much time to boys’ work; he understood the problems I must have in the Water Street area with those underprivileged kids.

But he didn’t understand. It wasn’t, if you got right down to it, the underprivileged kids of Water Street who were the problem. It was Mart Erie, who had this whole city in his paws, paws soft and white, but very dirty, too. I wondered how many kids would have turned up for the game if the team had been Erie’s. My guess was every last kid.

Strange, maybe, but bitterly disappointed in those kids though I was, I could see how it looked to them. I was just the cop on the beat, a square. Erie showed those kids three-hundred-dollar suits, expensive women and expensive cars. He showed them the rackets paid. I showed them what being a cop paid — not very much.

The day started bad and got worse, like I said. Marg, my wife, said sympathetic things about the baseball situation, but then she said, “I saw George and Ann yesterday.”

When you’ve been married for ten years, lots of things you say to your wife, and the other way around, have some sort of special meaning. That did. It meant that she had seen George Bell, who had quit the force for a job that paid more money, and why didn’t I get smart and do the same.

I said, “That’s nice.” Which meant, maybe I am crazy to stay on the force, but I’m staying.

Conversations between you and your wife take big jumps, I guess because you’ve been over and over the same subjects so often.

Marg said, “I guess it’s a healthy thing for you to do boys work, seeing we can’t have kids of our own. But why pick those junior gangsters down there? There are kids who’d appreciate having a coach who has played as much ball as you.”

“Those kids down there need it most, Marg. It’s a bad area.”

She nodded stiffly over her coffee cup. “It is a bad area. It’s a shame somebody doesn’t do something for it — like drop a couple of atomic bombs on it.” And then it came out, something I realized right away she’d kept bottled up inside for a long time. “I’m fed up. I’m fed up sitting home here night after night while you waste your time down in that human jungle with those ungrateful little gangsters, or risk your life with their big brothers. Water Street is rotten to the core. This whole city is rotten. Mart Erie owns this town — most of the cops, most of the politicians, everything. I want you to get off the force. Or if you must be a cop, let’s move to some decent city where they appreciate an honest cop.”

She put her cup down. It rattled against its saucer and her coffee spilled. What made it worse was that she’d never been this mad before. In fact, Marg seldom got mad at all. And she wasn’t finished.

“I hate to say this,” she said, “but you’re a sucker. Only a sucker would be an honest cop in this city. Only a sucker would start a baseball team for a bunch of little gangsters who couldn’t care less.”

I tried to argue with her, though my heart wasn’t exactly in it. “Well, maybe things will get better. There’s the Reform League.”

“The Reform League! Ha, ha, ha. It’ll take a lot more than the Reform League to stop Mart Erie.”

I took that conversation with me as I drove to work. I convinced myself that I felt for the Water Street kids because my childhood had been nothing to write home about. Some guys like to talk about the bad things they went through, but not me, I’d rather forget. Let’s just say the home I was brought up in, it you’d call it a home, was plain lousy, and let it go at that.

So I felt for those kids. But was I doing them any good? Was the competition, Mart Erie, too much? Was I being a sucker?

And the day that had started bad, like I said, kept getting worse.

The newspapers called Erie “the king of crime,” and things like that, and it wasn’t as phoney as it sounds, because when he came down to Water Street he strutted around like a king.

He had a thing in his head about Water Street. He lived miles away in this town’s best suburb, hut he had been born in one of the tenements on the street, and it was awful important to him for some reason or other to visit the street and show off, particularly to the kids.

He was on the street this day. and I had a run-in with him, and it happened with a kid named Billy White having a ringside seat.

White, so “Whitey”, naturally, was a born leader. Nothing special about his looks, just another skinny fifteen-year-old, but where Whitey led, the other kids followed. Right from the start of the baseball season I had known that Whitey would be the key to success or failure. And there were periods he didn’t miss so much as a practice. But there were other periods when I never laid eyes on him. He hadn’t cared enough to turn out for the first playoff game.

Whitey was slouched in the doorway of the greasy spoon in front of which Erie had parked his expensive imported car. The car was black. It gleamed in the sunlight like a freshly shined shoe.

I didn’t ask Whitey why he hadn’t turned out for the game. I figured if he had a reason — and I was sure he didn’t — he shouldn’t have to be asked for it. And I didn’t ignore him. Kids like him only laugh at you if they think they’ve got your goat.

So I played it real cool. “Hi, Whitey.”

He played it cool, too. “Hi, cop.”

I turned back to the car. It was parked in front of a hydrant, faced the wrong way. It was two feet from the kerb. This was one the kids of Water Street what a of Erie’s little ways of showing Dig joke laws were.

I put my foot on the bumper of Erie’s car and got out my book of tickets. I could feel Whitey’s eyes on me. I knew that he knew as well as I did there was no more chance of the ticket ever being paid than of the ragman’s horse winning the Kentucky Derby.

I had the ticket half made out when Erie came up the sidewalk. There was a muscle guy with him — a lot of hair, a low forehead and a loud idiotic laugh. Lots of times Erie handed out quarters to the kids of Water Street, and there was a bunch of them trailing along behind him now like peasants following a king. Erie liked it; there was a smug grin on his face.

Erie matched his car, flashy and slick and expensive looking. He had eyes as black as the car and just as cold, eyes that would make a rattlesnake’s look like a puppy’s.

Erie and I knew what we were fighting for; I saw his cold eyes cast a swift glance at Whitey.

Erie gave me a big phoney grin. “Good morning, officer.” He knew my name, but it was part of the little show he was putting on for the kids’ benefit, particularly Whitey’s, to pretend he didn’t.

He turned to his muscle guy and gave out with some more phoniness. “Tut, tut, Higgenbottom, look where you’ve parked the car. And now this nice police officer is giving us a ticket. Higgenbottom, you know how I dread trouble with the police.”

That got him the laugh he wanted from the kids. I sneaked a glance at Whitey. He was laughing, too. But I kept on writing the ticket.

When I got the ticket finished, Erie made a sort of little bow and took it. “Thank you, officer. I do hope it just somehow doesn’t slip my mind to pay it.”

He got into his car. The kids watched him admiringly.

I looked at Whitey again. I was met with a grin too worldly-wise, too contemptuous for such a young face.

The day that started bad and got worse, got worse still. The story of my latest run-in with Erie moved up the street a lot faster than I could walk, and all the wise guys of all ages made cracks about parking tickets that were used to light cigars.

For the first time I really thought of quitting the force. It all seemed so hopeless, Water Street with its cheap dives, horse parlours, scruffy little bars; its hoodlums and drunks. Erie had the street in his paws and all I was doing was playing clown for him, providing the kids with some cheap laughs.

I was halfway up the street before I realized Whitey was following me. He was slouching along, hands in his pockets, about ten yards behind. I didn’t know why. Who knows what goes on inside the head of a kid like Whitey? I pretended I didn’t know he was following me.

I stopped to lecture some little kids, seven and eight, I guess. They were playing in the mouth of the alley that separated the Golden Horse Tavern and the mission, directly across the street from St. Mark’s. They were playing with peashooters, which isn’t a big deal, I’ll admit, but they were shooting those hard white beans, and the year before a little girl had lost the sight of one eye.

I tried to explain to the little kids that what they were doing was dangerous but I was wasting my breath. I could tell that from the sullen, hostile looks on their little faces, faces that I’d often seen light up with awe and admiration when they looked at Erie.

I finished lecturing and started walking again. I’d taken maybe ten steps when one of the kids behind me yelled, “Hey, flatfoot, why don’t you go give Mr. Erie another ticket?” When I wheeled about the little kids were scampering off in all directions like mice, laughing mice. I looked at Whitey. He was laughing, too.

I couldn’t get really mad at the little kids, or at Whitey. Erie showed them that laws and lawmen were a joke. Like Marg had said, even the Reform League couldn’t stop him, let alone a cop on a beat. So why wouldn’t kids follow his example?

But I plodded on. I guess a mule is a reasonable character compared to me. Whitey stopped following me. I had no more idea why he stopped than why he had started.

Erie drove by. He’d do that sometimes for hours, just drive up and down the street, car windows open, big cigar in his mouth. He tooted his horn and gave me a phoney wave, and he sure thought he was funny. I noticed he was alone now. I figured maybe he’d put his muscle guy back in his cage.

I reached Pier Seven, the end of the street, and started plodding back, following my usual pattern.

It was about three minutes later that it happened, that astonishing thing that made me stop cold and made my heart skip some beats.

I saw Erie’s car coming toward me. then suddenly, just about level with the Golden Horse Tavern, the car swerved sharply right across the street and jumped the kerb and whammed against the grey stone side of St. Mark’s with a crash you could have heard five blocks way. Just like that it happened.

I was the first person to get to the car. The front was all mashed in but I managed to get the door open on the driver’s side. Erie sat straight, his hands on the wheel. His face looked calm. There wasn’t any blood. But no living man ever held his head in the position his was. Broken neck. Stone dead.

It had all happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that I was a little dazed. It took me a couple of seconds to identify the object on the lap of Erie’s expensive suit. But when I finally realized what the thing was, I did something I’d never done before in the presence of the dead. I grinned. I knew exactly what had happened and it was a joke — on Erie. A huge joke. And I thought, “No, Marg dear, you were wrong. It didn’t take a lot more than the Reform League to stop Mart Erie, it took a lot less. One heck of a lot less.”

I picked the thing up and put it carefully in my pocket.

A big crowd gathered quick. People came running from every dive along the street. They stood around and shook their heads and muttered. They couldn’t believe Erie was really dead, that he had died in such a way and so fast.

The Homicide boys arrived; they had to fight their way through the crowd. Sergeant Grady was in charge, a guy I really admired. He was such a good cop that not even Erie’s stooges at city hall had dared kick him off the force. And he was the only cop in town who had managed to make it hot and heavy sometimes for Erie’s boys. Tough, that Grady.

“Well, well,” he said to me. “Now ain’t this a beautiful sight. Who do we pin the medal on?”

I whispered the truth to him. I whispered because I figured probably Grady would want the truth known only when he was good and ready.

“Well, well,” he said. “How do you like that!”

I saw Whitey then. He was in the front of the crowd. He looked shook-up, disbelieving. I saw him look admiringly at Grady. Kids like Whitey admire tough guys, no matter which side of the law they’re on.

Whitey spoke up. “What happened, Mr. Grady? Was it an accident, or somebody bump him off?”

I took it upon myself to do the answering. “Suicide, kid. Suicide. The inquest may put another tag on it, but that’s what it was.”

I saw both Whitey and Grady frown, and Whitey said, “No. No, Mr. Erie wouldn’t do that.”

But Grady was suddenly grinning, and he said, “Yeah. If you look at it a certain way, that’s just what it was.”

I saw that Whitey was thinking hard now. I liked that. I wanted him to do a lot of thinking.

The newspaper columnist Mike Willard forced his way through the crowd to me. “The Reform League has finally got a break,” he said. “Erie’s empire will fall to pieces now. Watch what happens in the elections next month. And watch afterwards, because then you’ll see the heads roll.”

Water Street was just one big jam of people now. But they were real quiet. They just couldn’t get it into their heads that the king was dead.

Willard said, “Speaking of heads that are going to get chopped, here come half a dozen of them.”

They were some of the big wheels from headquarters, some of Erie’s stooges. They didn’t look healthy. An hour before they would have talked to Grady like he had a raging case of Bubonic Plague. It was sure different now.

“Anything I can do to help you, Sergeant Grady, just let me know. My entire squad is at your disposal, Sergeant Grady.”

It was funny — in a disgusting way.

I listened to Whitey and a couple of his friends.

“Suicide! Mr. Erie wouldn’t do that, would he, Whitey?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have believed it, but now I don’t know.”

You’re thinking, kid, I thought. Keep right in thinking.

The ambulance got through the crowd and took the body away. The boys from the police garage towed away what was left of Erie’s car.

Grady took me aside into a doorway where we could talk private. Like they were so many flies, he shooed away all the wheels from headquarters.

“Give it to me,” he said.

I did. He held it between his thumb and forefinger for a second. “My, my,” he said with a big grin on his face. “And I guess you could buy a million of ’em for twenty bucks.” He put the thing in a little white envelope, which he sealed and put in his coat pocket.

“Suicide,” he grinned at me. “I get it. Be a good thing if some of the kids down here see it your way.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“How’s the ball team?”

That surprised me. But then Grady knew every cop on the force, who was clean and who wasn’t. His question was his way of showing he knew about me, and I liked that, I really liked that.

“We won a few games. There’s always next year.”

“There’s going to be some big changes in this town in the next year.” Grady gave me a light fist on the chest. “Us outs are going to be the ins.” Grady left.

I liked that us, I really liked that.

Whitey had been hanging around, waiting to pump me, I knew. He was only three feet from me, but I acted as if the kid didn’t exist. I had him thinking and I was going to keep him thinking for a while.

“Was it really suicide?” he said to me.

“Well, kid, yes and no.” I had him thinking and I was going to keep him thinking for a while.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, kid, of course there’s going to be an inquest and all that, and they won’t call it suicide. But smart people, when the facts come out, will ask themselves what really killed Erie. And you know the answer smart people will come up with? Himself. And that’s suicide, kid?”

“What are the facts?”

He was reaching now and I was going to keep him thinking. Besides, he’d caused me a couple of sleepness nights over the baseball situation, and I didn’t mind at all the shoe being on the other foot now. If he spent a night or two thinking it might do him a world of good.

“Patience, kid, patience. Everything will be brought out into the light at the proper time and place, which isn’t here and now.”

I walked away from him. I didn’t look back, but I could feel him frowning at my back. He was a shook-up thinking kid. Good.

I walked back to the dirt and glass and wet where Erie’s car had been. I stood there thinking. Sucker? No, Erie had been the sucker after all. Big man, smart man, he’d taught kids of Water Street that laws and lawmen were a joke, and they had learned their lesson well, right down to the littlest kids who didn’t even know all the bad words yet.

I looked across the street at the alleyway between the mission and the Golden Horse Tavern. The little kids were gone now, but they had been there when Erie made his last drive up the street. And one wild shot from a peashooter, and one little hard white bean had zinged into the open window of Erie’s car and caught him square in the eye.

No, Marg, the Reform League couldn’t stop Erie, but now it didn’t have to. When you get right down to it, he stopped himself. I hope Whitey can see it that way.

I began walking my beat, and my old boots felt a lot lighter than they had for many a day. Dirty old Water Street looked beautiful. I felt like singing at the top of my voice.

Like I said at the beginning, it was a day that started bad and got worse, but suddenly it got real good, just fine.