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

A Good Friend by Richard Deming

One is taught, from childhood, to have patient confidence in ultimate justice, but on occasion that patience may wear dangerously thin.

The police never even questioned me, because I had no apparent motive. I think Evelyn suspects, but she can hardly bring the matter up without disclosing that she’s aware of the motive. We get along better by neither of us ever mentioning the matter, because bringing it all out in the open would inevitably involve confessions on both sides.

If it ever upsets her to speculate that my reaction might well have been to turn on her instead of doing what I did, she gives no indication of it. I guess she knows I love her, and is content to let sleeping dogs lie.

It all began the night I was initiated into the Elks.

In the ten years we had graduated from high school together, I hadn’t run into Tom Slider more than a dozen times, but I still regarded him as a friend. So when I discovered he was also an Elk, I was pleased.

We had been pretty close buddies in high school, even though Tom did a few things of which I couldn’t approve. He was always such an angle shooter.

Take the day the senior boys held a meeting in the school auditorium to vote on what to wear at graduation and where to buy it, for instance. The vote was for dark suits, all of the same cut and style, and it was decided to order them all from Boyd’s Clothing Store, downtown.

Tom slipped out of the auditorium as soon as the vote passed. Later I learned he had rushed down to Boyd’s and made a deal to receive a free suit if he could swing the Claremont High graduating class there.

He was always doing things such as that, never anything which might land him in jail, but just a shade unethical. Whenever I fussed at him about it, he would just laugh and tell me he wasn’t crooked; he was just opportunistic.

The night I was initiated into the Elks, as soon as the meeting adjourned, the members present all crowded over to where we new inductees were standing in a self-conscious row to shake our hands and congratulate us. Suddenly I felt a whack between the shoulder blades, turned around and found Tom Slider grinning at me.

“Tom!” I said, gripping his hand. “Are you an Elk?”

“I’m even a past exalted ruler,” he said. “Congratulations, Brother Morgan. I’ll pop for a drink.”

We went downstairs to the bar and had several. I didn’t get to talk to Tom much, because brothers who had missed me upstairs kept coming over to introduce themselves and congratulate me. I did learn that he was still a bachelor, though, and was currently between jobs. He said he had shucked his travelling job because of a disagreement with his district sales manager. He had a couple of possible jobs lined up, he told me, but he wasn’t in any hurry to get situated because he had a few bills stacked away to tide him over. He said he planned to wait until exactly what he wanted came along.

Knowing Tom’s tendency to shoot angles, I wondered if his “disagreement” with his district sales manager had been over something such as padded expense accounts or failure to turn in all his collections.

When the bar closed at one a.m., we drifted outdoors together and stood talking for a few minutes in front of the club.

Tom said, “Now that you’re a brother Elk, Sid, we’ll have to get together more often. You’re tied down with a wife, though, aren’t you?”

“I’m married, but I wouldn’t call it tied down. I’m allowed out with the boys.”

“Oh, sure,” he said with a disbelieving grin. “All you married guys claim that. I forget who you married, but I remember it was somebody I knew. It must be two years since we ran into each other, and you hadn’t been married long then.”

“Evelyn Cross,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, that cute little redhead who was a couple of years behind us in school. We used to call her Red Cross. Is she still as much of a doll?”

“Even prettier,” I told him. “How come you never married, Tom?”

He flashed his white teeth in a smile. “I like variety.”

“I got that out of my system long ago. It’s pretty nice to have someone waiting when you come home.”

“Fiddle flap,” he said. “I’ll take bachelor freedom. You coming to next week’s meeting?”

“I planned to. There’s a stag party afterward, isn’t there?”

He snapped his fingers. “I’d forgotten that. You won’t want to miss it. You play poker or shoot craps?”

“If it’s not too steep.”

“We may as well come together,” he said. “I’ll stop by to pick you up. Where are you living?”

I took out one of my insurance agency cards and handed it to him. “My home and business addresses are the same,” I said. “I use an extra bedroom as my office.”

Glancing at the card, he stuck if into his pocket and pulled out one of his own. By the light of a street lamp he wrote an address and phone number on the back.

“Pay no attention to the business address and phone on the front,” he said as he handed me the card. “I’m not there any more. If your wife balks at letting you go to a stag, give me a ring during the week. Otherwise, I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty next Wednesday.”

“I’m not henpecked,” I said a bit testily. “Just be there.”

When I got home, Evelyn was in bed but still awake. As I eased open the bedroom door, she said, “You can turn on the light honey.”

I switched on the light and began to undress, thinking of Tom.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

“Fine. Guess who’s a brother Elk?”

“Who?”

“Tom Slider.”

Her eyebrows raised. “The Tom Slider who used to be a full-back at Claremont High?”

“Uh-huh.”

She sat up in bed. “Is he still as handsome as he used to be?”

I paused in the act of hanging up my suit to glance at her over my shoulder. “I guess, but that’s a kind of tunny question to ask. You trying to make me jealous?”

Evelyn giggled. “You should be, because I used to have a mad crush on him. Is he married?”

“No,” I said shortly. “Nor employed either. You would have to live on love if you’re contemplating a switch in husbands.”

“Don’t be an old bear,” she said. “I was only fifteen when I had my crush, and as a noble senior he was above even looking at fifteen-year-old sophomores. You weren’t looking my way either back then.”

“I’ve grown more possessive in my old age,” I told her. “You knew me too back then, but I don’t recall you ever mentioning having a crush on me.”

“I’ve got a crush on you now, haven’t I? Isn’t that better?”

Looking at it that way, I decided it was. I wasn’t really jealous anyway, because I’m not the jealous type. I do incline to be possessive, but that’s not the same thing. I don’t go around frowning suspiciously every time Evelyn smiles at another man, but if I ever thought there was a chance of losing her, I would fight like a tiger. I think she understands exactly how I feel, and I think it pleases her. Jealous husbands make women feel hemmed in, but they like to know they’re wanted.

I put on my pyjamas, switched out the light, and climbed into bed.

The following Wednesday Tom Slider showed up at seven-fifteen instead of seven-thirty. I was in the bathroom knotting my tie, so Evelyn answered the door. When I entered the front room, he was seated on the sofa with a can of beer in his hand and Evelyn was seated next to him.

“Hi, Sid,” he said. “Your wife said you weren’t ready yet and forced a beer on me.”

“There’s no hurry,” I said. “The meeting doesn’t start until eight.”

“You want a beer, honey?” Evelyn asked.

I shook my head. “There’ll be enough to drink at the stag party. I’ll wait.”

I took a chair across from the sofa. Evelyn smiled at Tom.

“You haven’t changed much,” she said. “You’re still as lean and hard as you were in high school.”

“You’re still as slim and soft,” he said gallantly. “If I’d known you were looking for a husband, I’d have beat Sid to the punch.”

When Evelyn blushed like a schoolgirl, I demonstrated my lack of jealousy by saying with a smile, “You would probably have won out. She had a mad crush on you when she was fifteen.”

Tom cocked an eyebrow in her direction and Evelyn’s blush deepened. “That was supposed to be a joke, blabbermouth,” she said to me. “You just wait and see if I ever tell you another secret.”

“Well, well,” Tom said with a mock leer. “I wish I’d known before Sid got to you.”

“Cut it out,” Evelyn said. “You’re not even the marrying type, or you would have been hooked long ago. Sid tells me you’re still single. You still live at home?”

He shook his head. “The folks complained too much about my hours. I have a bachelor apartment over on Sutton Place.”

“Then I don’t suppose you get many home-cooked meals. You’ll have to come to dinner some night.”

“Sure,” he said. “Just name it.”

“We’d better get going,” I put in. “How about knocking off that beer so we can get started soon?”

He tilted the can, drained it, and set it down. We both stood up.

“Thanks for the beer, Red,” Tom said. “I’ll bring your husband home relatively sober.”

“If you’re going to pick Sid up again next Wednesday, you could come to dinner then,” Evelyn said. “We eat at six.”

“It’s a date,” he said, then glanced at me and added, “If it’s all right with Sid.”

“I don’t do the cooking,” I told him. “Of course you’re welcome.”

Evelyn came over to the door to offer me her cheek for a goodbye kiss.

“What time will you be home?” she asked.

Torn said, “Don’t expect him before one-thirty. The stag won’t break up until one.”

Tom was driving a new car. It was parked headed in the right direction for the Elks Club, but he made a U-turn.

“Where you going?” I asked.

“Gas. The station where I trade is back this way.”

The gas station was about four blocks back and over on Main. When we pulled into it, no other cars were there and the lone attendant had a car on the grease rack. The man started to set down his grease gun, but Tom waved him back to his work.

“I’ll get it myself, Larry,” he called.

“Okay, Tom,” the attendant called back. “Thanks.”

He moved back under the raised car with his grease gun as Tom climbed from his car and unscrewed the gas cap. Turning to watch the attendant over his shoulder, Tom lifted the nozzle from the high test pump and started to run gas into the tank. He kept his gaze fixed on the attendant, who never once glanced our way, until the pump guages registered ten gallons and $3.60.

He hung up the hose, flipped the lever to send the gauges back to zero, then lifted the nozzle of the regular grade pump and shoved it into the gas tank. No longer bothering to keep his eye on the attendant, he ran in five gallons, hung up the hose, but this time didn’t flip the lever to clear the gauges.

After spraying and wiping the windshield and checking under the hood, Tom called, “Okay, Larry. Want some money?”

The attendant set down his grease gun, wiped his hands on some waste and came over.

Glancing at the pump gauges, Larry said, “A dollar sixty.”

“Plus sixty-five cents,” Tom said. “Last time in I added a quart of oil and forgot to pay for it.”

“Oh. That’ll be two and a quarter then. Thanks for remembering.”

Tom paid the bill and got back into the car. As we pulled away, he seemed to become conscious of me regarding him strangely.

Throwing me a grin, he said, “A penny saved is a penny earned. I trade there because the place is understaffed. About every third time in I have to serve myself. You’d be surprised how it adds up.”

“Still shooting angles, huh?” I said. “Only you used to stay inside the law. That was downright stealing.”

“Fiddle flap. I learned long ago that everybody gets what he can, legally or illegally. The only way to keep from being taken is to take the other guy first. Unless he’s a personal friend, of course. I’ve got a strict code of ethics. I never take advantage of a friend.”

“You seemed pretty friendly with that gas station attendant.”

“Because we call each other by first names? That doesn’t mean anything. I only know him from trading there. We’re just customer and merchant.”

We drove in silence for a block. Then I asked, “Why’d you pay for the oil you took last time? Presumably he didn’t know anything about it.”

He threw me another grin. “Builds confidence. Think he’ll ever suspect me of swiping gas when I’m honest enough to pay a debt he didn’t even know I owed? Every so often I pull something like that just to make sure he keeps trusting me.”

He slowed and drove into the parking lot of a shopping plaza. I said, “Hey, what now? We’re going to be late for the meeting.”

“We can get in late. I usually miss the ritual anyway. Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. My liquor stock at home is low, and the stores will be closed by the time the stag’s over.”

I would have preferred to make the meeting on time, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. He found a parking slot and we both got out. I trailed him into a chain drug store.

There was a liquor department in the drug store. He bought a quart of bourbon. The clerk put it into a paper bag and stapled the cash register receipt to the outside of the bag.

When we got back to the car, Tom said, “Don’t get in. We have another stop.”

I waited while he opened the car trunk, removed the whisky from the bag and stored it in the trunk. Flattening out the bag, he neatly folded it and thrust it into a side pocket of his coat.

I followed him to the opposite side of the parking lot and into a supermarket.

This time he took a shopping cart. Our first stop was the self-service liquor department, where he set another bottle of bourbon in the cart. He pushed the car a few aisles over and added a six-pack of soda. We moved to the next aisle to collect a loaf of bread and a small jar of instant coffee.

Then he pushed the cart from aisle to aisle with seeming aimlessness until we came to one where there were no other customers or store personnel in sight. After glancing both ways, he pulled the paper bag from his pocket, snapped it open and put the quart of whisky in it.

“Let’s go,” he said.

At the checkout counter the girl rang up the soda, bread and coffee. Glancing at the cash register receipt stapled to the bag containing the whisky, she pushed it on to the boy who was bagging the purchase without ringing it up.

“One dollar and sixty-one cents,” she said.

Tom gave her two ones and she handed him change.

After glancing at it, he said, “Hey, you gave me four cents too much.”

Holding out his hand, he displayed a quarter, a dime, a nickel and three pennies.

After gazing at the change for a moment, the girl said, “Gee thanks. There must have been a nickel in the penny compartment.”

She took the nickel and exchanged it for a penny.

As we walked out, I said, “Was that more of your technique? Proving your honesty in a small way, so you wouldn’t be suspected of stealing anything big?”

“Uh-huh,” he admitted cheerily. “I deliberately switched a penny for that nickel.”

I couldn’t quite decide whether to be amused by his chronic larceny or disgusted with him. Like most people, I’m conditioned to believe that stealing is wrong regardless of how you rationalize it, but I had to concede that Tom’s dishonesty at least possessed an imaginative flair. And if his technique was always similar to what he had demonstrated tonight, it was extremely unlikely he would ever be caught.

As he stowed the shopping bag in the trunk, he said, “You’d be surprised how it adds up, Sid. Individually it’s pretty stiff, but it probably adds up to a couple of thousand a year.”

“Doesn’t your conscience ever bother you?” I asked.

“Why should it? The people I take would take me just as fast if they had the chance.”

We both got into the car and Tom backed from the slot.

As we drove off the lot, I said, “Well, then, doesn’t it worry you that you might get caught?”

“I won’t be,” he said with confidence. “I’m never even suspected. You can’t beat the old con trick of building confidence in small ways. That girl knows me. I’ve called attention to undercharges a couple of times, and once before I gave her back money when I got too much change. Last time it actually was her mistake. Think she would ever believe that a customer who’s always so honest would try to pull anything? The secret is to build confidence in the sucker’s mind before you ever make a move.”

I still wasn’t quite sure whether to be amused by his shenanigans or disgusted. I finally decided it was none of my business.

“You do what you want,” I said. “I’ll stick to the old-fashioned way of paying for merchandise.”

It was twenty after eight when we arrived at the Elks. The door to the bar was closed and locked, as the bar always shut down while lodge was in session. There was no one in the lobby.

“You particularly interested in attending the meeting?” Tom asked.

“I thought that’s what we came for.”

“We came for the stag after ward. I happen to know nothing very interesting is coming up tonight. It’s just routine business. Let’s have a game of pool in the basement.”

I really wanted to attend the meeting, but I didn’t particularly care to go in late alone. Despite last week’s instructions during initiation on various ritualistic procedures, I wasn’t quite sure how to request admission from the tyler, or just what I was supposed to do and say after I was let in. I did vaguely recall that the procedure wasn’t very elaborate, but I would be up there going through it all alone in front of the assembled brotherhood. Without Tom’s moral support. I didn’t have much stomach for it. I gave in and followed Tom to the basement poolroom.

We decided to play eight-ball. Tom won the cushion shot and racked the balls. As we both chalked our cues, Tom said, “Why don’t you play poker tonight instead of getting in the crap game, Sid?”

“Why?”

“I told you I don’t take friends. And you’re a friend.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You mean the game’s crooked?”

“Not exactly. It’s just that I can’t be beat. Examine these.”

He dipped a hand into his side pants pocket and tossed a pair of red, transparent dice on the pool table. They came up six-four.

I knew enough about dice to catch crooked ones on close examination. I matched them and the markings were all right. Then I squared them against each other on all six planes. They weren’t shaved. Wetting my thumb and index finger, I suspended one die between them by two corners, holding it loosely enough to turn easily. If it had been unevenly weighted, one corner would always have ended down when the die was spun. It passed the test, and so did the second die.

“They looked square to me,” I said.

“They are. Toss them back.”

I rolled them toward him, he scooped them up and immediately tossed again. This time they came up five-one.

“Examine them again,” Tom said.

I went through the same tests. This time, on the wet-finger test, one die failed to pass.

I bounced it on the green felt and it came up five. I bounced it twice more and the same number showed.

“This one’s loaded always to come up five,” I said. “What’d you do? Switch dice?”

Grinning, he showed me a third die, palmed.

“What advantage does that give you?” I asked. “So everybody always throws a five on one die.”

“Not everybody,” he said. “Only me, whenever I come out. On my second roll it goes back in my palm and we play with straight dice. So it can never get away from me and work its way around the table, you see.”

I said puzzledly, “I still don’t get it.”

“You would if you thought about it. If I’m always sure of a five on one die on my first roll what points are possible on both dice?”

After thinking a moment, I said, “You can come up with a six, seven, eight, nine, ten or eleven.”

“Exactly. I can’t ever throw craps. Once out of every three times I get the next best thing: a six or an eight. Once out of six times I have to shoot for a nine, and once out of six times I’m stuck with a ten. It throws the odds around eight-to-five with me. If you want the exact odds, they’re eight-to-five-point-one, seven, seven. Anyway, they’re enough so that over the long haul I can’t possibly lose on my own rolls.”

I said slowly, “You pull this against brother Elks?”

“Brother Elks, fiddle flap,” he said. “They’re just guys. Some are my friends and some are just barroom acquaintances. To my friends I pass the word to stay off me. The others don’t count.”

My brows went up. “You mean some of the other Elks know about this loaded die?”

He shook his head. “The other guys I don’t want to take, I just warn that I feel hot and to stay off me. You’re the only one who knows the real lowdown. That’s because you’re a particularly good friend.”

I wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or uncomfortable. I didn’t like the idea of standing by while fellow members, whom only a week ago I had pledged to regard as brothers, were taken in a crooked crap game. Yet how Could I violate a confidence told me because of friendship? Particularly since if I said anything, my avowed good friend would undoubtedly be kicked out of the lodge.

There couldn’t be many stags during the year, I told myself. The best thing to do was just forget it.

“Do you cheat at pool too?” I asked.

Pocketing the dice, he grinned at me and addressed the cue ball. “I don’t have to. We won’t make a bet, because I’m going to skin your pants off and I don’t make suckers out of my friends.” Whereupon he proceeded to wallop me in two straight games.

Near the end of the second game we heard the members trooping downstairs and knew the meeting was over. When we finished the game, we racked our cues and went up to join the party.

I decided to take Tom’s advice and stay out of the crap game. There were three poker games, ranging from twenty-five-cent limit to five-dollar limit. I got in the two-bit game.

The crap game was held on blanket-covered table shoved against the wall, immediately behind where I was seated. I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on there, as you can’t afford to play poker with a wandering mind, but occasionally when I was out of a hand I glanced over my shoulder.

On one such occasion I turned my attention to the crap game just in time to hear Tom Slider say, “You covered with a buck too much, Joe. Here.”

The trust-building technique again. I thought ruefully, as I saw Tom separate a bill from his sizeable wad and toss it to another player. Who was going to suspect him of cheating, when he returned an extra dollar mistakenly given him?

At a quarter past eleven I was three dollars ahead when a hand fell on my shoulder from behind. Glancing around, I found Tom standing behind me.

“I cleaned the game and everybody quit,” he said. “Think you could snare a ride home if I took off?”

Andy Carter, across the table, said, “I’ll be here until closing. I’ll run you home, Sid.”

“Okay,” I said. “Go ahead, Tom. See you for dinner next Wednesday.”

At midnight I was two dollars out. By then I had drunk a little too much beer and was beginning to tire of the game. When I was dealt a pair of jacks in five-card draw. I didn’t even bother to open. Passing, I tossed in my cards, lit a cigarette, leaned back in my chair and waited for the next hand.

Idly I wondered why Tom Slider had singled me out to demonstrate his dice cheating system. His excuse that I was a particularly good friend didn’t quite hold up. While we had been pretty thick in high school, we had barely been in contact since. Actually I qualified more as what Tom classed as an “acquaintance” than as a friend.

Then a peculiar thought drifted into my mind. Remembering what Tom had said about the old con trick of “building confidence in small ways”. I wondered if he had stressed our friendship for the purpose of throwing me off guard. Had his repeated insistence that he never cheated friends been merely groundwork to allay any suspicions I might have, so that eventually he could move in for the kill?

That was silly, I told myself. I didn’t have enough extra money to be cheated out of anything substantial. And if Tom planned anything as corny as trying to sell me fake stock, he hardly would have let me witness his larcenous ways.

I decided that even though I was no longer so sure of my friendship for Tom, he must have been sincere in his proclamation of friendship for me.

It was close to one-thirty when I got home. Again Evelyn was in bed, but not asleep. When I switched on the bedroom light, she smiled as me.

“Hi, hon,” she said. “Have fun?”

“I lost four dollars and drank too much beer, but I guess you could call it fun. Just sleepy now.”

“How did Tom do?” she asked casually.

I hung my coat in the closet. “He broke the crap game and left early. Another guy brought me home. Incidentally, I’m not so sure we ought to get thick with Tom.”

“Why not?” she asked in a surprised voice.

I started to take off my tie. “He’s changed since high school. He wasn’t the nicest guy in the world even then, as a matter of fact. I just don’t think he’s our kind of people.”

“Fiddle flap,” Evelyn said. “I think he’s very nice.”

I stood still for several seconds, but I didn’t say anything. Then I finished undressing, put on my pyjamas and climbed into bed.

The next morning I left at my usual time to call on clients. Our life went on as normally as ever.

The thing which makes me think Evelyn suspects is that when Tom’s murder was announced in the paper, she never even mentioned it.