Black Mask (Vol. 31, No. 4 — July 1948)

Eeney-Meeny-Money — Murder! by Victor K. Ray

I might have known, when I started keeping books for the Menagerie Club, that I’d wind up with a murder debit on the red side of the ledger.

I never figured on it coming to murder. I never figured on that at all, or maybe I would have tried to stop it before it got so big.

Maybe my murder instinct was working that night in Jake Holder’s Menagerie Club. But I didn’t know it then. We sat there in the Menagerie Club and Carol kept ordering Tom Collins. The bill kept climbing higher and higher. I knew we ought to get out, because I didn’t have any more than ten dollars in my pocket and the bill was already fourteen. I’d had only two drinks, but I was a lot drunker than anybody else in the place. I was drunk on Carol Devlin. You’ll see her picture in the paper in a few days, and you’ll see what I mean. She’s one of those tall, classic types. Blonde hair, shoulder length. She’s got green eyes that flash, a straight nose, a firm, beautiful jaw line. She’s got a look about her that says she knows what she wants. She does. I’ll tell you this, every time I’ve ever looked at her, I’ve gotten a little dizzy. That night in the Menagerie Club, I was dizzier than usual. I couldn’t seem to hang onto the fact that I was just a fifty dollar a week bookkeeper with ten dollars cash in my pocket. And the bill kept climbing higher and higher.

Carol said: “Bill, honey, I’m just having a wonderful time,” and she held up her glass at the waiter. He had a full one in front of her almost before her empty touched the table.

I said: “Yeah.”

Sometime later, Jake Holder came over to our table. He was a big, heavy-set guy with hard little eyes, black shiny hair, a swagger to his walk. He had a right to swagger, I guess. He had two hundred thousand dollars in cash in one safety deposit box that I know of.

I didn’t know it then, of course. He was just an unpleasant face to me. He owned the Menagerie Club. I knew that. He came over to the table, introduced himself, sat down. Pretty soon there was champagne sitting in a bucket of ice beside the table. This seemed perfectly all right to me.

Carol was having the time of her life. And pretty soon so was I.

I just barely remember when it came time to pay the bill we’d piled up before Jake Holder had come around with the champagne and all. The bill was twenty-two dollars, and I fumbled in my billfold a minute. Jake Holder said: “Just sign the check, Baldwin,” like it was the most natural thing in the world. I signed the check and we left.

We stopped at Uncle Hank’s All-Nite Eatery as usual on the way home, for coffee and hamburgers, and Carol said: “Are you going to take the job, Bill?”

“What job?”

“Why, the one Jake Holder offered you.”

“I didn’t know he offered me a job.”

“Well, yes, of course, Bill. He said he needed an accountant. Why, he talked about it for twenty minutes. And you mean to say you don’t remember it?”

Now that she mentioned it, it came back a little. That had been during the haziest part of the evening.

I said: “Oh. Sure.”

“You said you’d think it over.”

“I did? Yeah, I will.”

“He said he’d pay you seventy-five a week, Bill.”

I jumped a little when she said that.

“And he said there would be chance for advancement,” she said.

“...I’ll think it over,” I said.

“Call him tomorrow,” said Carol. “And tell him you’ll take it.”

The next day I went back to work down at the Central Trucking Company. I thought about Jake Holder. I couldn’t believe he’d been serious when he made the offer. Maybe he was drunk. Then, I thought about the job I had. It was a good one. I’d been promised a raise. I didn’t make the call to Jake Holder.

That night I went around to see Carol.

The first thing she said was: “You didn’t call Jake Holder.”

“How did you know?”

“He called me and wanted to know why you hadn’t called.”

“And he still wanted me to work for him?”

“Well, of course. Naturally.”

“...Do you like this guy Holder?” I asked.

“I can’t stand him.” She snapped it out, and I knew she meant it. I felt better.

I walked down the length of the room, sat down on the divan. I patted the cushion beside me, and Carol sat down.

“Why won’t you take the job?” she asked. She put her cheek up against mine, and I began forgetting all about what we’d been talking about. She said again: “Why won’t you, Bill?”

Call it murder instinct, if you want to. But the things I thought about the next day were a long way from murder. The job I had was a good one. I had the promise of a raise. I knew I could stay with Central Trucking as long as they lasted. They were a solid firm. Night clubs aren’t generally thought to be very substantial businesses. And this guy, Jake Holder, didn’t impress me as the world’s most solid citizen.

I didn’t call him. But he called me about four o’clock. I realized, of course, that Carol had given him my phone number down at work.

He said: “Baldwin, when are you coming to work for me?”

“...I haven’t made up my mind yet, Mr. Holder.”

“I need a man like you, Baldwin.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Come around to the club, and we’ll talk it over.”

I thought about the bill I owed him. I said: “Sure. Maybe we’ll come around tonight.”

“Fine,” he said. “See you then, Baldwin.”

I drew thirty-five dollars of my week’s pay on a voucher. That was another thing about my job at Central Trucking. They were considerate, like that.

That night, Carol and I went back to the Menagerie Club.

I made Jake Holder let me pay the bill we’d run up a couple of nights ago, though he insisted it wasn’t necessary. Our business with him that night was cash and carry. He mentioned the job once, but he didn’t make a nuisance of himself talking about it. He and Carol danced several times, and then we left.

I said: “Do you like Jake Holder?”

“I can’t stand him.” she said again. “Why won’t you take the job?”

“Did he talk to you about it?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” I said. “Maybe I will take it.”

The next day, I kept thinking about it. Seventy-five a week looked good. It would mean Carol and I could get married, maybe. I hadn’t even thought about that before, but now I did. I was crazy about her. I sat there at my desk, and half a dozen times I had my hand on the telephone, but I didn’t call him. Something in me just wouldn’t make the move.

At five o’clock I quit work, and walked out a little disgusted with myself, dreading to see Carol because I knew she would want to know why I hadn’t called Jake Holder.

In front of the office, I saw this big car. It was a black Continental. I recognized Jake Holder sitting at the wheel. He leaned over, opened the door. “Hello, Baldwin.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Holder.”

“Get in,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”

I got in. The big car slid away from the curb.

He said: “It’s a good job. Your girl wants you to take it. I don’t understand why you don’t snap it up.”

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “I don’t either.”

Instead of turning to the right which would have been toward where I lived, he turned left, towards his club.

In a few minutes, he pulled up at the Menagerie Club, and we went in. The office we went into was something for the books. It was done in a pastel green and chocolate, the desk was tear-drop shaped, there was a portable bar.

“This is your office,” he said.

“...Mine...”

“Come around tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll talk over the details of the job. And now, tonight, let’s have a small celebration. Go get your girl, and bring her over here. We’ll have a little party.”

“All right.”

“And Baldwin.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve decided to start you at ninety a week.”

I walked out feeling weak in the knees, but that was all right, because I was walking on clouds and I didn’t need strength in my knees. I felt like if I just flipped my hands a little, I’d float right up to heaven.

The next afternoon I showed up at the Menagerie Club, and it was a good thing he hadn’t said come around in the morning, because the butterflies were still doing nip-ups in my stomach. There hadn’t been anything “little” about Jake Holder’s party.

He showed me the ledgers and files covering the financial side of the Menagerie Club. They were just a routine set of debits and credits. I noticed the last entry was a couple of weeks ago.

I said: “Where is the guy who kept these books before me?”

Holder looked at me quickly. “He took a trip...”

It didn’t take me long to see that the Menagerie Club was a losing proposition.

It was almost a month before he showed me the second set of books. It wasn’t really a set of books, just one thin ledger. But the entries were big — up in the thousands of dollars. I don’t know whether you understand how a set of accounts are kept, but usually they are divided into two big general classifications; one involving expenses, the other involving income. Then, these are broken down into smaller accounts. And usually, there is some paper record of each item entered. Such as bills, vouchers, or maybe cancelled checks.

But this thin ledger Jake Holder showed me was a little different. There was one account called “Income,” and another called “Expenses,” and that was all. Beside each entry under “Income” there was a set of initials, such as SWK, or TFG. All in all, there were about twenty different sets of initials. And under “Expenses,” there was just one set of initials — LLL.

And there were no bills, vouchers, or cancelled checks. About once a week, Jake Holder handed me a little piece of scrap paper on which was written such things as: “Income — SWK — $2,300,” or, “Income — TFG — $1,000,” etc. Once every two weeks, he handed me a slip marked: “Expense — LLL — $2,000.”

It was the simplest set of books I ever kept.

It was hard to attach any reality to these accounts. Then I began meeting a few of the characters who showed up regularly at the Menagerie Club. One day, Jake Holder dropped into my office with a thin, blond guy, and said: “Baldwin, I’d like you to meet Stanley Kolmer.” He turned to the blond guy, who extended his hand. “Kolmer, this is Bill Baldwin.”

I shook hands with the guy, and said: “Stanley W. Kolmer?” I was thinking of those initials, “SWK.”

The guy gave me a funny look. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Later that afternoon, Jake Holder handed me a slip of paper: “Income — SWK — $1,700.” A few minutes later, he came back into my office, and set a small pigskin bag on my desk. He said: “You want to take a drive downtown?”

I said: “I don’t mind.”

He handed me the bag. “Let’s go.”

We walked out together, through the back door to the parking area. I started to get in his big car.

“No,” he said. “You drive your car. I’ll follow in mine.”

I started to hand him the bag. “No,” he said. “You carry the bag.”

I said: “I don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to ‘get it,’” he snapped. “Just carry the bag. Drive downtown to the First National Bank.”

I went over to my car, and got in. I sat there a few minutes thinking about it. I took hold of the catch on the pigskin bag, but it was locked.

I drove downtown, and Jake Holder’s black Continental was in my rear view mirror all the time. I drove into a parking lot, and it eased up alongside. We got out, walked around the corner to the First National. We turned down the stairway to the right of the lobby, where a sign pointed, “Safety Deposit Boxes.” We signed the register at the bottom of the stairs, and Holder identified me as his confidential secretary. We went into the booth, and I found out what was in the pigskin bag I’d been carrying. Cash. Fifteen thousand dollars worth of it. Added to what he already had tied up in neat little bundles in the safety deposit box, it made an even two hundred thousand!

I was weak in the knees when we walked out, and it wasn’t all right. I wasn’t walking on clouds. I needed all the strength I ever had. Jake Holder’s small, hard eyes were black and expressionless when he got in his car. His mouth was pulled to the side in what might have been a grin.

I drove to Carol’s place. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days. On the way, I thought about what had happened. Jake Holder had let me carry fifteen thousand dollars in cash downtown to the bank. That might have been because he was afraid to do it himself. If anybody got knocked off for his money, it would be me. That was swell. I could see I was working for a nice guy. I felt uneasiness and uncertainty build up in me. I tried not to think of where he got the money in the first place.

I buzzed Carol’s apartment in the entrance foyer, and the door clicked open. I ran up the stairs without waiting for the elevator. I raised my hand to knock on her door, and it opened. She stood there, blonde, beautiful, self-possessed.

She said: “Close your eyes, Bill.”

I closed them. She took my hand, led me into her apartment.

“Now,” she said. “Open them.”

I opened my eyes, then I shut them quick. I was in a strange place. You don’t know how strange. I opened them again, slowly. The place was done over — in pastel green and chocolate and other assorted colors. There was a teardrop shaped coffee table. The chairs were bizarre numbers with some kind of long-staple fur covering. The red wooden-based reading lamp that I used to knock over was gone from the table at the end of the divan. So was the table. The lights were all concealed, and I couldn’t tell where they came from. The room seemed a lot larger.

I said: “What happened?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“But Jake said—”

“Who?”

“Jake Holder. Your boss. Remember?”

Yeah, I remembered. And I got the easy, familiar way she tossed off his name.

After a minute, I said: “What’s been going on?”

“Nothing.”

“This decorating job must have cost a couple of thousand.”

“He said he was doing you a favor.”

“Doing me a favor?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Are you sure you don’t like this guy, Holder?”

“I can’t stand him!” She bit the words off. Her eyes looked directly into mine. That was the funny part. She meant it. I knew she did.

I pulled her close to me. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her, and began getting that old dizzy feeling.

Then I said: “Carol, let’s get married.” I felt my voice shake in my throat.

She pulled back. She turned around with her back to me. She looked around the room.

I said it again, slower. “Let’s get married.” My voice hung there in the air. A hard knot was in my stomach, a granny knot tied with wet rope.

She turned around slowly. “...I’ll have to think it over, Bill” A little muscle at the side of her mouth trembled. Her eyes found mine for a second, then anchored at a spot in the air near my left shoulder.

Suddenly, I was running down the stairs, and out into the street. Something had happened between Carol and me, and I didn’t know what it was. I was afraid to think about it. I knew only that it centered around Jake Holder and my job with him.

I went to the Menagerie Club early the next morning. I went through the back door, into the bar, toward my office. A couple of bartenders were polishing up. Jake Holder and a tall, slim guy were standing at the bar having a drink. I nodded, and went on. Holder reached out one of his big hands, grabbed my arm.

“Baldwin, I’d like you to meet Tedford F. Garland,” he said. “Ted, this is Bill Baldwin. He keeps my accounts straight.”

I spoke to the guy, and went on into my office.

A minute later, Holder came in.

“What’s troubling you, Baldwin?”

“I’m hired as your accountant. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then stay out of my personal life. Stay out of my girl’s apartment.”

“All right.”

“I don’t like your taste.”

“All right, Baldwin,” he said mildly. “Don’t get excited.” He turned to go into his own office.

“Wait a minute.”

He turned around.

“You’d better get whoever does your decorating over to Carol’s apartment, and let him put it back the way it was.”

“I thought that decorating job would be a nice surprise for you,” he said slowly.

“I’m sorry I don’t appreciate it.” I pushed my desk phone in his direction, and he walked back from the door.

He picked up the telephone. “I guess your girl will like it. Having her apartment torn up again.” He put his hand down on the dial. “You know, I wasn’t the only one who thought the decorating job was a good idea. She thought so, too.” He dialed the number. “This’ll put you in solid with her.”

He was right, of course. The damage was already done. Tearing all that stuff out of her apartment would probably make it worse.

I said: “All right, Holder... Forget it.”

He put the telephone back on its cradle. “I’m glad you reconsidered, Baldwin.” He went to the door of his office, and opened it. “Will you come into my office a minute?” he said.

I went in.

He sat down behind his desk. He shoved a bill across the desk to me. It was from the Acme Decorating Company — an itemized bill for the job on Carol’s apartment. It was made out to me. It came to $1,875.50.

Holder said quietly: “Write a check on the club account to pay for it. Just sign my name, then countersign it with your own name. The bank will pass it.”

“All right.” I walked across to the door leading into my office.

“And Baldwin—”

I turned around. “Yes?”

“I’m increasing your salary to a hundred and twenty-five a week.” He held out a check toward me.

I walked back, and took it from his hand.

“I like your work, Baldwin.”

I went into my office, sat down at my desk, wiped the sweat from my face. I breathed then, and it came out shaky and unsteady. It seemed like the first time in five minutes.

I wrote the check to the Acme Decorating Company. My hand shook when I wrote “$1,875.50.” Then I saw the slip of paper on my desk. It was one of the small scraps of paper on which Holder wrote the items to be entered in the thin ledger. This one read: “Income — TFG — $1,100.” I realized Holder must have dropped it there a few minutes before. I remembered the guy I’d met in the bar — Tedford F. Garland. TFG. I jumped up and went into the bar. It was empty except for the bartenders.

I ran out into the parking area behind the club, and a Buick was just pulling away. I jumped in my car and went after it.

Two hours later, I had the answers to a few of my questions. Mr. TFG operated a handbook. Simple. Sure. And profitable. And he worked for Mr. Jake Holder. As did twenty other operators.

Well, look, I’m no reformer. I’ve placed a bet a time or two. Not often, because on fifty bucks a week there wasn’t much left over for that kind of thing. But now I was pretty close to it. Almost in the business, you might say.

I went back to the Menagerie Club, and into my office. The check I’d made out to the Acme Decorating Company was gone. It was in the mail, I knew. Jake Holder had taken it from my desk, and put it there, fast.

I sat down, lit a cigarette, sprayed the ashes around on the soft green rug trying to be calm. I thought it over. I wasn’t almost in the business. I was in it. Period.

I’d helped transport cash profits of the enterprise to the bank, and was properly identified on the register. I’d written a check on the firm to pay a bill made out to me. I’d met a couple of Jake Holder’s operators. I was sewed up nice and neat.

I think I began getting an inkling then that this thing might lead to murder. But the picture wasn’t complete yet. It was quite awhile before it was complete.

Just for laughs, the next day I cornered Jake Holder.

I said: “I’d like to get in touch with the guy who kept your accounts before.”

Holder gave me a long, calculating stare. “Why?” he asked.

“I’ve got a question I’d like to ask him about the ‘Miscellaneous’ account.”

He said: “The man who was here before you didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

It was Holder who laughed. Not me.

Then he handed me a small scrap of paper. It said: “Expense — LLL — $2,000.” I took it into my office. I sat down behind my tear-drop desk. I unfolded the morning paper. And there I read, quite by accident, on the front page, a story concerning the district attorney. I hadn’t even known his name before now. His name was Llewelyn L. Ledgerwood. LLL.

I was in even bigger business than I thought. I felt small blobs of sweat break out on my neck, soak into my collar.

Sewed up nice and neat.

Inevitably, this led back to Carol. Things began straightening out for me. Some of the clouds I’d been up to my eyebrows in began clearing away. Carol, of course, had been way ahead of me. And that was why she’d said she would have to think over the matter of getting married. I wasn’t a very good marriage risk. It might take more than five cents airmail to reach my forwarding address. Suddenly, I felt very cold sitting there in my green and chocolate office. The check for a hundred and twenty-five dollars Jake Holder had handed me for a week’s work didn’t burn my pocket any longer. It felt heavy and cold, like ice.

I got up and went into the bar and had a nice, warming drink. Then I went around to Carol’s apartment, and told her my troubles. As if she didn’t know. She knew, all right. She didn’t know how bad they were, and she didn’t know all the details. But she hadn’t been up to her pretty green eyes in clouds. I think I said Carol had her feet on the ground.

Now, she said: “Can you take care of yourself, Bill?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you got a gun?”

I didn’t have, of course.

But I got one. And Carol and I began going around to a shooting gallery, and I learned how to use it. Carol got pretty good, too. But somehow, it wasn’t much fun.

We talked about it a lot. We got pretty objective about the whole thing. I couldn’t resign because Jake Holder would see that I took a “trip” — with no forwarding address. Like the guy before me. I couldn’t hop a plane to Seattle, or somewhere, because I couldn’t stand leaving Carol. And I couldn’t take her with me. Nobody could hide out with a girl like Carol. I didn’t even bring that subject up.

One day, she said, hopefully, I thought: “Maybe somebody will kill him.”

“They might.”

“Whoever killed him would do the world a favor,” she said slowly.

“Yes,” I agreed. “They would.”

But I knew there wasn’t any hope of that, because he lived carefully. There wouldn’t be much chance of anybody getting close enough to him for that. “The police wouldn’t work too hard trying to solve Holder’s murder, either,” I added. “The district attorney, Mr. Llewelyn L. Ledgerwood, wouldn’t be too anxious to drag his dirty wash out before the public.”

These were just daydreams. About all we had left.

But pretty soon Carol’s nerves began to fray. She began to change. I knew I had to do something. Then, too, there was the matter of an election, coming up in three months. Suppose the D.A. were defeated. The new one might get out his new broom, and do a little plain and fancy clean sweeping. I would make such a beautiful fall guy for Jake Holder.

I began seeing less of Carol than before. When I did see her, we had sudden, unaccountable clashes of temper.

I wore my gun all the time, now. She carried one, too, in her purse. As I circulated around the Menagerie Club, I noticed Jake Holder’s black button eyes staring at me from time to time. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Now, the picture was almost complete.

When the turnover came, it was short and sweet.

He called me into his office.

He stood behind his big mahogany desk. “Sit down,” he said. He motioned to the big leather chair.

I started to sit down, then I saw her. Carol. She stood over near the portable bar. My legs unbent suddenly, and I was standing up. I hadn’t expected her.

“Our association,” said Holder, “has been a pleasant one, Baldwin, and a profitable one, for both of us.”

I felt the strength run out of my legs. I looked at him, then back at Carol. Her green eyes held mine steadily.

I heard his voice go on. “But all good things must come to an end.”

The silence at the end of his sentence was heavy and lengthy.

I said: “So?”

“That’s all, Baldwin. You’re fired.”

All at once, I felt light, a little giddy. I wanted to laugh. My mouth worked, but no words came out. Finally, I said: “That’s almost too good to be true.”

Holder laughed.

I looked at Carol. She had done it. She had found a way to do the thing I hadn’t been able to do.

I turned to her. “Come on, Carol. Let’s get out of here.”

“Carol’s staying,” said Holder very quietly.

Then her voice came, a husky whisper, from her corner of the ring. “We were married this morning, Bill.”

From then on, I don’t remember much. Things were going around too fast.

But finally. I said: “I’d like to talk to Carol for a minute, alone.”

He laughed again.

Carol came over from the portable bar, and touched his arm. “It’s all right, honey. Just for a minute.” She led him to the door. He went out, she closed the door after him.

She turned around slowly, facing me. Her green eyes had ice in them; there was something frozen in her face, too. It wasn’t beautiful any more.

And when she spoke, her voice was the cold north wind. She said, simply: “Shove off, Bill.”

There was no mistaking her meaning. No mistaking it at all. She hadn’t done this for me. I’d had a crazy moment, thinking maybe she’d been noble for me.

But I was wrong.

I don’t remember walking out. But I must have, because I caught that plane to Seattle. All the way, riding in the big plane, feeling the air currents under it like a big hand patting its belly, I thought about what had happened. It took awhile to realize how far behind those two I’d been. Holder had played me for a four-way sucker, because he wanted my girl. He figured the only way to get next to her was through me. But then somewhere along the line, I’d begun working for Carol, because it became a sucker play with a two-way stretch. I didn’t like it when I thought of the service I’d rendered her. It sounded too much like pimp.

I guess I was way out of my league — with both of them.

Now I’m sitting here in this two-by-four hotel room in Seattle, and I’m still thinking about it. I keep remembering how good Carol got with a gun, how she said whoever killed Jake Holder would be doing the world a favor. How I’d pointed out the police wouldn’t work too hard to solve it. I keep thinking there is one person in the whole world who can get close enough to him to do the job — and that’s her. I keep remembering that two hundred grand in cash he’s got — and more. I keep remembering the cold fire in Carol’s eyes. There’s only one thing that makes that — the reflection of a lot of money.

I guess I ought to call Jake Holder on the telephone and tell him to watch his step. Only, it’s probably too late for that. From the beginning I’ve been way behind those two. They’re out of my league. If I told Holder that death with blonde hair and green eyes was very close to him, he wouldn’t believe me. And Carol can’t be stopped from doing what she’s got her mind made up to do. They’re both way out of my league. I guess I’ll leave it that way.