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

Big-Time Operator by Paul W. Fairman

Police throw out city-wide dragnet for “Big-Time” Marty Konig after daring daylight kill.

Frenchy called me from the back room. I put the seven ball in the side pocket and won a dollar from Miggs. I put down my cue and collected the buck and went back there.

Frenchy owns the pool hall. He weighs three fifty and has a special chair and has his meals sent in from next door. Spaghetti. Always spaghetti, four-five times a day. He’s stayed in the pool room since he bought it. About three years.

He had a guy there. A little guy with nothing much, but well dressed. He kept slapping a pair of gray gloves on his crossed knee. Slap — slap — slap. He put his eyes on me and kept them there.

Frenchy’s big pan-face grinned a little. “You were saying you’d like a smell of the big time?”

It was a silly question. I didn’t answer. Who doesn’t want a smell of the big time?

“This is Marty Konig. He maybe has something for you.”

I looked closer at Marty Konig. He kept slapping his gloves. I couldn’t see any big time about him and I wondered. He looked like the kind of guy you could push around. The kind you watch in a tavern because maybe he’ll stay late and get drunk and you can follow him out. I’ve made a little jack following drunks out of taverns. It’s about all you can find in a town not any bigger than Baywood.

Frenchy’s eyes kept going back and forth between Konig and me. His head was so big it was probably trouble to move so he made his eyes cover lots of territory. Frenchy rumbled, lazy: “He’s O.K., Marty. The kid’ll put a heap through the eye of a needle.”

Konig said: “Can you do what you’re told, kid?”

Maybe he was big time and I figured I shouldn’t act like a dope. I gave him a scowl. “What’s the caper?”

He got up and began pulling on his gloves. “For you it’s a trip to the city and a hundred bucks — after you do what you’re told.”

He didn’t ask if it was all right with me. I wondered how he knew that it was. He said: “We’ll drive in. I’ll pick you up here at 4 A.M. Get some sleep and be here.”

He said: “O.K., Frenchy. See you,” and he went out.

I asked Frenchy: “Who’s the guy? What’s his pitch?”

“For the big time, you ask too many questions. Tell Tony to bring me an order.”

I went out and did it.

The world’s a hell of a place at 4 A.M. Whether it’s cold or not you shiver. You yawn and your stomach feels rotten and you think, nuts to it.

But I made it and Frenchy was up, sitting in his chair. There was a bed in the back room but I don’t think he used it. Or ever undressed.

Marty Konig came in. He was carrying the gloves and there was no sleep in his eyes. He looked like he didn’t know it was four in the morning.

“You had breakfast?”

I hadn’t but I said I had. I can’t eat breakfast.

“O.K., let’s hit it. See you, Frenchy.”

He had a black ’42 Buick and I drove. He sat beside me with his hands in his topcoat pockets. He looked straight ahead, and I began feeling something about him.

I don’t quite know how it is, but sometimes in the back of your mind you get funny flashes of pictures. I saw one of these pictures of Konig. sitting there beside him. driving.

There was a heavy steel door and Konig walked up to it and pushed and the door bent in the middle and I could see the splinters of steel where it broke in the middle. He went on through it and there was a brick wall. He put a hand against the bricks and the wall came down. The bricks fell on him as he walked through but they didn’t hurt him. He kept on walking, straight ahead.

“How old are you. kid?”

“Twenty-two.”

Then he began asking all the questions I knew he’d asked Frenchy and had gotten answers to.

“How do you make your jack?”

“I bum from my dad and I pick up dough shooting pool if I hook a sucker. And Frenchy’ll buy anything I lift but with him I got to hold it a month. Then, if there’s no heat, Frenchy’ll buy it.”

I wanted to ask him how he made his jack, but I didn’t.

“Done any time?”

“Six months in the boys’ school. Then I got paroled to Frenchy. He’s got political connections.”

After a minute he said: “Maybe you talk too much.”

It scared me — him just saying it. I asked why.

“If Frenchy’s got tie-ins, that’s his business. Why sound off about it?”

“I didn’t think I was sounding off.”

“You can sound off in one word and send a guy away. Remember that. Always remember you can never say too little.”

The sun began coming up. The world looked better. The road was wide and clean. I touched a little hard on the gas and the crate almost jumped out from under us. It was no ordinary ’42 Buick.

I said: “Hey! Sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If you’re any good you’d have done it anyway — just to find out for yourself. She’ll do a hundred and fifty. Eighty-five in second. Where’d you learn to drive?”

“I drove a cab nights for six months until they took it away from me.”

“You drove a cab nights. That’s enough. I didn’t ask why you quit.”

In some ways he was a funny guy but not in a way to laugh about. Not funny that way. What you could see of him from what he said was kind of scary.

It got hot after a while. Even with the breeze from moving, it was hot, but he didn’t take off his coat. We were hitting the suburbs of the city when he said: “What’s your idea of the big time, kid?”

I thought a little. “Oh, having the jack you need, I guess. And classy dames. Making the cops sit up and take notice when they hear your name.”

“Who would you consider a big time guy?”

“Well — there was Capone... Dillinger... Pretty Boy Floyd...”

“I get it Your idea of being hot stuff is to be dead.”

“Huh? Why?”

“They’re all dead.”

“But—”

“You’re a damn fool. Maybe I made a mistake.”

He didn’t say anything more except: “Turn here — go up this street. Stop in front of that hotel.”

I parked and we went into the hotel and he registered us. I didn’t see what he wrote and on the way up in the elevator, I wondered what names he’d used.

In the room he took off his topcoat and looked at his wrist watch. It was gold with some diamonds. The McCoy. He said: “It’s ten-thirty. You get some sleep because I want you fresh. I’ve got some checking to do. I’ll be back by two at the latest.”

He threw a five dollar bill on the bed. “Have them send up some grub and don’t stick your nose out of this room.”

After he left I called downstairs. They sent up a bellhop with the menu and I ordered and they brought up the food on a little wagon. It was swell. The real class. I decided that was the way I wanted to live, where you could order punks around and get service.

After that I went to sleep. The bed was like a cloud.

He woke me up pulling at my shoulder. He said: “Get conscious. There’s cold water in the bathroom.” Then he waited until I was toweling my face.

“There may not be much to this,” he said, “but then again, there might. We’ll go over the trip once so you’ll have the lay. Then it’s the business.”

We went downstairs into the Buick.

“Go over two blocks left and hit the boulevard. Keep going south and take it easy. We’ve got plenty of time.”

I used up an hour crossing the city. When he said, “Pull up in front of that building,” we were ten miles from the hotel.

He looked at his watch. “We’ve got half an hour. Take a good look at this place and drive down the street.”

I did — wondering. Two blocks down we hit a stop light. “Two blocks,” he said. “Remember that. A block further on you hit the left lane and you can swing to the Outer Drive. That’s if there’s no trouble.”

“If there’s no trouble.”

“If our luck breaks — then it’s different. Then it’s up to you to show me you can drive. Come trouble, we get away from here — understand?”

I nodded. My hands were cold. “What kind of trouble can there be?”

“The worst. Swing around and go back to that building and park at the curb. I’ll get out and I’ll be over by the entrance. I’ve got some business with a guy who’ll come out.” He looked at his watch.

I didn’t know I was driving a car. It seemed to go around the corner and back down the block, and there we were — in front of the Hadley building.

Marty Konig got out and strolled over to the swinging doors. He stood there looking into the corner drugstore window, while people went by and in and out of the building. Marty’s hands were in his topcoat pockets. I watched him while the motor hummed up the wheel and into my arms. I watched him, but still I didn’t see quite how it happened.

When the right man came out through one of the swinging doors, Marty eased himself into the moving people, behind the man. Then there were two explosions that could have been anything. They could have come from a truck. But the man jerked and coughed and went down to his knees. I saw his face as he went down. There was a funny expression on it. An expression like you’d have if you met someone you were scared of and weren’t expecting. Then he was on his face down against the pavement.

Marty jumped back away from him just the same way everybody else did. People stopped and milled around. They moved back from the man and then surged forward, like water filling a hole.

I waited. I fought an urge to drive the heap away from there. A cop came running across the street. Then I saw Marty. He moved around until he was in line with the cop. Then he grabbed the cop’s arm and pointed into the crowd, yelling something. The cop scowled and dived into the mob.

Marty stuck a cigarette in his mouth and got into the car.

I pulled away from the curb. Two blocks down the stop light caught me. Marty said: “Relax.” The light changed. About three minutes later we were rolling down the Outer Drive.

No trouble. No trouble at all.

A little further on, Marty said: “Swing off next corner and go west three blocks. Stop in front of a red neon beer sign. I’ve got to collect.”

I sat in front of the tavern, waiting for him. Then he came out. We headed for Bay wood.

About twenty miles from the city, Marty turned his head and looked at me. He said: “Well, you’re in the big time now, kid.” He had thin lips. They said it. He had a face without mercy and hard gray eyes. His face and eyes said it too. You’re in the big time, kid.

I shivered. I wondered what the man had done to get killed that way.

I didn’t ask.