Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927

“THE THING THAT MAKES ME MAD, SON,” SAID OLD POP, “IS THAT A MAN DON’T GENERALLY GET GOOD SENSE UNTIL HE’S TOO OLD TO USE IT”

I

It was almost closing time at Cohn Brothers. Jacob, the elder partner, patted his departing customer affectionately on the shoulder. It had been a cash sale and as he turned back at the doorway he paused to survey the store with satisfaction.

Old Stern, the bookkeeper, was busy checking over next month’s bills and “Looey,” the younger Cohn, was surreptitiously watching Miss Getz put on her galoshes. Jacob chuckled. There had been no rain for two hours.

Less friendly eyes had also marked the scene with approval. “Wolf” Harris, with a last appraising glance up and down the street silently entered the store.

Before the unsuspecting Jacob knew what was happening he felt a hard object thrust against his ribs on the left side and heard a cold voice advise in his ear: “Walk right down to the cashier’s cage, guy, an’ make it snappy.”

Too astonished to feel fear, Jacob automatically did as he was directed with a calmness he was later to shudderingly refer to as presence of mind.

Once behind the cashier’s window Mr. Harris operated with the assured technique of a successful surgeon. A wave of his blued automatic flattened the senior partner and the old bookkeeper against the wall while with a swiftness that was almost painless he located and emptied the cash drawer; even the secret bill compartment.

Some inner consciousness beyond Jacob’s control wrenched out the words:

“Say, mister, don’t take the checks. Leave ’em; they ain’t no good to you.”

A smile flitted across the hard face of the gunman.

“You’re a game little guy an’ Jew to the last, aintcha? Well, I don’t want the checks; take ’em.”

He had racked the silver into a convenient canvas bag that was used to bank it; the bills were more pleasantly numerous than he had anticipated. Good-naturedly he began separating the checks, tossing them on the floor.

A customer entered the store and began poking about the display of furniture. Harris’s eyes narrowed.

“You guys make a move and I’ll plug you both,” he muttered from the corner of his mouth as he shoved the currency in the bag with the silver. He left them still paralyzed against the wall and strode confidently up the aisle toward the entrance.

The would-be purchaser looked up as he approached, and seeing what he took to be a rather sullen working man on his way out, went on with his examination of a davenport.

All would have been well except for one thing: Looey’s chronic distrust of everybody.

As Jacob had come down the aisle, to all appearances leading another lamb to the slaughter, Looey had remarked a glassy stare in the eyes of his older brother. Peeking around the edge of a convenient china cabinet, he beheld with horror the unbusinesslike transaction behind the cashier’s counter and had dropped to all fours where he scrambled in a zigzag course to the door and bolted down the street unobserved by even the astute Miss Getz.

At the moment Harris neared the doorway, Looey was returning, well in the rear of the hastily summoned traffic officer from the corner.

Wolf Harris had always counted on boldness and the skill of long practice for the success of his depredations and on only one notable occasion had he failed, but now, as he saw through the window the uniformed officer approaching, he realized that for a second time he had overplayed his hand.

It could not have happened at a worse moment; at any cost he must avoid capture now. He stepped behind a convenient screen and waited.

The representative of law and order rushed in the entrance, his gun drawn.

Without exposing his person more than was necessary Harris fired four times in quick succession at the hand that held the pistol. His idea was to disarm the policeman if possible; failing that, he must shoot to kill.

One random shot replied. A dazed look came over the face of the officer, his knees suddenly doubled under him and he dropped on the floor, his arms outstretched.

Wolf Harris thrust his gun into his coat pocket and with the canvas sack under his other arm walked out of the store.

People were staring up and down the street trying to locate the noise of the firing. Looey had disappeared like a scared rabbit. Harris turned to the left and half-way down the block entered an alley.

An electrician who had paused at his work, hailed him as he passed.

“Hear them shots?”

“Nah, that was the exhaust from a truck,” sneered Harris without stopping.

A little beyond, he broke into a run. At the opposite end he paused and looked back; three men had entered the alley and were following. He whipped out his pistol and turned. They stopped, then retreated, effectually discouraged for the time being.

Harris crossed the sidewalk and made his way between the line of parked cars at the curbing. In the street he turned to the right and passing several of these, darted into a small sedan farther along in which the engine had been left running.

A little old man in the front seat who had been anxiously peering at the passing pedestrians through the window, turned to chide him fretfully.

“I thought you said you’d only be gone a minute, Tom,” he scolded. “It makes me nervous to wait so long an’ set here listening to that engine burn up gasoline. I’d have turned it off if I’d known how to work the blamed thing.”

“I was — delayed,” grunted Harris grimly as he whirled the little car out into the traffic.

They passed the corner and swung to the right at the next; another two blocks and they turned south again. In this manner they traveled for several miles before Harris headed due west and at last north.

At the edge of town he relaxed somewhat, and the old man, no longer finding it necessary to breathlessly clutch the side door, became talkative.

“I declare, Tom, I wished awhile ago I hadn’t teased you to bring me along today. I got so fidgety there waitin’ for you — something came over me, sort of. I got to wonderin’ what I’d do if I should lose you agin.”

“Aw ferget it,” scowled Harris. “You give me the willies with that line.”

The old man smiled placidly. “Folks hearing you talk would be like to think you didn’t care much, but I can read you like a book, boy; you’ve got a heart just like your mother’s.”

Harris laughed shortly, but said nothing. It was not a pleasant laugh, but rather a grimace such as fighters use to taunt their opponents in the ring. It was like a defiant gesture of disillusion at life.

II

As the scattered bungalows gave way to more and more infrequent fruit stands and gas stations, the old man’s spirits rose.

“I guess I won’t make this trip with you again, Tom,” he said cheerfully. “I’m all through with the city. There’s too much noise and too many people and automobiles. I guess I’ll be content to stay on the ranch for the next few years; it won’t be long you’ll have to bother with me.”

The stony-faced gunman snorted contemptuously.

“When I was in Mexico, I seen Indians a hundred an’ eight an’ ten years old. Lots of ’em. Chew’ed tobacco in their sleep — they was so tough. You’re soft. You talk like a woman.”

“Now look at here, son,” expostulated the other, “I ain’t complainin’ an’ I ain’t afraid to die when my time comes. I’m just lookin’ facts in the face. When I was your age I was just as big a fool as you probably are, though I admit you been showin’ a lot of kindness to your old pop.

“The thing that makes me mad when I think of what I might have done in the past, is that a man don’t generally get good sense until he’s too old to use it.”

“Well, I figure you got quite a play comin’ to you yet. I’m goin’ to get you goin’ in this rabbit business you got your heart set on an’ if you don’t try to corner the rabbit market you’ll be settin’ pretty in another year.”

“You ain’t going away again, are you, Tom?” queried the old man anxiously.

Wolf Harris turned his expressionless eyes on his father and then looked ahead at the road again.

“Ain’t you satisfied with me gettin’ you out of that ‘Home’ an’ settin’ you up in ranchin’? I gotta look after my own business, ain’t I?” he gibed.

“That’s so, Tom. I don’t mean for to seem ungrateful. But you were gone so many years without a word — an’ I thought I was all alone — an’ then you came back all of a sudden. I’d hate to have you go away again now,” he concluded lamely.

“Well, I ain’t gone yet, old timer,” said Harris gruffly. “But I might have to go anytime, see! If I get a wire from my pardner down in Mexico I might have to beat it right away, without kissin’ the rabbits good-by or nothin’. All you gotta, do is keep right on gettin’ rich till I get back.”

An ominous foreboding clutched at the heart of the old man.

“Anyway, if you do go, son, you’ll write to me, won’t you?” he asked anxiously.

“Me, write?” grunted Harris. “Hell, no. There ain’t no post office where I’ll be, an’ them Mexicans swipe the stamps off your letters you give ’em to mail. I ain’t a hand to write, besides, like as not, I’ll get back here before you had time to answer a letter anyhow.”

The other’s expression instantly lightened.

“Then you won’t be gone long this time, if you do go?” he said with relief.

“Ain’t that what I been tryin’ to tell you?” snarled Harris. “You kept interruptin’ me till I forgot it. Another thing you put clean out of my mind was that I’m going to send fer them prize rabbits to-morrow.”

“Why, there won’t be any better stock in the valley than we’ll have!” exclaimed the old man.

“Not we,” corrected Harris. “This is your ranch. The deed’s in your name. If it should leak out I’d gone to rabbit farmin’ I’d never hear the last of it.”

“That’s what you always say,” protested his father, “but it’s your money, Tom. You’ve spent so much. I’m afraid you couldn’t afford that prize stock just now.”

“I forgot to mention it, but that’s what we come to town for to-day: to get the money. Them rabbits are goin’ to cost more than I figured,” added the gunman.

“Then why not wait until we can afford it, son?”

“I already made the deal, pop,” admitted Harris. “It’s too late now.”

III

The “ranch” was a modest two-acre tract of land in a secluded little valley between two folds of sunny California hills.

One morning, several days after their trip into Los Angeles, Wolf Harris returned from a consultation with their next door neighbors, the Svensens.

His father was, as usual pottering among the rabbit hutches.

“I just made a deal, pop,” he called as he approached. “In case I pull outa here sudden, somebody’s gotta look after you. Mrs. Svensen says she’ll do your cookin’ an’ her old man’ll give you a lift around the place. All you do is sign an agreement an’ it’s fixed.”

“Then you’re going after all?” The old man dropped the feed pan he was holding and stood an abject figure of entreaty.

“What’s eatin’ you,” demanded Harris. “Ain’t I doin’ everything I can to take care of you right? Ain’t I left my business now until Gawd knows what shape it’s in? Is that the thanks I get?”

“I was only hoping you wouldn’t go until after the prize rabbits came,” said his father humbly.

The gunman hesitated. Every hour now’ his “hunch” to depart grew stronger; the oppressing sense of impending disaster mounted. He grinned with sneering defiance.

“I was just goin’t’ tell you I was goin’ after them rabbits when they get to the express office Sunday,” he said. “Now we got that off your mind, we’ll go next door and sign the agreement.”

It was a strange document that Wolf Harris had drawn up, after much explaining. More binding than many a cleverly executed transaction, because of the sincerity of the parties concerned, it stated briefly that for three hundred dollars cash and the further consideration that they would inherit his property, Lars Svensen and wife would care for the needs and bodily comfort of their neighbor, John Harden, until his death.

Characteristically Wolf Harris had inserted the clause: “In case of ill treatment, this agreement is all off.”

He had affixed his legal name: Thomas Harden, the signatures of the two Swedes had already been added. It remained only for the old man to sign.

“We talked this all over, pop,” Harris explained. “There’s nothin’ fer you to do but put your John Hancock on the dotted line. You’re signin’ up for three square meals a day.”

“But suppose you don’t have to go, after all, Tom?”

“This here document only goes into effect after I’ve left,” said Wolf in his best court room manner.

His father nodded, satisfied, and accepted the pen that was held out to him.

He added his name to the others and looked up at the Svensens with misty eyes.

“My boy, Tom, is very kind to me,” he told them, smiling. “He thinks of everything for me.”

The Swedes agreed.

“Yas, dot’s right. Tom bane goot square feller,” said Svensen.

“My oldt fadder die two years back,” added his wife, wiping her eyes with her apron. “I look after you, Mr. Harten, chust like I did him.”

Harris glanced at her suspiciously.

“I had two — other boys,” continued the old man, “but when I needed help, they put me in a home for the aged.”

The Wolf glared at him ferociously.

“Come on, pop. Snap out of it. You can save the story of your life to tell ’em on the long winter evenings,” he said sarcastically.

They made their way back across the new alfalfa field that was just beginning to come up. Harris poked among the tender cloverlike plants with curiosity.

“I’d like to be back here when you start cuttin’,” he said reflectively.

A distant train whistle sounded in the still air.

With lifted head he glanced across the oak dotted hills in the direction from which the sound had come.

“Guy,” he muttered to himself, “you better be liftin’ your feet, pronto.”

The remaining two days before Sunday, he put in building the hutches for the new rabbits and putting the place in order against his departure.

There were hours when both father and son worked side by side in the sunshine, the one feebly, the other in the clumsy deliberate fashion of unskilled labor.

In the evening they sat and smoked in silence for the most part, the old man breaking into occasional rambling reminiscences.

After one such outburst, to which the Wolf had listened with stolid indifference, he asked suddenly:

“Tom, what made you come back and hunt up your old pop? Before you went away I hardly ever saw you. You were the harum-scarum of the family; you was out most every night an’ more worry to your maw an’ I than both your brothers.” Caught off his guard, Harris shifted uneasily. It had been a diabolical turn of fate that had sent him home, a freshly released convict, in the hope of borrowing money.

“Oh, I just turned up, I guess,” he answered noncommittally.

He smoked on, watching his father through lifeless eyes, his still face like a stone slab beneath which all emotion was buried.

“I was gone quite a long time,” he said at last. “Got to be quite well-known in some places; funny you never heard of me.”

“Not a word,” replied the old man. He appeared to hesitate. “There was a rumor once — your brother Bill heard it, that you had gone wrong. But, of course, I didn’t believe it,” he added indignantly.

“Jealousy,” nodded Harris. “When I come back here, though, I expected to find you well looked after by the boys. I didn’t have a notion how things stood.” He relapsed into silence and after a time continued:

“You see, where I was I had it pretty tough for awhile. There was some guys tried to break me, an’ I was alone a good deal. That was the worst thing, ‘solitary’; I mean bein’ alone so much,” he explained hastily.

“When I come back and found you was sort of up against the same kind of deal I figured it was up to me to get you out of it. I was all you had left, and probably outside of you I ain’t got a friend in the world. It was up to us to stick together.”

“What about that pardner of yours you been tellin’ me about?” asked his father suspiciously.

“There you go again, trying to make me out a liar,” roared Harris. “What I meant was, I ain’t got a friend here in California — outside of social friends like the Svensens. There ain’t another guy anywhere, like my pardner in Mexico, an’ when I tell him somethin’ he gets what I’m driving at without tryin’ to trip me up,” he concluded sarcastically.

IV

Harris lit a cigarette and stamped out the door of their two room shanty.

The night was warm and fragrant with the smell of green fields. He glanced up at the starlit sky. It was calm and restful here, yet every fiber of his being urged him to go: to strike out before it was too late.

The constantly recurring question, “Was he a killer?” destroyed this one moment that should have meant peace. He realized dimly that never in life could he enjoy the well being of quiet places. Too long had the Wolf been dedicated to violence.

He turned back; his father had already retired. He undressed slowly and got into bed. For hours the glow of his cigarettes burned against the darkness as he planned a get-away that this time should actually lead to Mexico.

Sunday morning dawned at the ranch like any other day. No church bells rang in the valley, nor well dressed idlers loitered through the holiday. Chickens and rabbits must be fed, and as Harris backed the Ford out of the leanto garage he observed the scattering of farmers in the little community already at work.

His father came out of the house and stood bareheaded in the sunshine watching him.

Wolf leaned out of the car.

“The express office is supposed to be closed to-day, but the guy promised he’d be there to let me have them rabbits. I’ll be back before noon.”

The old man nodded.

“I’m crazy for to see ’em,” he admitted with a gleam of anticipation.

“You understand how things is with me, pop.” said Harris slowly. “If anything should happen, like I got a wire, I might pull out, see? You want to cross this new buck with them other rabbits you got, but keep the new strain unmixed.”

His father opened his mouth as though suddenly deprived of speech.

“I’m just tellin’ you what to do if I have to send ’em out by somebody else, that’s all. I expect I’ll be back like I said. So long.”

He spun the little car around and turned it down the newly made driveway. When he reached the main road he looked back. The old man was still standing, bareheaded, watching.

Harris leaned out of the window and waved. He saw the other answer uncertainly.

Surprised at his own action, he stepped on the throttle viciously. In his pocket was a note already prepared to send back by the driver he would presently arrange for. For the last time he said good-by to his father.

The nearest railroad station was Gleason, fourteen miles away. Not more than a score of houses comprised the village. It lay on the main boulevard to Los Angeles, and on Sunday was apt to be crowded with automobiles.

By going early Harris hoped to avoid most of this traffic. He had previously received, through the services of Svensen, who had been in to Gleason for supplies, the express agent’s consent to meet the morning train. As he approached, Harris observed that the State highway was still nearly deserted; hardly a soul seemed astir in the town.

He drove boldly to the express office, where he found the agent and his son awaiting him.

“Train got in fifteen minutes ago and left some of the prettiest bunnies I ever laid eyes on,” admired the former as Harris pulled up. “My boy here has some rabbits, but they’re nothing to these.”

The Wolf glanced incuriously at the crates and then turned to the youth.

“Can you drive a Ford, kid?” he asked.

“Sure can, mister,” answered the other.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” offered Harris. “If you’ll take this outfit out to the ranch an’ leave the car you can have one of the does. I’ll give you a note to the old man explaining.”

“Oh, will I!” exclaimed the boy.

“It’ll save me a trip in and back. I’ve got to get to Los Angeles on the next stage an’ I may be gone a week or two.”

“I can tie my bike behind and ride back on it,” the boy told his father.

This being satisfactorily concluded. Harris moved up the street to the main garage where the auto stages stopped. He bought a Sunday paper from a soft drink establishment near-by and withdrew around the corner of the building to discover in seclusion the answer to the question that burned like a fever in his blood.

On the second inside page he found it:

Further along he read a wholly erroneous description of himself. At the end was appended a paragraph to the effect that Patrolman Roney was the father of three small children.

Harris crumpled the paper with an oath. He sat for a time chin in hand, thinking, fighting against the panic that threatened his already ragged nerves.

One thought above all churned through the turmoil in his mind: He must put as much distance as possible between himself and Gleason. There must be nothing to connect him with the ranch and “the old man.”

He got up.

A huge truck returning empty from the city had stopped to take on gas and oil.

The weary driver was getting a drink at the stand next door.

Harris approached affably.

“I’ll take the wheel fer awhile if you’ll give me a lift,” he offered.

“How far are you going?” asked the other.

“Oh, up the line,” answered the Wolf vaguely.

“I turn off about thirty miles above here, if that’ll do you any good,” said the driver.

“That’s O. K.,” agreed Harris.

He climbed to the high seat.

“I’ll get her goin’ an’ you can spell me awhile,” said the stranger as he cranked up.

Harris took the wheel.

“We been cuttin’ alfalfa at the ranch,” the young fellow informed him as they moved off. “I worked all day yesterday and started in to town at twelve o’clock last night. I ain’t had a wink of sleep since Friday night.”

“Take a nap then; I can handle her,” said Harris.

“I sure would like to, but don’t forget I turn off where we come to a rock gas station. It’s on the edge of the desert. You can get a lift from there.”

He shortly fell asleep, and the gunman, breathing easier as each succeeding mile dropped between him and “the ranch,” piloted the big machine onward.

But toward the last they seemed to drag along. As each succeeding carload of Sunday tourists flashed past, now with greater frequency as the morning drew on, he had a feeling of being held back. It was a nightmarish sensation.

Eventually they reached the turn off and Harris awoke the other and climbed down.

“Hey, Joe,” his late companion called to the gas station manager, “if anybody comes by you know, tell ’em to give this guy a lift; he’s O. K.”

“Thanks,” called Harris.

“Thanks yourself,” yelled the young fellow as he drove off.

V

Out here, on the edge of the Mohave the sun was too hot to be comfortable. The Wolf moved over to what shade was offered at the side of the gas station.

“Where you headed for?” inquired the dour-looking manager suspiciously.

“Up the line.”

“Well, stick around, there’ll be a lot of cars stop by before noon.”

He sat down in the shade and waited, but whereas it seemed that previously a continuous line of machines had darted past, now they had disappeared utterly.

He got up again and paced back and forth restlessly. He felt that something was gaining on him.

“If it wasn’t for them damn rabbits I could ’a’ been in New York by now,” he muttered.

Then his mood changed. “Gee, I bet the old man was tickled when he seen ’em. I’d like to been there. Maybe in a year, I might get back.”

“Here comes one now,” called Joe.

A big black sport roadster with red trimming and generous nickel plating was slowing down. At sight of the long hood sheltering the powerful motor, the Wolf’s heart leaped. Here was a car he could make a get-away in, if he only had the chance.

As it stopped he advanced with as beguiling a look as he could summon.

The driver was protesting to Joe: “Vat, twenty-two cents for a gallon of gasoline? Then only give me two gallons.”

Too late, Harris recognized Looey Cohn and Miss Getz.

In the same instant the former cried out: “Oh, look, Rosie, the holdup what shot the policeman!” He made a frantic effort to climb over the lap of his companion.

“Get out quietly,” growled the Wolf, as he drew his automatic. “I could have made my get-away before if it hadn’t been for you.”

“Fill her up,” he ordered Joe, “an’ take a look at th’ oil. I’ll see that this bird pays you.”

Looey and his companion climbed out and stood white and shaky before him.

All the hatred of his prison years centered suddenly on the figure of the timid merchant.

“I oughta kill you,” snarled the Wolf. His rage choked him. He felt nauseated. There was little hope now but that he would be captured and identified. The futility of his plans crushed him.

“Aw, what’s the use,” he said brokenly.

He turned and pitched forward suddenly on his face.

With surprise he heard the report of Joe’s rifle; another saw him in the doorway.

“Sent him for oil,” he remembered.

An orange spurt of flame from Joe’s gun; another giant blow that paralyzed his left shoulder.

“This won’t do,” thought the Wolf thickly.

He flung his right arm over like a swimmer and fired. That was better. Joe had ducked for shelter.

The Wolf lay panting, fighting for breath. It came over him that he was done for, dying.

They would trace him back to Gleason; show his body to the express agent; take away the old man’s rabbits.

Suddenly a triumphant smile cracked his granite face.

Slowly, painfully, he aimed at the glass gasoline container of the pump.

He pulled the trigger and it shattered.

There were two more. He aimed again.

“Run, Looey, run,” he heard the girl scream behind him.

He fired. Again a hit.

“Why didn’t the damn stuff explode?”

A shape sprang from the station and raced beyond his vision. Joe was making his get-away. That was all right. Nobody to stop him now.

Gasoline was bubbling out of the pumps and trickling toward him.

He hitched forward, closer.

It was getting dark. He waited, gathering his strength for the last trigger pull.

It was somewhere there ahead. He couldn’t see.

Suddenly he felt a cold liquid on his arm; it crept along, touched his face.

Gasoline! The old man was safe with his rabbits.

Summoning his dying strength the Wolf fired.

His consciousness went out with the explosion that rocked the desert.