Get Dressed for Death

The world had been whirling — full of too-loud music and the acid rasp of cheap liquor. But I couldn’t pin it all down. I knew something had gone wrong. Something big. So big that I couldn’t let myself think about it. So I filled the days and nights with cheap photomantage of the town — wet rings on a bar top, grey sheets in a buck hotel, dark grinning faces over a thumping boogie beat, the tired white flesh of a too-old cigaret girl, the prostitute grin of a chiseling waiter. Oh, I forgot whatever it was. I did a swell job. I nearly forgot my own name.

Not that I made a habit of doing this kind of thing. But once in a while, when something went very wrong, I would go out and drink myself into a stupor. It was my way and my friends were used to it and nobody said much after each bout had been finished.

Then there were new impressions. A scorched patch on the tip of my tongue from scalding coffee. The drenching chill of a needle shower. A repeated ringing crash as a heavy hand slapped my face with blinding monotony. The mad dancing world began to slow down. It ran slower and slower and then stopped moving entirely. My eyes felt as though the lids were cracked like alkali lips. I peered out into the suddenly silent world and saw a square heavy face hanging in the murk, dark sad eyes staring into my own.

My head thumped and I shut my eyes. I smelled the stench of alcohol and old perspiration rising from my unwashed body. Under my crusted clothes my skin felt baked out — dry as a dusty road in summer. I opened my eyes again and big-head was still there. He had grown a body. A big round heavy body. He was about twice my size and better than twice as sober, from the look of him.

In spite of the bitter taste in my mouth, and a tongue so swollen that it seemed to catch in my teeth, I heard my own hoarse voice say, “Where am I? What do you want?”

His voice had bell tones. It rang deeply at me. “Finally, hah? Finally you come out of it! Such a stew like I never seen. You could have died with it.”

But he had done it. While I was trying to make sense out of his words I suddenly remembered what had happened on Tuesday noon — remembered the polite smile of Cowsie, the chief, as he had shaken my hand. “Now don’t take it too hard, Don,” he had said, “Lots of guys find out they will never make a good policeman. You’re lucky to have found it out so early. You might have spent years on the force without getting anywhere. And with your education that would have been close to tragic. It’s not that you’re unintelligent. Its something hard to describe. You feel too deeply the causes that make a criminal. You have too much compassion in you. We don’t want bitter, cruel men on the force. But on the other hand we don’t want men who are too sensitive. You better find another line of work. I know that somewhere there is a big chunk of success waiting for you — and someday you’ll thank me for this.”

I remembered sitting in the park staring across at the lake trying to think of some other line of work. There wasn’t any other line that I wanted. I know it sounds silly, but there are people who have to be cops, just like some people have to play drums, and others have to carve open their neighbors. For four years I had seen myself as a brilliant homicide man serving out his apprenticeship in obscurity. And then the awakening. I had walked across the park and found a small bar, a place full of blue leather and hammered copper. The round sour barman had made me drink after drink...

“What day is it?” I asked big-head.

“Saturday. Three in the morning. This is a back room on the third floor of a place six miles outside the town. Wally Williams’ place. I’m Bus Gerchen. Wally told me to sober you up. He wants to talk. You better go take another shower. Take your clothes off this time.”

He had to repeat it twice before my sodden brain would take it all in. I remembered hearing about Walter Williams, a man who had started to grow fast a few years ago. Apartment houses, bars, road stands and rumors of other lines more profitable. I had never met him. I had wondered about him.

I rammed into the door frame when I tried to walk into the bathroom. I bounced off and nearly fell into the old fashioned tub. It was a big bathroom. Looked like a house that had been remodled. The light was already on. I squinted at myself in the mirror and for a crazy second thought that it was someone else looking at me through a window — torn stained collar, necktie gone, quarter inch of stubble on my long hollow cheeks and skin the color of a mouldy cream pie. I shuddered and stripped off my clothes. Every few seconds I had to stop and wait for a fit of the shakes to run its course. They were so bad that I couldn’t undo the buttons and shake at the same time. I ran it as hot as I could stand it, and gradually shifted it to cold. I could almost feel the liquor poison running out of me. It left my knees shaking from weakness. I wondered how long it had been since I had eaten.

I climbed out from behind the curtain and found a shaving set on the edge of the sink. It looked well-used, but clean. I had to lean against the sink hard to keep from shaking while I shaved. Even so, I dug out a few little gouges. There was a comb in the cabinet. When I was through, I looked the picture over. I had a little more color, but the big dark rings were still under my eyes. I could have folded right up on the floor and gone to sleep like a country cat.

I hated the thought of getting back into my clothes. I didn’t want to even have to touch them again. So I stuck my head into the bedroom and saw big-head sitting there, a gleaming white cigarette tucked into his dark face. He anticipated my question and motioned at the bed. There was a robe on the bed — dark red and frayed, but clean. I slipped it on and sat dizzily on the edge of the bed.

“I told Wally you’d be through in a few minutes. He’s in the game room. He’ll be in. You just sit quiet, only don’t lay down. I don’t want to have to slap you some more. By the way, I’m supposed to make you feel like this was home. So I’m calling you Donny, see? Okay?”

“I like Don better, Bus. But call me anything you want to. I’m in no mood to object. I feel terrible.”

“You sure ought to, Donny! You sure ought to! What a load!”

“Let’s forget it, hey?”

“Sure, Donny. We’ll forget it.”

At that point, the door swung open and a brisk little man in pale grey gabardine came bustling in, smiling and rubbing his hands together so hard that you could hear the husky whispering noise they made. He looked like a prosperous car dealer from Sioux City, an ardent Rotarian, Elk, Moose and what have you. He looked like he could make with the smoking car story or the collection plate with equal aplomb... just one of those little grey headed, well-washed guys that you see in convention pictures wearing a paper hat, a blonde and a big grin. A hick in the city. Like a chump I figured him for one of those double motivation birds, a guy with but two overpowering desires — one to be a pillar of the community, and two to be one of the boys. I should have known better. But I was pretty hung over, remember.

Big Bus lumbered up out of his chair, and with sort of a reflex motion, I wavered to my feet.

“This is Mr. Williams, Donny. He owns the place,” Bus said. Then, turning to Walter Williams, “Guess he’s okay now, boss. Don’t look so healthy, but he’s pretty stringy and tough from the looks of him. Not so feeble as you might think.”

I resented the Donny, and the tone of voice. But I didn’t have time to object. Little Williams stuck his hand out at me and gave me the Rotarian grin, “I’m delighted to meet you, Mr. Robinson. Please sit down.” I was glad to. He had pumped my hand so hard that he had started up the headache again.

“Now, Robinson, I’ve got people in the game room, so I won’t waste your time or mine. You come to work for me today and you get your keep, food and room that is, plus two hundred a month until I decide either you are worth more or nothing. I’m running a big business and I like it run efficiently. Is it yes or no?”

Maybe my ideals got in the way. It’s a big jump from being on the cops all the way down to being another handy boy for a guy close to the rackets if not in them. So I blazed up and said, “Just who the hell do you think...”

Bus had moved so quickly that I didn’t even see his big hand before it hit me. After it hit me, I didn’t see anything. He must have caught me across the ear with it and slapped me off the bed. It felt like I had fallen through a ferris wheel. The fireworks faded as I pushed myself up off the rug. It was one of the toughest pushups I ever did. In my condition, all my fight had leaked out when that big mitt whacked me. I set myself tenderly back on the edge of the bed. I looked at Bus. He looked embarrassed.

“There really isn’t much choice, Robinson. Either you take the job, or I’ll have Buster go over you thoroughly before we throw you out onto the highway. I know you lost your position the other day. I also know you have no other job. Now we’ve taken a lot of trouble over you, and I don’t mean to see it wasted. Maybe you can relax if I tell you that I want you to work for me as a detective. I want certain people traced and certain people followed. I want some papers recovered and I want proof against one of my croupiers. But I can instruct you later. What do you say?”

What could I say? I said okay. I was in like Flynn. Up to the shell pink ears. Or at least until I got my first chance to leave the place. And I think Williams read my intention in my eyes. He must have. Otherwise...

Anyway he grinned again, shook my hand, turned quickly and walked out. Bus said, “Geez, Donny! I’m sorry I had to do that, but you know how it is. I got standing orders to chop anybody that tries to talk rough to Wally. He don’t like it. You know how it is?” He was so anxious to make up that I had to grin at him. He grinned back and went after some more coffee. He had to wake me up to drink it. I was out like a Republican.

I woke up with a head like a rotting Cyprus stump, and a mouth like old swamp water. But I could see out of my eyes. For that I was grateful. I couldn’t find any clothes, and the great outdoors looked like late afternoon. So I climbed back in and went to sleep again before I had a chance to get hungry...

Somewhere near at hand were scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and the rattle of a newspaper. I jumped up, or rather I sat up slowly. Big Bus smiled showing a couple of rows of piano keys, and handed me the paper.

I said the usual morning greetings, tossed the paper aside and lit into the breakfast which was on a card table near the bed. Bus watched me eat with the amused tolerance of the big man for the appetite of the not-so-big-man. But I did pretty well. About forty seconds flat. Then I picked up the paper while I sipped the coffee. I read one of the front page items with interest. My little red-cheeked chums on the force would be jumping around — at least some of them. A nice little blonde dish with a hole in the head tossed out of a car on a main route out of town. Lots of excitement. I felt a pang of envy, and then realized that even had I been back on the force, I wouldn’t have been cut a slice of that cake. That was juicy enough for the topside.

“You sure got around last night, Donny,” the big man said, and I glanced up into his quiet sad eyes.

“Around? How? I didn’t know I could even move.”

“Well, Geez, Donny, you must have been able to move to knock off that little blondie named Thirty Thurston and dump her out of your heap and get back here to go to bed. That’s moving, boy!”

As I felt my mouth drop open, I knew with horrified certainty that big Bus wasn’t out of his head. Something about the way friend Wally had looked at me just before he left...

“Sure, Donny. You remember. Wally has got a little thirty-two gun with some prints of the tips of your fingers on every shell left in the clip. You only used two on poor little Thirty. Also he has got her cigarette case with some prints of yours on it, and also he says for me to show you this. He’s got the negative.”

He slipped a big picture out of the side pocket of his jacket and poked it into my hand. I held it up. There was a little blonde on the floor, a black smear among the light curls. Her face was toward the camera. A figure sat on the edge of the bed. Me! I was looking down at the floor, at a gun sagging from my fingers. The posture was stiff, and I knew that somehow they had balanced me there. But who else would ever believe it? I suddenly felt cold, the cold of the pole and outer space. And suddenly I hated Wally Williams... hated him with all my heart, with all the pent up frustration and disappointment of the past few days. His plan held me as tightly as the jaws of a trap.

I didn’t see him for two days. I stayed in the room for two days. Bus told me to stay and I stayed. I couldn’t think of any way out of it. I knew that the brisk little Wally would never have the negative where I could get hold of it. After two days he told me where the evidence was hidden. It was in a wooden box at an unnamed storage company. The storage receipt was in an envelope. The envelope was with an unnamed law firm. It was to be sent to the police along with a sealed letter if he, Williams, were to die suddenly. He grinned at me, a foxy little grin, and I stifled an impulse to smash it back into his teeth.

“But look, Williams! It doesn’t make sense. Why so much trouble over me, a busted cop? What have I got? Nothing.”

“It isn’t what you’ve got, Robinson, it’s what you are going to do that’s important. And profitable. Believe it or not, you are a selected subject. You were picked out. You should be flattered. Besides, the Thurston woman was dangerous. She was going anyway. It just made it handy to combine the two situations. Efficiency, my boy. Modern business methods. You have three more days to rest before I need you.”

I dropped onto the bed and smoked and looked out at the country landscape. Somehow the sight of green grass and leafy trees didn’t fit into the spot where I was. I felt as though I should be looking out onto a bare grey alley, or a blank brick wall. Or the corridor of a prison. I smoked and thought of the chain of proof. The picture. The prints.

It was hard to make the time pass. Bus helped out as much as he could. We even got down to Indian wrestling, but in addition to the fact that he was bigger and stronger, my left-handedness put me at an additional disadvantage. Then I made him do it left handed and came much closer to knocking him off balance.

We ran out of conversation and games. He was a big, good-natured guy — sort of childlike. But down inside him somewhere there was a strong strain of cruel power. I saw it glow in his eyes once or twice. It frightened me a little. I wondered if possibly he was a little mad. In his business, it would have been an advantage.

Also, I was bothered by a twist in my own mind. I had the feeling that there was something that I had discovered that would loosen the jaws of the William’s trap a little. It had come over me after I had seen Bus rolling fingerprints onto the polished side of his cigarette lighter. He had admitted that he had had experience taking prints, but when I tried to trap him into admitting that he had put my prints onto the cartridge cases and onto the cigaret case, he just grinned at me and said, “Geez, you talk silly sometimes, Donny! Now why should I go and do anything like that, hey?”

But still I had the idea that there was something I should know — and couldn’t think of.

On Friday, one week and three days after Cowsie had fired me, Wally Williams came to my room. “Well, Robinson,” he said, rubbing his hands, “the time for action has nearly arrived. Bus here, has your clothes.” For the first time I noticed that Bus was carrying the familiar blue uniform over his arm. A duplicate of the one I had shed in the locker room after talking with Cowsie. Just to look at it made me feel bad.

“What can I do with that?” I asked stupidly.

“Wear it, of course. Now, you know Henry C. Rathburd, don’t you, Robinson?”

I nodded. I knew Henry. A dear friend of my father’s right up to the time of Dad’s death. President of the First Citizen’s National Bank. A big gruff guy. A right guy. A flock of white hair and a permanent tan.

“Well, you and I are going to call on Mr. Rathburd. You will wear the uniform. I am going to be a currency expert from Washington. There will be another man along with us. A Mr. Cowsie, or should I say Chief Cowsie? We will call tomorrow just an hour after Mr. Rathburd’s bank receives a particularly large shipment of currency. Cowsie will ask to see samples, I will examine them while you stand by. You and Cowsie will be sufficient evidence to Rathburd that I am what I pretend to be. I will declare that there has been a switch in transit. I will request that we take the currency away with us. Rathburd will agree. Cowsie and I will give him receipts. Bus will be in a high window across the street with a good rifle. Just in case. You and I and Cowsie will carry it out to the official squad car. You will drive. We will tell you what to do next.”

“But that’s... that’s...” I didn’t know what word to use.

“You may call it bank robbery, my boy. Riskless bank robbery. We just walk in and carry it out with everybody’s blessing. One million, one hundred thousand dollars worth of very fine cash in bills that are not too large. Isn’t it excellent?”

I had to admit that it was. I could see why they had gone to such pains to sew me up. It was worth it. My pride jumped back up to norm as I suddenly realized that the crooked Cowsie had fired me not because I was incompetent, but because my father had been a good friend of Rathburd. But what could I do but play along? If I didn’t, the death of Thirty would catch up with me far too quickly. And yet there was something that I should remember...

I walked down the stairs between Bus and Williams and got into the squad car. Cowsie nodded at me, his aristocratic face pale and drawn. His mouth looked tight, as though he were biting the insides of his lips. I sat in the back with Bus. He was also silent. The .38 Special, loaded with blanks, hung heavy on my left hip. Cowsie swung the car expertly through the heavy traffic as we neared the city. No one spoke. I knew that the plan would work. I felt as though I were riding in a dream. I didn’t see how it could be true. And yet it was. With the many hours of grace that the plan would give them, there would be time to cross a nearby border. And if they had a plane lined up...

Cowsie slid smoothly up in front of the bank. Bus ducked out the rear door and headed across the street toward an office building. I knew that in a matter of seconds the waiting rifle would be cradled against his shoulder... the sad dark eyes peering down the shining barrel into the dim interior of the bank. As we stepped out onto the sidewalk, Williams shot one hot glance up at me out of his light blue eyes, and tapped a small bulge in his jacket pocket. I understood. We walked into the bank.

I felt stiff and self conscious. They let us into Rathburd’s office, and it hurt me to have the big kind man come forward, his hand outstretched and say, “Don, boy! Why don’t you stop in oftener? It’s good to see you!”

I couldn’t respond to his friendliness. He looked a little hurt when I dropped his hand as quickly as I could and introduced my two companions. He already knew Cowsie. The quietly dressed, sedate Williams had become Mr. Loring Bessinger, of the Treasury Department, with sheafs of identification. Williams played it well.

Rathburd got very upset when he heard of the possibility of his shipment being counterfeit. He hurriedly sent for samples. Williams sat down at the edge of the desk and inspected them through a small glass. Then he took out a bottle of chemical of some sort and daubed a little on the back of a bill, rubbed it off and then looked again through his glass. “Bring more samples,” he snapped.

Rathburd hurried outside and came back in a few moments with some more bills. Williams went through the same procedure. Then he looked up at the tall Rathburd. “I’m sorry, sir, but this entire lot is counterfeit. I’ll have to take it all back with me. We’ll give you receipts. Please have it packed immediately.”

Rathburd was efficient. In five minutes two bank guards had lugged two big canvas sacks to the door of the office. Williams and Cowsie both signed the receipts. I looked on. I could think of nothing to do or say that would stop the plan. I felt like a stuffed uniform.

Cowsie went ahead with the cash toward the car while Williams packed up his equipment. Rathburd asked idly, “I suppose you worked on the Sander’s case last year, Mr. Bessinger.”

Williams looked up and said, “Certainly! Why?”

“Because Don here is acting funny, and I just made up the name of Sander’s to see what you’d say. I never saw anybody examine money that way. And I never heard of a shipment of counterfeit from the reserve bank.” As he spoke he moved with surprising speed toward his big desk. I knew with certainty that once he reached it, an alarm would resound through the bank — and I would be caught like the others.

But there was a muffled crack from the half-crouched Williams and a bloody hole appeared miraculously where Henry Rathburd’s eye had been. The big man fell heavily across his own desk and rolled off onto the floor. He was dead before his body stopped moving. I still stood stupidly, caught in the bright blue glare from Williams small eyes. He had stopped looking like a small town business man. He looked like a different sort of creature. A thing that would kill quickly and without warning. He motioned me out of the office. I walked out and heard him shut the door quietly behind him. Apparently the shot, a small calibre, muffled by the fabric of his jacket, had gone unnoticed.

Just to my left was an old man in a bank uniform. I recognized him as John Fellows, a man I had known since the days when I had come into the bank to look at him. He had been younger then. I remembered the time, after hours, when he had showed me his gun. That had been a big day.

As I passed John, I snatched the big gun out of the worn holster and threw myself against him. By luck it came free. As I rolled across the floor I heard another crack and felt a stinging in my leg. I twisted on the floor and brought the gun and my eyes to bear on the spot where Williams should have run to. He was there. He was looking back at me, his lips twisted, the gun out of his pocket and gleaming in his hand. A hundred bells started to clang. The big revolver jumped in my hand, and the crash of the bullet knocked Williams off his feet. As he fell I could see from the angle of his head that it had caught him in the throat. I knew from the spreading smear of blood on the marble floor that another bullet wasn’t needed.

I jumped up and tried to run. The little slug from Williams’ pistol had done more damage than I thought. My leg folded under me just as something smacked viciously into the floor. I remembered Bus. I could almost hear him saying as he pulled the trigger, “Geez, Donny, I’m sorry. But that’s what he told me to do if you pulled anything funny.”

I crouched behind the row of teller’s cages, and found that by stepping gently I could move. I moved fast. But I was too late. The car was pulling away. My blue uniform kept any of the other bank guards from shooting at me. It was luck that neither of the other two had seen me take John’s gun. I stood on the sidewalk, held the revolver as steadily as I could, and sent five of the big .44 slugs crashing after the sedan. There was no effect. Then a sledge caught me on the shoulder and drove me into the sidewalk. As I lay with my cheek against the warm cement, I was looking toward where the white sedan was pulling around a corner. As a film dimmed my eyes it looked almost as if the white car had veered across the road...

There was a sharp smell of antiseptic, but it would fade and I would dive down into black velvet again. And once there was a tube in my arm. And a soft cool hand on my forehead. And the blackness again. It was deep and seemed eternal. I wanted so badly to rest but they wouldn’t let me. The wouldn’t let me...

The mists cleared and the sun was shining on the glistening oversized face of a man with the sharp cheery look of an Iowa boar. He kept fading and reappearing and fading again. And I made out some of the words. I recognized him as the Commissioner. “...reinstated... confession by Cowsie... plane in Canada... your last shot severed the left tie rod... car out of control...”

Somewhere I knew dimly that Williams was dead — that the letter would get to the force. Then I remembered. It was so silly to have been unable to think while I was well, and then to remember through the hospital mists. The wrong hand. The wrong prints.

I heard my own voice from some distant closet saying, “...the girl. Murdered. My picture. Wrong hand.”

More fadeout, and then the blessed words, “Of course, Robinson. In the picture the gun was in your right hand. The fingertip prints we found were taken from the right hand. The print on the case was a rolled print, not a natural one. Do you think the department is that stupid? You’re in the clear. But it’s lucky for you that you are left handed.”

I tried to speak again, but white starched sleeves appeared and the red faced man was led away, and there was a man in white, smiling, with his finger on his lips. As I-faded away again I was thinking, “Cowsie! A cop who went crooked. One stinker out of a thousand. And I’m back in. And I’ll do the kind of a job he should have done.”