It’s the McCoy

Chapter Three Three Quarts a Day

Except by special dispensation from Paul Pry, Mugs Magoo was restricted to one quart of whiskey a day. Mugs had solemnly promised, and once having given his word would never go back on it, but there were times when he regretted his bargain, and this was one of them.

Paul Pry, alert, debonair, and smiling, opened the door, made a saluting gesture with his open hand, and said: “Hi, Mugs.”

Mugs Magoo, just filling his glass from the all-but-empty bottle, made a great show of rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his left hand. “If it’s you,” he said, “I’m drunk, and I ain’t been drunk on one quart of whiskey in ten years. If it ain’t you, it’s your ghost, and I’m still drunk, only I can’t be drunk on what I’ve had to drink.”

“Me in person,” Paul Pry assured him, closing the door, “and not a ghost.”

“You’re living on borrowed time,” Mugs said. “A guy can’t pull the stunt you did and keep on living. You stuck your head into a powder magazine, and then obligingly dropped your own match.”

“So far,” Paul Pry said, with a grin, “nothing very awful has happened to me, Mugs. I’ve met a beautiful blonde by the name of Vivian Goff.”

“Who’s she?” Mugs Magoo asked.

“When you pointed her out to me this afternoon, you said her name was Merva Bond.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“Oh, I just ran into her,” Paul Pry said, breezily. “And then I met a Doctor Paul Warfield who’s her personal physician. When you pointed him out to me, you said he was Soup Scanlon.”

Mugs Magoo tossed off the glass of liquor, tilted the bottle to empty the last few drops into the glass, and then regarded the empty receptacle with tired, disillusioned eyes. “I don’t know why I let you sell me on this quart-a-day business,” he said. “A quart a day ain’t enough to get drunk on, and yet it keeps the desire alive. If I didn’t drink any, I’d gradually get over wanting the stuff.”

“Why not do that?” Paul Pry asked. “Why not become a teetotaler, Mugs?”

“I’d never last long enough to teetotal,” Mugs Magoo answered wearily. “I’m too old a dog to learn new tricks. Drinking whiskey has become a part of my daily routine. Take it away from me and I’d blow up with a bang.”

“No one wants you to do that,” Paul Pry said sympathetically. “You’ve managed to get along for months on a quart a day. If you can do it that long, you can continue to do it.”

“Oh, I guess I can continue all right,” Mugs Magoo said. “I ain’t living; I’m existing. Ordinarily, I can get along on a quart and manage to keep fairly comfortable, but then you come along and start rocking the boat, and my nerves need some sort of sedative.”

“It certainly is too bad,” Paul Pry sympathized, seeing the drift of the conversation, “that I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make the acquaintance of your charming friends.”

“They didn’t follow you here?” Mugs Magoo asked, tonelessly.

“No, I gave them the Brookdale Apartment address, and they followed me there. I took care they didn’t follow me from there on.”

“They’ll get you,” Mugs Magoo said.

“They seem very friendly,” Paul Pry pointed out.

Mugs Magoo tossed off the last of the whiskey, regarded the empty glass with the expression of a man gazing down into a coffin at the face of his best friend. “Yeah,” he said, slowly, “they’ll string you along for a while in order to find out how much you know. You see, you didn’t register as knowing anything about them, but only as knowing something about Big Jim Dolovo. So Big Jim signaled them to pick you up, and turn you inside out. After you’ve been turned inside out, Big Jim Dolovo will give the word, and you’ll start pushing up daisies.”

“In the meantime,” Paul Pry said, “I think I’m going to have some very delightful evenings with Miss Vivian Goff — Merva Bond to you, Mugs.”

“Yeah, you’ll have some delightful evenings all right,” Mugs Magoo said, without enthusiasm. “Some day, she’ll draw up and yoo-hoo at you from a car. You’ll take off your hat, put on your best smirk, and trip across to say ‘Why, how do you do, Miss Goff. This is indeed a pleasure,’ and she’ll draw back a little, and someone from behind her will push the muzzle of a machine gun across her lap and blow your backbone into your coat tails.”

Paul Pry ignored the gloomy prediction. “Did you say they communicated through the personal columns?”

“Who?”

“The crooks.”

“Yes, sure. Listen, couldn’t I have another quart of whiskey just to celebrate the last time we’re sitting around in the old apartment, chatting about crooks and things?”

Paul Pry shook his head, went to the shelf where newspapers were piled, and began busying himself with the personal columns. After a while, he had segregated two messages. “Look at this, Mugs,” he said. “‘S-S. Return home. All is forgiven. Fara.’”

Mugs Magoo yawned drowsily. “Yeah, you can find all you want of those,” he said. “They keep those in type all the time. All they change are the initials and the signature.”

“And then this one,” Paul Pry said. “‘S-S. Nice to have you back. Have a fine job for you. Play ball! You always were a grandstander, so why not watch the grandstand? Time is ripe for immediate action. But must reach terms this afternoon. Day.’”

Mugs Magoo stretched back his deep chest, sucked in a lungful of air, and gave a prodigious yawn.

“That whiskey making you sleepy?” Paul Pry asked.

“Not the whiskey,” Mugs said drowsily, “and I ain’t what you call sleepy. I’m just tired. The goofy things you do is what makes me tired.”

“How about that last ad?” Paul Pry asked. “Does that sound like one addressed to Soup Scanlon?”

“Uh-huh. That’s Big Jim all right,” Mugs Magoo said, and dropped his chin on his breast while he slept.

Paul Pry opened the closet which contained his collection of drums. He could never really concentrate upon the abstract until after he had lulled his conscious senses into a state of mental tranquility through the pulsations of drums. His drum collection contained specimens gathered in various parts of the world. His particular favorite was a Japanese Shinto temple drum which is not beaten at all, but is rubbed gently around the rim until the drum, which looks like a very thin metal bowl, builds up vibrations which multiply into a resonance of rhythm. Long after the rubbing has ceased, the drum continues to pulsate in the generation of weird throbbing cadences. By following that rhythm as it fades down into silence, the Japanese worshipper is able to concentrate his attention upon the imponderables.

Paul Pry gently rubbed the drum into life, and then sat squatting on his heels, listening to the sound which pulsed into noise, died down almost into silence, then throbbed once more into audible sound. With the passing of seconds, the emanations of sound beating upon the eardrums grew momentarily fainter, although the loss in volume was almost imperceptible.

Mugs Magoo stirred. His eyelids quivered. An expression of annoyance flickered across his countenance. Slowly, his eyes opened, stared stupidly for a moment, then took on expression as the noise of the drum penetrated to his consciousness. He started to say something, then at the look of dreamy, abstract concentration on Paul Pry’s face, changed his mind and compressed his lips in an attempt to control his feelings.

Paul Pry found the throbbing sounds of primitive drums an aid to concentration. His mind hatched out his most diabolically clever schemes under the hypnotic influence of those pulsing drums. Mugs Magoo, on the other hand, hated drums, and everything which pertained to drums. Not only did the beat of tom-toms fail to lull his senses into that dreamy languor which is conducive to concentration, but his nerves reacted to the sound just as a man’s physical body at times becomes allergic to certain foods.

Twice more, Paul Pry rubbed the Japanese temple drum into sound. His face, a mask of tranquility, remained as impervious to the affairs of the material world about him as the face of a graven Sakyamuni buddha.

Mugs Magoo could stand it no longer. “For God’s sake,” he groaned, “can’t you find something else to help you concentrate? Why don’t you try scratching your fingernails along cloth or sharpen a saw, or something like that? Those damn drums set my teeth on edge, and make my nerves snarl into knots.”

Paul Pry seemingly paid no attention to the outburst. He did not look up. His eyes remained half closed, fixed in dreamy concentration upon the infinite. He said, in the toneless voice of one who is completely relaxed: “You are to become a rajah, Mugs. For three days, you will have all the whiskey you want to drink. Remember, Mugs, when we were working on Knockout Katie Standler and Percentage Pete Drumgold, I pretented that I was selecting some gems for the Rajah of Rajore?”

Mugs Magoo nodded pessimistically. “Yeah, I remember,” he said. “We got out of that case by the skin of our eyeteeth.”

“Well,” Paul Pry went on, “this time you are actually to become the Rajah of Rajore. You will wear a white turban. In the center of that white turban, will be a flaming red, pigeon-blood ruby.”

“Just a minute. Just a minute,” Mugs Magoo interposed. “What’s that ruby going to be made of?”

“That ruby,” Paul Pry said, regarding Mugs Magoo with smiling eyes, “is going to be made of the purest, finest, pigeon-blood — beer-bottle glass obtainable.”

Mugs Magoo made tasting noises with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “My mouth’s so dry,” he said, “I can’t think. But what little thinking I can do indicates to me that you’re crazy. Me, a Rajah of Rajore, a priceless piece of pigeon-blood glass in the front of my turban. Oh nuts!”

Paul Pry said: “Wait until you hear the build-up, Mugs. The newspapers will do you proud.”

“Yes, they will,” Mugs Magoo said. “They’ll expose me as a fraud and a cheat.”

“No, they won’t, Mugs. You’re to have the best suite in the Altamont Hotel. You will be waited on by several dusky, olive-skinned women with eyes that are lambent pools of romance, bodies that are willowy in their seductive—”

“Where are they coming from?” Mugs Magoo asked.

“The best-looking octoroons money can buy,” Paul Pry explained.

“Uh-huh,” Mugs Magoo said. “Go ahead. Rave on. Have your little pipe dream. When you read the headlines in the newspaper, you’ll see ’em like this: ‘Mugs Magoo, ex-cop, tries to kid public. Puts on act as fake rajah. Surrounded by octoroons, one-armed cop guzzles whiskey, tries to palm off glass gem as real ruby, and self as Rajah of Rajore. Federal men are investigating on moral’s charge. Hotel has attached baggage for bill, and grand jury threatens to indict for fraud.’”

Paul Pry laughed. “That,” he said, “might be true, if it weren’t for the buildup, Mugs. Listen to the build-up.”

He stepped to the telephone, dialed the Altamont Hotel and asked to be connected with the manager’s office. Then he said: “Will you please reserve the most expensive and exclusive suite in the house for Mr. John J. Smith. Mr. Smith will arrive late this evening. He will be accompanied by several servants. The servants, however, are not to be housed in Mr. Smith’s suite, but are to have the second most expensive suite in the house for their exclusive use. The name is Smith, John J. Smith, of Calcutta. This is Mr. Bock talking, Mr. Smith’s business agent, and I will be at the hotel within two hours to inspect the rooms and make a cash deposit sufficient to insure Mr. Smith unlimited credit for anything he may desire. Under no circumstances is Mr. Smith to be annoyed by any commercial transactions. Nor is he to be available to reporters. In fact, you will say nothing whatever to reporters about Mr. Smith’s reservations. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”

Paul Pry hung up the telephone and dialed another number. “Put me through to the city editor’s desk,” he said. “This is a red-hot tip... Hello... Listen, I’m not giving my right name because I can’t figure in it, but you can give me a number — One-two-three-four-five. Get that, One-two-three-four-five. O.K., when a messenger comes to you and says ‘One-two-three-four-five,’ you give him an envelope with some dough in it for what the tip is worth, do you get me? Now listen, this is hot... All right. You can be the judge... Now get this.

“John J. Smith of Calcutta, who is registered at the Altamont Hotel, is really the Rajah of Rajore, and the women that are with him are the wives of his harem — all modern and up-to-date. They’re registered as servants because he don’t want to have any argument about bigamy with the State authorities... Don’t take my word for it. Just do a little snooping on your own. He’s here on business, and he’s spent a wad of dough to make certain that no one knows who John J. Smith really is. This is a scoop — and incidentally, that ruby in his turban is worth a cool quarter of a million, aside from having a religious significance. The rajah can’t ever be without that in his turban, and no hands except his own can touch it. If you want a swell yarn, there it is.”

Paul Pry hung up the telephone and grinned at Mugs Magoo.

Mugs Magoo groaned. “Ain’t ft enough,” he said, “for you to make a date to start pushing up daisies, without dragging me down into the grave with you?”

“But think of those women, Mugs? Those dusky-skinned, willowy figured—”

“Nuts,” Mugs Magoo said. “Plow much whiskey do I get?”

“Two quarts a day,” Paul Pry promised.

“No soap,” Mugs Magoo said.

“Make it three,” Paul Pry conceded, “and that’s the absolute limit.”

“Let’s see,” Mugs Magoo figured orally. “Eight hours for sleep, that leaves sixteen hours. One hour for bathing, shaving, and dressing. That leaves fifteen hours. Divide fifteen hours by three bottles of whiskey, and that’s one bottle for five hours. Five hours into one bottle of whiskey goes—”

“Goes three times as far as one bottle of whiskey into fifteen hours,” Paul Pry interrupted.

Mugs Magoo heaved a tremulous sigh. “Sold,” he said.