Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, September 1956

A Pitch for Murder by Louis Trimble

Jake Parker bad an accurate throwing arm, though not as accurate as Parmer Teel — which was probably a good thing, since Teel’s carnival throws caused his murder. But then, neither of them knew that he was making—

I didn’t like the assignment. Not just because it was strictly a cheap job, but because it could backfire. I can think of little worse for a private detective, just starting out in business, than running afoul of the local cops.

However, it wasn’t a matter of choice, so. here I was strolling between the sideshows and the “games” as the carnival called them. I had twenty bucks in my pocket. It represented my advance for the job. It represented, also, every dime I owned.

The head office in Seattle had hired me as branch representative east of the mountains. They paid the office rent and gave me a cut on any case they assigned me. But that was as far as it went — the rest was strictly up to me.

So far, the rest wasn’t much. The agency had a good enough reputation, but I was an unknown as far as the local cops were concerned. The city boys weren’t so bad, but Grimsby, the sheriff, didn’t like private detectives — including one Jake Parker — myself.

Besides my difficulty with Grimsby, I was becoming financially embarrassed. I had started on a very threadbare shoestring. It had reached a point where I was tying knots in it to keep eating when the carnival hit town. Much as I disliked the job that Jim Nichols, the owner, offered, I had to take it or quit the business. So I took it.

The locus of my assignment was a “game” booth, but I was under orders to be inconspicuous, so I eased my way up there via the sideshows. Being inconspicuous was a little difficult for me. Sixty-five inches, two hundred and ten pounds and a face marked by twelve years of pro football are not easy to hide.

Like any other yokel, I stopped to gawk at the half-man, half-woman show, then drifted away. In succession, I studied the bearded lady, the genuine Hawaiian dancer and the human skeleton. By then, I was at the end of the row. I began to work my way back up the other side where the game booths were located.

There was quite a crowd gathered before one booth. It was very, very hot under the steaming sun, and the smell of roasting peanuts and sawdust mingled with a strong attar of sweating farmers. The cracked skull that had finally put me out of football was beginning to object to all this. I made things a little easier by pushing to the front of the crowd. Here I was out of the sun, under an awning.

The reason for the crowd became quickly apparent. A long, lanky farmer was being urged by his friends to pitch baseballs at pyramids of wooden milk bottles. The pitchman was giving him a good spiel, too, but the character seemed reluctant.

The pitchman was a little man, skinny, with a big adam’s apple bobbing up and down along a half-shaved neck. He wore a straw hat and showed a lot of gold teeth. They glittered in the sun when he opened his mouth to give out with the spiel.

“Knock off one set of bottles, and win a doll,” he chanted. His cane waved at the prizes shelved on either side of the booth. “Three balls for a dime. Knock off two sets of bottles, and win a beautiful, luscious, tender, sugar-cured ham. Knock off three sets, and win one of those superb big-name radios, gents.”

The “superb” radios were little kitchen models in plastic — about ten inches long, six inches wide and six deep. There were three on display, two white and one brown.

The farmers were still urging their pal to throw when the pitchman saw me. He gave me a wink with his little, black-pea eyes. “Here’s a man who’ll try! Here’s a man who looks like he could throw a mean baseball. Step right up!” He gave me the wink again.

I didn’t quite get the deal, but since this booth was my assignment, I stepped up. Besides, I thought, a radio would be a welcome addition to my two-bit office.

The pitchman took my money and handed me three baseballs. The bottles were stacked on a wooden tub with three as a base, two on top of them and one at the peak. It looked simple. It was simple — for me. I had pitched enough baseballs and footballs in my time.

My first toss hit pyramid center, with enough spin to clean the table except for one bottle lying on its side. I got that with the second pitch. The little guy set them up again, and I knocked them down again. I hesitated between taking the ham and trying for the radio, but decided the radio would last longer. I needed three balls to clean the table the last time.

The pitchman reached up and brought down the brown radio. I said, “How about a white one, pal?”

His eyes turned funny. He stood very still for a moment, then shrugged and started to turn around. I said, “Oh hell, this is good enough,” took the radio and stepped back.

My performance seemed to have inspired the farmer. He laid down a dime and picked up three baseballs. I leaned against the counter to watch. Whatever went on here wasn’t on the surface. I had the feeling the pitchman had been expecting me, from the way he handed out the wink. But that didn’t make much sense — yet.

So I stayed, looking as casual as I could, and watched the farmer, whose pals called him Teel, show professional baseball form. He clipped off three wins faster than I had, and got a nice white radio for it.

“Martha’ll sure be pleased to have this in her kitchen,” he said. He started off and came back. “Maybe I ought to get another one, so she can give it for presents.”

His friends backed him up in that. The little pitchman didn’t look too pleased, but he shrugged and nodded. Teel wound up and let go. The ball was perfect, cleaning the table. The little guy set up the bottles again and Teel knocked them down the second time.

The pitchman waved his cane. “How about a nice ham, brother?”

Someone laughed. “Teel’s got a smokehouse full of hams.”

“I want another radio,” Teel said.

“Three in a row twice is hard to hit.”

“It ain’t hard for him,” someone said. “He fanned twenty Sunnyvale batters last Sunday.”

I got a laugh out of that. The pitchman didn’t, though. He wasn’t enjoying the prospect of facing the local baseball hotshot. His stock could go fast against a setup like this.

Now the little guy was looking over the crowd, past my shoulder. I saw his eyes widen, then swing to me. They were small eyes, very dark, and suddenly there was a mean look in them.

He said, “How about resting while someone else tries?”

“I feel like pitching,” Teel said.

A man of about my width, but a head shorter, pushed forward. I recognized him as an unsavory bar-bum I had seen drifting around town at times.

“Lemme pitch a couple,” he said. “You been here all afternoon, bud.”

Teel looked down at this character and away. He resumed rubbing the ball he held. The heavy-set guy gave him an elbow. “I said, move over.”

The farmer wasn’t having any. “I got here first.”

There was a nasty look on the wide man’s face. It was a slightly battered face, like mine. But where my nose was bent twice, his was flattened to one side of his face. His ears were cauli-flowered, too. He looked as if he would enjoy getting tough about it.

“Bud, you just step aside...”

The whole group of farmers shifted their weight, and a soft sound, like a sighing wind, rose from them. They began to close in. It was very nice teamwork. I thought, You guys aren’t smart. Farmers haven’t been yokels for thirty years now.

It was obvious to me, and evidently to the farmers, too. The heavy boy was a shill, and the attendant wanted him up there very badly.

The attendant wasn’t quite as stupid as he looked. He said, “Let him shoot, friend. He says he’s hot.” Their eyes met, and the wide boy nodded and stepped back. The sigh went through the crowd again, and they relaxed a little. The farmer wound up and pitched.

It was perfect, just like the first one. The bottles jumped and rocked, but when they had settled, two still stood, one on either end. It was like a split in bowling. The farmer blinked and spat and took another ball. He wound up and got a strike on the left one. It just leaned over, wobbled, and came back. So he had one ball left and the same split to work on.

“You see that!” one wag said. “Jumped off and right back on. You got ’em trained, mister?”

“Tough luck,” the attendant said. “One ball to go.”

I leaned over the counter. I caught the pitchman by the front of his shirt and lifted him six inches off the ground.

“Friend,” I said softly, “give the man two balls and take your hand off that magnet.”

His little black eyes popped out and the meanness narrowed his mouth. “Who in hell are you?” I thought he looked a little sick.

I shook him, but not too roughly. “Want me to say it louder, chum?” I said. “Set the man up a square table this time.”

The little attendant opened his mouth and breathed stale beer at me. Before he could do anything cute like yelling, “Hey, rube,” I pushed a gentle hand against his face. “Now behave,” I told him.

The heavy-set character was beginning to ease my way. I heard the crowd stir again. I jerked the attendant up a few more inches. “It’s thirty against two here, chum.”

He was beginning to look worried, but then he must have seen something over my shoulder. He shook his head sideways, getting free of my hand, and bawled.

Someone conked me from behind. I dropped the little guy and folded over the counter, rolled, and came up with my back to it. My head hurt in the old way, making me sick to my stomach, but I was sore, too — a little too sore to know exactly what I was doing. A roustabout was there, swinging a big stick. The heavy boy had closed in on the other side.

I made a grab for the guy with the stick. He swung again, thumping my shoulder. I had two hands on his neck when the shill jumped me. The farmers got into action then. All I could see were feet and knees and swirling dust. I was on the bottom, hanging onto the guy who had sapped me. But from the sounds, I knew it had turned into a general riot.

Someone blew a whistle then, and a siren screamed nearby. I lay there, after knocking my man silly and using him to cover me from random feet. After a while, the mob thinned and daylight began to appear. When the dust had settled, the cops were in control.

This was outside the city limits, so the sheriff’s office had the say. I saw Grimsby, old Poo-bah himself, and wished I were somewhere else. Just as I feared, the job had backfired.

“I should have known,” he said, “you’d be in this.”

“They pulled the magnet gag on some farmer,” I said. “I objected.”

The pitchman and his shill were backed up against the counter, looking very unhappy. The remains of the farmers, about twenty-five, were lined up at right angles. About a dozen carny helpers were there, too. Finally, a dapper little man in ice-cream pants came clicking up.

“Here, what’s the trouble, officer.”

This was Jim Nichols, the man who had hired me. It was his twenty bucks I carried in my pocket. He spotted me, but his eyes said they didn’t know me. I returned the compliment.

The dust had settled, most of it in my mouth from the way it felt, and things were beginning to clear in my mind. The wallop on the head hadn’t been quite as tough as I had thought. I stepped forward and repeated my story to Nichols.

He turned on the rat-faced attendant. “That’s twice I’ve had complaints about you, Ormes. Is this true?”

The sheriff said, “Don’t you know how your own games are run?”

Nichols bridled like a nipped dog. “Sheriff, I rent out these concessions. I am not responsible for the actions of these men.”

Ormes, the pitchman, said, “This farmer got greedy. He won a radio and wanted another. I can’t let no rube Bob Feller clean out my stock, can I?”

“If he wins on a game of chance, you can,” the sheriff said.

I shook my head to get the last of the buzzing out. “I suggested he let the farmer do that second one all over again.”

Grimsby looked from Nichols to Ormes. “If you ain’t beat him up too bad, let him try.”

Ormes looked like he wanted to squawk, but one glare from Nichols stopped him. When Grimsby added, “Or we lock you up,” he set up the bottles.

I went right after him and checked them. It looked all wood, this table. But a closer check showed iron insets painted the color of the table top. Some of the bottles had iron insets, too. I showed the setup to Grimsby.

The farmers didn’t like it a bit, but they cheered when the sheriff found the electric cable that ran from the stand to the push-button on the counter. He gave a yank and disconnected the works.

“Now throw, Teel,” he said. He was grinning, too, pleased with himself. “Make like that’s Sunnyvale up there.”

Teel was still in one piece, as long and as lugubrious as ever. He wound up, pitched and got a strike. The bottles flew off their table on the first pitch. He stood there after he had made it and looked at Ormes, not smiling.

Ormes reached up and got the last radio, a white plastic one. He handed it over, not happily. Teel tucked both radios under his arm and moved off. “Thanks,” he said.

He turned and came back to me. “You, too,” he added. His sun-faded blue eyes were speculative. “But I don’t know why you did it.”

“I don’t like to see a man cheated,” I said.

He pointed to a bruise on my face. “No more do I. Come on and have a beer on me.”

I did, carrying my radio. This carny was no place for Jake Parker at the moment, anyway. We found a tavern on the edge of the grounds and, with about five other farm boys tagging along, went inside. It was cool and pleasant. So was the beer.

Teel seemed pleased with his prizes. “I’d have liked a brown one,” he said. “Then Martha could choose which color she wanted to keep.”

I took the hint. “It doesn’t matter to me,” I said, and swapped for one of his white radios. That done, I thanked him for the beer and went back to my office.

I had done my job — maybe not with the finesse Nichols wanted, but I had done it. He had offered me fifty to find out what was wrong with Ormes’ pitch — twenty down and thirty when the job was finished. I had thirty bucks still coming.

Nichols walked in, not an hour later. I was smoking a six-cent cigar and winding up another beer when he clipped into the room. He looked as dapper as usual, despite the heat.

He also looked mad. “You sure messed hell out of things,” he said.

My hand was out for the thirty bucks. I pulled it back, empty, and laid it on the desk top. “I found out, didn’t I?”

Nichols snorted. “Found out he used magnets. That’s an ancient gag. Do I pay fifty bucks to learn that?”

“You said, ‘Find out what he’s up to,’ ” I reminded him.

“Find out — yes,” he squawked. “And why. Would he cause a riot to save a ten-buck radio?”

“You want a lot for your fifty,” I said.

He rocked back and forth on his toes. “If you can’t do it, I’ll get someone who can.”

That thirty bucks due me looked very, very big. The twenty I had would help for a while, but I need to eat. I also needed a little rep as a good detective. Starting a riot wasn’t doing it. Not with Grimsby.

“All right,” I said.

Nichols marched out. I leaned back, wearily, to check over what I knew and try to fit it into a sensible answer. Why would a punk like Ormes raise such hell over a lousy little radio?

I took the radio I had won and gave it a good going over. There was nothing inside but cheap tubes and wiring. I plugged it into the wall and it played — not good, but it played.

At dark, I went out to eat. I came back, thinking so hard about it that I was inside the office door before I realized anything was wrong. I remembered the odd way Ormes had acted over the radios, but it didn’t make much sense, no matter how I twisted it in my mind.

What I stepped into did make sense. The office was dark, but I wasn’t alone in it. I had one hand reaching for the light switch when I heard the footfall, a light, near-inaudible sound.

I dropped my hand away from the wall and went for my gun. Something hard rammed into my belly, driving me backward. I clawed and got nothing. I rolled over as I hit the floor and came up swinging. For the second time that day, someone conked me. This time it was a good job. I sensed it coming, but couldn’t duck fast enough. Lightning exploded in my brain. I went down and out.

I came to, feeling like the wrong end of a six-day drunk. I was still in the office. Carefully, I got to my feet and wobbled to the door. I turned the light on this time and made it to the wash-stand. Cold water helped a little, and I staggered to my desk. A shot of whiskey from the bottle in my drawer helped a little more. After a while, I could look around and see what had happened.

It was senseless for anyone to knock over my office. There had never been anything in it. I made a quick check. My few files were still intact. My desk hadn’t been disturbed. Everything was the same. Then I got it...

The radio was missing!

I remembered what Nichols had said — that Ormes wouldn’t have started a riot over a ten-buck radio. But Ormes had — and he had carried it one step farther. My aching head was proof of that.

Still, I was no further along than I had been. The big why was still unanswered.

At ten o’clock, I was still sitting there, still as far as ever from an answer. The agony in my head was subsiding, however, and the rattle of the doorknob only made me groan. I got up and answered it.

Grimsby came in, looking sore as hell, “I hear you saw this farmer, Teel.”

“He bought me a beer.”

“Was he drunk?”

I said, “No. He wasn’t that kind. He wanted to get home to his Martha with the radios.” Grimsby’s pulled-down mouth worried me more than usual. “What’s wrong?”

“Teel didn’t get home,” he said. “He killed himself halfway there.”

That was like getting a third conk on the head. I stared at Grimsby, my mouth hanging open. He fed the details to me in capsule form. Teel had got his pickup truck and headed over the hills for home. Halfway there he had to drive down a graveled hill and cross a wooden bridge. He had evidently lost control of the truck and hit the bridge railing. The car had crashed through, dropping thirty feet into a pothole in the river. Teel had drowned.

Grimsby concluded, “That guy drives that road week after week, snow or rain or what have you. It don’t make sense.”

But it was beginning to make sense — at least for me. For the first time, I was getting some ideas. They began to come quick and fast. I almost said something aloud, and then I realized Grimsby hadn’t come up here just to tell me about Teel.

Instead of blurting out everything, I said, “Why come to me?”

“You,” Grimsby said, “started the riot.”

“I told you about that.”

He ignored me. “Some of the farm boys told me how you waltzed in and won the first radio. Were you shilling for Ormes, maybe?”

“Hell, no! I just wanted a radio.”

Grimsby grunted. I knew what was biting him. He didn’t like me to begin with, so he was hoping to connect me with this trouble some way. He came right out and said it. “I got ideas,” he told me. “If I find you’re hooked up in this, Parker, you’re through around here.”

He turned and strode out, still sore. I listened to his footsteps recede, then I grabbed my phone. I was connected with the “trouble,” all right — more than I liked, perhaps. But if what I thought was the truth, I wasn’t going to let Grimsby, or anyone else, scare me away. I was getting good and sore myself.

I called the head office and gave them instructions, telling them to wire the answer. If this was a cold lead, they’d take the expenses out of my hide, I knew that. But it had to be done. I hung up. Then I got my hat and set it gingerly on my aching head. There were still a few things I wanted to know.

I walked carefully, to make sure Grimsby didn’t have a tail on me. As far as I could tell, I was clear when I got to the carny grounds. The show was still going strong. I found Nichols in his railway-car office and went in. He looked worried and unhappy.

“Did you hear?” he asked me.

“I heard,” I said. I sat down and studied him. “You’ve pussyfooted long enough. I want to know just why you had me put the bite on Ormes.” I was sore.

Nichols got up nervously and checked to see that his shades were drawn. When he sat down, he was sweating and not quite so dapper. “Trouble,” he muttered. “Nothing but trouble! In every town, it’s some little thing. But this is the worst. We’re jinxed, Parker. This winds it up — a suicide.”

I let that last item pass. “Give me a list of these troubles,” I said.

Nichols was vague. Troubles, to a carny man, are nine-tenths superstition. He could read an in-grown toenail as a bad omen. But I got enough to know he was scared of his own shadow — enough to give me a lead.

I said, “I can clear it up for you, but it’ll cost another zero on that fifty you hired me for.” He squawked, but I hung on. “I’m sticking my professional and personal neck out,” I told him. “Take it or leave it.”

He took it — and paid half in advance. I went out fast after that. Getting in my car, I headed out the county highway. In about two miles, it turned from concrete to gravel. Three more miles, and I came to the top of the long hill. Here I stopped. It was all silent below, though, so I drove on.

The bridge rail was still shattered, and a red warning lantern glowed alongside. That was the only sign. Pulling the car off the road, I got my flashlight and made a quick survey. I saw where they had worked, going for the body and the car. What I needed, I thought, was a nice cooling swim.

I stripped in the bushes, along the riverside and dived into the pothole. The water wasn’t too bad, and I kept on diving. It wasn’t much fun, feeling around in the dark water, but when I clamped my hand on the first radio, I knew it was worth it.

Despite the cool water, I was sweating a little when I got through. I had a whole shore full of stuff to look at. There were a lot of groceries, and the two radios. These were all that I wanted. I squatted there in the dark and turned my light on them.

For a minute, it didn’t register. They were just two white plastic radios. And then it hit me and I almost let out a whoop. I was on the right track.

Dressed, I took the radios in the car and drove back to town. There was a fat wire under the office door, and I spread it open after locking myself in. What I wanted to know was there.

The carnival had hit twelve good-sized towns on its summer-long trip. Ours was one of the last. At each stop, there had been a nice heist. The details were all there. In one place, it had been jewels from a charity ball, in another, a fancy store had been knocked over. In another, a bank messenger had been found rolled in a ditch. On it went, and every one was still listed as unsolved.

It was fifteen minutes to midnight. I barreled out to the carny and got to Ormes’ booth just under the wire. He was there. A last customer and his girl friend were walking off with a kewpie doll. The midway was almost empty. The barkers were silent, and the peanut machines had been stilled. The merry-go-round still tinkled away in the distance, but it sounded tired.

I said, “Give me three, chum.”

Ormes recognized me, and his eyes narrowed. “Check it,” he said shortly. “You done enough damage for one day.”

I smiled at him and picked up the baseballs. He opened his mouth. I lost my smile. “You really want to make trouble?” I asked him. “Maybe I should get Nichols over here — or the sheriff again.”

His mouth shut. I wound up and started pitching. There was no magnet this time. I was tired, but by being careful, I racked up three wins. “A radio,” I said.

There were two on the shelf. Ormes reached up and got one, a brown plastic job. I said, “Not that one.” He shrugged and got the other. I said, “No. I want one just like the number you swiped from my office.”

I could hear his quick inhale. He swung around, in a swift, catlike pivot, and pitched the radio at my head, I ducked and started over the counter after him. He slipped aside and hit a light switch with his hand. The booth was clamped by darkness.

I went after him, but he made it through a door into the rear part of the stand. I got in myself when a gun blasted. The bullet made a swift, angry sound as it went by my ear. I got my own gun out and hit the floor. Ormes was moving in back somewhere. I could hear a box tip, and I fired at it. His answering shot kicked dirt into my face. I returned the favor and heard him swear.

Then all hell broke loose. I could hear them coming from front and the rear. In a moment, the lights came on, blindingly. I stood up, my hands high, as a big deputy walked in and leveled a gun on me. Grimsby was right behind him.

They hauled Ormes upright. His right shoulder was shattered, but that was all. He was still alive. Grimsby looked from him to me.

“This about winds you up, Parker,” he said. I must have looked stupid, because he added, “Think we’re suckers? I’ve had a tail on you all the time. I don’t know what you and your pal here fought about, but I’ll find out soon enough.”

It was my turn to talk and fast. I said, “If you want the answer, look in some of those boxes marked radios.” I lowered one hand long enough to fish out the wire I had got. I gave it to Grimsby.

I went on, “Don’t you get it? Ormes and some friends are in the fence racket. They move into a town, and jewels, or bills of big denomination, are stolen. Then Ormes puts them in dummy radio tubes. At another town along the line, a hand-picked shill steps up and wins a radio — one of the specials. He takes the dummy tubes out and puts in real ones. Any check on the radio shows nothing wrong. But when he breaks the dummies open, he has the loot from the heist job back down the line. He fences it for the organization.”

Grimsby studied the wire. Then he studied me. Finally, looked at Ormes. The little pitchman wasn’t saying anything. But his eyes were hating me plenty.

I said, “The shill here was a guy with a battered face. When I walked up, Ormes thought I was the one. So, when I won a radio so easily, he gave me the special. He caused the riot because the real shill walked up then, and Ormes realized I wasn’t his man after all. He wanted to swap sets on me under cover of the noise. But the farm boys moved too fast for him. His next best bet was to swipe it out of my office before I got wise to anything.

“The only trouble was, he didn’t know I’d swapped my brown set with Teel in exchange for a white one. When he found that out, he added things up and went after Teel.

“There,” I said, “is the guy who sent Teel off the bridge. He hid in Teel’s truck. When he saw his chance, he clipped Teel and took over. Maybe he wasn’t planning on murder, but that’s the way it turned out.”

“Sounds nice,” said Grimsby, “but can you prove it?”

What a thick skull he had! “Sure,” I said. “When I went diving, I brought up two radios — both white plastic. But Teel had started home with one white one and the brown set I gave him. Ormes, here, did too good a job, trying to make his murder look accidental.”

Ormes cut loose then. He took a swipe at one of the deputies’ guns, got his hand on it and sent a shot at me. He was off balance, and the bullet only nicked my leg. I lowered my hands and went for him. Grimsby’s gun made a flat sound. By the time I hit Ormes, he was already going limp.

Grimsby had nothing more to say. He began breaking open radio boxes. In every third one, we found dummy tubes. In the dummy tubes was the finest collection of diamonds and emeralds and thousand-dollar banknotes a man would ever want to see. When the stuff was all laid out, we could only stand and stare.

Grimsby took a deep breath. “You win, Parker. I wasn’t wrong about private cops, but I guess maybe I was wrong about one of them.”

I thought of what could have happened if he hadn’t tailed me and been there when the shooting started.

I said, “If it’s okay with you, sheriff, just keep right on not trusting me. I’m beginning to like having cops for bodyguards.”

“In that case,” he said, “I’ll take you home myself.”

I took a good radio along. I figured I’d earned it.