Night and Fear

Chapter I The Errand Boy

Tommy the Twitch came out and said, “Okay, the Boss is ready for you, you can go ahead in now.” He pointed one uncontrollably-shaking hand over his shoulder at the room behind him.

The thin, inoffensive-looking young fellow they both called The Errand Boy dropped the newspaper he had been pretending to read and got up without having to be told twice. He looked a little scared. He always was when the Boss sent for him like this.

“He ain’t sore about anything—” he started to ask.

“He ain’t sore,” said Tommy tersely, “just wants to say hello to you.” Tommy the Twitch said that each time, said the Boss just wanted to say hello to him. Then the Boss always had some little thing or other that he wanted The Errand Boy to do for him, never anything much, but almost always it was something The Errand Boy couldn’t understand the meaning of.

He knew better than to ask, though. That would have gotten the Boss sore at him, and if the Boss ever got sore he could send him back to jail. He’d said so himself plenty often.

It was in jail that they’d first met, The Errand Boy and the Boss. He’d been in for theft, that time his mother and the kids didn’t have anything to eat in the house, and the Boss had been in for being unjustly accused of killing somebody. The Boss got out much sooner of course — as soon as his lawyer got around to proving that it was all a mistake. When The Errand Boy was let out he sort of naturally gravitated toward him. In fact the Boss let him know that it was due to him that The Errand Boy had been let out a little ahead of his full term, and he shouldn’t forget it.

After that, by not quite getting the Boss’ orders straight once or twice, he had unwittingly made himself liable to another sentence, overstepped the line of the law. The Boss would never explain in what way, though. “Just a technicality,” he’d say, and give Tommy the wink. The Errand Boy knew that as long as he stayed in good with the Boss, everything would be okay.

He went in to the Boss’ private room and Tommy the Twitch closed the door and came in after him.

The Boss had been rolling cigarettes or something, and was just putting a very small bottle away in the drawer under him when The Errand Boy came in. The Boss usually only smoked the most expensive Havana cigars. It was funny, him rolling cigarettes, but this was another of those things it was wiser not to ask questions about.

On the table in front of the Boss was a flat tin of cigarettes, the ready-made kind that come by fifties, with a handful scooped out. There were also a pair of nail scissors, a small eye-dropper, some wooden toothpicks, a little bottle of mucilage, a great many grains of spilled tobacco, and a quantity of spoiled cigarette papers — which is why The Errand Boy thought the Boss had been rolling cigarettes. Lastly there was a brand new but not very expensive looking flat enamel cigarette case, with The Errand Boy’s own initials, E. D., Eddie Dean, stamped up in one corner.

The Boss swept everything off the table into the drawer but the initialed case, then turned to The Errand Boy and held out his hand in his friendly, cheery way like he always did.

“Hello, Eddie,” he said. “Glad to see you. Sit down.”

Tommy the Twitch, who was always with the Boss, shoved forward a chair, like an executioner, for Eddie. A bullet had done something to his spinal cord and he never stopped shaking. Eddie sat as near to the edge of it as he could without falling off.

The Boss pivoted on one elbow and smiled benignly at Eddie. Then he said, “Eddie, I’ve got a little present for you,” and picked up the flat case from the table and showed it to him. “Notice how you work it.”

He pressed the catch with his thumb, and instead of opening up the way most cases do, a single cigarette shot up at the top of it, ready to be pulled out. “Tricky little gadget, isn’t it?” the Boss grinned. He opened it with his thumbnail, carefully patted the protruding cigarette back in line, then clicked it shut.

Eddie stammered his thanks. He didn’t smoke, but this was no time to bring that up; the Boss was in good humor, was highly pleased with him, to treat him this way. But it turned out the Boss knew that, anyway, like he knew everything else.

“You don’t smoke, do you, Eddie?”

“N-no,” Eddie faltered, afraid of getting him sore, “I can’t on account of my bellows—”

“I know you don’t,” the Boss told him enigmatically, “that’s why I’m giving you this.” He looked down at it for awhile and seemed to change the subject “That guy — that Mr. Miller, that I told you to strike up an acquaintanceship with about a month ago — how you getting along with him?”

“He don’t warm up to people very easy. He seems to be sort of—” Eddie groped for the right word, “sort of a suspicious guy; sort of leery of people. Then another thing, he’s always got three or four guys with him and they won’t let you get very near him.”

“He thinks you want some sort of favor out of him,” the Boss prodded, “some sort of job or graft, isn’t that it?”

“Yeah, like you told me to,” Eddie nodded.

The Boss stroked his chin, as though he were anxious to help Eddie solve his problem of getting close to Mr. Miller, when as a matter of fact it had been the Boss’ own suggestion to start with.

“He’s a big shot, Eddie,” he said softly. “You want to get in good with him; get on the right side of him. Did you offer to stand him and his friends a round of drinks last time, like I told you to?”

“They let me,” said Eddie simply. “Only they laughed about it, like they knew I didn’t have much money. One of them followed me home afterwards, I saw him from my room.”

“That’s all right. That’s just so they could be sure who you were,” the Boss reassured him. “Tell you what you do, you go back there again tonight. I want you to keep on being nice to this guy Miller. Stand him and his crowd another round of drinks. Pass around your cigarettes—” he stopped and tapped the case slowly for emphasis, “only whatever you do, be sure you offer Miller one first before you do the others. If he’s got one in his hand, wait till he’s through with it before you offer yours. Don’t give anyone ahead of him — he’s likely to get sore at that. Got it? And if he refuses, don’t offer anybody else, but wait until he’ll take one from you later on. Keep offering until he takes one — the first one in the case.”

Eddie pondered, screwed up his courage, finally went to the unparalleled length of asking a question on his own hook. “But... but suppose he gets feeling good-natured and asts me what the favor is I’m sucking around for? What’ll I say it is? You ain’t told me what to ast for?”

A spasm of white rage flickered across the Boss’ face for a moment. Eddie, of course, didn’t know it wasn’t meant for him. “He won’t ask you, no danger! If his own mother was drowning he’d pitch a glass of water in her face.” He shoved the case at Eddie, stripped a ten-spot off a hefty roll. “This buys the drinks. Now get going and remember what I told you — see that Miller takes a cigarette from you if you gotta stick with him all night, and see that he gets first choice ahead of any of the others. Another thing, if he asks you, you bought the case yourself. You paid two-fifty for it at Dinglemann’s. Now stay with all I been telling you and see that you get it right!”

Eddie slipped the case inside his coat, folded the ten-spot to a postage stamp and tucked it into his watch pocket, stood up.

“Gee, thanks, Boss,” he stammered. “Thanks a lot for the sawbuck and the present,” he murmured gratefully. Aiming to please, to show that he was worthy of the Boss’ confidence, he ventured, “Want me to give you a ring after I leave them, so you can be sure I done what you told me?”

A look of saturnine amusement appeared on both their faces, Tommy’s and the Boss’. “Okay, lemme hear from you afterwards,” the Boss consented, and Tommy added something that sounded like, “if you’re not too far away.”

As the door closed after Eddie, they both roared with laughter.

“He’ll ring up from hell,” choked Tommy, “wonder what the toll charges are?”

“That’s what’s so beautiful about it,” agreed the Boss. “There’s no use trying to get Miller any other way — you saw what happened those last two times. Since my mouthpiece sprang me out of the pen last year, I don’t think Miller even goes to the bathroom without his bodyguard. But this way, you can’t even pin it on me afterwards. Instead of stopping to think that maybe they could beat something out of that chump just went out of here if they saved him long enough, the whole bunch is going to lose their heads when they see what happens to Miller and plug him so full of holes it’ll set some new kind of a record. Then they’ll have a fat chance of getting him to talk!”

He gazed complacently at the chair The Errand Boy had recently been sitting on. “How can anyone be that dumb and live? I hadn’t been talking to him five minutes up in the pen, when I knew he was going to come in handy some day. He’s even got the right kind of a face to go with this job — so absolutely harmless that even Miller, y’notice, will let him stand next to him taking a drink. He’s a natural. And he thanks me yet — for putting him in the way of committing suicide!” He shook with huge enjoyment; so did Tommy, but then he was always shaking anyway.

“C’mon, get your lid,” said the Boss, getting up, “We’ll kill a coupla hours at the Naughty Club, invite a couple of the dolls to sit with us, break glasses, kick up a row about the service, let everybody know we’re there.”

“I can hardly wait,” smiled Tommy, snapping the brim of his felt down to his mouth, “for the midnight papers to hit the stands. Ain’t we going to be surprised!”

Eddie Dean was whistling as he trudged along Lorillard Avenue, hands in his pockets, on his errand. He was glowing with self-satisfaction and relief; the Boss was pleased with him, the Boss had shaken his hand and made him a present of a cig-case, he had cheated the axe that was always hanging over him one more time.

It hung by a thread, made his life miserable. Each time he was sent for, he was afraid it was coming down. Each time he came away again, like now, it meant he was spared for another two, three weeks. The summonses never came any more often than that. But of course to earn his new reprieve, to make sure of staying in good with the Boss that much longer, he’d have to carry out his orders to the letter tonight.

He was a simple soul, asking only to stay out of jail for something that he wasn’t even sure of having done, much less being able to tell what it was. “A technicality—” the sound of it froze him. Do just what he was told to, that was the only way to ward it off. Each time he came to a street crossing he took one hand out of his trouser and touched the enamel case in his coat pocket and the ten dollars wedged in his watch pocket to make sure they were both still there. Couldn’t carry out orders if he lost either one of them.

Once he reached out, wet his thumb, and touched a lamppost in passing; that was to bring him luck. This Miller, whom he had to be nice to tonight, and to whom he must never mention knowing the Boss, lived downtown with those friends of his in a big flashy hotel. Eddie had overheard a bellboy say once that they’d hired an entire floor, to keep other people at a respectable distance, and had made arrangements that only one elevator was ever to stop at that floor — and then only when one of Miller’s gang were using it.

Eddie couldn’t go up there, of course. But once in awhile they came down to the smaller of the two bars, especially late in the evening when there was no one much in it, and it was there he’d worked up a sort of speaking acquaintance with Miller. After they’d taken a good look at his face they’d laughed and let him stay in there with them when everyone else was sort of hinted out by the barmen. And the last time, when he’d warmed himself up to the point of inviting them all to a drink, it seemed to strike them very funny and they all spoke up and ordered milk and root beer, without, of course, drinking those things.

He turned off Lorillard into Franklin, which led straight down toward the hotel. It had been a little after eleven-thirty when he left the Boss’ place, but he still had plenty of time. When Miller came down at all, it was never until well past twelve. No use getting there too soon; he didn’t care enough about drinking to stand doing it by himself waiting for them to show up. The more he saved out of the ten-spot, the more he’d have for himself after he carried out the Boss’ instructions.

There was plenty of vacant lots this far out; the Boss’ place was in a sort of semi-detached suburb. Then after awhile as he went along it started to get more built-up. But it was already pretty late, the streets were dead even when he got down into the heart of town. Twelve o’clock tolled from some church steeple just as he was within two blocks of the hotel; he could already see it rearing up ahead of him in the darkness.

The cigar-store on the next-to-the-last corner was still lighted up inside, but the lights outside flicked out as he came abreast of it. What attracted his attention to it was a man standing outside the locked door pounding angrily on the wire-laced glass and gesticulating to the clerk who was still visible behind the counter. The clerk was shaking his head, wouldn’t make a move.

Eddie stopped to watch and the man turned and saw him.

“He couldn’t get away with this!” he said wrathfully. “I’m gonna get in there if I have to break the door down! If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to lock up, I coulda made it before twelve. He locked up ahead of time, five-to, and now look at him standing there doing nothing!”

The clerk callously snapped off the remaining light and disappeared toward the back. “Can’t it wait till the morning?” suggested Eddie mildly.

The man shoved his hat to the back of his head, turned from the door in despair. “I go crazy if I’m stuck like this without a cigarette — can’t go to sleep.” He jabbed his thumb at three lighted windows on the top floor of a Hat opposite. “I live right across the way there; we had company tonight and musta used them all up. Anyway I didn’t find I’d run out of cigarettes until five minutes ago. I beat it down here and he puts on the lock right under my nose—” He broke off short. “Say, you haven’t got one on you, have you? Just one’ll tide me over.”

Chapter II The Wrong Victim

Eddie had, for probably the first time in his life, or at least since he’d gotten the con up in jail. He hesitated just momentarily, but since Miller wasn’t there to see, there didn’t seem to be any danger of offending him by offering anyone else a cigarette ahead of him. Later, in Miller’s own presence, of course, he would make sure of giving him first pick, ahead of his friends, so as not to belittle him.

It is, incidentally, the hardest of all requests to refuse — and the anxious look on the man’s face showed he had the addiction pretty bad. Eddie took out the new case, pressed the lever, and a cigarette shot up at the end.

The man took it, stowed it in his breast pocket. “You’re a life saver,” he thanked him.

Eddie looked at him, pressed the lever a second time and another one showed up. “Take a couple with you,” he said, “one for the morning.” He’d seen how many were in it, there were more than enough left to go around; Miller never had more than four friends with him and Eddie himself didn’t smoke.

The second one went to join the first in the man’s upper pocket. He said good night, and Eddie watched him cross the street and disappear into the flat with the three lighted windows. He shook his head, put the case away in his pocket and went the rest of the way toward his destination.

They were in the bar already when he got there, Miller and his three cohorts. Everyone else had been switched to the larger bar across the lobby as usual, but Eddie stepped in unhesitatingly. The barman tried to head him off but Miller spoke up:

“Well if it ain’t Aloysius! That’s all right, let him stay, we need some comic relief in here.”

Eddie grinned sheepishly and said, “Good evening, gents. Uh-uh-uh-rye highball, but not too much rye.”

The laugh that went up drowned out the rest of it and he had to repeat himself so the barman could hear him. “And find out what the rest of the gents will have.”

Miller killed his drink, winked, and said, “Uh-uh-uh-sarsaparilla for me.” He banged his hand down. “I don’t care if I do get drunk!” Another roar went up.

Eddie went over and deliberately moved in next to him. Miller insolently snapped an imaginary grain of dust off his shoulder, said, “That’s all right, screwball, you’re all right at that!”

The man on the other side of Eddie coolly patted him all the way down one side, then down the other. Eddie hoisted his elbows, stood perfectly still till he was through.

“What’d you expect to find on him,” said Miller, “a water-pistol?”

They all had their drinks on Eddie, and when Miller saw him carefully stowing away the change from the ten-dollar-bill he asked curiously, “What do you do with yourself all day, punch-drunk?”

“N-nothing,” said Eddie, “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Miller.”

Miller said, “See my lawyer,” and turned his back on him.

They all ignored Eddie for awhile after that, and when they re-ordered left him out. Eddie waited for awhile, then took out his cigarette case, held it halfway toward Miller.

“Care for a smoke?” he said. Miller turned back toward him brusquely.

“Quit trying to play up to me,” he snapped. “It ain’t gonna get you a thing—” A cigarette popped up and he took it and put it in his mouth while he was speaking, “—make up your mind to that! Well, how about a light?” Eddie put the case down, struck a match, and Miller smothered his face in a puff of carefully aimed smoke. Eddie had a spasm of coughing that seemed to tear his chest in two; he choked down on it, afraid of antagonizing Miller.

Meanwhile the fellow on the other side of him had picked the case up, helped himself, and passed it on. They all tried the trick mechanism in turn, and by the time it had reached the third one it was already broken. He sent it skating back along the bar toward Eddie with the remark, “Why don’t you get yourself a good one?”

Miller took hold of it, looked at it, and said, “Where did you pick this up, outa the ashcan?”

“I got it at Dinglemann’s for two-fifty,” memorized Eddie.

“Remind me not to go there and get one like it,” Miller said to his nearest henchman. He deliberately dropped it on the floor, and when Eddie reached down to get it, his foot sent it coasting along toward the next man. They would have made quite a game out of it, only Eddie quit trying to retrieve it after the first attempt. He straightened up and sighed patiently. “It don’t feel playful,” commented Miller, and once again they all ignored him.

Miller smoked the cigarette Eddie had given him down to within a half-inch of his thumbnail, dropped it, and stepped on it. “How about adjourning?” he said, and they all filed out, one on each side of him, one in back of him, without saying goodnight to Eddie. The last one to leave, however, in passing behind Eddie, tried to startle him by perpetrating a gesture that doesn’t bear repetition. The barman howled appreciatively, then looked at Eddie, whose face bore no resentment, shut up and turned away ashamed.

As soon as they were gone Eddie picked up his cigarette case and went out to one of the telephone booths in the lobby. He called the Boss’ private number and there was no answer, Tommy and the Boss must be out. He sat down to wait for them to come back. He wanted to report that he’d done just what he’d been told to do before he went back to his room for the night.

Tommy and the Boss came home much earlier than they’d intended to.

“No sense hanging around that lousy joint any longer than we did,” the Boss remarked. “We were there, and everybody saw us, so that’s all that matters.”

Tommy had just turned in on the day-bed outside his chief’s door, when the phone buzzed. He got up again swearing and went over to it. Annoyance became stupefaction; he nearly dropped the receiver in surprise. It was Eddie. The guy was still alive!

“The Boss there?” Eddie asked humbly. “I just wanted him to know I did what he told me to. I’m going home now.”

Tommy had to park the phone and sit down in front of it to hold it straight. “Why you — what’d you do, fumble it?” he snarled.

“I bought ’em all a round of drinks and I offered Miller a cigarette first, and then all the others helped themselves,” wailed Eddie, “just like I was supposed.”

“And Miller smoked his?” Tommy snapped.

“Down to the end, I watched him with my own eyes—”

“How long ago was this?” Tommy interrupted, his face a livid grimace. It was just as well Eddie couldn’t see it at the other end.

“About ten minutes ago,” Eddie insisted. Something was wrong, and he could feel the axe dangling over his head again just when he thought he’d staved it off.

Tommy asked just one more question. “And what happened to Miller after he smoked it?” he snarled.

“He finished it, stepped on it, and went upstairs—”

“You lousy stumblebum, you’re lying through your teeth!” Tommy roared out, and rage at what he considered the underling’s transparent deceit getting the better of discretion, he added: “D’you know what was in that cigarette? Cyanide of potassium!”

Eddie gave a heave at the other end that carried clear across the wire. “Now are ya going to tell me what you did with it? The Boss is asleep in there, but wait’ll he hears about this! I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. He’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born!”

Eddie was nearly going insane at the other end. “As God is my witness, I saw him take it and I even lit it for him my—”

“Don’t try to tell me he got the right one! He woulda dropped like a log right at your feet long before he finished it! The cyanide was in a gelatin capsule in with the tobacco and the heat woulda melted it and the suction carried it into his mouth. You crummy, double-crossing punk, what’d you do with it?”

“I... I—” Only the narrowness of the booth kept Eddie from falling to his knees with fright. Terror of Tommy and the Boss was still uppermost in his mind though, ahead of another terror that hadn’t been identified yet. Anything was better than admitting he’d given the cigarette away of his own accord, bungled the thing by a positive action.

“—I musta dropped it going over,” he panted desperately. “I... I tried the catch on the thing to see how it worked, I remember now. Maybe it’s still there, maybe I can find it again — I’ll go back and look. Gimme a chance, will ya, Tommy? Don’t tell him! Gimme a little time! It must be lying there yet, nobody would pick up a cig’ret off the sidewalk—” Even while he spoke he knew he was lying, but he was half-hysterical. He didn’t care what he said if only he could postpone retribution.

“You better see that you get hold of it quick!” Tommy said in a cruel, grating voice that seemed to flay the wincing Eddie alive. “And bring it back here if you wanta square yourself! You know what that means, don’tcha?” he warned somewhat illogically but with enormous punishing-power. “If anyone gets hold of that cigarette, that makes you into a first-class murderer!”

He heard Eddie moan through chattering teeth. What he really meant was that they wanted it safely back in their hands where it couldn’t be used against them as evidence.

Eddie was in no condition to think clearly. Even an hour’s delay was better than hearing doom pronounced on him right now at the moment.

“I... I’ll get it for you!” he promised hoarsely, “I’ll find it and bring it back, I swear I will! I know just where it must be — only don’t tell him yet. For God’s sake let me look for it first and then tell him if you hafta!” His voice trailed off into a groan and he replaced the receiver with an arm that was shaking more than Tommy ever had in his life.

Chapter III The Fugitive Is Death

Eddie was sweating like a mule when he staggered out of the booth and his lace was the color of clay. That guy in front of the cigar store half an hour ago — that poor harmless guy — was carrying around loaded death in his pocket — and Eddie had handed it to him!

This second terror now became uppermost, displacing the first, the minute Tommy was no longer snarling in his ear. He didn’t want to kill anyone; he didn’t want to become a murderer. He wouldn’t even have given it to Miller if he’d known ahead of time.

He had to get hold of that guy; maybe there was still time! It was only half-an-hour ago, only two blocks from here and he mightn’t have smoked it yet. Thank God, he’d given him two, one was probably harmless (although he wasn’t sure even of that). “One for the morning,” he’d said to him. And, thank God again, he knew where the fellow lived — those three lighted windows on the top floor of the building across the way; two breaks, anyway. All he asked was a third; that if the guy had finished one already, it was the harmless one. If there was any mercy in heaven at all, then let it be that way!

He brushed the sweat out of his eyes and started running, down the steps of the hotel out to the sidewalk and up the street in the direction from which he’d strolled whistling awhile ago. He knew that if he showed up too late he was putting his own neck in a noose, giving himself away as the anonymous killer whom otherwise they might have hunted for weeks and months without finding.

But it didn’t deter him; Eddie was yellow about a lot of little things, but he wasn’t yellow when it came to a big thing like this.

There was the locked cigar store just ahead. He cut diagonally across Franklin Avenue without waiting to get to the corner, and groaned as his eyes sought out the top floor windows of the flat. They were dark. Only for a minute, though, until he realized that might be a good sign, that might mean everything was all right instead of otherwise. If it had happened already, the place would be blazing with light, wouldn’t it?

But ominous or reassuring, the blank windows had flashed past over his head already and he was in the dimly-lit vestibule. He danced back and forth in front of the mailboxes. Top-floor front, there it was — Adams. He ground the bell in with the ball of his thumb, leaned on it with his whole weight. They must be hearing that, anyone would hear that, he wasn’t giving the battery a minute to breathe. Why didn’t somebody answer?

And then he looked down and saw that it didn’t ring. The card that he or somebody before him had displaced lay there under his shoe where it had fallen. He could read it from where he was. “Bell out of order.”

He gave a whimper like a small animal caught in a trap, flung himself against the thick glass inner door, began to pound on it with the heels of both hands. He visualized the man Adams lying there in the dark, reaching out to the side of his bed, picking up a cigarette, striking a match — and him down below here, unable to get to him. Wait a minute, the janitor or superintendent, should have rung his bell, that must be working!

Just as he turned to do it, the street door opened behind him and a man came in, key in hand. One of the other tenants. But he was very drunk and very loquacious, and he dropped the key once before fitting it into the lock and twice more after he’d already had it in.

Eddie gave him a maddened push that sent him sprawling back, jammed the key in with force enough to break it, opened the door with a sweep, and went hurtling up the inside stairs. The drunk’s indignant remonstrance pursued him up the stairwell.

“You sure must be henpecked — ish only a little after one!”

Eddie was already pummeling Adams’ door far above with both fists and one knee.

“Lemme in!” he called. “Lemme in, can’t you hear me! For God’s sake, open this door!”

A chain clashed faintly, the door edged narrowly open, and Adams’ nose showed, two frightened eyes alongside of it. At least they were living eyes! Eddie nearly folded up with relief for a minute, he had to open his mouth to let all the air out before he could say a word.

The man inside spoke first.

“Get away from here, what is this, a hold-up?” the man behind the door rapped out sharply. “I’m warning you I’ve got a gun. Who are you anyway, what d’ya want?”

“On the street just now — you remember?” Eddie panted. “I gave you a coupla cigarettes! I come to tell you — not to smoke ’em — not to touch ’em — you better let me have ’em back!”

“What’re you driving at anyway?” said the man suspiciously.

“I found out something about ’em — never mind, give ’em back, I tell you!” He wrung his hands together frantically. “For Pete’s sake, open up. Can’t you see I’m alone out here; this is not a stick-up! Hand me those cigarettes back.”

Adams said, “I’m going to telephone the hospital and have ’em come around and get you.”

“There’s something the matter with the cigarettes. Don’t you understand English?” Eddie shouted. He brushed a hand before his eyes trying to think clearly; mustn’t tell him the whole story. “They were given to me by a doctor. Somep’n got on ’em, one of ’em anyway — it’ll kill you if you touch ’em. He warned me and I come chasing all the way back to find you—”

A woman inside the flat gave a yip of fright. The chain clanged loose and Adams flung the door open; his face was green. He put his hand to his throat. “I... I—”

“No, you’re all right If you’d smoked the poisoned one it wouldn’t take this long to happen,” Eddie said impatiently, brushing by him. “Where’s the other cigarette?”

Adams pointed limply toward a bedroom door behind him. His wife was just inside in a kimono, trying to make up her mind whether to scream or just faint. Eddie reached in back of her, snapped on the light. Next to the disturbed bed, just as he’d visualized it in his headlong rush over here was a stand, on the stand a tray, on the tray a pinched-out butt lying on a brown little bed of ashes. He picked it up, slit it open with his thumbnail. Nothing but brown tobacco fell out.

“I told you were all right. You smoked the good one — but you don’t know how lucky you are!” He held out his hand impatiently. “Where’s the second one — hurry up, let me have it! Don’t leave it lying around loose!”

Adams hadn’t quite gotten over the shock yet, he kept running his hand through his tangled hair over and over again as if he was trying to think.

“Mildred,” he appealed to his wife in a scared voice, “you were here when I came in that time, you must have seen me — what’d I do with it?”

This time she did scream, then choked it off with both hands. “You gave it to Fred! I saw you! Oh Lord! Don’t you remember, they were just leaving when you came in; he said he didn’t have any either. You said something about sharing the wealth, and I remember you handed one to him at the door—”

“Then he got the bum one,” groaned Eddie. He grabbed Adams by the shoulder and tried to shake some presence of mind into him. “Tell me where he lives. Maybe I can still head him off!”

“It’s too late already,” Adams told him. “They live way out. It’s a long drive. He’d smoke it in the car — he told me he wanted it for that, now that I think of it!”

His wife exclaimed: “The telephone!” and darted over to it, began to dial.

“It can’t be too late. Where does he live?” shrilled Eddie.

“Forty-seven Palmer Road,” Adams stuttered, “that’s out near Westbury.”

His wife said, “They don’t answer; that means they haven’t gotten in yet. Maybe you can still catch up with them on the road — it’s only a Ford.”

Eddie nearly turned her completely around getting out of the flat. “Keep phoning, his life depends on it!” he said over his shoulder.

Eddie was nearly run over by a taxi passing the door. Another of those breaks, like with Adams. “47 Palmer Road,” he shouted as he stumbled in. “And don’t slow up until you see a Ford heading the same way we are!”

He sat back for awhile and coughed until he thought his lungs would burst; too much exertion. The spasm wore itself out and he edged forward, watching the road ahead across the driver’s shoulder.

It occurred to him he didn’t even know the guy’s name, had forgotten to ask them — just “Fred,” that was all.

The houses had petered out long ago; they were in open country already.

“That it?” said the driver suddenly. A Ford was running along meekly in front of them, hugging the outside of the road.

“Get up next to ’em,” said Eddie, “and I’ll find out.”

The taxi drew abreast, swerved in, hubs nearly interlocking with those of the other car.

Eddie leaned his head out, shouted, “Fred? Your name Fred?”

The Ford, two wheels off the concrete, began to wobble crazily. Its five occupants all squalled in alarm.

“Iss no Fred,” the man at the wheel jabbered excitably, “iss Antonio! What you make?”

The taxi veered off again, shot ahead.

The suburb of Westbury showed up, in clumps of little bungalows.

“Palmer Road,” the driver said, and turned down a side thoroughfare. It had arc lights only every half mile or so.

“Take that side and I’ll take this!” Eddie ordered. “43–41 — 39— Wait a minute, you’re passing it!”

The brakes squealed like stuck pigs. The house was back from the road and there wasn’t a light showing. But in the split-second it took him to jump out, the porch light suddenly went on and outlined a Ford standing there still pulsing in the driveway in front of the entrance.

“I think I hear our telephone ringing,” a woman’s voice said. “Got your key?”

Eddie began to run across the lawn yelling: “Hold it! Hold it! Fred!”

They froze where they were standing, in a sort of tableau. The woman was up on the porch, her hand on the door knob. The man was standing beside the machine with the door still open, holding his hands cupped to a cigarette; they showed up transparent, salmon-color against the match flame they shielded. It went out while he was staring, but Eddie could see the haze already coming from his lips.

“Drop that cigarette!” he shrieked. “Get that out of your mouth!” And almost colliding with the man, he tore the little white cylinder from his face, threw it smoldering on the grass over his shoulder.

“I just came from the Adamses’ — been trying to warn you — that cigarette he gave you — something the matter with it — another half-minute, and it woulda been all up!” Eddie gasped it all out and stopped breathless.

Fred didn’t wait to hear any more; he began to spit all over the place like an infuriated cat and brush his sleeve across his mouth.

The wife suddenly came running down off the porch and over to them. “That isn’t the one Ad gave you, Fred,” she proclaimed. “Don’t you remember, you stopped off just now and bought a pack at that lunch-wagon just as we got into Westbury? The one Ad gave you fell in between the seats when you were trying to fish it out with one hand, don’t you remember, and you said never mind, let it go—”

“That’s right, I did, didn’t I?” Fred said doubtfully and wiped his perspiring face, then “Wait, I better make sure—” He took out a freshly-opened pack and examined it; only an edge of the foil had been torn off, only one hole showed in its tightly-pressed contents. “Yep,” he said elatedly, “it came out of this new deck. Wow, what a close shave!”

“Then the bad cigarette is somewhere in your car,” Eddie summed up, and reached for the latch.

“Oh, no,” the wife answered simply, “I felt for it and found it while he was in the lunch wagon — I like to keep the car as tidy as possible — I threw it out of the car—”

Chapter IV Death’s Victim

Eddie closed his eyes, reeled slightly; there didn’t seem to be any end to this thing. It was like a game of tag gotten up by a playful devil. He pulled himself together again.

“That was only a minute or two ago, wasn’t it? And right in front of the lunch wagon, you sure about that?” He was already starting away as he spoke.

“Yes, just before we got to the door here. It’s around the turn, on the main highway — you can’t miss it. I even saw it, it landed on the sidewalk right in front of the two little steps going into the wagon—”

Eddie was back in the taxi again, which had turned and was standing waiting.

“Back to the grub wagon we passed!” he yelped to the driver. The long chase had blunted some of the edge off his terror, but he was still worried and plenty scared. He was no longer at the pitch of frenzy in which he’d torn from the hotel to the Adams flat. But he had to get that cigarette back to the Boss.

He vaulted out of the cab before it had even stopped and began to hop all over the sidewalk in front of the lunch wagon, bent double like a frog, chin nearly touching the ground. The windows of the wagon threw big bright yellow squares across the pavement, and if it was there he would have seen it. It was gone! It wasn’t in front of the steps where she said she’d seen it land, and it wasn’t under them, and it wasn’t out near the curbing, and it wasn’t beyond in the gutter.

He lit matches borrowed from the driver in places where the reflection wasn’t strong enough. He straightened up, pulled open the screen door, and stuck his head inside the wagon.

“When was the last you swept that walk outside?” he asked the counterman. There was no one else in the place.

“I never do that till six — just before the day man comes on,” the man answered.

Eddie said, “Do you remember a guy in a Ford stopping in for a pack of cigarettes about ten minutes ago?”

“Sure.”

“Anyone been in or out of here since?”

“There was a big coon in here at the time,” said the counterman, “nursing along a cup of Java. He left just before you showed up—”

“I gotta find him!” said Eddie. “Which way’d he go?”

“Got me,” the counterman said.

Eddie was back alongside the driver again. “See anyone up or down the street?” he asked.

“What am I, an eagle?” the latter asked wearily, sick of all the shenanigans by now. “Do we ever get finished?”

Eddie got on the running-board without getting in. “Drive slow, follow the highway down a block or two, we may pick him up — if not we’ll have to beat it back up the other way!”

They went a couple of blocks, then Eddie gave up.

“All right, turn. He couldn’ta come this far. The guy said he just left before I showed up.”

The driver executed an about-face, muttering audibly. As they swept up toward the lighted wagon again a slow-moving figure came in sight around the corner of it, pausing to peer cautiously in at the windows.

Eddie pointed. “That’s him now, as big as life! He musta been skulking in back of it the whole time we were here!”

Eddie left the side of the machine with a swoop. The impetus of the moving cab carried him across the sidewalk, face to face with the big vagrant, who towered above him. The latter whirled, crouched a little; his first impulse was evidently to duck and run, but Eddie had him crowded too close to the side of the lunch wagon.

“You picked up a cig’ret when you came out just now — let’s have it,” Eddie said briefly. He had at last come across someone whom he felt he could dominate mentally, if not physically.

“Who did?” said the big fellow surlily. “Whut you talking about?”

“I can see it sticking outa your shirt-pocket right now; I’m telling you to come across with it.”

The big black man put a finger on it possessively. “You ain’t gonna git this,” he said. “Old man with the whiskers give it to me, thass who. He take keer of me. I buy me cup coffee, and hot diggity, old man with the whiskers put cig’ret under my shoe to go with it!” He started to edge away from Eddie sidewise, his back to the lunch wagon.

The counterman had come to the door, stood looking out; the driver was watching from the wheel of his cab; neither one of them made a move to help him. Eddie fumbled for the change from the ten-dollar-bill. “I’ll buy you a whole new pack, inside there, if you lemme have that one—” He turned to the counterman. “Go in and get him a pack, any kind he says—”

Eddie stripped off a dollar bill, held it out toward him, gingerly ready to jump back at the first hostile move. The green oblong fluttered temptingly between his fingers, held only by one corner. The round white eyeballs protruded toward it, as though it were a magnet drawing them half out of the roustabout’s skull. Two fingers of his free hand flexed tentatively back and forth close up against his overalls. Suddenly, with a snakelike quickness, the whole hand had darted out and back again. The dollar was gone, and he was scuttling around the corner of the lunch wagon. But he had dropped the coveted cigarette at Eddie’s feet.

Tommy the Twitch came to the door with an orange dressing gown on his quaking form and an ugly look on his face.

“So ya got here at last, did ya?” he growled through the cigarette that vibrated with his breath. “It’s about time, ya mangy squirt!” He ushered the ashen-faced Eddie in by jerking his head backwards. He closed the door, swung venomously at Eddie with one fist, and then went on toward the door that led to the Boss’ sleeping quarters.

Eddie dodged the blow by rearing back, then stood there palpitating, his face white with fear.

“Ya... ya haven’t told him yet, have ya, Tommy?” he quavered. “Ya said ya wouldn’t — honest, I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to muff it like that!”

Tommy put a palsied hand to the Boss’ doorknob. “Have you got it?” he said.

Eddie nodded, incoherent with fright, raised his own hand to his inner pocket.

“Just wait’ll you hear what he says when I tell him,” promised Tommy balefully. “I wouldn’t give two cents for your life! Just wait’ll you hear—” The tortures of anticipation he was purposely inflicting on the cringing figure standing there behind him seemed to add to his enjoyment.

“Wait, Tommy, don’t! Gimme a break!” Eddie gasped in a strangled voice. All his original terror of the Boss and what the Boss could do to him had come back in full force long before he had even entered the place. He was nearly insane with fright.

Tommy turned the knob, pushed the door open, and stepped into the dark room. He reached out to one side, snapped on the light, and then partly closed the door after him. A moment later the Boss’ voice boomed out angrily:

“What the hell is this? What’s the idea!” Then Tommy, saying something in an undertone, telling him about it. Then the Boss again, “Well where is he? Did he come back with it? Wait a minute—” and the sound of bed-springs creaking.

With that the tension that had gripped Eddie suddenly snapped. His terror became fluid instead of static, released him from the spot he was standing on. He whipped the carefully guarded cigarette out of his pocket, flung it wildly out before him, turned and fled as if pursued by devils, nearly stumbling all over himself in his hurry to get out of the place. The cigarette described an arc, fell athwart the handful left in the tin box that Tommy had been smoking all night long. When Tommy came back, followed by the Boss, the room was empty.

The Boss slammed the door angrily.

“Lammed, did he?” Tommy said. “I mighta figured he’d do that, the minute I turned my back. Probably didn’t even have it with him! If I had my pants on I’d go out after him—!” He pounded on the butt he was smoking, took a fresh one from the box, lit it.

The Boss was pacing angrily back and forth; he appeared less put out about The Errand Boy’s disappearance than about the miscarriage of his plans.

“A great night’s work!” he seethed. He turned, went back into the bedroom, came out again. “Haven’t even got a corona left in the house, I was in such a hurry to pass ’em all out at the club and set myself an alibi!” He reached down to the tin and took one of the cigarettes, lit it with a fuming swoop of the arm.

“Yeah,” agreed Tommy, puffing away morbidly. “Tonight was all alibi and no job!”

“I’ll get him yet,” swore the Boss. “I’ll think up another way, but I’ll get him. And this time I’ll get The Errand Boy too — he knows too much now!”

“Aw, these fancy ways are none of ’em ever any good,” scowled Tommy the Twitch. “Why don’cha just send a bullet troo—” He stopped speaking abruptly.

An instant before the Boss had been sitting there on a level with his eyes, now he lay face down on the floor. The thing had happened as swiftly, as silently, as a “break” in a jerky motion picture film. An inch or two away the cigarette the Boss had been puffing on just now was still lazily sending up smoke at one end; at the other, a grain or two of whitish substance had spilled from it in falling, showed up against the carpet.

Afterword to “Cigarette”

“Cigarette” (Detective Fiction Weekly, January 11, 1936) is one of the earliest crime stories Woolrich wrote after the first thirteen collected in Darkness at Dawn and one of my favorites among those that have never been collected before now. With its bizarre murder method, its race against time and death as Eddie pounds headlong through the night trying to find and stop Adams before he lights up, its tension stretched drum-tight as the frantic protagonist chases the poisoned cigarette from one tobacco addict to another, this is one of those gems that only Woolrich (who was a compulsive smoker all his life) could have written.