Knock three-one-two

by Fredric Brown

10:45 P.M.

Ray Fleck still stood at the bar in Jick's, where Hoff and his partner had left him, nursing a drink and moodily making wet circles on the bar with the bottom of his glass. Twice Jick, who wasn't very busy, had said something to him but he'd answered briefly and without looking up so Jick knew he hadn't wanted to talk and had moved along the bar to someone else.

He was thinking about the poker game that would be starting soon now and he was blowing hot and cold on the idea of trying to get into it. There was still one chance that he could: the diamond ring. It was a strictly cash game, no checks cashed and no borrowing. But he might be able to make an exception to the borrowing rule if he had security like that to offer. Sure, he could. He remembered now one night when Luke Evarts had gone broke and had managed to keep going a while by borrowing thirty-five bucks from Doc Corwin, putting up as security an almost new and quite expensive wrist watch. And the diamond ring, damn it, looked good, looked like it ought to be worth several hundred dollars, and none of the boys was a jeweler or carried a magnifying glass. One of them might be willing to lend him a hundred on it, or at least fifty.

Of course it would be embarrassing as hell to have to go up there to Harry Brambaugh's flat with no money at all and have to try to raise money, on whatever security, to get into the game. Much more embarrassing than going there with a reasonable amount of money and raising more, as Luke had done with the wrist watch, after losing it. It would really be embarrassing if he went there and was unable to play at all, if no one would lend him even fifty on the damn ring.

But that wasn't the important reason why he was beginning to blow cold on the poker. In as bad a jam as he was in a little embarrassment, losing a little face, was something he could put up with. If he didn't raise Amico's money he was going to lose worse than face. He was beginning to worry about his luck, as far as tonight was concerned. Everything, but everything, had gone sour on him (he thought; he didn't know that his real troubles hadn't started yet). Bad luck runs in streaks and he didn't have the slightest indication that his was going to change tonight.

And a better idea had come to him, standing there at the bar.

He could go home soon, even now, and be there, sober, when Ruth got home around midnight. She'd be surprised to see him, after their quarrel, and maybe even pleased, if she was over her mad.

But whether she was still mad or not he wouldn't let it develop into a quarrel again. He'd be calm and patient with her, and he'd be able to explain this time what he'd not been able to explain this afternoon—exactly what Joe Amico's ultimatum had been, exactly what Joe's deadline was and what he'd do if the money wasn't given him by then. She'd listen; he'd make her listen. She was a stubborn bitch all right and that damned policy was the thing she was most stubborn about, but she did have common sense. If he could explain to her and convince her, and he thought he could, that his keeping his job depended completely on his having five hundred dollars tomorrow, she'd at least see that her own selfish interests were in this case identical with his.

Jick Walters was across the bar from him again. He didn't say anything but he glanced interrogatively at Ray's glass, and Ray saw it was empty. Ray nodded, and put money on the bar while Jick made him another drink.

He could do it, he thought. He could talk Ruth into it—if he could avoid losing his temper and stay calm and reasonable, keep her that way. And thank God the home office of her insurance company was right here; they could go to it together any time tomorrow and she'd be able to get a check while they waited. No sweat at all about Amico's deadline; he wouldn't wait till evening to get the money to him.

It would work. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it sooner, right after Amico had read the riot act to him, instead of wasting time trying first to borrow money from Dolly, and then stealing her junky jewelry. He'd get rid of that tomorrow, too, if Ruth was reasonable about the insurance business. He'd mail it back to Dolly—and then call her up and tell her he'd done so, apologize, and explain. And if she was reasonable about it and not too mad, he'd even be able to see her again sometime, when he was solvent again.

But handling Ruth came first. He found himself planning what he'd say to her, as he'd plan a sales talk. He'd have to eat a little crow, and make some promises. Not to quit gambling; she'd never believe him if he promised that, and disbelief would antagonize her. But he would promise—and sincerely, because he never wanted to get into a jam like this again—never again to gamble on credit and go in over his head. He could promise too to pay back the loan against the policy at, say, twenty-five a week, so the full ten thousand would be coming when the endowment was due. And even make the payments for a few weeks until things were on even keel again. He could tell her—

"Beg your pardon, Mr. Fleck. Like to talk to you."

He'd been aware, while thinking, of someone coming up alongside him at the bar and ordering and getting a drink, and now he turned to see who it was. He didn't know the guy. Medium height, stocky and husky-looking, reddish face, and eyes like pale blue marbles.

"You don't know me," the man said. "My name's Mack Irby."

Ray Fleck nodded, not too cordially. "Glad to know you, Mr. Kirby," he said. "Got to leave in a minute but—what's it about?"

"Irby, not Kirby. Mack Irby—does sound like Kirby when you say both names together. Look, it's kind of private. End booth back there's empty, and so's the one next it. Let's go back to the end booth."

Ray frowned. "I said I got just a minute. You can tell me what it's about right here." The guy might be a damn insurance salesman, for all he knew. Or more likely a bill collector.

Irby said, "Let's say I want to talk about a friend of yours, Mr. Fleck. His name's something like yours. It's Ray Fletcher."

Ray Fleck winced. He knew that the wince was visible, even obvious, but he couldn't help it; the shock had been too great. Here was trouble, new trouble, just when he'd thought he had figured a safe answer to the problem of his debt to the bookie. Now this. He had no doubt what it concerned. At various times in his life and for various reasons he'd used a name other than his own, but not always the same one; to no one but Dolly Mason had he ever given his name as Fletcher.

But how had he been found so quickly? The only thing he could think of was that Dolly must have known all along, or for a long time, what his real identity was. There'd been times—not tonight—when she'd been briefly alone with his clothes while he'd gone into the bathroom; on any of those occasions she could have taken a quick look at identification in his wallet or papers in his pocket. Just what a girl like Dolly would do. Why hadn't he thought of....

"Well, Fleck?" There was an edge of impatience in Irby's voice now. "Want to talk in the back booth, or down at headquarters?"

"The booth," Ray said. His voice didn't come out quite right. But he picked up his glass and started toward the rear of the tavern. And a sudden thought came and with it a sudden hope that this wasn't as bad a jam as he had feared. It wasn't a pinch—at least not yet. The cop—he must be a cop; he looked and acted like one—hadn't simply pinched him; he wanted to talk, and in private.

That meant Dolly hadn't simply called the police, given his name and description and reported the theft. She hadn't wanted the publicity, for obvious reasons. This Irby must be a friend of hers on the force—either a plain-clothes cop or a regular cop who was off duty when she called him. And she'd have told him she didn't want to make a complaint if she could get her stuff back without making one. Thank God, he thought, Fats Davis hadn't bought any of the stuff after all, and he still had it intact, ready to hand back. If he'd sold the ring for fifty they'd claim it was worth more and there'd still be trouble.

But, he thought as he slid into the booth, he'd let Irby talk first. He wouldn't make the mistake he'd made with Amico earlier by talking out of turn, admitting to having dragged down Connolly's thirty-buck bet when Sam-the-waiter's smaller bet was the only one Amico had known about. Just conceivably, although he didn't see how, this current deal didn't even concern the jewelry at all.

Irby slid in across from him, where Fats had sat only half an hour ago.

Irby said, "Keep your hands on top of the table, Fleck. The stuff's in your left pants pocket—you unconsciously put your hand over it while you were walking back to make sure it was still there. And I wouldn't want you to try to get any idea of ditching it here in the booth. I'd have to take you in right away if you tried that."

It was the jewelry then, all right. And there wasn't any use in his denying it—or of volunteering any information either. Ray Fleck just nodded. And kept his hands in sight.

Irby said, "All right, I'll put my cards on the table. Or my card." He took a card from the breast pocket of his coat and put it down in front of Ray. Mack Irby, Private Investigator. And an address and a phone number. "Put it in your pocket. You might want to use me sometime to get you out of a jam. But not this jam; I've already got a client. And you can guess who it is, without straining yourself."

Ray Fleck nodded again. And to avoid discussion and keep things moving he put the card into his own breast pocket.

"Meanwhile," Irby said, "don't let the fact that I'm a private detective and not a cop dazzle you into thinking I can't arrest you, or that I won't if I have to. I carry a deputy's badge, for one thing. And if I didn't I can still make a citizen's arrest if I find someone in the act of committing a crime. And you are; you're in possession of stolen property. And if you think I can't handle you—" He pulled back his coat far enough so Ray could see the butt of a flat automatic in a shoulder holster. "Just don't try to make a run for it."

"I'm not running," Ray said. "But you wouldn't shoot a man for—"

"In the leg I would. Try me and see."

"Look, Irby," Ray said. "You don't want to arrest me or you would have right away. Dolly just wants her junk back, and I'm willing to give it back. I've still got it all. So why don't I just give it to you and call it square. And you can give her my apologies too."

"It's not that simple, Fleck. My client will settle for restitution—but full restitution, and the way she wants it. You know how women are. They get tired of clothes and of jewelry and would rather have new things than old ones. She'd much rather have the cash value of that jewelry than the stuff itself back, so she could buy new to replace it. And there's the matter of the fee I'll have to charge her. I think she should be reimbursed for that, don't you?"

Ray Fleck licked his suddenly dry lips. "Is this a shakedown, blackmail? If it is, it won't work. I'm broke, flat broke and in debt already."

"Let's take those points one at a time, Fleck. First, blackmail. Blackmail is a crime. If you think I'm trying to blackmail you, you can arrest me. Citizen's arrest. And I'll arrest you for grand larceny and we'll handcuff ourselves together—I've got cuffs, right in my hip pocket—and go in to headquarters and accuse each other. I can make my charge stick, especially if I don't let you get rid of what's in your pocket, and I assure you I won't let you. Your charge would be your word against mine, and my word's damned good down there. They'd laugh at you. Shall we do it that way?"

Ray Fleck put out a hand for his glass but the hand trembled and he put it down on the table again. "All right, you've got me. But damn it, you can't get blood out of a turnip. I am broke. I—"

Irby put up a hand to stop him.

"I know quite a bit more about you, Fleck, than I did when I started looking for you a little less than an hour ago. You weren't in the first five bars I tried, but the bartender or owner knew you in every one of them. I know you're married. And I know which outfit you sell for—J. and B. and that you've been with them for quite a while. Nobody guessed your income at less than a hundred a week and most thought more. So, broke at the moment or not, I figure you can raise the money somehow—and I don't care how you do it—to make adequate restitution to Miss Mason. And I figure the amount should be a nice even thousand dollars."

At the expression on Ray's face, Irby raised a hand. "I don't know whether you've tried to fence the stuff as yet. If you have, you're aware it won't bring anything like that sum. But don't forget there's a terrific difference between a fence's price, and a retail jeweler's. And Miss Mason will be replacing those items at retail; I'd say it will cost her five hundred dollars, or almost that. Say that half of the other five hundred is my fee—and I'm sure you'll agree that under the circumstances that shouldn't come out of Miss Mason's pocket. Call the other half punitive damages, or payment for the mental anguish Miss Mason suffered in learning that a friend whom she'd trusted turned out to be a sneak thief. Break it down any way you like, but that's the amount it's going to add up to."

Ray Fleck said bitterly, "It is blackmail then. Damn you, Irby, I'm tempted—"

"To spend six months in jail—and lose your job, your friends, and probably your wife if she's worth anything to you? Just to save a lousy grand?"

Irby leaned forward to reach into his left hip pocket and brought out a pair of handcuffs. "I tried to give you a break," he said, "but if you'd rather go to jail, let's get it over with."

Ray said miserably, "You win. But—how long will I have to raise it? It may take me—"

"We'll worry about that later. For tonight, if you want to walk out of here free, two painless steps are all you got to do. First, write a check for a thousand dollars made out to Miss Dolly Mason, date it today." He held up a hand to stop Ray's protest. "Don't tell me you haven't got a thousand in your account. I'll concede that, or you wouldn't be broke. I'll tell my client when to cash it. Let me worry about that."

Ray said sullenly, "I've got a dollar and some cents in the account, just enough to hold it open. All right. But I've got to get my wallet out of my hip pocket to get a check." Irby nodded, and he took out his wallet and took from it one of several blank checks he kept folded in one of the compartments. Irby offered him a pen, but he shook his head and took his own from his inside coat pocket, and wrote the check.

"Don't put the pen away," Irby told him. "One more step." He read the check carefully and put it into his own wallet. Then he took from his coat pocket a folded sheet of blank paper. He unfolded it and put it in front of Ray Fleck. "Now a confession. Put the date down and I'll dictate the rest."

"Confession! My God, you've got the check. Why do you want a confession too?"

"Think, Fleck. We might have to prove what that check was given for. Maybe you haven't thought of this yet, but you will: If I let you walk out of here free what's to prevent you from ditching the stolen property down the nearest sewer right away—and then, first thing tomorrow morning, stopping payment on the check? And if she tried to make trouble your story—you'd think of it—would be you'd given her the check on a drunken generous impulse and had reconsidered, especially when you sobered up and realized you didn't have money in the bank to cover it. Be embarrassing for you to have to tell a story like that, but how could Dolly disprove it?"

Ray Fleck understood and nodded miserably; his mind had been playing around with some such idea, although he hadn't worked out the details yet. He wrote down the date. And what Irby dictated to him after that. It wasn't long, but it sewed him up completely and left no loopholes. It even accounted for the fact that restitution was being made by check instead of return of the jewelry by stating that he had already disposed of several items of the stolen property. It didn't incriminate Dolly in any way by implying that he had ever been intimate with her.

He signed it and pushed it across. Irby folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He said, "Okay, you can have this back when my client has cashed the check."

Ray Fleck stared miserably down into his glass, not wanting to look at his tormentor. It was going to take him months, he was thinking, to get himself out of this, even if Ruth came through and took him off the hook on his gambling debt.

He heard Irby slide out of the booth. And then, standing outside, Irby bent over the end of the booth table. "By the way, Fleck," he said, "you owe Joe Amico some money too. That's only a gambling debt and this is a larceny rap. This comes first. Understand?"

Startled, Ray looked up, into those light blue marble-like eyes. He said, "Good God, man, I've got only till tomorrow evening on that. I can't possibly raise a thousand in a day. It'll take me weeks."

"It better not," Irby said. "This comes ahead of a gambling debt, and I'm not kidding. If you're paying off Amico tomorrow evening, you're paying this off sooner. Tomorrow's Friday, and it's not going to wait over the weekend. Your bank closes at three tomorrow, and Miss Mason will be there just before then with the check. If it's 'insufficient funds' the confession and the check both go to the police."

"God, Irby, I can't possibly—"

"You better, and I don't care how. See a loan shark, sell your house, your car or your wife, anything. Rob a bank for all I care. But this check will be presented for cashing at your bank at three tomorrow."

He turned and walked away, as casually as though he hadn't left a desperate man behind him. Ray Fleck reached for his drink. His hand shook badly but there was so little left in the glass that he didn't spill any. He drank it at a gulp.

He wanted to get out, away from everybody, to walk the night alone and try to think, to think. But he wanted Irby to have time to get clear first. He strode to the front of the tavern and stood looking out of the window. He saw Irby get into a car parked across the street and drive away.

Then he himself left, and walked. Not even a car to drive in tonight, he thought, feeling sorry for himself, and as though thinking about that one little trouble would help him forget his real troubles. But he didn't dare try to forget them, he realized; he had to find an answer. If there was an answer.

He saw an open sewer grating at the first corner and for a moment he was tempted to push the damned jewelry, handkerchief and all, through it. But the thought came to him that that would be a useless gesture now. With the written confession in Irby's hands, soon in Dolly's, having the stuff on him was no additional danger to him now. Besides, it was worth something. If a fence had considered giving him fifty for the ring, probably a hock shop proprietor would give him at least that and maybe more tomorrow. And since the police didn't have a list for checking there'd be no danger selling the ring openly now. No use throwing fifty bucks or more down the sewer. Maybe Uncle would give him a few bucks, say five for all of it, for the costume stuff.

He thought again of the ring in connection with the poker game. The game would be starting by now. But—oh, hell, it was hopeless. He needed fifteen hundred now, fourteen hundred and eighty to be exact, and he'd never seen money like that change hands in the game. A few hundred, never more than five or six, was as much as he'd ever seen anybody win or lose, and not that much very often. It would have been a miracle if he'd have got in the game and won enough to pay off Amico.

His only chance, his only chance, now was Ruth and her insurance policy. (What if she'd get killed by a car on the way home from work tonight? He'd have the whole ten thousand coming, as her beneficiary, and his troubles would be gone. Eight and a half thousand left after paying off one and a half thousand. But things like that never happened, not when you desperately needed to have them happen.) But what remotely credible story could he make up when he'd needed only five hundred late this afternoon? Not that he'd lost another thousand gambling—if she did believe that, it would make her so mad she'd be more likely to walk out on him than meekly agree to borrow that much on the policy for him. And she probably wouldn't believe him to begin with, and he couldn't blame her; he'd never gambled for stakes like that before, a grand in one evening. The four-eighty to Amico had been lost in his bad-luck run over several weeks.

But there had to be some way out. There had to be.

He'd walked two blocks before he decided that walking wasn't doing him any good. His mind was going in circles, getting nowhere. He could think better sitting down. And besides, the shock of Mack Irby had knocked off his slight edge, had knocked all the alcohol out of him. And he could think better with a slight edge, just a slight one, than cold sober. He needed a drink and needed it badly.

The Palace Bar was coming up. It was a place he ordinarily didn't like and seldom drank at, especially since he'd never been able to get the place on his customer list. It was mostly a workingman's bar, doing a beer trade. But they did sell whisky, and any port in a storm. Maybe it would be a better place right now than most because he'd almost certainly not run into anybody he knew there. And he didn't want to see anybody he knew.

He played safe by looking into the window first. There were a few men in the place, mostly down at the far end of the bar, but they were all strangers. Still better, he didn't even know the bartender. Kowalsky, who ran the place, wasn't there himself and the bartender must be a new man he'd put on recently.

Ray Fleck went in and took a stool at the corner of the bar, facing the back. The bartender came over and he ordered a double, a highball. It came and he paid for it.

He sipped at it and tried to think, but nothing came, nothing constructive. He thought, damn Amico; if Amico hadn't put the heat on him, if Amico hadn't been so tough, he'd still be all right; he'd have got Amico paid off sooner or later and he wouldn't have been tempted to steal Dolly's stuff. And damn Dolly and double damn Irby; he hadn't had time to get to her place yet, but soon they'd be celebrating his check and confession and laughing at him. And then going to bed together to celebrate some more. Irby hadn't fooled him by calling his client Miss Mason; he was one of her men all right, and probably her steady. He wondered how many other shakedown rackets they'd worked together.

Most of all, damn Ruth. It all had started by her being selfish and unreasonable this afternoon, refusing him the five hundred he'd needed then. If she'd been reasonable and sensible then, none of the rest would have happened, none of it.

Irby had said facetiously "sell your wife." God, if only he could sell her. What a mistake it had been for him ever to have married in the first place. A sudden thought came to him: that damn Greek she worked for was soft on her. Maybe—No, it wouldn't work; Mikos wouldn't lend him money, soft on Ruth or not. Mikos would want him to get into trouble, bad enough trouble so Ruth would leave him and give Mikos a free field with her.

But there had to be an answer.

He stared down into his highball, looking for one.