BRUNO
FISCHER – The Pigskin Bag

Taken
from
Mercury Mystery Book
No. 127, 1946

CHAPTER
ONE

I
phoned Redfern Motors from a drugstore on Flatbush Avenue. The boss
answered.

“
I
just dropped Mrs. Garrity off,” I told him. “She kept
listening to the motor as if she knew which end of a car it was on
and made me drive her three times around Prospect Park. Then she
wondered if she really wanted a car after all.”

“
Hell
with her,” Mr. Redfern said.

“
We've
gotten customers for every car. Somebody was here a few minutes ago
asking (questions about you.”

“
About
me?”

Over
the wire I heard a chair scrape and then a deep sigh as Mr. Redfern
settled his bulk into it. Mr. Redfern liked to talk and he liked to
sit.

“
It
was like this, Adam,” he said. “He asked were you in. I
said no. He didn't ask when you'd be back, like you'd expect a man to
if he asked for you in the first place. Fact is, I got the idea he
was glad you weren't in so he could question me about you.”

“
What
did he want to know?”

“
How
long you'd worked for me and how long I knew you and things like
that. I'm no fool, you know, so after a minute I asked him what he
was after. He said never mind, he'd come around and see you in person
when you were in, and he started to go. I went after him and asked
did he want to leave his name so I could tell you he'd called, but he
said again never mind and went out.

“
What
did he look like?”

“
A
man around forty-five or fifty. His nose was crooked, like it had
been broken, and you could bore a hole with his chin. You know him?”

“
No.”
I kicked the booth door open to let cigarette smoke out.

Mr.
Redfern's voice lowered. “Adam, you're not in trouble?”

“
What
kind would you suggest?”

“
With
the police,” he said solemnly.

“
I'd
swear that man was a detective the way he acted. Sort of mysterious,
if you know what I mean?”

“
Detectives
aren't mysterious. They walk around with badges they're always
flashing in everybody's face.”

“
You
can never tell how they work.”

Mr.
Redfern's tone dropped another octave to a conspiratorial
half-whisper.

“
I've
known you a long time, Adam. I gave you your job back as soon as you
got out of the army. Maybe it would be better if you took me into
your confidence.”

“
Shhh,”
I hissed, “the wires are tapped.”

“
What?”

“
Listen,”
I said. “You know me only as Adam Breen, but to the lower
depths of the underworld I am Mr. Z., at present adhering to an
exhausting schedule of a corpse a day, except Sundays and holidays.”

Mr.
Redfern's sigh came over the wire like a gust of wind. “Adam,
you're not the funniest man in Brooklyn. I tell you, I don't like the
way he acted.”

“
Probably
he's a rival car salesman who doesn't want the premier distributor of
Planet automobiles to know that his star salesman is considering
buying a good car for a change.”

Mr.
Redfern said nothing, which meant that he was sore.

I
said quickly: “Probably my wife opened still another charge
account and Crooked Nose is investigating my credit. The reason I
called you is that it's after six and I'm close to home. Do I have to
come back to the place just to bring the demonstration car in?”

“
Well
— “ Mr. Redfern dragged it out to show that he was a man
of weighty decisions even in minor matters. “All right, but
don't leave it in your driveway overnight. Put it in your garage, do
you hear?”

I
said goodbye and hung up. My legs were cramped when I unwound myself.
Phone booth stools and beds were not made for six-feet-two of man.

On
the way out of the drugstore I passed boxes of chocolates piled on a
glass counter as thickly and geometrically as the downtown New York
skyline. I bought one which looked like the latest thing in women's
hats.

The
street on which I, lived in Borough Park was early 1920's, which
meant that it had no quietly decaying houses of imitation European
architecture, and that it wasn't jam-solid with gray-brick apartment
houses. These houses were two-story red-brick, attached, so that they
formed an unbroken

line
from one end of the block to the other. They didn't quite look like
barracks only because of tiny white stoops every thirty feet.

I
didn't live in them. I was an aristocrat. The houses on my side of
the street, though otherwise exactly like them, were detached from
each other by the width of a driveway. We had private garages and
even back doors, and sometimes in midsummer the sun flowed as much as
two feet into the living room for almost an hour a day. It was
practically like living in the country.

The
baby carriages were off the street when I reached home and most of
the children were in the houses eating supper. It made the
neighborhood somewhat forlorn and lonely. I maneuvered the Planet
demonstration coupe up the narrow driveway and stopped it at the
broader area just in front of the garage. One of the double garage
doors swung creakily in the breeze. Esther chronically neglected to
close doors, any doors, closet or cabinet or garage.

I
rolled up the windows of the coupe and snapped the catches on the
doors. If Mr. Redfern expected me to transfer my sedan out of the
garage and the coupe in, he needed a course in psychology.

The
coupe could stand the morning dew as well as my sedan. Esther, it
developed, had left still another door open, the rear left door of
the sedan. I entered the garage and Started to slam the car door
shut.

That
was when I saw the valise.

It
sat on the back seat floor. Esther, I thought, had bought something
else we didn't need. It was pigskin and looked expensive, though it
was by no means new. She must have picked it up at one of the rummage
sales from which she filled the house with junk.

I
reached in to pull the bag out. Its weight was a shock. I had to tuck
the box of candy under my arm and use both hands to swing the bag to
the floor. When it was out I could lift it in one hand, but it was
still a load. Two thick leather straps were fastened around it to
hold the bottom against whatever was inside. It was locked.

“
Adam?”
Esther called from the back door.

''I’m
in the garage.”

“
I
heard your car.” Her voice sharpened.

“
Carol,
come back here! You're not even wearing slippers.”

Carol
cried, “Papa!” and swept around the open garage door. She
wore her red corduroy bathrobe over pajamas and her feet were bare. I
dropped the bag and swung her into my arms.

“
What's
that, Papa.?” Carol snatched the package from the hand which
wasn't holding her. “For me?”

“
For
all of us, sweetheart.”

I
nuzzled her cheek. She was big for not quite seven, built like me
along string bean lines, but she had her mother's high color,
flashing eyes, and black hair.

“
Darling,
she's just had her bath,” Esther called. “She'll catch
cold.”

I
adjusted Carol on my left hip and carried her out of the garage.

Esther
was on the back door stoop. She wore a checked gingham house dress
with a wide white collar. Her straight black hair was parted in the
middle and hung down her back in two braids, each tied at the end
with a tiny brown ribbon, exactly like Carol's. She made a fine
picture to come home to, standing there trim and neat without the aid
of corsets or elaborate make-up. I slid my free arm about her waist
and, with Carol on my hip working on the candy box wrapper, I bent
over and kissed her.

Esther's
lips were cold. I turned my mouth on hers so that I could look into
her dark eyes. They were very wide, staring, but not at me or at
anything.

“
What's
wrong?” I asked.

“
Ooooh,
candy!” Carol exclaimed.

The
wrapper was in shreds. “Mommy, can I have some candy now?”

Esther
stepped out of the circle of my arm. “After supper, dear.”
She tilted her head back to smile up at me. “What's the
occasion.?”

“
Do
I need one to bring something home to my family?”

She
patted my arm. “You're very smug about us, darling, aren't
you?”

“
Uh-
huh.”

“
That
makes it very pleasant. Please bring her in, darling. I don't want
her to be outside right after her bath.”

Carrying
Carol, I followed Esther through the back door into the kitchen. It
smelled of coziness and good food. Tonight I didn't peer into the
pots to see what Esther was dishing up. I stood looking at the way
her skin was drawn tightly from her mouth.

“
You
didn't answer me,” I said. “Is anything wrong, baby?
Aren't you well?”

Esther
stood at the sink with her back to me. “I have a headache.”

“
Bad?”

“
Not
very. Please get ready for supper. You came home late and Carol must
be starved.”

I
set Carol down on her feet and went as far as the door to the hall.
There I turned. “By the way, I looked in the car and found —
What's the matter?”

Esther
had whirled from the sink. She stood with a plate in one hand and a
serving spoon in the other, and somehow she looked smaller than I had
ever seen her.

“
Blood?”
she said thickly.

“
Where's
blood?” Carol said excitedly.

“
In
the car? Huh, Mommy, is there blood in the car?”

Esther
brushed at Carol's hair as if at invisible flies. She kept staring at
me. “I should have looked,” she said.

I
opened my mouth, but Carol's shrill voice dominated the room. “What
blood. Mommy ? Why are you looking so funny?”

Esther
sucked in her breath. She pasted a smile to her face. “I cut my
finger dear, and I got a little blood on the car seat.”

“
Let's
see, Mommy.' I don't see any bandage.”

“
It's
only a small cut.” Esther looked at me again. “Was there
much?”

“
Blood?”
I said. “I don't know. I meant a bag. A heavy pigskin valise.”

She
laughed. Most of the laughter was locked in her throat; only a little
trickled out. “Oh, yes, I remember. But I was sure — “
She glanced down at Carol's head. “I'll tell you later.”

“
Tell
what. Mommy?” Carol jumped up and down at her mother's side.
Her braids bobbed. “About how you cut your finger?”

“
Yes,
dear, about how I cut my finger.”

“
Why
can't I hear. Mommy?”

I
strode across the kitchen and gripped Esther's shoulders. “For
God's sake, what happened? What about blood?”

“
It's
nothing.” She pursed her lips and nodded down at Carol. “Aren't
you going to wash up?”

What
she meant was that she would follow me upstairs where we could talk
without Carol listening in. I nodded and dropped my hands from her
shoulders and went up to the bathroom.

When
I was drying my hands, I still heard Esther and Carol speaking in the
kitchen. She could prevent Carol from tagging after her by pretending
that she was going upstairs to fetch something.
Was there much
blood?
That was what she had asked me, as if she had expected
gallons of it poured all over the car seat. I found that I was
rubbing my hands on the towel long after they were dry. I bunched the
towel in my fingers and stood listening for her to come up. What I
heard were dishes rattling in the kitchen.

Why
the hell didn't she come upstairs?

“
Darling,
what's keeping you?” Esther called from the kitchen. “Your
food is on the table.”

In
rage I threw the towel from me and didn't care where it landed. Not
rage, I decided as I descended the stairs. I was scared, and because
I didn't know why, it was like being scared of a ghost in which you
didn't believe.

Esther
was ladling stew out of a big pot on the stove. Carol sat at the
table, sipping tomato juice and wistfully running her fingers over
the red ribbon of the candy box. I took my seat and picked up my
juice glass.

“
Whose
bag is it?” I said. “You can at least tell me that.”

Esther's
back remained to me “I don't even know his name.”

“
Whose
name?” Carol said. “Whose name do you mean, Mommy?”

“
Carol,
finish your juice.” Esther came to the table with a plate in
each hand. She looked as if she hadn't slept a wink the night before,
though I knew she had had at least eight hours sleep.

And
she sat down without saying anything about the bag.

I
put down my glass with a thump. “All right, try this one then,”
I said nastily. “Do you know a man of forty five or fifty with
a crooked nose?”