The Golden Horseshoe

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 27, 16 December 1938, Page 28

The Golden Horseshoe

6 P IN P Horsex AGAIx ThriLL DOES "The FAST-MOVING No.7 CLASSIC MADE OP. ! Action As MODERN CONT: suCH STACCATO STORY, MAN" THIn FOR

B

DASHIELL

HAMMETT

44] HAVEN'T anything very exciting to offer you this time," Vance Richmond said as we shook hands. "J want you to find a man for me-a man who is not a criminal." There was an apology in his voice. The last couple of jobs this lean, grey-faced attorney had thrown my way had run to guu-play and other forms of rioting. "The man I want found," the lawyer went on, as we sat down, "is an Hnglish architect named Norman Ashcraft. He is a man of about thirty-seven, five feet ten inches tall, well built, and fair-skinned, with light hair and blue eyes. "Tere is the story. Four years ago the Ashcrafts were living together in England. It seems that Mrs, Ashcraft is of a very jealous disposition, and he was rather highstrung. Furthermore, he had only what money he earned at his profession. Ashcraft was rather foolishly sensitive about being the husband of a wealthy woman-was inclined to go out of his way to show that he was not dependent upon her money, that he wouldn’t be influenced © by it. One night she accused him of paying too much attention to another woman. They quarrelled, and he packed up and left. "She was repentant within a week, and she tried to find him. But he was gone. She succeeded in tracing him to New York, and then to Detroit. After that he dropped out of sight until he bobbed up in Seattle ten months later." The attorney hunted through the papers:on his desk and found a memorandum, ' "Qn May 23, last year, he shot and killed a burglar in his room in a hotel there. -The Seattle police seem to have suspected that there was something funny about the shooting, but had nothing to hold Ashcraft on. The man he killed was undoubtedly a burglar. Then Ashcraft disappeared again, and nothing was heard of him until just about a year ago, Mrs. Ashcraft had advertisements inserted in the personal columns of papers in the principal American Cities. » "One day she received a letter from him, from San Francisco, requesting her to stop advertising. She mailed a letter to him at the General Delivery window here, and used another advertisement to tell him about it, He answered it, rather caustically. They exchanged. several letters, and she learned that he had become a drug addict, and what was left of his pride would. not let him return to her until he looked at least somewhat like his former self, She persuaded him to accept enough money from her to straighten himself out. She sent him this money each month, in care of General Delivery, -here. ' "Meanwhile she closed her affairs in England and came’ to San Francisco. A year has gone. She still. sends him money each month. He has repeatedly refused to see her, and his lettets are evasive.

"She suspects by now, of course, that he is simply using her money as a source of income. I have urged her to discontinue the monthly allowance for a while. But she will not do that. Her mind is unchangeably made up in that respect. She wants him back, wants him straightened out; but if he will not come, then she is content to continue the payments for the rest of his life. But she wants to end this devilish uncertainty in which she has been living. "What we want, then, is for you to find Ashcraft. We want to know whether he is gone beyond redemption. Find him, learn whatever you can about him, and then, after we know something, we will decide whether it is wiser to force an interview between them or not." "T'll try it,’ I said. "When does Mrs. Ashcraft send him his monthly allowance?" "On the first of the month." "Got a photo of him?"

‘Unfortunately, no. But I don’t think a photograph would be of any great help at the post office. It is more than likely that he has someone else call for his mail." I got up and reached for my hat. "See you around the second of the month,"I said, as I left the office. On the afternoon of the first, I went down to the post office and saw the inspector in charge. Y’ve got a line on a scratcher from up north," I told Lusk, "who is supposed to be getting his mail at the window. Will you fix it up so I can get a spot on him?" Post office inspectors are all tied up with rules and regulations, but a friendly inspector doesn’t have to put you through the third degree. So presently I was downstairs again, loitering within sight of the A to D window, with the clerk at the window instructed to give me the office when Ashcraft’s mail was called for. I stayed on the job until the windows closed at eight o’clock, and then went home. At a few minutes after ten the next morning I got my action. One of the clerks gave me the signal, A smail man in a blue suit and a soft grey hat was walking away from the window with an envelope in his hand. A ma of perhaps forty years, though he looked older. _ He came straight to the desk in front of which I stood fiddling with some papers. Out of the tail of my eye i saw that he had not opened the envelope in his handwas not going to open it. He took a large envelope from his pocket, and I got just enough ofa glimpse of its front to. see that it was already stamped and addressed, El twisted my neck out of joint trying to read the address, but failed. I went after him. There was nothing to do but to pull the heretofore always reliable stumble. I overtook him, stepped close and faked a fall on the marble floor, bumping into him, grabbing him as if to regain my balance. In the middle of my stunt my foot really did slip, and we went down: on the floor like a pair of wrestlers, with him under me. To botch the trick thoroughly, he fell with the envelope pinned under him. ' I-serambled up, yanked him to his feet, mumbled an apology and almost had to push him out of, the way to beat him to the envelope. I had to turn it over as I handed it to him in order to get the address: Mr. Edward Bonannon, . Golden Horseshoe: Cafe, . Tiajuana, Baja California, vets a Maxicd,

I had the address, but I had tipped my mitt. There was no way for this man to miss knowing that I had been trying to get that address. I dusted myself off while he put his envelope through a slot. He didn’t come back past me, but went on down foward the Mission Street exit. I couldn’t let him get away with what he knew. I didn’t want Ashcraft tipped off before I got to him. I set out after the little man again, Just as I reached his side he turned his head to see if he was being followed. "Hello, Micky!" I hailed him. "How’s everything in Ghi?" , "You got me wrong. I don’t know nothin’ about Chi," His eyes were pale blue, with needle-point pupilsthe eyes of a heroin or morphine user. "Quit stalling." I walked along at his side. "You fell off the rattler this morning." He stopped on the sidewalk and faced me. "We? Who do you think I am?" "You’re Micky Parker. The Dutchman gave us the -rap that you were headed for San Francisco." "You’re cuckoo," he sneered. "I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about!" , That was uothing-neither did I, I raised my right hand in my overcoat pocket. "Now Til tell one," I growled at him. "And keep your hands away from your clothes or I'll blow the brains out of you." He flinched away from my bulging pocket. "Hey, listen, brother!" he begged. "You got me wrong -on the level. My name ain’t Micky Parker, an’ I ain’t been in Chi in six years. I been here in Frisco for a solid year, an’ that’s the truth." "You got to show me." "T can do it,’ he exclaimed, all eagerness, "You come down the drag with me, an’ J’ll show you. My name’s Ryan, ‘an’ I been livin’ aroun’ the corner here on Sixth Street for six or eight months." Tots This particular Ryan led me around to a house on Sixth Street, where the landlady assured me that her tenant had to her positive knowledge been in San Franeisco for months. If I had been really suspicious, I couldn’t have taken the woman’s word for it, but as it was I pretended to be satisfied.

That, seemed to be all right then. Mr. Ryan had been jed astray, had been convinced that I had mistaken him for another crook, and that I was not interested in the Ashcraft letter. I would be safe-reasonably safe-in letting the situation go as it stood. But loose ends worry me. This bird was a hop-head, and he had given me a phoney name, so... '" What do you do for a living?"I asked him.

"T ain’t been doin’ nothin’ for a coupla months," he pattered, "but I expec’ to open a, lunch room with a fella nex’ week." "Let’s go up to your room," I suggested. "T'want to talk to you." He had two rooms and a kitchen on the third fioor. They were dirty, foul-smelling rooms. "Where’s Ashcraft?" I threw at him. He jerked, and then looked at the floor. "T don’t know what you're talking about," he mumbled. "ganta hetter fenre it out’? I advised

Dc iii _ ie him, "or .there’s a cool cell down in the booby-hatch that will be wrapped around you." "You ain’t got nothin’ on me." "What of that? How’d you like to do a thirty or a sixty on a vag charge?" Vag, hell!" he snarled, looking up at me. "I’ve got five hundred smacks in my kick."~ I grinned down at him. | "You know better than that, ‘Ryan: You’ ve got no job.. You can’t show where your money. comes from." T had this pird figured as a dope peddler.. If he was, the chances were that he would be willing to sell Ashcraft out ‘to saye himself. ‘Tf T were you," I went on, epg be a nice, obliging fellow and do my talking now. You’re-" ‘He twisted sideways in his. cneye and one of his hands went behind him,,

I kicked him out of his chair. The foot that I aimed at his jaw took, him’ on the -chest. and carried him‘ over backward. | I ~pulled: ‘the chair off him and took- his gin. Then I went back to my seat on the. corner of the table. ; He got up. snivelling. . "111 tell'you. I didn’t know. there: was nothin’ wrong. This Ashcraft tol’ me he was jus’ his wife along. He give me ten bucks a throw to get his letter ever’ -month an’ send it to him in Tiajuana, I knowed him here,. an’ when he went. south six months ago-he’s got a girl down there -I promised I’d do it for him.

knowed it was money, but I didn’t know there was nothin’ wrong." » . "What sort of a hombre is this Ashcraft? What’s his graft?" "T don’t know. He’s an Englishman, an’ mostly goes by the name of Ed Bohannon. He hits the hop. I don’t use it myself"-that was a good one-"but you know how it is in a burg like this, a man runs into all kinds of people. I don’t know nothin’ about what he’s up to." That was all I could get out of him. However, I had learned that Bohannon was Ashcraft, and not another gobetween, and that was something.- . Ryan ‘squawked his head off when he found that I was going to vag him anyway. "You said you’d spring me if I talked, " he wailed. "J did not. But if I had-when a gent flashes a rod 6n. me.I figure it cancels any agreement we might have had. Come on." , I couldn’t afford to let him run around loose until I got in touch with Ashcraft. He would have been sending a telegram before I was three blocks away, anc my quarry would be on his merry way to points north, east, south. and west. It was a good hunch I played in nabbing Ryan. When he was fingerprinted at the Hall of Justice, he turned out to’ be .one. Fred Rooney, alias "Jamocha," a pedler and smuggler. who had crashed out of: the Federal prison at Leavenworth. . "Will you sew him up for a couple of days?" I asked the captain of the city gaol. "Sure," the captain promised. "The Federal people won’t take him off our hands for two or three days. Pll keep: him air-tight till then." From the gaol I. went up to Vance Richmond’s office and turned my news over to him. "Ashcraft is getting his mail in Tiajuana. He’s living down there under the name of Ed Bohannon, and maybe has a woman there. Y’ve just thrown one of his friends in the cooler." ' "Was that necessary ?" Richmond asked. "We’re really trying to help Ashcraft, you know." _"I could have spared this bird," I admitted. "But what for? If Ashcraft can be brought back to his wife, ‘he’s better off with some of his shady friends out of the way. If he can’t, what’s the difference?" (TURN OVER PAGE.)

THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE Continued from previous page.

The attorney shrugged, and reached for the telephone. He called a number. "Is Mrs. Ashcrait there?’... This is Mr. Richmond ... No, we haven’t exactly found him, put I think we know where he is... Yes. .. In about fifteen minutes." He put down the telephone and stood up. "We'll run up to Mrs. Ashcraft’s house and see her." Fifteen minutes later we were getting out of Richmond’s car. Mrs. Ashcraft received us in a drawing-room on the second floor. A tall woman of less than thirty, slimly beautiful in a grey dress. Richmond introduced me to her, and then I told her what I had learned, omitting the part about the woman in Tiajuana. "Mr. Ashcraft is in Tiajuana, I have been told. His mail is being forwarded to him in care of a cafe there, under the name of Edward Bohannon." . Her eyes lighted up happily, but she didn’t throw a fit. She wasn’t that sort. She addressed the attorney: "Shall I go down? Or will you?" Richmond shook his head. "Neither, You certainly shouldn’t go, ‘and I cannot not a present." He turned to me. "You'll have to go. You can do doubt handle it better than I could. Your course will haye to depend on Mr. Ashcraft’s attitude and condition, She does not wish to leaye anything undone that . might help him." Mrs, Ashcraft held a strong, slender hand out to me. "You will do whatever you think wisest." It was partly a question, partly an expression of confidence. "T will," I promised. I liked this Mrs. Ashcraft. The automobile that had brought me to Tiajuana dumped me into the centre of the town early in the afternoon, and the day’s business was just getting under way. In the middle of the next block I saw a big gilded horseshoe. I went down the. street and into the saloon behind the sign. It was a fair sample of the local joint. Across from the bar a man with a hare-lip was shaking pills out a keno goose, "Tt want to see Ed Bohannon," I told him confidentially. He turned blank, fish-green eyes on me, "T don’t know no Ed Bohannon." Taking out a piece of paper and a pencil I scribbled: "Jamocha is copped," and slid the paper over to the bartender. "If a man who says he’s Ed Bohannon eake for that, will you give it to him?" "T guess so." "Good," I said. "I’H hang arond here for a while." -J waiked down the room and sat at a table in one of the stalls, A lanky dame was camped beside me before I had settled im my seat... "Buy me a little drink?" she asked. Tho face she made at me was provably meant for a smile, I wags afraid she’d do it again, so I surrendered. "Yes," I said, and ordered a bottle of peer for myself

from the waiter who was already hanging over my shoulder. The woman at my side downed her shot of whisky, and was opening her mouth te suggest that we have another drink, when a voice spoke from behind me, "Cora, Frank wants you." Cora scowled, looking over my shoulder, and said, *All right, Kewpie. Take care of my friend here." Kewpie slid into the seat beside me. She was a litile, chunky girl of perhaps eighteen. Just a kid. Her short hair was brown and curly over a round, boyish face with laughing, impudent eyes. Rather a cute little trick, neatly dressed. I bought a drink and got another bottle of beer. "What’s on your mind?" I asked her. "tT hear you're looking for a friend of mine," Kewpie said. "That might be, What friends have you got?" "Well, there’s Hd Bohannon for one. You know Ed?" I shook my head.

"INO---Not yet." "But you’re looking for him?" "Uh-huh." "Maybe I could tell you how to find him, if I knew you were all right." "It doesn’t make any difference ito me," I said carelessly. .She cuddled against my shoulder. "What's the racket? Maybe I could get word to Ed." I stuck a cigarette in her mouth, one in my own, and lit them. "Bet it go," I biufied, "This Hd of yours seems to be as exclusive as ail hell," She jumped up. "Wait a minute. P’H see if IT can get him. What’s your name?" "Parker will do as well as any other," I said. "You wait," she called pack as she moved toward the back door. "I think I can find him," "T think so, too," I agreed. Ten minutes went by, and a man came to my table. He was a biond Englishman of tess than forty, with ali the marks of the gentleman gone to pot on him. Not altogether on the rocks yet, but you eould plainly see evidence of the downhili slide. He was siill fairly attractive in appearance, Hie sat down facing nie across the table, : "Youre looking for me?" There was only a hint of the Britisher in his accent, *"¥ou’re Ed Bohannon?" tie nodded. "Jamocha was picked up a couple of days ago," I told him. "He got word out for me to give you the rap. He knew I was heading this way." "How did they come to get to him?" His blue eyes were suspicious on my face, ' "Don’t know," I said. "Mayhe they picked him up on 2 circular." He looked sharply at me again "Did he tell you anything else?

"He didn’t tell me anything. He got word out to me by somebody’s mouthpiece. I didn’t see him," "You're staying down here a while?" "Yes, for two-or three days," I said. "I’ve got something on the fire." He stood up and smiled, and held out his:hand. "Thanks for the tip, Parker," he said. "If you’ll take a walk with me I'll give you a drink." I didn’t have anything against that. He led me out of the Golden ITforseshoe and down a side street to an adobe house. In the front room he waved me to a chair and went into the next room, "What do you fancy?" he called through the door. "Rye, gin, tequila, Scotch-" "The last one wins," I interrupted his catalogue. ; He brought in a bottle, a siphon and some glasses, and we settled down to drinking. When that bottle was empty there was another to take its place. We drank and talked, drank and talked, and each of us pretended to be drunker than he really was-though before long we were full, It was a drinking contest pure and simple. He was trying to drink me into a pulp and I was trying the same game on him. Neither of us made much progress. Neither he nor I was young enough to blab when we were drunk what wouldn’t have come out if we had been sober. Y’know," he was saying somewhere along toward dark, "I’ve been .a damn’ ass. Got a wife-the nicesh woman in the worl’, Wantsh me 7’ come back to her, Yet I hang around here, lappin’ up this shtuff-hitiin’ the pipe-when I could be shomebody. Arc-architect’, y’ un’ershstan-good one, too. But I got in rut-got mixsiiup with theshe people. C-can’t sheem to break ’way. Goin’ to, though--no spoofin’. Goin’ back to li’l wife. Don’ you shay anything t’ Kewpie. Nishe girl, K-kewpie, but tough. S’shtick a bloomin’ knife in me. Good job, too! But I’m goin’ back to wife. Breakin’ ‘way from p-pipe an’ everthing. Look at me. D’ I look like a hophead? Course not! Curin’ m’self, tha’s why. I’! show you I can take it or leave it alone." Pulling himself dizzily up out of his chair, he wandered into the next room, bawling a song. He came staggering into the room again carrying an elaborate opium layout on a tray. "Have a lil rear on me, Parker." I told him fd stick to the Scotch. He sprawled himself comfortably on the ficor beside the table, rolled and cooked a pill, and our party went on. I was holding down a lovely package by the time Kewpie came in, at midnight.