Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

I weigh around a hundred and thirty pounds wringing wet — which I was now — and my cheap suit was trying to squeeze me up smaller. It had shrunk so I was numb. It was trying to choke me to death, which in a way would have been a blessing; Big Lou Costello would be cheated out of the chance to make an example out of me.

At eight Benny arrived wrapped to the ears in a slicker. “Della kicked you out earlier than usual this morning,” he said as he unlocked the door.

“Della didn’t kick me out,” I said through chattering teeth. “I left before she got home.” I bolted through the door and headed for my favorite stool at the end of the bar.

“She still after you to get a job?” Benny asked.

“That and other things,” I admitted. My wife, Della, works all night. When she gets in at seven, she usually stops by the couch in the living room and wakes me up. But this morning, with all my other troubles, I didn’t think I could take the lecture. Still shivering, I watched Benny wrap yesterday’s apron around his fat paunch, then fill the coffee maker. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cuff my java this morning, Benny,” I said.

Benny wiggled a finger down the neck of the coffee maker while he waited. “For a guy who has to cover a fifty dollar bet by noon or get clobbered, you ain’t in very good financial shape, Milo.”

“That I am not,” I admitted. “I am stony flat broke.”

Benny shook his head. “Lou is going to save money on this deal,” he said cheerfully. “He won’t have to use his goons on a shrimp like you, he can easily pulverize you personally.” The water was too hot for his finger, so he withdrew it and wiped it down his apron. “How come you was so stupid as to call in a fifty dollar bet yesterday with no cash to cover?” he said. “And especially to Big Lou, who you know loves to make an example of horse players who practice that dodge on him?”

“Big Lou is the only bookie who will take my bets anymore,” I said sadly. “If I lose him, I got nothing.”

“After noon today you ain’t liable to need nothing but a shroud,” Benny said as he watched the water go up into the top of the coffee maker. When it came down again, he brought a steaming mug of coffee over and set it in front of me. “You was a dope to let that drifter tout you on that horse. You know that, don’t you, Milo?”

I hugged the mug in my hands to warm them. “He claimed he was the jockey’s brother,” I said. “He said the race was in the bag.”

“That guy weighed over two hundred and eighty pounds,” Benny said. “He was bigger than I am.”

“Was he?” I said, “I didn’t notice. I must have been stoned.”

“You should also have figured out that if the guy was such pals with the Whitneys and Vanderbilts, he would have been out in the clubhouse caging champagne, not down here putting the bite on you for beers.”

“I guess so,” I said miserably, “maybe that tout put a hex on me. Anyhow, I call in the bet and I lose.”

With my hands warm, I started to sip the coffee to thaw out my insides as I desperately try to figure how I am to raise fifty clams by noon. I can’t run, because here I can eat and sleep on a couch in the living room. If I hide, Big Lou will get me sooner or later and be all the madder because he had to look for me.

Della is the only moneyed person I am personally acquainted with, and she is of no practical value to me now. Della has a good job as combination cashier and bouncer in an all-night dairy lunch, but Della is a miser. I don’t think she would put out any money to keep me from getting killed, and when I think of the insurance policy she took out, I’m convinced. Della buys things for herself, like that little doodlebug car she drives. I am also sure that she has a cash hoard in the cupboard under the sink, but I have been afraid to look; it would be characteristic of Della to have it boobytrapped to blow my arm off. Also, if any of that money was ever missing, I would fare better facing Big Lou and all his goons at once.

Only a few regulars drifted in and out of Benny’s that morning and I only give them a nod. I am so sunk in gloom I haven’t even looked at a racing form.

“It’s ten thirty,” Benny said, then came over and stood in front of me. “Now there’s nothing personal in this, Milo,” he said, “but I’m going to have to ask you to leave here before noon. I mopped this floor yesterday and—”

“Sure, Benny,” I said dully, “I’ll take my lumps out in the alley.”

“Thanks,” Benny said and poured me another cup of coffee.

I was about to drink it when the front door opened and a skinny stranger came in lugging something under his coat. At first I thought it was a bagpipe and groaned. When he got to the bar, the guy dumped it on the floor and I saw that it was a vacuum cleaner. He piled the hose, pipe and attachments on the tank, slapped his hat against his leg and said, “Give me a beer, Mac.”

“Vacuum cleaner business not so hot this morning, eh?” Benny said.