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

“Who’s going to let a guy with wet feet into her house?” the guy said. “I sold one yesterday, but I had to take this as a trade-in.” He kicked the cleaner on the floor.

Benny shoved the beer across the bar. “You mean you salesmen get stuck with the trade-ins?” he asked.

The skinny guy nodded. “I unload mine on a secondhand dealer across town. I’ll only get about ten bucks for this dog.” He kicked the cleaner again.

“I guess there’s tricks to all trades,” Benny said, wiggling his finger down the sink drain.

I have listened to the conversation with only one ear, but it has caused me to grab on to the glimmer of an idea. Della has been bellyaching because she doesn’t have a vacuum cleaner — that means she is thinking of buying, one. If I steer this guy onto a sale, I could cut in on the commission — then I reject the idea as fast as it came. If he wakes Della up, she will kill the guy and I can’t see where that will benefit me. As I stare at the cleaner on the floor, I get another idea and sidle down the bar. “Look, mister,” I said, “maybe I could get you ten bucks for that dog.”

The guy turned and gave me the kind of a stare I get from a floorwalker when I ask for the gent’s room. “My good man,” he said down his nose at me, “any quotation of price you might have overheard was strictly hypothetical. The actual, rock-bottom, wholesale price on this unparalleled marvel of the appliance field is twenty dollars.”

“Come off it, mister,” I snapped. “I ain’t got time to kid. I’m trying to save you a trip across town.”

The guy looked out of the window at the rain, then back again. “It’s yours, Mac,” he said, then when I reached down to take the cleaner, he clamped a big foot on my hand. “We do not permit merchandise to leave the premises without proper defrayment,” he said.

I sucked on my knuckles. “You mean the ten?” I said.

“Precisely.”

“Don’t look at me, Milo,” Benny said quickly. “I know you for an honest citizen, but I wouldn’t invest two-bits in any merchandise a horseplayer could hock.”

“So you ain’t got the ten,” the guy said sadly. “Have you anything of value you could leave as security — a wristwatch, perhaps?”

“Not on me,” I said, then I snapped my fingers. “Don’t go away.” I dashed back to the rest room, took out my dentures and rinsed them off. I folded them in a paper towel and ran back. “There,” I said, slapping them down in front of the guy, “two hundred bucks worth of grade A crockery.”

The guy frowned. “What am I supposed to do with those? I can’t even keep the set I own busy.”

While he was staring at the teeth, I grabbed the cleaner and ran out of the front door. It was only a block and a half to my place and as I hurried through the drizzle, I worked up my sales pitch. When I laid it out in the living room I saw I didn’t have much, but I put it together, plugged it in and pulled down the shades. I hoped that Della would be so bleary-eyed from sleep, she wouldn’t notice how beat up it was.

I tip-toed to the bedroom door, knocked and jumped back. There was a rumbling noise inside, then the door flew open and Della stood there in her flannel nightgown. It was like in an African picture — where a female rhino comes out of the brush and swings her head, looking for something to charge.

“Look, sweets,” I said, pointing at the cleaner, “just look at that.”

Della looked down, but she must have been still half asleep. “For me?” she said.

“No-no!” I said before she could get the wrong idea. “A fellow I met is forced to sell it. It is such a priceless bargain, I thought—” I was having trouble without my teeth “—I thought you would want to snap it up.”

Della advanced on the cleaner as if she expected it to blow up. “How much?” she growled.

“Six — sixty dollars, and it’s a real bargain.” At my words, Della raised her foot as though she was going to stomp the thing through the floor. I dropped to my knees in front of her. “Don’t, sweets,” I begged, “let me show you how it works first.”

I flipped the switch. I grabbed the tube with the attachment on the end and pushed it across the carpet. Nothing happened — then I remembered how the salesman had demonstrated a vacuum cleaner in the department store. There was an ash tray full of butts from my sleepless night and I dumped these on the floor. Still nothing happened. The more I scrubbed the attachment, the more it broke up the butts and strung them around.

“You idiot!” Della yelled.

I grabbed up the tank to keep it from being smashed and backed away. Della stopped when she got to the butts and with her hands on her hips, she leaned over to glare at the mess.

My last hope was gone. I had lucked out completely. The whole world had turned against me. Hate and resentment welled up inside of me — hate against the fat tout who had tricked me into betting on a goat — against Benny, who wouldn’t help me — against Big Lou, who would half-kill me for a few lousy bucks — against the skinny guy for giving me a bum cleaner, and against Della.