Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 5, May 1957

I stood up. “Look, pal. The last time I set up a target was at Fort Dix. I’m not interested in that kind of work.”

“Please. I just want to talk to this man. I want to make sure.”

“It could be dangerous, you know. If he is your wife’s killer, and if he knows you are—”

“That’s where you can help. Arrange the meeting, but don’t let him find out my name.”

I took my seat again and sighed. It was an offbeat assignment, but the only one that had crossed my battered desk in two weeks. Beggars don’t get many choices, and the rent on my cubicle of a LaSalle Street office was looming like the National Debt.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s have the story.”

The lunch counter wasn’t what I’d expected. I cruised by it in a cab around eleven-thirty the next day, looking for the kind of a grease-pit you’d expect to find on the corner of a city street. But this was a new-style hash joint, with concealed lighting and Muzak and waitresses with black-chiffon blouses.

I strolled in around five of noon and slipped into a booth. According to Munro Dean, my pigeon fed himself regularly at twelve-fifteen in this modernistic eatery. That gave me a chance to get well into a meal by the time he arrived.

The food wasn’t any great improvement on Joe’s Place. I chewed on the leathery fringe of a fried egg, and kept my eyes on the doorway.

At twelve-fifteen, a burly gent with a pink scalp and red face sauntered in, holding a tabloid under his arm. His complexion looked like a bad case of soil erosion, and his beady eyes were shrewd and old. This was my boy.

I watched him hunt up a seat at the counter, and tried to place him in my mental rogue’s gallery. Nothing clicked.

He spread his bulk on a stool, clipped out an order to the hard blonde in the black blouse, and fanned out the newspaper. All through his meal, he never took his eyes from the page. I thought of taking the direct approach, but decided that he was too suspicious a type. Instead, I waited until he was through and followed him outside.

We took a bus together, the pigeon and I. Throughout the ride I kept thinking up approaches and rejecting them just as fast. This was no easy trick, cozying up to a knowing character like this one. I had to play it by ear, until the method of operation made itself plain.

The bus swung into Michigan Boulevard, and the guy started for the doors. I didn’t take any chances; he looked like he’d been tailed before. I got off one stop before he did, and followed the bus on foot until he hopped off.

When I saw his destination, the method I needed was clear. It was one of those glass-fronted record shops — not a fancy LP joint, but a dusty storehouse piled high with ancient 78’s. My pigeon had hidden depths. He was a record collector, and this was one language I knew.

I waited a few minutes before entering the shop. Then I browsed around a stack of discs until I found something interesting.

“Pardon me,” I said as I walked up to him. “Can you tell me the price of this?”

“Huh? Oh, you got me wrong, Mac. I’m a customer myself.”

I laughed. “Sorry,” I said, and started to turn away. Then I performed a double-take and oggled the record in his hand. “Hey — old Whiteman band, huh? Think Bix is on it?”

“I dunno.” He looked at me curiously. “I was wonderin’ the same thing.”

“Had some good luck with Bix lately,” I said. “Found some of his old Goldkette stuff in a store on State Street. Found an old Fletcher Henderson on Vocalion, too—”

“Yeah? No kidding?”

I had him hooked. His mouth became unhinged, giving me a lovely view of a lot of bad teeth. And there was interest on his face. “You must use radar, pal,” he said. “I get nothin’ but the junk.”

“Just a matter of luck,” I said smugly. Then I frowned, unhappily. “Trouble is, I gotta dump my collection. I’m leaving town the end of the month, and I’ll be on the road a lot. Can’t lug all those records with me. Think a joint like this would give me any kind of a price?”

His eyes bugged. “Hell,” he said. “They’d only give you peanuts, Mac. You ought to sell to a private collector.”

“Sounds great. Only who?”

A smile spread across his ugly map, and I had that numb, contented feeling you get when you know a problem is solved.

In another ten minutes, we were splitting a bottle of beer in the tavern across the street and talking labels. He was calling me Bill and I was calling him Otto. By the time we broke up, we had an appointment all set up in the Hotel Bayshore for eight-thirty that night. Only Otto was in for a different kind of serenade from the one he expected...

Back at the office, I put in a call to the Bayshore and spoke to Munro Dean. I told him the good news, but he cut me short, asking me to drop over. I growled about it, but remembered who was paying the bills.

I found him in shirtsleeves in Room 305, keeping company with a bottle of bourbon.

“It’s all set, huh?” he said, squeezing his hands around the glass. “He’s coming, right?”