The Leather Duke

Nancy sniffed. “Even Carmella. He came up to the apartment exactly twice and she made a play for him. She thinks I don’t know they were out together Wednesday.” She stopped. “Did you make a date with her?”

“I’m partial to taffy-colored hair.”

She drew back from him and looked into his face. Johnny grinned. The annoyance that had been in Nancy’s face the past half hour suddenly faded. “I still don’t like double-dates,” she said.

“Okay,” said Johnny, “we’ll try it alone tomorrow night.”

“That,” said Nancy, “is a date!”

They made a half circuit of the dance floor, Nancy dancing very close to Johnny. Then she searched his face again.

“Who’d you telephone?”

“Oh, just the detective agency.”

He felt her body stiffen under his hand. “What?”

“The detective agency that’s having me shadowed. I hired them to shadow the man who’s shadowing me.”

“You know who’s having you shadowed?”

“Of course. Fellow named Wendland.”

“Linda Towner’s fiancé?” exclaimed Nancy.

He nodded. “Know him?”

“He’s come into the office a few times — with Linda. He — he’s looked me over.”

“He stopped with looking?”

“Well, he went a little further a couple of weeks ago. Asked me what I did with my evenings. I wasn’t having any of that. If he couldn’t come right out and ask for a date, I wasn’t going to help him along. I told him I went to church every evening. Then Linda came out of her father’s office and that was that.”

“Reason Number 184 why I don’t like Freddie Wendland,” Johnny said. “Mmm, you didn’t tell me that Karl Kessler was your uncle.”

“You didn’t ask me. It’s no secret. Everybody at the plant knows it. He got me my job. He’s the only family I’ve got. My mother died when I was four years old and Uncle Karl raised me... But why should Wendland be shadowing you?”

“That’s why I’m having him shadowed; I’m trying to find out why. I never saw the man before yesterday.”

“Johnny,” said Nancy, “I don’t understand you at all. You started to work at the factory yesterday, as a laborer. Today you’re up to your neck in a murder mystery, with people shadowing you and all sorts of things happening to you.”

“That’s what a fellow gets when he doesn’t mind his own business,” said Johnny wryly.

“Why don’t you... mind your own business?”

“Can’t. It’s a disease with me.” He shuddered. “Now, you take your uncle and Hal Johnson, the foreman, at the plant. They mind their own business and they’ve been working thirty-nine years in one plant.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. For them. But I’m made different, I guess. A week in one place and I can’t stand it any more.”

“You’ve been two days at the Towner Leather Company. Does that mean you’ll be leaving in another five days?”

“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” said Johnny.

“This job is the first one I’ve had since I was a boy. Oh, I work, pretty hard sometimes, too. But I work for myself. I’m a book salesman, the greatest book salesman in the world.”

“Then why aren’t you selling books now?” cried Nancy.

“Because I had a little bad luck. Rather, somebody else had bad luck. The publisher who supplies me with books was locked out by the sheriff. He couldn’t send me any books—”

“Can’t you get them anywhere else?”

“If I had money to pay for them, yes.”

“But you said you were the greatest book salesman in the world. If you’re that good, why don’t you have enough money to pay for the books...?”

“That,” said Johnny, “is what’s wrong with Johnny Fletcher. When he’s got money he won’t work. Oh, I’ve tried it. One year I worked hard. I made more money than the president of the United States. And I wound up at the end of the year with what I started. Nothing. You see, there are people in this country who run night clubs, horse races and crap games. They always find the Johnny Fletchers...”

The music stopped and Johnny released Nancy. “For example, there are night clubs in Chicago. And Johnny Fletcher’s in Chicago, with a couple of hundred dollar bills in his pocket. So — let’s go...!”

Sam Cragg spied Johnny and came forward. “Johnny,” he said, “that Carmella fellow and his friends have left the dance. But they are waiting downstairs...”

“How many friends?”

“Two.”

“Suckers,” said Johnny.

Janie Ballard came strolling up with Karl Kessler.

“Got enough slumming?” she asked.

“I’ve got one more phone call to make,” said Johnny, “then I’m ready to leave. Don’t start dancing; it’ll only take me a minute.”

He smiled at Nancy, nodded to Sam and headed for the barroom.

In the phone booth, he dialed the Wiggins Detective Agency. “Wiggins,” began the detective, but Johnny cut him off.

“Where’s Wendland tonight?”

“Wendland. I don’t believe I—”

“Cut it out!” snapped Johnny. “I want to know where he is right now. Your man’s shadowing me for him, and Wendland’s calling in and asking for reports.”

“But, Mr. Fletcher,” protested Wiggins. “I never told you—”

“Where’s Wendland?” snarled Johnny.

“At the Chez Hogan,” Wiggins replied quickly. “He phoned in only a few moments ago.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Only that you were at a dance hall on Clybourn Avenue.”