THE MISSING ACTOR

 

 

“Hunter and Hunter,” I told the telephone, and it asked me if this was one of the Mr. Hunters speaking and I said yes, I was Ed Hunter.

And I was, and still am. Hunter & Hunter is a two-man detective agency operated on State Street on the Near North Side of Chicago. My Uncle Am for Ambrose is shortish, fattish, and smartish; he'd been an operative for a private detective agency once back when and then had become a carney. We got together after my father's death ten years ago when I was eighteen, spent a couple of seasons together with a carnival, and then got jobs as operatives for the Starlock Agency in Chicago, and after a few years of that started our own detective agency, just the two of us. It's still a peanut operation, but we like peanuts. We get along with each other and most of the world, and we make a living.

“Floyd Nielson,” the phone said. “Like you to do a job for me. Be there if I come around now?”

“One of us will be here,” I said, “and probably both. But could you tell me what kind of a job it is? If it's some sort of work we can't or don't handle, I can save you the trip.”

“Missing person. My son Albee. Want you to find him.”

“Have you tried the police?”

“Sure. Missing Persons. Guy named Chudakoff. Lieutenant, I think. Said he'd done all he could, unless there's new information. Said if I wanted more done, I should get a private agency. Recommended yours.”

Sounded okay, I thought, getting into his laconic way of talking. Every once in a while some friend of ours in the department tosses something our way, and in that case it's bound to be on the up and up. Only honest people go to the cops first and then sometimes turn out to want more help than the cops can give them.

“How soon will you be here, Mr. Nielson?” I asked.

“Hour. Maybe less. I'm at the Ideal Hotel on South State. You're on North State. Must be a bus that takes me through the Loop. Probably faster'n getting a taxi.”

I told him the number of the bus, where to catch it, and where to get off. He thanked me and hung up.

I put down the phone and was just about to pick it up again to call Tom Chudakoff to see what I could learn about the case in advance; then I looked at my watch and realized Uncle Am was already a few minutes overdue back from lunch and decided to wait and let him listen in on the call. Either or both of us might be working on the case.

He came in a minute later and I told him about the call from Nielson, what there'd been of it, and suggested he listen in on my call to Lieutenant Chudakoff. He said okay and went into his office, the inner one, and picked up his phone while I was dialing.

I got Chudakoff right away and told him what we wanted.

“Nielson, sure,” he said. “He's been heckling me and I got him out of my hair by sending him to you. If you make any money out of him, you owe me a dinner.”

“Okay,” I said. “But he's on his way here now, and what can you tell us in advance?”

“That there's no problem. His son owed a bookie eight hundred bucks and took a powder. It's as mysterious as all that.”

“If his father's solvent enough to hire detective work, wasn't he solvent enough to stand a bite to pay the bookie?”

“Oh, he gave the money to Albee all right. But it never got to the bookie. Albee thought it was better used as a fresh stake, I'd guess. He'd just lost his job, so what did he have to lose glomming onto the money himself.”

“Tell me something about him. Albee, I mean.”

“Well, he had a fairly good job in a bookstore, and a padded pad, was fairly solvent and played ponies on the cuff with a bookie named Red Kogan. Know him?”

“Heard of him,” I said.

“Well, Albee booked with him and always paid up when he lost until, all of a sudden a little over a week ago, Kogan realized Albee was into him for eight hundred. One of his boys drops in at Albee's pad and doesn't connect. He goes around to the bookstore and learns Albee's been fired from his job. So what's mysterious?”

“A padded pad, for one thing. What is one?”

“Albee was a part-time hipster. He was square eight hours a day---or whatever---at the bookstore, hip in his spare time. Look over his pad and you'll see what I mean.”

“When was he last seen, Tom?”

“Week ago last Saturday night, July sixth. He borrowed car keys from a friend of his, Jerry Score, on Saturday morning---that's the day after he was fired from the bookstore. Gave 'em back late evening. If any of his friends, or anybody else, has seen him since, they're not talking.”

“Sure. Said he was in a jam and wanted to see his old man---that's your client---to raise some scratch. Floyd Nielson was a truck farmer near Kenosha, Wisconsin---”

“What do you mean, was?” I cut in. “Isn't he now?”

“Sold his truck farm ten days ago, getting ready to blow this part of the country. He's in Chicago, trying to see his son for one last time first.”

“But he saw him only nine days ago.”

“Yeah. It's not so much that, or rather, I shouldn't have put it that way. It's that he wants to be sure Albee is okay before he takes off.

“And he thinks he's sure Albee wouldn't run off, just to duck an eight hundred dollar debt---at least not when he had the eight hundred in hand. Says Albee likes Chicago and has a lot of friends here, that he wouldn't leave just because of that. Maybe he's got a point, I wouldn't know, but hell, there's no evidence of foul play or anything but a run-out, and we can't spend any more of taxpayers' money on it. I can keep it open on the books, and that's all, from here on in. That is, unless something new turns up. If you boys take the case and can turn up something, like maybe a motive for somebody dusting him off, we'll work on it again.”

“Isn't his running out on the bookie a motive?”

“Ed, this isn't the old days. Bookies don't have people killed for peanuts like that. Besides, Kogan's not that kind of guy. He might lean on Albee a little, but that's all. Probably did lean on him, which is what scared the guy. If Albee's stayed, he'd have turned over the money---it's just that he figured he'd rather use it as a stake for a fresh start somewhere else, and he had to do it one way or the other. Take my word for it.”

“Makes sense, Tom,” I said. “But if it's that cut and dried, aren't we just taking money away from a poor old man to take the case at all?”

“He's not that poor. Frugal, yes; don't try to bite him too hard.”

He was just kidding, so I didn't answer that. He and our other cop friends know that we don't bomb our clients. Which is why they send business our way once in a while.

“Find out anything else interesting about Albee?” I asked.

“Well, he had a hell of a cute little colored sweetie-pie. These beat boys seem to go for that.”

“First,” I said, “you say he's hip, now he's beat. Which is he?”

“Is there a difference?”

I said, “Norman Mailer seems to think so.”

“Who is Norman Mailer?”

“That,” I said, “is a good question. But back to this girl. What color is she? Green? Orange? Or what?”

“Ed, she's Hershey-bar colored. But listen, why pry this stuff out of me piecemeal? I've got the file handy, so why don't I give you names and addresses of people we talked to---there aren't many---and what they told us. Then maybe you'll let me get back to work and quit yakking.”

I told him that would be fine and I pulled over a pad of foolscap and made notes, and when I finished, Uncle Am and I knew as much as the police did. About the disappearance of Albee Nielson, anyway. I thanked Chudakoff and hung up.

Uncle Am came out of the inner office and sat down across from my desk in the outer one. “Well, kid,” he asked, “how does it hit you?”

I shrugged. “Looks like Albee just took a powder, all right. But if Nielson wants to spend a little before he's convinced, who are we to talk him out of it?”

“Nobody. Anyway, we'll see what he's got to say.”

It wasn't long before we heard what he had to say. Nielson looked anywhere in his fifties. Grizzled graying hair and a beard to match, steel-rimmed glasses, and the red skin and redder neck of a man who's worked outdoors all his life, even under a relatively mild Wisconsin sun.

“Damn cops,” he said. “That Chudakoff. Wouldn't believe me. Told him Albee wouldn't run away. Not for eight hundred dollars, and when he had it.”

I asked, “How did you and Albee get along, Mr. Nielson? In general, and the day he came to you for the money?”

“General, fair. Oh, we didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Crazy ideas, he had. Left me alone the minute he got through high school, came to Chicago. But we kept in touch. Letter once in a while. And he dropped up once in a while, sometimes just overnight, sometimes a whole weekend. Usually when he could borrow a car.”

“You ever visit him here?”

“Once-twice a year, if I had business in Chicago. Not overnight, 'less I had business that kept me. Then I stayed at a hotel, though. Didn't think much of that---what he called a pad, of his.”

“What about Albee's mother? And any brothers or sisters he was close to?”

“No brothers or sisters. Mother died when he was twelve. What's she got to do with it?”

“We're just trying to get the whole picture, Mr. Nielson,” I said. “And Albee and you lived alone till he was graduated from high school and he came to Chicago?”

He nodded, and I asked, “How long ago was that?”

“ 'Leven-twelve years. Albee's thirty now.”

“Did he ever borrow money from you during that time?”

“Small amounts a few times. If he was out of work a while or something. But always paid it back, when he got a job. That was back when. Ain't borrowed since, till now, from the time he got that bookstore job. That paid pretty good.”

“So you didn't worry about his paying back the current eight hundred?”

“Oh, it'd of taken him a time to do it, but he would of. Especially as he'd learned his lesson---I think---and was through with gambling.” He stopped long enough to light a pipe he'd been tamping down, “Oh, I bawled hell out of him before I give it to him. That kind of gambling, I mean. Not that I'm agin gambling in reason. Used to go into Kenosha most every Saturday night myself for a little poker. But stakes I could afford. It was going in debt gambling that I laid Albee out for. Laid him out plenty, 'fore I give him the money.”

“But you didn't actually quarrel?”

“Some, at first. But we got over it and he stayed for supper, and we talked about my plans, now I'm partially retiring.”

“What do you mean by partly retiring, Mr. Nielson?” Uncle Am cut in with that; I'd been wondering whether to ask it or skip it.

“Place near Kenosha's a little too much for me to handle any more. By myself, that is, and I don't like hired hands. Always quit on you when you're in a jam.

“So I'd decided---if I could get my price, and I did, near enough---to sell it and get a smaller truck farm. One I could handle by myself, even when I get some older'n I am now. Maybe give me time to set in the sun an hour or two a day, not work twelve, sometimes more, hours a day like I been. And in a milder climate.

“That's mostly what me and Albee talked about. I'd thought Florida. Albee said California climate'd be better for me, dryer.”

“Have you made up your mind now which?”

“Yes-no. Made up my mind to take a look at California. Saw Florida once. If I like California better, and find what I want, I'll stay.”

“And since this conversation with Albee a week ago Saturday, you haven't heard from him? Not even a letter?”

“Nope. No reason for him to write. Told him I'd be passing through Chicago in a few days on my way either to Florida or California, hadn't made up my mind for sure which then, and that I'd look him up to say so long. That was the last thing between us.”

“And this would have been about eight o'clock Saturday evening, which would have got him back to Chicago about ten.”

“It's about two hours' drive, yes. And I left Monday. Didn't take me long to pack up as I thought. Been here since, a week today. Want to find Albee, or what happened to him---or something---before I take off. No hurry in my getting to California, but I'm wasting time here and I don't like Chicago. Kill time seeing a lot of movies, but that's about all I can do. That Chudakoff, he thinks Albee run off. I still don't. He says if I want more looking, try you. Here I am.”

“And if we have no better luck than the police,” I asked, “or if we decide they're right in deciding your son left town voluntarily, how long do you intend to stay in Chicago?”

Nielson burst into a sudden cackle of laughter that startled inc. Up to now he hadn't cracked a smile. “What you're asking is how much I want to spend. Let's take it from the other end. How much do you charge?”

I glanced at Uncle Am so he'd know to take over; when we're both around I always let him do the talking on money.

“Seventy-five a day,” he said. “And expenses. I suggest you give us a retainer of two hundred; that'll cover two days and expenses. That'll be long enough for us to give you at least a preliminary report. And there shouldn't be many expenses, so if you decide to call it off at the end of two days you'll probably have a rebate coming.”

Nielson frowned. “Seventy-five a day for both of you to work on it or for one?”

I let Uncle Am tell him it was for one of us, and argue it from there. He finally came down to sixty a day, saying it was our absolute minimum rate---which it is, for private clients. We charge less only to insurance companies, skip-trace outfits, and others who give us recurrent trade. And Uncle Am finally settled for a retainer of one-fifty, which would allow thirty for expenses.

Nielson counted it out in twenties and a ten. Then he had another thought and wanted to know if today would count for a day, since it was already two in the afternoon. Uncle Am assured him it wouldn't, unless whichever of us worked on it worked late enough into the evening to make it a full day.

I'd thought of another question meanwhile. “Mr. Nielson, when Albee borrowed the money from you, did he tell you he'd lost his job at the bookstore?”

He gave that cackle-laugh again. “No, he didn't. I didn't find out that till I phoned the store to see if I could get him at work. Albee's smart, figured I'd be less likely to lend him money if I knew he was out of work. Guess I would of anyway---he's never been out of a job long---but he didn't know that and I don't blame him for playing safe. Told me he wasn't working that Saturday cause the store was closed for three days, Friday through Sunday, for remodeling.”

“One other thing, did you give him cash or a check? If it was a check we'll know something when we find out where it clears from. He couldn't have cashed a check that size late Saturday night or on a Sunday.”

“It was cash. I'd closed out my bank account, had quite a bit of cash, cashier's check for the rest. Still got enough I won't have to use that cashier's check till I'm ready to buy another truck farm.”

He stood up to go and we both walked to the door with him. Uncle Am asked something I should have thought of. “Mr. Nielson, if he still is in Chicago and we find him, what do we tell him? Just to get in touch with you at the Ideal Hotel?”

“You can make it stronger'n that. Tell him to get in touch with me or else. I never made a will, see, so being my only living blood relative, he's still my heir. But it don't have to stay that way. I can make a will in California and cut him off. Cost him a lot more than eight hundred dollars, someday.”

He reached for the doorknob but Uncle Am's question and its answer had made me think of something. I said, “Just a minute, Mr. Nielson. Has this possibility occurred to you? That he did blow town while he had that eight hundred as a stake, rather than pay it to a bookie just to stay here, but that he intends to write to you as soon as he's got another job somewhere and can start paying off what he owes you?”

“Yep, that's possible. Sure I thought of it.”

“This is not my business, Mr. Nielson, but if that does happen, would you still make a will to disinherit him?”

“Make up my mind if and when it happens. Maybe according to what he says when he writes, and if he really does start paying back. Right now I'm mad at him if that's what happened---if he did that without letting me know so I wouldn't waste time and money trying to find him here. But I could get over my mad, I guess.”

“If you don't know just where you're going in California, how are you having your mail forwarded?”

“Fellow bought from me's going to hold it for me till I write him. But no letter's come yet could be from Albee. I phoned last night to make sure. Just a couple bills and circulars. No personal letters like could be from Albee even if he changed his name. I thought of that, son. May be a farmer, but I ain't dumb.”

“That I see,” I said. “And you'll probably phone Kenosha once more the last thing before you start driving west?”

“Right, except for the driving. Sold my pickup truck with the farm. Buy another in California. Be a hell of a long drive, rather go by train.”

“Do you want written reports?” I asked him.

“Don't see what good they'd do. Just phone me at the hotel what you find out. If I see any more movies before I go, I'll do it by day, stay there evenings so you can call me. Or Albee can, if you find him.”

That seemed to cover everything anybody could think of so we let him leave. Uncle Am strolled into his inner office and I strolled after him.

“What do you think, Uncle Am?” I asked.

He shrugged. “That Albee took a powder. I think his papa thinks so too, but if he wants to let us spend a couple of days making a final try, more power to him. He's a stubborn old coot.”

“Uh-huh” I said. “Well, I guess it's my turn to work on it. You put in four days' work last week and I got in only two. This'll even it up.”

“Okay, kid. Going to take the car?”

I shook my head. “Most of the places are pretty near here. I'll do it faster on foot or an occasional taxi hop than having to find places to park.”

He yawned and took a deck of cards out of his desk to play some solitaire. “Okay. I'll be here till five. Think you'll work this evening, or call it half a day today?”

“I might as well work through,” I said. “So don't figure on dinner with me and look for me when you see me.”

I went back to my desk and took the paper I'd taken the notes on during my conversation with Chudakoff. And said so long to Uncle Am and left.

I decided to go to the bookstore first. It might close at five, and the other addresses I had were personal ones and I'd probably stand a better chance of finding the people I wanted to talk to by evening than by day.

It was the Prentice Bookstore on Michigan Avenue. I'd never been inside it, but I knew where it was. It took me about twenty minutes to walk there.

There weren't any customers at the moment. A clerk up front, a girl, told me Mr. Heiden, the proprietor, was in his office at the back. I went back, found him studying some publishers' catalogs, introduced myself and showed him identification.

“You let Albee Nielson go on Friday, the fifth?”

“Yes. And haven't seen him. I told everything I knew to the detective---the city detective---that came here last week. Who you working for? The man he owed money to?”

“For Albee's father,” I said. “He's worried about his son's disappearance. For his sake, do you mind answering a few more questions?”

He gave me a grudging “What are they?” and put down the catalog he'd been looking at.

“Why did you fire Albee?”

“I'm afraid that that's one I won't answer.”

“Had you given him notice?”

“No.”

“Then doesn't that pretty well answer the other question? You must have found that he was dipping in the till, or knocking down some way or other. But decided not to prosecute, and now it'd be too late, and it'd be slander if you said that about him.”

He give me a smile, but a pretty thin one. “That wasn't a question, Mr. Hunter. I can't control what conclusions you may choose to draw.”

“Would you give him a recommendation for another job?”

“No, I wouldn't. But I would refuse to give my reasons for not giving one.”

“That would be your privilege,” I admitted. And since I wasn't getting anywhere on that tract, I tried another. “Do you know anything about Albee's life outside the job? Names of any of his friends, anything at all about him personally?”

“Not a thing, I'm afraid. Except his home address and telephone number, and of course you already have those. Before he started here I checked a couple of references he gave me, but I'm afraid I've forgotten now what they were except that they checked out all right. That was almost five years ago.”

“Do you remember what kind of jobs they were?”

“One was taking want-ads for a newspaper, but I forget which newspaper. The other was clerking in a hardware store---but I don't remember now even in what part of town it was. And as for friends of his, no. He must have, or have had, some, but none of them ever came here to see him. Almost as though he told them not to, as though he deliberately wanted to keep his business life and his social life completely separated. I've never known even what kind of friends he had. And he never talked about himself.”

He was being friendly now and cooperating, once we'd skirted the subject of why he'd fired Albee. But his very refusal to answer that question, I thought, pretty well did answer it.

So I did the only thing I could do, gave him a business card and asked him to call us if he did happen to think of anything at all that might be the slightest help in our finding Albee for his father. He promised to do that, and maybe he even meant it.

On my way out, I saw the girl clerk was still or again free and asked her if she'd known Albee Nielson. The name registered, but only from seeing it on sales slips and employment records. She'd worked there only a week and had been taken on because Nielson, as she thought, had quit the job.

So I went out into the hot July sunlight again. Next was Albee's pad, and his landlady. On a short street called Seneca, near the lake. Only a ten minute walk this time; he'd picked a place conveniently near to where he had worked. Handy to the beach, too, if he swam or sun-bathed.

It was an old stone front, three stories, that had probably been a one-family residence in its day but had now been divided into a dozen rooms. That's how many mailboxes there were and there was a buzzer button under each. Nielson was the name on No. 9, and I pushed the buzzer button under it. Even took hold of the doorknob in case an answering buzz should indicate that the lock was being temporarily released. But I got just what I expected to get, no answering buzz. Well, that was good in one way; if Albee had been home and had let me come up to see him, we'd have had to give Floyd Nielson most of his hundred and fifty bucks. We couldn't have charged more than half a day's time, and expenses so far had run to zero.

I went back and looked through the glass of Nielson's mailbox. There was something in it that looked like it was a bill, but I couldn't read the return address. The lock was one of those simple little ones that open with a tiny flat key; if I'd thought to bring our picklock along I could have had it open in thirty seconds, but one can't think of everything.

I looked over the other mailboxes for a Mrs. Radcliffe; Chudakoff had said she was the landlady. Sure enough, it was No. 1, and had “Landlady” written under the name in the slot. I pushed her button and put my hand on the knob of the door; this time it buzzed and released itself and I went on through.

Mrs. Radcliffe had the door of No. 1 opened and was waiting for me in the doorway. She was about fifty and was small and wiry. Chicago rooming house landladies come in all sizes but most of them have two things in common, hard eyes and a tough look. Mrs. Radcliffe wasn't one of the exceptions, and I was sure, too, that she hadn't named herself after a college she'd been graduated from.

I gave her a business card and the song and dance about Albee's poor old father being worried about him, but it didn't soften her eyes any. Finally I got to questions.

“When did you last see Albee, Mrs. Radcliffe?”

“Don't remember exactly, but it was over a week ago. Then, just seeing him come in or go out. Last time I talked to him was on the first. Paid me a month's rent then; it's still his place till the end of the month, whether he comes back to it or not.”

“Have you been in it, since then?”

“No. I rent 'em as is, and people do their own cleaning. I don't go in, till after they've left, to get it cleaned up for the next tenant.”

“Are they rented furnished or unfurnished?”

“Unfurnished, except for stove and refrigerator; there's a kitchenette in each for them who want to do light housekeeping. And each one has its own bathroom. Couples live in a few of 'em, but they're fine for one person.”

“Would you mind letting me look inside Albee's?”

“Yes. It's his till his rent's up.”

“But you let Lieutenant Chudakoff go up and look around. We're working the same side of the fence. In fact, he's a friend of mine.”

“But he's a real cop and you're not. Bring him with you and I'll let you go up with him.”

I sighed. “He's a busy man, Mrs. Radcliffe. If I get him to write you a letter, on police stationery, asking you to let me borrow a key, will that do?”

“Guess so. Or even if he tells me over the phone.”

I wondered how I'd been so stupid as not to think of that short cut. The phone, I'd already noticed, was a pay one, on the wall behind me. I got a dime out of my pocket and started for it.

But she said, “Wait a minute. How do I know you'd dial the right number? You could call any number and have somebody there to say his name is Chudakoff. He gave me his card. I'll dial it.” Apparently she'd put the card on a stand right beside the door; she was able to get it without leaving the doorway. She held out a hand. “I'll use your dime, though.”

While she dialed, I grinned to myself at how suspicious she was---and how right. I could have set it up with Uncle Am to have answered “Missing Persons. Chudakoff speaking.”

She finished dialing and I heard her say, “Mr. Chudakoff please.” She listened a few seconds and then hung up.

“He's out of the office, won't be back till tomorrow morning. You can try again then, if you've got another dime.”

I sighed and decided to give up till tomorrow. Well, at least that's run the investigation into a second day.

I said, “All right, I'll be back then. Mrs. Radcliffe, do you know any of Albee's friends?”

“A few by sight, none by name. And, like I told Mr. Chudakoff, I wouldn't have an idea where he might of gone to, if he's really gone. Unless to see his father near Kenosha, and you say it's him that's looking for Albee.”

I tried a new tack, not that I expected it to get me anywhere. “Has Albee been a good tenant?”

“Except a couple of things. Played his phonograph too loud a time or two and others on the third floor complained and I told him about it. And something I don't hold with personally---he's brought a girl here. But that's his business, the way I look at it.”

Well, I didn't pursue that. I had the girl's name on my list. I thanked Mrs. Radcliffe, and left. I'd be back tomorrow, I decided, but first I'd make sure Chudakoff would be in his office ready for the call.

Next on my list was a Jerry Score, identified by Chudakoff as Albee's closest friend. Chudakoff hadn't got anything helpful out of him, but I could try. Especially as he lived only two blocks away, on Walton Place.

It turned out to be a rooming house building pretty much like the one in which Albee had his pad, except with four stories and more rooms. Again I got silence in answer to buzzing the room, and again I tried a landlady, whose name turned out to be Mrs. Proust, although this one labeled herself “Proprietor.” This one was big, fat and sloppy, and the heat was getting her down.

But she gave me the score on Jerry Score. He wouldn't be home; he was out of town for the day. She didn't know where, but he'd said he'd be back tomorrow. And she was sure he would be, because he was playing the second lead in a play for the Near Northers, a little theater group, and was having to rehearse almost every afternoon and evening. She told me where they were rehearsing and would be playing, an old theater on Clark Street that had once been a burlesque house and was now used only by little theater groups. And yes, she was sure he'd be there tomorrow afternoon because that was the last rehearsal before the dress rehearsal.

She was panting by then and invited me in for a cold lemonade, probably because she wanted one herself, and the lemonade tasted good and she was bottled up with talk. Yes, she knew Jerry pretty well, he'd been with her for years. His job? He was a door-to-door canvasser, vacuum cleaners, and did pretty well at it. He liked that kind of work because he could set his own hours and that let him go in for amateur theatricals. He'd wanted to be a pro and had once made a try at Hollywood, but had given up and came back. He gave her duckets and she'd seen him act and thought he was pretty good. She was show people herself; back when, she'd been a pony in a chorus line, with a traveling troupe that had once played the very theater Jerry was now acting in.

Yes, she knew Albee Nielson. Not real well, but she'd met him a few times, and had seen him act too. Yes, he'd been with the Near Northers, but not in the current play, and Jerry had told her, she thought about a week ago, that Albee had left town.

In case she might be holding something back---although she sure didn't sound as though she was---I trotted out the poor old father bit for her, telling her that finding Albee for his father was the reason I wanted to see Jerry Score.

It didn't help, but she'd have helped if she could. Jerry hadn't told her where Albee had gone, and she didn't think Jerry knew. I believed her and was convinced she couldn't tell me more than she had about Albee; that is, anything that would be helpful in finding him.

Not that she wasn't willing to keep on talking---about anything at all. I had to make my escape or soon she'd have been bringing out her press clippings and theatrical photos of two dozen years ago. But I liked her and promised to come back some time, and meant it.

It was five o'clock. The next name on my list was Honey Howard, Albee's inamorata. She lived a taxi jump away, on Schiller Street a couple blocks west of Clark Street. But the Graydon Theater, the ex-burlesque house that was now used only by little theater groups like and including the Near Northers, was on Clark just a block or two from Schiller, so I decided to take a taxi there, and walk to Honey's from the theater. Probably I'd find no one at the theater, but if they'd had an afternoon rehearsal without Jerry Score and it had run late, someone might still be there.

I used the phone in the hallway near Mrs. Proust's door to call a cab and waited for it outside. Surprisingly, for such a rush hour, it came fairly quickly, and it was only five-thirty when I disembarked in front of the Graydon.

I walked through the lobby, its walls ornate with plaster nymphs and satyrs, and tried the doors but found them locked. But there'd be a stage entrance around off the alley and I headed for it, neared it just in time to see a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman turn a key in the lock of the door and come toward me. I begged his pardon and asked if he was connected with the Near Northers.

He smiled. “You might almost say I am the Near Northers, young man. I started the group four years ago and have been manager ever since and director of every alternate play we've put on since. I'm directing the current one. What can I do for you?”

I introduced myself and told him I was interested in Albee Nielson, and why.

He told me that he didn't know a lot about Albee personally, but he'd be glad to tell me what he did know. Where should we talk? We could go back into the theater, or there was a quiet bar a block down the street if I cared to have a drink with him.

It was half past five and I decided on the drink. I'd be eating soon, maybe before I looked up Honey Howard if my talk with the little theater group's manager-director ran very long.

He introduced himself, while we walked, as Carey Evers. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, and it occurred to me that

his face was slightly familiar too. I asked him if I'd ever seen him before, possibly on television or in movies.

Quite probably, he told me, if I ever watched old movies on late-late shows. He'd started in them about the time they were making the transition from silents to talkies. He'd played bit parts and character roles. Never important parts, never starred, but he'd been in a hundred and sixty-four movies. A great many of them were B's, most of them in fact, but they were still being rerun on television. He'd never tried to make the transition to television per se. He'd retired seven years ago.

We were in the bar, sitting in a booth over drinks, by that time. He stopped talking, waiting for me to start asking my questions about Albee, but instead I asked him how much time he had.

He glanced at his watch. “An hour or so. Dinner date at seven, but it's near here; I won't have to leave until a quarter of.”

“Good,” I said. “Then keep on about yourself for at least a few more minutes. How you came to Chicago after you retired, and how you started the Near Northers.”

He'd bought a place in Malibu when he'd retired, he told me, but he'd never liked California. “Hated the place, in fact. And I'd been born and raised in Chicago---broke into show business here, night club work---and didn't go to Hollywood till I was almost thirty. And I found myself homesick for Chicago after I had nothing to do out there, so I sold the Malibu place within a year and came back. Bought a house on Lake Shore Drive, but near the Near North Side, my old haunt.

“And after a while, found myself bored with nothing to do, and homesick for show biz again, and discovered little theater. Worked with two other groups, and then started my own. It's wonderful. I work fourteen hours a day, except when I rest between plays, and love it.”

He grinned wryly. “And these kids love me---if only because I'm angel as well as manager-director.” He explained that almost all little theater groups operated at a deficit, especially if they wanted to do good work and put on good plays, the public be damned, and still keep ticket prices low enough so they'd have a good audience to play to.

Carey Evers had retired not rich but with a lot more money then he'd be able to use during the rest of his life, and could think of no better way to spend it, and his time; as long as he remained strong and healthy enough, he'd keep on doing what he was doing. He loved it.

In answer to a question, he told me that no, the actors didn't make any money out of it; they worked for the love of acting, for the fun of it, and some of them with the hope of learning enough to become professionals someday. And two kids out of the original group he'd started with four years ago were now doing bit parts in television, another was now an announcer on a Chicago television station.

“Do you ever lend any of them money?” I asked, and then cut in before he could answer. “Wait. That's none of my business, but this is: Did Albee Nielson ever borrow or try to borrow money from you?”

He nodded. “About three weeks ago, he came to me and tried to borrow five hundred. I turned him down. In the first place, I never lend money in amounts like that and in the second, I didn't believe his story, that it was for an operation for his father. I knew enough about him to know that his father was solvent, and I knew Albee was working steady---he was then---but playing the horses. I put two and two together.

“And from what I've learned since, my addition was correct. In fact, in the week or so after that he apparently ran a few hundred more in the hole trying to get out.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?”

He nodded. “That was when we were casting the current play and I asked him if he wanted to try out for a part. He didn't. It was too bad; he's a pretty good actor. I'd say almost but not quite professional, or potentially professional, caliber. He had the lead role in two plays we've put on, strong supporting parts in several others.”

“What else do you know about him? Especially his personal life?”

He talked a while, but I didn't know any more when he'd told me all he could than I had when he'd started. Yes, Jerry Score was his closest friend, Honey Howard was his girl. And other things I'd already learned.

I asked him if he knew where Jerry Score was today. It turned out in Hammond, Indiana, for the funeral of an uncle. “Went there a little early to have some time with his family. The funeral's tomorrow morning, and Jerry will rush right back for afternoon rehearsal. He'll probably come right from the train, so you'll do better finding him at the Graydon than trying his room. We start rehearsal at one-thirty.”

“Will I be able to talk to him during rehearsal, or should I wait till after?”

“During. He's not on stage all the time. Ed, would you like a ducket or two for the show, Thursday evening? Or any night through Sunday, for that matter; we run four days.”

I told him I'd manage to make it one of the four but would just as soon kick through with a paid admission to help the cause.

Then he asked me about me, and about being a private detective, and I got to talking. And was still going strong when suddenly I saw that it was ten of seven and reminded him about his appointment. He lost another half minute giving me a fight over the check---it was only for two drinks apiece---then gave up and ran.

I paid the check and left more slowly because I was trying to decide whether to call on Honey Howard first, or after eating. I was beginning to get pretty hungry, but duty won when I realized I'd have a better chance of finding her in now than maybe an hour later when she could have left for the evening.

It was another stone front; it was my day for stone fronts. One mailbox had two names on it, Wilcox and Howard, and the number six. But there was no bell button and the door wasn't locked so I went in and started checking room numbers, found Number Six on the second floor, and knocked.

A tall, quite beautiful colored girl opened the door. But very light colored---far from Hershey-bar---so I felt sure she would be the Wilcox of the two names on the mailbox, Honey Howard's roommate. I asked her if Miss Howard was there. She said yes, and then stepped back. “Honey, someone to see you.”

And Honey appeared at the doorway instead. Hershey-bar, yes, but petite and very beautiful, much more so than her tall, light roommate.

I gave her my best smile and went into my spiel.

“You might as well come in, Mr. Hunter,” she said, stepping back. I followed her into a nicely furnished, bright and cheerful double room pretty much like the one Uncle Am and I live in on Huron Street.

“I'm willing to help if I can, Mr. Hunter,” she said, “but I hope this won't take very long. Lissa and I were just about to go out to eat.”

It was the perfect opening. I said, “I'm ravenously hungry myself, Miss Howard. May I invite both of you to have dinner with me? Then we can talk while we eat, and it won't take up any of anybody's time.” I grinned at her. “And we'll all eat for free because I can put it on my client's expense account.”

She gave a quick glance at her roommate and apparently got an affirmative because she turned back and returned my grin. “All right, especially if it's on Mr. Nielson. After the way Albee ran out on me without even telling me he was going, guess the Nielsons owe me at least a dinner. Let's go.”

And we went, although first I instigated a conversation as to where they wanted to go so we could phone for a cab. But the place they wanted to go, I had in fact been intending to go anyway, was only two blocks south on Clark Street, only a few blocks away and they'd rather walk.

It turned out to be a fairly nice restaurant, called Robair's. The proprietor knew the girls and came over to our table while we were having cocktails and I was introduced to him and he grinned and admitted that his name was really Robert but that he knew how the name was pronounced in French and thought it a little swankier to spell it that way. He was colored and so were the waitresses and most of the clientele, but I was far from being the only ofay in the place.

When I started asking questions, Honey Howard answered them freely, or seemed to. Of course I didn't ask anything about her personal relationships with him; that was none of my business.

She'd last seen him Thursday evening, two evenings before the time he'd been seen last. No, he hadn't said anything about going away anywhere, not even about a possibility of his going up to Kenosha to see his father. Nor anything about his job or a possibility of his losing it. But he had been moody and depressed, and had admitted he owed a bundle to his bookie and was worried about it. She'd told him she had fifty bucks saved up and wanted to know if lending him that would help. He'd thanked her but said it would not, that it was a hell of a lot more than that.

No, she hadn't heard from him since. And she made that convincing by admitting she was a bit hurt about it. Quite a bit, in fact. The least he could have done would have been to telephone her to say goodbye and he hadn't even done that.

No, she had no idea where he might have gone, except that it would have been another big city---like New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco. He hated small towns. Or maybe Paris---Paris was the only specific place he'd ever talked about wanting to go to.

I considered that for a moment because it was the only specific place that had been mentioned thus far as a place he'd like to go. I asked Honey---we were Honey and Lissa and Ed by now---whether he spoke French. He didn't, and I pretty well ruled Paris out. With only eight hundred bucks and little chance of getting a job there, it would be a silly place for him to go, however glamorous it might look to him. Besides, with a sudden change of identity that left him no provable antecedents, he'd have hell's own time getting a passport.

No, I wasn't going to learn anything helpful from Honey. Jerry Score, tomorrow, would be my last hope. And a slender one.

We'd finished eating by then and I suggested a brandy to top the dinner off. Honey agreed, but Lissa said she had to leave; she worked as hat check girl in a Loop hotel and her shift was from eight-thirty on. She'd just have time to make it.

Honey and I had brandies and, since I'd run out of questions to ask her, she started asking them of me. I saw no reason not to tell her anything I'd learned to date, so I started with Nielson's phone call and went through my adventures of the day.

She looked at me a moment thoughtfully when I ran down, and smiled a bit mischievously. “Since you want to take a look at it, should we take a look together---at Albee's pad?”

“You mean you have a key?”

She was fumbling in her purse. “Pair of keys. Outer door and room. Just hadn't got around to throwing them away.” She found them and handed them to me, two keys fastened together with a loose loop of string.

It was a real break, a chance to see Albee's pad and to have Honey see it with me. She'd be able to tell me how much of his stuff he'd taken, things like that. Besides, I could get in trouble using those keys by myself. But not if I was with Honey; if he'd given her keys he'd given her the legal right to use them, whether he was there or not. Even Mrs. Radcliffe couldn't object to our going up there, not that we'd alert her if we could help it.

I bought us each a second brandy on the strength of those keys, then paid the tab and phoned for a taxi.

The landlady's door stayed closed when we passed it, and we didn't encounter anyone in the hallway or on the stairs. Albee's room, No. 9, was the front one on the third floor.

The moment I turned on the light and looked around I saw why Tom Chudakoff had called it a “padded pad.” Except for a dresser there wasn't a piece of furniture in sight, but the floor was padded almost wall to wall. In one corner was a mattress with bedding and a pillow. The rest of the floor was scattered with green pads, the kind used on patio furniture. In all sizes. You could sit almost anywhere, fall almost anywhere. Real cool.

At the far end a curtain on a string masked what was no doubt the kitchenette, at one side there were two doors, one no doubt leading to a John and the other to a closet.

Honey closed the door and was looking around. She pointed to a bare area of floor on which there was a small stack of LP phonograph records. “His portable phono's gone. And part of his records. I'll check the closet.”

She kicked off her shoes and started for one of the doors. I saw the point; it made sense to kick off your shoes in here. Then you could walk in a straight line; it didn't matter whether you stepped on floor or padding. Luckily, I was wearing loafers and I stepped out of them and followed her.

She was looking into a closet behind the door she'd opened and I looked over her shoulder. There were some clothes hanging there, but not many.

“There were two suitcases in here, and a lot more clothes. He cleared out, all right. With his phonograph and as many clothes as he could get into the two suitcases. I think he probably went to Los Angeles.”

“Huh?” I said.

She pointed to one of the garments still in the closet. “His overcoat. He'd have taken that, even if he had to carry it over his arm, if he was going to New York. Or even San Francisco. It's an almost new overcoat; he just got it last winter.”

“Why rule out Florida?” I asked.

“He told me he went there once and didn't like it. And that was Miami, the nearest thing there to a big city. And he didn't like the South, in general. Or Southerners, or Texans.”

I tried the dresser while she looked into the bathroom and reported his shaving things were gone. The top three drawers of the dresser were empty. There was dirty linen in the bottom drawer; he hadn't had room for that. I ran my finger across the top of the dresser; there was at least a week's accumulation of dust.

“Doesn't seem to be any doubt he took off,” I said.

Honey was disappearing behind the curtain that screened off the kitchenette. I wondered what she was looking for there. Not food, surely, after the big dinner we'd just eaten.

Then she pulled back the curtain part way and grinned at me, holding up a bottle. “Anyway, he left us half a bottle of Scotch.”

“Going to take it along?”

“Not in the bottle,” she said. “I'll find us glasses. Pick yourself a chair, man.”

I laughed and picked myself a pad.

And jumped almost out of my clothes when a buzzer buzzed. Someone had just pushed the button under Albee's mailbox. I looked at Honey and she looked back, as startled as I was.

My first thought was to ignore it and then I realized that, as this was a front room, whoever was ringing would know that there was a light on, that someone was here.

I stood up quickly as it buzzed a second time. “I'll handle it,” I told Honey. “Stay behind that curtain out of sight,” I told her. I found the button beside the door that would release the catch on the door downstairs and held it down a few seconds.

“If it's someone you know,” I told Honey over my shoulder, “come on out. Otherwise stay there.”

It was probably, I told myself, some casual friend of Albee's who, happening by, saw his light on. If that was the case, I could easily explain, identify myself, and get rid of him.

I stepped back into my loafers, for dignity, and waited.

When there was a knock on the door, I opened it.

I never really saw what he looked like. He stepped through the door the instant it opened and hit me once, with a fist like a piledriver, in the stomach. I hadn't been set for it, and it bent me over double and knocked the wind out of me, all the wind. I couldn't have spoken a word if my life depended upon it.

Luckily, it didn't. He could have swung a second time, to my chin, and knocked me cold and I wouldn't even have seen it coming. But he didn't. He stepped back and said, quite pleasantly, “Red would like you to drop up and see him. I think you better.”

And he walked away. Honey was beside me by the time I could even start to straighten up. She was the one who closed the door. “Ed! Are you hurt?”

I couldn't talk to tell her that I couldn't talk and that that was a damn silly question anyway. She helped me to cross the room and to lie down on the mattress and she moved the pillow so it was under my head when I was able to straighten out enough to put my head down. She asked me if a drink would help and by that time I had enough breath back to tell her not yet, but if she wanted to help sooner than that she could hold my hand.

I'd been partly kidding, but she took me at my word, sat down on the edge of the mattress and held my hand. And maybe it did help; pretty soon I was breathing normally again and the acute phase of the pain had gone. I was going to have somewhat sore stomach muscles for several days.

What time I got home that night doesn't matter, but Uncle Am was already asleep. He woke up, though, and wanted to know what gave, and I made with the highlights while I undressed. He frowned about the Kogan goon bit and wanted to know if I wanted to do anything about it. I said no, that obviously he hadn't known Albee by sight and had made a natural mistake under the circumstances, and that what I'd got was no more than Albee would have had coming.

I said, “I'll talk to this Jerry Score tomorrow, but I guess that'll wind it up, unless I get a lead from him. Up to now, the only thing that puzzles me is why old man Nielson still thinks there's a chance Albee didn't do what he obviously did do.”

Uncle Am said, “Uh-huh. I didn't set the alarm, kid. I got to sleep early enough so I'll wake up in plenty of time. You sleep as late as you want to, since you can't see Score till afternoon.”

I slept till ten. I was surprised when I got up to find a note from Uncle Am: “Ed, I've got a wild hunch that I want to get off my mind. I'm taking the car, and a run up to Kenosha. We won't bill our client for it unless it pays off. See you this evening if not sooner.”

I puzzled about it a while and then decided to quit puzzling; I'd find out when Uncle Am got back. I took my time showering and dressing and left our room about eleven. I had a leisurely brunch and the morning paper and then it was noon. I phoned our office to see if by any chance Uncle Am was back or had phoned in; I got our answering service and learned there'd been no calls at all.

I went back to our room and read an hour and then it was time for me to leave if I wanted to get to the Graydon Theater at one-thirty. Rehearsal hadn't started yet, but Jerry Score was back and Carey Evers introduced us. He'd already explained about me to Score, so I didn't have to go through the routine.

He was a tall blond young man about my age or Albee's. Maybe just a touch on the swish side but not objectionably so.

And quite likeable and friendly. He gave me a firm handshake and suggested we go into the manager's office to talk. He wasn't in the first scene they'd be rehearsing and had plenty of time.

The manager's office contained only a battered desk, a file cabinet, and two chairs. He took one of the chairs and I sat on a corner of the desk.

His story matched what I'd learned from Honey and from everybody else. Yes, he was convinced Albee had taken a powder, and like Honey he was annoyed with Albee for not even having said so long before he took off.

I asked, “He didn't even give you a hint when he gave you back the car keys that Saturday night?”

“I didn't see him Saturday night. The last time I saw him was Saturday morning when he borrowed the car. He just dropped the keys into my mailbox when he brought it back.”

I said, “But Lieutenant Chudakoff said that you said---” And then realized Tom hadn't said Score had seen Albee, just that Albee had returned the car keys.

I asked Score if he'd been home Saturday evening and he said yes, all evening. But that if I wondered why Albee had left the keys in the box instead of bringing them upstairs to him, the answer was simple. Since he'd decided to lam anyway he wanted to keep his get-away money intact, and he'd promised Jerry ten bucks for use of the car on the trip to Kenosha. If he'd seen him he'd have had to fork it over.

“The only thing that surprises me,” Score said, “is that the old man came up with the money for him. Albee hadn't expected it, had made the Kenosha trip as a last desperate chance. I think now that he'd have blown town even without capital if the old man hadn't come through. With a sudden stake, he just couldn't resist it.”

I asked if he knew what had happened at the bookstore and Score said sure, Albee had told him. He'd been managing to drag down about ten bucks a week besides his salary all the time he had worked there. Just tried to drag a bit too deeply that Friday morning because he was desperate about his bookie bill, and got caught with his hand in the till.

Score shrugged. “He'll land on his feet, wherever he went. He's --- --- --- Ever see a picture of him?”

He got up and went to the file cabinet. “We got some stills here.” He opened a drawer, hunted for and took out a file folder, handed me half a dozen eight-by-ten glossies, portrait shots. “Top one's straight, others made up for roles he played. One of 'em's as King Lear; that's the best role he ever played.”

Albee was a good-looking young man all right, but what struck me was his resemblance to his father. It was really strong, one case where neither of them or anybody else could ever have denied the relationship. The second shot showed him as a mustachioed pirate with a black eye patch, as villainous a character as ever stormed a poop deck, whatever a poop deck is. The third --- --- ---

The photographs shook a little in my hand. Albee as King Lear, with lines of age in his face and wild gray hair and a wild gray beard. He didn't look like his father in that shot; he was his father. Trim that beard. Instead of that gray wig, dye his own short hair. Let him talk like a Wisconsin farmer as, having known his father and being an actor, he certainly could do. . . .

I made the motions of looking at the rest of the glossies and handed them back. I thanked Jerry Score and made my get-away.

I walked south and walked blindly except when I had to cross a street without getting run over. Of course Floyd Nielson hadn't given away eight hundred dollars. Discount everything that Albee, as Floyd Nielson, had told us. Albee hadn't expected to get the loan and hadn't. But he'd learned his father had just sold the farm. Probably had all his money including the proceeds of the sale on hand, in cash. A fortune for a killing, whether it had been in cold blood or during a fight after a violent quarrel.

And then the fright and the planning. Establish that Albee had taken a powder, that his father was still alive and had gone west, where he'd gradually be lost track of. And if Albee showed up alive someday, somewhere, even came back to Chicago someday, so what? His father had been alive and looking for him long after Albee had gone. If his father's body were never found, there'd never have been a murder, never be an investigation.

And Uncle Am, even without having seen the photographs I'd just seen, had guessed it before I had. Or at least had seen it as a possibility. Right now he was on the Nielson farm, looking to see if there was a place where a body could have been put where it would never be found. Not a grave; a grave gives itself away by sinking unless there's someone around to keep it leveled off. But somewhere. . . .

If I'd had any sense I'd have gone to the office to wait for Uncle Am. Even if he hadn't found a body---and Albee could have disposed of it elsewhere than at the truck farm---we could prove a case, or let the cops prove it, just by pulling off Albee's beard; it was two inches long and he couldn't possibly have grown a real one in nine days.

But I didn't have any sense because I was walking into the lobby of the Ideal Hotel. A medium priced hotel, the kind the real Floyd Nielson would have chosen. Albee was staying in character and---suddenly I saw the reason why Albee Nielson had used first Missing Persons and then us as cats'-paws; he himself had had to stay away from even pretending to hunt for Albee on his own; Honey, Score, probably even his landlady, would have recognized him, gray beard or no. Which was why, too, he'd taken a hotel south of the Loop instead of on the Near North Side. In person, he'd avoided the area completely, except for his brief visit to our office.

I asked the clerk if Mr. Nielson was in. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “I guess so; his key's not in the box. Room two-fourteen.”

There was an elevator, but I didn't wait for it; I walked up the stairs. I found 214 door and knocked on it. He opened it and said, “Oh, Mr. Hunter. Come in.” I went in and he closed the door and looked at me. “Well, find out anything about Albee?”

And I realized then, too late, that I hadn't figured out what I was going to say or do. Give a tug on his beard? But I'd look, feel, and be too damn foolish if I was wrong, and I could be wrong.

I decided to toss out a feeler and see how he reacted to it.

I said, “The case isn't closed yet, Mr. Nielson. Something new has come up. There's a suspicion of murder.”

And as suddenly as I'd been hit in the gut last night, I was being strangled. His hands were around my throat. There are people who fight by lashing out with their fists and there are stranglers. He was a strangler. And his hands were strong. Like a steel vise.

I tried to pull them away with my own hands and couldn't. Then, just in time, I remembered the trick for breaking a strangle hold taken from the front. You bring up your forearms inside his arms and jerk them apart. I tried it. It worked.

I took a step back quick while I had the chance, before he could grab me again. He didn't know boxing. He put up his guard too high and I swung a right in under it that got him in the gut just like the goon's swing last night got me. Maybe not as hard, but hard enough to bring his guard down. I feinted a left to keep them down and then put my right into his chin with all the weight of my body behind it, and he went down, out cold.

So cold that my first thought was to kneel beside him and make sure that his heart was still beating.

My second was the beard. It did not come off. And I bent down to study his face closely and saw that the age lines in it were etched and not drawn.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and stayed sitting there for about nine hours. Anyway, it seemed that long. I gently massaged my neck where those strong hands had gripped it, and then I looked down at those strong hands and wondered how I could have been so blind as not to notice them the first time we'd talked to him. They were, even aside from their own indications of age, the muscled, hard, callused hands of a farmer, not the hands of a book-store clerk. Uncle Am had always told me to look at people's hands as well as their faces when I was sizing them up. I hadn't even noticed Floyd Nielson's hands.

He began to stir, and his eyes opened.

And there were footsteps in the hallway outside and a heavy knock on the door, a cop's kind of knock. I called out, “Come in!”

The first one through was a cop I knew slightly, Lieutenant Guthrie of Homicide. The second man I didn't know; I later learned he was a Kenosha County Sheriffs deputy. The third man in was Uncle Am.

Nielson sat up.

Guthrie said, “Floyd Nielson, you are under arrest for suspicion of the murder of Albee Nielson. Anything-you-say-may-be-used-against-you.” He produced a pair of handcuffs.

Uncle Am winked at me. “Come on, kid. They won't need us, not now anyway. We may have to testify later.”

I went with him. Outside he said, “You beat me to him, Ed, but damn it, you shouldn't have tackled him alone.”

I said, “Yeah.”

“There's a likely looking bar across the street. I think we've earned a drink. How's about it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

We ordered drinks. Uncle Am said, “You gave me the idea, kid, when you said, last thing last night, that what puzzled you was that he wouldn't just accept that Albee had taken it on the lam, go on to California and wait to hear from Albee if Albee ever chose to write. What he did was out of character, spending a full week in Chicago heckling first Missing Persons and then us. He just wanted it firmly established that Albee had taken a powder.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“With the hypothetical money. It would have been out of character for him to give Albee that money to begin with, and he didn't. So they got into a fight over it and he killed Albee. That's my guess, and if it was that, he could probably have got away with self-defense if he'd called the sheriff right away. But he wanted to play it cute.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“So I guessed he'd have disposed of the body on the farm rather than risk moving it, so I went there. I looked around with the idea of where I'd put a body where it never would be found unless someone looked for it. A grave in the open was out. But there was a brand new cement floor in the tool shed. The new owner was surprised Nielson had gone to that trouble after he'd already sold the farm. So I called the sheriff and he brought men with picks.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“One thing puzzles me. How he got Albee to take Jerry's car back to him and then return to the farm to be killed. That part doesn't make sense.”

I said, “He brought the car back to Chicago himself Saturday evening, left it in front of Jerry's and left the keys in Jerry's mail box. He had the address on the car registration.”

“And then went back to Kenosha by bus or however, got his pickup truck and came to Chicago again to use Albee's keys to raid his pad in the middle of the night. Sure. There were two suitcases and a portable phonograph under that cement, besides Albee. Well, kid, however you figured it out, you beat me to the answer.”

I said, “Uncle Am, I cannot tell a lie.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean it's four o'clock. Let's knock off as of now and have a night on the town. We're due for one anyway.”

“Sure, kid, we're overdue. But what's that got to do with your not being able to tell a lie?”

I said, “I mean I need two more drinks before I can tell you the truth.”

“Then let's have them right here and get it over with. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

And we ordered our second round, and then our third.