Tucker's People (1943) by Ira Wolfert

Author:Ira Wolfert [Wolfert, Ira]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Munsey's
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

XIII

IN CALLING Foggarty, it had been Bauer's idea to raid Leo out of business. The moment Leo opened a new place, bang! there would be a raid and another raid and another and another until everybody would be afraid to bet with the bank and there would be no business left and Leo would have to let him go and work for the WPA, where he would not have to live in fear.

But everything this man did turned out unlucky for him. He had “no brains,” as they say, meaning his brain was tormented, stunted, corrupted, distorted, goaded, palsied and altogether prevented from either functioning or developing. Even this simple plot of his to drive Leo out of business turned into a kind of comedy.

On Thursday, while Capt. Foggarty was thinking his way cautiously around the triangle of Milletti, the regular party machine and Hall, Bauer was sure there would be a raid and remained home. He telephoned that he was ill. By Friday, Bauer was sure there would never be a raid. The police would not come running when he whistled through the telephone. They were on Joe Minch's payroll. So he came to work Friday and saw Egan and was sure Egan was a bus spotter and was sure he was not a bus spotter and was sure he was and was sure he wasn't until, at the end of the day, when he was sure for the last time and for all time that Egan was a bus spotter because the bank had not been raided that day, he was so exhausted he trembled as he walked to his coat. Leo thought he was still ill and told him to stay home Saturday.

“You got to take more care of yourself,” said Leo worriedly. “If a man is sick, I don't ask him to kill himself.”

So Bauer was at home Saturday and clung thinly to a hope that the raid would happen that day. Saturday was the day Egan reported to Foggarty that he had located the bank, but hadn't discovered the identity of the informant yet and would have to take a census of the house. Egan was convinced Bauer was the one who had tipped off the bank, but he needed an excuse to delay the raid until Monday. By Monday, all Bauer's hope had vanished. He went hopelessly to work.

***

A burly, black-haired detective named Badgley, a young man with a narrow forehead from which hung, between large ears, a long, full, rosy face, thick with hard fat, was assigned to make the raid with Egan.

The two men came up together from downtown Monday afternoon, after Edgar had delivered the policy slips to the bank and Leo had returned to his own office. They went up the stairs in silence and stood outside the door of apartment 46 a moment, listening. Then they took their badges—potsies, they called them—out of their pockets and fastened them to the lapels of their overcoats with horse-blanket safety pins.

Egan removed his gun from its holster and dropped it into the outside pocket of his overcoat.

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