The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

over the bench, the surf, the careless holiday crowd, past which the car was flicking with a burrrrr of knobby tires.

      “Well?” demanded the politician, “Can you fix it right?”

      “Sure. If you’ll guarantee the acquit­tal.”

      “Oh, that’ll be O. K.”

      “Yes, but they never stick a guy with a small charge when there’s a big one on him. F’rinstance, if a man’s robbin’ a hen house, an’ croaks a farmer while he’s doin’ it, you never hear nothin’ o’ the petty larceny.”

      “I can fix that, all right. Got to, to square the bank. They’re sorer than boiled pups, and ready to knife Brant. I’ll have him docket it as two separate cases. After the fall guy’s cleared of the murder charge, he’ll be rearrested on the others and put through.”

      “I don’t see what good that’ll do,” ob­jected Bogan. “That wouldn’t be such a devil of a big feather in Brant’s Pan­ama.”

      “It’ll be enough. I’ll see that the papers play it up right. Nadine will fall for it strong. She likes Brant, all O.K. It’s only that he hasn’t done any­thing much yet. You get the fall guy, Bogan, and I’ll attend to my end of it. Well, what say?”

      “When do you want him?”

      “Right now. And when it comes to cash—”

      “I’m on!” smiled Bogan. “I know just the fella.”

      “Where is he? In town, here?”

      “No. New York. An’ he’s some smooth worker, too, I tell you. Show him the coin, an’ he’ll go the limit.”

      “That’s good enough for me,” said Cozzens decisively. “Now well get back to the office and fix you up with expense money to take the night boat down.” And Cozzens stepped on the accelerator. “Let’s get to it.”

      “Right!” agreed Bogan. “We’ll do this honest an’ square. That’s always the best policy. Let’s go!”

      II.

      Albert Vestine, Scandinavian by birth, and by profession racetrack fol­lower, gambler, and man of various ac­tivities—all of them dubious—was wary as a partridge when Bogan called upon him by appointment. Vestine had trav­eled in too many cities, States, and lands, spoke too many languages, was too clever with his pen and brain, to mis­take the type that Bogan represented. Besides, he knew the man personally, which made him all the more cautious.

      He received Bogan in his little apart­ment on Lyon Avenue, the Bronx, and after a few commonplaces such as old-time acquaintances might exchange, asked him his business.

      Bogan looked him over before reply­ing. In his own way, Bogan was just as keen as this cosmopolitan with the high-domed forehead, the tendency to­ward baldness, the thin cheeks of un­natural pallor. As Bogan appraised him, from gray and conscienceless eyes to slim, dexterous fingers, he realized this was, indeed, the kind of man Cozzens needed.

      The price Bogan knew would be high. Vestine was no “greasy-coat stiff,” to be bought for a song. On the contrary, as Bogan observed his correct linen and cravat, his fine blue suit with the almost invisible vertical stripe, his custom-made shoes, he understood that here was just what the politician had meant when he had demanded: “A good, high-class fall guy. No roughnecks.”

      He thought, furthermore:

      “If I can work this right, there’s pro­motion in it for me, and maybe a little rake-off on the side. I’ll play it for a wad o’ good, honest graft. Honesty’s the best policy, all right.”

      “Well, Mr. Bogan,” inquired Vestine, “what can I do for you?”

      “You know me, Al,” Bogan replied. “When I say I got a good thing, I got one.”

      “Yes?”

      “An’ now, I got a bundle o’ kale for you.”

      “That sounds interesting,” smiled the Dane. “Sit down, and tell me all about it.” He gestured toward a chair. “How much, why, when, where, and what?”

      Bogan sat down, lighted a cigar to give himself countenance—which is one of the principal uses of cigars in this world—and opened up:

      “You know the burg I hail from, don’t you?”

      “Somewhat. I’ve done a little busi­ness there, off and on.”

      “Well, supposin’ some big guy there had to marry his daughter to an as­sistant district attorney, an’ she wouldn’t fall for him till he’d pulled some stunt to give him a rep, what would you ad­vise?”

      “I’d advise having the stunt pulled, by all means,” answered Vestine, likewise sitting down. His eyes were watchful, in his pale, intellectual face.

      “Correct,” approved Bogan. “We’ve got to get a fall guy.”

      “I see. Well?”

      “There’s hefty coin in the job, an’ nothin’ more’n about four years—easy years—in the pen.”

      “What’s the case?”

      “Some guy forges the name of John C. Wycoff to a check on the Wheat Ex­change National, for seven hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty cents, about three months ago. He’s an A-1 scratch man, an’ the name looks right. He gets a gents’ furnisher named Markwood Hinman to cash it. Hinman’s found two days later, croaked, in a hall­way on Oregon Avenue. The bull’s dope it that Hinman got wise to the scratch work, an’ went to see the guy to get him to make good, or somethin’, an’ the guy bumped him off to keep him from tippin’ over the bean pot. That’s all old stuff.”

      “Yes, I remember reading something about it in the papers,” agreed Vestine. “The forger cracked Hinman’s skull with brass knuckles, didn’t he? Back of the left ear?”

      “That’s the case! Well—”

      “What then?”

      “The check’s in the bank, see? The murder jazzes the bank up, investigatin’, an’ they get wise the check’s a phony. Henry Kitching, the cashier, takes it an’ heads for the district attorney’s office to raise a roar an’ start things. He gets out of his auto on Kent Street an’ goes in through the rear alley entrance to the courthouse. He’s found slugged there, five minutes later, an’ the check’s gone. Brass knucks, again.”

      “Clever!” smiled Vestine. “I sup­pose the criminal trailed him, and gave him what I believe is called the K. O., from behind.”

      “Yes, that’s the way it looks from here. An’ that’s how the story’d be put over. But nobody was ever sloughed in for none of it.”

      “I see. You mean, then, you’re look­ing for a scapegoat in the wilderness?”

      “Huh?”

      “I mean, a fall guy.”

      “Oh, sure. Goat, yes—I get you. I see you’re wise. Well, then—”

      “And this hypothetical goat would have to stand for all the charges, so as to establish the assistant district attor­ney’s reputation for brilliancy?”

      “Yes, but the murder charge won’t stick, no more’n a red-hot flapjack to a greased griddle.”

      “How can you guarantee that?” in­sisted the Dane.

      “Cinch!” And Bogan, his eyes kin­dling with enthusiasm, pulled at his cigar. Vestine, by the way, never smoked, nor did he drink. Both things, he knew, worked on the nerves.

      “Please explain?”

      “Why, it’s this way,” Bogan ex­pounded. “We’ll fix the story right, an’ copper-rivet it, so it can’t do more’n es­tablish a strong suspicion. An’ it’s