Compliments of a Fiend Read online

  Compliments of a Fiend

  Fredric Brown

  Chapter 1

  Upon Dec. 2, 1919, Ambrose Small, of Toronto, Canada, disappeared... and left more than a million dollars behind....

  Before I looked into the case of Ambrose Small, I was attracted to it by another seeming coincidence. That there could be any meaning in it seemed so preposterous that, as influenced by much experience, I gave it serious thought. About six years before the disappearance of Ambrose Small, Ambrose Bierce had disappeared. Newspapers all over the world had made much of the mystery of Ambrose Bierce. But what could the disappearance of one Ambrose, in Texas, have to do with the disappearance of another Ambrose, in Canada? Was somebody collecting Ambroses?

  —The Books of Charles Fort

  UNCLE AM DIDN'T GET HOME that night. At quitting time he'd been out on a case and I'd been sitting around the office—the Starlock Detective Agency office, where both of us worked—with nothing to do, so I'd gone on home to our rooming house, figuring he'd show up by six o'clock and we'd go out together to eat. But he didn't show up by seven and I was so hungry that I didn't wait any longer; I walked over to Clark Street and had myself a barbecue special.

  Estelle Beck, who rooms where Uncle Am and I do, was behind the counter; she'd been too busy to talk when I'd ordered, but things slacked off and she came over about the time I was finishing. She said, “Hi, Eddie. Haven't seen you for a few days.”

  “Can't eat barbecue all the time,” I told her.

  “I don't work here all the time. I get off at one-thirty.”

  “Pass my bedtime,” I said. “I get up at half past seven in the morning. And if I took you out at half past one, I wouldn't get to bed before four o'clock. Or would I? Don't answer that; I might be tempted.”

  She made a face at me. “More coffee? And where's Am tonight?”

  I said, “Yes to the first question. I don't know, to the second. Guess he's working late.”

  “Or maybe the Ambrose Collector's got him.”

  “Huh?” I said. But she'd gone away with my coffee cup to refill it, and I had to wait till she got back to ask, “Who's the Ambrose Collector?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Fine,” I said. “And why does he collect Ambroses?”

  “Nobody knows that either.”

  “Lovely,” I said. “But do you know that two new customers have come in and are waiting for you, and the boss is glaring at you? Want to be fired?”

  “Yes. I really do.” But she moved down the counter to wait on the new customers.

  I watched her over my coffee and wondered whether I was being a fool or being sensible. Uncle Am and I had known Estelle a long time; she'd quit the carnival the same season we'd quit it and had come to Chicago when we had. We'd been in touch with her ever since, but it had been only for the last few months that we'd been in the same rooming house. Anyway, maybe it was because I knew Estelle too well, and liked her too well, to want anything casual with her—and I felt that I was a long way from wanting any alliance that was permanent, or might turn out to be permanent.

  But, sitting there watching her, I wondered if Uncle Am was right in telling me how crazy I was to figure things that way.

  And thinking of Uncle Am, of course, made me wonder if he was home yet, so I downed the rest of my coffee, waved so long to Estelle, and headed home.

  Uncle Am still wasn't in and it was nearly eight o'clock, so I walked back downstairs and knocked on the door of Mrs. Brady, our landlady. I asked if there'd been any telephone calls for me and she said there hadn't.

  So I went up to our room. It was the second floor front, a nice big room, even for two people; I got out my trombone to kill a little time. I played softly—as softly as you can play on a trombone. A few scales to limber up, and then I put a phonograph record on the portable—a Dizzy Gillespie bop disk—and tried to bop along with it.

  There was a knock on the door. I reached over and shut off the phono and called out, “Come in.”

  The door opened and our next-room neighbor, Chester Hamlin, leaned limply against the doorpost. He was stripped down to an undershirt, trousers and slippers.

  He said, “You play that thing like Jimmy Dorsey.”

  “You mean Tommy Dorsey,” I said.

  He grinned. “Do I?”

  “You'd better,” I said. “Is that all you want?”

  He held up his hand and I noticed there was a screwdriver in it. He asked, 'You any good with one of these things?”

  “I know the system. The end of that thing has a squared blade. There's a slot in the end of the screw. You put the blade in the slot and turn. Clockwise, I think.”

  “That sounds complicated. Would you show me?”

  I sighed and put the trombone down on the bed. I followed him into his room. He pointed to the closet door. “Been trying to put a hasp for a padlock on that thing and I can't even get the screws started. I can turn 'em in once they start, but how do you get 'em started? The wood's hard.”

  I looked at him pityingly. “Ever think of trying a nail and a hammer? You drive the nail part way in and then pull it out again.”

  “Hell, I never thought of that. I did try hammering the screws in to start them, but that didn't work. Got a heavy nail I could use?”

  “Not loose,” I said. “But there are lots of nails in our closet we hang stuff on; you could pull one out and then put it back. But you've probably got a dozen or so in your own closet.”

  He shook his head. “Pulled them out in threw them away yesterday when I was rigging up the closet for a darkroom. Keep all my clothes in that wardrobe now. Got a pretty nice setup in there, now. Take a look.”

  He opened the closet door and flicked on a light inside. I stepped in and looked around; it really was a nice darkroom setup. The closet was bigger than ours, about seven by four feet.

  Looking over my shoulder, he said, “I've got nails; I forgot the ones that hold that picture wire I used to hang prints on. I can use one of them and put it back. How do you like the layout?”

  “Swell,” I told him. 'You must have a lot of money sunk in all this stuff.”

  “About two hundred bucks. It's not a cheap hobby. Costs more than playing a trombone. But it makes less noise.”

  “Shhh,” I said, and stood listening. Somebody was coming up the stairs and I wanted to see if it was Uncle Am coming home. The closet wall was right against our room and I could have heard if he went in there. But the footsteps went along the hall instead and started up to the third floor.

  I said, “I thought maybe that was my uncle, but I guess it wasn't. Hand me the hammer and I'll pull one of these nails for you.”

  He did, and I did, and then I sat down on the bed and watched him put the hasp for the padlock on the outside of the door.

  “How come on the outside?” I asked him, while he was tightening the last screw. “I should think you'd want a bolt on the inside, if anything, so nobody'd open the door while you're working in the dark.”

  “I'm not worried about that. I can bolt the door of my room from the inside. It's just that I don't want anybody—Mrs. Brady or the cleaning woman or Mrs. Brady's kid—to mess around in there.”

  “You're missing a bet. Some of those chemicals are poison, aren't they?”

  “Sure. That's another reason.”

  “I still think you're missing a bet,” I said. “If Mrs. Brady's kid messes around in there, he might drink some of the poison.”

  Chester Hamlin grinned. “You almost tempt me, Ed. Say, going to play trombone any more this evening?”

  “Hadn't thought about it. Why? You want me to?”

  “I wouldn't go that far. But the way you were half-sitting, half-lying on the bed, when I opened the door, ought to make a good pic. Looked like you had the trombone wrapped around your neck or something. And I got some new fast film today I'd like to try out on a flash shot. I'll waste a bulb or two on it if you're game.”

  “Okay, why not? I'll run off a tune or two while you're tooling it up. Just walk in when you're ready.”

  I went back to our room and started playing again, as I'd been doing when Chester had interrupted me, except that I didn't bother to start the phono again. And I held my position, but quit playing, when Chester opened the door a few minutes later. He set up his tripod and camera in the doorway. He said, “Go ahead and play; there isn't any sound track on this film so it won't matter.”

  “Not with the door open,” I told him. “I'm getting away with murder to be able to play this thing at all in a Chicago rooming house.”

  “Put it back to your mouth and look like you're playing. Push the slide way out; that's it. Now roll your eyes up toward the ceiling and look soulful.”

  The bulb flashed.

  He was moving the tripod a few feet to get a different angle on a second shot when I heard the phone ring downstairs. I got up quick and went past him for the head of the stairs. The call might be from Uncle Am.

  I heard Mrs. Brady's voice saying “Hello” as I got to the top of the step, and waited. I heard her say, “I don't know. Just a moment,” and then she called out “Mr. Hunter!” That meant the call was for Uncle Am; Mrs. Brady called me Ed.

  But I ran on down the stairs and said, “I'll take it, Mrs. Brady. Uncle Am isn't home yet, but I'll take it.”

  She handed me the phone and I said into it, “This is Ed Hunter speaking. My uncle isn't home yet; can I take a message?”

  The receiver said, “This is Ben Starlock, Ed. Hasn
't Am phoned you?”

  “No,” I told him. “And I've been getting worried about him. He must be working late on whatever case he's working on, but he's always called me sooner than this whenever that's happened. Or is he on a tail job, where he can't get to a phone?”

  “He isn't on any job, exactly, Ed. But he was supposed to phone me a long time ago. It's almost nine o'clock and I expected a call from him by seven at the latest.”

  “How come, if he wasn't working on a case? Was it something personal, Mr. Starlock?”

  “No, nothing personal. And he wasn't working on a case, but he was supposed to see a client—a prospective client—and talk over with him something the client wanted done. When he'd done that, he was supposed to call me.”

  “What time was this?”

  “He left the office a little after four o'clock, just before you came in, Ed. He was to talk to this prospective client and then phone me. At the office, if he got through talking to him before five o'clock. Otherwise, he said he'd phone me at home between six and seven.”

  “You're home now?”

  “Been here all evening. And it isn't like Am not to do something he said he'd do. I got curious enough to phone him.”

  “Maybe he took on the case,” I suggested, “and had to start work on it right away. And maybe it was a tail job and he can't get at a phone without losing the subject.”

  Ben Starlock said, “He wouldn't have taken on the case without consulting me. That was understood. The client understood it, too; he'd just wanted a preliminary interview with Am, and then he was going to come in the office tomorrow and arrange things. I didn't even quote him a rate.”

  “You've got this client's address, if you sent Uncle Am to see him. Have you phoned to see if he got there all right and what time he left?”

  “Don't want to do that unless I have to, Ed. Makes us look damn foolish to be checking up on one of our own operatives. And it's still early in the evening. If we don't hear from him pretty soon, though, I'll start checking up.”

  “Well, I'm getting worried, Mr. Starlock,” I said. “Maybe he had trouble finding this guy he was to talk to, or something like that, and that would account for his not having called you yet, but that doesn't explain his not calling me. He knew I'd come home from work and wait for him so we could eat together.”

  “You mean you haven't eaten yet?”

  “I went out to eat when he didn't get home by seven. But there wasn't any call for me while I was gone; I checked on that.”

  “You're staying in? You'll be there?”

  “Sure. Unless you want to give me the name and address of this client; I can go around and check up—sort of from the outside, if you don't want me to barge in.”

  “No, not yet, Ed. Let's take it easy for a couple of hours. If he hasn't phoned either of us, or hasn't come home, by eleven o'clock, we'll start checking. Okay?”

  “I guess so,” I said. Eleven sounded pretty late to me.

  “All right, let's hang up then. He may be trying to call one or the other of us right now, and we're keeping both phones busy. So long, Ed.”

  “Okay. And if I hear from him I'll call you right away, and vice versa. So long, Mr. Starlock.”

  I went back upstairs. Chester Hamlin had his camera set for another shot and was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for me. He took a look at my face as I came in and asked, “Something wrong?”

  “I'm a little worried,” I admitted. “Don't know where Uncle Am is. He's a few hours overdue.”

  “Hell, don't worry about Am. He can take care of himself.”

  “Sure he can. But—

  “He carries identification, doesn't he?”

  I nodded.

  “Then if he was in an accident or anything, you'd have heard. Maybe he's hanging one on. Or picking up a blonde. How's about posing again for one more shot of Young Man With a Horn?”

  I wasn't in the mood for it, but then again there wasn't anything else I could be doing, so I let him shoot me again, same pose but from a different angle.

  He closed the door after him when he went back to his room, but I went over and opened it again. I wanted to be sure to hear the phone if it rang.

  I managed to kill a little time polishing up the trombone and putting it back in its case and then I sat down to read the evening paper. When you're an operative for a detective agency, you read at least one newspaper a day, and you read all the local news—particularly criminal and political stuff—carefully and read retentively. Usually I'm pretty good at that, but just then I couldn't concentrate. I kept listening for the phone to ring, and it didn't.

  I gave up trying to concentrate after a while, and read the funny page and then glanced at the Sports to see how the Cubs were doing. I looked at the chess problem, but either it was too hard for me or I couldn't concentrate hard enough on it, or both. I turned to the stock exchange listings and looked at the number of advances, declines and unchanged listings—not that I owned any stocks or cared about them, but because I was mildly curious about whether Dane Evans' hunch on the numbers game had been any good. Dane, who was head clerk at the Starlock Agency, was a numbers addict; that day he'd bet a dollar on 444 and I was mildly curious to see whether he'd hit. He hadn't.

  I looked out of the window a while and then looked at my watch again and it was only nine-forty. The time was going unbelievably slowly.

  I gave up trying to keep from worrying, and let myself worry and wonder what could have happened to Uncle Am.

  The phone rang only once; I was at the foot of the stairs by the time Mrs. Brady answered it, but the call wasn't for me. She said “Just a minute, please” into the phone and then turned to me. “It's for Karl Dell, Ed. Will you knock on his door, so I won't have to yell up?”

  I said sure, and went back upstairs. I knocked on Karl's door—his room is the other side of Chester Hamlin's—and told him he was wanted on the phone.

  He didn't talk very long on the phone, and when he came back upstairs he walked on past the door of his room and stood in the doorway of ours. He said, “You told me once you played poker, didn't you, Ed?”

  “A little,” I admitted. “Uncle Am's the real poker player in our family. He can lose ten times as much as I can, in half the time.”

  He said, “That was Peewee Blain on the phone; you met him once up in my room. He said they're getting up a game—dime limit—not at his room, but within a few blocks of here. Want to sit in for a while?”

  “I'd better not,” I said. “I'm waiting for a phone call.”

  “Something wrong, Ed? I—I feel that there is.” He came on into the room and sat down on the arm of the easy chair.

  “I hope there's nothing wrong,” I said. “I am a little worried about my uncle. He hasn't shown up, or phoned.”

  “Is he working?”

  “Yes and no. He was supposed to see someone late this afternoon, but that shouldn't account for his being this late—not without phoning to let me know he was going to be late.”

  Karl Dell leaned forward, put an elbow on his knee and cupped his chin in his hand, staring at me. He asked what I knew he'd probably ask. “Can I be of any help, Ed? I know you don't believe in astrology, but—damn it, whether or not you believe in it doesn't alter the fact that it's a science. A proven science. I can't guarantee to tell you where your uncle is or what's happened to him, but I'd like to try.”

  “I would be wasting your time, Karl.”

  “Maybe not. If I can get something, it'll be a chance for me to prove to you what we've only argued about before. And I might find out where he is, and if I don't, what have you got to lose? I don't do it professionally; I won't charge you anything.” It was a tough one to answer without hurting his feelings, but suddenly I got the answer to it. And it was true. I said, “I just remembered, Karl; I don't know Uncle Am's birthday. He doesn't like getting birthday presents and cards, and won't tell anyone when it is.”

  “You're kidding me.”

  “No, I'm not. I know how old he is: forty-three. And I think his birthday is in January because around Christmas he was forty-two, and about the first of February I remember someone asked him how old he was, or it came up somehow, and he said he was forty-three.”

  Karl said, “January—that would make him Capricorn if he was born before the twentieth; Aquarius if he was born after that.”

  “Probably Capricorn,” I said. “He's got quite a bit of goat in him, and he prefers beer to water so he'd hardly be Aquarius.”