The Case of the Big Cheese    

Part III    

Sniffing the Rat          

        Wimply pressed the hot gun against my temple, and I felt the circle of the barrel grinding in as he viciously mashed it against my skull. His breath, reeking of cheap cigars and rotten fish, blasted in my face as he leaned close, a vicious smirk plastered on his twisted, mopey puss.
        "That's Wimply, you Schmoe," he grated harshly,"not Wimpy!"
        Some people sure are touchy.
        "Sure thing, WIMPY!" I said, and he pulled the trigger.
        Nothing happened.
        The gun misfired.
        Rolling Louie's body aside, I seized Wimply's hand and planted my feet in his armpit. The big stinker flipped onto his head with a thud. I stood up, shaking like a leaf, and picked up his gun. Then I remembered the gun blast, and I knelt beside Louie.
        "Louie!" I cried, "Louie! Do you hear me?" To my surprise he sat up and shook his head.
        "What happened?" he asked groggily, "Am I dead?" He felt his ribs. "I think I broke one," he told me. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a stainless steel pocket guard, along with the spare pair of glasses he always carries. The pocket guard had been drilled by the slug, but his glasses had saved the day. Imbedded in the middle of an inch-thick lens, a .45 caliber slug was trapped like an bat stuck in pine tar.
        "Who'd'a thunk it?" he asked.
        "Ohhh..." moaned Wimply from the floor. I looked around the fish market. Scared citizens were scattered around the room, plastered to the walls like so many unwanted trophies. They gaped at us in wide-eyed wonder, kind of like the fish in the display cases.
        I looked from the citizens to the fish, and back again. The resemblance was uncanny. Suddenly the door slammed open, and Detective Dupin burst into the room with his gun in his hand.
        "What's going on here?" he hollered. I stood up in front of the big case of dead fish and pointed the finger at Wimply.
        "This crazy fish-monger tried to ice us," I told Dupin. The kid gave a double-take when he recognized me.
        "Schmoe!" he cried, "What are you doing here?"
        "I came to interview Wimply, just like you, kid," I informed him, "only this creep decided to shoot off something besides his mouth." Dupin put the bracelets on the guy and radioed for backup. As he began to secure the crime scene I helped little Louie to his feet.
        "I'm alright," Louie told me, biting his lip as he gingerly probed his rib cage, "It's only a bruise." Dupin looked at me with unwarranted respect.
        "It looks like you dodged a bullet, Mr. Schmoe," he said.
        "Call me Joe," I replied, "and it's Louie here who deserves the credit for handling that bullet."
        "Well, it sure looks as though we've caught our killer, anyway," he said. I looked at the kid.
        "The killer isn't this Wimply guy, kid," I told him, "you can take that to the bank." I watched the kid as he began to take notes of what I was saying. He sure had a lot to learn. "Willy here is just a little touchy about his name," I informed him. Dupin shook his head.
        "All of my efforts at ratiocination have failed on this case. It has been most unusual. The data are flawed and imperfect, and I just don't know where to look next." As he spoke I picked at a piece of 'kraut that was stuck between my teeth. Something was mighty sour about this case, alright, and, whatever it was, it was right at the tip of my fingers. Suddenly, in a flash of insight, my brain coughed up the answer to this murky riddle. I knew who had murdered Harry Limburger.
        "You can tell Hanratty to call off this investigation," I told the kid, "I know who the murderer is."
        Two hours later Louie and me were with Detective Dupin in Hanratty's office. In front of us was Januk Oltrawycz, shivering like a rat in a hurricane. Time and time again, Hanratty buffeted him with windy questions, and time and time again the mousy crook withstood the blasts. But then it was my turn, and I don't run out of hot air so easily.
        "Now see here, tough guy," I said, "we've got you dead to rights." He sat on his hands while his eyes darted hither and yon, seeking a means of escape. He was caught in a trap now; he never should have nibbled at another man's life. "Now, if it was up to me, I'd give you life in prison," I said, "because I know what Limburger did to your dog. But it isn't up to me." I stepped closer to him.
        "You'll get old Judge Bonk, and you know what Judge Bonk does with killers." Everyone knows that Bonk assigns convicts to the sewer patrol.
        Bonk's pitiful palookas are sentenced to clean the slimy walls of the sludge tunnels that run beneath the streets of New York, down in the depths of the city sewer system. The stories of these patrols have made the rounds of the streets in hushed whispers. The five-pound centipedes, the cockroach pits, the snow-white monster gators with bulging pink eyes, rats the size of snowplows; all these things and more have been reported by the Sewer Rats, the poor cons forced to patrol the steaming bowels of Gotham. A lot of namby-pamby milktoasts have even tried to stop this type of punishment. It's inhumane, sure, but it's an effective detergent against crime.
        When I mentioned the sewer patrol, Janov really panicked. He began to sweat like a hippo under a sunlamp.
        "I'll confess!" he cried, "Just make sure I don't get Bonk!" I looked at Hanratty, who gave me a solemn nod.
        "It's a deal," I told him. So there, on the chair, bared before our baleful stares, the gruesome, grovelling grinch spilled his disgusting guts. It wasn't pretty, but then, crime never is.
        He told us the whole story: how Limburger had once been a schoolmate of his, how the big stinker had been a closet sadist, and how Limburger had murdered his dog just for spite. Janov had bided his time all of these years, brooding over this act until he just couldn't stand to see Limburger alive anymore. His grisly revenge had made the evening papers, bereaved an entire family, and ruined my fifty-dollar lunch.
        So that's how the rotten case of Harry Limburger was broken open, and that's how we caught the snivelling rat that couldn't keep away from the cheese.
        Two days later I was playing darts with Louie in my office when this Dupin kid from the N.Y.P.D. came by with the reward check. We talked about the case for a few minutes.
        "Amazing," he marvelled, "it was simply amazing. But please, you must tell me, how did you know that Januk Oltrawycz was the killer?"
        "It's something that you should have learned in elementary school, my dear upstart," I told the pink-jowled flatfoot. "This Janov was a Kraut, but he claimed that he didn't like sauerkraut. Now anybody knows that Krauts love 'kraut. They'll fight a Russky over a bowlful, and if they can't find any of that wienerschnitzel to dip it into, they'll use some of their famous warm beer instead. O.K., so what else can you say?" I grinned like a baboon. "He was lying, so he had to be covering something up."
        "But...but...Januk was Polish!" Dupin squealed.
        "Okay, okay, so I made a little mistake," I told him, "so who cares? Look, the guy confessed. He did the crime. What we're after around here," I said to the little shaver, "is results!" The kid was surprised, but he recovered quickly. Maybe there was a little bit of old man Dupin in the young buck, after all.
        "But how'd you know about Januk's dog?" he wondered aloud.
        "Well," I instructed him, "Janov wasn't a lady's man, and he didn't look like a cat person, so I figured that Limburger hadn't messed with his girl or his cat; it had to be his dog."
        "Obviously," mumbled Dupin distractedly, as if to himself, "simply amazing!" He paused, looking as if he was mustering up his courage.
        "Mr. Schmoe," he declared, "I would be glad to, er... I mean... if you ever need an assistant, I'd consider the job."
        "Sure, kid," I said, eyeballing my rundown office. I had to admit it, the place could stand having somebody around to pick up the lint. Besides, I kind of liked the kid. So I hired him on the spot.
        "Thank you, sir," he crowed, "thank you very much!" The kid was ecstatic. He sure had a lot to learn. I looked past Dupin's shoulder and saw Louie the LImper gesturing to me. He had the phone in his hand.
        "It's your mama," he mouthed to me silently, pointing to the receiver.
        "And here's your first assignment, kid," I told the hapless squirt, "you just answer the phone." Louie almost strangled with suppressed laughter. "And remember, Duper," I told him, "in the game of life, luck beats brains." I squinted into his eyes. "It isn't even a contest. So go ahead, get to work, and don't forget how you got your start."
        I paused and looked at Louie. "That's one for the records, Louie," I said. "FIle it under C." I smiled at him. "We'll call this affair The Case of the Big Cheese," I informed them, "or my name isn't Joe Schmoe!" They both burst out into laughter at my last remark, holding their sides helplessly as they tried in vain to contain their mirth.
        I hate it when they do that.