David Lannarck-Midget Page 12

  "How much are you set back in this debacle?" asked the midget, dropping his bantering tone.

  "The Bar-O ranch owes me, not the government; I have always advanced the money. Two hundred and eighty dollars. You see," Finch hastened to explain, "the government has an area in there that's rather inaccessible. They've been holding it for settlement. It's more than the Bar-O folks need, but there's no one else, unless I bring in sheep men and open up an old controversy. So, in the years past, I've haggled money out of the Barrows, just a little at a time, but we've kept friendly until now. Now, it looks like I'm up against the iron."

  "You're not so bad off," chuckled Davy, "you've had a fine lot of experience. Here's my proposition on your case. If the receiver accepts my offer of a deed without possession, I'll give you a hundred dollars. If I get possession in the next two years, and you allot me the grazing rights to that area, I'll pay you the balance. If I don't get possession in that time, you can charge off the balance due. Do I hear any takers?" said the little man, simulating the call of an auctioneer.

  "Well, I'm a taker," said Finch resignedly. "It's a rough road, but it seems the only way. What's your reaction, Logan? Are you a taker?"

  "I'm a taker, when there's anything to take. How are you to get the money in here?" he asked of Davy. "Without a bank, we can't handle checks or drafts. How do you plan the payment?"

  "Is there a telegraph station in Adot? No? Well, that's too bad. If there was a commercial pay station there, I could have the money here this afternoon. As it is, I suppose I would have to have the actual currency shipped by express to Laramie or Cheyenne. Where do you do banking?" he asked of Logan.

  "I have an account with the Guaranty at Laramie and with the First National at Cheyenne. I hope to have our bank here opened by the holidays."

  "The holidays would be too late. Hulls might kill somebody, or voluntarily move out and spoil the trade. Also, I'll have to have added money—have to open an account to get funds with which to appease Hulls or to live on, while I am working at it. I have never been in Laramie and I nearly got killed in Cheyenne, so I'll open an account at Cheyenne. If you say you'll trade, I'll get on the phone and have the cash or an acceptable draft in Cheyenne as soon as the mail can get it there."

  "Well, I guess I'll trade," said Logan resignedly. "This Barrow thing is the last outstanding debt due the bank. I hope the judge will approve my report of the matter, so that I can get the bank opened by Christmas. We will have to go to town and draw up a contract. Can you go today?"

  "Well, I will have to go somewhere to get on a long distance telephone about sending the money. Where to and how much. With the winter weather approaching, I may have to wallow through snowdrifts to get to Cheyenne, but that's a risk incident to the business."

  "We'll get you over to Cheyenne," interrupted Potter, who had shown deep interest in the conversation, "we'll get you over if we have to use a snow plow. Maybe you've got the magic to get this row settled. At any rate, it's worth a trial."

  "I have a telephone in my office at Adot," said Logan. "I am using the back room of the bank as an office. I've kept the phone."

  "Is there an extension on it?" asked Davy eagerly. "Yes? Fine. When I get this banker on the phone, I want you to listen in. It's an education to any man to hear Ralph Gaynor talk. He's the boss of the Dollar Savings Bank in Springfield. It isn't a big bank, just a stout one. And now all the others are looking to him for advice. Of course he'll razz me about making a venture in these hazardous times, but it will be worth your time to hear him do it."

  "How are we to get back from Adot?" asked the midget abruptly of Landy.

  "I'll take you over and bring you back," interposed Adine Lough. "I want to hear that man sass you over the phone, if he can get in a word edgewise, and you on the other end of the line."

  Davy laughed with the others. "Well, the parade starts promptly at eleven, the doors to the Big Show open at one, let's git goin'," said the little man, simulating a circus announcer.

  Adine went to the house for her hat. Potter maneuvered her roadster out to the driveway, after checking the gas and oil. Then a flushed girl, a midget man, and an aging Nestor of other days drove away on a mission that pleased them all.

  * * *

  12ToC

  The State Bank of Adot had been an important institution in an unimportant community. It employed three people and enlarged its chartered rights to perform many services in the little community. In the prosperous days following the World War it added to its surplus and paid fair dividends to scattered owners of limited shares. Its service was appreciated by home folks; its prosperity attracted the attention of Aaron Logan.

  Logan, with limited capital and an alert mind, operated a petty loan business. He traded for what-have-you. In the early twenties, he exchanged his chips and whetstones for single shares of bank stock. Arriving at a favorable status, he persuaded the bank directors to enlarge the capital to absorb his petty loan business. In 1924, he quit the "street" to accept a cushioned chair in the rear room of the bank. His experience would add caution and prudence.

  For, just now, the cattle business was slipping; prices were falling below the cost of production. Home folks were not buying; the rescued European nations forgot, as usual, their benefactor and dickered for meager supplies of meats and grains at other marts. America's foreign trade sank to a new low. Her thousands of merchant craft rocked listlessly and rusted quickly in stagnant waters while the false prophets of Mammon urged idle capital to pyramid a luring stock market to a glorious peak and final crash.

  The banks of America were the first to feel the pinch. Some waited too long—waited to dole out to a frenzied public all available cash and close the doors too late for solvency. But not so with the Bank of Adot. Aaron Logan got his order for receivership before his public went frantic and while cash was yet available. Under court order he was proceeding to thaw out the frozen items of assets, and planned to open the institution to those who would limit their withdrawals to stated amounts. He made progress in these endeavors until he bumped into the stone wall of the Barrow loan. Really, it wasn't a giant sum, as such sums are rated in banking circles, but in the present instance it represented the difference between opening a bank or keeping it closed.

  Aaron Logan had given the matter of this Bar-O affair much thought. He had canvassed every available prospect. In all the community there wasn't a person that would give a thin dime for a property with a defiant oldster thereon, who would certainly kill or be killed if possession was to be gained. And a killing was bad advertisement, a poor prelude to opening a bank.

  But in the very hour he planned to execute this last resort, a rank outsider, an unknown and uncanvassed source, a little runt of a man with more confidence and assurance than his size would warrant, was offering to take over the ranch and assume the problem. Aaron Logan regarded it as a slender chance—could not believe that one so small could have earned so much—but he would take the chance. He headed his car up Willow Street to stop at the bank's rear door. He waved Adine to a favorable parking space.

  "I will call Mr. Limeledge, my lawyer, to draw up a contract," he said as the party of five were seated in the back room.

  "Well, that's hardly necessary," said Davy. "If you jot down a memo that you will make a deed to David Lannarck to the Bar-O ranch upon payment, on or before October 18th, 1932, of four thousand dollars in cash and a probable expenditure of two hundred dollars in getting possession, and sign it, I will also sign it and it will be an agreement. But before we do anything, I want to get on the phone to see if I can contact Ralph Gaynor. None of you folks really know me. I want you to listen in so that we can get acquainted. Here's the money for the long distance call," he added. "Tell the operator that it's OK."

  Aaron Logan didn't like being told what to do, especially by a little cocksure midget. But there was the matter of getting rid of a bad problem. He complied with Davy's request.

  "This is David Lannarck at phone fifty.
I want to talk to Ralph Gaynor, at phone BA two hundred in the Dollar Savings Bank in Springfield. Yes, that's the state. I should have said so, for it's a grand old commonwealth. I'll be right here for an hour."

  In the lull of waiting, Aaron Logan wondered—wondered how one so small hoped to depose one so fierce and stubborn. He would find out. "Do you think you can get Hulls and Maizie out of there by Thanksgiving?" he inquired politely.

  "It doesn't really matter," said David languidly. "But I must try to get acquainted with 'em; make friends with 'em if I can."

  "Why do you hope to persuade 'em to get off?" exclaimed the astonished receiver. "I've seen 'em. They're impossible."

  "Maybe you didn't see 'em at their best," replied the midget quietly. "I've never seen either of them, but I've had several descriptions from others and this Maizie shows possibilities."

  "Possibilities for what?" snorted Logan. "That woman is a she-devil that would commit murder to gain her ends. She wouldn't listen to a governor granting her a reprieve. And anyhow, what are her possibilities?"

  "I understand, from descriptions, that she is of the gypsy type—dark, languid, glamorous. If she's all that, I can place her." Davy's reply was slow and indifferent. Now he brightened up to add: "Say, when I get on the phone, shall I tell him to send me a draft on a Denver bank or shall I tell him to ship the cold cash by express, or wire it to Cheyenne by Western Union?"

  "Cold cash is never out of place in paying a bill, but if you have a draft sent to the First National in Cheyenne, we can go there and make the transfer. I need to go to Cheyenne anyhow."

  "And I need some added cash," said Davy Lannarck. "I'll have 'em make the draft for five thousand. The First National can split it as we direct."

  Davy made much of jotting down notes; Landy Spencer sat quietly, his face immobile; Adine Lough went to the window ostensibly to dab on make-up, but really to suppress smiles and stifle laughter. A man of importance—a bank receiver, an arm of the court—was being kidded and he didn't know it.

  In the drive across country from the B-line ranch, the three in the roadster planned and outlined their conduct at this proposed conference at the bank. Landy related fully the incident as to why he knew that Hulls Barrow and Maizie planned a quick getaway. Landy had contacted Ike Steele only a day or two ago and Ike's story of the wagon trade unfolded the plot. Stripped of inconsequential details, Ike's story follows:

  Ugly Collins, a former resident, was back on important business. Ugly had left the country a decade ago, following his acquittal for petty thieving. In his driftings about, he landed in Las Vegas. There he contacted another former resident in the person of Archie Barrow. Archie was in the money. He was sole proprietor of a big rooming house in a community that was being congested with trainloads of steel, cement, derricks, and cluttered with humanity who had come to build, and were building, a great dam in the nearby Colorado River. Archie needed help to carry on a business that had increased a hundredfold. He recalled his brother Hulls, who might be useful, but he particularly recalled the executive capacities of Maizie. She was badly needed to prod the Mexican women in their labors of making beds and sweeping rooms that were occupied twice daily.

  But Archie knew it would be useless to write to a brother that never went to the post office and was remote from rural deliveries. He was happy to contact Ugly Collins. And just now, Ugly had two objectives: one, to get away from a place where work was paramount; the other, to get back to Adot and look after a possible inheritance. He understood that his mother had died, leaving the little homestead that surely should have sold for more than mere funeral expenses.

  A deal was quickly made. Archie would pay train fare and Ugly would contact Hulls and Maizie; would move the bankrupts out of trouble and poverty to an Eldorado of prosperity. For once in his varied and useless career Ugly performed a successful mission. Hulls and Maizie readily agreed to the plan. They would drive through—taking with them needed and useful plunder. Having seen Maizie, Ugly decided he would travel back with them. All details for the trip were now completed, except that a little more expense money was badly needed.

  Landy cautioned Ike Steele not to disclose the proposed move to anyone else. Vaguely, Landy entertained the hope that someone—just who, he had not planned—would buy the Bar-O. Acting on a hunch, he "touched" his sister Alice for a hundred. On the drive-in, Adine stopped the car while Davy invoiced his available cash at sixty-five dollars. These conspirators now planned that immediately after a contract was signed, Landy would search out Ike Steele, give him the hundred dollars, to be given to Ugly Collins when the party was loaded and on their way. Ike would be paid a personal ten, if he got it done.

  And these conspirators made other plans. Knowing that in the interval of getting phone connections they would be beset with furtive questions from a curious executive. What was he going to do with the ranch? how did he plan to get the resisters off? and other pertinent questions, they planned for evasive answers.

  "Leave that to me," said Mr. Lannarck. "I think I can parry every thrust, can lead him through a mystic maze of information that will pile up a lot of useless knowledge." And the little man was getting along very well with his assignment, as Adine polished her nose at the window and Landy Spencer sat quietly, seeming uninterested in mere worldly affairs.

  "You were speaking of employment awhile ago," said the persistent Logan. "You spoke of 'placing' Maizie. Do you conduct that kind of an agency?"

  "No," said Davy, still busy with his notes. "In Maizie's case, I would have to buy out the business, plan the details of her dress and appearance, and 'plant' her as a 'front'—a 'come-on'—for the suckers' money."

  The bewildered receiver had let the craft of conversation drift into strange waters. Was he dealing with a moron or a maniac? Except that this was the only bid he had ever had—the only prospect in sight—for a deal that would open a bank, he would take the phone, cancel the call and dismiss the conference. In desperation he would make another try.

  "Well, I don't know what you are talking about, but I do know this Maizie woman. If these places you speak of call for a stubborn hellion, then you've got the right party. But I would like to know just where she could be made into a useful thing?"

  "I wasn't thinking of her temperament," said Davy as he folded up his memorandum. "She's described as the gypsy type. Such a type is valuable when properly placed. Were you ever at Coney Island?" he asked abruptly. "No? Well, it's a resort, a playground, down New York way. Henry Hudson landed here, and many another Dutchman has been 'landed' and made regrettable discoveries right on this same spot. It has a bathing beach where the gals show what they've got and fat men flounder and cavort far beyond their capacities. Up from the beach is the midway proper—a carnival or street fair, with bandstands and dance platforms, peep shows, free shows, and legits. At the proper season these places are alive with spenders. They bring in carloads of money and take away nothing more tangible than experience. Why, Mister Logan, a man of your talents could spend profitable days at Coney Island in the study of financial circulation, could write a book, entitled 'The Slippery Dollar; Its Origin, Its Travels, Its Destination'! Some of these dollars have origin in work and sweat and some stem from blood and tears, but all—"

  "And just where in this mess would this Maizie woman belong?" interrupted Logan desperately. "Your recital is interesting, but it doesn't get to the point. Where and why would you place her?"

  "Why, I'd place her as a 'front' down at the fortune-teller's booth," replied Davy quickly. "I'd either buy out—or buy in—with Tony Garci, who has a concession, and plant Maizie right at the tent-flap as a 'come-on.' Her name would have to be Madame Tousan, or Princess Caraza, or some such, and she would have to dress the part. Black and red, maybe, with plastered hair and a coppery skin. A quart of rings and bracelets on each hand and arm, horseshoe earrings, and a big ostrich fan. Never a word of English, mind you! She'd just wave the fan to the entrance and inner glories where Tulu Garrat, Tony'
s wife, would read palms, or the crystal ball, and take the money."

  Davy, too, was getting a bit anxious. He was running out of details. He glanced at the phone, hoping for relief. None came. He rambled on.

  "If I ran this fortune-telling dump, I'd lift it out of the ten-twent'-thirt' class, to an even smacker—maybe two. I'd give 'em a written reading with 'a hunch' in it. They all play hunches down there. Hoss racing, stock market, numbers rackets, and such. They'd play my hunches. If they win, I'd have wide advertisement; if they lose, nothing said.

  "Off hand, I'd say the racket was good for a 'grand' a week. Maizie would get fifty, Tony and his wife a hundred smackers, another fifty for the concession. In ten weeks, I could pay for the Bar-O and have—" The telephone rang. "If that's for me," said the little man to Aaron Logan, "get on that extension and listen to the story of a misspent life, for I'll try to get him to tell it."

  As the conversation was both spoken and heard, both are here given.

  "Hello, hello. Yes, this is David Lannarck. Hello, Ralph. This is your midget friend Davy. I'm in Adot—yes, that's what I said—what they all say.... A dot on what? It's out of Cheyenne—a good ways out. But I want to do business as of Cheyenne. I want you to send a Denver draft to The First National Bank at Cheyenne for five thousand dollars, to arrive there before the eighteenth of October."

  The phone was working splendidly; even those without an earpiece could hear the over-production.

  "This is a fine time to separate a bank from assets. What are you buying? Blue sky or a phony gold mine?"

  "Neither one," said Davy promptly. "It's a ranch—with an old man on it—with a gun, defying all comers."