You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up by Richard Hallas Read Free Book Online

or something."
     
    I saw the bag and grabbed it and stuffed it in my pants, and buttoned my coat over the top part.
     
    Then I dropped right down all covered with yellow stuff from the blossoms.
     
    "Gee, mister, thanks," one of the kids said.
     
    I dusted myself off quickly and beat it home as fast as I could, but Mamie was in when I got there so I went right into the bathroom and stuffed the bag in the linen closet.
     
    I chinned with Mamie a while, waiting for her to go out. I knew she'd go soon because she and Pat had gone hook, line, and sinker for this crazy Ecanaanomic gag, and they'd even rented deskspace in a real estate man's office. They'd go there every day, sending out letters and making out they were important and serious about it. Mamie was all full up of it as she got ready to go out.
     
    When she went, I locked the door and began to figure out what to write. Finally I had it. I printed all the letters so's the police couldn't trace my handwriting. I said:
     
    To Whom It May Concern:
     
    Hernandez Felice, who you are holding for the holdup and murder of Maurice Gottstein, did not do it. In order to prove it, I am sending you the bag and money I took from Gottstein to show you Felice did not do it.
     
    Then I signed it Chicago Ed, just to mix police up a bit. I had never been to Chicago.
     
    Then I got to thinking about mailing it. I'd have to go somewhere to have it maile d and I'd have to have the pack age weighed. Then the man who weighed it would be sure to see it addressed to police, and he'd remember what I looked like. So I figured I'd better buy about a dollar's worth of stamps, which would be sure to cover it. And then I figured, too, I'd better go up to L.A. and mail it, so's the police wouldn't think to look right in town for the man who sent it.
     
    I got that all figured out and then Mamie came home, and she was all of a twitter.
     
    "Look, Handsome," she said, excitedly. "Look what the paper says. You know that Mexican, Felice, who was pinched in the jolly Time—you remember? That was the night I met you? Well, he didn't hold up that fellow who was killed."
     
    "Well, what did he run for?" I said.
     
    "That's funny—he thought they were after him for something else, so he just run. It was a statutory offense, that was all. That's attacking a girl under age, isn't it?"
     
    "I don't know," I said.
     
    I grabbed the paper and read it. It said:
     
    Hernandez Felice, 42, was cleared of implication in the murder and holdup of Maurice Gottstein by police yesterday.
     
    Jesus Angeles, owner of the Jolly Time Cafe, together with a dozen patrons of the cafe, told police that Felice had been in the cafe for at least two hours before he was arrested that evening, and could have had no part in the fatal shooting.
     
    Felice, it is alleged, ran when police entered because he thought they were in search of him in connection with a statutory offense committed several days prior to the holdup.
     
    "It was just a case of guilty conscience with Felice," Chief Mullarney declared. "We are sure he had nothing to do with the holdup. We have new clues leading to the real criminal, and expect important action within a few days."
     
    Rosalinda Falcono, 14, is the girl implicated in the case. Her parents were loath to file compla int against Felice. Police, how ever, declared that action will follow and Felice stands liable both to prison sentence and to deportation.
     
    I read that through over and over, and I kept thinking, Now, it's all cleared up. It's all cleared up.
     
    I was a sucker for thinking that everything was settled after the police had cleared Felice. It wasn't settled. It was worse. Because now I had the bag and the money, and it was one bad thing to have around. If the police had let Felice go, they would sure be looking for someone else. I knew I had to find some way to get rid of that bag.
     
    I tell you, that bag of money kept me awake nights, and it got like a hoodoo. I was