ANOTHER ONE FOR VIRGINIAby L. P. Hardly
The form in the gray mackintosh approached the red-uniformed porter.
"Are those Mr Iverson's bags?" he inquired of the porter, who looked up to see the gaunt figure attired as already described, with his hat pulled down and hiding his face. There was indeed nothing of it visible but for a mass of beard spilling out of his collar like dingy cotton.
"Why, are you here to collect them?" answered the porter, who didn't like the look of this fellow, and didn't see that it was any of his business. The man in the mackintosh came closer. "I'm an associate of Mr Iverson," he said. "He's asked me to look after his belongings. I'll take those, if you don't mind. Here's something for your trouble." He held out a twenty dollar bill. The porter's hand was already in the act of reaching out for it, but he caught himself with reluctance. "Maybe you are Mr Iverson's man, and maybe you're not," he said. "Do you have any proof you are?"
The stranger withdrew the bill and reached into his coat pocket. Now he held out a ring, which he dropped into the porter's palm instead. The porter stared at the condition of the stranger's hand, which was not at all of a color one would expect. The ring was large and heavy, with a monogram set into the dark stone of it.
"You've seen Mr Iverson's tiepin, I'm sure. There is the same emblem on his luggage. You will admit it matches this ring, which is also his. Now, his bags, if you please."
The porter set the ring on a trunk, avoiding the convention of handing it back directly, which struck him at that moment as being somewhat distasteful. "That's no proof. Anyway, you needn't worry yourself. I was already ordered to take Mr Iverson's things to his house, and I might as well finish doing that before I go handing them over to just anybody." He finished loading the handcart and wheeled it to the street where his vehicle was waiting.
The stranger followed him. "You have your job to do, of course," he said while the porter loaded the car. "But I have mine to do as well. Still, as long as it's the same job getting done, neither of us needs to complain. If you're taking Mr Iverson's bags to his house, I'll just ride along and do my part. We'll see who gets the tip when we arrive." The porter shrugged. "Fine by me. It's your funeral. I'm just doing what I was told to do." He came round and got into the car, to find that the stranger had already taken the seat next to him.
Walter Iverson was watching television. It was Christmas Eve, even snowing outside in lazy big flakes, just like it ought, and there was plenty of programming to suit the holiday. Right now he was chuckling to himself, watching the Grinch fleece Whoville. "Get 'em, Grinch. Shame you have to listen to them sing later." He got up and made himself a sandwich.
He had just got back from up north that evening, and it was good to be home for Christmas. Walter had a nice place, and when he wasn't on the road working he liked loafing around the old digs. He was off for a good two weeks, and the prospect cheered him.
"Time to relax and enjoy life," he affirmed, spreading the mustard extra thick. He came back to the couch and channel-surfed idly, chewing. His mind was elsewhere, and that was all right, too. He'd taken care of everything.
Even old Brom, he reflected. That fossil never knew what hit him. Brom was past it anyway, he'd never be missed. His own damned fault for mouthing off about telling on Walter to the boss; he could have saved himself a shovel in the head and a few more miserable years.
He and Brom had argued, there in that abandoned house out in the sticks that was their meeting place, known to no one but themselves. Walter had a couple of ideas about the distribution of the cash from the last job, which Brom didn't see as practical. He was a fool. The savings and loan had been flush for the holidays; the boss would never have missed a few thousand. When it was clear that persuasion was useless, Walter had simply rung the old buzzard's bell when he wasn't looking, stripped him, stuffed him into a sack, and hidden him underneath the pile of coal in the cellar, where he would quietly rot to bones before anyone ever thought to look there.
Just as well; Walter had removed his ring for the more extended wielding of the shovel to bury Brom, and had forgotten to retrieve it, a careless mistake but not a fatal one. If Brom's body were to be found at all, which was doubtful, two and two would be put together whether the ring was there or not. By that time Walter would be long gone, however, and doing quite well, for he had decided to keep all the money. He had engineered this simply by going to the boss immediately afterward and reporting that Brom had pulled a gun on him in the getaway car and had taken off with it and the cash himself.
They had Walter, back of his own volition, no car (Walter had disposed of it in the river), no cash, and, best of all, no Brom; but the job had gone off smooth, and there was no heat on them either, and therefore no skin off their noses. Walter expressed regret at having been suckered, but he didn't play it too heavily-- after all, Brom hadn't been *his* idea-- he volunteered for the next job to recoup the loss, and the boss said he'd try and pair him up with somebody more trustworthy (they'd both had a laugh over that), and sent him home. They would, of course, be watching him like hawks, he knew that, but he didn't take *that* personally. They would be idiots not to. No honor among thieves.
Nothing to do now but enjoy Christmas, lay low for awhile (hell, he might even go ahead and do the next job for old times' sake, just to throw off suspicion before he finally caught a one-way flight to someplace safe), and be patient. They could look for Brom in all the usual places, but when they came up empty-handed, the original conclusion would be confirmed. It was only natural that the geezer would want to collect big before he quit the business; the alternative wasn't much to write home about. They would have cut him loose sooner or later anyhow, and not with a pension, either. Walter smiled grimly. More likely something along the lines of what he himself had done. Brom had merely been induced to accept early retirement, that's all.
The doorbell rang; Walter went to answer it, and saw the red-jacketed porter bending over his load of Walter's suitcases. "Just put them over there," Walter indicated, and returned to the couch. The porter brought them in and closed the door, then set them down in the corner as directed. He approached the couch afterward. Walter saw the uniform out of the corner of his eye, and dug into his pocket for the tip.
"Here you go, my man. Merry Christmas--" he began, but halted as the bulky ring was tossed into his lap. He turned to look, and the money in his fingers fell to the floor like so many dried holly leaves.
That something had happened to Walter Iverson was generally agreed, though the police could discover no clues regarding his disappearance; a number of reported stories shared a not-so-surprising common theme. It seems that several in the street had observed something on the roof of the house the night before, a funny-looking man in a red uniform and dangling white beard pulling a towsack out of the chimney and bearing it off, slung over his shoulder, down the far pitch of the roof and out of sight of the witnesses.
These stories were discounted, of course, the obvious product of spirits and seasonality, perhaps in conjunction with someone's poor idea of a prank, and the added detail provided by some that they had seen the sack *move* was only more proof of this in the eyes of the irked constabulary. No prints were found in the undisturbed snow on the roof, and that effectively closed the matter.
Tried enough they were, at any rate, with the only evidence they truly had at hand, and it was mystifying enough: inside the house was a further example of the kind of levity that made investigative work a thankless endeavor. An unknown party, no doubt conversant with the situation and seeing an opportunity for a cheap joke, had gone through the dresser drawers and nailed all the missing man's socks to the mantel and filled them with coal.
The End