Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012
- Автор: Макдермид Вэл, Манфредо Лу
- Год: 2012
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012». Краткое содержание книги:
By the time Bartleby’d been in office through the falling snow and the blooming of daffodils, Rolf visited his cottage, and said: “Time has come for you to figure out who owes what and to start collecting the Village Dues.” Looking more confused than ever, Bartleby began to tremble. “No need to be in a muddle,” the entrepreneur assured him. “All you have to do is think of it as community tithing.” Well, the collector still didn’t get it, but the next day he put on his Sunday best — green checkered pants and striped yellow shirt — greased down his claylike hair with Vaseline, set up a folding table and chair in his front room, sharpened a coupla pencils, laid out a pad of lined paper, and put a pot of coffee on the electric hot plate.
Outside the village proper dues were figured at a dollar an acre and three dollars a kid. If you had no kids at home, it was a flat five bucks, plus acreage. In town, dues went for a dollar a kid, and three dollars per tree. Despite a fair policy aimed at equaling things out, the farmers on the outskirts of Gopher tended to be charged higher dues and tended to take longer to pay. Farmers had more acreage, and with too many long winter nights to occupy, they tended to have more kids; another reason they paid a larger share for public services was that some village residents — without mentioning names — were so cheap they started cutting down their trees for firewood, helping them to save money in two ways.
That first week, no one showed up at Bartleby’s cottage to pay their dues, and the look in his eyes became more puzzled, more worried than usual. That’s why I was the first one to come across that year — didn’t want the Village Collector to get too down on himself. But others didn’t follow my example, as I’d hoped. Could be the constituents thought they might get away without paying dues since he was new on the job, and especially since it was Bartleby. Halfway through the month I found myself stopping at his place more often than usual to prop up his drooping spirits.
In response to one of my pep talks, Bartleby said, “Mitty, looks like no one ’round here wants to set aside money to put out brush fires.”
“Folks in Gopher are just slow in letting go of their cash,” I assured him. “Just you wait and see — they’ll be lining up at your door any day now.”
And they finally did start trickling in, dragging the dust of the street and dirt of the fields with them into his front room. Gratefully he collected the dues of Mr. Dodsworth, and Mr. and Mrs. Goodman, Mr. Lonigan, and old Mrs. Killegrew, calling everyone Mr. and Mrs. throughout the process. But he was disappointed none of them stayed for coffee afterwards, the way they used to do at the Bumppo place. Rather than tell him they might have been put off by his thanking them five or six times during each transaction, I asked him if he could fill my cup with more of that rusty-tasting coffee. (Between all that burnt caffeine, and Martha elbowing me to stop rolling around the mattress all night, I didn’t get much sleep during that period.)
As for the collecting of monies, everything went down as easy as a slice of apple pie until the last day of the month, the dues deadline. The Sawyer boy pushed through the screen door, dragged his lazy sneakers up to Bartleby, and dropped a fingerprint-stained white envelope on the table. Going on fourteen, Chick Sawyer was big for his age and was courting Cassy Pask at the time. Obviously aware of the importance of his mission, Chick stood there bold as a bank teller: “What you gonna do with all that money, Mr. Village Collector?”
“I’m gonna put out fires,” said Bartleby, grinning like a pyromaniac as he shook the greenbacks out of the envelope onto the table.
Young Sawyer snickered. “Don’t you know dollar bills’ll burn in a fire?”
Bartleby didn’t notice Chick’s attempt to make him look dumb. He was too busy counting the crumpled, mostly one-dollar bills. All of a sudden Bartleby ran a thick finger down his list of names on the pad and cried out, “Whoaaa! Your dad’s dues is ninety-three dollars and there’s only seventy-eight here.”
“You better count again, Mr. Collector,” said Chick, his left thumb coming unhooked from the right strap of his overalls.
I looked up from the baseball scores on the back page to see what this was all about, and I watched Bartleby count again — just a formality because he was always dead sure of his math. “No doubt about it,” he said. “Not one bean more, not one bean less than seventy-eight.”
Blood pumped into Chick’s face, and his voice got squeaky as a rusty gate. “You musta done something with the rest of the money ’cause my pa put that dues in this envelope and that’s what I brought you.” Before Bartleby could say anything else, straight out the screen door dashed the Sawyer boy, slamming it behind him. The Village Collector sat there looking sadly at the cash a long while. At last he reached into his back pocket, pulled out a skimpy calfskin billfold, counted out five singles and two fives, and set them with the greenbacks on the table. No wonder they laughed at him in the barbershop, and over to the Grange.
Half an hour later, just as I was standing up on my own two legs to head back to Sylvester’s Pharmacy — I’m retired, but I keep his shelves stocked on a part-time schedule — the boy returned, but this time he wasn’t alone. Father and son banged through the screen door, and strutted up to the table like a pair of fightin’ roosters. They stood with legs apart, arms crossed. Papa Sawyer was a leather-hided dirt farmer with teeth like kernels of corn left to rot on the cob. The boy’s teeth were in better shape, but it wouldn’t be long before he was growing rotten corn in his mouth too. In this corner of America we don’t get too much drama, except that phony baloney on TV, so I dropped onto the arm of the sofa to take a good gander at the second act of this little play.
“My boy here says you lost fifteen dollars on me,” the elder Sawyer’s voice screeching like the circular saw at the mill outside town. “I don’t have no money to be throwing away, so you better find that cash fast or there’s going to be hell to pay!” Like a bull getting ready to charge, the farmer scraped the mud off his boots on the oval scrap of braided rug.
“It’s like this, Mr. Sawyer,” Bartleby started, “I counted the money twice, and there was only seventy-eight, but—”
“You callin’ my son a liar?”
The Sawyer boy uncrossed his arms and backed up a few feet. I started to pipe up that I’d seen Bartleby count out every dollar, but the farmer swiveled his head toward me and snapped, “You keep out of this, Francis Mitty!” I’d learned a long time ago that when someone calls me by my full name, it’s smarter to keep out of it, especially when the name-caller is six feet or more in height. (I may be wiry, but I’m no fool.)
“Look here, Mr. Sawyer,” said Bartleby, “if you’ll simmer down a second I’ll explain.”
“Don’t you be telling me to simmer down, you flake!” Sawyer roared, shoving the table aside — sending pencils flying across the floor and moving up eye-to-eye with Bartleby: The tops of their heads were pretty much even with each other’s, so if it came to that, at least it would be a fair fight.
“Let’s not get our feathers ruffled,” I advised, climbing to my feet again, but they didn’t even know I was in the county, much less in the room.