John Fitzgerald GB 05 Great Bra (9 page)

you to start an ugly rumor that might embarrass these two gentlemen.”

Tom was plenty disgusted as we left the Advocate office. “It is easy to understand why Papa has a trunk filled with worthless stock in our attic,” he said. “But I’m not going to let anybody give me a worthless stock certificate for my forty-five dollars. I’m going to see Uncle Mark.”

“Papa said not to tell a soul,” I said. “I can’t help what Papa said,” Tom said. “Nobody is going to swindle me out of forty-five dollars.”

We found Uncle Mark in his office, looking at wanted posters. The three jail cells were vacant.

“I think Mr. Pendleton is a crook,” Tom said. “So do I,” Uncle Mark said, to our surprise. “But I’ve been through every wanted poster I have and can’t find anything on him or that Cummings fellow.”

“I’ve got the evidence to prove it,” Tom said, handing Uncle Mark the two letters.

Our uncle was smiling after he read the letters. “You and your great brain have saved the people in this town thousands of dollars,” he said. “I had a hunch Pendleton was a confidence man. Everything was just too pat—like having Mr. Forester give him a haircut in the suite. He knew the barber would tell everything he heard.”

“Papa doesn’t believe the man is a crook,” Tom said.

“I showed him the letters.” Then he explained what Papa had said.

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Uncle Mark looked worried. “If you couldn’t convince your own father with this evidence,” he said, “I would have one devil of a time trying to convince other citizens who want to invest.”

“You could, if you proved there was no such company,” Tom suggested.

“I thought of checking that out with the Chicago police,” Uncle Mark said. “But I knew that if I were wrong, Nels Larson would tell it all over town and make me look like a fool. But with these two letters as evidence, I’m not worried about that any more.”

We went with Uncle Mark to the depot where he sent a telegram to the chief of police in Chicago.

“Now, Nels,” Uncle Mark said, “if you mention what is in that telegram or the reply I get, I am going to arrest you for revealing confidential information between two law enforcement officers. Is that understood?”

Mr. Larson nodded his head. He knew my uncle never made idle threats.

No reply had been received by the time the depot closed. The next morning Tom and I went to the depot. Uncle Mark was there waiting. It was almost ten o’clock before he got an answer to his telegram-He showed it to us. The telegram read:

MARK TRAINOR … MARSHAL - . . ADENVILLE, UTAH. IN REPLY TO YOUR TELEGRAM. NO ALKALI PRODUCTS INCORPORATED LISTED IN TELEPHONE BOOK, CITY DIRECTORY, BUSINESS DIRECTORY. NO RECORD OF A LICENSE EVER GRANTED THIS COMPANY AT CITY HALL.

J-J. MALONEY CHIEF OF POLICE

QC

I looked at Uncle Mark. “Are you going to arrest them when they get here on the eleven o’clock train?” I asked.

“No, John,” he said. “We will let them sell their worthless stock first.”

Calvin Whitlock, Papa, and all the leading citizens of Adenville were at the depot to meet the train. An elderly man wearing a plug hat, wing collar, cutaway coat, striped morning trousers, and pince-nez glasses got off the train with Mr, Pendleton and Mr. Cummings. Mr. Pendleton introduced the man as Frederick Ames Hollingsworth, the president of Alkali Products Incorporated. Then Mr. Hollingsworth made a short speech.

“Citizens of Adenville,” he said in an oratorical voice, “it gives me great pleasure to permit some of you to become shareholders in our company-To those of you wanting a short-term gain, I can guarantee that the stock will be worth about seventy-five dollars a share in six months. To those of you wise enough to keep your stock, I can guarantee the market value will continue to increase and it will pay handsome dividends. My associates and I will register at the hotel and meet with Mr. Whitlock and the investors at the bank after lunch. Thank you.”

There was applause and cheers from the crowd. When the three men arrived at the bank at one o’clock, a long line of investors was waiting. Mr. Pendleton was carrying a large briefcase. Mr. Whitlock had arranged two tables with chairs in the lobby of the bank. The three Alkali Products men sat at one table, Mr. Whitlock and his bookkeeper, Mr. Collopy, at the other table. Mr. Pendleton opened his brief case and removed a stack, of stock

certificates. He handed them to Mr. Collopy. The bookkeeper added up the number of shares listed on the stock certificates on an adding machine. He told Mr. Whitlock that the total was three hundred shares. Then Mr. Whitlock went to the safe and returned with $13,500 to pay for the stock. Both Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Hollingsworth counted it. Then Mr. Pendleton put the money in the briefcase.

The line of investors then began filing by the tables. Each gave his name and the number of shares he had bought. Mr. Collopy hunted through the stack of stock certificates until he found [he one belonging to each investor. Tom got in line and, after receiving his stock certificate, showed it to me. It was pretty fancy looking, with a green border. Tom’s name and the figure “one” in a space in one corner and the word “one” on a line below Tom’s name were all typed in. I thought for sure Uncle Mark would arrest the three men after everybody had received their stock certificates. But he didn’t.

Mr. Hollingsworth went over to speak to Mr. Whitlock at his table.

“We will, of course,” he said, “open a rather large checking account with you when we start operations here. Meanwhile, this money will be deposited in a Salt Lake City bank to pay for the construction of the spur track. I would appreciate it if you would keep the money in your vault overnight.”

That last statement almost convinced me that Tom, Uncle Mark, and the chief of police of Chicago were all mistaken. I followed Uncle Mark and Tom outside.

“Why didn’t you arrest them?” I asked.

“I want them to walk out of the bank with the

money,” Uncle Mark said. “That will give me an air-tight case.”

Tom and I left Uncle Mark and started walking home.

“If they are really crooks,” I said, “why didn’t they take the money and leave town?”

“Because there isn’t a train out of here for Salt Lake City until tomorrow morning,” Tom said. “And they know that if they rented horses at the livery stable it would attract suspicion.”

“Why did they leave the money in the bank?” I asked. “Were they afraid of being robbed?”

“Heck, no,” Tom said. “What better way to convince people they are just who they represent themselves to be than by leaving the money in the bank? That way they could leave town tomorrow and nobody would suspect they were confidence men for days or even weeks.”

The next morning Tom and I were at the bank be-fore it opened. Uncle Mark was already there. At five minutes to nine the three Alkali Products men arrived-

“Good morning, Marshal,” Mr. Hollingsworth said. “What brings you here?”

“I just want to see you gentlemen safely on the train with the money,” Uncle Mark said.

“Very commendable,” Mr. Hollingsworth said.

Mr. Whitlock and Mr. Collopy were inside the bank. They opened the doors at nine sharp. The safe was opened and the briefcase containing the money given to Mr. Pendleton. The three men walked out of the bank with Uncle Mark following them. He waited until they were on the wooden sidewalk and then drew his Colt .45 revolver and pointed it at their backs.

“The jail is the other way, gentlemen,” Uncle Mark said. “Just turn around and keep your hands in plain sight.”

The three confidence men decided to plead guilty instead of having a jury trial. Judge Potter sentenced them to five years in prison. Tom was the star witness. And boy, oh, boy, was The Great Brain disappointed when Uncle Mark told him there was no reward for discovering that the three Alkali Products men were confidence men. He explained that a criminal just about had to rob a bank, a train, a stagecoach, or rustle cattle or commit murder be-fore a reward was offered. But that disappointment was nothing compared to how Tom felt when he found that the citizens of Adenville weren’t going to give him a re-ward either.

The only thing Tom got out of it was what they called a citation, which was issued by Mayor Whitlock and the town council-It was a letter signed by the mayor and city councilmen, praising Tom for meritorious achievement as a Junior Citizen of Adenville. I thought Tom was going crazy when he framed the citation and hung it on the wall in our bedroom. The first thing he did when he got up ev-ery morning was to stand and stare at that citation.

“You’ll go plumb loco staring at that thing,” I said one morning.

“I want it where I can see it every day to remind me of something,” he said.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Yeah, what?” Frankie said.

“To remind me never to use my great brain to save

the citizens of this town,” Tom said, “unless they give me a cash reward in advance.”

“I wonder why they didn’t give you a reward,” I said. “I wondered about it so much that I put my great brain to work on it,” Tom said. “I figure they knew if they did give me a reward that it would be the same as admitting a kid was a lot smarter than them. And that is one thing no grownup will ever admit.”

I knew the real reason Tom had investigated Alkali Products Incorporated was to protect his own forty-five dollars. I was going to remind him of that but changed my mind and here is why. I knew his money-loving heart was breaking because he didn’t get a reward. I thought about my basketball and backstop and all the other things The Great Brain had swindled me out of. And I decided to let his money-loving heart go right on grieving. It would serve him right.

FRANKIE HAD NEVER been punished by Papa and Mamma until right after the Alkali Flats swindle. I don’t know what got into him, but all of a sudden he became very mischievous. It began one evening during supper. Frankie liked jam on his bread instead of butter, Mamma had jelly on the table but no jam.

“I want jam,” Frankie said.

“I just might have gotten you some,” Mamma said, “if you had said please. Now you can either use butter or-jelly on your bread.”

Frankie picked up the bowl of jelly and turned it upside down on the table. We all couldn’t have been more

surprised if he had suddenly turned into a frog.

“Just for that,” Mamma said, “there will be no dessert ‘for you tonight, young man.”

The next morning Eddie Huddle came over to play with Frankie. They began playing tag and chasing each other. Frankie knew he wasn’t supposed to play in Mam-ma’s flower garden. But he and Eddie started chasing each other around inside the flower garden and trampled down some of Mamma’s prize flowers. She gave him a good tongue lashing.

Just before lunch it began to rain. Mamma phoned Mrs. Huddle to say that Eddie would have lunch with us on account of the rain. It was still pouring when we finished eating. Mamma told Frankie and Eddie to play either inside the house or on the back porch. They went to the back porch but didn’t say there long. They took off their shoes and stockings and went wading in the rain puddles in the backyard. I guess they got tired of doing this and decided to have a mud-ball fight instead.

Mamma heard them yelling and went to the back porch. And what a sight she saw! Frankie and Eddie were making mud balls and throwing them at each other. They were both covered with mud from head to toe. Mamma made Frankie take a bath and go to bed. She cleaned up Eddie the best she could and told me to take him home. I guess Frankie thought taking a bath and having to go to bed in the afternoon was all the punishment he would get. But when Papa came home. Mamma told him what Frankie had done.

“I dislike doing it,” she said, “but the boy must be punished.”

She got Frankie out of bed, dressed him, and brought him into the parlor.

“Frankie,” Papa said, “you know you weren’t supposed to play in Mamma’s flower garden and ruin her pretty flowers. You were told not to leave the back porch and you disobeyed. When a boy does things his parents have forbidden him to do, he must be punished. You will be given the silent treatment for one week.”

I’d always figured the other kids in town were lucky. When they did something wrong they got a whipping and that was the end of it. But not the kids in our family. We got the silent treatment instead. This meant Papa and Mamma wouldn’t speak to us. To me it was a lot worse than a whipping, which only lasted a few minutes.

Frankie had never received the silent treatment so I explained it to him. But he just didn’t seem to understand. During our supper of fried pork chops and fried potatoes he asked Papa to pass the salt. Papa handed the salt shaker to Mamma who gave it to Aunt Bertha who passed it to Sweyn who finally passed it to Frankie. During the meal Frankie tried several times to get Papa and Mamma to speak to him. They pretended they didn’t hear him.

Papa had always let Frankie blow out the match after he lit his after-dinner cigar. After supper Frankie stood by Papa’s chair in the parlor waiting to blow out the match. But Papa blew it out himself.

“Why didn’t you let me blow out the match?” Frankie asked.

Papa picked up a magazine and started to read. Frankie tried to climb up on his lap.

“J. D.,” Papa said to me, “tell Frankie that he is not

to blow out the match, and he is not to sit on my lap, and he is not to speak to me for one week.”

_ That was the system Papa and Mamma used to give orders when one of us was being punished. I walked over and took Frankie’s hand.

“Don’t bother Papa,” I said, “Come on and play checkers with me.”

I led him over by the fireplace and tried to get him to play checkers, but he just shook his head. He just sat there until Mamma and Aunt Bertha came into the parlor after finishing the supper dishes. Frankie got up. He waited until Mamma was seated in her maple rocker and had resumed working on a doily she was crocheting. He walked over to her.

“What are you doing, Mamma?” he asked.

She ignored him and spoke to Aunt Bertha instead. “Whose turn is it to entertain the Ladies’ Sewing Circle tomorrow, Bertha?” she asked.