A Fatal Glass of Beer (18 page)

Saunders reached into his desk and produced a sheet of paper. He passed it to Fields, who sat to his left. Fields examined the sheet.

“Withdrawal statement,” said Saunders. “I plan to file it in the morning.”

“Signature’s nothing like mine, like mine when I signed ‘Oscar Treadmill.’”

“Mr. Treadmill had suffered an accident in his hurry to get here,” said Saunders, folding his hands on the table as he watched Fields. “His left arm was in a cast, right down to his fingers.”

“How did he expect to drive to New Orleans like that?” said Fields. “The cast was a fake. I’ve used dozens of them for all appendages—well, almost all appendages.”

“Mr. Treadmill signed with his left hand,” said Saunders. “There is a similarity.”

“Yes,” said Fields, looking at the sheet before him. “Not incomparable to the remarkable resemblance between Dolores Del Rio and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

“He had the bankbook,” said Saunders. “And the arm in a cast.”

“Did he show some identification?” I asked.

“Indeed,” said Saunders. “As I recall, a ration book, a driver’s license, a draft card.”

“All reading Oscar Treadmill,” I said.

“Indeed,” Saunders replied.

“All with the same signature on this withdrawal sheet?” I asked.

“The same,” said Saunders.

“So,” I went on, “he got them all after he injured his hand, which he told you he had done on the way here.”

“Point well taken,” said Saunders. “I should have been more observant, but it was an emergency and …”

“Every one of those cards can be erased and new names put in,” I said.

“You know quite a bit about such things,” said Saunders.

“I’m a private investigator,” I said.

“I see,” said Saunders, shaking his head. “I neglected to tell you that he had one piece of identification, a membership card for a social organization to which I belong.”

I let that pass for a moment. Gunther and Fields watched the verbal Ping-Pong game going on between me and Saunders.

“What did this guy look like?”

“I’m afraid I rather concentrated on his broken arm and hand,” said Saunders, “but he had dark hair, about your height and age, possibly a few pounds heavier than you are.”

“Did he look like a primate?” asked Fields.

“Now that you mention it,” said Saunders, “there was a resemblance to some kind of simian.”

“He didn’t really tell you he needed the money for a doctor,” I said, guessing.

Saunders sat silently, hands folded, head slightly cocked to the left with an air of curiosity. “He didn’t?”

“You were a busy man today,” I said. “It would take more than a man who didn’t want to wait a day to get you in here for the first time in over twenty years. You want my guess?”

“Please,” said Saunders amiably.

“He said he needed it for the Klan,” I obliged. “Probably didn’t have any of that identification except a Klan membership card with a name other than Oscar Treadmill. And the name on the Klan card was?”

“There was no Klan card,” Saunders said. “But the name on the organization card to which I referred was written some time ago and was an almost illegible scrawl, a common phenomenon in the banking business. As far as I, and this bank, are concerned, the simian gentleman with the bad arm made a valid withdrawal this morning. I’m sorry. As much respect as I have for Mr. Fields, the name on the account was not his, he has no bankbook, and the account holder presented the book and more than sufficient identification. Mr. Fields’s claim may be quite valid, but he is, in fact, without evidence of his claim to this account.”

“Do you suppose,” said Fields, “that my cohorts and I are gamboling across the nation, gleefully rousing bank presidents with false claims to accounts?”

“I really don’t know,” said Saunders. “It sounds rather far-fetched, but …”

Gunther leaned over to whisper in my ear. I nodded as he sat back. Saunders’s hands were no longer folded in front of him. They were out of sight beneath the desk. Gunther’s height had allowed him a partial view of something metallic in the banker’s hand.

“Guess what I’ve got in my hand?” I said.

“Let’s not get obscene,” Fields said.

Saunders didn’t answer.

“I’m holding the same thing you are,” I said.

“Godfrey Daniel,” said Fields. “I’ve stumbled into a den of covert Victorian depravity.”

I took my hand from under the table and showed the .38, which I leveled at him.

“A bank robbery,” Saunders said as he rose, showing no weapon. “Who would believe that W. C. Fields … or are you an impostor?… that’s it. You
look
like an impostor.”

Gunther got up and moved to Saunders’s side. He reached out of sight toward the swivel chair and came up with a fair-sized Colt six-shooter. Saunders looked at it.

“Protection for just such an incident as this,” Saunders said, showing not the smallest sign of fear.

Fields and I rose from our chairs and moved toward Saunders.

“And when we leave,” I said. “You plan to call the police and say you stopped a bank robbery?”

“I believe that is what is taking place,” said Saunders.

“And if Gunther didn’t find your gun and I didn’t have one, you would have shot the robbers and claimed you really believed Fields was an impostor.”

Before either of us could say anything more, Fields leaned over the desk and took a short jab at Saunders’s face. The punch landed square on the nose. Saunders’s hands went to his nose and he began to gulp.

“Blood,” he said.

Gunther took out a handkerchief and handed it to the banker, who put it to his nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

“You’ve broken my nose,” he said.

“That was the intention,” said Fields, sitting back. “Short, hard jab to the nose with your shoulder behind it. Boxer turned strong man named Babe Washington taught me that. He was, by the way, a Negro gentleman.”

“This,” said Saunders, looking at the bloody handkerchief and touching his swollen nose, “is evidence of your intent to rob the bank.”

“It’s evidence of my popping you in an attempt to extract some small modicum of solace from this sham,” said Fields.

“Chief of police,” I said, “is he a Klan member?”

“He’s half Sioux,” said Saunders with contempt, handkerchief now red.

“Hold your head back,” said Fields. “Any Boy Scout could tell you that.”

Saunders held back his head.

“When we leave here,” I said, “you’re not calling the police. If you do, we establish Mr. Fields’s identity and tell them and whatever reporters and radio stations around here that you’re the head of the local KKK.”

“They won’t believe you,” said Saunders, his head back, blood still coming, but now in a trickle, onto his shirt. “You can’t prove it.”

“They’ll believe W. C. Fields,” I said.

“I shall positively identify you,” said Fields. “I am a master at voices and will gladly allow the constabulary to test my ability to recognize voices, even with a curtain between me and the speaker.”

“You will lose a great many customers,” Gunther said. “Judging from the relatively small turnout at your obscene—may I borrow the word?”

“Be my guest,” said Fields with a bow of his head.

“Your obscene gathering tonight,” Gunther went on, “I would guess that your group has far less than significant support in the community.”

“That will change,” said Saunders, sitting up. The bleeding had stopped. The nose was large and discolored. “We’ll grow.”

“Perhaps,” said Gunther, showing more emotion than I had seen from him on the trip or, for that matter, in the more than three years I’d known him. “I witnessed rallies like yours, rallies of Nazis in brown uniforms instead of white ones. Hamburg, Landstuhl, Bremen, Berlin. The same hate from foul mouths. The foul mouth in Berlin was that of Hitler himself. I heard it and I left Germany. I left Europe. I left the spreading hate mongers.”

“Freaks like you will be the first to go,” said Saunders in the voice that was now clearly that of the Klan leader with the chain, the angry voice, altered slightly by now having to breathe through his mouth.

“There is no end,” said Gunther, looking at Saunders with contempt.

“Little fella’s got the goods,” said Fields. “I think my compatriot, Mr. Peters, is absolutely correct. You’re not calling the police when we leave.”

Saunders, his face a bloody disaster, said, “I can call other people.”

“It’ll take these other people time to put on their shoes and pants, get in their cars, and get here,” I said. “By that time, we’ll be long gone on our way back to Philadelphia.”

Saunders said nothing.

“Besides,” I said, “while Gunther sits here willing to put a bullet in your face with your own gun, I’m going to pull out every phone in the bank and then we’re going to put holes in all four of your tires. I’ll tie you in your chair just tightly enough that it’ll take you a few minutes to get loose and a few more minutes on a Sunday night to find a phone.”

We were back in the battle-scarred Caddy about five minutes later. Gunther made a U-turn and headed down the street in the direction of the motel. When we had traveled about two blocks he turned left, drove another street over, and then turned left again, heading west.

“It was almost worth six thousand plus interest to break that son of a bitch’s nose.”

“Can you really recognize voices that well?” I asked as Gunther speeded down the highway.

Fields had already finished a cocktail he had mixed hastily as we fled Ogallala. “My gallant knight,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “I did not have the vaguest idea that Saunders was the Klan leader till you exposed him. Clark Gable himself could call me on the phone and I’d assume he was an insurance salesman. Here.”

He handed me some bills.

“Today’s pay,” he said, lying back and closing his eyes. “You’ve earned it. Onward to Rifle, Colorado, ominously named, considering our adventures of the last several days. I am determined to thwart and catch that damned Chimp and get every penny of my money back.”

We could see that Rifle, Colorado, when we drove down the main street the next morning, was even smaller than Ogallala. It was a Monday and not much should have been going on, but it looked like almost everyone in town was on the sidewalk—and a
few
with noses touching store windows from inside—watching our wreck wobble down the street.

Somewhere on the way, when Fields and I were asleep, Gunther had found a place to get gas. He told me he and the attendant had a hard time getting the dented gas-tank door open. But they had succeeded, and with the wind whistling through the broken windows, Fields and I had slept soundly. And now, fully rested and having satisfied his morning thirst, Fields was prepared for the adoration which he assumed was responsible for the throng. Somehow, he said, word of his arrival had reached the hamlet.

Fields, unable to resist a crowd, opened his window and leaned out to doff his hat to the ladies. It was a one-car clown parade.

“Stop the vehicle,” Fields said, and Gunther pulled over.

Four women in summer dresses were watching us. They ranged in age from about twenty-five to fifty.

“Pardon me,” said Fields. “Can one of you fine examples of Colorado pulchritude direct us to the bank?”

“Next street over, turn right,” said the oldest woman with a shy smile. “Can’t miss it. You’re W. C. Fields.”

“You have extracted a confession,” he said. “And though my band of weary travelers and I will be in your fair city but an hour or so, I shall always remember the kind reception of your small but character-steeped town.”

“Quite a day for us already and it’s still morning,” said another woman. “Normally we wouldn’t all be out and catch you coming down the street if it weren’t for the shooting.”

“Shooting?”

“About an hour ago,” said the oldest woman. “Some crazy fool, not from town or an Indian, stood right out in the middle of the street shooting a pistol. Shot the window right out of a car just driving a few yards farther than you are now. Driver just sped up. The man in the street kept shooting. Before the state police could get here he was gone, went running to a parked car.”

“What did he look like?” asked Fields.

“Sort of like a … I don’t know … a monkey face, sort of,” said the youngest one.

“Jessie was closest,” said the eldest woman. “She saw best.”

“Had a crazy look in his eyes,” said Jessie. “Looked right in my face and then ran for his car.”

“What kind of car?” asked Fields.

“Don’t know,” said Jesse. “Dark, kind of regular size. I’m not so sure about cars.”

“I think it was a Ford,” said the woman who hadn’t spoken.

“Thank you, ladies,” Fields said, pulling his head back into the car and turning to Gunther. “Drive on, and step on it.”

When we were out of earshot of the ladies, Fields said, “The Chimp’s lost what little was left of his mind. I knew I should have brought my shotgun.”

Gunther drove to the corner, turned right, and found the bank without any trouble, a small white adobe building nestled between a two-story office building with a bakery on the ground floor, and a radio store, in whose small window on a white carpet stood a full-speaker, stand-up, parlor model brown wooden Philco. The sign next to it, in big letters, a different color for each line, read: “The latest in sound technology, pick up shortwave and hear what our boys overseas are listening to, a smart and beautiful addition to any living room.” Next to the magnificent Philco was a shelf of small plastic, wood, and cardboard-covered table models and portables.

Fields was out of the car and through the front door of the bank, with Gunther and myself right behind him. It was one hell of a small bank, the smallest yet. I wondered what had brought Fields through Rifle, Colorado, to make his deposit in the first place.

There was a single teller’s window and a single desk across from it with two chairs in front of it. Behind the teller’s cage stood a woman. At the desk sat another, older woman. There were no customers. There were no offices, though there was a rest room in the rear of the bank next to a barred window. The walls were white and could use another coat, but the place was neat and clean. Behind the woman at the desk hung a portrait of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.