Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 10, Number 46, DeMotte, Jasper County, 3 October 1940 — Cutie [ARTICLE]

Cutie

By DENIS O’BRIEN

(McClure Syndicate—WNU Service. 1

'T'HJS young reporter, hoping to win promotion and fame with a series of articles to be entitled “The Better Type of Criminal,” sat on the edge of the shelf in cell 1009 and listened while Thomas Aloysis Brown growled out his story. “I’ll tell yer how it was,” Brown’s voice was pregnant with self-dis-gust: “but if yer’d ’a tole me that a kid o’ seventeen, an’ an honest ter God innercent babe at that, could ’a fooled me I’d ’a said yer was bughouse.” He shook his head dismally as he accepted a cigarette from the reporter. “What with all the private watchmen an’ the p’lice on the alert on account o’ the latest raid by them gangsters, jobs in my line wasn’t so easy an’ I was practically facin’ starvation when one night late, I see the boy-friend an’ his sweetie standin’ outside the bronze an’ glass doors of the Amos J. Murtha palatial dwellin’. Yea—that’s him all right, Amos J. the Lolly pop King. “Well, the cutie was his daughter sure enough, an’ she an’ the boyfriend was so taken up in sayin’ good-night again and again, an’ each time a little more tender-like that even the night watchman gets kinda bashful an’ walks off. Me, havin’ slipped inside the front-door, decided it was wise ter conceal myself until little cutie should climb them marble stairs of her father’s grand hall. “Knowin’ that the caretaker had been called out o’ town ter the death-bed of a relative which was actually a picnic, I felt kinda responsible an’ didn’t wish ter scare that innercent girl, so I waits a short time before followin’ her up the stairs. Say—” Brown looked reflectively into space—“she was sure a nice little kid an’ that well brought up. . “Well, when I thought she oughter be in bed an’ sleepin’ I climbs those stairs. She’d left her door wide open but instead o’ bein’ in bed, she was in her bathroom. Pretty soon I heard water runnin’ like mad in the bathtub; there was never nothin’ quiet about Amos J., not even his plumbin’. “I never did know anyone ter take so long in a bath before, not even allowin’ fer hot weather, an’ I was just gettin’ worried, thinkin’ perhaps she had fallen alseep in the tub arid was gettin’ drowned, when out she comes. Well, thinks I, as I sees her lookin’ that cute in her pink crepe de chine an’ lace, Amos J. don’t deserve the luck he’s got leavin’ anything as nifty as that ter wander around loose an’ unprotected like. “I remember that telephone conversation all right, all right,” he went on bitterly. “ ‘Hello,’ she says, ‘oh, hello darlin’, of course it’s me. Who did you think it was?’ an’ she gives a coy kinda laugh, ‘of course I love you—how much? Oh, lots o’ much, old pie-face.’ That,” he interrupted himself fiercely, “is the only thing that gives me any comfort. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she goes on, ‘what on earth could happen at dear, old number nine West Central avenue with a private detective walkin’ up and down outside and a telephone by my bed?’ Then she has ter keep quiet long enough ter let the strong, silent man at the other end of the wrire get in some applesauce. But pretty soon she gets busy again. ‘Well,’ she goes on all sweet an’ yieldin’-like, ‘well—you can come up an’ wig-wag me from across the street, if it’ll make yer feel happier, only do please make it snappy as I can’t stand this strain on my nerves much longer.’ Here her voice was all broke up from emotion. ‘Au revoir darlin’ ole pieface.’ An’ she hangs up the receiver. Then she goes paddlin’ around her room puttin’ this away an’ that till I’m about ready ter go off me nut. “Just when I was about ter take a hand from sheer nervousness an’ put her gently but firmly ter sleep, blowed if the only man in the world didn’t whistle under her window an’ that innercent eyed babe goes an’ waves ter ’im—then back she comes an’ flops on her knees beside her bed an’ starts sayin’ her prayers. An’ from the way she shivered yer might a’ thought she was at a revival meetin’. An’ me, the big stiff, standin’ by patiently with me manly courage all broken down an’ tears stealin’ down me cheeks at the sight o’ that there trustin’ child, when I feels somethin’ cold and hard insertin’ itself between me ribs.” Brown stopped too digusted to go on. “What happened?” gasped the young reporter. “You should ask!” Brown’s bitterness seemed to fill the cell. “All the time I was respectin’ her modesty thinkin’ she was in her bath, blowed if she hadn’t slipped inter the room next ter the bathroom an’ phoned Central ter have Police Headquarters ring her up. An’ all that slim-slam on the phone was her talkin’ ter the big chief. Well, she wasn’t so far out when she called him ‘ole pie-face’ an’ fer once he knew what someone thought o’ that mug o’ his that he’s so stuck on. Then all that wig-waggin’ at the window was her throwin’ down the key ter the cops, an’ the prayers just staged up ter keep me quiet. The next time I fry to loosen a Jane from her jewels I’ll pick one that’s hard boiled all right, no more o’ them pure little girls fer me.”