Thubway Tham's Flivver

by Johnston McCulley

Thubway Tham's
Flivver

^by Johnston McCulley

Author of “The Spider” Series, “The Black Star” Series, etc.

THE traffic cop turned the arms of the semaphore, gestured wildly with both hands, and the stream of automobiles dashed north and south like twin torrents of water released at the bursting of a dam.

Thubway Tham touched match to cigarette, pulled his cap down over his right eye, and stepped nearer the curb. Tham watched the traffic cops whenever he had the opportunity, and enjoyed it, notwithstanding the fact that he had little love for the police.

“Thome thity!” Tham told himself now as he crossed the street. “And thome automobileth! Everything from a flivver to a Pullman on tireth! Thome gatholine think! Thome——”

He dodged wildly and reached the opposite curb in safety, while his heart pounded at his ribs.

“Thimp!” he called after the chauffeur who had almost run him down. “Thilly ath! Thinkth he ownth the whole thweet, I thuppothe. Juth becauthe he ith drivin' a benthine buggy ith no reathon for him rithkin' my life.”

And Thubway Tham sauntered up Fifth Avenue opposite the library, aware that he was out of his usual precinct, and not caring. It was Sunday afternoon, and Thubway Tham was taking the air. He intended walking as far as the park and there catching a subway train downtown again.

Things had been going well for Thubway Tham for some weeks. He was in funds, due to the fact that certain gentlemen had carried well-filled wallets in their hip pockets while riding in the subway. Work—for Thubway Tham considered his profession nothing more or less than work—held little attraction for him for the time being. He was like a clerk who hates the sight of his desk for a season; he wanted diversion, felt that he needed a change.

Presently he stopped at another corner to light a fresh cigarette. He tossed the burned match away and was about to cross the street, when he felt a touch on his shoulder.

Thubway Tham belonged to a class of men to whom a touch on the shoulder held possibilities, not all of them pleasant to contemplate. His heart pounded at his ribs again, but he turned slowly and with a look of surprise on his face. Then he sneered, for Detective Craddock stood before him, grinning.

“Thith ith my unlucky day!” Tham complained. “I didn't feel very good thith mornin', and my breakfath wath not up to the thtandard, and my cigaretteth do not thathe ath good ath uthual—and now I thee your ugly fathe!”

“Rave on, Tham, old boy!” Craddock told him. “A little off your beat, aren't you?”

“Thir?”

“You heard me! There isn't any subway entrance along here, old top, and so I fail to understand your presence. Is it that you have changed your habits? Are you prowling along the Avenue these days, trying to pick up a wallet here and there?”

“Thir!” Tham thundered.

“Well, what's the big idea?”

“Thith ith Thunday afternoon, and everybody who ith anybody ith on parade,” Thubway Tham said solemnly.

"I see. You are giving the ladies a treat, is that it? You are on parade yourself, bowing right and left to acquaintances and friends—financiers, artists, actors and actresses, authors, captains of industry, and all that. In other words, Tham, old boy, you are mingling socially with the élite. Is that it? It is not!”

“My goodneth, what a thpeech!” Tham replied sarcastically. “How doeth it come that they allow you on thith thtreet? There ith thuppothed to be thome clath to Fifth Avenue on Thunday afternoon. You've made a mithtake. You belong theveral blockth eatht—or wetht.”

“I belong right on your heels, Tham, old boy, especially when you are in a crowd,” Craddock said. “We can't be having ladies and gentlemen reporting to headquarters that some naughty dip has taken their wallets.”

“Thay!”

“No comedy, now, Tham. None of that stuff about being once caught and reforming and the hounds of the force eternally bothering you.”

“You pethter the life out of me!” Tham complained. “Thome timeth | think that I'll go away from here. Maybe if I went to Philadelphia or Trenton I could get thome peathe. Thith town ith gettin' to be thpoiled by you!”

“A man couldn't drive you out of it with a club,” Craddock told him. “You'd die if you had to live a mile from the subway, and you know it.”

Thubway Tham grinned.

“The thubway ith thome hole in the ground,” he admitted.

“And you take as much money out of it as a prospector out of a gold mine,” Craddock added. “But I'll get you one of these days, Tham, old boy.”

“You have been thayin' that for thome little time,” Tham reminded him.

“You'll cease to laugh, old-timer, when you hear the judge say something about ten years in the big house up the river.”

"I could thwim there before could thend me there—and I thwim a thwoke,” Tham said.

“Is that so? Go right ahead, old boy—I'll get you one of these days. And, take it from me, I'll get you right! There'll be one little pocketbook on the shelf for some time to come. You'd pick the warden's pocket while he was checking you in.”

Thubway Tham grinned again and started to turn away.

“Thinking of taking a ride in the subway?” Craddock asked pleasantly.

“Why ith it you with to know?”

“Because, if you are, I'm going to toddle right along behind you,” the detective said.

“Thith ith Thunday, a day of retht,” Thubway Tham said.

“Ah, I see! This is your day off!”

“And I am goin' up to the park,” Tham went on, “and feed nutth to the thquirrelth. It would be dangerous for you to come along, though you would be a hard nut to crack.”

“So?”

“Tho!” said Thubway Tham.

A big limousine roared by within a few inches of the curb, and Thubway Tham and Craddock stepped back.

“Every man who ownth a theemth to think that he ownth the earth, too,” Tham complained.

“Well, why don't you buy a car of your own and get into the game?” Craddock asked, laughing.

“I may, at that!” said Thubway Tham.

II.

There are some persons born to find peace and contentment only by traveling a beaten track and following a deadly routine. Thubway Tham was like that, in a way. Once he had attempted to reform and had met with disaster. Once he had tried to get away from New York and had met with nothing but bad luck and homesickness. Once he had decided that he would stop working in the subway and try some other game, and had barely escaped capture, incarceration and physical and mental anguish.

Thubway Tham continued up the Avenue to the entrance to Central Park at Fifty-ninth Street, wandered about the park for a time to “watch the squirrels and the nuts,” as he expressed it, and then, drifting down Broadway, happened upon a district made up almost wholly of automobile establishments.

There, in the show window of a “used car” salesroom, Thubway Tham caught sight of a roadster. It was a small two-seated affair, but it appeared to him to be everything desirable in an automobile. The body was a brilliant red, trimmed in yellow and black, and the nickeled parts glistened beautifully.

Lighting a fresh cigarette Thubway Tham stepped closer to the window, unaware of the fact that deadly temptation was confronting him and preparing to give battle for his soul.

“Thome clath!” Thubway Tham mused. “It ith not a big car, but it thure would loom up on the Avenue.”

Then Thubway Tham began to dream, much as countless thousands have dreamed before they purchased cars. He saw himself behind the wheel, leaning back easily against the cushions, shifting gears and touching the accelerator like a man born to motoring. He saw himself stopping at corners, darting forward at the beckoning of the traffic cop's hand, swinging close to the curb and frightening men, women and children. He saw himself speeding, yet with eyes half closed and hands touching the wheel lightly, as if speed were a matter of everyday life to him.

“Gee!” Thubway Tham breathed.

He walked along in front of the window so as to get a better view of the little roadster. It seemed to be almost human. It was like a dog wagging its tail and asking to be taken away and given a good home and kind treatment.

Thubway Tham gulped and went on down the street, and after a time entered the subway and caught a train for downtown.

On the following morning, having breakfasted, and having decided that something seemed to tell him it would be dangerous to work that day, Thubway Tham found himself walking northward again, fat beyond his usual haunts, up into the neighborhood of wealth and fashionable shops and limousines and pedigreed lap-dogs. Almost before he knew it, he was standing before a show window and looking at the red roadster.

Five minutes later Thubway Tham was talking to a salesman inside.

“She's a little beauty,” the salesman said. “Better than the day she came from the factory. We wouldn't have her for sale, except that the man who owned her traded her in and got a bigger car—had some relatives coming to town for the summer, you understand.”

"I don't know much about carth,” said Tham,

The remark was superfluous. The salesman already knew that; he made it a business to ascertain such things so that he would not talk indiscreetly to persons who knew automobiles well.

“You don't have to know much,” he said. “The less you know, the better. The usual automobile owner tinkers with his car too much and gets it out of tune. All you have to do with this beauty is, get in and drive off.”

“But I don't know how to drive,” Tham said.

“As if that should bother you,” said the salesman. “For five dollars, one of our experts will teach you all about it in one lesson; spend half a day, a day, if necessary, with you. It's nothing to drive a car. Look at the thousands who do it, thousands who haven't the common sense, intelligence and adaptability you possess.”

Thubway Tham had not known that he possessed those things, but he felt that the words of the salesman were true. Almost before he knew it, he had purchased the car and paid over five hundred dollars. He had made arrangements for his license, and the expert was ready to take him out and teach him to drive.

“Why not?” Tham had told himself, “I've got more coin than I need right now, and thith ith a thort of an invethtment. If I don't like it, I can thell it!”

The expert drove slowly out of the city with Tham sitting at his side. He nursed the gears and he drove slowly, as if afraid that the car would take a notion to wreck itself, and he muttered beneath his breath just what sort of car it was. But Thubway Tham did not notice that. He was delirious with the thought that he owned an automobile and so had taken his place with the élite of the city.

Out where there was little traffic, Thubway Tham was given his lesson. At the end of two hours, he felt sure that he could make the ordinary breed of race drivers eat out of his hand. With a grin on his face, he drove back toward the city slowly, carefully, now and then taking one hand off the wheel to show that driving came naturally to him.

“It's a gift!” the expert murmured in his ear.

They drove to the garage, and Tham, tired but pleased, took the subway for the lower end of town. There he met Detective Craddock on a corner, The officer looked at him suspiciously.

“Got anything in your pocket that doesn't belong to you?” Craddock asked.

“Are you goin' to pethter me again?” Tham demanded. “I'm tired, and I don't want to be pethtered. I have juth been drivin' my car.”

“What's that?” Craddock demanded, in astonishment.

"I have bought a roadthter,” Thubway Tham explained, “and to-day I have been learning to drive it. Thome of thethe dayth I'll pick you up and give you a ride.”

“You won't unless I'm unconscious,” Craddock told him. “Ride in a car with you at the wheel? I've got life insurance, old-timer, but I'm not ready to die.”

“Maybe you think I can't drive,” said Thubway Tham.

“Do you really mean that you've bought a car?”

“Thertainly.”

“There must be good money in picking pockets,” said Craddock.

“There you go again!” Tham complained. “You never thaw me pick a pocket, did you?”

“I did not. But I will one of these days, old boy, and then you'll get yours.”

“Thith ith a thmall car,” Tham explained, “and it didn't cotht much. Thome day I'm goin' to get a bigger one.”

The germ of automobilis already was circulating in the blood of Thubway Tham.

III.

The expert gave Tham a second lesson the following day and then declared him graduated. On the morning of the third day Thubway Tham appeared at the garage, made sure that his car had all the “gas,” oil and water it needed, hopped in, settled himself behind the wheel, and drove forth. The expert sent a prayer after him.

Tham drove through the park first, having an easy time of it, except that his heart had a way of jumping up into his throat if any person or vehicle darted across the path within a hundred feet of him. He stopped finally and rested, lighting a cigarette and trying to calm his nerves. He wanted to show his machine to his friends, but he had none in that part of the city.

Then he counted the number of blocks to the neighborhood where he was known. It seemed to be an appalling distance, with dangers at every corner, but Tham told himself that other men drove cars in the street every day. Had not the salesman told him that he had common sense?

Tham wanted to advertise the fact that he belonged to the advanced class. He wanted to drive far downtown and there let the news spread that Thubway Tham had purchased a flivver. He would hail “Shifty Simms,” or “Burglar Bert,” or some acquaintance of his who was a power in the underworld, invite them into the car, swing off up the street and talk of ordinary things as if driving a car of his own were nothing new to him.

Gathering his courage, Tham made his way into Fifth Avenue, and pointed the nose of his automobile toward the distant Washington Arch. For several blocks he progressed in an ordinary manner, and began telling himself that driving down Fifth Avenue was nothing exceptional. Then he came to Forty-second Street.

Behind a tine of automobiles and one of another line stretching from curb to the safety zone in the middle of the Avenue, Tham stopped his car. Ahead of him, frantic traffic cops were blowing whistles, waving arms, turning semaphores and indulging in gymnastics in an effort to speed vehicles and pedestrians on their way eastward and westward. Tham felt himself in the midst of confusion and fought to control his nerves.

The line moved forward. Tham had some trouble in starting his car, and a big limousine and a racer darted around him and dodged in front of him. Tham threw on the brakes, and the car behind skidded into him, touching his car lightly. That frightened Tham. He touched the accelerator, and his roadster sprang forward across the car tracks and tapped the rear of the automobile in front of his roadster. Trying to avoid hitting the car harder, Tham swung to the left and almost crashed into a bus. He swung back to the right again, to find that the car behind had crowded forward, and he had no room to swerve.

“When in doubt, stop!” the expert told him.

Tham tried to stop. He touched the accelerator instead of the brake, and his car dashed forward again, scraped the fender of another, then stopped abruptly as Tham's foot found the brake, and caused two swearing chauffeurs behind him to swerve to right and left and do some quick stopping themselves.

Brakes screeched, sirens sounded, the swiftly-moving, orderly lines of vehicles suddenly were confounded and broken. The Avenue was a hopeless jumble of cars, and Thubway Tham's red roadster was standing at right angles to the curb, as if about to climb it and the steps of the public library.

Blue-coated policemen came running along the street. A mounted officer was urging his horse toward the nucleus of the maelstrom. Tham backed a short distance and tried to straighten out his car, but found that he did not have room. A limousine moved forward out of the way to give him the space he needed.

“What's the idea?” a policeman inquired. “Tryin' to do the serpentine glide with that racer of yours? Been storin' up because prohibition's coming? Get that baby buggy out of here!”

Thubway Tham did not care to have trouble with a traffic cop. He had been told by the expert that traffic cops were beings apart from the ordinary run of humanity. He announced his eagerness to be on his way, and explained that some chauffeur had crowded him to the middle of the street back near the corner, and that all the trouble had followed that.

The line of vehicles began to move again. Tham swung his roadster into the line and went forward, his face red, the chauffeurs at either side of him making sarcastic remarks. Tham wanted to reply to them, but felt that the car demanded all his attention.

The line raced forward, and Thubway Tham attempted to follow. But it appeared that suddenly his car had forgotten the meanings of speed and power. It gave a cough or two, a snort, slackened its pace, bucked like a broncho, and stopped.

Tham worked frantically at levers and pedals. Other cars roared around him, stopped behind him. Smoke enveloped him. Tham tried to get the car to the curb, and could not.

A mounted policeman charged down upon him.

“What's the matter with that tin buzzard?” he demanded.

“I—I don't know,” Tham replied, working at the levers and pedals again.

“Take it to the curb, out of the way.”

“I—I can't,” said Tham.

He got out of the car. The officer dismounted and released the brake, and together they rolled the car to the curb.

“Now fix it up or telephone to some garage,” the officer said. “When will you fellows learn that you can't put a tin can on wheels and make it run?”

“Thith ith a good car!” Tham protested.

“Don't make me laugh!” the policeman replied.

There was a crowd now, of course; it doesn't take much to get a crowd on Fifth Avenue—in fact, there's always one there. Thubway Tham lifted the hood of the roadster and looked at the works. He didn't understand anything about it, but he put a wise expression on his countenance to fool the crowd.

Sarcastic remarks were hurled at him until his face burned. Advice was offered wholesale. Thubway Tham closed the hood and went through the crowd. He determined to telephone for help to the garage operated in connection with the automobile salesrooms.

Those on the outskirts of the crowd disliking to ask questions, merely waited to see what was going to happen. Thubway Tham telephoned, and returned toward the car. He stood for a moment outside the gathering of spectators and listened to the remarks being circulated among the interested public:

“Crazy man tryin' to cut figure eights!”

“He was ridin' on the hood.”

“Gasoline tank exploded, didn't it?”

“Just drunk, I guess!”

“Bunch of junk, that's all.”

“Nice paint on it, all right. These second-hand car guys can make a bunch of old iron look like a racer!”

Tham agreed with the last speaker. He realized that he had purchased something that did not give value. He felt rage against the man who had sold him the car, and against the expert who had taught him how to drive. He had expended something more than five hundred dollars, and had got nothing but sarcastic comments about his gullibility.

Rage surging within him, Thubway Tham decided to be avenged to the full extent. He pushed farther into the crowd. His trained hands set to work. He brushed against a pompous individual and obtained a wallet, and slipped away from the curious sightseers.

He turned west on Fortieth Street, emptied the wallet and tossed the leather to one side, and returned to the crowd. The men from the garage had not yet arrived.

Tham forced his way to the car and stood beside it in an attitude of protection. A man who radiated prosperity stepped up beside him.

“Having a little trouble?” he asked.

“Thomething gone wrong, thir,” Tham replied. “It ith the firtht time I ever had any trouble with it.”

“Must not have had the thing long, then. Why do you men try to buy cars when you can't afford a good one. Waste of time and money! Result of trying to invade a class where you do not belong. Ought to stick to the subway and elevated.”

Again Tham felt rage welling within him. He would have liked to hit the prosperous-looking man just one in the proper spot, and with effect. But he knew better than to do that.

Policemen had invaded the sidewalk and were forcing their way into the crowd, breaking it up gently. Two men from the garage drove up with a motor truck. One of them took one look beneath the hood of the car.

“We'll tow her in,” he said. “I know this bird of a boat. I've towed her in four times in the last month, every time for a different owner!”

He grinned at Thubway Tham, and the crowd laughed.

The throng started to scatter. The prosperous-looking man started away. Thubway Tham followed and brushed against him—and obtained a wallet and a watch.

“Thilly ath!” he muttered.

“You comin' along with me?” the driver of the truck asked.

Tham stated that he was. He got into the seat of the truck. The car was fastened to the truck by a towline, and one man got into it to guide it through the traffic, while the other drove the truck,

They journeyed to the garage in a roundabout way and took considerable time about it, and the mechanician grilled Thubway Tham for having purchased such a car. It was strictly ethical, he maintained, to grill a victim after he had been fleeced. Tham's rage increased.

At the garage, he went to the rear to get a drink of water, and there he took the money from the wallet he had lifted from the prosperous-looking man, and tossed the wallet away. He was glad to find that the watch was not marked in any way, and so could be disposed of easily to a “fence.” Then he returned and sought the salesman.

“How much,” asked Thubway Tham, “will you give me for that car?”

“Why you just bought it.”

“Yeth, I know, and now I am thellin' it. It ith a fine meat-grinder, but I wanted an automobile.”

The salesman grinned, thereby making an enemy of Thubway Tham for all time.

“Well, you're supposed to know what you're buying,” he said. “I'll give you two hundred for her.”

“But you charged me five hundred!”

“Two hundred,” said the salesman.

"I'll take it,” said Thubway Tham,

The deal was completed in record time, and Tham went from the place with rage in his heart. He had an object in life now—revenge. He had picked up a couple of wallets in the throng of scoffers, but he had not finished. Figuring in the two hundred he had received for the car, he enjoyed a profit already, but not profit enough.

Tham hired a taxicab and persuaded the chauffeur to wait in readiness near the corner. Tham himself smoked cigarette after cigarette and waited patiently. Finally, as evening approached, he saw the salesman sally forth, a smile on his face and a stick in his hand, his nefarious work done for the day. He got into an imposing touring car and waved to his chauffeur to proceed. Thubway Tham, in the taxicab, followed.

The salesman drove downtown and alighted from his car to go into a theater ticket agency. Tham left the taxicab and followed at his heels. There were many people in the agency, and Tham could do his work easily. He brushed against the salesman and took his purse. Turning around, the salesman recognized him—and grinned.

"I thuppothe it ith funny!” Tham said.

“Never mind, my man. We all get stung now and then.”

“And that ith the truth!” said Tham solemnly.

He purchased a theater ticket that he did not want, and went out to the street again, paid the chauffeur, and hurried to the nearest subway entrance. He caught a downtown train and plied his nefarious trade with a will. Thubway Tham was collecting for the fun the public had enjoyed at his expense.

In his own room he figured on the back of an old envelope.

“Three hundred to the good,” he said to himself. “It ith the truth that there ith money in the automobile buthineth!”

 

Two days later he met Craddock on the street near Union Square.

“Well, old-timer, here you are again,” Craddock said. “So you got an automobile, did you? That set me to thinking, old boy, and I bought one myself.”

“Yeth?” asked Tham.

“Yes. Thought it would be great to take the wife and kids for a ride now and then. A man ought to get some pleasure out of life.”

“Thure!” said Tham. “I with you all the pleathure in the world. I thold my car.”

“Need the money?” Craddock asked.

“No; I didn't like the car,” Tham replied. “It wath no good.”

“An inexperienced man ought to be careful when he buys an automobile,” Craddock said. “You'll get stung every time if you don't watch out. I know a lot about cars. I got a dandy—a used car, at that—and got her cheap.”

“Yeth?”

“Yes. None of these auto sharks fool me, you bet. She's right around the corner. Come and take a look at her. Might as well get acquainted with her now, Tham, because some day I'll probably get you dead to rights and take you to the station in her.”

“Yeth?”

“Yes! She's a dandy little car, all jokes aside. This is the first time I've had her out alone—just drove down from the garage.”

They turned the corner. The car was at the curb.

“Ith that yourth?” Tham asked.

“It certainly is, old boy. How is she for a good-looker, eh? And I got her for five hundred. Cheap as dirt!”

“And thith ith the firtht time you've had her out?”

“The very first time,” Craddock said.

“Live and learn!” quoth Thubway Tham.

“What do you mean?”

“Juth what I thaid—live and learn! It ith a fine car—for lookth!”

“A dandy little car!” Craddock enthused.

“Yeth! Live and learn. I hope it ith ath profitable for you ath it wath for me, that ith all. She ith a fine little car, all right. You are the thixth thucker in a month. If you want the telephone number of the garage, Craddock, Ill give it to you. I had to uthe it onthe.”

“Say! What are you driving at?” the detective demanded.

“You won't be pethterin' me for thome dayth to come,” Thubway Tham told him, “You'll be too buthy with that car. I know all about that car. I owned it onthe—for three dayth. Live and learn!”

Thubway Tham, chuckling so hard that the tears ran down his cheeks, made his way along Union Square. He winked at the proud statue standing there and he wasn't at all certain that the statue didn't wink back at him.