“All right, start talking!” Bud snapped.
“My name’s Moose Wixman. Who are you guys?”
“Never mind that. What do you do for a living?”
Wixman shrugged. “Stevedore, freight handler, any kind o’ job I can get. Ain’t workin’ right at the moment. I just blew into this burg a couple weeks ago. I move around quite a bit.”
“Why did you jump us when we just asked you a simple question?” Bud demanded.
Moose scowled uncomfortably and rubbed his jaw, as if still feeling the effect of Tom’s uppercut. “I thought you two were friends of Whaley’s. The dirty gyp! If I ever get my hands on that guy, I’ll beat him to a pulp!”
116 COSMIC ASTRONAUTS
“How come?”
” ‘Cause he conned me out o’ two hundred bucks! Practically all the money I had!”
Moose explained that he had met Whaley at the Shopton railroad freight yards, while looking for work. Whaley had pretended to be a big-shot industrialist with far-flung business interests.
After learning that Moose had just been paid off for a job aboard a tramp steamer, Whaley had offered to double his money for him “in no time” by investing it in stock in a new manufacturing company which he was forming.
Instead of doing this, Whaley had promptly skipped town with Wixman’s cash.
Tom and Bud exchanged quick glances. Both were thinking, “This fellow certainly looks dumb enough to fall for such a story!”
“Like I said, when you guys asked for Whaley, I figured you’re friends of his,”
Moose said.
“We’re only looking for him,” Tom said. “We’re not friends. Are you sure he left Shopton?”