Blonde Bait for the Murder Master

Chapter Four

Saturday there was nothing to do. I went over and checked with Brock. He seemed carefree and contented. I didn’t get a chance for a word with Anna. I tried a double-feature, but couldn’t get interested; I tried a few drinks, but they bounced off.

After dark, I went and blinked the lights outside Kit’s house. No response. I guessed that she had had to go someplace with her people. I was bored, restless and jittery.

Sunday was almost as bad, except that for a few minutes, while I drove Anna downtown at Brock’s request, I had a chance to talk to her. She told me that she had gotten eight blank tickets from Homer and that he would steal the type face for the numerals on Monday and get them to her.

I tried to question her again on who was in the picture beside the two of us but she wouldn’t talk. When I came back, Brock had had a call from Johnny Naga, and he complimented me on the way I’d taken care of the situation. Skippy had come around to Naga begging to be permitted to handle the tickets again, but Johnny had turned him down.

I told her about Gulbie, and where he was located. She said that it sounded fine. Then she crossed her fingers and added, “Brother, if this thing goes sour, I might as well move right in with your friend Gulbie.”

I laughed, thinking of how she’d look in Gulbie’s shack.

On Sunday night, the drinks didn’t bounce. I had a few, and then took a bottle up to my room. By the time the level was low, I was ready for sleep. It hit me like a sap behind the ear.

The tension was growing. It was getting more and more difficult to act natural about Brock. I got so bored that I made a gentle play for Joyce, and she fell all over herself trying to back up my play. Billy and Oley got on my nerves.

Monday afternoon, in the kitchen of 1012 Cramer, Brock said suddenly, “Anything chewing on you, Boy?” I gave him my best grin. “Not a thing. There just isn’t much to do the first part of the week, I guess.”

He smiled and his dead brown eyes looked at me carefully. “Maybe it’s something else?”

A small shiver ran down my spine. “What else?”

“Maybe you ought to be nicer to Oley, Brian. He got sore at you last Friday when you wouldn’t give him a lift downtown. So he comes back when you go in the house again and Anna is there. What was that for?” My grin felt wide and vacant. “We... we were just talking.”

“You talk good with all the lights out, hah?”

“Oley’s lying, Brock. You know me better than that!”

There was no humor in his laugh. “I don’t know you so good, Brian, but I know Anna pretty good. Sure, I know Anna very good.”

He turned and walked out of the room. That would be the payoff — to have the whole thing blow up in our faces, just because Oley had come sneaking back like a weasel. We had been careless. Suppose Oley had sneaked into the house, had heard what we had said. When I tried to find Oley, he wasn’t around, and nobody seemed to know or care where he had gone.

To have Brock suspicious made things more difficult. Much more difficult. But not impossible. Once, walking back toward a beach through the surf, I had felt the undertow suck the sand out from under my feet. This was the same sort of feeling. The habitual smile on Brock’s face had been familiar, but also familiar was the dead, dull look of his tan-brown eyes.

I began to wonder if forging winning tickets was as necessary to our plan as we had imagined. We could figure on a profit of around two thousand dollars, which was unimportant compared with the advantage of having the syndicate take care of Brock, their own man, on suspicion of crookedness.

In the late afternoon the paper boy threw the evening paper up on the porch. I went out and picked it up, realizing that all over Murrisberg, eager hands were unfolding the paper, eyes were searching the columns near the back page, looking for the Treasury Report, the five digits immediately preceeding the decimal point in the treasury balance as of that day.

I smiled as I remembered having seen, in Molly’s kitchen, while I was still on the force, a tiny pile of the green tickets. Even Molly was a sucker.

Suddenly the frame house on Cramer street was too small. Without a word to Brock, I went out and got in my car and drove away. I went out onto the open road and opened it up, the high whine of the motor and the roar of the wind doing a little to clean away the fear that had slowly seeped through me, down to the marrow of my bones.

Yes, the plan was rolling, and it didn’t look quite as bright and shining as it had seemed. Anna had said the syndicate was having internal trouble. Maybe then, they would be particularly anxious to keep a firm hold on Murrisberg. The syndicate planned always on being driven out of business for short periods of time when the citizenry became aroused and sicked the law on the local operators. They also planned on opening up again within a very short period of time.

Anna had been right about Billy and Oley. Give them a hundred and a quarter a week, and their dubious loyalty would be shifted to the new organization. But how about the new talent that might come to town to do a little cleaning up?

Somehow that big white house on the hill was a little further away. I slowed, turned, went back to town and phoned Kit. She was guarded over the phone, and I told her to tell her folks that she was going to the movies with a girl friend. I wasn’t afraid to be seen with her. It was Brock who had suggested that I see her often, so that I could possibly get a tipoff on any raid planned in the office of the District Attorney.

I sat in the lobby of the Murrisberg House, and soon I saw her walking across the tiled floor toward me. Tall, clean, young and very lovely. I stood up and I could see in her eyes all the promises of the things to come. I wondered how those eyes would look if she knew what I planned to do. “I’ve been afraid for you,” she whispered, as I steered her out toward the car.

“I’ll be okay, Kit,” I said.

We had dinner at the Inn at Herperville, fifteen miles away. I thought of the few hundred dollars I had in my pocket and wanted to finish dinner and keep right on going, never come back. But such thoughts were weakness.

Over coffee she told me how the D.A. had reacted. He had said that it was a chance they had been waiting for. The chief had been in and she guessed that they had been going over the data, planning the Thursday raid. She said that they had been very difficult about her not disclosing the source of her information, and they had asked her several times if Brian Gage was the informer.

That gave me a serious jar. Of course they would figure that way. I began to wonder who had seen her meet me in the lobby of my hotel.

And I didn’t like the taste of that word... informer.

I took her home and let her off at the corner and watched the proud way she carried her shoulders, the lift of her shining head, as she walked away from the car.

Tuesday afternoon, late, as I passed Anna in the narrow hallway leading to the kitchen in Brock’s house, she slipped something into my hand. I went out and sat in the car and looked at the two tickets. They were good; the alignment was okay. Two tickets, one for Monday’s winner and one for Tuesday’s. One thousand bucks.

I told Brock I was going to eat, and I drove out to Gulbie’s shack. He remembered me after I had mentioned the name Jake Shaw, and the ten bucks. He was dirty and he had a bad smell about him; I winced as he sat on the clean new uphostery in my car. But I drove him down to the store, sent him in for the tickets, ten dollar’s worth. That would make it look better. Forty tickets.

He came shambling back toward the car. Dusk was over the city. I pocketed the forty tickets, gave him the two counterfeit winners, and sent him back into the store, saying. “Now you stay right there and tell the store owner that you want your dough right away. A thousand bucks. Now repeat that.”

“I give him these and stay right there and holler for the money. Right?”

“Right. And when you get the money, you hustle right back to your shack with it. Understand?”

“Okay, Jake. I get it.”

He went off through the dusk, the absurd overshoes slapping the sidewalk. I saw him go inside, and I drove back to Cramer Street as fast as I dared. It was no time to pick up a ticket for speeding, or beating a light.

The tires squealed as I stopped. Brock was sitting on the porch steps in his shirtsleeves, a Martini in his brown hand.

“In a hurry?” he asked.

“No hurry. The crate’s new and it likes to step.”

The phone rang inside the house, and I heard the click of Anna’s heels as she crossed the bare hall floor to answer it. “For you, Brock,” she called.

He sighed and went in. Anna came out onto the porch. I didn’t turn and look up at her. I could hear the murmur of Brock’s voice.

He left the phone, and went back through the house. I guessed that he went to the cellar to get a thousand out of the safe.

Anna’s fingers were chill as she touched the back of my neck. “Planted?” she asked.

“That was the call for the payoff.”

“Good!” she whispered.

“How about your job?” I asked.

“I put three blank tickets in a crack behind a board in the back of his closet. One corner shows.”

She drifted away, and the screen door banged behind her. Brock came out, bent over and picked up his drink. “Some lucky joker hit Monday and Tuesday already,” he said. “Here’s the payoff. You and Billy go on out there.” He gave me the address.

Billy had a smell, too... but his was of shaving lotion, hair oil, and one of those male perfumes, cedar, pine, old leather. In a way it was as distasteful as Gulbie had been.

I pretended to have difficulty finding the place. Then I counted the roll, twenty fifties, handed it to Billy and said, “Go on in and check the numbers and pay the guy off.”

Billy stuck out his chest. I guess it was the first time he had been trusted with a big payoff. He strutted in. I waited and waited and waited. I tapped my fingers on the horn ring and shifted in the seat and smoked most of a cigarette. I was about to risk going in after him when he came swaggering out.

As I gunned the car and drove away, I said, “What took you so long?”

He giggled like a girl, but there was a nervous note in it. “Pull up by a street light,” he said.

I did so. He took the roll out of my pocket and counted off eight fifties, four hundred bucks and handed it to me.

“What the hell is this?” I snapped.

“Don’t get steamed, Gage. The guy who had the winners was sort of dopey. I had a last week’s list with me; I pulled it out and held my thumb over the date and showed him his tickets were no good. Hell, this week's list hasn’t ever been printed yet. Then I give him fifty bucks so he won’t feel too bad. I tore up the tickets and give the guy who owns the store fifty bucks. That leaves four hundred for you and four hundred for me. We just turn the tickets I took away from him into Brock and we both keep our mouths shut. Okay?”

He tried to open the door fast and scramble out, but I got his wrist and yanked him back. As I pulled him back, I drove my fist into his face. He tried to get hold of his gun, but I turned his arm up behind his back until the bones creaked.

“Okay! Okay!” he gasped. I got four hundred and fifty out of his pants, put his gun in my pocket near the door, and drove back.

Gulbie was just leaving the store, a big package in his arms. I caught up with him, jammed on the brakes and stepped out. I made a motion as though I were giving him something, and said in a low tone, “Go on back to the shack and I’ll see you later.”

I was going to get back in the car and tell Billy that in this racket, you always paid off. But I heard running footsteps, and the right hand door of my crate was open. I caught a glimpse of Billy heading off into the darkness and then he was gone. I chased him in the car, but couldn’t catch sight of him. Then I went back, picked up Gulbie, gave him a ride out to his shack, and went back to report to Brock.

When I went in the front hallway, I could hear the mumble of voices in the cellar. I went back through the house and down the stairs. All the lights were on, and the thick curtains were pulled across the windows. The first thing I saw was Joyce, face down on the floor, moaning and twisting.

I stopped dead on the stairs. There were two strangers with Brock. Billy’s gun was heavy in my left hand jacket pocket. I lifted my hand quickly.

“Don’t try it!” a flat voice said.

The voice came from behind me. It was the sort of voice you listen to. I didn’t move a muscle, or turn. A hand snaked the weight out of my left hand pocket, reached around, patted the front of my jacket, slipped inside and pulled out my automatic. The spring made an empty click. “Now go down the rest of the way, and back over against that wall. Keep your arms spread and our palms flat against the wall.”

After I turned, I saw him. He had crisp white hair, and a soft narrow face. His eyes were like deep holes in soft dough. His hair gave him the look of age, but his face was oddly unlined.

Brock sat by one of the cardtables. He smiled and said, “Brian, meet Whitey. He’s... sort of a troubleshooter.”

I forced a smile. “Trouble isn’t my name.”

He ignored me. The other two men were staring at me. One was of the Billy-Oley breed, young, sneering, hard on the outside, soft in the middle. The other was tall, hefty, florid — looking like a bank executive, or a construction equipment salesman.

In a cheery, deep voice, the big man said, “You must be Brian Gage. Brock has told us about you. I’m Mark Fletcher.”

The name meant something to me. I had heard it several times. From Brock. The big gun of the syndicate. The man in control; Mr. Fix with the authorities.

“Hello, Mr. Fletcher.”

Whitey stood and merely looked at me. He was the reverse of the Billy-Oley type. Soft on the outside, and diamond hard under the skin. He had a perpetual look of sadness, quiet grief.

Joyce sat up. Her face was puffed with tears. She looked at Brock and said, “You shouldn’t a let him...”

“She doesn’t know a thing,” Whitey said softly.

“Get up and go home, girl,” Fletcher said, “Forget this little... unpleasantness. I’ll authorize a small bonus for you, say two hundred and fifty?”

The look of naked greed dimmed the hurt and pain on Joyce’s face. “Gosh!” she said.

“Run along now,” Fletcher said in a fatherly manner.

Joyce gave me a quick look of contempt and stumped up the stairs. Seconds later I heard the distant slam of the front door.

I stood with my hands flat against the concrete wall. I thought of all the men I had seen in the police lineup. They let the silence add up.

“You had to get smart,” Brock said wearily. “And I thought you were okay.”

“Smart?” I asked. “How?”

Whitey took two slow steps toward me. Fletcher said sharply, “Hold it!” He circled Whitey and stood a few feet in front of me, his thumbs stuck in the bottom pockets of his vest. “You’re a smart looking boy, Gage,” he said gently. “And I understand you can handle yourself. Both of those things are advantages, you know. We were beginning to trust you, too.”

Inside of me the fear grew like a swollen boil — and then it broke, and when it went away I was once again clear-headed, able to figure angles. “It would help a little,” I said, “if I knew what you were talking about.”

Fletcher sighed in an elephantine manner. “I am talking about a young man who fell under the spell of a vicious woman. I am talking about a young man who is too big for his pants.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“My boy, part of our efficiency as an organization is the result of employing constant checks and balances. In the employ of the syndicate is a humble stenographer in the police department. Through him we learned this noon that a certain Miss Robinson in the District Attorney’s office has turned in a rather complete report on the operations and organizational setup of this Murrisberg branch. They plan a raid for the day after tomorrow.

“I immediately brought Whitey and young Cowlfax down here by private plane to talk the situation over with Mr. Sentano. It is obvious to us that you gave the information to Miss Robinson. Then we wondered why; we could not imagine why you would wish to disrupt your own income for a period of a few weeks until we could get back in operation at some new location. Mr. Sentano remarked on your recent attraction to our Miss Garron.

“He also remarked on your behaviour lately, which, at the very least, has seemed odd. We have discussed this matter, and it seems likely that you and Miss Garron could hope to improve your positions through the setting up of an alternate organization which would replace the syndicate here in Murrisberg.

“I know of no outside organization interested in this city at the moment, so I am assuming that you two have found local backers and... ah... local gunmen to protect you from us during the starting period.”

He paused and smiled fatuously at me.

I didn’t answer, so he said, “Mind you, we are not ones lightly to give up a source of income which nets us around four hundred thousand a year. You were stupid to believe that we would give it up without a fight. A very... ah... dirty fight, I might say. A fight in which we would be glad to... murder someone as an example.”

He turned and beamed at the young punk. “Cowlfax here would be glad to do a job for a price which includes immediate transportation to a pleasant tropical country where they do not practice extradition, wouldn’t you, Jimmy?”

“Sure,” Jimmy mumbled.

“And so you see, my dear Brian, your premise was false from the beginning. However, we are prepared to forgive and forget. Does that surprise you? Yes, forgive and forget. Merely give me the names of your backers, and those in your organization, and we will keep you on, but switch you, of course, to some other part of the state, and, I am afraid, at a reduced income, my boy.”

“Why are you so certain of all this?”

His eyes widened. “Why because of Miss Garron, of course! She is... ah... clever, and we were asleep at the switch, you might say. When she saw my arrival by taxi from the airport, she comprehended immediately and... fled.”

Denial would bring Whitey in on me. There was something rabid and unclean about Whitey, something about the way his fat white fingers worked, and his look of sadness. I needed time more than anything.

I smiled at Fletcher. “Assume for a moment that you are right, Mr. Fletcher. And make the further assumption that I am a hired boy, with Anna Garron bossing the job. Would I know as much as you expect me to know?”

He rubbed his big chin and looked reflective. “You make a point, sir.” Then he smiled broadly. “And would it not be equally wise for you to pretend to be a hired boy, as you call it, so as to prevent Whitey from working on you a bit?”

That angle had failed to pan out. I thought it over. A denial would bring Whitey in on me. I had learned during the war that torture is a great deal more effective than the average man would like to believe; and Whitey had the same look that the fat Jap in charge of the water cure had at the Rangoon Prison.

I gave Fletcher a frank smile. “Okay, Mr. Fletcher. You hold the cards. You’ve read them right, believe me.” I looked beyond him, and said, “Sorry, Brock.”

Fletcher turned around quickly. Brock was pale. “He’s being wise, Fletch.”

“Am I?” I said. “How about those fake tickets to help with financing us, Brock. Hell, you’ve got the blank tickets up there in your closet behind that loose board. You said that we might as well chisel a little out of the syndicate before everything blows up. Remember, Brock?” I tried to look the part of outraged innocence.

Fletcher nodded at Jimmy, said, “Last room on the left at the end of the upstairs hall.”

Jimmy ran up the stairs. The cellar was very quiet. Brock’s face began to glisten in the overhead lights. “He’s lying,” he said. Oley, sitting back in the shadows near the canned goods, shifted restlessly. I hadn’t noticed him before.

Jimmy came back down, a wide grin on his face. He handed the green tickets to Fletcher. Fletcher looked at them curiously.

“I don’t know anything about those!” Brock said loudly. It sounded like the voice of guilt.

Fletcher, his voice odd and husky, said, “I’d give this kid another chance, Brock. You’ve been with us too long to get a second chance. Okay, Jimmy.”

Brock scrambled back, his chair tipping over, his hand flashing inside his coat. Jimmy’s gun had a massive silencer screwed on the end of the barrel. It’s report was halfway between a cough and a grunt. It was a big gun, with a lot of foot pounds of impact. It smashed Brock against the wall. He bounced off the wall in an odd and comic dance and fell awkwardly across the tipped-over chair. He lay with his forehead against the concrete floor.

Fletcher said softly, “You can see, Gage, that you have been on the wrong side.”

“That wasn’t smart,” Whitey said in his half whisper.

“What do you mean!” Fletcher snapped.

“Maybe he knew more than Gage, or the girl.”

For the first time, Fletcher looked uncertain. His eyes were puzzled. He turned to me. “Where is Anna Garron?”

“I wouldn’t know. Brock and Anna were running this show.” While I was talking I was trying desperately to think of a likely backer. Not John Naga. Somebody else.

Oley still sat over by the canned goods. I could hear his rapid breathing.

I said calmly, “Oley over there was to knock off you syndicate people when you arrived; that was the plan.”

Oley gasped as Jimmy whirled at him. He scuttled away toward the darker shadows. Whitey was watching him. “No!” Fletcher roared.

Whitey was half crouched. I took one quick step and kicked him in the face with all my strength, feeling the jaw bone give as he fell heavily. The fuse box was half under the stairs. I put an arm lock on Fletcher and kept him between me and Jimmy. I yanked him back toward the stairs, as Jimmy stood in helpless indecision.

I yanked the black handle down, shoved Fletcher away and broke for the stairs. The gun coughed again, slightly louder this time through the worn packing, but I didn’t hear the slug hit.

I slid on the kitchen linoleum, skidded into the stove, bruising my hip, and then found the back door handle. I vaulted the railing, stinging the soles of my feet on the asphalt of the driveway.

I slid into my car, found the ignition lock, turned the key and roared it up into second before I clicked the lights on. Once around the second corner I slowed down.

The plan was shot, but maybe we could save some of it. If I could find Anna.