Cut Thin to Win

Chapter 17

I drove to my hotel and put in a long distance call to Homicide Bureau in Los Angeles. I said it was important that I reach Sergeant Frank Sellers at once with a hot tip. I finally got a night number where I could reach him.

Sellers had evidently been asleep. He was grouchy when he came to the phone.

“Hello, Frank,” I said. “This is your friend, Donald.”

“Why you... you... you’ve got a crust!... Friend! Why you pint-sized bastard—”

“Take it easy, Sergeant,” I said. “How would you like to talk with Mrs. Harvey W. Chester, the woman who was the victim in that hit-and-run case?”

“What the hell are you trying to do?” he roared into the telephone. “Ringing me up at this hour to give me a razz—”

“She’s here in Las Vegas,” I said. “If you can get over here right away, I’ll put you in touch with her.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Where are you?”

“Las Vegas.”

“And she’s there?”

“That’s what I said.”

“What gives you this sudden change of heart?”

“It isn’t a change of heart,” I said. “I’ve always been on the side of law and order, but my motives have been twisted and misinterpreted. I will admit that a couple of smart guys tried to use me. They gave me a double cross but—”

“Where are you?”

I gave him the name of the hotel.

“Wait right there,” he said. “If this is a double cross, so help me, I’ll beat you to a pulp and throw the pulp into a sausage grinder.”

“Have I ever given you a double cross yet?” I asked.

He hesitated a moment. “Well, you’ve tried damned hard.”

“No, I haven’t,” I said. “I’ve tried to protect my clients but whenever I’ve given you a tip it’s been on the up-and-up.”

“All right,” he said, “I’m going to play along.”

“Don’t tell anybody about this conversation,” I warned. “Just get over here.”

After he had hung up, I called Bertha Cool.

Bertha hates night telephone calls.

“Hello, hello, hello,” she said testily. “You don’t need to ring in my ear just because you got me up out of a sound sleep.”

“This is Donald, Bertha,” I said. “Grab the first plane for Las Vegas, and I mean the first plane. Get over here. I’ve just finished talking with Frank Sellers. He’ll probably get here before you can get a plane, but get here as soon as you can.”

“Las Vegas? What the hell are you doing in Las Vegas?”

“Trying to save you embarrassment,” I told her. “You’d better get here so you can take charge personally. I think this may call for your technique.”

“Well, I’m not coming,” she said. “I’m not going to break my neck traipsing around the country trying to pull you out of jams. You went in this on your own. I told you it was your baby and you could change the diapers. Now change them.”

“All right,” I told her. “It’s my baby, but it’s sitting in your lap.”

“The partnership is dissolved,” she said. “You told me that yourself.”

Then I told her, “I’ll put this fifty thousand fee in my own pocket. Right?”

“What fee?”

“The fifty thousand fee.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Not me,” I told her.

“Where did you say you were?”

I gave her the name of the hotel.

She hesitated a moment, then grunted, “All right, I’ll be there but this had better be good.”

“It’s going to be good,” I told her, “very good indeed.”

I hung up the phone, rolled into bed and couldn’t sleep.

Sergeant Sellers must have chartered a plane. He was pounding on the door before daylight.

“All right, Pint Size,” he said, when I let him in, “what’s this about Mrs. Harvey W. Chester?”

“Want to see her?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”

I put him in my rented car and we drove down to the drab little bungalow that Mrs. Chester had rented.

We pounded on the door.

For a moment I had a feeling of panic. Then I heard someone moving around on the inside and after a moment the door was opened.

“Hello, Mrs. Chester,” I said. “This is Sergeant Sellers of the Los Angeles police force. He’s been looking for you.”

“Looking for me?” she said, wide-eyed with well-simulated surprise.

“That’s right.”

“You were involved in a hit-and-run case in Los Angeles,” Sellers said.

“Oh,” she remarked, looking from Sellers to me.

“We’re coming in,” Sellers said. “We want to talk with you.”

“I’m... I’m not dressed.”

“You’ve got a robe on,” Sellers said, “that’s good enough for us. This isn’t a beauty contest. This is investigating a hit-and-run case.”

Sellers pushed his way into the apartment. I followed him.

It was the same little two-room apartment with the same drab sitting room, only this time a wall bed had been let down. There was a glimpse of a kitchenette past the bed.

Sellers seated himself in the most comfortable chair in the place. I took a seat on the edge of the bed.

Mrs. Chester stood there looking from one to the other of us.

“All right,” Sellers said, “tell me about it.”

She said, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom first.”

“Well, make it snappy,” Sellers said.

Mrs. Chester went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Sellers looked at me and said, “I’ll be damned! I thought you were giving me the runaround.”

“It’s on the up-and-up,” I told him.

“Well, it had better be and don’t think for a minute you’re going to get any breaks unless you come out of this with a clean nose. You’ve been cutting too many corners.”

I said, “People use me. I tried to find out what it was all about before I told you. That’s one thing about me, you know, I never gave you a bum tip. Whenever I tell you anything it pans out.”

He took a cigar from his pocket, shoved it into his mouth, said, “I’ll reserve judgment on you, Lam.”

We sat there waiting. Frank Sellers looked me over.

“You know, Pint Size,” he said, “I don’t know what kind of a game you’re playing but if it’s on the up-and-up, I’m going to play along with you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I felt sure you were giving me some kind of a runaround when you telephoned, but one look at that woman’s face told me that you were knocking her for a loop. Whatever kind of a deal it is you’ve cooked up, it isn’t a frame-up, not as far as she’s concerned,” Sellers said. “There’s more to this than meets the eye. Those damned cops in Denver claiming that the Eldon car was in Denver the afternoon of the accident — they’re all wet! You know and I know that car was involved in an accident.”

“Do we?” I asked.

He frowned and said, “Now, don’t start pulling that stuff, Pint Size, or I’m going to get mad all over again.”

I kept quiet.

He chewed on the cigar for a while.

“There’s something fishy about the whole deal,” he said after a while.

I said nothing.

“Say,” he said, “that dame’s been in the bathroom a long time.”

He lurched up out of the chair, pounded over to the bathroom door and said, “Come on, make it snappy.”

There was no answer.

Sellers looked at me with sudden consternation. “Hell, she couldn’t get out of the bathroom window dressed like that,” he said.

The sound of a toilet flushing came through the door.

Sellers grunted, went back and sat down.

There was more silence.

Finally Sellers got up and went over to the bathroom door again. “Come on out,” he said.

She said, “I can’t come out.”

“Come on out,” he told her, “you’ve been in there long enough. Let’s go.”

“I’m not ready.”

Sellers banged on the door. “Open it up.”

“I tell you I can’t.”

Sellers’ face flushed. “Say, what kind of gag is this?” he said. “Get the hell out of there. Open up.”

“Just a minute,” she said sweetly, “I’ll be there. Don’t hurry me too much.”

Sellers came back and sat down. He scowled at me.

I said, “She must have been in there ten minutes.”

“Well,” Sellers said.

I shrugged my shoulders.

We waited another minute or two.

“What does a cop do,” I asked, “when someone gives him a runaround by sitting in a bathroom?”

“I’ll show you what a cop does,” Sellers said, savagely. He got out of the chair, walked over to the bathroom door, said, “Open up.”

“Just a few minutes now,”

“Open up,” Sellers said.

“I’m not ready to open up.”

“Open that door,” Sellers said, “or I’ll kick it in.”

“You wouldn’t dare do that,” she said. “I have a right to go to the bathroom. I—”

Sellers stepped back, stood on his left foot, elevated his right foot and lashed out with a flatfooted impact, hitting the door just back of the doorknob.

The door shivered.

“Come on,” Sellers said, “I’ll bust it down.”

“I told you I can’t come out now.”

Seller cocked his right foot and gave another terrific blow.

The door shivered. There was a sound of splintering wood. The door slammed open, hit against a doorstop and vibrated.

Mrs. Chester was standing there with her robe around her, looking out of an open window. It was about eight feet to the ground.

“None of that,” Sellers said.

“How dare you!” she said. “How dare you break in on me this way.”

“You’ve been in here fifteen minutes already,” Sellers said, “that’s time enough to clean your teeth, brush your hair, powder your nose, take a shower and do everything else you needed to do ten times over. I don’t want a runaround, I want the truth. Now come out here.”

She gave one last look at the open window, then marched out.

Sellers dropped back into his seat, indicated a straight-back chair for her. “Sit down there,” he said. “Lam, you sit on the bed.”

Sellers turned to her, wolfed the cigar around in his mouth, said, “what about this hit-and-run business?”

“What hit-and-run?”

Sellers said, “You complained of a hit-and-run incident.”

“It was stupid of me,” she said.

Sellers frowned.

“Actually it was mostly my fault,” she said. “I turned around and wanted to see something and kept right on walking, and I walked right into this car.”

“You were in a pedestrian crossing?”

“Yes.”

“And the car was coming how fast?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m beginning to think the car was standing still.”

“What?” Sellers yelled.

She nodded and said to me, “I’m sorry I took advantage of you, Donald, because you’re a nice boy, but after all this is a cruel world. A person has to look out for number one.”

“What do you mean the car was standing still?” Sellers asked.

“I didn’t say it was. I said it might have been for all I know.”

“That isn’t the way you told it to the police,” Sellers said.

“The police never gave me a chance. They acted on the assumption that the car was moving just because I was hit on a pedestrian zone.”

“You were hit?”

“Well I may have hit the car, I don’t know. I was walking along and all of a sudden there was this impact on my shoulder and I went down and the next thing I knew people were running all around me and somebody shouted, ‘Get an ambulance,’ and—”

“And what happened to the car?”

“The car went away.”

“Then it was a hit-and-run,” Sellers said.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “it was a run, I guess.”

I said, “Did you give the driver of the car your name and address?”

“No, why?”

“But you went away in an ambulance?”

“Yes.”

“Did you need to?”

She smiled archly and said, “Now, I was afraid you were going to ask that question, Donald, and I’m just not going to answer it. After all, I’m a helpless, lone widow and I have to look out for myself.”

Sellers grunted.

“Now,” Mrs. Chester went on, “that’s the peculiar thing about the law. The law says that if a motorist hits a pedestrian he has to stop and give aid, but it doesn’t say anything about a pedestrian hitting a motorist having to stop and give aid. At least I don’t think it does.”

“You’ve looked up the law?” I asked.

“It’s been looked up,” she said.

“You let Donald Lam here make a settlement of ten thousand bucks on you?” Sellers asked.

“Now,” she said, “it wasn’t that way at all. Donald Lam will tell you the true facts.”

“I want you to tell me the true facts.”

“Well, Donald Lam called on me. At first he said he was selling magazines. Then I told him about the accident and he said he knew a person who sometimes bought up accident claims for cash and then filed suit and got a lot more money. I let him know that I would be interested.”

“You mean he’d pay you money and suit would never be filed,” Sellers said.

“Heavens to Betsy,” she said, “it was nothing like that at all. He was buying the claim because he wanted to make more money out of it.”

Sellers quit looking at her and started looking at me. “You know, Pint Size,” he said, thoughtfully, “I’m beginning to smell something here, and I hope your hands are clean.”

“This is all news to me,” I said, “except that she’s telling the truth about the fact that I told her I wasn’t representing an insurance company and wasn’t making any settlement; that I knew a person who sometimes bought claims and then recovered on them.”

Sellers glowered at me. “Played it pretty smart, didn’t you?”

“The way she talked,” I said, “she had a very good claim if a person could find the car that hit her.”

“I see,” Sellers said, “and by a rare coincidence the person that you went to get the money from was the person who was driving the car that hit her.”

There was the banging of peremptory knuckles on the door and a man’s voice said, “Open up in here.”

Mrs. Chester jumped up with alacrity and opened the door.

A man of about fifty, with broad shoulders, a bull neck, a florid red face and feverish little brown eyes, set wide apart over a jaw that would have graced a prize fighter, said, “What the hell’s going on here?”

Sellers got up to face him, pushed the cigar out and upward at an aggressive angle. “And may I ask who the hell you are?”

The man said, “I’m Marvin Estep Fowler. I’m an attorney at 107 law. I’m representing Mrs. Chester here, and I want to know what’s going on. Now, who are you?”

Sellers said, “I’m Sergeant Sellers.” He pulled a leather container out of his pocket and flashed a badge at Fowler.

“Just a minute, just a minute,” Fowler said, as Sellers started to put the leather folder back in his pocket.

Fowler took the folder, looked at the badge and said, “Uh-huh, Los Angeles, huh?”

“That’s right,” Sellers said.

“I didn’t know the city limits of Los Angeles stretched into Nevada,” Fowler said.

“They don’t.”

“Then you’re out of your jurisdiction,” Fowler said.

“I’m working on a lead on a case — a hot lead.”

“And the way to do that,” Fowler said, “is to check in at police headquarters here, get a local man on the job and the two of you work on it together with the local man taking the responsibility.”

“There wasn’t time for all that,” Sellers said, but the angle of his cigar dropped three degrees.

The lawyer whirled to me. “And who are you?”

“The name’s Lam,” I said. “Donald Lam.”

Mrs. Chester said, “He’s the one I was telling you about late last night, Mr. Fowler. He’s the man that gave me the money and had me execute an assignment of my damage claim against anyone that hit me — or,” she added with a smile, “that I might have hit, only I didn’t tell him that.”

Fowler said to Mrs. Chester, “Your note said you were waiting in the bathroom.”

“He kicked the door down,” she said, pointing to Sellers.

“He what?” Fowler asked.

“Kicked the door down.”

“Show me.”

She led him over to the bathroom and showed him the splintered wood.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Fowler said.

“Let’s see if I get the sketch,” Sellers said to Mrs. Chester. “You went to the bathroom, opened the window and threw out a note. Is that right?”

She beamed and smiled. “That’s right. I wanted my attorney. I thought I had a right to have him here so I threw out a note to an awfully nice little girl who read it and smiled at me and nodded her head to show that she understood. She went to a telephone and called this number Mr. Fowler had left with me.”

Sellers’ face got black. He looked from her to Fowler, then from Fowler to me.

“Where do you fit into this, Pint Size?” he asked.

“I told you where I fitted in it. I was giving you the information you wanted. All this other stuff is news to me. You’re the one who let her go to the bathroom and lock the door.”

“You got any charge against my client?” Fowler asked Sellers. “—In Los Angeles, that is.”

“I don’t know,” Sellers said thoughtfully. He suddenly whirled to Mrs. Chester and said, “Have you ever been in other hit-and-run cases?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I—”

“Don’t answer that,” Fowler interposed. “You don’t have to.” Sellers was frowning and chewing on his cigar. “It seems to me I am beginning to remember some things,” he said.

Sellers was frowningly contemplative for a minute. Suddenly he whirled to Mrs. Chester, said, “What’s your name?”

“Mrs. Harvey W. Chester,” she said.

“That’s your husband’s name. You’re a widow.”

“Yes.”

“Your first name is Tessie — T-E-S-S-I-E?” he asked, abruptly.

She said, with dignity, “My first name is Theresa.”

A slow grin spread over Seller’s face. “I get you now,” he said. “Tessie — Tessie the Tumbler, that’s your specialty, doing a flip-flop on the pedestrian crossing and then claiming you’ve been involved in a hit-and-run.”

Sellers turned to me. He was grinning. “Looks like you got taken, Pint Size,” he said. “You fell for the good old tumbling trick— Now, wait a minute... wait a minute.”

Sellers got to his feet, stood with his legs apart, his face thrust forward, chewing on the cigar. The grin remained on his features. “Now,” he said “we’re beginning to get to the real core of the apple. And isn’t that pretty! I’m going to tell you something, Pint Size, maybe you’re just a sucker on this thing, maybe you’re the mastermind, but whoever is the mastermind is going to get into lots and lots and lots of trouble.”

“And,” Fowler said, “just so you don’t get into lots of trouble yourself, Sergeant, I think it would be advisable for you to get out of here, check in at the police station and ask for official courtesies in the official manner.”

Sellers turned savagely to him. “Any time I want anything out of your bailiwick I’ll ask for it,” he said. “Right now I’m on my own.”

He strode over to the telephone, picked it up, dialed information, said, “I want the airport. This is Sergeant Sellers of police, just connect me with the airport.”

A moment later, he asked, “When is your next plane to Denver?”

He frowned and looked at his watch. “Not until then?”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, get me a seat on it. Sergeant Sellers, Los Angeles Police Department.”

Sellers banged up the telephone, turned to Fowler and said, “I’ll be talking with you later.”

He turned to me. “If you actually paid ten thousand bucks in cash,” he said, “it probably lets you out. But if you just paid ten grand in conversation it means you were masterminding the whole thing.”

“I paid ten grand in cash,” I said.

“Let’s hope so for Bertha’s sake,” he said, and walked out.

Fowler held the door open for me, “And I see no need to detain you any further, Mr. Lam.”

I walked out. It was Minerva’s trick all the way.