The Honest Dealer

Chapter Fifteen

Sam Cragg was no longer in the room when Johnny returned from his combination morning ride and walk. But Johnny found him in the grill room, having a breakfast of ham and eggs, waffles and sausages and a rasher of bacon.

“I’ve been lookin’ all over for you,” Sam cried, as Johnny came up. “Where’ve you been?”

Johnny started to seat himself, winced and lowered himself gently onto the padded bench. “Riding. I like a good canter in the morning before breakfast.”

Sam looked sharply at Johnny. “With the Langford dame?”

“With Jane Langford.”

Sam looked around surreptitiously, then reached into his pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. “The bellboy woke me up; he slipped me this.”

Johnny unfolded the paper. A number and name was written on it: 1428 Bonneville. He looked inquiringly at Sam.

“Langford’s hideout,” Sam whispered.

Johnny folded the piece of paper and put it into his pocket. Then the waitress came up and he gave his order.

“Got anything special planned for today?” Sam asked, his eyes on his plate.

“Why?”

“Oh, no reason, but if you’re not going to do anything, I thought I’d take a swim. They got a swell pool out in front.” He suddenly grinned. “The redhead gave me a buzz. I’d like to see her in a swimming suit.”

“Well, go ahead and look at her, Sam. I think I’ll run uptown.”

Sam looked at him suspiciously. “You going to see Mulligan?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Sam glanced toward the door of the grill room and almost choked on his coffee. “Holy cats!” he exclaimed.

Johnny turned and saw Molly, the redhead, wearing a polka dot handkerchief and polka dot loincloth. He whistled.

“So long, Sam!”

Sam got up and headed for the redhead.

Johnny finished his breakfast, then going into the lobby, picked up the local phone directory. He turned to the classified section in the rear, ran down the classifications until he came to the D’s. Then he nodded and closed the book.

Ten minutes later he parked his car before a stucco cottage on one of the side streets off Fremont and going to the door, pressed the buzzer.

A little man in a dirty flannel bathrobe opened the door.

“Walter Cobb?” Johnny asked.

“That’s what it says on my mailbox,” the little man retorted.

“Can I come in?”

“Depends on what you want.”

“Business.”

Cobb threw the door wide. “Then welcome to the Cobb domicile. Although I wouldda been in my office in another hour or so.”

“I didn’t want to wait that long.”

Cobb led Johnny into a tiny living room that was littered with newspapers. A huge woman in a soiled wrapper was clearing dishes from a table in a dining recess off the living room.

“The ball and chain,” said Cobb. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Fletcher.”

“My dear, this is Mr. Fletcher.”

The woman put down a stack of dishes, and wiping her hands on her wrapper came into the living room. She plopped herself in the best chair.

“You’re the man who broke the bank at El Casa Rancho yesterday, aren’t you?”

“I dented it a little, but I don’t think I broke it.”

Cobb’s eyes glowed. “Well, well, Mr. Fletcher, have a chair, won’t you?”

Johnny went to a couch and Cobb took a position halfway and to one side of the couch and the chair in which his wife was reposing.

“You said you wanted to see me on business?”

“You’re a private detective — according to the classified phone directory.”

“The best in Las Vegas,” Cobb admitted.

“What about the police department?” Johnny asked. “I mean, how do you get along with them?”

“Oh, fine, fine...” Cobb said easily, then as Johnny continued to look at him he shot a glance at Mrs. Cobb.

She said, “We mind our business and they mind theirs. Is that the answer you wanted, Mr. Fletcher?”

“Practically. But I wanted to hear it a little stronger.”

“How much stronger?”

“You name it.”

“That depends on what you want us to do,” said Mrs. Cobb, firmly. “You understand that Las Vegas is a small city and the police department is a large one. Walter has to stand in with them... to a certain degree.”

“I understand that,” said Johnny. He reached into his pocket and brought out a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills. He skimmed off one, added a second to it. Mrs. Cobb gazed intently at the sheaf of bills, and Johnny took off a third bill. Mr. Cobb was breathing heavily.

“Could you add two more?” Mrs. Cobb asked. “We’re having a little mortgage trouble.”

“Well, let’s say there’ll be two more when the work is finished.”

“How long will that take?”

“You might be able to finish it today.”

“Then it’s a deal!”

Johnny folded the three bills and started to hand them to Walter Cobb, but his wife bounded up from her chair and snatched them from Johnny’s hand. Then she retreated to her chair.

“Half of this money you can earn by just telling me some things I don’t know; For instance... what happened at El Casa Rancho about two weeks ago?”

Mr. and Mrs. Cobb exchanged glances. Mrs. Cobb nodded. “Why,” said Cobb, “they got to some of the dealers.”

“Who?”

Cobb shrugged expressively. “They don’t know. Do I have to find out?”

“Maybe it won’t be necessary. But just how did they get to the dealers?”

“You won some of your money playing blackjack?” Cobb asked. Then, as Johnny nodded, “This house hits on sixteen or less, stands on seventeen. Suppose you knew when the house was going to hit? It would make quite a bit of difference in whether you hit or not.”

“I guess it would,” Johnny replied. “If I had twelve or thirteen and the dealer had a five or six up and I knew he was going to hit, I’d stand on my little twelve or thirteen... on account of half the time the dealer would break. I wouldn’t have to take the chance of breaking myself.”

“That’s absolutely correct, Mr. Fletcher,” said Cobb enthusiastically. “And how often would such a situation occur in, say an hour’s steady playing?”

“Probably ten or twelve times — maybe even oftener.”

“And if you were a hundred dollar player, that’d be a tidy little edge, wouldn’t it? Multiply it by about ten or fifteen hours and what would you have? About fifteen thousand dollars, maybe twenty. And suppose you played for say, three-four days? And then maybe you had three or four partners, who made the rounds of three or four places. To give it to you straight, Mr. Fletcher, the boys took the places for around two hundred thousand dollars. Which is big money, even in Nevada.”

Johnny frowned. “And the places took it? Somehow, I think that I would be watching my dealers pretty close if I owned a place like, say, El Casa Rancho...”

“Oh, they do watch the dealers. All the time. But can you watch a twitch of a face muscle, or the tap of a little finger. Or a little scratch of the finger on the felt. Sure, the dealers work in shifts, half hour at a table. But the boys moved around... and they were strangers. By the time they were spotted they’d collected their pile.”

Johnny nodded thoughtfully. “And then what happened to the dealers?”

“They got fired.” Cobb looked at his wife. “Was there any special dealer you were interested in?”

“Not particularly.”

Mrs. Cobb grunted. “Harry Bloss?”

“Why Harry Bloss?”

“Because he was found dead in your room last night.”

“Is that in the morning paper?”

“It isn’t — and it won’t be. But we hear things.”

Johnny thought about that for a moment. Then he said, “Did you also hear that Harry Bloss actually died in California — not Nevada?”

Mrs. Cobb frowned. “No, I just heard that he was found in a room at the El Casa Rancho and that he looked like he hadn’t eaten in a month.”

“Bloss was one of the dealers who was fired,” Cobb offered. “Which surprised a lot of people, because everyone always said he was one of the most honest fellows who ever dealt blackjack.”

“That’s what Gilbert Honsinger told me.” Johnny cleared his throat. “You don’t know any of the men who did the winning here?”

“They were outsiders,” said Cobb. “They just came here, took their money and left.”

“With the money?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I was just wondering whether the men who did the actual playing were the ones who engineered the scheme. I thought they might have been cut in for only a piece of their winnings.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You said they got to the dealers. That would mean they knew the dealers before they started to play...”

The Cobbs again exchanged quick glances. Then Walter Cobb nodded admiringly. “You’ve got a point there, Mr. Fletcher.”

“The deal required a fixer — a mastermind. The players could be anyone. They could even be perfect strangers to the dealers, if they had the password — or sign.”

“Yeah! I see what you mean.”

“Now,” said Johnny, “for the dirty work. Do you ever have occasion to do wire tapping here, Mr. Cobb?”

Walter Cobb smiled. Then he went into the dining recess and opened a closet. He took out a black bag very much like a doctor’s kit and depositing it on the couch beside Johnny, opened it. He took out an instrument in which an induction coil seemed to be the main element.

“With this little gadget, Mr. Fletcher, you can hear through a stone wall. And it works even better on a telephone, because you don’t have to connect it to the wire. You can put it a foot away and hear better than the people on the telephone.”

A slow smile of admiration crossed Johnny’s face. Then he reached into his pocket and bringing out his roll, took off another hundred dollar bill. “This is extra, folks — just for the use of this dingus.”

“Whose wire do you want to tap?” Mrs. Cobb asked sharply.

Johnny took a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “The address is 1428 Bonneville Street...”

“Who lives there?”

“I don’t know, but someone I know is staying there. A Mr. James Langford...”

“Never heard of him.”

“I’m curious to know who Mr. Langford talks to — and what he talks about.”

“Then it’s in the bag,” declared Cobb. “I was afraid for a minute you wanted to tap a local wire — one of our friends, maybe. I wouldn’t like to do that, but a stranger...” He shrugged.

“And what else do you want us to do?” asked Mrs. Cobb.

“Why, I thought you might make some telephone calls for me. To Chicago. There’s a private detective there named Beeler, who did some work for me once.[1] I want to find out as much as I can about some people who live there... a Mr. and Mrs. James Langford, a Mr. Chats-worth and a Charles Halton. I want to know where they live, how long they lived there, what they do for a living — what their neighbors think about them. In short, I want to know everything there is to know about them and I want to know it before six o’clock this evening. You tell Beller it’s for Johnny Fletcher and that two hundred dollars is being wired to him today.”

“What about the toll charges?” asked Mrs. Cobb, firmly.

Johnny made a clucking sound with his tongue, but Mrs. Cobb remained firm. “I’ll have to telephone Beeler two-three times and he’ll be calling me and reversing the charges. You can run up a hundred-dollar telephone bill like that in no time at all.”

“All right, I’ll pay it — extra.”

“Good!”

“Good!”