When I pulled out Beefer’s folder, there was a heavy little package attached to it by wire. It was another automatic. According to the folder, the gun had killed two pawn-shop owners six years ago. But this one was registered in Beefer’s name.
One folder was thicker than all the rest. It was the Little Man’s. There were histories of his past record. What made it thick were the numerous reports by people in Bradford’s organization on Little Man’s activities. His career under Bradford had been filled with many unexplained absences and suspicious movements. He had often been followed to the Palace Casino. Bradford had concluded that Little Man’s real boss was Chip O’Brien.
Little Man was the one whom Bradford had meant to turn into the police! He’d have saved himself a lot of trouble if he hadn’t kept it quite so much a secret.
I slipped the folders back into the case. I started for the door. Two men stood there.
One was short and made of oily fat. His black hair was greased flat. He kept one hand in a bulging jacket pocket. His name was Shultze.
The other was Ransy. He was short too. But his chest and shoulders were as thick as any two men’s. Heavy, calloused hands hung at the ends of his long, bulging arms. His face looked like a flat, yellow pansy that someone had pushed into the mud.
I had been dumb. Helen hadn’t needed the cops. She had just put in a call to Bradford’s faithful torpedoes. These boys would take the files back to Helen, and nobody would ever know what three trucks hit me.
Shultze stepped inside and brought out his .45 automatic. “Give the case to Ransy,” he said. Ransy took the case and handed it to Shultze.
Shultze looked quickly up and down the corridor. “Work him over,” he said to Ransy.
They were going to do it the slow way.
Ransy smiled and came in. I danced back and dusted his nose with a left. Ransy stopped, looked at Shultze, and smiled again.
He stepped in and swung one of his hams with enough force to floor a pony. I slipped to one side and clouted him on the ear. He kept smiling.
He turned. I ducked his two swings that whistled over my head. I sunk two solid ones into his gut. I got a left against his Adam’s apple and brought an uppercut from my knees to his chin. He stepped back.
Then my brain exploded and the floor hit the top of my head. Ransy had connected.
Shultze’s voice drifted through to me. “Okay, Ransy. I’ll finish it.”
I rolled onto my stomach and shook my head. I could see light again. Shultze’s feet shuffled beside me. I got my hand under me, pulled out my .38, and rolled over again.
I saw Shultze hovering above me as if through a muddy window. He was swinging his heavy automatic behind his head. I pressed my trigger and the butterball flopped backward.
I pointed my revolver at Ransy as he came into focus. “Don’t move!”
He didn’t. I picked up the brief case and backed through the door.
Again I took the inside stairway down. My right eye was closed by the time I left the basement. I knew that my face, in general, looked like a half-eaten steak.
I kept my head down as I walked along the crowded street and watched for cops. After a half a mile I dropped into a drugstore pay-station. I phoned the Palace Casino.
“Yeah?” said the hoarse voice at the other end.
“Put O’Brien on.”
“Who wants him?”
“His godfather! Put him on.”
There was silence, then the shuffling of chairs. O’Brien’s squeaky voice came over. “Okay, this is Mr. O’Brien.”
“Vincent,” I said. “What did Haskin say?”
“What did he say when?”
“When you told him about Beefer’s gun, you sap.”
“I didn’t bother.”
“Why not?”
“Because I found out just in time that Beefer has a perfect alibi. He was in front of the apartment house talking to the doorman for fifteen minutes before three. Haskin even saw him when he went in. Vincent, you’re hot. Don’t call here again!” The phone clicked off in my ear.
That rocked me. The Beefer idea was a blind alley. But who else could it be? Then it hit me — the Little Man. He was even more logical than Beefer because he was the one Bradford had been after.
The solution was clear. If O’Brien could swear that the gun was Beefer’s, be could just as well swear that it was the Little Man’s. But it would be harder this time.
There were no taxis in sight when I came out of the drugstore. Some pedestrians looked quizzically at my swollen face and closed eye. Once a cop came by, but I kept my back to him, and he didn’t appear to notice me. I finally flagged down a cab.
The taxi driver looked at me questioningly. But when I gave him the Palace Casino address, he looked as if that explained everything.
As soon as the taxi left me at the dive, I switched my revolver to my jacket pocket again and stepped through the doorway. I had the brief case under my left arm, my right hand on my gun.
It was the same as before, except that the newspaper woman had left. O’Brien and his three henchmen started to jump from their chairs at the rear of the hall. I jiggled my pocket, and they sat down.
I walked to the table, keeping the bartender in sight. “These guys okay?” I asked O’Brien.
“They’re my very good friends,” said O’Brien. “You’re not.”
“The deal is still on, O’Brien.” I laid the brief case on the table and faced them squarely. “In this case are the goods on every important man in Bradford’s organization. This is what holds the big set-up together. There’s stuff in it that clearly shows that Little Man Hill was the one who killed Bradford. All you’ve got to do is to tell Haskin that the gun that killed Bradford belongs to the Little Man. Then I turn the case over to you.”
“No. You almost burned me once today. How do I know the Little Man hasn’t got an alibi too? No thanks, Vincent. You’re a bad penny.”
I stepped back from the table and pulled out my revolver. “O’Brien, get on the phone!”
I’d forgotten the bartender. A full quart bottle of burgundy hit my wrist. The gun bounced and skidded underneath the table. The bartender’s big mitt grabbed the back of my coat. His knee hit the small of my back.
I slid around him, rammed my elbow into his stomach, and broke loose. I yanked the brief case from the table and sprinted for the door. But my luck was running out.
Five men came in the door. Two were big, rangy men, one was little, and the two behind were cops. Captain Haskin and Lieutenant Brix caught me, one under each arm.
They walked me backwards to O’Brien’s table. They frisked me and found the empty shoulder holster. That cop at the drugstore had recognized me.
I saw that the third man in civilian clothes was the Little Man. “Well,” I said, “I’m glad to see you picked up Little Man, Captain. Now you know who really did Bradford in.”
“Yeah, we know.”
“I can help you out. I’ve got it in Bradford’s own writing that he was going to turn Little Man in to you. Just before the meeting, Little Man walked up one flight of the inside stairway, stepped into Bradford’s apartment, and shot him with that stolen automatic.”
“You’ve got it partly right,” said Haskin. “You’re right that Bradford was going to try to turn Little Man in. He guessed right that Little Man had another boss. But, Vincent, here’s where you slipped up. When the murder was committed, Little Man was at head-quarters with us. Little Man is really Police Lieutenant John Murphy on loan to us from another city. He has been watching your gang and reporting to us for the past six months. You were the one who walked up one flight and shot Bradford in the back of the head.”
I sat down on a chair. “Captain, you’re right. You’re perfectly right. I... I—”