Mack went to the wall phone and dialed his interne friend at the hospital. He returned to the bar, shaking his head. “Winnie ain’t got a chance to pull ahead. Too big a handicap. Carrying too much weight.”
“Sure you don’t want to go down to the hospital?”
“No. The doc promised to phone me here,”
“Good enough.” Cellini tried his drink and found that it helped his hangover jitters. 11:05, he thought. He had to find out where the four men were then — the four men who had a motive to murder Winnie Crawford. Lansing, Howard Garrett, Manny Simms, and the bookie himself.
The phone rang and Mack jumped for it. When he came back, unashamed tears cut two trails down his tough cheeks. “She’s dying, Cellini. My darling’s rounding the three-quarter mark.”
The bookie started to extol Winnie Crawford’s physical virtues when the sound of the phone interrupted him fifteen minutes later. He returned with another bulletin. “No hope. She’s nearing the home stretch.”
It was another half-hour before the phone rang again. This time, Mack’s voice was barely distinguishable. “Winnie just crossed the wire.” He reached for the bottle and drank out of it.
They drank without speaking and it was the Greek who finally broke the silence. “Do you remember thees Seems, thees people who do the shootings yesterday?”
“What about him?” asked Cellini impatiently.
“He comes now — with beeg gun.”
Cellini and Mack whirled too late. Manny Simms was entering the door, toothpick in mouth and the chatter gun in his hands. The torpedo who had been with him yesterday, flanked him now, sporting an automatic.
“All right,” barked Manny Simms. “Line up against that wall and tell me where you got it.”
Cellini and Mack backed slowly toward the wall. They were dealing with a known killer. Manny Simms spoke to the torpedo.
“You take care of the bartender,” he growled.
“I show you who takes good cares!” The Greek was fighting mad. The Webley was in his hand, leveled at the advancing torpedo, and he pressed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The rusted, obsolete weapon was jammed. The Greek delivered a Hellenic curse. He hurled the Webley at the torpedo and, that done, dived behind the bar just as the automatic planted a bullet in the mirror behind him.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” snapped Manny Simms, his eyes not leaving Cellini and Mack. “Stop piddling around.”
“Leave him to me, Manny.”
The torpedo leaped lithely onto the bar, after the Greek. From behind the bar an arm arced up in a swift, sure curve and the torpedo tumbled back, an agonized scream escaping him. Buried three inches deep into his shoulder was an ice pick.
Manny Simms tried a quick look in back of him to see what had happened. It was the break Cellini had waited and hoped for. At that same instant he dived forward, football fashion, and caught Manny Simms in the midriff, bearing him to the ground. Simms tried to angle the clumsy Thompson sub at Cellini. But the weapon dropped as his arm was twisted back and up.
Mack was there now and he yanked Manny Simms away from Cellini. A queer, chilling laugh escaped him. Now he could do something about Winnie Crawford’s murder.
On the floor, the torpedo stirred and moaned. Mack’s foot lashed out and caught him under his chin, returning him to unconsciousness with a crack that indicated a broken jawbone.
“Hold it, Mack,” said Cellini. “I want to ask Simms a couple of things first.”
“Sure. He’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Cellini said to Simms: “What did you mean before, when you asked us where we’ve got it?”
Manny’s yellow face stared impassively, registering no emotion. His shoulders tried to move in a shrug but they were vised tightly by Mack’s big paws.
“Come on,” said Cellini. “Did you want to know where we’ve got the stuff that Jimmy Legg stole from Lansing Investment?”
The same dead-pan stare.
Cellini asked: “Where were you at eleven five this morning when Winnie Crawford was shot?”
This time Manny’s lips moved to say: “I been third-degreed by experts.”
“Plenty time we got to become experts,” stated the Greek who stood by them now.
He and the bookie dragged Manny Simms around one end of the bar. Mack said: “You killed the only twist I ever loved.”
Simms made the mistake of laughing. Mack’s arm moved and the hood dropped down. “Did you kill Winnie Crawford?”
There was no answer from the floor. Cellini saw the bookie’s face twitch and was glad that his name wasn’t Simms. Mack’s eyes scanned the back-bar searchingly and saw a tray. “What’s that?”
“Dry ice,” replied the Greek.
“Good. That’ll be just fine to start with.” Mack sat on Manny Simms’ chest and the Greek held down the legs. Mack ripped open the hood’s jacket and shirt and clamped one hand over his mouth. With the other hand he inverted the tray of dry ice on the bare stomach.
Cellini strayed away. He tried not to hear the sudden writhing and stifled moans, tried not to imagine the ice searing and burning into Manny Simms’ belly.
He felt he had to keep himself busy and phoned the barber shop where Mack claimed to be when Winnie was shot. There was no doubt of it, a barber replied to the question. Mack was there at 11:05, taking bets and waiting for his turn in the chair.
When Cellini turned away from the phone again it was over. Manny Simms, a tough hood a short while before, was now a gibbering, babbling mess — confessing to the murder of Winnie Crawford, moaning about crooked deals pulled by Lansing and Howard Garrett with the investment outfit.
Relenting, the Greek poured some olive oil over the burned, tortured flesh. The bookie, a little tired now that it was all over, held on to Simms and dully asked why and how he had killed Winnie.
Cellini said: “That’s enough, Mack. You’re doing fine. Let’s go see Haenigson.”
Cellini tried the phone again and was informed that the detective-sergeant was up at the investment company offices, seeing Mr. Lansing.
It was a strange-looking crew that was ushered into Lansing’s private office by the secretary. Leading them was the torpedo, his shoulder bandaged by one of the Greek’s soiled napkins, his hands cupping the swollen, broken jaw. Behind, stumbled Manny Simms, every slight motion agonizing torture as clothing brushed against his skin. And bringing up the rear, Cellini and Mack, disheveled, sleepless, but satisfied.
“What’s this?” asked Ira Haenigson. He was there with a couple of his men, dishing out what looked like a warm grilling to Mr. Lansing and Howard Garrett, the attorney.
“Here’s your murderer,” replied Mack.
“Manny Simms?” Haenigson’s brows arched. “I was under the impression that Simms was under Judge Reynolds’ bench while Jimmy Legg was being killed.”
Mack, a little crestfallen, started to explain that it was probably the torpedo who did the Legg job but Cellini waved him into silence and turned to the Homicide man.
“It wasn’t Simms who did the murders. I just brought him up here to show that we made him see the light and he’s been talking. You can take them away to be fixed up.”
“I don’t like that kind of rough stuff, Smith, but we’ll discuss it later.” Haenigson nodded to one of his men and Simms and the torpedo were led out. “Now, who did you say the murderer was?”
“Not counting Simms, it has to be either Mack, or Lansing or Howard Garrett.”
“Unless it was someone else. Thanks for the tip, Smith.”