She stood up and walked over to a corner taboret that served as the bar. She opened a cocktail shaker and removed a fat roll of bills. Carefully, she counted five wrinkled twenty dollar bills into his hand. “Here. I’m hiring you to find out why Jimmy was killed.”
“Why he was killed? Don’t you want to know who killed him?”
“That’s not so important.”
“And suppose I pin it on you?”
“I’ll take the chance.”
He slipped the money into his slender wallet, frowning. “And I’ll take the job, Winnie, though you’re a rather phoney client. Are you sure you and Jimmy weren’t soulmates?”
“You heard me. Why do men always think of only one thing?”
“I remember — because they’re beasts. But you’re not Bryn Mawr stock, Winnie, and you weren’t born with any gold shovel in your mouth. Someone’s paying your bills. Who?”
“Why can’t you get it through your head I’m nobody’s woman? I spent my life shining up to slick chiselers and visiting firemen. Now I’m through with the whole lousy breed and I’m relaxing.”
Her voice was hard and grating and carried conviction. Cellini surrendered the point. “All right, you’re stainless. Then where did you get that fat roll of kohl-rabi you flashed before and how do you pay the rent here?”
“That’s none of your business. Just go and find out why Jimmy was killed.”
“What difference does it make to you? Why was he coming up here anyway?”
“Nothing doing.”
“Then at least tell me what time Jimmy Legg phoned to say he was coming.”
“Around eleven.”
“That’s about when he phoned me,” said Cellini. “All right. When the cops get around to you just tell them I’m handling your interests and they’ll put you under arrest immediately.”
Chapter Three
Careless Lead
Cellini Smith stepped into the hallway, shutting the door to Winnie Crawford’s apartment behind him, just as the elevator pulled level with the floor and a huge man stepped out.
Cellini said: “Hello, Mack. No, I’m not betting.”
Mack was square and solid as the truck he was named after. There was a lot of him and his customers never fooled with him for he was one of the town’s toughest bookmakers. But they liked him. “Your loss,” he replied. “Everybody’s taking me. Say, don’t tell me you just came out of Winnie’s stable. Please don’t tell me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I’d have to beat you to a gooey pulp, Cellini, and I hate to beat friends to gooey pulps.”
Cellini looked up at the big man and smiled crookedly. “Maybe,” he said, “but I never fight Queensberry with monsters like you. But I don’t get it — why should you jump me for coming out of Winnie Crawford’s apartment?”
“Because I long ago decided that if I can’t have her then nobody else will.”
“You can relax. That type’s a little too synthetic for my tastes.”
“You just don’t know her, Cellini. She’s the laziest white woman in the country without hookworm — but what a build!”
“You beast,” said Cellini. “How come she snaps her fingers at a great big he-man like you?”
“Now you’d think Winnie would know better, wouldn’t you?” His voice was charged with complaint. “That double-dealing twist gets her mitts on some real dough and right away she’s through with men.”
“Where’d she get the dough?”
“I wish I knew. I keep asking her but she don’t even bother to lie. It’s a hell of a life.”
“She might have gotten it from her family,” suggested Cellini. “Heiress stuff — like in the movies.”
Mack’s laughter sounded like the fall of bowling pins. “Her family is the backbone of the W.P.A., when it’s sober, and she was a carhop in a drive-in.”
“Then how’d she get out of it?”
“A small-time crook saw her and picked her up. Maybe you know him. Jimmy Legg.”
“Go on.” Cellini hoped his voice was casual.
“So she stayed with him for a while. Jimmy Legg played the horses through me so I happened to meet Winnie. Then I took over and we made it a twosome until I made a big mistake.”
“What was that?”
“I figured to keep her out of trouble while I was working so I got her a job with one of my customers. Switchboard girl at the Lansing Investment Company.”
Cellini took a deep breath. At last something was beginning to connect. “Then what, Mack?”
“Then she left me flat and moved in with the head of that place — Lansing himself. Lansing is a big bettor with me so I didn’t even have the satisfaction of beating him up. Then a few months later Winnie got this dough somehow and she ditched all of us.”
“All this is very interesting.”
“Winnie ain’t interesting,” said Mack. “This no-man business of hers is just irritating. There should be a law.”
“I mean Jimmy Legg. He cracked the safe at this same Lansing Investment a few days ago.”
“Yeah,” frowned the big man. “I heard. But I don’t catch.”
“And that’s not all,” said Cellini slowly. “I was seeing Winnie Crawford before to get me a client and to let her know that Jimmy Legg was killed this morning.”
The violence of the explosion was unexpected. For a full two minutes, colorful expletives issued from Mack’s big mouth and bounced through the hallway of the Hamilton Apartments.
“Why the excitement?” Cellini was finally able to ask.
“Excitement! That guy Legg has been backing platers with me for the last year. On credit! I got over eight hundred bucks in I.O.U.’s from him.”
“Well, you can’t collect now.”
“Say, nobody runs out on Mack. Not even a corpse. I’ll get it if—” He suddenly paused. “Where’s your angle in the killing?” he asked quietly.
Cellini shrugged. “Strictly the dough in it.”
Mack’s two large hands vised Cellini’s shoulders. “Say, I don’t like the way you were leading me on before.”
“Your paws, Mack. I’m asking you only once. Drop them.” Cellini stared fixedly at the big man’s tie-pin.
The hands slowly loosened their grip. “Hell, Cellini, we’re friends. We don’t want to fight. There’s a nag called Inquisitor running at Holly Park today. That should be a good hunch for a dick like you.”
“Some other time.” Cellini made for the elevator.
Cellini Smith went through every afternoon paper, reading the sensationalized accounts of how one Manny Simms had hidden under Judge. Reynolds’ desk, forcing the jurist to release Jimmy Legg.
It puzzled him. Obviously, Jimmy Legg had neither instigated Manny Simms’ enterprise nor had he been aware of it — else he would not have wanted to hire Cellini to discover the cause of his release. This Manny Simms had acted either on his own or for someone else — but why? Why should Simms accept the certainty of a couple of years in jail to spring Jimmy Legg? Perhaps Howard Garrett, Legg’s mouthpiece, had the answer.
Cellini turned his coupe around and urged it back to Hollywood. A half-hour later, he pushed by a frosted glass door in the Equitable Building that read: Howard Garrett — Attorney at Law. Under it were the names of a couple of junior partners.
The black-haired, eagle-beaked secretary-receptionist released the fetching smile reserved for men only and asked if she could help. Her voice had the high, irritating whine of a sawmill.
Cellini blocked the smile with a come-on leer. Secretaries can be useful. “I’m a very important guy,” he said, “and I want to hold converse with Mr. Garrett about a crumb — one Jimmy Legg.”