“Thanks,” Luke said dryly. “You know Bert Rogers?”
“A punk?”
“A punk.”
“Yeah, he comes here. He was making a play for one of the dancers in our floor show. Why?”
“He’s Doc Harris’s stepson and his old lady, Mrs. Harris, who took everything the old Doc had when he got in a jam and she divorced him, is the beneficiary of an insurance policy Doc had — ten grand she overlooked when she took him to the cleaners.”’
Jud shook his big head. “That’s dames for you,” he said. “They’ll do it every time.”
“You got any ideas about this setup?”
Jud shook his head, blew more smoke. “Unless the punk did it, so the old lady would cash in and he could get his hands on some jack. He’s short of change. He gave me a rubber check some time back, but he made it right. No, I don’t know a thing, boys. You want me to try to find this scar-faced guy for you?”
“Wish you would, Jud. Thanks.”
That was that. When we went out, Luke was muttering, “The damned whale! I’d like to stick a harpoon in that blubber of his and make him yell. I know him. He was lying right down the line.”
Luke was cussing and shifting gears. Suddenly I said, “Wait! Look at this!”
A thin guy, in a light overcoat, stepping high, was approaching the entrance of the Parisian Café. His lips were moving as he talked to himself, and his eyes had a glassy look. He was hopped to the gills. But the interesting thing about him was the scar on his right cheek — and his black hair and black eyes.
“You!” I said.
When he saw I meant him, he shot his hand down into his overcoat pocket. And brought it out fast, with an automatic. He slid back toward the wall of Jud’s building. I was climbing out of the car, and he was telling me to stand still or he’d do things. I stood still and got my hands up. I thought what a sap I was, yelling at him that way without having my gun on him. But Luke had taken care of that.
Luke had got out of the car when I first spoke. He had circled around. The glassy-eyed guy was concentrating his attention on me. Luke smashed down on his right arm; a slug hit the concrete. Then Luke drove one to the side of his neck, caught him as he fell and brought him to the car.
“Drive on, Mike,” he said.
Jud’s doorman saw us leave.
“Headquarters?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” Luke said. “They’d spring him before we could work him over. My place.”
Luke’s place was a flat up above a delicatessen shop, on a little, forgotten street that hadn’t changed in twenty years. It was cheap, roomy and all by itself. The Swiss cheese and bologna merchant down below owned the building, rented Luke the upstairs and asked no questions. Luke had a garage in the yard back of the place, and there was a rear stairway. We took the scar-faced guy up that way. Luke yelled to the delicatessen man:
“Ignatz, send up some beef sandwiches, half a dozen bottles of beer and a side order of chili.”
“Honest, is his name Ignatz?”
“Honest,” said Luke. “Throw that guy on the couch while I telephone.”
I tossed Scarface down and sat on him, while Luke phoned Headquarters. They had just done the usual, routine stuff on the two murders and had nothing new for us, except that they had found the Doc’s insurance policy and a brief will. He had scratched his former wife’s name and had written in Belle Henry’s. In his one-paragraph will, he cut his ex-wife and the two kids off with a dollar apiece, directed that the insurance money go to Belle “for her great kindness.”
The police chemist said this had been written at least a month before. Belle, apparently, hadn’t known the Doc intended to reward her.
“So who gets it?” I asked. “Belle’s heirs, if any.”
The scar-faced guy was coming out of it. When Luke hits ’em on the side of the neck, they’re paralyzed for a while. This one woke up mean and scared.
“Cops, huh?” he said. “What do you want me for? Somebody put you on me? Huh? Who?”
“Yeah, we got word you shot Doc Harris. And if you did, then you also stabbed a dame named Belle Henry.”
“I’ll kill that fat—!” the guy yelled.
“He can’t cross me and then frame me! I’ll kill—”
“That’ll make three,” Luke said. “Why’d you kill the old Doc?”
“You damn fool!” the guy popped off. “I didn’t! Why should I? I don’t even know the mutt. I don’t know this dame you claim got stabbed. You think I go around killin’ people I don’t know?”
“You might — if the price was right.”
He swung off the couch and looked at us, earnestly. “Listen, coppers, it’s a frame, see? I had a little business deal on with a guy—”
“Jud Marvin,” Luke said.
“Yeah, Marvin. When the pay-off time came, he welshed. Gave me the run-around. He thinks I can’t get to him in that joint of his. I’ll get there if I have to tear it to pieces! He thinks he’s a big shot in this town. Thinks he can cross me because I’m a stranger here. Then he put you guys on me. Don’t be saps! I never killed those people. But give me a break and I’ll toss a murder right in your lap. I’ll bump Marvin.”
“Too bad, but it’s against the law,” Luke grinned. “That would make us accessories. What was the deal you had with Jud?”
“That’s none of your business,” the guy said, “and if you think you can make me talk, try.”
“Don’t be so hard,” Luke said. “You might scare my partner, Mike McGuire, only the McGuires scare hard. If you’re telling it straight, tell us this: Why would Marvin want to rub out old Doc Harris?”
“I’ll tell you why,” the guy said. “Sure! The old guy was a surgeon, huh? I heard about it. He fixed up two of Marvin’s boys. Two guys that got hurt in that Second National stick-up, a couple of weeks ago. They held a gun on this Doc and made him do it. He was tough about it. He said he was going to report it to you cops. They told him what would happen if he did. Marvin thought he had him scared. But the old coot had guts, huh?”
“He had ’em,” Luke said. “But he didn’t report.”
“He was going to. There was more to it. Something about a punk kid that had lost some jack to Marvin. The Doc wanted that squared. If Jud had fixed it, Doc wouldn’t tell the cops, he said. But Jud gave him the laugh. Like he give me!”
“Thanks, pal,” said Luke. “This kind of clears things up. Marvin had Doc bumped. Belle was wise, so they got her too. Then they typed that note in Sharkey’s Grill, like it came from Belle, describing you as one we wanted.”
“Yeah? Why in hell should I kill ’em? Give me a break, cops! Let me get that fat—”
“Now, now!” Luke shook his finger at him. “Take it easy. Be good and maybe we’ll overlook your recent jobs in this town. Would you know which of Jud’s boys were on the Second National project? And where the wounded ones could be picked up?”
“No. Give me a crack at Jud and I’ll find out for you.”
“The guy has just one idea,” Luke grinned. “He wants a crack at Jud.”
Somebody knocked on the door and Luke said, “O.K., Ignatz, bring it in.”
It wasn’t Ignatz. A guy kicked the door open and all we saw was the business end of a submachine gun.
“If we turn loose,” the guy said, and I didn’t care for the way he talked, “none of you will ever walk out of here. Throw your guns to the door, coppers. We want your playmate, little Willie the squealer.”
“Come in and get him,” Luke invited.
“Toss your guns, cops!”
“Oke,” said Luke, and we obeyed.
The machine gun didn’t move, but a second guy ducked forward, picked up our two Police Positives.
“Where’s the other guy’s gat?”
“He dropped it when we picked him up,” Luke said. “Where’s Jud?”