Gage stifled his yawning, looked alert. “What’s this? Who’s Max? How would Happy and Tommy get hold of him, and why?”
“He’s the guy who was going to fence the stuff,” Slabbe explained absently, “only he crossed the gang up and knocked off both those girls, Pola and Nikki. Tommy and Happy got together again and came at him. They’re working him over right now, I’d say.”
“Well, let’s get on it, bo!” Gage exclaimed. “Get your friend Carlin to get a squad together and—”
Slabbe grunted. “There’s only one small point yet — I don’t know where they are. Charlie Somers is still tailing ’em and will call in first chance — if things break right. But until then, we sit and sweat.”
Gage cursed softly. “This game is like war.”
Slabbe nodded. “Ten percent action, ninety percent waiting.”
He scooped a couple of quart bottles of beer out of the refrigerator by his desk. Gage shook his head sadly. “Not for me. It’ll only make me groggier. How about a sandwich? Besides not sleeping, I ain’t et since breakfast.”
“Get me four pickled tongue,” Slabbe said. “There’s a delicatessen around the corner.”
Gage stretched and plodded off. Slabbe sat in his big chair looking happy as the beer made his Adam’s apple bob, then scowling between swallows. He hauled in the telephone, started calling his four numbers again. His question this time was: “Did you send Whitey to my office?”
The second party, a female, said: “I told you twice already I ain’t seen him today. He went up to Philly this morning and he must still be there.”
Slabbe’s eyes flickered. “You didn’t tell me before that he went to Philly. When did he go?”
“The ten-thirty train this A.M. I had a date with the little squirt and he phoned me and said he couldn’t make it until late this aft’.”
“Thanks, dream girl,” Slabbe said softly. He called another number. “Did you send Whitey to my office?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Lessee. You called the second time about four-thirty, ain’t it? It’s going on six now. It was around five when I told him to see you again. He oughta be there.”
Slabbe hung up, started to put in some chiclets, then remembered that they’d spoil the taste of the beer. Whitey had told him that he’d seen Happy and Silk and Pola get off a train that pulled in at ten today. At ten-thirty, according to the girl friend, Whitey had taken the train to Philly. What had the little information huckster gone there for?
It might have no connection whatever, Slabbe realized. Whitey might merely have been going to Philly for personal reasons. In fact, if he’d been waiting for a train himself at the station, it would account for him being on hand to spot Pola, Happy and Silk.
Slabbe peered at his potato. Enough time had elapsed since Happy and Tommy had snatched Max for them to have got where they were going. Charlie Somers should be calling any second.
“Unless he tries to be cute, too,” Slabbe grumbled.
Then the phone rang.
Slabbe said: “Yeah.”
“It’s me,” said Charlie Somers’ voice.
“Where are you?”
“In a gas station on Highway 309, just outside of town. Maybe I done wrong, but you can’t let a guy die, can you?”
Slabbe groaned. “What happened?”
Charlie said: “I stuck with Happy and Tommy right along from the time they chased out of the Carleton Arms lobby. What happened was that Tommy lammed after Happy shot at him in the hotel, only outside he laid for Happy in a doorway and jumped him. They both got into a cab, rode a while and then got friends again.”
“That’s what I figured,” Slabbe said.
“Yeah. Then they stole a car and headed up where I saw you and snatched that guy, Max. I figured they’d take him somewhere, but they worked on him right in the car while they kept rolling. Brother, did they work on him! Even if he lives, his old lady’ll never recognize him again.”
“Can he talk?”
“Well, he makes noises which if you listen you can figure out, but his brain ain’t working. Tommy and Happy must’ve busted something in the poor mugg’s head. They shoved him out along the highway finally. If he’d have been dead, I wouldn’t have stopped, but I seen him twitching and Tommy and Happy headed back into town, so I figgered we could catch ’em by bottling the place.”
Slabbe growled: “What did Max say?”
“Him and his girl friend Nikki met a girl named Pola this morning at Nikki’s apartment, just after Pola got in on a train, see? They talked over fencing some hot ice and made a deal. Then Pola says that she’s going to meet her boy friend Tommy this afternoon and Max goes about his business and Pola and Nikki sit around chewing over old times. About one-thirty this afternoon a guy comes to the apartment and says he’s from Tommy who’s still in the hospital and wants to talk to Pola alone. Nikki leaves them there, not thinking anything wrong about it, and meets Max again and after a drink or two they go back to the apartment to see if this guy who says he’s from Tommy said anything which changed their plans. They were changed, all right.”
“Yeah?” Slabbe pressed, jaws going on gum again.
Charlie continued: “They found that the guy had worked on Pola with lighted cigarettes and she’d conked off. She had a bad ticker to begin with and the pain and excitement loaded it too high, so it doesn’t look like the guy who done it meant to really kill her, huh? Just the same, after she was dead it was pretty clear Nikki had to go, too.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She had seen the guy and could tab him again, see? Anyhow, when they find Pola like that, Max says maybe she didn’t tell where the ice was after all and that Nikki should beat it back to the car and be lookout while he cases the apartment. Nikki does this and Max searches the place. He don’t find nothing, he says.”
“Can you believe him?” Slabbe grunted.
“Lissen, Benjy, this guy is just screeching it out. He don’t even know what he’s saying, so how can he be lying?”
“Check,” Slabbe said.
“When Max goes back to the car, Nikki’s shivved. How d’ya like that? The guy which was working on Pola must have still been there or have been hanging around when Max and Nikki come in. He figured Nikki could tab him and when she went back to the ear, he slid a knife into her.”
“What did Max do next?” Slabbe pressed.
“He was stuck with Nikki dead in the car, see, and all this killing was out of his line. He got the shakes and drove the car to his garage and then went out and drank till he got up some more nerve, then went back and took off the seat covers, wrapped the girl up and started off to drive her out in the woods somewheres and plant her. This was when Tommy and Happy caught up with him. Does it check? Was there this Nikki girl’s body in his car?”
“Yeah, there was, Charlie. Did you call an ambulance for Max?”
“Uh-huh. What next?”
“How long ago was It that Happy and Tommy headed back to town?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes,” Charlie judged. “They were sailing, too, going somewhere in a hurry. Cripes, if I should’ve stuck with them I’m sorry, Benjy.”
“No, you couldn’t let Max die, I guess,” Slabbe agreed without enthusiasm.
“But he probably will, anyhow,” Charlie repined. “And now we lost Happy and Tommy.”
The office door opened and two men stood in it, looking at Slabbe. Slabbe stopped chewing for five seconds, felt the phone in his hand getting slippery from sudden sweat. He started to put it down. Charlie’s voice said: “Maybe we can pick them up again, huh?”