“Easy,” Slabbe said.
“Like hell you guys wouldn’t do such a thing!” Gage panted. “I’ve been in the racket a long time! I know what goes on! I’ve been in some back rooms at police stations myself! I just got a tough break ’cause this Pola twist had a bum heart. If she’d have lived and I’d’ve got the jewels off her, you’d have all been rooting for me. You’d have held her in the tank till her bums healed, say you wouldn’t, you damn lousy creeps!”
Not a man spoke.
Slabbe pressed: “But you got the jewels. Happy didn’t have enough imagination for this run-around. If he’d had them, he’d have lammed right off, not gone gunning for Tommy.”
“Sure, I got them,” Gage snapped. His lips quivered. “Pola cracked. She yelled: ‘My heart’s bad! Don’t bum me again! I’ll die! I’d sooner give you the stones! They’re hidden in my hair!’
“And there they were, too!” Gage said. “She had the bag flattened out and fastened on her skull with adhesive tape and her hair combed over it sweet. I got them. I set out to get them and I did!”
“But you couldn’t just turn up with them now,” Slabbe said quickly. “Even if the cops never guessed, your boss Mr. Oliver knew you’d come down here on a lead. If you turned up with the stones and Pola was found dead, he’d guess the score. Being the kind of guy he is, he’d have at least fired you and black-listed you.”
“You had to do something. Why couldn’t you make it look as if you’d come to town later than you actually did? Why not play it just like you would if you’d tailed Tommy here? You could pull it if you got to the station and picked Tommy up when he arrived. You did that, then called me.”
Slabbe shook his head. “But you don’t make me your alibi, cousin. In fact, I gummed the works. You intended to plant the stones on Silk’s body this afternoon after you shot him, but I bumped you and searched him myself. You didn’t care about the jewels — you weren’t out for profit. It was the thought of being disgraced in your profession that pushed you. Hell, I know guys like you,” Slabbe said tiredly. “Your job is your life.”
Gage was an old man, face lifeless, shoulders sagging. “Nikki was the only one who’d seen me. I waited around the apartment till she and Max came back. When he sent her down to the car to be lookout, I did it. Then I went to the station and saw Tommy getting off the two-thirty train, called you and made it sound as if I’d tailed him directly from the hospital.”
Slabbe sighed. “But then you had to get Whitey Fite, too. He was the one who had tipped you in the first place. Maybe you both came down here on the same train, anyhow Whitey was tailing you when you went to Nikki’s apartment. He would have guessed that you’d killed Pola and he’d have seen you step into the car with Nikki. Maybe he didn’t see you actually put the knife in her, because he’d have kept out of sight as much as he could. But he was there.”
Gage scowled. “How do you know that?”
“Because Whitey met me in the lobby of the Carleton Arms just after I got there,” Slabbe said. “I asked him how he knew I wanted to see him, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. But Whitey couldn’t have known I was going to the Carleton Arms. So what was he doing there? The answer is that he was following you. And whether you knew he was tailing you or not, you knew he worked for me off and on and would finally figure out that you were the only one who could have killed the girls and sell me the dope.”
Gage shrugged fatalistically.
“So when Carlin let you go today, you came straight to my office. You’d heard me call around and tell guys that I wanted Whitey, and you figured he’d come to my office. You slugged Abe and shoved him in the mop closet, tying him with twine from the same desk drawer where you picked up that gun. Then you waited.”
Slabbe went on, voice flat and monotonous, doing something he had no stomach for. “When Whitey came, you gave him what you’d given Nikki and took him down the fire escape and stuffed him in a trash can. You could have got rid of his body later if you didn’t want it found right near my office, but first you had to locate Happy and Tommy, get to them, take them, and claim they’d had the jewels. You have the guts for it, I’ll give you that, and you knew that I had Charlie Somers tailing Tommy and Happy and that he’d be sure to call the office first chance.”
Slabbe wiped his mouth. “It would have been one on you if Charlie had called while you were out on the fire escape with Whitey. The fact is that he didn’t, Al, but I did. I rang the office and nobody answered. It was a giveaway on you, kid. You tried to cover up by saying you’d been asleep and the phone hadn’t wakened you; but a guy like you sleeps like a cat no matter how tired he is. I knew that if you had been in the office, you’d have answered my call. If you didn’t answer, then you weren’t there.
“Then why were you lying by saying you were there but asleep? I figured back over it and you gave me the clincher when you claimed to have recovered the jewels from Happy just now. You’re licked, kid. You know how we can work back, now that we’ve got the thing figured. We’ll find somebody on that one-thirty train that saw you. We’ll—”
“Cut it! Cu-u-u-t it,” Gage blurted. “I’m in the game myself. I know you can do it. You think I’d be singing if I didn’t know it?”
He looked up. His green eyes went from face to face, slowly, carefully. His lips tried to sneer but were too tired.
He said ever so wearily: “If I was a grifter, I’d get a better break, wouldn’t I? But I’m supposed to be on the right side, so you guys can’t let me get away with a thing. Maybe you’re right. I’d figure that way, too, was I in other shoes. O.K., then.”
Without haste, Gage reached out and lifted the gun from the green desk blotter. He didn’t put it to his head clumsily. He simply turned it into his chest. He held it so tightly against himself that there wasn’t much noise at all. Then he sagged back.
His lips moved. “You don’t have to blacken Zenith’s name on this, do you?”
“Sure not,” Slabbe said thickly. “You shot it out with Happy. Both of you got killed in the fight.”
Gage was going to say, “Thanks,” but he couldn’t get it out.
Slabbe looked at him. He shook his head. “He was all tired out,” he said. “He can rest now.”
He turned and pushed through the cops and left the room.
Heavenly Homicide
by Dale Clark
Grand larceny was nothing new at luxurious San Alpa, but O’Hanna had to admit he was startled when one of the guests put in a claim for a stolen comet. That innocent astronomical phenomenon became the cause of two very un-innocent deaths. Not bad, from a distance of three hundred light-years!
Chapter One
Crime in the Sky
Spica Zane was tall, blond, and curved. She said: “You’ll love the Palomar Room, Uncle Charley. It’s astronomical.”
Charley Zane was short, bald, and shrunken. He said: “I haven’t time for lollygagging. I’ve got to set up my telescope for Professor Martin.”
“We’ll just stop a wee little minute. I want you to see this,” she persuaded. She led the way into the Palomar Room, told the head-waiter: “A table for two, please.”
Moonless dark had closed on San Alpa, the million-dollar luxury hotel on the privately owned southern California mountain top. The resort’s clientele of West Coast socialites, Hollywood week-enders, and platinum-pocketed tourists had swarmed in from the colossal golf course and the miles of scenic trails.