“You fat-headed fink!” the restaurant man yelled. “I never knew anything about this Greek wrestler!”
“Oh, sure. Sure you did. Jewett knew you did.”
“You couldn’t even get Herb to believe a frame-up like that.”
“Maybe I could, fat boy. I could point out to Krass that you’d heard him talking on the phone to that wrestler. That would have told you where your partner was supposed to meet the Gorilla and cross his palm with silver.”
“Ha!” Biddonay chuckled hoarsely. “And again ‘Ha’!”
“You like it? Here’s more. You beat it over to this hotel where they had the date. You got there before Krass did, maybe quarter of twelve or so. The Greek was there; you gave him some song and dance about Krass meeting him in your rooms above the restaurant. Right?”
Biddonay stared at him, slack-jawed. “You son of a—”
“Well, it’s close enough. Anyhow, you got Gorilla Greg to come back to your rooms. After the joint closed you got him to come down to the cafe, prob’ly on a pretext of meeting Krass then. When you got him there, you killed him, chopped him up into soup meat, put the legs and arms on the fire so it would look as if the murderer was trying to conceal his crime — though you weren’t — and then hung the torso up in the coldbox. That’s the story, isn’t it?”
The light in the garage was stronger, now, but Biddonay’s face seemed to be still gray, like the sky at false dawn.
“I suppose I cut that steak out of the wrestler’s back, too?”
“Who else, Biddonay? You heard about the threat Krass made, about serving Suzie’s husband to her on toast, if he caused too much trouble.”
“Hell! If you ain’t just been hitting the pipe and dreaming this up, whyn’t you slap me in a cell?”
“I want to get a coupla things straight first, fatso.”
“No kidding! Just ask me. Anything at all,” the prisoner sneered. “Be glad to oblige.”
“Okay. About that phone call to Pete Donnelly. I know you killed your cashier. I suppose it was because he was wise, or getting wise, to your financial finagling. You must have killed him before the apparatus got to the blaze, because you’d have to have time enough to get back to your rooms from Fifty-first Street and change out of street clothes into pajamas. Then you came down into the street, looking all worried and upset and I don’t wonder, with that evening’s work behind you.”
“You’d have to go on the witness stand and testify that I talked, in your presence, to Pete after the fire was over. And that I was with you all the time from that moment till we found poor Donnelly’s body.”
Pedley shook his head. “All I could swear to is that you called a number and talked to somebody. It might have been a Chinaman at a Chopsuey joint for all I heard. It wasn’t the cashier.”
Biddonay beat his head against the iron riser. “Listen to the lunatic! He don’t even believe his own ears.”
“Yeah. I do. When I hear something. I didn’t hear the guy on the other end of your wire, then. And I can’t prove that you dialed a different number the second time you called Donnelly. But I know you did.”
The restaurant man began to sob great gusty sobs that shook his tubby figure like jelly. “Couple of hours ago, you weren’t talking this way. You put the pinch on that rat-faced Yalb. And now—”
“Now I think just the same about Yalb as I thought then. Suzie’s brother is scared, dumb and rattled. He got sore at you for throwing off on his sister, and cut you for it. We’ll get him for that; he’ll probably still be serving time when you’re waiting for the reprieve that won’t come. But Yalb isn’t a wholesale butcher, like you.”
“Why me? Why not Krass? Why not?” the fat man shrieked. He was pouring cold sweat.
“Krass wouldn’t have used that bowling ball case to carry the Greek’s head out of the cafe, for one thing. It would have been too much of a giveaway. By the way, what’d you do to scare Herb off?”
Biddonay shook his head, without answering.
“You’d want him to take it on the lam because you’d need somebody to act as fall guy, and Krass had to get the chair if you were to come out ahead on the money end.”
The fat man broke down and blubbered piteously, pawing the air with his free hand as if he was trying to beat off a wasp.
The Marshal started for the stairs. “Say, there’s always a little silver in the lining...”
The proprietor of the Ice-taurant looked up, soddenly. He was drenched with tears and perspiration.
“You won’t have to worry about that new wardrobe, Biddonay. You wouldn’t want to spend a lot of dough on a suit they’re going to rip up the legs and arms in a few weeks.”