Mason said, “As a matter of fact, I looked up Cullens’ address in the telephone book in the drug store.”
Holcomb said, “Okay, you birds can go... And remember, Drake, your license is coming up one of these days.”
Mason said, “I resent that as an attempt at intimidation. Drake has been entirely courteous throughout this entire matter. Both of us have answered every question you’ve asked.”
“Yeah, I know,” Holcomb said, “but somehow I have a feeling I haven’t asked the right questions.”
“Then go ahead and ask the right questions,” Mason told him.
“How the hell can I when I don’t know what they are?”
“Well,” Mason said irritably, “how the hell can I answer them when you don’t ask them?”
Holcomb jerked his thumb to the door. “On your way,” he said, “and don’t just happen to stumble on any more corpses before morning. There is such a thing as a private detective being altogether too damned efficient, if you get what I mean, Drake.”
Drake started to say something, but Mason interrupted. “Is it your pleasure,” he asked, “that in the future Drake refrain from notifying the homicide department of any corpses he may stumble on?”
Holcomb’s face darkened. “You know what I mean,” he said. “Get started.”
The officers ushered them past a corridor, which, by this time, was well filled with newspaper photographers, a representative from the coroner’s office, and half a dozen plain-clothes officers. Half way to the car, Drake said vindictively, “Damn him! He’ll try to give me a black eye with the Board of Prison Directors when my license renewal comes up.”
Mason laughed. “He’s just being nasty on general principles,” he said. “He can’t block your license except for cause, and he can’t get any cause. Try to be respectful to a man like that, and he keeps pushing you around. Stand up to him and tell him where he gets off at.”
“Just the same,” Drake said, “let’s not find any more corpses.”
“Okay,” Mason agreed.
“Where to now?”
“Where we can telephone your office and find out what’s in the wind. If nothing startling has developed, we go down to The Golden Platter and try to get some information before the police frighten those birds to cover.”
Drake said, “That’s the thing I don’t like about your business, Perry. You’re always trying to beat the police to something.”
“That’s the way I protect my clients,” Mason said.
“And some day it’s gonna cost me my license.”
“On what grounds?”
“On the grounds that I’m withholding information from the police.”
“Just what information do you have that the police should know about?” Mason asked.
“Nothing. But I have a hunch you have.”
“All right,” Mason said grimly. “Try not to be a mind reader, then. In other words, Paul, as your attorney, my best advice to you is to not only act dumb, but be dumb and follow directions.”
Drake said, “Okay, Perry, I’m dumb.”
Chapter 5
Mason drove around the block, looking for a parking space. “Tell me, Paul,” he said, “just what you’ve found out about them.”
“Understand, Perry,” Drake apologized, “the information’s a little sketchy. After all, my men only had a few minutes...”
“Sure, never mind all that stuff,” Mason said. “Give me what you have.”
“Well, in the beginning, it started out to be a legitimate restaurant. They called it The Golden Plate then. They changed the name to The Golden Platter about the time they opened up the gambling joint upstairs.”
“Just the two of them?”
“That’s right, Bill Golding and Eva Tannis. Lately they’ve been passing as husband and wife, but apparently they aren’t married.”
“Any gambling experience before?” Mason asked.
“Lots of it. Golding ran a place in San Francisco, and then was floorman at a big casino in Mexico. Then he came back here, apparently broke, but always intending to open up a gambling place as soon as he got the funds.”
“How about the girl?”
“Eva Tannis was a come-on girl in the San Francisco place where Golding worked. You know, she gives the boys lucky hunches and a few drinks. Makes them feel like gay young blades. Pulls a little sex stuff and imbues the boys with the idea that faint heart never won fair lady. Then they feel their oats, and start plunging on the gambling table.”
“And it’s all fixed beforehand?” Mason asked, turning the comer to the right and preparing to edge into a parking place.
“No, that end of it’s on the up-and-up. All the gambling house wants is to get the play.”
“What if the boys win?” Mason asked.
“Then she’s already in strong with them. She keeps them playing until the house wins it back. In case the sucker quits while he’s still winner, she goes out with him, keeps in touch with him, makes a date for a couple of nights later, and steers him back to the joint. By that time, he’s cold and imbued with the idea that he has to buck the game in order to get anywhere. Then it’s all over.”
Mason, looking the neighborhood over, said, “Doesn’t look like much of a soup-and-fish trade, Paul.”
“It isn’t,” the detective told him. “It’s a joint. They’re trying to make a stake for a bigger place.”
“Okay,” Mason said, looking at the numbers, “let’s go.”
They detoured past a bedraggled blonde who held down the cashier’s desk, and Drake indicated a door which opened on a stairway. There was no protest as they climbed up a flight of dark stairs to a feebly illuminated corridor. The front end of the corridor was apparently fitted up as the office of a rooming house. There was a little counter, a register, a call bell on the table, and a sign saying, “Ring for the Manager.” Drake smacked his hands down smartly on the bell button and said to the lawyer, “We’d better flash a roll and act a little bit hilarious.”
The lawyer pulled a wallet from his pocket, leaned against the counter, and started counting money with the grave dignity of a drunk man trying to act sober. A door opened and a man said, “What do you boys want?”
Mason looked up at him and grinned. Drake motioned vaguely down the corridor and said, “Action. Wha’d’yuh s’pose?”
“I don’t exactly place you,” the man said dubiously.
Mason lunged against Drake, pushing the bills back into his wallet. “C’mon, Paul. The guy don’t want us. Let’s go back the other place.”
Drake said, “Not’n your life. This joint owes me a hun’erd forty bucks. I’m gonna collect.”
The man behind the counter said, “Okay, boys, go on in. Second door to the left.”
They walked down what was apparently the corridor of an ordinary rooming house, turned the knob of the second door on the left. Mason heard the sound of an electric buzzer, then a bolt shot back and a man opened the door.
What had, at one time, apparently been a series of rooms, had been joined into a large room. There was some pretense of giving it a veneer of elegance. The painted board floors were covered with brightly colored rugs. There were cheap oil paintings on the walls, but they were illuminated after the manner of masterpieces, with little individual electric lights shielded in chromium cylinders. There were two roulette tables, a crap table, two games of 21, and a wheel of fortune. A bar at the far end of the room was elaborately fitted with mirrors and subdued lights. There were probably thirty or forty men in the place, Mason judged, and perhaps fifteen women, of whom seven or eight were wearing backless evening gowns. Nearly all of the men were in business suits. Mason noticed but two dinner jackets. “Let’s not waste any time,” Mason said to Drake. “We’ve got this far, let’s go the rest of the way.”