Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

Tommy Rex was the best-dressed jewel thief in seven states, but like many a smoothie, he caused a lot of trouble. He left a trail of blood on the boulevard and a corpse in every closet. Four detectives, including that beer-drinking behemoth, B. Slabbe, found that he was an easy man to follow — but a hard one to get away from.

Chapter One

Rubies on the Run

About ten minutes after the two-thirty train from Philly whistled behind Slabbe’s office building that September afternoon, his telephone rang.

He was tilted back in his chair, a quart bottle of beer to his lips, and he hauled in the phone without missing a swallow.

“Yeah?”

“You Slabbe?” a man’s voice asked.

“Yeah.”

“Gage is the name, Al Gage. I’m a Zenith op. Just got off the train from Philly.”

“That so?” Slabbe murmured. “How’s my friend, Mr. God Almighty Enoch Oliver?”

“Oh. You know the boss?”

“By long distance,” Slabbe said. “He told me how slick you Zenith guys are and how dumb us guys are when I was protecting you slick guys on the Max Lorenz thing, last month.”

Gage made a deprecatory sound over the wire. “The Old Man’s O.K. It’s just that he expects results and chews you till he gets ’em.”

“You getting some?” Slabbe asked.

“M’m,” Gage murmured guardedly. Then he sighed. “Well, hell, I guess I have to tell you if I use you, huh?”

Slabbe agreed placidly: “And you knew before you rang me that I’d done a chore for Zenith, and so had been checked up.”

Gage said, without apology: “Yeah. I wanted to hear the sound of you, though.”

“I sound O.K.?”

“Sure. You got a man’s voice and you don’t soft soap me right off or get excited. You know Tommy Rex, Happy Lado and Silk Flaim?”

“We got newspapers and radios in the town,” Slabbe replied.

“O.K. Don’t ride me, pal. I’ve been up all night a couple of nights now. One of the reasons I want you quick is I’m so damn tired. I just put Tommy Rex in your town. He’s in the washroom down here at the station. He’ll be on the move again in a couple seconds and I’ll stick along; but I want you to be handy for me to call back to when I put him down again. O.K.?”

“Check. You want me to line up a cop to make the pinch?”

“It ain’t going to be a pinch right off,” Gage said. “We want Tommy to connect with somebody, first. You can tell your cop pal to be handy, though, when we want him, and while you’re waiting for me, you can put out a line to see if there’s any other new arrivals in your hunting grounds.”

“Like Happy Lado and Silk Flaim, huh?” Slabbe mused. “You think they’re coming together here in our peaceful metropolis to cut the cake?”

“Maybe,” Gage said cautiously. “We’ll see. There was a girl working with ’em, too, when they heisted that jewelry store in Philly last month. At least, she was Tommy Rex’s girl, and she dropped out of sight about the time the others did. Pola Velie. Get a lead to her and I’ll kiss you.”

Slabbe made a “phlutting” sound with his lips. “Any other little thing I can do for you, cousin?”

“Well—” Gage broke off. Then he hissed: “Here comes Tommy out of the washroom. I’ll call you back.”

The line went dead and Slabbe knuckled an itch somewhere in the quarter-inch-long gray bristles that grew on his head. He finished the current quart of beer, deposited the empty in a desk drawer and got another one going, out of the refrigerator conveniently near his desk. His ample poundage was not distributed at all awkwardly on his six-one, but sitting down made his thick shoulders all the bulkier. He telephoned Homicide Lieutenant Carlin, over at the City Hall.

“Got something, Pat,” he said. “A Zenith op just put Tommy Rex down here on the two-thirty from Philly. He, the op, wonders if Happy Lado or Silk Flaim are slumming around. See ’em?”

Carlin cursed, said no, he hadn’t seen ’em and hoped to hell he didn’t, and cursed some more.

“Don’t bust,” Slabbe advised. “I’d say they’ll be good boys. They’re not here to turn anything, just to divvy up the stuff they heisted out of that jewelry store, last month.”

“Oh, sure!” Carlin spat. “They’ll be good, eh? Guys like that have a habit of making nasty remarks to each other with forty-five’s.”

“Tommy Rex’s girl friend, Pola Velie, might be around, too,” Slabbe continued. “Just letting you know, is all. I’ll call you back when and if.”

“When and if what?” Carlin demanded.

“When and if anybody makes any nasty remarks to anybody.” Slabbe chuckled, and hung up. He held his hand on the receiver while he squinted thoughtfully, then he called four numbers rapidly, said each time that a grunt responded: “Tell Whitey Fite I want him.” This done, he tilted back again and waited. Once he slid his .38 out of its rig under his armpit, checked it and eased it back.