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

“He’s still going to wait,” Slabbe said. “I’ll drift over and pick up my phone call if it comes. If I go out then, and a little fat-forty guy comes in, it’ll be Charlie Somers and he’ll take care of Tommy. You meet me outside and we’ll meet the lady.”

Silence gave Gage’s consent. Slabbe went over to the registery counter and talked to McPhail, the house man, about inflation until the switchboard girl murmured: “Mr. Slabbe? Call for you, sir.” Slabbe took it.

Abe Morse’s quiet voice said: “I’m in a drugstore across the street from where I’m supposed to be. Nobody in or out since I got here. Radio playing loud, though, and people moving around inside. Heard a man’s voice.”

“Be right there,” Slabbe said.

“Check.”

Slabbe went out a side entrance, waited till Charlie Somers got out of a cab, described Tommy Rex to him, then got in the cab himself and waited till Al Gage trudged out of the hotel, yawning.

“Fifty-five hundred block on Emerald Avenue,” Slabbe ordered the hacker. They rolled.

It was a wide, tree-lined residential section, quiet as they came into it and then, a moment later, full of kids racing home from school.

“Drive around the block till these kids scram,” Slabbe told the driver.

Al Gage sat up. “Hey! What—”

“My plant said he heard a man’s voice inside the apartment,” Slabbe explained. “You can’t tell how things will go when there’s eighty grand worth of stuff involved.”

Gage groaned wrily and wiped his palms on his knees. “I thought there’d only be the girl to go up against.”

“Happy and Silk wouldn’t let her get too far away if she’s got the stuff,” Slabbe reminded.

Gage grunted, spying a slender, blue-serge-suited man loafing along the sidewalk. “Is that your boy?”

“That’s Abe,” Slabbe admitted, letting his head swivel in a slow arc as the cab passed Abe Morse, then an apartment house which bore the number 5502. “Suppose I drop off at the alley and go in through the back,” Slabbe suggested. “You and Abe can—” He stopped. “Hold it!” he called to the driver. “Slow-w-.” He nudged Gage. “They your people?” he asked, nodding through the back window at two men who had left the apartment house, one tall, one stocky.

Gage’s green eyes glittered. “That’s the pair, Happy Lado and Silk Flaim. They ain’t got a car handy. They’re gonna walk a little and pick up a cab. We should—”

“Stop!” Slabbe yelled at the driver. “Dam’ Abe!” he swore. “I told him not to get cute!” His hand caught the door lever, which fortunately worked easily, or it would have been ripped away. He crowded out of the cab, Gage’s curses hard behind him. Abe Morse had stopped the pair who had come from the apartment house. He’d apparently asked for a match, having spotted Slabbe and Gage passing, trying to detain Happy and Silk for a second till Slabbe’s driver could turn around to keep the pair in sight, but at once Happy and Silk had deployed on either side of Abe and were now hustling him along. There were school kids in front of them and behind them, and romping on the street and lawns around them.

They were a good hundred yards away and Slabbe’s long legs pumped to close as much of the distance as possible before they glanced around and saw the score. But it was inevitable that the heist men should look around. They did so simultaneously. Slabbe saw Silk Flaim’s dark, thick features freeze into a stolid killer’s mask. Happy Lado’s knife-scarred lips, permanently twisted into a grin from which he’d derived his nickname, pulled back on his teeth.

Both men let go of Abe Morse and clawed at their armpits. Abe dived headfirst into a hedge. Slabbe saw Al Gage going for a gun.

“No!” he bellowed. “The kids!”

He put on a burst of speed, a hand out to knock Gage’s gun down. He saw Silk Flaim’s hairy hand kick, and gun thunder drowned a child’s shriek. Gage went down on a knee. He snapped two shots. Happy Lado returned one. Slabbe hit Gage. There were no further shots from Silk Flaim. Slabbe didn’t notice exactly: he and Gage were tangled together on the sidewalk. Gage was cursing obscenely, trying to scramble for his gun, which had been knocked free.

Slabbe clawed at him, grunting. “The kids, you dam’ fool! They’ll get hurt!”

Gage went on his face again as Slabbe’s paw slapped on his rump. Slabbe looked down the street to place Happy and Silk so he’d know which way to roll out of the line of fire. Silk was easy to place, and would be from then on. Gage’s shots had been centered.

Happy was away, though, legs scissoring. Abe Morse was scrambling out of the hedge, ready to give chase, but Slabbe saw that it would need a sprinter now and Abe was no chicken. Happy rounded a corner and was out of sight. Abe made a beautiful try by charging unerringly across a lawn to cut into the next street and head Happy off, but Slabbe knew Abe didn’t have the moxie to overcome the heist man’s start.

He heaved to his feet, dusted his knees and helped Gage up. The Zenith op’s green eyes were bitter. “I would’ve got Happy, too, you dam’ fool!” he grated.