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

“So maybe he will, but that’ll take longer. Lemme go to work.” Slabbe put the telephone to his ear, gave the same four numbers he’d given earlier at his office and said the same words four times: “Tell Whitey Fite I want him.” He hung up, warned: “Don’t horn in now and scare the kid. I gotta hunch he might know something about this Nikki Evans’ connections. He said he saw Happy and Silk and Pola get off a train from St. Louis at ten this morning, and if he knew Pola came here, which he did, it must be he tailed her from the station. He gave me the information pretty cheap, too, so maybe it was because he figured I’d be back for more.”

“Just the same, stick around,” Carlin ordered. “When Whitey gets to your office, if he does, I’ll want to be in on it. Here comes the M.E.”

Slabbe thought that the medical examination was worth something, and he hovered beside the medical examiner interestedly. “What killed her, doc?”

“Have to post her to be sure,” said the man with the black bag. “Heart conked, probably.”

“Uh-huh,” Slabbe mused. “How long ago?”

“Two hours at least. It’s four-thirty. She was dead at two-thirty for sure, maybe earlier.”

Slabbe looked at Carlin’s brooding eyes. “Put that in your pipe and smoke it,” he said.

As if this remark reminded him of it, Carlin probed a vest pocket for a long, thin cigar and canted it under his bony nose, waited for Slabbe to continue.

Slabbe said: “Happy and Silk were coming out of here when Gage and I arrived. If they killed Pola and she’s been dead at least two hours, that means they hung around that long after giving it to her. I don’t buy that. It wouldn’t take ’em two hours to case this apartment, so they weren’t here that long. They didn’t kill her.”

Carlin’s angry teeth on the cigar told that he was thinking this over, though he protested: “It don’t follow. They could have killed her, beat it, and then come back for some reason.”

“Name it,” Slabbe requested.

“Go ’way,” Carlin growled.

Slabbe said, “I’ll just do that,” and strolled out into the kitchen again. The cop was still on the door, but now he’d seen Slabbe take beer to Carlin once and talk chummy, so when Slabbe casually unsapped another bottle of beer and said, “Convoy this to the Lieutenant,” the cop practically touched his visor and did so. Slabbe rambled on out the back door.

As he’d expected, Abe Morse was in the vicinity waiting for him, but making himself inconspicuous. The slender little man caught Slabbe at a corner, trotted along like a blue-serge-clad terrier beside a gray mastiff.

He said in his quiet voice: “Happy caught a cab while I was chasing him. I got the number and—”

“No good now,” Slabbe cut in. “Happy went to the Carleton Arms and blasted at Tommy Rex and they both chased off. Our hope is that Charlie Somers sticks with one of them. Take a look.”

Slabbe fished in his pocket, brought out the photograph he’d snicked off Nikki Evans’ dresser. The man in the picture was short of forty, with a high forehead, even teeth, small ears set a trifle high, sleek black hair with touches of gray at the temples. The flourishing handwriting at the bottom of the picture said: “To Nikki, one swell kid. Max.”

Slabbe asked Abe Morse: “Make him?”

“Gimme a second,” Abe said, and took the photograph from Slabbe, held it at his side as he walked, and from time to time jerked it up in front of his gimlet eyes as if it were a shot glass. He looked at the street, at the sky, at the sidewalk. Then he’d try to catch himself unawares and jerk the picture up again. His quiet, narrow face registered nothing, but he muttered: “I seen this guy somewheres, and in town. He ain’t been around long or a lot or I’d have him right off.”

“Maybe the girl clicks with you,” Slabbe murmured. “Nikki Evans. Theatrical name, huh?”

“Dames I don’t remember so good,” Abe confessed. “This Max now...” He jerked the picture up again, quickly dropped it. “He’s a big operator, I’d say,” he went on, struggling with the thousands of muggs filed under his neat, dark hair. “He’s got money. Yeah. He goes for night spots, too. I betcha I seen him at Fudge Burke’s place, playing roulette, I betcha.”

“Give it a rest,” Slabbe suggested. “Charlie Somers will call in at the office as soon as he has something. You better be there to catch his call, only dammit, don’t you go getting cute any more, understand?”

“I only do what I think is right,” Abe said, hurt.

“Sure, sure.” Slabbe staggered the little man with a clap on the shoulder. “That guy I was with, Al Gage, is a Zenith op. Good man. If he buzzes down to the office, tell him I said he should sleep on the couch till I contact him. If Whitey Fite comes in, tell him to wait for me somewhere where Carlin won’t spot him.”

“What you going to do?”

“Talk to this Max guy,” Slabbe said and added casually: “What did you say his last name is?”

“Tezzaro, or Tezzaro,” Abe said absently. He stopped dead. “Yeah! That’s it: Tezzaro! You jogged it out of me. Nice going.”

“Nice going for you!” Slabbe chuckled. “What about him?”