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

Slabbe had been staring woodenly at the chamois bag of jewels beside the gun on the desk blotter. He recognized the gun as one of his own, one that he kept in a desk drawer in his office.

Gage started to hang up, noted the direction of Slabbe’s stare and said apologetically: “I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed it. Remember I gave my own to the lieutenant after I shot Silk.”

“Wait a second,” Slabbe said and took the telephone from the Zenith op. He said, “Mr. Oliver?” and when Enoch Oliver’s dry voice purred, “Yes?” Slabbe put a lash into his voice and said, “A fine outfit you got, sending a man on a job like this when he’s half dead for sleep!”

Mr. Oliver gasped, sputtered. Slabbe railed at him some more, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“Now stop that!” Mr. Oliver burst. “We did have other operatives set to follow Tommy Rex from the hospital today, but Gage picked up a better lead and wanted to handle it himself.”

“That would have been about noon today, huh?” Slabbe said. “He told you he had this tip down our way, right?”

“Naturally. Of course. And I authorized him—”

Slabbe needed no more. He hung up, looked at Gage. The fatigue lines about the Zenith op’s eyes had deepened and tightened from more than weariness.

Slabbe said: “Honest to God, I’m sorry, Gage. I kind of liked you. You know the job and you got guts, and you like your work. Yeah, maybe you like your work too much. You got too enthusiastic with Pola, huh?”

No one had to hold up a hand for silence now. The room was packed with cops. Someone shut the door. The air in the room was suddenly hot and still. Al Gage’s green eyes were sinking back into his skull. A weary muscle in his cheek twitched once and was still.

Slabbe tongued his gum into a cavity and spoke without relish. “Tommy Rex was right when he said he’d have spotted anybody who tailed him down on the train. You didn’t

tail him, Al. You knew he was coming here and you got here first. I’d say you got here about the one-thirty train, not the two-thirty.”

Slabbe’s words hung in the air tightly. Someone shuffled, coughed. All eyes were on Al Gage.

Slabbe wet his lips. “Whitey Fite saw Pola and Happy and Silk get off a ten o’clock train today. Then he took the ten-thirty to Philly. That would put him in Philly at eleven-thirty. He was a stoolie, Whitey was, and his business was knowing who was wanted and for what and who was interested. He knew the Zenith Agency protected the jewelry store that had been heisted. He knew he’d get paid more for his information by a Zenith op than by anybody else. Did he come straight to you, Al? Your boss just admitted that other arrangements had been made, but you picked up a better lead and were authorized to handle it.”

It didn’t look as if Gage were going to say a word. It didn’t look as if he had the strength to. His face was shriveled, his green eyes dull. Normally inconspicuous as a successful dick should be, he now stood out above anyone else in the room. He was branded.

His lips scarcely moved, and his words were very low. “It was the breaks all through,” he said. “It was a fluke that Whitey picked me. He was waiting in the corridor outside the boss’ office about noon today when I was leaving. I’d just checked in from a job up-state and was going home to bed. Whitey must’ve figured I was the boss and braced me, asked me what it was worth to get a line on Happy, Silk and Pola.”

Slabbe nodded. “It was worth plenty and you paid Whitey. He told you he’d seen Pola, Happy and Silk get off a train in our town and had tailed Pola to Nikki Evans’ apartment, right? Was it just a fluke, too, that Whitey was on hand at the railroad station and spotted ’em?”

“Fifty-fifty, I guess,” Gage said. “A guy like him hangs around railroad stations off and on, but I think he was coming to Philly for a personal reason today. What’s the difference? He spotted them and passed the dope along to me.”

“And you told your boss you’d picked up a lead and he should call off the ops who’d been supposed to tail Tommy from the hospital,” Slabbe filled in. “You figured that with Pola, Happy and Silk here and Tommy due to be discharged from the hospital, he’d sure make a beeline here, right? You didn’t have to tail him. Maybe you didn’t even want him at all. You knew where Pola had put in, at Nikki’s apartment. You figured she’d be packing the jewels. You’ve got guts. Maybe you could get them back.

“So you hopped the very next train down, the twelve-thirty, I’d say, and it put you here at one-thirty. You went straight to Nikki’s apartment, told her you were from Tommy and wanted to talk to Pola alone. The girls accepted you and Nikki left and... like I said, you got too enthusiastic about getting the jewels back, Al.”