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

Gage’s voice was hollow. “I didn’t know she had a bad heart. I was fagged out, too. Excited, yet tired. I talked to her. She gave me a song and dance. I started to bum. I hate crooks, anyhow. I started to search the apartment. She laughed at me, lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my eyes. I socked her and her cigarette fell down. I picked it up and her eyes popped out. I didn’t have any intention of using it, then. But when I saw her get scared, I figured she’d crack easy. I turned up the radio and...

“All right! Go ahead!” Gage cried suddenly, voice rising. “Look at me! All of you! I guess no other guy here would do such a thing!”

“Easy,” Slabbe said.

“Like hell you guys wouldn’t do such a thing!” Gage panted. “I’ve been in the racket a long time! I know what goes on! I’ve been in some back rooms at police stations myself! I just got a tough break ’cause this Pola twist had a bum heart. If she’d have lived and I’d’ve got the jewels off her, you’d have all been rooting for me. You’d have held her in the tank till her bums healed, say you wouldn’t, you damn lousy creeps!”

Not a man spoke.

Slabbe pressed: “But you got the jewels. Happy didn’t have enough imagination for this run-around. If he’d had them, he’d have lammed right off, not gone gunning for Tommy.”

“Sure, I got them,” Gage snapped. His lips quivered. “Pola cracked. She yelled: ‘My heart’s bad! Don’t bum me again! I’ll die! I’d sooner give you the stones! They’re hidden in my hair!’

“And there they were, too!” Gage said. “She had the bag flattened out and fastened on her skull with adhesive tape and her hair combed over it sweet. I got them. I set out to get them and I did!”

“But you couldn’t just turn up with them now,” Slabbe said quickly. “Even if the cops never guessed, your boss Mr. Oliver knew you’d come down here on a lead. If you turned up with the stones and Pola was found dead, he’d guess the score. Being the kind of guy he is, he’d have at least fired you and black-listed you.”

“You had to do something. Why couldn’t you make it look as if you’d come to town later than you actually did? Why not play it just like you would if you’d tailed Tommy here? You could pull it if you got to the station and picked Tommy up when he arrived. You did that, then called me.”

Slabbe shook his head. “But you don’t make me your alibi, cousin. In fact, I gummed the works. You intended to plant the stones on Silk’s body this afternoon after you shot him, but I bumped you and searched him myself. You didn’t care about the jewels — you weren’t out for profit. It was the thought of being disgraced in your profession that pushed you. Hell, I know guys like you,” Slabbe said tiredly. “Your job is your life.”

Gage was an old man, face lifeless, shoulders sagging. “Nikki was the only one who’d seen me. I waited around the apartment till she and Max came back. When he sent her down to the car to be lookout, I did it. Then I went to the station and saw Tommy getting off the two-thirty train, called you and made it sound as if I’d tailed him directly from the hospital.”

Slabbe sighed. “But then you had to get Whitey Fite, too. He was the one who had tipped you in the first place. Maybe you both came down here on the same train, anyhow Whitey was tailing you when you went to Nikki’s apartment. He would have guessed that you’d killed Pola and he’d have seen you step into the car with Nikki. Maybe he didn’t see you actually put the knife in her, because he’d have kept out of sight as much as he could. But he was there.”

Gage scowled. “How do you know that?”

“Because Whitey met me in the lobby of the Carleton Arms just after I got there,” Slabbe said. “I asked him how he knew I wanted to see him, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. But Whitey couldn’t have known I

was going to the Carleton Arms. So what was he doing there? The answer is that he was following you. And whether you knew he was tailing you or not, you knew he worked for me off and on and would finally figure out that you were the only one who could have killed the girls and sell me the dope.”

Gage shrugged fatalistically.

“So when Carlin let you go today, you came straight to my office. You’d heard me call around and tell guys that I wanted Whitey, and you figured he’d come to my office. You slugged Abe and shoved him in the mop closet, tying him with twine from the same desk drawer where you picked up that gun. Then you waited.”

Slabbe went on, voice flat and monotonous, doing something he had no stomach for. “When Whitey came, you gave him what you’d given Nikki and took him down the fire escape and stuffed him in a trash can. You could have got rid of his body later if you didn’t want it found right near my office, but first you had to locate Happy and Tommy, get to them, take them, and claim they’d had the jewels. You have the guts for it, I’ll give you that, and you knew that I had Charlie Somers tailing Tommy and Happy and that he’d be sure to call the office first chance.”