Blonde Bait for the Murder Master

Yes, the plan was rolling, and it didn’t look quite as bright and shining as it had seemed. Anna had said the syndicate was having internal trouble. Maybe then, they would be particularly anxious to keep a firm hold on Murrisberg. The syndicate planned always on being driven out of business for short periods of time when the citizenry became aroused and sicked the law on the local operators. They also planned on opening up again within a very short period of time.

Anna had been right about Billy and Oley. Give them a hundred and a quarter a week, and their dubious loyalty would be shifted to the new organization. But how about the new talent that might come to town to do a little cleaning up?

Somehow that big white house on the hill was a little further away. I slowed, turned, went back to town and phoned Kit. She was guarded over the phone, and I told her to tell her folks that she was going to the movies with a girl friend. I wasn’t afraid to be seen with her. It was Brock who had suggested that I see her often, so that I could possibly get a tipoff on any raid planned in the office of the District Attorney.

I sat in the lobby of the Murrisberg House, and soon I saw her walking across the tiled floor toward me. Tall, clean, young and very lovely. I stood up and I could see in her eyes all the promises of the things to come. I wondered how those eyes would look if she knew what I planned to do. “I’ve been afraid for you,” she whispered, as I steered her out toward the car.

“I’ll be okay, Kit,” I said.

We had dinner at the Inn at Herperville, fifteen miles away. I thought of the few hundred dollars I had in my pocket and wanted to finish dinner and keep right on going, never come back. But such thoughts were weakness.

Over coffee she told me how the D.A. had reacted. He had said that it was a chance they had been waiting for. The chief had been in and she guessed that they had been going over the data, planning the Thursday raid. She said that they had been very difficult about her not disclosing the source of her information, and they had asked her several times if Brian Gage was the informer.

That gave me a serious jar. Of course they would figure that way. I began to wonder who had seen her meet me in the lobby of my hotel.

And I didn’t like the taste of that word... informer.

I took her home and let her off at the corner and watched the proud way she carried her shoulders, the lift of her shining head, as she walked away from the car.

Tuesday afternoon, late, as I passed Anna in the narrow hallway leading to the kitchen in Brock’s house, she slipped something into my hand. I went out and sat in the car and looked at the two tickets. They were good; the alignment was okay. Two tickets, one for Monday’s winner and one for Tuesday’s. One thousand bucks.

I told Brock I was going to eat, and I drove out to Gulbie’s shack. He remembered me after I had mentioned the name Jake Shaw, and the ten bucks. He was dirty and he had a bad smell about him; I winced as he sat on the clean new uphostery in my car. But I drove him down to the store, sent him in for the tickets, ten dollar’s worth. That would make it look better. Forty tickets.

He came shambling back toward the car. Dusk was over the city. I pocketed the forty tickets, gave him the two counterfeit winners, and sent him back into the store, saying. “Now you stay right there and tell the store owner that you want your dough right away. A thousand bucks. Now repeat that.”

“I give him these and stay right there and holler for the money. Right?”

“Right. And when you get the money, you hustle right back to your shack with it. Understand?”

“Okay, Jake. I get it.”

He went off through the dusk, the absurd overshoes slapping the sidewalk. I saw him go inside, and I drove back to Cramer Street as fast as I dared. It was no time to pick up a ticket for speeding, or beating a light.

The tires squealed as I stopped. Brock was sitting on the porch steps in his shirtsleeves, a Martini in his brown hand.

“In a hurry?” he asked.

“No hurry. The crate’s new and it likes to step.”

The phone rang inside the house, and I heard the click of Anna’s heels as she crossed the bare hall floor to answer it. “For you, Brock,” she called.

He sighed and went in. Anna came out onto the porch. I didn’t turn and look up at her. I could hear the murmur of Brock’s voice.

He left the phone, and went back through the house. I guessed that he went to the cellar to get a thousand out of the safe.

Anna’s fingers were chill as she touched the back of my neck. “Planted?” she asked.

“That was the call for the payoff.”

“Good!” she whispered.

“How about your job?” I asked.

“I put three blank tickets in a crack behind a board in the back of his closet. One corner shows.”

She drifted away, and the screen door banged behind her. Brock came out, bent over and picked up his drink. “Some lucky joker hit Monday and Tuesday already,” he said. “Here’s the payoff. You and Billy go on out there.” He gave me the address.