Хал Эллсон - Mink Is for a Minx

“Like always,” grated Casey. “They unlocked the door with a key and walked in.”

“Anybody see them?”

“Maintenance man in the basement saw three guys in overalls go up in the self-service freight elevator about quarter of eleven. One of them was carrying a big canvas bag, like a laundry bag. They must have got off at the mezzanine, opened the door with a key, cut the lock out of the safe with the acetylene, grabbed the ice, and left the same way they came.”

“Anybody see them go out?” Egan asked.

“No. At least, we haven’t turned up anybody yet.”

“Hm. In that canvas bag they must have had one of those baby tanks of acetylene — the kind you carry in your arms — and a blowtorch. They knew when the night watchman rang in from the mezzanine and timed it just right. They opened the door with a key, cut the lock out of the safe with the acetylene, grabbed the ice, shoved it into the bag with the acetylene tank, and left the same way they came, by the freight elevator.”

“Yeah,” said Casey. “And acetylene gas, which brings a heat of sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit to the point of contact, can cut through steel like a sharp knife through a tender steak — as every damned crook knows.”

One of the detectives came over to them. “This might be something.” He handed Phil Egan a small metal gauge. “We found it under a chair.”

Egan examined it curiously and stuck it in his topcoat pocket. “Anything else?”

“That’s all,” said the detective.

Egan spent the next day interrogating employees of the hotel and the Jewel and Fur Shop. There were two of the latter, a woman in her fifties and a man in his sixties. Both had been with the shop for more than ten years, both were bonded, both had airtight alibis, as did Birnbaum himself. Their keys, they swore, had not left their possession.

Egan had been hoping for some evidence of an inside job, but there was none. How the hell were they getting the keys? The police lab could uncover no trace of wax around the lock on the shop’s door. No identifiable fingerprints, either — outside of those of Birnbaum and the two employees.

The interrogation of the hotel employees turned up only one interesting item — the maintenance man who had seen the three thieves get in the freight elevator made a fairly positive identification of a mug shot of Binky Byers as one of the three.

Binky, who was currently throwing money around The Block, was now tentatively linked to the last two jewelry heists.

Three nights later Phil Egan prowled The Block again. Most of the people hadn’t heard anything, but when he came into the Three O’Clock Club, Haydee Melendez left the man she was drinking with at the bar and nodded towards a table in a dark corner.

“’Allo Eegan,” she said. “Zat Peet — he’s here last night wiz same two pals. Me, two uzzer girls, we treenk wiz zem. Zey ask us come up zair place for party after club close. I zay ‘Who the hell are you an’ ware you place?’ Zey zay: ‘You’ll come up?’ We zay sure, we like party mucho. Zo Pete, he write down names and ware place is. I got paper in dressing room. Wait, I get.” She bounced up.

Phil Egan sighed and ordered a bourbon and water. His hands were a little shaky. The unsolved jewelry heists were getting on his nerves, what with the newspapers demanding a shakeup in the Police Department and Mike Casey breathing hotly down his back. And now maybe the first small crack in the case was beginning to open up.

Haydee came back and handed him a piece of paper. On it in pencil was scrawled: Pete Byers, Maury Mahaffey, Frank Visconti — 674 Preston Street, Apartment 3B.

Egan smiled and said: “Good girl, Haydee. Have a drink — a real one?”

“No, I got go back to heem.” She nodded in the direction of the man at the bar. “Ware my feefty dollah, Eegan?”

He handed her two twenties and a ten. “How was the party?” he asked.

She laughed. “You don’ theenk we go, do you? ’Bye Eegan.”

The next time Egan ate at Muriel’s, she asked him, as they sipped their pre-dinner martinis: “Why don’t you arrest those three punks you’re cat-and-mousing up there on Preston Street? After all, you can connect them to the last two robberies.”

He shook his head. “They’re connected, but just barely so. I want that gang’s brains, not just its muscle. They’re getting ready to hit again, and when they do we’ll be waiting for them.”

“It’s none of my business,” she said, “but aren’t you overlooking one important angle?”

“All the angles I can overlook from here are pretty good.”

“Lecher!” She drew her housecoat tighter. “No, seriously, Phil, your locksmith is obviously the brains of the outfit. He had to learn locksmithing somewhere, didn’t he?”

He said thoughtfully: “It isn’t something you just pick up.”

“Where do they teach it?” she asked.

“Trade schools, YMCA courses, night schools. Places like that.”

“You said the gang was local, so chances are your brain studied locksmithing here. The schools probably keep records of their graduates. Go through the records and check out any that look interesting.”

“That is an angle that would bear investigating,” he said “And that’s a curve that would also—”

She laughed and drew away from him. “Oh, cut it out. I’m serious. Hurry up and catch those jewel thieves so we can start having fun again.”

What she had said about the locksmith started him thinking, though. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, but even a 1000-to-1 shot looked like good odds in this case.

The next morning he called in Detective Sergeant Terence Clancy. “Check out all the trade schools, the YMCAs, the night schools, and any other places you can think of that might teach locksmithing. Go back ten years and list all their graduates, what they’re doing now, and where.”

Clancy groaned. “Hell, Phil, there are eighteen public trade schools alone in town. I know, because I had to check them once before. This’ll take to Christmas at least.”

“Take two men to help you. And hurry it up!”

Clancy groaned loudly and went out, but Egan knew he’d get the list in a couple of days. Clancy was a griper, but a good man.

From the stakeout on Preston Street he learned that Byers, Mahaffey, and Visconti had two visitors practically every night. One was a tall, thin man of about thirty who wore horn-rimmed glasses and drove a sporty little red Italian sports car. The other was a man of medium height, stocky, who arrived in a blue panel truck marked “Elite Bakery, 3714 Harford Road.” The license plate on the sports car was Maryland 292–861; that on the panel truck was Maryland 728–592.

He called the Motor Vehicle Department. “This is Lieutenant Egan, Police Department. Will you check out these license plates for me? Maryland 292–861, and Maryland 728–592.”

The girl on the other end said; “Just a minute, Lieutenant.” Then, after a long pause: “Here they are, Lieutenant. Maryland 292–861 is a Fiat sports car and it is registered in the name of Mrs. Stuart R. Heisman, 1821 Belair Road. Maryland 728–592 is a Ford panel truck registered in the name of Harold J. O’Konski, 3714 Harford Road.”

“Thank you, honey,” said Egan.

The next thing to do was to find out as much as possible about the men who drove to the nightly rendezvous with Byers, Mahaffey, and Visconti.

He had traffic cops stop both men to look at driver’s licenses and ask routine questions. Thus he learned that the driver of the sports car was Stuart R. Heisman, out of the army about a year, married, no children, worked as a pharmacist at the Belair Drug Store near his home on Belair road. He answered questions easily, was self-possessed, and seemed all right.