Brett Halliday - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 27, No. 2 — September 1945)

The sound of approaching sirens came to Cellini Smith as he kicked at Ivy Collins’ door.

She gasped with delight as he entered, and helped relieve him of the bottles. “This is wonderful. All for me?”

“For us,” he corrected. “I’m not getting anything out of this job so at least Howard can pay me off this way.”

She fetched two glasses and they sat down on the carpet. “Your kisser sure looks like beef hash. That’s one thing you got out of it.”

He opened a bottle. “Freddy also got something — a cast on his jaw for a few weeks.”

“Here’s to the next one to die,” she said and they clicked glasses in a toast.

“There won’t be any next one. What happened to the boy-friend?”

“Larry? I guess I convinced him there was no business and he went away.” She giggled and held out her glass. “Some more please. Anyway, you’re cuter than him.”

“It’s just as well. I know your boy-friend didn’t do it.”

“Why not?” she asked in a disappointed tone.

“Motive. He had plenty reason to kill Fields on account of you but there was no reason for Mario. Besides, Coomb stayed in a guest room last night and he had a phone there. He didn’t have to go to the office.”

“A phone yet,” she said. “You’re drunk.”

“Sure. So are you. The motive behind Mario’s killing is missing for you, too. And as for Fields, he wasn’t worth anything to you dead, either.”

“I’d kill for you, Cellini. I’m currrazy about you.”

Cellini shook his head and refilled the glasses. “It all gets back to the stock that Fields optioned. And we mustn’t forget the business about Thursdays.”

“Yes,” agreed Ivy. “We must always remember Thursdays.”

“You see, I don’t like coincidences and three Thursdays in a row is too much. Henry Fields was admitted here from the Kitty Klub on a Thursday. Mario’s night off as bartender was a Thursday. The guy who visited Fields, claiming he was Cellini Smith, came on a Thursday.”

“Pour some more and tell me what all that proves.”

“It proves that the imposter who impersonated me was Mario. Fields didn’t know Mario because he came here from the Klub on a night when Mario was off. And later, Mario was able to leave the Klub and pose as me because that was his night off, too.”

“I don’t care even if I don’t understand you,” she said. “You’re cute but you got blood in your hair.”

“Fields thought Mario got in as a visitor from you but you had no visitor that Thursday. It had to be someone who could come and go from this prison as he wished and Mario had that privilege because he was a regular visitor. He used to come here to get payed off.”

“I like money.” She poured some Scotch onto his head and began shampooing his hair.

“Mario not only got wages as a bartender but he also got a percentage for steering people to this joint. He worked hand in glove with Howard. I think I’ll get Howard and ask him.”

“No you don’t,” said Ivy firmly. “I’m trying to clean your hair out and you’re staying.”

“Say, maybe I can get Howard here without leaving.” Not trusting himself to stand, he crawled on hands and knees to the radiator grill and felt behind it. It was there.

“One, two, three, four,” said Cellini. “One, two, three—”

Ivy asked: “Have you gone nuts?”

“I’m just testing the dictaphone. All right, Howard. I know you’re listening in on all this so you better get over here. And come with Sprigley and Haenigson. I know Haenigson’s there because I heard the sirens twenty minutes ago. If he won’t come, Haenigson, then bring him. That corpse he just showed you had a straitjacket on it a little while ago. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”

Cellini crawled back to where Ivy sat and they drank until Haenigson, Sprigley, Howard and a plainsclothesman crowded into the room.

“What’s this business of a straitjacket?” demanded the detective-sergeant. “And get off the floor and stop making a fool of yourself.”

“Don’t shove, Haenigson. I’m giving you the story, you stinker, not because I like you but because I want Howard nailed.”

“Nailed for what?” demanded Haenigson.

“Mario, for one thing.” He turned to Howard. “You and Freddy were beating him up while he was in a straitjacket. You’ve no doubt taken him out of it since then. At any rate, there were witnesses to the beating. Weren’t there, Sprigley?”

“I’ll sure testify to that,” stated Sprigley.

“In addition,” Cellini said, “this place is a racket even if you do make a limited attempt to cure people of alcoholism. You keep liquor in the pantry, ostensibly for your patients to taper off on the drink but actually to keep them around here longer so they’ll pay more. You had Mario for a shill — and I don’t know how many more — to steer suckers here who were so drunk they didn’t know what they were signing.”

“Howard will be taken care of,” said Haenigson. “Let’s get back to the beating.”

“Mario pulled a fast one. As Howard’s little helper, he gave him the dope on customers he sent here, so he phoned up Howard last night and told him that I had the crazy idea I was a detective and to humor me. Howard later found out it was true and when Duck-Eye dragged Mario here Howard went to work on him to find out what it was all about because he was afraid of losing this lush racket. Before Mario could squeal he was murdered.”

“Good,” nodded Haenigson. “Let’s get to the murders.”

“I told you Fields’ story about optioning stock from a call broker. What happened was one of two things. Either the call broker decided to bet against Fields and didn’t cover himself by optioning the stock, or he did. The broker then heard of the four-way split in shares and if he hadn’t optioned the stock he stood to lose a lot of money when Fields came for the payoff. If he had optioned the stock the broker had a chance to hold on to it and make a lot of money if only Fields could be kept out of the way till the option date had passed. Isn’t that right, Sprigley?”

“Why ask me?”

“Because you must work for that broker. Because you’re the killer.”

The plainclothesman moved next to Sprigley who said: “You’re disgustingly drunk and you’re not making sense.”

“You’re right on only the first count,” said Cellini. “You knew of Mario’s connection with this place and you had the Kitty Klub send an invitation to Fields. Lots of places do that. Then when Fields went to the Klub, Mario had the relief bartender slip him a mickey. Fields woke up here and found he couldn’t get out because Mario had told Howard that Fields had to be watched.

“In the meantime, you came here yourself to keep an eye on Fields and to make friends with him. That was your first mistake, Sprigley, when you told me you had been here before. Miss Banks told me otherwise.”

Cellini continued: “Of course when you made friends with Fields he couldn’t tell you the whole story — or anybody else — because there would have been a run on the stock that would have been traced back to Fields who was a member of the firm. However, he did tell you he was trying to smuggle out a letter to Cellini Smith and probably asked you to mail it. So you got Mario to pose as me in order to make Fields think a dick was working for him.”

“No one can pose as you, sugar,” said Ivy. “Anyway, I once mailed out a letter for Fields.”

“Fine. That’s the one that got me here. When you heard my name you telephoned Mario to warn Howard about my supposed hallucination. That was that first phone call in your office last night, Howard.

“Later, while I was in the office, Sprigley had time to kill Fields. Still later when we watched Mario’s beating he knew the guy was ready to squeal so he talked out loud to stop it until he had a chance to knife him. It was neat — calling us out to watch the beating and then knifing Mario while we were being chased.