A. Fair - Shills Can't Cash Chips

Sellers went over, picked up the telephone, shifted the cigar over to the other side of his mouth, said, “Yeah? Sellers speaking... Shoot.”

He was silent for a minute, then said, “What the hell!”

Again there was more conversation.

Vivian Deshler started looking at me, sizing me up, then managed to smile and said, “I hope you come out all right, Donald.”

She shifted her position again and again the robe slid down her bare leg. She reached for it coyly, pulled it back and said, “I can sympathize with you. If there’s anything I can do — legitimately...”

Sergeant Sellers slammed up the telephone, said, “Okay, Pint Size, on our way.”

I said, “I’d like to finish—”

“On our way.”

Sellers turned around to Vivian Deshler and said, “I’m awfully sorry we came barging in here this way, Miss Deshler, but it was on a matter that was quite important and I had to check on it — and we have quite a time working against a schedule and all that.”

“It’s all right, Sergeant,” she said. “It was a pleasure. If you folks will come again sometime when I’m not caught completely unawares, I’ll buy you a drink.”

I said, “I want to ask a couple more questions, and—”

Sergeant Sellers took my arm and literally pushed me out the door.

She gave us a parting smile and then the door closed behind her.

“You and your theories,” Sellers said.

“What’s the matter now?” I asked.

“I told you about mustaches,” Sellers said. “Dammit, if I was wearing a mustache I’d shave the thing off before I even got in the automobile. I’d cut it off with a jackknife if I had to. I don’t think I’d even wait long enough to get to a barbershop.”

“What’s eating you now?” I asked.

“Mistaken identification.”

“Who?”

“That Troy woman.”

“What about her?”

“Andover told me he’d been working on a lead that was pretty much undercover. You remember that? He said he didn’t want to take a chance on wrecking it by showing his hand prematurely, but after this identification by Mrs. Troy he decided he might just as well shoot the works, so he started running this thing down and what do you know?”

“I don’t know anything,” I said irritably. “What do you know?”

“Well,” Sellers said, “for your information, Pint Size, the automobile that killed those two people wasn’t driven by Carter Holgate at all. It was driven by a man named Swanton, who was driving a big late model Buick and had got himself pretty well loaded at a cocktail party. His car wasn’t damaged very much and he thought he’d got the whole thing covered up and was sitting pretty, but when we got that identification on Holgate, Andover thought he’d better go talk with this guy and put the cards on the table.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“What happened?” Sellers said. “The guy caved. He’d had his conscience gnawing on him for quite a while, and the minute Andover made a pass at him the guy broke down and admitted the whole damned business, started wringing his hands and telling how sorry he was and what this was going to mean to his family, and how he didn’t know how in the world he had ever done a thing like that; that it was foreign to his nature, that he didn’t realize how drunk he was, that he couldn’t think straight, that— Hell, all the rest of it.”

“Is there any resemblance to Holgate?” I asked.

“Quite a striking resemblance,” Andover said. “Both of them are big men with mustaches and this guy wears Texas hats and whipcord suits — so there’s your high-powered theory that you had me running around on all shot to hell.

“You know, Donald, if you child geniuses would just mind your own damn business and let us officers run the police department according to the accepted theories of systematic investigation, you’d save yourself a lot of trouble and perhaps in the course of time I could learn to overcome that feeling of irritation which grips me every time you stick your neck out with one of these theories of yours.

“Come on now, we’re going back to headquarters.”

“Can I make one more suggestion?” I asked.

“No,” he said and his voice had a hard crack to it. “I’ve finished listening to you and your theories. You’re a prime suspect in a murder case. We’re going back to headquarters and if the deputy district attorney says okay, you’re going into the felony tank and you aren’t going to talk your way out from nothing.”

I said, “I don’t know what kind of a pull the Ace High people have with you, but I’d like to find out. What do they do, send you a case of cigars every Christmas?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

I said, “The Ace High Detective Agency was mixed in this thing and you’re certainly letting them off the hook. If it had been Cool and Lam, you’d have had us on the grid and—”

“Oh, forget it,” he said. “You’ve got a persecution complex.”

“Probably I have,” I told him, “but this much is certain. The Ace High was investigating Holgate and probably investigating that accident. Heaven knows what they’ve found out and they certainly aren’t going to pick up the telephone and tell you.

“You go ahead and play it real cozy with them if you want to. The next time you want information out of us—”

Sellers clamped down on his cigar angrily for a moment, then said, “Listen, Pint Size, did it ever occur to you there isn’t going to be any next time? You’re going to be charged with murder within the next forty-eight hours and you’re going to have one hell of a time trying to beat the rap.

“I’ll admit there are some things in the case that are a little cockeyed but we’ll get them all buttoned up before we get done. Personally, I don’t think you killed him, but you certainly stuck your neck out in such a way that you became a prize patsy, and I don’t think you’re going to be able to convince a jury you’re such a sweet, innocent little lamb.”

Sellers thought for a minute and then grinned and said, “And that’s not a bad pun, in case you’re interested.”

I said, “It’s okay by me. Just remember that I told you the Ace High had been investigating Holgate and the accident and that you did nothing about it.”

“Now, wait a minute. What’s the idea of that crack?”

“I’ve given you warning,” I said. “When I put on my defense I’ll make a real issue out of that. There’ll be no holds barred.”

Sellers said, “In other words you’d try to make something out of the fact that I didn’t— Oh, hell, it’s all right with me. The city’s paying for my gasoline. If you want to make a trip to the Ace High people, we’ll make a trip to the Ace High people and then you won’t have anything to squawk about.”

I settled back against the cushions and said, “I’d just like to see how soft you are with some of the other agencies.”

“You’ll see,” he said grimly.

Morley Patton, the manager of the Ace High Detective Agency, regarded us with something less than cordiality.

“This is official business,” Sellers said.

“And so you bring one of my competitors along with you to listen?” Patton asked.

“Now, don’t be that way,” Sellers told him. “I’m running this thing and I have to have Lam here because there are certain things about the case he knows.”

“And probably a lot of other things he’d like to know,” Patton said.

“All right, you had a tail on Donald Lam,” Sellers said. “How did it happen?”

“I don’t think we have to discuss that and I’m not admitting that we had a tail on Lam.”