A. Fair: Shills Can't Cash Chips

“You’re deputized,” Chief Dale barked. “I’m going to take a look in that suitcase.”

He was back in two minutes with the suitcase opened and looking at the money all neatly arranged in packages.

It was at that moment a latchkey sounded in the door of the apartment.

Vivian Deshler sucked in a deep breath to scream a warning.

Bertha Cool slapped her in the stomach and knocked the wind out of her. She doubled up like an accordion.

The door clicked back and a smiling, debonair Dudley Bedford came marching into the room.

He took one look at what was happening and went for his gun.

Dale beat him to the punch. “You’re under arrest,” he snapped. “Get your hands up.”

Bedford slowly elevated his hands.

“Turn around, face the wall,” Dale ordered. “Now stick your hands out behind you.”

Bedford did as he was instructed.

Dale came over, unlocked the handcuffs from my wrists, put them on Bedford’s wrists, looked at me, grinned, looked at his watch, said to Bertha, “You’re deputized as a matron. Get some clothes on that prisoner and get her up to the station house. I’m in a hurry. I want to get a complete confession out of these people and I want to have it by nine-thirty.”

Bertha said, “Get some clothes out of the closet, dearie, and you’d better take those ornamental panties off. Where you’re going, nobody gives a damn about smart mottoes embroidered on fannies.”

It was ten-fifteen when Chief Dale emerged from the council meeting, strode over to the telephone, picked it up and said, “Get me police headquarters in Los Angeles. I want to talk with Sergeant Frank Sellers.”

He looked at me and winked.

It took about two minutes for the call to get through, then Dale said, “Hello, Sellers?

“This is Montague Dale. I’m the chief of police at Colinda. I have Donald Lam. I understand that there’s an all points bulletin out for him.”

Dale listened for a while and grinned.

After a moment he said, “Well, before you stick your neck out. Sergeant, you probably should know that there wasn’t any automobile accident with Holgate. That thing was all cooked up. Holgate sideswiped a police car on the evening of the thirteenth when he was drunk, and wanted to get out from under. A man by the name of Bedford, who was friendly with Holgate, learned what had happened and advised Holgate to fake an accident with a friend of his, a Vivian Deshler, so that he could account for the broken front of his automobile. Vivian was also a friend of Maxton, Holgate’s partner.

“It looked like a good deal to Holgate, who didn’t know what he was getting into, but Vivian Deshler, who had previously made a couple of claims against insurance companies on whiplash injuries, tried to shake the insurance company down for thirty grand.

“Her car had been cracked earlier in the day when she lost control of it and backed into an ornamental lighting pole in North Hollywood. At the time she was on her way with her boy friend, Dudley Bedford, to rob a bank in North Hollywood. They cleaned it up to the tune of more than forty grand.

“Thanks to the co-operation of Donald Lam, who gave me the leads which cracked the case, I have just recovered the money and obtained complete confessions from all concerned.

“I don’t think Holgate ever did know that he was being suckered into a bank robbery, but he knew that the girl was making a claim for whiplash injuries against the insurance company and that scared the hell out of him. When Lam showed up to make an affidavit that he had seen the accident, he knew, of course, that Lam was lying and figured that Lam had been procured by Bedford and that Lam’s affidavit put Holgate in the position of suborning perjury.

“So Holgate decided to make a complete confession of the whole business. He went up to his office, turned on the electric typewriter, telephoned for Lam to come out there and started tapping out a written statement.

“In the meantime, Dudley Bedford had found out what was going on. As soon as his detective agency found out Donald Lam wasn’t an ex-convict who had been released from San Quentin, they knew the fat was in the fire — so Bedford had Vivian Deshler fly on from Salt Lake City. Together they went out to Holgate’s place of business and found him tapping out a confession.

“There was a hell of a fight and they knocked Holgate out. Then they read the confession and confiscated it. They dragged Holgate out to their car.

“They looked around for Lam’s affidavit and found it. They did a little searching to see if Holgate had made any other written statements, then they went away. The girl drove Holgate’s car. Bedford drove his car with the unconscious Holgate in it. They tied up Holgate hand and foot, then Bedford left him with the girl and Bedford drove back to the office to retrieve the report from his detective agency which had spilled out of the girl’s broken purse and which she realized she had neglected to recover.

“Bedford found Donald Lam in the office going through things. Lam ducked out of the window and made his escape.

“They knew then they were in over their neckties. There was only one thing for them to do and that was to kill Holgate, plant his body in Donald Lam’s car and frame Lam for the murder.

“I guess you can’t be blamed for falling for it, Sergeant, because it was a pretty good frame-up, but Lam came to me and gave me a lot of help in buttoning the thing up.

“Vivian Deshler, of course, wanted to be in the clear on the murder so she took a plane back to Salt Lake City, boarded a transcontinental plane at Salt Lake and pretended she had just arrived from New York, thereby giving herself an alibi of sorts.

“I have complete confessions.

“Doris Ashley, who knew that Vivian Deshler’s car had been damaged as early as three-thirty, having seen the car right after the completion of the bank robbery, was a troublesome witness. They had a detective agency shadow her to see if she suspected anything and was going to the police, and they had Dudley Bedford get intimate with her so he could see she didn’t suspect anything.

“Now, I have Donald Lam here and if you insist on holding him I’ll hold him but...”

Chief Dale listened for about two or three minutes.

Then as the receiver ceased making squawking noises, Dale laughed and said, “Well, of course, that’s your hard luck, Sergeant. But it just happens that I could use a little good luck. I was in a little trouble here with the city council... No, it’s nothing to worry about. In fact it’s all fixed up now. I’ve just been retained at a handsome increase in salary and I’ve been given to understand that I can have the five new officers I’ve been asking for, the two new patrol cars I want, and just about anything else I need. And I can keep the ten grand reward offered on the bank job. I’m doing all right.

“Shall I tell Donald Lam anything for you?”

Again Dale listened and a grin wrapped his face from ear to ear. “Okay,” he said, and hung up.

He turned to me, extended his hand, gripped mine and pumped it up and down.

“The sergeant had a message for me?” I asked.

“Two words,” he said. “Drop dead.”