Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Nor did he have a chance to make a report to Ross after they arrived, since Lieutenant Niles Redfern, who was in charge of the investigation, kept the gambler at his side while he supervised the photographing of the body, finally released it to the morgue wagon, and satisfied himself that the only witness who knew anything at all was Sam Black.

Detective Lieutenant Niles Redfern was a lanky, middle-aged man with a lean intelligent face and a perpetually morose expression. He was a dedicated law officer and an efficient one, but he had one defect which prevented his rise beyond a lieutenancy in a police department run the way St. Stephen’s was.

Unfortunately for his career, he was incorruptible.

His assistant this evening was Sergeant James Morton, a thick-bodied unimaginative man who also would probably never earn further promotion. But not for the same reason, for Morton had no compunction about accepting graft, and was one of the police on the Rotunda’s payroll. He remained a sergeant because even in a corrupt police department there have to be minimum standards of ability.

Oddly, Clancy Ross liked Niles Redfern who would have closed down the club with pleasure if he ever got the opportunity, and had nothing but contempt tor police who accepted payoff.

When the last of the club patrons had been allowed to go home after having their names and addresses recorded by Sergeant Morton, the four men took seats at the bar, Ross and Sam Black in the center, and the two detectives flanking them.

“Drink?” the gambler offered.

Sergeant Morton looked expectant, but his expression faded when the lieutenant shook his head.

“Tell me about this Benny Stoneman,” Redfern said. “How long’s he worked here?”

Clancy Ross’s eyebrows, a startling black in contrast to the uniform silver of his prematurely gray hair, hunched together thoughtfully. He fingered the thin scar which formed the slight cleft in his chin.

“Around a month,” he said finally. “Maybe five weeks.” He looked at Sam Black for confirmation.

“Four weeks and three days,” Black said.

“He was your bookkeeper?” the lieutenant asked Ross.

The gambler nodded.

“How’d he happen to be working so late? Don’t night-club bookkeepers work nine to five just like office bookkeepers?”

“The payroll.” Sam Black answered for Ross. “Tomorrow’s the fifteenth.”

The lieutenant’s gaze shifted to Black. “You were the first one outside after it happened. Sam? And nobody was in sight?”

“Not immediately. A car was just wheeling around the next corner, but it was too dark to catch the number and make. About two minutes later the street was full, though. The shots emptied every building in the neighborhood except ours. I blocked the front door, told the customers to get back to their tables, then put guards on both the front and side doors to make sure nobody left.”

“Quick thinking,” Redfern commended. “Made it a lot easier for us. Ross, where’d this Stoneman come from before you hired him?”

“Chicago.”

“Oh? Know his antecedents?”

“I checked references before I hired him.”

“And?”

“Nothing in his past record suggested he was hot. At the time.”

The lieutenant asked on a rising note, “At the time?”

“He kept books for Big John Quinnel before coming here,” the gambler said briefly.

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. “Quinnel. Isn’t he syndicate stuff?”

“He’s just been indicted for income-tax evasion,” Ross said. “I remember wondering when I read it the other day if Uncle Sam would be dragging my bookkeeper off to Chicago to testify, and leave me in a hole.”

The lieutenant digested this. “You think Quinnel might have had the guy bumped just because he was a potential witness against him in a tax case? Seems a little raw even for the syndicate.”

“What’s this Quinnel look like?” Sam Black asked suddenly.

All three of the others looked at him.

“Why?” Redfern asked. “Think you might have seen him hanging around here?”

Black shrugged. “I wouldn’t know unless you told me what he looked like. I see hundreds of people hanging around here.”

Ross said, “I’ve never met the man.”

The lieutenant shrugged in indication that he hadn’t either, but Sergeant Morton said unexpectedly. “He’s about six-four and weighs around two-fifty. That’s why they call him Big John.”

It was the sergeant’s turn to be looked at.

“He’s staying over at the Park Plaza.” Morton said.

Lieutenant Redfern scowled at his assistant. “He’s actually in town? You’ve seen him?”

“Sure. He’s down here on vacation. Been here all week. Somebody pointed him out to me the other night.”

The lieutenant’s scowl deepened. “It occur to you the department might be interested in learning that a known out-of-town hood is visiting here?”

Morton looked surprised, indicating that it hadn’t. The lieutenant dropped the subject as hopeless.

“Know anything about Stoneman’s private life?” he asked Ross.

The gambler said he knew the man had been married, but had never met his wife. “He did show me her picture. Quite a dish for a guy like Benny. Looked about half his age. They lived over on East Stoyle somewhere.”

He looked at Sam Black, who said, “Seven thirty-four.”

The lieutenant made a note of the address.

“One more thing, Ross,” he said, rising. “Knowing you, I suppose you’ll feel impelled to prove to whoever bumped Stoneman that it’s not healthy to knock off your employees. If you do any prying on your own and learn who gunned Stoneman, I’m warning you right now that the law has first call. Try taking matters into your own hands, and I’ll run you down as fast as I would any killer.”

Ross grinned at him. “When did I ever take the law into my own hands, Lieutenant?”

When the two detectives had departed, Sam Black said, “Now you ready to listen to my report?”

Ross said, “Go ahead.”

“A tall guy about thirty years old came in at eight. Had a brand new sunburn, a missing right earlobe, wore a two-hundred-dollar suit and a gun. He wanted upstairs, but I gave him the brush on general principles. He was looking for somebody, but he didn’t find him. He left just as Benny got off the elevator, and I’m pretty sure he spotted him getting off. He walked out not fifteen seconds ahead of Benny.”

Ross thought this over. “He fit Morton’s description of Big John Quinnel?”

“Not by three inches and sixty pounds. But hoods in Quinnel’s economic bracket don’t do their own gunning, do they?”

“Not likely. Maybe you’d better check up on Quinnel to see if your friend’s one of his gunnies.”

“Not me,” Black said. “I just quit.”

Ross’s eyebrows raised.

“This Quinnel is syndicate stuff,” Black explained. “But you haven’t got any sense. You’ll breeze in and start pushing him around just like you push around local hoods who step on your toes. You’ve got to be independent. You won’t tie in with Bix Lawson so we’d have an army of goons behind us. You’d rather pay three times as much protection and be on your own. Just so you don’t have to take orders from anybody. So what’s it get us? It leaves me and you all alone when the syndicate gets sore and decides to blow up the club. I’ll send you a card from Cuba.”

Ross glanced at his wristwatch. “Ten-thirty,” he said, completely ignoring his assistant’s outburst. “There’s still time to get started tonight. Morton said Quinnel’s staying at the Park Plaza. Get on over there and see what you can dig up.”

It was two a.m. before Sam Black returned from his mission. He found Clancy Ross still awake in the front room of his apartment, which was on the third floor of the club.