The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (68 page)

Brooks came in again, but Ragan stabbed a left into his face, then belted him in the wind. Al stumbled forward and Ragan grabbed a handful of hair and jerked Brooks’s head down to meet his upcoming knee. It was a neat touch, but hard on the features.

The door smashed open and Mark Stigler came in. Casey was right behind him. “Got him?” Stigler asked.

Ragan gestured and Stigler looked. “Man, oh, man! I’ve seen a few, but this!”

“There are the files.” Ragan pointed. “You’ll find the Towne, Chasen, and Upton files there, and a lot of others.” He glanced out the door. “Did you…? I mean, was Angie…? What happened to her?”

“She’s out there. The girl from Keene’s office is with her.”

Angie did not look as lovely as he remembered her. In fact, her eyes were venomous. Her hair was all out of shape and she had a puffed lip.

“What hit you?” Ragan asked.

Marcia smiled pleasantly. “A girl name Mahan. She gave me trouble, so I socked her.”

Angie said nothing. She had double-crossed him and helped to frame Mary Burns, but it was not in him to hate her. “Whatever made you pull a stunt like this?” he asked.

She looked up. “You can’t prove a thing. You can’t blame this on me.”

“Yes, we can, Angie,” he replied gently. “It is all sewed up. You killed Ollie Burns, then smeared him with lipstick. It was Al who called, but you who met him after you got Mary called away. Mary thought you were in trouble, and when she came back and you were gone, she tried to cover for you. She never dreamed you had killed Ollie.

“You took the gun from their home. Al Brooks wouldn’t have had access to it. You would.

“You had a good setup after Al came in with you. You were in it with Bayless or Bradford. You worked with Alice Towne and you wormed the information out of her that she was being blackmailed.

“On one of his vice raids, Al Brooks picked up some information and got hep to what you were doing, and declared himself in. Then he killed Bayless, and you two took over the business. He killed Keene when he caught him in your office after hours, then shot him to make it appear to be suicide.”

“Got it all figured, have you?” Brooks said. “Wait until I get out!”

Stigler just looked at him. “They don’t get out of the gas chamber, Al. We’ve got one of the bullets you put into Bayless. It checks with your gun.”

“The information that led to your arrest of Latko, Al, came from your blackmailing racket. You had a good thing going there.

“We checked some charge accounts of yours, Angie. Your bank accounts, too. We have all the information we need. We know your brother did time with Bayless.”

“My brother?” Her eyes turned wild. “What do you know about him?”

“We picked him up today, and his girlfriend talked. Anyway, we found him with enough guns to outfit an army. He was using the name Valentine Lewis.”

Later, when Al Brooks was being booked, he took a paper cup from the cooler and drank, then compressed the cup and pushed the bottom in with his thumb; an unconscious gesture. Seeing it, Stigler looked over at Ragan.

Marcia was standing beside Ragan. “Joe? Shouldn’t we go see that officer’s wife?”

“All right.”

“She’s a friend of yours, isn’t she?”

“One of the best.”

“Will she like me?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

They drove in silence and then he said, “How about dinner tomorrow night?”

“At my place?”

“I’ll be there.”

There was no moon, but they did not need one. There was a little rain, but they did not mind.

Collect from a Corpse

P
ike Ambler called the department from the Fan Club at ten in the morning, and Lieutenant Wells Ryerson turned it over to Joe Ragan. “Close this one fast,” he said, “and give me an airtight case.”

With Captain Bob Dixon headed for early retirement, Ryerson was acting in charge of the burglary detail. If he made a record, his chance of taking Dixon’s job was good.

Ragan knew the Fan Club. A small club working in the red, it had recently zoomed into popularity because of the dancing of Luretta Pace. Ragan was thinking of that when he arrived at the club with Sam Blythe and young Lew Ryerson. Sam was a veteran, Lew a tall young man with a narrow face and shrewd eyes. He had been only four months in the department.

Sam Blythe glanced at the hole chopped in the ceiling and then at the safe. “An easy one, Joe. Entry through the ceiling, a punch job on the safe, nothing touched but money, and the floor swept clean after the job was finished.” He walked over to the wastebasket and took from it a crumpled wad of crackly paper. “And here’s the potato-chip sack, all earmarks of a Pete Slonski job.”

Ragan rubbed his jaw but did not reply.

“It checks with the
modus operandi
file, and it’s as open and shut as the Smiley case. I’ll call headquarters and have them put out a pickup on Slonski.”

“Take it easy,” Ragan said. “Let’s look this over first.”

“What’s the matter?” Lew Ryerson was like his brother, too impatient to get things done. “Like Sam said, Slonski’s written all over it.”

“Yeah, it does look like it.”

“It is his work. I’m going to call in.”

“It won’t do any good,” Ragan said mildly. “This job would even fool Slonski, but he didn’t do it.”

Sam Blythe was puzzled, Ryerson irritated. “How can you be sure?” Ryerson demanded. “It’s obvious enough to me.”

“This isn’t a Slonski job,” Ragan said, “unless ghosts can crack safes. Pete Slonski was killed last night in Kansas City.”

“What?”
Ryerson was shocked. “How do you know that?”

“It was in the morning paper, and as we have a charge against him, I wired the FBI. They checked the fingerprints. It was Slonski, all right, dead as a herring. And dead for a couple of hours before they found him.”

Blythe scowled. “Then something is funny. I’d have sworn Slonski did this job.”

“So would I,” Ragan said, “and now I am wondering about Smiley. He swears he’s innocent, and if ever I saw a surprised man, it was Smiley when I put the cuffs on him.”

“They all claim to be innocent,” Ryerson said. “That case checked out too well, and you know as well as I do you can identify a crook by his method of operation as by his fingerprints.”

“Like this one?” Ragan asked mildly. “This looks like a Slonski job, but Slonski’s dead and buried.”

“Smiley had a long record,” Blythe said uneasily. “I never placed any faith in his going straight.”

“Neither did I,” Ragan admitted, “but five years and no trouble. He’d bought a home, built up a business, and not even a traffic count against him.”

“On the other hand,” Ryerson said, “he needs money. Maybe he’s just been playing it smart.”

“Crooks aren’t smart,” Ragan objected. “No man who will take a chance on a stretch in the pen is smart. They all make mistakes. They can’t beat their own little habits.”

“Maybe we’ve found a smart one,” Ryerson suggested. “Maybe he used to work with Slonski and made this one look like him for a cover.”

“Slonski worked alone,” Blythe said. “Let’s get some pictures and get on with it.”

Joe Ragan prowled restlessly while Ryerson got his pictures. Turning from the office, he walked out through the empty bar and through the aisles of stacked chairs and tables. Mounting the steps from the street, he entered the studio, from which entry had been gained to the office below.

Either the door had been unlocked with a skeleton key, or the lock had been picked. There was a reception room whose walls were covered by pictures of sirens with shadows in the right places and bare shoulders. In the studio itself, there was a camera, a few reflectors, a backdrop, and assorted props. The hole had been cut through the darkroom floor.

Squatting on his heels, Joe Ragan studied the workmanship. A paper match lay on the floor, and he picked it up. After a glance, he put it in his pocket. The hole would have taken an hour to cut, and as the club closed at two
A.M
. and the personnel left right after, the burglar must have entered between three and five o’clock in the morning.

Hearing footsteps, Ragan turned his head to see a plump and harassed photographer. Andre Gimp fluttered his hands. “Oh, this is awful! Simply awful! Who could have done it?”

“Don’t let it bother you. Look around and see if anything is missing and be careful you don’t forget and walk into that hole.”

Ragan walked to the door and paused, lighting a cigarette. He was a big man, a shade over six feet, with wide, thick shoulders and big hands. His hair was rumpled, but despite his size, there was something surprisingly boyish about him.

Ryerson had borrowed him a few days before from the homicide squad, as Ragan had been the ace man on the burglary detail before being transferred to homicide.

Ragan ran his fingers through his hair and returned to the club. He was remembering the stricken look on Ruth Smiley’s face when he arrested her husband. There had been a feeling then that something was wrong, yet detail for detail, the Smiley job had checked as this one checked with Slonski.

Leaving Lew Ryerson and Sam Blythe to question Ambler, he returned to headquarters. He was scowling thoughtfully when he walked into Wells Ryerson’s office. The lieutenant looked up, his eyes sharp with annoyance.

“Ragan, when will you learn to knock? What do you want?”

“Sorry.” He dropped into a chair. “Are you satisfied with the Smiley case?” Briefly, he explained their discoveries at the Fan Club.

Wells Ryerson waited him out with obvious irritation. “That has nothing to do with Smiley. The man had no alibi. He was seen in the vicinity of the crime within thirty minutes of its occurrence. We know his record, and we know he needs money. The tools that did the job came from his shop. The D.A. is satisfied, and so am I.”

Ragan leaned his thick forearms on the chair arms. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I don’t like it. This job today checks with Slonski, but he’s dead, so where does that leave us with Smiley? Or with Blackie Miller or Ed Chalmers?”

Ryerson’s anger and dislike were evident as he replied. “Ragan, I see what you’re trying to do. You know Dixon is about to retire, and if you can mess up my promotion, you can step up yourself.

“Well, you go back to homicide. We don’t need you or anybody like you. As of this moment, you are off the burglary detail.”

Ragan shrugged. “Sorry you take it this way. I don’t want your job. I asked for the transfer to homicide, but I don’t like to see innocent men go to prison.”

“Innocent?” Ryerson’s tone was thick with contempt. “You talk like a schoolboy! Jack Smiley was in reform school at sixteen and in the pen when he was twenty-four. He was short of cash, and he simply reverted to type. Go peddle your papers in homicide.”

Joe Ragan closed the door behind him, his ears burning. He knew how Ryerson felt, but he could not forget the face of Ruth Smiley or the facts that led to the arrest of her husband. Smiley, Miller, and Chalmers had all been arrested by virtue of information from the M.O. file.

It was noon and lunch time. He hesitated to report to his own chief, Mark Stigler. He was stopping his car before the white house on the side street before he realized it.

Ruth Smiley wore no welcoming smile when she opened the door. He removed his hat, flushing slightly. “Mrs. Smiley, I’d like to ask a few questions if I may. It might help Jack if you answer them.”

There was doubt, but a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Look,” he explained, “something has come up that has me wondering. If the department knew I was here, they wouldn’t like it, as I am off this case, but I’ve a hunch.” He paused, thinking ahead. “We know Jack was near the scene of the crime that night. What was he doing there?”

“We told you, Mr. Ragan. Jack had a call from the Chase Printing Company. He repaired a press of theirs once, and they asked him to come not later than four o’clock, as they had a rush job that must begin the following morning.”

“That was checked, and they said they made no such call.”

“Mr. Ragan, please believe me,” Ruth Smiley pleaded. “I heard him talking. I heard his replies!”

Ragan scowled unhappily. This was no help, but he was determined now. “Don’t raise your hopes,” he said, “but I am working on an angle that may help.”

The Chase Printing Company could offer no assistance. All their presses were working, and they had not called Smiley. Yes, he had repaired a press once, and an excellent job, too. Yes, his card had been found under the door when they opened up.

Of course, the card could have been part of an alibi, but that was one thing that had bothered him all along. “Those guys were crooks,” he muttered, “yet not one of them had an alibi. If they had been working, they would have had iron-clad alibis to prove themselves elsewhere.”

Yet the alternative was a frame-up by someone familiar with their working methods. A call had taken Smiley from his bed to the vicinity of the crime, a crime that resembled his working ways. With the records each man had, there was no way they could escape conviction.

He drove again to the Fan Club. Pike Ambler greeted him. “Still looking? Any leads?”

“A couple.” Ragan studied the man. “How much did you lose?”

“Two grand, three hundred.” His brow furrowed. “I can’t take it, Joe. Luretta hasn’t been paid, and she’ll raise a squawk you’ll hear from here to Flatbush.”

“You mean Luretta Pace? Charlie Vent’s girl?”

Ambler nodded. “She was Vent’s girl before he got himself vented.” He smiled feebly at the pun. “She’s gone from one extreme to the other. Now it’s a cop.”

“She’s dating a cop? Who?”

“Lew Ryerson.” Ambler shrugged. “I don’t blame him. She’s a number, all right.”

Ragan returned to the office, reported in, and completed some routine work. It was late when he finally got to bed.

He awakened with a start, the telephone jangling in his ears. He grabbed it sleepily. “Homicide calling, Joe. Stigler said to give it to you.”

“To me?” Ragan was only half-awake. “Man, I’m off duty.”

“Yeah”—the voice was dry—“but this call’s from the Fan Club. Stigler said you’d want it.”

He was wide awake now. “Who’s dead?”

“Pike Ambler. He was shot just a few minutes ago. Get out there as fast as you can.”

T
WO PATROL CARS
were outside, and a cop was barring the door. Joe had never liked the word “cop,” but he had grown up with it, and it kept slipping back into his thinking. The officer let him pass, and Joe walked back to the office.

Ambler was lying on his face beside the desk, wearing the cheap tux that was his official costume. His face was drained of color now, his blue eyes vacant.

Ragan glanced at the doctor. “How many times was he shot?”

“Three times, and damned good shooting. Right through the heart. Probably a .45.”

“All right.” Ragan glanced up as a man walked in. It was Sam Blythe. “What are you doing here?”

“Prowling. I was talking to the cop on the beat when we heard the shots. We busted in here, and he was lying like that, with the back window open. We went out and looked around but saw nobody, and we heard no car start.”

“Who else was in the club?”

“Nobody. The place closed at two, and the last to leave was that Pace gal. What a set of gams she’s got!”

“All right. Have the boys round ’em all up and get them in here.” He dropped into a chair when the body had been taken away and studied the situation. A little bit of thinking sometimes saved an awful lot of shoe leather. Blythe watched him through lowered lids.

He got up finally, making a minute examination of the room, locating two of the three bullet holes and digging them from the wall with care to add no scratches. They were .45s and he studied them thoughtfully.

“You know,” Blythe suggested suddenly, “somebody could be playing us for suckers, kicking this
modus operandi
stuff around like they are.”

“Could be.” What was Blythe doing there at this hour? He got off at midnight. “Whoever it is has established a new method of operation. All those jobs—Smiley, Chalmers, and Miller—including the burglary here, all between three and five
A.M
. The technique is that of other men, but the working hours are his own.”

“You think those jobs were frames? Ryerson won’t like it.”

Ragan shrugged. “I’d like to see his face when he finds I’m back on this job.”

“You think it’s the same one?” Blythe asked quickly.

“Don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t know. Those were burglaries. This is murder.”

“Sure,” Ragan agreed, “but suppose Ambler suspected somebody otherwise unsuspected? Wouldn’t the crook have a reason for murder?”

A car slowed out front, and then a door slammed open. They heard the click of angry heels, and Luretta Pace swept into the room. Her long, almond-shaped eyes scanned the room, from Blythe to Ragan. “You’ve got a nerve! Getting me out of bed in the middle of the night! Why couldn’t you wait until tomorrow?”

“It
is
tomorrow,” Ragan said. He took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Have one?”

She started to refuse, but something in his amused gray eyes made her resentment flicker out. She turned abruptly, seating herself on the arm of a chair. “All right, ask your questions!”

She had green eyes and auburn hair. Ragan found himself liking it. “First,” he suggested, “tell us about the fight you had with Ambler.”

Luretta stiffened, and the warmth left her face. “Listen! Don’t try to frame me! I won’t stand still for it! I was out of here before he was shot, and you know it!”

“Sure, I know it. And I don’t think you slipped around back and shot him through the window, either.” He smiled at her. “Although you could have done it.”