Golding said, “They have open seasons on birds some times.”
“Do you make the game laws?”
“I might,” Golding said menacingly.
“Bill!” the woman exclaimed. “Shut up!”
Mason puffed at his cigarette. “Someone declared an open season on Cullens,” he said.
Golding started to say something. The woman screamed at him, “You shut up, Bill Golding. You talk too damn much!”
“Or not enough,” Mason said.
“Well, all he’s going to,” the woman insisted. “You’ve got our story — all of it.”
“That story,” Mason said, “doesn’t hold together.”
“Try and pull it apart,” Golding invited.
Mason said, “You were tipped off Cullens was killed. You decided it’d be fine if he hadn’t been here. You tipped off your employees. You didn’t figure you’d get such prompt action. When I came up and offered to have the homicide squad go through the customers in the place, you knew you were licked. So you decided to admit he’d been here, but swear that was all. You figure no one alive can contradict you.”
“That’s your story,” Golding said. “I’ve told mine and I’m sticking to it. You start pushing me around and I’ll make things hot for you.”
Mason laughed sarcastically and waved his hand in the general direction of the gambling room. “The way you’re organized,” he said, “you couldn’t make anything hot for anybody.”
The woman at Mason’s side leaned closer. “Why don’t you boys get along?” she asked.
“I’m willing to get along,” Mason said, “but I want the low-down.”
“All right, you’ve got it.”
“Were you here when Cullens was here?” Mason inquired, turning toward her.
“No.”
“Who was?”
“I don’t know. Was anyone else here, Billy?” she asked the man behind the desk.
His grin was triumphant. “No one.” he said, “just Cullens on that side of the desk and me on this.”
Mason got to his feet. “Okay,” he said casually, “if that’s the way you feel about it. Remember that you were the last person to see Cullens alive. If Cullens tried to get hard with you and make a squawk which would get you in trouble, there’s some chance you might have followed him and bumped him off.”
Golding’s face became distorted with rage. “If I bumped him off,” he said, “I did it with a six-shooter.”
“Meaning what?” Mason asked.
“Meaning there’d be five more...” The woman started for the desk, her eyes blazing.
Bill Golding’s face suddenly became an expressionless mask. The woman said thickly, “That’s all of it. It won’t do you any good to stick around. The party’s over.”
Mason said, “Rather nice hooch you serve out there, Golding.”
“It wouldn’t have been so good if I’d known who they were getting it for,” Golding snapped.
Mason said, “That line isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
The lawyer marched through the door, picked up Drake in the casino and went down the stairs, and out through the restaurant. “Now what?” Drake asked.
Mason said, “Cullens was here — they’re not talking. Call your office, Paul. Shoot two or three men down here. Sew this place up tight. I want Golding and the woman tailed when they leave, and I want the names of some of the customers who were up there, to use as witnesses.”
Drake said, “Hell, Perry, we can’t go busting into a place like that and ask the people who...”
“Watch the customers as they come out,” Mason said. “Follow them to their automobiles and get the license numbers.”
“They won’t talk,” the detective objected. “Once they get home, they’ll swear they never even heard of the joint.”
“Be your age, Paul,” the lawyer said impatiently. “Pick the prosperous guys who are with the flashy wrens about half their ages. Those birds will do anything to avoid publicity. You get them staked out and I’ll do the questioning. Let them tell me they never heard of the joint, and I’ll read ‘em a riot act.”
Drake said, “Yes, I guess we could do that.”
“Well, get started,” Mason told him. “And, while you’re about it, tell your outfit to look up an Lone Bedford, who’s a friend of Austin Cullens. Get all the dope on her. Have one of your men tell Harry Diggers he’s representing an insurance company and get a written statement out of Diggers. Get an inventory of the stuff that was in that handbag Mrs. Breel was carrying.”
“Okay,” Drake said, “I’ll get started. I can get some operatives who know Bill Golding and Eva Tannis. That’ll release me so I can go back to the office and direct things from there.”
“I’ll watch the place while you telephone,” Mason told him. “Make it snappy.”
Drake nodded and walked to the corner, where he telephoned his office from a cigar store. When he returned, Mason said, “Okay, Paul, I’m on my way. Keep this place sewed up.”
Drake nodded, fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and said, “It’s sewed, Perry.”
Chapter 6
Mason unlocked his car, started to get in, then stopped to stare in frowning concentration at the sidewalk. Abruptly he slammed the car door shut, and walked into an all-night restaurant where he found a telephone. He thumbed through the telephone directory, called a number and said, “I want to talk with Dr. Charles Gifford — tell him Perry Mason’s calling on a matter of the greatest importance.”
He heard steps receding from the telephone. A moment later, Dr. Gifford’s voice said, “Okay, Mason, what is it?”
Mason said, “A woman by the name of Sarah Breel, down at the ambulance receiving station at headquarters, broken leg, possible fracture of the skull, and internal injuries. She’s unconscious. The cops are laying for her. You know how they are. They don’t give a damn about the patient. All they want is information. They’ll start hammering questions at her as soon as she flickers an eyelid. Officially, I don’t appear as attorney, so I can’t enter into the picture. No one’s hired a private physician for her. I’m hiring you. You don’t need to tell anyone who’s paying the bill. Move in with a couple of special nurses. Move her, if she can be moved, to a private room in the best hospital in town. If she can’t be moved, see that she has the best accommodations money can buy. Keep nurses with her every minute of the time. Keep in touch with the nurses. The minute she becomes conscious, I want you on the job.”
“Any particular instructions?” Dr. Gifford asked, in a crisply professional voice.
“I don’t think I need to give any, do I?” Mason asked.
Dr. Gifford said, still in that swiftly efficient voice, “Without having seen her, Mason, I would say that she’s suffering from a nerve shock that as soon as she regains consciousness, it will be imperative to keep her quiet. That she can’t be questioned for several days without seriously jeopardizing her chances of recovery. I’d want her kept absolutely quiet, with no visitors.”
Mason said, “I think you’re a hell of a good doctor... If possible, get red-headed nurses.”
“Why the red-headed nurses?” Dr. Gifford asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Mason said, “only in case the dicks should start getting rough, it’s always nice to have a red-headed nurse on the job. You can’t bully a red-head.”
“I know a couple who’ll do fine,” Dr. Gifford told him. “One of them’s a red-head, the other’s a brunette. They’re competent professionally, and you can’t bully them. You know, Mason, people who are suffering from severe concussions have to be kept very quiet.”
Mason said, “You’re what I’d call a damn good doctor,” and hung up.