“You don’t need to bring it back,” she said. “I hardly use it except on weekends. Carl uses it most of the time, and if you’re working to help Mr. Spred, Carl can walk.”
“Sure, I’ll walk,” he said, slipping a long thin arm around Edith’s shoulders. “Don’t stay angry with me, honey. I’m just as anxious as Mr. Wennick is to help Spred clear himself, if he’s not guilty. I just didn’t want to have you get into serious trouble with the law.” Carl Gail nodded at me. “She’ll feel a lot better if you’ll use the car, Wennick!”
“All right,” I said, to smooth things over. “I’ll use the car and thanks a lot, Edith. I’ll have it back by three o’clock in the morning.”
“You’d better keep it until tomorrow,” she said. “You’ll find taxis hard to get in this city. They don’t cruise around much. You have to find a taxi stand or else telephone.”
“Okay, folks,” I said. “Thanks.”
I walked down the corridor and did a lot of thinking. I was still thinking when I hit the sidewalk. It looked as though Boniface might not get the breaks after all, unless I wanted to stick my own neck out. And that I didn’t feel like doing under the circumstances.
Guns can be traced, and it would never do for me to plant a gun which had a big city background. And I couldn’t afford to take a chance trying to dig up a gun inside of Marlin. I didn’t know the town well enough.
I decided I’d drift down to the address Preston Bode had given me, and get an earful. I was sort of marking time until ten-thirty in the morning.
I eased myself into Edith Forbe’s convertible, turned on the ignition, and moved slowly away from the curb, getting the feel of the car.
I’d gone about two blocks, when the left front tire went ker-thunk, thumpity-thump!
I got out and looked at the flat tire. If there were garages open that would send a man to fix a flat at that time of night, I’d have needed a crystal ball to locate them. I could have walked away and left the car at the curb, but...
I peeled off my coat and started looking around for tools, and when I went to pull out the jack, I saw something that glittered in the reflections of the street light.
I gave a low whistle, took a handkerchief from my pocket so I wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, and picked up the gun. It was a thirty-eight caliber, blue-steel. I broke open the cylinder.
There it was, just like the doctor ordered, two shells fired.
I wanted to do a little thinking, so I climbed into the back seat and sat holding the gun on my handkerchief. I fished out one of the live shells and looked at it. It was a blank! Another surprise awaited me. The other three live shells were ball cartridges.
I examined the manufacturer’s mark on all of the shells and saw that the blank had been made by one company, the ball cartridges by another. As might have been expected, the two discharged shells were of the same make as the live blank.
That made it very simple.
I got out of the car, turned back to face the apartment house, and lifted my hat in a salute of silent respect.
Carl Gail’s girl friend had said he knew the ropes and knew his way around. I’ll say he did! And the beauty of it was, Edith Forbes probably didn’t know anything about it. He’d simply excused himself for an hour or so, gone out and picked up the gun, planted two exploded blank cartridges, one unexploded blank cartridge, and three ball cartridges. He’d put it under the front seat of the car where the tools were, and stuck a tack in the top of the left front tire.
After that, all he needed to do was to see that I took the car. The rest worked out like clockwork. If anyone ever claimed he’d given me the gun, he could deny it under oath with no danger of facing a reprimand for perjury and complicity in planting false evidence and a prison term of four or five years.
I jacked up the car, put the spare on the left front wheel, and drove out to within two blocks of Layton Spred’s house. By this time, I knew the ropes pretty well. I didn’t try to gild the lily in any way.
I stood by the hedge in the alley, picked a likely-looking flower bed, made certain none of my fingerprints were on the gun, and tossed it over.
I returned the car to the curb in front of the apartment house, went to my room, and slept the dreamless sleep of the pure in heart.
In the morning, I found a telephone booth in a large restaurant, and called police headquarters.
I didn’t do anything as crude as suggest to the police they’d find the gun if they looked around Layton Spred’s grounds. I said, “There’s something I think you should know. Cromley Dalton went out to Spred’s place in connection with a payoff. Dalton had one hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks he was going to slip to Layton Spred. If something happened to him and you didn’t find the money, you’d better go back and take another look.”
I slammed the receiver back into place.
I didn’t give a damn who controlled the police force. No cop was going to take a chance that a package containing one hundred thousand dollars in cold cash might fall into the hands of someone who didn’t know what to do with it.
Ten-thirty found me at Preston Bode’s office. His secretary said I was expected, and to go right on in.
When I pushed open the door of the private office, I got a shock. Two men were with Bode. One of them was Carl Gail. The other was a tall fidgety man in the late fifties who looked frightened to death.
Bode said, “Good morning,” to me, and then to the tall man, “Meet Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Wennick. And shake hands with Mr. Gail.”
I shook hands with Mansfield and turned around to face Gail, wondering what he was going to say.
All he did was wrap his cold, thin fingers around my hand, and acknowledge the introduction with a nod.
I sat down and sparred for time while I was getting out a cigarette. I looked across at Preston Bode, but my mind wasn’t where my eyes were. My attention was concentrated on Carl Gail, whom I could still see out of the side of my eye.
Gail wasn’t avoiding me in the least. He seemed no more than just naturally curious.
Bode said, “Gentlemen, Wennick has a proposition to make us.”
“Haven’t you outlined it to them?” I asked.
“Not in detail,” Bode said. “I just touched on the high spots.”
I was seized with a desire to do no more talking than was necessary.
“The high spots,” I said, lighting my cigarette, “are all there is to it. I want slot machines. I could go to the opposition and talk terms. Those terms would be just about the same as they will be after the opposition has been elected to office. You people stand a slim chance of getting in, so I’m talking with you on a ten to one basis. After I get the concession, I’ll do my best to keep you in office.”
“How much?” Preston Bode asked.
“Five percent of the gross take,” I said.
He snorted, “We could get fifty.”
“Five percent is one tenth of fifty percent,” I said. “You’re a ten to one shot.”
Mansfield said in a harsh, treble voice, “We didn’t come here to be insulted.”
Bode turned to him angrily. “The hell you didn’t. I don’t give a damn on the take on the slot machines. The thing that interests me is that Wennick can put us across with the voters. He’s put other mayors in office. He knows his way around with voters. He has some ideas on mob psychology which sound all right to me. He can wrap ideas up in words when he wants to, and the words sound like maple syrup on buttered hot cakes. He understands politics, and we need someone who knows how a political machine should operate.”
“It’s all right by me,” Gail said. “If he can put the ticket across, in the face of the stuff we’ve got to fight, I’d be willing to give him the town.”