Bare Trap

by Frank Kane

  “So?”

  Liddell shrugged. “So suppose it wasn’t Glennon after all? Just for the sake of argument, suppose it was Lulu that was working with Yale?”

  “It would be a good break for her if Glennon did bow out.” Devlin nodded. “But on the other hand, Lulu wouldn’t be likely to put a call out for her if she didn’t want her to be found.”

  Liddell looked at the older man searchingly. “I was there when she put the call out, Inspector. She never mentioned the beach place.”

  “Funny.” Devlin tapped loose a thin collar of white ash from the end of his cigar. “Lulu knew Glennon always spent the day after the broadcast at the beach. She had the next day off.”

  “Yet she gave Lieutenant Dana her address here in town, and — ”

  Devlin shrugged. “Maybe it’s better this way, Johnny. Maybe Glennon couldn’t stand up under a long rap.” He jammed the cigar between his teeth savagely. “Maybe it’s better all around like this.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Johnny Liddell sat in the inspector’s office again. He drank listlessly from the paper container of coffee Devlin had provided. “You look a lot happier than the last time I saw you, Inspector,” he said.

  “Why not? We’ve got Yale Stanley and his muscle man in the tank. Some of the boys have been talking it over with them all afternoon. Should be a break pretty soon and we can shake this one out of our hair.”

  “You think you got the kid’s killer, eh?”

  Devlin shrugged. “You say it’s not the guardian and I buy that. Then it’s either Yale or Maxie. Either way it’s washed up.”

  Liddell finished the coffee, tossed the cardboard container at the waste basket. “I’m not so sure, Inspector,” he grunted. “I got a funny feeling about this one. Neither Yale nor Maxie taste right to me.”

  Devlin leaned back, grinned. “Stop trying to poke holes in it, Johnny. It’s all wrapped up.”

  “I don’t have to poke holes in it,” the private detective retorted. “There’s one in it someplace that you can drive a truck through.”

  “Not from where I sit.”

  “You’re wrong, Inspector. There’s a piece that doesn’t fit and I can’t put my finger on it. Something that keeps eluding me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I have the feeling I should know what it is, but I can’t make it stand still long enough.”

  “Well, here’s the folder on the case. All ready for the D.A. as soon as the boys bring in the statements. It fits like one of Lana Turner’s sweaters.” He shoved a Manila folder across the desk to Liddell. “If you can find a hole in it, you’re welcome to it.”

  Liddell reached over, snagged the folder. He ran through pages of typewritten notes, glanced at the pictures and prints taken by Macy and the lab men at the death scene. Suddenly he frowned, shuffled back to the picture.

  “Wait a minute,” he growled. “I think I got it.”

  He laid a picture of the sprawled body of the victim on the desk in front of the inspector. “Take a look at that shot, Inspector. Notice how the kid’s lying — on his face, head away from the door, plugged in the back.”

  Devlin snorted. “Is that a great discovery? Hell, you were there. You found him.” Suddenly, he frowned. “You mean the body was moved?”

  Liddell shook his head. “No, it was there all the time.” He turned the picture around, studied it. “That’s how we found him all right and that’s what’s been bothering me all through this case.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk, nodded. “I got the whole picture now, Inspector. I know who killed Shad Reilly.”

  “So do we. One of those hoods we got in the tank,” Devlin countered, but there was an uncertain note in his voice. “One of them did it. It’s just a question of time until they break.”

  “Call the sitting-room,” Johnny challenged. “See if they’re showing any signs of breaking. I’ll give you odds that your boys are the ones that are getting tired.”

  Inspector Devlin scowled, dialed the number of the interrogation room on the interoffice communicator, mumbled and muttered into the mouthpiece, then glumly tossed it back on its prongs. He shook his head. “No sign of a break yet. They’re old-timers at this game, don’t forget. They’ll break in time.”

  Liddell shook his head. “Yale Stanley will never break, Inspector,” he said. “That kind of a hood has to be slapped in the face with facts, not some detective’s fists.”

  “What would you suggest?” Devlin growled.

  “I’ve got a fourteen-karat hunch on this one. It’ll take me a couple Oí hours to check my facts.” He looked at his watch. “Give me until nine tonight to get what I’m looking for, then you can turn your whole wrecking crew loose on Yale and Maxie.”

  Devlin ran his stubby fingers through his Hair, pondered. “What’s going on behind that dead pan of yours?”

  “I’m not too sure myself. I’m riding a sudden hunch. But I’ll tell you this much. I’d like to have access to Eddie Richards’s personal office and apartment for a couple of hours.”

  “What for?”

  Liddell shrugged. “The less you know about it, the less your conscience will hurt. But if I find that Eddie Richards was lying about one point, or if I find he was telling the truth, I can give you your killer all wrapped up and tied in pink ribbons.”

  “I don’t like it, Johnny. It’s neat enough to suit me now, and — ”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Inspector. A smart lawyer could punch holes in your case against Yale the way it stands right now. But if I find what I think I’ll find, I’ll give you a case that’s bombproof.” He detected signs of weakening in the man behind the desk and pushed his point. “Richards still out?”

  Devlin nodded. “Hospital says he’ll probably pull through, but right now he’s in pretty tough shape.”

  Liddell raised his hands, palms up. “Then there’s no danger of being walked in on. What do you say, Inspector, play with me on this one?”

  The inspector struggled with his official conscience, weighed the chances of conviction with the evidence at hand, lost. “Suppose I say okay? What then?”

  “Then you and I will have a little party with Yale and Maxie and I’ll guarantee to wind it up for you then.”

  Inspector Devlin stared at Liddell, pondered, then nodded. “Okay. A few hours more or less won’t make that much difference.” He leaned forward, rested his arms on the table, glowered at the private detective. “But it better be a rabbit you pull out of that hat and not a lemon!”

  • • •

  It was almost ten after nine when Johnny Liddell walked into the interrogation room at headquarters. As he walked in, Inspector Devlin slammed down the phone he held to his ear. “We were just getting set to call off this party,” he growled. “I was calling your hotel to see whether you’d gotten dredged up somewhere.”

  Johnny Liddell grinned. “It took a little longer than I thought.”

  “Get what you want?”

  The private detective nodded. “Let’s have in the guests of honor.”

  Devlin stared at him, shrugged. “Okay, Liddell. It’s your party. For both our sakes I hope it’s a good one. Yale’s lawyer has been breaking the doors down all evening in an attempt to get at his client.”

  “You haven’t had him twenty-four hours yet. What’s he booked on?”

  “Material witness. But we’d better get a break soon, or one of the Syndicate’s bright boys will pop him out of here and we’ll never lay hands on him again.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  They both turned to watch Yale Stanley and Maxie being pushed into the room by a couple of burly plain-clothes men. The gambler sneered at him, swaggered over to an armchair in the center of the room, dropped into it. “What are you doing, Inspector, charging admission?” He nodded his head at Liddell. “You want to look out for that shamus. He’ll talk you out of your tin badge.”

  “Shut up,” Devlin warned him. “You’ll get your chan
ce to talk. And you’ll talk plenty.” He turned to the two detectives with Maxie. “Put that ape in a chair so we can get this started.” He waited while the man with the splattered face shuffled over, sat down. “Okay, Liddell. This is your party. Start cutting the cake.”

  Liddell nodded, walked over to the desk against the wall, and hoisted one hip on it. “Reason I asked to see you, Yale, is because some new evidence has shown up that changes the whole picture.”

  “The picture may be changed but the frame’s the same.”

  One of the detectives standing alongside Stanley’s chair tapped him none too gently on the shoulder. The gambler flashed him a murderous look, lapsed into sullen silence.

  “You heard Eddie Richards tell me that Shad Reilly didn’t have a cent coming to him, Stanley. If that was true, then Eddie Richards had no reason to kill the kid.”

  Yale Stanley tried to struggle out of his chair, got slammed back by the detective at his side. “I wouldn’t knock him off, him owing me a bundle. You said so yourself.”

  “Shut up, you,” Devlin ordered. “What about Richards, Johnny? Was he leveling? The kid had no dough coming to him?”

  Liddell nodded. “Not a dime. His old man blew every dime he had, except a couple of thousand in insurance. He didn’t miss that turn, Inspector. He drove off that cliff.”

  “Suicide?”

  “It figures. His wife died in a sanitarium; he was flat broke. Most of those pretty boys are ninety-per-cent looks, ten-per-cent guts. So, when things closed in he did the Dutch.”

  Devlin scratched at his head. “Why didn’t Richards say so at the time?”

  “He wanted the insurance for the kid. It was cancelable on suicide. I saw a copy of it.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one. “He probably set up the deception that Wally had left a lot of money to head off any suspicion that it might have been suicide.”

  “Then the fat boy had no motive.” Devlin stared speculatively at Yale Stanley.

  “Neither did I. He owed me important dough and there’s no collection agency been found yet that can collect money off a corpse.”

  “Maybe you wrote it off as advertising. Maybe you figured you weren’t going to get the dough so you’d throw a scare into the other suckers.” Devlin walked over, towered over the gambler. “A rat like you would kill just to satisfy a grudge.”

  “He might.” Liddell nodded. “But there are a couple of other things that leave Yale out.”

  Devlin swung around, glowered at the private detective. “Such as?”

  “The gun. Yale would never use a twenty-five. He’d use a forty-five just like the one he held on me at the canyon place. No, Inspector, I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to hold Yale for murder.”

  Devlin’s face darkened with anger. “What are you doing to me, Liddell? You mean this rat’s going to be able to walk out of here after all?”

  Liddell shrugged. “You’ve still got the extortion and shakedown rap.”

  “You know I could never make it stick without the testimony of the victims. And there’s not a chance in hell of any of them standing up and — ”

  Yale Stanley shook his head. “I’m going to cop a plea on the extortion charge, Inspector.”

  Devlin’s jaw sagged. “Plead guilty? How come?”

  “I hear that some of Yale’s business associates had a meeting at Mendy’s the other night and voted to make a change. They didn’t think Yale was particularly valuable to them any more.”

  Stanley shrank back into his chair, his face sallow. “Like I said, Inspector. I won’t make no trouble. I’ll just cop a plea.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You get one of the boys to write up a confession, and I’ll sign it.”

  “Good.” Devlin wrung his hands in satisfaction. “Now, how about the Reilly kill. Who did that? This full mooner?” He nodded at Maxie.

  Liddell shook his head. “Not with a gun. He’d get a charge out of beating a guy to death with his fists, but he wouldn’t use a gun.”

  Devlin growled deep in his chest. “All theory, Johnny. But the kid is dead. That’s a fact, not theory. Somebody killed him. That’s another fact. I won’t buy that one on Maxie. He’d kill with anything that — ”

  “The kid himself told me that Maxie didn’t do it.”

  The eyes of all the men in the room froze on Liddell. Devlin stalked over to him, his face an angry purple. “Then you’ve been crossing me all the way. The kid wasn’t dead when you got to him, eh?”

  “Oh, he was dead,” Liddell told him imperturbably.

  “Then how could he tell you anything?”

  Liddell rolled his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. “Remember this afternoon when I looked at the picture of the death scene in your file?” he asked. Devlin nodded curtly. “The kid was sprawled out on his face, his feet near the door, heading into the room. He got it in the back.”

  “So?”

  “Why did he go in hiding in the first place?”

  Devlin scowled impatiently. “He was trying to duck these two hoods, and — ”

  “He was scared of them?” Liddell put in.

  “Of course he was scared of them, and — ” The inspector broke off, scowled at Liddell thoughtfully. “I think I see what you mean.”

  Liddell grinned. “I knew you would. No kid that was as scared of anybody as he was of these two would open the door, turn his back on them, and start to lead them toward his room. He would have backed away from them, taken it in the stomach.”

  Yale Stanley pushed off the restraining hands of the detective at his side. “Nice work, shamus. I take back all the things I was thinking about you.”

  Devlin rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, nodded his head in admiration. “It had to be someone he knew and trusted,” he conceded. “So we’re back to Eddie Richards again?”

  “Could be,” Liddell admitted. “But there’s still one little link I haven’t got nailed down. I think I know where I can get it.”

  “Where?”

  “From Eddie Richards’s secretary.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BLOND SECRETARY opened the door in response to Johnny Liddell’s knock. She regarded him coolly. “You said you were coming back, but you didn’t say when,” she reminded him. She looked down to the dressing gown that clung to her revealingly. “I was just going to bed.”

  “Stop pouting, Margy. I’ve had a trying day. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  Margy pursed her lips, considered. “I shouldn’t. I don’t like being taken for granted.” She shrugged, opened the door. “I suppose you’ve got a good excuse.”

  Liddell walked past her, pushed the door shut behind him, and dropped his hat on the foyer table. “Do you think I’d stay away if there wasn’t some good reason?”

  The blonde eluded his encircling arm, walked into the living-room. “What’s the excuse?” She turned, stared at him.

  “We’ve turned up Eddie Richards,” he told her. “Yale Stanley had him out in a cabin in the canyon.”

  “Alive?”

  Liddell shrugged. “That’s a debatable point. He had taken a pretty bad beating. They’re hoping a good night’s rest will do him good.”

  The blonde shook her head, walked over to the window, stared out. “What a filthy town. How about Stanley?”

  “They’re booking him tonight. Him and that muscle-bound playmate of his.” He walked over to the cognac bottle, held it up to the light. “Mind if I take a drink? I can use one.”

  The blonde swung around from the window, nodded. “Will Richards live?”

  Liddell tilted the bottle over two glasses, handed one to the girl. “We’ll know more about that tomorrow. They gave him a pretty bad time.” He turned his head, exhibited a discolored swelling behind his ear. “They didn’t exactly handle me with kid gloves, either.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Liddell walked over to the blonde, slid his arm around her waist. She wore nothing under the silk gown
. “What’s the matter, baby? You’re not very cordial tonight.”

  She looked up into his face, her eyes clouded, a frown on her face. “I’m fed up, Johnny. There’s nothing in this town but hate and violence and envy and everything sordid. I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth for days now, and it won’t go away.”

  Liddell nodded. “It’s been pretty rough. It’s nearly over.”

  Margy slid out of his arms, dropped onto the couch. “I want to get out of all this, Johnny.” She looked around the mean room with distaste. “I guess I could have gone along as long as Richards wanted me to before. But now — ” she shook her head. “I want out.”

  “Where would you go? Chenango County?”

  The blonde shook her head. “I could never go back there.”

  “Where then?”

  Margy shrugged. “Where are you going?”

  “New York.”

  “Would you take me with you?”

  Liddell walked over, dropped down beside her. “Want me to?”

  The blonde nodded. “I forgot they came like you, Liddell. I don’t ever want to have to settle for the things they call men in this town.” She put her hand on his knee. “I’m not trying to take over, Johnny. I’d just be satisfied to be near you. Even if you don’t keep dates.”

  “Let’s talk about it tomorrow, baby.”

  The blonde shrugged. “I’ve been set straight before.” She emptied her glass, set it down on the table. “As long as it wasn’t my girlish charms that brought you knocking down my door, what did you really want?”

  “Some information.”

  “About what?”

  “Lulu Barry.”

  The blonde raised her eyebrows, reached for a cigarette, tapped it on the low table. Liddell leaned over and held a light. “I never met the woman. What would I know about her?”

  “Why did Richards hate her?”

  Margy blew a stream of smoke at him, shrugged. “He was afraid of her. He was afraid of what she might do to Shad in her column.”

  “Why should she want to hate the kid?”