Mink Is for a Minx

by editor Leo Margulies

  She nodded and led him to an unoccupied table between the bar and the wall. One of the bartenders bustled over and he ordered another bourbon and water. She shook her head at the bartender, meaning she didn’t want a drink and this guy wasn’t a mark to be taken.

  She took his hand in both of hers. “So, Eegan, wot I do for you?”

  “Take a look. Any of ’em ring a bell?” He handed her the four photos, and made sure she saw the folded ten between his fingers.

  She looked carefully at the pictures. Three of them she turned down with a shake of the head, but the fourth she studied intently. Then she smiled and deftly plucked the bill from between his fingers.

  “Thass heem,” she said. “Thass Pete.”

  “Pete who?”

  “Pete I don’t know who. Zey jus’ call heem Pete.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Hees buddies. Two of zem. Zey come here many time for oh, ’bout eight months.”

  “Catch any other names?”

  “Lemee theenk. Wan zey call Frank. Zat all I hear.”

  “Are they heeled?”

  She nodded. “Oh, good! Zey buy wheesky, teep big. Five dollah, wan time I treenk wiz zem.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  She shrugged. “Ball game, horses—I don’t remember.”

  “Anything about jewelry?”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Joolry? No, I don’ theenk—”

  “Haydee, the next time they come in, try to get their names and addresses. It’ll be worth fifty.”

  “Feefty dollah? Oh, I try hard, Eegan!”

  “So long, Haydee. You’re a good kid.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  She giggled and said: “Not like zat, Eegan. Like zis.” She kissed him on the lips, her full mouth working sensuously against his.

  “Very nice,” he said. “Thanks, Haydee. And don’t forget those names and addresses.”

  Well, it wasn’t much to show for a night’s work, but it was something. Binky Byers, the fat hoodlum tentatively identified by Feldman as one of his assailants, was still in town, was hanging around The Block with two pals, and was calling himself Pete.

  Wearily he headed the black Chevie towards his apartment on Calvert Street.

  4.

  Two nights later Egan had dinner at Muriel’s. Afterwards they made a fire, threw some pillows on the floor in front of the fireplace, and lay there, sipping brandy and listening to the hi-fi. It was cozy and warm, and so was Muriel, but at 11:25, just as their kisses were beginning to take on a new meaning, the phone rang.

  “Let it ring,” he groaned.

  “Damn! I’d like to.” But she got up and answered it Then she held it out to him. “It’s for you.”

  It couldn’t be anybody but Mike Casey, because nobody but Mike knew that he could be reached at this number.

  Casey rasped: “Phil? They’ve dropped an atom bomb on us. Just blew the safe in the Lord Calvert Hotel Jewel and Fur Shop and grabbed one hundred eighty thousand dollars worth of ice. Didn’t touch the furs. Get down here right away.”

  The black Chevie streaked downtown to the Lord Calvert Hotel in six minutes.

  The Jewel and Fur Shop was on the mezzanine floor of the big hotel, overlooking the ornate lobby, but set well back from it. There were several other shops, a travel bureau, and the hotel’s business offices there, and after the close of the business day the mezzanine was usually quite deserted. It was reached either by elevator or by a broad staircase from the lobby.

  Phil Egan bounded up the stairs. There were two policemen outside the Jewel and Fur Shop. Inside were Mike Casey and two detectives, the manager of the hotel, and a Mr. Birnbaum, who managed the shop. There were wisps of acrid blue smoke still floating around, and the sharp odor of acetylene gas. The door of the safe was open, and there was a round hole about a foot in diameter where the lock had been.

  “Hello, Mike,” Egan said. “How’d they get in?” He added in an aside: “As if I didn’t know.”

  “Like always,” grated Casey. “They unlocked the door with a key and walked in.”

  “Anybody see them?”

  “Maintenance man in the basement saw three guys in overalls go up in the self-service freight elevator about quarter of eleven. One of them was carrying a big canvas bag, like a laundry bag. They must have got off at the mezzanine, opened the door with a key, cut the lock out of the safe with the acetylene, grabbed the ice, and left the same way they came.”

  “Anybody see them go out?” Egan asked.

  “No. At least, we haven’t turned up anybody yet.”

  “Hm. In that canvas bag they must have had one of those baby tanks of acetylene—the kind you carry in your arms—and a blowtorch. They knew when the night watchman rang in from the mezzanine and timed it just right. They opened the door with a key, cut the lock out of the safe with the acetylene, grabbed the ice, shoved it into the bag with the acetylene tank, and left the same way they came, by the freight elevator.”

  “Yeah,” said Casey. “And acetylene gas, which brings a heat of sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit to the point of contact, can cut through steel like a sharp knife through a tender steak—as every damned crook knows.”

  One of the detectives came over to them. “This might be something.” He handed Phil Egan a small metal gauge. “We found it under a chair.”

  Egan examined it curiously and stuck it in his topcoat pocket. “Anything else?”

  “That’s all,” said the detective.

  Egan spent the next day interrogating employees of the hotel and the Jewel and Fur Shop. There were two of the latter, a woman in her fifties and a man in his sixties. Both had been with the shop for more than ten years, both were bonded, both had airtight alibis, as did Birnbaum himself. Their keys, they swore, had not left their possession.

  Egan had been hoping for some evidence of an inside job, but there was none. How the hell were they getting the keys? The police lab could uncover no trace of wax around the lock on the shop’s door. No identifiable fingerprints, either—outside of those of Birnbaum and the two employees.

  The interrogation of the hotel employees turned up only one interesting item—the maintenance man who had seen the three thieves get in the freight elevator made a fairly positive identification of a mug shot of Binky Byers as one of the three.

  Binky, who was currently throwing money around The Block, was now tentatively linked to the last two jewelry heists.

  Three nights later Phil Egan prowled The Block again. Most of the people hadn’t heard anything, but when he came into the Three O’Clock Club, Haydee Melendez left the man she was drinking with at the bar and nodded towards a table in a dark corner.

  “’Allo Eegan,” she said. “Zat Peet—he’s here last night wiz same two pals. Me, two uzzer girls, we treenk wiz zem. Zey ask us come up zair place for party after club close. I zay ‘Who the hell are you an’ ware you place?’ Zey zay: ‘You’ll come up?’ We zay sure, we like party mucho. Zo Pete, he write down names and ware place is. I got paper in dressing room. Wait, I get.” She bounced up.

  Phil Egan sighed and ordered a bourbon and water. His hands were a little shaky. The unsolved jewelry heists were getting on his nerves, what with the newspapers demanding a shakeup in the Police Department and Mike Casey breathing hotly down his back. And now maybe the first small crack in the case was beginning to open up.

  Haydee came back and handed him a piece of paper. On it in pencil was scrawled: Pete Byers, Maury Mahaffey, Frank Visconti—674 Preston Street, Apartment 3B.

  Egan smiled and said: “Good girl, Haydee. Have a drink—a real one?”

  “No, I got go back to heem.” She nodded in the direction of the man at the bar. “Ware my feefty dollah, Eegan?”

  He handed her two twenties and a ten. “How was the party?” he asked.

  She laughed. “You don’ theenk we go, do you? ’Bye Eegan.”

  6.

  The next time Egan ate at Muriel’s, s
he asked him, as they sipped their pre-dinner martinis: “Why don’t you arrest those three punks you’re cat-and-mousing up there on Preston Street? After all, you can connect them to the last two robberies.”

  He shook his head. “They’re connected, but just barely so. I want that gang’s brains, not just its muscle. They’re getting ready to hit again, and when they do we’ll be waiting for them.”

  “It’s none of my business,” she said, “but aren’t you overlooking one important angle?”

  “All the angles I can overlook from here are pretty good.”

  “Lecher!” She drew her housecoat tighter. “No, seriously, Phil, your locksmith is obviously the brains of the outfit. He had to learn locksmithing somewhere, didn’t he?”

  He said thoughtfully: “It isn’t something you just pick up.”

  “Where do they teach it?” she asked.

  “Trade schools, YMCA courses, night schools. Places like that.”

  “You said the gang was local, so chances are your brain studied locksmithing here. The schools probably keep records of their graduates. Go through the records and check out any that look interesting.”

  “That is an angle that would bear investigating,” he said “And that’s a curve that would also—”

  She laughed and drew away from him. “Oh, cut it out. I’m serious. Hurry up and catch those jewel thieves so we can start having fun again.”

  What she had said about the locksmith started him thinking, though. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, but even a 1000-to-1 shot looked like good odds in this case.

  The next morning he called in Detective Sergeant Terence Clancy. “Check out all the trade schools, the YMCAs, the night schools, and any other places you can think of that might teach locksmithing. Go back ten years and list all their graduates, what they’re doing now, and where.”

  Clancy groaned. “Hell, Phil, there are eighteen public trade schools alone in town. I know, because I had to check them once before. This’ll take to Christmas at least.”

  “Take two men to help you. And hurry it up!”

  Clancy groaned loudly and went out, but Egan knew he’d get the list in a couple of days. Clancy was a griper, but a good man.

  From the stakeout on Preston Street he learned that Byers, Mahaffey, and Visconti had two visitors practically every night. One was a tall, thin man of about thirty who wore horn-rimmed glasses and drove a sporty little red Italian sports car. The other was a man of medium height, stocky, who arrived in a blue panel truck marked “Elite Bakery, 3714 Harford Road.” The license plate on the sports car was Maryland 292-861; that on the panel truck was Maryland 728-592.

  He called the Motor Vehicle Department. “This is Lieutenant Egan, Police Department. Will you check out these license plates for me? Maryland 292-861, and Maryland 728-592.”

  The girl on the other end said; “Just a minute, Lieutenant.” Then, after a long pause: “Here they are, Lieutenant. Maryland 292-861 is a Fiat sports car and it is registered in the name of Mrs. Stuart R. Heisman, 1821 Belair Road. Maryland 728-592 is a Ford panel truck registered in the name of Harold J. O’Konski, 3714 Harford Road.”

  “Thank you, honey,” said Egan.

  The next thing to do was to find out as much as possible about the men who drove to the nightly rendezvous with Byers, Mahaffey, and Visconti.

  He had traffic cops stop both men to look at driver’s licenses and ask routine questions. Thus he learned that the driver of the sports car was Stuart R. Heisman, out of the army about a year, married, no children, worked as a pharmacist at the Belair Drug Store near his home on Belair road. He answered questions easily, was self-possessed, and seemed all right.

  The Ford panel truck was driven by Harold J. O’Konski, 31, also out of the army about a year, married, no children. He and his wife ran the Elite Bakery on Harford Road. They lived over the bakery, and O’Konski used the truck to deliver pies, cakes, and other baked goods to restaurants in the northeast Baltimore area. He was laconic, maybe even a bit surly, but he, too, seemed all right.

  But a pharmacist and a baker as the brains of a gang that included simple thugs like Byers, Visconti, and Mahaffey? It didn’t add up.

  Then, suddenly, everything began to fall into place, as it usually does when the police have done their homework well. A routine check with Identification disclosed that while Heisman was completely clean, O’Konski had been picked up leaving the scene of a crime at a shopping center not far from his bakery and home.

  A sporting goods store had been held up about a week before, by four men wearing stocking masks. But O’Konski claimed that he had merely been delivering pies to a restaurant in the shopping center and had tried to speed away when he heard the police sirens, not wanting to get mixed up in anything. They didn’t really have anything on him, and he had been released with a reprimand.

  Of course Egan had heard about the hold-up of the sporting goods store, but it was Burglary’s case, not his, and he hadn’t paid too much attention. But with the discovery that O’Konski had been at the scene of the crime, he was all ears. What had been taken from the sporting goods store, he asked Identification.

  Five Colt .38 revolvers and about a hundred rounds of ammunition, Identification reported. No money! Only the guns and ammo. The hold-up men had ignored $138.60 in the till.

  The M.O. had been the same as in the hold-up of the Texaco station in Towson. The thieves had ignored everything except what they needed for their next job. And, if their previous M.O. meant anything, that next job must be close at hand.

  Two days later the complaining Clancy brought in his list of all the locksmiths graduated from trade, YMCA, and night schools during the past ten years. First, Egan had a secretary pick out of it—with the cooperation of Identification—any locksmiths with known criminal records. There were five. One had recently died, two were back in prison, one had spent the last two months in Johns Hopkins Hospital, and one was now a bartender on The Block with an airtight alibi. Nothing there.

  Next, he had her pick out all the trained locksmiths who were now engaged in another profession, or were unemployed. There were 247 names on this list.

  And, about a third of the way down the list, was paydirt. It read: Heisman, Stuart R. Graduated Ensor Street Commercial and Trade School, June, 1958. U.S. Army, 1958-1961. Present address: 1821 Belair Road. Present occupation: Pharmacist, Belair Drug Store, 1647 Belair Road.

  Egan went down the police garage, picked up the black Chevie, and drove out to the Ensor Street Commercial and Trade School. The principal there turned out to be a white-haired old gentleman named Brierly, who had occupied his position for twenty-one years.

  “I remember Stuart Heisman very well,” he told Egan. “Quiet, studious boy, with an inventive mind. I remember one thing he put together while he was here. He could have patented it, it was that good.”

  “What was that, sir.”

  “A key-maker. It was a boxlike thing. It would probe any lock with a very slender gauge and then record the depth of the tumblers, the spring tensions, and all the rest. Then you fed in a piece of metal, turned a dial to the proper setting, and out dropped your new key. I wonder if he ever did anything with it?”

  “Well,” said Egan guardedly, “I don’t know, but I think he did.”

  Old Mr. Brierly said: “If you could get hold of his friend—they roomed together at the YMCA on Franklin Street while they were in school here—he could tell you more about Heisman. They were inseparable. Went into the army together, as a matter of fact. Oh, what was his name?”

  “Was he a locksmith, too?”

  “No. He studied welding—acetylene gas welding. Pretty good at it, too.”

  “Could it have been O’Konski, sir?”

  “That’s it—Harold O’Konski. You know him?”

  “A little. Well, thank you, Mr. Brierly. You’ve been very helpful.” Egan rose to go.

  The old man said: “I hope Stuart isn’t in any trouble.”


  “We don’t know yet. Goodbye, Mr. Brierly.”

  8.

  At the corner of 33rd Street and York Road there was an all-night diner. The Plymouth parked in front of it and Byers, Mahaffey, and Visconti went in and ordered coffee. Egan parked the Chevie across the street from the diner, and awaited developments. He saw the tan Buick parked about a block back, too far to be identified from the diner.

  About five minutes later O’Konski’s Elite Bakery truck appeared, parked behind Byers’ Plymouth, and O’Konski went into the diner. A Chesapeake Telephone Company repair truck passed the diner, turned into a side street, and parked.

  Egan breathed a sigh of relief. He picked up the walkie-talkie. “Nice going, phone company. The pigeons are roosting. One more to come. Over and out.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. The Mercury appeared, coming slowly up 33rd street, made the York Road turn, and parked. Heisman went into the diner.

  It was exactly 4:15 a.m.

  Five minutes later Heisman, O’Konski, Byers, Mahaffey, and Visconti emerged from the diner and headed for their respective cars.

  Egan grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Same M.O. as before. Take the same car, and for God’s sake don’t lose it!”

  The three gang cars all turned into York Road and proceeded slowly south, towards the downtown area, followed at a distance of two blocks by the three police vehicles.

  At North Avenue each of the three gang cars suddenly bolted in a different direction. Heisman gunned the Mercury west on North Avenue; O’Konski shot off east towards Harford Road; Byers went straight south on York Road, which at this point became Greenmount Avenue.

  Heisman slowed again, then speeded up, turned left on St. Paul Street, and headed downtown. Egan, a block behind, clung to him like a used car dealer to a sweepstakes winner.

  The walkie-talkie clicked. Lou Grissom said mournfully: “Sorry, Phil, we lost ours. The Plymouth shook us. It turned east on Biddle Street. A trailer-truck got between us and when we passed it the Plymouth was gone.”