“Aw, what’re we getting sore about? We’re supposed to be helping Jake, ain’t that right?”
“That’s how I got into this.”
“So siddown. Siddown.” He waved an arm like a ham. “Let’s cut out this foolish talk. And pick up that dough. Jake trusts you, O.K. I trust you. Now, spill it.”
I hesitated. Then I picked up the money again, weighing it in my hand.
“I mentioned conditions.”
“I don’t guarantee nothing. But let’s hear ‘em.”
“First, you have to hear me out, and not lose your temper.”
“Sounds fair. It’s too hot, anyway. What else?”
“If you get any ideas from what I say, anything that sounds it might lead somewhere, you keep those gorillas on a leash. I don’t want their big fists fouling up my investigation.”
“H’m. That’s a tough one. I mean, if all we gotta do is break a few heads, why don’t we get on with it?”
I sat back down again, tossing the bills from one hand to the other.
“I’ll tell you why. Because I have a feeling about all this. I have a feeling there’s more to it than a straightforward murder and robbery. There could be plenty behind this. Now you’ve been around, Charlie. What happens if everybody jumps on the front man, the one who makes the contact?”
He concentrated his mighty brain power on that one.
“Why that’d be stoopid. All the big men, the ones who put the fall guy to work, they all do a fast fade.”
“Right,” I nodded approvingly. “And in this case, that isn’t even all. In this case, we might never even get to know who the big guys are.”
“Sure. I get that. That makes sense. But who says there’s any big guys? I never heard of nobody who was anybody knocking off punks for a lousy eight grand?”
“That’s what makes me think there’s more behind it. Now, you promised to keep your temper?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said tetchily. “Get to it.”
“It’s about Jake. Your brother has been making book around this village for years. He’s a big operator, he’s tough and he’s smart.”
“So?”
“The dead man, this Brookman, he owed Jake money. Did you ever hear of a guy named Legs McCann?”
He was very interested now.
“Hear of him? Why, I been tearing this town apart looking for him.”
“We’ll get back to that. About a month ago, Jake sent McCann to give Brookman the hard word. The guy owed Jake three grand.”
“Three? Jake said it was eight——”
“I know what Jake said. But he was talking about now, this week. McCann leaned on Brookman a month ago. Think what usually happens. The guy gets warned. He has two days, three, maybe a week to get the money up. Right?”
“Sure, but I don’t get it. If it was three g’s a month ago, how could it be eight now?”
I was glad to see the point was getting across.
“Exactly. Jake is no fool, he knows the score. If a guy’s credit is up to three, he isn’t going to let him run up a tab of eight thousand dollars. You don’t get to where Jake Martello is today making dumb plays like that.”
Charlie shook his head from side to side, pondering. With one of the huge hands he wiped sweat from his face and rubbed it on his shirt.
“It don’t make no sense,” he muttered. “No sense at all. How d’ya figure it?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “To me it doesn’t make any sense either.”
“Well, I’ll tell you something,” he breathed. “This here McCann has some talking to do. I figure he probably pulled this himself. He knew the guy owed Jake money. Yeah, I’d sure like a nice quiet little talk with McCann. He ain’t hiding out for nothing, you know.”
“I do know,” I agreed. “He’s hiding because of exactly what you’re thinking. He’s afraid Jake will think just what you’re thinking. The guy’s scared.”
“Nah,” he pooh-poohed. “He’s probably down in Miami or like that with Jake’s roll in his pocket. I got people down there watching out for him. These cheapskates are all the same. Get a stake and blow it. We’ll pick him up, you see.”
“This is where you don’t have to get sore,” I reminded. “McCann is right here in town. I talked with him today.”
“Where is he?” demanded Martello.
“I can’t tell you that. But he didn’t do this. If he had, he’d have done what you say. He’d know Jake would never rest till he picked him up, and all he’d be thinking about would be how many miles he could get between himself and Monkton City before Jake came looking.”
“Maybe he’s smart. Figures to stick around and bluff it out.”
“Smarter than that. He’s going to stay in his hole until somebody finds out who really did kill Brookman.”
Charlie breathed heavily and looked at me in exasperation.
“You’re smart, I’ll say that. All right, I won’t lose my temper. Not for about an hour. Tell me about the other thing.”
“Other thing?”
“Sure. You said you had a feeling this was a big operation. Why?”
“Because if it’s any more than a straight robbery and murder, there has to be something else.”
“Nah. Who’d wanta kill a punk like that? The guy was nowhere.”
“Not quite. I know at least one person who wanted him dead for personal reasons. There could be others, many others. Because the nowhere punk, as you call him, was a blackmail artist.”
I watched the differing expressions come and go on his face.
“Blackmail?” he repeated. “You’re sure?”
“I talked to one of his victims, a woman. She’s been paying regularly for some time, you know how those creeps are. Once they find out how easy it is, they look around for more suckers. Everybody has something to hide. What I’m trying to find out now is, who else was on Brookman’s list.”
“I see what you mean. Cheez, this is terrible. Here’s us looking for some stick-up artist. That’s tough enough, but there ain’t so many of them around. But blackmail. That could be anybody in town. Some ordinary joe, a clerk, a doctor, maybe this dame you
