“Charlie Carew, Mr. Rice,” said Patterson. “We found a letter on him from a dame. He’s staying at the Tivoli Arms Hotel. It’s a dive. We’ve got enough to hold him.” He pointed to a small metal case on the table. “Hypo outfit and morphine,”
Stan shook his head sadly. “That’s too bad. They tell me these hopheads suffer when you cut out their dope. Maybe we can do something for the poor fellow. Did Caprilli send you gunning for me, Charlie?”
“Go to hell! You’ve got nothing on me. I don’t know what you’re talking about—and I never heard of this guy Caprilli.” Carew’s mouth twitched nervously at one corner. “I’ve got a user’s permit from a doctor. You better let me go.”
“Tough egg,” said Hogue. “The Captain likes ’em that way. He’s peeved about Caprilli coming back to Miami anyhow.”
The door of the room opened to admit Millie. She was carrying the silver bucket of ice containing the bottle of Château d’Yquem. “Is she with you?” Hogue asked Stan.
Stan nodded. “Pour us some wine, Millie. Glasses are there on the sideboard. I’m thirsty. Did you ever hear of Charlie Carew?”
Millie took the bottle from the ice and arranged four glasses in a row on the sideboard. She filled them carefully almost to the brim. “Help yourself, boys. It’s delicious—and only eight bucks a bottle. I just ordered another—so there’s plenty to go around. So you picked up Sniffer Carew?”
“You know him?” asked Patterson.
She-walked abound in front of the man in the chair and slowly sipped her wine. He shifted his gaze, toying at his upper lip with discolored teeth. “Now think of you being picked up by the cops in a hick town like Miami, Sniffer.” Millie’s violet eyes suddenly blazed with hatred. “Do you remember what happened to Leila Covington? Even Zorrio got after you for that—didn’t he?” She whirled around on Stan. “This skunk tortured a girl to death in Chicago five years ago. They lynch such lice down here, don’t they?”
Stan took his glass of wine and drained it. The two detectives came up and stood ominously silent, one on each side of Carew’s chair.
“Where’s the girl who was with him?” Stan asked.
“I turned her over to the men in the radio car you called. They’ve taken her to headquarters.”
“Good!” Stan pushed back his hair with a slightly dramatic gesture. “I don’t think Mr. Carew will ever see the inside of a jail in this town. We’re sworn to protect a prisoner from mobs and violence—but we’re not sworn to keep snakes alive. What about it?”
“That goes for me,” Patterson agreed. Hogue nodded with him. “What’s your idea, Mr. Rice?”
Stan refilled his glass, and tossed it off. “Lock the door,” he ordered Hogue. “Now we’ll wait. I’m just drunk enough to think straight. We’ll send out a story to the mobs that will clean them out of Miami for ever and a day. All my life I’ve wanted to get hold of a woman torturer! That’s the lowest type of son-of-a-bitch in the world.”
He pulled a chair closer to Sniffer Carew, and grinned so evilly that Milly breathed: “Christ!” and placed a hand to her breast. “We’ll wait,” Stan continued, looking through the twitching figure in the chair. “We’ll wait until the pleasurable sensations of your dope drugged brain are entirely gone—until the crowd has all gone home and this place is dark and deserted. Then we’ll show you how dogs die in the south—for you’re nothing but a stinking dog. You’ll have the unique pleasure of Sniffer Carew, the torturer, watching the slow disappearance and assimilation of Sniffer Carew, the dog.”
Blank, terrifying silence enveloped the room as he stopped speaking. The breathing of the occupants grew and increased like far off heralds of a coming storm. Carew tore a fingernail to the quick, and whimpered at the spot of blood. Downstairs the orchestra of Tennessee Johnson moaned and blared with the blues.
“It’s madness,” whispered Detective Hogue, and crossed himself.
“That’s it,” Carew screamed. “He’s mad—crazy! Get me out of here—get me out of here—” He wilted down in the chair under the look in Sian’s eyes, drooling at the mouth.
“Certainly I’m mad, Carew, quite mad—but maybe for the first time I’m sane. I’ve seen with opened eyes the proper fate for your kind. With a sharp cleaver from the kitchen—I’m going to cut you up, Carew. A finger at a time—a toe at a time—a wrist at a time—! I’ll nurse you tenderly so you can keep alive and watch—”
“You can’t! You can’t, Stan!” Millie was openly sobbing.
“Oh yes I can,” Stan contradicted flatly. “While the dog looks on and remembers—piece by piece—joint by joint—I’m going to feed him to Jake!”
Chapter XXI
Midnight had come and gone, and Stan had spent twenty minutes telephoning various select gambling clubs, before the Buick left the Alligator Inn. Detective Patterson was at the wheel, for Stan had blithely admitted he was in better condition to fly, than to attempt the intricate task of driving. Millie, fitted snugly in between Stan and the detective, was clutching a badly depleted fourth bottle of wine. In the police car, following the Buick, Detective Hogue was silently cursing their breakneck speed through the rain.
With sirens wide open they crossed the Venetian Way to Miami Beach, and headed north until the lights of Deauville Casino, and the Surf Club lay behind them.
“The Gulf Club’s about two miles ahead on the right, Pat.”
Detective Patterson grunted, “I’ll cut the siren.” He did so, and signaled Hogue, behind them, to do the same, by turning the tail light off and on.
“You needn’t have bothered.” Millie’s voice sounded loud in the ensuing silence. “They’d have thought we were visiting Mayors and welcomed us with a
