Her eyes widened. “How do you know Stella Graves isn’t?”
“Intuition. Let’s stop sparring. I really have to know something about you before I can risk putting you on upstairs.”
For a few moments she studied his face. Finally she said, “My first name is really Stella. There’s a reason I can’t use my true last name, but it isn’t because I’ve done anything wrong. I’m not wanted by the police anywhere.”
“You hardly impressed me as a criminal type. But you’re running from something, and I’d have to know a little about it before I could put you on.”
“Will you accept my word if I swear it’s the truth, and not insist on writing references so that people would know where I am?”
He shrugged. “I’m a gambler. Besides, you haven’t lied very effectively so far. I think I’ll know if you’re telling the truth.”
“All right,” she said. “I’m trying to avoid being found by someone, but if I am, I can guarantee he won’t want newspaper publicity any more than you do. I’ll also guarantee that if he appears, I’ll quietly move on without being a bother to you.”
“A persistent suitor?” the gambler hazarded.
She shook her head. “Something else, I can’t tell you any more than I have, so if that’s not enough, I’ll have to look for work somewhere else.”
Clancy Ross smiled. “I guess I’ll take a chance. This is the present cloakroom girl’s last night, because she gets married in the morning. She’s marrying one of my richest patrons, and after she gets him, she’ll probably object to his gambling. You couldn’t cause me any more trouble than that. Be here at four p.m. tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said with a smile of relief.
CHAPTER IV
THE CASINO was crowded, Clancy Ross noted as he looked over the house from the archway between the foyer and the gaming room. Both dice tables were ringed, the roulette wheel had people waiting for seats, and all the blackjack tables were getting play. All but a few of the slot machines edging the walls were whirring satisfyingly.
Glancing over his shoulder, he threw a smile at the girl behind the cloakroom counter. “How are you getting on, Stella?”
“Fine, Mr. Ross. I’ve had so many invitations to go out during the past week I feel like the belle of the ball.”
“Accepted any?”
She made a face. “I think they were all married. With only one night a week off, I’ll wait for someone unattached to ask me.”
The house phone, in a circular niche next to the cloakroom, emitted a discreet buzz. Leaning across her counter, Stella reached around to answer it.
“For you,” she said to Ross.
Moving over to take the phone from her hand, he said, “Ross speaking.”
“This is Sam, Clancy,” the voice of the downstairs manager said in his ear. “Bix Lawson is here with a couple of guys and wants in the casino. Says it’s just a social visit.”
Ross was silent for a moment. Bix Lawson was political boss and racket czar of St. Stephen. With one exception no gambler, bookmaker, numbers operator or other type of racketeer could operate in the city without Lawson’s approval. Clancy Ross was the exception, and he maintained his independence partly by paying larger protection fees to various public officials than he would have had to as a member of the Lawson organization, and partly through sheer brass.
Lawson’s past attempts to force Ross into the machine had met with such violent resistance, the racketeer-politician finally realized that nothing short of a major gang war would bring the gambler into line. Since he feared this might bring on a reform movement which would wreck his machine, he didn’t care to risk it.
Actually Ross was a thorn in his side only as an example to others who might get independent ideas, for Ross made a careful point of not treading on Bix Lawson’s toes so long as he was left alone. Though the two were not exactly unfriendly, a sort of armed truce existed between them. It was not usual for the political boss to come calling socially.
Ross asked, “Who’s with him?”
“Some out-of-town visitor Bix says is a friend of his, and that dull-witted bodyguard who always trails Bix around.”
“Let them come on up,” the gambler decided.
Ross personally met the unexpected guests at the elevator. Bix Lawson was a huge, wide-shouldered man whose muscular frame was marred by a round little potbelly. Kinky black hair, cut close to his oversized head, gave him the appearance of wearing a black knit skullcap; and ropelike eyebrows set in a straight line over a large, hooked nose gave him a faintly piratical look.
Lawson’s bodyguard was a long-limbed, big-knuckled Pole with an expression even duller than the one Sam Black simulated when he wanted to pretend inability to understand a question. Only in Vince Krzal’s case it wasn’t an act.
The third man was tall and thin and lacked any facial expression whatever. The moment he spotted him, the hair at the base of Ross’ neck bristled like that of one fighting dog meeting another, the gambler’s instinctive reaction to meeting a killer. For he could tell at a glance by a kind of deadness in the man’s eyes that here was a professional gun who killed casually and without emotion.
Nothing in Ross’ face gave away his instant dislike of the man, however. When Bix Lawson thrust out his hand and said, “How are you, Clancy, old boy?” the gambler clasped it affably, gave Vince Krzal a friendly nod and threw a smile of greeting at the stranger.
“Meet Ed Lowry from Detroit,” Lawson said. “Ed, this is Clancy Ross, the Rotunda’s owner.”
The thin man extended a hand with the reluctance of one who doesn’t like to have his right hand immobilized even momentarily. On a pixie impulse Ross clasped it warmly and shook it several times, at the same time thrusting his left hand into the side pocket of his coat. The thin man’s gaze instantly jumped to the pocket and stayed there uneasily until Ross finally released his hand and brought his left hand from his pocket again.
“You can drop your hats at the cloakroom over there,” Ross said, nodding in Stella’s direction. Then he indicated the small archway to the right of the elevator. “There’s a bar where we serve free drinks, or, if you prefer, just give your orders to one of the cocktail girls circulating in the gaming room. You’ll find that straight ahead. We also have a couple of poker games going in private rooms, if you want real stakes. Just make yourselves at home.”
“Thanks,” Bix Lawson said. “We’ll just wander around and see what’s going on, if you don’t mind.”
“Help yourselves.”
He watched as the three men moved on in the direction of the cloakroom. Then his eyes narrowed as he saw the expression on Stella’s face when the thin man handed over his hat. She had turned deadly pale and her gaze was fixed on his face in almost panicky fascination.
The thin man’s expression didn’t change and he seemed to pay no attention to the girl. When the three men moved on into the casino, Ross walked over to the cloakroom.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
With effort Stella forced a smile. “Nothing. Why?”
“You’re scared half to death. Is Lowry the man who’s been hounding you?”
“Lowry?”
“Ed Lowry. The tall, thin man who just gave you his hat.”
“That isn’t his name,” she said. “I told you that if he appeared I wouldn’t be a bother to you. Do you mind if I leave right now?”
“I certainly do. I have no intention of taking over the cloakroom.”
She looked distressed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. Honestly, I have to leave right now.”
“Nothing can happen to you here,” Ross said reasonably. “If he attempts to bother you, I’ll bounce him out on the seat of his pants. What’s his real name?”
“George Mott,” she said reluctantly.
The gambler’s startlingly black eyebrows raised. “The Syndicate torpedo? What in the devil is a man like that to you?”
“He means to kill me,” she said in a low voi
ce.
Ross’ eyes suddenly turned bleak. “He won’t do it in my club—or outside of it, so long as you’re my employee. You stay right where you are and we’ll discuss the matter at closing time.”
“I don’t want you to get involved in this, Clancy. It isn’t your problem.”
“When people make passes at my employees, it’s always my problem,” he said curtly. “If you move from behind that counter I’ll spank your round little bottom. Understand?”
She gave him a weak smile. “Yes, sir, if you put it that way.”
“That’s better,” he said, and moved on into the casino.
He spotted the three men circling the gaming room, pausing now and then to observe the play. The thin George Mott didn’t seem to be very interested in what was going on, but Bix Lawson observed each game carefully. Ross suspected he was counting the house and comparing it to the customary draw of the three casinos in which he had a personal investment.
From a vantage point just inside the archway Ross watched as the trio made a complete circuit of the room without risking a single bet. When they got back to the archway, he turned on a smile which failed to reach his eyes.
“Having fun?” he inquired.
The thin man and the lanky bodyguard said nothing. Bix Lawson replied for all three of them. “It’s a little too crowded, Clancy. You always draw this big a crowd?”
“Naturally.”
Lawson’s ropelike eyebrows climbed. “Why naturally?”
“People know it’s the only honest casino in town.”
Bix Lawson smiled, from the teeth out. “Good old Clancy. Always making with the jokes.”
The three men moved past Ross to the cloakroom. The gambler companionably fell in at George Mott’s side. Stella paled again as Mott handed over his stub, and her hand trembled when she gave him his hat. The thin man dropped a half dollar in the tip box lying on the counter and turned toward the elevator without even glancing at her. Vince Krzal pitched a quarter into the box and Lawson, as befitted his picture of himself as a big shot, tossed in a five-dollar bill.
Ross personally escorted the visitors onto the elevator and rode down with them. Bix Lawson looked at him in surprise.
“Aren’t you overdoing the red-carpet treatment a little, Clancy?”
“I always escort special guests out,” Ross said. “To be certain they make it.”
Lawson thought this over with a dubious expression on his face, not sure how to take it.
When the elevator operator brought the car to a halt at the first floor, George Mott spoke for the first time since he had been introduced to Ross. The mirrored elevator doors were of one-way glass, opaque from the outside, but affording the operator a complete view of the downstairs club from inside. They didn’t open automatically when the car stopped, as ordinary elevator doors do. The operator paused to stare through the glass for a moment before pressing a button to release the doors.
Mott said, “Pretty clever.”
Ross accompanied them clear to the street door and bade them a pleasant good night. When they were gone, Sam Black walked over from where he had been standing nearby.
“Why the perfect-host act?” he inquired.
“Just making sure they got all the way out. If Lawson’s friend comes back, he’s barred from upstairs.”
“Oh? Why?”
“His name’s George Mott.”
Black’s eyes turned round. “The Syndicate gun? Why is Bix being chummy with him? Bix has been bending over backward for years to keep the Syndicate out of town.”
“I know,” Ross said. “And one of his methods is to stay on as good terms with the Syndicate as possible. He doesn’t mind doing minor favors, so long as they don’t cost him anything.”
Black stared at him. “What was the minor favor? Letting Mott case the joint so the Syndicate can take it over?”
The gambler shook his head. “Bix wouldn’t help them get a toe in the door in St. Stephen. He’d rather put up with me than the Syndicate. As soon as you close, come up to the office.”
He left Black gazing after him with a puzzled expression.
Upstairs again, the gambler paused at the cloakroom counter. Stella was still a trifle pale, but she seemed to have herself under control.
“Do you think perhaps he didn’t recognize me?” she asked hopefully. “He hardly seemed to look at me. Maybe he just dropped in by accident.”
Ross doubted it, but he saw no point in not letting her hang onto that hope, at least for the present. “Could be,” he said noncommittally. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was a quarter after twelve—less than two hours until closing time. “We’ll discuss it afterhours in my office.”
He walked on into the casino.
An hour before closing time Ross rode the elevator up to his third-floor apartment and had the operator wait while he got a hat to cover the bright silver of his hair. Riding down to the main floor, he gave Sam Black a casual wave as he passed him en route to the kitchen. He let himself out the back door into the alley.
A green-shaded bulb over the rear door cast a glow of light to the edge of the Rotunda’s parking lot on the opposite side of the alley. The dim figure of a man slouched behind the wheel of a Cadillac parked directly across from the door and facing it head-on. Ross smiled grimly to himself, for the Cadillac was Sam Black’s. It seemed obvious that the shadowy stakeout had seated himself in it because of the convenient view it gave of the rear door.
Ross’ Lincoln was parked right next to Black’s car. Passing within a foot of the seated man without so much as glancing at him, the gambler climbed into the Lincoln, started the engine and drove left, down the alley to the cross street. There he turned right, then right again, and slowly cruised past the front of the club.
A second man was seated in a car parked at the curb, only two spaces back from the Rotunda’s front door. By the glow of a street lamp Ross got a glimpse of the thin, expressionless face of George Mott.
Making two more right turns, the gambler drove back down the alley from the opposite direction, braked and backed into the same spot where he had been parked before.
Again paying no attention to the man seated in Sam Black’s car, he re-entered the rear door, went back upstairs, turned left when he got off the elevator, and walked down the hall past the private gaming rooms to his office. Hanging his hat on the office clothes tree, he came out again and made for the gaming room.
From then until closing time he wandered about the casino greeting guests, pausing now and then to watch the play, occasionally smiling at a pretty woman. After one a. m. the crowd gradually began to thin out, for St. Stephen was not a city of late stayers-up.
At five of two, with only a half-dozen stragglers still trying their luck, Ross stepped to the microphone alongside one of the cashiers’ booths and announced, “That’s all for tonight, folks. One last spin of the wheel and one turn at the dice.”
Five minutes later he escorted the last of the stragglers to the elevator and wished him a pleasant good night.
CHAPTER V
CLANCY ROSS was seated on the edge of his desk with one leg swinging, and Stella was seated in one of the easy chairs against the wall when Sam Black entered the office. The barrel-chested man gave Ross an inquiring look.
“Sit down, Sam,” Ross said.
Black took a seat next to Stella and waited.
“All right, Stella,” Ross said. “It’s time for you to come up with the whole story.”
“What story?” Black inquired. “What’s going on anyway?”
“George Mott is waiting out front for Stella,” the gambler informed him. “Another Syndicate gun has the back door covered in case she tries to sneak out that way.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Stella said, paling.
“I was afraid you might get the customers’ hats mixed up. Now you know.”
Black stared at the girl. “The Syndicate is gunning for her?”
“Seems that way,” Ross
said.
“My God, we can’t fight the Syndicate, Clancy! We don’t want any part of this.”
“Of course not, Sam,” Ross said sardonically. “We’ll just send her out to be shot down.”
The burly man flushed. “You know I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, what did you mean?”
“How the hell do I know?” Black growled. “I was just sounding off.”
“Don’t mind Sam,” Ross said to the girl. “He automatically objects to my plans even before he learns what they are. It’s just reflex action. Get on with your story.”
Stella took a deep breath. “Did you read in the paper about the murder of a Chicago lawyer named Carl Vegas a week and half ago?”
Ross nodded. “Uh-huh. As I remember, a couple of other men were gunned down the same night, but the police weren’t sure there was any connection.” Then he frowned. “Vegas’ secretary also disappeared, as I recall. The police theorize she may have been murdered, too, but I’m beginning to get another idea. You?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Stella Powers? Stella something.”
“Stella Parsons.”
“That’s it. Why did you run?”
“Because they sent that Mott man and another to kill me. There was no sense in going to the police. Witnesses against Whitey Cord don’t live until trial, even under police protection.”
Ross emitted a low whistle. “Whitey Cord’s behind this? You pick powerful enemies. He’s Chicago’s Syndicate representative. What did you and Vegas do to Whitey?”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “Mr. Vegas made an affidavit accusing Cord of killing a man named Otis Taylor last October. He had it in his office safe addressed to the district attorney and had instructed me to mail it only in the event of his death. The safe was cracked and the affidavit was stolen the same night Mr. Vegas was killed. Cord had some woman call me to find out if I knew the contents of the affidavit, and then sent his killers after me and I fled town.”
Ross studied her for a moment. “Was Vegas involved in the rackets?”
“Yes. Deeply.”
She'll Hate Me Tomorrow Page 3
