Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

Quade said, “And what is Thelma Wentworth to you?”

“Damn!” swore Slocum. “What’s she got to do with this?”

“You slammed out of Maynard’s office too quick to see her. She was in the outer room with a man named Paul Clevenger. She was crying.”

Slocum’s eyes blazed. “The fool! Why’d she come around at a time like this? She’ll get smeared all over the papers.”

“She was here earlier,” Quade said. “Before you got on the scene. Before I found Maynard, she came out of his office!”

Slocum choked. “Quade, I want you to do something for me. I’ll pay you plenty. What do you say?”

“That’s what I’ve been getting at, Mr. Slocum. Murdock isn’t going to tackle you just now, but he’ll report to the D. A. and he’ll get after you. And with Buck on the other side spilling things you’re going to have to have some mighty good answers.”

“I know,” said Slocum. “I’ve known that for fifteen minutes. Moody, my lawyer, will have to stall the D. A. for a while until you deliver.”

“Anything special you want me to do?” Quade asked.

“Yes. I want you to find Willie Higgins.”

“Then you do know him.”

“I’m not going to tell you one single thing. But if you find Higgins and bring him to me before anyone else finds him — and I mean the police, this Buck, or anyone, I’ll pay you two thousand dollars.”

Knuckles wrapped on Slocum’s door and Miss Hendricks stuck her head inside. “Mr. Slocum, District Attorney Nelson is here.”

Slocum reached for his phone. “All right, Quade. Go to it!”

Quade nodded. “I’ll get him for you, if I can, Mr. Slocum. But just one thing more. I’m going to be too busy to get it otherwise, so how about a ten-dollar advance?”

Slocum squinted at Quade, then thrust his hand into a pocket and produced a crumpled bill which he tossed at Quade. “Now, I’ll see the D.A.”

Quade saw that the bill Slocum had thrown at him was a hundred dollar note. He stuck it in his pocket and went out.

In the corridor, Charlie Boston was holding up the wall. Quade walked briskly past him and Boston fell in behind. “We all right?” Boston whispered. “We gonna stay outa trouble?”

“If we get out of here.”

They cleared the studio building and got out into the open lot. “That does it,” sighed Quade.

They came out on the street and Boston nodded to the stalled jallopy across the street. “What about that? We’re still broke.”

Quade waved at a passing cab. “Taxi!” Brakes screeched. “Inside, Charlie,” Quade ordered. “The Lincoln Hotel!”

Ten minutes later, they climbed out of the taxi in front of one of the most expensive hotels in Hollywood.

Quade tendered the hundred-dollar bill to the cabby. The man exclaimed. “I haven’t got change for anything like that!”

Quade turned and waved the bill at the doorman who was hovering over them. “Get this changed and pay the driver. I’ll be at the desk, inside.”

“Holy cats!” said Boston as they walked into the luxurious lobby. “Where’d you get that fish skin?”

“My client,” said Quade. “And there’s more where that came from. Hollywood’s rolling in money.”

He stepped up to the desk and said to the clerk. “I want a nice suite, facing the boulevard. And rather high up, so I don’t get too much street noise.”

He signed the registration card with a flourish. “Oliver Quade and Charles P. Boston, New York City.”

The doorman came up from the cashier’s window with a handful of bills. “Here you are, sir!”

“Front!” said the clerk snappily. “Show these gentlemen up to Suite 831 and 832.”

In their suite Quade picked up the telephone book. Charlie Boston stared at him.

Quade picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said. “I want the Clayton Automobile Agency... Hello. Have you got a six-wheel yellow sports job in stock? Well, bring it over to the Lincoln Hotel as soon as you can. Oliver Quade is the name.”

He hung up the receiver. “For the love of Mike!” groaned Charlie Boston.

“Tut-tut,” said Quade, “we’re mixing with moneyed people. We’ve got to act like money.”

“So you’re mixed in the detective stuff again.” Boston shook his head. “I could smell it coming the minute I saw Christopher Buck. That means we’re going to take a lot of punishment again and wind up behind the eight-ball.”

“Not this time, Charlie,” Quade said, cheerfully. “I’ve decided that this is one affair from which I’m going to emerge with both hands full of money. It’s lying around on all sides and I’m going to grab it.”

Boston threw up his hands helplessly. “There’s no use talking once your mind is made up. Who’re we working for — Slocum?”

“Right you are, Charlie. And at the moment we have to do only one little thing. Tell me, would you know Willie Higgins if you saw him?”

“If I saw him,” said Boston. “I guess I’d know him all right. So would anybody. His pan’s been in the newspapers often enough.”

“Old pictures. They don’t take pictures of their guests in Alcatraz. So what we’ve got to go by is a five-year-old likeness of him. Since then he may have gained a lot of weight, or lost it. He may have raised a mustache or a beard. No, not a beard. I don’t think they’d let him do that on The Rock.”