Kept Women Can’t Quit

“Dover C. Inman, the proprietor of the Full Dinner Pail. I was laying a foundation to go to work on him when you muscled in and gummed up my play.”

“What does the Full Dinner Pail got to do with it?” he asked.

I said, “You had all the knowledge in your possession right from the start. You just didn’t use your head. You made the mistake of being decoyed by a red herring and...”

“Never mind playing that same old tune,” Sellers said. “I’ve heard it so much I’m sick of it. Never mind my mistakes, smart guy. What makes you think Inman is the one that had the money?”

“Because,” I said, “Baxley went there and got some sandwiches and had them out in a paper bag. Then he sat and ate the sandwiches and put the paper bag in the trash box. Why did he do that?”

“Because he found out we were watching him.”

I shook my head and said, “After you and your partner followed him out of the drive-in, he found out you were watching him. Everything he did up to that point was prearranged.”

“Then why did he put sandwiches in a bag, and then eat them?”

“Because he had to have a bag so he could put his partner’s fifty grand into the trash box where the partner could get it. He made the switch right under your nose and you were too dumb to get it. Then when you nabbed him, he said you’d taken the whole hundred thousand because he had to give his partner time to get the money and hide it in a safe place.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sellers asked, but there was just a trace of panic in his voice.

I said, “Look at it this way. If Baxley had ordered those sandwiches to take out, he’d have taken ’em out unless he saw you and became panic-stricken. If he saw you and became panic-stricken, he wouldn’t have eaten the sandwiches. He’d have mushed them up a bit and put them in the bag and thrown them away. But he sat there and ate the sandwiches, cool as a cucumber. Then he threw the paper sack in the trash container, wiped his hands on a napkin, got in his car and started to drive away. Then he spotted you and then was when he decided to drag Downer in as a decoy.

“Put yourself in Baxley’s place. Suppose you were dialing a number and you looked back and saw some officers watching you. Remember, you’re an old hand at the game. You’re a two-time loser. Would you drop the receiver, dash out and jump in a car and try to outrun a squad car from a standing start?

“You’d have done nothing of the sort. You’d have turned back to the telephone and, when someone at the Downer place answered, said, ‘Hold everything. I think some cops are on my tail. You’d better take it on the lam.’ Then you’d put in another dime and dial another number, pretend to talk for a while, hang up, stretch, yawn, and walk leisurely out of the telephone booth.

“You were either going to pick him up or you weren’t. If you were going to pick him up, there was nothing he could do about it. All of that panic stuff was an act he was putting on so that you wouldn’t go back to the one place where he didn’t want you to go — that trash box at the Full Dinner Pail.

“Everything points to the Full Dinner Pail in this thing. That’s where the job was pulled. That’s where the truck drivers of that armored car stopped all the time for a coffee break.

“Of course, I’m not sure it was Inman, the proprietor, who was in on it. It could have been one of the girls, but for my money, it was somebody there at the Full Dinner Pail and that fifty grand was put in the bag that had contained the hamburger sandwiches when Baxley dropped the bag into the container.”

Sellers looked at Inspector Hobart.

Inspector Hobart nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Suppose I buy this thing,” Sellers said. “Then what?”

“I don’t care whether you buy it or not,” I said. “I’m just telling you the way it looks to me.”

“All right, then, how did it happen Hazel Downer had your name in her purse?”

“She didn’t have my name. She had the name of Cool and Lam, both of us. Actually, she wanted to find out if Standley was two-timing her with a babe by the name of Evelyn Ellis, who had won a few beauty contests and was making a play for Standley. Hazel wanted to know where she stood. So she decided she’d just have someone do a shadow job on Downer. She looked through the classified phone directory. Our names looked good — COOL AND LAM. She copied them on a piece of paper. She wanted to hire us to find out if she was the low babe on the totem pole or whether Standley was feeling his oats enough to do a casual job of cheating on the side which wouldn’t mean a thing.”

Sellers looked inquiringly at Inspector Hobart.

Hobart laughed and said, “All right, Frank, if you want my opinion the guy’s handing us a line of fact and fiction. The parts he wants us to layoff of he’s lying about. On the drive-in business he’s giving you a valuable idea.”

“How do you figure it?” Sellers asked. “You got any real proof?”