“Well, what are you waiting for?” the detective asked. “You want to make it a fancy caper — kill her on her birthday or a legal holiday?”
Scuttle Zeipp smacked his lips and poked the detective’s chest with a finger in the dark.
“Not any, brother! I’m thinking way ahead of you! Listen to this: I pocket my two-fifty advance and come up here to give the ground a good casing, not \vanting to lam into anything I didn’t know was here. While I’m poking around, I run into another party that’s poking around. This second party gives me a tumble, I talk smart, and bingo! First thing you know she’s propositioning me. What do you guess? She wants to know what I want to bump off a broad! Is it the same one she wants stopped? I hope to tell you it is!
“I ain’t so silly! I get my hands on another two hundred and fifty berries, with that much more coming when I put over the fast one. Now do you think I’m going to do anything to that Landow baby? You’re dumb if you do. She’s my meal ticket. If she lives till I pop her, she’ll be older than either you or the bay. I’ve got five hundred out of her so far. What’s the matter with sticking around and waiting for more customers that don’t like her? If two of ’em want to buy her out of the world, why not more? The answer is, ‘Yeah!’ And on top of that, here you are snooping around her. Now there it is, brother, for you to look at and taste and smell.”
Silence held for several minutes, in the darkness of the coupe’s interior, and then the detective’s harsh voice put a skeptical question:
“And who are these certain parties that want her out of the way?”
“Be yourself!” Scuttle Zeipp admonished him. “I’m lay-ing down on ’em, right enough, but I ain’t feeding ’em to you.”
“What are you giving me all this for then?”
“What for? Because you’re in on the lay somewhere. Crossing each other, neither of us can make a thin dimmer. If we don’t hook up we’ll just ruin the racket for each other. I’ve already made half a grand off this Landow. That’s mine, but there’s more to be picked up by a couple of J men that know what they’re doing. All right. I’m offering to throw in with you on a two-way cut of whatever else we can get. But my parties are out! I don’t mind throw- I
ing them down, but I ain’t rat enough to put the finger on them for you.”
Alec Rush grunted and croaked another dubious inquiry.
“How come you trust me so much, Scuttle?”
The hired killer laughed knowingly.
“Why not? You’re a right guy. You can see a profit when it’s showed to you. They didn’t chuck you off the force for forgetting to hang up your stocking. Besides, suppose you want to double-cross me, what can you do? You can’t prove anything. I told you I didn’t mean the woman any harm. I ain’t even packing a gun. But all that’s the bunk. You’re a wise head. You know what’s what. Me and you, Alec, we can get plenty!”
Silence again, until the detective spoke slowly, thoughtfully.
“The first thing would be to get a line on the reasons your parties want the girl put out. Got anything on that?”
“Not a whisper.”
“Both of ’em women, I take it.”
Scuttle Zeipp hesitated.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But don’t be asking me anything about ’em. In the first place, I don’t know anything, and in the second, I wouldn’t tip their mitts if I did.”
“Yeah,” the detective croaked, as if he quite understood his companion’s perverted idea of loyalty. “Now if they’re women, the chances are the racket hangs on a man. What do you think of Landow? He’s a pretty lad.”
Scuttle Zeipp leaned over to put his finger against the detective’s chest again.
“You’ve got it, Alec! That could be it, damned if it couldn’t!”
“Yeah,” Alec Rush agreed, fumbling with the levers of his car. “We’ll get away from here and stay away until I look into him.”