Read Online Murder is the Pay-Off by Leslie Ford - Free Book Online

“How’s tricks,” and especially good in Wernitz’s line of business.
    He could not remember, now, who it was with him, and so far as he could recall that was the last time he’d seen Doc Wernitz until he saw him on the cellar floor, dead as a staved-in mackerel. As for any reason he himself could have— The big Swede was bats. He shrugged his shoulders as he crossed the room.
    Or am I bats myself? he wondered. He went out into the passage and stopped short. Something had happened. When he had-first got to the house, and again when he followed Carlson back up from the basement, he’d seen the young cop standing at the foot of the stairs by the Filipino boy who’d found the body. Buzz Rodriguez had been sitting on the stairs, his head in his hands, rocking back and forth, moaning incoherently. Gus had recognized him as one of Wernitz’s service mechanics. He’d seen him in a dozen places servicing the fantastically elaborate machines, and sometimes seen him three and four times on a big night at the Sailing Club when the jack pots were falling, come to refill the window and tube of the machines. Something had happened now. The young cop was literally propping Rodriguez against the wall. His face was gray as ashes, his head wobbling forward. Gus turned to Carlson. He was pulling the door of Wernitz’s office shut and talking at the same time.
    “Get Mac in here to seal this door, Corbin. I’m leavin’ the lights on and I want him to sit right here till I get back. Step on it, hear?”
    He jerked around to the stairs. The young officer’s red face gleamed with sweat. He looked undecided from Carlson to the limp body on his hands.
    “Sure, Chief. But this guy’s drunk. I don’t know—”
    Carlson strode across the hall. “What do you mean? This boy don’t drink.” He picked Rodriguez’s slumping body up in one powerful arm, gave him one look, and swung around. “Good God, son, this boy’s not drunk, he’s half dead. Get an ambulance out here. There’s a phone in the kitchen—step on it, son. Out there.”
    He stuck a square forefinger off toward the back of the house. “Upstairs, Gus—get some blankets. This boy’s hurt bad. I told that bas—”
    Gus cleared the stairs. A door was open at the right. The room there was empty except for an iron folding cot in one corner, but two worn army blankets were folded across the foot. He grabbed them and ran back. Swede Carlson let the boy down on the floor and wrapped him up. His thick fingers moved gently over the back of the boy’s head.
    “He was slugged, too, down there in the basement. Like Wernitz.” His face was hard, his colorless eyes set. He got to his feet. “It’s a damn good thing I didn’t let ’em throw him in the can. He could ’a been dead by mornin’. You would have had a scapegoat.” He looked down at Rodriguez, scowling heavily, and went past him to the back of the house. “Mac,” he called. “Come in here.”
    Mac was a short, wiry detective in a double-breasted bright-blue suit.
    “Seal this door up, and watch it. Nobody goes in there. That means nobody.” Carlson motioned to the Philippine boy on the floor. “You know Buzz Rodriguez here. When the ambulance comes, Corbin’s to go in with him. I’m phoning Stryker to meet him at the hospital and stick with him—all the time. Maybe the kid knows who hit him. I don’t want any son of a bitch tellin’ me he’s dead before he can tell it.” He put his hand on the door and turned back. “Is there a doctor in Smithville we know don’t play the slot machines, Mac?”
    The detective went on sealing up the door of Doc Wernitz’s room. He shook his head. “Now you know none of them got time to fool around, Chief.” He sounded to Gus like a man stepping around a wounded polecat on a narrow path.
    If Carlson’s reply was audible it was not audible to Gus. He followed into the kitchen passage, where a door opened on the cellar stairs.
    “Watch him, Blake.” The