“Now, listen,” he said feverishly, “you’ve got to keep your trap shut about that. It was business—you understand?”
“You’re of interest to the public,” I pointed out; “it’s got to go in the column. If your wife gets mad, what the hell do I care?”
He sat like an exploded balloon. “O.K.,” he said bitterly. “What do you want to know?”
I resumed my stool and ordered a club sandwich. “Give me the dope, Cap. You’re not telling me that you haven’t unearthed a lot of stuff what would interest me. I won’t print it until you say so. I’ve been in on this from the start, and I may as well finish it.”
It took me a little time to handle him, but the red-head threat worked like a charm.
Rabener, he told me, was the brain behind one of the biggest dope-rings in the country. He used the night-club as a front. He had to have some place where pedlars could come with safety each month to collect the dope. What better place than a well-established, busy night-club? Rabener was a killer too. Years ago he’d been a small-time heist man. His ruthlessness as a killer took him slowly to the top of the ladder of gangdom. He was smart. He always kept in the background. Whereas other big-shots were rounded up by the F.B.I., Rabener managed to keep clear. When repeal came in, he decided to go in for dope. So thorough were his preparations that no one had ever suspected the night-club to be the distributing centre of the dope-ring.
Somehow or other Fanquist fitted into this picture. The Captain wasn’t quite sure where she did fit in. But they couldn’t tie her up with the dope traffic. They could get nothing out of her. The smaller members of the ring had vanished. Fanquist was the only one who could enlighten the police, and she wouldn’t talk.
“Maybe she thinks someone will knock her off if she squeals,” I suggested.
“Yeah, it might be that; but why did she kill Rabener?”
“I’d like to know too,” I returned. “Think she’ll get off?”