Delancy shuffled his feet and looked at the floor.
"I don't like to make trouble, see, but that was a put-up job."
"You mean what?" the Eye questioned.
"I mean that wasn't no police call. There was some sort of a phonograph device under the cowl of that get-away car, and this was hooked up to the radio switch. That police call was a phoney. We wasn't hot. That was just rigged up to send us to Jack Carlson to ask that he get us out of town in a hurry.
"I went to Carlson. I told him we was hot, because at the time I figured we was. He wanted fifty per cent of our total take to move us out of town. Fifty per cent, and with the ten that we are supposed to pay you, that don't leave a guy much profit. I told Carlson I'd rot in jail first. And all the time, I ain't hot at all, because the bulls haven't turned the heat on me. It was a phoney, see, just to get me to spend a lot of dough on a get-away."
The Eye nodded. "There have been some other complaints about Carlson. I will see that he is eliminated. Someone else will take over the position which he has filled."
In the shadows of the stairway, Black Hood laughed soundlessly. That was a hot one, that was! Here was Carlson, playing both ends against the middle, getting his cut as the Eye and getting a second and large helping out of his crooked transport business. And now the Eye was talking about eliminating Carlson to appease Ray Delancy!
"To get back to the business at hand," the Eye said, "our next job is a small matter of one hundred thousand in unset jewels. And by a hundred thousand, I am not referring to the current market price. We can realize that amount from a fence. It sounds good, eh?"
Some of the mobsters cursed appreciatively.
"There is," the Eye continued, "an obscure little jewelry shop known as Tauber's which has received such a shipment of gems."