The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries

“Murph,” I said with a sigh, “wish I could agree with you. But I think Byers has displayed a rare stroke of genius, perhaps the highest moment of his life. Darlene is the one weapon we have on the outside against Kowalski. He has met her already. With the slightest encouragement from her, he would be foaming at the mouth.”

“You guys make me sick! I think I’ll go throw up. To ask me to ask a kid like Darlene—”

“Aw, come off it, Murph,” Granger said, a once-successful off-track bookie. “It ain’t like we was asking anything drastic. All Darlene has got to do is encourage him along a little until he breaks his parole.”

“No,” Murphy said, thumping the table top softly with his palm.

“For us, Murph,” Ordway pleaded.

“No! In the first place, Darlene wouldn’t do it.”

“How do you know?” Byers asked reasonably. “You ain’t even asked her yet. Visitors’ day is tomorrow. You could ask her tomorrow.”

“No!” Murph stuck to his guns, although, feeling the strain of seven other overpowering presences, he was beginning to sweat.

“I know what’s eating Murph,” Jellison said.

“Yeah?” Murphy shot an angry look. “Like what?”

“Like you’re scared to expose Darlene to a lady killer like Kowalski,” Jellison shot back. “That’s right, Murph. You think you’re the end of all lover boys. But with his big, rough, kind of ugly good looks Kowalski might make you look kind of pale. You’re scared of the competition, boy, afraid of the contest.”

Murph was in an angered crouch, halfway out of his chair. “Punk, any dame who takes my brand wears it for keeps. They never get over old Murphy-boy. I got wives the courts have never even heard about!”

“Yeah,” Jellison needled, “you have to marry them.”

I reached and grabbed Murphy’s arm, my grip coaxing him back into his chair. “Easy, Murph. You want us all to draw solitary from brawling?”

“Well, okay,” he said, tight-lipped. “But tell the punk to keep his yap shut! Darlene would stay true blue to me if Cassanola himself came along.”

“Casanova,” I corrected, and Jellison put in, “You got talk, Murph. But talk is cheap. I ain’t seen you proving anything. If you got the guts, put up or shut up. Sick Darlene onto Kowalski and just see if her faithful appearances on visitors’ day don’t shortly stop.”

Murphy sat breathing thinly. He looked slowly from face to face. For him, it was a moment of being starkly alone, the pack waiting for his reaction.

“Okay,” he snarled, “I’ll show you. But just how is my girl supposed to jerk the parole out from under Kowalski?”

“Well,” Byers leered, “she could—”

“Oh, no!” Murph grated. “There are some measures to which I will not agree!”

“Sure, Murph,” I placated. “And your terms are acceptable.”

“So?” Murphy threw at me.

“So let me think a minute,” I said. “Being more or less your captain, boys, I need a moment to crack a gray cell.”

Everyone pretended to read, affording me more than a dozen moments. I found the factors conducive to clear thinking, the absolute quiet, the need to finger Kowalski, the urgency of the time element, and the prospect of a weapon on the outside in the form of a cute doll.

Unfortunately, I have not always thought so clearly in the past, such as the time I perjured myself before a judge who did seem slightly senile. On that occasion I was trying to help a friend who had helped himself to sizeable company funds and needed an alibi. It was a greater misfortune not to receive my promised share of the aforesaid company funds.

I raised my head slowly and felt the room taking in and holding a breath.

I gave a nod to their expectant gazes.

“I have the solution,” I announced. “Darlene is still working as a cocktail waitress in the same place?”

“Sure,” Murph said. “Working. Paying her taxes. Visiting me every chance. And just counting the days until we can get a Mexican marriage license.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Then she will have no trouble in ruining Kowalski’s parole. I predict that we shall see Kowalski within a week or two, if Darlene is as faithful as you say, Murph.”

“She will prove the most faithful of all my wives,” Murph said, now having built himself beyond fear of contradiction. “But just what is she to do?”

“Working in the nightclub, she will experience no trouble in making a connection,” I said. “She is simply to buy a deck or two of heroin, plaint it in Kowalski’s place of abode, and then simply place an anonymous phone call to his parole supervisor.”

The simplicity and absolute workability of the scheme brought their nods and generous remarks of admiration. In here, at least, the well-mannered, well-spoken Harrison Currance Abbott, otherwise known as Curly, the repetitive failure on the outside, was top of the roster.