Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

As it was, Largo never stood trial for income tax evasion. He was tried for murder and was electrocuted one year and seventeen days after the night the shotgun blew a hole in Gertrude Armitage’s ceiling. The Armitage woman got twenty years but one thing that had to be said for Largo — he took the rap himself and none of his associates went with him even though we knew he’d had help.

As for me, I’ll always think of the case in terms of the blonde Trudy Miller. The girl in my neon nightmare, and that was where she stayed. The prosecution never located her and I never saw her again.

Not that I wanted to. Connie’s red hair in a black hardtop does me just fine.

Fair Warning by James Holding

The young man smiled. His lips curled back and the two eye teeth, abnormally long, glittered like fangs. Paoli wiped at the slippery sheen of perspiration on his forehead. “Yes,” he said. “1 got the message.”

* * *

Vergil Paoli was the owner of The Gala Club. He sent word down that he wanted to see his singer, Olga Castle, as soon as she finished her ten o’clock show.

When she came into his office, a tall, shapely brunette with high cheekbones and a carefully cultivated air of youth, Paoli was sitting behind his desk, fretfully tapping his fingers on an open newspaper before him.

He was not only Olga’s employer. He said to her, “Who’s the tall thin guy with the crewcut you been drinking with between shows the last coupla nights?”

“From Jerksville,” she said. “A nothing guy. But he has a clever way of talking,”

“Know his name?”

“Sandy Thomas,” Olga said.

“Local?”

“I guess.”

Paoli frowned. “Has he tried any passes?”

She laughed. “A few, Vergil. Minor ones. But what do you expect? They always try.”

“What’s he talk to you about?”

“He says he likes to hear me sing.”

“A music critic, yet,” Paoli said heavily. “Has he mentioned Chicago?”

“Chicago? Let’s see. Sure, several times. Why not? It’s a big city and most everybody’s been there.”

“No cracks, baby. Just answer me. Do you think he could come from Chicago?”

She shrugged, a little crestfallen. “I’m no detective. He could, I suppose.”

“These passes. What was the offer?”

“No offer. I simply told him I’m private property. Yours, darling. And no trespassing.”

“What’d he say to that?”

She looked at him curiously. A thin slick of perspiration made his forehead shiny; she thought his eyes looked worried. She said, “He made the usual crack... that you might not be around forever. And maybe I better get out some more lines.”

Paoli said nothing. He took out a handkerchief of fine Irish linen and wiped at his brow.

Olga went over and kissed him on his bald spot. “What is it with you, Vergil? You’re not jealous, are you?” She liked the idea.

“Not jealous, no. But all the same, this Thomas has got me a little bugged, baby. You’re sure his name’s Thomas?” He sounded as though he wanted reassurance.

“That’s what he told me. What is this, darling?”

“Maybe I’m nuts,” Paoli said, “but I got a feeling the guy’s from Chicago and his name ain’t Thomas.”

She began to feel faintly uneasy, too. “Who is he, then?”

Paoli brooded silently for a moment. “He said I might not be around forever, right?”

“Sure. But that’s just a standard approach, Vergil. You know that.”

“Any name like Dubrowski ever come up in his talk?”

She shook her head.

“Or anybody with the nickname of Eyetooth?”

“Of course not. What a silly name!” Olga started to laugh, a pleasing cascade of sound. Then she sobered abruptly. “Eyetooth?”

“Yeah.”

Her dark eyes were solicitous. They asked him a silent question. He answered it obliquely. “Look, Olga,” he said. He tapped a small item in the newspaper under his hand. She read it over his shoulder, standing tall and graceful behind him at the desk.

Under the heading “Syndicate Killer Hunted” it merely reported the murder in a distant city of an Italian suspected of criminal connections. Police were sure, the paper said, that this was another Crime Syndicate murder, committed by a legendary hoodlum known as Eyetooth Dubrowski, although he also utilized a score of other aliases. Dubrowski was thought to have served as Syndicate executioner on several prior occasions. What had led to the Italian’s death, the newspaper speculated? Insubordination to Syndicate orders? Muscling in on a neighboring vice czar’s territory? Nobody, the article ended, could be sure, except, perhaps, the tall, thin, crewcut Dubrowski for whom the police of the distant city were diligently searching. It was suggested that Dubrowski’s unusually long eyeteeth might serve as an aid to identification. His arrest was expected momentarily.

When she finished reading, Olga went around the desk and dropped into a chair. She stared at Paoli wide-eyed. “Is that who Thomas is?”