15 Story Detective, April 1950 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 rimless glasses. He looked like a movie version of a country doctor. The rest of the trip was made in silence. _ They turned off between the stone pillars of a suburban development. The wind- ing asphalt climbed steadily. The house was of stone, set apart from the others, surrounded by a woven wire hurricane fence. A man swung the gate open, closed it after them. The driver went straight on into the epen attached garage. George Deever sat at a stained oak booth in the gleaming white kitchen. A pot of coffee was on the electric plate plugged in at his elbow. A _ loose-leaf ledger was open in front of him. He wore a white shirt with the cuffs turned back, the collar open at his throat. “Hello, McBride,” he said. “Thanks, Jerry. Sit down, McBride.” The driver hadn’t come in. Doc and Jerry went on into the front of the house. Barry ‘sat down gingerly, George smiled as he got up. ‘Coffee? I drink gallons a day.” “Thanks.” Deever put the cup and saucer in front of Barry, filled it. He sat down again with a sigh and waved his hand at the ledger in front of him. “How many peo- ple know. that my income tax statements have to be just as accurate as if I were a stock broker? Uncle Sam doesn’t seem to care how ‘you get it, just so long as he gets his cut.” Barry sipped the hot coffee, put the cup back on the saucer. “Why did you want to see me?” Deever shrugged. ‘You didn’t run for it, McBride. You stuck around. You might want to clear yourself. At least your actions have indicated a certain amount of guts.” “Why did you do it to me?” “You'll never clear yourself, kid, if you have me picked up as Mister Fix. I’ve got to give you a liberal education in the 15 Story Detective River City setup. How many bookmakers do you think we have in town?” “Twenty or thirty, I’d guess.” “As of right now, McBride, there are five hundred and sixty-one. They handle a half million dollars of the bettor’s money every week. That makes a tidy little yearly total of about a hundred and fifty million dollars. Year in, year out, the horse players lose twelve and eight tenths percent of their mofiey. So there is nine- teen million, two hundred thousand, roughly, to spread around. In a city of three hundred thousand people, that is not an extraordinary state of affairs. Ex- penses, grease and the bookie rake add up to about fourteen million. The remaining five million a year goes to the ‘house’, The house brokers all bets the bookies place. I have an ownership share of the house. One seventh, to be exact. And I’ve got a geographical area assigned to me by common agreement. My office is in this home of mine and my little staff takes the bets as phoned in by the roughly ninety books that use me as their broker, Sometimes I have thin weeks, sometimes fat. I haven’t had a red week in two years. The gravy on top of that is the take from the football and basketball pools,” Barry whistled softly. “My stock in trade is keeping my name out of the papers,” George said. “I hap- pen to be one of the two house owners who haven’t got another occupation as a eover. Out of the seven house owners you’ve got two professional gambling brokers, then, a ?etired commissioner of police who is in the wholesale grocery business on the side, two men in the city hall and two in the county court house. It is a very good business. We have the connections so that when the books com- plain to us about individual cops getting too hungry, we can squelch it. And, in reverse, if one of the books tries to step out of line, we can arrange to have him EComichbooks (E)