15 Story Detective, April 1950 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

Pigskin Patsy 59 picked up every now and then and held so that his business goes to hell. The cus- tomers like to have their bookie right handy when they want to get their bets down. Up until now there’s been no vio- lence and no beefs for a long time. When anything opens up this racket, such as a reform administration taking over, we have to coast until we can open the town up again. You follow me?” “Tt’s big business.” “Ves, and it’s run in a businesslike way. But, human nature being what it is, seven guys can’t continue peacefully splitting up the pot forever. Sooner or later, somebody gets greedy. For a month or so I’ve smelled some kind of a deal in the wind. -It’s been making me nervous. I don’t like strongarm stuff. I didn’t contact Coults or you. But my business put two strikes on me, and pleading guilty is my best out. The publicity has dis- turbed my fellow house owners. Too much of this stuff and we all go into a lean period. Somebody, McBride, is trying to shake me out of the tree,, It damn near worked. There was a meeting last night. They asked me to sell my one seventh share for the good of the organization. I refused. Right now I’m too hot for them to handle. I mean, should I get in bad trouble, I get thrown to the wolves. So it’s my risk. If I should be slapped in jail, for example, they’d break up my little organization and split my territory six ways. When I got out, I’d be all through here, unless I wanted to go back down the ladder and make direct book with the public. If I set up an opposition house unfortunate things would happen to me. As a book, I'd have to broker through the syndicate. See how it works ?” “You think they’re trying to squeeze you out, eh? Do you know who?” “Here’s the clue, McBride. One of my ninety bookies runs a nice little tavern and a nice little three thousand a week book. It was one of my good accounts. When business started to fade off from that source, I did some checking. The book was getting just as much play as usual, but he wasn’t brokering as much. We can’t stop a bookie from holding out a bet or two now and then. But we don’t like big holdouts. I warned him twice and then [ reported him. Nothing hap- pened. He hasn’t been picked up. The amount he brokers with me is still dwin- dling fast. I reported him again and got a run around from those shrewd city hall boys.” "Sa?" “His name happens to be Si Coutts, Stackie’s older brother. He bought the tavern with the dough he saved playing with the Tamaracks.”’ Barry thought it over. “It would fit,” he said slowly. “He might want to buy into the syndicate. He might have a friend who is one of the owners,” “Right,” said Deever. “And a secret agreement. Si Coults could have built up a fund by booking his own bets plus a string of luck. He could say, ‘Force Deever out and I’il pay you so much for letting me in.’ That would be better than buying me out. They wouldn’t consider an eight way split. When they woulda’t give him a quick answer, he talked Stackie into giving me some bad publicity. You just happened to be the obvious guy to yank in to make it look good.” “What do you think we can do?” Barry said, : “Your girl is on the Courier. I make it my business to know stuff like that. I’ve got an expert who'll wire your room for sound. You ought to be able to get Stackie up there, and I’ve got a hunch that, without witnesses, he’s the type to pop off. Then you get the recordings to your girl and let the paper blow the whole thing wide open. What do you think of that idea ?”’ “T like it,” Barry said. “TI like it a lot.” Comicbooks (E@)