Murder is the Pay-Off Read Online Free PDF Page A

standing gripping the back of her chair, watching everybody crowd forward, everybody shouting, “Come on, Janey, it’s your turn at the jack pot!” Everybody but Gus Blake. She looked around at him. He was still lounging lazily there on the seat in the corner behind the table, his wide mouth twisted in his semi sardonic smile, relaxed and waiting for the tumult to die down.
    “Come on, Janey!”
    Janey had not moved. She was sitting bolt upright at her table, shaking her head, shaking out what was left of the mop of tow-colored fuzz tied with the velvet bow.
    “No,” she said. She shook her head again. “I’m not going to play.”
    “Oh, come on, Janey. Come on, be a sport. Just two quarters, Janey. Look, nobody’s won it for three weeks.” Jim Ferguson was pointing up to the framed cardboard bulletin behind the bar. “Look, Janey, the last jack pot was in October. Nelly won it in October.”
    Connie glanced at the board. It was a record of the jack pots, the dates and winners—all part of the fine, high plausibility that made Doc Wernitz’s Christmas gift to her father all open and aboveboard and For Amusement Only. And keeps our playroom different from an ordinary clip joint— She turned sharply and looked at Gus Blake, her cheeks flushing. She’d said it to herself, but it was what he was thinking, too. She could tell by the amused glint in his eyes before his craggy face broke into an open grin.
    “Relax, Con,” he said. “Or is it against the house rules for the customers to get a break?” He looked over at his wife. “Go on, Janey. We can use thirty bucks—if you get it.”
    For a fraction of an instant Connie Maynard felt really sorry for the girl. She’s scared. She’s terribly scared, she thought. And she ought to be. Even I’d be scared, in her shoes.
    She turned her head. One of the colored boys had come down the steps and was beckoning to Gus.
    “Telephone, Mr. Blake.” He motioned to the recess behind the stairs. “It’s the paper.”
    Connie felt her cheeks flush again as Gus got instantly to his feet. Now it was the paper. First it was her Uncle Nelly, then all the jack pot and Janey business, absorbing his attention in spite of all her maneuvering. Now the paper. The paper was the only thing he really gave a damn about, she thought irritably, glancing resentfully at his broad back as he reached the stairs, everybody still clamoring for Janey to come and win the jack pot.
    “Go on, Janey, and maybe they’ll all shut up.” He stopped at the foot of the stairs and grinned at his wife before he went on around to answer the phone.
    Janey’s lips moved in a wooden smile. She pushed her chair back from the table. With the stiff movement of her young body the black velvet bow came loose and toppled into her lap. She picked it up, untied the bow, caught her hair and pulled it up, tying it into a topknot again. Then she raised her pointed little face. It was pinched and pale and her eyes were like black smudges. She tried to smile as she got to her feet.
    “You’re all—you’re all terribly sweet. I—I’d love to get a jack pot, but I—I never do.”
    She moved with the curious grace of a wooden doll across to the machine, fishing in her bag.
    Orvie Rogers sprang forward. “Here, Janey, I’ll lend you some quarters.”
    “No, thanks. I’ve got one. Maybe two—I don’t know.” She took another step forward to the machine.
    “Come on, Janey. Don’t let Dorsey pull it for you. He’ll jinx it, Janey!”
    Somebody shouted that, but it sounded disproportionately loud and raucous. Everybody else was suddenly tense and silent. It was like that moment at the race track when a hundred people hold their breath as the hundred-to-one shot pulls ahead of the favorite at the finish. It was absurd. Connie Maynard felt the sharp chill prickle across her bare shoulders and down her spine. Janey raised her hand, hesitating an instant before she put the coin in the slot. She reached over