He trailed along behind me while I went up to the station. Angel Grace was standing in the doorway. Her face was more sullen than I had ever seen it, and therefore less beautiful—except her green eyes, which held too much fire for sullenness. A rolled newspaper was in one of her hands. She neither spoke, smiled nor nodded.
“We’ll go to Charley’s, where we can talk,” I said, guiding her down past Dick Foley.
Not a murmur did I get out of her until we were seated cross-table in the restaurant booth, and the waiter had gone off with our orders. Then she spread the newspaper out on the table with shaking hands.
“Is this on the level?” she demanded.
I looked at the story her shaking finger tapped—an account of the Fillmore and Army Street findings, but a cagey account. A glance showed that no names had been given, that the police had censored the story quite a bit. While I pretended to read I wondered whether it would be to my advantage to tell the girl the story was a fake. But I couldn’t see any clear profit in that, so I saved my soul a lie.
“Practically straight,” I admitted.
“You were there?”
She had pushed the paper aside to the floor and was leaning over the table.
“With the police.”
“Was—?” Her voice broke huskily. Her white fingers wadded the tablecloth in two little bunches half-way between us. She cleared her throat. “Who was—?” was as far as she got this time.
A pause. I waited. Her eyes went down, but not before I had seen water dulling the fire in them. During the pause the waiter came in, put our food down, went away.
“You know what I want to ask,” she said presently, her voice low, choked. “Was he? Was he? For God’s sake tell me!”
I weighed them—truth against lie, lie against truth. Once more truth triumphed.
“Paddy the Mex was shot—killed—in the Fillmore Street house,” I said.
The pupils of her eyes shrank to pinpoints—spread again until they almost covered the green irises. She made no sound. Her face was empty. She picked up a fork and lifted a forkful of salad to her mouth—another. Reaching across the table, I took the fork out of her hand.
“You’re only spilling it on your clothes,” I growled. “You can’t eat without opening your mouth to put the food in.”
She put her hands across the table, reaching for mine, trembling, holding my hand with fingers that twitched so that the nails scratched me.
“You’re not lying to me?” she half sobbed, half chattered. “You’re on the square! You were white to me that time in Philly! Paddy always said you were one white dick! You’re not tricking me?”
“Straight up,” I assured her. “Paddy meant a lot to you?”
She nodded dully, pulling herself together, sinking back in a sort of stupor.
“The way’s open to even up for him,” I suggested.
“You mean—?”
“Talk.”
She stared at me blankly for a long while, as if she was trying to get some meaning out of what I had said. I read the answer in her eyes before she put it in words.
“I wish to God I could! But I’m Paper-box-John Cardigan’s daughter. It isn’t in me to turn anybody up. You’re on the wrong side. I can’t go over. I wish I could. But there’s too much Cardigan in me. I’ll be hoping every minute that you nail them, and nail them dead right, but—”
“Your sentiments are noble, or words to that effect,” I sneered at her. “Who do you think you are—Joan of Arc? Would your brother Frank be in stir now if his partner, Johnny the Plumber, hadn’t put the finger on him for the Great Falls bulls? Come to life, dearie! You’re a thief among thieves, and those who don’t double-cross get crossed. Who rubbed your Paddy the Mex out? Pals! But you mustn’t slap back at ’em because it wouldn’t be clubby. My God!”
My speech only thickened the sullenness in her face.
“I’m going to slap back,” she said, “but I can’t, can’t split. I can’t, I tell you. If you were a gun, I’d— Anyway, what help I get will be on my side of the game. Let it go at that, won’t you? I know how you feel about it, but—Will you tell me who besides—who else was—was found in those houses?”
“Oh, sure!” I snarled. “I’ll tell you everything. I’ll let you pump me dry. But you mustn’t give me any hints, because it might not be in keeping with the ethics of your highly honorable profession!”
Being a woman, she ignored all this, repeating, “Who else?”
“Nothing stirring. But I will do this—I’ll tell you a couple who weren’t there—Big Flora and Red O’Leary.”
Her dopiness was gone. She studied my face with green eyes that were dark and savage.
“Was Bluepoint Vance?” she demanded.
“What do you guess?” I replied.
She studied my face for a moment longer and then stood up.
“Thanks for what you’ve told me,” she said, “and for meeting me like this. I do hope you win.”
She went out to be shadowed by Dick Foley. I ate my lunch.
VIII
At four o’clock that afternoon Jack Counihan and I brought our hired automobile to rest within sight of the front door of the Stockton Street hotel.
“He cleared himself with the police, so there’s no reason why he should have moved, maybe,” I told Jack, “and I’d rather not monkey with the hotel people, not knowing them. If he doesn’t show by late we’ll have to go up against them then.”
We settled down to cigarettes, guesses on who’d be the next heavyweight champion and when, the possibilities of Prohibition being either abolished or practiced, where to get good gin and what to do with it, the injustice of the new Agency ruling that for purposes of expense accounts Oakland was not to be considered out of town, and similar exciting topics, which carried us from four o’clock to ten minutes past nine.
At 9:10 Red O’Leary came out of the hotel.
“God is good,” said Jack as he jumped out of the machine to do the footwork while I stirred the motor.
The fire-topped giant didn’t take us far. Larrouy’s front door gobbled him. By the time I had parked the car and gone into the dive, both O’Leary and Jack had found seats. Jack’s table was on the edge of the dance-floor. O’Leary’s was on the other side of the establishment, against the wall, near a corner. A fat blond couple were leaving the table back in that corner when I came in, so I persuaded the waiter who was guiding me to a table to make it that one.
O’Leary’s face was three-quarters turned away from me. He was watching the front door, watching it with an earnestness that turned suddenly to happiness when a girl appeared there. She was the girl Angel Grace had called Nancy Regan. I have already said she was nice. Well, she was. And the cocky little blue hat that hid all her hair didn’t handicap her niceness any tonight.
The red-head scrambled to his feet and pushed a waiter and a couple of customers out of his way as he went to meet her. As reward for his eagerness he got some profanity that he didn’t seem to hear and a blue-eyed, white-toothed smile that was—well—nice. He brought her back to his table and put her in a chair facing me, while he sat very much facing her.
His voice was a baritone rumble out of which my snooping ears could pick no words. He seemed to be telling her a lot, and she listened as if she liked it.
“But, Reddy, dear, you shouldn’t,” she said once. Her voice—I know other words, but we’ll stick to this one—was nice. Outside of the music in it, it had quality. Whoever this gunman’s moll was, she either had had a good start in life or had learned her stuff well. Now and then, when the orchestra came up for air, I would catch a few words, but they didn’t tell me anything except that neither she nor her rowdy playmate had anything against the other.
The joint had been nearly empty when she came in. By ten o’clock it was fairly crowded, and ten o’clock is early fo
r Larrouy’s customers. I began to pay less attention to Red’s girl—even if she was nice—and more to my other neighbors. It struck me that there weren’t many women in sight. Checking up on that, I found damned few women in proportion to the men. Men—rat-faced men, hatchet-faced men, square-jawed men, slack-chinned men, pale men, ruddy men, dark men, bull-necked men, scrawny men, funny-looking men, tough-looking men, ordinary men—sitting two to a table, four to a table, more coming in—and damned few women.
These men talked to one another, as if they weren’t much interested in what they were saying. They looked casually around the joint, with eyes that were blankest when they came to O’Leary. And always those casual—bored—glances did rest on O’Leary for a second or two.
I returned my attention to O’Leary and Nancy Regan. He was sitting a little more erect in his chair than he had been, but it was an easy, supple erectness, and though his shoulders had hunched a bit, there was no stiffness in them. She said something to him. He laughed, turning his face toward the center of the room, so that he seemed to be laughing not only at what she had said, but also at these men who sat around him, waiting. It was a hearty laugh, young and careless.
The girl looked surprised for a moment, as if something in the laugh puzzled her, then she went on with whatever she was telling him. She didn’t know she was sitting on dynamite, I decided. O’Leary knew. Every inch of him, every gesture, said, “I’m big, strong, young, tough and red-headed. When you boys want to do your stuff I’ll be here.”
Time slid by. Few couples danced. Jean Larrouy went around with dark worry in his round face. His joint was full of customers, but he would rather have had it empty.
By eleven o’clock I stood up and beckoned to Jack Counihan. He came over, we shook hands, exchanged How’s everythings and Getting muches, and he sat at my table.
“What is happening?” he asked under cover of the orchestra’s din. “I can’t see anything, but there is something in the air. Or am I being hysterical?”
“You will be presently. The wolves are gathering, and Red O’Leary’s the lamb. You could pick a tenderer one if you had a free hand, maybe. But these bimbos once helped pluck a bank, and when pay-day came there wasn’t anything in their envelopes, not even any envelopes. The word got out that maybe Red knew how-come. Hence this. They’re waiting now—maybe for somebody—maybe till they get enough hooch in them.”
“And we sit here because it’s the nearest table to the target for all these fellows’ bullets when the blooming lid blows off?” Jack inquired. “Let’s move over to Red’s table. It’s still nearer, and I rather like the appearance of the girl with him.”
“Don’t be impatient, you’ll have your fun,” I promised him. “There’s no sense in having this O’Leary killed. If they bargain with him in a gentlemanly way, we’ll lay off. But if they start heaving things at him, you and I are going to pry him and his girl friend loose.”
“Well spoken, my hearty!” He grinned, whitening around the mouth. “Are there any details, or do we just simply and unostentatiously pry ’em loose?”
“See the door behind me, to the right? When the pop-off comes, I’m going back there and open it up. You hold the line midway between. When I yelp, you give Red whatever help he needs to get back there.”
“Aye, aye!” He looked around the room at the assembled plug-uglies, moistened his lips, and looked at the hand holding his cigarette, a quivering hand. “I hope you won’t think I’m in a funk,” he said. “But I’m not an antique murderer like you. I get a reaction out of this prospective slaughtering.”
“Reaction, my eye,” I said. “You’re scared stiff. But no nonsense, mind! If you try to make a vaudeville act out of it I’ll ruin whatever these guerrillas leave of you. You do what you’re told, and nothing else. If you get any bright ideas, save ’em to tell me about afterward.”
“Oh, my conduct will be most exemplary!” he assured me.
IX
It was nearly midnight when what the wolves waited for came. The last pretense of indifference went out of faces that had been gradually taking on tenseness. Chairs and feet scraped as men pushed themselves back a little from their tables. Muscles flexed bodies into readiness for action. Tongues licked lips and eyes looked eagerly at the front door.
Bluepoint Vance was coming into the room. He came alone, nodding to acquaintances on this side and that, carrying his tall body gracefully, easily, in its well-cut clothing. His sharp-featured face was smilingly self-confident. He came without haste and without delay to Red O’Leary’s table. I couldn’t see Red’s face, but muscles thickened the back of his neck. The girl smiled cordially at Vance and gave him her hand. It was naturally done. She didn’t know anything.
Vance turned his smile from Nancy Regan to the red-haired giant—a smile that was a trifle cat-to-mousey.
“How’s everything, Red?” he asked.
“Everything suits me,” bluntly.
The orchestra had stopped playing. Larrouy, standing by the street door, was mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. At the table to my right, a barrel-chested, broken-nosed bruiser in a widely striped suit was breathing heavily between his gold teeth, his watery gray eyes bulging at O’Leary, Vance and Nancy. He was in no way conspicuous—there were too many others holding the same pose.
Bluepoint Vance turned his head, called to a waiter: “Bring me a chair.”
The chair was brought and put at the unoccupied side of the table, facing the wall. Vance sat down, slumping back in the chair, leaning indolently toward Red, his left arm hooked over the chair-back, his right hand holding a cigarette.
“Well, Red,” he said when he was thus installed, “have you got any news for me?”
His voice was suave, but loud enough for those at nearby tables to hear.
“Not a word.” O’Leary’s voice made no pretense of friendliness, nor of caution.
“What, no spinach?” Vance’s thin-lipped smile spread, and his dark eyes had a mirthful but not pleasant glitter. “Nobody gave you anything to give me?”
“No,” said O’Leary, emphatically.
“My goodness!” said Vance, the smile in his eyes and mouth deepening, and getting still less pleasant. “That’s ingratitude! Will you help me collect, Red?”
“No.”
I was disgusted with this red-head—half-minded to let him go under when the storm broke. Why couldn’t he have stalled his way out—fixed up a fancy tale that Bluepoint would have had to half-way accept? But no—this O’Leary boy was so damned childishly proud of his toughness that he had to make a show of it when he should have been using his bean. If it had been only his own carcass that was due for a beating, it would have been all right. But it wasn’t all right that Jack and I should have to suffer. This big chump was too valuable to lose. We’d have to get ourselves all battered up saving him from the rewards of his own pig-headedness. There was no justice in it.
“I’ve got a lot of money coming to me, Red.” Vance spoke lazily, tauntingly. “And I need that money.” He drew on his cigarette, casually blew the smoke into the red-head’s face, and drawled, “Why, do you know the laundry charges twenty-six cents just for doing a pair of pajamas? I need money.”
“Sleep in your underclothes,” said O’Leary.
Vance laughed. Nancy Regan smiled, but in a bewildered way. She didn’t seem to know what it was all about, but she couldn’t help knowing that it was about something.
O’Leary leaned forward and spoke deliberately, loud enough for any to hear:
“Bluepoint, I’ve got nothing to give you—now or ever. And that goes for anybody else that’s interested. If you or them think I owe you something—try and get it. To hell with you, Bluepoint Vance! If you don’t like it—you’ve got friends here. Call ’em on!”
What a prime young idiot! Nothing would suit him but an ambulance—and I must be dragged along with him.<
br />
Vance grinned evilly, his eyes glittering into O’Leary’s face.
“You’d like that, Red?”
O’Leary hunched his big shoulders and let them drop.
“I don’t mind a fight,” he said. “But I’d like to get Nancy out of it.” He turned to her. “Better run along, honey, I’m going to be busy.”
She started to say something, but Vance was talking to her. His words were lightly spoken, and he made no objection to her going. The substance of what he told her was that she was going to be lonely without Red. But he went intimately into the details of that loneliness.
Red O’Leary’s right hand rested on the table. It went up to Vance’s mouth. The hand was a fist when it got there. A wallop of that sort is awkward to deliver. The body can’t give it much. It has to depend on the arm muscles, and not on the best of those. Yet Bluepoint Vance was driven out of his chair and across to the next table.
Larrouy’s chairs went empty. The shindig was on.
“On your toes,” I growled at Jack Counihan, and, doing my best to look like the nervous little fat man I was, I ran toward the back door, passing men who were moving not yet swiftly toward O’Leary. I must have looked the part of a scared trouble-dodger, because nobody stopped me, and I reached the door before the pack had closed on Red. The door was closed, but not locked. I wheeled with my back to it, black-jack in right hand, gun in left. Men were in front of me, but their backs were to me.
O’Leary was towering in front of his table, his tough red face full of bring-on-your-hell, his big body balanced on the balls of his feet. Between us, Jack Counihan stood, his face turned to me, his mouth twitching in a nervous grin, his eyes dancing with delight. Bluepoint Vance was on his feet again. Blood trickled from his thin lips, down his chin. His eyes were cool. They looked at Red O’Leary with the businesslike look of a logger sizing up the tree he’s going to bring down. Vance’s mob watched Vance.
“Red!” I bawled into the silence. “This way, Red!”
Faces spun to me—every face in the joint—millions of them.
Creeping Siamese and Other Stories Page 7