by Bill Crider
I should have been more suspicious. The car was parked around the corner, and the streetlight was out. That alone should have tipped me. But Garton was walking casually along, whistling something that had a vague resemblance to “The White Cliffs of Dover,” as if we were just out for a friendly stroll around the block.
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When he got to the car, he opened the back door and leaned into the car. Then he stepped back and said, “You first. Have a seat and make yourself comfortable.”
I was about to get inside when he hit me.
He’d gotten a towel from inside the car when he opened the door.
It had been there waiting for him, rolled into a tight length and doubled over.
If you think a towel can’t do much damage, let somebody roll one up like that, and then club you in the kidneys with it when you’re relaxed and bent at a slight angle.
I heard it swishing through the air, so I managed to make about a quarter of a turn before it hit me, not that it helped much.
The towel was thick and soft, and it probably wouldn’t leave a mark on me. But it could break a rib or two, maybe bruise a kidney. Give you a concussion if it hit your head just right, and I had a feeling Garton knew the way to do it.
He danced back out of my reach, his grin wider than ever.
“How’d you like that, Scott? Feel good? Ready for another?”
He swung for my side, pivoting like Joe DiMaggio going for the fences. I jumped back and hit the car. The towel passed by about a quarter of an inch in front of my stomach.
“Good reactions,” Garton said, puffing a little with the effort. Maybe if I could make him keep missing, he’d keel over with a heart attack.
He swung again, and this time there was nowhere for me to go.
The towel hit me squarely in the stomach. All the wind in my lungs whooshed out. I was lucky everything I’d eaten and drunk for the past week didn’t follow it.
I bent double. My hat fell off, and the towel smashed across my shoulders. Somehow I managed not to fall to the street. I scuttled along the side of the car for a foot or two, like a crab with the palsy.
“No use to run,” Garton said, giving my hat a kick that sent it skipping down the sidewalk.
Run? I thought. I wasn’t sure I could even straighten up, much less run.
The towel came at me again, but this time I was able to duck out of the way. Or maybe I was just falling and got lucky, because I found myself on my knees on the sidewalk.
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“Home run,” Garton said, twirling the towel around as if winding up.
“Dead center field. I’m Babe Ruth, and you’re Charlie Root.”
He was taking aim at my head, and I had a feeling that I wasn’t Charlie Root at all. My head, however, was the ball, and if Garton connected, my head would wind up somewhere in San Jose. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to stop him. My knees were as weak as a Baptist highball.
I put out a hand to steady myself against the car, but my fingers met only empty air. I remembered that I’d left the car door open. I threw myself backward into the seat and pulled the door shut just as the towel crashed into it with a heavy thud. There was going to be a dent there. I hope the department billed Garton for having it fixed.
“Come out of there, you asshole,” Garton said, his voice muffled.
I scooted over to the other side of the seat and crouched there, feeling as if I’d been run over by an APC. My head throbbed, my stomach was cramping, and my kidneys were twinging.
Garton opened the door. He smiled at me, holding the towel behind his back.
“Come on out, Scott. I don’t have the towel any more.”
Like hell he didn’t. I opened the door on my side and got out, closing it behind me. Now that the car was between us, I felt a little better. I even managed to stand up.
“Maybe you should get the pistol out again, Garton,” I said. “Unless you think you can catch me.”
He started around the car. So did I, somewhat more slowly than he was moving, but still fast enough to stay ahead of him. We kept going, and we must have looked like a scene from a Three Stooges short as we circled the car, me leaning into it, trying not to fall, him coming as fast as he could, but trying to keep the towel concealed. I didn’t know why he didn’t just start swinging it. Earlier we’d been mostly hidden from the street by the car. Now someone might see us.
After we’d gone twice around, Garton stopped.
“I’ve had enough of this shit,” he said.
He threw the towel on the hood of the car.
“I was just kidding about the pistol,” I told him. “You don’t want to shoot me right here on the street. Too much explaining to do.”
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“You’re going to tell me about Dawson,” he said, drawing the pistol.
“One way or the other.”
“Dead or alive? Even you must realize that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Screw you, Scott. You think you’re hot stuff because you have movie-star pals and kiss Jack Warner’s ass every day, but you’re nothing but a chickenshit leech.”
I eased along the side of the car. He slid right along after me, pointing the pistol in the general direction of my chest. It was the second time that night someone had pointed a pistol at me, and I didn’t much like it. The funny thing was that Garton, the cop, worried me more than Charlie O., the gangster.
“Don’t hold back, Garton,” I said. “If you don’t like me, just say so.
You don’t have to be so polite.”
And with that I changed directions, moving around the car toward him.
“Come on, Garton,” I said. “If you hate me, just shoot me. Ever shot anyone before? I’ll bet you have. Did he bleed much? Do you think I’ll bleed all over your nice police car?”
“Stand still, you son of a bitch,” Garton said, “or by God I will shoot you.”
“Go ahead. I’m tired of trying to get away from you.” I edged along the fenders toward the front of the car. “You don’t have to worry about shooting an unarmed man. Congreve has my pistol, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to plant it on me. Probably wouldn’t be the first time that you and he have done a little deal like that, now would it.”
“We don’t work that way,” Garton said. “But if you come any farther, I’ll have to shoot.”
“Go ahead. See if I care.”
I was around the front of the car now, past the hood ornament and on my way toward Garton. I could see that he was getting nervous, almost as if I had the pistol and he had nothing.
“Well?” I said. “What are you waiting for? Are you too scared to pull the trigger? Look at you. I think your knees are shaking. Congreve would be ashamed of you if he were here to see you.”
“All right, Scott,” Garton said. “If you want die, then by God I’ll take care of it for you.”
He would have, too, but I was a little too quick for him.
I snatched the towel off the hood and sent it out like a striking 154
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snake, just the way I’d used one in the high school gym. The tip of it popped his hand, and the pistol went flying off to the side. It hit the sidewalk, discharged, and a bullet twanged into the car’s front fender not too far from where I was standing.
I didn’t look to see where the pistol had landed. Garton did, and I popped the towel again, this time catching him on the cheek, just below his right eye.
He put his hands to his face, and I let him have another pop, this time in a lower and more delicate portion of his anatomy. He moved his hands from his face to his crotch and moaned loudly. It was a nice sound to hear.
While he was sniveling, I tossed the towel back into the car. Then I went over and picked up the pistol.
“You shouldn’t throw these things around like you would a toy,”
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bsp; I told him. “It’s very dangerous. Someone could get hurt.”
For some reason he didn’t answer me. I took his handcuffs, and jerked one arm behind him. I snapped a cuff on, then yanked the other arm back and cuffed it as well. Garton fell over on the walk and lay there on his side, curled up as if he were a very large baby trying to fall sleep, his hands between his thighs as he clutched himself. He wasn’t making quite as much noise as he had been, but he was still whimpering.
“If anyone stops to help, maybe you can tell them where the handcuff key is,” I said. “They might find it and turn you loose, so I’d better take your pistol with me, just in case.”
I think he called me a very vulgar name then, but I couldn’t be sure. He was having trouble with his enunciation. In any case, I didn’t care what he had to say, and I left him there while I fetched my hat, then went to find Congreve.
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26
Bogart’s door wasn’t locked, for which I didn’t blame him.
Who’d want to be locked in a room with Congreve? Not me, and certainly not Bogart, who had a reputation for his inability to suffer fools gladly. Or at all.
Not that Congreve was a fool. He wasn’t, though his behavior lately was enough to make a guy underestimate him. He was looking in all the wrong places for Burleson’s killer, and now he was wrong about Dawson. I knew for certain that I hadn’t killed the stuntman, and I was equally certain that Bogart hadn’t. Neither of us had killed Burleson, either, but Congreve couldn’t seem to understand that.
Since the door was unlocked, I just walked right in, with Garton’s gun in my hand. I wasn’t pointing it in any particular direction, but it was up and ready for use.
Bogart and Congreve were talking in the living room. Bogart hadn’t cleaned the place since my last visit. He sat on the couch with a drink in his hand. Congreve was leaning against the mantel, looking at the photograph of Bogart’s wife as if he might be wondering whether he’d have a chance with her when he got Bogart behind bars. I could have told him that he wouldn’t, but I figured he wouldn’t care to hear my opinion, and besides, he probably knew it already.
“Hello, Junior,” Bogart said as I entered the room, and he raised his glass to me.
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Congreve turned and looked at me as if he might have been expecting someone else. Garton, maybe.
“What do you think you’re doing, Scott?” Congreve said, eyeing the pistol.
“I just dropped by to see how the questioning was going,” I said.
“I thought I might pick up a few tips on clever interrogation tech-niques.”
“Where’s Garton?”
“He needed to lie down for a while. He’s a little indisposed.” I waggled the gun in my hand. “He had an accident with his pistol, which is why he gave it to me. Since I’m here, I might as well let you take care of it. After you return mine, of course.”
Congreve’s neck started to get red above the collar of his starched white shirt. He didn’t make any move to get my pistol.
“I have a permit,” I reminded him, and he reached into his pocket.
“Two fingers,” I said, angling the barrel of Garton’s gun in his direction.
“Remember?”
He took my pistol out, and I asked Bogart to get it for me. He cleared away a little clutter and set his drink on the coffee table. Then he got up, taking his time about it, got the pistol, and brought it over.
I shifted Garton’s pistol to my left hand and took the other in my right. When I had a firm grip on it, I handed Garton’s gun to Bogart and asked him to take it to Congreve.
Bogart held the pistol up and looked it over.
“I thought yours would be bigger than Garton’s,” he said.
“I was hoping it would, but it looks like they’re the same size. Oh, well, they say size doesn’t matter.”
“Who says that? Anybody I know?”
“Can the Abbott and Costello routine,” Congreve said. The red had spread to his face now. “They do it better than you, and I don’t like it even then.”
Bogart continued to hold Garton’s pistol, but now he had his finger on the trigger and had the pistol aimed at the big knot on Congreve’s tie.
“There’s been a new development,” Bogart said. “Mr. Congreve thinks I killed Frank Burleson. He claims that the .45 automatic he found by Burleson’s body belonged to me. I’ve been explaining to 158
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him that I don’t own a .45 automatic, but he doesn’t seem to believe me.”
“It’s the truth,” I said, and it was, more or less.
After all, the automatic was in the hands of the police now, so you could say that they were the owners and not Bogart, who no longer had possession of it. Of course some might complain that was splitting hairs because Bogart still owned the gun, no matter who happened to have it at the time, but I figured a good lawyer could convince them otherwise. And while I couldn’t afford a good lawyer, Mr. Warner could.
“I don’t know where he got such an idea,” Bogart said. “And he won’t tell me. He’s a very tight-lipped guy, Mr. Congreve is.” “That’s Lieutenant Congreve,” I said. “Mustn’t be disrespectful.”
Bogart said he wouldn’t dream of it and handed Congreve Garton’s pistol. Congreve pointed it in my direction, and I gave him a wide grin. He dropped the pistol into a jacket pocket.
“That’s more like it,” I said, putting Charlie O.’s pistol in my own pocket.
“And now you’d better go see about Garton. He might be ready to get back to the station. Unless he’s gone to sleep by now.”
Congreve’s face was almost maroon. I hoped he wasn’t going to pop a blood vessel and ruin Bogart’s carpet.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I told Congreve. “It’s right out of some bad movie.”
“‘You’ll never get away with this,’” Bogart said, right on cue in his best Duke Mantee voice. “‘I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do.’”
Even though I knew he was kidding, he managed to send a chill up my spine. It was no wonder Mr. Warner was willing to pay him so well.
“Very clever,” Congreve said. “You two should get Jack Warner to star you in a remake of The Roaring Twenties.”
“Look,” Bogart said, “we’re not trying to cause you any trouble. I didn’t kill anyone, and neither did Scott. You’re on the wrong track, Congreve. You need to listen to what I’ve been telling you, and then maybe you can find who you’re looking for.”
Congreve might have had something to say about that, but before he could get it out, the door flew open and Garton came into the 159
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room. I was gratified to see that he was having a little difficulty walking.
Garton, on the other hand, wasn’t in the least gratified to see me.
He gave me a look that could have stripped wallpaper.
“You son of a bitch,” he said.
“Me?” I said. “Or Bogart? Or your lieutenant?”
“You know who I’m talking to, Scott.”
“Well, I thought I knew, but I wanted to make sure. You’re walking kind of funny, did you know that?”
“You son of a bitch.”
“I’ve always found that a limited vocabulary is a sign of limited intelligence,” I said. “Haven’t you found that, Lieutenant? Does the department have any standards at all these days, or can just anyone get in?”
“Let’s go, Garton,” Congreve said. “We’re wasting our time with these blockheads.”
“He took my gun,” Garton said, still looking at me.
Congreve pulled the pistol from his jacket pocket and held it up.
“I have it. Now let’s get out of here.”
He put the gun back in his pocket, walked across the room, past me and then Garton, and went out the door. Garton continued to look at me for several more seconds, so I said, �
��Who took the handcuffs off, Garton? Some passerby? Or are you a direct descendant of Houdini?”
“You’ll never know, you son of a bitch,” Garton said, and then he turned and followed Congreve.
He didn’t bother to close the door, but what can you expect from somebody with his limited vocabulary and undoubtedly limited intelligence?
I went over and closed the door myself. When I turned around, Bogart was back on the couch, sipping his drink as if nothing had happened.
“What did you tell Congreve?” I asked.
“Nothing much.”
“You said that he needed to listen to what you’d been telling him, and if he did, he’d find who he was looking for.”
“You have a pretty good memory,” Bogart said. He set his glass down and lit a cigarette. “Did Garton try to get rough with you?”
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“He did more than try.”
“You’re tougher than you look, Junior.”
I wasn’t so tough. I was aching all over, and I was afraid that the next time I went to the bathroom I’d find blood in the bowl. I was sorry Garton had gotten loose, and I wondered how he’d explained himself to whoever unlocked the handcuffs. I also wondered how he’d explained himself to Congreve, and that made me feel a little better.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.
Bogart smiled. He took a swallow of his drink and a drag off his cigarette.
“Now,” I said, “let’s get back to whatever it was that you told Congreve.”
“You’re stubborn, too,” Bogart said. “You can take that however you want.”
I sat down in a chair and said, “You play your cards too close to the vest, Bogart, and I’m not sure why. Maybe you do have something to hide. Or maybe you were just trying to give me to Congreve. What do you think this is— The Maltese Falcon? Do you think because somebody was killed, we have to give the cops a fall guy? Do you figure me for Wilmer? If you do, you’re wrong all the way. We don’t have to give anybody to the cops, because we didn’t kill anybody.
And I’m damned sure not Wilmer.”
Bogart exhaled a little smoke. “I never said you were.”
“But you’re not leveling with me about what you told Congreve, are you?”