“You must be crazy, Connell! Crandall wouldn't consider a thing like that. The man was very friendly, I tell you. You're talking about murder, man.”
I said: “The maid was murdered, wasn't she? They can only hang you once. Though it's gas they give you in this state.”
He mumbled something more about me being out of my head, then spoke clearly. “Just hold the wire. There's somebody at the door.”
I waited for about five minutes. Then MacIntosh's voice said: “You, Connell?”
“Yes.”
“Everything's okey. I'll see you.”
I said: “You damned fool! I didn't want him to know I put you on him.”
He laughed and said: “He doesn't. He put up an argument and I bopped him on the side of the face with a sap. I didn't want to do it but he went off his nut and took a pass at me. I won't take that from any man, much less a man I'm trying to help. I'll see you when I get back.”
“Will you make it early? I want to go out.”
He laughed again. “Naughty, naughty. You're playing with fire.”
“What's that mean?”
He said: “Oh hell! We've been keeping an eye on you, sort of. Sometime I'll tell you about the Spanish girl that stuck a knife through my arm once. Remind me, will you.”
He hung up and so did I. There's darn little that goes on in a town of this size that the cops can't find out about if they're interested. My Spanish wonder apparently was known. She was the type, at that. To be known.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE landlady brought me dinner at seven and was over her crying spell by then. She was even a bit ashamed of it. She put the tray down and said: “Lamb chops and green peas tonight. And like it. I shouldn't have blown up the way I did this afternoon but I'd been thinking about it all day. It got me down. I'm getting old; I just can't take it.” I said I was sorry and that I naturally would say nothing.
She looked at me thoughtfully and said she didn't think I would. And then, still thoughtfully: “The place is still staked, if it means anything to you. Different man, but still on the job. You that hot?”
“It isn't for me.”
“Was that shooting on the street meant for you?”
“Where'd you hear that?”
She said: “I've got ears. There's talk, if you know where to listen for it.”
“Now look! I'm going out tonight. For a ride. Just to get out of the room. If I thought this was for me, would I do that? I'm not worried; I don't think it's for me.”
“You'd be safer staying in. That's what Mac told me when you came.”
“I'd go nuts looking at four bare walls.”
She shrugged and said: “It's your dice, mister man. I hope you like lamb chops and peas.”
“I won't go out until after MacIntosh comes. He's coming up by and by.”
“He always comes up on this date. He hasn't missed in years.”
She looked at me in a funny way and all of a sudden I got an idea. I said: “Say, listen! Is he some relation of yours?”
“In a way,” she said. She laughed, but it didn't sound at all funny. “I married him once. We quit it when the girl was two. I couldn't stand being married to a law man, I thought. I'd been on the other side too long, you see. It's a different life. I couldn't take it and we quit and I got the girl. Now do you see?”
“More all the time.”
“Mac's helped with her, right along.”
“I figured him for the kind that would.”
“I didn't tell you this, either. The man he shot was named Rucci. Gino's brother. There were four of them; all in the same business. Gino and Luigi are left. He got one of them then, like I told you, and the third one happened to be killed in a liquor raid down in southern California.”
“Was Mac working prohibition then?”
She nodded. “Out of the Los Angeles office. The four brothers had always worked together, sort of. Mac knew that.”
I said: “MacIntosh is quite a man.”
She just nodded again and left.
He came up, looking grey and grim, an hour later. He planked himself down in a chair and said: “Well, your man's in jail and it's a wonder to me you can't hear him this far. He cried like a baby about it. He claimed I couldn't do it and that was when the jailer was locking the door on him.”
“It won't hurt him.”
“You really think he's in danger?”
“I really do.”
“What about yourself?”
“I'm keeping out of circulation pretty well.”
“Maude tells me you're going out tonight.”
“I'm going nuts staying inside. I'm keeping off the streets.” He shook his head. “I think you're a damn fool to do it with this business coming to a head. Kirby's worried; he's afraid there's nothing going to come of it.”
“There may not be. I won't start anything until I'm sure of what I'm doing. I think it'll be started for me, MacIntosh.”
“This girl of yours. What d'ya know of her?”
“Not a hell of a lot. She's just company.”
“She's a friend of Rucci's, Connell. If that means anything.”
“It means a lot. If she's right, she won't do me any harm. If she's wrong, I may be able to use her.”
“What about your friend Kewpie Martin?”
“He's okey, as far as I know. At least I thought so until he came up here with one of those yeggs I battled with out at the Three C. I didn't crack to him; I don't see how he could hurt me.”
“You can watch him, anyway. Maude says the place is staked.”—”
I laughed. “Who'd stake it? You and Kirby and my partner know I'm here. That's all. If Crandall knew it, I'd have got some action before now. I think I would, anyway. I've come in and out pretty quiet; today was the first time out in daylight, since I moved in. It's possible, of course.”
He said, speaking slowly: “I'm an older man than you, Connell. I've been an officer just about all my life and I've mixed with a lot of people. I've never made a mistake when I gave the other fella credit for more brains than I thought he had. Or for a lucky break. That figuring the other guy for a chump is the worst thing you can do.”
“I'm not figuring Crandall for a chump. Not ever.”
“And he's with Rucci. Rucci's smart. Plenty smart.”
I kept my face straight and said: “I figured him for it all the time.”
He looked up at the ceiling and said: “I've been trying to get something on the bastard for the last eight years and haven't done it yet. It wants to be legal, if possible. I've been law too long to go the other route.”
“Sure! But if you can stick him over this business I'm on, what's the difference? He's in jail, just the same. What's the difference what he goes up for?”
He kept looking at the ceiling. He said, very softly: “We've got gas in this state. I want to have him wait to go in that chamber and I want to see him every day while he waits. I want him up for murder. That French girl may be it. It may not be, I don't know. But I can't lose, can I?”
“I think it's working out, MacIntosh.”
He stood, said: “Watch yourself. Don't trust that girl, unless you're sure. Or Martin. Hell, man, in this business you can't trust anybody. I wouldn't even trust that guy I was working for if I was you. He's such a damn fool he can't see we're trying to help him.”
“He's not bright. Kewp's all right; I think I've got the answer on that business of him being here. He smokes hay and was buying.”
“Of course I don't blame Wendel for trying to straighten things with his wife. A man should do that.”
I didn't think about how he could take it. I said: “A lot of trouble could be saved if this family trouble was straightened out when it started.”
He got white around the lips and said: “Yeah! That's right, I guess. A lot of trouble.”
I saved it some with: “He wouldn't have had to come out here and she'd have been saved all this divorce trouble. Everybody would have been
ahead.”
He said: “Be seeing you,” and went out the door. He walked with a little roll, like a punch-drunk fighter. That birthday was bothering him as much as it was the landlady, and I don't think I ever felt as sorry for a man in my life as I did for him right then.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I CALLED Spanish and told her I'd pick her up in half an hour. She said:
“That's fine. Are you bringing your friend?”
I said: “Friend?”
“Well, Hazel's friend. She's here now.” I said I guessed maybe I could and called Lester and told him to meet me at the corner below his hotel. That we were going calling. He brightened up, until I told him who we were calling on and then he said, in a scared voice: “Ugh... maybe I'd better not go tonight, Shean. You know I don't drink and... well... maybe I'd better not go.”
“The big gal's got you scared, hunh?”
“It ... it isn't that. But she gets drunk and what can I do with her? She keeps calling me all the time. I ... ugh ... I think I'll stay home.”
“Suit yourself. She's your gal.”
He said: “Wait a minute,” and then: “I'll meet you. Right away?”
“Yeah!”
I could hear a bunch of noise in the room and had a notion what had happened. Joey had gone in, probably with a bunch of drunken companions, and the kid had decided one woman, even if she was as big as a small pony, was easier to handle while drunk than Joey.
Just the lesser of two evils. I picked him up at his corner and he told me I'd guessed right. He said: “You know, Shean, Hazel's a lovely girl but she drinks too much. She's really nice except for that one thing.”
“Why don't you reform her?”
He said earnestly, and meaning it: “D'ya suppose I could? She told me the only reason she does it is because she's so lonesome. Because of feeling so badly over this divorce. Her husband was a brute to her.” I asked: “Which one?”
“What d'ya mean?”
“Which husband? She's had a lot of them, hasn't she?”
He said: “She's had a lot of trouble in her life,” and sighed, and I said: “For Christ's sake, kid. You're not taking the big wench seriously, are you?”
“We've spoken of marriage, Shean.”
He tried to make this grown-up and all it did was sound silly. I laughed. He got red in the face and said: “What's funny about that? I've always thought a man who didn't marry was losing a beautiful experience.”
“Look around you and prove that,” I said. “He's losing a chance to pay out every crying dime he makes for alimony, you sap. Grow up, kid.”
“Age doesn't make any difference if there's real love between you.”
I stopped the car in front of the Spanish's house. I said: “Now look. In the first place, you're not old enough to get married. This gal is old enough to be your mother. She's practically a professional at this getting married; she's got too much experience for you. And besides that. She's too big for you; she'd grapple with you and take you two falls out of three. Why, my God, kid, you could have her, another cow, and a dozen milk bottles and start a dairy route. Now lay off.”
“You shouldn't speak like that about her, Shean. She's really nice.”
I said: “Oh nuts. Come on in the house.”
We got out of the car and I remembered what MacIntosh had said about Spanish and who'd introduced me to her. I took my gun out and held it under my coat and said to Lester: “Keep to the side and back of me. We might be walking into a plant.”
“Hunh?”
“She might be Rucci's girl. I don't know.”
He handed me back what I'd given him. He said: “And you talk to me about being foolish about women. And then go ahead like this.”
I knocked on Spanish's door and my face was red. She opened it and said: “Come on in,” and we did.
The two girls were alone in the front room, anyway, and I made an excuse to follow Spanish out to the kitchen while she mixed drinks. Just to be sure nobody was hiding there. She had her back turned and I started to put my gun away, but I was clumsy about it and she turned and saw it slide in the clip. She made her eyes wide and said:
“You're carrying a gun, Shean.”
“It's an old habit,” I told her.
“I knew something was wrong.”
“There's nothing wrong, babe.”
“I thought about it all day. That's why I went out to the Three C this afternoon. That's where I met Hazel and Mrs. Wendel.”
“That right?”
“Hazel came back with me but Mrs. Wendel waited there for her lawyer, Crandall.”
“That right?”
“He came out with Rucci's brother. Just as we left.”
I said: “Oh, oh!”
“He's very nice.”
“I heard that.”
“Mrs. Wendel told me about you and her husband breaking in her house last night. She doesn't have any more use for him at all. She won't even talk to him.”
“I noticed that.”
“I think she's foolish. He'll just fight her alimony if she treats him like that.”
“Maybe so, hon.”
“I heard Rucci ask her if she'd talked to him and she said 'Of course not.'”
She stopped shaking drinks then and put the shaker down. She came over to me and snuggled up and said: “I'd always talk to you, honey.”
“Even if you were divorcing me?”
“Of course.”
“It seems funny that she doesn't talk to him, don't it?”
She snuggled closer. “Shean, you're in trouble. Is it over that woman?”
“Sort of, hon. Her old man's a friend of mine. Get the idea?”
“I don't like her. Hazel does, though. They had a long talk before Crandall came out.”
“What about?”
“I didn't hear. They were over at another booth. Probably about Mr. Crandall, don't you think?”
“Probably. Let's go back in the front room.”
She pouted and said I never wanted to be alone with her. I said she was crazy and that was probably the reason I was so mad about her. She said that I never acted as though I wanted to be alone with her. I said that proved right there she was crazy, but that I hated to leave Lester alone with Hazel; that they were both just young and foolish kids and might not be responsible for what they did. She giggled and said Hazel was looking for a husband. I said that Hazel had not only been looking for a husband for the last twenty-five years but that she'd been finding them and trading them in on new models as fast as she got them. She said she wasn't that type; that she was a one man woman and that I was the man. I said: “What are you going to do with those drinks? Let 'em stand there on the shelf and melt until they're no good?”
She said: “You're afraid of me because I met you through Rucci. Isn't that it?”
“Of course not, kitten.”
“I just met him casually. That's all. I'll prove I'm no friend of his. I beard him say to his brother 'Tonight's the night for that Irish bastard.'”
“That's supposed to be me, babe?”
“You're Irish, aren't you?”
I laughed.
“And what did you mean when you said 'Oh, oh'? When I said that Rucci's brother came out with Crandall?”
“That was a slip, lamb.”
She got away from me and back to the shaker. She snapped: “All right. Don't tell me anything. I went out there just because I thought you were in trouble with Rucci and because I thought I could maybe help you by finding out something.”
“I appreciate the spirit, babe.”
She put the shaker and glasses on a tray and tossed her head while she headed toward the front room. But when she got to the door she stopped and said: “You might talk to Hazel and see what you can find out. Mrs. Wendel was sore about that business of last night and she was doing a lot of talking.”
“Don't ever say you don't help me, sweet.”
“I tried. Shean.”
I said: “Let's g
o in the other room.”
Lester and Hazel were sitting on the davenport and Lester looked a little mussed. I figured Hazel had probably been holding him in her lap; she was big enough to do the deed comfortably. He looked relieved when he saw us and she looked about half mad. I poured her three Martinis, as fast as she could get them down, then sat down by her and said: “Did you hear about the little stunt Wendel and I pulled last night on his old lady? That was funny.” To prove it I laughed.
Hazel said: “Heard it! I heard nothing else all afternoon. It's a wonder you both weren't arrested.”
“We were.”
“She didn't tell me that. She said she didn't even know where her husband was.”
I thought of the Carson City jail but didn't say anything about it. I said: “Chances are he's around someplace. He may be keeping inside, so she doesn't have a chance to raise hell with him.”
“She's the kind that would. But she's so mad at him she won't even talk to him. She told me he was mixed up with some girl here, but that she doesn't want to use that against him. He beat her up last night, too, she says.” I said: “Nuts!”
“Well, if I was him I wouldn't go out to the Three C any more. Or you either. They think a lot of her out there. She's there all the time.”
I said: “Probably on account of young Rucci. The one that came out with her lawyer today.”
“Well, she knows him of course. She must have met him lately though; she's from New York and he's from Sacramento.”
“That's probably it.”
The shaker went dry and she looked at it, very wistfully. I said: “Toots and I'll got out and fill it up again.”
She was reaching for Lester when Spanish and I went through the kitchen door. Spanish said: “Well, did you learn anything?”
“Sure. Of course.”
“I didn't hear her say anything.”
“You didn't know what to listen for, hon.”
She shook her head and said: “Secrets.” She was about half mad and about half worried about me and I kidded her out of both before we went back in the parlor.
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