by Otto Penzler
“A guy called me,” he said in a dead voice. “Ten grand for the plate and the prints. The deal’s got to be closed tonight, or they give the stuff to some scandal sheet.”
“That’s a lot of hooey,” I said. “A scandal sheet couldn’t use it, except to back up a story. What’s the story?”
He lifted his eyes slowly, as if they were very heavy. “That ain’t all. The guy says there’s a jam to it. I better come through fast, or I’d find my girl in the cooler.”
“What’s the story?” I asked again, filling my pipe. “What does Carmen say?”
He shook his big shaggy head. “I ain’t asked her. I ain’t got the heart. Poor little girl. No clothes on her … No, I ain’t got the heart…. You ain’t done nothin’ on Steiner yet, I guess.”
“I didn’t have to,” I told him. “Somebody beat me to it.”
He stared at me open-mouthed, uncomprehending. It was obvious he knew nothing about the night before.
“Did Carmen go out at all last night?” I asked carelessly.
He was still staring with his mouth open, groping in his mind.
“No. She’s sick. She’s sick in bed when I get home. She don’t go out at all…. What you mean—about Steiner?”
I reached for the bottle of rye and poured us each a drink. Then I lit my pipe.
“Steiner’s dead,” I said. “Somebody got tired of his tricks and shot him full of holes. Last night, in the rain.”
“Jeeze,” he said wonderingly. “You was there?”
I shook my head. “Not me. Carmen was there. That’s the jam your man spoke of. She didn’t do the shooting, of course.”
Dravec’s face got red and angry. He balled his fists. His breath made a harsh sound and a pulse beat visibly in the side of his neck.
“That ain’t true! She’s sick. She don’t go out at all. She’s sick in bed when I get home!”
“You told me that,” I said. “That’s not true. I brought Carmen home myself. The maid knows, only she’s trying to be decent about it. Carmen was at Steiner’s house and I was watching outside. A gun went off and someone ran away. I didn’t see him. Carmen was too drunk to see him. That’s why she’s sick.”
His eyes tried to focus on my face, but they were vague and empty, as if the light behind them had died. He took hold of the arms of the chair. His big knuckles strained and got white.
“She don’t tell me,” he whispered. “She don’t tell me. Me, that would do anything for her.” There was no emotion in his voice; just the dead exhaustion of despair.
He pushed his chair back a little. “I go get the dough,” he said. “The ten grand. Maybe the guy don’t talk.”
Then he broke. His big rough head came down on the desk and sobs shook his whole body. I stood up and went around the desk and patted his shoulder, kept on patting it, not saying anything. After a while he lifted his face smeared with tears and grabbed for my hand.
“Jeeze, you’re a good guy,” he sobbed.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I pulled my hand away from him and got a drink into his paw, helped him lift it and down it. Then I took the empty glass out of his hand and put it back on the desk. I sat down again.
“You’ve got to brace up,” I told him grimly. “The law doesn’t know about Steiner yet. I brought Carmen home and kept my mouth shut. I wanted to give you and Carmen a break. That puts me in a jam. You’ve got to do your part.”
He nodded slowly, heavily. “Yeah, I do what you say—anything you say.”
“Get the money,” I said. “Have it ready for the call. I’ve got ideas and you may not have to use it. But it’s no time to get foxy…. Get the money and sit tight and keep your mouth shut. Leave the rest to me. Can you do that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Jeeze, you’re a good guy.”
“Don’t talk to Carmen,” I said. “The less she remembers out of her drunk, the better. This picture—” I touched the back of the photo on the desk, “—shows somebody was working with Steiner. We’ve got to get him and get him quick—even if it costs ten grand to do it.”
He stood up slowly. “That’s nothin’. That’s just dough. I go get it now. Then I go home. You do it like you want to. Me, I do just like you say.”
He grabbed for my hand again, shook it, and went slowly out of the office. I heard his heavy steps drag down the hall.
I drank a couple of drinks fast and mopped my face.
VIII
I drove my Chrysler slowly up La Verne Terrace towards Steiner’s house.
In the daylight, I could see the steep drop of the hill and the flight of wooden steps down which the killer had made his escape. The street below was almost as narrow as an alley. Two small houses fronted on it, not very near Steiner’s place. With the noise the rain had been making, it was doubtful if anyone in them had paid much attention to the shots.
Steiner’s looked peaceful under the afternoon sun. The unpainted shingles of the roof were still damp from the rain. The trees on the other side of the street had new leaves on them. There were no cars on the street.
Something moved behind the square growth of box hedge that screened Steiner’s front door.
Carmen Dravec, in a green and white checkered coat and no hat, came out through the opening, stopped suddenly, looked at me wild-eyed, as if she hadn’t heard the car. She went back quickly behind the hedge. I drove on and parked in front of the empty house.
I got out and walked back. In the sunlight it felt like an exposed and dangerous thing to do.
I went in through the hedge and the girl stood there very straight and silent against the half-open house door. One hand went slowly to her mouth, and her teeth bit at a funny-looking thumb that was like an extra finger. There were deep purple-black smudges under her frightened eyes.
I pushed her back into the house without saying anything, shut the door. We stood looking at each other inside. She dropped her hand slowly and tried to smile. Then all expression went out of her white face and it looked as intelligent as the bottom of a shoe box.
I got gentleness into my voice and said:
“Take it easy. I’m pals. Sit down in that chair by the desk. I’m a friend of your father’s. Don’t get panicky.”
She went and sat down on the yellow cushion in the black chair at Steiner’s desk.
The place looked decadent and off-color by daylight. It still stank of the ether.
Carmen licked the corners of her mouth with the tip of a whitish tongue. Her dark eyes were stupid and stunned rather than scared now. I rolled a cigarette around in my fingers and pushed some books out of the way to sit on the edge of the desk. I lit my cigarette, puffed it slowly for a moment, then asked:
“What are you doing here?”
She picked at the material of her coat, didn’t answer. I tried again.
“How much do you remember about last night?”
She answered that. “Remember what? I was sick last night—at home.” Her voice was a cautious, throaty sound that only just reached my ears.
“Before that,” I said. “Before I brought you home. Here.”
A slow flush crept up her throat and her eyes widened. “You—you were the one?” she breathed, and began to chew on her funny thumb again.
“Yeah, I was the one. How much of it all stays with you?”
She said: “Are you the police?”
“No. I told you I was a friend of your father’s.”
“You’re not the police?”
“No.”
It finally registered. She let out a long sigh. “What—what do you want?”
“Who killed him?”
Her shoulders jerked in the checkered coat, but nothing changed much in her face. Her eyes slowly got furtive.
“Who—who else knows?”
“About Steiner? I don’t know. Not the police, or someone would be here. Maybe Marty.”
It was just a stab in the dark, but it got a sudden, sharp cry out of her.
“Marty!”
We were both silent for a minute. I puffed on my cigarette and she chewed on her thumb.
“Don’t get clever,” I said. “Did Marty kill him?”
Her chin came down an inch. “Yes.”
“Why did he do it?”
“I—I don’t know,” very dully.
“Seen much of him lately?”
Her hands clenched. “Just once or twice.”
“Know where he lives?”
“Yes!” She spat it at me.
“What’s the matter? I thought you liked Marty.”
“I hate him!” she almost yelled.
“Then you’d like him for the spot,” I said.
She was blank to that. I had to explain it. “I mean, are you willing to tell the police it was Marty?”
Sudden panic flamed in her eyes.
“If I kill the nude photo angle,” I said soothingly.
She giggled.
That gave me a nasty feeling. If she had screeched, or turned white, or even keeled over, that would have been fairly natural. But she just giggled.
I began to hate the sight of her. Just looking at her made me feel dopey.
Her giggles went on, ran around the room like rats. They gradually got hysterical. I got off the desk, took a step towards her, and slapped her face.
“Just like last night,” I said.
The giggling stopped at once and the thumb-chewing started again. She still didn’t mind my slaps apparently. I sat on the end of the desk once more.
“You came here to look for the camera plate— for the birthday suit photo,” I told her.
Her chin went up and down again.
“Too late. I looked for it last night. It was gone then. Probably Marty has it. You’re not kidding me about Marty?”
She shook her head vigorously. She got out of the chair slowly. Her eyes were narrow and sloe-black and as shallow as an oyster shell.
“I’m going now,” she said, as if we had been having a cup of tea.
She went over to the door and was reaching out to open it when a car came up the hill and stopped outside the house. Somebody got out of the car.
She turned and stared at me, horrified.
The door opened casually and a man looked in at us.
IX
He was a hatchet-faced man in a brown suit and a black felt hat. The cuff of his left sleeve was folded under and pinned to the side of his coat with a big black safety-pin.
He took his hat off, closed the door by pushing it with his shoulder, looked at Carmen with a nice smile. He had close-cropped black hair and a bony skull. He fitted his clothes well. He didn’t look tough.
“I’m Guy Slade,” he said. “Excuse the casual entrance. The bell didn’t work. Is Steiner around?”
He hadn’t tried the bell. Carmen looked at him blankly, then at me, then back at Slade. She licked her lips but didn’t say anything.
I said: “Steiner isn’t here, Mister Slade. We don’t know just where he is.”
He nodded and touched his long chin with the brim of his hat.
“You friends of his?”
“We just dropped by for a book,” I said, and gave him back his smile. “The door was half open. We knocked, then stepped inside. Just like you.”
“I see,” Slade said thoughtfully. “Very simple.”
I didn’t say anything. Carmen didn’t say anything. She was staring fixedly at his empty sleeve.
“A book, eh?” Slade went on. The way he said it told me things. He knew about Steiner’s racket, maybe.
I moved over towards the door. “Only you didn’t knock,” I said.
He smiled with faint embarrassment. “That’s right. I ought to have knocked. Sorry.”
“We’ll trot along now,” I said carelessly. I took hold of Carmen’s arm.
“Any message—if Steiner comes back?” Slade asked softly.
“We won’t bother you.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, with too much meaning.
I let go of Carmen’s arm and took a slow step away from her. Slade still had his hat in his hand. He didn’t move. His deep-set eyes twinkled pleasantly.
I opened the door again.
Slade said: “The girl can go. But I’d like to talk to you a little.”
I stared at him, trying to look very blank.
“Kidder, eh?” Slade said nicely.
Carmen made a sudden sound at my side and ran out through the door. In a moment I heard her steps going down the hill. I hadn’t seen her car, but I guessed it was around somewhere.
I began to say: “What the hell—”
“Save it,” Slade interrupted coldly. “There’s something wrong here. I’ll just find out what it is.”
He began to walk around the room carelessly—too carelessly. He was frowning, not paying much attention to me. That made me thoughtful. I took a quick glance out of the window, but I couldn’t see anything but the top of his car above the hedge.
Slade found the potbellied flagon and the two thin purple glasses on the desk. He sniffed at one of them. A disgusted smile wrinkled his thin lips.
“The lousy pimp,” he said tonelessly.
He looked at the books on the desk, touched one or two of them, went on around the back of the desk and was in front of the totem pole thing. He stared at that. Then his eyes went down to the floor, to the thin rug that was over the place where Steiner’s body had been. Slade moved the rug with his foot and suddenly tensed, staring down.
It was a good act—or else Slade had a nose I could have used in my business. I wasn’t sure which—yet, but I was giving it a lot of thought.
He went slowly down to the floor on one knee. The desk partly hid him from me.
I slipped a gun out from under my arm and put both hands behind my body and leaned against the wall.
There was a sharp, swift exclamation, then Slade shot to his feet. His arm flashed up. A long, black Luger slid into it expertly. I didn’t move. Slade held the Luger in long, pale fingers, not pointing it at me, not pointing it at anything in particular.
“Blood,” he said quietly, grimly, his deep-set eyes black and hard now. “Blood on the floor there, under a rug. A lot of blood.”
I grinned at him. “I noticed it,” I said. “It’s old blood. Dried blood.”
He slid sideways into the black chair behind Steiner’s desk and raked the telephone towards him by putting the Luger around it. He frowned at the telephone, then frowned at me.
“I think we’ll have some law,” he said.
“Suits me.”
Slade’s eyes were narrow and as hard as jet. He didn’t like my agreeing with him. The veneer had flaked off him, leaving a well-dressed hard boy with a Luger. Looking as if he could use it.
“Just who the hell are you?” he growled.
“A shamus. The name doesn’t matter. The girl is my client. Steiner’s been riding her with some blackmail dirt. We came to talk to him. He wasn’t here.”
“Just walk in, huh?”
“Correct. So what? Think we gunned Steiner, Mister Slade?”
He smiled slightly, thinly, but said nothing.
“Or do you think Steiner gunned somebody and ran away?” I suggested.
“Steiner didn’t gun anybody,” Slade said. “Steiner didn’t have the guts of a sick cat.”
I said: “You don’t see anybody here, do you? Maybe Steiner had chicken for dinner, and liked to kill his chickens in the parlor.”
“I don’t get it. I don’t get your game.”
I grinned again. “Go ahead and call your friends downtown. Only you won’t like the reaction you’ll get.”
He thought that over without moving a muscle. His lips went back against his teeth.
“Why not?” he asked finally, in a careful voice.
I said: “I know you, Mister Slade. You run the Aladdin Club down on the Palisades. Flash gambling. Soft lights and evening clothes and a buffet supper on the side. You know Steiner well enough
to walk into his house without knocking. Steiner’s racket needed a little protection now and then. You could be that.”
Slade’s finger tightened on the Luger, then relaxed. He put the Luger down on the desk, kept his fingers on it. His mouth became a hard white grimace.
“Somebody got to Steiner,” he said softly, his voice and the expression on his face seeming to belong to two different people. “He didn’t show at the store today. He didn’t answer his phone. I came up to see about it.”
“Glad to hear you didn’t gun Steiner yourself,” I said.
The Luger swept up again and made a target of my chest. I said:
“Put it down, Slade. You don’t know enough to pop off yet. Not being bullet-proof is an idea I’ve had to get used to. Put it down. I’ll tell you something—if you don’t know it. Somebody moved Steiner’s books out of his store today— the books he did his real business with.”
Slade put his gun down on the desk for the second time. He leaned back and wrestled an amiable expression on to his face.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I think somebody got to Steiner too,” I told him. “I think that blood is his blood. The books being moved out from Steiner’s store gives us a reason for moving his body away from here. Somebody is taking over the racket and doesn’t want Steiner found till he’s all set. Whoever it was ought to have cleaned up the blood. He didn’t.”
Slade listened silently. The peaks of his eyebrows made sharp angles against the white skin of his indoor forehead. I went on:
“Killing Steiner to grab his racket was a dumb trick, and I’m not sure it happened that way. But I am sure that whoever took the books knows about it, and that the blonde down in the store is scared stiff about something.”
“Any more?” Slade asked evenly.
“Not right now. There’s a piece of scandal dope I want to trace. If I get it, I might tell you where. That will be your muscler in.”
“Now would be better,” Slade said. Then he drew his lips back against his teeth and whistled sharply, twice.
I jumped. A car door opened outside. There were steps.
I brought the gun around from behind my body. Slade’s face convulsed and his hand snatched for the Luger that lay in front of him, fumbled at the butt.