“Had you ever seen the killers before?”
She nodded. “Yeah. They work for a hood named Marty Salisbury. Ever heard of him?”
“No. What are their names?”
“One them is a guy called Johnny Arno. I don’t know the other one’s name, but I’ve seen both around Salisbury’s place several times. They’re always together, and people say they’re queer for each other. Anyway, the talk is that Salisbury was sent up here by somebody in New Orleans to take over all the gambling in Jefferson and Galveston counties.”
“I see,” I said. “And just who did they kill?”
“A lawyer named Henry DeMour. He was on the Beaumont City Council.”
“Oh my God!” I blurted out, almost dropping my drink.
“You know him?”
“Not personally, but I’ve heard of him. Hell, everybody has. He was one of the top attorneys in Southeast Texas. His family settled in Beaumont way back before the Civil War and got rich in the import/export business.”
“Really?”
“They’re old money, Gulf aristocracy. And I’ll tell you something else. If this Salisbury guy had a man like Henry DeMour killed, then Salisbury is either a very heavy hitter or a complete fool. How in the world did you get mixed up with people like these in the first place? You seem like a decent girl. They’re hardly the kind of friends I’d expect you to have.”
She shrugged. “Nolan and I used to go to Salisbury’s place a lot. He came to Beaumont about a year ago from New Orleans and opened up a fancy supper club called The Grotto in the old part of town.”
“It has gambling too, I suppose.”
“Yeah, in back. Blackjack, and a couple of craps tables and a roulette wheel. The place books good acts. Louis Armstrong was there a few weeks ago, and Harry James and His Orchestra are coming next month.”
“So it’s becoming the in place in Jefferson County, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I’m surprised you haven’t heard about DeMour being dead. The story was in all the papers. Didn’t Jim mention it when he called?”
I shook my head. “Like I told you, he and I didn’t get to talk long. I had to move fast or miss an arrest.”
“Say, could I have another drink?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said and got up to splash more whiskey in her glass. “Where did you hear this rumor about Salisbury taking over the gambling?” I asked.
“It’s more than just a rumor,” she replied. “Nolan told me about it himself, and he gets around enough that he should know.”
I grinned at her. “Tell me something … what do you do when you aren’t running around with gangsters and crooked cops?”
“I’m a schoolteacher,” she said sadly. “Can you believe it? Or at least I was up until a few days ago. Second grade. I guess I’m fired now since I just ran off without telling anybody.”
“How did you meet Nolan?”
“A friend introduced us at a dance last year. I thought at first he was a nice guy, but now I think he’s sort of a hood himself.”
“Well, he works for Milam Walsh,” I said bluntly as I handed her the drink. “That should have told you something.”
“I didn’t really know that much about Walsh at the time. Besides, Nolan can be real smooth and convincing when he wants to be. But he’s mean, and when he got mean with me and I left him—”
“Mean? How?”
“We got into an argument, and he slapped me around. That’s when I broke it off. Anyhow, he said that he could square it with Salisbury if we got married. Otherwise, Salisbury was going to have me killed. But I think I’d rather be dead than married to Nolan.”
“How did he think he was going to square it with Salisbury?”
She shrugged. “I guess he had the idea that he could put enough pressure on the guy. Maybe close him down or something if he didn’t cooperate. I mean, Nolan is a cop and—”
“Not much of one, I wouldn’t think. Not from what you’ve told me. Have you ever met this Salisbury character?”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod.
“What’s he like?”
“He’s about thirty, smooth, a real sharp dresser. Quiet, doesn’t say much.”
“Okay. So now we know what your problem is, what do you want me to do about it?”
“Jim thought maybe I could hide out at your ranch. Do you have a ranch?”
I nodded. “My family does. Then what?”
“Jim said you’d know what to do.”
“I’m flattered that he has such confidence in me,” I said with a rueful laugh. “But you really ought to go to the state authorities. The Rangers, maybe.”
She shook her head, but before I could say anything more there was a loud knock at the door. I motioned for her to be silent, then rose soundlessly from my chair. By the time I was on my feet a second knock rang out, this one even louder than the first. I frowned and gritted my teeth. It was a cop’s knock—a knock with a persistent, demanding quality to it that said its maker was used to giving orders and having things his own way, and I found it sublimely irksome.
Quickly I pulled a long, lead-loaded billy club from under the bed, then stepped over to the door. Staying carefully to one side, I reached down and turned the knob. Just as I’d expected, the instant the door was opened a heavy body crashed into it and slammed it to one side, its useless safety chain ripped loose from its moorings.
The intruders had counted on surprise and they got it. The first man was moving fast and it was a simple matter for me to stick out my foot and trip him. He fell, crashing face-first into the coffee table, shattering it to pieces. A fraction of a second later his companion tripped over his feet and they were both down in a tangle of arms and legs. Swinging the club hard and fast, I hit the second man three times, once where his neck joined his right shoulder and twice more in the lower ribs. Then I pushed him roughly to the side with my foot. Tossing the club to the floor behind me, I stepped back and deftly slipped my Colt .38 Super auto from my shoulder holster. The big man on bottom rolled over and managed to get himself into a sitting position. I saw a thick shock of blond hair and an expression that was in transition from surprise to rage. “Hi, Nolan!” I said cheerfully and kicked him as hard as I could squarely in his handsome, bovine face.
CHAPTER TWO
Two minutes later the door was once more firmly locked, and both men were disarmed and facedown on the floor, their hands secured behind them with their own handcuffs. I pulled out their wallets and quickly rifled through them both.
“Well, well,” I said. “We have here one Nolan M. Dunning. You must be the famous Nolan the young lady has been telling me about. And this other gentleman seems to be one Mr. Hector McAdoo. Hi, Heck. What the heck you doing out here, Heck? San Gabriel’s a long ways outside of your territory, isn’t it?”
“You better let us go, mister,” Nolan said. “We’re the law and you’re already in enough trouble.” His words were lisped. His lips were broken, one front tooth was missing, and blood dripped copiously from his mouth.
I grabbed his thick blond hair and pulled his head up to where I could look him in the eyes. “Nolan, if you speak again without being spoken to, I may decide to kick out the rest of your teeth.”
“You can’t do this, you asshole!” he raged, his voice nearly shouting. “I’m a cop.”
“And you’re a thick-headed son of a bitch,” I muttered. I whipped a large bandanna handkerchief from my pocket and stuffed it into his mouth. Then I pulled off his belt and strapped the gag in place. I grabbed the little finger of his left hand and folded it neatly back until it almost touched his wrist. The bone broke with an audible pop and Nolan’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets as he screamed a silent scream against the handkerchief.
I waited a few moments until he settled down and recovered his breath, then asked, “My young friend, have you got any more doubts about who’s running this show?”
He shook his head, his eyes wild and full of pain and fear.
�
�Good. Now I’m going to pull this gag out and you’re going to tell me what I want to know or I’ll stuff it back in and start with the other hand.”
“Mister, you’re crazy,” McAdoo said.
“Nahhh…” I replied cheerfully. “Just playful.” I jerked the gag from Nolan’s battered mouth. “Now talk,” I ordered.
The man coughed and groaned. “About what?” he finally asked.
“Why did you force your way into my room?”
“We’ve got an arrest warrant on her—”
“What!” Madeline shrieked from the bed.
I motioned for her to be quiet. “What kind of warrant?” I asked.
“Bad checks.”
“I never wrote a bad check in my—” the girl began.
“Hush, dammit!” I growled. “I’ll get this straightened out. Where’s the warrant?”
“It’s in my coat pocket,” McAdoo said.
I squatted down and felt around in the man’s pockets until I found a long manila envelope. I ripped it open and scanned the warrant, then shook my head. “A seven-dollar hot check,” I said with disgust. “This is nothing but a damned misdemeanor, even if it’s not bogus. You’re trying to tell me that you came halfway across the state to serve a misdemeanor check warrant? And who’s this Judge Smith?”
Nolan was getting his manhood back, and it was overriding his common sense. “The warrant’s legal,” he said. “It’s legal and you’re going to be in real trouble if you don’t turn us loose.”
I stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, then got to my feet. “I believe I told you to mind your manners, Nolan.” I kicked him once again in the mouth, then quickly knelt down and stuffed the handkerchief back between his broken teeth. “That little outburst is going to cost you another finger.”
“Leave him alone, mister,” the older man pleaded. “For God’s sake, please leave him alone and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Sure. Just as soon as I break me another finger. I’m going to make a believer out of this prick.”
Nolan whined desperately through the gag, shaking his head back and forth, his eyes wild with fear.
“No?” I asked. “You got religion now? You sure about that?”
Nolan nodded vigorously.
“Okay,” I said. “But one more peep out of you and you’re going to be one very unhappy young man.” I turned to McAdoo. “Talk, old fellow. What are you two doing up here?”
“It’s Nolan. He wants her back.”
“How did you get involved?”
“He’s a friend of mine, and he asked me to come with him.”
I squatted down and locked eyes with McAdoo. “That’s real loyalty on your part,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve got any friends who’d help me kidnap somebody. Who do you work for?”
“I’m an elected official. A county constable.”
“Ahhhh … I see. And just what part of Jefferson County is your precinct in?”
“The southwest.”
I smiled. “Why am I not surprised? Down close to Galveston. Some of the Maceo joints are in your jurisdiction, aren’t they?”
“So what?”
“So they’ve been supplementing your income, that’s what. How long have you been in office?”
“Twenty years.”
“Well, you must be keeping somebody happy or else you wouldn’t have stayed there that long.”
I rose to my feet and stood contemplating the two men. My guess was that despite Nolan’s position as Walsh’s chief deputy, he and McAdoo were both bottom feeders. Neither seemed smart enough to be anything else. I also figured that if the girl really had seen something that could connect Salisbury to DeMour’s death, then Nolan’s notion that he could “square things” if she came home and married him was a pipe dream. I also realized that if they knew anything beyond what they’d told me so far, it would take more time than I was willing to spend and more violence than I was willing to commit to get it out of them. And even then I couldn’t be certain I had whole the truth. At the moment I needed time more than I needed information—time to take the girl and leave and put several hundred miles between us and San Gabriel.
I looked over to where she sat in the center of the bed, her glass still in her hand. Her wide blue eyes were riveted on Nolan, who lay bleeding on the floor, and a faint hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. When she raised her face to look at me, I gave her a tight grin and reached for the phone. Two years earlier the Weilbach had put telephones in all the rooms, but they didn’t have dialers. The system worked through the hotel switchboard and there was an operator on duty all night.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked as I jiggled the button to get the operator.
“I’m calling the law. A friend of mine named Ollie Marne is a detective with the sheriff’s department here in town.”
“No,” she said, her voice pleading. “Please, no cops—”
“Don’t worry,” I told her with a grin. “This guy is different.”
* * *
Twenty minutes after I picked up the phone, Ollie Marne knocked on my door. Behind him loomed a huge, cretinous-looking uniformed deputy who stood at least six and a half feet tall and must have weighed three hundred pounds.
Marne was a pudgy man of medium height with a round head and a wide, bland face whose only point of interest was a pair of bright little eyes that were never still. His attire was as undistinguished as his appearance; that night he wore a floppy, shapeless gray suit, a broad-brimmed plainsman’s hat, and a pair of scuffed boots. Now in his late thirties, Ollie had been with the San Gabriel sheriff’s department most of his adult life, a job that gave him an outlet for his considerable entrepreneurial talents, one example of which was the extensive network of reliable informants he’d built up that stretched from the Brazos River to the New Mexico border. Over the years he’d become known as the man to see if you were a lawman who needed information in West Texas.
Finally it dawned on Ollie that he was both putting his sources at considerable risk and gaining nothing for himself. At that point he hatched the idea of wholesaling his snitches out to other cops. From then on, if you wanted information about the criminal underworld in such far-flung cities as San Gabriel, Lubbock, Big Spring, or El Paso, you went to see Ollie Marne, and Ollie quoted you a price. Then in a couple of days you had what you needed. His fees were reasonable and his customers always found his information reliable. It was a system that worked to the satisfaction of all. How much of the money actually percolated down to the informants was anybody’s guess and nobody’s worry since the snitches were hardly in a position to complain.
I moved aside to let the two men enter.
“Jesus, Virgil!” Marne exclaimed as soon as saw Dunning and McAdoo lying handcuffed on the floor. “What in hell’s been going on here?”
“Unlawful intruders,” I said casually. “I had to subdue them.”
“Subdue my ass,” he said and pointed to Nolan. “This poor bastard looks more like he’s been butchered than subdued.”
“It’s just busted lips, Ollie. Busted lips always bleed a lot.”
Marne squatted down and peered at the man’s face. “Are you sure he’s even got any lips left?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Marne shook his head and laughed a harsh little laugh. “Oh, I won’t, Virg. Never fear. But what in hell do you want me to do with them?”
“Lock ’em up for a while so I can get out of town.”
Marne rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a few seconds before answering. “Yeah, I guess I can do that,” he said at last. “Do you want to go ahead and charge them with unlawful entry?”
I shook my head. “They’re cops, and it might cause more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Damn! Cops?”
“That’s right,” I said. “They’ve got a warrant on this young lady here, but it’s probably bogus. The blond one is her ex-boyfriend, and h
e won’t take no for an answer. A real caveman. He came up here to drag her back home and make her marry him.”
Marne examined Madeline closely for the first time and liked what he saw. His eager little eyes lingered on the swell of her breasts. “Where they come from?” he asked.
“Beaumont. The boyfriend works for Milam Walsh. In fact, he’s Walsh’s chief deputy.”
Ollie Marne turned and stared at me in wonder for several seconds before he spoke. “Is that the whole story?” he asked.
“No.”
“Virgil, do I really want to know what this mess is all about?”
I shrugged. “It’s your call, Ollie. I’m willing to tell you, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to hear it if I were in your shoes. I think I’d just let it pass.”
“Right,” he agreed firmly, his head bobbing up and down like a fishing cork. “But I got to cover my butt. How about if I tell the sheriff that you’re going to come in tomorrow afternoon and sign the complaint? Then when you don’t ever show up, we can just turn ’em loose.”
“Sounds fine to me. But try to keep them until late tomorrow evening if you can.”
“Sure. Let me see that warrant for a minute.”
I retrieved the warrant and handed it over. He quickly scanned the paper and then glared down at the two men on the floor. “And they really pushed their way in here on the strength of this bullshit?” he asked in disgust.
“That’s right,” I replied.
“Damn,” he muttered, shaking his head. “What a pair of nitwits. Let me keep this warrant and show it to the sheriff. It may piss him off enough that he’ll keep them jugged an extra day on his own.” He motioned to the big deputy. “Get ’em up,” he said.
“You might want to be careful with the blond guy’s hand,” I said. “He’s got a broken finger.”
“Oh yeah? How did that happen?”
“Beats me. It must have got busted in the tussle.”
Marne shook his head and laughed. “In the tussle, huh? You’re a card, Virg.”
After the giant man hauled the two intruders to their feet and pushed them out into the hall, I shook hands with Marne in the doorway. “Thanks, Ollie,” I said. “I’ll owe you one after this.”
The Devil's Odds Page 2