I jumped toward the door in the corner of the office, the one Marty had gone out of for the last time. It was locked, with no knob in sight, but I could see the keyhole where Marty had inserted his key. I didn't have time to start looking for his key ring; I knew damn well that Flick would head straight for Breed and spill the lowdown on me, and I knew what that would mean for Iris. I had to catch Flick or get out there before he did.
I jerked the gun from my pocket, aimed at where the lock should be, and fired two shots into the door. The wood splintered. I kicked the door and it gave; one more kick and it was open. I found the ladder Sader had mentioned, and went up it and into the alley. I could hear the police sirens now.
The black Cadillac was gone. As I ran toward the second car, the Plymouth, I started to jerk the clip from the butt of the automatic and check the full loads. I started to, but there was no need to do it. The slide stop had caught the slide and was holding it open, which meant the magazine was empty. What slugs I hadn't thrown around down below, I'd blasted through the lock on the door. I flipped the slide release, the slide snapped forward, and I dropped the empty gun in my pocket, then yanked open the Plymouth's door as the sad and eerie wail of the sirens grew louder in my ears.
Chapter Seventeen
THE KEYS were in the ignition.
I switched them on, ground the motor alive, and gunned ahead straight through to the end of the alley, then skidded around to my left in a screaming turn that slued the car from one side of Sixth Street to the other. I straightened the car out and jammed the accelerator to the floor boards.
As I barreled across Olive Street the sirens were shrieking close, and from the corner of my right eye I caught the red glare of the police spotlight on a car speeding hell for leather this way on a "Code 3." I kept my eyes straight ahead till I reached Figueroa, then ripped right toward the Freeway and the hell with one-way streets and stop signs. In two minutes I was roaring at eighty miles an hour down the six-lane highway. Up ahead I could see the bobbing red spot of a taillight I couldn't be sure that was Flick, but whoever it was, he was in one hell of a hurry. I was gaining on him, though, and that surprised me, because Flick was in the faster car. But, then, he wouldn't know I was back here.
Then I was almost certain it was Flick. The car ahead was black, and though it might well have been a Cad I couldn't be positive from this distance. But the outline was the same. And then it started pulling away from me—just what Flick would do when he realized somebody was coming like a bat out of hell behind him. I was sure that was Flick ahead of me now, and he was headed straight for Riverside Drive.
I flicked my eyes to the dash long enough to see the needle swinging between the eighty- and ninety-mile-an-hour marks. That was faster than I cared to go, ever, and I wished to Christ I had my Cad. It's old, but it's fast, and I know everything it can and can't do. But I sucked in a breath and shoved the throttle down as far as it would go.
Not much happened. Flick kept pulling away from me on this straightaway, then went out of sight around a curve, but the needle on the speedometer of the Plymouth crept slowly up to ninety-five and hung there quivering. I quivered right along with it. We were damn near there; it wasn't going to take any twenty minutes at this speed, and in a mile or less we'd hit the sharp and narrow left turn up ahead leading into Riverside Drive. I caught a glimpse of a taillight up ahead, flaring brighter, then it went out of sight again.
I was through the four tunnels and on the turn almost before I knew it, but I was already riding the brake. I gave it all I could without sluing into a skid, and the car's speed had dropped as I angled to the left and hit the inside of the curve.
I caressed that steering wheel as if it were a woman's thigh, eased the wheel over holding my breath and jamming my teeth together as the car reached the center of the short curve's arc, then slipped my foot off the brake and rammed it down on the accelerator, squeezing toward the outer edge of the road and the curb before the pavement and the low cement wall there. The motor roared and I heard the wheels skidding, spinning a little as the car slipped sideways, but I kept my foot on the throttle. If I let up now, I'd go right over the wall. She skidded some more, jerked slightly as the right wheels brushed the curb, and the cement wall on my right ripped backward past me like a white ribbon spinning past the car.
The road started to straighten out as the tires squealed, then I was gripping the wheel and the car was racing parallel to the curb, an inch or two from it, and still bearing to the left. But I wasn't skidding any more, and now the road was straight ahead of me. I went right through the stop sign beyond the end of the curve.
I wanted to stop the car. I'd made it up to here, but I wanted to get out of the Plymouth and lie down on the street and roll around. But I'd lost more ground; the red taillight was farther away, two or three hundred yards from me.
Then the light flared brightly as he braked and stopped, the rear end swaying as he skidded. Breed's. Breed's Finance Company, and Flick was there. But I was eating up the distance, and I was close enough to see a man leap from the right door of the car and turn up the walk as I started braking.
He was out of sight as I skidded a little, let up on the brake, then shoved it down again thirty feet from the Cadillac. The Plymouth slammed into the back of the Cad and shuddered to a halt as I jumped for the right door of the car and outside with the sound of shots crashing against my ears. I landed, sprawling, then got my feet under me and sprinted for the open door ahead, digging for the automatic in my pocket. An empty gun, but better than nothing.
There was no sound now except the slap of my feet on the pavement as I raced through the open door of the building and caught the flash of light spilling from the room in back. Except for the noise I made, the place was silent as death. And I had the tight, heart-laboring feeling that I'd find death inside that farther door standing ajar.
If I went in I had to go in fast, no matter what was in there and I kept my legs driving and hit the door with my extended left hand, the useless gun in my right. Pain leaped in my arm and chest as the door burst wide open and I leaped inside the room. I took two steps and stumbled over something on the floor, and fell to my knees, my left hand slipping through a slime of blood.
My head snapped down toward the floor as I fell and a spinning flash of white features and blood leaped up at me before I pulled my head up again and caught a blurred glimpse of Iris hanging forward in a wooden chair, her head drooping forward on her limp neck. And then I saw Collier Breed above me, a gun in his right hand slashing downward toward my head.
On my knees, I jerked to my right and the gun jarred against my left shoulder, pain knifing through my arm and chest. But Breed's fat paunch was right in front of my eves and I jammed the automatic in my right hand hard against it and damn near buried the gun in his flabby flesh.
Breed let out a panicky cry. "No, no! Don't—gun's empty! Don't shoot! Please, God, don't shoot!"
Hell, I wasn't about to shoot.
He dropped the empty gun to the floor and raised his hands high over his head. "Don't," he said again.
With his jelly paunch jutting out and his arms high over his head, Breed looked like a flesh copy of Hotei, the Chinese happiness god, only he wasn't happy. He was so nervous his lips were shaking and the loose jowls of his face were trembling.
"Turn around, Breed," I told him.
"Scott. Don't shoot me, Scott."
"Turn around, you bastard."
He turned around and I glance down again at the dead body of Flick on the floor. He was blood all over, and he'd been pumped full of holes. It was easy to figure now: Breed must have emptied his gun into the guy.
I glanced at the back of Breed's head. I wasn't going to shoot him, but I was going to try caving in his skull. It was getting to be a habit. It seemed as though I were making a career of batting guys on the head. This one, though, was going to be a pleasure.
I switched the empty gun around with the barrel in my hand and I asked Breed'
s back, "What's your name, boy?"
He said, "What?"
I said pleasantly, "That's the wrong answer," nodded happily at a spot over his head, hauled back my arm, and let him have it good.
He went plop on the floor and I looked down at him and I asked him, "How is it, boy?" Then I walked over to Iris.
She was still lashed to the chair where I'd last seen her, her head hanging forward. I didn't need to feel for her pulse; her breasts rose and fell with her slow breathing and color was in her face. I left her for a moment while I hunted up the lavatory. There was a washbasin there, and I ripped off a piece of my shirt and soaked it in water. She was still out when I got back. Before I touched her, I turned her chair around so she faced the wall, away from the bloody thing on the floor. Then I picked loose the ropes binding her wrists and held her while I pressed the cold, water-soaked rag against her forehead and the back of her neck. Finally her smooth lips twitched a little and her eyes fluttered.
It was plain enough what had happened here, but I wanted to get it from Iris, too. She probably wouldn't enjoy it; I imagine she was as shot as I was.
Her eyes opened and she blinked, her eyes not quite focusing. Then she gasped, opened her mouth wide, and screamed right in my face. I slapped her once, hard, and the scream stopped abruptly.
"It's all right, Iris," I said. "It's O.K. Relax."
She blinked at me, then sighed deeply, put her head down, and shuddered. When she looked at me again I said, "Hello, honey," and she sobbed, "Oh, Shell," and put her head forward on my chest and sobbed some more. She wasn't crying, just gasping and sobbing, saying, "Oh," over and over.
Finally she smiled a little. "I'm all right now."
"Can you tell me about it?" She nodded. Then she sat quietly for a few moments. I said, "Hang on a second, honey," took the ropes I'd untied from Iris, and went back to Breed. He was lying forward on his face, and I put his arms behind his back and cramped his legs up next to them and hog-tied him, which seemed appropriate for Breed. When I let him go he looked as if he'd rock back and forth if you pushed him, like one of those curved desk blotters.
As I looked at him lying on his stomach I noticed that, while his fat buttocks bulged up into the air under the sloppy triangle made by his bound arms and legs, the left half bulged better. And right then it occurred to me that either he was deformed or else he'd suddenly become my client and I was going to get a fee out of this mess.
He wasn't deformed. I slipped my hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a wallet that was as much overweight as Breed was. I looked inside the wallet and eyed a flock of green bills and deliberated at length for maybe half a second, thinking that I'd been shot at, roughed up, and sapped while Breed gazed happily at me, and that all because of him I'd been recently surrounded by so much blood that I'd felt like a red corpuscle—and surely, in view of all the unrest he'd caused me, he wouldn't begrudge me a small fee.
I pulled out eight C notes and four fifty-dollar bills and transferred them to my wallet. On one of my business cards I wrote the date and scribbled, "Received from Collier Breed $1,000 for services endured," signed it "Shell Scott," and put the card in his wallet and the wallet back in his pants. There was enough left in the wallet so that he still looked deformed.
Feeling jollier than I had for hours, I went back to Iris, kneeled down by her, and asked her to fill me in from the start.
She began, "He—Breed—kept getting more and more nervous after all of you left. He asked me if I knew Flick was working for Sader. I kept it the way you'd started it, told him I thought so, that I'd seen them together."
She took a deep breath, then went on. "When it was time for that man, that Lonely, to phone him, he started walking back and forth, back and forth. Finally he dialed the phone himself. I think he called the Pit. He talked to somebody there, then hung up and just sat for a long time. He looked worried and frightened." She put a hand to her head and shook it. "Still a little dizzy," she said.
"I'll get you some water. But, Iris—don't turn around."
She flinched. "I won't."
I found a glass in the washroom and filled it with water for her. I could see what had happened to Breed: when Lonely hadn't phoned him, Breed must have called the Pit while the police were there and found out enough to scare the pants off him. Then he knew damn well I'd been giving him a snow job, and he must have figured Flick was right in it with me. And Flick was the boy I'd said was supposed to murder Breed. No wonder he'd been nervous.
I took the water back to Iris, and she went on after she drank it. "Breed got out the gun he had, mumbling to himself about you and about Flick. I couldn't understand it. He didn't say anything to me. After a while I heard a car drive up outside and someone running up the walk. Breed jumped to his feet and pointed the gun at the door and—and Flick came running in. Breed shot him. He shot him and kept on shooting. I'm afraid I fainted."
I could understand that. I said, "Well, honey, it's over. Most of it. If nothing else, Breed's stuck with at least a second-degree murder rap. Forget it."
"I'll never forget it."
I believe that. I'd never forget this business either. I'd been rubbing Iris' wrists, and she winced as the circulation started picking up. But she was lucky there was nothing more than that wrong with her.
I went over to Breed's dark brown desk and used the phone to call Homicide. I told them what was out here, hung up, and went back to Iris.
"The police are coming out, Iris. Be here in a few minutes." I paused as I remembered something. Then I went on. "Honey, you'll have to talk to the cops anyway. Do you mind waiting out front till they get here, then telling them what's happened? The whole thing, starting from yesterday morning?"
"No, Shell, I don't mind. Why?"
"I won't be here. Come on."
We went out front and waited by my old Cadillac, still here from the time Joe-Joe had driven us from the cabin. It seemed like a week ago. I climbed in and Iris waited outside. I sat there till I heard the sirens getting close, then I started the motor.
Iris asked me, "Where are you going, Shell?"
"Some things to do. Unfinished business, honey. I'll be down at headquarters later. Probably see you there. Keep your chin up."
She smiled, and I drove away just before the radio car came up and stopped in front of Breed's building. I wanted out of here not just because I'd get tied up for a long time—that was coming sooner or later—but because I was thinking about the initials on that tiny handkerchief Joe-Joe had found by Marty Sader's desk, and remembering that Kitty was short for Catherine.
Chapter Eighteen
I DROVE FAST, concentrating on the road, keeping my mind on the highway ahead and the wheel in my hands. I didn't want to think about anything else, but the thoughts kept crowding up anyway. The drive didn't seem to take long; all of a sudden I was there.
I parked, cut off the motor, got out of the Cad, and stood looking at the little white house for a moment. It looked the same as it had when I'd been here for the first time. A light burned inside, as it had before, and a few leaves blown by the wind scraped over the cement walk as I went toward the house.
I remembered Kitty's face falling apart while she talked on the phone, and I remembered the fury flashing in her eyes as she hurled a vase at me, and I remembered the silent trembling of her small shoulders when I'd last driven her here. But most of all I thought of her mint-cooled voice and her bubbling laughter, and I had an idea I wasn't going to like this; I wasn't going to like it at all.
But I had to be sure. The door was unlocked. I opened it and went inside, and the funny thing was that the first thing I saw was the gun. It was on the carpeted floor, only two or three inches from her dangling right hand. She had on a pair of bright cotton pajamas and she was lying on her left side against pillows piled at the end of the couch across the room from me. Her head dangled forward, the short, dark hair slightly mussed, and a small, almost dainty hole was in her right temple. The little gun was a .22
and it was under her hand where it would have dropped after she shot herself in the head.
Only, of course, she hadn't shot herself.
I walked over to the couch and looked down at her, and I said softly, "I'm sorry, Kitty. I'm sorry as hell. You were worth ten of her any day." That didn't do either of us any good.
There was a framed picture in her lap and I looked at it. It was of Marty Sader and inscribed, "To my darling Kitty." There was a letter, too, on the floor, but I didn't read it. All the props were there, but there were so many things wrong with it that it screamed out loud.
I went out of the house and shut the door quietly behind me and headed for Nichols Canyon Road and Mrs. Vivian Sader, who had practiced too long with her little .22 revolver.
I drove right up in the driveway and parked. I'd been seething all the way out here and I was looking forward to seeing old horseface inside. I hoped she was inside. If she had a hole in her head, I was going to lose the last of my sanity and crawl gibbering to the nearest asylum.
I got out of the car and trotted up to the door, noticing there was a light on inside, and started to knock, and didn't. There was no hole in her head, but I might wind up with one in mine. Take it back. If anything, I'd wind up without a head at all.
It wasn't a cannon, but it was the monster bore of the lethal piece of machinery I'd seen earlier—yesterday it had been—out behind the house where Mrs. Sader was popping away at Truman's picture tacked onto some bales of hay.
Everybody Had A Gun Page 15