Hard Case Crime: Baby Moll

by John Farris

  Winkie’s eyes settled on a window. He went for it, picking up a chair along the way. In the time it took me to get on my feet he smashed out the window and went through it, feet first.

  I followed him without bothering to retrieve my gun. He was a fleet shadow running through back yards a hundred feet from me. A fence in his way gave me a chance to narrow the distance. He looked behind him. He didn’t have a knife, didn’t have a gun. I was bigger than he was. Gilmer must have been unhappy. He ran the length of the fence, stumbled into an alley. He ran hard, waving his arms, legs working furiously. I ran more smoothly, with long strides, not using so much energy. Fear pushed him on. He stayed thirty paces ahead of me. Fences kept him in the alley.

  Gilmer angled across the first street that intersected the alley, heading for the square skeleton of a four-story building under construction. There were stacks of concrete blocks and lumber lying around. I sprinted harder, closing in on him. He stumbled, struggled across a mound of sawdust. I avoided the pile. His flight carried him inside the building. The supports and floors had been poured, and three of the ground-floor walls were blocked in. Winkie stopped, seeing he had trapped himself, then went up a ladder to the second floor. There were no stairs yet. I followed him. I heard him breathing hoarsely above me. He was only three rungs ahead of me.

  He didn’t stop on the second floor but continued upward. There was no place for him to hide on the third floor, either. Both of us were tiring, our speed of climb slowing. My lungs were bound with hot wires. We hit the last ladder. Winkie slipped once, hung by his hands. I came close enough to reach out for his foot. He pulled the leg up, scrambled up the remaining rungs. He was making shrill sounds of anxiety now.

  On the top floor his hands found a length of pipe as he crawled away from the ladder opening. I saw him turn with it as I pulled myself up. There was flickering light somewhere and I saw the happy look in his eyes as he swung around, lifted the piece of pipe high.

  “Now you gonna get it,” he breathed. I got my knees over the edge of the opening, put an arm up. The blow knocked me flat on my back. If the pipe had connected with my forearm, the bone would have been shattered. Bunched muscles in my upper arm caught the blow. He lunged after me, intent on smashing my head with the pipe. I rolled quickly. There was an oily smell close by. I saw Gilmer hovering above me, his face and hair covered with sweat and linseed oil. It dripped off his chin. Sawdust clung to the oil.

  My groping hand found the source of the smoke and the flickering light. My fingers scratched at hardening concrete. I kept my eyes on Winkie. The pipe was swinging backward. He was being careful to nail my head, alert for any evasive movement. I picked up the round flaming pot of kerosene that had been left to warn prowlers away from the drying patch of cement, flung it at him with a sweeping movement of my arm. I aimed for his chest. The little black pot bounced away, but the lick of flame had touched the linseed oil-soaked clothing and a bright flaring torch framed Winkie’s surprised face for just a second before the fist of flame closed around it and charred the stubble of hair on his head, seared the flesh, blinded him. He screamed. His hands let go the pipe and he clawed at his burning face. He stumbled back three steps, shrieking wildly as the flames ate away all expression, staining the air with the scorch of flesh.

  Then, surprisingly, Winkie was gone. I crawled to the edge of the rectangular opening in the floor where the stairs would eventually go, and saw him hit the sand floor four stories below. He landed on his back. The fire on his chest and head flared brighter for an instant, then steadily and quietly burned away his clothing.

  There was a little pile of sand close by. I shoveled some of it into the opening with my hands and it hissed downward to shower over the burning body. After enough of it had fallen the flames were extinguished.

  I went down the ladders with great care, every muscle trembling. I had to stop and rest on every floor. On the ground floor I glanced quickly at the gunman. Half of him was charred. The fall had probably killed him anyway. The stench was nauseating. I felt a touch of regret that he was dead. Now there would be no answers for my questions.

  I got out of there, walked back to the furniture store through the alley, climbed in through the shattered window. I stopped with one foot inside. She was sitting at the table, holding the gun in both fat hands. There was a maniacal look in her eyes. Her once carefully waved hair stuck out all over her head. Each breath she took sounded like a retch. There was a long gash on one of her cheeks, cutting deep through the fat to the solid cheekbone. Blood from it was smeared on her face and hands.

  “Easy,” I said, not moving. I couldn’t be sure she knew me.

  “Where is he?” she said in a hard voice.

  “Back there.” I nodded over one shoulder.

  “You killed him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Her fingers unclenched and the gun thudded on the table. I brought my other leg through the window.

  “You see what he did to me,” she said. “Oh, the dirty bastard. He cut me. He didn’t need to do that. He didn’t have to.”

  “You want a doctor?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “In a minute you can have a doctor. First you talk to me. Where’s Carla Kennedy?”

  She fumbled for a handkerchief in her pocket, applied it gently to the cut. The bleeding had almost stopped. “I told you. I told you where to find her.”

  “All I found was Harry Small. Dead. Somebody knifed him, somebody who probably knew him, or somebody he was expecting. I looked around his place. There wasn’t any trace of the girl.”

  “Then — she took everything away.”

  “You don’t know where I could find her?”

  “No. I told you.”

  “This Gilmer. What did he say to you?”

  “He wanted... to know what I told you. How did he find out I said anything to you?”

  “I’m afraid quite a few people knew I was here. Did Gilmer talk or act like he’d killed Harry Small?”

  “No. He just said Harry was dead.”

  “What did this Harry Small do for a living?”

  “Newsstand. Up on Rosamorada, near the Strip. Used to sell papers on a corner downtown. Got his newsstand a couple of years ago.”

  “Do you know anything at all about Carla Kennedy that would help me? I’ve got to find her.”

  “I don’t know anything. I just knew Harry took her in. I don’t even know what she looks like.”

  I remembered something in my coat pocket, took it out. The little soldier was busted to a fair-thee-well now inside the folds of handkerchief. I unwrapped the pieces, scattered them before her eyes. She touched them fondly. One of her children had come home.

  “I found it in Harry Small’s room.”

  “It’s one of mine.” She looked up at me. “I made two of them, though. Just alike.”

  “Two? What happened to the other one?”

  “Harry had both.” I thought back, trying to remember another little figure in the room. Unless it had been hidden for some reason, there wasn’t one.

  “The girl must have the other one,” she said, reading my eyes. She groaned. “Please. Call me a doctor.”

  “All right. Look. There’s going to be Law all over this neighborhood when they find Gilmer’s body. Questions asked. People will remember us running through their yards, through the alley. The cops will want to know about that busted window, how you got that cut on your cheek. It would be better if you don’t tell them anything. There’s another one like Gilmer around, only worse. He’s killed quite a few people. He’ll kill you just for associating with me, if you don’t keep quiet.”

  The quick terror that flashed in her eyes gave me my answer. I went toward a phone on the wall near the curtains. My foot kicked something. I bent down and picked up a sky blue hat with a white band. I sailed it at the table.

  “You better burn this in your kiln, too,” I said. I made two phone calls, the first to the police, to tell them about Harry S
mall. The second was to a doctor whose name she gave me.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Reavis was working the gatehouse when I drove back to the island. He came up to the car as soon as I was through the gate.

  “We got company,” he said, putting a hand on the window frame. “Maxine and three of his outfit. Also that girl he shacks up with.”

  I nodded, drove on up the hill. Maxine’s car, a gleaming black Lincoln, was in the way so I couldn’t get into the garage. I left the Buick in the drive, started to go inside.

  “Mallory,” a voice said. I turned from the door and waited. Charley Rinke hurried across the front lawn to me.

  “They’re here,” he whispered, when he thought he was close enough.

  “I know it,” I said shortly.

  He smoked nervously. “Mallory — Pete, this is our chance. The big chance for both of us. Macy is through. But the organization hasn’t completely deteriorated yet. All that’s necessary is for somebody to step in and take control. Two men could do it. You and I. I know the books. You’ve got the contacts. You could round up the men. In a few days we could smash any resistance. There wouldn’t be much, if Maxine was dead.”

  I turned away from him. His hand caught my arm. “Wait. Wait, Pete.” His voice was strained. “Listen to me. I’ve worked it all out. We can do it. Think about it, Pete. You saw the money in the safe. There’re millions more, just waiting for us to step in and take them.”

  “Let go of me,” I said.

  His hand dropped away. “What’s the matter? I — I thought—”

  “I don’t know what you thought,” I told him. “I don’t know what kind of plans you made. But you better forget ’em, Rinke. You haven’t got any idea what you’d be starting. With Maxine dead and Macy out of control this territory would be wide open. Every out-of-work Syndicate hood from Seattle to Newark would be down here on the first train. I couldn’t hold this area with a battalion of Marines. It takes time to hire good men. You can’t use any two-bit leadslinger who has a gun and is willing to work. You got to have some smart heads under you to try a play like that. Meanwhile your life wouldn’t be safe from one second to the next. I don’t know why I’m standing here explaining this to you. I ought to let you go ahead and try to take Maxine on your own. If you have the guts. I don’t think you do. Your bright idea is for me to pick up the lead while you scratch around in the account books and sit back and enjoy the idea of being the local crime king. You wouldn’t live a week. And when you died you’d die messy and scared.”

  He stared at me, his thin lips apart. There was an expression of childlike frustration on his face.

  “I’ve got some advice for you,” I said. “As soon as Maxine takes over you pack your tail up and get out of here. Go as far away as you can. Maybe change your name. You know too much to be hanging around town after Maxine is top man. He might get nervous about you after a while and tell somebody to chill you. Why don’t you get an honest job somewhere and give your wife a break for a change?” It exhausted me, saying so much to him.

  He sneered at me. “I can handle Evelyn all right,” he said.

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. “Get away from me, Rinke, before I just sort of lean over and pound the hell out of you. It would probably do you good.”

  Rinke backed away from me hastily. “I thought you were smart. I thought I could talk to you.”

  “You can’t talk to me,” I said. “You don’t have any words that interest me. All I’m interested in right now is getting a thousand miles away from this place.”

  I moved toward him and shoved him, hard. He almost fell. He backed away from me again. I didn’t have to do that. There was no reason for me to do that. I turned away and walked into the house, wearily. I held my hands a little out in front of me as if I had smeared them with something dirty. I was tired of myself, of trying to be tough. I wasn’t tough. I wasn’t one of the hired apes who could smash somebody’s face or put a bullet in somebody without feeling a twinge. I was conditioned to toughness, that’s all. I was used to sudden violence and I knew how to take care of myself. But once in a while the guard came down and I started shaking. The only really tough men are the hefty lads with the sixty-plus IQ’s who don’t have the reasoning abilities of a flea, who can’t see it happening to them someday. Who don’t give a damn anyway.

  In the brightly lighted living room, Gerry sat all by herself at the small curved bar sipping some kind of pale blockbuster from a tall etched glass. She wore a gray skirt and full-sleeved blouse with wide red stripes. Her skin was fresh as poured cream. She looked very young and very charming.

  “Hello,” she said, edging sideways on the bar stool, her lips pursed around a straw. “What happened to you?”

  I glanced down at my clothes. I looked as though I had just been dug out of a cave-in. My hands were trembling. One palm was scraped. The arm that had been slugged with a pipe ached. I had trouble lifting it more than a few inches. I took out a handkerchief and put it to my face. It came away streaked with dirt. Mallory, home from the wars to count his medals.

  “What are you drinking?” I said. “Ginger ale?”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s some kind of rum thing. Stan showed me how to fix it. Do you want me to fix one for you?”

  “Don’t bother. One swallow would lay me out like a mortician’s helper.” I sat down in a chair of curved tubed aluminum. “Where’s the gang?”

  “They’re all somewhere else talking business,” Gerry said. “At least, Stan and Macy are.” She drank the rest of the rum thing and put the glass up. “You haven’t seen Owen around, have you?”

  “Honey, I just got here.” I had a thought. The tired wheels notched together as they turned. “Maybe you shouldn’t see Owen while you’re here,” I said patiently. “You wouldn’t want trouble to start, would you?”

  She giggled. She reached for a square bottle of rum nearby, sniffed at it, dropped some over the ice in her glass. The giggle was a hint that she and the rum had been companions a bit too long.

  “No, I wouldn’t start any trouble,” she said. “I used to live here. You didn’t know that, did you? Macy used to think a lot of me, before that kid came along.” For an instant there was a trace of bitterness in her eyes. “Good old Macy,” she said ironically. Gerry turned slightly on the stool. “Even if I went to see Owen,” she said, “Stan wouldn’t send me away. He’s always telling me that he can’t live without me.”

  I sat there trying to work up enough energy to leave the chair.

  She smacked her lips over the rum. “Not,” she said mysteriously, “that he’s going to live long anyway.”

  “Huh?”

  She giggled again. “Shouldn’t tell you.” A stray bit of hair swooped across her forehead, giving her a roguish look. She smiled, the glass at her lips. Her teeth clinked against it.

  “What shouldn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugged indifferently. “Oh. That Stan goes to the doctor all the time. Sometimes he goes three times a week. He should have an operation but I think he’s afraid to. He takes these pills. Phen — pheno—”

  “Phenobarbital?”

  “I guess that’s it. Some nights he lies awake in bed and groans.” She put her lips against the glass again, kissing it. The flesh of her underlip looked soft and hot. She was a potent piece. I could understand some of Stan’s attachment to her.

  “It gets to be terrible,” she said moodily. “I can’t sleep.” Her eyes were dreamily thoughtful. “I think,” she said, “that some night I’m not going to be there when he comes home.”

  I looked at her. “You mean you’d walk out on him?”

  “That’s right.” Her head bobbed enthusiastically. “Leave. Time for Gerry to move on. There’s this man I met. He’s a count or something like that. I met him once when Stan took me to Boca Raton. He’s very nice. He wanted me to come with him then. But I told him I’d have to think about it.”

  She put the glass down with a flourish, slid off the s
tool. She stretched, rising to her toes. The skirt fitted the curve of her legs. “Now I’ve thought about it,” she said lazily, giving me a sidelong look. She kicked her shoes off. “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

  “You’re a darling,” I said. “Queen of the junior prom. All the beanie-wearers are mad for you.”

  “That’s not funny,” she said.

  I turned my head. “No, it isn’t, is it? I’ll have to go work up new gags. I think I’ll take a hot bath while I’m at it. I think I’ll run the water to the top of my upper lip and then make little waves. It should take me a long time to drown like that, shouldn’t it?”

  She looked at me solemnly, then her lower lip dropped and she laughed. “You’re crazy,” she said.

  I got out of the chair. “Around here,” I said, “that’s a virtue.” I walked out of the living room toward my room in the back wing. On the way I saw three of Maxine’s boys playing poker in the television room. The Irish boy was one of them. He looked as if he were wearing an eggplant under his nose.

  I stuck my head in the door. “Well,” I said, “if it isn’t Bushy, Bagot, and Green. And how is the king tonight?” Three jaws dropped. The one who was dealing threw a card wild and it fluttered to the floor.

  “Gi da hell ow uh here,” Irish said through stiff lips. His jaw looked sore. I went down the hall to my room, dragging my feet as if I had a tombstone tied to my back.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I had taken a long bath and worked on my sore arm with some kind of rubbing compound and was about to get into bed when the door was nudged open behind me. I looked over one shoulder. There was a face in the doorway, about four feet from the floor. Serious brown eyes studied me.

  “Hello, Aimee,” I said.

  The door inched open a little more. She was wearing blue pajamas and slippers with fur tops. Her straight black hair was brushed until it gleamed.

  “I was lookin’ for Diane,” she said timorously.

  “What makes you think she’d be here?” I asked her.

  Aimee shrugged and crept into the room, her eyes peering around. Maybe she was lonely. She stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at me.