by Frank Kane
“A dime a dozen in this town, Liddell.” She leaned back, blew smoke at the ceiling. “You know, ten years ago when I hit this town I figured to have the world by the tail in twelve months. It worked out pretty nearly vice versa.” She grinned at him ruefully. “You don’t know it, but you’re sitting with Miss Chenango County of 1940.”
“I’m impressed,” Liddell told her.
“You should be. So was I.”
Liddell snagged his glass, took a sip. “You sure you won’t have just a touch?”
“Well, okay. Just a touch.” She watched while he filled the other glass with ice and tilted the bottle over. “Hey, hold it! That’s a heavy touch you got, mister.”
“How’d you come to tie up with Richards?”
The girl shrugged. “The usual story. Things didn’t break so hot, I got sick. He put up the dough, helped me get back on my feet. But by then the old fight was pretty nearly kicked out of me.” She took a deep slug out of the glass. “When Richards put the proposition up to me that he’d take on the bills from here in it sounded like the answer to a prayer.”
“And now?”
The blonde shrugged. “You tell me. I’ve known all along that someday I’d have a situation like this staring me in the face. It’s no prettier close up.”
“It’s not quite that bad.”
“No?” The blonde stared at him for a moment, got up from the couch, and disappeared into the bedroom. After a moment she was back with an official-looking paper in her hand. “Take a look at this.”
Johnny Liddell glanced at the paper, whistled softly. “A marriage license. You and the kid?”
Margy nodded. “Richards’s idea.”
“Kind of robbing the cradle, wasn’t it?”
“You think I liked the idea? He was a little creep. The only reason I went through with it was because Richards said it would protect the kid. He knew all about the markers Shad had written at Yale Stanley’s.” She reached over, picked Liddell’s cigarette from between his lips, took a deep drag, replaced it. “He was afraid Yale would force Shad to marry that little black-haired tart.”
“Terry Devine?”
Margy nodded. “You knew they worked Shad over about a week ago?”
Liddell nodded.
“They were trying to make him agree to go through with the marriage. Like that, Yale was sure of getting his money.”
“And he married you because Richards told him to?”
“He wasn’t much of a man, Liddell. He was scared to death of Richards.”
“But you married him, anyway.”
The blonde dropped her eyes. “It didn’t make much difference.” She shrugged. “There aren’t many real men out here. He was no worse than the rest, and I thought I was helping him.”
Liddell drained his glass, set it on the table. “He doesn’t need any help now.”
“You’ve got to find out who did it, Liddell.”
“Why should I? My job was to find the kid. I’ve found him. As soon as I find Richards I’m bowing out of this mess.”
“Look, Liddell. I know you think I’m pretty cheap. Maybe I am. Or maybe it’s just that I didn’t care any more.” She put her hand on his knee. “Maybe now that I’ve met you and remember that there are men like you, maybe it makes a difference.”
“Does it?”
“I’ll be around. We can talk about it then.”
“Okay. If you really want me to work on it, there are a couple of things I’ve got to know. You say Richards knew the kid was in to Yale Stanley for a bundle?”
The blonde nodded.
“Why didn’t he bail him out instead of going through this whole rigamarole of getting you married off to him?”
“He didn’t want Stanley to have the satisfaction of getting the money. Richards was barred from every spot in town because years ago he welshed on a gambling debt in one of the Syndicate spots. They persuaded him to pay and he’s never forgiven them. Stanley in particular.”
“Why didn’t he pay before they persuaded him?”
The blonde laughed humorlessly. “He was broke.”
“Richards broke?”
“Flat. He’s been living on his nerve for years.” She looked around the mean little apartment with a grimace. “You think we’ve been holing up in this because we like slumming?”
“Where’d he get the dough to square his own paper?”
Margy shrugged.
“He been tapping the kid’s estate?” Liddell demanded.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that he went through his own money, and he’s in hock up to his neck.” The sea-green eyes clouded with anger. “Hell, he’s even a month behind on the rent for this flea trap.”
Liddell dragged a worn wallet from his breast pocket, counted out fifty in small bills. “This help, baby?” He laid the bills on the coffee table next to the girl’s glass.
“You don’t have to do that, Liddell,” she told him. “It’ll work out.” She pushed the bills back regretfully.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not out of my pocket. It’ll show up on the bill. Expenses, you know.” He left the bills on the table, picked up his drink. “Somebody’ll pay the tab. If it isn’t Richards, it’ll be the kid’s estate. Take it.”
The blonde looked at the bills with furrowed brows and caught her lower lip between her teeth. Finally, she reached out, picked up the bills. “Okay, Santa Claus. We’ll consider it a loan.” She leaned back, studied Liddell from half-closed eyes. “Richards, Shad, Yale Stanley, Terry Devine — all heels. How come you’re so nice, Liddell?”
“I owe it all to Dale Carnegie. Then again, maybe I have a soft spot in my heart toward Chenango County.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe you figured I could give you more for your fifty bucks? Maybe even tell you where Richards is.”
“Can you?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think you could. Besides, you’re a suspicious little character.”
Margy caught her glass, swirled the cognac over the ice. “You said you were coming here half for business, half for pleasure. Is the business half over?”
Liddell nodded.
“Good. I hate business.” The blonde sighed.
Liddell moved to the edge of the couch so she could put her feet up. She looked at her watch, made a face. “Have to be getting in to work pretty soon.” She looked up at him.
“Wouldn’t it pay you to be a little late today, baby?”
She considered, pursed her lips humorously. “It might.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LATE THAT AFTERNOON Johnny Liddell walked into Police Headquarters at Las Caminas and told the uniformed sergeant behind the desk that he wanted to see Inspector Devlin in Homicide. The sergeant countered with the probability that Devlin was too busy to be disturbed, tried to make Liddell settle for Sergeant Macy, but ended up by letting himself get talked into checking with Devlin himself.
He plugged in the intercom, grunted into it, looked up at Liddell, and scratched at his head.
“He says he’ll see you himself.” The sergeant seemed duly impressed. “Know where his office is?”
Liddell shook his head.
“Second floor front. You can’t miss it. It’s got his name on it.”
“In that case, I’ll probably find it,” Liddell agreed gravely.
Inspector Devlin was sitting in an old swivel chair behind a battered oak desk. He was tall, heavy-set, his sun-leathered face topped by a shock of white hair that showed signs of having been raked recently by his stubby fingers.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Liddell.” He got up from his chair, held out a powerful hand, pulverized Liddell’s with his grip. “Seems that every time you get in town there’s trouble, eh?”
Liddell hastily withdrew his hand, massaging the knuckles. “It doesn’t seem to be ageing you.” He grinned. He looked around the unprepossessing office with its old leather sofa, two straight-backed chairs, a
depressing green carpet that showed obvious signs of wear, a water cooler humming to itself in the corner, and some paint-chipped filing-cabinets. “I see they never did get around to redecorating your office.”
Devlin dropped into his swivel chair, looked around, grunted. “Not very observant, I’d say. Hell, that’s a brand-new calendar.”
Liddell grinned and pulled one of the straight-backed chairs close to the desk. “Just the same it’s good to see you, Inspector.”
The white-haired man behind the desk nodded. “You must be psychic, Liddell. As a matter of fact I’ve been wanting to see you. Tried to reach you at that rabbit warren where you’re registered. You don’t seem to be getting much mileage out of that room of yours.”
“I’ve been pretty busy,” Liddell agreed.
“Sightseeing?” The inspector opened his top drawer, selected a fresh piece of gum from a package, and stuck it between his teeth. “After all, there’s nothing more for you to be doing on the Reilly case. Or is there?”
“What’d you want to see me about?” Liddell sidestepped.
“Margy Winslow. I hear you had a little session with her this morning.”
Liddell nodded. “I dropped by for a talk.”
Devlin rolled the paper from the gum into a ball, tossed it at the waste basket. “Suppose you leave the questioning of witnesses in a homicide to us. The citizens of Las Caminas are laboring under the delusion that that’s what we get paid for.”
“I was only trying to help. I spent the rest of the day trying to check what she told me.”
“And what was that?”
Liddell pinched at his nostrils, stared at the inspector. “She told me Richards was stone broke.”
“Do tell?” Devlin leaned back in his chair, pulled out his bottom drawer, and stuck his foot into it. “And what’d you find out?”
“The same thing you probably did. Richards was broke.”
“So you think he was tapping the kid’s dough, eh?” Devlin chewed on his gum and nodded. “So did we.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we’ve been way ahead of you. We got a court order this morning and had a look at Richards’s books. They didn’t tell us a thing.”
“How about his lawyer?”
Devlin shook his head. “Richards handled the kid’s estate by himself. He had sole control. Think the secretary knows more about it than she’s telling?”
“About money? Hell, she can’t even type. You don’t expect she can add, do you?”
Devlin scowled at him but was interrupted by a buzz on the desk phone. He reached over, scooped it from its cradle, and held it to his ear.
Liddell walked over to the water cooler, filled a paper cup, and drank it slowly. When Devlin had dropped the phone back on its hook, Liddell crumpled the cup, tossed it at the waste basket, and returned to the desk.
“Trouble,” Devlin told him. “Just got a report on Richards.”
“And?”
“He was seen in a car with Yale Stanley and one of his boys early this morning.”
“Richards and Stanley? Together?” Liddell shook his head. “That’s a tough one to swallow, Inspector. Richards was on the Syndicate’s black list.”
“Came from a reliable source.” The inspector pounded on his gum with rapt concentration. “From the time they report the make, it could be that Stanley picked him up at the lodge while you were calling in the report.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you think Richards and Stanley were in on the kill together?”
“It’s not impossible. Suppose Richards was dipping in the kid’s money. Suppose it was a deep dip and the time was getting close for an accounting? That way he might have made it worth Yale’s while to get the kid in for a wad so he’d have a swell out for the examiners when they went over the account.”
Liddell considered it, a deep V ridging between his eyes. Finally, he shook his head. “Why would the kid have to hide out then? All he’d have to do would be to tell Richards, who’d then go through the motions of paying him off. There’d be no need to kill him.”
“Suppose the kid tumbled to the setup? Suppose he told Richards he was wise, then realized that he’d put himself on the spot?”
“Won’t wash. Why would he call Richards and tell him where he was in that case?”
Devlin snorted. “How do you know he did? We only have Richards’s word for that phone call. He could easily have found out where the kid was, knocked him off, then called you with the story about the phone call.”
Liddell shook his head. “I can’t buy it, Inspector.”
Devlin regarded him sadly. “Neither can I. Matter of fact, what I think really happened is that while you were gone Richards stumbled on something that pointed right at Yale Stanley. Yale was still around someplace or came back and found Richards.” He shook his head. “That means only one thing, Johnny.”
“What’s that?”
“You’d better look for a new client. I’m afraid your old one is pretty shopworn at this moment.”
It was almost dark by the time Johnny Liddell dropped the cab outside his hotel. The Marlowe was a pseudo-modern pile of brick, concrete, and plate glass that looked like a giant waffle standing on end. Each room had its own wall-sized picture window and a small balcony made completely private by being indented into the grill of the waffle.
The clerk behind the desk slid his key across to him, opined that there had been no messages with a smile that had no effect on the boredom in his eyes.
Liddell rode the elevator to the fifth floor, followed the corridor to 546, and used his key to push the door open.
A thick-shouldered man in a loud-checked sports jacket sat in an armchair pulled up to the window overlooking Wilshire Boulevard. He didn’t turn around as Liddell walked in and kicked the door shut behind him.
“Looking for somebody?” Liddell wanted to know. His fingers were inches from his left lapel.
The man in the chair looked around, eyed him from beady eyes set close to the spattered bridge of his nose. His lips were puffy as if they had been bashed against his teeth once too often; his hairline seemed almost resting on bushy eyebrows that met over the bridge of his nose. “You Liddell?” he asked incuriously in a harsh, guttural voice.
Liddell nodded.
The man with the broken nose nodded. “Okay, so we’re looking for somebody. You.” He didn’t take his eyes off the private detective. “This is him, Duke. He’s got a rod in his fist.”
“He couldn’t get it out fast enough, Maxie,” a voice from the bedroom door chimed in. The door swung slowly open and a small, dapper little man walked out. He stood something less than five five, had the narrow shoulders and small bones of a jockey. The .45 in his hand looked as big as a cannon and was pointed at a spot about an inch above Liddell’s belt buckle.
The private detective’s fingers tightened on the butt of his gun, still nestled in its shoulder holster, and estimated on his chances of getting it out and swinging to his off side to shoot. He dropped the decision.
“I think you’re right.” He nodded. He dropped his hand, empty, to his side.
“Get it, Maxie,” the little man ordered.
Broken Nose pulled himself out of his chair and shuffled over to Liddell. He pushed open his jacket, relieved him of his .45, examined it critically. “Nice piece of iron,” he grunted, dropped it into his jacket pocket.
“How’d you know my room?” Liddell wanted to know.
“New invention called the house phone.” The man called Duke grinned. “You pick it up and ask. All the latest conveniences.”
“Ain’t science wonderful?” Liddell growled. “Mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Got a message for you.”
“From Yale Stanley?”
The little man stared at Liddell unblinkingly. “You got a bad habit of name dropping, mister,” he chided. “I figure this message don’t need a signature.”
“The kind you delivered to Shad Re
illy, eh?” He looked from the man with the gun to the broken-nosed muscle man. “I been hearing things about you two hoods and your messages.”
Duke gave no indication he had heard, ignoring the angry growl from his partner. “We figured it was time you left town. Some guys don’t take as long as others to get unpopular. You just set a new track record.”
“I can’t leave until my client tells me to.”
“You haven’t got a client. Richards don’t figure he needs you any more.”
Liddell shrugged. “I’ll wait until he tells me. Besides, I’m beginning to like this town.”
“Maybe we can fix that. What do you think, Maxie? Can we fix it so’s the shamus don’t like our hospitality?”
Maxie twisted the corners of his misshapen lips upward in a gross caricature of a smile. “It’d be a pleasure. Tough guys are my meat.” He shuffled over toward where Liddell stood. “Let’s dance, sweetheart. They’re playing our song.”
He threw a beefy fist at Liddell’s head. The private detective blocked it easily, slammed his right against the side of Maxie’s jaw. The big man blinked, licked at his lips, shuffled closer. He feinted with the left again, crossed his right against Liddell’s jaw with a speed unsuspected in a man of his size. It slammed Liddell back against the door, where he slid to a sitting position. There was a dull ringing in his ears; the floor seemed to be tilting crazily as he struggled to his feet.
He was dimly aware that Duke sat on the arm of the chair, his .45 nestled in his lap, a broad grin creasing his thin cheeks. Maxie stood over Liddell, waiting for him to get up.
Liddell shook his head, trying to clear it of the cobwebs. He got to one knee, pretended to lose his balance, but got his legs behind him and plowed into the big man, shoulder first.
Maxie let out a strangled oath as the private detective’s shoulder caught him unaware and bowled him over. There was a crash as the big man hit a chair, splintered it, and knocked the small end table and chair over with him. He lay in the debris cursing angrily.
By the time Maxie got to his feet, Liddell was waiting for him in a half crouch. The big man moved in again, seemingly impervious to Liddell’s Sunday punch as it opened an inch-long gash on his cheekbone. He threw a hamlike fist at Liddell’s face, missed, gasped as the private detective sank his left in his stomach to the cuff.