Bare Trap

by Frank Kane

  “I only know what Richards said. He claimed she was in love with Shad’s father before he married Barby. She never forgave him for jilting her and when he died she tried to take it out on the kid.”

  Liddell nodded, lifted the cigarette from the girl’s fingers, puffed on it. “I don’t suppose you know that Wally Reilly’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  The blonde’s eyes widened. “No.” She studied Liddell’s face, got nothing. “You think he was murdered?”

  “He could have been. That’s another point we can get cleared up when Richards comes to.” He got up, paced the floor. “We never should have let that doctor of his give him all that phenobarb. They should have brought him right into the prison hospital and gotten this out of him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At his place.” He stopped by the phone, rubbed his chin. “Mind if I use your phone, baby?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Liddell lifted the phone from the table at the head of the bed, set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch, and dropped down alongside the girl. He dialed a number, waited while it buzzed, scowled when there was no answer. He depressed the crossbar, dialed again. After the third buzz, the receiver was picked up.

  “Lulu Barry? Johnny Liddell.”

  The voice on the other end wasn’t completely cordial. “I hear you got Yale Stanley and his goon. It would have been nice if you’d tipped me off for the column.”

  “Sorry, Lulu. I never thought of it. I’ll give you something I don’t think you have yet. We also got Eddie Richards.”

  There was a brief pause. “Dead?”

  “Not quite. He took a pretty bad beating from Yale and Maxie, but he’ll probably pull through. He’s sleeping it off at home. There should be a big story tomorrow.”

  “What can he tell?”

  Liddell rubbed his chin, winked at the blonde. “He might be able to tell the real story about Wally Reilly’s death.”

  There was a soft intake of breath from the other end of the line. “What real story?”

  “Wally Reilly’s death wasn’t accidental.”

  “That’s crazy. And there’s enough movie money in this town to keep you from digging up a fifteen- or twenty-year-old accident and trying to make it look like murder.”

  Liddell shrugged. “Not if it’s tied in with one that was committed only a few days ago, Lulu. My guess is that there’s a connection between Wally’s death and Shad’s death.”

  “Shad was killed because he tried to welsh on a gambling debt.”

  “Maybe. Maybe he was killed by someone who didn’t like him. Someone who was settling an old score.”

  There was no answer from the phone.

  “Lots of people didn’t like the kid, I hear. How about you, Lulu?”

  “He reminded me of his mother. I hated her.”

  Liddell nodded. “So I hear. I was just wondering if — ”

  “Look, Liddell. If I were you, I wouldn’t play with things I might not be able to handle. Nobody spatters any mud on Lulu. That’s my department. Remember?”

  There was a sharp click. Liddell rubbed his ear. He dropped the receiver on its hook thoughtfully.

  “She’s awfully powerful, Liddell,” the blonde told him. “She carries an awful lot of weight where it counts.”

  Liddell scowled. “Weight or no weight, I think Devlin ought to have a little talk with Lulu.” He started dialing, waited until it stopped ringing. “This is Liddell. Inspector Devlin in his office?”

  There was a brief pause, then Devlin’s voice came through. “What’s on your mind, Liddell?”

  “I just had a talk with Lulu Barry, Inspector. I think — ”

  The inspector’s roar flowed through the receiver. “I told you to lay off her, Liddell. That dame could blast me right back to handing out parking tickets.”

  “Yeah, but if you talk to her, I think — ”

  “Stop thinking. I told you that if Richards will talk tomorrow we’ll pick her up. But until then I’m not doing a damn thing. Now stop trying to foul me up any more than you have!”

  For the second time the receiver banged in his ear. Liddell grinned ruefully. “Dale Carnegie, I hear you calling me.” He dropped the receiver, shrugged. “Okay, so I did what I could.” He glowered at the phone. “The sucker! She could be a thousand miles away by the time Richards is in any condition to talk.” He picked the cigarette out of the ash tray, smoked it moodily. The blonde watched sympathetically.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Liddell shrugged. “I’m licked. It’s going to be a whitewash. Richards won’t have the guts to go up against Lulu Barry.” He threw the butt into the tray and watched it smolder. “How soon can you be ready?”

  “For what?”

  Liddell scowled. “To go to New York. I see what you mean about this town. I’m beginning to get that bad taste.” He glowered at her. “You said you wanted to go to New York, didn’t you?”

  The blonde nodded.

  “How soon can you be ready? There’s a plane at midnight and another at eight in the morning.”

  The blonde grinned. “You don’t waste much time, do you?” She reached over and pressed her soft, cool lips against his. “If you’ll get out of here and let me get started packing, I can make that eight o’clock plane.”

  Liddell nodded, got up.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to the nearest first-class saloon and drown my troubles.” He leaned over, caught her face in his palms, lifted it, and kissed her. “I hope you can make that plane.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EDDIE RICHARDS lived in a huge, flamboyant apartment house near the Strip. It had the usual small lobby, decorated with three-legged chairs that made up in decorativeness what they lacked in comfort. The lobby itself was carpeted in thick-pile broadloom that felt like an uncut lawn as you crossed it. The elevators were self-service, and crowded when four people pushed into them.

  Lulu Barry dropped the cab in front of the building, walked into the lobby. The sole occupant of the lobby, a smallish man, balancing precariously on one of the chairs, didn’t even glance at her as she headed past him into the elevator.

  As soon as the door had closed behind her, however, he got up to watch the indicator over the elevator, noting that it stopped at the eighth floor. He stepped into the vacant car next to the one the columnist had taken, pushed the button for the eighth floor.

  On the eighth floor, Lulu Barry stepped out, followed the carpeted corridor to 825. She looked both ways up the corridor, knocked. A woman’s voice answered from behind the closed door.

  “What is it?”

  “Let me in,” Lulu Barry told her. “I must see Mr. Richards.”

  There was a click as the door opened. Lulu Barry stepped in, walked to the bedroom beyond.

  There were three sharp cracks of a small caliber pistol. Somewhere a woman screamed. Closer at hand there was the sound of a struggle, a cry of frustration.

  The man who had been reading his newspaper in the lobby rushed in, service revolver in hand.

  “Okay, Murph,” Inspector Devlin’s voice came from the bedroom. “We’ve got her. Get some lights in here.”

  The detective walked to the bedroom door, felt his way along the wall, pushed in the floor plug for a huge torch lamp, bathed the room with light.

  Lulu Barry stood cowering back against the wall, her clenched fist against her teeth. At the window, Johnny Liddell and Inspector Devlin wrestled furiously with a struggling figure.

  “I’ll take that gun, lady,” Devlin grunted. He forced a small revolver out of the girl’s hands, turned her over to Liddell.

  “The right one, Inspector?”

  Devlin examined it, nodded. “Looks like it. It’s a twenty-five all right.”

  The girl tried to wriggle out of Liddell’s grip, finally collapsed breathlessly. “It was a trap. You trapped me,” she panted. The sea green of her eyes dripped venom.


  “Sorry, Margy. We had to have that gun.”

  “Those phone calls. The one to Barry and the inspector. They were phony, weren’t they?” She glowered at him, her lips drawn back from her teeth.

  Liddell nodded. “I figured you’d try to wrap it all up by getting rid of Richards and trying to dump it into Lulu Barry’s lap.”

  “She tried to frame me.” The columnist’s voice sounded as if she couldn’t believe her own words.

  “She did call you then?” Devlin wanted to know.

  The columnist nodded, seemed to have trouble taking her eyes off the girl. “She said she was Richards’s nurse, that he had come to and I might be able to get a story before the police got here.”

  Liddell nodded. “She planned to wait until you got here, shoot Richards, go out the window, and have you caught here with the body. It was a nice frame, but it didn’t work, baby.”

  “Okay. But you’ll have a tough time proving it. Sure, I shot the fat louse. But there’s not a jury that will — ”

  Liddell let go her arm, motioned for the detective named Murph to take over. “Wrong again, baby. Richards is in the hospital.” He walked over to the bed, pulled back the covers, exposed a lifelike dummy made of wadded pillows and a blanket. “We had to pull the plug on the light so you wouldn’t tumble. But we figured you’d be too intent listening for Lulu to notice.”

  “How did you ever settle on her, Johnny?” Lulu Barry asked curiously.

  Liddell shrugged. “I should have spotted her earlier. It was all there.” He looked at the blonde sadly. “She left a trail a mile wide.”

  Margy sneered at him, looked away.

  “We knew it had to be someone the kid knew and trusted.” He tabulated on his fingers. “Otherwise he never would have turned his back. That eliminated Yale Stanley and his boys.”

  The columnist nodded.

  “Richards told me the kid had called him and said Stanley knew where he was. What he meant was that Margy got the call from the kid. He was lonesome and scared. He wanted her to come out. Right?”

  The blonde ignored him.

  “She called Richards, told him where the kid was, then to add a finishing touch, she told him Yale knew where the boy was. But when she called, she was only a few minutes from the kid. She killed him, called Stanley, and told him to get out there.”

  “Why?”

  Liddell shrugged. “She probably hoped that Stanley would figure Richards was trying to frame him and there’d be some shooting.”

  Lulu Barry tried to understand, ran her finger tips across her forehead. “But why should she kill Shad?”

  “She was married to him. She told me Richards had made her marry him so Yale couldn’t get the kid’s dough.” He looked at the blonde. “She wanted the money for herself — money that didn’t exist.”

  The blonde stiffened. “You’re lying. The kid is Wally Reilly’s only heir. It’s all his and now it’s all mine.”

  Liddell shook his head. “Wally Reilly died broke. There is no money.”

  The blonde fought furiously to break away from the detective assigned to hold her. “You’re trying to cheat me,” she ranted. “You’re trying to get it away from me.”

  Liddell shook his head again. “There was no money, Margy. Reilly died broke. So broke he committed suicide. The only money he left was the insurance money and that’s gone long ago.”

  The blonde stopped struggling, looked from face to face. “No money?”

  Devlin nodded. “It’s the truth, Miss Winslow.”

  The girl’s face contorted with rage. Then she began to gasp. The gasps became louder, shriller, finally erupted into hysterical laughter. “No money? What a joke,” she screamed. “What an awful, horrible joke!”

  Inspector Devlin nodded for the detective to take her out. He led her unresisting to the door. “No money, Liddell?” she asked dully.

  He shook his head.

  She started to shake again with uncontrollable laughter. “Then I killed him for nothing. It was all for nothing.”

  “That’s right, baby. You killed him for nothing. He was only a kid. He trusted you and you killed him for nothing.”

  The blonde stopped short, pulled her arm free from the detective. There was a wild gleam in her eyes as she pushed the blond hair out of her face. “Okay, so I killed him for nothing. What was he to me? Nothing. With that money I could have been somebody. I could have showed them. I would have showed them all.”

  Devlin nodded to the detective, who dragged her from the room. Liddell wiped a thin film of perspiration from his forehead. “It wasn’t very pretty. But that’s that. The gun will wrap it up.”

  Lulu Barry’s hand shook as she pulled her cigarettes from her bag. “Why did she take the chance of coming here to kill Richards?”

  Liddell picked a cigarette from her pack, stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “She had to. Richards could have put the finger on her. He could have told us that he didn’t ask her to marry the kid. That, plus the fact that it was she and not he who had talked to Shad would make it look bad for her.”

  Devlin grunted. “Suppose Yale hadn’t latched on to Richards? He still could have made it tough for her.”

  Liddell shrugged. “I think she had planned to kill Richards from the very beginning. She hoped Yale would save her the trouble out at the hide-out, but if he didn’t, we would have had another murder on our hands in town.”

  “And there really was no estate? Wally died broke?” Lulu asked.

  Liddell nodded. “Richards went through his own money raising the boy. He didn’t want him or you or anybody to know the kid’s father was a bust.” He held a match to the columnist’s cigarette, lit his own. “Wally did commit suicide, you know.”

  The columnist shook her head. “I didn’t know.” She walked over to a chair, sat down. “I’m a foolish old woman, I guess.” She looked up at Liddell. “I didn’t hate the boy, Johnny. He was too much like Wally for me to hate him. I thought I was looking out for his interests.”

  Liddell nodded.

  “I thought Richards was going through Shad’s money. I wanted to force an accounting for the kid’s sake.” She tried a smile that was only half good. “I guess I have some apologizing to do.”

  “And I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Devlin grunted. He walked over to Liddell, slapped him on the shoulder. “Nice work — for a private eye.” He held up the little gun. “This puts it on ice. Without this baby, we might not have been able to make it stick.”

  Liddell nodded, watched the inspector say his good-by to Lulu Barry, and walk out.

  “I heard about Glennon, Lulu,” he said after the door had closed. “Pretty rough, wasn’t it?”

  The columnist nodded. “I didn’t know how deeply she was in it. I knew she was out at Laguna. As soon as you left, I called her, told her I knew the whole story. I figured it would give her time to get to Mexico or wherever she intended to go.” She shrugged. “She had other ideas.”

  Liddell nodded. “You were pretty close, eh?”

  “We’ve been together for more years than I like to admit.” The columnist sighed. “I thought that was the least I owed her. A chance to make a run for it. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “I’m not too sure, Lulu. After all, if that babe’s plans had meshed, I would have been in the morgue instead of her. It may be ungallant of me to say it, but better her than me.

  Lulu Barry shook her head. “You really think she tried to put you on the spot by tipping Maxie and the Duke that you’d be at the Lamont that night?”

  Liddell nodded. “It was blind luck for me and tough luck for Terry and the Duke that her plans went wrong.”

  “I guess you’re right. I never had Glennon figured that way.” She shrugged. “Goes to show you never know what somebody else is thinking. I’m going to miss her.”

  “Maybe she’s better off, Lulu. It’s like Devlin said. A gal like Glennon couldn’t have stood up under a stretch in Tehachapi, and t
hat’s where she was heading.”

  “How about you, Liddell? Where are you heading?”

  “New York.”

  “Why not stick around? This town could use a couple of guys like you. Besides, Muggsy’s going to be awfully lonesome after you go.”

  “Don’t kid me, Lulu. Muggsy will never be lonesome. Besides, I can’t stay around.”

  “Why not?”

  Liddell grinned bleakly. “I wouldn’t want to be within a thousand miles of this place when the judge sentences that blonde. I don’t think I could bear thinking of what a waste of good material that’s going to be.”

  • • •

  Muggsy Kiely sprawled comfortably on the couch in her apartment. She finished reading the newspaper, dumped it on a pile alongside the couch. “Yale Stanley pleaded guilty to attempted extortion today, Johnny. Looks like he and Maxie are going to take a nice long rest.”

  Liddell grunted.

  “And did you see what Lulu Barry had to say about you in her column today? She thinks you’re some pumpkins.” She stretched her neck to see where Liddell sat in an armchair, staring glumly out over the city, one leg dangling over the arm of the chair, a glass in his hand.

  He grunted again.

  “What are you looking so poisonous about? It isn’t every private eye that rates almost a full column rave from the great Lulu Barry.” She grinned maliciously. “By the way, she agrees with me.”

  “About what?” Liddell growled.

  “She thinks you ought to stay and go into the movies. She thinks you have the makings of a great lover.” She reached over, picked up the paper. “No kidding, Johnny. She says right here that your performance over the phone from that blonde’s apartment was masterful.”

  Liddell glared at her, emptied his glass, set it down.

  “And that was only the performance over the telephone,” Muggsy chided.

  “Very funny,” Liddell agreed dryly. “I told you it was all strictly business with the blonde. Unfortunately.”

  Muggsy stretched, yawned. “Now don’t go sensitive on me, Romeo. Maybe Lulu’s right. Maybe you ought to think about staying here. With her in back of you, you could practically write your own ticket in this town. It’s not such a bad town, Johnny.”