Pug gave me a deadpan stare and then went out of the hotel and got in Ginger's car and drove away. I said to the clerk: “If there're any more calls, I'll be back in half an hour.”
Chief of Police Piper was drumming on his oak desk with my card. “Sit down,” he said. He didn't look up. His round face was tired, and most of the red had gone out of the skin. There were purple veins on his cheeks. I sat down.
He hit the table with my card again, then stared at it. “We don't like private dicks in Paulton,” he said, raising his eyes. He blinked at me. He was thinking he'd seen me before. “No.”
“No.” He watched me. “What can I do for you?” He said it like he wanted to know so he could refuse. I said: “It's more what I can do for you, chief.”
“One of those smart ones, eh?”
“I don't know.”
“Well, go ahead.” He was still curious about my face, but he was tired. “What can you do for me?”
“A couple of things,” I said. “How would you like to have another high-class murder in town?” His mouth came open. “What do you mean?”
“It'd be your bucket, wouldn't it?”
“Now look here...”
“You're in a jam,” I said. “They're after you because Waterman was killed. Isn't that so?” His face began to get red.
“And if there's another big killing, you'll be out.” I let this sink in, and then said: “And some people will be asking if Pug Banta was really in jail the night of the Papas shooting.”
“Pug was in jail.” The chief made a pretty feeble attempt to roar. “Anybody who says different...”
“All right. He was. But some people are saying...”
“I can prove it.”
“So long as you're chief of police, you can.”
He thought this over.
“Somebody's going to try to bump off McGee,” I said.
“The lawyer?”
“Either tonight, or some night soon.” I told him about the library, and how McGee worked in it late at night. I told him that I'd overheard a couple of men talking about it while I was in the can at Jazzland. I figured I was overworking the gag about hearing things in the can, but I couldn't think of a better story. I said I didn't know who the men were, and that I didn't hear why they wanted to kill him.
“We'll have to warn McGee,” the chief said.
“I wouldn't.”
“Why?”
“McGee'll give it away. Then you'd never catch the guys. Look, here's the best way. Put a couple of good men in the yard. Then, when they try for McGee, you can grab 'em red-handed.”
The idea appealed to him, but he still thought he'd better warn McGee. He hadn't any right to take a chance with him that way, he said. Better to let the killers go than have McGee in danger.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You got a friend named Carmel?”
He nodded before he thought.
“You mean to say,” I said, “you had a friend.”
“Why? What's...?”
“Day before yesterday Pug Banta said he wanted to see her, didn't he?”
The chief began to look scared. “You know a hell of a lot, don't you?”
“Pug had you call her,” I went on. “Then he met her for you.”
I paused. The chief didn't say anything.
“They buried her this morning,” I said.
“My God, no!”
I kept letting him have it. “Her body was found outside a town called Valley. She'd been beaten to death.”
All the colour had gone out of his face. The veins on his jowls looked green. His eyes were half closed.
I said: “One more thing about McGee.”
He looked at me.
“Pug Banta's going to kill him.” I got out of the chair. “And if anyone's interested in getting rid of Pug, the place to do it would be McGee's back yard.”
He sat at the desk, watched me walk to the door. At the last second he jumped up and trotted after me. He caught my sleeve. “Was she really beaten?”
“Her jaw was shattered, both arms were broken...”
“Oh, God! The poor kid!” He tugged my sleeve again. “Say! How do you know this?”
“Her brother called me,” I said. “We're old friends. He had to have some dough to bury her.”
“Oh, God!” he said.
“Well, so long, chief.”
He didn't answer. When I reached the stairs I looked back. He was still standing in the door. I went out of the station into the street. I felt good. Now I had things moving.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NEWSBOYS SELLING an extra in the street outside the hotel woke me up the next morning. I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. I telephoned down for breakfast and a bottle of rye.
“Send along one of those extras, too,” I told the clerk.
Charles, the Negro, brought the stuff up. I took a shower, drank half a glass of whisky neat and then looked at the extra. Brother, did I get a rear! The headline said: THOMAS McGEE MURDERED. And a subhead said Pug Banta was being held for the job. I sat down on the bed and read the story.
It seemed, the story said, one of Chief Piper's squads had noticed a man lurking around McGee's house. The squad had followed the man (Pug Banta) around to the back, but before they could grab him he shot and killed McGee through one of the french windows in McGee's library. McGee never knew what hit him. The cops then jumped Banta before he had time to move and dragged him off to the station. So far he had refused to say why he'd done the job.
I poured and drank another half glass of whisky. My plan had sort of back-fired, but I didn't know. Maybe it was just as good this way. At least McGee and Pug were out of the road. I lifted the napkin oil the breakfast tray and then I got the phone.
“Goddam it,” I told the clerk; “I ordered six double lamb chops, not those lousy single ones.”
He said he would send up six more right away.
About one o'clock a telegram came. It said:
Arrive Paulton four p.m. Will cut your heart out if you haven't got Penelope.
Grayson.
I had four neat whiskies and a rare steak for lunch, and then I rode out to the Vineyard on the street-car. I sat next to a fat lady with a basket of staples from the A & P, and continued with my thinking. I had a funny feeling that I was close to something, but I was damned if I could tell what it was. I wondered if I had been right about McGee. He had tried to scare me out of town. And he'd known there'll been a robbery at the Vineyard. Yeah, I'd been right. I wondered if he had killed Oke.
“Pardon me.”
“Huh?”
“This is where I get off.”
“Oh.” I let the fat lady and the basket by.
What I'd been hired for, though, was to get Penelope Grayson out. The telegram had reminded me of that. Just thinking about her gave me a sick-empty feeling in my belly. Those damned graves! And that kid Tabith.nl And this was the night of the Ceremony of the Bride. I thought again, what a phony idea; the Ceremony of the Bride. Hut there was nothing phony about those graves. Jesus! I thought, if only there was an honest DA in the county. I wondered what I would say to Grayson. I wondered why I was so worried. I thought at heart I must be a pretty honest bastard.
I went into the Vineyard by the back way. I rolled my knuckles on the door, and the Princess let me in. She looked cool and pretty.
“Honey, did you bring the money?”
“Yes.”
“Hand it over.”
“I don't know as I ought to.”
“Yes, you had, honey. You're in trouble. They got an idea you broke into the vault.”
“So McGee told me.”
She held out a hand. “Do you want to be caught with the money on you?”
“What about you?”
“They don't suspect me, honey.”
I went over and had a drink of the brandy. Then I sat on the divan. “How'd McGee find out?”
“I told him.”
“What the hel
l!”
She sat down beside me and put her hand on my knee. “I had to ... he knew it anyway.”
“How?”
“Well,” she said, “one time we discussed breaking into the vault.”
“You and McGee?”
She smiled at me. I thought, well, I was right about McGee. I said: “So you worked with him?”
“I still do,” she said.
Then I got it. She didn't know he was dead! I wondered why nobody had told her. I decided to stall her.
“Are you in love with him?”
“Oh, no, honey. It's a business arrangement.”
“How much does he want?”
“Half. And you got to leave town.”
“I'm the fall guy, eh?”
“If the cops come in. But McGee will see they don't.”
“How?”
“They're in his pocket, honey. He's the business manager for the Vineyard.” She laughed. “You're not such a smart detective.”
“I guess not.”
“All you have to do is disappear. Later, when everything's quiet, I'll join you. You'll like that, won't you, dear?”
I said “Yes.”
“Now where's the money?”
I pulled the roll out of my pants pocket. She counted it. “Where's the other seven thousand?”
“In my wallet.”
“Keep it.” She put her arms around my neck and kissed me. “Oh, honey, it's not my fault. I love you, honest. McGee's just too smart, that's all.”
I tried to kiss her lips, but she wouldn't let me. I wrestled with her for a minute, and then I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
Afterwards I lay beside her on the bed. Now I knew everything that had happened. The Elders had told McGee of the robbery and he'd known the Princess was involved because he'd talked over just that kind of a job with her. When he accused her she told him everything, putting me on the spot. Then they made their little plan. I would disappear, and they would blame the robbery on me. And the murder! Brother, that was what worried me: the murder! It would be better for them if I never got caught, but nobody would believe my story if I did. They'd have an alibi.
The goddamdest thing was I still couldn't do anything about it, even with McGee gone. The Princess still had the whip. I'd have to take the rap! Or do a bunk. I figured I had about ten grand. That wouldn't last a murder fugitive very long.
“What are you thinking about, honey?”
“About how nice it'll be when we're together.”
“We'll have fun.”
We'll have fun like hell! I thought. “When do you want me to leave?”
“Right away.”
“I can't. Grayson's coming this afternoon. If I'm not around, he'll make a lot of trouble.”
She thought about that. “All right, honey. Stay until tonight. And come out here before you go.”
“That'll be nice.” I scowled at her. “Only I won't like thinking about the Grayson gal.”
“Don't think about her then.”
“Just tell me one thing,” I said. “Who kills her?”
“I don't know.”
I touched the soft skin on her shoulder. “You must have heard something.”
“All I know is the Elders have a kind of a ceremony in a room next to the one where Solomon lies. That's at midnight. Then they take the Bride into the big room and leave her by the coffin.”
“Yeah?”
“And when they come for her in the morning she's dead.”
I slid off the bed and got a bottle of brandy and two glasses. We drank.
“Dead how?”
“A knife in the heart. Solomon's knife.”
She sat with her eyes half closed, sipping the drink. “It's crazy,” she said, “but they believe Solomon comes back and does it. It's his way of keeping in contact with the earth.”
“It's spooky,” I said. “Do you believe it?”
“A guy that's been dead five years coming back and knocking off someone? Don't make me laugh.”
“Well, who does it?”
“You asked me that,” she said. “Honey, let's talk about something else.” She rubbed my thigh. “You haven't been dead five years, have you?”
I got back to the Arkady just before four. On my way through the lobby the clerk gave me a note. It said:
Me for the peaceful life. Goodbye.
Ginger.
The clerk said she'd checked out at noon. I felt sorry until I remembered she hadn't returned the bracelet. The bitch! I went up to my room, but I hadn't more than poured myself a drink of rye when the phone rang.
“A Mr. Grayson to see you.”
I went down to the lobby. Grayson was a heavy-set man, almost as big as me, with a large head. He had grey hair. He was wearing a tan Palm Beach suit. We shook hands.
“God, what heat!” he said.
“It's been like this all week.”
“Where's the girl?”
I said: “Let's go where we can talk, Mr. Grayson.”
We went into the bar. Grayson had a glass of milk. I had a rye highball. “Well,” he said. “Where is she?”
“I'll have her tonight.”
“You'd damn well better.” He glared at me. “I've paid you ten thousand dollars. You produce or I'll throw you in jail.”
“Like hell you will,” I said.
That made him angry, but he kept it down. “The hell I won't,” he said. “But that's tomorrow. We're friends until then.”
“Sure,” I said.
“How're you going to get her tonight?”
I told him we were taking the chief of police to the Vineyard in the evening. “We'll crack the place wide open.”
“Why haven't you done it before?”
“It's a long story.”
“I've got lots of time.”
“All right,” I said. I told him some of the story, mostly about Oke Johnson, McGee and Banta, but I didn't mention the Princess or the Ceremony of the Bride.
“Then McGee is the man who killed Johnson.”
“No,” I said.
“Then who?”
“If I'm right it'll be a goddam surprise to a lot of people.”
“You'd better tell me,” Grayson said.
“Later.”
His face got red, but he took it. He was plenty worried about the girl. I wondered how he'd gotten such a red face from drinking milk.
“The chief'll pick you up here at eleven-thirty, Mr. Gray-soh,” I said.
His eyes were flat and hard. “You'd better come through.
I got up. “I always come through.”
I left him to pay for the drinks. It never does to buy anything for a client.
I went upstairs and called the chief. “I was just going to call you,” he said.
“What for?”
“Pug wants to see you.”
I told him I'd be right over. I finished the rye and then I went down to the station. The chief was in his office.
“Listen,” I said. “Before I see Pug I want to tell you about a job we got to do tonight.”
I told him to get a dozen or so men around eleven-thirty and pick up Grayson and go to the Vineyard. There he was to surround the temple and wait for me to tell him what to do.
The chief's face was worried. “I don't know as I ought to fool around the Vineyard. Not without a warrant.”
“You'd better,” I said; “unless you want me to ask the Governor for some state troopers.”
He said, don't get sore. He said, hadn't we played ball before? I said: “Then you'll have Grayson and the men there around midnight?” He said he would.
“Okay,” I said. “Now where's Pug Banta?”
The jail smelled of unwashed toilets, and it was damp, like a cellar. A bulb burned in the corridor between the cells, making deep shadows. A cockroach as big as a half-dollar ran on the cement in front of us. I kicked at him and missed.
The chief said in an aggrieved voice: “I don't know why in hell he
wants to see you.”
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