The door opened, Flint gave me a shove, and I was inside the room.
He got up from behind a big black desk. It was impressive. Just sitting still Nick was impressive, but in motion he was magnificent. He was six and a half feet tall, an even six-feet-six, and I would guess he weighed very close to three hundred pounds. Not much of it was fat; he carried all that weight well, and he merely looked like a small, well-knit giant.
Nick Colossus was dark, wide, graceful, powerful, and hairy. On his head he had a big pile of slightly wavy black hair, gray at the temples, and sticking up above the V of his open white dress shirt was a gob of hair as thick and dark as steel wool. He had a size 20 neck, fists like large beef roasts, and arms like legs.
Nick stopped in front of me, grinning hugely. His teeth were so big and strong and white they looked like porcelain-capped caps, like teeth in the mouth of one of those horses, getting ready to bite me. “Hello, Scott,” he said cheerily. “Welcome to Desert Trails.”
“Well, you had the latchstring out, you yegg-head. I could hardly resist your Western hospitality.” I grinned back at him, but without real enthusiasm.
He laughed and hauled off and hit me in the stomach. He wasn't really trying to hurt me; it was just one of his playful gestures. He hurt me.
He chortled and said, “What the hell you always calling me a yegg-head for, pal?”
“Because you're an intelligent crook. About the only one I know. I was always disappointed that you became a slob.”
It was true. Nick was an intelligent guy, a big capable man who could have made his legitimate million. But instead he'd decided to do it the hard way. And that way included the services of hard boys like those I'd spotted outside, and the ones who'd brought me here.
I glanced around. It looked as if half the gang was here. Besides Flint and the two who'd made sure I accepted Nick's invitation, present were little Shortcake, Viper in dry clothes, Albert Anesthesia, and a couple of new ones. All told, there were ten of us, counting Nick and me, in the room.
It was a small room and we jammed the place. So this was Nick's hangout, his sanctum, the rooms in which he relaxed. It might even be the place in which I would get killed. I looked it over. On the left, through a partly open door, I could see the edge of a rumpled bed. This room, apparently, was an office. It was a room without frills, without fussiness; Besides the big black desk, on which were an ashtray made of twenty-dollar gold pieces, a small calendar and a beige phone, it contained only a padded leather chair behind the desk, and a leather couch against the left wall, plus a couple of overstuffed chairs now overstuffed with Whitey and Jabber, still in his giddy red-and-white uniform. The walls were smoothly paneled in walnut, the clean brown surface of the wood broken only by three small framed pictures on the wall behind the desk. On the floor was a thick brown carpet.
Nick said, “Don't sing any psalms for me, Shell. Every time I see you I get the reform ticket. You know I don't go for that straight-and-narrow pathology. What does it get you?”
“For one thing, it gets you much better company.” I looked around at the miserable specimens here with us.
He laughed. “Hell, I'm a success. So I've surrounded myself with yeah men.” He burst into laughter again. “Pretty good, huh?” That laugh of his was like a cement mixer going to pieces.
“Pretty lousy.”
“Killed my boy today, didn't you, Shell?” He just threw it into the dialogue without any pause, without change of expression. He knew I'd shot Dodo, and there was no point now in trying to pretend I hadn't. At least that answered some of my own questions.
“You shouldn't have sent him out to hit me, Nick.”
“I shouldn't have sent him is right. I should have sent three guys. Then one of them would have been sure to get you.”
I could hardly believe it. Here we were talking about killing me as if it were somebody else. Somebody else I didn't like, at that. But as long as we were discussing such things freely, I figured I'd find out as much as I could.
So I said, “What decided you to tap my phone, Nick?”
“Now, don't try to pump me, pal. All I'm doing today is asking the questions.”
“Come on. Nick. We've got no secrets between us. We're close. We even try to kill each other. So what's with Magna? You don't really think you can get a million clams out of Feldspen and those sharp-money boys who run Magna, do you?”
“Pal, I don't even know what you're talking about now.” The way he said it, I couldn't tell if he really meant it or was just evading the issue once more. He grinned toothily again and said, “Besides which, I told you not to pump me.”
He hauled off and threw one of those fist-boulders into my stomach again. It went in like a meal of knuckles and some breeze squirted out between my teeth. He wasn't trying to knock me down or rupture my appendix; Nick socked guys in the stomach or on the shoulder—the way kids will do in grammar school—simply as a sort of slap on the back. I had known him to knock people right on their tail, gasping horribly for breath, simply as a jolly greeting.
My blood pressure went up into the danger area, however. “Nick,” I said slowly and seriously, “do that again and I'll slam you with one.”
He looked at my balled fist and it seemed to make him happy. He said, “Scott, I'd really maul you if you tried anything disappointing like that. Besides which, the boys here would be all over you.”
“That wouldn't help your lip.”
Flint had walked past us to perch on the corner of Nick's desk. I said to him, “Flint, I told you I'd come here quietly. O.K., I've done it. But from here in, I owe you no promises.”
Nick laughed heartily. “You crazy dude,” he said gleefully. “You'd really bust me, wouldn't you? Right here.”
“Swat me in the gut again and we'll both find out.”
He guffawed. “You're really a crazy dude, for sure. But I like you. That's a fact, Scott. You're about the only guy I know—still living—who isn't afraid of me.” He paused. “You're not afraid of me, are you, Scott?”
“No. But —” I hunted for the right words—“let's say you fill me with apprehension.”
He got a charge out of that, too. When he finished chuckling he looked at me and said, “I'm going to miss you, pal. It's really going to seem a little different knowing you're not around any more.”
He was looking down at me. Those eyes were four inches above mine, and they were clear blue eyes as hard and bright as stainless steel. His expression hadn't changed any; that was the way his eyes always looked.
It was kind of tragic, in a way, about Nick Colossus. He could have built corporations or bridges or cities, but he'd chosen to build a criminal organization instead. Up in one lobe of his brain, where there should have been a doodad, there was no doodad; something was missing. Nick was congenial, pleasant, clever and personable, and could be very good company—when he wanted to be. But his area was Southern California and his business was crime; and the desire to be top man in that business and area amounted to an obsession. Everything else was subordinated to that desire, and killing people was just one of the techniques he used in order to get where and what he wanted. He'd made it, too, because—except, perhaps, for Lou Rio—he was unquestionably the most powerful and prosperous hood this side of the San Francisco area.
No, he didn't mind killing people a bit. He wasn't really congenial or pleasant, that was just one of the faces he wore. And it was a false face. Underneath he was mean, cruel, and hard as a kick in the jaw. So when he said he was going to miss me, he was saying good-by.
I told him, “Nick, maybe you're not as smart as I figured. If you knocked me off, the job would have your signature —”
He interrupted me. “Relax. You're not going that quick, pal. You don't think I'd be careless enough to hit you here, do you? If I did it now, I'd be sticking my neck out—you probably told half the L.A. fuzz you were coming here. And I much dislike sticking my neck out. Oh, you'll get it; but not for a while.”
> “Then why'd you bring me up here?”
“I want to know how it happened that you came here and talked to the doc?”
“What doc?”
He said, “You know what doc. Clark, the one you just yakked with. Now, spill it, pal. What put you onto him?”
“It's no good, Nick.”
“Don't be a chump. I'll just have the boys beat it out of you.”
“You're not even sure of that. I doubt that they could get it out of me. They'd just mark me up—and you don't want me marked.”
“Why not? The fuzz can't gas me if a couple of guerrillas work you over. No danger in slamming you around a little; just in putting the chill on you.” He paused, thinking. “But you wouldn't enjoy it. Tell you what, Scott.” He paused again, those bright, hard eyes on me. “I trust you. If you give me your word, that's good enough for me. So give me your word to tell me what got you onto the doc, and I'll let you go.”
He turned and walked behind his desk, sat down in the leather chair there and leaned forward on the desk top. “You see, pal,” he went on, “I know you were coming here to the ranch before you got that call about Valentine. You must have had the whole play figured fairly well before then.”
That was true; Nick or one of his men must have heard me say something about it on my tapped phone. I thought back to those calls in my office. I'd phoned Feldspen and told him I was following up on a lead at the Desert Trails, I remembered; right after that, the kid had phoned and told me he'd seen Valentine pushed from the Madison roof.
Nick went on, “I want to know what put you onto the Desert Trails so soon. And why you even thought of talking to a doctor here at all. We both know, now, that he treated poor old Valentine—but how'd you figure it so fast? Or at all?” He grinned at me again. “Give me the whole thing, and your word that it is the whole thing, and I'll let you walk out of here—and I mean without any trouble. No beating, no lumps, nothing. I'll still put a bullet inside your head, pal. I wouldn't kid you. But you'll be out of here; you'll have a chance. Otherwise ... we'll try beating the info out.”
It sounded like the best deal I was ever going to get from Nick. And it was attractive. If these conk-crushers worked me over it would be a long time till I cracked a puffy eyelid. I glanced casually at my watch. It was twenty minutes until five p.m. If I could get out of here in ten minutes, there was still a good chance I could place a call to Coral before she left Magna.
That decided me, even though I realized there was a chance Nick didn't even know about Coral's call to me. In the flurry of activity which would have followed the kid's words about Valentine's murder, Coral's call right after that might have been missed. Consequently I was afraid even to mention her name to Nick. No, I had to get out of here as soon as possible, out and able to navigate—telling Nick the deductions which had, even before the kid's call, decided me to come here wouldn't hurt much now.
I made up my mind. “You give me your word that if I spill it all I can walk out of here? As soon as I get it told?”
“You've got my word, Scott.”
“O.K. It's a deal.” I lined it up in my mind and started in. “Right after Valentine's death I went to the Madison. Three witnesses said they saw Valentine put something down by his feet then jump. As dark as it was at that hour of the morning, they might have seen him bend over, but they could hardly have seen him put anything down by his feet. Small item, but it was the first bit that didn't ring true. Hired witnesses would, of course, have their stories well prepared before the kill.
“There were a couple of odd points about the suicide note itself. The letters at the end were less perfectly formed, straggling a bit, as if written by a man slowly losing consciousness. Besides that, it started out with the words, “By the time anybody reads this I will be dead”—a strange phrase for a man to use if he's planning to jump from a building. Those two points together indicated a man waiting to die slowly, after taking drugs or poison—or sleeping pills.
Nick grunted. “That couldn't be helped, since he did write the note after taking the pills here. But it's no proof of anything. Keep it going, pal.”
“I was starting to feel then that Valentine might have been murdered, Nick. But that was a genuine suicide note, in his handwriting. Now, if it was murder, there seemed only one way there could be in existence a genuine suicide note: Valentine must have unsuccessfully tried to kill himself once before, and on that occasion written the note. It was written on Desert Trails stationery, I discovered, but with the heading cut off. Either Valentine had saved his original suicide note and used it again this morning, which didn't seem at all likely, or somebody else had saved the note—to make murder look like suicide. Moreover, either Valentine had written the note and then cut off the Desert Trails heading—not likely—or he'd written the note on handy stationery and then somebody else had cut off the top. Why? So nobody would connect the dead man, the apparent suicide, with Desert Trails. At that point, Nick, you were not smelling like a rose.”
“Cut the comedy. What's the rest of it?”
“The letter I compared the suicide note with, the one on identical stationery, was written from here on Sunday. Valentine said in it that he'd had an accident and would be at the Desert Trails for an extra day or so. I still didn't have proof he'd tried to kill himself here that weekend, but I sure had reason enough to come here and ask some questions about his ‘accident.’ And well before the kid's phone call—when the kid told me on the phone he'd seen Valentine tossed, and when Dodo shot his chin off, that was just final proof to add to what I already had.” I paused. “So I came to Desert Trails. Clark was one of the two doctors here when Valentine tried to knock himself off. I talked to him and rang the bell.”
“So now you know Valentine tried to knock himself off here at the ranch. But that's all you know, pal. It's the only thing anybody might prove, anyway.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe hell. The rest is just your—wicked imagination.” Nick grinned. “That's all of it, Scott?”
“Every bit.”
“Well, you keep your word, all right. I'll hand you that.”
“It would be even nicer if you'd hand me my gun. I'd like to take it with me.”
Flint still had my gun. Nick looked at him and said, “He'd like his gun back, Flint. What do you think?” His voice had a nasty ring to it.
Flint said, “Well, we could give it to him one slug at a time first, and then the Colt.”
Nick shook his big head, pretending to consider the problem. “No, not till I get a tight alibi set. We'll let Scott sweat a while instead.” He looked at me. “Not a chance he'll get clear away from L.A.”
“Knock it off, Nick. I've told it all, so stow the chatter and let me get out of here.”
Nick ignored me and looked at Flint, “I'll bet you a dime,” he said, “that you and the boys could beat the living hell out of my friend here without messing him up too much.”
“Well,” said Flint, “we could if he'd hold still. He probably wouldn't, though. He's the type would want to move around a lot.”
“Hey —” I said.
“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “You can count on that. But I wouldn't want him to wind up in a hospital. Got to have him in circulation fairly soon so you can fog him.”
I said, “Why, you lousy —”
Nick interrupted me again. He sounded almost charming.
“You have to admit the logical progression, Scott. First we take you out of circulation. Then we take the circulation out of you.”
I stepped to one side, looking around. There wasn't a gun in sight. Just eight hoods and Nick. And me. There was no longer any doubt about it; the eight hoods were going to beat hell out of me, and Nick was going to watch.
He said, “Scott, I heard about the beef you and Lou Rio had yesterday. You know I can't let that crumb get ahead of me.” He paused. “And anything Lou can do, I can do better.”
I suppose I could have told him he could lie better, and any nu
mber of other dull things, but they would have had no effect on him, besides which I didn't want to talk to him, I wanted to hit him.
Flint came toward me and, on my left, Jabber took a step forward, grinning. For a moment the only thought in my mind was the thought of Coral James, but then there wasn't time to think of anything except arms and fists and legs and a swinging sap. I started to bring up my hands as I lunged toward Nick—I wanted to smack him just once, one good one, before the lights went out—but somebody behind me already had a grip on my arms.
He tried to pin my arms to my sides, pulling back on them, but I raised my right foot and slammed it down, felt the hard heel crunch into small, fragile bones of the man's instep. It felt as if my heels went right on down to the floor and the guy yelled horribly. Without looking around I slammed my right arm back, driving my elbow into the man's gut, then brought it forward as I took a step toward Jabber. He and Flint were almost on me, side by side. I cocked that right fist, looked at Jabber as he bobbed his head to the side—and slammed my fist into Flint's cold, frozen face.
His head snapped back, mouth coming open, lip cut and already red-smeared. Jabber jumped at me, and somebody hit me from behind. A pair of arms grabbed me. I jerked free and lunged toward Nick, Nick behind his desk looking gleeful, and there might have been murder in my heart. Something hit the side of my head, something solid and heavy, and for a moment my muscles just stopped working. I fell, seeing Nick's big, heavy, laughing face as I went down to one knee.
I scrambled forward and managed to get to my feet again. Jabber was close on my left in his red and white uniform and as I came up I came up swinging my left hand. I kept the hand open, fingers straight out, and the edge of my palm slammed underneath his chin. I could tell from the solid satisfying thud and the ache in my hand that he was through for the day.
Somebody was pounding on me. Fire blazed in my ear. I tried to turn, swinging, and from there on everything got very blurred; whatever happened just blended together. It didn't last long, but a lot of things happened in a few seconds. All the time I was trying to get closer to Nick, but I didn't make it. I didn't ever really have a chance of making it. But everybody in that room knew I tried.
Slab Happy (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 10