by Basil Copper
Tucker was lying next to some old sacks. I whispered to him and he kicked them over. I picked them up and arranged the sacking in a loose bundle around me. I looped my hands under the sacking and hid them from sight. I had just eased my position and leaned back against the bench when there came a sound outside, the door opened quietly and two men came in.
*
The first was Sirocco. Behind came the big negro, Jones in Tucker’s files, or whatever else he now called himself. The negro looked mean but Sirocco had on a slight smile. But it was a junky’s smile, which was just as bad.
“How yo’ all feelin’, white trash?” the big nigger said in a sing-song voice. It was all molasses and whipped cream in its connotations but it didn’t sound soft at all to me.
“You can stow that crap,” I told him. “All that dialogue went out with the coon theatre way back in the days of vaudeville.”
The negro came over and stood in front of me; he looked at me dispassionately. His eyes were completely expressionless. He looked pretty handy too, now that I could see him up close. He had broad shoulders like a boxer and his balled fists were like hams.
“You shouldn’t have said that, white trash,” he said. He moved quickly to one side and kicked me methodically in the ribs. Three times. I felt myself choking and pain stabbed up through my chest. I fell over on my side and retched. The roaring came back into my ears and the scene began to recede. It wouldn’t do at all. I had to save myself for the finale. But at least it was taking the attention off Tucker.
“Had enough, gumshoe?” Sirocco asked. I didn’t answer. I kept my eyes near the spot where the metal bar was hidden and bided my time.
The negro sniggered. “Suit yersel’,” he said.
I caught Tucker’s eye; he gave me the slightest perceptible flicker of the lids and then inclined them towards the floor. He was giving me the tip, either that his hands were free, or coming free. That was pretty good to know, anyway. If Tucker could cut loose and I could get to the iron bar when the proper time came, we might stand a chance.
“Wipe the egg off your chin,” I told the nigger. “The State’s hotter’n hell with all these killings. What do you think two more are going to do? The country won’t be big enough to hold you.”
“Yo’ let us worry ‘bout that, white trash,” said the big punk, but he looked uneasy, all the same. Sirocco licked his lips. He might crack with a little working on, but we hadn’t got the time.
“Start worrying then, Uncle Tom,” I said. “The police are probably on their way up here now.”
“Don’t keep callin’ me Uncle Tom,” he flared.
“What’s the matter, Uncle Tom?” I said. “Afraid?”
I thought he was going to start kicking again; he had murder in his eyes, but Sirocco caught hold of his arm.
“Mr. Gregory wants them alive, Jonesey,” he said.
The big nigger shook him off “Shut up,” he said. “You talk too much.”
He turned back to me. “You wasn’t followed up here,” he said. “You was alone and you’m goin’ out the same way.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it, Uncle Tom,” 1 told him. “Your man at Police Headquarters is on the scram. He overreached himself.”
Sirocco gulped and went white and Jones looked at me, his eyes smouldering. I followed this up quickly.
“Ask the captain,” I said. They turned to Tucker. He nodded.
“Correct,” he said. “Under arrest. In fact we expect to have this case under wraps within another forty-eight hours.”
Sirocco mopped his face. “Look, Jonesey,” he said, clutching at the negro. “I told you this whole mess would boomerang. What about lamming out; we shan’t have a chance if we hang about.”
The negro shook him off. “Shut up,” he barked. “No need to panic. I want to think this out.”
I took the opportunity to get the attention off Tucker again. His face was white and sweating and I could see that he was just about ready to slip the ropes. I rammed home my advantage quickly.
“If you get away now,” I told Sirocco, “you might have a chance. But not by hanging about and certainly not by killing us.”
I could see all the doubt in the world on Sirocco’s face. Even the negro, tough as he was, seemed to waver, though nothing showed visibly. How it would have come out, I never knew because just at that moment, when everything hung in the balance, the noise of a motor broke the silence.
“The police —” I began, but the negro hit me a stinging slap across the mouth with his hand. I tasted blood again.
“Shut that crap,” he said.
“For Chrissake,” began Sirocco, but the negro silenced him with a look. With one bound he was at the light switch and plunged the shed into darkness. I heard the door creak back and as a car door slammed outside, I felt go with it the last of our hopes.
There was a shuffling on the veranda and the click of the switch; light flooded the hut again and the negro re-appeared. His face was alight with triumph.
“Mr. Gregory, right on schedule.”
I looked at Dan. We exchanged bitter glances, but by the way he nodded I could tell that his wrists were free. Measured footsteps sounded on the stairs outside.
11 - Gregory
There was a deadly silence, broken only by the soft footfalls on the stairs. Sirocco went to stand by the door and the negro had his famous Luger out; it looked enormous with the silencer on. That was a gun we had to have; it was a number one priority next to our own survival. The door opened quietly and a man came into the room.
He was very tall, more than six feet and expensively, even elegantly dressed. Despite the heat he wore a long white raincoat in the Italian style; his blond hair was cropped close and very blue eyes regarded us steadily out of a long, delicate face. He had a fashionable tan and his linen and shirt cuffs were of an immaculate whiteness.
“You’re sure the car is all right?” he said. He was addressing Jones, who was almost deferential as he answered the clipped, military voice.
“Perfectly, Mr. Gregory, suh,” he said. “Stolen only this evening and the plates changed. No one’ll ever know you was heah.”
“Good,” said Mr. Gregory. He turned back and gave us a hard, steady look.
“Harvard?” I asked, swapping him glance for glance. He gave a trace of a smile.
“Yale,” he said. He got out a package of cigarettes; they were in some sort of expensive-looking gold and white packet.
He set fire to one with a slim gold lighter. He feathered smoke and went and sat down on a packing case. I noticed that Sirocco put a travelling rug over it before he did so.
“Now, Captain,” he said, addressing Tucker. “You and your friend have given us an awful lot of trouble.”
“I’m real sorry about that,” said Tucker. “I’ll get the L.A. Police Department to send you a letter of apology.” His voice had an angry smoulder to it. Gregory laughed but there was little humour in the sound.
“You have no idea of the interests ranged against you,” he said. “Compared with them, ordinary conceptions of law and order must give way.”
“I’ve heard that somewhere before,” said Tucker. “From way back. That was the old, whining yelp of crooks from Charlie Peace down to Adolf Hitler.”
Gregory sighed. “This is really regrettable,” he said. “My principals have the utmost regard for the capabilities of you both. I was afraid it might be a waste of time making the journey but I had to make sure.”
Tucker spoke again. For some reason he had decided to take the interest off me at the moment. The three men were clustered in a semi-circle, with Tucker at the centre. From where I sat I might just make a break for the door. I felt this was what he wanted but the odds were too great. For one thing I still had some cramp in my legs. For another, it would be impossible for me to get to my feet and pick up the jemmy unnoticed; thirdly, I had the sacks wound round the lower half of my body.
The two final considerations were the most important. Jo
nes had the big Luger with the safety catch off on a packing case within easy reach of his hand. He didn’t appear to be doing anything in particular, except concentrate on the exchanges between Tucker and Gregory, but I noticed his eyes were flickering all around while they talked.
Jones could have picked up the Luger and plugged me before I got halfway to the door. And most important of all, I wasn’t that much in love with death. Whatever was discussed, I was a hundred percent certain that we were ear-marked for a single to the crematorium. This being so, it was far better to let Gregory depart before trying to make a break; that way there would only be two men to deal with.
“Fire away,” Tucker told Gregory. “I’m not goin’ any place.”
The big negro cleared his throat. “Only one place yo’ goin’, white trash,” he said. It sounded sinister in the semi-gloom of the hut.
“Shut your yap,” Tucker told him without malice. “They’re going to fry you real good and then throw away the ashes.”
The negro bared his teeth in silent derision.
“It’s pretty evident from our information that you and this young man know a lot about our organization,” said Gregory. “We can’t afford to let you live on any count but one. I hate violence and so do my principals, but too much is at stake to let normal considerations count. There is only one way in which you can continue to live …”
He broke off. Tucker was laughing quietly to himself.
“I’m wasting my time?” said Gregory.
“What do you think?” I told him.
“That you’re both bloody fools,” he said angrily. Two red spots stood out on his cheeks. He stood up suddenly. “We could talk this question over for hours, but I haven’t the time,” he said. “As it happens, there is another aspect of the case involved. I’m looking for something, Faraday, and I think you might know where it is.”
“Now, let me see,” I said, “My brain hasn’t been so good since I fell out of my baby-carriage when I was a kid; I get all hazy sometimes.”
Sirocco snittered. Gregory turned slowly to face him. I couldn’t see his features but they must have been pretty expressive for the mirth turned to a yelp of pain as Jones’s side-of-mutton fist closed over Sirocco’s forearm.
“I cannot stand stupidity in any form,” said Gregory. He turned back to me again. “Where have you put the key, Mr. Faraday?”
“What key?” I said innocently.
“The key for which my men have been searching for some considerable time,” he said. “I want the information now and I want it accurately.”
“You must find life very disappointing,” I told him. “Bogart did this so very much better. Only even he’s dead now.” Gregory shook his head impatiently. Then he smiled slowly. He had perfect teeth and it looked quite impressive. I bet he practised for hours in the mirror.
“I really would like that key,” he said. His eyes weren’t smiling any more. It was my turn to smile. The silence lay heavy on the air.
“You force me to take extreme measures,” he said.
“You frighten me to death,” I said.
“Not me,” he said. “Mr. Jones.”
I looked him straight in the eye. “Look, mac,” I said. “I was in the Marine Corps. Prisoner of the Japs. Where they failed, do you think this goon is going to succeed?”
He turned to Tucker. “What about the captain?”
“He’s a Rotarian,” I said. “He couldn’t possibly crack. Besides, he doesn’t know where the key is, any more than you do.” Tucker snickered. Mr. Gregory sighed deeply. “You are a very difficult man to do business with, Mr. Faraday. You can’t say I haven’t tried.”
“Sure,” I said. “That will be something to console yourself with when you’re back home in Washington.”
It was a long shot but it went right to target. He looked at me for a long moment and his eyes were the colour of ice-water on a winter’s day. Muddy ice-water too.
“You don’t leave me any alternative at all, Mr. Faraday,” he said slowly.
“Sure,” I said. “Don’t let it worry you nights.”
He shrugged and looked once again from Tucker to me. “Do you mind answering one or two questions?” I asked him. “Just for the record.”
“It won’t do any good,” he said.
“My cussed nature,” I said. “I never like to die and leave any loose ends. I’d only lie in my coffin and worry about it for a coupla centuries.”
Sirocco would have sniggered again but I could see Uncle Tom was standing too close to him.
“This espionage ring …” I began. Gregory stopped me with an abrupt motion of his hand. His tan had gone white around the nostrils and his breath was coming fast. He put his hand into his inside coat pocket.
“Don’t give too much away, Mr. Faraday,” he said. “We mustn’t let the hired help into the State secrets. Otherwise, the unpleasantness will have to be right now.”
I bit back my words. We stared at one another for a couple of long seconds. Finally he pulled out his hand from his outside pocket and selected another cigarette from his pack.
“All right,” I said. “Make it in ciphers if you like. Your crowd had Horvis on the payroll but he crossed you. You couldn’t find the goods, suspected that Horvis had stashed them but couldn’t prove it. Stalemate. So, to put you off the scent, he hired me on a pretence of doing some investigations in a false direction. Correct?”
“More or less,” he said.
“Good,” I told him. “What made our friends kill him? We know they were responsible for Braganza, Jacoby and one or two others.”
Mr. Gregory looked from me to Tucker and back again with something like admiration. “It’s a great shame you won’t join us. A shocking waste of talent. Why did we kill him? Quite simple, really. Information had come into our hands that resolved all doubt — we have many sources, a great deal of information passes to us through official channels.
“We knew Horvis had a key; we suspected to a bank deposit box or vault, but we couldn’t find out which bank, city or branch. We got tired of Horvis; he was altogether too clever and we had played along with him too long. The organization was in jeopardy; why take risks? We liquidated him and implicated you; we could quite easily find the key ourselves, or that was the general idea. Until recently.”
“Was that when I began to get too troublesome?” I said.
“You may rightly flatter yourself, Mr. Faraday,” he said. “You were quite troublesome, right from the beginning. I have the greatest respect for your methods; methods obviously tempered in a hard school. These men were getting somewhat careless and stupid. Though you had a certain amount of luck — you are the first man Jones shot at with intent who escaped, and his second effort at your own office, again met with ill success, illustrates how extraordinarily chance may intervene in even the most smoothly organized operations.”
“And Jacoby and Paul Mellow?” I said. “Jacoby, the desk sergeant Clark, probably the D.A. himself — all tied in.”
He smiled again. “That shouldn’t have been too difficult for you, Mr. Faraday. Jacoby had his uses but he began to panic when the heat was on. We had to shut him up and our treatment of Mellow was pretty effective, as you have seen. He hasn’t said a word yet, has he, captain?”
Dan was still lying with his head down and his eyes closed, as though exhausted. He shook himself like an old, lame dog and looked about him with an effort. Even I was almost taken in. It was pretty good play-acting.
“He will,” said Dan, without opening his eyes. “Come his trial he’ll sing as pretty as any nightingale. And then your whole organization will start cracking up. They always do; the trail will lead to you and then your superiors. The trials will last about a year, I’d say and the jails’ll be full to burstin’.
“Unless you plan to rub out the hatchet men first; you’d have to do that, I guess, and the link men, otherwise everything would trace back. And that wouldn’t do, would it?” There was an ugly silence and I saw S
irocco and Uncle Tom exchange looks. I thought Gregory’s laugh was somewhat nervous. Anyway, his reaction was rather too slow.
“I’d like to go along with you on that, Captain,” he said, “but practice hasn’t borne out your theory. The democratic citizen himself inhibits that. He’s paralysed by collective fear. And when the democratic system breaks down, as it’s doing all over the West, then the bold, the strong, the opportunists step in.”
I expected Dan to generate some heat at this, but to my surprise he kept his eyes closed. “People like you make me puke,” he told Gregory. “See you in the chair.”
Gregory’s face twitched slightly. “We’re wasting time, gentlemen,” he said crisply.
“Thanks for looking in,” I said. His face set like stone. He looked at his wrist watch.
“No longer than ten minutes,” he said to Uncle Tom. “Then get the hell out.”
The negro nodded. “Don’t you worry, boss,” he rumbled. “We ain’t aimin’ to make a career round heah.”
Gregory moved over to the door. He hesitated a moment, with his fingers on the handle.
“See you in the morgue,” said Tucker. Gregory’s face remained blank.
“I want to speak to you,” he told Uncle Tom. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he said sharply to Sirocco. The latter nodded and leaned against the wall. The two men went out. We could hear their footsteps going down the stairs. It was now or never.
*
Sirocco hadn’t got his gun out. He had no need of it. We were ostensibly two half-insensible, beat-up men, trussed like chicken and just waiting for the kill. He looked at me and smiled. I felt it was time to get moving. I looked at Dan. He half grinned. Then he nodded. There was just one more thing we were waiting for. It came two seconds afterwards. A door slammed, a car engine started and Gregory’s car gunned out of the yard.
From then on in things started to happen in a hurry. Tucker’s hands came out from behind his back and he went in a long, crawling rush towards Sirocco. I caught a glimpse of him; he had his mouth and his eyes wide open. Then he went down in a splintering of wood as the whole weight of Tucker’s massive body caught him behind the knees. I saw Sirocco’s gun hand was half in his coat pocket before Dan’s hand closed over his arm.