by Basil Copper
As I spoke Tucker put his foot on the accelerator. We slammed back in the seats as the big car thrust forward, but it wasn’t quite enough. With an angry howl the cream sports job cannoned into the back of us. There was a heavy crunch, a squeal of tyres and the prowl car lurched sideways crazily with the impact; I caught a glimpse of the sports job dropping back, one wing crumpled and then the offside front headlight went out.
Dan Tucker had done a fine job in straightening the careening car but there was an ominous lop-sidedness about the steering and the stench of burning rubber was only too evident. I guessed some part of the bodywork was scraping one of the back wheels and a blow-out would be only a matter of time.
“He’s really out to get us, ain’t he?” said Tucker to nobody in particular.
Stella flashed me a quick, frightened smile. I saw she had got her fingers crossed. Dan straightened the car and then started to weave as the sports job pulled up again. I could still see Gregory grim and hunched as he came in to the attack, and I had a momentary flash of grudging admiration. It was a Spartan attitude in a way; sacrifice for the good of the system.
“Hold on,” said Tucker, crouching low over the wheel. “I’m going to try something. There’s a lay-by about a quarter of a mile farther down. It’s on the off side of the road and I’m going to take him by surprise. I’m trying to get in at speed, stop quickly and let him overrun.”
He turned back quickly to the big patrolman. “Got that tommy, Stevens?” he said between his teeth. “You’d better change places with the young lady. Give it to him when he goes by. We’ve got to stop him for good. We shan’t get two chances.”
There was a metallic click as the big cop started breaking out the tommy-gun; the L.A. boys usually have one or two surprises like this, stashed in cases on the floor of their cars. I heard a clip go home with a sweetly-oiled snick, and then the seat springs gave as the two changed over. There was a squeak as Stevens wound the window down. I had nothing to do now because I couldn’t shoot; Stevens’s head was in the way and the car’s rear window was now too bullet-starred to see through.
Gregory didn’t fire again though, and as Dan had his toe down he wasn’t able to get quite as close. The dust of the road swirled in at the windows as we screamed down the hill road at what I should normally have regarded as suicidal speed and the lights of L.A. seemed to be coming up fast. It was a sticky fifteen seconds before Tucker pulled way over to the right, to his own side of the road.
“Hold on, everybody,” he said suddenly. “We’re going in. Stand by Stevens, and let him have it when you’re ready.”
I just had time to jam myself down in my seat and brace my hand against the door handle, before the car made a sickening swerve; it was so sharp that I thought we were going over. I heard a startled exclamation from Stella, who was lying prone on the floor at the rear; metal banged on glass just behind my head and my own gun fell with a muffled thud on to the carpet.
I caught a glimpse of lights and bushes whirling and marvelled at the calmness of Dan Tucker spinning the wheel. There was a horrifying bang that rose the hair on my scalp as we spun off the road, made a U-turn and went screaming along the lay-by. Through the window I could see an ugly ravine coming up too fast.
Then tyres tore on dirt and rock and Dan was putting on the brakes. The manoeuvre had fooled Gregory all right. I risked a glimpse through the window and saw the big sports job tearing by level with us. Gregory was pulling at the wheel but it was obvious he would have to stay on the road, for he hadn’t a hope of getting in and remaining alive.
“Right!” yelled Dan as we went into a long skid. Stones and small boulders banged and rattled along the car body as we ploughed across the lay-by and into the scree. There was a deafening bang as Stevens opened up with the tommy-gun. Streaks of light went lancing towards the cream sports job and a shower of sparks shot into the night sky.
Cartridge cases were raining down over the seat on to the back of my neck and the stench of cordite fumes and smoke was beginning to fill the car. As we went lurching and sprawling towards the gully, Dan straightened up and started applying the brake again and Stevens got in a short, second burst. I caught a fractional glimpse of Gregory’s white-coated figure before it slumped like a marionette with cut strings and the big sports left the road in a sheet of flame.
The steering, jammed by the weight of the body, carried the car in a wide arc like a meteorite and blazing petrol made a comet-tail on the grass behind it. It went into a thicket of small trees with a truly impressive roar and then turned over. The blazing ruins of the automobile went skittering on and then fell in what might perhaps have been a forty feet trajectory into the ravine below.
A dozen trees went up like match sticks in the resultant explosion and flame rained skywards. Small boulders kept clattering towards the ravine bed as choking black smoke blossomed out above the tree tops. Dan brought the car to a shuddering stop and it was suddenly quiet. The crackling of flames and fierce heat catching the tree branches were an intrusion into the silence. We sat looking down on the cremation.
“Nice driving,” said Stevens, breaking a difficult pause. Dan nodded as he reached into the glove compartment for his bag of apples.
“Nice shooting,” he told Stevens. The tones of the two men were gravely professional.
Stella’s white face appeared from behind the back of the seat and her hand sought mine. We sat there looking down at the pyre. Like I said, it was a Spartan finish.
12 - Mr. Stich
It was around a quarter to two the next afternoon when Tucker tooled a patrol job into the parking lot of the Bissell Building. As far as I knew Carol Channing was an innocent, but there were a few loose ends and the Ralph Johnson angle, coupled with her lies still stuck out like a plate of oatmeal biscuits in a slaughter house.
“Half an hour,” said Tucker. He leaned back in the seat of the prowl car and put on a pair of sun glasses. With his sunburn he looked like a short-sighted side of beef.
“Right,” I said, slamming the car door. An apple-core hit the dust before I had gone a dozen yards and I could hear his teeth get to work on a second. Admiral Dewey almost bent double opening the main doors for me. I figured he’d be in line for the Congressional Medal if he kept this up. I rode up in the lift and then drifted along the corridor.
There were a lot of corpses between now and last time, but we had most of the answers straight. I hit the door buzzer. There was silence except for the humming of the air conditioning. Sweat trickled down my shirt-band. It always did since this case began. The silence was unbroken and I was about to hit the buzzer again when the door was opened.
Carol looked stunning. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t. She wore a cream suit with an open-necked shirt and she had a pale pink scarf at her throat. She had on crocodile skin shoes to match the suit and carried a handbag to match the shoes. Some doll. As she opened the door I took in the pile of crocodile skin luggage on the carpet beyond. That matched too.
“Going somewhere, darling?” I said.
She flushed. Her smile was as sincere as a politician’s on election night.
“Just getting ready to leave in the morning,” she said, forcing the words out of her mouth. “I didn’t expect you until much later.”
“Obviously,” I said, pushing my way through the door and closing it behind me. She gave back a couple of feet then and I was able to see the room more clearly. There were a couple of trunks, a holdall and a white raincoat. She was certainly on the move all right.
“You’ve seen the papers?” I said.
“Yes,” she said brightly. “You did a good job, Mike.”
She sauntered rather too casually over to the centre of the room and lit a cigarette. I didn’t offer to light it for her. The magic had gone; besides, I don’t go for that sort of stuff in the afternoons.
“You wanted to see me specially?” she asked.
“I thought you’d want a breakdown on the case,” I
said. She went and sat on the divan and crossed her legs carefully. She looked worried, as though she couldn’t place something. I thought she looked like she was listening for somebody.
“Expecting company?” I asked.
“Of course not,” she said sharply. “You know I don’t know anybody except you in L.A.”
I shrugged. I crossed over to the divan and sat down in an easy chair opposite her. I studied her face, but she wasn’t giving anything away. I took out my pocket book. I showed her the initials written in it.
“These mean anything to you?” I asked. She studied it nonchalantly, but I felt, rather than saw her face going white under its natural colour.
“Seems like CRTIS,” she said, with what looked like an assumed calmness. “What’s your theory?”
“So far as I have one,” I said. “I figure that perhaps Horvis — or maybe Braganza, though it’s not likely in his case — decided to leave a clue to the identity of the Big Wheel on certain incriminating documents. Then, when the police found them, they would know who to go for.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It figures. But why are you telling me all this, Mike?”
“Because you might be able to help,” I said.
She looked surprised. “Meaning you don’t think I’m on the level?”
I looked round the apartment. “Meaning I don’t think you intended to stay over Christmas,” I said. She smiled faintly.
“I got all the information I wanted out of the papers,” she said. “We can leave all the rest to the L.A. police. I got what I came for. Ralph’s murderers have paid up. That’s all I’m interested in. Frankly, I didn’t want to see you again after everything was over. We got too … involved. And I’ve got other plans.”
“So I see,” I said.
She ruffled up. “You don’t believe me?” she said. I shrugged again. She pointed to the table.
“I hadn’t forgotten you, if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s a cheque there, addressed in a stamped envelope to you, ready for mailing.”
“I didn’t mean that,” I said, pulling my big bluff. “We’ve got the kingpin,” I said. “He’s singing like a nightingale. And he’s implicated you from here to Honolulu. Tucker wants you brought in for questioning. Then we’re all going to take a trip to Washington.”
For a minute I thought she was going to hit me. She went white and took one step forward with her arm raised in the air. Her face worked for a couple of seconds and her eyes looked like a cornered ferret. She almost spat when she spoke.
“All right,” she said eventually, almost in a whisper. “If that’s the way it’s got to be. Ortis isn’t the only one who’ll be doing any singing. I’ve got enough information about the whole ring to send a couple of hundred people to Leavenworth for about fifty thousand years.”
Jackpot first time. I was finding the truth interesting — even though it was a little late. Seemed I had the name of a big fish, though Ortis conveyed nothing to me. Carol Channing seemed to have forgotten my presence. She dabbed furiously at her face with a square of linen and then fumbled in her handbag.
“Give me a light, Mike, will you?” she said. I obliged and she sucked furiously at the end of the cigarette.
“What do you think they’ll do to me?” she said at last.
I hadn’t a hell of an idea what she was talking about or how she tied in with the story, but I kept her stringing along.
“We might make a deal,” I said soberly, “providing you sing loud enough.”
She nodded and drew on the cigarette again. “I suppose there’s no chance of me being able to duck out?” she asked. “You’ve got what you want. One more or less won’t make a lot of difference. Won’t you give me a break, Mike?”
She looked into my eyes. “Maybe,” I said convincingly. We were standing quite close together. Her mouth met mine and her tongue was boring into my mouth like a snake. I had one breast cupped and the other hand behind her. So it was easy just to clamp my fingers over her wrist as she put her hand into the handbag. She gave a muffled yell and a small nickel-plated revolver bounced down to the carpet between our feet. I held her close with my other arm and finished off the kiss. Then I pushed her away.
Her eyes were blazing. “You lousy —” she said. Even I couldn’t repeat what she said. “Of all the lowdown tricks.” She spat in my face before I could move. I felt the saliva dribble down my cheek. I looked steadily into her eyes as I reached for my handkerchief. I kept my foot on the gun, for she would have used it, the mood she was in.
“Too bad it had to end this way, darling,” I said. “I feel you’ve broken a mood of golden enchantment.”
I should have left it at that, but as usual I overdid things. The look on her face should have warned me but the faint shadow at the corner of my eye clinched it. I ducked rapidly, for a slugging twice in twenty-four hours is too much even for me to take. It was graceful stuff, but it didn’t win the competition.
Something heavy missed my head, but struck my shoulder a savage blow, sending me to the carpet, every nerve shrieking. Through the fireworks I could see the Channing girl and the feet of a big man in tan brogues; the couple gathered up the cases in five seconds fiat and a moment later I heard the balcony door shut softly behind them. Then, through the cotton wool I heard a car sneak stealthily away. I lay fighting nausea and slowly drifted out to sea.
Dan Tucker found me there five minutes later, when he poked his head round the door. I was feeling better then, but I didn’t get up. I took one look at his disgusted face and closed my eyes again. Whatever I said wouldn’t have done any good and the explanations could wait till later.
*
I sat in my office, put my feet up on the desk and looked up at the ceiling. It was still as hot as hell. There was a big, new cream-painted partition across one side of my office, which was now half the size. I still couldn’t get used to it. My door had been replaced. It was a solid oak job with no glass panel. The lock had been changed too.
I didn’t know the new man at the insurance company. We just said good morning or good night whenever we met in the corridor. It was probably best that way. I looked across the desk to where Stella stood near the partitioned-off area. She was brewing more coffee, though why I wouldn’t know. It only made me hotter still. I sweated as the thought and looked over at the corner window. The spider was gone from his usual position. Even he was off the case. I sighed again and glanced down at the big earthenware ash-tray on the far side of my desk. Tucker’s two apple cores were rapidly turning brown.
The late edition was spread out on the desk top. PENTAGON CHIEF RICHTER DIES it said in letters two feet deep, ADMIRAL’S HEART ATTACK IN OFFICE it said underneath. But the Big Wheel had undoubtedly bitten on his poison phial when the going got too hot.
“And who was this Colonel Ortis?” Stella asked.
“The Admiral’s sidekick,” I said. “As it turned out, the old coot in the pink slacks I saw playing tennis shots next to the Horvis house. They rented the place adjoining to keep an eye on him. Some nerve. Gregory was their front man.”
Stella frowned. “And Carol Channing?” she went on.
“She was Ortis’s mistress originally, but she was two-timing him with the Johnson lad,” I said, smoking as I scanned the paper. “They got Johnson into the espionage racket as his technical ability was useful to them, but at some stage he threatened to turn Ortis in to the police. The old boy put the dogs on him. The Channing girl couldn’t prove Ortis had anything to do with his death but she started her own investigations for revenge. Her feelings were genuine enough so far as that went.”
Stella was silent as she drank her coffee and then she returned to the attack.
“But I still don’t get the last angle? Who slugged you and how was he connected with Channing?”
“Ah, there I can help you,” I said. “Tucker just filled in that piece. Party name of Saul Chaplin. Yet another of Carol’s boyfriends. To be precise he was Ortis’s personal secre
tary at the Pentagon and in charge of the payroll. Somehow Carol got wind that the whole caboodle was caving in and he came out to L.A. to pick her up.”
I didn’t tell her that Chaplin and Carol had disappeared with a quarter of a million dollars worth of Government paper money. That wasn’t in the papers either. Carol had given Chaplin the alarm just before the organization’s pay night. Convenient for them. My guess was that they wouldn’t be found with that sort of money to buy them immunization.
Not that I had done badly myself. The cheques kept rolling in. There was one from Mandy Mellow with a note; I’d already cashed Carol Channing’s. There was another invitation too from Margaret Standish but I hadn’t taken it up. The biggest surprise was the cheque from Uncle Sam; I’d better not say how much it was for, or the Chamber of Commerce would start squawking about the waste of their taxes. But it was enough to start me thinking about buying a new car and taking a holiday in Florida. I felt I needed it.
“I’m still not quite sure why those two boys roughed up the Channing girl,” said Stella.
“Ortis was trying to warn her off,” I said, my mind on other things. Stella nodded. I smoked on. The only detail that fidgeted me was what had really happened to Carol and the he-man; and how they had swung the deal. I can’t say I was sorry at the way things had turned out. Ortis had it coming and she really was a good-looker. Stella came back and put some more coffee in front of me.
“There you are, boss,” she said with deceptive humility. She sat down in her chair opposite and looked at me quizzically. “Just what was there between you and the Channing girl, Mike?” she said. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“You’ll find it all in my notes,” I said with bland evasiveness.
“You wouldn’t put that sort of stuff in,” she said. “I looked.”
I got up to pinch her bottom but she was too quick for me.
“Look …” I said, absently trying to peck her on the side of the cheek and drink my cup of coffee simultaneously.