“You just made a hundred. Where and when?"
“Right now in room sixteen. Porter Hotel on L.A. Street."
“Is Crane there?"
“No, stupid. I am. Bring the C-note. Incidentally, my name's Billie."
I hung up and glared at the phone. Billie could be on the level, and probably was, but I didn't like it. A hundred dollars didn't seem like much payment for her information.
It was one of those mangy hotels on Los Angeles Street a block from Main. On the wrong side of Main. Somebody had thrown up in the narrow entrance at street level; worn wooden stairs shuddered as I walked up them into a dimly-lighted hallway that smelled like dead mice. The door of room sixteen looked as if it would turn into powder and termites if I knocked hard on it, so I tapped gently with my left hand, right hand curled around the .38's butt in my coat pocket. The door opened and I stared.
This was almost like getting kicked in the stomach again. It would be impossible to describe her exactly because there aren't any three-dimensional words, but she looked so warm and wild and wonderful that my mouth went down and then up like a small slow elevator while I listened to a voice like a breeze saying, “Come on in. I'm Billie. You bring the money?"
“Yeah. Hello. Yeah. I brought the money. Uh..."
The “Uh...” was because Billie wasn't wearing much of anything. She had on a robe which reached nearly to the floor and covered every inch of skin from the neck down, but it was thin enough to suit me, and that is pretty goddamned thin. She held the robe together with both hands—there was so much to cover that it took both hands—and stepped aside as I walked in.
I glanced around to make sure we were alone, then turned to look at the gal again. She was tall, with white skin as smooth as smoke, with mist-gray eyes, with long black hair and pleasantly full lips and things. She let me look, even seemed to help me a little, and I asked her, “Where do we go from here?"
“Nowhere if you don't have the hundred. Hand it over and I'll take you to Crane."
“Not in that outfit.” I took two fifty-dollar bills from my pocket.
She laughed, walked past me and flopped on a rickety bed, plucking the two fifties from my hand as she went by. I was just starting to wonder what such a choice, expensive-looking tomato was doing in this dump, and where she thought she was going in that robe and nothing else, and I might have saved myself some trouble if I'd continued thinking like that. Only right then was when she flopped on the bed.
I'm sure she hadn't planned it quite the way it happened, because the bed springs broke. There was a great deal of activity for about two seconds there, and that was long enough for the guy to come up behind me. I hadn't been worried about anybody getting behind me because only the gal and I had been in the room and there weren't any adjoining doors—just the front door. Just the one I had my back to. Maybe I should have worried about that door behind me, considering what a phony deal this now seemed to be, but I was stupid. And if you were staring open-mouthed at a babe flying through the air with arms and legs waving at you, and bouncing to the sound of twanging springs, and no longer clutching a robe which had been thin enough to begin with, you, too, would be stupid.
But what tipped me was that the gal was paying no attention to either my face or her nudity, but was looking at a spot past my left shoulder. And maybe I heard something. I don't know now. I just know I ducked and dropped as the blow fell, and something jarred against my skull, glancing off and not getting me squarely enough to knock me out. It hurt, and it dazed me, but I still had enough sense left to reach behind me as I went down, get one hand on a trousers-covered leg and yank.
The leg slipped out of my hand as the guy fell, but I flipped over in time to see him sprawling on his back. He rolled over and jumped up again as I got my feet under me and stood up straight. It was Pretty Willis. I should have known. Every time a guy came up behind me and batted me it was Pretty Willis. Only this time I was facing him, looking at him.
The sap he'd used was on the floor, and he didn't have a gun in his hand—but he dug under his coat for one and I jumped for him. I slammed into him and my weight jarred him back against the wall as I drove my right fist forward, knuckles projecting to dig into the soft spot in his belly. Somehow his elbow got in the way, and then the hard heel of his other hand crashed under my chin, snapping my head back. I staggered slightly but in the same moment I sliced my right hand up in a tight arc, felt its edge crack against the bony structure of his face. I caught my balance, turned toward him and saw a trickle of blood under his nose, his lips pulled back tight over white teeth. He swung a hand at me and when I jerked my head aside his other fist came out of nowhere and exploded against my chin.
At least he hit me so hard that if felt like an explosion. All the colors in the room blended into a shimmering gray for a moment as I fell backwards. The floor thudded against my back. Then my vision cleared enough so I could see Pretty still bent over from the force of his swing, see him straighten up and leap toward me.
While I wasn't in the best shape of my life I could have rolled out of the way. But I didn't. I didn't even start to. Pretty had already started to dive toward me, hands extended, before I jerked my legs up off the floor and toward my chest, thinking even as I did it about the hell this bastard had given me. Then I drove my legs forward and my feet burst through his outstretched hands as if they were paper; my hard leather heels jarred into his face; and Pretty wasn't pretty any more. His body jerked, hung for a moment in the air, then dropped limply to the floor. Red stain flowed from his cheek, covered exposed white bone, seeped into the carpet.
I glanced over my shoulder at the girl, who was still on the bed, then I felt Pretty's neck to see if it was broken. It wasn't. I'll never know why it wasn't. I got up, walked to the bed and stood over Billie. She licked her lips, swallowed, stared up at me.
“Spill it,” I said.
She shook her head, said nothing. I bunched her black hair in one hand. “Give me some straight answers or wind up like him. Take your pick, beautiful."
She bit her lips but didn't answer. Then she looked at Pretty. He lay on his back, face toward us. I knew I couldn't slug Billie around, but the expression of fright on her face gave way slowly to revulsion, and that gave me an idea.
I grabbed her, pulled her off the bed and twisted her arms behind her, then shoved her across the room, forced her to kneel by the unconscious man. She struggled to get away but I held her firmly and pressed her face closer and closer to his. When I let her go there was a smudge of blood on her cheek. She wiped it off, stared at her stained fingers, then spoke, trying to keep the sickness out of her voice, keep from actually becoming sick.
I was lucky to be talking to Billie because Hackman hadn't trusted even Pretty with the details I wanted to hear. But she knew it all—Billie was Hackman's woman. And she told me all of it. Leroy Crane had found out that Hackman had ordered the death of his previous accountant when said accountant learned too much about the boss. For more than a year now. Crane had kept a detailed record of every financial move Hackman had made—including taxes Hackman had paid and what he should have paid. Crane had originally started preserving his info as a guarantee of his own safety when and if Hackman decided that accountant Crane, too, had to go. It had started out like that but had turned into the old squeeze play, a shakedown.
Crane, with his typed information supported by a mass of documents and figures, had phoned Hackman—on that night when Crane hadn't showed up at home—and told Hackman he could have the file of information for a cool half million; otherwise Crane would turn the dope over to the income-tax boys and settle for the “informer's fee,” the informant's share of delinquent taxes collected—while Hackman would wind up in the federal clink. After telling Hackman he would phone again in a week. Crane had hung up.
So Hackman had to get those papers, even if he had to pay a half-million dollars for them. But now he was trying to find Crane and work him over, beat the location of the papers out of
him, then put a bullet into his brain. Crane, knowing what would happen to him if he were found, had dropped completely out of sight.
I asked Billie why Pretty had jumped me and she kept talking. “Hack knows now that you've been seeing a lot of Mrs. Crane. He didn't know that at first. This is too important for him to take any chance of a slip when he grabs her. So he had to make sure you were out of—"
“When he what? Grabs her?"
“Crane has the papers, but maybe he thinks more of his wife than he does of a half-million dollars.” The trace of a smile curved her smooth lips as she said, “Crane must have thought nobody would bother his wife, at least not when he had all that stuff on the boss. But Crane was wrong if he did."
“When?” I said. “When are they—"
That slight smile again stopped me. “Oh,” she said slowly, “they probably have her by now."
I turned and ran for the door, jumping over Pretty. I was clear down on the street and in my Cad before I thought of what it meant to leave him back there, unconscious but soon to be awake—and looking at his face. He was a little psycho anyway, and now he'd go off the deep end, crazy mad. He'd do his damndest to kill me, but there wasn't time to go back. There wasn't time for anything but Ann.
There wasn't even time for Ana. When I reached her home she was gone. The door was ajar and a wrinkled carpet, a tipped-over end table were mute signs of a struggle.
It was four o'clock, Thursday afternoon. On Friday afternoon, at three o'clock, the party started coming to a head. I spent those intervening twenty-three hours without sleep, and I did everything I could to find Ann or Leroy, with no success. I looked for Pretty and Billie but didn't find them; I did find Hackman holed up in the Statler with half a dozen thugs around him, and not being suicidal I left him alone. There was one way left, and it was all I had so I took it.
For six hours now I'd been parked near the Statler where I could watch the exits. From what I knew of Hackman I was sure of one thing: he would, one way or another, get his hands on Crane's file of papers, but Hackman would also make sure they were his own hands. The only man alive with information which could put Hackman in prison was Crane. If Hackman let one of his underlings pick up the papers, that underling would then have in his hands enough to put the boss in jail or else squeeze him dry—and there was a very good chance the other boys around Hackman would squeeze a lot harder than Crane. I knew Hackman wouldn't trust any of his hoodlums with his right name if he could avoid it; he sure as hell wouldn't hand them the end of the noose around his neck. At least that's the way I had it figured; that was what I was counting on. If I kept my eye on Hackman, didn't lose him, I'd be in at the finish.
At three P. M., it started. Pretty Willis arrived.
He parked in a no-parking zone and ran into the hotel. I almost missed him, because I was watching for any sign of Hackman, and I would have missed Pretty if it hadn't been for his face. It was swathed in white bandages and he looked like something out of a horror picture as he ran limping across the sidewalk. Two minutes later Pretty came out—with Hackman. They drove away and I tailed them to Forty-Sixth Street, to a rooming house. They went inside, came back to their car with Shadow, the skinny hood. And with Ann. They drove to Broadway and I followed, keeping a car between them and me, and the farther they went the more puzzled I got. Shadow drove through the business district, turned right beyond First, swung back into Main and parked squarely in front of the City Hall. I didn't get it, but I double-parked a few yards behind them, taking a chance they'd spot me, because whatever was happening, I wanted to be close. Shadow stayed in the car with Ann; Pretty and Hackman got out and started walking up the stone steps of the Main Street entrance of City Hall. And then it made sense.
Standing between high cement columns before the huge entrance was Leroy Crane, tall and thin, thin-faced, haggard, with a leather briefcase in one hand. He looked past the two men, toward the car, toward Ann. At the top of the steps the three men talked, argued; Crane shook his head, pointed toward the car.
It was clear enough now. Hackman was trading Leroy's wife for the stuff in the briefcase, getting the noose off his neck without spending a buck—and Leroy was the guy in the squeeze now. But Leroy was playing it smart. He was going to make the trade, but not in a place where he could be shot in the back. Behind Crane in the City Hall lobby was a guard, a cop was standing halfway down the block, in the building was everything from the Mayor to office workers to firemen to hundreds of policemen.
After some more argument Hackman turned and waved to Shadow. He and the girl got out of the car. Ann walked a few feet away, looking all the time at her husband. I got out of the Cad, grabbed my gun and started walking toward them, tightness swelling in my chest, stomach knotting. For a moment their figures were still, as if frozen. There seemed no movement at all and none of them had yet seen me. Then Hackman took the briefcase from Crane, looked inside and pawed briefly through its contents, shut it and gripped it tightly as he and Pretty started down the steps. Shadow walked rapidly toward the car and Ann started running toward the big entrance and her husband.
It was as if a rigid tableau had dissolved into separate lines of movement, except for the still figure of Crane, standing motionless and looking toward Ann. And then came the explosion; then it happened; then Main Street blew up in our faces.
Hackman spotted me.
He stopped, reached out and clutched Pretty's arm. From twenty feet away and below him on the sidewalk I could see his fat, oily face get white. Pretty turned his bandaged head and stared at me, his eyes wide above the strips of gauze and tape. Hackman's mouth stretched open and he thrust both hands toward me, pulling his head into his neck, fat cheeks jiggling. But not Pretty, not that crazy bastard. All the hate boiled up in Pretty and overflowed when he saw me, and his mashed face twitched beneath the bandages as his hand went under his coat.
I yelled at him, told him to stop, but he didn't hear me or just plain didn't give a damn. I even let him get the gun in his hand, bring it out from under his coat, but when sunlight gleamed on the .45's rapidly swinging barrel, there wasn't any choice for me.
The first slug from my .38 caught him high on the chest and I squeezed the trigger again as he staggered just enough so my second shot missed him and the slug caromed off one of the high cement columns fronting City Hall. Pretty convulsively triggered his .45, but by then the gun was pointing down at the sidewalk. I heard the bullet crack viciously against the walk and whine away as I fired the third shot from my Colt. It was the last shot, too, because it caught him in the throat and diced the jugular cleanly.
You've got to see something like that to believe it. You wouldn't think the red fountain of a man's blood would squirt so far through the air, leave such a long, wide, snakelike stream against the cement, a stream that spread wider and uglier even as Pretty fell into it. He hit the cement with his side, rolled over onto his face and sprawled across two of the steps, awkward, puppet-like, very, messily dead.
I thought a slug had caught Hackman, because he stumbled and fell down the steps quivering like a life-size mound of Jello, but from the corner of my eye I saw him reach bottom squirming, face down, hands wrapped around the top of his head. He was just scared, sweating plasma.
And then there was nothing but cops. They came from everywhere except out of the sky. There were uniformed cops, plain-clothes cops, cops from Robbery and Homicide and Forgery and maybe even the Juvenile division. There were cops milling about, and possibly jumping up and down, and sirens and squad cars converging, and this was for sure the damnedest commotion ever seen on lower Main Street. Well, what can you expect when you start shooting up City Hall?
Somewhere in there a policeman on my right raised a gun toward me and I swung around yelling as he fired. The slug went past me and I looked over my shoulder to see Shadow, a red stain on his chest, gun falling from his hand and clanking against the sidewalk just before Shadow fell too. There was a blurred glimpse of Ann clinging to Leroy on o
ne of the middle steps, of uniforms, of shouting red faces; and one guy with halitosis got his face close to mine and swore at me, and I swore.
It might have been a minute or it might have been ten, but then the landscape sighed and settled, people stopped milling. Main Street settled down. There was much jawing and yakking and explaining, and cops looked at the papers in Leroy's briefcase and beamed happily; and there was weeping because naturally Ann was bawling away as usual, only this time it was different.
And everybody was hauled away, including me for an hour after which somebody patted me on the back and told me to get some sleep. I got in a word with Ann, alone now because her husband was in a cell, and I told her Leroy wouldn't get off scot-free but it shouldn't be bad, and she cried and thanked me.
I went out of City Hall free as a bird and walked to my car. A man was mopping up red stain from the big cement steps. I headed for home, for sleep, and on the way I thought about the case, about Hackman. He'd given me a lot of trouble, but now that it was over I actually felt sorry for him. Where he was going he'd want a lot of things, miss a lot of things—but most of all he was going to miss Billie.
But, then, she was a woman almost any man would miss. And I remembered her standing in the doorway, mist-gray eyes in her soft white face, a voice like whispering winds, a shape—a shape —
Come to think of it, she still owed me a hundred bucks.
Butcher
If you've been around Los Angeles much, you know that desolate, unlighted strip of highway, Chavez Ravine Road, that stretches from Adobe Street to Elysian Park. It's solitary and lonely enough in the daytime.
Wednesday night about eight p.m. I swung off Adobe Street, headed for Hollywood and home. Things had been slow for over a week at the office of Sheldon Scott, Investigations, so I'd closed up early and spent the afternoon jawing with the guys at City Hall, then stopped off on Adobe for a beer. I was about half a mile down Chavez Ravine Road when I saw the dog.
Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 4