Killer Take All

by Philip Race

  Gina said, "Kill him, Ford. Now. Before he gets his wits working."

  "You better get yours working. You think I came here alone?"

  Messner leaped across the floor. I thought I was a dead man, but the dealer was too shrewd for that. He knew he'd need me if I really had come with help. He jammed the .45 halfway to my backbone, hissed to me that I'd better not move. I didn't. But I wanted to. I wanted to wrap my five good fingers around his lousy neck and squeeze till his head popped off.

  "Mops," Messner spat. "The light."

  O'Rourke, eyes bulging with the effort of trying to talk through a gag, shook his head at me. I didn't know what that meant. Then the light went out.

  "Just stand," the chilly dealer breathed in my ear as the darkness closed around us. "Don't even wiggle. I got nothing to lose now, Berlin. Not nothing. And I'd enjoy killing you."

  I swallowed, waited.

  "Ford," Gina said, whispering it. "What are we going to do? We're—"

  "Shut up, Gina. We got time. No reason why we shouldn't have. Nobody'll think to come here tonight. Maybe tomorrow. After—"

  He stopped. "After they find Sheila," I supplied.

  He sucked in a breath. The snout of the gun pressed hard into my belly. But he didn't shoot. He relaxed.

  "You found her," he said. "Sure. And you came alone. Of course. Gina, call Mops. Tell him it's all right."

  "How do you know, Messner?" I said. "How can you be sure?"

  He slid away from me in the dark, turned on the light.

  "I know," he said. "I know you, Berlin. And I know your kind. That's what you would do. Maybe one other thing. Maybe you'd send somebody for the police. But you wouldn't wait for them. Especially if you saw us getting ready to go, knew we had a boat ready."

  Gina rose, tapped across to the door. "Then we've got to get out of here! We've got to move."

  She wasn't nervous now, just assured and ready. A little pale, maybe. But she was game. And she made me sick.

  Mops came back, reported all clear. Messner nodded. He picked up the tan leather case, glanced around the office. O'Rourke had started to sweat, great beads jumping out on his forehead.

  "That's right, Coley," Messner said. "You, too. You knew that. Why snivel?"

  His cold lips broke in a smile. He rubbed a hand quickly over his short hair in a nervous gesture, turned to Mops Parisi.

  "Get Berlin over by the wall. When I fire, you let him have it and make sure he's dead. I'll take Coley."

  "What do I do?" the woman asked.

  "Wait!" It was my voice and I hadn't even thought about speaking. I licked dry lips, worked my shoulders against the wall. It was much too soon for Mickey to have done any good. I knew it. Messner knew it. I said, "Tell me something, dealer. Just one thing."

  "I understand, Johnny. You want to get me hung up in a conversation till your help can get here. Whatever it is."

  I shook my head, tried to keep my face straight. It felt like a piece of wet, stretched chamois.

  "No. A half-minute won't help."

  And it wouldn't. He knew that, too. Like he knew everything else. I'd underestimated this man from the beginning. So had everyone. Everyone but Gina. She had an instinct for things like that.

  "Okay," Messner finally said. He lowered his gun, waved to Mops. "What's hanging you, Sam Spade?"

  "Carla," I said. "I know about Donetti. How you set him up through Gina with the Protective Association bit. Got him to sell his bosses a bill of goods. When the money came, you grabbed it just like you'd always planned. Only you thought the managership of the Play Spot would go with it."

  "It would have," Gina said, turning from the window. "If it hadn't been for you."

  "Don't blame me. I never would have stuck my nose in except you ran me off the road. You figured I'd been sent along with the money. Mops was on the point, saw Donetti and me drive up together. He called you, chilly. You wheeled out that hearse of Coley's and tried to cream me when I left the Cherbourg."

  "Get to it, slicker. You're rambling."

  He was getting edgy. He wouldn't go for much more. And it had been but six or seven minutes since Mickey left. Parisi moved in front of me, pushed his gun into my belly.

  "Yeah," he said. "Let's go, Ford. Huh, Ford? I want to kill this guy. He cut me. He cut me bad."

  His eyes were flat and cold, like dripping coins pulled from salt water.

  I swallowed, tried- desperately to think. "About Carla. Carla, the kid. What happened to her? Why did she have to—"

  Messner turned from the desk. He shifted the attache’ case, gripped his weapon.

  "I'm sorry about that, Berlin." His pale eyes held mine steadily. "Real sorry. But she heard that damn wop ask for me by name when he drove up to the joint. Driving! The stringy bastard had no business being alive, no business breathing. I plugged him fifty yards from the joint. Fifty yards! What the hell was he—superman? Gina already had the money and all we had to do was get that little—"

  He stopped, drew a long breath. "Got me going there, didn't you? Won't work."

  "But you were with Sheila when Carla got it. That's how Sheila guessed who really murdered the kid. How could you be so clumsy?"

  "It was clumsy. My fault. Gina said I'd better be alibied. So I set one up. With Sheila. Then we discovered that we overlooked one thing. No alibi for Gina. So we switched, with Sheila getting that Indian kid to vouch for her."

  "You knew it wouldn't work."

  "I know something else." He grinned mirthlessly. "This ain't going to work either. But I got no choice."

  He nodded to Mops, turned his gun on O'Rourke. This was it, then. The end of a road that began I didn't know where. A road rough and interesting, sometimes good, sometimes frustrating. Now, when I'd found the only important thing that Johnny Twenty-Two had ever recognized, it would end.

  It got quiet—just for a heartbeat that seemed to drag and stretch. Mops snicked the safety on his gun, tightened his finger.

  "Now, Ford?" His ape face lost all expression, hung inches from mine.

  Messner stepped around the desk, put the muzzle of the .45 up to O'Rourke's ear. I caught a flash of something at the window, heard glass break. I leaped to the side and slammed my left hand into Parisi's face, forgetting the cast.

  Shots roared out and glass shattered and all hell broke loose in the small confines of the office. Parisi stumbled back, his mouth a mess, trying to bring up the gun. A bullet hit his head as I watched, spun it, a crimson smear appearing as if by magic.

  "Stand still!"

  It was a shout from outside the window. Messner stood, bent at the hips, the .45 drooping from lax fingers. A burst of shots chattered from the window. Messner jerked with the sound, spun and fell to the floor. His face was toward me; one of his white eyebrows had become a red hole.

  Gina screamed. She broke from the far wall, ran for the door. She might have made it, too. But she stopped in mid-stride, scooped at the attache’ case trapped under Messner's arm. I shook the paralysis and dove for her, hit the flying trenchcoat right behind the knees. Her head snapped forward hard against the door.

  For a little time there was no sound. I lay on the floor, my head resting on the softness of Gina Donetti, wondering how I could still be alive and how Mickey had made the trip so fast.

  But he hadn't. A voice from the door, an urban, cultured, very precise voice told me different.

  "Mr. Berlin. I told you to let me know."

  I rolled over. My cast banged on the floor. The room was a mess. In the doorway stood Horace Atkinson Gilbertson, the knobby-muscled kid beside him. At the window was the grinning face of Marc, the big-nosed hoodlum. Everybody had a gun.

  Mickey broke through the door, rushed to me.

  "Jeezus, Johnny, did you have to shave it so fine?"

  "Me shave it fine?" I struggled up. I felt drained, emptier than a loser's pockets and blacker than his scowl. "I still don't believe I'm alive."

  "Here, let me help." He got me onto
the couch, and I leaned back, closed my eyes. Mickey said, "I met Kilgallen all right. But right behind him was this guy. With his private army. So he busts down on us on the highway, says let's go straight to the rescue." Mickey smiled, pushing up his half-apple cheeks. "Like the Marines, man. We been outside the door for five minutes."

  I groaned. "Five minutes."

  A siren growled far away, grew in the night. Cops. Coming hell bent. I looked a question at Gilbertson.

  "We sent Kilgallen while we came on," he said. "I told you once, Berlin. Where it's possible, I operate strictly within the law."

  I nodded. "How about the money?"

  He sighed, handed his little snub-nose .38 to Marc, who'd entered quietly, stood with an efficient-looking Schmeisser machine-pistol gripped in his arms.

  "I'll claim it. And I'll get it. But I believe the operation at the lake is done."

  "I'm glad," I said.

  "You should be. Here are McKaneville's finest. Out of their jurisdiction, incidentally."

  Sirens screamed into the parking lot, died growling as their cars slid to stops. Horns and lights; barked orders and staccato footsteps. It took quite a while to get order restored. Mickey disappeared and I had to answer a million questions. French was up on most of it so I just had to explain the part he hadn't seen. But it still took a while. By the time we got straightened around to where he'd even think about letting me go, it was midnight.

  "One thing, slicker," French said, smiling tightly. "Who do we tag for the kid? For Carla?"

  "Yeah," I said. I leaned forward, stared at Gina Donetti, conscious now, leaning against the wall, feet doubled under her. Her eyes came up to mine. "Messner's dead. Gina could tell you he wasn't at the lake during the murder period and that would make him guilty. But that isn't the way it was."

  Gina said, "Johnny," very softly and there was no mistaking the abject promise. "Johnny, please..."

  I shook my head at her, let her look real hard at my eyes. She slumped against the wall, legs sprawled and began to cry silently.

  French took my arm. "What's the story? Make it short, but make it complete."

  "Okay. I'm just beat, George, that's all. Tired and hurt and sick to God-damn death of people." The rookie cop handed me a lit cigarette. I nodded, took it. "This broad ramrodded the whole thing. I'll slice it up briefly. You can sweat O'Rourke there for the details. He heard the whole thing here. And I suspect he found out more than he should have somewhere along the line. They were going to kill him, anyway, so they probably had a reason."

  "That's right, Lieutenant," O'Rourke said. He was still white, holding with trembling hands to the flask Horace Gilbertson had provided. "I knew for days Ford killed Donetti. But I didn't dare do anything. I didn't dare. He told—"

  "All right," French said. "Go ahead, Johnny. Tell."

  "The Gambling Protective thing was just a gimmick. Gina talked her old man into thinking it was a good idea, sicked him onto Messner. They whacked out a plan. Then Donetti took it to his bosses." I nodded to the banker, gunless now, along with his two hoodlums. Jack Kilgallen stood beside him. "This guy is one. They liked the idea, knew it would take local action to get anything done, so they told Donetti to go ahead."

  "On his own initiative, Lieutenant," Gilbertson said. "Make no mistake about that."

  "Yeah, all right." French backed to the desk, stepping around the chalked spaces on the floor where the bodies had been. He sat on the edge. "How'd he do for Donetti?"

  "You told me," I said. "That doniker window. All right, bathroom, men's room, whatever." French smiled. "He met Donetti away from the club. They were secret partners, it was natural to be secretive. Ford shoots him, runs like a dog back to the club and almost gets run over by the Cadillac ramming into the lot. At the same moment at the Play Spot, Gina was appropriating the money. The seventy-five thousand for expenses. Donetti just didn't die quick enough. Messner was around the corner on his way back when the car hit. He heard Donetti tell the girl, "Get Ford Messner. The dirty Johnny Ronce!" just as he was kicking. I heard the last part."

  French grunted. "Why didn't she tell us right away?"

  "Ford. He ran around the club, came up as I was trying to get the kid straightened out. He was a pretty chilly guy, George. He scared the kid. And kept on scaring her. He ran into her the night she got killed in the Cherbourg and told her to be careful, to stay home and mind her business, or something like that. She threw a wingding in the club. I put her in a cab."

  I stopped, turned my eyes toward the woman on the floor. She didn't look sexy any more. She looked sad. Her hair fell forward down her face and great, rolling tears carried mascara down her cheeks.

  "Gina killed her. She knew Carla wouldn't go near Messner so she picked the girl up at her home when the cab got there. Told her she had a message from Laddy Layton. Then ran over her. Only thing that makes sense. Otherwise there was no need to kill Sheila. When Sheila got it and I realized that Marti Thayer and that punk Frank knew I was coming to Welles, I knew Gina was the connection. Before that it was a little hard for me. I was playing hearts with the tramp."

  I looked up from my burning cigarette; French's eyes were on the door. I turned. Fran was there with Mickey System. Her face was twisted and for a moment I thought she would cry. But she didn't. She walked straight to me, held my face in both hands...

  "Oh, Johnny..."

  "Hi," I said. "My suit isn't back from the cleaners, but if you wait a few minutes you can drive me home. Okay?"

  She nodded, eyes brimming suddenly. "Okay. I'll wait outside."

  Her eyes found the huddled figure against the wall. She squeezed my shoulder hurtingly. I patted her. "Go, woman," I said gently.

  She sniffled, smiled through the tears. "Gone," she said.

  French finished inspecting his shoe sole. His eyes were a little bleak. He moved his lips in a small smile.

  "You make a pretty good detective, slicker. You see any implications for O'Rourke?"

  The skinny guy cried out, but French cut him off with an arm wave.

  "No," I said. "He just likes to play gangster. He kept Messner around because he had eyes for Sheila." I shrugged. "You know how that goes. And he probably would have gone on being a good dog if they hadn't killed her. Sheila goofed when she called me. Then Messner knew he had to shut her up. I don't know who actually held the knife. Maybe Coley does. Anyway, get the rest from him, will you? I'm beat and I got a ride waiting for me."

  "Sure, Johnny."

  French pointed at Gilbertson. "I want statements from you people. And you'll be under technical arrest. With Berlin's testimony, there's no way we can hold you. But I want you to know I would if there was a way."

  Gilbertson nodded, almost bowed. "Quite right, Mr. French. Your duty. You might like to know that I'm recommending our operation at the lake be terminated."

  "I might," French agreed. "There's some things I want from you yet, Johnny. But they can wait. Go ahead."

  I said, "There's one thing I'd like to know. Horace—" I turned to the banker. "How the hell did you get here in time to keep me from getting my pretty head ventilated?"

  He smiled, rubbed a knuckle over his gray brush. "Like a movie, eh, Johnny?"

  "Yeah. A bad movie. What's the pitch?"

  "We were behind Kilgallen all the way. When your call came to him at the Play Spot, I was notified. He borrowed a gun from Marc. We followed. All the way. To the quaint little village and then up that impossible road to the Kilgore Hills. Finally, here. After meeting Mickey on the road, very simple."

  "Well, I won't knock it. It kept me alive. And I have a special reason for wanting to be alive right now. Couple things, George. When Donetti left that message for me at the Club Carroll, he probably wanted to find out if I really had been sent by the syndicate to protect the money. He didn't care. He could have used the help. Messner knew about the call through Gina. He sicked her onto me. That's why he set up the kill at the Club Carroll. He could have killed the guy anywhere.
But that was the only place he'd told me to meet him. Where he knew I'd be. He figured me for a patsy."

  "Not so far wrong," French said. "I was fitting you for it pretty good all along. Only Fran's insistence that it couldn't have been you kept me from locking you up and trying to prove it. So you're lucky in more ways than one, slicker."

  "I know, George...I want you to know, I mean, the way it turned out..."

  He grunted, slab face twisting away. "Yeah. All right. Go ahead. Get out of here."

  My legs held me. I wouldn't have bet on it. I felt funny. Not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar. The ground was there beneath my feet and yet it wasn't. And I was tired. So Goddamn tired.

  Gina looked up as I rose, began cursing me in a low, harsh voice. Her eyes were wild.

  "Sure, baby," I said softly. "Sure."

  "You didn't have to throw me, Johnny, you bastard!" she sobbed. "You didn't have to."

  "Yeah, I did, Gina. I really did."

  I got out the door as quickly as I could. There was a deep silence behind me, punctuated only by the racking sobs of the woman.

  The car radio played softly and Fran drove carefully, just barely rolling. The night was still black and starless, without fog, and no mist had blown in. Fran's little coupe was warm and tight and I lay back against the seat and let the accumulated tensions run out of me.

  "Hell of a thing," I said to the ceiling. "Johnny Berlin playing cop. They'd never believe it in Vegas."

  Fran reached out her hand, turned my head. "Who cares?" she said, voice husky with unshed tears.

  "Yeah. Who does?"

  I watched the play of moonlight on her face, her breasts as she drove. Beautiful. But not cold. Not cold at all. Her lips tilted up at the corners and she blushed under my look. She glanced at me, back to the road.

  "Well? No funny dialogue? No snappy lines to amuse and confuse?"

  I reached across my body, clumsy because of the cast, gripped her arm. "Stop the car," I said.

  "But Johnny, we have to get home. You're hurt."

  "Stop the God-damn car!"

  She did. And I wasn't hurt that badly.

  I wasn't hurt at all.