I started for the door, then fixed my eyes on Tunny again. “When you came in you asked me if I’d found them. Now I’m asking you for the last time, what were you referring to?”
He shrugged complacently. “It was just a figure of speech, dear lady. Knowing you, I wouldn’t imagine you were here speculating over the desirability of an abruptly vacant rental.”
I gestured at the tape recording machine. “Earlier, before Wetzel was murdered, there were two reels of tape on that machine. One of them fell on the floor. Now both are missing. I don’t believe they were removed by the investigating deputies. Could they be the them you were referring to?”
He smiled knowingly. “Miss West, I hired you, but you refused to work for me. Now you are trying to enlist my aid. I will not be a party to your private housebreaking. Nor will I tolerate your vicious tactics. I’m filing suit against you for assault and battery, for breaking and entering, for illegal use of firearms against an unarmed citizen, for—”
“Save your breath, Mr. Tunny,” I interrupted harshly. “When the D.A. finishes with you and your sex camp, the only suit you’ll be filing is the one on your back in moth balls. Get up!”
His face colored. “Don’t threaten me, Miss West. I know my rights.”
“Get up!”
Tunny lifted himself slowly, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Move to the other side of the room,” I directed.
He followed my order hesitantly, hands trembling. I bent down beside the bed and peered under the box springs. Papers and books were scattered underneath where they’d blown or been kicked earlier. Then my eyes caught the glint of a plastic reel, almost covered by a manila folder against the wall. I flattened on my stomach and crawled under until I had the spool in my fingers, then I slithered out and stood up.
“Well,” I said, glancing at Tunny. “Here’s one of the reels. Now if I can find an empty one we’ll hear how she plays.”
He didn’t appear concerned over my discovery, but a muscle in his sunburnt face twitched as I began searching through some of the desk drawers.
“You have no right to do this, Miss West,” he protested. “You could be arrested.”
“I’ll see to it we share the same cell, Mr. T. and maybe we’ll have a game of Scrabble. The kind where every word spells murder.”
He shuddered. I found an empty spool in a bottom drawer, fitted both reels to the tape recorder and hooked them together. Then I pushed the PLAY button.
For five minutes we stood stiffly in our places listening to absolute silence, except for the creak of the spools as they turned. Several times I fumbled with different knobs, including the volume control, but they didn’t change the end result. When the tape had run out, Tunny laughed.
“Thank you, Miss West, for a few minutes of quiet, at any rate,” he said glibly. “Now are you satisfied to vacate my property peacefully?”
I removed the half-filled reel and spun it through my fingers thoughtfully. Two spools. One missing. I guessed I’d found the half which had not yet passed through the recording channel.
I tossed the reel on the desk and nodded. “You win this trip, Mr. T. But we’ll meet again for the rubber match, don’t worry.”
I was halfway through the outside door when I turned back and picked up the tape. “I think I’ll keep this as a memento of the occasion.”
“No!” he protested, moving toward me.
“I thought you were going to say that. There are two sides to these things. Perhaps I’ll have better success reversing the reel. Good night, Mr. Tunny. Pleasant dreams.”
I closed the door behind me and moved down the walkway. The sky was the color of dirty dishwater and new rain pelted down on my face. Tunny’s car was parked next to mine. I checked for hidden occupants, then climbed inside my own convertible. There were no uninvited passengers there either, hairy or otherwise. I waited for a minute to see if Tunny might come out of the house, but he didn’t. He was shrewd and calculating and knew more than he’d told me. That was what bothered me most. He’d said just enough to steer me straight toward Fred Sims, Ray Spensor and Adam Jason. I thought I’d pick on Spensor first. His disappearing acts were getting to be as famous as Houdini’s, if not as enchanting. His gate stunt had been fairly understandable. Tunny’s strong-arm tactics hurt. His vanishing act at Wetzel’s had not made sense. Neither had his explanation to Mark Storm that he’d needed some fresh air. Ray’s interest in the sensual side of life made his disappearance in the middle of Toy’s naked contortions seem pretty contrived.
I drove down the mountain slowly, prepared for any sudden decrease in braking power, but I reached the bottom without any trouble. Charley April supplied me with Ray Spensor’s correct address over the auto phone. He growled about the interruption, claiming this was his only hour of good sleep and then cautioned me to be careful.
It was four-thirty by the time I reached the squat frame house off a Hundred and eighty-second and Figueroa. The asphalt road in front was criss-crossed with ugly deep grooves apparently dug by the road-grading equipment which came to retrieve Rip Spensor’s mangled body after he’d been flattened by the steam roller. I couldn’t help the shiver that raced up my back as I climbed from the car. Rip had been such a nice guy. Gentle. Sweet. This seemed a tragic way to die.
I moved to the front porch and rang the bell. After a moment, a light flicked on and footsteps banged inside the house.
Ray Spensor appeared in a splash of porch light, rubbing his eyelids, a robe drawn around his husky shoulders.
“Honey,” he said, gaping at me through the screen. “What in hell are you doing here?”
“Accepting a long standing invitation extended by your cousin,” I said, brushing through some gnarled wet strands of hair. “Aren’t you going to invite me into your parlor?”
“You’re drenched,” he said, opening the screen. “Come on in. I’ll fix a fire.”
I entered the living room, shaking drops of water from my shoulders, scanning his unshaven face cautiously. “You wouldn’t have a cup of coffee, would you?”
“I’ve got better than that,” he said. “How about a spot of brandy? You look beat.”
“I am,” I agreed quickly. “I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours, except for that brief stretch of night-night Angela Scali tapped into my head. How are you fixed for beds?”
He flicked a puzzled grin at me and nodded. “Loaded.” He extended his arms. “The joint’s yours. If you can disregard a sink full of dirty dishes, a couple of bedrooms with messed up sheets and laundry, and a mighty delirious football player named Spensor.”
He led me into the kitchen where the sink was more than filled. It was bulging with dishes, pots and pans. He poured two shots of brandy and got me a towel. That’s when I spotted the cane hanging on a rack on the back porch.
“Who belongs to that?” I asked, rubbing my face with the cloth.
Ray glanced at the cane blankly. “Oh, that. Rip wrecked his knee last year in one of the Colt games. He hobbled around on that thing for weeks.”
I lifted the cane from the rack and examined its tip. The rubber cap was missing. There was dried mud the lower end of the shaft.
“Looks like it’s been used recently,” I said. “You get hurt in that Forty-niner game?”
His brows knitted as he studied the crust of dried mud. “No. That’s funny. I wonder if—”
“What?” I demanded.
He stared at me tautly. “I wonder if Rip was faking about the play the week before in the Bear game. He was pretty shook up on the last run from scrimmage. I thought sure he’d re-injured his leg.”
“Did he say he had?”
“No, but Rip was funny that way. He didn’t like to miss a game. He was limping in that 49’er game, the night he was killed.”
“Didn’t the coach say anything?”
“Sure, he said plenty, but Rip was running fairly well so he left him in,” Ray stroked his forehead with the flat of his hand. “That
could explain why he didn’t get out of the way of that steam roller.”
“You mean he might have tried to run, but his leg gave out on him?”
“That’s right.” He scrutinized the cane. “I’m glad you noticed this, Honey. It explains a lot.”
“Does it, Ray?” I studied his face carefully.
“Sure. Ask yourself why a man as fast as Rip could be cut down by a machine as slow and lumbering as a steam roller. A leg injury, that’s the only answer.”
“Ray, are you certain you didn’t know about his injury? Somebody must have known.”
His face flushed angrily. “Of course I didn’t. I just told you I wondered, that’s all.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s drink to that.”
“No,” he countered slyly. “Let’s drink to you, Honey. To you and your devious ways. Why don’t you tell the truth? You didn’t come here for a cup of coffee or a free bed. You’ve got wheels turning. Confess.”
“All right,” I said. “I just ran into a man named Tunny who says you’re quite a collector of keys. The set belonging to the steam roller turned up missing after Rip was murdered. Who collected them?”
“How should I know?” he slammed, sipping at his brandy. “I wasn’t even here when it all happened.”
“Where were you, Ray?”
“At a little bar on Forty-eighth. Having a sandwich.”
“Any witnesses?”
“I went all through this with your friend Lieutenant Storm at least a dozen times. The waitress doesn’t remember me.”
“Why not?”
“She went off-duty shortly after I arrived. Her mind must have been preoccupied.”
I shook my head, wiping more beads of water into the towel. “That sounds awfully thin, Ray.”
“I know it does,” he said. “But what am I supposed to do, invent witnesses? Pull them out of my hat? I’m no Houdini.”
“Funny you should say that,” I said. “I was likening you to him earlier. You do pull some awfully neat tricks. Like Wetzel’s house. You went up in a puff of smoke.”
“I told Storm, I got sick to my stomach. And that’s exactly what happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before you left?”
“Because,” he said evenly, “I was too sick to say anything.”
“How long have you been home?” I asked.
He stuck his big hands in the pockets of his robe and exhaled. “Come on, Honey. Drop the female wolfdog bit and relax. I’ve been interrogated up to here. And the answer is still the same. No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I had nothing to do with Sol Wetzel’s murder—or Angela Scali’s—or—”
He stopped as he noticed my eyes fixed on a large coffee can sitting on the corner of the sink. The brand name didn’t interest me, but the jagged holes cut in the top did. I picked up the container and examined it closely.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Ray removed his hands from his pockets and jiggled them nervously. “The—the coffee I offered you.”
“You must have been in a terrible hurry to open the can.”
I shook the container. Something rattled inside.
“That—that’s at least a month old,” he said, lifting down a jar of instant from the cupboard. “This is what I’ve been drinking.”
Before he could stop me I jerked open the lid and peered inside. His face paled. So did mine. I dropped the can, as a huge spider flipped out on the floor, its hairy legs still in death.
“I notice you drink your coffee black, Ray,” I said. “Okay, start brewing.”
“Honey, you don’t understand,” he protested, staring at the twisted spider.
“What is there to understand, Ray? Do you can and sell these by the dozen? They must be quite a delicacy.”
“I—”
I extracted my revolver from beneath my skirt and leveled it at him. “You can talk plainer than that. Some kindly gentleman deposited half a dozen of these in my car night before last. They nearly had me in stitches.”
“Honey,” he pleaded, “you won’t believe this, but—but that thing belonged to Rip. He collected spiders. Especially mygales. They’re a variety of tarantula. It was a hobby with him.”
“Rip was already dead when this incident occurred, Ray. Try a disappearing act, it’s more your specialty. That’s what my friend did after he dumped his merchandise in my convertible.”
“I—I had nothing to do with that.”
“Somebody did. Don’t tell me you’ve got the same alibi. That you were in that bar on Forty-eighth.”
He wiped at his face clumsily. “Why would I want to hurt you, Honey?”
“You have the floor, Mr. Spensor. You tell me.”
“I told you Rip collected spiders. He has a whole cage full of those things buried in the ground alive.”
“Where?”
“Out in back.”
“Show me,” I said, waving the revolver at the rear door.
I watched him carefully as he took a flashlight from a drawer. Then he led the way out into the dark rainy night, through a muddy yard to a fence and a small covered arbor.
He bent down in one corner and removed a wooden cover from a hole in the ground. In the flashlight’s glare I could see a wire cage beneath. Rain dripped from the slats above us.
I stood back as he examined the cage, then he got to his feet slowly, face contorted.
“They—they’re gone,” he said emptily.
“And so are you, pal,” I added. “Only this time it isn’t going to be out the nearest exit—or to a bar on Forty-eighth. It’s going to be behind some bars at the Sheriff’s station.”
FOURTEEN
“Honey!” Ray protested, rain drenching down on his face. “I—I’m in love with you!”
“So was Othello in love with Desdemona before he strangled her. Back to the house!”
Hands swinging numbly at his sides, Ray walked across the yard, not even bothering to light the way. When he reached the door his numbness suddenly faded. He whipped the panel back into my face, knocking me from the porch. I fell into a narrow ditch half-filled with water and mud, the revolver slipping from my grasp.
By the time I found the gun and crawled to my feet, he was long gone, racing wildly across a vacant lot, legs flying. He vanished in the darkness and rain. I started after him, reaching the middle of the next lot before I decided to give up the search. Beyond was a wide open stretch of trees and scattered houses. And miles of no man’s land. He’d be hard to find even with a pack of dogs. I knew I didn’t really want Ray Spensor anyway. Not now. He was doing exactly what I’d hoped he would do. Disappear. For good.
At my apartment in Alamitos Bay I found the guy I was really looking for. He sat in my living room, legs cocked up on an ottoman snoring peacefully. I nudged him gently. His eyelids fluttered open and he grinned knowingly.
“Hello, Honey,” he said, stretching. “Your back door lock was broken, so I took the liberty of coming in out of the rain. You look like you’ve been playing with mud pies.”
“Hello, Adam,” I said. “I thought you were dead.”
“You mean now or earlier? Those goons of Tunny’s weren’t very nice.”
He indicated a bruise on the side of his face.
“Too bad, Adam,” I said, edging my voice with sarcasm. “You seem to be everybody’s fall guy, don’t you? Why not join my club?”
He was dressed in a T-shirt and slacks that were still wet from the weather. “What club’s that?”
“Fall Guys, Incorporated. I’m chief mucka-muck. The entrance examinations are easy. One low kick or a bum steer within the past few days, fully certified, and you’re in.”
“Honey, you’re pulling my leg.”
I smiled. “That’s what you think.”
He suddenly reached for me hungrily, but I drew back from his outstretched hands.
“Honey!” he sighed.
“Take it easy, pal. You’ve left your motor
running. Excuse me while I shower.”
I left him trembling and red-faced, locked myself inside the bedroom and stripped off my clothes. The warmth of the shower was so luxurious, I felt like singing as the water gushed over me. There were only two problems remaining. One was Adam Jason. I had a feeling he would be easy to handle. I didn’t know then what I learned five minutes later. If I had I’d doubtlessly have remained behind the locked door.
I came out in a tailored blue robe, my hair pulled up in a top knot, and wearing no makeup. The look on Adam’s face told me the wrap-around robe was a big mistake. A tailored tent would have been safer. He gaped at me open-mouthed and then poured us each a martini from a frosted pitcher.
“Honey, you—you’re ravishing,” Adam said, toasting my outfit.
I sipped at my martini. “I think you’ve already had enough to drink, Adam.”
He was extremely handsome and he knew it. He brushed back a few damp locks of black hair and said, “You like me, don’t you?”
“I already told you I did. At my office.” The martini was beginning to feel as powerful as a steam roller on a dark road. I shook my head. “What did you put in this thing?”
“Ten jiggers of gin and an olive,” he said. “You like?”
“After not eating or sleeping for two days, I’ll have to admit it’s delicious. It’ll probably make me fat.” He put a cigarette between his lips and offered me one. He was really feeling his oats. The time had come, I thought, to lower the boom. But suddenly I didn’t feel like dangling him on a string. He was nice, and the evening was still young. Even if it was almost dawn. I laughed.
“I’ll never forget you standing in my office wearing nothing but my skirt and sweater. Or the look on your face when the police pulled up in that squad car.” I swallowed some more of my drink and the burning sensation warmed me to the toes.
“The joke was on them, wasn’t it, Honey?”
“Yeah. Hey, you do make an excellent martini.”
He refilled my glass. That’s when I suddenly realized the joke was on me. The level of his glass was still high. I reeled back, flinging my drink to the floor.
“You—you put something in that,” I said.
Honey West: A Kiss for a Killer Page 12