by Unknown
The fat man’s grunt was a surly sound and his eyes receded into their pockets of flesh. Vogelsang was looking thoughtful, a cunning cast to his face.
“O.K.,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t like murder. We don’t want to get mixed up in it, so we’ll tell you. But you better play square with us and see that we get our cut after the reward is paid. You, one-third—we, two-thirds.”
“How about the kid?” I asked.
“I don’t give a damn about the reward,” the kid gritted.
“Sure,” Vogelsang said. “All he wants is the girl. He can have her.”
“He can have her after she’s returned to her father,” I said. “But the split is fifty-fifty. I’ve got a pal working with me. Where is she?”
“She’s out in the Sunset District,” Vogelsang admitted cheerfully, as if we were pals now. “Staying with some friends of mine. It’s the last house on Noriega Street where it runs into the sand dunes going west. We’ll go with you.”
“No, you don’t,” I told him. “You’re staying here.”
I moved through the gate in the railing, lifted my chin at the kid. “See if you can find something to use so we can tie these two mutts up.”
“Hey, what’s the idea?” Vogelsang muttered tightly, trying to get his feet under him so he could stand up.
I let the heater point his way. “Stay where you are. We just want to be sure you’ll be safe and sound while we’re gone. Your friends will be guarding the girl in that house, and I don’t want you to phone and warn them before we get there. I’d have you phone them now and tell them we’re coming and to turn her over to us, only I don’t trust you; you might let something slip over the phone and they’d broom out with the girl before we could get there.”
Kline had been standing, sullen and silent, his moon face set stupidly. For the moment, while speaking to Vogelsang, I’d looked away from him. That was a mistake. Maybe he got the signal from Vogelsang, but if he did I didn’t see it. He moved with sudden abruptness. I sensed it, started to whirl.
The kid yelled, “Look out!”
And from where he was on his haunches on the floor, Vogelsang rocked backward, kicked out and up with one foot. His toe cracked into my right wrist, and at the same instant Kline’s big fist jarred against the side of my neck. It knocked me sideways as the gun flew out of my hand.
The kid dived for it, but Vogelsang fell on it first, rolled, came up and caught the kid on the temple with the revolver. Turning, I took a swing at Kline’s fat face, but was stumbling and off balance and missed. The kid had thudded limply to the floor. Vogelsang flicked the gun up at me and rapped:
“All right, wise boy! Freeze!”
There was an icy glitter in his eyes, and his face was sharp and dangerous-looking. I froze, but Kline didn’t. His moon face was no longer dull and stupid, but alive with hate. He crowded close to me, bumped me with his huge paunch and swung his fist again. It was sort of a one-two punch—first the paunch, and then his fist. The first set me up in just the right position, and the second sent me to the floor. For a fat man, he was good. He may not have been fast, but he knew how to get all his weight behind a blow.
Bells were ringing and the room and everything in it was going round and round in blurred circles. I heard Vogelsang say, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” and their feet moved on the floor.
I wasn’t completely out; some instinct urged me to be up and after them, but I couldn’t move. The gate in the railing squeaked open and clicked shut. The front door opened. They were getting away!
And then a familiar voice croaked shrilly: “Hands up! Halt or I’ll shoot! Get back inside and turn around before I blow you apart.”
I knew that was Mac’s voice and I think I tensed, expecting to hear the blast of the gun Vogelsang had taken from me. But instead there was a muttered curse, the shuffle of feet as they backed inside and turned. Mac’s voice wavered and almost cracked as he ordered:
“Drop the roscoe, bo.”
I heard it hit the floor; then there was a faint swish and a hollow thunk of impact, and another greater weight hit the floor like a dropped sack of potatoes.
“Hey!” Kline’s deep voice protested. “What the—”
“Don’t move!” Mac warned. “Let this be a lesson to you, fatty. Crime don’t pay.”
There was another smacking sound, like someone thumping a ripe watermelon. The floor shook as Kline dropped. Then little Mac was at my side, pulling me up, saying:
“Hey, Beek, what is it? What’s the matter? Come on, snap out of it!”
I was sitting up, but I was still dizzy. Everything kept wavering in and out of focus. Little Mac was crouching over me, his funny crooked face twisted with worry.
“I can’t take it,” I told him, and my tongue was thick as an overstuffed frankfurter. “Fatso pushed me and I fell down.”
“Tsk, tsk,” he clucked sympathetically, and went on: “I gave those bimbos what for. I didn’t know what they’d done to you, but when they tried to bust out of here alone, I knew something was wrong.”
The room was settling down and things were clearing up. Even the ache in my jaw was getting more acute. “Thanks, pal,” I said. “But how’d you stop them? I thought you never packed a rod.”
“I don’t,” he answered piously, and looked down at the gun in his left hand. A black-jack dangled by its thong from his right wrist. “This here roscoe is the one Vogelsang had. But I just happened to have along my sleep inducer for pertection, and when Vogelsang stepped out the door I jabbed him in the ribs with the small end and he don’t know the difference. Then when I get them back in here I just let them have it on account of I don’t want them to find out how I have deceived them.”
The black-jack—his sleep inducer—was small and harmless-looking, but Mac was very proficient in its use, as I’d learned from past experience. He was looking sideways at the kid.
“What’s the matter with him?”
The kid was sitting up, looking around and blinking.
“Vogelsang clipped him with the gun,” I said, “but it looks like he’s all right now. How’s it, fella?”
He pressed one palm against the swelling on his temple, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly. “What happened?”
I said, “Those two mutts took us, and then my little pal here took them. So that makes it even.”
His eyes sharpened with comprehension. “Yeah? Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”
He surged to his feet, reeled sideways and caught himself against the railing.
“Hey, wait a minute!” I said, but he didn’t pay any attention.
He found the gate, was through it, making a bee-line for the street door. He tripped over one of the prone bodies on the floor, brought up against the door, jerked it open and was outside.
“Come on,” I rapped at Mac, and lunged to my feet. But the floor tilted up at a crazy angle and I almost went straight over onto my kisser. Mac caught and steadied me, and after a moment the floor bent down to where it was supposed to be.
About then, from out in front we heard the starting roar of a motor. Gears clashed and tires spun on the pavement as a car—I knew it was the kid’s car—shot away from the curb. I plowed forward. It was tough going for a while, but with Mac pushing I finally got through the gate in the railing and made it around Vogelsang and Kline, who were out cold on the floor.
The cool night air felt good on my face and in my lungs when we reached the street. Mac had switched off the inside lights and pulled the door closed behind us, and the street was just as empty and deserted as before—except for the taillights of the kid’s car, which was scooting away up the hill toward Chinatown.
I knew where he was headed—to the house on Noriega Street where Vogelsang had said the girl was being held—and we had to get there before he could get away with the girl. The night air had cleared most of the dizziness out of my skull and we pounded up to the corner and around it to where Mac had
left the Zephyr. I piled in behind the wheel, jabbed the starter button and gunned the motor to life, took out after the kid as Mac fell in beside me.
The other car was out of sight by now, but I knew the approximate location of Noriega Street; the Sunset District was clear across town toward the Pacific Ocean. I pointed the Zephyr’s nose in that direction and toed down on the throttle.
bout half a mile south of Golden Gate Park and a mile east of the ocean, right in the center of the Sunset District, is a section of sand dunes where streets do not run through. Bleak and bare, it is a lonesome area at night, with only a few houses spotted here and there across the dunes.
The house we wanted was where Noriega Street dead-ended, running westward into this waste space of rolling sand. We spotted it as we passed the nearest other house, more than a block away and clustered about a corner street lamp as if for protection from the night. It stood by itself, inner light making glowing squares of its windows, a low stucco bungalow. There was a dark shape squatting out in front—the kid’s car. We’d made good time, but he’d got here before us.
I braked the Zephyr to a stop behind the convertible, and jumped out. The kid was on the porch at the front door, his shoulder jammed against it, arguing with someone who was trying to close it in his face. Mac was right behind me when I skidded up onto the porch, and the short-barreled police special was out in my hand.
Looking back over his shoulder, the kid half sobbed: “He won’t let me in!”
I saw he had one foot stuck in the door, and above and behind the white blob of his face I could see the outline of Buck Madden’s gorilla head, silhouetted by the inner light. I was sure no one else had a head like that, and I wasn’t particularly surprised to find him here.
“Stand back, Madden,” I told him. “I’ve got a gun here and we’re coming in.”
“Oh, you again, huh?” he growled.
“Yeah, me.” I let the police special glitter in the wedge of light that fell out through the opening. “Stand back.”
He stood back and the kid rammed through the door and on inside. I followed more cautiously. The gorilla tried to jump me from the side as I came in. I was remembering the clout on the jaw he’d handed me before and was expecting something, and maybe that made me lean on the gun heavier than I might have as I laid it against the side of his skull. Anyway, he went down, falling loosely to the carpet.
“That makes us even, slug,” I said, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even move. He’d taken a quick trip to dreamland, stretched out peacefully on the rug.
There was a short, anguished cry in the room. I looked up. The small aristocratic-looking brunette from the Nude Ranch—Louise Madden—was standing in an arched doorway wearing a quilted black robe. Her eyes were wide and stricken with shocked horror. She cried in a strained voice:
“What have you done to him? Who are you? What do you want?”
“We want the girl you’re holding here,” I said.
“Oh!” Her eyes jerked as she recognized me, then she came running across the room and went to her knees at the gorilla’s side, held his head up to her breast. She looked up at me again. “Take her. I didn’t want Buck to keep her here anyway, but they made him. She’s in the back bedroom and she hasn’t been hurt.”
We were in a small, low-ceilinged living-room that was neat, but looked bare, it contained so few pieces of furniture. The kid was across the room at another doorway, had stopped there when this girl had appeared. Now he plunged through the doorway, toward the back of the house, and I nodded to Mac to follow him. Mac had come in behind me and closed the front door, and when he was gone after the kid, I asked the girl:
“Who made you keep her?”
Her delicate face was marred by a deep and bitter shadow of anxiety. “A man named Art Vogelsang, and Jonathan Kline. I’ve been trying to keep Buck going straight, but they have something on him and they try to use him when they can.”
“Then he’s really your brother,” I said.
“Yes.” She nodded with her face turned down toward his. She was jiggling his head, massaging the back of his neck. “Buck—Buck … !”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “He’ll be all right. You couldn’t hurt a mass of muscle like him.”
She was on the verge of tears as she glanced up, her fine mouth quivering. “I suppose he had it coming to him. I’m sorry he hit you when you were following us. Who is this girl you’re after?”
I felt my eyebrows go up in surprise. “You don’t know? She’s that missing Hildegarde Ingraham. You know, the runaway daughter of the Chicago meat-packer. For a while I thought you might be her; that’s why I was following you. That fur coat had me fooled, and you’ve got class, sister.”
She let go of a bitter little laugh, shook her head hopelessly. “You surely don’t think I’d be working at the kind of a job I have now if I were this Hildegarde Ingraham. The coat is just a relic of better days, the only thing I have to wear. The only reason we rent a place way out here is because it’s cheap. I—I hope we don’t get into any trouble over this. Buck has a record. He doesn’t like to live on what I make, but he can’t get an honest job. Nobody’ll trust him.”
“That’s tough,” I said, really feeling sorry for the kid. “But don’t worry. And maybe we can work it so he’ll get a split of the reward that’s offered for finding this Ingraham babe.”
She didn’t look up or answer. Her shoulders moved convulsively and I knew she was crying silently. For some reason I felt like a heel. I was actually sorry I’d hit her brother, because when he’d clouted me he’d probably thought he’d been protecting his sister or something. Just then Mac and the kid came back with the other girl.
Her doll-face was blank, and her big doll-eyes looked a little bit more dazed than usual. But she didn’t seem much the worse for wear. Somewhere along the route she had lost her hat with the feather in it, but she hadn’t been mussed up any. Under the lights I noticed at the part in her hair there was a dark line where the unbleached hair had grown out a little in its natural color.
The kid had his arm about her protectingly, was wearing a resentful scowl. “They had her tied to the bed!” he complained.
The girl had looked over the room, blinking her large blank eyes, and now gazed up worshipfully at the kid’s face. “Oh, Johnny!” she breathed ecstatically. “I knew you would come for me. You’re wonderful!”
She was giving him the needle. It was pretty sickening, but the kid went for it. His scowl smoothed out and he looked soulfully down into her eyes, said softly: “Come on, honey.”
They started for the front door. Little Mac blinked and his Adam’s apple raced up and down before he could get out a weak yelp of protest: “Hey!”
I stepped in front of the door. “Where do you think you’re going?”
The kid stared indignantly at me. “Out,” he said. “I’m going to take her away from here. She’s had all she can stand.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Oh, no, you’re not.”
His jaw crept forward and his brows came down. “Why not?” he asked belligerently.
“Because,” I explained. “This little lady is worth money in our kick and it’s share and share alike. We want to be sure we get ours. Besides that, there is a little matter of a murder to be cleared up. I want to find out where Hildegarde was when Rufus Moore was killed. The knife was held in a girl’s handkerchief.”
“Knife?” the girl said blankly, batting her eyelashes. “Who was killed?”
“A Swinnerton dick was killed in the Nude Ranch,” I said. “I think he was on your trail at the time, and right after the murder I looked around and you’d disappeared. You’d been there just a minute before, because you came in with us. A clasp knife with a six-inch blade sounds like kind of an unusual weapon for a girl, but it’s possible you could have used it. So suppose you just tell us where you were at the time.”
The kid was glowering at me, and the girl was suddenly pale and weak and stammering,
floundering for words. She said, “But—but I wasn’t there! I went outside—before that. I didn’t know anything about it. Those men took me. That fat one and the other one, the same ones that you made release me before.”
I nodded. “They must have, because they brought you here, but it seems funny that they could come back and drag you away on a brightly lighted place like the Gayway. But maybe you wanted to go with them. Maybe you could use the fact that they abducted you as an alibi later. It’s very odd that you just happened to go outside at that time, after being so anxious to stay with us when we went in the Nude Ranch. Why?”
“I—I—” She shot a glance up at the kid’s face, seemed numb with fear. The kid growled:
“Leave her alone, and let us out of here.”
“In a minute,” I told him. “I want to get a few things cleared up before you take this gal off and marry her. I want to be sure she knows who you are.”
His eyes tightened and his face became very expressionless. The girl was batting her eyelashes at me again, looked as if she were gasping for breath.
“Where’d you meet this kid?” I asked her.
“In Reno.” She gulped. “He drove me here, last week.”
“And he told you he was Johnny Foster—the Johnny Foster, scion of the Foster sugar millions?”
She nodded dumbly, swallowing.
“Well, I don’t believe it,” I said. “I thought he was too, when I first saw him, but I stopped thinking so when it struck me as odd he knew just where to go after you when you disappeared—to Art Vogelsang and Jonathan Kline. He knew who they were, when I told him Vogelsang had been after you. He’s had some connection with them before, and it seems funny a guy like Johnny Foster would have anything to do with a couple of chiselers of their stripe.
“I think your boy friend here is an imposter, a gigolo, one of those guys who hang around Reno posing as wealthy playboys and preying on divorcées with dough. The way I’ve got it figured, he was looking for a catch and thought he’d found one when he discovered who you were, so he decided instead of turning you in for the five-grand reward to run away with you and talk you into marrying him. That way, even if the marriage were later annulled by your father, he’d be in a position to chisel a handsome settlement.