Gat Heat

by Richard S. Prather

  What it boiled down to was that, regarding armament, I was outnumbered four guns to nothing. There they came at me. And here I stood, empty-handed.

  Well, not quite empty-handed. I had been brilliant enough to carry for all this wearying time my sixteen-millimeter Bolex movie camera fully loaded with a hundred feet of film. Ah, fine, fine. Nothing like planning ahead, making provision for any conceivable contingency.

  There seemed nothing whatever left to do except to turn and run. Run and run and run. So I did.

  I got a break at that—and about time, I thought.

  Dilly had miscalculated in at least one small area. Two, if we include the fact that I can run like a startled antelope when necessary. But her first miscalculation had been in choosing the spot where we’d stopped.

  True, there was a long straight stretch of the path—down which those guys had been and were running—which was fine for target practice; but no more than ten feet from me the path curved sharply to the right for several yards and then curved left again with equal suddenness. So when I got to that first turn, which was hardly any time at all once I’d decided that was the way to go, I was largely concealed by numerous tree trunks long enough for me to get going. I mean, really get going.

  Every once in a while a shot cracked out, but I hadn’t been hit or even nicked yet; and along with the sensation as of getting hit with ax handles atop the head was a thought: Maybe I’ll actually make it. And I started wondering where I was at.

  The rate I was going, I would have passed Duesenbergs speeding in the fast lane on the Freeway, but where was I going?

  A separate path branched off to the left at one point, but by the time I saw the turnoff I was going past it. That did remind me, though, that when Dilly and I had been strolling along it, the path had curved both left and right, but continued primarily curving to our right; and that the path here at the Hidden Valley Lodge was an irregular circle extending through the woods for approximately a mile; and that I had just passed the hunk of path which led back to the Lodge.

  By then I was either dizzy from lack of sufficient oxygen in my lungs or not yet thinking with admirable clarity, because I had stopped worrying about whether I would get away from those men behind me and begun wondering what I’d do once I had. And, how I could fix their wagons.

  Along with the thought was realization that it’s getting tougher and tougher to pin their jobs on hoods, tougher to make a rap stick. For good or ill, that’s the way it is. You damn near have to catch them in the act of dismembering the body …

  And I had it.

  I was lugging my damned camera. Maybe there’d been a reason—besides the fact that I had some splendidly provocative shots of Tootsie in the exposed footage—for my hanging onto the Bolex. The next best thing to actually catching hoods in the commission of a crime should be a movie of them in the middle of it.

  A shot of them chasing after me, shooting at me, should be enough for any court in the land, temporarily. That meant I would have to get into the film somehow, myself, while taking care that the action was merely of the boys shooting at me, not in me.

  So, for one, I couldn’t stand holding the camera, filming them while they ran down on top of me. And for another, I was going to have to run at least another mile.

  But I was quite a bit ahead of them now—though a shot still rang out from time to time—so I sprinted as hard as I could for a hundred yards, the last thirty of which were quite straight, and then skidded to a stop. The Bolex was battery-operated and, once started, would function unaided until the film ran out, if I locked the shutter release down. But there was only one hundred feet of film, and that would run past the lens in four minutes. I didn’t think I could be sure of running another mile in four minutes—not after what I’d recently been through. In fact, I was pretty sure I couldn’t.

  But there was still a way.

  If I set the camera speed to expose not the normal sixteen frames a second but only eight, which I could do merely by turning a little knob on the side of the camera, the thing would run twice as long, or for eight minutes. True, when projected it would be in fast motion, the action speeded up, but that didn’t matter. The faces—and guns—of those lobs would be identifiable.

  The only ticklish part, actually, after adjusting the lens aperture and frames-per-second setting, was spotting a limb in the right place and at the right angle to hold the camera firmly. But I found one suitable, jammed the Bolex into place pointing back down the path, depressed and locked the shutter release to start it whirring and moved out of there. Moved not quite as rapidly this time. In part because I was coming more than a bit undone already; and in part because—now—I wanted my pursuers to get a glimpse of me. One really good glimpse to charge them up enough so they’d run that extra mile. The extra mile; that’s the one that counts.

  “Theah ’e is, theah’s the bahstad?” Crack!

  The slug whistled past me and ripped bark from a tree trunk yards ahead. That was enough glimpse.

  A mile is not a fixed and constant length. In order to get once more around that mile-long path I ran at least forty furlongs. Fortunately I’m in excellent condition, much better condition than were those unhealthy hoods, I assumed. Thus I figured I could loaf part of the way while they dragged along behind me.

  I would have been right, except for Gargantua.

  I should have known. I already knew he wasn’t human.

  That lumbering hulk could have run all day and into the night, I think, scratching his armpits. From way back in the pack he had somehow caught up with and thudded past all three of the others, for when I imagined I sensed the earth shaking as in tumult or cataclysm, I looked back and saw, about where I’d expected him, rangy English ’Arry.

  But saw also, between ’Arry and me—no more than twenty yards off and gaining lickety-split—Fleck. He would damn sure have killed me if he’d stopped, taken aim, and shot at me. But either he’d used up all his ammunition, or cherished the hope of getting close enough to clamp his paws upon me, which would ensure that my demise would be slower, and more fun.

  I used up a lot of soup stretching the distance out to what I considered relative safety, but then I had to slow down for a while. Excellent condition, yeah. So who’s supposed to run a couple of miles after an experience like Dilly?

  I sprinted around the last curve in the path—maybe a bit sloppily, I confess, since I ran into a little tree and broke it smack off—then got straightened out and determinedly put one much-abused foot down after another until I spotted the white scar where ’Arry’s slug had ripped bark from that tree trunk. Short of that tree I spotted my Bolex, and leaped toward it.

  Well, maybe it wasn’t much of a leap. I felt that I was soaring, soaring through the air; but I must have stumbled slightly since I skidded in the air a bit, on my mangled knees, before succeeding in reaching up and clutching the camera. It was a happy moment.

  Before taking off like an antelope again I glanced back along the path. How could it be?

  There was Fleck, and ’Arry, and even the guy I hadn’t met, but whom I would meet pretty quick if I didn’t get a wiggle on. Why, I’d sped down that path—so it seemed to me—and clutched my camera in a jiffy. How’d those out-of-condition hoods get so close so quickly?

  Crack! Blam!

  They had not used up all their ammunition.

  I was really startled by their unexpected proximity. And I suppose I was also, and naturally enough, a bit disturbed by the certainty that I was, at last, plugged in the gizzard. Not the gizzard, actually; the chin, actually. Yes, there was a moment when I felt I’d been shot in the chin.

  All that really happened was that I jerked my hands up for some reason. Why? How would I know why? Maybe to hide my eyes so I wouldn’t see the horrible thing that was going to happen to me. And since the camera was in my hands when I jerked my hands up, the Bolex came along and the lens cracked me smartly in the chin.

  But that was the only moment of … well, o
f real dismay. By the time I was running again, lickety-split down the path, I realized my chin hadn’t been shot off.

  I began thinking again that maybe I’d make it.

  I grew sure of it.

  And I did.

  I sat in my Cadillac trying to get the key into the ignition. Now that I had outwitted everybody, including myself, I wanted to get the hell away from quiet, peaceful Hidden Valley.

  I’d had a brief rest when I staggered and stumbled off the path and involuntarily flopped under a little bush with long evil spines sticking from it. But the speedy reverse route up the path and then along the turnoff leading to the Lodge—after my four apparently dying pursuers had passed wheezing and honking by my hiding place—had left me with a bone-weary exhaustion approximating rigor mortis.

  I was not about to go back to the Lodge, even had I been certain Fleck and ’Arry and Little Phil and the fourth murderer would continue running stupidly around in circles—as I had done for a couple of circuits—until the sun rose in splendor. Dilly alone could have licked me in a fair fight and she didn’t fight fair anyhow.

  So I kept wobbling my key around until I got it into the ignition, started the car and zoomed away, a center of peril not only to myself but to every other living thing in the area.

  But, as I headed once more for Mrs. Halstead’s home, I felt pretty good. Despite the ache in my lungs, the misery in my head, the charley horses in my legs, and the pain in my—well, a real and abiding pain—I felt pretty good.

  Because it was over now.

  At least the whole thing was clear, the picture developed, all the bits of the mosaic in place, crimes pegged, cases solved. That is to say, the thinking part was over.

  The only thing left was the wrap-up part, the denouement, the concluding scenes of the drama. Only the part requiring strong limbs and stout heart, vigor and energy, and zip and zing. Only the action part.

  Yes, I thought, as I wobbled and careened down the highway, that was all.

  But even though I felt as if each of my individual muscles had been opened up and gutted like fish in the market, if what I had just been accomplishing was the thinking part, I could hardly help but look forward to the action.

  18

  On the way to Mrs. Halstead’s home, I phoned Samson and caught him in the Intelligence Division.

  “Did Cootie get in to see you?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. We’ve checked it out and got the kickback already. But Cootie wouldn’t tell me where he lifted the prints; said he was just a delivery boy.”

  “That’s what I told him to say. Well, I’m glad he got the job done.”

  “I hate to say it, but I am, too. You sure these are from the man you call Edward Walles?”

  “Sure enough.” I’d told Cootie to let himself into the Walles house in Beverly Hills. But I was pretty certain Samson wouldn’t want to know that, so I didn’t tell him.

  He was going on, “We’ve got a want on this Vanda ourselves. He’s also wanted in Nevada and Arizona.”

  “Who? Vanda?”

  “Yeah, Edward Walles isn’t his name, either. Probably has a dozen aliases. Real name’s Kermit Vanda, and he’s one of the slickest confidence men operating in the Western States.”

  I smiled. “A con man. Well, that’s the cork in the bottle. It’s perfect Sam. I’ll buy you a box of cigars. Good cigars.”

  “I don’t like good cigars,” he growled. “We checked out the address in Beverly Hills, but the place was empty. The house is being kept under surveillance.”

  “Call the Beverly Hills boys off, Sam. He won’t be back, not for a while, anyway. Last I saw of him was out at the Hidden Valley Lodge. But he won’t be there now, either. Incidentally, you say the L.A.P.D. has a want on him? You mean Homicide wants him?”

  “Not us. Bunco—con game; he’s never gone in for the heavy.”

  “Not personally, maybe. He lets other guys handle the heavy for him. Guys like Jimmy Violet’s charmers. What’s the rap here?”

  “Vanda and his partner—female—took an old couple for sixty G’s last year. Variation on the wire. They dropped out of sight. We identified him, but never made the woman.”

  “Her monicker’s Dilly Pickle, Sam. She may or may not be Vanda’s wife.”

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “You might say from them, indirectly. Any sex angle in the confidence games they’ve worked so far?”

  “None we know about. No more than the usual. They work damned clever and up-to-date variations on the standard con games though.”

  “Yeah, they would. Well, you can add the sex bit now—and conspiracy to commit homicide, among other things. Like extortion. This Dilly Pickle—”

  “I thought that was what you said.”

  “—set me up for the murder try that wound up with Porter getting it. I doubt that she and Vanda had much contact with the real heavies before their latest escapade. Anyhow the boys picked to do the job on me knew her by that monicker or nickname, and that she made the call to Hazel that was supposed to put me at the Hamilton around two p.m.”

  He was silent for a few seconds. “Can you prove all this?”

  “I will when I come in, Sam. I’ll be down pretty quick to fill you in, and also to show you a movie that’ll knock your eyes out. You’re going to be proud of me, old buddy.”

  “Not likely. What do you mean, movie?”

  “Just that. Film’s being developed now.” I gave him a hint of what was on the film and added, “I’ll bring it in as soon as I can—”

  “You get in here right now, Shell. There’s a local out on you.”

  “On me? Oh, you mean—”

  “Yeah. You can’t leave dead guys lying around in the city. Not even in crumby bars.”

  “That was Skiko—the boy who phoned you today, Papa.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. The hoods who knocked down Porter were Billy DeKay and Gippo Crane.”

  “That’s good news. But we’ll need a little more than just your say-so before we can pick them up.”

  “Skiko told me himself,” I said. “Moments before he died. So it was straight from the hearse’s mouth. Give me half an hour, O.K., Sam?”

  “What for?”

  “I’ve one stop to make, then I’ll come straight in. I won’t even wait to pick up the film; I’ll have it delivered to the squad room.”

  “Tell me more about this film.”

  “Patience,” I said mysteriously. “You’ll see.”

  He told me to get to Homicide by eight p.m. or he’d jug me himself. I had a hunch he would too.

  “I’ll be in,” I said. “One more favor, if you will. Have somebody check the monicker file for ‘Dilly Pickle,’ and call me back, O.K.?”

  He grumbled a bit, but said he’d do it.

  He did. The call reached me just before I parked at Mrs. Halstead’s home in the Hollywood Hills. And the info from the monicker file added one more small piece to the picture, one more bit I could give my client.

  Mrs. Halstead and I had been talking five minutes when I said “O.K., that ties it in a ribbon.”

  “I still don’t understand, Mr. Scott.”

  “That’s because I’ve been asking questions instead of telling you the score. But I’ll give you all I can now, Mrs. Halstead. Some of it I know is accurate, and some is deduction subject to later corroboration. But I’ll bet my bottom dollar what I’m going to tell you now is very close to the way it was. And before the night’s over I’ve a hunch I’ll have proof of the parts I can’t guarantee as accurate just yet.”

  “Do you know who killed my husband?”

  “Yeah, a man named Stub Corey who works for a hood named Jimmy Violet—the guy I asked you about earlier.”

  “This man … who killed George. Will he be arrested?”

  “No. I killed him this afternoon.”

  She moistened her lips and the green eyes widened.

  “It was self-defense.” I touched the bandage—stil
l on my head but getting a little loose. “He gave me this at the time. Anyway, he’s dead, and consequently his guilt may not ever be proved positively. Maybe it will—but at least Stub isn’t going to be walking the streets.”

  She pressed her lips together, looking down at her hands. Then she glanced up at me and asked “Why? Why did he kill George?”

  “Well, let’s go back a little. You’ve just told me the idea of the album—from which I mentioned the photo of Sybil Spork and Hugh Pryer came—was Ed Whist’s idea. The guy you know as Ed Whist, that is.”

  She nodded. “It seems … unwise now. A little. But at the time it appeared to be an exceptionally logical and desirable procedure. Obviously we all had to be very careful; it was only common sense to make sure that nobody …” She let it trail off.

  “I can understand that,” I said. “I can also understand, better than most, how convincing Edward can be. Ed and his partner.”

  I stopped. This wasn’t going to be pleasant for Mrs. Halstead. It’s never pleasant to realize that someone has led you down the garden path, that you’ve been a prize sap. I should know.

  “Well, I’ll simply lay it out for you,” I said, “without pulling any punches. It begins with the couple of high-class con artists whom you knew as Ed and Marcelle Whist. Who are in fact Kermit Vanda and his wife—perhaps—Dale, born Dale Jill Piquelle, and called in kidhood Dilly Piquelle by the kids, and in adulthood Dilly Pickle by the hoods. And even by me for a while.”

  “Con artists? Hoods?”

  “They’re a confidence team. You know what a confidence man is? Or a con game?”

  “Well … a little.”

  “You know quite a bit now, believe me. From first-hand observation. A con man always chooses his marks—the suckers, or victims of the con—with care. And—we’ll call them Ed and Marcelle, since that’s how you think of them—those two artists picked the Halsteads. Don’t kid yourself; that was no chance meeting in a bar—they planned it. And everything else.”

  “Oh, dear.” She looked distressed. As well she might.

  But I said, “Don’t kick yourself too much, Mrs. Halstead. Any con man worth his salt is not only of the criminal elite, but a consummate actor, a practicing psychologist, a student of human emotions—and weaknesses. They’re usually brilliant, but warped, and almost invariably totally without a trace of conscience. They’re freaks, true; but this team, take it from one who’s known plenty of them, is the cream of the elite. To put it simply, they combined a new twist on the old con game with an old extortion play, and from the beginning had blackmail in mind. Hence the blackmail album. You can be sure Ed knew there are other clubs, other groups with similar albums. He just decided to choose his marks—marks with money—and make up his own album. With the willing, maybe even eager cooperation of the marks he meant to bleed later, which seems a nice touch.”