Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “Try and find out!” he said past swollen lips.

  It was no time for games, so I slugged him in the belly again. “Look, boy,” I said, “if that woman’s been harmed, the gas chamber will be a picnic compared to what I do to you. Where is she?”

  His eyes were insane with fury. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?” he sneered. “You think you can make me talk? Why, you—!”

  He jerked away from me, and I let go. He took a roundhouse swing at me, and I stepped inside of it and hit him with both hands. The punches he’d taken before were kitten blows compared to those. The first smashed his lips into his teeth, which broke under the impact; the second lifted him out of his slippers. He hit the floor as though he’d been dropped off a roof. Jerking him to his feet, I backed him against the wall and began slapping him. I slapped him over and back, keeping my head inside his futile swings, and my slaps were heavy. His head must have been buzzing like a sawmill.

  When I let up, there was desperation in what I could see of his eyes. “How does it feel to be on the wrong end of a slugging? You boys dish it out, but you can’t take it.

  “Now where is she? I don’t like crooks. I don’t like double-crossers. I don’t like crooks who pick on women. I’m in good shape, Pete, and I can keep this up all day and all night. Three or four hours of it can get mighty tiresome.”

  He glared at me, hating and scared. Then something else came into his eyes, and I knew he’d had an idea. “She’s at the club,” he said, “but you’ll never get her. You just find Bradley, get the money, and we’ll turn her loose.”

  Shoving him back on the bed, I let go of him. “Get your coat,” I said. “We’ll go over there together.”

  He did not like that, not a little bit, but my gun was in my hand, and he started for the door, glancing at Harry, still lying tied on the divan, as we passed.

  We stopped the car a few doors from the club. There was nobody in sight. It was too early for the bar to be open, so I kept the gun in my pocket while Merrano fumbled with his keys.

  It was all I could do to keep my eyes open. My muscles felt heavy, and I was dead tired. The long fight to escape from the cellar had taken it out of me, and all I’d needed to have weariness catch up with me was that ride in the car.

  If Ellen was actually there, Homan would be watching over her, and that, I believed, was what Merrano was depending on. He was planning on my walking into Homan, and both of us knew what that would mean. George would ask no questions. He was trigger-happy and kill-crazy. Nor would Merrano’s presence stop him. If he figured he was due for arrest, he would willingly kill Merrano to get at me.

  We started across the polished floor. It was shadowed and cool, the tables stacked with chairs, the piano ghostly in the vague light. We headed toward a door that led backstage from the orchestra’s dais. Pete went through the door ahead of me, and a girl screamed. I sprang aside, but not quite enough, for I caught a stunning blow on the skull from a blackjack. George Homan had been waiting right behind the door.

  My .45 blasted a hole in the ceiling as I went down, but I was only stunned and shaken by the blow, not knocked out. Scrambling to my feet, I was just in time to see Homan grabbing for a sawed-off shotgun.

  That was one time I shot before I thought. That shotgun and his eyes were like a trigger to my tired brain, and I got off three fast shots. Another shot rang out just as my first one sounded. I saw Homan jerk from the impact of the first bullet, smashing his right hand and wrist and going through to the body. The next two bullets caught him as he was falling. The other shot had come from a side door or somewhere.

  Leaping over Homan’s body, I started after Merrano. Ellen Bradley was tied to a chair in the office, and Merrano was grabbing for a desk drawer behind her. Pete got his gun but chose not to fight and dove through a door in the corner behind some filing cabinets. His feet clattered on a stair, and I jumped past the filing cabinets and after him.

  A dozen steps led down to a street door, and at the bottom, Merrano turned and snapped a hurried shot that missed by two feet; then he jerked the door open as my gun was coming into line. Outside, there was a shout, then a hammering of gunfire from the street.

  Standing there gripping my gun, I waited, hesitant to leave Ellen tied and wondering what happened outside. Then the door was blocked by a shadow, and Mooney appeared. “Put it away, Kip,” he said. “Merrano ran into the boys. He’s bought it.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  Two more men came through the door, and with them was Pat Mulrennan. Our eyes met for an instant, and I thought I saw relief there, but could not be sure. “Where does she fit in?” I asked.

  “This is Sergeant Patricia Mulrennan,” Mooney said. “She’s been working undercover for us. She knew Ellen Bradley, so it was a big help to us.”

  As he spoke, I began to untie Ellen, but scarcely had I begun when Sam Bradley came in and took the job from my hands. In a moment, they were in each other’s arms, laughing or crying, I couldn’t tell which.

  “You were already on this case? You knew about Merrano?”

  “We knew what was going on but had no evidence. It was your tip on the Ramsey killing that gave us a break. Ramsey was a small-time crook, not quite right in the head, but nobody in the service groups knew him as anything but a quiet ex-soldier, and that was usually the case. He had done time, however, and he worked with Pete on small jobs, but when Merrano put the snatch on Ellen Bradley, Ramsey got cold feet. He was going to talk to us, so they killed him.

  “That gave us a direct lead because we knew who he had been working with. They killed him, but somehow Merrano found out Ramsey had written a letter to the D.A. telling him all he knew, so they came back to search the house for it. Then they ran into you.”

  Mooney gave me a sour smile. “You had a close shave in that car. We found it in Redondo shot full of holes.”

  “You lost us?”

  “Unfortunately. In the meanwhile, Sam Bradley found out his wife wasn’t with her sister, so he came to us and filled us in. After you left Sergeant Mulrennan, she gave us the rest of the story.”

  Suddenly, I remembered Harry and told Mooney. He ducked out to send men after him, and Ellen came over and said, “Thanks, Kip. Sam told me all you have done.”

  Mooney had returned, and Pat was standing by the door when Edward Pollard walked in. He had taken three running steps before he saw Mooney and the other officers. The police cars had been at the side or in back, and he had missed them.

  He stopped abruptly. From where I stood, he could not see me, and his eyes were on Mooney.

  “It would seem I am a bit late, lieutenant, or is Mr. Merrano in? He asked me to represent him in a criminal case.”

  “Merrano?” Mooney shook his head. “No, he’s out of trouble.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Well, nothing for me, then. I’ll be going. Good morning.”

  As he turned, I was moving. That briefcase in the lawyer’s hands had begun to seem awfully heavy. He was walking rapidly for the front door when I ducked out the side, and I reached his car just as he did.

  Mooney and others had followed, stopping on the walk while I confronted Pollard.

  “Take your hand off the door!” he demanded. “I’ve no time to waste!”

  “No, you haven’t, Ed, but in a few weeks you will have plenty of time. You’ll be doing time.”

  “I’ve got the card you left at Bradley’s, Ed. You were asking him to come down and walk right into a trap. That card should help to convict you, but I’ve a hunch we’ll find more in the briefcase.”

  His eyes were desperate. “Get out of my way!”

  Mooney had come up behind him. “Maybe we should have a look at the briefcase, Mr. Pollard.”

  All the spirit went out of him. His face looked gray and old as he turned on Mooney. “Let me go, lieutenant. Let me go. I’ll pay. I’ll pay plenty.”

  Mooney opened the briefcase and began leafing through the papers. “You should have
thought of this before you planned to gyp a lot of vets out of their money.” He glanced up at me. “Morgan, unless I’m mistaken, this is the man who engineered the whole affair. From the looks of this, he was coming to settle up with Merrano.”

  “Lieutenant, you work it out any way you like. I am going to buy Pat a drink as soon as she’s off duty, and then I’m going home and sleep for a week.”

  “She’s off duty as of now,” Mooney said, but as we started to walk away, he called after us. “Sergeant? You’d better watch that guy! He’s a good man in the clinches!”

  Pat laughed, and we kept going. In the clinches, I had an idea Pat could take care of herself.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  * * *

  COLLECT FROM A CORPSE

  Joe Ragan, career police officer, plays a central role in the next two stories. I have a great deal of respect for the kind of twentieth-century lawman he represents.

  The police have an extremely tough job. We Americans accept laws because we know they’re necessary, but nobody likes them very much. We’re a people who are kind of freewheeling, used to going our own way and the police officer has a difficult time because he’s coping with people who are committing crimes or who are about to do so. In addition, very few people will tell an officer the truth. Nine out of ten people will tend to tell the officer, “Well, I wasn’t really speeding, officer, I just missed that stoplight.”

  Yet, even though they do not get a very good view of human nature, a great many of the police are honorable people. Like Joe Ragan they’re hard-working men and women who stay with their jobs. An awful lot of police work is done just by sheer legwork. They have to get around, know their town, know their people, know where things happen.

  COLLECT FROM A CORPSE

  * * *

  PIKE AMBLER CALLED the department from the Fan Club at ten in the morning, and Lieutenant Wells Ryerson turned it over to Joe Ragan. “Close this one fast,” he said, “and give me an airtight case.”

  With Captain Bob Dixon headed for early retirement, Ryerson was acting in charge of the burglary detail. If he made a record, his chance of taking Dixon’s job was good.

  Ragan knew the Fan Club. A small club working in the red, it had recently zoomed into popularity because of the dancing of Luretta Pace. Ragan was thinking of that when he arrived at the club with Sam Blythe and young Lew Ryerson. Sam was a veteran, Lew a tall young man with a narrow face and shrewd eyes. He had been only four months in the department.

  Sam Blythe glanced at the hole chopped in the ceiling and then at the safe. “An easy one, Joe. Entry through the ceiling, a punch job on the safe, nothing touched but money, and the floor swept clean after the job was finished.” He walked over to the wastebasket and took from it a crumpled wad of crackly paper. “And here’s the potatochip sack, all earmarks of a Pete Slonski job.”

  Ragan rubbed his jaw but did not reply. Obviously, he was puzzled.

  “Slonski, all right. It checks with the modus operandi file, and it’s as open and shut as the Smiley case. I’ll call headquarters and have them put out a pickup on Slonski.”

  “Take it easy,” Ragan said. “Let’s look this over first.”

  “What’s the matter?” Lew Ryerson was like his brother, too impatient to get things done. “Like Sam said, Slonski’s written all over it.”

  “Yeah, it does look like it.”

  “It is his work. I’m going to call in.”

  “It won’t do any good,” Ragan said mildly. “This job would even fool Slonski, but he didn’t do it.”

  Sam Blythe was puzzled, Ryerson irritated. “How can you be sure?” Ryerson demanded. “It’s obvious enough to me.”

  “This isn’t a Slonski job,” Ragan said, “unless ghosts can crack safes. Pete Slonski was killed last night in Kansas City.”

  “What?” Ryerson was shocked. “How do you know that?”

  “It was in the morning paper, and as we have a charge against him, I wired the FBI. They checked the fingerprints. It was Slonski, all right, dead as a herring. And dead for a couple of hours before they found him.”

  Blythe scowled. “Then something is funny. I’d have sworn Slonski did this job.”

  “So would I,” Ragan said, “and now I am wondering about Smiley. He swears he’s innocent, and if ever I saw a surprised man, it was Smiley when I put the cuffs on him.”

  “They all claim to be innocent,” Ryerson said. “That case checked out too well, and you know as well as I do you can identify a crook by his method of operation as by his fingerprints.”

  “Like this one?” Ragan asked mildly. “This looks like a Slonski job, but Slonski’s dead and buried.”

  “Smiley had a long record,” Blythe said uneasily. “I never placed any faith in his going straight.”

  “Neither did I,” Ragan admitted, “but five years and no trouble. He’d bought a home, built up a business, and not even a traffic count against him.”

  “On the other hand,” Ryerson said, “he needs money. Maybe he’s just been playing it smart.”

  “Crooks aren’t smart,” Ragan objected. “No man who will take a chance on a stretch in the pen is smart. They all make mistakes. They can’t beat their own little habits.”

  “Maybe we’ve found a smart one,” Ryerson suggested. “Maybe he used to work with Slonski and made this one look like him for a cover.”

  “Slonski worked alone,” Blythe said. “Let’s get some pictures and get on with it.”

  Joe Ragan prowled restlessly while Ryerson got his pictures. Turning from the office, he walked out through the empty bar and through the aisles of stacked chairs and tables. Mounting the steps from the street, he entered the studio, from which entry had been gained to the office below.

  Either the door had been unlocked with a skeleton key, or the lock had been picked. There was a reception room whose walls were covered by pictures of sirens with shadows in the right places and bare shoulders. In the studio itself, there was a camera, a few reflectors, a backdrop, and assorted props. The hole had been cut through the darkroom floor.

  Squatting on his heels, Joe Ragan studied the workmanship. A paper match lay on the floor, and he picked it up. After a glance, he put it in his pocket. The hole would have taken an hour to cut, and as the club closed at two A.M. and the personnel left right after, the burglar must have entered between three and five o’clock in the morning.

  Hearing footsteps, Ragan turned his head to see a plump and harassed photographer. Andre Gimp fluttered his hands. “Oh, this is awful! Simply awful! Who could have done it?”

  “Don’t let it bother you. Look around and see if anything is missing and be careful you don’t forget and walk into that hole.”

  Ragan walked to the door and paused, lighting a cigarette. He was a big man, a shade over six feet, with wide, thick shoulders and big hands. His hair was rumpled, but despite his size, there was something surprisingly boyish about him.

  Ryerson had borrowed him a few days before from the homicide squad, as Ragan had been the ace man on the burglary detail before being transferred to homicide.

  Ragan ran his fingers through his hair and returned to the club. He was remembering the stricken look on Ruth Smiley’s face when he arrested her husband. There had been a feeling then that something was wrong, yet detail for detail, the Smiley job had checked as this one checked with Slonski.

  Leaving Lew Ryerson and Sam Blythe to question Ambler, he returned to headquarters. He was scowling thoughtfully when he walked into Wells Ryerson’s office. The lieutenant looked up, his eyes sharp with annoyance.

  “Ragan, when will you learn to knock? What is it you want? I am very busy.”

  “Sorry.” He dropped into a chair. “Are you satisfied with the Smiley case?” Briefly, he explained their discoveries at the Fan Club.

  Wells Ryerson waited him out with obvious irritation. “That has nothing to do with Smiley. The man had no alibi. He was seen in the vicinity of the crime within thirty minutes of its
occurrence. We know his record, and we know he needs money. The tools that did the job came from his shop. The D.A. is satisfied, and so am I.”

  Ragan leaned his thick forearms on the chair arms. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I don’t like it. This job today checks with Slonski, but he’s dead, so where does that leave us with Smiley? Or with Blackie Miller or Ed Chalmers?”

  Ryerson’s anger and dislike were evident as he replied. “Ragan, I see what you’re trying to do. You know Dixon is about to retire, and if you can mess up my promotion, you can step up yourself.

  “Well, you go back to homicide. We don’t need you or anybody like you. As of this moment, you are off the burglary detail.”

  Ragan shrugged. “Sorry you take it this way. I don’t want your job. I asked for the transfer to homicide, but I don’t like to see innocent men go to prison.”

  “Innocent?” Ryerson’s tone was thick with contempt. “You talk like a schoolboy! Jack Smiley was in reform school at sixteen and in the pen when he was twenty-four. He was short of cash, and he simply reverted to type. Go peddle your papers in homicide.”

  Joe Ragan closed the door behind him, his ears burning. He knew how Ryerson felt, but he could not forget the face of Ruth Smiley or the facts that led to the arrest of her husband. Smiley, Miller, and Chalmers had all been arrested by virtue of information from the M.O. file.

  It was noon and lunch time. He hesitated to report to his own chief, Mark Stigler. He was stopping his car before the white house on the side street before he realized it.

  Ruth Smiley wore no welcoming smile when she opened the door. He removed his hat, flushing slightly. “Mrs. Smiley, I’d like to ask a few questions if I may. It might help Jack if you answer them.”

  There was doubt, but a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Look,” he explained, “something has come up that has me wondering. If the department knew I was here, they wouldn’t like it, as I am off this case, but I’ve a hunch.” He paused, thinking ahead. “We know Jack was near the scene of the crime that night. What was he doing there?”