Deadly Weapon

by Wade Miller

  “Well, well,” said Walter James. “How are you today, Mr. Host?”

  Danny Host’s startled face looked at him blankly. The comic had shed his trench coat; he was wearing a green slipover sweater and tweed trousers of a rather expensive pattern.

  “Say,” he said, “you scared me.”

  “Sorry,” said Walter James. He took his hand away from the .32 and fumbled for his cigarettes. “Did you make a mistake about which was your dressing room?”

  Host’s eyes shifted. “Yeah. That was it. Yeah.” His mouth moved nervously. “It’s pretty dark, you know. I made a mistake. I guess I was thinking about something else. You know how that happens sometimes.”

  Walter James breathed smoke at the roof. “Sure.”

  Host said, “Well, I — I guess I’d better get ready for the show.”

  “You’re early.”

  “Yeah. I — I like to take plenty of time. Well, I’d better be going.” Walter James inclined his head. Host stood indecisively. Walter James looked drowsily at his cigarette.

  Host said, “Have they found anything yet? I mean, do they know — ”

  Walter James stood up and looked at him steadily. “What are you holding back, Host?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I’m not holding back anything.”

  Walter James shrugged. “Have it your way.” He moved toward the door. Host backed out of the dressing room before him. Walter James glanced around at the deserted wings and stage and went down the concrete steps to the iron doors.

  The tall comedian followed him as far as the iron railing. His lean face looked ashen in the dim light. “I’m innocent,” he said.

  The slender detective grinned up at him sardonically. “Save it for the jury,” he advised.

  He pushed open the heavy door and went out into the fresh air. Walter James took his hand out of his trouser pocket and looked at the small square of dirty white there. It read:

  EVERETT BON

  Neuro-Psyc

  Moulton

  Building

  8. Sunday, September 24, 10:30 P.M.

  THEY SAT CONTENTEDLY in the Sky Room of the El Cortez Hotel and waited for their drinks. Behind them a huge plate-glass window reflected the pink-lighted oval bar, white-jacketed waiters, naval officers and business men and their women. Conversation was comfortably relaxed, in library voices. Walter James half-turned and put his head close to the glass; the reflections disappeared. Below him the lights of the city stretched in converging broken lines to the harbor where they merged with a puzzle of ship lamps and signal beams. A faint fog was drifting in, obliterating the outlines of destroyers and merchant ships and fishing boats, but the silhouettes of most of the hotels and banks were clearly up-thrust against the night. He turned back to the girl.

  “Nice view,” he commented.

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said.

  He smiled. “You really think I’ll be here that long?”

  “I guess it’s not any of my business.”

  The waiter silently placed two brimming glasses on the round cork scooters in front of them and murmured “Thank you, sir” to the slender man’s money.

  “I have no plans,” said Walter James. “You know my business for the next week or so. After that I don’t know.”

  “The next week or so?” She laughed. “Will it all be over so soon? What if nothing more happens? What if it’s all over now and you have nothing to go on?”

  “Miss Gilbert,” he answered all four questions: “The beauty of this racket is that if nothing happens, you go out and make it happen. What did you say this drink was?”

  “Tequila stinger. I’m saving you money — you don’t need many of these.”

  He sipped at it, let it bite his tongue. “There’s always somebody’s hand to force.”

  “You won’t call me Miss Gilbert so primly after a couple of these.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “There. That’s forcing your hand.”

  “Laura?”

  “That’s not the best. I like my middle name best, though nobody else does. Kevin.”

  “Kevin,” he said over his glass. “To Kevin — and heaven. May they always rhyme.”

  Her smile held a touch of bitterness. “I’ll drink to that.” They each took a long sip. “You shouldn’t have fed me so much tonight, Walter. I told you I was a fiend for roast duck. Does it show?”

  He looked sideways at her slim upright body, covered softly with plain green wool. “No, ma’am.”

  “Good,” Kevin said relieved, and pressed down her dress. “I worry about my tummy like I do my ears. I’m always afraid something is sticking out.”

  “Anything I can think of to say right now would only get me in trouble,” said Walter James lightly. “Incidentally, how’s our ear?”

  “It’s a little soon after dinner to discuss it, but our ear is beginning to scab over nicely. I took the bandage off just before you picked me up tonight. Of course, I’ll have to wear my hair this way for a while.”

  “I won’t mind — believe me.”

  “I believe you.” She finished her drink. “You won’t be around long enough to get tired of it.”

  Walter James signaled the waiter with an empty glass. “You never can tell.” Kevin looked up quickly, her eyes glinting. They sat silently in the soft swirl of other couples’ conversation until the waiter needlessly wiped off the table and deposited two more stingers.

  “I have no plans,” said Walter James. “But that won’t automatically exclude me from San Diego, will it? You have no plans yourself.”

  She smiled. “You can’t tell about us women.”

  He widened his pale blue eyes. “At three o’clock this morning you were an adolescent. By your own admission.”

  “Well, sir,” she said, sticking out her lower lip, “I’ve had a hard day.”

  “Was it?” Walter James asked soberly. “Was there much reaction?”

  “Not too much.” She crinkled her brow. “This morning I was tired, naturally, and I guess I was a little sick. But it wasn’t too bad.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. She glanced to see if he meant it. “I’ve seen tougher women go under at the sight of a body. No one ever gets completely hardened to dead bodies, though lots of professional people pretend to.”

  Her glance held a touch of shyness. “There’s one thought I can’t get rid of. What about his funeral? People like that Filipino can’t have much money. If he has relatives, it’ll take so much to have him buried.” She stroked the stem of her glass and pondered the thought. “Oh, I guess there must be some place they put dead people that have no money.”

  Walter James pursed his lips. “There’s a lot I don’t suppose you know about the mortuary racket. No good funeral parlor ever refuses a family a casket and a decent funeral for a man — even if there’s no money in it at all. For one thing, they can’t afford to — word would get around that they’re mercenary and a few rumors like that will put a mortician out of business. Their business is founded on sentiment and no breath must touch it. A cheap funeral costs around a hundred and twenty-five dollars; but if the relatives have no money, they’ll do it for seventy-five or fifty or even nothing.”

  She was watching him curiously. “No. I didn’t know that. It sounds — well — humanitarian. It doesn’t sound possible in this day and age.”

  “It’s humanitarian — and it’s business, too, like I said. However, very few people will accept a free funeral. They almost always insist on paying something. Just to save their pride.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Kevin mused.

  “And you’ll admit it’s a hell of a topic for our first evening together,” he concluded brusquely.

  “Well, it isn’t exactly our first evening.”

  “I refuse to count the one at the police station.”

  She pulled her green shoulders back in a litttle stretch. “Did Mr. Clapp miss me today? Did you bulldoze him properly?”

  “Oh, he agreed that you were better off in
your bedroom than in his office.”

  “What did you talk about? Is there anything you can tell me?” She asked the question like an eager little girl. She leaned across the table toward him.

  Walter James shrugged his slim shoulders. “There isn’t much to tell. Clapp would rather not believe there’s a good-sized dope ring breathing down his neck, but I’ll give you odds that right now the vice squad is hauling in every known addict and breaking into every weed parlor north of the border. He’s not ready to take my word for anything — of course, I haven’t anything conclusive to show him — but he isn’t taking any chances. Clapp’s a smart cop.”

  “I like him,” Kevin said warmly.

  “I like all smart operators — including cops.”

  “I can’t get over it — I feel like I’m living in a mystery story. I wonder who shot at me? I hope it was somebody interesting.” Her eyes bubbled across the table at her companion.

  Walter James laughed. “Anybody with a gun is interesting — believe me. And of course, there’s the same old question: were they throwing bullets at your ear or mine? We’ve pretty well established the only reason the mystery man would be gunning for you.”

  He happened to be looking at the girl as he spoke. Her face stiffened, then quickly resumed a look of interest. He reached over and pressed the back of her hand with his forefinger.

  “Kevin,” he said gently. She didn’t look at him. “You’ll have to tell somebody sooner or later. I hope I’ll be the one you’ll trust. You see, Clapp doesn’t completely believe the reason you gave him for being at the Grand Theater.”

  Kevin turned toward him defiantly. “Oh, you’re so darn smart!”

  Walter James withdrew his hand. “I don’t know what you have to tell. The way things stand right now, I don’t want to know until you’re ready. I don’t think there’ll be any more attacks if we’re careful. There was a cop wandering around your house all night and all day today — so you needn’t worry about that. I don’t think he’s with us now because I told Clapp to keep a tail off me. Besides, a cop in a bar stands out like a monument — they’re so leery of drinking on duty, it makes them conspicuous.”

  Her fingers touched his briefly. “I’m sorry,” Kevin said. Her eyes had a glisten that reflected the bar lights. “Later. I’ll tell you a little later. Not now, Walter.”

  “And, conceding that there is a dope mob operating from this town, just what was the Filipino’s connection? He wasn’t the leader type. He might have been a distributor, but he wasn’t carrying reefers — which is about all they trust the distributors with. He might have been a quick go-between that they kept a close eye on — that would explain that box of straight marijuana. But if this deal stretches clear back to Atlanta, the box doesn’t fit. It wasn’t big enough. In a cross-country racket, you have to ship a pretty good-size quantity at a time. That builds the profit and cuts down the risk. You can’t ship hundreds and hundreds of separate quinine boxes full.”

  “What would a worthwhile shipment of marijuana be like?” Kevin asked. “I don’t know a thing about it.”

  “About a shoebox full of the straight stuff,” said Walter James. “That’s big enough to show plenty of profit but not so big as to attract attention. And it could be packed in a million different disguises.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, flea powder, brown sugar, cosmetics. The odds are a thousand to one against the postal authorities breaking that far into a well-known trade name. You could use anybody’s containers.” He laughed suddenly. “Do I sound like an authority?”

  “I guess in the private detective business you learn about a lot of unusual things.”

  “They’re not unusual for the business. But remember, the cops, and consequently private detectives, deal with the odd one per cent of the population. I hope you’re ready for another glass of this dynamite. I am.”

  She smiled. “I’m always ready.”

  He waved his glass in another signal. The waiter darted toward them.

  “But you haven’t figured out the Filipino’s job yet,” Kevin reminded him. “Why wasn’t he carrying the shoebox with him?”

  “I think he was a go-between,” Walter James said thoughtfully, “but I don’t think he was stabbed during a delivery. The stabbing was risky enough even in a darkened theater. But to stick a knife in a man, in the short period of grace the murderer had, and to highjack a box, too — well, that’s pushing your luck a little far. No, I think what he had in his pocket was part of a main shipment he was holding out for private purposes. Either to use himself or to sell or give to a friend. If he was a go-between, I doubt if he smoked himself — you don’t use addicts for bigtime go-betweens.”

  Kevin said, “Who was the little box for?”

  “I wish I could be sure,” Walter James said softly. Kevin watched a frown carve his smooth face. He looked up to catch her watching him. She said quickly, “Do you think he was killed because you were in the theater?”

  “I hope so,” he said. “If that’s the reason, then I’m on the right track. I haven’t particularly tried to keep undercover since I hit town. I was hoping to be recognized; more things happen that way.” He paused. “You look a little tired. If you want to go home — ”

  Kevin protested. “No. Really, I’m not tired — just a little worried, maybe. Maybe this liquor’s making my face droop. I’m really having a lot of — well, I guess with your friend and that Filipino dead I shouldn’t call it fun — but I am enjoying myself. Your voice is very soft and reassuring, Walter. So are your eyes.”

  “That’s good,” he said smiling. “I’m trying to build an appearance of trustworthiness to hide my serpent’s heart. Then when I’ve got you good and plastered, you’ll fall all over my shoulder.”

  She smiled provocatively at him. “Or vice versa. You don’t know my capacity. I’m ready for another if you are.”

  Her hand was palm down on the table top. He toyed with the back of it idly, running his fingertips over her knuckles and between her fingers. She watched the proximity of their hands gravely.

  “Well, you warned me — you told me we’d get along. If Bob could only see me now.”

  “Is he a jealous boy?”

  “You hit the right term — jealous boy. He’s twenty.”

  Walter James gave a flat laugh. “Which puts that neat gap of nineteen years between you and me again.” He stopped moving his hand. Kevin caught at it.

  She said softly, “Walter, I can’t help being born a little late. I’m trying not to show it.”

  Walter James sucked in his breath. “Time for another cigarette.” He took the last one from a battered crumple of paper and cut into a fresh pack for her. After a long puff of smoke, he held up the unlighted end of his cigarette. “Generally, marijuana looks pretty much like tobacco — a little dirtier in color, maybe. But it’s possible to refine it down and get something more powdery. Of course, you smoke either form. Just a little of the dust mixed with regular tobacco and it can’t be told from an ordinary cigarette until you inhale. That makes it safer for the user, and, of course, the powder form is easier to transport, in addition to being more potent.”

  Kevin smiled gently. “Yes, teacher.” She squeezed his hand encouragingly. “And what was our Filipino man doing with his?”

  “Selling it to a friend. Or maybe not a friend. Maybe it was somebody he was crazy about, some woman he was trying to get somewhere with. Know who I’m talking about?”

  The girl’s wide mouth moved bitterly. “Shasta Lynn!”

  “That’s right — the odd woman with no clothes.”

  “Odd? You said that last night, Walter.”

  “Maybe you didn’t notice. But something about her act — something was wrong.”

  “You mean she might have been full of marijuana — right up there on the stage? I thought her dance was disgusting.”

  “That was why you went to a burlesque show, wasn’t it? To see something disgusting — something you were mi
ssing at San Diego State College?” The girl looked stonily at her fresh stinger as the waiter lowered it to the table. “Anyway,” Walter James continued, “that wasn’t just what I had in mind. There was something else which I’m just sort of curious about.”

  “Walter.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you going to see Shasta Lynn yourself?”

  Walter James gave her a slow smile. “Tomorrow.”

  Kevin fumbled in her purse, came up with a slip of paper. She laid it on the table by a little ring of liquid. “Here’s her address.” She took a long drink.

  “I guess you’re ready to tell me now,” prompted Walter James softly.

  The girl looked at him with eyes that brimmed unhappiness. “Don’t laugh at me, Walter.”

  Walter James put his hand over hers. “You know I couldn’t,” he said. Kevin bit the inside of her lip.

  “My father’s having an affair with Shasta Lynn.”

  The detective’s irregular features were solemn. Kevin scanned them anxiously. “I’ve been so afraid to tell anybody. I haven’t known what to do.”

  Walter James’s blue eyes were thoughtful. “I’m glad you told me, Kevin,” he said gently. “It won’t go any further, I promise you.” The girl stared silently at the polished table. Walter James considered the bowed head with its carefully parted red hair. He gulped down the rest of his drink and stood up. “Let’s go down to the car.”

  “I’ll meet you by the elevator,” Kevin said. “Little girl’s room.” She gripped his hand hard. “And thanks, Walter.”

  They rode down to the lobby in silence, staring soberly at the back of the operator’s black coat. Kevin turned toward the revolving door that led to the street, but Walter James’s hand on her arm stopped her.

  “Walter, what is it?”

  He urged her away from the elevators and into the corridor where a neon sign pointed the way to the cocktail lounge before he answered. “I just have a naturally suspicious mind.”

  “But — ”

  “Sssh!” Walter James said and softened it with a smile. “There are times when redheads should be seen and not heard.”