Deadly Weapon

by Wade Miller

  Clapp rubbed his lip and looked down at her. “Listen, Miss Gilbert. I’ve come to figure that man is the only deadly weapon. Take a gun. It’s an absolutely harmless thing — even makes a good honest paperweight — until some man gets his hand around it. You can strip a gun down to its basic parts and it’s lost its power. You can reduce man to his chemical elements but you’ve always got the spirit, or whatever you call it, left. And that spirit will find some damned way to do evil.”

  Walter James felt the girl shudder against his knee. “But,” she protested, “there’s lots and lots of good people.”

  Clapp nodded. “Okay. I know my viewpoint’s warped. Remember that the customers I deal with have gotten their hands dirty.”

  “You make Dr. Boone sound like a malignant ghost,” smiled Walter James.

  Clapp stood up and took his hat. “I’m open to suggestions,” he said. “So far we have one woman missing and seven men killed. If I hear a chain clank tonight, so help me God, I’ll start firing.”

  “I can’t blame you,” said Walter James, “but I got a feeling that our bad luck is going to change.”

  Kevin looked up at him excitedly. Clapp cocked an inquiring eyebrow. The slender man’s eyes were gleaming oddly.

  “Yes?”

  Walter James laughed and threw out his hands in an expansive gesture. “It’s just a hunch and I’m probably whistling in the dark. But I think we’re about due to meet our elusive friend, Dr. Boone.”

  23. Thursday, September 28, 9:15 P.M.

  “WHY DID WE COME SO early?” Kevin asked him. They stood by the full-length picture of Shasta Lynn. The gaping bullet hole in her midriff had not been touched.

  “I wanted to take a look at the audience this time,” Walter James explained. “I don’t want to miss the good doctor again tonight.” His eyes roved restlessly over the few late comers queued at the box office. Kevin brushed a small length of thread from the skirt of her chocolate-brown suit.

  “Do you think he’ll be here tonight?” Her voice held an undercurrent of excitement. Walter James looked at her bent coppery head with its ridiculously small cloche of brown felt.

  “I hope so.” He stroked his head gently. “The stitches come out in another five days.” The puckered scars showed vividly under the ruthless bulbs of the marquee.

  Kevin raised her head. “What did you say, Walter?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Here comes Clapp.”

  The big man came striding up Market Street. He shook hands with Walter James. Clapp’s eyes sparkled with excitement. The weariness of the night before seemed to have been shrugged off like a coat.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “You by yourself?”

  Clapp showed his teeth in a grin. “Don’t you believe it. This whole block’s covered. We’re locking the barn door ahead of time tonight.”

  Walter James said, “Make sure somebody doesn’t steal the barn.”

  Kevin frowned at them both. “Isn’t everybody jumping to conclusions? I mean, all that we got was a note from Shasta Lynn. It might not have anything to do with Dr. Boone.”

  “Miss Gilbert,” Clapp said seriously, “when you don’t have anything else to go on, then you start jumping at conclusions.”

  “And don’t forget,” pointed out Walter James, “Shasta Lynn has been more or less of a question mark since the beginning.”

  Kevin took both their arms. “Well, I hope you’re not too disappointed if nothing happens. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  “Do that,” Walter James advised her solemnly.

  Greissinger was standing in back of the burly ticket taker as the three went into the theater. His eyes widened at the sight of the big detective.

  “Evening, Greissinger,” Clapp said as he surrendered his ticket.

  “Uh — good evening, Lieutenant,” Greissinger said. He brushed the ticket taker aside and put a pudgy hand on Clapp’s arm. “Lieutenant, there isn’t nothing wrong, is there?”

  Clapp’s face was bland. “Wrong?”

  Greissinger looked around hurriedly and lowered his voice. “I mean, you’re not going to raid us or anything, are you? We’ve been co-operating, Lieutenant, just like you asked — ”

  “Don’t worry,” Clapp cut him short. “I’m not going to run you in. I just love the theater, Greissinger. You should feel complimented.” He retrieved his arm and followed Walter James and Kevin into the house, leaving the fat manager staring after him.

  They brushed past John Brownlee as they entered the aisle. The thin man was carrying a wooden tray, a quarter filled with boxes of crackerjack and bags of popcorn. Brownlee gave the trio a startled glance and hurried past them into the lobby.

  Clapp grinned. “Everybody is so glad to see us,” he murmured to Walter James.

  As they sat down, Kevin whispered, “I’m glad they didn’t have another Filipino taking tickets out there. I almost expected to see — him.”

  A voice behind her said in a soft whisper, “Laura — “. She turned slowly in the hard seat. The puzzled frown between her eyes vanished when she saw Bob Newcomb watching her from dark, pained eyes.

  Kevin said fiercely, “Bob, why don’t you — ”

  “Don’t bawl me out again, Laura.” Walter James snapped his head around with a quick movement; the younger man met his gaze with no embarrassment. “I just want to see that you’re all right.”

  A cutting phrase trembled on the girl’s lips, then she put her mouth into a firm line and turned her face toward the stage. Walter James squeezed her hand reassuringly.

  On the stage, the twelve-girl chorus was alternately hulaing and jitter bugging to pseudo-Congo music. They wore bright strips of cloth as skirts and danced with their legs apart, knees slightly bent. All of them showed complete lack of interest in the routine; two girls were giggling at a third who was stomping determinedly with drunken concentration.

  “Pretty bad,” sighed Clapp. He hunched down in his seat. Kevin looked around at Walter James. The slender detective was sitting very erect, his head turning slowly from side to side. He was watching the audience instead of the performers. After a moment, he felt her eyes on him and turned to her.

  “What is it, Walter?” she whispered.

  His eyes were gleaming and the corners of his mouth were quirked in a half-smile. “Just checking on our little flock,” he whispered back.

  “Did you see — ” she began, but he put a finger to his lips and turned his attention to the stage. After a moment of puzzled frowning, Kevin did the same.

  Silently, they sat through an hour and a half of grimy blackouts, featuring Danny Host in a half-dozen characterizations, stepping sisters, an obese stripper who failed to tease, and an enthusiastic xylophonist. Kevin jumped when the tin voice began the familiar cajole: “And now — what every man in San Diego has been dreaming of — the Grand Theater’s own — lovely Shasta Lynn!”

  The house lights dimmed out. “Walter!” Kevin whispered and put out her hand to him. He was gone.

  Walter James bumped into the man just outside the stage door. His hand snapped to the .38 weighting down his right coat pocket.

  The shadow spoke with the voice of Danny Host, “Why don’tcha watch where you’re going?”

  Walter James let his hand move away from the gun. “That’s a bad habit you’ve got, Host — smoking out here in back.”

  Host leaned forward and peered at him closely in the glow of his cigarette. He let out his breath noisily. “Oh, it’s you, huh? What are you doing snooping around here?”

  Walter James went around him and jerked open the iron door. The white light fell across the lanky comedian’s face. He was staring at the shorter man with narrowed eyes. “Collecting autographs,” Walter James told him pleasantly. “I’ll get yours on the way out.”

  A couple of girls glanced at him speculatively when he came up the cement steps to the stage. Several of them were trying to persuade the drunken member of the jungle routine to for God’s sak
e get up off the floor. Dixie Lake, attired in a whisper of a silver dancing costume, threw him a look of recognition and opened her mouth as if to speak. Walter James ignored her.

  Madeline Harms, her back toward him, was standing in the wings looking out onto the stage. Over her shoulder he could see Shasta Lynn, cool and blue-gowned, facing the curtain, waiting for it to go up.

  Her dressing room door was ajar. Walter James slipped in and shut it behind him. Nothing had been changed since his previous visit except that a folding chair had been added. He looked at the unfinished plywood walls speculatively. Then he began to work purposefully, deftly. From his trousers pocket he produced a squat derringer with a short, ornately carved butt. The carving contrasted with the simple modernity of the twin inset .22 barrels. The gun had two triggers inside the guard, one slightly forward of the other.

  Walter James cocked his ear to the music, carefully analyzing the heavy rhythm of the drumbeats. In a moment, Shasta Lynn would begin to sing. He turned the gun mouth toward himself, pointed it slightly upwards and peered at his aim in the mirror. Loud applause and whistles broke in from out front; that meant that the curtain had gone up. On the crest of a drumbeat, he pressed the forward trigger.

  Drowned by music and uproar, the explosion of the .22 was little more than a loud pop. The slug buried itself high in the plywood wall of the dressing room. The thin cut in Walter James’s left coat sleeve began to seep crimson.

  Hastily, he sat before the dressing table and wiped the refit derringer clean with a make-up rag. He opened the table drawer and, holding the gun in the rag smeared its metal in the loose powder that was scattered there. The slight man regarded the dirtied weapon painfully. His arm was beginning to throb now. He closed the drawer and laid the derringer on the dressing table top, tossing the rag over it. He spread his fingers and looked at his slender hands. Steady as a rock.

  He heard footsteps coming toward the door and a smile worked its way quickly across his face. He brought the .38 out of his coat pocket and held it loosely in his hand. Outside, he could hear Shasta Lynn’s cool voice singing, “I cried for you — now it’s your turn to cry over me …”

  The knock sounded loud on the thin door. Walter James got up, holding the pistol in his right hand. With his left arm, throbbing from the bullet wound, he threw the plywood door open.

  “Won’t you come in, Dr. Boone?” he asked.

  The startled face of Major Rockwell looked at him.

  24. Thursday, September 28, 11:00 P.M.

  MAJOR ROCKWELL walked into the dressing room. Walter James closed the door behind him and leaned his back against it. Rockwell looked at him with astonished eyes. “What is this all about, Mr. James?”

  “Sit down,” suggested the slender detective. “I’ll try to explain it to you.” He cocked an ear to the stage where Shasta Lynn was finishing her song. “It’ll have to be brief, though.”

  The major put one hand on the dressing table chair. “You called me Dr. Boone. That’s the second time you’ve made a mysterious reference to that name, Mr. James.”

  “Yes,” said Walter James and smiled a cat smile. “Because that’s who you are, Major.”

  “Let me assure you — ” began the heavy-set man. Walter James interrupted him by raising his hand with the gun in it.

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Major — I don’t have the time tonight.” He steadied the gun on Rockwell’s midsection. “I’ve been looking for Dr. Boone. I told you that. He killed my partner and when your partner is killed you have to square accounts.”

  Rockwell’s tanned face whitened perceptibly. “I swear, Mr. James — ” he said in the voice that held the hint of a quaver.

  Walter James’s arm was throbbing like the beat of a drum. “You don’t have to swear, Major,” he said softly. “Because I know that you’re telling the truth. You’re not really Dr. Boone — but you’ll do.”

  Rockwell’s voice assumed the tone proper for soothing a dangerous maniac. “Mr. James, you don’t know what you’re saying. Your phone call this afternoon — you said it was important that I be here — ”

  The slim man grimaced impatiently. “I know what I said. Sit down, Major.” He gestured forcefully with the gun. Rockwell sank slowly into the dressing table chair, keeping his eyes riveted on the smaller man’s face.

  From his coat pocket, Walter James brought forth several lengths of neutral-colored fish line. With the deftness born of long practice, he tied the big man’s wrists to the back of the chair, and then, bending down, his ankles to the legs.

  Blood from his wound was dripping off his hand as he arose. He smiled at the bound man. “They’re only slipknots, Major — they wouldn’t hold you a minute if I left you alone.”

  Rockwell said, his voice underwritten by terror, “What — what are you going to do with me?”

  Walter James was listening to the music accompanying Shasta Lynn’s strip tease. He brought his attention back to Rockwell with an effort. “Oh, I thought I told you. You’re going to be Dr. Boone. Clapp has worked awfully hard on this case and he deserves to have a Dr. Boone, even if it’s the wrong one.”

  Rockwell stared at him, his lips parted slightly. Walter James squinted thoughtfully at the pistol in his hand. He sat down in the folding chair.

  “The unknown factors, like Shasta Lynn, screw you up sometimes in cases like this,” he mused, “but I think it will all work out.” A movement of Rockwell’s head made him look up sharply. In the mirror he saw that the door behind him had slid open.

  “Keep your hands on your knees, Walter.”

  The old woman in funereal black shut the door in back of her without looking at it. Walter James sat quietly, watching her in the mirror. The silvered pistol in her hand pointed unwaveringly at his spine.

  “Good evening, Ethel,” he said.

  With a quick gesture, she flicked the black veil over her unfashionable hat. Her face was pale and set, with no wrinkles at all under the heavy powder. Shiny white hair was netted tightly.

  “Let go of the gun,” she said, almost in a whisper. Walter James allowed his fingers to relax and the .38 thudded against the wooden floor. Major Rockwell let out a wavering sigh.

  “Thank God!” he said. The woman gave him the briefest of glances.

  “Who’s this?”

  Walter James said softly, “Why, this is Dr. Boone, Ethel.”

  “Dr. Boone!” The woman’s lips curled. “He’s not Dr. Boone — you know and I know that there isn’t any Dr. Boone.”

  “Yes,” agreed the slender man. “You and I know it. But nobody else does. And Dr. Boone has been very useful to me.”

  “You didn’t think you could get away with it, did you, Walter?” asked Ethel Lantz. “Don’t move your hands!”

  Walter James froze. “I am getting away with it,” he said. “I knew you were here after we found the gun, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect you to show up tonight. Did you write that note from Shasta Lynn?”

  The woman stared in the mirror at his flat blue eyes. “After I failed twice, I decided I had to make my opportunity to kill you.” Her mouth smiled bitterly and alone. “Occasionally, people can be more clever than you, Walter. I knew that Shasta Lynn was the one thing you weren’t sure about. I knew that a message from her would bring you in with your guard down.”

  Walter James looked tenderly at her reflection. “Ethel,” he said, “you shouldn’t have been afraid to come back to Atlanta. We could have shared the money and carried out the plan together. Then we could have had each other. You know that. I’ve been waiting for you to get in touch with me.”

  The old-young face twisted hatefully. “I didn’t want you — I wanted Hal. But you killed him, Walter. You wanted the money all to yourself. The plan would have worked for all of us, but you wanted it all to yourself.”

  “It can still work, Ethel.” Walter James inched forward on the chair. “We get rid of Shasta Lynn tonight. Give Clapp the major here as a fall guy. Then you come out of h
iding and — ”

  Ethel shook her white head and the old-fashioned hat bobbed. “Nobody else is going to die, Walter — nobody except you. I don’t want anything more now that Hal can’t be with me. All I want is to watch you die — the way you watched Hal die.”

  The slender man’s lips tightened. “You haven’t taken very good care of the guns, Ethel. The one you left across the street last Saturday night hadn’t been cleaned since I gave them to you.”

  “I’m not going to look down. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You see, I’ve thought this out carefully. You’ve stopped winning.”

  Walter James shook his head sadly. “If only you had come back to Atlanta.”

  “I was afraid. Anybody that knows you should be afraid of you. Your eyes — the way they are now. That’s the way they were that night when Hal was in Denver and you suggested that we kill him and carry out the plan by ourselves. That’s when I began to be afraid. That’s why I went to Miami before Hal got back.” Her voice trembled. “I let him down. I was too weak and too afraid of you to stay in Atlanta and warn him.”

  “We can work something out,” he said, sitting very still. “We’ve meant such a lot to each other.”

  With her free hand, she fingered the bound white hair. “I made a mistake with you. Hal is the only person who ever meant anything to me. He still is. I’m doing this for him — I wouldn’t have the strength to do it for myself. I’ve lived in fear for the last two months, Walter.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police, Ethel?”

  “You were working with them. You knew they’d help you clean up your organization and never know what they were doing.”

  “I was right, too,” Walter James said softly.

  “It takes nerve to go to the police and try to solve your own killings. But you’ve run out of luck.”

  “The police are still your best bet, Ethel.”

  “I don’t intend to go to prison. That’s hell on a woman. I don’t want to get wrinkled and ugly — let my hair get dry and coarse.” She fingered it tenderly under the net. “I’ve hurt it now. I had to bleach it and put bluing on it and cut some of it off. These awful clothes so no one would recognize me.” Her eyes flooded with wetness and she screamed at him. “I haven’t been anybody for the last two months! I haven’t even been a person! I’ve been afraid of you!”