Mrs. Boone’s skirt rustled silkily. Mrs. Boone’s white-kid gloves made a blurred streak rising above the collar of her old coat, flipping down again. The knife was a flat, hissing glitter coming at Jones.
The scarred man ducked with an inarticulate cry. Jones dove under the knife and it smashed through the glass partition and rattled on the corridor floor beyond. Jones’ shoulder hit against bony knees. There was a strangled cry, and Mrs. Boone’s coat ballooned clumsily, falling.
Jones got up, drawing in a long breath. “You were a big help,” he said to the scarred man. “Thanks.” He looked at the white-faced nurse. “Sorry, Miss. I didn’t figure on any knife-throwing.”
The scarred man pointed. “She—Mrs. Boone—she killed her husband and daughter?”
“No,” said Jones. “Of course not. Morganwaite killed them. What do you think I just tackled him for?”
“Him?” the scarred man said blankly.
Jones leaned down and picked up Mrs. Boone’s glasses and loosened the collar of Mrs. Boone’s coat and pulled it down. Morganwaite’s face looked white and peaceful and kindly.
“Morganwaite killed Sarah and Hendrick Boone,” Jones said. “He did it so he could marry Mrs. Boone and live in comfort on her money. He had been planning it even before I turned up. Mrs. Boone had a little property. The news I brought about the trust fund just gave him added incentive. I don’t think there’s any doubt that he would have married Mrs. Boone had his plan gone through. She was a timid, trusting soul, beaten down by years of living with her drunken husband. She wouldn’t be hard for anyone as clever as Morganwaite.”
“Well, how?” said the scarred man.
“Easy for him,” said Jones. “He’s quite a female impersonator. Must have been an old-time actor. He looks like one. First, he got rid of Sarah. On some pretext, he got her to go to that old house on Twelfth Street. He’d picked out the spot a long time ago. He shot her when he got her there—in the temple, close enough so it would look like suicide. Then he dressed himself in Sarah’s clothes, painted some birthmarks on his arms, came down here and finished Hendrick Boone. Then, still pretending to be Sarah and laying a nice plain trail, he sent a note to Mrs. Boone and signed Sarah’s name to it, asking Mrs. Boone to meet Sarah at the house on Twelfth.”
“Huh!” said the scarred man. “You mean the old lady didn’t even know her kid’s writing?”
Jones held up the thick glasses. “Morganwaite thought of that, too. He stole Mrs. Boone’s glasses. Look at ’em. They’re an inch thick. Mrs. Boone couldn’t read anything without ’em. Some neighbor read the note to her, or else the messenger did. Of course, she didn’t question the writing. She went right down to the house on Twelfth. Morganwaite was waiting there for her. He hit her on the head as she came in, before she saw him, and left her there. The set-up was supposed to look as if Sarah had planned to kill her father and mother, but that, when she got to the point of actually doing for her mother, she had an attack of remorse and killed herself, instead.
“I was pretty sure of the set-up, but I didn’t have any proof. So I went around and told Morganwaite Sarah wasn’t dead—that she was here. Well, that upset his whole apple cart. Sarah knew he shot her, and, if she told, why there he’d be in the soup. So he came down to finish the job. This time he dressed up in Mrs. Boone’s clothes to keep from being identified. He knew Mrs. Boone wouldn’t be suspected, actually, because she was in a rest-home and would have an airtight alibi.”
Jones looked around. “If you’ve got any more questions, we’ll have to go somewhere where I can sit down. My feet are killing me.”
LEIGH BRACKETT
Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) finished her extraordinary career by writing the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. Yes, that Empire Strikes Back. She wrote a number of other screenplays as well, most notably for The Big Sleep and Rio Bravo.
Despite her Hollywood reputation, her fine stories and novels have been somewhat overlooked. She worked in two genres essentially, science fiction and hard-boiled crime, although the Western Writers of America awarded her the Spur award for fiction in 1964. But she was magnificent in noir and science fiction. Look up such novels as No Good from a Corpse and The Tiger Among Us if you want to see a first-rate writer at the top of her talent.
I Feel Bad Killing You
1
Dead End Town
LOS ANGELES, APR. 21.—The death of Henry Channing, 24, policeman attached to the Surfside Division and brother of the once-prominent detective Paul Channing, central figure in the Padway gang-torture case, has been termed a suicide following investigation by local authorities. Young Channing’s battered body was found in the surf under Sunset Pier in the beach community three days ago. It was first thought that Channing might have fallen or been thrown from the end of the pier, where his cap was found, but there is no evidence of violence and a high guard rail precludes the accident theory. Sunset Pier was part of his regular beat.
Police Captain Max Gandara made the following statement: “We have reliable testimony that Channing had been nervous and despondent following a beating by pachucos two months ago.” He then cited the case of the brother, Paul Channing, who quit the force and vanished into obscurity following his mistreatment at the hands of the once-powerful Padway gang in 1934. “They were both good cops,” Gandara said, “but they lost their nerve.”
Paul Channing stood for a moment at the corner. The crossing-light, half a block along the highway, showed him only as a gaunt shadow among shadows. He looked down the short street in somber hesitation. Small tired houses crouched patiently under the wind. Somewhere a rusted screen door slammed with the protesting futility of a dying bird beating its wing. At the end of the deserted pavement was the grey pallor of sand and, beyond it, the sea.
He stood listening to the boom and hiss of the waves, thinking of them rushing black and foam-streaked through the pilings of Sunset Pier, the long weeds streaming out and the barnacles pink and fluted and razor sharp behind it. He hoped that Hank had struck his head at once against a timber.
He lifted his head, his body shaken briefly by a tremor. This is it, he thought. This is the deadline.
He began to walk, neither slowly nor fast, scraping sand under his feet. The rhythm of the scraping was uneven, a slight dragging, off-beat. He went to the last house on the right, mounted three sagging steps to a wooden porch, and rapped with his knuckles on a door blistered and greasy with the salt sweat of the sea. There was a light behind drawn blinds, and a sound of voices. The voices stopped, sliced cleanly by the knocking.
Someone walked heavily through the silence. The door opened, spilling yellow light around the shadow of a thick-set, powerful man in shirtsleeves. He let his breath out in what was not quite a laugh and relaxed against the jamb.
“So you did turn up,” he said. He was well into middle age, hard-eyed, obstinate. His name was Max Gandara, Police Captain, Surfside Division, L.A.P.D. He studied the man on the porch with slow, deliberate insolence.
The man on the porch seemed not to mind. He seemed not to be in any hurry. His dark eyes looked, unmoved, at the big man, at him and through him. His face was a mask of thin sinewy flesh, laid close over ruthless bone, expressionless. And yet, in spite of his face and his lean erect body, there was a shadow on him. He was like a man who has drawn away, beyond the edge of life.
“Did you think I wouldn’t come?” he asked.
Gandara shrugged. “They’re all here. Come on in and get it over with.”
Channing nodded and stepped inside. He removed his hat. His dark hair was shot with grey. He turned to lay the hat on a table and the movement brought into focus a scar that ran up from his shirt collar on the right side of his neck, back of the ear. Then he followed Gandara into the living room.
There were three people there, and the silence. Three people watching the door. A red-haired, green-eyed girl with a smouldering, angry glow deep inside her. A red-haired, green-eyed boy with a sullen, guarded fa
ce. And a man, a neat, lean, swarthy man with aggressive features that seemed always to be on the edge of laughter and eyes that kept all their emotion on the surface.
“Folks,” said Gandara, “this is Paul Channing.” He indicated them, in order. “Marge Krist, Rudy Krist, Jack Flavin.”
Hate crawled into the green eyes of Rudy Krist, brilliant and poisonous, fixed on Channing.
Out in the kitchen a woman screamed. The swing door burst open. A chubby pink man came through in a tottering rush, followed by a large, bleached blonde with an ice pick. Her dress was torn slightly at the shoulder and her mouth was smeared. Her incongruously black eyes were owlish and mad.
Gandara yelled. The sound of his voice got through to the blonde. She slowed down and said sulkily, to no one in particular, “He better keep his fat paws off or I’ll fix him.” She went back to the kitchen.
The chubby pink man staggered to a halt, swayed, caught hold of Channing’s arm and looked up at him, smiling foolishly. The smile faded, leaving his mouth open like a baby’s. His eyes, magnified behind rimless lenses, widened and fixed.
“Chan,” he said. “My God. Chan.”
He sat down on the floor and began to cry, the tears running quietly down his cheeks.
“Hello, Budge.” Channing stooped and touched his shoulder.
“Take it easy.” Gandara pulled Channing’s arms. “Let the little lush alone. Him and—that.” He made a jerky gesture at the girl, flung himself heavily into a chair and glowered at Channing. “All right, we’re all curious—tell us why we’re here.”
Channing sat down. He seemed in no hurry to begin. A thin film of sweat made the tight pattern of muscles very plain under his skin.
“We’re here to talk about a lot of things,” he said. “Who murdered Henry?” No one seemed particularly moved except Budge Hanna, who stopped crying and stared at Channing. Rudy Krist made a small derisive noise in his throat. Gandara laughed.
“That ain’t such a bombshell, Chan. I guess we all had an idea of what you was driving at, from the letters you wrote us. What we want to know is what makes you think you got a right to holler murder.”
Channing drew a thick envelope from his inside pocket, laying it on his knee to conceal the fact that his hands trembled. He said, not looking at anybody, “I haven’t seen my brother for several years, but we’ve been in fairly close touch through letters. I’ve kept most of his. Hank was good at writing letters, good at saying things. He’s had a lot to say since he was transferred to Surfside—and not one word of it points to suicide.”
Max Gandara’s face had grown rocky. “Oh, he had a lot to say, did he?”
Channing nodded. Marge Krist was leaning forward, watching him intently. Jack Flavin’s terrier face was interested, but unreadable. He had been smoking nervously when Channing entered. The nervousness seemed to be habitual, part of his wiry personality. Now he lighted another cigarette, his hands moving with a swiftness that seemed jerky but was not. The match flared and spat. Paul Channing started involuntarily. The flame seemed to have a terrible fascination for him. He dropped his gaze. Beads of sweat came out along his hairline. Once again, harshly, Gandara laughed.
“Go on,” he said. “Go on.”
“Hank told me about that brush with the pachucos. They didn’t hurt him much. They sure as hell didn’t break him.”
“Flavin, here, says different. Rudy says different. Marge says different.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to them—and you, Max. Hank mentioned you all in his letters.” He was talking to the whole room now. “Max I knew from the old days. You, Miss Krist, I know because Hank went with you—not seriously, I guess, but you liked each other. He liked your brother, too.”
The kid stared at him, his eyes blank and bright. Channing said, “Hank talked a lot about you, Rudy. He said you were a smart kid, a good kid but headed for trouble. He said some ways you were so smart you were downright stupid.”
Rudy and Marge both started to speak, but Channing was going on. “I guess he was right, Rudy. You’ve got it on you already—a sort of greyness that comes from prison walls, or the shadow of them. You’ve got that look on your face, like a closed door.”
Rudy got halfway to his feet, looking nasty. Flavin said quietly, “Shut up.” Rudy sat down again. Flavin seemed relaxed. His brown eyes held only a hard glitter from the light. “Hank seems to have been a great talker. What did he say about me?”
“He said you smell of stripes.”
Flavin laid his cigarette carefully in a tray. He got up, very light and easy. He went over to Channing and took a handful of his shirt, drawing him up slightly, and said with gentle kindness, “I don’t think I like that remark.”
Marge Krist cried, “Stop it! Jack, don’t you dare start trouble.”
“Maybe you didn’t understand what he meant, Marge.” Flavin still did not sound angry. “He’s accusing me of having a record, a prison record. He didn’t pick a very nice way of saying it.”
“Take it easy, Jack,” Gandara said. “Don’t you get what he’s doing? He’s trying to wangle himself a little publicity and stir up a little trouble, so that maybe the public will think maybe Hank didn’t do the Dutch after all.” He pointed at Budge Hanna. “Even the press is here.” He rose and took hold of Flavin’s shoulder. “He’s just making a noise with his mouth, because a long time ago people used to listen when he did it and he hasn’t forgotten how good that felt.”
Flavin shrugged and returned to his chair. Gandara lighted a cigarette, holding the match deliberately close to Channing’s sweaty face. “Listen, Chan. Jack Flavin is a good citizen of Surfside. He owns a store, legitimate, and Rudy works for him, legitimate. I don’t like people coming into my town and making cracks about the citizens. If they step out of line, I’ll take care of them. If they don’t, I’ll see they’re let alone.”
He sat down again, comfortably. “All right, Chan. Let’s get this all out of your system. What did little brother have to say about me?”
Channing’s dark eyes flickered with what might have been malice. “What everybody’s always said about you, Max. That you were too goddam dumb even to be crooked.”
Gandara turned purple. He moved and Jack Flavin laughed. “No fair, Max. You wouldn’t let me.”
Budge Hanna giggled with startling shrillness. The blonde had come in and sat down beside him. Her eyes were half closed but she seemed somehow less drunk than she had been. Gandara settled back. He said ominously, “Go on.”
“All right. Hank said that Surfside was a dirty town, dirty from the gutters up. He said any man with the brains of a sick flea would know that most of the liquor places were run illegally, and most of the hotels, too, and that two-thirds of the police force was paid to have bad eyesight. He said it wasn’t any use trying to do a good job as a decent cop. He said every report he turned in was thrown away for lack of evidence, and he was sick of it.”
Marge Krist said, “Then maybe that’s what he was worried about.”
“He wasn’t afraid,” said Channing. “All his letters were angry, and an angry man doesn’t commit suicide.”
Budge Hanna said shrilly, “Look out.”
Max Gandara was on his feet. He was standing over Channing. His lips had a white line around them.
“Listen,” he said. “I been pretty patient with you. Now I’ll tell you something. Your brother committed suicide. All these three people testified at the inquest. You can read the transcript. They all said Hank was worried; he wasn’t happy about things. There was no sign of violence on Hank, or the pier.”
“How could there be?” said Channing. “Hard asphalt paving doesn’t show much. And Hank’s body wouldn’t show much, either.”
“Shut up. I’m telling you. There’s no evidence of murder, no reason to think it’s murder. Hank was like you, Channing. He couldn’t take punishment. He got chicken walking a dark beat down here, and he jumped, and that’s all.”
Channing said slowly, “Onl
y two kinds of people come to Surfside—the ones that are starting at the bottom, going up, and the ones that are finished, coming down. It’s either a beginning or an end, and I guess we all know where we stand on that scale.”
He got up, tossing the packet of letters into Budge Hanna’s lap. “Those are photostats. The originals are already with police headquarters in L.A. I don’t think you have to worry much, Max. There’s nothing definite in them. Just a green young harness cop griping at the system, making a few personal remarks. He hasn’t even accused you of being dishonest, Max. Only dumb—and the powers-that-be already know that. That’s why you’re here in Surfside, waiting for the age of retirement.”
Gandara struck him in the mouth. Channing took three steps backward, caught himself, swayed, and was steady again. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth down his chin. Marge Krist was on her feet, her eyes blazing, but something about Channing kept her from speaking. He seemed not to care about the blood, about Gandara, or about anything but what he was saying.
“You used to be a good reporter, Budge, before you drank yourself onto the scrapheap. I thought maybe you’d like to be in at the beginning on this story. Because there’s going to be a story, if it’s only the story of my death.
“I knew Hank. There was no yellow in him. Whether there’s yellow in me or not, doesn’t matter. Hank didn’t jump off that pier. Somebody threw him off, and I’m going to find out who, and why. I used to be a pretty good dick once. I’ve got a reason now for remembering all I learned.”
Max Gandara said, “Oh, God,” in a disgusted voice. “Take that somewhere else, Chan. It smells.” He pushed him roughly toward the door, and Rudy Krist laughed.
“Yellow,” he said. “Yellower than four Japs. Both of ’em, all talk and no guts. Get him out, Max. He stinks up the room.”
A Century of Noir Page 11