Maxison and I got down, rolled the barricade aside; then we got back into the hearse.
We’d done it.
Chapter Five
POINT COUNTER POINT
1
THE Martello Hotel, Key West, overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. From our private balcony, shaded by a green and white awning, we could look down at the Roosevelt Boulevard, which was almost deserted; houses were shuttered and dogs slept on the sidewalks. It was noon, and the heat was fierce. Away to our right we could see low emerald islands in a shimmering, painted sea beneath high-piled lavender clouds. Steamers and other craft worked their way through the old Nor’west Channel, a chartered course taken for centuries.
Wearing trunks, sun-glasses and sandals, I lolled in a wicker arm-chair. A highball, clinking with ice, stood on the chair arm. I relaxed in the heat, stared with narrowed, impatient eyes out to sea.
Miss Wonderly sat by my side. She had on a white swim-suit that clung to her curves like a nervous mountaineer rounding Devil’s Corner. A straw hat, the size of a cartwheel, shaded her face. A magazine lay on her lap.
Minutes went past. I moved slightly to reach my cigarettes. She patted my hand as I picked up my lighter. I smiled at her.
“Pretty nice, isn’t it?” I said.
She nodded, sighed, took off her hat. Her soft, honey-coloured hair fell about her shoulders. She looked pretty nice herself.
We had been at the hotel for five days. The jail break was a distant nightmare. We didn’t talk about it. For the first two or three days, Miss Wonderly had been in a bad shape. She had bad nights, bad dreams. She was scared to leave the hotel, scared ii someone came into the room. Hetty and I hadn’t left her for a moment. Hetty had been wonderful. She was with us now.
We had taken Miss Wonderly from the jail straight to Tim’s boat. Hetty, Tim and I had gone with her, and we had somehow managed to slip through the cordon Killeano had flung round the coast and reached Key West. Tim had gone back to Paradise Palms the following morning with the boat.
friendliness, was a good spot for convalescing. Miss Wonderly had picked up faster than I had hoped. Now she was almost normal.
“All right, kid?” I asked, smiling at her.
“Yes,” she said, stretching. “And you?”
“Sure, this is much more like the vacation I was hoping to find in Paradise Palms.”
“How long shall we stay here?” she asked, suddenly, abruptly.
I glanced at her. “There’s no hurry,” I said. “I want to get you well. We can stay here as long as you like.”
She turned on her side so she could watch me.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she asked, giving me her hand.
I frowned. “Happen? What should happen?”
“Darling, perhaps I haven’t the right to ask, but is it going on between you and me?” Her face flushed.
“Do you want it to go on?” I asked, smiling at her. “I’m not much of a guy to go places with.”
“I could stand it if you could,” she said seriously.
“I’m crazy about you,” I told her, “but I don’t know how you would fit in with my kind of life. You see, I haven’t learned to settle down. I can’t imagine myself settling down. It wouldn’t be much of a life for you.”
She looked down at our hands, joined together.
“You’re going back there, aren’t you?” she said,
“Back where?” I asked sharply.
“Please, darling,” she said, gripping my hands. “Don’t be like that. You are going back there.”
“You mustn’t worry,” I said, smiling at her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“But you will, when Tim comes. You’re waiting for Tim, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes,” I said, looking out to sea. “I’m waiting for Tim.”
“And when he comes, you’ll go back with him?”
“I might.”
“You will.”
“I might,” I repeated. “I don’t know. It depends what’s happened.”
She gripped my hand hard.
“Darling, please don’t go back. I didn’t think we would get away. When I was in that awful jail I thought I should never see you again. I thought they would catch you and you’d be hurt. But we did get away, and I have you with me. It would be wicked to put all this in danger again, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have a job to finish. I like to dot my i’s and cross my t’s. It’s the way I’m made.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “No one’s made like that.” I am.
“Darling—don’t do this.” Her hands trembled in mine. “Let it go—please—this time…”
I shook my head slightly.
She took her hands away. “You and your pride,” she said, her voice suddenly hard, angry. “You don’t care about this. You don’t care about us.” She drew in a deep breath, burst out, “You’ve seen too many gangster pictures—that’s what’s wrong with you.”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” she said. Her voice was now elaborately controlled. “Yon want revenge. You think Killeano has crowded you, and you have to shake your reputation in his face. You can’t resist doing that. You like long chances. You think it’s big and smart to go back alone against that mob who stop at nothing. Just because Bogart and Cagney do it for a living, you have to do it too.”
I took a pull at my highball, shook my head.
“It wasn’t as if they beat you, burnt you with cigarettes, took off your clothes and paraded you before a crowd of grinning prison guards,” she went on, her voice low. “They didn’t come into your cell at night, did they ? You didn’t have a crazy woman whispering through the bars at you—awful, filthy whispering …”
“Honey…”
“Well, did you? I’m the one who suffered, not you. I don’t want revenge. I want you. I don’t want anything or anyone but you. I’m out of it. I’m glad to be out of it. God! I’m glad to be out of it. But you want to go back. You want to fight them. You want to avenge me. But I don’t want to be avenged.” Her voice broke suddenly. “Darling—can’t you think of me a little—can’t you let this one thing go—for me? For us?”
I patted her arm, stood up.
There was a long silence, then I heard her get up. She came and stood by my side, slipped her arm through mine.
“Was that what you meant when you said I wouldn’t fit in with your kind of life?” she asked.
I looked down at her, put my arm round her, pulled her to me. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m not made to be pushed around. I’m sorry, kid, but I’m going back. I said I’d fix Killeano, and I’m going to fix him. I feel a heel doing this to you, but I have to five with myself, and I’d never forgive myself if I let that rat slip through my hands.”
“All right, darling,” she said. “I see how it is. I’m sorry I didn’t understand before. Forgive me?”
I kissed her.
“Darling,” she said after a while, “do you want me to wait for you?”
I stared at her. “You’re certainly going to wait for me,” I said.
She shook her head. “Not certainly,” she said. “I’ll wait, on one condition. Otherwise I won’t be here when you come back. I mean it.”
“And the condition?”
“You’re not to kill Killeano. Up to now you have defended yourself. If you kill Killeano it will be murder. That mustn’t be. Will you promise?”
“Now, I can’t promise that,” I said “He might get me in spot—”
“That’s different. I mean you’re not to go gunning for him. If he attacks you, then that’s different. But you’re not to hunt him down and shoot him as you have been planning to do.”
“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”
I held her close, then suddenly I felt her back stiffen. I looked over my shoulder.
Tim’s boat was not more than a mile out to sea. He was coming fast.
2
/> Davis, Tim and I sat around the table in Tim’s sitting-room, a bottle of Scotch within reach, full glasses in our hands.
Davis had just come in. It was early evening, and Tim and I hadn’t been back long from Key West.
“I’ve been busy,” Davis said, grinning at me, “but before I sound off, how’s the kid?”
“She’s all right,” I said. “They gave her hell in that jail, but she didn’t lie down under it. She’s fine now.”
Davis looked across at Tim, who shrugged.
“Of course, she didn’t want me to come back,” I said, rubbing my jaw, “but she’ll get over that too.”
“Well, so long as she’s okay,” Davis said, combing his hair and looking puzzled, “that’s swell.”
Tim said, “The trouble with this guy is he won’t leave trouble alone. There was a sweet scene when Hetty heard he was coming back—”
“All right,” I interrupted curtly. “Let’s skip the domestic details. What’s new?”
“Plenty,” Davis said, lighting a cigarette. “Flaggerty’s dead for a start. Howja like that? He was killed by one of the convicts: cracked his skull with an axe.”
“That’s one less for me to bother about,” I said.
“Yeah. And here’s a juicy morsel. Killeano’s taken over Flaggerty’s job. He won’t release the jail break to the press. I guess it’s too close to the election for bad news to be told to the trusting public.”
“What happened to Mitchell?”
“He skipped out. I saw him before he went, and he gave me the whole story. I hand it to you, pal. It was a pretty smooth effort. I wrote it up, but the editor killed it after consulting Killeano. The public doesn’t know a thing about it.”
“And Maxison?”
“He managed to keep his nose clean, but only just. Laura supported his story, and after sweating him, Killeano turned him loose. He’s back at work now, but, I must say, he looks like a fugitive from the Lost Horizon. There’s one thing you ought to know. They’ve turned up Brodey’s body.”
“He’s dead?” I said sharply.
“Yeah. He was found at Dayden Beach. Your Luger by his side. Guess who killed him?”
“I know,” I said, clenching my fists. “So I’m wanted for three murders now?”
“You sure are,” Davis said, looking smug.
“Too bad,” I said, took a drink and eyed him over. “What else?”
“That’s all the topical news,” he said, reached inside his pocket and took out a five-dollar bill. He tossed it over to me. “Picked that up at the Casino a couple of nights back.”
I turned the note over, held it up to the light. It looked all right to me.
“So what?”
“It’s a dud.”
I stared at the note again. It still looked fine to me.
“Sure?”
“Yeah. I had it checked by my bank. They say it’s a first-class job, but it’s a dud all right.”
“I’ll say it’s a first-class job,” I said. “You got it from the Casino?”
He nodded. “It was with two other fives I won. They were all right; this a phoney.”
“W ell, that’s something,” I said, and slipped the note into my pocket.
“Hey, I want a good one in return,” Davis said, alarmed. “And while we are on the important subject of money, you also owe me a hundred bucks.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. I’ve been spending your money. Guess what. I’ve hired a private dick to dig up dirt on your pals. Howja like that?”
“You did? That’s a smart idea. Did he find anything?”
“Did he—hell!” Davis rubbed his hands gleefully, “it wasn’t such a dumb idea. One thing he did find out was that cat-house you’re interested in bums five times the electricity it did two years ago. That anything?”
“Only if it means there’s been some electrical equipment installed.”
“That’s the way I figured it. It’d be a swell hide-out for a coining plant, wouldn’t it?”
“All right,” I said. “What else?”
“Don’t rush us,” Davis said, grinning. “This dick ain’t been on the job a couple of days. He’s turned up something on Gomez if he interests you.”
“Gomez?” I said, frowning. “I don’t know where I can fit him in.”
“Well, let’s skip Gomez then.”
“What did he find out?”
“Gomez runs human freight into Cuba.”
I studied my finger-nails. “Go on,” I said.
“That’s it. He does it in a big way. He has three boats, a . bunch of boys working for him, and he gets a thousand dollars a head.”
“Who’s he carrying?”
“The revolution boys. There’s a lot of traffic going on between this coast and Cuba. He’s smuggling in guns as well. From what I hear there’ll be another bust-up in Cuba before long.”
“Too bad for him if Killeano pinched one of his boats,” I said, thoughtfully.
“He ain’t likely to,” Davis said. “He must be giving Gomez plenty of protection.”
“But suppose Killeano in a fit of zeal pinched Gomez’s boat, what do you think Gomez would do?”
“I know damn well what he’d do. He’d take a crack at Killeano,” Davis said, eyeing me doubtfully. “Why should Killeano have a fit of zeal?”
“He’s just taken over the police department; the election is close. It’d be a good publicity stunt to make a sudden clean-up on that racket—especially if the press gave him a spread.”
Davis’s fat face creased. “Now what the hell are you cooking up?”
“Where does Gomez keep his boats?”
“Search me,” Davis returned, looking at Tim and then at me. “This dick—Clairbold’s his name (hell of a name, ain’t it?)—fell over the dirt accidentally. He wasn’t looking for it. He was sniffing around in Lois’s apartment trying to find any letters Killeano might have written to Lois. It was my idea. I reckoned we could crucify Killeano if we could get hold of some of his mushy letters and print them. Clairbold was digging around in Lois’s bedroom when Gomez and another guy marched into the outer room. Clairbold ducks behind a curtain and hears Gomez planning to run a bunch of nationals over to Cuba tonight, and to bring another bunch back the night after.”
I nodded. “Nice work.” I said. “Did he find any letters?”
“No. He skipped out as soon as Gomez quit. He didn’t think it was too healthy to hang around.”
“This might develop, Jed,” I said. “It’s worth going after. Can you get hold of the dick?”
“Yeah. Can get him now if you want him.”
“Do that. Tell him to hook himself on to Gomez and follow him wherever he goes. I want to find out where Gomez keeps his boats, and where he’ll land those Cubans tonight. Tell him to call back here. We’ll wait.”
Davis nodded, went over to the telephone.
Tim eyed me thoughtfully. “Can’t see where this is getting you,” he said.
I moved impatiently. “I’m getting soft,” I said. “Know what that kid of mine made me promise?”
He shook his head.
“I wouldn’t kill Killeano. Imagine. She thought I was going straight into his office and was going to fill him full of lead. Can you beat that?”
“Well, weren’t you?” Tim asked, a sly grin in his eyes.
“That was the general idea,” I said, scowling, “but how was I to know she’d know?”
“So you’re not going to fix Killeano?” Tim said, surprised. “Then why come back here?”
“I promised I wouldn’t kill him, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to fix him,” I said grimly. “I have to work it differently now. It’ll take longer, but it’ll work out the same way- I have to find someone else to do it for me: Gomez, for instance.”
Davis came back from the telephone.
“Clairbold says Gomez is at the jai alai court right now. He reckons Gomez will make the trip after the game.”
“O
kay,” I said.
“He’ll come over here after he’s seen Gomez off,” Davis said. “You’ll like this guy. He’s good.”
I put my feet on the table. “Stick around,” I said. “We may be busy in a little while.”
“Not me,” Davis said hurriedly. “I know when you’re planning to start something. I smell it in the air. Me—I’m going home.”
I laughed. “Suit yourself,” I said, handing him a hundred-dollar note and a five spot. “You’ll have a fine spread for your front page in a day or so.”
“Don’t tell me,” Davis said with an exaggerated shudder. “Let it come as a surprise.”
3
Clairbold was a young blond man in a brown suit and a cocoa-coloured straw hat with a brown and blue tropical band. He followed Tim into the sitting-room, and looked at me the way a morbid sightseer looks at a messy street accident.
I eyed him over. He was very young. His face was pink and plump, and the blond beard on his chin was carelessly shaved. His eyes were inquisitive and a little scared. His teeth projected, giving him a look of a young, amiable rabbit. He didn’t look a shamus; that, of course, was in his favour.
“Park your fanny,” I said, waving to a chair, “and have a drink.”
He edged into the chair as if it was a bear-trap. Then he took off his hat, held it on his knees. His blond hair was slicked down, parted in the middle.
“How do you like working for me ?” I asked, pushing the bottle of Scotch and a glass towards him.
“I like it fine, Mr. Cain,” he said nervously; shook his head at the bottle. “No, thank you. I don’t use it.”
“You mean you don’t drink?”
“Not in my profession,” he returned seriously. “Alcohol dulls one’s powers of observation.”
I nodded gravely. “So it does,” I said. “How long have you been in this racket ?”
“You mean how long have I been a private investigator?” he asked, blushing. “Well, not long.” He looked at me earnestly. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Cain, I—this is my first big job.”
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