* * * * *
KELLS TOOK A little tin box of aspirin out of his pocket, put two tablets on his tongue and washed them down with whiskey.
“You seem to have kept pretty well in touch with things out here.”
Crotti said: “Yes. I sent an operative out a few weeks ago to look things over—a very clever girl....” He took the cigar out of his mouth. “Name's Granquist.”
Kells sat very still. He looked at Crotti and then he grinned slowly, broadly.
Crotti grinned back. “Am I right in assuming that you were looking for Rose because you thought he had something to do with Miss Granquist's—uh—escape?”
Kells didn't answer.
Crotti stood up. “I always take care of my people,” he said as pompously as his squeaky voice would permit. He went to one of the doors, swung it open. The inner room was dark.
Crotti called: “Hey—Swede.”
There was no answer. Crotti went into the room; Kells could hear him whispering, evidently trying to wake someone up.
He unbuttoned his coat, shifted the shoulder holster. Crotti reappeared in the doorway, and Granquist was behind him. Crotti went back to his chair, sat down.
Granquist stood in the doorway, swaying. Her eyes were heavy with sleep and she stared drunkenly about the room, finally focused on Kells. She sneered as if it were difficult for her to control her facial muscles, put one hand on the doorframe to steady herself.
She said thickly: “Hello—bastard.”
Kells looked away from her, spoke to Crotti. “Nice quiet girl. Just the kind you want to take home and introduce to your folks.”
Crotti laughed soundlessly.
Granquist staggered forward, stood swaying above Kells. “Bastard framed me,” she mumbled—“tried t' tag me f murder....”
She put one hand out tentatively as if she were about to catch a fly, slapped Kells very hard across the face.
Crotti stood up suddenly.
Kells reached out and pushed Granquist away gently, said: “Don't be effeminate.”
Crotti came around the desk and took Granquist by the shoulders, pressed her down into a chair. She was swearing brokenly, incoherently; she put her hands up to her face, sobbed. Crotti said: “Be quiet.” He turned to Kells with a deprecating smile. “I'm sorry.”
Kells didn't say anything.
It was quiet for a little while except for Granquist's strangled, occasional sobs. Crotti sat down on the edge of the desk.
Kells was staring thoughtfully at Granquist. Finally he turned to Crotti, said: “I played the Bellmann business against this one”—he jerked his head at Granquist— “because it was good sense, and because I knew I could clear her if it got warm. Then when she got away I figured Rose had her and went into the panic. I've been leaping all over Southern California with a big hero act while she's been sitting on her lead over here with an armful of bottles....”
He sighed, shook his head. “When I'm right, I'm wrong.” Then he went on as if thinking aloud: “Rose and Abalos and a woman—probably Rose's wife—hired a boat at Long Beach tonight and didn't come back.”
Crotti glanced at Granquist. “Rose had an interest in one of the big booze boats,” he said—“the Santa Maria. She was lying about sixty miles off the coast a couple days ago. He probably headed out there.”
He puffed hard at his cigar, put it down on an ashtray, leaned forward.
“Now about my proposition...” he said. “You've started a good thing but you can't finish it by yourself. I've got the finest organization in the country and I'm going to put it at your disposal so that you can do this thing the way it should be done—to the limit. LA county is big enough for everybody—”
Kells interrupted: “I think I've heard that someplace before.”
Crotti paid no attention to the interruption, went on: ”—for everybody—but things have got to be under a single head. This thing of everybody cutting everybody else's throat is bad business—small-town stuff.”
Kells nodded very seriously.
“We can have things working like a charm in a couple weeks if we go at it right,” Crotti went on excitedly. “Organization is the thing. We'll organize gambling, the bootleggers, the city and state and federal police— everything.”
He stood up, his eyes glittering with enthusiasm. “We can jerk five million dollars a year out of this territory— five million dollars.”
Kells whistled.
Granquist had put her hands down. She was sitting deep in the chair, glaring at Kells. Crotti picked up his cigar and walked up and down, puffing out great clouds of blue-gray smoke.
“Why, right this minute,” he said, “I've got a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars' worth of French crystal cocaine on one of my boats—a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars' worth, wholesale. All it needs is protected landing and distribution to a dozen organized dealers.”
Kells nodded, pouring himself another drink.
Crotti sat down at the desk, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
“And you're the man for it,” he said. “My money's on you....”
Kells said. “That's fine,” smiled appreciatively.
“Your split is twenty per cent of everything.” Crotti crushed his cigar out, leaned back and regarded Kells benignly. “Everything—the whole take.”
Kells was watching Crotti. He moved his eyes without moving his head, looked at Granquist. “That ought to pay for a lot of telephone calls,” he said.
“Then it's a deal.”
“No.”
Crotti looked as if he'd found a cockroach in his soup. He said incredulously: “You mean it isn't enough?”
“Too much.”
“Then why not?”
Kells said: “Because I don't like it. Because I never worked for anybody in my life and I'm too old to start. Because I don't like the racket, anyway—I was aced in. It's full of tinhorns and two-bit politicians and double-crossers— the whole damned business gives me a severe pain in the backside.” He paused, glanced at Granquist.
“Rose and Fenner both tried to frame me,” he went on. “That made me mad and I fought back. I was lucky—I took advantage of a couple breaks and got myself into a spot where I could have some fun.”
He stood up. “Now you want to spoil my fun.”
Crotti stood up, too. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I want to show you how to make it pay.”
Kells said: “I'm sorry. It's a swell proposition but I'm not the man for it—I guess I'm not commercially inclined. It's not my game....”
Crotti shrugged elaborately. “All right.”
Kells said: “Now, if you'll ask the man behind me to put his rod away I'll be going.”
Crotti's lips were pressed close together, curved up at the corners. He turned and looked into the big window behind him—the man who stood just inside the doorway through which they had entered was reflected against outer darkness.
Crotti nodded to the man and at the same moment Granquist stood up, screamed. Kells stepped into line between Crotti and the door, whirled in the same second— the big automatic was in his hand, belching flame.
The man had evidently been afraid of hitting Crotti, was two slugs late. He looked immensely surprised, crashed down sideways in the doorway. Crotti was standing with his back to the window, the same curved grimace on his face. There were pounding steps on the stair. Kells stepped over the man in the doorway, ran smack into another—the man who had been asleep on the cot—at the top of the stair. The man grabbed him around the waist before he could use the gun; he raised it, felt the barrel-sight rip across the man's face. There were several more men in the big room below, two on the stairs, coming up.
He planted one foot in the angle of the floor and wall, shoved hard; locked together, they balanced precariously for a moment, fell. They hit the two men about halfway down, tangled to a twisted mass of threshing arms, legs. The banister creaked, gave way. Kells felt the collar of his coat grabbed, was jerke
d under and down. He struck out with the gun, squeezed it. The gun roared and he heard someone yell and then something hit the center of his forehead and there was darkness.
Chapter Six
THE FOG WAS wet on Kells' face. He opened his eyes and looked up into the grayness, rolled over on his side slowly, looked into thick, unbroken grayness. He held his hand in front of him at arm's length and it was a shapeless mass of darker gray. He sat up and leaden weights fell in his skull like the mechanism that opens and closes the eyes of dolls. He lay down again and turned his head slowly, held his watch close. It was a little after six, full daylight, but the fog made it night.
Then he heard someone coming, the crunch of feet on gravel. He reached for the gun, found the empty holster, noticed suddenly with a sharp sensation in the pit of his stomach that his coat was gone.
Someone squatted beside him, spoke: “How d'you feel?” It was Borg. Kells could see the thick outline of his head and shoulders.
Kells said: “Terrible. Where the hell's my coat?”
“God! Me saving his life an' he wants his coat!” Borg giggled softly.
“What happened?”
“Everything.” Borg sighed, sat down in the gravel with his mouth close to Kells' ear. “After you an' the navigator went ashore I went on the wharf and laid down for a while. Then in a couple minutes somebody came out an' I thought it was you till I seen there was four of them. I ducked behind some ropes and stuff that was laying there and they came out and saw the boat an' jawed awhile in some spick language. Then they lit out for some place an' I got up and tailed them and run into the navigator.”
There was the sound of a shot suddenly, some place below and to Kells' left.
Borg said: “That's him now—what a boy!”
Kells sat up.
Borg went on: “He was carrying on about smelling trouble up at some kind of barn an' he wanted a gun. I wouldn't give him mine, so he said he was going back to the boat an' bust open a locker or something where he thought there was one. He—”
There was another shot.
Kells said: “What the hell's that all about?” He jerked his head toward the sound, immediately wished he hadn't.
“That's him—he's all right. Wait'll I tell you....” Borg shifted his position a little, went on: “I went on up the path an' I'll be damned if that navigator didn't catch up with me, an' he had the dirtiest-looking shotgun I ever saw. When we got to the house, he said. 'You go in the front way an' I'll go in the back,' so I waited for him to get around to the back—an' about that time there was two shots inside.”
Kells lay down again on his stomach. Borg twisted around lay beside him.
“I went in and you was doing a cartwheel downstairs with three or four guys on your neck. There was another guy there an' he made a pass at me and I shot him right between the eyes....”
Borg leaned close to Kells, tapped his own head between the eyes with a stubby forefinger.
Kells said: “Hurry up.”
“I'm hurrying. They was tearing hell out of you an' I was trying to pick one of 'em off when the navigator came in the back way and started waving that shotgun around. He yelled so much they had to see him. Then another guy came out on the balcony and I took a shot at him, but I guess I missed—he ducked back in the upstairs room.”
Borg sighed, shook his head. There was another shot below, then two more, close together.
“Well—I got off to one side to give the navigator a chance,” Borg went on, “but he had a better idea—he came over on my side and we jockeyed around till I could get a hold of you, and then we backed out the front—me dragging you, and the navigator telling the boys what a swell lot of hash they'd make if he let go with that meat grinder. When we got outside I drug you a little to one side—”
Kells interrupted: “Didn't I have my coat?”
“Hell, no! You was lucky to have pants the way those guys was working you over. We tried to carry you between us but we couldn't make any headway that way—it was so dark and foggy we kept falling down. So the navigator fanned tail for the boat and I drug you through a lot of brush and we got up here after a while. A half a dozen more guys went by on the way to the house—the island's lousy with 'em. If it hadn't been for the fog...”
Kells asked: “Bernie's at the boat, now?”
“Sure—and a swell spot. The fog's not quite so heavy down there and he can pick 'em off as soon as they show at the head of the wharf. Only I thought he'd shove off before this....”
“He's waiting for us, sap.” Kells rose to his knees.
“Oh yeah? Maybe you can figure out a way for us to get there.”
Kells asked: “Which direction should the side of the cove be?”
“I haven't the slightest.”
Kells got shakily to his feet, rubbed his head, started down a shale bank to his left. He said: “Come on—we'll have to take a chance.”
Borg got up and they went down the bank to a shallow draw. An occasional shot sounded on the far side of a low ridge to their right. The fog wasn't quite so thick at the bottom of the draw; they went on, came out in a little while-on to a narrow beach. There was a jagged spit of rock running out across the sand from one side of the draw. The fog was thinning.
They waited for the next shot; then Kells, calculating direction from the sound, said, “Come on”—they ran out along the rocks to the edge of the water.
Kells kicked off his shoes, waded in; Borg followed. The fog was heavy over the water—they swam blindly in the direction—Kells figured the Comet to be.
After a little while the end of the wharf took form ahead, a bit to the right. They circled toward it, came up to the bow of the big cruiser. They swam around the cruiser, under the wharf and up to the Comet's stern.
Kells grabbed the gunwale, pulled himself up a little way and called to Bernie. Bernie was creftiched in the forward end of the cockpit, behind the raised forward deck. He whirled and swung the gun toward Kells, and then he grinned broadly, put down the gun, crawled over and helped Kells climb aboard. He muttered, “Good huntin',” went back and picked up the gun; Kells helped Borg.
Borg was winded—he lay at full length on the deck, gasping for breath. Kells started toward Bernie, and then his bad leg gave way, he fell down, crawled the rest of the way.
He said: “Get the engine started—I'll take that for a minute.”
Bernie gave him the gun and a handful of shells, went down to the engine. Kells called to Borg, told him to work his way to the after line, cut it. There was a shot at the head of the wharf, a piece of wood was torn from the edge of the cowling, fell in splinters.
Borg rolled over slowly, got to his knees. He was still panting. He looked reproachfully at Kells, fumbled in his pocket and took out a small jackknife, started worming his way aft.
The engine went over with a roar.
There was an answering roar of shots from the shore.
Bernie came galloping up to the wheel. Kells glanced back at Borg, saw him sawing at the stern line; he took a bead on the bow line, pulled the trigger. The line frayed; Kells aimed again, gave it the other barrel.
Bernie said: “That's enough—I can part it now....” He slid the clutch in, threw the wheel over.
Kells was hastily reloading. He glanced back at Borg, saw the stern line fall, saw Borg sink down exhausted, so flat that he was safe.
The bow line snapped. They skipped in a fast shallow arc toward the head of the wharf. There was a rattle of gunfire. Kells pushed the shotgun across the cowling, sighted. Two puffs of smoke grew over an overturned dinghy on the beach; he swung the barrel toward the smoke, pulled the trigger.
Then they straightened out, headed through the mouth of the cove toward the open sea. Bernie kicked the throttle. A few desultory shots popped behind them.
Kells put down the gun, sat down on the deck and rolled up his wet trouser leg. The leg wasn't very nice to look at—Doc Janis's dressing was hanging by a thin strip of adhesive tape. Kells call
ed Borg.
Borg got up slowly. He came forward, squatted beside Kells.
Bernie yelled: “There's some peroxide and stuff in the for'd locker on the port side—I busted it open.”
Borg went into the cabin.
Kells fished in his trouser pockets, brought out a wad of wet bills and some silver, spread it out on the deck beside him. There was a thousand-dollar note and the eight hundreds which Brand's friend had paid off with after the fights. There was another wad of fifty- and hundred-dollar and smaller bills. Fenner's twenty-five-thousand-dollar check, Brand's for a thousand, and around eight thousand in cash had been in the coat. And Fenner's confession.
Kells looked up; Bernie was looking at him, grinned. “Wet as usual,” he said. “You better take off your clothes an' get in a bunk.”
Kells said: “Step on it. I've got to call up a friend of mine.”
He picked up several of the wet bills, folded them, put a half dollar inside the fold to give them weight, slid them across the deck to Bernie.
“That ought to cover damages on the boat, too,” he said.
Borg came out of the cabin with absorbent cotton and adhesive and peroxide.
Kells picked up some more bills, rolled them into a ball and shoved them into Borg's free hand, said: “Try to buy yourself a yacht with that...” He counted what was left.
Borg poured peroxide on the leg.
Kells said: “I came out to California with two grand.” He shoved the bills into a heap. There was a little pile of silver left. He counted it with his finger.
“Now I've got two—and seventy cents.” He picked up the silver, held it in his palm, smiled at Borg. “Velvet.”
Bernie shouted: “I hope I remember the way back!”
Kells said; “Don't let that worry you,” stared forward into the fog.
* * * * *
THERE WAS A small zebra galloping up and down the footboard. He was striped red white blue like a barber pole; his ears were tasseled, flopped back and forth awkwardly. Then he faded into a bright mist; the room tipped over to darkness. Kells yelled...
Then it was raining outside. Gray...
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