by Cain, Paul
Borg said: “Beery’s talked.”
“No.” Kells shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t think so.”
Granquist put down her glass. “Don’t be a sap, Gerry,” she said—“he has.”
Kells leaned across the table and slapped her very sharply across the mouth.
She stared at him out of wide, startled eyes and put her hands up to her face, slowly. Kells looked at her mouth and his face was very white, his eyes were almost closed.
Borg was sitting up very straight.
Kells’ hand was lying palm up on the table. Granquist put out one hand slowly and touched his and then she said, “I’m sorry,” very softly.
Kells shook his head sharply, closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them and looked down at the table. He said: “I’m sorry too, baby.” He patted the back of her hand.
He stood up and leaned against the back of the booth, stared a long minute at Jake and the driver.
The driver looked up from his plate, said: “Ain’t we goin’ on to San Berdoo?”
Kells didn’t show that he had heard. His eyes were blank, empty. He spoke sidewise to Borg: “I’m going back into town and find out what it’s all about.”
Granquist stood up swiftly. Her eyes were very bright and her face was set and determined. She said: “So am I.”
Kells bent his head a little to one side. “You’re going to stay here—and Fat is going to stay here. If I don’t make out, I’ll get a steer to you over the radio—or some way.” He moved his eyes to Borg. “You snag a car and take her to Las Vegas or some station on the UP where you can get a train.”
Borg nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I’m going to find out what happened to the immunity we were promised by Beery’s pal, the captain,” Kells went on. “He’s supposed to have the chief of police in his pocket—and the DA is his brother-in-law.” He poured a drink. “Now he puts the screws on us for knocking over Crotti, Public Enemy Number One.” He drank, smiled without mirth. “God! That’s a laugh.”
Kells glanced at Granquist, moved his head and shoulders slightly, turned and went out into the kitchen. She followed him. He was half sitting on a big table, and she went to him and put one arm around his shoulders, one hand on his chest. She moved her head close to his.
He spoke very quietly, almost whispered: “I’ve got to go by myself, baby. It’s taking enough of a chance being spotted that way—it’d be a cinch if we were together.”
“Can’t we wait here till it cools off, or take a chance on getting away now?” Her eyes were hot and dry; her voice trembled a little.
Kells said: “No. That’d mean getting clear out of the country—and it’d mean being on the run wherever we were. I had that once before and I don’t want any more of it.”
He took a small package wrapped in brown paper out of his inside breast pocket and handed it to her. “There’s somewhere around a hundred and ninety grand here,” he said. “Don’t let Borg know you’ve got it. I think he’s okay but that’s a lot of money.”
She took the package and put it in one of the big pockets of her long tweed topcoat.
Kells asked: “Have you got a gun?”
She nodded, patted her handbag. “I picked up the Spick’s—the guy who was with Crotti.”
Kells kissed her. He said: “I’ll get word to you some way, or be back by tomorrow noon. Watch yourself.”
He limped to the door, through it into the other room.Granquist followed him to the door, stood leaning against the frame; her face was dead white and she held her deep red lower lip between her teeth.
Kells spoke over his shoulder to the driver: “Come on.”
The driver jumped up and followed him to the outer door.
Kells turned at the door, said, “Be seeing you,” to Borg. He did not look at Granquist. He went out and the driver went out after him and closed the door.
On Kenmore near Beverly Boulevard, Kells leaned forward and tapped on the glass. The cab swung to the curb and the driver slid the glass. Kells asked: “Are you married?”
The driver looked blank for a moment, then said: “Uh-huh—only we don’t get along very well.”
Kells smiled faintly in the darkness. “Maybe you’d get along better if you took her for a little vacation down to Caliente—or Catalina.” He held out four crumpled bills and the driver reached back and took them. He held them in the dim light of the taxi meter and whistled, and then he stuck the bills hurriedly in his pocket and said: “Yes, sir.”
Kells said: “I want you to remember that you took us up to Lankershim and that we transferred to another car there and headed for Frisco. Is your memory that good?”
“Yes, sir.” The driver nodded emphatically.
“If it isn’t,” Kells went on—“I give you two days. My friends here would be awfully mad if anything happened to me on account of your memory slipping up.” He lowered his voice, spoke each word very distinctly: “Do you understand what I mean?”
The driver said: “Yes, sir—I understand.”
Kells got out and stood at the curb until the cab had turned down Beverly, disappeared. Then he went to the drugstore on the corner and called the taxi stand at the Lancaster, asked if Number Fiftyeight was in. He was on a short trip, was expected back soon. Kells left word for Fifty-eight to pick him up on Beverly near Normandie, went out of the drugstore, west.
His leg didn’t hurt so badly now. He wasn’t quite sure whether it was a great deal better or only momentarily numb. Anyway, it felt a lot better—he could walk fairly comfortably.
The cab detached itself from northbound traffic at the corner of Normandie, pulled into the curb. Fifty-eight, the stubby, baldheaded Irishman, stuck his head out and grinned at Kells.
Kells climbed into the cab, asked: “H’ are ya?”
Fifty-eight said: “Swell—an’ yourself? Where to?”
“Let’s go out to the apartment house on the corner of Yucca and Cahuenga first.” Kells leaned back.
They went over Normandie to Franklin, west on Franklin to Argyle, down the curve of Argyle and west two more blocks to Cahuenga. Kells got out, said, “I won’t be long,” and went into the apartment house on the corner. He asked at the desk for the number of Mister Beery’s apartment, went into the elevator and pressed the third-floor button.
Florence Beery was tall—almost as tall as Kells—slim. Her hair was very dark and her eyes were big, heavily shadowed. She stood in the doorway and looked at Kells, and her face was a hard, brittle mask.
She said slowly: “Well—what do you want?” Her voice was icy, bitter.
Kells put up one arm and leaned against the doorframe. He asked: “May I come in?”
She looked at him steadily for a moment, then she turned and went through the short hallway into the living room. He closed the door and followed her into the living room, sat down. She stood in the center of the room, staring at the wall, waiting.
Kells took off his hat and put it on the divan beside him. He said: “I’m sorry about Shep—”
“Sorry!” She turned her head towards him slowly. Her eyes were long upward-slanted slits. “Sorry! This is a hell of a time to be sorry!” She swayed a little forward.
Kells said: “Wait, Florence. Shep wouldn’t be in the can if he hadn’t come in with me. He wouldn’t be ten or twelve grand ahead, either. The dough hasn’t been so hard to take, has it?”
She stood staring at him with blank unseeing eyes, swaying a little. Then she sobbed and the sound was a dry, burnt rattle in her throat, took two steps towards him blindly. She spoke, and it was as if she was trying to scream—but her throat was too tight, her words were low, harsh, like coarse cloth tearing:
“God damn you! Don’t you know Shep is dead—dead!”
The word seemed to release some spring inside her—sight came to her eyes, swift motion to her body—she sprang at Kells, her clawed hands outstretched.
He half rose to meet her, caught one of her wrists, swung h
er down beside him. The nails of her free hand caught the flesh of his cheek, ripped downward. He threw his right arm around her shoulders, imprisoned her wrists in his two hands; then he took her wrists tightly in his right hand, pressed her head down on her breast with his left. She was panting sharply, raggedly. She gasped, “God! God!” over and over again. Then she relaxed suddenly, went limp against his arm—her shoulders went back and forth rhythmically, limply—she was sobbing and there was no sound except the sharp intake of breath.
Kells released her gradually, gently, stood up. He walked once to the other side of the room, back. His eyes were wide open and his mouth hung a little open, looked black against the green pallor of his face. He sank down beside her, put his arm again around her shoulders, spoke very quietly: “Florence. For the love of Mary!—when?—how?”
After a little while she whispered without raising her head: “When they were taking him to the Station—from a car—they don’t know who it was….”
Kells was staring over her shoulder at a flashing electric sign through the window. His eyes were glazed, cold—his mouth twitched a little. He sat like that a little while and then he took his arm from around her shoulders, picked up his hat and put it on, stood up. He stood looking down at her for perhaps a minute, motionlessly. Then he turned and went out of the room.
It was ten-fifty when the cab swung in to the curb in front of a bungalow on South Gramercy.
Fifty-eight turned around, said: “You’d better be wiping the blood off your face before you go in, Mister Kells.”
Kells mechanically put the fingers of his left hand up to his cheek, took them away wet, sticky. He took out a handkerchief and pressed it against his cheek, got out of the cab and went towards the dark house.
After he had rung the bell four or five times, a light was switched on upstairs, he heard someone coming down. The lower part of the house remained dark, but a light above him—in the ceiling of the porch—snapped on. He stood with his chin on his chest, his hat pulled down over his eyes, watching the bottom of the door.
It opened and Captain Larson’s voice said: “Come in,” out of the darkness. Kells went in.
The light on the porch snapped off, the light in the room was snapped on. The door was closed.
It was a rather large living room which, with the smaller dining room, ran across all the front of the house. The furniture was mostly Mission, mostly built-in. The wallpaper was bright, bad.
Larson stood with his back to the door in a nightshirt and big, fleece-lined slippers. He held a Colt .38 revolver steadily in his right hand. He said: “Take a chair.”
Kells sat down in the most comfortable-looking chair, leaned back. Larson pulled another chair around and sat down on its edge, facing Kells. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees—he held the revolver in his right hand hanging down between his legs, picked his nose violently with his other hand, and said: “What’s on your mind?”
Kells tipped his hat back a little and stared at Larson sleepily.
“You gave me a free bill this afternoon,” he said, “in exchange for some stuff that would have split your administration—your whole political outfit—wide open.” He paused, changed his position slightly. “Now you clamp down on me because somebody gets the dumb idea I had something to do with the Crotti kill. What’s the answer?”
“Crotti’s the answer.” Larson spat far and accurately into the fireplace, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He leaned back and crossed his legs and held the revolver loosely in his lap. “There’s a lot of water been under the bridge since I seen you this afternoon,” he went on. “In the first place I didn’t give you no free bill, as you call it—I told you that you and your gal would probably be wanted for questioning in connection with a lot of things. An’ I hinted that if you wasn’t around when question time came we wouldn’t look too far for you.” He took a crumpled handkerchief from the pocket of his nightshirt, blew his nose gustily. “Crotti’s something else again.”
Kells smiled slowly. “Crotti was your Number One Gangster,” he said. “If I had something to do with his killing I ought to be getting a medal for it—not a rap.”
A woman’s cracked querulous voice came down the stairs: “What is it, Gus?”
Larson spat again into the fireplace, looked at the stairs. “Nothin’. Go on back to bed.”
He turned back towards Kells and his big loose mouth split to a wide grin. “You’re way behind the times,” he said. “Crotti hooked up with my people this morning. They were tickled to death to get an organization like his behind them and they were plumb disappointed when you bumped him off. That’s one of the reasons there’s a tag out for you.”
Kells held his handkerchief to his bleeding cheek. He said: “What are the other reasons?”
“Jack Rose moved into Crotti’s place.”
Kells laughed soundlessly. “You’re kidding.”
“No.” Larson spun the revolver once around his big forefinger. “Rose made a deal with Crotti a couple days ago. When Crotti was shot this evening, Rose didn’t lose any time putting the pressure on my people and they didn’t lose any time putting it on me. You’re it.”
“But Rose is wanted for the O’Donnell—”
“Not any more.” Larson chuckled. “I told you you wasn’t keeping in touch with things. For one thing, L.D. Fenner shot himself about eight o’clock tonight. He was the only one there was to testify against Rose on the O’Donnell angle—so that’s out. And Rose says you killed O’Donnell—says he’ll swear to it, an’ he’s got another witness.”
Kells said wearily: “Is that all—I’m only wanted on two counts of murder?”
“That’s all for tonight. Matheson called me up a couple hours ago an’ said the Perry woman had phoned in, drunk, an’ said she wanted to repudiate her confession that Dave Perry killed Doc Haardt.” Larson grinned broadly, stood up. “Maybe we can tie you up to that in the morning.”
He took two sidewise steps to a small stand, picked up the telephone receiver with one hand, and squatted down until his mouth was near the transmitter. He held the revolver in his right hand, watched Kells closely while he spoke into the phone:
“Gimme Michigan six one one one, sister. Uh-huh…. Hello, Mike—this is Gus…. Kells is out here—out at my house…. Come on out an’ get him…. Uh-huh.”
He hung up the receiver, stood up and went back to the chair and sat down.
“You been mixed up in damn near every killing we’ve had in the past week,” he said. “It looks to me like you been our Number One Gunman—not Crotti.”
Kells leaned forward slowly.
Larson said: “Sit still.”
Kells asked: “What do you think my chances are of getting to the Station on my feet?”
“Wha’ d’you mean?” Larson was blowing his nose.
“I mean they got Beery on the way in after he’d been pinched tonight. I mean your desk sergeant has tipped Rose that I’m out here by now—he’ll be here by the time your coppers are—will be waiting outside. They’ll take me in to a slab.”
Larson said: “Aw, don’t talk that way.” He squinted his eyes as if he was trying to remember something, then said proudly: “You got a prosecution complex, that’s what you got. A prosecution complex.”
Kells stood up.
Larson nodded his head emphatically at the chair, snapped: “Sit down.”
Kells said slowly: “I work pretty fast, Gus. I’ll bet you can shoot me through the heart an’ I’ll have my gun out an’ have a couple slugs in your belly before I hit the floor.” He smiled a little. “Let’s try it.”
Larson said, “Sit down,” loudly.
“I’ll bet you can’t even hit my heart—I’ll bet you’re a lousy shot.” Kells took a short step forward, balanced himself evenly on both feet.
Larson was white. His big mouth hung a little open.
Kells said: “Let’s go.” His hand went swiftly to his side.
Larson’s shoulders moved convu
lsively, his right hand went forward, up, with the revolver. At the same time he threw his head forward and down, fell forward out of the chair. The revolver clattered on the floor.
Kells was standing on the balls of his feet, an automatic held crosswise against his chest. He stared down at Larson and his eyes were wide, surprised.
He said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” under his breath.
Larson was on his hands and knees; his big shoulders and thick neck were pulled in tightly, rigidly.
Kells stooped and picked up the revolver, stuck it into his overcoat pocket. Then he laughed quietly, said: “Copper yellow. That’s the first time my reputation ever did me any good.”
He went to the door swiftly, turned once to glance hurriedly at Larson. Larson had risen to his knees. He did not look at Kells; he looked at the wall—he was breathing heavily.
Kells opened the door and went out and closed it behind him.
Fifty-eight said: “There it is.”
They were parked in the deep shadow between two street lights in the next block to the one Larson’s house was in. A big touring car had come up quietly, without lights, stopped across the street from Larson’s.
Kells didn’t say anything. He sat huddled in a corner of the cab and although the night was fairly warm he shivered a little.
After a few minutes another car swung around the corner, pulled up in front of Larson’s. Kells leaned forward and watched through the glass. Three men got out and went into the house. In a little while they came out; one of them went across the street and stood beside the car that had come up first, the others got into the other car and drove away.
Then the man got into the second car, its lights were switched on and it too drove away.
Kells said: “Give ’em enough room.”
Fifty-eight waited until the other car was more than halfway down the long block, then he let the clutch in slowly. Kells felt in his pockets until he found the tin box of aspirin tablets, took two. The other car turned left on Third Street. Fifty-eight stepped on it, swung into Third; there were two taillights about a block and a half ahead. He followed the faster one north on Rossmore, got close enough to see that he’d guessed right, fell back.