"You told me Dust-Mouth Haggerty was a whack. When you're dealing with a whack you have to act whacky. If you act normal, he'll think you're on the offbeat. I didn't know how much trouble I'd have finding him, and I was just laying sort of a ground fire."
"It spoiled all the buildup we gave you under the name of Pocus. We expected you to keep on using that name. Why did you take it in the first place?"
"On account of his fans," Doan said, jerking his thumb toward the back of the chesterfield.
"What fans? Why does he have fans?"
"He trains dogs for the Army. He's been making some movie shorts about how it's done, and all such. They show those not only to soldiers but to dog owners, and then the owners pester the Army until they find out who he is, and then they come around and make goo on him. He'll take only very small doses of goo before he takes a leg back in trade. I got tired of trying to keep him from assassinating fat ladies and cute little tots, so I decided to be H. Pocus and assistant."
"That's what you should have stayed. We put out the buildup about Pocus in Heliotrope because we knew Dust-Mouth hung around the jail there and would pick it up from Peterkin."
"Why not from Harold?" Doan asked.
"Who?"
"Harold. The majordomo of the jail."
"What about him?" Arne inquired coldly.
"Nothing," said Doan. "Only I thought he'd spread the news to Dust-Mouth on account he's FBI"
"How did you know that?"
Doan shrugged. "All private detectives can spot a government man--if they stay in business long. When are you going to pounce on Peterkin and Gravelmeyer and Heliotrope in general?"
"The indictments are all ready now, but we're frying bigger fish first. So let's get at it. You contacted Dust-Mouth. What happened?"
"I convinced him," said Doan. "We'll make a deal as soon as I can find him."
"He'll find you. He'll call you here."
"How do you know?" Doan asked.
"We arranged it."
"Come, come," said Doan. "We're not in a B picture--yet. I'd just as soon know how you arranged it."
Arne said, "I suppose I'd better tell you or you'll butch this all up too. Ever hear of Gower Gulch?"
"You mean the place where all the horse opera cowboys hang out?"
"Yes. Most of them are the genuine article, outside of a few professional rodeo and circus performers. Every Western picture has a few old prospectors and desert rats and such kicking around in it for atmosphere. They're mostly genuine, too. They all hang out together, and Dust-Mouth knows lots of them. We put out the rumor that it would be a profitable idea for him to call you here. We used the name Doan this time. Dust-Mouth will be certain to see some of the boys from Gower Gulch if he conies to town, and they'll relay the information."
"Dust-Mouth has sort of a down on Pocus," Doan said. "Maybe he'll spend his time hunting him instead of calling Doan."
"No. There's a new bulletin about Pocus circulating in Gower Gulch. He's just been shot while he was trying to blow up an airplane factory."
Doan sighed. "Things certainly move fast these days. Sorry to hear about old Pocus. He was a fine chap."
"He concealed it well, though," Arne said. "Now there's another little matter. Just what happened to Tonto Charlie?"
"Who?" said Doan.
"You heard me."
"Yes. But the name's not familiar at all."
"Isn't it? He was sort of a weird character who used to make his living by taking money for smuggling aliens across the line in the desert. We've never been able to get a grip on him because he never actually did it. He used to take the aliens out in the desert south of the line in Mexico and lose them there. Sometimes they didn't die. It didn't make any difference to Tonto Charlie because he got half his dough in advance, and that's all he wanted. He's been having a tough time since the war because we're hand-in-hand with the Mexican patrols now."
"He sounds like a delightful character," Doan commented. "But I still don't know him."
"Dust-Mouth Haggerty sent him here to contact Pocus. Did you see him? You'd better think about your answer."
"Never saw him in his life," said Doan solemnly.
"He turned up dead in Heliotrope. He wasn't killed there. Someone killed him somewhere else and brought him there."
"How strange," said Doan. "But then, of course a man like that would have a lot of enemies. Desperate people, no doubt."
"No doubt," Arne agreed. "A man named Free-Look Jones was accused of killing him."
"Jones," Doan repeated thoughtfully. "Free-Look Jones... Oh, yes. I thought the name was familiar. He's that strange person who jumped out the window when I offered to buy him a beer."
"He threw a knife at you before he jumped."
"That was just horseplay," Doan said. "You know how people pull gags in bars just to pass the time away. I thought nothing of it. So he killed Tonto Charlie. Tsk, tsk. I hope he has been apprehended and is on his way to his just and proper punishment?"
"He's dead. Did you ever study medicine?"
"No."
"Art?"
"No."
"Anatomy?"
"Well, yes."
"Where?"
"Oh, on the street on windy days, and at the beaches and at the burlesque shows... Well, do you want all the details of my private life?"
"This isn't funny," said Arne. "And neither are you. Jones was killed by someone who knew quite a lot about how to operate on a jugular vein so it would drain down into the victim's lungs instead of spurting around."
Doan cringed. "Ghastly. Let's talk about something else."
"All right. What's the idea of the girl named Hathaway in the apartment down the hall?"
"My secretary," said Doan. "And you needn't look that way about it. You've got a secretary, haven't you?"
"Who's the guy with the beard and the black cheaters?"
"Her secretary. There's an awful lot of detail work in this spying business."
Arne watched him in silence for a moment. "You're fast on your feet, but just remember that we've got a long arm and we're awfully long winded."
"You're telling me," said Doan.
Arne stood up. "We won't bore you any more but--"
The telephone buzzed softly.
"Answer that," Arne ordered. "I think it may be Dust-Mouth. Don't drop this one on the floor, or you'll scare him off permanently."
Doan picked up the telephone. "Yes?"
The voice came in a hoarse whisper: "Is this a fella named Doan?"
"That's right."
"Where was you last night?"
"In jail in Heliotrope."
"Who'd you see there?"
"You."
"Uh!" said the voice. It breathed hoarsely for a moment. "Mickey's Wickiup. Eleven-thirty. Say 'Diamond Hitch' to the bull fiddler."
"Right," said Doan.
The line clicked and was dead.
Doan put the telephone down and turned around. "I got him. I'm to be passed on from a joint called Mickey's Wickiup. Now listen. You must have hauled me in this for some good reason, but I'm tired of meeting you every time I take a bath. Why don't you go sit down in some quiet corner and let me sneak up on Dust-Mouth?"
"Okay," said Arne. "Come on, Barstow, we'll move along."
Barstow paused in the doorway. "We'll give you plenty of rope." He made a suggestive circle around his neck with his forefinger and closed the door.
"Funny mans," Doan said sourly. "Hey, you."
Carstairs' head appeared slowly above the chesterfield.
"Did you ever think of what a decoy duck must feel like when it's sitting there waiting for somebody to shoot over its head?" Doan asked. Carstairs stared at him unwinkingly. "Never mind," said Doan. "I know now."
Chapter 11
MICKEY'S WICKIUP WAS NOT SO EASY TO find, but Doan finally ran it down in an alley off Gower, north of Sunset. There was nothing special about the alley, except that it was narrow and dark. Doan parked the Cadilla
c a half block up the street and got out.
"You stay here," he said to Carstairs. "If you see any G-men around you have my permission to bark or even to bite them." Carstairs watched him suspiciously.
"Only one beer," Doan promised. "On my word of honor." Carstairs sighed resignedly, and lay down on the seat. Doan went back to the alley and felt his way along it cautiously. At the back it widened out, and he groped around in the gloom until he hit a wooden gate that swung back smoothly under his hand. A cowbell went bing-bong in a flat, discouraged tone somewhere ahead.
Doan headed in that direction, and suddenly a door opened wide in front of him. A fat man wearing a purple silk shirt and enormous handlebar mustaches beamed at him and bellowed enthusiastically
"Howdy there, stranger. Welcome to Mickey's. Light and set."
"Thanks, pardner," Doan answered. "Reckon I will." He squeezed through the door into a low, smoky room that had all the trimmings, even to the smell of horse sweat from the saddle blankets strung over the rafters. The back of a chuck wagon had been built into the rear wall. The range cook, complete with peaked sombrero and leather brush-scarred chaps, squatted in front of it, manipulating frying pans and iron pots with offhand skill, over an open charcoal fire that had a protective hood to suck up the fumes. Several other characters in cowboy outfits lounged or squatted around him, consuming the results of his efforts. The tables around the room were made of split logs, and the chairs of nail kegs.
There were quite a few people here. They were mostly men, and all in some kind of western dress, from a hundred percent to a pair of hand made boots. There were some women, and Doan recognized a serial queen who was wearing a chinchilla coat over a pair of blue jeans. The bar was made out of plain pine planks, and Doan shoved up against it and said, "Beer."
The bartender looked like an aged and dilapidated version of one of the Dead End Kids. "Dime," he said, slapping the glass down. "You an agent?"
"Agent?" Doan repeated.
"Picture agent?"
"Nope," said Doan. "Tenderfoot."
"Huh!" said the bartender, and went away.
The orchestra started to play in an aimless way. It consisted of a regular fiddle, a bull fiddle and an accordion, and it was not so bad, either. They played a roundelay that Doan had never heard before. He sipped his beer, waiting, and when they had finished crossed the room to their platform and held out a folded dollar bill toward the bull fiddle player.
"Can you play Diamond Hitch?" he asked.
"Sure thing," said the bull fiddle player. He took the dollar bill leaving a small slip of paper in Doan's palm.
Doan went back to the bar and finished his drink and then walked to the door.
"You ain't a-leavin' us so soon, are you, stranger?" the fat man asked.
"Yup," said Doan. "Gotta go home and shear my sheep."
"Drop in again, stranger. We don't even bar sheepherders here, not unless they start to bleatin'."
Doan went through the gate, causing the cowbell to bing-bong dolorously again, and then down the alley to the street and up the block to the Cadillac.
"See?" he said to Carstairs. "Only one beer, just like I said."
Carstairs grunted and moved over on the seat. Doan slid in under the wheel and snapped on the dashlight. He unfolded the slip of paper. Printed on it in pencil were the words
OLD LISTON LOT COME
PEARL ST ENTRANCE
"Okay," said Doan.
Chapter 12
AWAY BACK BEFORE YOU CAN REMEMBER they made silent motion pictures. This, of course, was too good a thing to last long, and, sure enough, some evil genius cooked up the idea of assaulting your ears as well as your eyes. Everybody took to it with, literally, a whoop and a holler, but the casualties in the business were spectacular, and among the first and the sorriest were the sets that had been used formerly for outdoor shots. Everything was sound staged now, and these veterans of many a catsup-blood battle were retired to odd way-points, like the Liston Lot, and left there to contemplate their celluloid sins.
The Liston Lot in prehistoric times had actually been a place where they shot pictures, and it was still surrounded by a twenty-foot wall that had looked sternly forbidding in its day, but which time and the weather had revealed to be nothing but stucco, plastered over lath and chicken wire. It was dark and forbidding as the mad scientist's castle, as Doan idled the Cadillac along Pearl Street and parked opposite the niche that marked the side gate.
There was not a light showing. Doan got out of the car and jerked his head at Carstairs. Their shadows joggled eerily ahead of them, and Doan's heels clicked in empty, fading cadence as they crossed the pavement. The iron-barred gate was closed, but when Doan pushed at it, it swung back with a rusty mutter of hinges.
Inside Doan could only see the vague, grotesque jumble of half-buildings, piled together like the results of a bad bombing raid. No guard or caretaker was visible. Doan whistled once softly. A breeze moved stealthily past his face and rattled a piece of lath against some boarding, but there was no other sound or movement.
Carstairs nudged his head against Doan's thigh, and when Doan looked down at him, he swung around to peer with pricked ears down a ragged, straggling side lane where the dim light caught and gleamed back from the scummed surface of a ten-foot puddle of water.
"That you, Dust-Mouth?" Doan inquired.
A shadow moved and thickened. "Who's there?"
"Well, now guess," said Doan.
"Doanwashi?"
"You're sharp tonight. Do you want to go on playing hide and seek, or did you have something else in mind?"
"I'm scared."
"We won't let the bad mans hurt you," Doan said.
"We! Who you got with you?"
"My dog."
Dust-Mouth's breath made a tiny whistle. "Dog! Pocus had a dog!"
"Sure," said Doan. "I inherited him when Pocus got blown up. He helps me spy now."
"Pocus got shot, not blowed up!"
"Shot--blown up--what's the difference to him?" Doan asked indifferently. "Or you?"
"I'm scared."
"So we're back there again, are we? What shall I do about it, shiver for you?"
Dust-Mouth gulped. "Well--well, you still want to make that deal?"
"Certainly," said Doan.
"Come on back this way, then."
Doan circled carefully around the pond, feeling the mud squash queasily under his shoes. Carstairs drifted behind him, lifting his feet daintily.
"Through here," Dust-Mouth directed.
Doan couldn't see him any better, but now he could smell him. Dust-Mouth had accumulated a new aroma to blend with the old ones, and it took Doan a moment to identify it as secondhand wine.
He slid in under a pair of deserted stairs that went nowhere in particular, and then a door creaked and let out a flicker of faint light.
"My hideout," said Dust-Mouth.
There was a lantern sitting on a broken crate, and the light that worked its way out of the grimed chimney revealed the ruin of what had once been a siren's boudoir, featuring a faded green and gilt couch big enough for Cleopatra, and a dresser with a broken mirror and some odd broken-down chairs, plus a piano bench with a lath for a substitute leg.
"Shut the door," Dust-Mouth said.
Doan shut it, and the aroma of wine became so intensified that Carstairs made little grumbling sounds to himself. Dust-Mouth settled down warily on the piano bench.
"I'm scared."
"You told me--remember? What are you scared of? After all, you're only selling out to the enemy in time of war. That's nothing to worry about."
"I don't know," Dust-Mouth said doubtfully. "It don't look so good to me no more. I mean, Tonto Charlie gettin' killed... That had a kind of funny effect on me. I was mad at first, and then I got to thinkin'. A fella can't spend no money when he's dead, you know."
"I hadn't thought of it," Doan said, "but I believe you're right. Why don't you have a drink?"
"Dri
nk?"
"Of wine."
"Ain't a bad idea." Dust-Mouth groped around under the piano bench. "You want some? Here's a cup for you."
It wasn't a cup. It was a horn--evidently a prop for some Viking drinking scene. Doan looked in it, expecting to find at least a spider lurking around somewhere, but it was only slightly dusty. He blew in it and then said: "Okay."
The Essential Works of Norbert Davis Page 46