Shiralee’s face was a study in bewilderment.
“I don’t get it, Mac. What is it you’re trying to say?”
I grinned at her.
“What he’s saying lady is, there’s no profit in taking a swing at me. If I’m going to talk, I’m going to talk, and no punch on the jaw is going to stop me. The only way to be sure of me, is to kill me. And that is not McCann’s style.”
“Oh.”
She nodded in such a way as to indicate she still had no idea what we were raving about. But there was something about the way she looked at him, not at all the way I’d expect a midnight fan dancer to look at any man. It was my turn to be puzzled.
“So what are you waiting for?” barked McCann. “Run away and peddle your dirt.”
I hesitated.
“I don’t know. Maybe not. How about it, Legs? You trade me a little information, and I’ll forget I ever saw you.”
“No deal,” he said automatically.
“Aw Mac, honey,” she appealed.
She walked across and put her arms round him.
“What harm can it do?” she wheedled. “You’re all right here, have been so far. Maybe this guy can do some good, help get things sorted out. Then you’d be off the hook, wouldn’t you? You can’t stick in the apartment for ever.”
“I ain’t gonna turn into no fink,” he said stubbornly.
“Nobody asked you to,” I butted in. “All I need is whatever information you have.”
He thought for a moment then shrugged her arms away from him.
“What kind information?”
She nodded eagerly, as though the question made everything come out right in the end. I lit an Old Favorite from the stub of the last one. I have to do something about all this smoking.
“Did you hear the radio this morning?”
“No.”
“Then open up that newspaper.”
The paper was folded so as to show the Flower murder with its repulp of the Brookman killing. Wonderingly, McCann took it from Pook’s outstretched hand and unfolded it. Underneath the fold was the story about the shooting of Jake Martello. He took in breath quickly when he saw the picture, looking at me at the same time.
“Read it,” I suggested.
His eyes scanned quickly down the page. By the time he reached the bottom, he was again chewing vigorously at his lower lip.
“It says you were there,” he accused.
“Right. I’m probably lucky that isn’t my picture you’re looking at. Another foot to the right, and I would have collected that slug.”
Shiralee took the paper from his unresisting ringers.
“So somebody shot Jake Martello. Where does that get us?”
But the words had no bite. The story meant something to him.
“All right, let’s take a flyer,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think Jake was the one who told you to scare hell out of Brookman. I think it was his three grand. I think Brookman was about due to pay back and you probably knew it. Brookman was bumped off, the money disappeared. As soon as you heard about it, you got to thinking Jake might figure you killed him for the money, Jake’s money. And you would know, we all know, what Jake would do if he thought anybody crossed him up that way. So you went missing.”
“And that’s the way you work it out?”
“Makes a kind of sense. Makes as much sense as any other part of this crazy deal.”
He went and rested his hands on a table, leaning forward as though there was a great weight on his back.
“Where were you last night, Legs?”
He shot round quickly.
“Now, wait a minute.”
“Why? You killed Brookman, stole the money. The guy after you was Jake Martello. Problem, what to do? Answer, knock off Jake, then everything is the way it was before. Except, now you have a stake.” He shook his head violently, as though repetition added weight to the denial.
“Crazy, you’re crazy. Why, I was here the whole time last night. I haven’t been outa this place in nearly two days. Why would I want to kill Jake? The guy’s a friend of mine.”
“Next to a woman, nothing comes between friends like money,” I told him pompously.
“No listen, will ya? You’re talking crazy. What’re you trying to do to me?”
“Nothing. You could be doing it yourself, hiding away like this.”
He gave a resigned laugh.
“The way you stack it up, I don’t have any cards.”
“Not if you did it, you don’t,” I agreed. “And I won’t do anything to help you. But if it wasn’t you, you ought to have sense enough to tell me anything that might help me get you off the hook.”
He looked at me, then at the girl.
“Honey, step outside and make some more coffee huh?”
When she’d gone he came over and sat down, speaking in a low tone.
“You got part of the story, Preston. I was working for Jake when I put the squeeze on this Brookman. Mind you, I didn’t hurt him. It was just a first call, you know?”
I knew. Where Legs McCann came from, the first call meant a talk with the offending customer. The caller had all the trappings of violence but nothing happened. The average welsher saw enough the first time around to persuade him he was in no need of a second call.
“And what’s the part of the story I didn’t get right?” I queried.
He was speaking so low now I could hardly catch the words.
“I want out from this business. You see, Pook and me, we’re er—we want to cut this town and start over. Understand, I’m taking a hell of a chance on you, telling you all this.”
I nodded, and leaned nearer so I could hear better.
“You know the way it is in this business, I been around too long, too many people know me, know my record. And as for Pook, there probably ain’t a guy in town who hasn’t seen as much of her as there is. If we was to stay here we wouldn’t have a chance. So what you said is right, I do need a stake so we can blow.”
“And Jake knows all this?”
“No, not about her he doesn’t. But I told him a few days back I was thinking of starting over in another town. Said it was time I quit pushing my muscles around and tried something else. In a few years I’ll just be a muscle-bound bum peddling papers or something. You’ve seen it happen.”
I had, and to better men than McCann.
“How did Jake take it?”
“Not too bad. Oh, he was sore at first. He always is when he thinks anybody wants to quit on him. But I’ve done all right for Jake, and finally he saw it my way. What he did say, I’d have to quit the collecting work right then. I didn’t hold that against him. You couldn’t expect him to send me out collecting all that money like I was, knowing I was getting ready to quit town. In his place I’d have done the same thing.”
“I see. And then when one of his customers was bumped off, you figured he might decide you helped yourself.”
“Yeah. I was having a drink in a bar, and some of the guys heard this news and I got out of there fast before Jake came looking.”
“But why in such a hurry?” I wanted to know. “Jake’s known you for years. Why would he think you crossed him up?”
“Jake don’t do a lot of listening once he makes up his mind. I’d probably lose all my teeth before I convinced him. And I do have money, cash money, just like was taken off this guy. I can’t put it in no bank, I carry it around. And that wouldn’t make it no easier explaining to Jake. Besides, maybe I don’t get the chance. Maybe some young punk knocks me off without a lot of chatter, just to make himself a name with Jake.”
With ordinary people, the kind of reasoning McCann was promoting would make little or no sense. But he wasn’t talking about ordinary people. He was talking about a different world, a tight compact little world where the values took on alien shapes. To me, it made that kind of sense.
“O.K. so what do you do now?”
He looked at me speculatively.
&nb
sp; “That would about depend on what you do.”
“I’m going to forget about you. I won’t tell the law, and I won’t tell Jake. I came here to talk to a lady named Shiralee O’Connor. I talked to her, and that’s all I know. But I’m going to ask a favor.”
“Try me.”
“This thing is getting a little rough. Two killings and a third attempt so far, and no telling what comes next. If I get in a spot where I could use a little support, maybe I could call you, huh?”
He held out his hand and we shook solemnly.
“You got yourself a deal, Preston. And good luck to you. Fm like to go nuts if I stay around the house much longer.”
I left then. At the sound of the door opening, Pook appeared from the kitchen and smiled at me tentatively. I nodded what I hoped was some kind of encouragement, and went out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS TIME I SHOWED MY FACE at the office, and from the look on Florence Digby’s face when I rolled in, she thought so too.
“Morning Miss Digby. Anything going on?”
She stopped typing and looked at me severely.
“Nothing so important that you need have troubled yourself coming in Mr. Preston. Heaven knows, I have enough practice at dealing with all the mail and answering callers. It hardly seems fair to bother you with all these little details.”
I mumbled something about being busy and picked up the newly-opened mail. I’m not any fonder of criticism than the next man, particularly the brand handed out by La Digby. Because the plain fact is, and we both know it, she can run the place perfectly well whether I’m there or not.
The mail was my usual bag of wanted notices, insurance company circulars and advertising. There was one guy who was finally prepared to reveal the truth behind the Lindbergh kidnapping. I hadn’t had one of those in months. Handing it to Florence, I said:
“Another nut. We’d better send it along to headquarters like all the rest.”
“The letter is already typed ready for signature, Mr. Preston.”
I might have known it would be.
“Any callers I ought to know about?”
“A woman called, a Mrs. Prince. She wouldn’t discuss the matter with me. Said it was something you would know about personally.”
She let me know, by the inflexion on that “personally”, that she entertained the darkest thoughts about Mrs. Prince and me. Florence always creates fantasies about any woman who crops up in my business.
“Am I supposed to call back?”
“I told her I knew little of your movements, but if you did find time to come into the office today, I would tell you she called.” I went through into the inner room and closed the door. There were a few papers on the desk, some for signing, some just for information. It didn’t take many minutes to clear those, then I put my feet up on the desk and lit an Old Favorite. The Brookman thing had me puzzled. Ordinarily, I’d still have a few places where I could go and make noises. The kind of noises that persuade people to tell me things, or get tough, some kind of reaction.
But with this one I was fresh out of places. And names. The only thing seemed to be to go through the whole process again, and it wasn’t a prospect that appealed. I lit an Old Favorite and pulled the telephone towards me. I had to wait a minute or two before the receiver at the other end was lifted. Eve Prince said:
“Hallo?”
“This is Preston, Mrs. Prince. Understand you called my office.”
“Why yes, hallo Mr. Preston. I simply wanted you to know I did as you suggested. My lawyer speaks very well of you, and I wanted to apologize for being so foolish.”
“You weren’t foolish,” I assured her. “You did the right thing. It doesn’t pay to trust everybody who comes banging on the door. Say, if you’re not too busy I’d like to have another talk.”
She hesitated.
“Well, I have an engagement this afternoon,” she said doubtfully.
“This won’t take long. I don’t think I should call at your house again, and the police sometimes watch my office, just out of curiosity. Perhaps we could make it a quiet drink somewhere? The whole thing wouldn’t take thirty minutes.”
“Oh. Well, perhaps that would be all right. Where do you suggest?”
“You know the Esperanza? It’s a couple of miles out on Highway Eight?”
“Yes. Or rather, I’ve been past the place.”
The correction was to make it quite clear that Mrs. Prince was not on first-name terms with every saloon in town.
“Fine. I’ll see you out there in——” I looked at my watch——” fifteen minutes?”
“Very well. But I really mustn’t stay too long.”
It was a little after one when I pulled in outside Rancho Esperanza. Nobody gets any prizes for guessing the place is done out in old Spanish California style, plenty of white pillars and black iron grillework on view. Inside it was cool, and I perched thankfully on a tall stool by the bar. The jockey wore a frilled shirt with a string tie and his face looked familiar.
“Hi, Mr. Preston. Long time etcetera.”
I puzzled, but not for long.
“Tom. Tom Golding.”
“Right.”
We shook hands, but there was still something wrong about him. Then I had it.
“It’s your hair,” I exclaimed. “Your hair ought to be brown.”
He grinned self-consciously and patted at his shiny black locks.
“Mr. Preston, whoever heard of a Spanish waiter with brown hair? You want the job. you gotta look Spanish. You wanta look Spanish, you need black hair.”
“Well, if the job is worth it,” I grinned. “Pretty busy?”
“Not daytimes. We get a few people in, mostly guys meeting other people’s wives. You know, we’re kind of off the track out here. People can have a quiet chat with nobody around. Nights though, that’s different. Man, this place really swings then. You wanta sit on that stool tonight, you better be here good and early.”
I ordered some scotch with a lot of ice and Tom did his usual professional job of serving it up. As I was the only customer in the place I didn’t have to feel guilty about taking up his time.
“Last time I saw you, you were working at the old Grease Paint Pot on Malabar. Something go wrong down there?”
He grimaced, as he polished away at a glass with a snow-white cloth.
“Places change, Mr. Preston. You remember the Pot, we used to get real movie people, television people, like that. Always a few faces around down there, and it was, you know, always something going on. Then suddenly they don’t come any more. We always had our share of phonies around, but nobody took no notice of them. All of a sudden one day, it’s all phonies. Guess they drove the real celebrities away. So I figured it was time to move on. You know me, I never could stand those dead beats.”
I knew what he meant. Bartenders have their own methods for dealing with drunks, troublemakers and phonies, but even among bartenders Tom had a reputation. Then there was the sound of a car pulling up outside. A door slammed and there was Eve Prince coming through the door. Today she wore a sleeveless lemon dress that set off the deep tan, and her black hair was pulled back from her face and tied behind. She walked with a free swinging grace, and I began to regret she already had an engagement for the afternoon. Behind me, I could sense Tom watching her too, and I didn’t blame him.
“Am I late?”
She smiled, one of those smiles that made people forget how long they’d been waiting.
“Not at all, I just got here. May I get you something?”
“Thank you. Could I have some gin, with ginger ale and ice?”
“Tom.”
He was already busy. I led her to a table by a window, where we could look out into the paved garden where the fountain played. Tom brought her drink across and we raised our glasses.
“What shall we drink to?” she asked.
“To our better understanding?”
She smiled slightly and we sipped at the
cool drink. She looked through the window.
“This is nice. You bring all your suspects out here?”
She was a different woman from the one I’d talked to before. This one was completely calm and self-possessed. And very attractive.
“No,” I admitted. “Only the females. And who said anything about suspects?”
“Wrong word,” she corrected. “But you did say something about another talk.”
“Yes.”
She refused a cigaret, I didn’t. The blue smoke hung lazily in the still air, and I leaned towards her so my words wouldn’t carry to the bartender.
“You said Brookman once mentioned he had a girl friend who was a dancer.”
“Yes, it was just one of those little remarks that stick in the mind.”
“Uh huh. Now I want you to think very hard, because it could be important. Did he say anything else about her, any little thing at all?”
She pondered for a while, then slowly shook her head.
“No. No, I don’t think so. Remember, my conversations with that—that person were not quite what you could call social occasions.”
“I understand. If he’d mentioned a name, you think you might recognize it?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. In fact, I don’t remember that I ever heard him mention anybody’s name at all.”
I was disappointed.
“So if I said a name, it wouldn’t ring a bell?”
“Sorry. Of course, you could try.”
“How about Shiralee O’Connor. Or he might have called her Pook.”
“O’Connor. No. No, I’m sorry.”
That was half of my stock of dancer’s names. But I still had one left.
“Serena Fenton,” I said.
“Serena? What an unusual name. No, I’d have remembered that—wait a minute.”
I felt quick hope while she searched her memory.
“Serena Fenton,” she repeated slowly. “Isn’t that the name of the girl who fell from a window last night? The one they wrote about in the papers this morning?”
“Yes, it is,” I confirmed.
“But I don’t quite understand. You’re surely not suggesting any connection between that unfortunate girl’s accident, and what happened to him, to that man?”
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