Sunset tightened his lips, moistened them, tightened them again. He set his glass down very slowly and his right hand hung lax on his thigh. I knew I had made a mistake, that Peeler knew where the old guy was, exactly. Therefore I should know.
Nothing in Sunset’s voice showed I had made a mistake. He said crossly: “You mean why don’t I put my cards on the table and you just sit back and look ‘em over. Nix.”
“Then how do you like this?” I growled. “Peeler’s dead.”
One eyebrow twitched, and one corner of his mouth. His eyes got a little blanker than before, if possible. His voice rasped lightly, like a finger on dry leather.
“How come?”
“Competition you two didn’t know about.” I leaned back, smiled.
The gun made a soft metallic blue in the sunshine. I hardly saw where it came from. Then the muzzle was round and dark and empty looking at me.
“You’re kidding the wrong guy,” Sunset said lifelessly. “I ain’t no soft spot for chiselers to lie on.”
I folded my arms, taking care that my right hand was outside, in view.
“I would be—if I was kidding. I’m not. Peeler played with a girl and she milked him—up to a point. He didn’t tell her where to find the old fellow. So she and her top man went to see Peeler where he lived. They used a hot iron on his feet. He died of the shock.”
Sunset looked unimpressed. “I got a lot of room in my ears yet,” he said.
“So have I,” I snarled, suddenly pretending anger. “Just what the hell have you said that means anything—except that you know Peeler?”
He spun his gun on his trigger finger, watched it spin. “Old man Sype’s at Westport,” he said casually. “That mean anything to you?”
“Yeah. Has he got the marbles?”
“How the hell would I know?” He steadied the gun again, dropped it to his thigh. It wasn’t pointing at me now. “Where’s this competish you mentioned?”
“I hope I ditched them,” I said. “I’m not too sure. Can I put my hands down and take a drink?”
“Yeah, go ahead. How did you cut in?”
“Peeler roomed with the wife of a friend of mine who’s in stir. A straight girl, one you can trust. He let her in and she passed it to me—afterwards.”
“After the bump? How many cuts your side? My half is set.”
I took my drink, shoved the empty glass away. “The hell it is.”
The gun lifted an inch, dropped again. “How many altogether?” he snapped.
“Three, now Peeler’s out. If we can hold off the competition.”
“The feet-toasters? No trouble about that. What they look like?”
“Man named Rush Madder, a shyster down south, fifty, fat, thin down-curving mustache, dark hair thin on top, five-nine, a hundred and eighty, not much guts. The girl, Carol Donovan, black hair, long bob, gray eyes, pretty, small features, twenty-five to -eight, five-two, hundred-twenty, last seen wearing blue, hard as they come. The real iron in the combination.”
Sunset nodded indifferently and put his gun away. “We’ll soften her, if she pokes her snoot in,” he said. “I’ve got a heap at the house. Let’s take the air Westport way and look it over. You might be able to ease in on the goldfish angle. They say he’s nuts about them. I’ll stay under cover. He’s too stir-wise for me. I smell of the bucket.”
“Swell,” I said heartily. “I’m an old goldfish fancier myself.”
Sunset reached for the bottle, poured two fingers of Scotch and put it down. He stood up, twitched his collar straight, then shot his chinless jaw forward as far as it would go.
“But don’t make no error, bo. It’s goin’ to take pressure. It’s goin’ to mean a run out in the deep woods and some thumb twisting. Snatch stuff, likely.”
“That’s okey,” I said. “The insurance people are behind us.”
Sunset jerked down the points of his vest and rubbed the back of this thin neck. I put my hat on, locked the Scotch in the bag by the chair I’d been sitting in, went over and shut the window.
We started towards the door. Knuckles rattled on it just as I reached for the knob. I gestured Sunset back along the wall. I stared at the door for a moment and then I opened it up.
The two guns came forward almost on the same level, one small—a .32, one a big Smith & Wesson. They couldn’t come into the room abreast, so the girl came in first.
“Okey, hot shot,” she said dryly. Ceiling zero. See if you can reach it.”
8
I backed slowly into the room. The two visitors bored in on me, either side. I tripped over my bag and fell backwards, hit the floor and rolled on my side groaning.
Sunset said casually: “H’ist ‘em folks. Pretty now!”
Two heads jerked away from looking down at me and then I had my gun loose, down at my side. I kept on groaning.
There was a silence. I didn’t hear any guns fall. The door of the room was still wide open and Sunset was flattened against the wall more or less behind it.
The girl said between her teeth: “Cover the shamus, Rush—and shut the door. Skinny can’t shoot here. Nobody can.” Then, in a whisper I barely caught, she added: “Slam it!”
Rush Madder waddled backwards across the room keeping the Smith & Wesson pointed my way. His back was to Sunset and the thought of that made his eyes roll. I could have shot him easily enough, but it wasn’t the play. Sunset stood with his feet spread and his tongue showing. Something that could have been a smile wrinkled his flat eyes.
He stared at the girl and she stared at him. Their guns stared at each other.
Rush Madder reached the door, grabbed the edge of it and gave it a hard swing. I knew exactly what was going to happen. As the door slammed the .32 was going to go off. It wouldn’t be heard if it went off at the right instant. The explosion would be lost in the slamming of the door.
I reached out and took hold of Carol Donovan’s ankle and jerked it hard.
The door slammed. Her gun went off and chipped the ceiling.
She whirled on me kicking. Sunset said in his tight but somewhat penetrating drawl: “If this is it, this is it. Let’s go!” The hammer clicked back on his Colt.
Something in his voice steadied Carol Donovan. She relaxed, let her automatic fall to her side and stepped away from me with a vicious look back.
Madder turned the key in the door and leaned against the wood, breathing noisily. His hat had tipped over one ear and the ends of two strips of adhesive showed under the brim.
Nobody moved while I had these thoughts. There was no sound of feet outside in the hall, no alarm. I got up on my knees, slid my gun out of sight, rose on my feet and went over to the window. Nobody down on the pavement was staring up at the upper floors of the Snoqualmie Hotel.
I sat on the broad old-fashioned sill and looked faintly embarrassed, as though the minister had said a bad word.
The girl snapped at me: “Is this lug your partner?”
I didn’t answer. Her face flushed slowly and her eyes burned. Madder put a hand out and fussed: “Now listen, Carol, now listen here. This sort of act ain’t the way—”
“Shut up!”
“Yeah,” Madder said in a clogged voice. “Sure.”
Sunset looked the girl over lazily for the third or fourth time. His gun hand rested easily against his hipbone and his whole attitude was of complete relaxation. Having seen him pull his gun once I hoped the girl wasn’t fooled.
He said slowly: “We’ve heard about you two. What’s your offer? I wouldn’t listen even, only I can’t stand a shooting rap.”
The girl said: “There’s enough in it for four.” Madder nodded his big head vigorously, almost managed a smile.
Sunset glanced at me. I nodded. “Four it is,” he sighed.
“But that’s the top. We’ll go to my place and gargle. I don’t like it here.”
“We must look simple,” the girl said nastily.
“Kill-simple,” Sunset drawled. “I’ve met lots of them
. That’s why we’re going to talk it over. It’s not a shooting play.”
Carol Donovan slipped a suede bag from under her left arm and tucked her .32 into it. She smiled. She was pretty when she smiled.
“My ante is in,” she said quietly. “I’ll play. Where is the place?”
“Out Water Street. We’ll go in a hack.”
“Lead on, sport.”
We went out of the room and down in the elevator, four friendly people walking out through a lobby full of antlers and stuffed birds and pressed wildflowers in glass frames. The taxi went out Capitol Way, past the square, past a big red apartment house that was too big for the town except when the Legislature was sitting. Along car tracks past the distant Capitol buildings and the high closed gates of the governor’s mansion.
Oak trees bordered the sidewalks. A few largish residences showed behind garden walls. The taxi shot past them and veered on to a road that led towards the tip of the Sound. In a short while a house showed in a narrow clearing between tall trees. Water glistened far back behind the tree trunks. The house had a roofed porch, a small lawn rotten with weeds and overgrown bushes. There was a shed at the end of a dirt driveway and an antique touring car squatted under the shed.
We got out and I paid the taxi. All four of us carefully watched it out of sight. Then Sunset said: “My place is upstairs. There’s a schoolteacher lives down below. She ain’t home. Let’s go up and gargle.”
We crossed the lawn to the porch and Sunset threw a door open, pointed up narrow steps.
“Ladies first. Lead on, beautiful. Nobody locks a door in this town.”
The girl gave him a cool glance and passed him to go up the stairs. I went next, then Madder, Sunset last.
The single room that made up most of the second floor was dark from the trees, had a dormer window, a wide daybed pushed back under the slope of the roof, a table, some wicker chairs, a small radio and a round black stove in the middle of the floor.
Sunset drifted into a kitchenette and came back with a square bottle and some glasses. He poured drinks, lifted one and left the others on the table.
We helped ourselves and sat down.
Sunset put his drink down in a lump, leaned over to put his glass on the floor and came up with his Colt out.
I heard Madder’s gulp in the sudden cold silence. The girl’s mouth twitched as if she were going to laugh. Then she leaned forward, holding her glass on top of her bag with her left hand.
Sunset slowly drew his lips into a thin straight line. He said slowly and carefully: “Feet-burners, huh?”
Madder choked, started to spread his fat hands. The Colt flicked at him. He put his hands on his knees and clutched his kneecaps.
“And suckers at that,” Sunset went on tiredly. “Burn a guy’s feet to make him sing and then walk right into the parlor of one of his pals. You couldn’t tie that with Christmas ribbon.”
Madder said jerkily: “All r-right. W-what’s the p-pay-off?” The girl smiled slightly but she didn’t say anything.
Sunset grinned. “Rope,” he said softly. “A lot of rope tied in hard knots, with water on it. Then me and my pal trundle off to catch fire-flies—pearls to you—and when we come back—” he stopped, drew his left hand across the front of his throat. “Like the idea?” he glanced at me.
“Yeah, but don’t make a song about it,” I said. “Where’s the rope?”
“Bureau,” Sunset answered, and pointed with one ear at the corner.
I started in that direction, by way of the walls. Madder made a sudden thin whimpering noise and his eyes turned up in his head and he fell straight forward off the chair on his face, in a dead faint.
That jarred Sunset. He hadn’t expected anything so foolish. His right hand jerked around until the Colt was pointing down at Madder’s back.
The girl slipped her hand under her bag. The bag lifted an inch. The gun that was caught there in a trick clip—the gun that Sunset thought was inside the bag—spat and flamed briefly.
Sunset coughed. His Colt boomed and a piece of wood detached itself from the back of the chair Madder had been sitting in. Sunset dropped the Colt and put his chin down on his chest and tried to look at the ceiling. His long legs slid out in front of him and his heels made a rasping sound on the floor. He sat like that limp, his chin on his chest, his eyes looking upward. Dead as a pickled walnut.
I kicked Miss Donovan’s chair out from under her and she banged down on her side in a swirl of silken legs. Her hat went crooked on her head. She yelped. I stood on her hand and then shifted suddenly and kicked her gun clear across the attic.
“Get up.”
She got up slowly, backed away from me biting her lip, savage-eyed, suddenly a nasty-faced little brat at bay. She kept on backing until the wall stopped her. Her eyes glittered in a ghastly face.
I glanced down at Madder, went over to a closed door. A bathroom was behind it. I reversed a key and gestured at the girl.
“In.”
She walked stiff-legged across the floor and passed in front of me, almost touching me.
“Listen a minute, shamus—”
I pushed her through the door and slammed it and turned the key. It was all right with me if she wanted to jump out of the window. I had seen the windows from below.
I went across to Sunset, felt him, felt the small hard lump of keys on a ring in his pocket, and got them out without quite knocking him off his chair. I didn’t look for anything else.
There were car keys on the ring.
I looked at Madder again, noticed that his fingers were as white as snow. I went down the narrow dark stairs to the porch, around to the side of the house and got into the old touring car under the shed. One of the keys on the ring fitted its ignition lock.
The car took a beating before it started up and let me back it down the dirt driveway to the curb. Nothing moved in the house that I saw or heard. The tall pines behind and beside the house stirred their upper branches listlessly and a cold heartless sunlight sneaked through them intermittently as they moved.
I drove back to Capitol Way and downtown again as fast as I dared, past the square and the Snoqualmie Hotel and over the bridge towards the Pacific Ocean and Westport.
9
An hour’s fast driving through thinned-out timberland, interrupted by three stops for water and punctuated by the cough of a head gasket leak, brought me within sound of surf. The broad white road, striped with yellow down the center, swept around the flank of a hill, a distant cluster of buildings loomed up in front of the shine of the ocean, and the road forked. The left fork was signposted: “Westport—9 Miles,” and didn’t go towards the buildings. It crossed a rusty cantilever bridge and plunged into a region of wind-distorted apple orchards.
Twenty minutes more and I chugged into Westport, a sandy spit of land with scattered frame houses dotted over rising ground behind it. The end of the spit a long narrow pier, and the end of the pier a cluster of sailing boats with half-lowered sails flapping against their single masts. And beyond them a buoyed channel and a long irregular line where the water creamed on a hidden sandbar.
Beyond the sandbar the Pacific rolled over to Japan. This was the last outpost of the coast, the farthest west a man could go and still be on the mainland of the United States. A swell place for an ex-convict to hide out with a couple of somebody else’s pearls the size of new potatoes—if he didn’t have any enemies.
I pulled up in front of a cottage that had a sign in the front yard: ”Luncheons, Teas, Dinners.” A small rabbit-faced man with freckles was waving a garden rake at two black chickens. The chickens appeared to be sassing him back. He turned when the engine of Sunset’s car coughed itself still.
I got out, went through a wicket gate, pointed to the sign.
“Luncheon ready?”
He threw the rake at the chickens, wiped his hands on his trousers and leered. “The wife put that up,” he confided to me in a thin, impish voice. “Ham and eggs is what it means.”
>
“Ham and eggs get along with me,” I said.
We went into the house. There were three tables covered with patterned oilcloth, some chromos on the walls, a full-rigged ship in a bottle on the mantel. I sat down. The host went away through a swing door and somebody yelled at him and a sizzling noise was heard from the kitchen. He came back and leaned over my shoulder, put some cutlery and a paper napkin on the oilcloth.
“Too early for apple brandy, ain’t it?” he whispered.
I told him how wrong he was. He went away again and came back with glasses and a quart of clear amber fluid. He sat down with me and poured. A rich baritone voice in the kitchen was singing “Chloe,” over the sizzling.
We clinked glasses and drank and waited for the heat to crawl up our spines.
“Stranger, ain’t you?” the little man asked.
I said I was.
“From Seattle maybe? That’s a nice piece of goods you got on.”
“Seattle,” I agreed.
“We don’t git many strangers,” he said, looking at my left ear. “Ain’t on the way to nowheres. Now before repeal—” he stopped, shifted his sharp woodpecker gaze to my other ear.
“Ah, before repeal,” I said with a large gesture, and drank knowingly.
He leaned over and breathed on my chin. “Hell, you could load up in any fish stall on the pier. The stuff come in under catches of crabs and oysters. Hell, Westport was lousy with it. They give the kids cases of Scotch to play with. There wasn’t a car in this town that slept in a garage, mister. The garages was full to the roof of Canadian hooch. Hell, they had a coastguard cutter off the pier watchin’ the boats unload one day every week. Friday. Always the same day.” He winked.
I puffed a cigarette and the sizzling noise and the baritone rendering of “Chloe” went on in the kitchen.
“But hell, you wouldn’t be in the liquor business,” he said.
“Hell, no. I’m a goldfish buyer,” I said.
“Okey,” he said sulkily.
I poured us another round of the apple brandy. “This bottle is on me,” I said. “And I’m taking a couple more with me.”