He said: “Several things. Rhonda Farr is home. Macdonald and Slippy Morgan got gunned. But that’s not important. I’m after some letters you were trying to peddle to Rhonda Farr. Dig ‘em up.”
Costello lifted his head and grunted. He said: “I don’t have the letters.”
Mallory said:” Get the letters, Costello. Now” He sprinkled cigarette ash carefully in the middle of a green and yellow diamond in the carpet design.
Costello made an impatient movement. “I don’t have them,” he insisted. “I never saw them.”
Mallory’s eyes were slate-gray, very cold, and his voice was brittle. He said: “What you heels don’t know about your racket is just pitiful…I’m tired, Costello. I don’t feel like an argument. You’d look lousy with that big beezer smashed over on one side of your face with a gun barrel.”
Costello put his bony hand up and rubbed the reddened skin around his mouth where the tape had chafed it. He glanced down the room. There was a slight movement of the velour curtains across the end door, as though a breeze had stirred them. But there was no breeze. Mallory was staring down at the carpet.
Costello stood up from the chair, slowly. He said: “I’ve got a wall safe. I’ll open it up.”
He went across the room to the wall in which the outside door was, lifted down a picture and worked the dial of a small inset circular safe. He swung the little round door open and thrust his arm into the safe.
Mallory said: “Stay just like that, Costello.”
He stepped lazily across the room, and passed his left hand down Costello’s arm, into the safe. It came out again holding a small pearl-handled automatic. He made a sibilant sound with his lips and put the little gun into his pocket.
“Just can’t learn, can you, Costello?” he said in a tired voice.
Costello shrugged, went back across the room. Mallory plunged his hands into the safe and tumbled the contents out onto the floor. He dropped on one knee. There were some long white envelopes, a bunch of clippings fastened with a paper-clip, a narrow, thick check-book, a small photograph album, an address book, some loose papers, some yellow bank statements with check inside. Mallory spread one of the long envelopes carelessly, without much interest.
The curtains over the end door moved again. Costello stood rigid in front of the mantel. A gun came through the curtains in a small hand that was very steady. A slim body followed the hand, a white face with blazing eyes—Erno.
Mallory came to his feet, his hands breast-high, empty.
“Higher, baby,” Erno croaked. “Much higher, baby!”
Mallory raised his hands a little more. His forehead was wrinkled in a hard frown. Erno came forward into the room. His face glistened. A lock of oily black hair drooped over one eyebrow. His teeth showed in a stiff grin.
He said:” I think we’ll give it to you right here, two-timer.”
His voice had a questioning inflection, as if he waited Costello’s confirmation.
Costello didn’t say anything.
Mallory moved his head a little. His mouth felt very dry. He watched Erno’s eyes, saw them tense. He said rather quickly:
“You’ve been crossed, mug, but not by me.”
Erno’s grin widened to a snarl, and his head went back. His trigger finger whitened at the first joint. Then there was a noise outside the door, and it came open.
Landrey came in. He shut the door with a jerk of his shoulder, and leaned against it, dramatically. Both his hands were in the side pockets of his thin dark overcoat. His eyes under the soft black hat were bright and devilish. He looked pleased. He moved his chin in the white silk evening scarf that was tucked carelessly about his neck. His handsome pale face was like something carved out of old ivory.
Erno moved his gun slightly and waited. Landrey said cheerfully:
“Bet you a grand you hit the floor first!”
Erno’s lips twitched under his shiny little mustache. Two guns went off at the same time. Landrey swayed like a tree hit by a gust of wind; the heavy roar of his .45 sounded again, muffled a little by cloth and the nearness to his body.
Mallory went down behind the davenport, rolled and came up with the Luger straight out in front of him. But Erno’s face had already gone blank.
He went down slowly; his light body seemed to be drawn down by the weight of the gun in his right hand. He bent at the knees as he fell, and slid forward on the floor. His back arched once, and then went loose.
Landrey took his left hand out of his coat pocket and spread the fingers away from him as though pushing at something. Slowly and with difficulty he got the big automatic out of the other pocket and raised it inch by inch, turning on the balls of his feet. He swiveled his body towards Costello’s rigid figure and squeezed the trigger again. Plaster jumped from the wall at Costello’s shoulder.
Landrey smiled vaguely, said: “Damn!” in a soft voice. Then his eyes went up in his head and the gun plunged down from his nerveless fingers, bounded on the carpet. Landrey went down joint by joint, smoothly and gracefully, kneeled, swaying a moment before he melted over sideways, spread himself on the floor almost without sound. Mallory looked at Costello, and said in a strained, angry voice: “Boy, are you lucky!”
The buzzer droned insistently. Three little lights glowed red on the panel of the switchboard. The wizened, white-haired little man shut his mouth with a snap and struggled sleepily upright.
Mallory jerked past him with his head turned the other way, shot across the lobby, out of the front door of the apartment house, down the three marble-faced steps, across the pavement and the street. The driver of Landrey’s car had already stepped on the starter. Mallory swung in beside him, breathing hard, and slammed the car door.
“Get goin’ fast!” he rasped. “Stay off the boulevard. Cops here in five minutes!”
The driver looked at him and said: “Where’s Landrey?…I heard shootin’.”
Mallory held the Luger up, said swiftly and coldly: “Move, baby!”
The gears went in, the Cadillac jumped forward, the driver took a corner recklessly, the tail of his eye on the gun.
Mallory said: “Landrey stopped lead. He’s cold.” He held the Luger up, put the muzzle under the driver’s nose. “But not from my gun. Smell that, friend. It hasn’t been fired!”
The driver said: “Jeeze!” in a shattered voice, swung the big car wildly, missing the curb by inches.
It was getting to be daylight.
7
Rhonda Farr said: “Publicity, darling. Just publicity. Any kind is better than none at all. I’m not so sure my contract is going to be renewed and I’ll probably need it.”
She was sitting in a deep chair, in a large, long room. She looked at Mallory with lazy, indifferent, purplish-blue eyes and moved her hand to a tall, misted glass. She took a drink.
The room was enormous. Mandarin rugs in soft colors swathed the floor. There was a lot of teakwood and red lacquer. Gold frames glinted high up on the walls, and the ceiling was remote and vague, like the dusk of a hot day. A huge carved radio gave forth muted and unreal strains.
Mallory wrinkled his nose and looked amused in a grim sort of way. He said:
“You’re a nasty little rat. I don’t like you.”
Rhonda Farr said: “Oh, yes, you do, darling. You’re crazy about me.”
She smiled and fitted a cigarette into a jade-green holder that matched her jade-green lounging pajamas. Then she reached out her beautifully shaped hand and pushed the button of a bell that was set into the top of a low nacre and teakwood table at her side. A silent, white-coated Japanese butler drifted into the room and mixed more highballs.
“You’re a pretty wise lad, aren’t you, darling?” Rhonda Farr said, when he had gone out again. “And you have some letters in your pocket you think are body and soul to me. Nothing like it, mister, nothing like it.” She took a sip of the fresh highball. “The letters you have are phony. They were written about a month ago. Landrey never had them. He gave his le
tters back a long time ago…What you have are just props.” She put a hand to her beautifully waved hair. The experience of the previous night seemed to have left no trace on her.
Mallory looked at her carefully. He said: “How do you prove that?”
“The notepaper—if I have to prove it. There’s a little man down at Fourth and Spring who makes a study of that kind of thing.”
Mallory said: “The writing?”
Rhonda Farr smiled dimly. “Writing’s easy to fake, if you have plenty of time. Or so I’m told. That’s my story anyhow”
Mallory nodded, sipped at his own highball. He put his hand into his inside breast pocket and took out a flat manila envelope, legal size. He laid it on his knee.
“Four men got gunned out last night on account of these phony letters,” he said carelessly.
Rhonda Farr looked at him mildly. “Two crooks, a doublecrossing policeman, make three of them. I should lose my sleep over that trash! Of course, I’m sorry about Landrey.”
Mallory said politely: “It’s nice of you to be sorry about Landrey.”
She said peacefully: “Landrey, as I told you once, was a pretty nice boy a few years ago, when he was trying to get into pictures. But he chose another business, and in that business he was bound to stop a bullet some time.”
Mallory rubbed his chin. “It’s funny he didn’t remember he’d given you back your letters. Very funny.”
“He wouldn’t care, darling. He was that kind of actor, and he’d like the show. It gave him a chance for a swell pose. He’d like that terribly.”
Mallory let his face get hard and disgusted. He said: “The job looked on the level to me. I didn’t know much about Landrey, but he knew a good friend of mine in Chicago. He figured a way to the boys who were working on you, and I played his hunch. Things happened that made it easier—but a lot noisier.”
Rhonda Farr tapped little bright nails against her little bright teeth. She said: “What are you back where you live, darling? One of those hoods they call private dicks?”
Mallory laughed harshly, made a vague movement and ran his fingers through his crisp dark hair. “Let it go, baby,” he said softly. “Let it go.”
Rhonda Farr looked at him with a surprised glance, then laughed rather shrilly. “It gets mad, doesn’t it?” she cooed. She went on, in a dry voice: “Atkinson has been bleeding me for years, one way and another. I fixed the letters up and put them where he could get hold of them. They disappeared. A few days afterwards a man with one of those tough voices called up and began to apply the pressure. I let it ride. I figured I’d hang a pinch on Atkinson somehow, and our two reputations put together would be good for a write-up that wouldn’t hurt me too much. But the thing seemed to be spreading out, and I got scared. I thought of asking Landrey to help me out. I was sure he would like it.”
Mallory said roughly: “Simple, straightforward kid, ain’t you? Like hell!”
“You don’t know much about this Hollywood racket, do you darling?” Rhonda Farr said. She put her head on one side and hummed softly. The strains of a dance band floated idly through the quiet air. “That’s a gorgeous melody…It’s swiped from a Weber sonata…Publicity has to hurt a bit out here. Otherwise nobody believes it.”
Mallory stood up, lifting the manila envelope off his knee. He dropped it in her lap.
“Five grand these are costing you,” he said.
Rhonda Farr leaned back and crossed her jade-green legs. One little green slipper fell off her bare foot to the rug, and the manila envelope fell down beside it. She didn’t stir towards either one.
She said: “Why?”
“I’m a business man, baby. I get paid for my work. Landrey didn’t pay me. Five grand was the price. The price to him, and now the price to you.”
She looked at him almost casually, out of placid, cornflower-blue eyes, and said: “No deal…blackmailer. Just like I told you at the Bolivar. You have all my thanks, but I’m spending my money myself.”
Mallory said curtly: “This might be a damn good way to spend some of it.”
He leaned over and picked up her highball, drank a little of it. When he put the glass down he tapped the nails of two fingers against the side for a moment. A small tight smile wrinkled the corners of his mouth. He lit a cigarette and tossed the match into a bowl of hyacinths.
He said slowly: “Landrey’s driver talked, of course. Landrey’s friends want to see me. They want to know how come Landrey got rubbed out in Westwood. The cops will get around to me after a while. Someone is sure to tip them off. I was right beside four killings last night, and naturally I’m not going to run out on them. I’ll probably have to spill the whole story. The cops will give you plenty of publicity, baby. Landrey’s friends—I don’t know what they’ll do. Something that will hurt a lot, I should say.”
Rhonda Farr jerked to her feet, fumbling with her toe for the green slipper. Her eyes had gone wide and startled.
“You’d…sell me out?” she breathed.
Mallory laughed. His eyes were bright and hard. He stared along the floor at a splash of light from one of the standing lamps. He said in a bored voice:
“Why the hell should I protect you? I don’t owe you anything. And you’re too damn tight with your dough to hire me. I haven’t a record, but you know how the law boys love my sort. And Landrey’s friends will just see a dirty plant that got a good lad killed.——sake, why should I front for a chiseler like you?”
He snorted angrily. Red spots showed in his tanned cheeks.
Rhonda Farr stood quite still and shook her head slowly from side to side. She said: “No deal, blackmailer…no deal.” Her voice was small and tired, but her chin stuck out hard and brave.
Mallory reached out and picked up his hat. “You’re a hell of a guy,” he said, grinning, “Christ! But you Hollywood frails must be hard to get on with!”
He leaned forward suddenly, put his left hand behind her head and kissed her on the mouth hard. Then he flipped the tips of his fingers across her cheek.
“You’re a nice kid—in some ways,” he said. “And a fair liar. Just fair. You didn’t fake any letters, baby. Atkinson wouldn’t fall for a trick like that.”
Rhonda Farr stooped over, snatched the manila envelope off the rug, and tumbled out what was in it—a number of closely written grey pages, deckle-edged, with thin gold monograms. She stared down at them with quivering nostrils.
She said slowly: “I’ll send you the money.”
Mallory put his hand against her chin, and pushed her head back.
He said rather gently:
“I was kidding you, baby. I have that bad habit. But there are two funny things about these letters. They haven’t any envelopes, and there’s nothing to show who they were written to—nothing at all. The second thing is, Landrey had them in his pocket when he was killed.”
He nodded and turned away. Rhonda Farr said sharply: “Wait!” Her voice was suddenly terrified.
Mallory said: “It gets you when it’s over. Take a drink.”
He went a little way down the room, turned his head. He said: “I have to go. Got a date with a big black spot…Send me some flowers. Wild, blue flowers, like your eyes.”
He went out under an arch. A door opened and shut heavily. Rhonda Farr sat without moving for a long time.
8
Cigarette smoke laced the air. A group of people in evening clothes stood sipping cocktails at one side of a curtained opening that led to the gambling rooms. Beyond the curtains light blazed down on one end of a roulette table.
Mallory put his elbows on the bar, and the bartender left two young girls in party gowns and slid a white towel along the polished wood towards him. He said:
“What’ll it be, chief?”
Mallory said: “A small beer.”
The bartender gave it to him, smiled, went back to the two girls. Mallory sipped the beer, made a face, and looked into the long mirror that ran all the way behind the bar and slanted forward a l
ittle, so that it showed the floor all the way over to the far wall. A door opened in the wall and a man in dinner clothes came through. He had a wrinkled brown face and hair the color of steel wool. He met Mallory’s glance in the mirror and came across the room nodding.
He said: “I’m Mardonne. Nice of you to come.” He had a soft, husky voice, the voice of a fat man, but he was not fat.
Mallory said: “It’s not a social call.”
Mardonne said: “Let’s go up to my office.”
Mallory drank a little more of the beer, made another face, and pushed the glass away from him across the bar top. They went through the door, up a carpeted staircase that met another staircase half-way up. An open door shone light on the landing. They went in where the light was.
The room had been a bedroom, and no particular trouble had been taken to make it over into an office. It had gray walls, two or three prints in narrow frames. There was a big filing cabinet, a good safe, chairs. A parchment-shaded lamp stood on a walnut desk. A very blond young man sat on a corner of the desk swinging one leg over the other. He was wearing a soft hat with a gay band.
Mardonne said: “All right, Henry. I’ll be busy.”
The blond young man got off the desk, yawned, put his hand to his mouth with an affected flirt of the wrist. There was a large diamond on one of his fingers. He looked at Mallory, smiled, and went slowly out of the room, closing the door.
Mardonne sat down in a blue leather swivel-chair. He lit a thin cigar and pushed a humidor across the grained top of the desk. Mallory took a chair at the end of the desk, between the door and a pair of open windows. There was another door, but the safe stood in front of it. He lit a cigarette, said:
“Landrey owed me some money. Five grand. Anybody here interested in paying it?”
Mardonne put his brown hands on the arms of his chair and rocked back and forth. “We haven’t come to that,” he said.
Mallory said: “Right. What have we come to?”
Mardonne narrowed his dull eyes. His voice was flat and without tone. “To how Landrey got killed.”