I leaned against the wall of the booth and felt my eyes getting haggard. I said: “What else did you get?”
“Couple of radio cops picked him up in somebody’s front yard or something, in West Cimarron. He was shot through the heart. It happened last night, but for some reason they only just put out the identification.”
I said: “West Cimarron, huh? . . . Well, that takes care of that. I’ll be in to see you.”
I thanked him and hung up, stood for a moment looking out through the glass at a middle-aged gray-haired man who had come into the store and was pawing over the magazine rack.
Then I dropped another nickel and dialed the Lorraine, asked for the clerk.
I said: “Get your girl to put me on to the redhead, will you, Jim?”
I got a cigarette out and lit it, puffed smoke at the glass of the door. The smoke flattened out against the glass and swirled about in the close air. Then the line clicked and the operator’s voice said: “Sorry, your party does not answer.”
“Give me Jim again,” I said. Then, when he answered, “Can you take time to run up and find out why she doesn’t answer the phone? Maybe she’s just being cagey.”
Jim said: “You bet. I’ll shoot right up with a key.”
Sweat was coming out all over me. I put the receiver down on a little shelf and jerked the booth door open. The gray-haired man looked up quickly from the magazines, then scowled and looked at his watch. Smoke poured out of the booth. After a moment I kicked the door shut and picked up the receiver again.
Jim’s voice seemed to come to me from a long way off. “She’s not here. Maybe she went for a walk.”
I said: “Yeah—or maybe it was a ride.”
I pronged the receiver and pushed on out of the booth. The gray-haired stranger slammed a magazine down so hard that it fell to the floor. He stooped to pick it up as I went past him. Then he straightened up just behind me and said quietly, but very firmly: “Keep the hands down, and quiet. Walk on out to your heap. This is business.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the old man peeking short-sightedly at us. But there wasn’t anything for him to see, even if he could see that far. Something prodded my back. It might have been a finger, but I didn’t think it was.
We went out of the store very peacefully.
A long gray car had stopped close behind the Marmon. Its rear door was open and a man with a square face and a crooked mouth was standing with one foot out on the running board. His right hand was behind him, inside the car.
My man’s voice said: “Get in your car and drive west. Take this first corner and go about twenty-five, not more.”
The narrow street was sunny and quiet and the pepper trees whispered. Traffic threshed by on Cordova a short block away. I shrugged, opened the door of my car and got under the wheel. The gray-haired man got in very quickly beside me, watching my hands. He swung his right hand around, with a snub-nosed gun in it.
“Careful getting your keys out, buddy.”
I was careful. As I stepped on the starter a car door slammed behind, there were rapid steps, and someone got into the back seat of the Marmon. I let in the clutch and drove around the corner. In the mirror I could see the gray car making the turn behind. Then it dropped back a little.
I drove west on a street that paralleled Cordova and when we had gone a block and a half a hand came down over my shoulder from behind and took my gun away from me. The gray-haired man rested his short revolver on his leg and felt me over carefully with his free hand. He leaned back satisfied.
“Okey. Drop over to the main drag and snap it up,” he said. “But that don’t mean trying to sideswipe a prowl car, if you lamp one . . . Or if you think it does, try it and see.”
I made the two turns, speeded up to thirty-five and held it there. We went through some nice residential districts, and then the landscape began to thin out. When it was quite thin the gray car behind dropped back, turned towards town and disappeared.
“What’s the snatch for?” I asked.
The gray-haired man laughed and rubbed his broad red chin. “Just business. The big boy wants to talk to you.”
“Canales?”
“Canales—hell! I said the big boy.”
I watched traffic, what there was of it that far out, and didn’t speak for a few minutes. Then I said: “Why didn’t you pull it in the apartment, or in the alley?”
“Wanted to make sure you wasn’t covered.”
“Who’s this big boy?”
“Skip that—till we get you there. Anything else?”
“Yes. Can I smoke?”
He held the wheel while I lit up. The man in the back seat hadn’t said a word at any time. After a while the gray-haired man made me pull up and move over, and he drove.
“I used to own one of these, six years ago, when I was poor,” he said jovially.
I couldn’t think of a really good answer to that, so I just let smoke seep down into my lungs and wondered why, if Lou had been killed in West Cimarron, the killers didn’t get the money. And if he really had been killed at Miss Glenn’s apartment, why somebody had taken the trouble to carry him back to West Cimarron.
SEVEN
In twenty minutes we were in the foothills. We went over a hogback, drifted down a long white concrete ribbon, crossed a bridge, went halfway up the next slope and turned off on a gravel road that disappeared around a shoulder of scrub oak and manzanita. Plumes of pampas grass flared on the side of the hill, like jets of water. The wheels crunched on the gravel and skidded on the curves.
We came to a mountain cabin with a wide porch and cemented boulder foundations. The windmill of a generator turned slowly on the crest of a spur a hundred feet behind the cabin. A mountain blue jay flashed across the road, zoomed, banked sharply, and fell out of sight like a stone.
The gray-haired man tooled the car up to the porch, beside a tan-colored Lincoln coupe, switched off the ignition and set the Marmon’s long parking brake. He took the keys out, folded them carefully in their leather case, put the case away in his pocket.
The man in the back seat got out and held the door beside me open. He had a gun in his hand. I got out. The gray-haired man got out. We all went into the house.
There was a big room with walls of knotted pine, beautifully polished. We went across it walking on Indian rugs and the gray-haired man knocked carefully on a door.
A voice shouted: “What is it?”
The gray-haired man put his face against the door and said: “Beasley—and the guy you wanted to talk to.”
The voice inside said to come on in. Beasley opened the door, pushed me through it and shut it behind me.
It was another big room with knotted pine walls and Indian rugs on the floor. A driftwood fire hissed and puffed on a stone hearth.
The man who sat behind a flat desk was Frank Dorr, the politico.
He was the kind of man who liked to have a desk in front of him, and shove his fat stomach against it, and fiddle with things on it, and look very wise. He had a fat, muddy face, a thin fringe of white hair that stuck up a little, small sharp eyes, small and very delicate hands.
What I could see of him was dressed in a slovenly gray suit, and there was a large black Persian cat on the desk in front of him. He was scratching the cat’s head with one of his little neat hands and the cat was leaning against his hand. Its busy tail flowed over the edge of the desk and fell straight down.
He said: “Sit down,” without looking away from the cat.
I sat down in a leather chair with a very low seat. Dorr said: “How do you like it up here? Kind of nice, ain’t it? This is Toby, my girl friend. Only girl friend I got. Ain’t you, Toby?”
I said: “I like it up here—but I don’t like the way I got here.”
Dorr raised his head a few inches and looked at me with his mouth slightly open. He had beautiful teeth, but they hadn’t grown in his mouth. He said: “I’m a busy man, brother. It was simpler than arguing. Have a drink?
”
“Sure I’ll have a drink,” I said.
He squeezed the cat’s head gently between his two palms, then pushed it away from him and put both hands down on the arms of his chair. He shoved hard and his face got a little red and he finally got up on his feet. He waddled across to a built-in cabinet and took out a squat decanter of whiskey and two gold-veined glasses.
“No ice today,” he said, waddling back to the desk. “Have to drink it straight.”
He poured two drinks, gestured, and I went over and got mine. He sat down again. I sat down with my drink. Dorr lit a long brown cigar, pushed the box two inches in my direction, leaned back and stared at me with complete relaxation.
“You’re the guy that fingered Manny Tinnen,” he said. “It won’t do.”
I sipped my whiskey. It was good enough to sip.
“Life gets complicated at times,” Dorr went on, in the same even, relaxed voice. “Politics—even when it’s a lot of fun—is tough on the nerves. You know me. I’m tough and I get what I want. There ain’t a hell of a lot I want any more, but what I want—I want bad. And ain’t so damn particular how I get it.”
“You have that reputation,” I said politely.
Dorr’s eyes twinkled. He looked around for the cat, dragged it towards him by the tail, pushed it down on its side and began to rub its stomach. The cat seemed to like it.
Dorr looked at me and said very softly: “You bumped Lou Harger.”
“What makes you think so?” I asked, without any particular emphasis.
“You bumped Lou Harger. Maybe he needed the bump—but you gave it to him. He was shot once through the heart, with a thirty-eight. You wear a thirty-eight and you’re known to be a fancy shot with it. You were with Harger at Las Olindas last night and saw him win a lot of money. You were supposed to be acting as bodyguard for him, but you got a better idea. You caught up with him and that girl in West Cimarron, slipped Harger the dose and got the money.”
I finished my whiskey, got up and poured myself some more of it.
“You made a deal with the girl,” Dorr said, “but the deal didn’t stick. She got a cute idea. But that don’t matter, because the police got your gun along with Harger. And you got the dough.”
I said: “Is there a tag out for me?”
“Not till I give the word . . . And the gun hasn’t been turned in . . . I got a lot of friends, you know.”
I said slowly: “I got sapped outside Canales’ place. It served me right. My gun was taken from me. I never caught up with Harger, never saw him again. The girl came to me this morning with the money in an envelope and a story that Harger had been killed in her apartment. That’s how I have the money—for safekeeping. I wasn’t sure about the girl’s story, but her bringing the money carried a lot of weight. And Harger was a friend of mine. I started out to investigate.”
“You should have let the cops do that,” Dorr said with a grin.
“There was a chance the girl was being framed. Besides there was a possibility I might make a few dollars—legitimately. It has been done, even in San Angelo.”
Dorr stuck a finger towards the cat’s face and the cat bit it, with an absent expression. Then it pulled away from him, sat down on a corner of the desk and began to lick one toe.
“Twenty-two grand, and the jane passed it over to you to keep,” Dorr said. “Ain’t that just like a jane?
“You got the dough,” Dorr said. “Harger was killed with your gun. The girl’s gone—but I could bring her back. I think she’d make a good witness, if we needed one.”
“Was the play at Las Olindas crooked?” I asked.
Dorr finished his drink and curled his lips around his cigar again. “Sure,” he said carelessly. “The croupier—a guy named Pina—was in on it. The wheel was wired for the double-zero. The old crap. Copper button on the floor, copper button on Pina’s shoe sole, wires up his leg, batteries in his hip pockets. The old crap.”
I said: “Canales didn’t act as if he knew about it.”
Dorr chuckled. “He knew the wheel was wired. He didn’t know his head croupier was playin’ on the other team.”
“I’d hate to be Pina,” I said.
Dorr made a negligent motion with his cigar. “He’s taken care of . . . The play was careful and quiet. They didn’t make any fancy long shots, just even money bets, and they didn’t win all the time. They couldn’t. No wired wheel is that good.”
I shrugged, moved around in my chair. “You know a hell of a lot about it,” I said. “Was all this just to get me set for a squeeze?”
He grinned softly: “Hell, no! Some of it just happened—the way the best plans do.” He waved his cigar again, and a pale gray tendril of smoke curled past his cunning little eyes. There was a muffled sound of talk in the outside room. “I got connections I got to please—even if I don’t like all their capers,” he added simply.
“Like Manny Tinnen?” I said. “He was around City Hall a lot, knew too much. Okey, Mister Dorr. Just what do you figure on having me do for you? Commit suicide?”
He laughed. His fat shoulders shook cheerfully. He put one of his small hands out with the palm towards me. “I wouldn’t think of that,” he said dryly, “and the other way’s better business. The way public opinion is about the Shannon kill. I ain’t sure that louse of a D.A. wouldn’t convict Tinnen without you—if he could sell the folks the idea you’d been knocked off to button your mouth.”
I got up out of my chair, went over and leaned on the desk, leaned across it towards Dorr.
He said: “No funny business!” a little sharply and breathlessly. His hand went to a drawer and got it half open. His movements with his hands were very quick in contrast with the movements of his body.
I smiled down at the hand and he took it away from the drawer. I saw a gun just inside the drawer.
I said: “I’ve already talked to the Grand Jury.”
Dorr leaned back and smiled at me. “Guys make mistakes,” he said. “Even smart private dicks . . . You could have a change of heart—and put it in writing.”
I said very softly. “No. I’d be under a perjury rap—which I couldn’t beat. I’d rather be under a murder rap—which I can beat. Especially as Fenweather will want me to beat it. He won’t want to spoil me as a witness. The Tinnen case is too important to him.”
Dorr said evenly: “Then you’ll have to try and beat it, brother. And after you get through beating it there’ll still be enough mud on your neck so no jury’ll convict Manny on your say-so alone.”
I put my hand out slowly and scratched the cat’s ear. “What about the twenty-two grand?”
“It could be all yours, if you want to play. After all, it ain’t my money . . . If Manny gets clear, I might add a little something that is my money.”
I tickled the cat under its chin. It began to purr. I picked it up and held it gently in my arms.
“Who did kill Lou Harger, Dorr?” I asked, not looking at him.
He shook his head. I looked at him, smiling. “Swell cat you have,” I said.
Dorr licked his lips. “I think the little bastard likes you,” he grinned. He looked pleased at the idea.
I nodded—and threw the cat in his face.
He yelped, but his hands came up to catch the cat. The cat twisted neatly in the air and landed with both front paws working. One of them split Dorr’s cheek like a banana peel. He yelled very loudly.
I had the gun out of the drawer and the muzzle of it into the back of Dorr’s neck when Beasley and the square-faced man dodged in.
For an instant there was a sort of tableau. Then the cat tore itself loose from Dorr’s arms, shot to the floor and went under the desk. Beasley raised his snub-nosed gun, but he didn’t look as if he was certain what he meant to do with it.
I shoved the muzzle of mine hard into Dorr’s neck and said: “Frankie gets it first, boys . . . And that’s not a gag.”
Dorr grunted in front of me. “Take it easy,” he growled to his hoods.
He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to dab at his split and bleeding cheek with it. The man with the crooked mouth began to sidle along the wall.
I said: “Don’t get the idea I’m enjoying this, but I’m not fooling either. You heels stay put.”
The man with the crooked mouth stopped sidling and gave me a nasty leer. He kept his hands low.
Dorr half turned his head and tried to talk over his shoulder to me. I couldn’t see enough of his face to get any expression, but he didn’t seem scared. He said: “This won’t get you anything. I could have you knocked off easy enough, if that was what I wanted. Now where are you? You can’t shoot anybody without getting in a worse jam than if you did what I asked you to. It looks like a stalemate to me.”
I thought that over for a moment while Beasley looked at me quite pleasantly, as though it was all just routine to him. There was nothing pleasant about the other man. I listened hard, but the rest of the house seemed to be quite silent.
Dorr edged forward from the gun and said: “Well?”
I said: “I’m going out. I have a gun and it looks like a gun that I could hit somebody with, if I have to. I don’t want to very much, and if you’ll have Beasley throw my keys over and the other one turn back the gun he took from me, I’ll forget about the snatch.”
Dorr moved his arms in the lazy beginning of a shrug. “Then what?”
“Figure out your deal a little closer,” I said. “If you get enough protection behind me, I might throw in with you . . . And if you’re as tough as you think you are, a few hours won’t cut any ice one way or the other.”
“It’s an idea,” Dorr said and chuckled. Then to Beasley: “Keep your rod to yourself and give him his keys. Also his gun—the one you got today.”
Beasley sighed and very carefully inserted a hand into his pants. He tossed my leather keycase across the room near the end of the desk. The man with the twisted mouth put his hand up, edged it inside his side pocket and I eased down behind Dorr’s back, while he did it. He came out with my gun, let it fall to the floor and kicked it away from him.
I came out from behind Dorr’s back, got my keys and the gun up from the floor, moved sidewise towards the door of the room. Dorr watched with an empty stare that meant nothing. Beasley followed me around with his body and stepped away from the door as I neared it. The other man had trouble holding himself quiet.