“Do that again and I’ll put a slug in your guts, copper. So help me I will.”
Macdonald rolled away, with a foolish laugh. Mallory snapped off the light. He said, more quietly:
“I think you’re telling the truth, Atkinson. We’ll case this shack of Slippy Morgan’s.”
The driver swung and backed the car, picked his way back to the highway again.
V
A WHITE picket fence showed up for a moment before the headlights went off. Behind it on a rise the gaunt shapes of a couple of derricks groped towards the sky. The darkened car went forward slowly, stopped across the street from a small frame house. There were no houses on that side of the street, nothing between the car and the oil field. The house showed no light.
Mallory got to the ground and went across. A gravel driveway led along to a shed without a door. There was a touring car parked under the shed. There was thin worn grass along the driveway and a dull patch of something that had once been a lawn at the back. There was a wire clothes line and a small stoop with a rusted screen door. The moon showed all this.
Beyond the stoop there was a single window with the blind drawn; two thin cracks of light showed along the edges of the blind. Mallory went back to the car, walking on the dry grass and the dirt road surface without sound.
He said: “Let’s go, Atkinson.”
Atkinson got out heavily, stumbled across the street like a man half asleep. Mallory grabbed his arm sharply. The two men went up the wooden steps, crossed the porch quietly. Atkinson fumbled and found the bell. He pressed it. There was a dull buzz inside the house. Mallory flattened himself against the wall, on the side where he would not be blocked by the opening screen door.
Then the house door came open without sound, and a figure loomed behind the screen. There was no light behind the figure. The lawyer said mumblingly:
“It’s Atkinson.”
The screen hook was undone. The screen door came outward.
“What’s the big idea?” said a lisping voice that Mallory had heard before.
Mallory moved, holding his Luger waist high. The man in the doorway whirled at him. Mallory stepped in on him swiftly, making a clucking sound with tongue and teeth, shaking his head reprovingly.
“You wouldn’t have a gun, would you, Slippy,” he said, nudging the Luger forward. “Turn slow and easy, Slippy. When you feel something against your spine go on in, Slippy. We’ll be right with you.”
The lanky man put his hands up and turned. He walked back into the darkness, Mallory’s gun in his back. A small living-room smelled of dust and casual cooking. A door had light under it. The lanky man put one hand down slowly and opened the door.
An unshaded light bulb hung from the middle of the ceiling. A thin woman in a dirty white smock stood under it, limp arms at her sides. Dull colorless eyes brooded under a mop of rusty hair. Her fingers fluttered and twitched in involuntary contractions of the muscles. She made a thin plaintive sound, like a starved cat.
The lanky man went and stood against the wall on the opposite side of the room, pressing the palms of his hands against wallpaper. There was a fixed, meaningless smile on his face.
Landrey’s voice said from behind: “I’ll take care of Atkinson’s pals.”
He came into the room with a big automatic in his gloved hand. “Nice little home,” he added pleasantly.
There was a metal bed in a corner of the room. Rhonda Farr was lying on it, wrapped to the chin in a brown army blanket. Her white wig was partly off her head and damp golden curls showed. Her face was bluish white, a mask in which the rouge and lip-paint glared. She was snoring.
Mallory put his hand under the blanket, felt for her pulse. Then he lifted an eyelid and looked closely at the upturned pupil.
He said: “Doped.”
The thin woman in the smock wet her lips. “A shot of M,” she said in a slack voice. “No harm done, mister.”
Atkinson sat down on a hard chair that had a dirty towel on the back of it. His dress shirt was dazzling under the unshaded light. The lower part of his face was smeared with dry blood. The lanky man looked at him contemptuously, and patted the stained wallpaper with the flat of his hands. Then Macdonald came into the room.
His face was flushed and sweaty. He staggered a little and put a hand up along the door-frame. “Hi ho, boys,” he said vacantly. “I ought to rate a promotion for this.”
The lanky man stopped smiling. He ducked sidewise very fast, and a gun jumped into his hand. Roar filled the room, a great crashing roar. And again a roar.
The lanky man’s duck became a slide and the slide degenerated into a fall. He spread himself out on the bare carpet in a leisurely sort of way. He lay quite still, one half-open eye apparently looking at Macdonald. The thin woman opened her mouth wide, but no sound came out of it.
Macdonald put his other hand up to the door-frame, leaned forward and began to cough. Bright red blood came out on his chin. His hands came down the door-frame slowly. Then his shoulder twitched forward, he rolled like a swimmer in a breaking wave, and crashed. He crashed on his face, his hat still on his head, the mouse-colored hair at the nape of his neck showing below it in an untidy curl.
Mallory said: “Two down,” and looked at Landrey with a disgusted expression. Landrey looked down at his big automatic and put it away out of sight, in the side pocket of his thin dark overcoat.
Mallory stooped over Macdonald, put a finger to his temple. There was no heartbeat. He tried the jugular vein with the same result. Macdonald was dead, and he still smelled violently of whiskey.
There was a faint trace of smoke under the light bulb, an acrid fume of powder. The thin woman bent forward at the waist and scrambled towards the door. Mallory jerked a hard hand against her chest and threw her back.
“You’re fine where you are, sister,” he snapped.
Atkinson took his hands off his knees and rubbed them together as if all the feeling had gone out of them. Landrey went over to the bed, put his gloved hand down and touched Rhonda Farr’s hair.
“Hello, baby,” he said lightly. “Long time no see.” He went out of the room, saying: “I’ll get the car over on this side of the street.”
Mallory looked at Atkinson. He said casually: “Who has the letters, Atkinson? The letters belonging to Rhonda Farr?”
Atkinson lifted his blank face slowly, squinted as though the light hurt his eyes. He spoke in a vague, far-off sort of voice.
“I—I don’t know. Costello, maybe. I never saw them.”
Mallory let out a short harsh laugh which made no change in the hard cold lines of his face. “Wouldn’t it be funny as hell if that’s true!” he said jerkily.
He stooped over the bed in the corner and wrapped the brown blanket closely around Rhonda Farr. When he lifted her she stopped snoring, but she did not wake.
VI
A WINDOW or two in the front of the apartment house showed light. Mallory held his wrist up and looked at the curved watch on the inside of it. The faintly glowing hands were at half-past three. He spoke back into the car:
“Give me ten minutes or so. Then come on up. I’ll fix the doors.”
The street entrance to the apartment house was locked. Mallory unlocked it with a loose key, put it on the latch. There was a little light in the lobby, from one bulb in a floor lamp and from a hooded light above the switchboard. A wizened, white-haired little man was asleep in a chair by the switchboard, with his mouth open and his breath coming in long, wailing snores, like the sounds of an animal in pain.
Mallory walked up one flight of carpeted steps. On the second floor he pushed the button for the automatic elevator. When it came rumbling down from above he got in and pushed the button marked “7.” He yawned. His eyes were dulled with fatigue.
The elevator lurched to a stop, and Mallory went down the bright, silent corridor. He stopped at a gray olive wood door and put his ear to the panel. Then he fitted the loose key slowly into the lock, turned it slowly, moved th
e door back an inch or two. He listened again, went in.
There was light from a lamp with a red shade that stood beside an easy chair. A man was sprawled in the chair and the light splashed on his face. He was bound at the wrists and ankles with strips of wide adhesive tape. There was a strip of adhesive across his mouth.
Mallory fixed the door latch and shut the door. He went across the room with quick silent steps. The man in the chair was Costello. His face was a purplish color above the white adhesive that plastered his lips together. His chest moved in jerks and his breath made a snorting noise in his big nose.
Mallory yanked the tape off Costello’s mouth, put the heel of one hand on the man’s chin, forced his mouth wide open. The cadence of the breathing changed a bit. Costello’s chest stopped jerking, and the purplish color of his face faded to pallor. He stirred, made a groaning sound.
Mallory took an unopened pint bottle of rye off the mantel and tore the metal strip from the cap with his teeth. He pushed Costello’s head far back, poured some whiskey into his open mouth, slapped his face hard. Costello choked, swallowed convulsively. Some of the whiskey ran out of his nostrils. He opened his eyes, focused them slowly. He mumbled something confused.
Mallory went through velour curtains that hung across a doorway at the inner end of the room, into a short hall. The first door led into a bedroom with twin beds. A light burned, and a man was lying bound on each of the beds.
Jim, the gray-haired cop, was asleep or still unconscious. The side of his head was stiff with congealed blood. The skin of his face was a dirty gray.
The eyes of the red-haired man were wide open, diamond bright, angry. His mouth worked under the tape, trying to chew it. He had rolled over on his side and almost off the bed. Mallory pushed him back towards the middle, said:
“Sorry, punk. It’s all in the game.”
He went back to the living-room and switched on more light. Costello had struggled up in the easy chair. Mallory took out a pocket knife and reached behind him, sawed the tape that bound his wrists. Costello jerked his hands apart, grunted, and rubbed the backs of his wrists together where the tape had pulled hairs out. Then he bent over and tore tape off his ankles. He said:
“That didn’t do me any good. I’m a mouth breather.” His voice was loose, flat and without cadence.
He got to his feet and poured two inches of rye into a glass, drank it at a gulp, sat down again and leaned his head against the high back of the chair. Life came into his face; glitter came into his washed-out eyes.
He said: “What’s new?”
Mallory spooned at a bowl of water that had been ice, frowned and drank some whiskey straight. He rubbed the left side of his head gently with his finger tips and winced. Then he sat down and lit a cigarette.
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. “Straight goods. 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 on to 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 checkbook, a small photograph album, an address book, some loose papers, some yellow bank statements with checks 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, mugg, 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 sidewise, 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 sidewalk 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, punk! 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.
VII
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: