“Call the Normandy, and ask to speak to Leopardi. If he’s there, he’ll still be at the bottle. Probably with a gang.”
“Why?” Quillan asked gently.
“Because you’re a nice guy. If Leopardi answers—just hang up.” Steve paused and pinched his chin hard. “If he went out, try to find out where.”
Quillan straightened, gave Steve another long quiet look and went behind the pebbled-glass screen. Steve stood very still, listening, one hand clenched at his side, the other tapping noiselessly on the marble desk.
In about three minutes Quillan came back and leaned on the desk again and said: “Not there. Party going on in his suite—they sold him a big one—and sounds loud. I talked to a guy who was fairly sober. He said Leopardi got a call around ten—some girl. He went out preening himself, as the fellow says. Hinting about a very juicy date. The guy was just lit enough to hand me all this.”
Steve said: “You’re a real pal. I hate not to tell you the nest. Well, I liked working here. Not much work at that.”
He started towards the entrance doors again. Quillan let him get his hand on the brass handle before he called out. Steve turned and came back slowly.
Quillan said: “I heard Leopardi took a shot at you. I don’t think it was noticed. It wasn’t reported down here. And I don’t think Peters fully realized that until he saw the mirror in Eight-fifteen. If you care to come back, Steve—”
Steve shook his head. “Thanks for the thought.”
“And hearing about that shot,” Quillan added, “made me remember something. Two years ago a girl shot herself in Eight-fifteen.”
Steve straightened his back so sharply that he almost jumped. “What girl?”
Quillan looked surprised. “I don’t know. I don’t remember her real name. Some girl who had been kicked around all she could stand and wanted to die in a clean bed—alone.”
Steve reached across and took hold of Quillan’s arm. “The hotel files,” he rasped. “The clippings, whatever there was in the papers will be in them. I want to see those clippings.”
Quilian stared at him for a long moment. Then he said: “Whatever game you’re playing, kid—you’re playing it damn close to your vest. I will say that for you. And me bored stiff with a night to kill.”
He reached along the desk and thumped the call bell. The door of the night porter’s room opened and the porter came across the entrance lobby. He nodded and smiled at Steve.
Quillan said: “Take the board, Carl. I’ll be in Mr. Peters’ office for a little while.”
He went to the safe and got keys out of it.
EIGHT
The cabin was high up on the side of the mountain, against a thick growth of digger pine, oak and incense cedar. It was solidly built, with a stone chimney, shingled all over and heavily braced against the slope of the hill. By daylight the roof was green and the sides dark reddish brown and the window frames and draw curtains red. In the uncanny brightness of an all-night mid-October moon in the mountains, it stood out sharply in every detail, except color.
It was at the end of a road, a quarter of a mile from any other cabin. Steve rounded the bend towards it without lights, at five in the morning. He stopped his car at once, when he was sure it was the right cabin, got out and walked soundlessly along the side of the gravel road, on a carpet of wild iris.
On the road level there was a rough pine board garage, and from this a path went up to the cabin porch. The garage was unlocked. Steve swung the door open carefully, groped in past the dark bulk of a car and felt the top of the radiator. It was still warmish. He got a small flash out of his pocket and played it over the car. A gray sedan, dusty, the gas gauge low. He snapped the flash off, shut the garage door carefully and slipped into place the piece of wood that served for a hasp. Then he climbed the path to the house.
There was light behind the drawn red curtains. The porch was high and juniper logs were piled on it, with the bank still on them. The front door had a thumb latch and a rustic door handle above.
He went up, neither too softly nor too noisily, lifted his hand, sighed deep in his throat, and knocked. His hand touched the butt of the gun in the inside pocket of his coat, once, then came away empty.
A chain creaked and steps padded across the floor and a voice called out softly: “What is it?” Millar’s voice.
Steve put his lips close to the wood and said: “This is Steve, George. You up already?”
The key turned, and the door opened. George Millar, the dapper night auditor of the Carlton House, didn’t look dapper now. He was dressed in old trousers and a thick blue sweater with a roll collar. His feet were in ribbed wool socks and fleece-lined slippers. His clipped black mustache was a curved smudge across his pale face. Two electric bulbs burned in their sockets in a low beam across the room, below the slope of the high roof. A table lamp was lit and its shade was tilted to throw light on a big Morris chair with a leather seat and back-cushion. A fine burned lazily in a heap of soft ash on the big open hearth.
Millar said in his low, husky voice: “Hell’s sake, Steve. Glad to see you. How’d you find us anyway? Come on in, guy.”
Steve stepped through the door and Millar locked it. “City habit,” he said grinning. “Nobody locks anything in the mountains. Have a chair. Warm your toes. Cold out at this time of night.”
Steve said: “Yeah. Plenty cold.”
He sat down in the Morris chain and put his hat and coat on the end of the solid wood table behind it. He leaned forward and held his hands out to the fine.
Millar said: “How the hell did you find us, Steve?”
Steve didn’t look at him. He said quietly: “Not so easy at that. You told me last night your brother had a cabin up here—remember? So I had nothing to do, so I thought I’d drive up and bum some breakfast. The guy in the inn at Crestline didn’t know who had cabins where. His trade is with people passing through. I rang up a garage man and he didn’t know any Millar cabin. Then I saw a light come on down the street in a coal-and-wood yard and a little guy who is forest ranger and deputy sheriff and wood-and-gas dealer and half a dozen other things was getting his car out to go down to San Bernardino for some tank gas. A very smart little guy. The minute I said your brother had been a fighter he wised up. So here I am.”
Millar pawed at his mustache. Bedsprings creaked at the back of the cabin somewhere. “Sure, he still goes under his fighting name—Gaff Talley. I’ll get him up and we’ll have some coffee. I guess you and me are both in the same boat. Used to working at night and can’t sleep. I haven’t been to bed at all.”
Steve looked at him slowly and looked away. A burly voice behind them said: “Gaff is up. Who’s your pal, George?”
Steve stood up casually and turned. He looked at the man’s hands first. He couldn’t help himself. They were large hands, well kept as to cleanliness, but coarse and ugly. One knuckle had been broken badly. He was a big man with reddish hair. He wore a sloppy bathrobe over outing-flannel pajamas. He had a leathery expressionless face, scarred over the cheekbones. There were fine white scans over his eyebrows and at the corners of his mouth. His nose was spread and thick. His whole face looked as if it had caught a lot of gloves. His eyes alone looked vaguely like Millar’s eyes.
Millar said: “Steve Grayce. Night man at the hotel—until last night.” His grin was a little vague.
Gaff Talley came over and shook hands. “Glad to meet you,” he said. “I’ll get some duds on and we’ll scrape a breakfast off the shelves. I slept enough. George ain’t slept any, the poor sap.”
He went back across the room towards the door through which he’d come. He stopped there and leaned on an old phonograph, put his big hand down behind a pile of records in paper envelopes. He stayed just like that, without moving.
Millar said: “Any luck on a job, Steve? Or did you try yet?”
“Yeah. In a way. I guess I’m a sap, but I’m going to have a shot at the private-agency racket. Not much in it unless I can land some p
ublicity.” He shrugged. Then he said very quietly: “King Leopardi’s been bumped off.”
Millar’s mouth snapped wide open. He stayed like that for almost a minute—perfectly still, with his mouth open. Gaff Talley leaned against the wall and stared without showing anything in his face. Millar finally said: “Bumped off? Where? Don’t tell me—”
“Not in the hotel, George. Too bad, wasn’t it? In a girl’s apartment. Nice girl too. She didn’t entice him there. The old suicide gag—only it won’t work. And the girl is my client.”
Millar didn’t move. Neither did the big man. Steve leaned his shoulders against the stone mantel. He said softly: “I went out to the Club Shalotte this afternoon to apologize to Leopardi. Silly idea, because I didn’t owe him an apology. There was a girl there in the ban lounge with him. He took three socks at me and left. The girl didn’t like that. We got rather clubby. Had a drink together. Then late tonight—last night—she called me up and said Leopardi was over at her place and—he was drunk and she couldn’t get rid of him. I went there. Only he wasn’t drunk. He was dead, in her bed, in yellow pajamas.”
The big man lifted his left hand and roughed back his hair. Millar leaned slowly against the edge of the table, as if he were afraid the edge might be sharp enough to cut him. His mouth twitched under the clipped black mustache.
He said huskily: “That’s lousy.”
The big man said: “Well, for cryin’ into a milk bottle.”
Steve said: “Only they weren’t Leopardi’s pajamas. His had initials on them—big black initials. And his were satin, not silk. And although he had a gun in his hand—this girl’s gun by the way—he didn’t shoot himself in the heart. The cops will determine that. Maybe you birds never heard of the Lund test, with paraffin wax, to find out who did or didn’t fire a gun recently. The kill ought to have been pulled in the hotel last night, in Room Eight-fifteen. I spoiled that by heaving him out on his neck before that black-haired girl in Eight-eleven could get to him. Didn’t I, George?”
Millar said: “I guess you did—if I know what you’re talking about.”
Steve said slowly: “I think you know what I’m talking about, George. It would have been a kind of poetic justice if King Leopardi had been knocked off in Room Eight-fifteen. Because that was the room where a girl shot herself two years ago. A girl who registered as Mary Smith—but whose usual name was Eve Talley. And whose real name was Eve Millar.”
The big man leaned heavily on the victrola and said thickly: “Maybe I ain’t woke up yet. That sounds like it might grow up to be a dirty crack. We had a sister named Eve that shot herself in the Carlton. So what?”
Steve smiled a little crookedly. He said: “Listen, George. You told me Quillan registered those girls in Eight-eleven. You did. You told me Leopardi registered on Eight, instead of in a good suite, because he was tight. He wasn’t tight. He just didn’t care where he was put, as long as female company was handy. And you saw to that. You planned the whole thing, George. You even got Peters to write Leopardi at the Raleigh in Frisco and ask him to use the Carlton when he came down—because the same man owned it who owned the Club Shalotte. As if a guy like Jumbo Walters would care where a bandleader registered.”
Millar’s face was dead white, expressionless. His voice cracked. “Steve—for God’s sake, Steve, what are you talking about? How the hell could I—”
“Sorry, kid. I liked working with you. I liked you a lot. I guess I still like you. But I don’t like people who strangle women—or people who smear women in order to coven up a revenge murder.”
His hand shot up—and stopped. The big man said: “Take it easy—and look at this one.”
Gaff’s hand had come up from behind the pile of records. A Colt .45 was in it. He said between his teeth: “I always thought house dicks were just a bunch of cheap grafters. I guess I missed out on you. You got a few brains. Hell, I bet you even run out to One-eighteen Court Street. Right?”
Steve let his hand fall empty and looked straight at the big Colt. “Right. I saw the girl—dead—with your fingers marked into her neck. They can measure those, fella. Killing Dolores Chiozza’s maid the same way was a mistake. They’ll match up the two sets of marks, find out that your black-haired gun girl was at the Carlton last night, and piece the whole story together. With the information they get at the hotel they can’t miss. I give you two weeks, if you beat it quick. And I mean quick.”
Millar licked his dry lips and said softly: “There’s no hurry, Steve. No hurry at all. Our job is done. Maybe not the best way, maybe not the nicest way, but it wasn’t a nice job. And Leopardi was the worst kind of a louse. We loved our sister, and he made a tramp out of her. She was a wide-eyed kid that fell for a flashy greaseball, and the greaseball went up in the world and threw her out on her ear for a red-headed torcher who was more his kind. He threw her out and broke her heart and she killed herself.”
Steve said harshly: “Yeah—and what were you doing all that time—manicuring your nails?”
“We weren’t around when it happened. It took us a little time to find out the why of it.”
Steve said: “So that was worth killing four people for, was it? And as for Dolores Chiozza, she wouldn’t have wiped her feet on Leopardi—then, on any time since. But you had to put her in the middle too, with your rotten little revenge murder. You make me sick, George. Tell your big tough brother to get on with his murder party.”
The big man grinned and said: “Nuff talk, George. See has he a gat—and don’t get behind him or in front of him. This bean-shooter goes on through.”
Steve stared at the big man’s .45. His face was hard as white bone. There was a thin cold sneer on his lips and his eyes were cold and dank.
Millar moved softly in his fleece-lined slippers. He came around the end of the table and went close to Steve’s side and reached out a hand to tap his pockets. He stepped back and pointed: “In there.”
Steve said softly: “I must be nuts. I could have taken you then, George.”
Gaff Talley banked: “Stand away from him.”
He walked solidly across the room and put the big Colt against Steve’s stomach hand. He reached up with his left hand and worked the Detective Special from the inside breast pocket. His eyes were sharp on Steve’s eyes. He held Steve’s gun out behind him. “Take this, George.”
Millar took the gun and went over beyond the big table again and stood at the far corner of it. Gaff Talley backed away from Steve.
“You’re through, wise guy,” he said. “You got to know that. There’s only two ways outa these mountains and we gotta have time. And maybe you didn’t tell nobody. See?”
Steve stood like a rock, his face white, a twisted half-smile working at the corners of his lips. He stared hand at the big man’s gun and his stare was faintly puzzled.
Millar said: “Does it have to be that way, Gaff?” His voice was a croak now, without tone, without its usual pleasant huskiness.
Steve turned his head a little and looked at Millar. “Sure it has, George. You’re just a couple of cheap hoodlums after all. A couple of nasty-minded sadists playing at being revengers of wronged girlhood. Hillbilly stuff. And right this minute you’re practically cold meat—cold, rotten meat.”
Gaff Talley laughed and cocked the big revolver with his thumb. “Say your prayers, guy,” he jeered.
Steve said grimly: “What makes you think you’re going to bump me off with that thing? No shells in it, strangler. Better try to take me the way you handle women—with your hands.”
The big man’s eyes flicked down, clouded. Then he roared with laughter. “Geez, the dust on that one must be a foot thick,” he chuckled. “Watch.”
He pointed the big gun at the floor and squeezed the trigger. The firing pin clicked dryly—on an empty chamber. The big man’s face convulsed.
For a short moment nobody moved. Then Gaff turned slowly on the balls of his feet and looked at his brother. He said almost gently: “You, George?”
&
nbsp; Milar licked his lips and gulped. He had to move his mouth in and out before he could speak.
“Me. Gaff. I was standing by the window when Steve got out of his car down the road, I saw him go into the garage. I knew the car would still be warm. There’s been enough killing, Gaff. Too much. So I took the shells out of your gun.”
Millar’s thumb moved back the hammer on the Detective Special. Gaff’s eyes bulged. He stared fascinated at the snubnosed gun. Then he lunged violently towards it, flailing with the empty Colt. Millar braced himself and stood very still and said dimly, like an old man: “Goodbye, Gaff.”
The gun jumped three times in his small neat hand. Smoke curled lazily from its muzzle. A piece of burned log fell over in the fireplace.
Gaff Talley smiled queerly and stooped and stood perfectly still. The gun dropped at his feet. He put his big heavy hands against his stomach, said slowly, thickly: “ ’S all right, kid. ’S all night, I guess . . . I guess I . . .”
His voice trailed off and his legs began to twist under him. Steve took three long quick silent steps, and slammed Millar hard on the angle of the jaw. The big man was still falling—as slowly as a tree falls.
Millar spun across the room and crashed against the end wall and a blue-and-white plate fell off the plate-molding and broke. The gun sailed from his fingers. Steve dived for it and came up with it. Millar crouched and watched his brother.
Gaff Talley bent his head to the floor and braced his hands and then lay down quietly, on his stomach, like a man who was very tired. He made no sound of any kind.
Daylight showed at the windows, around the red glass-curtains. The piece of broken log smoked against the side of the hearth and the rest of the fine was a heap of soft gray ash with a glow at its heart.
Steve said dully: “You saved my life, George—or at least you saved a lot of shooting. I took the chance because what I wanted was evidence. Step over there to the desk and write it all out and sign it.”
Millar said: “Is he dead?”
“He’s dead, George. You killed him. Write that too.”