“Where’s the stuff?” he demanded.
Inés Almad wet her red mouth with her tongue and let her mouth droop a little and looked softly at the Kid, and made her play.
“One of us is as bad as are the others, Kid. We all—each of us tried to get for ourselves everything. You and Edouard have put aside what is past. Am I more wrong than you? I have them, true, but I have not them here. Until tomorrow will you wait? I will get them. We will divide them among us three, as it was to have been. Shall we not do that?”
“Not any!” The Kid’s voice had finality in it.
“Is that just?” she pleaded, letting her chin quiver a bit. “Is there a treachery of which I am guilty that also you and Edouard are not? Do you—?”
“That ain’t the idea at all,” the Kid told her. “Me and Frenchy are in a fix where we got to work together to get anywhere. So we’re together. With you it’s different. We don’t need you. We can take the stuff away from you. You’re out! Where’s the stuff?”
“Not here! Am I foolish sufficient to leave them here where so easily you could find them? You do need my help to find them. Without me you cannot—”
“You’re silly! I might flop for that if I didn’t know you. But I know you’re too damned greedy to let ’em get far away from you. And you’re yellower than you’re greedy. If you’re smacked a couple of times, you’ll kick in. And don’t think I got any objections to smacking you over!”
She cowered back from his upraised hand.
The Frenchman spoke quickly.
“We should search the rooms first, Kid. If we don’t find them there, then we can decide what to do next.”
The Whosis Kid laughed sneeringly at Maurois.
“All right. But, get this, I’m not going out of here without that stuff—not if I have to take this rat apart. My way’s quicker, but we’ll hunt first if you want to. Your con-whatever-you-call-him can keep these plugs tucked in while me and you upset the joint.”
They went to work. The Kid put away his gun and brought out a long-bladed spring-knife. The Frenchman unscrewed the lower two-thirds of his cane, baring a foot and a half of sword-blade.
No cursory search, theirs. They took the room we were in first. They gutted it thoroughly, carved it to the bone. Furniture and pictures were taken apart. Upholstering gave up its stuffing. Floor coverings were cut. Suspicious lengths of wallpaper were scraped loose. They worked slowly. Neither would let the other get behind him. The Kid would not turn his back on Big Chin.
The sitting-room wrecked, they went into the next room, leaving the woman, Billie and me standing among the litter. Big Chin and his two guns watched over us.
As soon as the Frenchman and the Kid were out of sight, the woman tried her stuff out on our guardian. She had a lot of confidence in her power with men, I’ll say that for her.
For a while she worked her eyes on Big Chin, and then, very softly:
“Can I—?”
“You can’t!” Big Chin was loud and gruff. “Shut up!”
The Whosis Kid appeared at the door.
“If nobody don’t say nothing maybe nobody won’t get hurt,” he snarled, and went back to his work.
The woman valued herself too highly to be easily discouraged. She didn’t put anything in words again, but she looked things at Big Chin—things that had him sweating and blushing. He was a simple man. I didn’t think she’d get anywhere. If there had been no one present but the two of them, she might have put Big Chin over the jumps; but he wouldn’t be likely to let her get to him with a couple of birds standing there watching the show.
Once a sharp yelp told us that the purple Frana—who had fled rearward when Maurois and Big Chin arrived—had got in trouble with the searchers. There was only that one yelp, and it stopped with a suddenness that suggested trouble for the dog.
The two men spent nearly an hour in the other rooms. They didn’t find anything. Their hands, when they joined us again, held nothing but the cutlery.
X
“I said to you it was not here,” Inés told them triumphantly. “Now will you—?”
“You can’t tell me nothing I’ll believe.” The Kid snapped his knife shut and dropped it in his pocket. “I still think it’s here.”
He caught her wrist, and held his other hand, palm up, under her nose.
“You can put ’em in my hand, or I’ll take ’em.”
“They are not here! I swear it!”
His mouth lifted at the corner in a savage grimace.
“Liar!”
He twisted her arm roughly, forcing her to her knees. His free hand went to the shoulder-strap of her orange gown.
“I’ll damn soon find out,” he promised.
Billie came to life.
“Hey!” he protested, his chest heaving in and out. “You can’t do that!”
“Wait, Kid!” Maurois—putting his sword-cane together again—called. “Let us see if there is not another way.”
The Whosis Kid let go of the woman and took three slow steps back from her. His eyes were dead circles without any color you could name—the dull eyes of the man whose nerves quit functioning in the face of excitement. His bony hands pushed his coat aside a little and rested where his vest bulged over the sharp corners of his hip-bones.
“Let’s me and you get this right, Frenchy,” he said in his whining voice. “Are you with me or her?”
“You, most certainly, but—”
“All right. Then be with me! Don’t be trying to gum every play I make. I’m going to frisk this dolly, and don’t think I ain’t. What are you going to do about it?”
The Frenchman pursed his mouth until his little black mustache snuggled against the tip of his nose. He puckered his eyebrows and looked thoughtfully out of his one good eye. But he wasn’t going to do anything at all about it, and he knew he wasn’t. Finally he shrugged.
“You are right,” he surrendered. “She should be searched.”
The Kid grunted contemptuous disgust at him and went toward the woman again.
She sprang away from him, to me. Her arms clamped around my neck in the habit they seemed to have.
“Jerry!” she screamed in my face. “You will not allow him! Jerry, please not!”
I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t think it was exactly genteel of the Kid to frisk her, but there were several reasons why I didn’t try to stop him. First, I didn’t want to do anything to delay the unearthing of this “stuff” there had been so much talk about. Second, I’m no Galahad. This woman had picked her playmates, and was largely responsible for this angle of their game. If they played rough, she’d have to make the best of it. And, a good strong third, Big Chin was prodding me in the side with a gun-muzzle to remind me that I couldn’t do anything if I wanted to—except get myself slaughtered.
The Kid dragged Inés away. I let her go.
He pulled her over to what was left of the bench by the electric heater, and called the Frenchman there with a jerk of his head.
“You hold her while I go through her,” he said.
She filled her lungs with air. Before she could turn it loose in a shriek, the Kid’s long fingers had fit themselves to her throat.
“One chirp out of you and I’ll tie a knot in your neck,” he threatened.
She let the air wheeze out of her nose.
Billie shuffled his feet. I turned my head to look at him. He was puffing through his mouth. Sweat polished his forehead under his matted red hair. I hoped he wasn’t going to turn his wolf loose until the “stuff” came to the surface. If he would wait a while I might join him.
He wouldn’t wait. He went into action when—Maurois holding her—the Kid started to undress the woman.
He took a step toward them. Big Chin tried to wave him back with a gun. Billie didn’t even see it. His eyes were r
ed on the three by the bench.
“Hey, you can’t do that!” he rumbled. “You can’t do that!”
“No?” The Kid looked up from his work. “Watch me.”
“Billie!” the woman urged the big man on in his foolishness.
Billie charged.
Big Chin let him go, playing safe by swinging both guns on me. The Whosis Kid slid out of the plunging giant’s path. Maurois hurled the girl straight at Billie—and got his gun out.
Billie and Inés thumped together in a swaying tangle.
The Kid spun behind the big man. One of the Kid’s hands came out of his pocket with the spring-knife. The knife clicked open as Billie regained his balance.
The Kid jumped close.
He knew knives. None of your clumsy downward strokes with the blade sticking out the bottom of his fist.
Thumb and crooked forefinger guided blade. He struck upward. Under Billie’s shoulder. Once. Deep.
Billie pitched forward, smashing the woman to the floor under him. He rolled off her and was dead on his back among the furniture-stuffing. Dead, he seemed larger than ever, seemed to fill the room.
The Whosis Kid wiped his knife clean on a piece of carpet, snapped it shut, and dropped it back in his pocket. He did this with his left hand. His right was close to his hip. He did not look at the knife. His eyes were on Maurois.
But if he expected the Frenchman to squawk, he was disappointed. Maurois’ little mustache twitched, and his face was white and strained, but:
“We’d better hurry with what we have to do, and get out of here,” he suggested.
The woman sat up beside the dead man, whimpering. Her face was ashy under her dark skin. She was licked. A shaking hand fumbled beneath her clothes. It brought out a little flat silk bag.
Maurois—nearer than the Kid—took it. It was sewed too securely for his fingers to open. He held it while the Kid ripped it with his knife. The Frenchman poured part of the contents out in one cupped hand.
Diamonds. Pearls. A few colored stones among them.
XI
Big Chin blew his breath out in a faint whistle. His eyes were bright on the sparkling stones. So were the eyes of Maurois, the woman, and the Kid.
Big Chin’s inattention was a temptation. I could reach his jaw. I could knock him over. The strength Billie had mauled out of me had nearly all come back by now. I could knock Big Chin over and have at least one of his guns by the time the Kid and Maurois got set. It was time for me to do something. I had let these comedians run the show long enough. The stuff had come to light. If I let the party break up there was no telling when, if ever, I could round up these folks again.
But I put the temptation away and made myself wait a bit longer. No use going off half-cocked. With a gun in my hand, facing the Kid and Maurois, I still would have less than an even break. That’s not enough. The idea in this detective business is to catch crooks, not to put on heroics.
Maurois was pouring the stones back in the bag when I looked at him again. He started to put the bag in his pocket. The Whosis Kid stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“I’ll pack ’em.”
Maurois’ eyebrows went up.
“There’s two of you and one of me,” the Kid explained. “I trust you, and all the like of that, but just the same I’m carrying my own share.”
“But—”
The doorbell interrupted Maurois’ protest.
The Kid spun to the girl.
“You do the talking—and no wise breaks!”
She got up from the floor and went to the passageway.
“Who is there?” she called.
The landlady’s voice, stern and wrathful:
“Another sound, Mrs. Almad, and I shall call the police. This is disgraceful!”
I wondered what she would have thought if she had opened the unlocked door and taken a look at her apartment—furniture whittled and gutted; a dead man—the noise of whose dying had brought her up here this second time—lying in the middle of the litter.
I wondered—I took a chance.
“Aw, go jump down the sewer!” I told her.
A gasp, and we heard no more from her. I hoped she was speeding her injured feelings to the telephone. I might need the police she had mentioned.
The Kid’s gun was out. For a while it was a toss-up. I would lie down beside Billie, or I wouldn’t. If I could have been knifed quietly, I would have gone. But nobody was behind me. The Kid knew I wouldn’t stand still and quiet while he carved me. He didn’t want any more racket than necessary, now that the jewels were on hand.
“Keep your clam shut or I’ll shut it for you!” was the worst I got out of it.
The Kid turned to the Frenchman again. The Frenchman had used the time spent in this side-play to pocket the gems.
“Either we divvy here and now, or I carry the stuff,” the Kid announced. “There’s two of you to see I don’t take a Micky Finn on you.”
“But, Kid, we cannot stay here! Is not the landlady even now calling the police? We will go elsewhere to divide. Why cannot you trust me when you are with me?”
Two steps put the Kid between the door and both Maurois and Big Chin. One of the Kid’s hands held the gun he had flashed on me. The other was conveniently placed to his other gun.
“Nothing stirring!” he said through his nose. “My cut of them stones don’t go out of here in nobody else’s kick. If you want to split ’em here, good enough. If you don’t, I’ll do the carrying. That’s flat!”
“But the police!”
“You worry about them. I’m taking one thing at a time, and it’s the stones right now.”
A vein came out blue in the Frenchman’s forehead. His small body was rigid. He was trying to collect enough courage to swap shots with the Kid. He knew, and the Kid knew, that one of them was going to have all the stuff when the curtain came down. They had started off by double-crossing each other. They weren’t likely to change their habits. One would have the stones in the end. The other would have nothing—except maybe a burial.
Big Chin didn’t count. He was too simple a thug to last long in his present company. If he had known anything, he would have used one of his guns on each of them right now. Instead, he continued to cover me, trying to watch them out of the tail of his eye.
The woman stood near the door, where she had gone to talk to the landlady. She was staring at the Frenchman and the Kid. I wasted precious minutes that seemed to run into hours trying to catch her eye. I finally got it.
I looked at the light-switch, only a foot from her. I looked at her. I looked at the switch again. At her. At the switch.
She got me. Her hand crept sidewise along the wall.
I looked at the two principal players in this button-button game.
The Kid’s eyes were dead—and deadly—circles. Maurois’ one open eye was watery. He couldn’t make the grade. He put a hand in his pocket and brought out the silk bag.
The woman’s brown finger topped the light-button. God knows she was nothing to gamble on, but I had no choice. I had to be in motion when the lights went. Big Chin would pump metal. I had to trust Inés not to balk. If she did, my name was Denis.
Her nail whitened.
I went for Maurois.
Darkness—streaked with orange and blue—filled with noise.
My arms had Maurois. We crashed down on dead Billie. I twisted around, kicking the Frenchman’s face. Loosened one arm. Caught one of his. His other hand gouged at my face. That told me the bag was in the one I held. Clawing fingers tore my mouth. I put my teeth in them and kept them there. One of my knees was on his face. I put my weight on it. My teeth still held his hand. Both of my hands were free to get the bag.
Not nice, this work, but effective.
The room was the inside of a black drum on which a giant was beating t
he long roll. Four guns worked together in a prolonged throbbing roar.
Maurois’ fingernails dug into my tongue. I had to open my mouth—let his hand escape. One of my hands found the bag. He wouldn’t let go. I screwed his thumb. He cried out. I had the bag.
I tried to leave him then. He grabbed my legs. I kicked at him—missed. He shuddered twice—and stopped moving. A flying bullet had hit him, I took it. Rolling over to the floor, snuggling close to him, I ran a hand over him. A hard bulge came under my hand. I put my hand in his pocket and took back my gun.
On hands and knees—one fist around my gun, the other clutching the silk sack of jewels—I turned to where the door to the next room should have been. A foot wrong, I corrected my course. As I went through the door, the racket in the room behind me stopped.
XII
Huddled close to the wall inside the door, I stowed the silk bag away, and regretted that I hadn’t stayed plastered to the floor behind the Frenchman. This room was dark. It hadn’t been dark when the woman switched off the sitting-room lights. Every room in the apartment had been lighted then. All were dark now. Not knowing who had darkened them, I didn’t like it.
No sounds came from the room I had quit.
The rustle of gently falling rain came from an open window that I couldn’t see, off to one side.
Another sound came from behind me. The muffled tattoo of teeth on teeth.
That cheered me. Inés the scary, of course. She had left the sitting-room in the dark and put out the rest of the lights. Maybe nobody else was behind me.
Breathing quietly through wide-open mouth, I waited. I couldn’t hunt for the woman in the dark without making noises. Maurois and the Kid had strewn furniture and parts of furniture everywhere. I wished I knew if she was holding a gun. I didn’t want to have her spraying me.
Not knowing, I waited where I was.
Her teeth clicked on for minutes.
Something moved in the sitting-room. A gun thundered.
“Inés!” I hissed toward the chattering teeth.
No answer. Furniture scraped in the sitting-room. Two guns went off together. A groaning broke out.