I ducked back as soon as I'd fired. Three choppers opened up, and for the next three minutes death hung in the air. I let them blaze away, sneaked backwards, took the bend of the wall, and did another sprint. I was over another wall into another garden before they had made up their
minds that it'd be safe to advance,
I was getting tired of this cat-and-mouse business. Instead of climbing the next wall I turned towards the house. It was a big one with a wide verandah overlooking the garden. No lights showed.
I kicked in a window, entered a room that smelt of cigar smoke and perfume. I crossed the room, opened the door and stepped into a passage.
There was a man and a woman in the passage, standing against the partition wall, out of the way of flying glass and slugs.
"Hello." I said, smiling at them. "How are you liking the circus ?
The man was tall and beefy with a red face and a military moustache. His eyes were hard and stupid, his neck thick. The woman was a dark, nicely moulded trick in an interesting Grecian affair—–black crepe with gold bands crossed high on the bodice and double gold bands around the hem. She was about thirty-five, and there was a wordly look in her slaty eyes that I like to see in women of thirty-five.
The red-faced guy stiffened his backbone after the first shock of seeing me had passed. He growled deep in his throat, started a ponderous swing that a battleship could have dodged.
I let the swing sail over my head and ruin a lot of air in the passage. Then I pushed the Luger into his fat ribs.
"Skip it," I said. "You'd be better at the ballet."
His red face went a waxen white.
I looked at the woman. She hadn't turned a hair. She looked back at me, her eyes interested, unafraid.
"Think of the fun you'll have telling your friends," I went on to the man. "Chester Cain passed this way. You could even put a plaque on the outside of the house."
They didn't say anything, but the man had difficulty in breathing.
"Would you both go into one of these rooms?" I said, jerking my head to a line of doors. "I'm as harmless as a spinster aunt so long as no one crowds me."
I manoeuvred them into a front room, made them sit down. The furniture was as heavy and as dull as the man's face. The woman continued to eye me with interest.
I put my gun away to ease the atmosphere, peered out of the window.
Searchlights roamed the sky, car lights lit up the street, flat caps moved back and forth.
"I'll stick around," I said, sitting down so I could watch the two. "That reception committee still looks like business." I lit a cigarette, then remembered my manners, offered the pack to the woman. She took one, giving me a long, curious stare as she did so.
"Jill!" the man spluttered. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Why shouldn't I smoke?" she asked in a tired voice.
He opened and shut his mouth, then scowled at her.
I struck a match and lit her cigarette. I had an idea at the back of my mind that I might have fun with her.
We sat around while the cops tramped up and down, poked into bushes and scared hell out of each other.
Maybe the red-faced man thought I was harmless without my gun in my hand, maybe his manhood nudged him. He suddenly bounded out of his chair and came at me like a charging rhino.
I had my gun out by the time he arrived, but he was coming so fast he hadn't time to apply his brakes. I cracked him on top of his skull and he stretched out on the carpet.
"I'm sorry," I said to the woman. "But you saw how it was."
She looked down at the mountain of flesh without a great show of interest or distress.
"Have you killed him?" she asked.
She sounded as if she hoped I had.
I shook my head. "No."
"He won the Purple Heart," she said, looking at me. "I wonder if you know what that means? He likes to explain the battle to people."
"You mean he moves the salt cellar and the spoons and the pepper-box, and shows dispositions, manoeuvres and advances?"
"That is the general idea," she said, lifting her elegant shoulders.
I looked down at the red-faced man and thought she couldn't I have much fun with him.
"Yeah," I said. "These boys who live in the past are hard to take."
She didn't say anything.
A double knock on the front door brought me to my feet.
"That sounds like the Law," I said, twirling the Luger.
"Are you scared?" she asked, staring at me. "I wouldn't have thought anything would scare you."
"You'd be surprised," I returned, grinning. "Spiders give me goose pimples." I opened the room door. "Come on," I said. "I want you to talk to the Law. You won't throw an ing-bing?"
"No, I won't do that," she said. "I suppose if I tell them you're here, you'll shoot me?"
I shook my head. "I'll have to shoot the coppers, and that'd be a shame," I said.
We went down the passage to the front door. I stood against the wall in the shadows where I could see without being seen.
"You don't want to be told what to say, do you?" I asked.
"I don't think so," she said, opening the door.
There were a couple of cops standing on the front step. When they saw her they saluted.
"Everything okay, Mrs. Whitly?" one of them asked. His voice was loaded with respect.
"Except the noise," she said calmly. "Is it necessary to shoot so much? Surely one man can't be as dangerous as you make him sound."
"He's a killer, ma'am," the cop said, breathing heavily. "The Lieutenant's not risking lives. We shoot first and talk after."
"Very interesting," she said, in a bored voice. "Well, I hope it stops soon and I can go to bed."
"We'll catch him, ma'am," the cop said, sticking out his chest. "But don't worry, we reckon he's some way from here by now."
She closed the door, and we stood in the dim light, listening to the cops as they pounded their way up the street.
She fingered a ruby and gold bracelet, glanced at me.
"Is that Mr. Whitly?" I asked, jerking my thumb in the direction of the room we had just left.
She nodded. "Charles Whitly, the son of John Whitly, the millionaire," she said, in a hard, toneless voice. "We are very respectable people, and even the police salute us. Our friends are very respectable too. We own three motor-cars, six racehorses, a yacht, a private beach, a library of expensive books that no one reads, and lots of other very expensive and useless things. My husband plays polo ..."
"And he won the Purple Heart," I said, shaking my head. "It sounds wonderful."
Her lip curled. "It does. It was when I married him."
"Yeah," I said. "Well, it isn't my idea of fun." 'It hasn't turned out to be mine either," she said, examining the bracelet.
We could go on like this all night, so I opened the front door. I guess I'll be running along," I said. "I enjoyed meeting you, and I'm sorry about the expensive things, and I'm sorry about hitting your husband on the head."
"Don't be sorry about that. It'll give him another topic of conversation," she said, and swayed towards me.
"I'm still sorry," I said. Our faces were close.
"You don't find life dull, do you?" she asked. I put my arm around her and kissed her. We stayed like that for a minute or so, then I pushed her gently away.
"Life's fine," I said, and went down the steps of the house. I didn't look back.
2
I ran the Mercury convertible into the wooden garage next to Tim Duval's place on the waterfront. I cut the engine and the lights, shut the garage doors and walked over to the house.
Searchlights still waved over Paradise Palms. Maybe they thought I was hiding in the sky. Every now and then a nervous cop would let off his gun. The activity was now a couple of miles away, and right where I was seemed quiet enough.
I rapped on the door of the squat, faded house and waited. There was a long pause, then a woman's voice called from an overhead window, "Who is it?"
"Tim around?" I asked, stepping back and peering at the white blob that looked down at me.
"No."
"This is Cain," I said.
"Wait," the woman said, and a moment or so later the front door opened.
"Where's Tim?" I asked, trying to see the woman in the darkness.
"You'd better come in," she said, standing to one side.
"Who are you?"
"Tim's wife." There was pride in her voice.
I wondered if a bunch of Law was waiting for me in the house, I didn't think so. I entered, followed her along the passage to a room at the back of the house.
The room was square-shaped and lit by a paraffin lamp. A fishing net hung in folds along one of the walls. Slickers, a south-wester, rubber boots hung near it. There was a table, three straight-backed chairs, a plush arm-chair and a cupboard. There were other odds and ends. The place was clean. Somehow the room managed to look cosy and like home.
Mrs. Duval was a big woman, long-legged, big-handed, big-hipped, still handsome. She looked a young forty-five, and her red-brown face was strong. Black hair, without a strand of white, capped her head like painted tar.
She eyed me over. Her china-blue eyes, deep-set, were thoughtful.
"Tim said you were all right," she said. "I hope he knows what he is talking about."
I grinned. "He's trusting," I said. "But I'm harmless enough."
She nodded briefly. "You'd better sit," she said, and went over to the stove. "I guessed you'd be out here in a while. I kept something hot for you."
I found I was hungry.
"Swell," I said, sitting down.
She threw a clean white cloth over one end of the table, set a knife and fork and then went back to the stove.
"You men are all alike," she said, without bitterness. "You have your fun, and then come back to be fed."
"That what Tim does?"
"You do it too, don't you?"
I looked at the T-bone steak she had set before me, hitched up my chair.
"I've had a lot of fun tonight," I said, beginning to eat. "Where's Tim?"
"He went over to Cudco Key."
"Take the boat?"
"He rowed. He said you might want the boat."
"That's a long haul."
"He'll make it."
I tapped my plate with my knife. "I appreciate this."
She nodded, then said: "Jed Davis is out the back waiting for you. Do you want to see him?"
I frowned, then I remembered.
"The newspaper guy?"
She nodded.
"Is he okay?"
"He's a friend of Tim's," she said. "Tim picks bums for friends, but he won't bite."
I laughed. "I'll see him," I said.
She went away.
I was half through my steak when the door opened again and a mountain of man came in. His face was round, fat and purple. His eyes small and reckless. He wore a tweed suit that looked as if he hadn't taken it off since he bought it, and that had happened a long time ago. A battered slouch hat, slightly too small for him, rested on the back of his head. He chewed a dead cigar between small, even white teeth.
He stared at me, then came further into the room, closed the door.
" 'Lo front page news," he said.
"Hullo yourself," I said, continuing to eat.
He took off his hat and combed his hair with a little ivory comb, grunted, put his hat on again and sat down in the plush arm-chair. It creaked as it took the strain.
"You certainly started something in this burg," he said, taking the cigar from between his teeth and examining it through half-closed eyes. "I feel like a war correspondent again."
"Yeah," I said.
He looked at the table. "Didn't she give you a drink?"
"I didn't miss it," I said.
He climbed laboriously out of the chair. "Must have a drink," he growled. "Hetty's a swell cook, and a good woman, but she just doesn't understand that guys need a drink." He opened a cupboard and produced a black unlabelled bottle. He found two glasses and poured whisky into them. He gave me a glass and went back to the chair with the other. "Clot in your bloodstream," he said, waving the glass at me.
We drank.
"How long do you reckon to keep up this shindig?" he asked.
"Until I've found Herrick's killer."
"So you didn't kill him?"
"No. I was the fall guy. It was a political killing."
He took another drink, rolled the liquor round in his mouth before swallowing it. "Killeano?"
"What do you think?"
"Well, yes; it'd suit him to knock Herrick off."
"Your rag interested one way or the other?"
"The Editor's too fond of life. These boys are tough eggs to monkey with. We stay neutral."
"Mean anything to you personally?"
He looked sleepy. "Well, if some guy came along and bust this Administration wide open, I'd have something to write about, providing the bust was complete. I'd do what I could to get the story, but I'd have to play it close to my chest."
I didn't say anything.
He eyed me narrowly, then went on. "Killeano's a louse. But he's got the town in his pocket, and now Herrick's out of the way anything could happen. He's well in the saddle, and it'll be a hell of a job to unstick him."
"Depends how it's played," I said, lighting a cigarette. "If I can get the right information, I'll crack Killeano."
He nodded slowly. "What kind of information?"
"Did Herrick work on his own?"
"Practically. He and Frank Brodey. Their organization was small: too small."