The Long Night (24 page)

I couldn't. I tried but the farthest I got was to a hands-and-knees position. At that, Gilmore's two legs became three and the floor sloped so I had to hold on or I'd have slid between his feet. Some day I'll find out how to take it like they do in the movies.

Then I stopped hearing noises that weren't there and the floor went level again. Very carefully, I got up. I said, “Next time, it won't be your arm: it'll be your neck.”

Gilmore said, “Keep your hands to yourself, Tad. I don't mind what cracks he makes. If he pulls off the job I have for him, he can call me anything he pleases.”

“And if I don't?” I said.

Gilmore looked at me and shook his head slowly from side to side. “Something tells me you will.”

“Meaning I've no choice?”

He shrugged. “Sure you've a choice. Either you do the job or I'll have you sewn up in hessian and taken for a swim. It's up to you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Tell me more about the job.”

“Nothing to it. Before I was interrupted, I suggested you were kinda friendly with the Warners. And that's how you can repay me for the five grand: by acting as the key to his door.”

“Who walks through the door when I've opened it?”

“You should worry. From then on you're in the clear. The rest is all according to how reasonable Mister Warner wants to be. He's got something that's mine.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as a guy with a loose lip,” Gilmore said harshly. “A
guy who's ready to spill his guts to the Grand Jury. I wouldn't like him to do that . . . I intend to see he doesn't. And you're going to help me—or else.”

Tad was on one side of me and Gilmore on the other. Even if Tad hadn't been wearing both my gun and his, there were still two of them. And two into one won't go—except in Hollywood. Being kicked to death isn't my favourite way of dying.

I said, “Say that again . . . and slower this time.”

“All you do is take one of my boys with you when you call on Warner. You tell your friend he'd better come up with the address where his witness is salted away. If he plays ball—O.K. If not——” Gilmore made a long face “—you get the picture, don't you?”

Only a damn' fool wouldn't have got the picture. Either way, I was due for a bullet in the back. I could take Lloyd Warner with me or I could make the long trip alone. Soon's my gunman escort had phoned the address to his boss, he'd let both Warner and me have it at the end of a little ride into the country . . . Warner with my Smith & Wesson and me with a gun that would have his fingerprints on it . . . no loose ends . . . if the police didn't believe it had happened the way it looked, they'd never trace a hired rod from out of town.

Warner had lived too long. Judith Walker should've been the plug to stop his mouth but the stunt had failed because she'd taken a shot of doctored rye . . . and she'd doctored it herself because she was jealous of Carole Van Buren . . . through a crazy mistake she'd drunk some of her own doped liquor . . . and the crazy mistake was going to cost Warner his life. . . . All at once, I stopped worrying about Lloyd Warner and began worrying about me.

Gilmore sucked at his cigarette and blew smoke down his nose and watched me think my way back to where I'd started. Then very gently, he asked, “Well?”

“Don't rush me,” I said. “Supposing he does play ball, you still won't be out of the woods. Homicide will go on getting in your hair until they put their hooks on the party who gave Judith Walker the works. Have you forgotten about that?”

His eyes became puzzled. He said, “I've never even thought about it. I didn't kill her. I'd like to get close to the sonovabitch who did.”

“Maybe you are close,” I said.

He went very still. As if with an effort, he turned his head and stared at Tad with an empty face. Then he looked at me again. Through tight lips, he said, “Meaning what?”

“Not Tad,” I said. “Not necessarily Tad. But someone in your organisation knew the set-up on the night Judith framed Lloyd Warner. Someone waited until Warner took it on the lam and then eased into the apartment . . . what made you break your date? Weren't you supposed to walk in and catch the chairman of the Citizens' Committee with lipstick smeared all over his puss from the kisses of a pretty lady wearing nothing but a cute nightgown?”

In a restless voice, Gilmore said, “Tad was keeping watch from the other side of Gifford Street. . . he saw you arrive and go on up . . . then he was supposed to follow you after a couple of minutes so's to give Judith time to start screaming her head off . . . he was to act the neighbour who heard the row and rushed in . . . between Tad and you I'd have had Warner sewn up nice and tight. . . .”

“But?”

“The stunt went sour . . . that's all.” With an irritable gesture, Gilmore turned back to the table and stubbed out his cigarette. “Before Tad could make his move——” Gilmore seemed to be disentangling the words from conflicting thoughts “—Warner came out . . . Tad didn't know what to do so he called me from a pay station. . . . I told him to stick around and do nothing until he saw what was coming off . . . then a prowl car rolled up.”

“And yet you can't see the answer,” I said. “It sticks out like a sore thumb. Do you think Judith's killer picked on that particular night by accident? It must've been planned the take place some time around two in the morning . . . Tad would've seen who it was if he hadn't gone to call you. How would the guy who strangled her know the date and the hour unless——”

Tad said, “Look at me that way just once more and I'll beat your gawddamned face in.” He brought his hand out of
the sling and showed me my .38. “This guy's stalling,” he told Gilmore. “If the party who killed Judith knew so much, he'd have known Warner was going to be in the apartment and Bowman would be there, too. Picking that night was the dumbest thing he could've done. I've got ten bucks that say shamus here is playing for time. And he'll go on doing it if you let him.”

Gilmore studied me with narrowed eyes while he jingled some keys in his pocket. Then he glanced at Tad and nodded in confirmation. “I'd say you were right on the ball,” he said. “And there's one thing more you left out: if the guy who rubbed out Judith was close to me, he'd have learned that you'd be parked outside the apartment block.” His eyes were bleak when they returned to mine. “What're you trying to do, Bowman?” he asked. “Make trouble?”

“My mistake,” I said. “I thought you'd be interested to know who put the bee on your girl-friend.”

“As you say——” under his good looks he was as much of an animal as Tad “—that was your mistake. Judith was just another dame. I can afford variety. My only interest right now is to get Lloyd Warner from under my feet. After that, things'll get back to normal.”

“After that,” I said, “you'll never know when the character who threw a couple of slugs at you is going to try again. And he can't miss every time.”

“How do you know he'll try again?”

“Because he told me he will,” I said.

For maybe ten seconds, Gilmore didn't move. He looked like he'd just had a nasty shock. Then his face came alive. He said, “Oh, he did . . . did he? When did your friend say he was thinking of repeating the performance?”

“He didn't say. And he isn't a friend of mine. . . .” I was wondering what chance I had of jumping Tad while both of them had something new on their minds. If it weren't now, it might be never. I couldn't go on filibustering indefinitely. . . . “You know him better than I do,” I added.

“Yeah? Now, that is interesting.” Something passed between Gilmore and his gorilla that put a little prickle up and down my spine. He began moving towards me as he asked, “Who is this guy, anyway?”

I said, “What's in it for me? I'm prepared to trade——” Then I threw a long left at his face, spun away from him, and made a grab for the .38 Tad was holding.

It was a good idea. If the breaks had been coming my way, I'd have brought it off. But I didn't. Tad happened to have a better idea. For a big hulk he was darn fast—too darn fast for me.

He let me get my hand on the gun and then he tugged. I held on—just long enough to ride straight into Tad's notion of what a left to the face should be.

That punch had everything: weight, speed, and direction. It caught me one helluva slam on the ridge of the jaw and flung me backwards and sideways like I'd stepped on to a spinning turntable wearing roller-skates. I forgot about the gun and clutched at the air instead to keep my feet on the floor. All the brains I'd ever had were rattling around inside my skull.

But not for long. As I went back, he brought his right arm up and over in a short arc with the vicious power of his shoulder behind it. Through a revolving chaos of light and movement and dizzy pain, I saw the muzzle of the gun wink above me like a shooting star: a star that flamed into my head and split me in two.

I was still conscious when I hit the carpet. I knew it was Gilmore who was kicking me although I couldn't see his face. I couldn't feel the blows, either. From a long, long way off, I watched myself lying on the floor in a beautifully-furnished penthouse where a moron in a hundred dollar tuxedo was kicking the guts out of me. It didn't seem to matter.

I guess I passed out soon after that. Next thing, I was choking over something red-hot that filled my mouth and stung the place on my jaw where Tad had clipped me. It was Tad's face looming above me that I saw when I managed to get my eyes open.

Somewhere farther away, Gilmore was saying “. . . wake him up. It's getting late and I don't want Warner——”

Tad said, “He's woke up.” A hand like a river dredge gripped me by the shirt-front and pulled me up from the carpet. Through a shifting mist, I could see King Gilmore. There was blood at the corner of his mouth.

Without knowing how I'd got it, I found I was holding a bottle. And Tad had released me. I shut my eyes again and took a generous drink.

Gradually, the mist cleared and I became conscious of a lot of things my worst enemy should never know of. Such as a belt of hot pain in the region of my lower ribs and a feeling like I'd broken my jaw, coupled with the sensation that the top of my head had been operated on with a butcher's chopper.

Gilmore had taken Tad's place. Soon's he saw I could see straight, he said, “We were talking about a certain party who fired two shots at me the other night . . . do I get his name or do we go to work on you again?”

“His name is Clive Van Buren,” I said. “I thought you might've guessed. They let him out a couple of days before Judith stopped breathing.”

“If you're trying to kid me. . . .”

“I'm not kidding you. Where would it get me? You can always check up for yourself.”

He looked through me while he thought about it. Then he said, “Don't think I won't. But first——” he put his hand in his pocket and brought out a single sheet of paper folded once “—you got a phone call to make—to Mister Lloyd Warner. I've written down what you're to say . . . read it.”

I read it. There wasn't much to read. I said, “Warner will be a damn' fool if he agrees to meet me in a crummy hotel. What if he asks me why I can't go to his home to talk?”

“It's your business to convince him you can't. And be sure you do convince him. You're going to be good and sorry if you don't. Because Warner's holding the one guy who can put me out of business. It's my neck—or yours.”

“You're crazy if you think he'll come.”

“He'll come. You can be a persuasive sort of guy when you like.” He held out his hand for the bottle and grinned at me coldly. “Those threats you made on the phone almost had me scared . . . and I haven't forgotten it, either.” For one fleeting second, he couldn't hide the black promise in his eyes.

“Supposing I do persuade him . . . how do I know you
won't have both of us bumped off once you've got the information you want?”

“I'll give you a written guarantee,” Gilmore said. He thought that was funny—so funny that it made him laugh. While he was laughing, he struck me in the face with the bottle.

That made Tad laugh. It looked like everybody was having a whale of a time but me. All I wanted was to lie down and die. And the way things were shaping, I guessed I'd be getting my wish without even having to lie down.

I threw a clumsy punch at Gilmore and nearly fell over my own feet when he rode away from it. Then Tad came behind me and let me have another smack with the Smith & Wesson in the tender spot on the top of my head. I went down on my knees.

Time ceased to exist after that. The whole world became a nightmare of pain that gradually hurt less and less . . . until I didn't care any more . . . until nothing hurt me at all. What was me became shrivelled up somewhere inside, looking out dimly through two holes that kept closing but never quite shut me in.

Then I tasted liquor again and they were half-carrying me into a room where there was a telephone. They let me sit looking at it for what seemed a long time. Slowly my mind came back to me; slowly the decision that had been there from the start took shape and hardened. It didn't need courage: King Gilmore had made the decision for me.

Maybe I didn't owe any debt to Lloyd Warner. Maybe I'd stand a chance of making a break for it when we met in the hotel bedroom and the gunman had to watch both of us . . . maybe. But Warner wouldn't have that chance. And I couldn't set him up as a sitting target. I had nobody. He had a wife—and Deborah.

My thoughts drifted sluggishly and I wondered how long it had been since she'd put her arms around me and lifted up her face to be kissed . . . was it an hour? . . . or a week? . . . How would she feel about not seeing me again? I'd promised to call her . . . now I'd never make that call . . . and she wouldn't know I'd acted the tin hero because of a few crazy moments when she'd been soft and warm with a
desire that came too swiftly to be resisted. She wouldn't know. . . .