by Jerry eBooks
They drew quickly apart as the door was yanked open and Trent stuck his head in and drawled:
“Use your car, buddy?”
A smear of lipstick made the boy’s mouth an uncertain blur against the frightened, pallid lines of his race. His wide eyes took in what looked like the muzzle or a gun nudging against the cloth of Trent’s coat pocket. He reacted as Trent expected, and with precipitate haste. Opening the opposite door, he shoved the paralyzed girl out and scrambled after her.
Trent slid under the wheel. “Be good and don’t move for exactly five minutes,” he warned them, slamming the door.
A wide grin cracked his features, then, as he took his empty hand out of his pocket, turned on the ignition key and stepped on the starter. The powerful little motor caught with the first turn of the flywheel. He revved it up, spun the wheel hard over in a fast, skidding U turn and roared away at reckless speed.
He reached the Criterion Hotel without mishap. It was a dismal looking four-story brick affair sprawling on the esplanade that fronted the beach near Ocean Park.
“Mr. Berg in?” Trent demanded of the hairless gent behind the counter.
Without looking up, the bald man muttered, “Fourteen. Upstairs to your right.”
Trent negotiated a flight of creaking steps and prowled along the dimly lit hall, squinting at the numbers on the doors. Someone had recently passed through, and left behind the pleasant, lingering odor of cigarette smoke.
NO LIGHT seeped around the edges of number fourteen. This gave fairly certain indication that Borio had gone out. Taking no chances, Trent raised his hand and rapped smartly before he devoted his ingenuity to the old-fashioned lock.
A bit of experimental poking around with a pass-key he carried did the business. He eased the door open, holding his breath so that the sound of it might not interfere with his hearing. Then he stepped in and closed the door gently behind him. Again he caught the smell of burning tobacco. He gave mental thanks to Borio for lighting up before he left. Even if he’d stepped out merely to buy cigarettes, it would take him at least fifteen minutes to visit the nearest store and return. Ample time for Trent to look the place over.
Locating a table lamp back of a large easy chair, he snapped on the light, revealing a rumpled bed, a pine bureau with cigarette burns around the edges, two imitation walnut chairs and a small table. On the table were a glass, an empty beer bottle and a saucer Jittered with cigarette stubs. Also a newspaper with the pages folded to the story of the Kovacs killing.
Trent squinted thoughtfully at the newspaper, moved past it to rummage through the bureau. He found a lot of shirts and ties and handkerchiefs and socks. In the closet were a couple of suits of the kind dispensed by a local twenty-five-dollar upstairs clothier, and a scuffed leather suitcase, evidently of pawnshop origin.
Coming out of the closet, Trent undertook a systematic search of the room. He even searched under the mattress and behind the three faded pictures that adorned the walls. Finally, he returned to the center of the room to stare moodily at the folded newspaper.
A dismal sense of failure hit Trent, and he sank down into the easy chair. For a moment he stared silently about the room. Had he overlooked anything? While hardly expecting to find anything that would definitely tie Borio in with Kovacs’ murder, he’d hoped at least to uncover a clue that might lead to something else. He grunted his disgust. That lone discovery of the paper added up to exactly zero.
Behind him the door opened softly. A slight draught of cool air, the sudden squeak of a hinge warned him of peril. Trent whirled around in the chair, and stiffened when a man with an ugly black automatic stalked into the room.
“Hop out of that seat, my friend,” came the hissed, tight-lipped warning. “Looks like you’re a little out of bounds.”
The muzzle of the automatic jerked ominously. Trent grimaced at being caught flat-footed. Slowly, warily he hauled himself upright, keeping his hands well in view. The chap behind the gun was small and dark, with slick, rain-wet hair and a shine in his eyes. Gesturing curtly with the gun, he ordered Trent into the gloomy corridor and closed the door.
“You might be a smart copper, but a smart copper wouldn’t prowl a room without a search warrant,” the man murmured tartly. He snapped the fingers of his left hand and looked suddenly interested. “I got it. Your Kovacs’ manager, the guy the bulls are looking for. I seen your description in the paper.”
Trent grinned crookedly. “Bright boy. I got my A’s in school, too. You’re Eddie Borio.”
“So now we’re introduced,” Borio said in that peculiarly harsh voice of his. “And just what were you doing in my room?”
Trent moved his big shoulders, “Between you and me, Eddie, I’ve always had a hankering to see how other people live.”
The muzzle of the automatic probed Trent’s mid-section. “Looking for something to tie me up with that Kovacs killing, wasn’t you?”
Borio’s hand moved smoothly, disappeared in his coat pocket, and the gun made a significant bulge in the cloth even as Trent’s brain began to telegraph an impulse of explosive action to his muscles.
Borio grinned nastily, his glance altogether cold.
“Gunna jump me, huh? You gotta move quicker than that, brother.”
TRENT relaxed, let out his breath and shrugged. Danger signals were pumping through him.
“You’re playing the cards. Let’s see what they look like.”
“It’ll be a pleasure,” snapped Borio and inclined his head. “Trot along, now, and be nice. Just one screwball move, and I blow the whistle on you. Get it?”
“Yeah. Your English is plain enough.” Trent swiftly calculated his chances of taking Borio, decided against it in favor of seeing where this would lead him, and moved silently down the hall.
Baldy was up to his ears in a newspaper and hardly glanced up as they crossed the lobby and went out.
On a dim side street around from the hotel Borio indicated a Dodge coupe with a motion of his head.
“Get in. Behind the wheel.”
Trent got in. Borio slid after him, handed him the ignition key. The gun came out of his pocket. It snaked under his left elbow and made itself intimately acquainted with Trent’s lower rib.
Trent started the car, drove over to Main and craned his head toward Borio. “Where to?”
“Over Ocean and down the beach highway. I’ll tell you where to stop.”
Trent drifted the Dodge to Ocean, took the driveway that spilled over the Palisades and onto Highway 101, and headed northward at a sedate forty-five miles an hour. They passed beach clubs, rows of ornate homes, a couple of flamboyant drive-ins. Then came several miles of dark road that skirted the open beach and more houses.
“That white one ahead,” said Borio sharply, extending one finger. “Turn into the garage.”
Trent obediently angled the car in toward a sprawling rancho-style residence of eleven rooms or so. The garage doors automatically swung open as he approached them.
“Electric eyes and everything. Some service. This Reese’s dump?”
Borio nodded. “You ought to get on one of them quiz programs, brother; you know all the answers.”
The door went smoothly shut behind them, and lights sprang on in the garage. There was a big twelve-cylinder job in one of the stalls.
Borio got out, waggled his gun and Trent slid from behind the wheel. At Borio’s nod he went up a half-dozen tile steps to a sort of patio floored in blue cement and scattered with beach umbrellas, blue lacquered tables and a blue lawn swing with gigantic white dots. On the other side of it were French doors that gave Trent a glimpse of a richly furnished living room.
A man in a Chinese robe crossed the living room, came to the French doors. He was short, enormously fat and bald except for a fringe of black hair that encircled his head, giving him the appearance of an evil, thick-lipped Billiken.
“Hello, Joe,” Borio greeted the man as he opened one of the doors. “We got a visitor.”
&n
bsp; Reese saw the gun and scowled. “What the devil is this? You trying to get me in Dutch, bringing this lug here?”
Trent grinned sourly and glanced at Reese. “Well, well. The sure-thing gambler himself. You fixing many bowling matches these days?”
Reese had tiny eyes that were almost lost in layers of fat. They got hard and bright now. He took a step forward, hunched his thick shoulders and lifted a vicious right from his knees. Trent moved his head to let it slip by, and set himself to counter with a stiff one to the round convexity of Reese’s middle. Borio chuckled and shoved Trent from the rear. It threw him off balance just enough to get his jaw squarely into the path of Reese’s oncoming fist. That punch exploded like a bomb against his chin. There was a sudden dull roaring inside his head and the lights went out.
EYES flipping open under the solid beat of a hand that kept slapping his face, Jim Trent was bewildered when he recognized Sam Moody.
“You shy on sleep or something? I thought you’d never come out of it.” Concern was very real on Moody’s cheeks.
Trent moved experimentally, then groaned and muttered. “From the way I feel, those birds must have used me for a little kicking practice.”
Moody nodded, “You look it, too. Can you walk? We’re in a hurry.”
He got a hand under Trent’s shoulder, helped him to his feet. Trent shook his head to clear the ringing bells out of it. Unconsciously he went through the motions of dusting off his clothes, then swore feelingly as his fingers encountered a wide tear at the right knee.
“Sixty-five bucks worth of suit shot to pieces. Of all the rotten—”
Moody interrupted urgently, “Don’t worry about it. A good tailor can weave it together so you’d never know it was there. If you’re afraid you’ll fall apart in the meantime, I’ve got some copy pins in the car. Give you one when we get there. Come on.”
For the first time Trent noticed that Reese was among those present. He was sprawled on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open, making gentle snoring sounds. The front of his face was a terrible mess, and his nose seeped blood that was rapidly making a ruin of the expensive rug.
“What did you hit him with?” Trent inquired. “A length of pipe? And where’s Borio?”
Moody grinned, produced Cottrell’s .38. “The cop’s gun. I lammed out of that rooming house right after you did, and brought it along. The cop didn’t seem to have any use for it. He was too busy trying to dig the ashes out of his eyes. Borio’s not here; that’s why we’re in a hurry.”
They went out the front way. Moody had a sedan parked near the garage entrance. They climbed in and he started the motor, swung it around in the middle of the highway, had it in high gear in a breath, and headed it toward Santa Monica. Trent rolled the window down to let the cold, moisture-laden air clear the thumping hammers out of his brain while he listened to Moody’s explanation.
“I played a hunch that you’d gone over to pay Borio a visit, and arrived there just as the two of you came out,” Moody told him. “I could have taken Borio then. But I figured if I tailed him instead, I might dig up some proof of his and Reese’s implication in Kovacs’ murder. I was watching when you drove into Reese’s garage, saw Borio exit a little later and went up and rang the bell. When Reese came to the door I shoved my gun in his ribs and walked right in.”
“You must have found out where Borio went, or you wouldn’t be in such a hurry.”
“I did that little thing,” said Moody. “Reese clammed up until I bounced the gun off his nose a few times. After he talked I conked him.”
“Therefore the mess,” Trent observed. “You’ve got a sadistic streak in you, Sam. I think you actually enjoyed dishing it out to that heel.”
Moody grinned, shrugged.
“You can’t handle those slugs with kid gloves. I know. I spent too many years on a police beat before I tied up with you two months ago.”
Trent grunted. “I always wondered what soured a reporter enough to make him turn press agent. Did you get a confession?”
“No. He wouldn’t go that far. But he told me Borio was headed for the bowling alley. He’s going to try and get past the copper they’ve got on watch and snake that ball out somehow, I suppose.”
ON WILSHIRE they halted for a traffic signal, shot across the intersection as it changed. Trent noticed a row of heavy wire copy pins with triangular shaped heads stuck in the rubber insulation around the windshield. He reached over and took one of them to tack together the wide rent in his trouser leg.
The Santa Monica Recreation Center was a sprawling, modernistic affair, painted buff and trimmed with a lot of chromium and glass brick. Classy stuff. Moody angled the car in to the curb a half block below it and they got out, going the rest of the way on foot.
There was no watchman in front of the place. Moody jerked his head at a black slot of an areaway beside the building and they turned in. Halfway through it Trent’s out-thrust foot thudded into something soft. He let out a grunt and sprawled forward.
“What happened?” Moody whispered.
Cursing under his breath, Trent groped around with his hands and experienced a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach when they contacted a face. The face was warm, alive. The odd feeling went away and Trent muttered:
“Watchman. Slugged! His gun’s gone. Looks like your hunch about Borio rang the bell.”
He got up and they crept toward the rear of the building. It occupied practically the full length of a hundred-foot lot, leaving a strip of concrete about ten feet wide at the back, bounded by a high fence. A door at the far side of the building showed a vertical segment of blackness deeper than the shadow. Moody brought out Cottrell’s .38 and moved forward ahead of Trent.
The door gave ingress to a narrow billiard room that ran the length of the building. A half-dozen tables made dark, immobile shapes in the gloom.
At the far end was an archway through which fell a dim shaft of light. They moved silently toward this, passing a snooker table with the balls set up on it. Acting on impulse Trent reached out, slid one of them into his hand, hefted it in the darkness. While not exactly on the deadly side, the thing was at least a weapon.
The twenty bowling lanes gleamed like satin ribbons in the subdued glow of a night light. At the pit ends hung their identifying numbers, the row of motionless, diamond-shaped pin setting machines. At the forward end lay the ball racks, backed by a rising tier of theater seats split in the middle by a narrow aisle that ran the width of the alleys.
Moody stuck his head out from the side of the archway. “Borio!” he whispered. The word was intended solely for Trent’s ears, but the receptive silence of the big place picked up the soft call and magnified it to a sibilant, far-reaching sound.
A dark figure bending over the ball rack on one of the middle alleys jerked up, made a quick movement. A stab of orange flame blossomed in front of him. Lead came out of the flame slash, and made a mess of the fine mahogany finish of a billiard table behind them, and the bowling alley was filled with rolling volumes of sound.
Moody leveled the cop’s gun and took a snap shot as Borio ducked behind a towel-hung pedestal at the end of the ball rack. The bullet struck the chalk cone in the shallow howl atop the pedestal and exploded it all over the alley. An idea flashed through Trent’s mind.
“You keep him occupied and I’ll duck down that aisle between the balcony seats,” he husked to Moody. “I think I can bean him with this pool ball.”
“No you don’t,” snapped Moody, “I’ve got the artillery in this man’s army.”
He darted out and made the aisle a bare whisper ahead of a winging ounce of hot lead. Trent lost sight of him, but could partially see Borio behind the low pedestal. The latter was squatting down with a harried look on his face as he tried to figure out just where Moody would pop up. It was like a game of cat-and-mouse, with Borio playing the unenvied role of the mouse.
BORIO cracked suddenly. He leaped to his feet with a shrill curse and let go a fusill
ade that ripped splintery holes in the seat backs along the aisle. Turning, he sprinted for the safety of the pit at the end of the bowling lane. Attempting to zigzag on the slippery hardwood floor, his feet slid out in opposite directions.
He started to go over backward, threshed his arms wildly to regain his balance as the crash of Moody’s gun filled the alley with explosive thunder. Borio continued to fall with the limp bonelessness of a puppet whose controlling strings have been severed, skidded on his back almost to the edge of the pit, and lay quiet.
Trent moved forward as Moody yelped in triumph and ran down the alley. He stooped over Borio’s immobile form, rose after a moment and came back, grinning and stuffing his gun in his coat pocket.
“Got him,” he crowed. “Like knocking over a duck in a shooting gallery. Well, there’s your murderer. I’ll phone the cops, and tell them to pick up Reese as an accessory.”
Trent was standing by the pedestal at the end of the ball rack. He frowned at the remains of the chalk cone wrecked by Moody’s bullet, poked into it with an exploring finger and spoke with studied casualness.
“Wait a minute, Sam. You didn’t tell me you had a bet on Whitbread. How come?”
His words stopped Moody dead in his tracks. A queer expression fled across the press agent’s features.
“That couldn’t be an accusation, could it?”
“Might be. You had to have a motive for poisoning Stan Kovacs, you know. Though I don’t believe you meant to kill him. The stuff was meant to throw him off his game so you could clean up, only you were a little green at it.”
Moody forced a laugh. “You’re kidding, Jim,” he said, but his eyes were hard and bright as diamonds.
“I wish I was.” Trent fished into the mess of broken chalk left in the dish atop the post. He pulled out something and held it up so Moody could see it. “I’ve got a copy pin exactly like this one, holding together that rip in my pants. This came from the bunch you had stuck in the rubber insulation around your windshield, Sam. Moreover, Borio would hardly know that Kovacs was the only one of the two bowlers who used chalk on his thumb, or which of these twenty-four alleys the match was to be held on.”
