Well, it was something I'd known for a long time. But it's hard not to fall into that old human error. Proof of which can be found by a glance at most social workers, do-gooders, and vote-hungry politicians. It's just no good trying to help people until they ask for help — or, at least, until they want it.
But at least I'd learned a little, and hadn't been shot — probably because Dr. Macey couldn't remember where his gun was.
Mooneyes, though, might be a different kettle of fish. He knew at all times where his gun was. He didn't go out with girls much — or vice versa — and he consequently lavished a lot of attention and loving care upon his heater. He had dates with it. And he carried it, appropriately for the object of such a long-lived romance, near to his heart.
He was pretty dumb; but he knew where his heart was. He didn't have to open any drawers to find it.
Yes, Mooneyes might be different.
NINETEEN
It was nearly eleven-thirty a.m., and this early in the day it was difficult to say where Mooneyes would be. Later there was a good chance he — and Gant, plus another muscleman or three — would be holding court in the Apache. But that much later would be too much later.
I made a few calls trying to locate him, without success, then thought again of Annette.
Annette was one of the several dozen people I'd phoned in the last thirty-six hours or so, while putting my lines out. I'd called her before because I knew she'd gone out with Mooneyes once, a month or so ago; but she hadn't been able to give me any information I could use. Presumably she would if she could, since — I gathered — for practically anybody, one date with Mooneyes was enough, and a little more. She had told me, though, that Mooneyes was eager for number two, and kept calling her. So she might know where to reach him.
Annette was the second-featured performer at the Swank Theater on Spring Street — the gal "understeadying," as she put it, the artist who got top billing. Annette was a stripper; I had seen Annette's act; it was a safe bet Mooneyes liked Annette even better than his gun. It might work.
If it did, it would be handy, too. Another of those three dimes I'd spent earlier had been for a call to Ron Smith, a former court reporter who now worked in an office at the Hall of Justice, which was only a few blocks from the Swank. I knew Judge Croffer was presiding over a session of Superior Court in one of the Hall of Justice courtrooms, and Smith had agreed to let me know — if I called back — when the judge went to lunch. Despite crowded calendars, judges always adjourn court for lunch. Often for a couple of hours or so. But Judge Croffer was probably getting hungry about now, which didn't give me much time.
So, without further delay I drove over to see Annette. She didn't go on until one p.m. — after the triple feature — but I figured she'd be backstage at the Swank. She was.
Because, as she explained it, Mooneyes gave her "creepy goose bumps," she was more than willing to cooperate with me in an attempt to put him out of circulation. I told her that, if this operation miscarried, Mooneyes might suspect her of fingering him, which could make things sticky for her, but that I'd do my best to keep that from happening and felt reasonably sure I could.
Annette wasn't worried. She could handle Mooneyes if it came to that. "Besides," she went on, "I won't even ask him to come over. I'll just say hello, and do a couple of bumps with my tonsils, and he'll ask if he can come watch my act. So I'll tell him I couldn't care less. And he'll come over."
Women, I thought, are the last practitioners of black and gray magic.
Anyway, just as Cherry had known how to reach me, Annette knew where to get in touch with Mooneyes; so with that part set I called the Hamilton Building and got Hazel, the cute little trick on the second-floor switchboard.
"Shell here, Hazel. Those two guys I phoned you about earlier show up?"
"Just a few minutes ago, Shell. My, they look rough. Who are they?"
"I'll tell you later — they're supposed to look rough. Send them over to the Swank Theater, will you?"
"Swank? Shell, I'm surprised at you — "
"No, you're not," I said, and hung up.
"O.K.," I said to Annette.
She called two numbers and got results at the second one. "Hi, Clarence," she said. "How are you, hon?"
She listened, looked at me and stuck out her tongue, grimacing, then put on a smile.
"Oh, Clarence; I've told you not to say things like that," she cooed in a tone that begged him to say things like that. "What? Just practicing a new number. Oh, no, Clarence, no, you shouldn't come over. But it's only a little — what?"
Annette looked at me and winked. It was practically set. I'm surprised there aren't more women detectives. They wouldn't even have to carry guns.
And then it filtered in that maybe we were working on the wrong case here. Clarence? Who in hell was Clarence?
"Psst," I said. "Annette — not Clarence. Mooneyes!"
She ignored me. "Well, if you want to, Clarence. But I'd realty rather you didn't. I haven't perfected the — the movement yet. What? Oh, you devil, you. Really? Well, I just wanted to talk to you, hon."
"Psst! Not Clarence."
"Now, you stop saying that," she cooed. "No, you'd better not come over — not until I've perfected the movement. Bye, Clarence."
"Psst!"
She'd hung up.
"There," she said to me. "He'll be here before you know it. And he'll never guess I wanted him to come."
"Who would?" I scowled. "The only trouble is, we were to use all that female fiendishness on Mooneyes."
"Silly, that was Mooneyes."
"Clarence? The Mooneyes I referred to is monickered Joe "Mooneyes" Garella, and if there are two guys named Mooneyes — "
"Shell, will you listen? Joe isn't his real name. It's Clarence Garella. Hardly anybody knows his real name but me — he told me everything about himself. His dep . . . deprivation in childhood and all."
"He must've."
"And he didn't like the name Clarence, so when he was a kid he started calling himself Joe."
I nodded, feeling what was almost a kind of sadness. For a moment I felt quite sorry for Clarence Garella. Even though he'd undoubtedly picked up that "deprivation" bit from the prison psychologist or a social worker during his last stretch in stir, it was probably true that he'd had an unhappy childhood; and he sure was not having a very happy adulthood. It was, I suppose, a pity. But there was nothing to prevent him from turning in his Colt .45 for a pick and shovel if he felt like it. Oddly, he had never felt like it.
Besides, he'd shot several guys. Killed at least two or three. And he'd driven a professional killer up to the Spartan last night so the cold-eyed bastard could murder me. And Clarence must have known that if the pro got me he'd pump a couple of slugs into Cherry, too. More, Clarence had tried to run over me and squash me last night. I suppose it was a pity, but nonetheless I wasn't going to drown in it. I wasn't going to rehabilitate him. I was going to fix Mooneyes good, if I could.
I thanked Annette, wished her luck perfecting that movement, and walked down to Spring Street. The two men Hazel had sent over from my office were just parking in a lot across the street. At least I assumed they were the two, though we hadn't met. I bought three tickets from the gal in the Swank's box office, and waited.
They looked right. One was about my size, the other shorter but a good deal heavier. He looked like an ex-fullback. Both of them were dressed in dark suits and wore dark snap-brim hats.
They recognized me and joined me on the sidewalk. I made sure they were my men — the taller one was Gill, the ex-fullback was Tony — then led them off the street into the theater's lobby.
"You know what you're supposed to do?" I asked them.
The taller of the two nodded. "Roughly," he said. "Ed said you'd fill us in." He had a voice like a dog chewing on bones. Nice and menacing.
"O.K. Now all I want you guys to do is stand near me. Anything illegal, I'll do it — though this part, at least, is going to be legal eno
ugh. It's later there may be trouble. So don't even say a word. Then, later, if it comes to that, you can truthfully say all you did was join me at my request."
"Some part," Tony said.
"Just look like cops," I told them. Gill said, "I was a highway patrolman in Hell on the High — "
"Skip that." He started looking unhappy — these actors are all alike — so I added, "Some other time. We've only got a few minutes. Now, here's the scene."
I filled them in. They weren't too happy about it. Especially when I said, "This guy, remember, is not an actor — unless you'd call him a bad actor. He's a hood. If he pulls his heat, I'll shoot him."
In unison, they gulped. "Heat," Tony said. "That's — that's a gun, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
He gulped again. "I'm usually the guy gets shot," he said. "I never played a cop in my life. It's cops that shoot — "
"Look, I asked for two guys who'd do damn near anything for a C note. I'll make it two C's apiece if you go through with it. But if you want to back out do it now, and I'll try to pull this off alone."
The big man said, "You think he'll fall for it?"
"I'm pretty sure he will. All you have to do is glare at him."
"Two hundred bucks?"
"Right." I dug into my wallet, got two hundreds and four fifties and held them before me.
Gill took the two hundreds and said, "I'm in."
The shorter one was slower, but he said, "Hell," and took the fifties.
"Good. I don't really think there'll be trouble. Not here. If there is, duck. If there isn't, just follow my lead." I grinned. "And think of what a dandy story this can be for you to tell at the next party. Especially if — Easy." I broke it off. "Here he comes."
Mooneyes had just come inside. He was extending the ticket in his big hand toward the doorman, kind of bouncing on his heels in joyous anticipation of what lay ahead. He didn't appear to have taken time to scrape off the morning's growth of whiskers, but I could smell either powerful powder or a heady after-shave lotion. The wisps of red hair were brushed straight back.
I started toward him.
He saw me. He stopped bouncing in joyous anticipation. The corners of his fat-lipped mouth stretched out and down. He put his hand under his coat. Near his heart. Yeah, he knew where it was; and I didn't think he was taking his pulse.
The last two steps were the longest, but I took them.
"Joseph Garella," I said firmly, "you are under arrest."
TWENTY
Those big pale eyes narrowed as the oily, almost lashless lids dropped down to half cover them like a pair of fat eclipses.
"Yeah?" he said. "The hell. You ain't a cop."
Then he turned his head, looked over my shoulder. I risked a quick peek. It was moving along all right. Gill and Tony were thumping across the lobby carpet stern and unsmiling, their gaze piercing Mooneyes.
That's the nice thing about professional actors. When they get their teeth into a part they often really live it, and these two had decided to bite deeply. But when they stopped directly behind me I wondered if maybe the shorter one, Tony — whom I'd thought the more frightened — hadn't bitten off more than he could chew.
He must have seen a policeman in a movie wearing a Detective Special in a holster hung from the left side of his belt. Anyhow, he had his hand sort of pressing his side there, under his coat, and was leaning forward with an expression indicative of severe pain, and he looked like a man gingerly probing his hernia. Maybe he was about to get shot, but he would remain a ham to the end.
"No," I said to Mooneyes, "I'm not a cop. But, in accordance with Section Eight-three-seven of the California Penal Code, one private person may arrest another, and I quote, 'For a public offense committed or attempted in his presence.' So get that into your skull. Mooneyes — all the way into your skull. You're legally under arrest."
The sight of the two men behind me had distracted him, but his thick arm was still across his body, hand out of sight. "For what?" he said.
"Suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. There'll be more, like conspiracy, accessory before the fact of a felony, but the ADW charge is enough for me to hold you. You could get up to ten in Q for that, Mooneyes."
"ADW? What ADW?"
"Think back to last night, Mooneyes," I said. "When you tried to run me down with your heap. Your car was the deadly weapon, and that was sure as hell ADW."
"You couldn't of seen me."
"Knock it off. How do you think I knew it was you, Mooneyes?"
He considered that, and slowly nodded. "By golly, you got me there." He rolled his owlish eyes to the men behind me, then let his right hand drop to his side. "I thought you was comin' in at me," he said, trying on a grin.
"I almost did." We were over the first hump, and I could feel the sweat creep out of me now, under my collar, along my back. "I'll take that itch you were scratching, Mooneyes."
"Huh?"
"The piece." I reached under his coat, slipped out the automatic. He lifted his hand toward it but didn't grab. I shoved the gun into my hip pocket.
"O.K., let's go."
He licked his lips, looked into the darkened theater, at that right-hand aisle down which lay joy, delight, the front row, and a new movement. Then his beefy shoulders sagged.
"You won't make nothin' stick," he said. But he came along with me.
Out on the sidewalk I steered Mooneyes toward my Cad, then stopped and called over my shoulder to Gill and Tony. "I'll take the suspect in. You two follow us."
I was more than a little damp by now. As a gal I once knew might have put it, I was "perspiring a lot of sweat." The scene in the Swank lobby had been merely the first hurdle to get over, and it was supposed to be the easy part. The rest of this operation was the hinge success swung on — first putting the arm on Mooneyes, then throwing the convincer into him, and after that just carrying him along without giving him time to think. Not even the way Mooneyes thought.
But it often happens that, when I get one of my bright ideas, the deeper I get into it the dimmer it appears to me. And this bright idea was no exception. With Mooneyes sitting alongside me on the front seat of my Cad, I used the radio-phone and placed another call to Ron Smith, the guy I'd called before in the Hall of Justice. Mooneyes appeared to be deep in thought, brows furrowed.
When I got through to Smith I said, "What's with Judge Croffer?"
"Left about five minutes ago. Two-hour break for lunch."
I sighed. "Good."
"Not so good. I didn't know there was going to be so damn many of them. Shell, if I get in trouble — "
I couldn't do any explaining with Mooneyes sitting next to me, so I said, "Can it wait? I'll check in with you after I get there. O.K.?"
"Well . . . O.K."
There were questions I wanted to ask — several of them — but they'd have to be asked later, if at all. I hung up.
And Mooneyes, having gone deep enough in thought to find whatever he'd been after, said, "How come you happen to be waitin' so handy there at the Swank? Huh? Tell me that, Scott."
I glared at him. "We knew you'd show up there sooner or later, Mooneyes," I told him truthfully. "It was just a matter of staking out at the Swank till you strolled into our trap."
He said a favorite hoodlum word, adding, "Boy, am I dumb. Walked right into it."
And for the first time in a while I began thinking this might work. Well, from now on that was all I intended to think: that it would work, that it couldn't miss.
I pulled out into the traffic, and my two actors fell in behind us. I drove straight to the Hall of Justice, parked, got out, and opened the right-hand door. Mooneyes said dully, "Here?"
"Here."
"This ain't the jail I go to."
"Of course it's not. What's the matter with you? Come on, hurry it up."
The other car was parked by now, and Gill and Tony were walking toward us. Mooneyes got out of the Cad, eyes eclipsing again. I grabbed one of his elbows and ush
ered him inside the Hall of Justice, up to Judge Croffer's courtroom.
Ed Howell was standing before the big double doors.
We walked up to him and Mooneyes said suspiciously, "What's that big black nigger doin' here?"
Well, you hear about it, but it doesn't often happen right in your ear. I lifted my right hand and was just reaching for Mooneyes when I felt Ed's fingers close around my wrist.
I looked at him, and he winked. On his face was an expression of almost pure delight, a kind of exhilaration. I didn't get it.
He moved his head slightly, then walked off down the corridor. I had to talk to him for a few seconds anyway, so I said to Mooneyes, "You wait here. I'll see if they're ready for us."
"Ready?" His eyes, none too sparkling to begin with, were getting a kind of glazed look. He was confused. Good. I wanted him confused.
I glanced past him to Gill and Tony half a dozen feet away and said, "Watch him, boys."
Gill shrugged as if to say, "Watch him what?", and Tony raised his arms a little, then let them flop. He was no longer acting like a man about to shoot a hood with his rupture.
"But — " said Mooneyes.
I spun on my heel and walked briskly to Ed. "What got into you?" I asked him softly. "That sonofa — "
"Skip it. He gave me an idea — settled a problem for me, Shell." He grinned, then went on rapidly, whispering, "But forget that. I got thirty-six just to sit, best I could do so soon. Four or five people were still here; they didn't leave for lunch. Still are here — I couldn't ask them to leave. You didn't say anything about a jury, so I just scattered them around. If you want — "
"That's O.K. Fine, Ed. We'll let the judge try the case."
"Got a great judge. Morrison Blaine, eighty years old and tougher'n hickory. He just finished playing a judge in The Trials of Elizabeth Dugan, so he stopped by Wardrobe and picked up his robe and stuff."
Ed's grin flashed in his black face, almost lighting up the corridor. But I was thinking, "robe and stuff"? Robe, O.K.; but what was this "and stuff"? There wasn't time, however, to probe that little detail.
I said, "What about Ron Smith? He was a court reporter once, but when I phoned him he wasn't sure — "
Kill Him Twice (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 14
