Joey said, “Oh, hi, Boss. Wan’ you to meet a fren’ of mine.” He looked at Horton. “Wha’s your name again?”
“Malone,” Horton said. “Jimmy Malone.”
Manzetti regarded him affably. Instead of offering his hand, he gave Horton’s shoulder a friendly slap. “How are you, Jimmy? What you been feeding my boy to get him talking so hard?”
“Nothing,” Horton said with a smile. “We’re just batting the breeze.”
“You new around here?” The question was merely polite, not curious.
“About a month. I’ve been here before. Matter of fact, you’ve bought me a couple of drinks, but you wouldn’t remember it.”
Manzetti grinned. “If I remembered all the guys I’ve bought drinks, I’d need a head like an elephant. Where you work?”
“Gotham’s,” Horton said, picking the name of a brewery he had passed on the way to the club. “Drive a truck.”
“Yeah? Good beer.” He called to one of the bartenders, “Hey, Henry! Give Joey and his pal Jimmy a drink.”
He gave Horton’s shoulder another friendly pat and moved on.
Horton made no attempt to steer the conversation back to its former subject. He’d found what he wanted to know. Unless Joey was deliberately lying, which in his condition seemed unlikely, Manzetti was not only innocent of Quincy’s murder, but of sending the threatening note, too.
Joey had forgotten what he had been talking about. He started another joke. Horton listened patiently while he sipped the beer Manzetti had bought. He finished it just as Joey finished the story.
“I better be pushing,” Horton said. “Got to work tomorrow.”
Joey looked a trifle blearily at the clock over the backbar. “Almos’ midnight,” he said with surprise. “Gonna close anyway. Which way you go?”
“To the Palais Royal.”
“Run you home. Gotta car outside.”
Horton wasn’t enthusiastic about riding with a drunk, but he wasn’t keen on a two-mile walk after all the beer he’d consumed either. Besides, there was no way to refuse the invitation without offending the man.
“Fine,” he said, trying to make it sound appreciative.
As they started toward the door together, they ran into Tony Manzetti.
“Taking off before we close?” he asked Horton. Then he glanced at Joey. “Where you going?”
“Run Jimmy home,” Joey said.
Manzetti looked surprised. “You sure got my boy wound up,” he said to Horton. “Never saw him so friendly.”
Throwing an arm across the shoulder of each man, he escorted them to the door and out into the hall. “Don’t worry about Joey’s driving,” he told Horton. “He’s a better driver drunk than most guys sober.”
“Glad of that,” Horton said with a feeling of relief.
Then his relief changed to consternation. The street door opened and a young man came in alone.
He said, “Hi, Tony. Still time for a nightcap?”
Then his gaze fell on Horton and his eyes widened.
“Hey!” he said. “You’re the guy I sold that car! The guy who killed Mr. Quincy!”
It was the young salesman from Trusting Joe Gannon’s used-car lot.
CHAPTER XIII
HORTON DIDN’T wait for Manzetti and Joey to react. Leaping forward, he stiff-armed the young salesman out of the way and clawed at the handle of the street door.
But even drunk, Joey Ault’s co-ordination was excellent. He was moving only an instant after Horton. As Horton started to jerk the door open, a pistol barrel descended on the back of his head.
The blow didn’t knock him out. It just drove him to his knees with his senses reeling. His forehead butted against the half-open door and slammed it shut. He stayed on his knees, his palms pressed against the door, conscious but momentarily paralyzed.
He heard Manzetti growl something, then he was jerked to his feet by Manzetti on one side and Joey on the other.
“You!” Manzetti snapped at the young car salesman. “Get in the bar, and clam up about this. I’ll talk to you later.”
Horton didn’t see whether or not the young man complied. He was pushed past him in the direction of the stairs before the salesman could turn to enter the bar.
Still so numb that his legs refused to work properly, Horton stumbled up the stairway with Manzetti and Joey supporting him on either side. They reached the dark second floor and turned down a pitch-black hallway. Suddenly Horton was thrust forward, and sensed rather than saw the doorway he was being pushed through. His arms were released and he fell to his hands and knees in the darkness. Groggily, he raised his head just as the room lights came on.
After a moment Horton’s head cleared enough for him to rise shakily to his feet. He closed his eyes against the light as blinding pain struck the base of his skull. When the pain finally subsided to a dull ache, he opened them again.
They were in a small office. Horton moved unsteadily to a chair against one wall and sat down. Manzetti closed and locked the office door.
Joey the Cut, a forty-five automatic in his hand, was glaring at Horton and breathing heavily. When he spoke, all thickness had left his voice. Apparently he was one of those rare people who can sober instantly in emergency.
“You was pumping me,” he spat at Horton. “All that friendly stuff was just bull to make me talk.”
He stepped forward with his gun barrel raised, as though he meant to smash it across Horton’s face.
“Hold it, Joey!” Manzetti’s voice cracked out.
With an effort, the hatchet man restrained himself from completing the movement. His hand slowly lowered until the gun muzzle pointed between Horton’s eyes. He backed a step, keeping his eyes fixed on Horton’s. His lips drew back in an animal-like grimace.
Manzetti walked over to Horton and jerked the cap from his head.
“You answer the description, all right, mister.” He flung the cap at Horton’s chest and it rolled down into his lap. “What you doing around here?”
Gingerly Horton touched the back of his head. His cap had deadened the force of Joey’s blow, but it had still been a substantial rap. A bump was beginning to form.
He said wearily, “Just trying to clear myself of a bum beef.”
“Yeah? By setting me up to take it for you?”
Horton started to shake his head, thought better of it when he felt a twinge of pain. “I didn’t kill Quincy,” he said. “I was in the washroom when somebody opened the outside door and fired. I ran because the cops would never have believed me.”
“Sure,” Manzetti said. “But you think I will.”
“It’s the truth,” Horton insisted. “Why do you think I came here tonight?”
“You tell me.”
“I was hoping to find evidence that you ordered him killed,” Horton said sullenly. “Would I do that if I knew I’d killed him?”
“So you were trying to set me up, hull?”
“Only if you were guilty. After talking to Joey, I was satisfied you weren’t. If you’d let me walk out, I wouldn’t have bothered you any more.”
“Glad you’re convinced I’m clean,” Manzetti said ironically. “Now convince me that you are.”
“Why would I kill the guy?” Horton asked. “I had him all set up for a bunco score. The killing ruined all my plans.”
“Yeah? What were your plans?”
Horton told him. There was nothing to be gained in holding back, and possibly some advantage if he could get Manzetti to believe the truth. He outlined the bunco game he had been in the process of working in detail.
He finished by saying, “So you see, Quincy was doing exactly what I wanted. I wouldn’t have killed him to avoid arrest, as the cops seem to think. I wanted to be arrested. And I certainly wasn’t hired to gun him by Mrs. Quincy, as you seem to think. I never saw her until a few minutes before Quincy died. She was in the office when I arrived, but left immediately after.”
Manzetti said sharply, “What was that
? She was there?”
“Sure. But she left.”
“Well, well,” Manzetti said thoughtfully. “And she told the cops she never left home that day.”
Horton hiked his eyebrows. “That wasn’t in the papers.”
Manzetti gave him a wolfish grin. “I get my information direct. A lot of stuff never gets in the papers.” He looked at Joey. “Could be this guy’s telling the truth, Joey. Maybe Velda Quincy pulled the kill all by herself. And Jimmy-boy was just unlucky enough to get caught in the middle.”
Joey made no response. He merely continued to stare at Horton with hate.
“Of course I’m telling the truth,” Horton urged. “You ever hear of a con man using a gun?”
Manzetti studied him estimatingly. “No, as a matter of fact. But you know what? If you can convince me you’re innocent, maybe the cops would buy your story too.”
Horton looked at him doubtfully.
“And where would that leave me?” Manzetti inquired. “The papers would start harping on that threat again as the probable motive. Even if the cops eventually pinned it on Velda, and proved she sent the note in order to let me take the rap, it would be a lot of trouble. And maybe they couldn’t prove it.”
“They wouldn’t try very hard to prove it on you, would they?” Horton said.
“Not the cops,” Manzetti told him with a slow shake of his head. “Not with the fix I’ve got. But the newspapers would play it to the hilt. It ain’t good to have newspaper campaigns stirring things up.”
“Then you’re not going to turn me over to the police?” Horton asked hopefully.
Manzetti shook his head again. “Don’t believe I will.”
Crossing to a desk in one corner, he lifted a phone and dialled. After a moment, he said, “Henry? Any of the boys still in the bar?”
There was a pause, then, “Okay. Send Hippo and Russ up to my office.”
As Manzetti replaced the phone in its cradle, Horton stood up. “All right if I run along, then?”
Manzetti regarded him without expression. “We wouldn’t want you to be lonesome. You can ride home with Joey and a couple of the other boys.”
Joey removed his smoldering gaze from Horton long enough to glance at Manzetti. “What’s the pitch, Boss?”
“We’ll wind this up nice and clean, Joey. I like the theory the cops have got now. Why bother them with a lot of complicated stuff about Quincy’s widow? It’s no skin off our noses if she gets away with murder.”
Horton said uneasily, “What are you getting at, Manzetti?”
Manzetti ignored him. He said to Joey, “Know where Jimmy-boy’s hideout is?”
“He said the Palais Royal.”
“Good. That’s a nice quiet place. Arrange it to look natural.”
“Arrange what?” Horton inquired loudly.
“Your suicide,” Manzetti told him with a calmness approaching indifference. “Nothing like a suicide to wind up a murder case neat. About the most convincing confession of guilt there is.”
CHAPTER XIV
A KNOCK came at the door and Manzetti moved to unlock it. Two men came in.
It wasn’t difficult to guess which one was Hippo and which Russ. One was grossly fat, with a round face and unblinking little eyes. The other was a lean, wiry man with blond hair carefully set in waves.
Neither said anything. After a glance at Horton, they merely looked inquiringly at Manzetti.
“This is the joker the cops want for knocking over Honest John Quincy,” Manzetti said, nodding toward Horton. “We’re going to let him confess by bumping himself off. Joey will give you the details.”
Both men gave understanding nods. For all the change in expression either exhibited, Manzetti might have been detailing them to run to the corner for a package of cigarettes.
Joey said, “All right, mister. Get going.” He gestured toward the door with his gun.
They went down the stairs in single file. The tat Hippo went first, then Horton, then Joey, his gun pocketed but pointing at Horton’s back through the cloth. Russ and Manzetti brought up the rear.
The barroom was now closed. As they passed the open doorway, Horton could see the three bartenders cleaning up, and the only remaining customer, the young car salesman, patiently waiting at the bar as Manzetti had ordered.
Manzetti dropped out of the parade. Without saying anything, he turned into the barroom.
Joey and Russ waited at the curb with Horton while Hippo brought around a car. Neither said anything to him.
Horton, who was carrying his cap in his hand, started to raise it to put it on. Joey’s eyes glittered at the movement, and a fleeting expression of eagerness crossed his face. Horton carefully dropped his hand to his side again. The thin killer was so impatient to put a bullet in him, any movement at all was dangerous.
Hippo pulled up to the curb in a two-year-old, black Buick sedan. Joey urged Horton into the back seat, waited until Russ sat next to him and covered him with a thirty-eight revolver, then rounded the car and sat on his other side. Horton, still afraid to make any unnecessary movement, let his cap lie in his lap.
Joey said, “Palais Royal, Hippo. Park on the sidestreet.”
The two-mile trip was made in total silence. When they reached the hotel, Hippo swung the Buick right into the street alongside the building, made a U-turn and parked just back from the corner, out of sight of the front entrance.
Joey said to Russ, “Cover him,” put away his own gun and got out of the car.
“Where you going?” Russ asked.
Through the open window Joey said, “Gonna find out the guy’s room number and figure out how to get him in without passing the desk.”
He moved off around the corner to the front of the hotel.
Hippo fumbled in his coat pocket for a package of cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth. Over his shoulder he said to Russ, “Got any fire?”
Russ felt in a pocket with his left hand. His gaze remained on Horton, but momentarily the gun muzzle strayed forward.
It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was the best one Horton was likely to get. He slashed the cap he was holding in his lap at Russ’s eyes.
He was gripping the cap by its rear. The edge of the stiff, cardboard-reinforced peak caught the man directly between the eyes. He let out a startled yelp.
At the same instant that he swung the cap, Horton’s left hand made a grab for the blond man’s revolver. His fingers clamped over the cylinder, making it impossible for it to revolve and preventing it from firing.
Releasing his grip on the cap, Horton brought the edge of his palm sharply down on the man’s wrist. Russ’s fingers spasmodically opened. Both hands flew to his injured eyes as he cowered against the car door.
For a fat man, Hippo was well co-ordinated. The second he heard his partner’s yelp, he was twisting around in the front seat and driving a hand toward his armpit. He was on one knee facing rearward, his gun swinging toward Horton, just as Horton jerked the revolver from Russ’s grip.
There wasn’t time for Horton to transfer the gun to his right hand. Still holding it around the cylinder, he slashed upward with it.
The wooden grip caught Hippo flush on the point of the chin with such force it made Horton’s hand tingle. The fat man’s small eyes blinked and he fell sidewise, face down on the front seat. Transferring the .38 butt-first to his right hand, Horton swung it in an arc to crash against Russ’s forehead. The blond man collapsed without a sound.
Leaning over Russ, Horton opened the door and pushed his unconscious figure out onto the sidewalk. He scrambled out the same door, slammed it and jerked open the front one. With his pistol raised to strike downward, he waited for some movement from Hippo. There was none. The man was as unconscious as Russ.
Thrusting the .38 into his jacket pocket, Horton grasped the fat man by his shoulders and heaved him onto the sidewalk too.
He was behind the wheel and had the motor started when Joey appeared from around the corner of the hote
l on his way back to the car.
Joey took one look and reached for his gun. Horton shot the Buick forward and made a dirt-track left turn onto Gibbons Street.
A single shot sounded. A webbed hole appeared in the right side of the windshield as the bullet zipped through the rear window and out the front. Then he was out of pistol range, his right foot to the floorboards.
Horton headed straight for the center of town, his only immediate thought to put as much distance as possible between himself and Manzetti’s men. As he drove, his mind was working at full speed, considering his situation.
It was unlikely that Manzetti would set the police on his trail, he decided, for the racketeer didn’t want him to fall into their hands alive. His simple disguise was probably still good insofar as the police were concerned.
But Manzetti had a substantial organization of his own which would now be hunting for him. The evening’s activities had increased the precariousness of his position even more, he thought ruefully. Now not only the police were after him, but a whole corps of hired killers as well.
The first thing he had to do was get rid of the Buick, as undoubtedly Manzetti’s men would be out looking for it. He slowed, considering a place to abandon it where it wouldn’t be spotted immediately.
By now he was well downtown. Just ahead was Honest John Quincy’s used-car lot. He started to drive slowly past it, then, on an impulse, halted the car and thoughtfully examined the lot.
At this time of night it was deserted. A string of white bulbs encircling the lot lighted it brilliantly.
Horton glanced in all directions. At the moment there was neither a pedestrian nor an automobile in sight.
Swinging the car onto the lot, he found a vacant place in one of the rows of cars and backed into it. It would be at least morning before anyone discovered the car there, and possibly, if one of the salesmen didn’t notice it among all the other cars, it might even be days. In any event it was unlikely that any of Manzetti’s men would spot it before he was well out of the neighborhood.
His cap now constituted more of an identifying mark than it did a disguise.
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