by Roy Huggins
He thought of some more things to say about me. The little man had a creative talent.
I turned him around gently and we walked down to the next floor and along the dim corridor to my office.
The window was dark. The door was locked. I gave him the key and told him to open it and do whatever he thought was smart.
He unlocked the door, opened it a little way, and said, “Hey, Nix, guys, he's got me covered. Turn on the light.” Sweat was beginning to bead on his crevassed neck.
The light came on.
“Tell 'em I'd like to hear some guns drop.”
“Shed the heaters, guys. He wants to talk.”
I heard two loud thuds, as if the guns had been thrown into a corner, and I came on in with the little fellow in front of me.
There were two of them standing in the middle of the room with their hands raised peacefully, and one of them was giving me a grin as wide and bright as the Hall of Mirrors. He had red hair, a flat face, and white elk's teeth. He looked like a kid who'd been caught stealing raspberry jam and didn't really care. He wasn't more than half an inch taller than I am, and he wasn't quite as broad as a Sherman tank. The other one was lanky and sallow with a long face and plucked eyebrows and a thick loose mouth. The room wasn't as messy as I expected. There were several places where the linoleum showed through the papers covering the floor. They had cased the place carefully. The papers were from my desk and files.
I closed the door and said, “Go on over and sit on the desks and put your hands on your knees.”
The little fellow walked over and sat down on the desk in front of mine and the sallow man slid in beside him. Red took the desk next to the door, and it groaned when he sat on it. They put their hands on their knees and looked at me.
I went over and sat in my chair, waved the automatic around carelessly, and said, “I'm all ears.”
They sat and looked at me like a first-night audience watching a bad first act. Even Red looked bored.
I picked up the phone and said, “Who would you rather tell it to, me or the law?” They looked at me.
I started to dial with the hand that held the phone.
They kept on watching me with all the interest of three men listening to a radio commercial.
I hung up, looked at them for a couple of minutes, and reached over and picked up the phone again. I dialed my own number, quietly, held the receiver tight to my ear, and let the busy signal sneer at me for a while.
They still waited for the second act. I hung up.
Red grinned at me and said, “We can go now. Huh?” He had a wheezy, hollow voice like someone talking into a half-full crock of yeast.
“Yeah,” I said. “You can go pretty soon now.”
Their guns were in the corner by my desk. I picked them up and took the lead out of them. I threw one to Red and the other to the man with the eyebrows.
“Sure you wouldn't like to talk this over?” I said. “I could get out the bottle and we could spare ourselves any more of the corny melodrama.” They filed out the door without looking at me. I stepped out and watched them walk away. “Whatever it is you're looking for,” I yelled, “I haven't got it!” They disappeared around the corner where the elevator was. They didn't seem to have heard anything I said.
I sat down and got out the bottle and had myself a drink. I felt like a man who had just finished fifteen stiff rounds of shadow boxing and found the decision was against him. I heard the elevator door clank open and shut, and the great empty building seemed to close in around me. I took another drink and decided it had really been a draw. I washed out the glass and put it away and picked some of the papers up from the floor and put them in one of the empty file drawers. Then I walked to the east window and looked down onto Broadway. The lobby lights showed me three men getting into a car. It drove up to Eleventh and turned right. I figured they might be going around to the alley, but it didn't really bother me. They hadn't tried to pick me up, and any time they wanted to, they could do it. I couldn't afford a body guard.
I picked up the phone and called Lee Martinez. He wasn't in bed. There was a record playing a song in Spanish about four generals. I told him I wanted him to get onto Mrs. John Vega Cabrillo. I described her and gave him the address. He wanted to know if there'd be a bonus in it. I hung up and picked up the rest of the papers and put them in the file drawer with the others, turned off the light, and went out the door.
The corridor had a bright hard sheen in the dim light and my footsteps echoed hollowly against the silence. I looked at my watch. It was one a.m.
I turned at the end of the corridor, and Red stepped out and pushed his big elk-tooth grin at me and stuck a gun in my ribs. It was the gun I had just given back to him. I pushed it away.
He laughed amiably and put it back again. “It's got real bullets in it, Cholly. I carry extras.” The tall sallow man was standing behind him raising his plucked eyebrows at me. I didn't see the little man.
Red put his flat, grinning face, like the open end of a landing barge, up close to mine. “You ain't real smart,” he cooed, “but I kinda like ya. The car's down in the alley.” His hand moved with a sudden swift precision and the gun came up hard against my head. I reached out... but there was nothing there and something broke in white heat at the back of my skull. Then darkness began to stretch away again, unfolding with an endless acceleration....
Chapter Sixteen
SHARP FINGERS PROBED and went away and came again, ferreting deep into the soft corners. The fingers were white beams from headlights rolling by on waves of nausea. Two hands came up from a long way off and explored the darkness and pulled the eyes away from the jabbing fingers. The hands reached up and touched a head. It wasn't a head; it was a sticky sickening fluff, without substance, a ball of cotton candy with a core of pain. I knew those hands. They were my hands. They formed themselves into hard fists. Then words smothered them like slow deep drums, He's at it agin!! The hands were pulled down into a flailing pounding silence.
The movement and the darkness, and the sudden wrenching blows, seemed to have set a pattern for eternity before my mind began to move, like a rock burying its weight into the earth moves in the wind. Sluggishly I fixed the day, the hour, even the dark crew I was riding with. But I wasn't riding, I was being carried. The sudden wrenching blows were someone's conscientious efforts to get a firmer hold on my sagging shoulders. He was using a thin sharp knee to help him.
The movement stopped. The knee came up, agonizingly, and hands moved quickly under my arms. A door squeaked open, there was almost gentle movement and a bed was soft beneath me. A light came on. It was a thousand prongs jabbed into the cushions of my eyes.
I sat up and looked at the three of them through a red haze and their faces merged into one and looked back at me with the open sympathetic stare of a beach-club bouncer.
I said, “Thanks for carrying me up. I've been sick.”
Red stepped out of the mist and I could see him clearly. He smiled at me pleasantly and said, “Lock the door, Herb, Cholly wants to put in some overtime.”
Red came over close to me and leaned over, his legs stiff and set apart. “I like a guy like you,” he said. “It keeps everything so nice and pleasant. Just like a director's meetin'.” He reached out and slapped me across the face with his open hand and then with the back of it. It wasn't a full swing, just a little warm-up slap. But his hand was the size of a bear trap and twice as hard. My stomach curled up tight like a frightened sow-bug and stayed that way.
Red took off his coat and pulled a white envelope out of one of the pockets. I turned so that I was sitting on the edge of the bed, my feet planted firmly on the floor.
Red said, “You asked for this. You don't play right when we try to tail ya. You don't leave nothin' lyin' around that tells us what we wanta know. These pitchers,” he grimaced and threw the envelope on the bed beside me, “we could do without.”
I looked up at him and said, “Did any of your boys manage to tail me as far as Venice
last week and then follow me back?”
“Not us, Cholly. You never give us more'n a one-way ticket.”
I opened the envelope. The two pictures of Peg Bleeker were in it. I looked up at him again.
Red said, “I'm lookin' for her too, Cholly. Who ya workin' for and where'd ya get the pitcher of her with the cheaters on?” He sat down on the bed with me and grinned.
That was fine, more than I'd hoped for. I hadn't been listening to him very carefully, just measuring him and wondering if I had anything that would really hurt.
Then he said, “Sharpy, come and take his coat off and go through it agin. Look real good. Maybe you'll find some invisible writin' in the linin'.” His hollow laughter hit me and filled the aching void of my head with pain. The little man came and took off my coat and went away with it. Things were looking up.
I rolled over off the bed and brought my fist up from the floor. It moved with the speed and power of a salted slug and landed in the center of Red's enormous palm. There was a sudden fury of movement and I was standing looking into his face. He was holding me up by my shirt and hair. He was grinning broadly but his eyes weren't sharing the fun. They were dead raw eyes with a brittle look like a mule that's been hit over the head with a lead pipe.
This was what he'd been waiting for. This was what he'd had Sharpy take my coat off for.
“She's missing,” I said thickly. “That's why the guy hired me. She's gone.”
The hollow laughter broke in my face, high now and wheezing, with a tone of idiocy. Something exploded against the side of my head and lifted me and rolled me, and I clattered against a cold wall with the warm salt taste of blood in my mouth. My stomach still lay tight inside me like a cold rock. The nausea was gone, and the pain. But time had rolled to a stop. My knees moved through an eternity to come up under me and suns broke in bright fragments, and universes lived, and thrived, and died in a glory of fire in the time that passed while I raised my head and stood up against the wall.
“Talk, Cholly.”
I opened my eyes. The room danced and then was still. I could see the sallow man leaning against a wall across the quilted untidy bed.
“Talk to me, Cholly.” The bear-trap hand fell across my face and the room tilted and slipped suddenly and sickeningly.
Little rats with cold little feet ran across my back and down my chest. My breath caught and scraped downward and my eyes came open. I was on the floor.
Knuckle-bloody hands held a soggy weight and cold water was pouring from it down across my face. The water made my eyes feel clean again. A face like a shell of death leaned above me and clucked its tongue.
“And he was so pretty, too. Remember?” The voice was ragged and needed a shave. It was Sharpy's voice.
The hands moved away and Red's face was there. “Wanta talk now? Or shall I waltz ya around some more?”
“About what?” I said thickly. “The girl's missing. I don't know where she is.” It was hard to talk, like walking on two broken legs. My tongue and lips got in the way and my jaw worked like a rusty hinge. “The guy I'm working for doesn't know either. That's why I'm working for him.”
Red leered at me. It wasn't even a grin any more. “You're out of order, Cholly. I ast ya who the guy was. Where'd ya get that pitcher?”
“In Portland.”
“Not that one. With the cheaters.”
I closed my eyes. I felt there should be something in that little exchange for me to think about.
“Who ya workin' for?”
I didn't say anything.
“See, Sharpy. Cholly here is a fanatic. He probably goes to Beat-Me shows for his fun. Who ya workin' for?” The voice took on a hard edge, and I heard a sudden intake of breath.
Red kicked me in the face. It was a poor kick. It glanced off my jaw with a loud crack and seared and burned the side of my face. But it left me hearing the quiet noises in the room and feeling the warm blood staggering across my lips and down my chin.
“Christ, Jake. Ya tryin' to kill 'im? The boss wants to talk to the guy.”
“Won't do no good.” The hollow voice was taut now. The breath was coming in short gasps. “The guy's a fanatic. You can't do nuthin' with fanatics.”
Fat fingers reached into my hair and lifted my head and let it drop again. “Put 'im on the bed and tie 'im up.”
“What with?”
“Hell, ain't there no rope?”
“Get Gracie up. Her stuff'll keep him quieter and safer. Guys get out of ropes.” It was a voice I hadn't heard before, a steady sneer. It would be the man with the eyebrows.
“Yeah. Yeah. Go get her. Tell her the gee's big and thinks he's tough. Tell her we wanta keep him outa mischief for a long time.”
Hands went under me. Just two hands, and lifted me and carried me and put me on the bed, almost gently. A hollow voice spoke quietly over me, “Yeah. He's pretty tough at that. But he'll loosen. I never saw one 'ut didn't.”
It grew quiet in the room. Somewhere near, a cold engine was being kicked into life. A peal of high drunken female laughter sounded far off yet close by. More cars stuttered suddenly and distantly out of the silence and then droned into it again.
The door clicked open and there were sounds of movement again.
“Here he is, baby. Pretty, huh?”
A husky sleep-filled voice with a querulous twang in it said, “Is he out?”
“Yeah. Like a string of Christmas lights.”
“I can't give him all this, then. It might kill him.” It was an irritable uneven voice. It would go with a bony ugly face. “I'll give'm a little over half. It'll keep'm out at least five hours. Prob'ly a week.”
“Hey. Don't do that.” It was Red. He sounded concerned. “He's gotta talk to sornebuddy tomorra. I mean today.”
The twangy voice said, “Roll up his sleeve. Don't worry about wakin' him up. I got something for that too.”
Hard sharp fingers pressed into my arm. There was a jabbing clumsy pain and then a duller one.
Someone sneered, “How soon does it work?”
“If he was wide awake and full of pearls, anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes.”
“Fine. We can go get some breakfast.”
“Sharpy stays here.”
“Nuts. I'm gettin' a drink and some hot food.”
“Okay. You can have a half hour. Here, take this roscoe.”
The needle left my arm and the dull pain stayed there. The twangy voice said, “If he should start to turn blue call me.”
“Hear that, Sharpy? We can't leave this here gee. Get back here in ten minutes.”
There was more of the quiet feeling of movement and the sound of a door closing. I ground my teeth and counted to ten. I opened my eyes. The light was still on. The room was quiet and empty.
I pulled myself up from the bed. It was easy. I was beginning to feel fine. I walked fast to a window at the far side of the room. There was an ancient dresser next to it, black and glossy. I made a lot of noise getting the window open fast. I didn't seem to care about the noise. I looked down. Twenty feet at least. Gravel underneath. It was gray, the color of the gray dawn. I ran back to the bed. My head and my face felt fine. I wanted Red to come back. I could take him easy. I ripped back the quilt and pulled the sheets off and tied two ends together tight with hands that didn't seem to belong to me. I floated back to the window and tied one end of the sheets to a leg of the heavy dresser and tossed the two lengths out the window. I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and threw it out. Someone in the room was giggling, a wet untidy giggle. I gave the dresser a pull toward the window. It moved about six inches and stopped. I started back to the bed. My feet had become strangers. I fell on my face.
I wanted to talk to somebody. Somebody nice, like Red. I wanted to tell Red about Ralph Johnston and about Gloria Gay. I crawled on my elbows and knees. My head hit the edge of the bed. I thought that was funny. I ducked down, laughing, and crawled under the bed and stretched out lengthwise. I drooled and
licked some blood away from my lips. I slipped down into a soft velvet darkness that folded over me and hid me from the world.
Chapter Seventeen
HEAT LAY OVER ME LIKE a thick web. I grunted and reached for the covers to throw them off. There weren't any. I started up, and my head moved eight inches and hit a steel brace in lint-filled springs. I lay back and remembered, and grinned without opening my mouth. I giggled and decided to yell “Hi, yo, Silver!” Just to see what would happen. Then I moved my head to look out across the floor. It made my head hurt and I decided to keep quiet. Sunlight was hot and motionless on an ancient red-and-green patterned carpet, and lying on the carpet by the edge of the bed there were a pair of lace panties and some high-heeled shoes. I thought about that for a while; then I heard a moan and the springs creaked. Probably quietly, but where I was it sounded like an elephant walking through the City Dump. I took another look at the panties. They didn't seem very large. I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. I rolled out from under the bed and stood up. There was a woman lying on the bed, the covers pushed into a twisted pile at the foot. She wore two rings on her left hand, a nice-looking single rope of pearls, and nothing else. She was tanned all over as if she was used to lying around with nothing on. She was breathing heavily through her mouth and she looked like someone about to give birth to a nine-pound hangover. A tangle of blond hair with the wet gold brightness of a new-peeled willow branch lay about her shoulders.
There was a long blue evening dress draped over a chair and a beaded bag lying on it. I walked over to it. My legs moved lightly, and I felt like twenty pounds of feathers. I opened the purse. There was a driver's license in it issued to Miss Irene Neher, with an address on Buckley in Brentwood. There were also three plastic blue chips with a complicated design on them. I dropped one of the chips into my pocket and put the license back and closed the purse.
My coat was lying on another chair near the window. The window was still open, but the knotted sheets were gone. I put on the coat and walked over to the door. It was bolted on the inside. I went over to the bed and untangled a thin cover and pulled it over the lovely brown body, then I went back and unlocked the door and stepped out. The hall was empty and dark. It was an old house with high ceilings and colorless wallpaper and a broad circular stairway going down. There was a warm droning quiet in the place like the quiet of a summer meadow. I walked down the stairs into a circular hall with a high white door leading to the outside. On the right there was another opening, closed now by heavy sliding doors. I walked quietly toward the white door. I heard a noise and stopped. The sliding doors on my right were being opened, slowly. They were being opened by a short bald man with a gray oily cloth in one hand.
