by Paul Cain
She stepped back and closed the door.
One time when I was about six my mother spanked me in front of company and as I remember the way I felt it was about the same as I felt standing there on the Kiernan porch looking at the door. I looked at Harry and I think if he’d made the wrong crack or smiled it would have been the end; I would have strangled him, or tried to, and then committed hari-kiri with the foot scraper.
But Harry looked properly indignant and asked who the hell Gottler was; I told him he was Fritz’s attorney and we went down and got in the car. Gene Curley was sitting in his heap a couple hundred feet from the entrance to the private road with his eye peeled for Bergliot. He waved. Instead of going back through Beverly I drove on out to the beach and up the beach road towards Malibu.
Harry snorted: “What does she want the business for?—and who does she think she’s going to get to run it who won’t steal everything including the light bulbs and linoleum in a week?”
I said I didn’t know.
“If she don’t want to go on with the partnership,” he insisted, “why doesn’t she sell out to you?”
I said I still didn’t know. Barbara cracking about buying me out was the last thing I’d expected. It didn’t make sense any way I looked at it. She could have the business but what would she do with it? She didn’t know a filly from a furlong; and the cash I’d give her for her end would buy an awful lot of something—anything—she could understand.
The more I thought about it the trickier it looked, but thinking about it gave me an idea. I asked Harry the name of the Spick in Charley Hollberg’s party at the Trocadero. He’d wanted to buy the business, too, and thinking about him made me suddenly realize that he’d been in the back of my mind all day; I remembered him from somewhere besides Hollywood.
Harry didn’t know his name. We turned around and went back to the apartment and Harry got on the phone and called a few people. He got a little here and a little there; finally he hung up and turned away from the phone, said:
“Name’s Axiotes—he’s a Greek. Used to be an acrobat. Then he was a ten-twenty-thirty chiseler around Brooklyn—got mixed up in the Kroll-Schmalz beer war—served three years and has been living on the fat of the land ever since he got out in ’32. You probably saw his picture in the tabloids when he was indicted with Kroll. Been out here about two months—lives at the Alton Apartments on Kenmore.”
I got on the phone and got Frank Curley, first try, at the Hollywood Plaza and told him to forget about blue Buicks for a while and start keeping tabs on Axiotes. I don’t know exactly why I was so interested in him but his face kept playing pussy-in-the-corner in the back of my mind and I wanted to know more about him.
We went out to Number Two about four-thirty and I worked with the bookkeeper a couple hours. Then Harry and I had dinner at Musso-Franks and went to a picture show. We got home at eleven.
Gene Curley had left a twenty-four hour report on Mrs Bergliot at the desk. It didn’t amount to much. She hadn’t been out of the house Saturday night. Late Sunday afternoon a woman who looked like she might be her sister had picked her up in an old Chevrolet at the backdoor and they’d gone to a house on Larchmont a little ways off Melrose. There was a sign in front of the house: cora haviland: spiritual science. They’d been there about an hour and then the woman had dropped Bergliot back at the Kiernan house. That was all.
Harry and I played a couple games of cooncan and went to bed. Monday was just
Monday except for one development that I could’ve got along just as well without. Amante called up around noon and after a lot of ap-cray about the weather and “How’s everything” and all that, he said he thought I might like to know that Myra Reid was the sole beneficiary in Raymond’s will and it amounted to about a hundred and seventy-five grand. They’d found the will and a lot of bonds and stuff in a safety deposit box he had under an assumed name.
I told Amante I was glad to hear it and thanked him and asked if Myra was still incommunicado. He said she wasn’t and he expected she’d be very happy to see me. Then he chuckled—one of the dirtiest chuckles I’ve ever heard—and hung up.
I barged downtown and up to the can to see Myra. She said she didn’t know anything about the will and, so help me God, I still believed her. Her lawyer was there—a funny little guy with a snub nose and a fringe of red hair who looked capable. I tried to cheer Myra up, which was no cinch because I didn’t know what to say. The best I could do was say I was working on it and it was pretty much in the dark but I expected something to break any minute.
There was nothing important from the Curleys on Bergliot or Axiotes when I got home. Bergliot had been to the Place on Larchmont again but that was all.
Tuesday started to be just Tuesday but it ended like the Fourth of July and Christmas, mixed.
The funeral was at one o’clock at an undertaker’s on Sunset Boulevard. There was a pretty big crowd. Barbara looked awful. I think she’d hoisted a few tall ones to get her through the afternoon—she’d always been a good two-fisted drinker—and that helped a little but she still looked like she’d been pulled through a wringer.
She wasn’t so heavy on me as I’d expected; she nodded and almost smiled. I stood pretty close to her during the services, and afterwards we talked a little in a strained self-conscious way. She said she and Maude were sailing for Honolulu Wednesday afternoon and I told her I thought it was a swell idea to get away from it all for a while. I started to tell her I hadn’t heard from Gottler yet but decided to let it lie.
On the way out of the chapel I ran into Delavan, the FBI man Amante had introduced me to. He was wearing glasses and I couldn’t place him for a minute but he grinned and stuck out his hand and piped “H’ are ya” and I said “Fancy meeting you here” or something original like that.
He looked vague and said he was just looking around and then he asked if he could buy me a drink. I called Harry and the three of us went over to the Derby.
I stalled for a while waiting for Delavan to open up but he didn’t and I finally asked: “Well—what’s it all about? You didn’t come to the funeral just to smell the flowers.”
He smiled, gargled a little of his highball and opened up: “Would it surprise you to know that I think Amante is wrong?”
I shook my head. “No. Anybody with anything above the ears ought to know he’s wrong.” But it sounded good to hear somebody say it.
He took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. “Has anyone made any more passes at you since Saturday?”
“No.”
“Funny,” he said, “that they made that one attempt and then let you alone.”
I agreed that it was funny. We didn’t say any more for a little while and then Delavan leaned back and looked up at the ceiling and spoke as if he was talking to himself: “Has it occurred to you that since Repeal, gambling has become a major industry?”
I nodded. “Sure. That’s one of the reasons I’m in it.”
“A lot of men,” he went on, “were left holding the bag—men with organizations, money, power, that they didn’t have any use for any more. Some of them called it a day and took up golf or bought a string of yachts, but some of them didn’t want to call it a day. The Government had taken the big profits out of alcohol so they had to find something else with big profits… .”
He put his glasses back on and sucked up some more of his drink. “The yearly turnover on slot machines alone is estimated at fifty or sixty million dollars; lotteries yield another seventy. In the last year horse racing has been legalized in eleven states and the rake-off promises to amount to all the rest put together in a year or so.”
I called the waiter and ordered another round. My ears were cocked for the point Delavan was driving at and I felt it coming.
He leaned forward and squinted through his glasses, went on: “Suppose that a big undercover organization—ma
ybe the biggest ever—was in process of formation and that it was determined to get a stranglehold on all important gambling in every community in the country. It’d buy up the little fellows, or scare them out; it’d buy the in-betweens, or if the in-betweens were too big to buy it’d dispose of them in whatever way seemed best… .”
Harry asked: “What about the biggies—men like Grant in Chicago, or McElroy?”
“Grant left for England a week ago, under pressure I think.” Delavan smiled slightly. “I don’t know about McElroy.”
He waited a minute for it to sink in and then he said slowly: “Eight top bookmakers with big six-figure plays have sold out or turned up missing in the last month. I happen to know that three of them have been murdered—two in New Orleans and one in Detroit. That’s the reason I flew down here from Frisco when I heard about Kiernan.”
I finished my first highball and got a good start on the second; I was getting into the spirit of the thing and felt like I had five or six new leases on life.
Harry barked: “Does Amante know about this?”
Delavan bobbed his head up and down. “Uh-huh. But he thinks it’s a lot of baloney.”
The three of us sat grinning at each other for a minute like three kids planning to tip over Farmer Brown’s privy on Halloween.
Then Delavan looked at his watch and said he had to get back to his hotel and we paid the check and left. Outside, while we were waiting for the boys to bring our cars from the parking station, I cracked casually:
“Ever hear of a fella named Axiotes?”
Delavan nodded and his pan was just as dead as a buckwheat cake.
I said: “Oh yeah—one other thing: Mrs Bergliot, who identified Myra Reid’s voice, is a Spiritual Scientist—hangs out at Cora Haviland’s on Larchmont.”
Delavan got into his car, chirped: “Thanks. I’ll give you a ring later on tonight or in the morning.”
We drove over to Number One and I played Hearts with Connie Hurlburt and a couple boys from San Diego for a while but my skull wasn’t in it. Delavan had me all hopped up on the new slant and I wanted action, but he hadn’t suggested anything and he certainly acted like he knew what he was doing.
We went home about six-thirty and caught up with our drinking. Harry finagled with the radio and I sat and made a light luncheon of my fingernails and waited for Delavan to call. He didn’t, but Frank Curley called and said Axiotes was out, that he’d been out all day. Frank had followed him as far as Crenshaw and Wilshire and lost him in traffic and gone back to wait.
Then he said a woman who had been in and out with Axiotes twice in two days had driven up to his place in her own car about five o’clock and he’d got a peep at her license after she went into the apartment. Her name was Maude Foley and she had another gal with her who was pie-eyed.
I tried to get Delavan at his hotel, but no go.
Then Charley Hollberg called up and said he had to see me right away and asked if I could come over to his bungalow at the Ambassador. I told him I was busy but he kept insisting that it was very important and he couldn’t tell me about it over the phone and I finally said I’d come, figuring that maybe it really was important.
I left word at the desk that if Delavan called to tell him I’d be back in an hour or call in for a message.
Hollberg had a swell set of jitters. He gave us a quick drink and waved his eyebrows around mysteriously and said he couldn’t talk in the house and we went out and started walking across the lawn towards the hotel. It was pretty dark.
Hollberg said: “I’m sorry to inconvenience you like this, Finn, but—”
There was sudden crashing sound and a long spurt of blue fire from the darkness of the arbor near the bungalow. Something burnt its way into my shoulder and I fell down on my face.
I twisted on to my side and pulled my knees up. Harry was squatting a few feet away and Hollberg was lying on his back between us with his arms and legs spread out. The sound and the blue fire had stopped. There were several figures running towards us from the far side of the lawn, beyond Harry, and suddenly the sound and fire began again. I set myself for a slug, and then Delavan was kneeling beside me.
He asked: “How is it, Finn?”
I sat up. “Shoulder… . just a little one.” It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d figured when it hit—just a crease across the muscle.
The men with Delavan had gone on towards the arbor, there were several more scattered shots.
Harry said: “Hollberg got it in the belly.”
I got up and took off my coat. Harry ripped off my shirt-sleeve and folded it and tied it around my shoulder. There wasn’t very much blood.
One of Delavan’s men came running back from the arbor, wheezed: “They had a car on the other side.”
Delavan was bending over Hollberg, snapped, “See if you can head ’em off at Seventh Street,” without looking up.
The man galloped back into the darkness.
Delavan straightened up, spoke to Harry: “Take care of Hollberg.” He turned to me. “I’m going to Axiotes’… . You’d better get to a doctor.”
I told him I was okay and I’d come along. He shrugged, said, “Suit yourself”—we ran across the lawn to Wilshire where his car was parked. There was a man standing beside it and Delavan told him to go back and give Harry a hand.
Axiotes’ apartment was only a few blocks away. As we swung into Kenmore, Delavan said: “I got to your place a few minutes after you left; the telephone girl told me about Hollberg calling and I took a chance on you being there.”
I told him it was the best chance I’d heard about for a long time.
Frank Curley spotted us when we pulled up in front of the apartment. He said Axiotes hadn’t come back and so far as he knew, no one had been in or out of the place since he’d talked to me. We told him to give us two buzzes on the downstairs bell if Axiotes or anybody he recognized started up. Delavan took a big blue automatic out of the side pocket of the car and handed it to me and we went in and got into the elevator.
On the way up I said: “You’ve got a pretty good idea who we’re going to find here, haven’t you?”
He smiled a little, nodded. “Fair. I’ve had Foley followed for two days… .” He was silent a moment, went on: “Axiotes’ brother was her first husband.”
There was a small door a little ways down the hall from Apartment M that looked like it might be the kitchen entrance. Delavan rang the front doorbell and I stood flat against the wall near the small door; it opened at the second ring and one of the biggest, broadest guys I’ve ever seen stuck his knob out and peeked down the hall at Delavan.
I shoved the muzzle of the automatic against the back of his neck and told him to take it easy. Delavan came down and the three of us went into the kitchen.
The big fella belonged in a sideshow; he stood about six-six and was almost as wide. The best part was his head though—it looked like it had been made for him when he was a baby and he’d never got around to having it changed. He looked at us reproachfully as if he was pretty hurt at the dirty trick we’d played on him, and he kept his hands up and went ahead of us into the living room.
Maude Foley was standing in the middle of the room; she stared at the giant and then she moved her blank eyes to Delavan and then to me. Her face was as expressionless as a mop.
As I went towards her the giant moved a little to one side and as I passed he shifted suddenly and aimed a haymaker at me that would probably have caved my skull in. Delavan tapped him as pretty a tap as I’ve ever seen behind the ear with the butt of the gun and he went down like a dynamited chimney.
I went past Maude to the bedroom door; Barbara Kiernan was stretched out on the bed snoring peacefully.
Maude said dully: “I guess it’s all over but the shouting.” Her voice was surprisingly even, unemotional. She went over to a wide divan and sat down.
>
The bell rang sharply, twice.
Delavan crossed and flattened himself against the wall so the door would cover him when it sprung open. He bobbed his head at me and I snapped off the bedroom lights and stood in the darkness just inside the doorway.
In a little less than a minute a key clicked in the lock and the door opened. Axiotes stood a split second staring at the giant who was curled up comfortably on the floor. There was a man behind him, in the hall, carrying a violin case. Axiotes’ eyes jerked to Maude and in the same instant his hand flashed upward across his chest.
Delavan said: “Easy does it, George.”
He stepped around the door and jammed his gun against Axiotes’ side. The man in the hall half-turned as I went into the light with the big automatic; he saw me and stopped and the two of them came in and Delavan closed the door. Then he took their guns and motioned for them to sit down.
Axiotes crossed and sank into a big chair near the bedroom door and the other man—a thin, tubercular looking youngster—sat on the opposite side of the divan from Maude.
Delavan called his headquarters and told them to send another car and a couple of men; then he sat down facing Axiotes, purred: “Want to tell us all about it now, or are you too tired?”
Axiotes grinned with his mouth but his eyes were sombre; he didn’t say anything. Maude spoke suddenly: “I want to tell about it, and I’ll be goddamned glad to get it off my chest! …”
Axiotes looked at her but his expression didn’t change.
Delavan mumbled, “That’ll be fine,” softly.
Maude stood up and went to a cabinet against the wall and poured herself a stiff drink. She tossed off most of it, turned and leaned against the cabinet, said:
“Axiotes is my brother-in-law. We always got along pretty well and when he came out from New York seven or eight weeks ago I invited him down to my place at Palm Springs.”
She spoke of Axiotes as if he wasn’t there. She finished her drink and put the glass down, went on: “He met Barbara there and started romancing her. She liked him and they got pretty chummy… .”
