One Deadly Dawn

by Harry Whittington

  The door opened again and he pushed in a serving cart set up with an ornate silver coffee service.

  I thanked him and he walked out.

  The doomed man drank a hearty supper. The coffee was scalding hot, but good, the way it always is when it’s made in an expensive coffee-maker.

  I was just finishing off my second cup and musing over whether or not to make a coffee-royale for the next round, when the door opened and Leo Ross walked in.

  I just managed to hang on to that delicate china cup; even then my fingers trembled and I almost dropped it.

  Chapter Seven

  LEO ROSS is a legend. Hell, he had never been real to me and I had wanted to keep it that way. If I had known it was at his orders I’d been brought here, I would have fought a lot harder.

  I had never been any closer to Leo Ross than his picture in the paper, front page of course, but I knew him. I knew him the way you know Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Buggsy Siegel — those boys, that kind of legend.

  I stared at him. Leo had the kind of face you wish you could forget: parchment flesh stretched taut across high cheek bones, deep-set eyes, and long hands that were continually working at something, never still.

  His face showed all the evil that he had created in the world. It showed the hunger he had known as a starving kid in the gutters, as a fast-moving teen-age hellion, in and out of reform school.

  “Hello, Mr. Howell.” He sat on the piano stool and regarded me. His deep voice was carefully modulated, but the gutter showed through. It was his politeness that startled me.

  “Hello, Leo.”

  “Glad you know me.”

  “That’s not half as strange as your knowing me.”

  He smiled, fumbling with a key chain. “I know the people I want to know, Mr. Howell.”

  That added to my puzzlement, and my head pained too badly for thinking. “Would you like to tell me why you had me brought here?”

  His hands moved along the top of the piano, seeking dust, checking, not finding it, brushing together.

  His deep-set eyes studied me. He had a self-assurance that went way below the surface; he’d been top dog in the rackets for a long time. There had been some trouble lately, but for the moment I couldn’t remember what it was … only that gossip had it that Leo Ross was behind the eight ball.

  He was silent some seconds. The next time you’re alone in a lion’s cage, or facing a man with a death’s skull, count off a few seconds and see how slowly they can go.

  I searched in my mind but couldn’t come up with any reason why Leo Ross would be interested in me.

  And now, more than ever, I wanted none of him.

  He got up, walked to the bar and began pushing things around on top of it, straightening, rearranging and then just frowning at them because there was nothing more he could do with them.

  He picked up the glass of Scotch I had poured, sighted through it toward the sun-lighted window.

  “Scotch,” I said.

  He rolled the glass in his fingers. “I hear you’re nosing around, trying to find out who killed that punk Pawley.”

  His hand crushed the glass in his fist when he said that name. Scotch squirted onto the carpeting, and for a moment his fingers closed over the broken glass.

  He opened his big hand, dropping the slivers and shards into a wastebasket, stood looking at a drop of blood on his thumb.

  “How did you hear that?”

  “Look, friend, I hear what I need to hear. That’s why I asked you out here, so we could talk it over.”

  “Real chummy invitation.”

  “I didn’t have time to waste. I warned Bryoncki to be polite.”

  “He was polite. He said excuse me when he pushed off the safety catch.”

  Leo Ross was not amused, either. “I’m sorry about any trouble you had, Mr. Howell. Any of it, including after you got here. I would have been down to see you sooner, but I was detained. I won’t try to tell you I’m having everything my way these days. I guess you read about it?”

  I’d read about it, but it still escaped me what kind of mess he was currently wallowing in. I mumbled something.

  He nodded, not even listening to me. “I was on the long distance telephones all day. New York, Chicago. I didn’t like having to do this to you, but figured I could apologize and you’d understand.”

  “Sure.” It was a bitter word.

  He spread his hands, picked out a glass sliver. “That business of the boys jumping you. A misunderstanding. They’re good men, Mr. Howell. Real good men. And they bear you no hard feelings. They talked to me about you. You put up a good fight.”

  “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks, too.”

  He was scrubbing his hands, testing for glass slivers. “Maybe it’s the right side, Mr. Howell. We grow up tough, maybe. Sometimes too tough. But we never depend on other people to give us anything. What we get, Mr. Howell, belongs to us. That’s the way I look at it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that brings us back to this stink Pawley.” He shook his head. “You movie people are involved, and you’re trying to investigate. Right?”

  “And you want me to cease and desist?” I tried to keep my tone light. Since he was being so urbane and polite, I didn’t want to allow my raw anger to show through.

  “What?”

  “You want me to knock off looking, is that it?”

  “Who said that?”

  “I just did.”

  He paced back and forth in front of me, hands in pockets, out of them, nerves pulled until they were frayed.

  “Look, friend, don’t — don’t get smart with Leo Ross. Once I could appreciate a good joke, like anybody else. Not any more. I got no patience left. I got plenty of agony. I’m on my way to the federal pen. As soon as my lawyers have exhausted all the angles, worn-out all the gimmicks, ruined all the loopholes, I’m in there. Me” — he poked his thumb into his chest — “I’m in the goddamn pen. I got no time for smart talk.”

  I shrugged, poured another cup of coffee, sipped it black. The quivering behind his voice told me that his insides were shorted; he was primed and ready to explode.

  I said, “All right. I won’t talk at all. You brought me here. You tell me what you want.”

  “What do I want?” That was Leo Ross asking himself a question. That was the ex-big shot looking inside himself, trying to see where it had gone wrong, what he had done that he ought not to have done, where he could have been smarter, where he could have plugged that weak place.

  I didn’t say anything. He kept pacing. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks, as if his bed had been shared with willing babes just so he wouldn’t have to be alone, and I began to see why Marie had been rushed west. She had pleased Leo sometime, somewhere back East, maybe not even knowing his identity, but he’d remembered her. And here she was.

  And here I was.

  “I want you to find out who killed Pawley — if you can. Now we both know somebody did. I was pleased when they caught this actor — this Roland. I’m satisfied to see him take the rap. But all day I’ve been hearing that the cops are still looking and that you movie people don’t buy him as a killer at all.”

  “Miscast,” I said.

  “What?” He heeled around, scowling.

  “He’d never kill anybody. It takes more guts than he’s got just to say no to a woman.”

  His hand sliced downward. “So it isn’t Roland. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s somebody — I want you to find out who.”

  He paced faster, jingling his keys. “You do everything you can. You need any help from any of my boys, or any of my lawyers, you get in touch with me at this number.” His nervous fingers flicked a card toward me. “You get straight through to me on that number.” I caught the card, read it, and shoved it into my pocket. “Any time,” Leo said. “Day or night.”

  “We never sleep.”

  His unamused laugh was cold. “I hope you understand what I want. If you
find out who killed Pawley-fine. But I want protection. Protection! The police would like nothing better than to put me in the gas chamber instead of some cushy federal pen.”

  “But what’s that got to do with Pawley?”

  He flexed his fingers, voice soft but tense. “There’s no man in this country who’s got more motive for killing Pawley than I have.”

  I remembered then. Ross had been featured on the cover of Tattle, and the story inside had fixed him cold with the government.

  “He’s ruined a lot of lives.”

  “But not the way he fixed me. I’d gotten away with this tax-discount gimmick. Nothing new about it; business men, politicians, any smart guy makes any deal he can on taxes — not many guys keep seventy percent of their income around so they can hand it over to the feds. And for what? So they can ship it off to Europe. See the way I feel?”

  “You make nice speeches.”

  “That’s because I feel it inside. I know I’m right. But that didn’t help me any when Pawley got through with me.”

  “He must have had an angle.”

  “So I admit I made the fix. And I got away with it, except this Pawley digs it out of some fink in the accountant’s office. Pawley fixed me so I spend eight years in the pen … and just when everything was going my way. Sure, I had reasons for killing Pawley, but they’re such good reasons that I wouldn’t dare do it.”

  “I can see your angle.”

  “Sure you can. I heard about you, Howell.”

  “Flattered.”

  “Whether you are or not, I hear about good men. You make good pay for keeping that studio out of hot water, out of scandals. So I figure to myself, you’re a big boy, you know the facts of life. Like if you can’t find who really did kill Pawley, you can still fix it so the finger never points at Leo Ross.”

  I finished off my coffee. “And how do you think I could do that?”

  He leaned over me, hands working at his sides. “Don’t kid me, Howell. You’ve put in plenty of fixes. If there’s a crime, somebody is guilty. Your studio never cared who, just so it cleared them. I don’t have to explain all that to you, for God’s sake.”

  “This is murder.” I didn’t expect to impress Ross. I didn’t.

  He laughed, shrugged. “So there’s got to be a murderer. We’re all agreed on that, Howell — you, me, and the law. Now we get to just why I brought you here. You’re a good man at this work, and I want the best. You. Because if you can find out who killed Pawley, that’s fine. But if you don’t, I want it fixed so that Roland never gets out of that jail.”

  I didn’t say anything. For the moment I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I’m in a spot,” he said. “I want off. I’m willing to help you all I can. I got connections. Anything you want to know, you call the number on that card and I’ll get the information you want. That’s in return for proving I’m in the clear.”

  I drew a deep breath. “Are you?”

  He stared at me. “I told you. I wanted Pawley dead, but I was too scared to kill him. Police are hard to convince. I’m offering you expensive help, fast and free.”

  “I’d be a fool to turn down, that kind of help. But if the police can’t find Pawley’s killer, why do you think I can?”

  Ross stepped nearer. Everybody considers me a tall joe, but Ross looked down at me. “I’m serious, Howell. Cops are sniffing around. They got this Roland in jail; if I thought they’d stop at that, I’d say fine, that’s the way I want it. But they’re still looking. They’re asking about me, hounding me.

  “If you didn’t do it, why are you scared?”

  “Get an eight year stretch in front of you, and a bunch of wolves howling at your back, waiting for you to make one mistake, then get the cops on your tail — whether you were innocent or guilty, you’d be plenty scared, Howell.”

  I nodded, buying that.

  “So if these cops find out I got no alibi for last night that’ll stand up, they’ll lean hard on me. My boys are no good as material witnesses, character witnesses, or alibis.”

  “I can believe that, too.”

  “So, all right. I don’t want anybody leaning on me, Howell. So that’s where you come in. This is my deal. You work, I’ll help you, right to the hilt. I can’t have my boys out on a job like this. So you’ll know I need help quick, I’m offering you a year of your studio salary as a bonus if you settle things up in a hurry — one way or another, just as long as you settle them up. You get that, Howell? Just the way you put in a fix for the studio. I don’t care if Roland gets the business, just so it’s fixed tight.”

  He walked around me. “I’m not asking you to like it, Howell; I’m telling you. Find the killer, or frame Roland up tight. A year’s salary as a bonus. But let me down — I’ll send a couple of boys to see you.”

  “Wouldn’t that still be murder?”

  “If you got killed?” Those eyes bored into me. “The cops could trace me to Pawley. But if you turn up dead, who’d ever connect me with you? Far as Leo Ross is concerned, you are nobody. You get my angle?”

  “I’m beginning to.”

  “I’m in a spot, Howell. I don’t like taking advantage of you like this. I don’t like having to hurt Roland this way. I got nothing against the slob. Seen a lot of his movies … always a big fan of his. But like I say, I’m on the spot. Sure, I’d rather see you find the real killer, but at the same time I’d rather see Jack Roland go to the gas chamber for killing Pawley than for me to go, no matter who did it.”

  He had said it all now. He wanted me working for him, but for added insurance he’d take my life if I failed. He wanted me to put in the kind of frame I’d never been guilty of in my life — putting an innocent guy behind the eight ball. Send Jack Roland to the gas chamber if that were the only way I could spare Leo Ross, and thereby save myself.

  He didn’t figure he was asking the impossible. Any time I couldn’t find the true killer, or keep the cops from Leo Ross’ door, I could just frame Jack Roland down tight.

  There was no odd-ball reasoning here. It was born of desperation, but Leo Ross was no fool. Find the killer, or frame Jack Roland so he went quietly to the gas chamber and the homicide bulls got off Leo Ross’ overburdened back.

  And anytime I decided I couldn’t do this, Leo’s boys would be calling on me.

  “You got it all figured,” I said.

  “Right. Like I said, I want to do everything I can to help you. But I want you to do everything you can to help me, too.”

  I walked out and he didn’t try to stop me. Nobody moved to stop me all the way out to my car. I flopped in under the steering wheel and stared through the windshield. I was tired all the way through.

  I started the car, and it took a lot of energy just to turn the key. The motor started and I hated the sound of it because it meant I had to move, I had to go forward. I had to do something.

  All I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I amended that. What I wanted was to shack up with a well-stacked doll. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to live it up. I had the feeling I ought to, while I could.

  It had rained some more, but just at dusk the sky looked clear. I drove out to the boulevard, turned toward Hollywood, tried to hurry, but couldn’t. I was so careful on those downgrade curves, you’d have thought I had a lot to live for.

  I felt colder than the night was cold: I didn’t bother turning on the heater; it would never reach that chill inside me. I-couldn’t even work up any enthusiasm over the year’s pay bonus Leo Ross was offering me.

  “What the hell, Howell,” I said aloud, easing around those curves, “with Roland out of the way you can have Betty back. That’s what you wanted all these years, isn’t it?”

  I tried to keep this thought in mind, but it was no good, either. I would still have to look her in the eyes, wouldn’t I?

  Still, if I fooled around with this thing, I might turn up a lot of news that Leo Ross would consider bad. He had practically said it: the easiest way was to let J
ack Roland go to the gas chamber. What had he ever done for me?

  When I reached the outskirts of town, the first sign I saw was a bright motel with swimming pool. That was the answer. All I had to do was check into a motel somewhere and stay potted until the grand jury down at San Rafael indicted Roland for Pawley’s murder.

  That might not have been the answer, but it was the best I could come up with at the moment. I told myself I felt empty-stomached because I was hungry.

  The restaurant was done in glass, chrome and bright lights. Maybe it was the bright lights that attracted me, I hadn’t eaten all day, but I really wasn’t hungry.

  I parked, straightened my tie, said to hell with the fist marks on my face and walked inside.

  The hostess gave me a small table near a palm, and was surprised when I tipped her elaborately for that. How did she know that was what I wanted? A chair with my back to the wall was what I sought. I had the feeling I was wearing a pistol target in the middle of my back.

  The waitress looked as if she should have been in the movies. The men who told her that could be sincere.

  She gave me a slow appraisal and a quick smile. “How are you this evening?”

  “It’s a long story,” I told her.

  “I don’t get off for hours,” she said. “But I’d have plenty of time then.”

  I pushed my fingers through my thinning hair, sighing. She smiled, pushing a menu before me. “You look distinguished, honey. I liked distinguished looking men.”

  “Might turn out to be a producer, huh?”

  She shrugged. “Think what you like.”

  I ordered steak, summer squash and beets. She took my order and went away. I watched the way she walked, thinking if I could get something like that to share a motel apartment with me, I would hole in until this mess blew over.

  Suddenly I got a complete new chill.

  I was working on the Pawley murder, because I’d been ordered to. Hell, I had more orders than a Pentagon major. Everybody had gotten in the act. But I wasn’t the only one investigating — so were the police.

  I remembered Leo Ross’ tautly stretched nerves. Obviously the police had been calling on Leo all day long. Long distance calls, hell. He had been combing the cops out of his hair. He was desperate.