Solomon's Vineyard

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Me leave town? Don't make me laugh.”

  “I am not trying to be funny, Craven. You say you did not steal the money. I believe you.”

  “That's white of you.”

  lie went right along. “Hut the Brothers do not. They are very dangerous when aroused. It is not safe for you here.”

  “I've got to stay.”

  “I will explain to Mr. Grayson,” McGee said. “He will not want you to risk your life.”

  “It's my life.”

  “They may be after you even now.”

  “To hell with them.”

  He stood up. “Well, Craven, I must say I admire your spirit. I hope you will not have to regret your decision.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I felt it my duty to warn you.”

  “Sure.”

  “If you should change your mind, let me know.”

  “All right.”

  He tapped his yellow teeth with a fingernail. “I'd rather you didn't phone me... because of the position you're now in. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  “If it's at night, come to my residence. I read until one in my library. It is in the rear of the house. You can tap at the french doors.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The french doors. But don't count on me coming around.”

  I went out and after half a block, the guy in the dark suit picked me up again. I began to get creepy. Nobody likes to be followed, especially when it might be somebody with murder in his mind. I thought I'd better find out about the dark suit.

  I walked to a place where there was one cab waiting. I got in and said loudly: “To the Arkady.” When I got there I went upstairs to my room, slammed the hall door and then opened it a crack. Pretty soon the elevator stopped at the third floor and the guy came out and went into the room next to mine. I waited a minute, and then I knocked on his door.

  “Who is it?”

  “The room clerk.”

  The door came open a foot. I put my shoulder against it and shoved my way into the room. The guy in the dark suit had a pistol pointed at my stomach. I closed the door. The guy looked scared.

  “What do you want?”

  “That's what I came to ask you.”

  “I don't want anything.”

  “You've been tailing me,” I said. “Why?” The hand holding the pistol was kind of shaky. “You're wrong, buddy; I haven't followed anybody.”

  “Nuts,” I said.

  I saw the guy was cock-eyed. One eye was looking at the door and the other was looking at me. “If you don't get out, I'll call the operator.”

  “You're sure you haven't been following me?”

  “Of course I'm sure. You must be crazy. I don't even know who you are.”

  I pretended to be convinced. “I'm sorry, mister. Somebody has been following me. I thought he came in here.”

  “You thought wrong.” The guy was getting cocky. He waved the pistol at me. “You're lucky I didn't plug you, buddy, when you pushed into here.”

  “I guess I was.” I turned to go. There was a Bible on the dresser. I picked it up and threw it. He ducked, and I had the gun before he knew what had happened. I hit him with it, and he went down. I let him sit up, and then I kicked his face. The kick stunned him. I pulled a sheet from the bed, tore off a piece and gagged him. I pulled him up on the bed. After a while he came to.

  “Now let's have the story, brother,” I said. He made a noise through the gag, but I didn't want to take it off for fear he'd shout. I got a pencil and a sheet of writing-paper from the desk. When I came back he kicked my stomach with both feet. I lit hard on the floor, most of the breath out of me. He slid across the bed towards the telephone. I caught at his legs, but his hands knocked the phone off the table. It crashed on the floor. He tried to kick me again, but: I had his legs. I brought him off the bed to his knees. His fists beat against my head. I punched him in the gut and he doubled up, still on his knees. I could hear a voice saying 'Hello' on the phone. I let him have one on the side of the jaw. It cooled him. I crawled to the phone..

  “Hello,” the clerk was saying. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” I said. “Can you tell me the right time?”

  “Why, yes. It's twenty past seven.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hung up. I got a towel and wet it and wiped the blood off the guy's face. The water brought him around. He lay on the floor, on his back, trying to get air through the gag. His gasping sounded awful. I wondered if he was going to die.

  He got better in a few minutes. The sound of his screaming died away. He looked up at me from the floor, his eyes wet with pain.

  “Sit up.”

  He sat up, I found the pencil and paper and gave them to him. I asked: “Who hired you to tail me?”

  He wrote: “The police.” I hit him, and said: “You better come clean, brother.” Blood began to seep through the gag.

  He wrote: “McGee.”

  I blinked at that. “McGee, eh! Why did he want me tailed?”

  He shook his head. I hit him. He wrote: “McGee wanted to frighten you out of town.”

  “How much did he pay you to do it?”

  He wrote: “$200.”

  “You're earning it,” I said. “Get up on the bed.”

  He crawled up on the bed. I got a hundred-dollar bill out of my pocket. “Where'd you come from?”

  “Kansas City.”

  I tore the bill. “Listen. I'll give you half of this now, and I'll send half to Kansas City, care of Paul Smith, General Delivery, if you telephone me from there in the morning.”

  He reached for half the bill. “And if you're still in Paulton tomorrow, I'll kill you, so help me,” I said. His eyes got big and I stuck the bill in his hand and went to my room. I locked the door and pulled the shades down and undressed. I looked at his pistol. It was loaded. I took it to bed with me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE COUPE slid along the cement at a smooth sixty, heading for a bank of heavy clouds that steadily got higher on the horizon. The country was flat and dry-looking, and when the coupe got near the edge of the road dust swirled up. It was hot, but the air smelled of rain. We came to a sign saying: Temple-one mile.

  Ginger was driving. “If Pug ever hears I took you,” she said, “he'll bump me.”

  There wasn't much I could say to that, so I didn't say anything. Ginger let up on the gas. I heard a rumble of thunder. The black clouds covered half the sky. We went by a long field of corn, and then we came to a row of elms. There was a farmhouse and a white fence, and on the lawn two kids were playing with a collie. Temple had two garages, a general store, a drug store, five service stations, a movie with a sign saying: Next Saturday-Clark Gable in San Francisco, and a combination restaurant and pool hall. There were about thirty frame houses in the town.

  Ginger said: “Now where?”

  The dashboard clock said eleven-ten. “The cemetery, I guess.”

  “Where's that?”

  Two old men were sitting on the porch of the general store. I leaned out the window and asked one of 'em: “Dad where's the cemetery?”

  One of the old men had a drooping moustache. He spat through it at a post. “Which one?”

  Ginger said: “Jesus! have you got two?”

  “How's that?”

  I told the old man we wanted the Pendis funeral. He knew about it. It was at Rock Creek Cemetery. He told us how to get there. It was about a mile from town, along a dirt road.

  We could see tombstones in the grass on the side of a hill. There was a winding path into the graveyard, and on it were parked five cars. Ahead, and a little off the path, was a hearse. A sudden breeze made yellow flowers nod in the grass, then died away. Apple trees grew in the graveyard.

  ,”The funeral's drawing good,” I said.

  “She was always a popular girl,” Ginger said.

  I looked at her, but there was no particular expression on her face. She drove in back of the other cars. People were standing by the hea
rse. We got out and went over to them. The punk saw me. He had on a blue suit that was too big for him. “Thanks for coming,” he said. He gave me back sixty-five from the two hundred I'd given him. “And thanks for the dough.”

  “It's okay,” I said.

  A wind came again, and with it thunder. The preacher started over to where the coffin was by an open grave. I got the wreath out of the rear of the coupe. Ginger walked on with the punk, and all the others followed the preacher, too. When I caught up I saw there were a bunch of young girls in the crowd. They shied away from me, their faces frightened. I thought, what the hell! Then I saw an older woman with them, and I knew the reason. It was the madam and the babes from the whorehouse.

  While the preacher was saying what he had to say, it began to rain. The drops of water felt queer. They were warm. They didn't cool anything at all. I looked around the crowd and saw the punk. His face was white and he was crying. He looked as though he was going to be sick. I guess he had loved her. The preacher's voice died away and some yokels began to lower the coffin in the grave. The whores were weeping, all but the madam. She stared at me, her face sullen. She was probably thinking of her radio-phonograph combination.

  The coffin reached the bottom of the grave and the men slipped off the ropes. All the women in the crowd were crying now, and some of the men. It made me feel a little tight at the throat. The preacher said a few words more, standing bent over so the warm rain wouldn't hit his face. He finished and some of the people threw flowers in the grave. They began to move away. I took a peek into the grave. Flowers had almost covered the coffin. I thought: there goes $135. It was the first time I'd ever spent that much on a doll without getting something in return.

  Ginger grabbed my arm. I followed her eyes back to the cars. Through the rain I saw Pug Banta coming towards us, his arms full of roses. Back of him were a couple of his boys. They came right through the mourners, bumping men and women out of their way. I felt Ginger tremble.

  “Dear God!” she said.

  Pug came up to the grave and dumped the roses on the other flowers. It was raining hard. He walked over to us, looking like some kind of a monkey with his long arms and short legs. His club foot made him limp.

  “Come on,” he snarled at us. “You're going with me.”

  We didn't move. His boys stood looking at us from the grave. Carmel's brother left the preacher by the cars and came towards us.

  “Come on,” Pug said. “Or I'll bump you right here.”

  Ginger started to go with him. I pulled her back. “Start shooting,” I said. “You got a swell audience.”

  The crowd was beginning to leave. I heard the noise of the motors being started. I saw the punk over Pug's shoulder. I grabbed Pug and threw him down just as the punk fired. I heard the bullet whine. Pug caught me and pulled me down. We wrestled on the ground. I hit Pug and broke away. One of Pug's men jumped the punk and took away the pistol. He slapped the punk's face. I got oil the ground. “Leave him alone,” I said to the hoodlum. He pointed the pistol at my stomach. “Don't get tough.” The people by the hearse had heard the shot. They were looking back at us. Pug got oil the ground and began to brush the dirt of! his coat. I helped him. The people thought he had fallen and turned away. “Bring the kid here,” Pug said.

  They brought him. He cried and struggled with the men. “Damn you,” he said. “What's the idea, kid?” Pug asked. I said: “He thinks you killed his sister.” Pug went to the punk. “You got me wrong,” he said. “Carmel was a swell doll. Would I be bringing her roses if I'd killed her?”

  I said to the punk: “You better pay the minister. We'll have a talk later.” I gave him a twenty. He threw it on the ground.

  “Why did you pull him down?”

  I picked the bill up and gave it to him again. “Go pay the minister.”

  Ginger said: “Come on.”

  They started to go away, the punk looking bewildered, but the hoodlum with the pistol stopped them. “How about it, Pug?”

  “Let 'em go.”

  They went towards the hearse. Pug scowled at me. “I don't get it, pal.”

  “The punk thinks you killed his sister.”

  “No. Why didn't you let him plug me?”

  “I'm your friend.”

  Pug said: “That's a laugh.” He scowled at me. “I want to talk to you.”

  He moved his head towards some graves further up the hill. I followed him. The two bodyguards stayed by Carmel's grave. The rain was nearly over. It was raining under a blue sky now. We stopped by a tombstone with an angel cut on it. I saw green apples on a tree below us.

  Pug said: “Anyway, thanks for what you did.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Yeah? If I do can you think of any other reason why I shouldn't bump you oil?”

  “The Princess.”

  “The hell with her,” Pug said. “She's trying to muscle me out.”

  “No,” I said. “You got her wrong.”

  “Don't give me that.”

  “She couldn't muscle you or anybody out. She doesn't run the Vineyard.”

  “Who does, then?”

  “McGee.” Pug looked blank, and I added: “The lawyer.”

  Pug said: “Crap.”

  “Okay. Don't believe me. But McGee's got it in for you. He didn't like the shooting at Papas's. And killin' Carmel.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “I used to work for McGee ... up to yesterday.”

  “Either you're a liar or you...”

  “Do you want me to prove McGee runs the Vineyard?”

  Pug scowled. Then he said: “If you can.”

  “All right. First I'll show you he owns Tony's place. And The Ship. And the house where Carmel worked. And the Silver Grove. And the Arkady.”

  “The Vineyard owns them,” Pug said.

  “You wouldn't bet on that, would you?”

  Pug squinted at me doubtfully. “Why'd you quit McGee if he's Mr. Big?”

  “I'll show you that, too.”

  We rode back with Ginger. Pug drove and Ginger sat in the middle. The bodyguards followed in the other car. We made the hundred miles in an hour and twenty minutes. We killed two chickens, a road-runner, a chipmunk and a black-and-white dog. I didn't think Pug was going to be able to stop the coupe in Paulton, we went so fast, but he did, right in front of the County Building.

  “Where are those records?”

  “Second floor.”

  “You wait here, baby,” Pug said to Ginger.

  She didn't know what was going on. I winked at her, but she looked scared. We went up the stone steps and into the building. The old clerk got out the papers for us. Pug scowled when he saw McGee listed as the owner of all the places I asked for. He named some more: the Savoy Ballroom, the Beachcombers, The Hut, Cecil's Grill. McGee owned them, too.

  At the Arkady I had Pug come in with inc. “Any calls for me?” I asked the clerk.

  The clerk saw Pug, and for once he didn't giggle. “There's a long-distance call from Kansas City, Mr. Craven.”

  While we waited for the call, I told Pug about the guy McGee had hired to tail me. The clerk put the call on an extension in the manager's office. I picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Well, I've done what you told me, Mr. Craven.”

  “Listen, Kansas City,” I said; “there's a fella here I want you to tell what you told me last night. Who paid you, and what he wanted you to do. Wait a second.”

  I gave the phone to Pug. He listened, asked a couple of questions and then turned to me. “Anything you want to say?”

  “Tell him I'm mailing the other half of the bill.”

  Pug told him and hung up.

  “Now you get the idea,” I said.

  Pug said: “You were trying to muscle in on McGee, weren't you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe hell, fatty. Why else would he try to run you out of town?”

  “All right,” I said. “But remember he's going to do the same to
you.”

  “Oh, no, he's not.”

  “I'll tell you one thing,” I said. “McGee has a library with french windows. It's in the back of his house.”

  Pug scowled at me.

  “If anybody should want to ... see him, he works there every night until one.”