by Basil Copper
“O.K. Bert, thanks,” I said. “I know about most of them. Ask Stella to give me a ring when she comes in, will you?”
I rang off and put my shoes and socks on. I was just knotting my tie when there was a rap on the door. A big cop stood there. He was Irish, tough but friendly.
“All right, Mr. Faraday?” he asked. “Thought you might like a cup of coffee?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll come on down.”
In the kitchen the other cop, an older man with greying hair was sitting in my breakfast nook. He got up awkwardly but I told him to sit down again. The coffee was good. The Irishman had made it properly. He’d ground up the beans real fine.
In the living-room the place had been cleaned up. The furniture was all back, the pictures straightened, chairs righted, papers and books replaced on shelves and tables. I went over to the front door with my coffee cup. There was a new lock; it looked strong and efficient. I kicked a few wood shavings off the porch.
On the outside of the door two keys in a plastic bag were fixed to the wood with sticky tape; there was a bill stuck on the door too.
I rang Stella and told her I’d be in at the office in half an hour. When I had dressed and was ready for off, I made sure none of the sentries were about and went to the cupboard where I kept my guns. Curiously, nothing in this room had been disturbed. Anyway, my gun rack was intact. I broke out my favourite Smith-Wesson, put a couple of extra clips in the holster pouch and felt fully dressed. I went down to the living-room. The cops looked at me.
“No tail?” I said.
“Our instructions were to keep an eye on the house,” said the Irishman.
“Make yourselves at home,” I told them. I got in the car and drove off downtown. At the first intersection an aggressively polished scarlet Jaguar, one of those little English sports jobs bored across, chopping the air just in front of my bumper. The driver, a young fellow in a yellow sweater gave me a triumphant fanfare. He probably thought he was a good driver.
I pulled up in front of my block and went on up to the office. Bert Dexter had gone out and Stella was alone. She winced when she saw my face and made a big bustle with the coffee cups. I sat down behind the big desk. It seemed like a long time since I had been there. Stella put the coffee cup down on the blotter in front of me. She stuck two cigarettes in her mouth and lit them. Then she gave me one, sat down beside me and stirred her coffee. “Well?” she asked. Stella was great on the understatement. I told her. I filled in the whole story from the time I had left her two days before, to this morning. Leaving out the sexy bits, of course. Stella was a bit possessive for that. She bit her lip as I went on. For a minute there was silence and we sat drinking our coffee. The same spider, or perhaps its brother, performed acrobatics on a corner of the ceiling near the window blind. It didn’t seem much cooler in the office and the air conditioning was still giving trouble.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. She wrinkled her nose.
“That you’re a funny sort of a guy. You find your client murdered, get shot at, beaten up and slung into jail, all within forty-eight hours. Yet here you are, with another client and another retainer, bouncing up, all ready to be shot at or beaten up once again. Same old merry-go-round.” She laughed in a cynical sort of way and went to get some more coffee. I watched her go, appraising her wiggle expertly.
“I didn’t know you cared,” I said.
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s knowing that we’re still in business and that I’m going to get paid regularly.”
I put my head against her face and kissed a small curl that wandered over her forehead. She smelt cool and fresh, just like one of those deodorant ads. Except that they weren’t so sexy with it.
“What’s that for?” she said, all wide-eyed and surprised.
“For being so understanding,” I said. “Which reminds me …”
I took my cheque book out. I wrote her a cheque for a hundred dollars and tried to slip it in the vee of her sweater. She expertly intercepted my hand and took the slip of paper.
“What’s this for?”
“A small bonus,” I said. “For being Stella, and a few other things.”
“You’ll be spoiling me,” she said. She got out her handbag and put the cheque away.
“I’ve got three calls,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “Bert told me. I’ve already seen McGiver. That leaves Charlie Snagge and Sherry Johnson. I’ve got to see her today. Any idea what Charlie wants?”
“He spoke of remembering something that might be helpful. Other than that, he wouldn’t say.”
Stella made a note or two and then sat tapping her teeth with a pencil.
“I think it would be a good idea if you saw Leslie Horvis and had a talk with him,” she said. “He’s in L.A. isn’t he?”
I sat and blinked for a minute. I clean forgot about that aspect of the case, what with my night in jail and all.
“I should have made that cheque out for a bigger amount,” I said.
She opened her handbag. “There’s still time,” she said.
I ignored her remark and sat on for a moment or two longer.
“What are you going to do about the key?” she said.
“I think I ought to work the old registered packet trick,” I said. She made a note on that. The girl had real efficiency. Then she called Dan Tucker at home.
“Thought you wouldn’t be asleep for long,” he snorted.
I arranged to drop in at eleven the next morning when Horvis was coming to see him.
“The Johnson girl’s still at the hotel,” he said. “But she’s not using the phone at all. Pretty cagey.”
“I thought you weren’t keeping her under observation,” I said.
“Well, not so’s you’d notice,” he said. ‘We did get one good picture though — with a telephoto. I’m having that wired to Detroit to see if it rings a bell.”
I chuckled. “And they say the L.A. police are dumb,” I said.
“Who says?” he wanted to know. I thanked him and rang off.
Then I got Stella to ring the Bissell Building. Sherry Johnson was home. She sounded surprised. “Where have you been?” she asked. “I expected a call yesterday.”
“In jail,” I said. I interrupted her questions. “Listen, Miss Johnson, I think we ought to have another talk. Will this evening do?”
She hesitated a minute. “Make it after ten.”
“Thanks,” I said. There hadn’t been any frost on the wire but she hadn’t exactly greeted me with the warmth of the old home fire.
Just then the phone rang. I took the call.
“Mr. Faraday?” The voice was deep and self-assured.
“Speaking.”
“My name’s Mandy Mellow. I run the Jazz Inn out on the edge of town.”
I won the golliwog straight off. He was a big-time gambler who owned the Inn and interests in a couple of dozen other joints besides. Strictly straight as far as I knew, but not a man to fool with. Some people around town called him Marsh Mellow, but they didn’t know him. He wasn’t soft at all. He had a real hard centre.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Mellow?”
“I’ve got a little job I’d like you to do for me, Mr. Faraday.”
“I don’t know whether you could afford my rates,” I said.
He laughed. “What do you charge, Mr. Faraday?’
“I do a nice clean job for four and a half dollars inclusive, sir,” I said.
He laughed again. “I like a man with a real sense of humour,” he said. “Come on out to the Inn and we’ll talk business.”
“I’ll wear my forty-dollar suit,” I promised him.
“Can you make it around eight?” he said.
“Suit me fine,” I said. We made with the politeness and then rang off.
“What do you make of that?” said Stella.
“Probably got an honest croupier he wants straightening out,” I said. I took Stella for a bite and then drove her home.
&nb
sp; Afterwards I went back to my house. The cops were out in front, taking the evening sun and listening to the local news on the prowl car radio. I went on upstairs and got the key. Then I found a small cardboard box, stuffed it with newspaper, stuck the key to the flap with sticky tape, wound the whole thing up with lots of brown paper.
Then I tied it good and tight with the thickest string I could find and addressed it to myself it black ink. I put the name and address on the package four times, just to make sure. Then I drove downtown again to the Central Post Office, to the window where they keep open late. The package jiggled about in the dash pocket all the way down and it kept niggling at my mind.
When I got to the post office I had it registered, using Stella’s name as the sender. I paid the clerk and then put the registered package slip in a section of my billfold. That would take care it for a few hours and I could sleep nights.
Then I gunned out and hit the trail for the Jazz Inn. The Smith-Wesson felt comforting against the underside of my arm and without the key the car seemed at least half a hundredweight lighter.
*
I drove up to the Jazz Inn and parked the car. Though it was only just gone half seven the park was already half full and through the open lobby floated the sounds all clip joints seem to have all over the world. Conversation, laughter, clinking glasses and the tinkle of a piano somewhere through the smoke — blue, lost and forlorn.
I went on up the steps and into a patio. There was a balcony round three sides, complemented by a bar round three walls and a foyer opening into the main gambling rooms. Upstairs there were private rooms for small parties in the higher income bracket. The main games were chemin de fer and roulette with baccarat and card games thrown in; the private parties were mostly for chemmy and poker.
The predominant colour scheme was walnut and green leather; Mandy had good taste, I’d say that. I nodded to the gorilla on the main door and went on in. I had some time to kill so I went up to the bar and ordered a martini. The prices were murder. I was just looking for a stool when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
Mandy Mellow was a man of about forty-five, short, chunky, broad-shouldered and with a dead white face set under jet black eyebrows that gave him a curious look. His thick black hair was brilliantly glossed but otherwise he dressed with taste. He had on a midnight blue single-breasted suit; expensive tan shoes; his impeccable grey tie was knotted in small under the points of his cream silk shirt. We shook hands.
“On the house.” He nodded at the barman, who shot me a thousand-dollar smile as a result.
“Have what you want, Faraday,” he said. “I’ve got a few things to attend to, but I’ll meet you up in my office sharp on eight. First door on the right at the top of the stairs.”
I thanked him and went and sat down at a table. Curiously, I liked him. But I wondered what he wanted. There was a funny atmosphere in the bar. I smelt trouble. Still, it would be a fairly quiet evening by my standards. Or so I thought.
From where I was sitting I could see a long line of mirrors at the back of the bar. There was a man sitting near the end who kept staring at me in the mirror. The first thing I noticed about him was that he had on a grey suit and was wearing yellow socks. Then I saw in the mirror that he had a pink bow tie. He had grey hair too, though that didn’t ring a bell. I didn’t know him but he sure looked as though he knew me.
His high titter first attracted my attention. I sat on and finished my drink. A waiter came up and I ordered another. When he brought it back the guy in the grey suit came over. He staggered slightly but I was pretty sure it wasn’t from drink. He looked like an albino unless his pink eyes were some sort of inflammation; I noticed something else too. He was a junky. His eyes had a brilliant glaze and there was an exaggerated cockiness in his walk that made it look like he owned the earth.
A dangerous bimbo, I thought, but a mug just the same. That was the first mistake I made about him. He sat down at my table without asking. That was his first mistake.
“I’m choosy about my company,” I said. He smiled a slow smile but otherwise no reaction. He was about thirty, I should have said. His teeth were very white and even.
“You’re Faraday, aren’t you?” It was a statement, not a question.
I said nothing. That seemed to rile him. He leaned forward.
“You invented the miner’s lamp or sump’n, didn’t you?”
“That was my cousin,” I told him. I was getting a bit tired of this. I stood up.
“Some other time,” I said and went to walk out. He didn’t like that. He stood up too, and his eyes glittered.
“We hadn’t finished, sport,” he said.
“I had,” I told him and went to pass by.
“Don’t do that,” he said and put his hand on my arm. There was quite a crowd in the bar by that time so I decided to humour him. This sort of joker would be quite easy to take, but like I said, there’s a time and a place.
“Let’s talk outside,” I said. He looked at me for a long second, his eyes dilated. He took his hand away from my arm but he kept the other in his pocket. He probably had a pigsticker or something else in there. I began to get the idea that this wasn’t a casual encounter. We went out. The barman nodded pleasantly and gave me a yard of teeth.
“Tell Mr. Mellow I’ll be back in five minutes,” I told him.
“Don’t bank on it, joker,” white hair said out of the side of his mouth. A tough baby. We went out through the patio. The piano died away in the distance. We walked around the rear and into the parking lot. He stopped by a large black Cadillac. I noticed it had the stencil of a hire firm on the rear door panels. That was interesting.
A young man with black hair and a swarthy face sat in the driving seat of the Caddy. He leaned out of the open window and looked at me interestedly. He had dark glasses on; another corny gimmick.
“Let’s go,” said white hair. I decided this had gone far enough. I did an elegant side-step and gave white hair a nerve punch with all my strength, in his upper arm. He gave an agonized yelp. Then I put the boot in his belly. He sagged moaning against the door panel. I made sure by catching his hair and giving him three good bounces against the windshield upright. He went limp and blood came off his face on to the glass.
“Don’t move, buddy,” I told the driver. He sat frozen. I never take chances with junkies. I fished in white hair’s pocket and came out with a small revolver with a sawn-off barrel. I put that in my pocket. Then I opened the back door of the Cadillac and shoved white hair in. He was unconscious and breathing heavily through the nose. I looked around; there was no one in the lot and the whole thing had taken perhaps ten seconds.
I leaned against the driver’s door. “All right, what’s the caper?” I asked him. He licked his lips and his eyes showed white. “It wasn’t my idea,” he said hurriedly. “I was paid just to drive you out of town.”
“And then?” I asked.
“I don’t know anything,” he said. “Johnny was going to tell me where to drive. Honest, mister, that’s straight.”
I believed him. Gabriel would have, with that look on his face.
“What’s your friend’s name and business?” I asked.
“I only know him as Johnny,” he said. “I do driving jobs for him now and again.”
“Drive,” I told him. “And don’t mess around with amateurs. If you want to stay in this business, turn professional.”
He licked his lips again and went out of the lot like a streak of black thunder. I hadn’t gotten his name; not that it mattered. But I had a few things to discuss with Mandy Mellow. I went back into the Inn and took the stairs to the balcony three at a time. I went through the door without knocking. Mellow was standing by a large, glass-topped desk.
“Come in,” he said ironically. His expression looked pained, but this was no time to worry about my lack of breeding.
“I’m getting a little tired of the strong-arm stuff, Mandy,” I said. I must have looked tough, or perhaps I was breat
hing heavily. At any rate his surprise was genuine.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “A drink?” He indicated an expensively-loaded sideboard.
“I mean this,” I said. “I didn’t drive out here just to be bounced by your strong-arm boys. I can get the job done much better downtown. If I were you I’d get yourself some pro’s. I’ve seen better stuff on Sunday night T.V.”
His expression didn’t change. He went over to the sideboard and started filling two long glasses from a crystal decanter.
“Really, Faraday, if it would do any good, shall I say that I don’t know what you’re talking about? Believe me, if I had a grudge against you, I wouldn’t send amateurs.”
His voice sounded patient and long-suffering. He snapped his fingers. The long velvet curtains at the two windows let into the side of the room billowed and parted. Two very big, competent-looking men stood there. They didn’t need bulges around their expensive suits to tell me they were fully equipped for blasting. Mellow picked up his drinks and nodded to the two gorillas. They went on out. He handed me one of the glasses with a quizzical look.
“Convinced?” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I added up two and two wrongly. I guess you know your business better at that.”
“At least well enough not to leave my office door unguarded,” he said dryly.
We sat down on a long, grey upholstered divan that ran for about the length of a baseball pitch along one side of the apartment. It looked, and felt, like real leather. We drank.
“What’s all this about, Faraday?” he said. I told him. He seemed to go even paler.
“Describe the driver again,” he said. When I’d finished he lit a cigarette and pulled on it for a long minute.
“You won’t have far to look,” he said. “This is the same business I asked you over about. The driver was my younger brother.”
I stared at him. “Want to spell it out?” I said.
“In brief,” he said. “It was my intention to employ you to keep an eye on him.”
My face must have relaxed into a grin or something; awfully bad taste. Anyway, he shot me a heavy glance.
