Strip for Murder

by Richard S. Prather

  I started to swing around, but didn't make it. A fist bounced off the side of my neck and somebody crashed into me. I got tangled in the bar stool and went down, the guy on top of me. His hands jabbed at my throat as I rolled away from the bar and across the floor, but he hung on. I got my knees under me, squeezed my hands together, and brought them up hard inside his wrists.

  His arms flew apart and I drove my right fist at his gut, knuckles stuck out from my palm, but they hit high on his chest. I didn't knock him out but I sent him sprawling backward. Feet clumped on the floor behind me. I started up, but a shoe caught me in the ribs. Pain sliced up my side.

  I got turned around, on my feet, just in time to see Strikes with his right hand drawn back and in it a leather-covered sap. His teeth were bared. I let him swing and ducked aside, the sap grazing my hair. Then I grabbed his arm in both hands, swung my body around, and bent him over my hip.

  I bent him hard. I put all I had into it, pain and anger jumping in me, and I threw that bastard over me and six feet through the air. He smashed into the glass wall with a horrible crunch.

  The guy on the floor was coming up as I swung my foot at his chin. One of us timed it just right. My shoe jarred into the side of his face and his jaw snapped out like part of a rubber mask. He made a little sighing sound and collapsed. His jaw stayed out, oddly twisted. So did he.

  I swung around. Nobody else was coming at me. Hell, there wasn't anybody left except Babe Le Toot.

  For a while I didn't know what the shrill squawking sound was. Then I realized it was birds. Birds cackling neurotically and flying out through the busted glass, flapping around the room. A couple of feathers floated gently down to give the room a nice nightmarish touch.

  I didn't see Kid, though. I thought I'd addled his brains for him, but he wasn't on the floor. A door in back stood open. Foo was hanging on the bar, halfway up it again. Christ, he was tough. I jumped toward him, but he didn't seem to notice me. The bartender stood rooted to the floor.

  “Joe,” I said, “give me a bottle of whisky. A full bottle.”

  He uprooted himself.

  I took the bottle by the neck and banged it on Foo's head. He slithered all the way down. “Call the cops, Joe,” I said.

  There was a sound like gargling over where the birds had been. I walked over and looked inside the shattered glass. Strikes lay on his back, all over blood. His face was red and wet; a big flap of skin hung down from his neck. He was breathing, and I saw little bubbles dance in the redness.

  Joe was on the phone, saying something. I walked to the table. Babe still sat there, drinking some kind of green thing.

  “Mister, you're in real trouble,” she said.

  If my neck and side hadn't been hurting so much, I might have laughed like a banshee. “What was it I just had?”

  “A little trouble. You've really had it now, you have.”

  “Maybe. Explain a little more, Babe.”

  She wasn't explaining anything today. Besides which, she was plastered. She'd just been sitting around with the boys having an afternoon cocktail, she said, and cutting up old touches. They were hard guys, they were, and they had plenty of hard friends, they did. The friends wouldn't like this, she said. I remembered Carlos saying that maybe Yates had got some of the Afrodite clientele “piqued at him.” It seemed I'd got them piqued at me now.

  I sat where I could watch the bar, Babe on my left. Joe had hung up the phone and was standing quite still, not looking this way. Babe Le Toot was a big girl, about five-eight or nine, and she still had the generous curves that had sometimes got her as much as a thousand clams a week at the New Follies and other bump-and-grind parlors. She wasn't much over twenty-five now, though her face, especially her eyes, looked older.

  She was humming. “St. Louis Blues.” She was so far into her cups of green stuff that she slid off the tune half the time, but I remembered now it had always been her big number, the climax of her act. I'd seen her once at the New Follies here in L.A. wearing a G-string that only went up to A, slithering around the stage while the pit band played a hot, rasping, gut-tickling “St. Louis Blues.” She'd been good, almost bumped the house down. Maybe she was remembering that; she sure wasn't talking to me.

  I heard a siren, got up and took another look at Strikes. He was still bleeding, still breathing. Foo wiggled a foot over by the bar, scraping it along the floor. A bird flew past my head. The siren ground to a stop out front and heavy feet slapped down the cement steps. I went to the door, slid the bolt back, and let the boys in.

  The first man inside was Nat Hoving, a detective sergeant. As I swung the door open, a cockatoo went by him and outside with a raucous squawk. Nat yanked out his gun and squawked louder than the cockatoo.

  Then he recognized me and said, “What in Christ's name is happening, Scott?”

  Some more cops pressed in behind him. I gave them the story, then pointed at Strikes. “He needs a Band-Aid,” I said. “There was a young one called Kid, too. He must have staggered out back. You know him?”

  Nat said, “I know a punk called Kid hangs out at Fleming's Gym. Didn't know he was running with this bunch. Christ, what started this bloody mess?”

  “They did, but nobody told me why. I was asking about Paul Yates.” Nat nodded. I said, “You know who these bums work for?”

  He shook his head. “Mostly self-employed, I'd say. We'll check it downtown. Besides which, we'll ask them.”

  Ten minutes later a doctor was working over the alley heroes. Joe was swearing he didn't know anything about anything; all he did was serve drinks. The police took everybody downtown, including Babe. I told Nat I'd be in later to check on this with Samson and sign the complaint. Joe locked up as we left, leaving the birds perched practically everywhere. Nobody ever found that cockatoo.

  It was six-fifteen when I got back to the beer joint where I was supposed to meet Three Eyes. Iggy wasn't around. I called the bartender over.

  “You know Three Eyes?” He nodded. “I was supposed to see him here.”

  “You Scott?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked me over. “Back in the head. Nervous type.”

  I walked to the men's room. It looked empty, but when I said, “Three Eyes?” the door of one of the pews cracked and he looked out at me. His face was thin and bloodless, even paler than usual, I thought. His good eye stared at my face, but the other one aimed at the middle of my chest.

  “Christamighty, where you been?” He came out. “You got the money?”

  “Yeah. But I don't know if what you've got is worth a C.”

  “I dunno either, Scott. I got to have it—I want to blow town. Tonight, maybe. Pretty soon, anyway. I got bees in my butt. I need a stake.”

  “Are you broke?”

  He looked sadly at me. “I'm stoned. I'm flatter than them French fashions. I'm so—”

  “OK, you're dying. So I'll toss in a ten for nothing. What's got your wind up? Come on out and I'll buy you a shot.”

  “I don't wanna be seen with you.” He paused. “Maybe you don't wanna be seen with me, neither. Just what you after, Scott? Iggy don't make things too clear.”

  “Paul Yates. Andon Poupelle. Anything about people named Redstone.” I went on to include Garlic and the guys who'd jumped me at the Afrodite.

  He licked his lips and looked at the floor. He said, “I'm down on my luck right now, but a month or so back I was in OK, had a good roll. I went out to this new place outside of town, this castle, and rolled a few. I seen this Poupelle there, an’ he was sweatin’ plenty, losin’ every time.”

  “You were at Castle Norman, huh?”

  “That's it. Well, Poupelle dropped a hell of a pile. You've seen how they look—he had that green, gone look. Sweat rollin’ down him. I was cashin’ in a little pile, and I heard him chinning with the boss man, tryin’ to pass some paper. He couldn't cover with cash. Anyways, he wrote out a check, played a while more. I seen it, and asked somebody who the guy was—you know, man's
got to keep on his toes.” He grinned at me. “I left after a while and didn't think no more about it then.”

  Three Eyes had been screwing up his face, twitching the skin around the glass eye, and now he turned and went to the washbasin. His back was to me, but I saw him dig at the eye, then turn on the water and hold something under it. I lit a cigarette while he kept talking.

  “A week or two ago I hear a rumble around among the boys. It goes that Poupelle passed a check for maybe fifty Gs, maybe more, and he's got nickles.”

  “It bounced, huh?”

  “That's what I hear. But he's still walking around, so he must have covered it somehow.”

  I said slowly, “He's got lots of nickles now, Three Eyes. Any more?”

  “Yeah. I go out to the castle a couple times since. He's there, Poupelle is. He wins, he loses mostly, but he plays all the time—and all the time green, like before. Well, that's about all. Any good?” He turned off the water faucet.

  “Might be. But not good enough.”

  I knew he had more, and he'd spill all he had—unless he thought he could get the hundred cheap. Three Eyes was another of the guys you had to drag information out of, and for a hundred bucks I meant to keep dragging. He wouldn't have asked for so much cash unless he was pretty sure I'd fork it over. I'd done business with him before, too; he'd never look at you when he was holding out. That's why he shot craps; he always lost at poker.

  “You know a con guy named Bender? Don't know his first handle.”

  “Can't place him.”

  “He's local. Ran with McGinty and his boys. Understan', Scott, this is all air. Just a rumble. Nobody pinned it down for me, but the word's all over. Rumble is, Poupelle pushed this Bender.”

  “Poupelle? He killed the guy?”

  “That's the word. It's just air, remember. Supposed to of happened at the castle. That's all, all I got.” He still wasn't looking at me.

  “OK. It's worth twenty bucks. What else you got?”

  “Funny thing. You're the second guy what asked me about Poupelle. I gave him the same tale—about the check, I mean. He seemed to like it.”

  “When was this, Three Eyes?”

  “Last month. Say a couple weeks after I was there at the castle.”

  “I think I know what you're getting at. Spit it out.”

  He turned around and looked at me, a trickle of water running down his cheek like a tear. “You guessed it,” he said. “It was Yates.”

  Chapter Nine

  I dropped my cigarette on the cement floor, stepped on it. “What else, Three Eyes?”

  “That's it. But I read about him. About Yates. And I like everything peaceful. Now gimme the century and I'll blow.”

  I gave him the money, adding ten bucks to it. He crammed it into his pants pocket, mumbled his thanks, and started to leave. I stopped him, had him narrow the dates down for me as best he could, then let him shuffle off. I followed him outside, watched him walk to the corner and turn; then I went back to the office and picked up the Cad.

  Driving down First Street, I thought about what he'd told me. The thing that puzzled me most was the rumble about Poupelle's knocking off this guy Bender. That didn't fit anywhere. I stopped at the Central Station on First and Hill, left the gun I'd taken from Garlic with Kennedy in the Scientific Investigation Division, then drove on to City Hall and went up to Room 42. Homicide.

  Samson was in the front office with two of the detectives on the night watch. They were all drinking coffee from paper cups, and there was a chorus of helloes when I came in. Sam tossed off his last swallow and crumpled the cup in a heavy paw. Phil Samson, Homicide captain, is a big, tough career cop with iron-gray hair and a jaw like a battering ram. That jaw is a lot like Sam—big, formidable, and determined.

  The jaw was thrust forward now, and his sharp brown eyes were fixed on me. “Hear you ran amok again, Shell.”

  I found a wooden chair, straddled it, and said, “Somebody did.” Sam growled a lot, especially at me, but it was just noise. He was a good man, and a good friend. We'd worked together on various cases ever since I'd opened my office, and that friendship had saved my neck more than once.

  “I gave that forty-five of Garlic's to Kennedy in Ballistics,” I said. “You come up with anything I asked about this A.M.?”

  He shook his head. “Still the same. Haven't tied Garlic in with anybody. Not a thing on Poupelle, not here. We're checking with Sacramento and Washington.” He scratched his chin. “Well, what happened at the Afrodite? Tell it here if you want, and I'll get the paper to Masterson.”

  He called in a stenographer, who took down the story as I ran through it. I signed the statement, shoved the papers across the scarred wooden table, and said, “That's all I know. Might be they just felt playful. It looks like more than that, but I can't tell. Maybe they can.”

  “Afraid not,” he said. “They're sprung.”

  “Come off it, Sam. What's the gag? They wouldn't be sprung this soon.”

  “Oh, hell, no,” he growled. “Just ten minutes before you got here is all. That Chinese character made his call to his attorney, and then bang. Next thing Judge Curry had issued the writs, even called us up himself and yelled a while. Your pals are out on the streets right now.” He grinned wolfishly. “Probably waiting for you, so they can thank you.”

  I stood up. “Why, you old bastard! Why in hell didn't you tell me this when I walked in?”

  “I figured you'd jump out the window. And I wanted your story on paper while you were calm and judicious.” He smiled bleakly. “Justice must be done.”

  “Judge Curry, huh? Why would a superior-court judge be so damned interested? Who put up the surety bond?”

  “Rio Bonding Agency on Temple—Mac Rio, you know him.” Sam paused. “We had to let the boys go, but Strikes isn't out yet. He's in the hospital jail ward, but he's not talking to anybody. And he'll probably take off soon as he can talk—if he ever can again.”

  I swore. “Fast work. Maybe those bums are more important than I thought. To somebody.” I was quiet a minute. “Sam, I picked up a rumble about a con boy named Bender, local talent. It goes like this: Andon Poupelle hit him in the head.”

  “He what?”

  “Poopy pooped him. Just noise floating around, the man said. It's yours for what it's worth; that's all I know.”

  Samson got out one of his horrible black cigars, lit it with a wooden match. Between puffs of what looked like green smoke he said, “Bender. That might be Brad Bender. We haven't heard anything about him. That's all you know?”

  “Except that it's supposed to have happened at this Castle Norman outside of town.” I grinned. “By the way, I hear they gamble out there. I'm thinking of reporting it.”

  Samson scowled. “You go ahead. Report it to Kefauver. You know Ed Norman, Shell?” I shook my head. “He's a hard boy that stays clean—no matter how dirty he gets. Follow me? He's got more friends than Dale Carnegie. Different type of friends, maybe, but big ones.”

  “That way, huh? I'm going out to see the man tonight.”

  “Watch yourself. Don't spit in his eye or anything. I'd hate to lose my job getting you out of some fool jam.”

  “Come off it. Norman can't have any friends with that kind of pull.”

  Sam didn't smile. He bit into his cigar and said quietly, “Of course not.” After a pause he said, “OK, Shell. We'll check it. And thanks.”

  I had a quick cup of coffee with them and left. I drove over to Temple Street, stopped and talked a couple of minutes with Mac Rio at his bonding agency. We weren't friends, but we'd done business before, and he did tell me that he'd got a phone call about springing Foo and the boys, and putting up bond. He wouldn't tell me who had called. I headed for Castle Norman.

  Remembering my first view of the place from Fairview, I went out Figueroa to Maple, then turned right on Traverse Road, drove past the spot where Paul Yates's body had been found, and kept on for another three and a half miles. Yeah, you could go to Ca
stle Norman by this route, too.

  It was almost eight P.M. when I went up over a small hill on Forrest Street and caught sight of the medieval eyesore as I started down. In another minute I was there.

  A battery of high-powered floodlights pushed back the darkness, illuminating the club and grounds. Except for the lights, the three or four acres might have been yanked from five hundred years back. Forrest Street, a black asphalt road, curved in from the highway through a lot of green lawn toward the castle. There was a big parking lot on the right of the club, with perhaps thirty cars in it.

  The Castle itself was remarkably realistic, complete with towers, crenellated battlements, everything except a jousting tournament. A stone wall several feet high surrounded it, and this side of the wall was a ten-foot-wide ditch filled with muddy water. A moat, yet. There was what seemed to be a drawbridge lowered over the moat, though whether it actually worked or not was a moat question. The final fillip was a character in armor mounted on a white horse that stood under the arched stone entrance at the far end of the drawbridge. The guy held a long staff in his right hand, a colorful cloth dangling from its tip. A final anachronism was the neon sign under the stone arch: “Be Medieval in the Modern Manner.”

  I parked in the lot next to a low-slung gray Bugatti, got out, and walked toward the drawbridge. As I approached the entrance, the guy in armor kicked his horse in the flanks and started clop-clopping across the wooden drawbridge. What some guys will do for a buck, I was thinking.

  Apparently the knight's function was to welcome arriving guests and give them a big thrill. This time, though, something seemed to change the script. The knight swiveled his head toward me, looked straight ahead again, then did a creaking double take and wheeled his nag around to go clattering back over the bridge.

  I stopped and looked after him. Whether the guy was somebody I knew or not would be hard to say, because he was well hidden behind his armor, but he could have seen me easily through the slits in his visor, and he'd acted as though he'd recognized me. If he did know me, apparently he didn't want to know me any better.