Run, Killer, Run

by William Campbell Gault

  Tom came in as Delavan entered the waiting room. The detective locked the hall door and took a deep breath of relief. “We’ve been worried about you. Come into the office.”

  Tom came in, and Delavan closed that door, too. Tom sat in an upholstered chair on the customer’s side of the big desk; Delavan went back to his former seat.

  The detective shook his head. “That was no policeman, the man who sent you running from Jean’s place. We found that out, later. He had the badge and a warrant, but they were both phony.”

  “Phony? But the siren?”

  Delavan shrugged. “Maybe he had one, or it might have been a lucky coincidence for him. Maybe an ambulance was going by as he turned off Channel.”

  “But he was looking for me. Who else could it be but the law, if he was looking for me?”

  “The killer, maybe?” Delavan’s eyes were steady on Tom’s. “Or an agent of the killer’s? Your guess would be as good as mine.” He picked up a letter opener on his desk, and studied it. “You know, Tom, we weren’t too sure of you, at first. The night Jean dropped you off at Jud Shallock’s, I kept an eye on the place. We guessed you were innocent, but we weren’t sure. I’m sure, now.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said dryly. “I suppose that’s a help.”

  “It could be. Where have you been?”

  “At a friend’s house. I think I was being watched, there, too.” He went on to explain about the man in the Chev coupe. He didn’t reveal the address, however, nor the identity of Connie.

  When he’d finished, Delavan said, “How sure are you of this friend who sheltered you? You wouldn’t want to give me his name?”

  “No. He doesn’t know I came here, either.”

  Delavan had the point of the letter opener on the blotter top of his desk and he was flexing the blade. He kept his gaze on that. “An old friend, was he? Tied up in the gambling business?”

  “No. A friend I met only once before. And not tied up in gambling. Why? What has that to do with it?”

  “Because I don’t think we can trust your old friends.” Delavan put the letter opener carefully down on the desk and looked up at Tom. “Who is our most logical suspect as a killer of both your wife and Joe Hubbard?”

  Tom thought for only a moment and then said, “Jean Revolt.”

  Delavan frowned. “Are you trying to be humorous?”

  “You asked for an opinion,” Tom said. “If she’s a jealous type and had learned Joe and Lois were — well, doesn’t it figure?”

  “Not to me.” Delavan’s eyes were hard.

  “Nor me,” Tom agreed. “Because I know her, now. But to a cop who knew what we know?”

  “I’m sure,” Delavan said slowly, “she’s alibied for the times of both murders. Guess again, Tom, with more sense.”

  “I haven’t any other guess with as much sense.”

  “Well, then, here’s a hint for you. We learned yesterday, from Joe’s records, that Nannie Koronas paid for that farce of a legal defense Joe butchered you with.”

  “That figures. Nannie takes care of his own. That’s why he’s got the employee loyalty he has.”

  “Yes? And how well he took care of you, sending you away for life. Is that taking care of his employees?”

  “He hired a good lawyer. The lawyer botched it, maybe. But the lawyer died, too, after botching it, didn’t he? Now that kill could have been financed by Nannie. Except for one thing.” Tom paused. “Nannie doesn’t work that way. Nannie does very well, playing the track percentage with limits. He doesn’t have to go heavy.”

  “I know. None of them have to, but they all do, eventually. And this — did Joe Hubbard ever tell you Koronas was paying for the defense?”

  “No — no, he didn’t.” Tom was suddenly thoughtful.

  “I wonder why?” Delavan said icily. “Maybe because he sent Joe there to lose that case. And maybe Joe knew why and tried a little blackmail later — and got his. That makes more sense than anything else we’ve come across, Tom. And that might be why they’re after you, now.”

  “But why would Nannie want me out of the way? I made money for him, never cheated him out of a nickel. It simply doesn’t add.”

  “Maybe he thinks you know something. Maybe he thinks you got to St. Louis earlier than you did and learned something. Or you know who your wife was going to meet in St. Louis.”

  “Oh, that’s reaching,” Tom said. “Lois hardly knew Nannie; she’d only met him a couple of times.”

  “To your knowledge.”

  Silence, while the three words went around in Tom’s mind. Across the desk from him, Delavan’s face blurred for a second in Tom’s vision.

  Delavan’s voice was gentle. “A nasty thing to surmise, maybe, but we’ve learned nastier about her, already, haven’t we?”

  “If it’s true,” Tom said, “we’re lost. We haven’t got a chance against Nannie Koronas.”

  “Maybe we have. Joe did other jobs for him. We learned that, yesterday, too. Though there’s nothing incriminating in any of it, so far.”

  “There won’t be. Nannie’s smart. He’s always covered.”

  Delavan nodded slowly. “I know, I know. But he’s worried about you, isn’t he? He’s got his boys out searching the town for you.”

  “We don’t know. That man in the restaurant could be no more than a man in a restaurant. We don’t know anything.”

  “No,” Delavan admitted wearily, “we don’t.” He stood up. “I’ve got to find a place for you. Our only hope is to keep you free and staked out.” He smiled. “Like a sacrificial lamb.”

  Chapter 7

  THE APARTMENT building was an eight unit, two-story, weathered, rectangular stucco place on Kenmore. They went down the narrow, first-floor hall to the apartment on the right in the rear, and Delavan unlocked the door.

  It was a furnished place of living room, sleeping alcove, kitchen and bath, bright and not too sadly furnished.

  “How about the landlord?” Tom asked.

  “I’m the landlord. Nothing like a few rental properties to keep the income constant. I’m not in a stable trade, you know.” He handed Tom the key. “I’ll go out and pick you up some groceries.”

  In the quiet apartment, Tom sat on a cushioned rattan davenport and lighted a cigarette. There was some throb in his knee, again; there was perspiration dampening the back of his collar.

  How long could he do nothing, a puppet in the hands of the more determined? None of them knew as much about the Koronas organization as he did. If the secret of Joe’s death, of Lois’ death was buried in the mind of Nannie Koronas, they were working in vain. But if others in the organization had been involved?

  Jud Shallock? Jud knew about Lois; Jud had presumed Tom had found Lois with somebody and killed her. And yet, Jud hadn’t known Lois well to Tom’s knowledge. And yet, he knew about Lois.

  Everybody in town, it seemed, knew about Lois. Except her husband. Which appeared to be the standard situation in that kind of case.

  He rose, after a few minutes, and went from window to window, like a gopher making sure of its emergency exits. There was a rear door, leading off the kitchen into the fenced back yard. The incinerator was out there and the clotheslines and a gate in the high redwood fence that evidently opened on an alley.

  He came back to the rattan davenport and was sitting there when Delavan opened the door. The investigator said, “I’ve a master key, so there’ll never be any reason for you to answer the doorbell. Anyone who rings or knocks doesn’t belong out there.”

  Tom nodded.

  Delavan took the bag of groceries he was carrying out to the kitchen, and came back to the living room. “You look beat, Tom.”

  “I am. I’m licked, but good. I’m sick of it.”

  Delavan sat in a rattan chair and fished for a cigarette. “I suppose. Feel kind of hopeless, don’t you?”

  “Worse. I feel like a pimp. Is Miss Revolt’s money financing all this?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.” Delavan lighted
his cigarette. “If we prove you innocent, you can pay her back. With interest.”

  “How? In old Racing Forms?”

  “In cash. If you’re innocent, your late wife’s money will be yours, Tom. You’ll be rich.”

  “Migawd, I will be. That’s right. I never thought of that. Not that I want it.”

  “She had no other relatives. Do you think the state needs it worse than you do? Get smart. The state has made a lot more off of horse racing than you ever did. Do you want them to have this, too?”

  Tom managed a smile. “Well, that’s the right approach. No, I don’t. Okay, Hawkshaw, I’ll sit tight for a few more hours.”

  Delavan frowned. “And then — ? And then, you’ll start running again?”

  Tom shook his head slowly. “No, then I’ll start working, personally. So I’ll feel like a man.”

  Delavan rose. “You can’t do it. It could jeopardize all our work. With a little more knowledge, we can go to the Governor and make a case against extraditing you. Right now, you’d be a dead duck if they got you back to Missouri.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Tom rose, too. “How will I keep in touch? I suppose the phone’s been disconnected in here?”

  “It has. I’ll keep in touch with you. Don’t get restless or reckless, Tom. Trust us.” He paused. “Remember one thing: so long as Nannie doesn’t find you, he’ll be wondering what you know. It will bother him, if he’s as guilty as we think he is. It’s the only way we can get him to show his hand, to keep him scared.”

  “Okay. Okay. You don’t know the man, but okay.”

  For a moment, Delavan looked as weary as Tom felt. “I know the man. Stay quiet. Try and relax.” He gestured and went to the door. A moment he stood there, listening, and then he went out without looking back.

  Try and relax … Yes. He wished Connie had given him some of that euphased to take along. He wondered about her, if that big, bland nothing in the Chev coupe had finally climbed the wooden steps to her apartment.

  Some world he’d occupied, a world in which he’d seen only the surface, a world of mass infidelity and brutal undercurrents. Perhaps, though, it was his fault; he hadn’t been interested enough to search beneath the surface. Working for Nannie hadn’t seemed particularly immoral. Illegal it certainly was, but what was immoral about banking against those who speculated on the speed of horses?

  It was outside the law, and the representatives of the people made the law. And once a man was outside it, however slightly, it was easier to go outside the moral code on which laws should be based.

  To his knowledge, Nannie was involved in nothing but gambling. But perhaps that was another area where he hadn’t gone beneath the surface. There’d been no reason to; he had his four bills a week and very little trouble from the law. He’d dealt with suckers who considered it ungentlemanly to beef too much over a loss and who would never be guilty of informing the police.

  A fine life with a rich and eager wife; only a fool would have speculated on the worth of it or dug into the patina of it, searching for trouble.

  Nobody wanted trouble. Except for the reformers, the blue-noses, the agitators, the Commies. They lived on trouble, thrived on it, came to power on it. All the John Does wanted was a roof and a full larder and a few bucks to blow now and then.

  And yet, it was the agitators who finally got the John Does to a point where the larder was full and the roof their own. The right wing agitators like Henry Ford and the left wing agitators like John L. Lewis. Neither of these gentlemen could be called conformist, each in his way was a radical. Each had contributed.

  And now the daughter of one of America’s great mavericks was sticking her neck out for a drifter named Tom Spears. And he had doubted her motives, even while he accepted her sanctuary.

  He closed his eyes and saw the short, dark hair, the direct gaze of the deep blue eyes, the slim, active figure. Spending her money, risking her freedom. For what?

  To find the killer of a man she now knew as a fraud? To nail the biggest operator of a racket she despised? To save the neck of a man she had met only once?

  It was something more intangible than that, and she’d voiced it for him. She’d said, “I can’t fight all the injustice in the world. But I intend to fight all the injustice that touches me.”

  She’d be overmatched against Nannie Koronas, though. Even with an ally as capable as Leonard Delavan.

  In the bathroom mirror, Tom studied his face. He had lost weight, in prison, and his face was thinner. This made his head appear longer and narrower; the horn-rimmed glasses added the final touch. He did, as Connie had said, look scholarly now. People who had known him only casually might not recognize him. No person who had seen his picture in the papers nor a policeman who’d seen it on fliers would be likely to recognize him.

  Delavan had warned him against getting “restless or reckless.” But he was restless. And was it recklessness to try and save his neck? He wasn’t accustomed to having others fight his battles for him.

  Who did he know in the organization? He knew Jud well. He knew a score of minor bookies on the Jud Shallock level around town. And he knew Nannie’s girl friend, a former burlesque stripper now trying for a foothold in Hollywood. A beautiful girl, really, and something of a social climber.

  She’d shown a definite interest in Tom at a party one time at Nannie’s. But Tom had guessed it was because of Lois’ social prominence. And the girl had been more than half drunk.

  But …? There was an angle, however weak. That night, at Nannie’s, he could have moved in; she’d made no bones about that. Tom’s wasn’t the degree of vanity that permitted him to think he was in any way irresistible to women. But he’d been luckier than most from the time he was fifteen; it would be false modesty to overlook his appeal in a search for weapons.

  He’d need a bigger weapon, too, a weapon with a trigger, a weapon that went “bang.” He’d be hunting a killer; his doubtful sex appeal would be a pitiful armament against that.

  It was now early afternoon. He lay on the rattan davenport, scouring his memory, going back through the years to his first association with Nannie Koronas, trying to dredge up every rumor and fact he knew or had heard.

  There was so damned little; it was a requisite of the security Nannie enjoyed that no member of the organization see the whole picture. The Kefauver Committee had hardly touched him; the reports had been so conflicting, the witnesses so obviously prepared with only half-truths and unprovable rumors.

  Tom had known Nannie better than any of the other employees at the customer level. Tom had been married to Lois and Tom was friendly with a number of big money betters. Yet Tom knew very little about him, except that Nannie was extremely wealthy, apparently genial and undoubtedly attractive in his virile, predatory way.

  His father had been a poverty-ridden Greek cobbler, his mother Scotch-Irish. His mother had died when Nannie was twelve and he had left home six months later. It was his boast that he had made his own way from that day on.

  In the quiet furnished apartment on Kenmore, Tom remembered with what pride Nannie had looked back on his career. He liked to think of himself as a business executive, another living proof of the Horatio Alger legend.

  It didn’t seem logical, now, that Nannie would ever have gone in for murder. The futile dedication of inveterate horse players was a constant, depression-proof, cash market that afforded Nannie all the income a reasonable man could want.

  Nannie paid track odds up to the limit of twenty-to-one. That was a percentage the track and the state could get rich on and Nannie’s twenty-to-one limitation gave him that additional percentage. With the organization he had covering the field, he couldn’t go broke. He had expenses, but certainly no more than the tracks had, and all the tracks prospered.

  Why, then, murder?

  It didn’t add, it didn’t figure.

  Outside, in the hallway, there were steps on the bare floor and Tom sat up quickly on the davenport.

  There was the sound
of a key in the lock and then the door opened and Leonard Delavan came in. He closed the door quietly behind him.

  “Trouble?” Tom asked. “You look worried.”

  “I am. What kind of car was that you told me about a little while ago, the one parked in front of where you were hiding?”

  “A ‘51 Chev Club coupe.”

  “Sand gray?”

  Tom nodded.

  “What’d the driver look like?”

  “Nothing special. Big, bland round face. A big piece of nothing.”

  Delavan took a deep breath. “Same man. He’s parked in front of the entrance to my office building, right now. I parked in the parking lot, luckily, and spotted the car from the other side of the street. I didn’t like the way he was sitting there and then I remembered what you’d told me about the Chev.”

  “It figures,” Tom said, “that if they knew about Jean, they’d know about you.”

  Delavan shook his head. “Not to me, it doesn’t figure. Jean was Joe’s fiancée; she’s logical enough to them. There was no secret about her relationship to Joe. But nobody knew about my working for her, nobody but Joe’s attorney.”

  “And the man or men who watched you visit Joe’s attorney and visit Jean.”

  “Oh, I was careful about that.”

  “Not careful enough, evidently. Leonard, have you an extra gun?”

  Delavan stared at him for seconds, and then reached under his jacket to come up with a short-barreled .38. “You can have this one. I’ll pick up another at the office when I can get back there.”

  Tom was silent a moment. Then, “I suppose you couldn’t report the guy in the Chev to the police.”

  “Report him for what? Parking? And if I knew something about him, they’d want to know what kind of case I was on. No, I can’t go to the law this time.”

  Tom paused again. “And — you don’t want to face him?”

  Delavan looked at the floor. “Two have died already. I’ve been a private investigator for a long time, but private investigators don’t work on murder cases. I’m no hero. I’ll come face to face with him eventually, I don’t doubt. Maybe this is one of my — gutless afternoons.”