From the park I went to the Dormann Hotel, directly across Main Street from the Raleigh. At the desk, a small gray clerk looked at me with no sign of recognition. There was one room available, on the sixth floor, facing Main Street; a "Mr. Brown" had checked out an hour or so ago. But his description was three or four inches over six feet, lot of bushy gray hair, big fat nose. "Brown," then, was Bert Stone. I paid for one night.
In the room I put a quarter in the radio and went to the window. Straight across the street was room 612 in the Raleigh. I could still see the overstuffed chair I'd been propped in while unconscious. The radio warmed up on what sounded like a news broadcast. I heard the words, "Shell Scott."
Your own name can always stop you, but especially if your first name is Shell and you'd like to keep it a secret. I'd missed the description of the murder scene, apparently, but the announcer went on to describe me very well, including "armed and dangerous." Then there was some interesting information. Victor Foster, Judge Jason and Bert Stone had told the police they'd been in a jolly "friendly dime-and-dollar" poker game with Danny Hastings and Shell Scott; the three of them had left together, leaving Scott alone with Danny Hastings. That was all they knew. But they were prepared to testify to that much, willingly, as good honest citizens interested in law and order.
To the police, and the average citizen, the testimony of those three upstanding citizens would be the truth; anything I said would be the natural attempt of a murderer to clear himself and shift the blame to others.
It was clever enough; they'd given this one a real buildup. But I had one ace left; I was alive and free, which those bums hadn't counted on. I used the room phone to call the home and office numbers of all three men but didn't get an answer anywhere. That figured. I got out of the hotel in a hurry, took a cab to Elm Street, where I hailed another cab and left it three blocks from Gloria's apartment house, the Essex, on quiet, tree-shaded Pepper Street. Gloria answered my ring. It was nearly dusk and she was already dressed for work. She had on a cocktail dress, as brief and stimulating as a straight shot, transparent as a martini with one olive. She didn't look surprised to see me, just a little worried.
Gloria stepped close and looked up into my face. "Shell, darling, I hoped you'd come here. I heard it on the radio. You didn't . . ."
"No, sweetheart. I didn't. You alone?"
She nodded, pulled me inside, literally shut the door with me, pressing me back against it. "Shell, honey, I knew you didn't . . . how did it happen —"
"Hold it. Most of the cops in town are looking for me. I haven't time to explain. Ah, sweetheart, uh . . . I haven't time for that, either." I pushed her away from me and we sat down, then I said to her, "Gloria, I'm sewed up in a tight frame and Foster's the guy with the needle. You know more about him than anybody else in town, including me. That's why I'm here, and I won't be here long. If you've got any idea why Foster and his pals would kill Danny and try to frame me for it, which is what happened, then give. I've got to start climbing out of this hole and I've got to find Vic Foster."
Dark brown eyes, long-lashed lids, soft unsmiling mouth. Her tongue moved slowly over her red lower lip; she shook her head. "I don't know, Shell. Vic was here a couple nights ago. That's why I couldn't meet you, remember?"
"Yeah."
"He asked me to marry him. But I told him no. That I wouldn't even be seeing him any more. You know why. I don't want to see anybody but you. And I told him so."
"How'd he take it?"
"Got angry. He'd been drinking, but he really began pouring it down then. Stormed out soon after."
I lit a cigarette. "Foster ever let anything drop about Danny? He say anything to you at all?"
She frowned. "He said something. That last night. But I can't recall . . ." She was quiet a few moments, then nodded slowly. "Yes, I remember now because it was so strange. He swore for a while, then he said, 'First Danny gets religion, and now you get stupid.' Something like that."
"Danny gets religion? What would that mean?"
"I don't know. But Vic said something else. I think I asked him what he was talking about and he said Danny had been spilling his . . . insides — to a priest."
"A priest?"
Gloria nodded. "That's what Vic said. But after that he got quiet, then yelled at me some more. Finally stormed out."
I could figure Danny's spilling his guts because he and Foster, and the other two, undoubtedly did know enough about each other so any one of them could hang them all. But to a priest? Danny lived on the west side of town. Pine Street; if he'd seen a priest it would probably have been in the church at Eighteenth and Pine, Father Shanlon. But I couldn't figure out how Foster would know about it. Danny wouldn't have told him. And Father Shanlon sure as hell — as Heaven wouldn't have mentioned it.
I said to Gloria, "You got any idea where Foster might go if he wanted to stay out of circulation temporarily?"
She did have an idea, but it didn't help much at the moment. A couple of months back, before I'd met Gloria and when she'd been seeing a lot of Vic Foster, he'd left town for a week or so and stayed at a small house he owned. "Vic said he had to get away for a few days, get some rest for his ulcer. Nobody would know he was at this house; kind of a hideaway for him, place to relax."
"Where is it?"
She shook her head. "Just out of town somewhere, Shell, but I don't recall where." She squinted at me. "He wrote me one letter, though; I even answered it, so the return address must have been on it. I've probably still got the letter — but no telling where. Want me to start looking?"
I stood up. "Yeah. But I can't wait. I'll phone you later. The police will probably get around to you before long. Don't lie to them and get yourself fouled up in this. Tell them I was here, and everything I said. Might even help me." I thought about that for a minute and had an idea concerning a cop named Billings.
"All right," she said. "If the police or anyone's here when you phone, I'll say, 'Hello, Lucille'." She got gracefully to her feet. "If I'm alone, I'll say, 'Shell, honey, honey, honey —'"
"Whoa!" Gloria had the habit, at certain highly stimulating moments, of saying, "honey," to me over and over again with a kind of hot husky intensity that did to my spine what Lionel Hampton does to a vibraphone. Wild music would click from my vertebrae, maybe audible only to me, but real crazy stuff in my ears. Stuff I always wanted to hear more of, too, but not at a time like this when hilarious cops with guns might burst in and fill my rear end with lead. Those wild-music moments were moments when I wanted no lead in me anywhere, but particularly not there.
So I trotted to the door. Another cab. Pretty quick the drivers were going to know me. This one took me to Eighteenth and Pine. Father Shanlon was a tall, thin man with a quiet voice and quiet eyes. It took a few minutes for me to explain what I wanted. He was shocked to hear that Danny had been murdered, but he didn't show any expression at all while I explained that the police were looking for me, looking for the wrong man.
Finally I said, "Father, had Danny just recently been coming to see you? Maybe asking for your help in . . . in some matter?"
He smiled. "Mr. Scott, I'm afraid that any conversations we might have had would be improper subjects for discussion."
It took me three more minutes of fast explanation, but then Father Shanlon told me that Danny Hastings had talked to him on several recent occasions. "He was troubled," Father Shanlon said. "He asked me for advice, and I told him to search his own mind and heart, that the answer was there." He sighed heavily. "Perhaps that wasn't enough."
Father Shanlon naturally wouldn't say what had been troubling Danny, but I told him what I suspected, and he took me to the confessional booth. I looked, searched while Father Shanlon watched me with an odd, unbelievable expression on his face. Neither of us said a word until I found it.
When I straightened up, Father Shanlon's expression wasn't unbelieving any more, but lined and sorrowful. "What is it?" he asked me quietly.
"I'm not quite sure,
Father. I'm not the electronics expert — Bert Stone is, I told you there were three of them in on this deal." I held the thing out in the palm of my hand, a small oblong case a little larger than a pack of king size cigarettes. "It's some kind of bug, though. I'll give you generous odds . . . I mean, there's little doubt about it. Probably some kind of transmitter. Radio transmitter."
"But . . . It's impossible . . ."
"I'm afraid not, Father," I said. "Is this worse than murder?"
He didn't answer me, but his face answered for him. I'd found what appeared to be a battery-operated transmitter fastened beneath a seat; the receiver would have been almost anywhere within a mile or two of the church — with Foster, Stone, or Jason listening as Danny poured out his doubt and torment to his priest.
Father Shanlon agreed that I could take the small transmitter with me. Just before I left I said, "I'm sorry about this, Father. But you can understand why I had to come here. The men that did this . . . well. They've got me on a real hot spot."
He smiled gently. "I rather think they're on a much hotter spot than you, Mr. Scott."
This time I walked. I'd been pressing my luck long enough with cab drivers, and the address I wanted was only a few blocks away. Police Sergeant Dave Billings lived there, so I was going calling with my little .32 in my hand. We weren't exactly friends, but I'd known him ever since he'd worked traffic. He worked the day watch out of Homicide now, and I knew he often got home about this time; it was a little after seven p.m.
At seven thirty-five he turned in the drive and drove toward the closed garage. I waited till he had both hands on the garage door, then stepped from where I'd been waiting around the corner, stuck the gun in his back and said, "Easy, Billings. Just hang onto the door. All I want is some conversation."
I could feel the muscles in his back ridge and tighten, moving the gun; I stepped away from him. "Back in the car, Billings; first drop your gun, slow." In a few seconds we were both in his Ford sedan, with me in the rear seat still pointing my gun at him, his .38 in my pocket. I had him drive out to the street and park a couple blocks away. He already knew about the murder, so I merely told him exactly what had happened.
When I finished he said, "I won't call you a liar, Scott. Not while you've got a gun on me." He turned his head slightly. "Thirty-two, isn't it? A thirty-two killed Hastings."
"Sure. This is the gun that killed him. It's my gun. Only I didn't use it. I'm not going to tell you again. But half the town knows that Shell Scott always carries a gun. I made sure half the town knew it."
He grunted. There was a little clicking sound and I noticed that Billings had leaned away from me. I grabbed him by the back of his coat collar and yanked him against the seat. "What in the hell you trying to do?"
He swore. "Take it easy," he said. "Can't I get a light?" A cigarette was dangling from his mouth. I could feel perspiration moist on my palms.
"Billings," I said, "don't pull anything like that again. You can smoke when we finish talking. Till then, don't even wiggle."
He said, "You and Hastings had a beef a week or so back, didn't you?"
"Little one. Stang's bar and grill. He was drunk, took a swing at me, and I knocked him down. Hell, I was a shade spiffed myself. The boys who hung this frame on me probably figured that was another good reason to make me their patsy. Besides, they knew I'd be carrying my popgun. Handy murder gun for them. Most important, Foster was hot for my girl. With me out of the way, maybe he could do himself some good. And you've admitted the police got an anonymous tip. Another thing, I'm out maybe seventy thousand bucks today in that small game, bonus for the killers. That enough reason?"
"Sure," he said. I was making a big impression.
I told Billings then about my visit with Father Shanlon. He didn't say anything. I had him get out of the car and walk a few feet beyond it, then I put his gun and the little transmitter on the curb and told him to wait till I was long gone before getting them. And to check on that transmitter. Just before I got back into the car I said, "That's it, Billings. Nobody has heard my story before, but I could hardly walk into police headquarters with it. Now you know my side. Try to believe it."
He still didn't say anything. I started the car and took off in a hurry, went around the corner with the tires shrieking, and put some distance between Billings and me. At a pay phone I called Gloria.
"Hello, Shell, Shell, honey, honey, honey."
"Whoa, I get it —"
"Shell, you shouldn't have left. You got me all . . . I jumped right into a cold shower. I've just got a towel on —"
"Stop it, I didn't call —"
"Wait . . . there! No towel! You should see me now. I haven't a thing —"
"Shut up will you? Did you find that address?"
She sighed, told me it was 1844 Kingsman Road. That would be about ten miles out past the city limits. I hung up on Gloria in the middle of dialogue that ordinarily I'd have asked her to repeat, and gunned the Ford.
The house was small and white, surrounded by eucalyptus trees, back from the road about a hundred feet. A car was parked in the drive alongside it, and a light was burning beyond drawn curtains. I parked at the side of the road, walked to the house and found a window with the blinds up about an inch. Peering through it I could see into the room. Foster was in there.
He was standing, his back to me, at a small portable bar squirting soda water into a highball. He turned around and stared at the glass for a few seconds, then drank deeply from it. And I suddenly realized that I hadn't been really angry at any time since I'd been snapped by Foster, because seeing him now, the gripe swelled up in me suddenly, hot and red like a six-foot boil. I almost raised the .32 in my hand, but I didn't want to shoot the guy; I wanted to play with his head like a gourd and listen to the words spill out of him.
The front door was closed but unlocked and I eased it open, walked a few steps down a narrow hall to the partly open door behind which Foster was, pushed it open and stepped inside. Foster was looking away from me, didn't see or hear me. Not at first. I glanced around the room, then walked toward Foster with my gun pointed at his head. He turned casually, saw me, and his face got white.
His eyes dropped to the gun and riveted there. "Don't!" he squawked. "Shell. For God's sake, don't. We can work it out."
I kept walking toward him and he moved away from me until his back was against the wall. "Shell, we can fix it, I tell you. We can get you out of this."
"Seems only right, Foster," I said. "You worked hard enough to get me into it."
"Please." His voice rose. "You'll never get out if you kill me! They'll get you sure." I was nearly to him by then. He shut his eyes. "Shell, don't kill me. I'll confess it, everything. I'll write it out. Only don't kill me. He screamed. It startled hell out of me.
He was scared, but I didn't think he was as frightened as he pretended to be. I'd fix that, though. It didn't seem right to do it with his eyes closed, but I remembered that he'd sapped me from behind, then slammed me in the mouth while I was out, so it wasn't too difficult. I leaned forward, pivoting, and tried to shove my fist from his stomach to his backbone. Breath and spittle spewed from his lips and he bent forward, knees sagging. I stepped back, cocked my left fist again and tossed it against his mouth. At the last moment, though, I pulled the punch; I wanted him conscious, even if toothless. He slid to the floor; hands flapping against the carpet.
I said quietly, "All right, Foster. You want to start it with Danny?"
He licked his lips, grimaced in revulsion and spat. "He was going to the cops, spill everything," he said. "We'd have gone to jail — Stone, Jason, me. Danny had been in all of it with us, he must have gone crazy."
"Go on. All of it."
"The four of us, we've made a million the last couple years here in town. Started with Bert Stone. I gave him the idea. He tapped wires around the city, officials' phones right on down to local businessmen, people with money. Got plenty on them, blackmailed them. Not just for money; we got con
trol of some contracts, money from building around town. In case of trouble, we could bring enough pressure to keep it quiet. The new housing development that's going up, fifteen-million-dollar operation. He says who gets the contracts, where the material has to be purchased. Voters don't know what's going on; they never do. There's plenty off the top." He licked his lips again. "Shell, we can cut you in. And Stone's a wizard. He's got a parabolic microphone that can pick up conversations right in the middle of the park, from a hundred feet away. No wires nothing. There's millions —"
"Shut up."
He stopped talking, and I started to turn away from him. I wanted cords from the windows, something to tie him up with. But Foster began talking again suddenly without prompting.
"Stone used that parabolic mike of his to get what we wanted on Tyler." Tyler, the union boss who'd been shot a couple weeks back. "Taped a talk Tyler had with a member of the Atlas Company's Bargaining Committee. About a strike Tyler was going to call if the company management didn't pay off fifty thousand. We got the hooks into him good, scared him plenty. Tyler handed us a hundred thousand from the union welfare fund; he must have got that much himself. Members didn't even know how much was in the fund, perfectly safe. Only he got rough. Threatened us. Waved a gun around. We had to shoot him."
"We? Or you, Foster?"
"I shot him. But we were all in it, deep. That's what got Danny; the killing, I mean. He started getting jerky. All on edge. Then when you cracked wise to him that day, he took a swing at you. Right then's when I figured it all out."
He kept on talking, and I finally began wondering how I'd managed to turn him on so completely with just a couple of pokes. Maybe I'd have figured it out. The rate I was going, I might have managed it by the year two thousand. But I got some help.
"Drop the gun, Scott. Turn around slowly."
Have Gat—Will Travel Page 7
