Powers had gone and things were nice and quiet. Before leaving, he had pulled the usual warnings that we should stay put. He had also broken down and told us that Hall’s wound was in the arm, and not at all serious.
I said, “Johnny was one issue.” I didn’t want to talk about it just now. Why did Powers tell us about that gun?”
“Maybe he thinks we’ll try and warn Johnny—and lead the police to him,” Nelle said. The old worry was shadowing her eyes again. “Nick, do you think …”
What did I think? What could I think? I said, “You heard what I told Powers. And you guessed it yourself. I thought that Hall tipped the cops that Johnny was in town—so I got sore. He thinks Johnny killed Considine and he thinks Johnny is coming after him. Hall offered me the same motive that Powers did: Johnny is trying to move in on the organization.”
Nelle had stopped eating. “Is that what you think, Nick?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I blurted out. “I’ve been trying to help Johnny—and I don’t get a damned bit of cooperation. From Hall, from Edna Loomis, from you—from nobody.”
“I’d help,” Nelle said quickly, “if I knew what to do.” She meant: if she could trust me.
“I want to find him,” I said. “I want to know what he’s up to. Whether …” I broke off.
Nelle finished it for me. “Whether he is guilty.” She said softly, “You really aren’t sure.”
“No, I’m not sure,” I admitted. I looked into Nelle’s eyes; they were very light now, almost a green. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not a damned bit sure.”
Nelle said, “I don’t believe Johnny is guilty. I know he isn’t guilty.”
“All the evidence points that way,” I said. “It may be only circumstantial but it’s all the evidence that we have. The fact that he won’t come out to defend himself …”
Nelle was wiping her mouth with a frilly handkerchief. “That doesn’t make me believe it.”
“What evidence have you got otherwise—besides sisterly love?”
I hoped that she wouldn’t pull the intuition gag on me. She didn’t. Her eyes met mine and now they were darker. “I saw Johnny. He told me so.”
I got up off the couch. It was a spontaneous movement. I put my hands on her shoulders. “Go on,” I ordered. “Don’t stop now.”
That’s all, Nick. He said he was working at it.”
“And asked for your help?”
“No. You know Johnny wouldn’t involve me in anything like this.”
“All right, you insisted on giving your help. That’s the same thing.” I was puzzled, and a little hurt. If Johnny was working on it why hadn’t he got me in too?
“You always did jump at conclusions, Nick,” she said. “Just believe me, Johnny isn’t guilty.”
I mocked her, “I’d help, if I knew what to do.”
She flushed and tried to get out from under my grip. I dug in a little deeper. I wanted to watch her for a while yet. I wanted to see if I couldn’t learn something. “If I could help,” she said, “would I dare?” She shook her head, no, answering her own question. “Not when you think Johnny is guilty.”
“In other words,” I said slowly, “whatever you have to tell me would look bad for Johnny.”
“It doesn’t look bad to me,” she said. “It might to you.”
She changed pace again. Her hands came up, closing over my wrists. But she wasn’t trying to get away, she was caressing me with her fingers. “Nick, let’s stop this. We aren’t getting anywhere.”
Her voice took on a pleading note. “Trust me, Nick, please. You—you loved me once. Don’t stop now.”
That subtle change I had felt was gone. Nelle was as she had been earlier. She was smothering me. It was like being in deep water. And it was like welcoming the warmth of death. I wanted to breathe in that water, deeply, and get it over with. I fought like hell.
“Trust you?” I said. “And stick my neck out?” It was ugly; it was the only defense I had. “Go on loving you? You want to swap, is that it?”
She said, “Swap?” faintly.
I hated myself. “Swap. I lay off Johnny and I get you.”
Her fingers stopped caressing my wrists. She jerked my hands from her shoulders. Quickly, she swung free of me. I could see the flush brightening her cheeks.
“I don’t want you to lay off Johnny,” she said crisply. “I want you to help him.”
She was game, I had to admit that. She didn’t quit. I said, “But I don’t get any assistance at all.”
“I told you, Nick. What little I know—wouldn’t help.”
It was nice reasoning, I guess. But it didn’t make sense to me. “I’ve been helping Johnny,” I said. “Despite you and Hall and Johnny himself. And I’ll keep right on until I’m sure he’s guilty.”
“And then?”
“If he is,” I said, “I’ll do what I can to turn him in. Like I would Hall—or you. Until then, I’ll keep an open mind, I’ll keep on trying to help him.” I ran a hand over my jaw. It was still sore. “You don’t have to take me into the bedroom to get me to do that, Nelle.”
She just went to the coffee table, picked up the dishes, and walked into the kitchen. I could hear water running in the sink. I felt about as good as if I had knocked her down and kicked her.
But I was sore, too. She had refused to give me any help. Instead, she was trying to make a trade—herself for protection for Johnny. It was cockeyed, because that wasn’t Nelle. Not the real Nelle. And she was so damned obvious about it, so childish, like a high school kid.
I stood there, listening to the water running, and trying to add everything up. It added all on one side of the sheet, on the debit side so far as Johnny was concerned. There was his gun, there was his contact with Edna Loomis, there was Hall’s contention—and in heavier red ink than the rest was the way Nelle acted.
I went into the kitchen and Nelle turned from the sink. I said, “Did you try to kill Kane Hall, Nelle?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“It wasn’t Johnny.”
“Where is Johnny?”
“I don’t know.”
I said, “When did you see him?”
“Recently.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll go ask him myself.” I walked out, a little wobbly, but able to manage. I got my hat and coat and went to the car. I drove to the Oxnan.
12
THE CRISP night revived me a little. I drove slowly, the windows down, getting all of that air I could. When I parked, I stayed in the car for a while. I needed time to put things together.
I had lied to Nelle, if only by inference. No matter how she acted or what she said, I hadn’t changed toward her. There wasn’t anything that could change the way I felt. It was down too deep. And it made me feel as if my insides had been run through a mowing machine. Because I didn’t know—if it came to a showdown—whether I would turn Johnny in or do as Nelle wanted.
I was getting no place. Leaving the car I went into the hotel. There were two cops in the lobby when I got there. They stood to one side, not doing anything, apparently not intending to do anything. I could see Quist at the desk, his broad fat face glistening with sweat as usual. Neither Chimp nor Les Peone was around.
Quist smiled, showing his ugly teeth, and I went up to him. The cops made no move at all. I was sure they knew me, at least by sight. Most of the force did.
“Hall nearly got his,” Quist said, and added his fat chuckle.
“You stinking rat,” I said. I saw Quist’s little, red-veined eyes squeeze up in fear.
“I don’t get what you mean, Nick.”
“I’m talking about Johnny,” I said.
“Hell, Nick, a guy has to take care of himself.” His breath had that sweet stink of fortified wine on it. He was seldom without the stuff; it was all he had left to live for. Once I had felt sorry for him because he was a virtual slave for Hall. He worked for practically nothing: for his room and meal
s and enough to buy a little wine now and then. He was a three-time loser and Hall had the evidence to put him away for the fourth time. A small matter of forgery, but it was enough to keep him locked up for the rest of his life.
I didn’t feel sorry for him any more. “I’ve heard your crummy philosophy before,” I told him. “Now I want some answers.”
“Ask Powers,” Quist said. “He’s up there.”
“Where’s Tien?”
“Up there, too.”
“Where was she when it happened?”
Quist shrugged fatly. His shiny suit bulged out over his stomach and stretched across the fat of his legs and arms. “She didn’t tell me,” he said.
“Where’s Chimp?”
“Up with Tien. So is Peone.” He laughed. “Me I was sleeping. I got an alibi.”
I said, “Where’s Edna Loomis?”
Quist stopped laughing, and the fat pouches of his face drooped to cover whatever expression he might have shown. He sucked at his rotten teeth and looked at me in silence.
I glanced at the two cops. They were leaning against the wall, yawning. I knew the routine too well to be fooled. Their interest in this was in inverse ratio to the way they appeared. I turned back to Quist and showed him my tightly balled fist. I didn’t have the strength to punch tissue paper, but I hoped he didn’t know it.
He squinted over my shoulder and grinned a little.
“Answer that one!”
Quist shrugged.
“They won’t be around all the time,” I said. I raised my fist a little.
“Don’t,” Quist whined. “You done that too many times, Nick.”
“Never unless you earned it,” I said. “Where-is-Edna-Loomis?”
“Who’s Edna Loomis?”
I lifted my fist again. Quist said jerkily, “She ain’t come in.”
“How did you know that she was out?”
“Chimp told me. She carried you outa here didn’t she?”
“When did she check in?”
He answered me by turning around the room register. She was on there, over a week before; her name was the last one. I said, “How many empties you got?”
“About the same as usual,” Quist said. “Ten or twelve.”
“And nobody checked in since she came?”
I wondered how Quist ever kept anything from Hall. He was a lousy liar. I was working on a hunch, compounded half of reasoning and half of knowing the way Johnny Doane’s mind worked. It paid off. Quist said, “Nobody,” and started to sweat.
I said, “Who checked in lately?”
“No one, Nick. I told you …”
“You’ve got thirty rooms besides the permanents,” I said. “Shall we start checking them off?”
Quist’s eyes, sinking into fat too quickly, gave him away. I said, “Johnny?”
“Listen, Nick …”
“Does Hall know?” I demanded.
“I never got around to telling him,” Quist whined. He was sweating more than before.
I swore under my breath, but at Johnny Doane. It was like him to try a stunt such as this. I had to admire him, though. This was about the safest place in town—so long as Hall didn’t know.
“Does Chimp …” I began.
Quist interrupted me with a negative shake of his head. He looked scared. “Please, Nick …”
“You let him in here without telling anybody?”
“A guy needs dough once in a while.”
I couldn’t argue that point. I said, “Maybe Hall found out. So you had to shoot him to save your own hide. Maybe you’re thinking right now about doing a better job the next time.”
Quist’s breath gushed out all over me. “No, Nick, honest. He didn’t find out. I wouldn’t do nothing like that anyway. I never carried a rod in my life. I never pack a gun, Nick.”
“Stop bleating,” I said. “Did Johnny go in and out?”
“When I gave him the all clear,” Quist admitted. “When Chimp wasn’t around.”
“I’m going up,” I said. “Keep away from that phone.”
“The cops listen to all the calls,” he said. “I won’t tip him.”
“How much did he pay you?”
“Hundred,” Quist said.
A hundred bucks and he took a chance on having Hall put him away for life, or turning Chimp loose on him. But then a hundred bucks would buy a lot of wine.
“Room?” I asked.
“Two-eleven.” Quist looked as if he didn’t know whether to kill me or himself.
“Give me the duplicate key,” I said. “And don’t let those cops see it.”
He palmed the key over to me and I started for the elevator. One of the cops pried himself loose from the wall and strolled over. “I’m going up to see Powers,” I said.
“You’re Mercer,” the cop said as if it was a great discovery. “You, call the Lieutenant.”
Quist made the call. The cop went to the switchboard and talked for a minute, then nodded me on up. I got in and started for the top. Halfway up I pressed the stop button and maneuvered back down a floor. I left the elevator there and hiked down the back stairs to the second. This was one of the crummy parts with peeling plaster on the walls and a dirty runner on the spottily varnished floor. There was an ancient smell, too, that got in my teeth. A man would have to want to hide very badly to stay in a place like this.
I didn’t even rap at the door of two-eleven. I just put the key in the lock and opened up. I heard a scrambling sound. When I was in with the door locked behind me, the room was empty.
A smouldering cigaret was in an ashtray on the dresser. That was Johnny Doane. He did everything quickly, and left half of his work undone.
I said, “Come on out.”
The bathroom door opened and Johnny Doane came into the room. He might have fooled a lot of people, but he couldn’t fool anyone who knew him as well as I did. He was still thin, small, and neat. He wore an extreme style gray suit that I knew must have conflicted with his fashionplate soul as much as had the poisonous green affair he had worn the night Considine was murdered. His red hair was gone. In its place was a short-cropped thatch of gray, much like Lieutenant Powers', a gray mustache, and make-up that gave him age lines around the eyes.
I walked to the bed and laid my hand on a definite indentation there. It was warm. I crossed the small room to the one armchair and felt the seat. It was warm too. I looked around the room. The wall paper was stained, the ceiling plaster was cracked, and the whole place had the stench of the hallway. A single window looked out on an airwell.
I said, “This is a hell of a place to bring a girl.”
Johnny’s quick, easy grin was gone. He regarded me somberly. “Did Nelle tip you?”
“No,” I said. “Nelle is a clam. You can bring her out, Johnny. I won’t bite.”
He said, “All right, honey,” and a girl came from the bathroom. It was Maretta Considine and she looked just the same. She smiled a little timidly at me. She was still tiny, still exquisite, and terribly innocent looking.
What’s the idea of dragging her into this?”
Maretta said, “I insisted, Mr. Mercer.” She went up and touched Johnny’s hand.
“Protection,” Johnny said briefly. “She’s worth a lot of dough.”
I thought that over and. I had to agree with him. I took a seat on the bed. Johnny sat in the chair and Maretta perched on the arm close to him.
I said, “Johnny was at your place the night I was there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about your father then?”
“Yes.”
She was, I thought, pretty skillful for a kid. I certainly had had no idea at the time that she knew. “Was he at your place when your father was killed?”
Johnny answered. “No. I have no alibi for that time. I walked in on Considine just after he was shot.”
“After?”
He started out of his chair, feisty as ever. “Damn it, Nick! I said after.”
“Then?”
He knew what I meant. He even grinned a little. “Then I went to Edna Loomis’ place.” He nodded toward Maretta. “She knows.”
“Was Edna Loomis home?”
“Just,” he said. “I didn’t get any information.” His voice was wry. “I tried.”
He had a lot of sex appeal. I could imagine him trying. I said quickly, “Did you clean out Considine’s files?”
“I took some stuff,” Johnny admitted. “What I wanted was already gone.”
“What stuff?”
Maretta said, “He took the records that would implicate Dad and Mr. Hall in that business.”
“Where is it?”
“Nelle has it,” Johnny said. “But it’s no good. No help.”
“I suppose it went up with the green suit,’ I said.
“Yes.”
“Were you the guy who ran out when I went in?” I asked.
Johnny said, “Yes,” again. “I went back after leaving Edna Loomis.”
“You took a hell of a chance.”
“I know,” he said. “That was when someone spotted me.” The paper had claimed he was seen shortly after the murder, but I knew that was often the way of things—time was telescoped when it was convenient to do so.
I said, “That note saying, ‘Loomis, twenty-five thousand,’ did that go up with the green suit, too?”
Johnny got up and crushed out the butt of the smouldering cigaret. He lit another from the pack he took from his pocket. He didn’t offer me one. Which told me where I stood.
“I thought you might get more out of Loomis than I did,” he said. “It was a plant.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Then you sent me to L.A.”
Johnny shrugged. “I wanted room to work without you in the way. What the hell, it’s a good town to visit.”
I said, “It was your gun, Johnny.”
“It was lifted off me,” he said. “I lost it in Portland.”
His whole story had made some kind of sense up to then. Sense to me, though it might not have to a cop. But that broke it down. I must have shown my skepticism.
He said, “I think Edna Loomis took it. I keep checking back and that’s the only time I could have lost it.”
Blondes are Skin Deep Page 8
