Starting his car, he let the gray car get a start, then followed. Habitually, he went bareheaded, but in the car he kept an assortment of hats to be used on just such tailing jobs. He pulled on a wide-brimmed hat, tilting the brim down.
The gray car swung into Wilshire and started along the boulevard. It was very late, and there was little traffic. Holding his position as long as he dared, he came abreast only one lane away, and passing, turned left and off the street. When he picked them up again, he was wearing a cap and had his lights on dim. Moreover, his car now had a double taillight showing. He had rigged the car himself.
Shortly after reaching Beverly Hills, the gray car turned right, and Kip pulled to the curb, switched hats again, and turned his lights on bright. As the other car pulled up to the curb, he went by, going fast. Turning the corner, he pulled up and parked, then walked back to the corner, pausing in the darkness by a hedge and the trunk of a jacaranda tree.
Another car pulled up and stopped as the two men started across the street. A man and a woman got out. The blond man called out, “Mr. Villani? I got to see you!”
The man was tall and heavily built. He wore evening clothes, and as Morgan slipped nearer, staying in the shadows, he could hear the irritation in the man’s voice. “All right, Gus, just a minute.”
He turned to the girl he was with. “Would you mind going on in, Marilyn? I will follow in a minute.”
The girl’s face turned toward the light, and Kip’s pulse jumped. It was Marilyn Marcy!
Drawing deeper into the shadows, he chewed his lip, scowling. This just did not make sense.
The two men had come up to Villani, who was speaking. “Gus? How many times have I warned you never to come near me? You know how to get in touch.”
Gus’s voice was low in protest. “But boss! This is bad news! That Morgan guy, he’s been into the warehouse!”
“Inside?”
“Uh-huh. I don’t know for sure if it was him, but I think it was.”
“It was him,” the dark man added, “but he got away and we had only a glimpse of him.”
Morgan waited, hoping to see Villani’s face. This was the boss, the man he had wanted to locate, and he knew Marilyn Marcy.
A low-voiced colloquy followed, but Morgan could hear nothing but the murmur of their voices. “All right, Vinson. Stay with him. We want no failure this time.”
The two men started back to their car, and he started to follow them, then decided nothing would be gained. Rather, he wanted to know what was going on there.
As the gray car drove away, Morgan walked past the house into which Villani and Marilyn had disappeared, noting several other cars were parked outside. He went on down to the corner, crossed to a telephone booth and checked for Villani. It was there, the right name, the right address.
George Villani!
Marilyn had a date with George. That tied in, but what did it mean? If she was double-crossing Morgan, what could she hope to gain by it? On the other hand, suppose she did not know? That could be the way these crooks found out about Richards and about him as well. She had simply told her boyfriend.
Morgan walked back to his car, then stopped short, his mouth dry and his stomach gone hollow. The thin, dark man, Vinson, was standing by the tree, and he had a gun in his hand. “Hello, Morgan! Looks like we’re going to get together, after all!”
He gestured. “Nice rig you got here—the hats and all. You had us fooled.”
“Then what made you stop?” Kip asked pleasantly.
“Your car. It looked familiar, and it was like one we saw when we left the warehouse. For luck we had a look. You shouldn’t leave your registration on the steering post.”
“Well, so here we are.” Morgan could not see the blond man, and that worried him. He had an idea that Gus was the tough one. This guy thought he was tough, and might be, but it was Gus who worried him. “You’d better put that rod away before somebody sees it.”
“There’s nobody around.” Vinson liked that. He clearly thought he had the casual tough guy act down pat. “You’ve been getting in my hair, Morgan. We don’t like guys who get in our hair.”
Kip shrugged, and the gun tilted a little. This guy was hair-triggered, and that might be both good and bad. “Getting in people’s hair is my business. Where’s Tom Marcy?”
“Marcy?” The question surprised Vinson. “I never heard of anybody named Marcy. What’s the angle?”
“Why, I am looking for him. That’s my job.” Morgan was alert and very curious. Obviously, the name surprised Vinson and puzzled him.
Vinson frowned. “I don’t get it, pal. We figured you for a—” He paused, catching himself on the word. “We had you figured for the fuzz.”
“Look,” Morgan protested, “there’s something screwy about this. I am looking for Marcy. If you don’t know him we’ve no business together. Let’s forget it. You go your way, and I’ll go mine, and everybody’ll be happy.”
“Are you nuts? We’re takin’ you someplace where we can ask some questions, and we’ll get answers.” His eyes flickered. “Here comes—”
Morgan moved, swinging down and across with his left hand. He slapped the gun aside and came up under the barrel with his right, missed the grab, but followed through with the butt of his palm under Vinson’s chin. The gangster’s heels flipped up, and he went down hard, the gun flying from his hand.
From behind him Kip heard running feet, and he threw himself over a hedge, sprinting across the lawn. He ducked behind a huge old tree, grabbed a heavy limb, and pulled himself up. Almost at once, both men rushed on by.
Motionless in the tree, scarcely daring to breathe, he waited. “You fool!” Gus was saying. “You should have shot him!”
He heard them searching through the brush, but the branches above seemed never to occur to them. Nearby, a dog began to bark, and a light went on in a house. With a mutter of angry voices, the two men headed for their car. He heard it start.
Leaning back against the tree trunk, he waited. There was the chance it had been some other car starting or that they had driven but a short distance and were waiting, watching. He was in no hurry now. He had plenty to think about.
George Villani was the boss. In whatever was going on, he was the man who gave the orders and did the planning. When a serious problem came up, they had immediately gone to him. And George Villani was dating Marilyn Marcy.
The whys of that he did not know, but it seemed obvious that through him the killers had learned of Vin Richards, and it must have been Marilyn who told him Morgan was holed up in that hotel.
He lowered himself to the grass, waited an instant to see if he was unobserved, then went along the hedge to the alley.
His car could wait until daylight. If they were watching, and he returned now, they would kill him without hesitation. Once in the alley near the street, he paused.
Marilyn was still next door, and he could hear the sounds of music and laughter from the house. A small party was in the process.
He hesitated, half in the notion of crashing the party, but his shirt was rumpled, and his clothes were dusty from crawling through old buildings. Crossing several streets, he caught a cab and returned to his apartment. For this night the room at the hotel would stay empty.
As he considered the situation, he became convinced Tom Marcy must have come upon some hint of danger threatening his sister. Perhaps he had established a connection between Villani and the disappearances of Day and Russell. Only that seemed a logical explanation for his sudden breaking of old habits and his subsequent investigations. The danger of his sister marrying a murderer had started his interest in the warehouse and the street of missing men.
Back in his apartment he took off his shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. The next day would be soon enough, but at that time he would have to bear down. He must discover why those men had vanished and what had become of Tom Marcy.
He slept, dreaming a dream of flames, of a scream in the night, of—
When he regained consciousness, he was lying on his face in the back of a van or delivery truck, and the first thing his eyes recognized was a shoe toe inches from his face. Closing his eyes, he lay still, pain throbbing in his skull.
Somehow they had traced him and gained access to his room without awakening him. Knocked out, he had been loaded in the truck and was being taken…where?
Listening, he decided by the lack of traffic sounds and the unbroken rate of speed that they were on a highway.
“What did he say to do with him?” Vinson was asking.
“Hold him. The boss needs to talk to him. He wants to know has he talked to anybody.”
Tentatively, Kip tested his muscles. His hands were tightly bound. He relaxed, letting the hammers on his skull pound away. Suddenly, the truck made an abrupt turn, and the road became rough. A gravel road and badly corrugated. The truck dipped several times, then began to climb in slow spirals, higher and higher.
The air was clear and cool. The truck made another turn, ran on for a short distance, and then came to a stop. Morgan let his muscles relax completely.
“Haul him out,” Vinson said. “I’ll light up.”
Gus opened the doors from within, dropped to the ground, then grabbed Morgan’s ankles and jerked him to the ground. He hit the road with a thump, and it had been all he could do to keep from crying out when his head bumped on the tailboard, then the ground. Gus grabbed him by the shirtfront and dragged him to a dugout where he opened the door and threw him down the steps into darkness. The door closed, the hasp dropped into place, and he was alone.
For what seemed a long time, he lay still; the throbbing in his head became a great sea of pain where wave after wave broke over him. His head felt enormous, and every move generated new pain. Through it, fear clawed away tearing with angry fingers at the pain that drowned his awareness, hammering for attention at the portals of his consciousness.
They would come back, Vinson and Gus. The only way to escape more pain and even death was to endure the pain now while he had freedom from their watching eyes.
He lunged, bucking with his bound body, then rolling over three times until he found himself against a tier of boxes or crates. Hunching himself to a sitting position, he began sawing at the sharp edge of the box. In his desperation, he jerked too far, and the edge scraped his wrist. Wildly, his pain driving reason from his mind, he fought to cut loose the ropes that bound him. They were good ropes and drawn too tight.
He struggled on. The close confines of the dugout made him pant, and sweat soaked his shirt and ran into his eyes, smarting and stinging. His muscles grew heavy with weariness, but he fought on, to no avail. So intent was he that he failed to hear the approaching footsteps, failed to hear the opening door. Not until the light flashed in his eyes did he look up, startled and afraid.
“Finally woke up, did you?” Gus walked over and jerked him away from the boxes. “Tryin’ to escape?” Gus booted him in the ribs.
With a knife, he slashed the ropes that bound Kip’s ankles, then jerked him to his feet. Morgan’s feet felt heavy, as though he wore diving boots. Gus put a hand between his shoulder blades and pushed him toward the door, and Morgan reached it in a stumbling run. The light of the flash shot past him, revealing the edge of a wash not fifty feet away.
A wash…or a canyon. Ten feet or two hundred. His stumbling run became a real run as he hurled himself, bending as far forward as he could, toward that edge and whatever awaited him.
There was a startled curse, then a yell, a momentary pause, and he veered sharply. A bullet slammed past him, and a gun barked. Kip left his feet in a long dive, hitting the edge in a roll that took him over the edge and sliding. He fell, brought up with a crunch and a mouthful of sand at the bottom of the wash. Lunging to his feet, wrists still bound behind him, he charged blindly into the darkness, down the wash. His feet were prickling with a thousand tiny needles at each step, but he ran, blindly, desperately, raw breath tearing at his lungs with each step.
Then, aware that his running was making too much sound, he slid to a stop, listening. There were running footsteps somewhere, and a shaft of light shot across the small plateau of a mine dump as the cabin door opened. He heard angry shouts; then a car started.
Kip Morgan had no idea where he was. His brain was pounding painfully, and he smarted from a dozen scratches and bruises. Yet he walked on, fighting his bonds with utter futility. The black maw of another wash opened on his right, and he turned into it. His feet found a steep path, and painstakingly he made his way up. Crouching to keep low, he crossed the skyline of the wash. He had no idea how far he walked, but he pushed on, wanting only distance between himself and his pursuers. As the first faint intimations of dawn lightened the sky, he crept around a boulder and, dropping to a sitting position, was almost immediately asleep.
The hot morning sun awakened him, and he staggered to his feet, aware of a dull throbbing in his hands. Twisting to get a look at them, he saw they were badly swollen and slightly blue. Frightened by the look of them, he looked around. Judging by the sun, he was on the eastern slope of a mountain. All about was desert, with no evidence of life anywhere. Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the morning.
Turning, he started to cross a shoulder of the mountain, sure he would find something on the western side. He must have been brought across to the eastern side during the night.
His mouth was dry, and he realized the intense heat, although only nine or ten o’clock was having its effect. Stumbling over and through the rocks, he saw a stretch of road. It was the merest trail with no tracks upon it, but it had to go somewhere, so he followed it. When he had walked no more than a mile, he rounded a turn in the road and found himself at an abandoned mine. There was a ramshackle hoist house and gallows frame. He stumbled toward it.
The door hung on rusty hinges, and a rusty cable hung from the shiv wheel. As he neared the buildings, a pack rat scurried away from the door.
The tracks of several small animals led toward the wall of the mountain beyond the small ledge on which the mine stood. Following them, he found a trickle of water running from a rusty pipe thrust into the wall. When he had drunk, he walked back to the hoist house, searching for something with which to cut his bonds. There was always, around such places, rusty tools, tin cans, all manner of castoffs.
On the floor was the blade of a round-point shovel.
Dropping to his knees, he backed his feet toward the shovel and got it between them. Holding it with his feet, he began to saw steadily. The pain was excruciating, but stubbornly he refused to ease off even for a moment, and after a few minutes the rope parted, and he stripped the pieces from his wrists. He brought his hand around in front of him and stared at them.
They were grotesquely swollen, puffed like a child’s boxing gloves, with a tight band around his wrists showing where the ropes had pressed into his flesh. Returning to the spring, he dropped on his knees and held his wrists under the cold, dripping water.
For a long time, he knelt, uncertain how much good it was doing but enjoying the feel of the cold water. Slowly, very gently, he began to massage his hands. Finally, he gave up.
Taking a long drink, he turned away from the mine, glancing about for a weapon. He found a short length of rusted drill steel. He thrust it into his belt and headed down the road, carrying his arms bent at the elbows and his hands shoulder high because they hurt less that way. After he had walked a few miles, they began to feel better. A few steps farther, he glimpsed a paved highway, and the first truck along picked him up. “Not supposed to carry anybody,” th
e trucker said, “but you look like you could use help. Filling station at the edge of town. Have to drop you there.”
Back in Marcy’s room, he ran the basin full of warm water to soak his hands. After a while, they began to feel better, and some of the swelling was gone. As they soaked, he considered the situation.
So far, he had learned little, but he seemed to have upset Villani and his men. No doubt they believed he knew more than he did. He was positive they had murdered Tom Marcy, but he had no evidence of any description beyond the presence of a pin-striped suit, which might or might not be Tom’s.
He might go and swear out a warrant for kidnaping and assault, but proving it would be something else with the kind of lawyers Villani would have.
What did he know? Three men had disappeared, at least two of them after answering ads to the warehouse. Vin Richards had been murdered, and undoubtedly the police were investigating that. Private detectives were not always popular with the police, but Vin Richards had himself been a police officer and a popular one. He had friends on the force who would not forget.
Digging out the clippings again, he studied them and once more he studied the clipping about the fire. That alone failed to fit. What could be the connection?
Suddenly, it hit him. What if the body in the fire had not been the owner, as was believed? What if the owner was involved in a plot to rook the insurance companies? With Villani supplying the bodies?
What about identification procedures? Fingerprints, teeth, measurements? Had the authorities checked out the bodies, or had they simply taken them for what they seemed to be? What did he mean, bodies? He had but one fire. Yet suppose there had been more?
Hastily, he dried his hands and took up the phone, dialing the number of the newspaper that published the item. In a matter of minutes, he had the name of the insurance company concerned. The city editor asked, “What’s the problem? Is there anything wrong up there?”
Morgan hesitated. The papers had always given him a fair shake during his fighting days, and some of their reporters were better investigators than he was and had ready access to the files.
Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) Page 14
