the Hills Of Homicide (Ss) (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  She nodded slowly. "Yes, it may work." She looked at him doubtfully. "But what if what do you think he will do?"

  Morgan shrugged. He had thought about that a lot. "Who knows? He will try to find out who it is that knows something. He will want to know how many know. If he discovers it is just we two, he will probably try another murder."

  "Are you afraid?"

  Kip shrugged. "Not yet, but I will be. Scared as a man can be, but that won't stop me."

  "And that goes for me, too!" she said.

  The ad appeared first in the morning paper. It was brief and to the point, and it appeared in the middle of the real estate ads. (Everybody reads real estate advertisements in Los Angeles.) The type was heavy. It read:

  *

  HENRY WILLARD

  Who was in Newark in 1943? Come to Room 1340 Hayworthy Hotel and learn something of interest.

  Kip Morgan sat in the room and waited. Beside him were several paperback detective novels and a few magazines. His coat was off and lying on the table at his right. Under the coat was his shoulder holster and the butt of his gun, where he could drop a hand on it.

  Down the hall, in a room with its door open a crack, waited three newsboys. They were members of a club where Kip Morgan taught boxing. Outside, the newsboy on the corner was keeping his eyes open, and three other boys loitered together, talking.

  Noon slipped past, and it was almost three o'clock when the phone rang. It was the switchboard operator.

  "Mr. Morgan? This is the operator. You asked us to report if anyone inquired as to who was stopping in that room? We have just had a call, a man's voice. We replied as suggested that it was John Smith but he was receiving no calls."

  "Fine!" Kip hung up and walked to the window.

  It was working. The call might have come from some curious person or some crank, but he didn't think so.

  He rang for a bottle of beer and was tipped back in a chair with a magazine half in front of his face when the door opened. It was a bellman.

  Alert, Kip noticed how the bellman stared at him, then around the room. The instant the door closed after him, Kip was on his feet. He went to the door and gave his signal. The bellman had scarcely reached the elevator before a nice-looking youngster of fourteen in a blue serge suit was at his elbow, also waiting.

  A few minutes later, the boy was at Kip's door. His eyes were bright and eager.

  "Mr. Morgan! The bellman went to the street, looked up and down, then walked to a Chevrolet sedan and spoke to the man sitting in the car. The man gave him some money.

  "I talked to Tom, down on the corner, and he said the car had been there about a half hour. It just drove up and stopped. Nobody got out.- He reached in his pocket. "Here's the license number."

  "Thanks." Kip picked up the phone and called, then sat down.

  A few minutes later, the call was returned. The car was a rental. And, he reflected, certainly rented under an assumed name.

  The day passed slowly. At dusk, he paid the boys of and started them home, to return the next day. Then he wentdown to the coffee shop and ate slowly and thoughtfully. After paying his check, he walked outside.

  He must not go anywhere near Helen Whitson. He would take a walk around the block and return to the hotel room. It had been stuffy, and his head ached. He turned left and started walking. He had gone less than half a block when he heard a quick step behind him.

  Startled by the quickening steps, he whirled. Dark shadows moved at him, and before he could get his hands up, he was slugged over the head. Even as he fell to the walk, he remembered there had been a flash from a green stone on his attacker's hand, a stone that caught some vagrant light ray.

  He hit the walk hard and started to get up. The man struck again, and then again. Kip's knees gave way, and he slipped into a widening pool of darkness, fighting to hold his consciousness. Darkness and pain, a sense of moving. Slowly, he fought his way to awareness.

  "Hey, Bill." The tone was casual. "He's comin' out of it. Shall I slug him again?"

  "No, I want to talk to the guy."

  Bill's footsteps came nearer, and Kip Morgan opened his eyes and sat up.

  Bill was a big man with shoulders like a pro football player and a broken nose. His cheeks were lean, his eyes cold and unpleasant. The other man was shorter, softer, with a round, fat face and small eyes.

  "Hil" Kip said. "Who you boys workin' for?"

  Bill chuckled. "Wakes right up, doesn't he? Starts asldn' questions right away." He studied Morgan thoughtfully, searching his mind for recognition. "What we want to know is who you're workin' for. Talk and you can blow out of here."

  "Yes? Don't kid me, chum! The guy who hired you yeggs hasn't any idea of lettin' me get away. I'm not workin' for anybody. I work for myself."

  "You goin' to talk or take a beatin'?"

  His attitude said plainly that he was highly indifferent to the reply. Sooner or later, this guy was going to crack, and if they had to give him a beating first, why, that was part of the day's work.

  "We know there's a babe in this. You was seen with her."

  "Her?" Kip laughed. "You boys are way off the track. She's just a babe I was on the make for, but I didn't score. Private dicks are too poor.

  "This case was handed to me by an agency in Newark, an agency that does a lot of work for banks."

  He glanced up at Bill. "Why let yourself in for trouble? Don't you know what this is? It's a murder rap."

  Not miner Bill said. The fat man glanced at him, worried.

  "Ever hear of an accessory? That's where you guys come in."

  "Who was the babe?" Bill insisted.

  Kip was getting irritated. "None of your damn business!" he snapped, and came off the cot with a lunge.

  Bill took a quick step back, but Kip was coming too fast, and he clipped the big man with a right that knocked him back into the wall.

  The fat man came off his chair, clawing at his hip, and Kip backhanded him across the nose with the edge of his hand. He felt the bone break and saw the gush of blood that followed. The fat man whimpered like a baby, and Kip ducked a left from Bill and slammed a fist into the big man's midsection. Bill took it with a grunt and threw a left that Kip slipped, countering with a right cross that split Bill's eye.

  "A boxer, huh?"

  He caught Kip with a glancing left, then closed. The big man's arms went around him, and his chin dug into Kip's shoulder as the larger man began pressing him back. Morgan got one hand free and hooked to Bill's ear, then chopped a blow to the man's kidney with the edge of his hand. He jerked, trying to worm to one side, then kicked up his feet and fell.

  The move caught the bigger man by surprise and sent him sprawling, clawing air for support. Kip was on his feet and coming up when the fat man hit him. He felt blood stream into his eyes, but he caught the fat man by the belt, jerked him forward, then shot him back with all the force of his arm. The fat man hit the table and fell just as Kip turned to see Bill swinging a chair at him. He dropped to one knee, and the force of Bill's rush carried him over Kip's back to the floor.

  Kip got up then, pawing blood from his eyes. This was his dish. Several years on the waterfronts and working with circus roughneck gangs had prepared him for it. He got the blood out of his eyes, and as the fat man started to rise, he kicked him in the neck. If they wanted trouble, they could have it.

  Bill was on his feet, and when Kip looked around, he was looking into Bill's gun. Kip never stopped moving. When the gun went off, he felt the sting of powder on, his face, and the roar filled his ears; but the bullet missed, and then Kip swung a right, low down, for Bill's stomach. He was coming in with the punch, and it sank to the wrist bone. The gun flew into the air, and Bill started to fall. Kip grabbed him, thrust him against the wall with his left, and hit him three times in the stomach with all the power he could muster. Then he stepped back and hit him in the face with both hands.

  Bill slumped to a sitting position, bloody and battered. Kip glanced quickly
at the fat man. He was lying on the floor, groaning. Morgan grabbed Bill and hoisted him into a chair.

  "All right, talk!" Morgan's breath was coming in gasps. "Talk or I start punching!"

  Bill's head rolled back, but he lifted a hand. "Don't! I'll talk! The money . . . it was in an envelope. The bartender at the Casino gave it to me. There was a note. Said to get you, make you tell who you worked for, and we'd get another five hundred."

  If you're lyin'," Kip said, "I'll come lookin' for you!" "If you do, you'd better pack a heater! I'll have one!" Kip took up his battered hat and put it on his head, then retrieved his gun as he was going out and thrust it into his shoulder holster.

  He stepped outside and looked around. He had been in a shanty in the country. Where town was he did not know. Where The shot sounded an instant after he heard the angry whip of a bullet past his ear. As he dropped, he heard the roar of a motor. Instantly, he was on his feet, gun in hand, running to the road. He was just in time to see a car whip around a corner and vanish up the highway. Without a glance back, he started after it, walking over the rutted country road.

  On the highway, he shoved the gun back in its holster and straightened his clothing. Pulling his tie around, he drew the knot back into place and stuffed his shirt back into his pants. Gingerly, he felt of his face. One eye was swollen, and there was blood on his face from a cut on his scalp. Wiping it away with his handkerchief, he started up the road. He had gone but a short distance when a car swung alongside him.

  "Want a lift?" a cheery voice sang out.

  He got in gratefully, and the driver stared at him. He was a big, sandy-haired man with a jovial face.

  "What happened to you? Accident?"

  "Not really. It was done on purpose."

  "Lucky I happened along. You're in no shape to walk. Better get into town and file a report." He drove on a little way. "What happened? Holdup?"

  "Not exactly. I'm a private detective."

  "Oh? On a case, huh? I don't think I'd care for that kind of work."

  The car picked up speed. Kip laid his head back. Suddenly, he was very tired. He nodded a little, felt the car begin to climb.

  The man at the wheel continued to talk, his voice droning along, talking of crimes and murders and movies about them. Kip, half asleep, replied in monosyllables. Through the drone of talk, the question slipped into his consciousness even as he answered, and for a startled moment, his head still hanging on his chest, the question and answer came back to him.

  "Who are you working for?" the driver had asked.

  And mumbling, only half awake, he had said, "Helen Whitson."

  As realization hit him, his head came up with a jerk, and he stared into the malevolent blue eyes of the big man at the wheel. He saw the gun coming up. With a yell, hestruck it aside with his left hand, and his right almost automatically pushed down on the door handle. The next instant, he was sprawling in the road.

  He staggered to his feet, grabbing for his own gun. The holster was empty. His gun must have fallen out when he spilled into the road. A gun bellowed, and he staggered and went over the bank just as the man fired again.

  How far he fell, he did not know, but it was all of thirty feet of rolling, bumping, and falling. He brought up with a jolt, hearing a trickle of gravel and falling rock. Then he saw the shadow of the big man on the edge of the road. In a minute, he would be coming down. The shape disappeared, and he heard the man fumbling in his glove compartment.

  A flashlight! He was getting a flashlight!

  Kip staggered to his feet, slipping between two clumps of brush just as the light stabbed the darkness. Catlike, he moved away. Every step was agony, for he seemed to have hurt one ankle in the fall. His skull was throbbing with waves of pain. He forced himself to move, to keep going.

  Now he heard the trickle of gravel as the man came down the steep bank. Stepping lightly, favoring the wounded ankle, he eased away through the brush, careful to make no sound. Somewhere he could hear water falling, and there was a loom of cliffs. The big man was not using the flashlight now but was stalking him as a hunter stalks game.

  Kip crouched, listening, like a wounded animal. Then he felt a loose tree limb at his feet. Gently, he placed it in the crotch of a low bush so it stuck out across the way the hunter was coming. Feeling around, he found a rock the size of his fist.

  Footsteps drew nearer, cautious steps and heavy breathing. Listening, Kip gained confidence. The man was no woodsman. Pain wracked his head, and his tongue felt clumsily at his split and swollen lips.

  Carefully, soundlessly, Kip moved back. The other man did what he hoped. He walked forward, blundered into the limb, and tripped, losing his balance. Kip swung the rock, and it hit, but not on the man's head. The gun fired, the shot missing, and Kip hobbled away.

  He reached the creek and followed it down. Ahead of him, a house loomed. He heard someone speaking from the porch. "That sounded like a shot. Right up the canyon!"

  He waited; then, after a long time, a car's motor started up. Kip started for the house in a staggering run. He stumbled up to the porch and banged on the door.

  A tall, fine-looking man with gray hair opened it. "Got to get into town and quick! There's going to be a murder if I don't!"

  Giving the man's wife Helen Whitson's number to call, he got into the car.

  All the way into town he knotted his hands together, staring at the road. He had been back up one of the canyons. Which one or how far, he did not know. He needed several minutes to show the man identification and to get him to drive him into town. It had taken more effort to get the man to lend him a gun.

  However, the older man could drive, and did. Whining and wheeling around curves and down the streets, he finally leveled out on the street where Helen Whitson lived. As they turned the corner, Kip saw the car parked in front of the house. The house was dark.

  "Let me out here and go for the police!"

  Moving like a ghost despite the injured ankle, Kip crossed the lawn and moved up to the house. The front door was closed. He slipped around to the side where he found a door standing open. He got inside, and as he eased up three steps, he heard a gasp and saw a glimmer of light. "Hello, Helen!" a man's voice said.

  "You, Henry!"

  "Yes, Helen, it has been a long time. Too bad you could not let well enough alone. If your husband hadn't been such an honest fool, I could not have tricked him as I did. And this detective of yours is a blunderer!"

  "Where is Morgan? What have you done to him?" "I've killed him, I believe. Anyway, with you dead, I'll feel safer. I was afraid this might happen so I have plans to disappear again, if necessary. But first I must kill you." Kip Morgan had reached the door, turning into it gradually. Helen's eyes found him, but she permitted no flicker of expression to warn Willard. Then a board creaked, and Willard turned. Before he could fire, Kip knocked the gun from his hand, then handed his own to Helen.

  "I want you," Morgan said, "for the chair!"

  The big man lunged for him, but Kip hit him left and right in the face. The man squealed like a stuck pig and stumbled back, his face bloody. Morgan walked in and hit him three times. Desperately, the big man pawed to get him off, and Kip jerked him away from the bed and hit him again.

  A siren cut the night with a slash of sound, and almost in the instant they heard it, the car was slithering to a stop outside.

  Helen pulled her robe around her, her face pale. Kip Morgan picked up Willard and shoved him against the wall. Hatred blazed in his eyes, but what strength there had been four years before had been sapped by easy living. The door opened, and two plainclothes detectives entered, followed by some uniformed officers.

  The first one stopped abruptly. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

  "Lieutenant Brady, isn't it?" Kip said. "This man is Henry Willard, and there is a murder rap hanging over him from New Jersey. Also, a fifty-thousand-dollar payroll robbery!"

  "Willard? This man is James Howard Kendall. He owns the Mario Din
e & Dance spot and about a dozen other things around town. Known him since he was a kid. I was just a couple of years older than he was."

  "He went back East, took the name Willard, and " -Brady," Willard interrupted, "this is a case of mistaken identity. You know me perfectly well. Take this man in. I want to prefer charges of assault and battery. I'll be in first thing in the morning."

  "You'll leave over my dead body!" Kip declared. He turned to Brady. "He told Mrs. Whitson that he had already made plans to disappear again if need be."

  "Morgan, I've known Mr. Kendall for years, now " "Ask him what he is doing in this house. Ask him how he came to drive up here in the night and enter a dark house."

  Kendall hesitated only a moment. "Brady, I met this girl only tonight, made a date with her. This is an attempt at a badger game."

  "Mighty strange," the gray-haired man who had driven Kip to town interrupted. "Might strange way to run a badger game. This man" he indicated Kip "staggered onto my porch half beaten to death and asked me to rush him to town to prevent a murder. It was he who sent me for the police. This house was dark when he started for it." "All you will need are his fingerprints," Kip said. "This man murdered a payroll guard, changed clothes with the murdered man. Then he took the money and came back here and went into business with the proceeds from the robbery."

  "Ah? Maybe you've got something, Morgan. We always wondered how he came into that money."

  Kendall wheeled and leaped for the window, hurling himself through it, shattering it on impact. He had made but two jumps when Morgan swept up the gun and fired. The man fell, sprawling.

  "You've killed him!" Brady said.

  "No, just a broken leg. He's all yours."

  As the police left, Kip turned to Helen Whitson. "You did it! I knew you could! And you've earned that five thousand dollars!"