The Paul Cain Omnibus

by Cain, Paul

  He waited until she had crossed to him, smiled ingenuously. “Gerry in the hay, baby,” he said gently. “Mister Kells in public.”

  She laughed softly—a metallic softness.

  Kells said, “Did you get my note?”

  “Uh-huh.” She spoke rapidly, huskily. “I woke up right after you left, I guess. Your phone’s been raising bloody hell. I’m going home and get some sleep….”

  She held out a closed black-gloved hand, and Kells took his key.

  He said: “Come on back upstairs—I’ve found a swell spot for your stuff.”

  “Oh yeah?” Her face brightened.

  They went to the elevator and up to Kells’ room. Granquist sat in a low, steel-gray leather chair with her back to the windows, and Kells walked up and down.

  “L.D. Fenner has been the boss of this town for about six years,” he said. “The reform element moved in last election, but Fenner’s kept things pretty well under control—he has beautiful connections all the way to Washington….”

  Kells paused while Granquist took out tobacco and papers, started to roll a cigarette.

  “You wanted to sell your stuff to Rainey for five grand,” he went on. “If it’s as good as you think it is, we can get fifteen from Fenner…. That’s ten for you and five for me”—he smiled a little—“as your agent….”

  Granquist said: “I was drunk when I talked to Rainey. Fifteen’s chicken-feed. If you want to help me handle this the way it should be handled, we can get fifty.”

  “You have big ideas, baby. Let’s keep this practical.”

  Granquist lighted her cigarette. She said: “How would you like to buy me a drink?”

  Kells went into the dressing room and took two bottles of whiskey out of a drawer. He tore off the tissue paper wrappings and went back into the room and put them on a table.

  “One for you and one for me,” he said. He took a corkscrew out of his pocket.

  The phone buzzed.

  Kells went to the phone, and Granquist got up and took off her gloves and began opening the bottles.

  Kells said: “Hello…. Yes—fine, Stella…. Who? … Not Kuhn, Stella—maybe it’s Cullen…. Yeah…. Put him on.” He waited a moment, said: “Hello, Willie…. Sure….” He laughed quietly. “No, your car’s all right. I’ll send one of the boys in the garage out with it, or bring it out myself if I have time…. I’m taking a powder…. The Chief: six o’clock…. Uh-huh, they’re too tough out here for me. I’m going back to Times Square where it’s quiet…. Okay, Willie. Thanks, luck—all that sort of thing…G’bye.”

  He hung up, went to the table and picked up one of the opened bottles. He said: “Do you want a glass or a funnel?”

  Granquist took the other bottle and sat down. She jerked her head towards the phone. “Was that on the square—you’re going?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You’re a sap.” She tilted the bottle to her mouth, gurgled.

  Kells went to a little table against one wall, took two glasses from a tray and went back and put them on the center table. He poured one of them half full. “No, darling—I’m a very bright fella.” He drank. “I’m going to get myself a lot of air while I can. The combination’s too strong. I’m not ambitious….”

  “You’re a sap.”

  Kells went to a closet and took out two traveling bags, a large suitcase. He took the drawers out of a small wardrobe trunk, put them on chairs.

  “You’d run out on a chance to split fifty grand?” Granquist was elaborately incredulous.

  Kells started taking things out of closets, putting them in the trunk. “Your information is worth more to Fenner than anyone else,” he said. “If it’s worth that much, he’ll probably pay it. You can send me mine….”

  “No, goddamn it! You stay here and help me swing this or you don’t get a nickel.”

  Kells stopped packing, turned wide eyes toward Granquist. “Listen, baby,” he said slowly, “I’ve got a nickel. I’m getting along swell legitimately. You take your bottle and your extortion racket and scram.”

  Granquist laughed. She got up and went to Kells and put her arms around his body. She didn’t say anything, just looked at him and laughed.

  The wide, wild look went out of his eyes slowly. He smiled. He said: “What makes you think it’s worth that much?”

  Then he put her arms away gently and went to the table and poured two drinks.

  At six o’clock the Chief pulled out of the Santa Fe station for Chicago. At about six-forty Kells dropped Granquist at her apartment house on the corner of Wilcox and Yucca.

  “Meet you in an hour at the Derby.”

  She said: “Okay—adiós.”

  Kells drove up Wilcox to Cahuenga, up Cahuenga to Iris, turned up the short curving slope to Cullen’s house. The garage doors were open, he drove the car in and then went up and rang the bell. No one answered. He went back down and closed the garage doors and walked down to Cahuenga, down Cahuenga to Franklin.

  He stood on the corner for a little while and then went into a delicatessen and called a Hempstead number. The line was busy, he waited a few minutes, called again.

  He said: “Hello, the Mrs Perry…. Swell…. Listen: I’m going to be very busy tonight—I’ve got about a half hour…. You come out and walk up to Las Palmas, and if you’re sure you’re not tailed come up Las Palmas to Franklin…. If you’re not absolutely sure take a walk or something…. I’ll give you a ring late…. Yeah….”

  He went out and walked over Franklin to Las Palmas. He walked back and forth between Las Palmas and Highland for ten minutes and then walked down the west side of Las Palmas to Hollywood Boulevard. He didn’t see anything of Ruth Perry.

  He went on down Las Palmas to Sunset, east to Vine and up Vine to the Brown Derby.

  Granquist was in a booth, far back, on the left.

  She said: “I ordered oysters.”

  Kells sat down. “That’s fine.” He nodded to an acquaintance at a nearby table.

  “A couple minutes after you left me,” she said, “a guy came into my place and asked the girl at the desk who I was. She said, ‘Who wants to know?’ and he said he had seen me come in and thought I was an old friend of his….”

  “And….”

  “And I haven’t got any old friends.”

  “What’d he look like?” Kells was reading the menu.

  “The girl isn’t very bright. All she could remember was that he had on a gray suit and a gray cap.”

  Kells said: “That’s a pipe—it was one of the Barrymores.”

  “No.” Granquist shook her head very seriously. “It might have been a copper who tailed us from your hotel, or it might have been one of—”

  Kells interrupted her suddenly. “Did you leave the stuff in your apartment?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Kells said, “Anyway—we’ve got to do whatever’s to be done with it tonight. I’m getting the noon train tomorrow.”

  “We’re getting the noon train.”

  Kells smiled, looked at her for a little while. He said: “When you can watch a lady eat oysters, and still think she’s swell—that’s love.”

  He ordered the rest of the dinner.

  Granquist carried a smart black bag. She opened it and took out a big silver flask, poured drinks under the table. “Just to keep our winnings turning,” she said.

  The dinner was very good. After a while, Granquist asked with exaggerated seriousness: “Have I told you the story of my life?”

  “No—but I’ve heard one.” Kells was drinking his coffee, watching the door.

  “All right. You tell me.”

  Kells said, “I was born of rich but honest parents….”

  “You can skip that.”

  He grinned at her. “I came back from France,” he said, “with a lot of sharp-shooting medals, a beautiful case of shell shock and a morphine habit you could hang your hat on.”

  He gestured with his hands. “All gone.”

 
“Even the medals?”

  He nodded. “The State kept them as souvenirs of my first trial.”

  Granquist poured two drinks.

  “I happened to be too close to a couple of front-page kills,” Kells went on. “There was a lot of dumb sleuthing and a lot of dumb talk. It got so, finally, when the New York police couldn’t figure a shooting any other way, I was it.”

  Granquist was silent, smiling.

  “They got tired trying to hang them on me after the first three, but the whisper went on. It got to be known as the Kells Inside….”

  “And at heart you’re just a big, sympathetic boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded his head slowly, emphatically. His face was expressionless. “Me—I’m Napoleon.” Granquist took a powder puff out of the bag and rubbed it over her nose.

  Kells beckoned a waiter, paid the check. “And beyond the Alps lies Italy,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  It was raining a little.

  Kells held Granquist close to him. “The Manhattan is just around the corner on Ivar,” he said,”but I’m going to put you in a cab and I want you to go down to Western Avenue and get out and walk until you’re sure you’re not being followed. Then get another cab and come to the Manhattan. I’ll be in ten-sixteen.”

  The doorman held a big umbrella for them and they walked across the wet sidewalk and Granquist got into a cab.

  Kells stood in the thin rain until the cab had turned the corner down Hollywood Boulevard, then he went back into the restaurant.

  Ruth Perry was sitting in the corner booth behind the cashier’s desk. She didn’t say anything. Kells sat down. There was a newspaper on the table and he turned it around, glanced at the headlines. He said: “What do you think about the Chinese situation?”

  “Who was that?” Ruth Perry inclined her head slightly towards the door.

  Kells put his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “None of your business, darling,” he said. He looked up at her and smiled. “Now keep your pants on. I stand to make a ten or fifteen thousand dollar lick tonight, and that one—” he gestured with his head toward the door—“is a very important part of the play.”

  Ruth Perry didn’t say anything. She leaned back and looked at the ceiling and laughed a little bit.

  Presently she said, “What are you going to do about Dave?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m not going to go on that stand and lay myself open to a perjury rap.”

  Kells shook his head. “You won’t have to, baby. The trial won’t come up for a month or so and we can spring Dave before that”—he smiled with his mouth—“if you want to.”

  They were silent a little while.

  Then Kells said: “I’ve got to go now—call you around twelve.”

  He got up and went out into the rain. He walked up to the corner of Vine and Hollywood Boulevard and went into the drugstore and bought some aspirin. He took two five-grain tablets and then went out and crossed the Boulevard and walked up Vine Street about a hundred yards. Then he crossed the street and walked back down to the parking station next to the Post Office. He stood on the sidewalk watching people across the street for a little while, then went swiftly back through the parking station and down the ramp to the garage under the Manhattan Hotel.

  He got out of the elevator on the tenth floor and knocked at the door of ten-sixteen. Fenner opened the door.

  Fenner said: “Well, Mister Kells—you didn’t catch your train.” He smiled and bowed Kells in.

  They sat in the big living room and Fenner poured drinks. He poured three drinks and leaned back and said, “Where’s the little lady?”

  “She’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  Someone came out of the bathroom and through the bedroom. Fenner got up and introduced a dark medium-sized man that came in. “This is Mister Jeffers—God’s gift to Womanhood…. Mister Kells.”

  Kells stood up and shook hands with Jeffers. He was a motion picture star who had had a brief and spectacular career; had been on the way out for nearly a year. He was drunk. He said: “It is a great pleasure to meet a real gunman, Mister Kells.”

  Kells glanced at Fenner and Fenner shook his head slightly, smiled apologetically. Kells sat down and sipped his whiskey.

  Jeffers said: “I’m going up and get Lola.” He took up his glass and went unsteadily out of the room, through the small hallway, out the outer door.

  “You mustn’t mind Jeffers.”

  Kells said: “Sure.” Then he leaned back in his chair and stared vacantly at Fenner. “Have you got twenty-five grand in cash?”

  Fenner looked at him very intently. Then he smiled slowly and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Why?”

  “Can you get it—tonight?”

  “Well—possibly. I—”

  Kells interrupted him, spoke rapidly. “I’ve talked to the lady. She’s got enough on Bellmann to run him out of politics—out of the state, by God! You’re getting first crack at it because I have a hunch he isn’t sitting so pretty financially. It’s the keys to the city for you—it’s in black and white—an’ it’s a bargain.”

  “You seem to have a more than casual interest in this….”

  Kells nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said, smiled. “I’m the fiscal agent.”

  Fenner stood up and walked up and down the room, his hands clasped behind him, a lecture platform expression on his face.

  “You forget, Mister Kells, that the Common People—the voters—are not fully informed of Bellmann’s connections, his power in the present administration.”

  “That’s what your Coast Guardian’s for.”

  Fenner stopped in front of Kells. “Just what form does this, uh—incriminating information take?” Kells shook his head slowly. “You’ll have to take my word for that,” he said. He leaned forward and put his empty glass on the table.

  The doorbell rang. Fenner went out into the hall, followed Granquist back into the room. Kells got up and introduced her to Fenner, and Fenner took her coat into the bedroom and then came back and poured drinks for all of them.

  “Mister Kells has raised the ante to twenty-five thousand,” he said. He smiled boyishly at Granquist.

  She took her drink and sat down. She raised the glass to her mouth. “Hey, hey.”

  They all drank.

  Granquist took a sack of Durham, papers out of her bag, rolled a cigarette.

  Fenner said: “Of course I can’t enter into a proposition involving so much money without knowing definitely what I’m getting.”

  “You put twenty-five thousand dollars in cash on the line and you get enough to put the election on ice.” Kells got up and went over to one of the windows. He turned and went on very earnestly: “And it’s a hell of a long ways from that now.”

  Fenner pursed his lips, smiled a little. “Well—now….”

  “And it’s got to be done tonight.”

  Granquist got up and put her empty glass on the table.

  Fenner said: “Help yourself, help yourself.”

  She filled the two glasses on the table with whiskey and ice and White Rock. She said: “Do you let strangers use your bathroom?”

  Fenner took her through the hallway to the bedroom and turned on the light in the bath. He came back and sat down and picked up the telephone, asked for Mister Dillon. When the connection was made, he said: “I want you to bring up the yellow sealed envelope that’s in the safe…. Yes, please—and bring it yourself.” He hung up and turned to Kells. “All right,” he said. “I’ll play with you.”

  Kells sat down and crossed his legs. He studied the glistening toe of his left shoe, said: “It’s going to sound like a fairy tale.” He looked up at Fenner. “Bellmann’s a very smart guy. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be where he is.”

  Fenner nodded impatiently.

  Kells said: “The smarter they are, the sappier the frame they’ll go for. Bellmann spent weekend before last at Jack Rose’s cab
in at Big Bear.” He leaned forward and took his glass from the table. “Rose has been trying to get a feeler to him for a long time, has tried to reach him through his own friends. A few weeks ago Rose took a big place on the lake, not far from Bellmann’s, invited Hugg and MacAlmon—Mac is very close to Bellmann—up for the fishing, or what have you. They all dropped in on Bellmann in a spirit of neighborliness, and he decided that he’d been wrong about Rose all these years. Next day he returned the call. When Hugg and Mac came back to the city, they left Rose and Bellmann like that”—he held up two slim fingers pressed close together.

  Granquist came in, sat down.

  Kells turned his head in her direction. Without letting his eyes focus directly on her, he said: “That’s where baby comes in.”

  Fenner lighted a cigarette, coughed out smoke.

  “She came out with friends of Rose from K.C.,” Kells went on. “Bellmann met her at Rose’s and took her big. That was Rose’s cue. He threw a party—one of those intimate, quiet little affairs—Rose and a showgirl, Bellmann and”—he smiled faintly at Granquist—“this one. They all got stiff—I don’t mean drunk, I mean stiff. And what do you suppose happened?”

  Kells paused, grinned happily at Fenner. “Miss Granquist had her little camera along, took a lot of snapshots.” He turned his grin towards Granquist. “Miss Dipsomania Granquist stayed sober enough to snap her little camera.”

  Fenner got up and took Granquist’s empty glass, filled it. He looked very serious.

  Kells went on. “Of course it all came back to Rose in the morning. He asked about the pictures and she gave him a couple rolls of film that she’d stuck into the camera during the night, clicked with the lens shut, blanks. She discovered that the lens wasn’t open when she gave them to him, they had one of those morning after laughs about it. Bellmann had a dark green hangover; he didn’t even remember about the pictures until a day or so later, and then he wrote Miss Granquist a couple of hot letters with casual postscripts: ‘How did the snapshots turn out, darling?’ cracks like that.”

  Kells got up, stretched. “You see, it gets better as it goes along.”

  “What are the pictures like?” Fenner was standing near Granquist, his little pointed chin thrust towards Kells.