NINE
Black and silver curtains opened in an inverted V against a haze of cigarette and cigar smoke. The brasses of the dance band shot brief flashes of color through the haze. There was a smell of food and liquor and perfume and face powder. The dance floor was an empty splash of amber light and looked slightly larger than a screen star’s bath mat.
Then the band started up and the lights went down, and a headwaiter came up the carpeted steps tapping a gold pencil against the satin stripe of his trousers. He had narrow, lifeless eyes and blond-white hair sleeked back off a bony forehead.
Dalmas said: “I’d like to see Mister Donner.”
The headwaiter tapped his teeth with his gold pencil. “I’m afraid he’s busy. What name?”
“Dalmas. Tell him I’m a special friend of Johnny Sutro’s.”
The headwaiter said: “I’ll try.”
He went across to a panel that had a row of buttons on it and a small one-piece phone. He took it off the hook and put it to his ear, staring at Dalmas across the cup with the impersonal stare of a stuffed animal.
Dalmas said: “I’ll be in the lobby.”
He went back through the curtains and prowled over to the Men’s Room. Inside he got out the bottle of bourbon and drank what was left of it, tilting his head back and standing splaylegged in the middle of the tiled floor. A wizened Negro in a white jacket fluttered at him, said anxiously: “No drinkin’ in here, boss.”
Dalmas threw the empty bottle into a receptacle for towels. He took a clean towel off the glass shelf, wiped his lips with it, put a dime down on the edge of the basin and went out.
There was a space between an inner and outer door. He leaned against the outer door and took a small automatic about four inches long out of his vest pocket. He held it with three fingers against the inside of his hat and went on out, swinging the hat gently beside his body.
After a while a tall Filipino with silky black hair came into the lobby and looked around. Dalmas went towards him. The headwaiter looked out through the curtains and nodded at the Filipino.
The Filipino spoke to Dalmas: “This way, boss.”
They went down a long, quiet corridor. The sound of the dance band died away behind them. Some deserted green-topped tables showed through an open door. The corridor turned into another that was at right angles, and at the end of this one some light came out through a doorway.
The Filipino paused in midstride and made a graceful, complicated movement, at the end of which he had a big, black automatic in his hand. He prodded it politely into Dalmas’ ribs.
“Got to frisk you, boss. House rules.”
Dalmas stood still and held his arms out from his sides. The Filipino took Dalmas’ Colt away from him and dropped it into his pocket. He patted the rest of Dalmas’ pockets, stepped back and holstered his own cannon.
Dalmas lowered his arms and let his hat fall on the floor and the little automatic that had been inside the hat peered neatly at the Filipino’s belly. The Filipino looked down at it with a shocked grin.
Dalmas said: That was fun, spig. Let me do it.
He put his Colt back where it belonged, took the big automatic from under the Filipino’s arm, slipped the magazine out of it and ejected the shell that was in the chamber. He gave the empty gun back to the Filipino.
“You can still use it for a sap. If you stay in front of me, your boss don’t have to know that’s all it’s good for.”
The Filipino licked his lips. Dalmas felt him for another gun, and they went on along the corridor, went in at the door that was partly open. The Filipino went first.
It was a big room with walls paneled in diagonal strips of wood. A yellow Chinese rug on the floor, plenty of good furniture, countersunk doors that told of soundproofing, and no windows. There were several gilt gratings high up and a builtin ventilator fan made a faint, soothing murmur. Four men were in the room. Nobody said anything.
Dalmas sat down on a leather divan and stared at Ricchio, the smooth boy who had walked him out of Walden’s apartment. Ricchio was tied to a high-backed chair. His arms were pulled around behind it and fastened together at the wrists. His eyes were mad and his face was a welter of blood and bruises. He had been pistol whipped. The sandyhaired man, Noddy, who had been with him at the Kilmarnock sat on a sort of stool in the corner, smoking.
John Sutro was rocking slowly in a red leather rocker, staring down at the floor. He did not look up when Dalmas came into the room.
The fourth man sat behind a desk that looked as if it had cost a lot of money. He had soft brown hair parted in the middle and brushed back and down; thin lips and reddish-brown eyes that had hot lights in them. He watched Mallory while he sat down and looked around. Then he spoke, glancing at Ricchio.
“The punk got a little out of hand. We’ve been telling him about it. I guess you’re not sorry.”
Dalmas laughed shortly, without mirth. “All right as far as it goes, Donner. How about the other one? I don’t see any marks on him.”
“Noddy’s all right. He worked under orders,” Donner said evenly. He picked up a long-handled file and began to file one of his nails. “You and I have things to talk about. That’s why you got in here. You look all right to me—if you don’t try to cover too much ground with your private-dick racket.”
Dalmas’ eyes widened a little. He said: “I’m listening, Donner.”
Sutro lifted his eyes and stared at the back of Donner’s head. Donner went on talking in a smooth indifferent voice.
“I know all about the play at Derek Walden’s place and I know about the shooting on Kenmore. If I’d thought Ricchio would go that crazy, I’d have stopped him before. As it is, I figure it’s up to me to straighten things out … And when we get through here Mister Ricchio will go downtown and speak his piece.
“Here’s how it happened. Ricchio used to work for Walden when the Hollywood crowd went in for bodyguards. Walden bought his liquor in Ensenada—still does, for all I know—and brought it in himself. Nobody bothered him. Ricchio saw a chance to bring in some white goods under good cover. Walden caught him at it. He didn’t want a scandal, so he just showed Ricchio the gate. Ricchio took advantage of that by trying to shake Walden down, on the theory that he wasn’t clean enough to stand the working-over the Feds would give him. Walden didn’t shake fast enough to suit Ricchio, so he went hog-wild and decided on a strongarm play. You and your driver messed it up and Ricchio went gunning for you.”
Donner put down his file and smiled. Dalmas shrugged and glanced at the Filipino, who was standing by the wall, at the end of the divan.
Dalmas said: “I don’t have your organization, Donner, but I get around. I think that’s a smooth story and it would have got by—with a little Cooperation downtown. But it won’t fit the facts as they are now. “
Donner raised his eyebrows. Sutro began to swing the tip of his polished shoe up and down in front of his knee.
Dalmas said: “How does Mister Sutro fit into all this?”
Sutro stared at him and stopped rocking. He made a swift, impatient movement. Donner smiled “He’s a friend of Walden’s. Walden talked to him a little and Sutro knows Ricchio worked for me. But being a councilman he didn’t want to tell Walden everything he knew.”
Dalmas said grimly: “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with your story, Donner. There’s not enough fear in it. Walden was too scared to help me even when I was working for him … And this afternoon somebody was so scared of him that he got shot.”
Donner leaned forward and his eyes got small and tight. His hands balled into fists on the desk before him.
“Walden is—dead?” he almost whispered.
Dalmas nodded. “Shot in the right temple … with a thirtytwo. It looks like suicide. It isn’t.”
Sutro put his hand up quickly and covered his face. The sandyhaired man got rigid on his stool in the corner.
Dalmas said: “Want to hear a good honest guess, Donner? … We’ll call it a guess … Walden was in the dopesmuggling racket himself—and not all by his lonesome. But after Repeal he wanted to quit. The coast guards wouldn’t have to spend so much time watching liquor ships, and dopesmuggling up the coast wasn’t going to be gravy any more. And Walden got sweet on a gal that had good eyes and could add up to ten. So he wanted to walk out on the dope racket.”
Donner moistened his lips and said: “What dope racket?”
Dalmas eyed him. “You wouldn’t know about anything like that, would you, Donner? Hell, no, that’s something for the bad boys to play with. And the bad boys didn’t like the idea of Walden quitting that way. He was drinking too much—and he might start to broadcast to his girl friend. They wanted him to quit the way he did—on the receiving end of a gun.”
Donner turned his head slowly and stared at the bound man on the high-backed chair. He said very softly: “Ricchio.”
Then he got up and walked around his desk. Sutro took his hand down from his face and watched with his lips shaking.
Donner stood in front of Ricchio. He put his hand out against Ricchio’s head and jarred it back against the chair. Ricchio moaned. Donner smiled down at him.
“I must be slowing up. You killed Walden, you bastard! You went back and croaked him. You forgot to tell us about that part, baby.”
Ricchio opened his mouth and spit a stream of blood against Donner’s hand and wrist. Donner’s face twitched and he stepped back and away, holding the hand straight out in front of him. He took out a handkerchief and wiped it off carefully, dropped the handkerchief on the floor.
“Lend me your gun, Noddy,” he said quietly, going towards the sandyhaired man.
Sutro jerked and his mouth fell open. His eyes looked sick. The tall Filipino flicked his empty automatic into his hand as if he had forgotten it was empty. Noddy took a blunt revolver from under his right arm, held it out to Donner.
Donner took it from him and went back to Ricchio. He raised the gun.
Dalmas said: Ricchio didn’t kill Walden.”
The Filipino took a quick step forward and slashed at him with his big automatic. The gun hit Dalmas on the point of the shoulder, and a wave of pain billowed down his arm. He rolled away and snapped his Colt into his hand. The Filipino swung at him again, missed.
Dalmas slid to his feet, sidestepped and laid the barrel of the Colt along the side of the Filipino’s head, with all his strength. The Filipino grunted, sat down on the floor, and the whites showed all around his eyes. He fell over slowly, clawing at the divan.
There was no expression on Donner’s face and he held his blunt revolver perfectly still. His long upper lip was beaded with sweat.
Dalmas said: “Ricchio didn’t kill Walden. Walden was killed with a filed gun and the gun was planted in his hand. Ricchio wouldn’t go within a block of a filed gun.”
Sutro’s face was ghastly. The sandyhaired man had got down off his stool and stood with his right hand swinging at his side.
“Tell me more,” Donner said evenly.
“The filed gun traces to a broad named Helen Dalton or Burwand,” Dalmas said. “It was her gun. She told me that she hocked it long ago. I didn’t believe her. She’s a good friend of Sutro’s and Sutro was so bothered by my going to see her that he pulled a gat on me himself. Why do you suppose Sutro was bothered, Donner, and how do you suppose he knew I was likely to go see the broad?”
Donner said: “Go ahead and tell me.” He looked at Sutro very quietly.
Dalmas took a step closer to Donner and held his Colt down at his side, not threateningly.
“I’ll tell you how and why. I’ve been tailed ever since I started to work for Walden—tailed by a clumsy ox of a studio dick I could spot a mile off. He was bought, Dormer. The guy that killed Walden bought him. He figured the studio dick had a chance to get next to me, and I let him do just that—to give him rope and spot his game. His boss was Sutro. Sutro killed Walden—with his own hand. It was that kind of a job. An amateur job—a smartaleck kill. The thing that made it smart was the thing that gave it away—the suicide plant, with a filed gun that the killer thought couldn’t be traced because he didn’t know most guns have numbers inside.”
Donner swung the blunt revolver until it pointed midway between the sandyhaired man and Sutro. He didn’t say anything. His eyes were thoughtful and interested.
Dalmas shifted his weight a little, on to the balls of his feet. The Filipino on the floor put a hand along the divan and his nails scratched on the leather.
“There’s more of it, Donner, but what the hell! Sutro was Walden’s pal, and he could get close to him, close enough to stick a gun to his head and let go. A shot wouldn’t be heard on the penthouse floor of the Kilmarnock, one little shot from a thirtytwo. So Sutro put the gun in Walden’s hand and went on his way. But he forgot that Walden was left-handed and he didn’t know the gun could be traced. When it was—and his bought man wised him up—and I tapped the girl—he hired himself a chopper squad and angled all three of us out to a house in Palms to button our mouths for good … Only the chopper squad, like everything else in this play, didn’t do its stuff so good.”
Donner nodded slowly. He looked at a spot in the middle of Sutro’s stomach and lined his gun on it.
“Tell us about it, Johnny,” he said softly. “Tell us how you got clever in your old age—”
The sandyhaired man moved suddenly. He dodged down behind the desk and as he went down his right hand swept for his other gun. It roared from behind the desk. The bullet came through the kneehole and pinged into the wall with a sound of striking metal behind the paneling.
Dalmas jerked his Colt and fired twice into the desk. A few splinters flew. The sandyhaired man yelled behind the desk and came up fast with his gun flaming in his hand. Donner staggered. His gun spoke twice, very quickly. The sandyhaired man yelled again, and blood jumped straight out from one of his cheeks. He went down behind the desk and stayed quiet.
Donner backed until he touched the wall. Sutro stood up and put his hands in front of his stomach and tried to scream.
Donner said: “Okey, Johnny. Your turn.”
Then Donner coughed suddenly and slid down the wall with a dry rustle of cloth. He bent forward and dropped his gun and put his hands on the floor and went on coughing. His face got gray.
Sutro stood rigid, his hands in front of his stomach, and bent back at the wrists, the fingers curved clawlike. There was no light behind his eyes. They were dead eyes. After a moment his knees buckled and he fell down on the floor on his back.
Donner went on coughing quietly.
Dalmas crossed swiftly to the door of the room, listened at it, opened it and looked out. He shut it again quickly.
“Soundproof—and how!” he muttered.
He went back to the desk and lifted the telephone off its prongs. He put his Colt down and dialed, waited, said into the phone: “Captain Cathcart … Got to talk to him … Sure, it’s important … very important.”
He waited, drumming on the desk, staring hardeyed around the room. He jerked a little as a sleepy voice came over the wire.
“Dalmas, Chief. I’m at the Casa Mariposa, in Gayn Donner’s private office. There’s been a little trouble, but nobody hurt bad ye got Derek Walden’s killer for you … Johnny Sutro did it … Yeah, the councilman … Make it fast, Chief… I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with the help, you know
He hung up and picked his Colt off the top of the desk, held it on the flat of his hand and stared across at Sutro.
“Get off the floor, Johnny,” he said wearily. “Get up and tell a poor dumb dick how to cover this one up—smart guy!”
TEN