TEN
Cefarino Toribo, the goodlooking Filipino in the well-cut tan suit, gathered two dimes and three pennies off the counter in the telegraph office, smiled at the bored Monde who was waiting on him.
“That goes out right away, Sugar?”
She glanced at the message icily. “Hotel Mansfield? Be there in twenty minutes—and save the sugar.”
“Okey, Sugar.”
Toribo dawdled elegantly out of the office. The blonde spiked the message with a jab, said over her shoulder: “Guy must be nuts. Sending a wire to a hotel three blocks away.”
Ceferino Toribo strolled along Spring Street, trailing smoke over his neat shoulder from a chocolate-colored cigarette. At Fourth he turned west, went three blocks more, turned into the side entrance of the Mansfield, by the barbershop. He went up some marble steps to a mezzanine, along the back of a writing room and up carpeted steps to the third floor. He passed the elevators and swaggered down a long corridor to the end, looking at the numbers on doors.
He came back halfway to the elevators, sat down in an open space where there was a pair of windows on the court, a glasstopped table and chairs. He lit a fresh cigarette from his stub, leaned back and listened to the elevators.
He leaned forward sharply whenever one stopped at that floor, listening for steps. The steps came in something over ten minutes. He stood up and went to the corner of the wall where the widened-out space began. He took a long thin gun out from under his right arm, transferred it to his right hand, held it down against the wall beside his leg.
A squat, pockmarked Filipino in bellhop’s uniform came along the corridor, carrying a small tray. Toribo made a hissing noise, lifted the gun. The squat Filipino whirled. His mouth opened and his eyes bulged at the gun.
Toribo said, “What room, punk?”
The squat Filipino smiled very nervously, placatingly. He came close, showed Toribo a yellow envelope on his tray. The figures 338 were penciled on the window of the envelope.
“Put it down,” Toribo said calmly.
The squat Filipino put the telegram on the table. He kept his eyes on the gun.
“Beat it,” Toribo said. “You put it under the door, see?”
The squat Filipino ducked his round black head, smiled nervously again, and went away very quicky towards the elevators.
Toribo put the gun in his jacket pocket, took out a folded white paper. He opened it very carefully, shook glistening white powder from it on to the hollow place formed between his left thumb and forefinger when he spread his hand. He sniffed the powder sharply up his nose, took out a flame-colored silk handkerchief and wiped his nose.
He stood still for a little while. His eyes got the dullness of slate and the skin on his brown face seemed to tighten over his high cheekbones. He breathed audibly between his teeth.
He picked the yellow envelope up and went along the corridor to the end, stopped in front of the last door, knocked.
A voice called out. He put his lips close to the door, spoke in a high-pitched, very deferential voice.
“Mail for you, sar.”
Bedsprings creaked. Steps came across the floor inside. A key turned and the door opened. Toribo had his thin gun out again by this time. As the door opened he stepped swiftly into the opening, sidewise, with a graceful sway of his hips. He put the muzzle of the thin gun against Max Chill’s abdomen.
“Back up!” he snarled, and his voice now had the metallic twang of a plucked banjo string.
Max Chill backed away from the gun. He backed across the room to the bed, sat down on the bed when his legs struck the side of it. Springs creaked and a newspaper rustled. Max Chill’s pale face under the neatly parted brown hair had no expression at all.
Toribo shut the door softly, snapped the lock. When the door latch snapped, Max Chill’s face suddenly became a sick face. His lips began to shake, kept on shaking.
Toribo said mockingly, in his twangy voice: “You talk to the cops, huh? Adios.”
The thin gun jumped in his hand, kept on jumping. A little pale smoke lisped from the muzzle. The noise the gun made was no louder than a hammer striking a nail or knuckles rapping sharply on wood. It made that noise seven times.
Max Chill lay down on the bed very slowly. His feet stayed on the floor. His eyes went blank, and his lips parted and a pinkish froth seethed on them. Blood showed in several places on the front of his loose shirt. He lay quite still on his back and looked at the ceiling with his feet touching the floor and the pink froth bubbling on his blue lips.
Toribo moved the gun to his left hand and put it away under his arm. He sidled over to the bed and stood beside it, looking down at Max Chill. After a while the pink froth stopped bubbling and Max Chill’s face became the quiet, empty face of a dead man.
Toribo went back to the door, opened it, started to back out, his eyes still on the bed. There was a stir of movement behind him.
He started to whirl, snatching a hand up. Something looped at his head. The floor tilted queerly before his eyes, rushed up at his face. He didn’t know when it struck his face.
Delaguerra kicked the Filipino’s legs into the room, out of the way of the door. He shut the door, locked it, walked stiffly over to the bed, swinging a thonged sap at his side. He stood beside the bed for quite a long time. At last he said under his breath: “They clean up. Yeah—they clean up.”
He went back to the Filipino, rolled him over and went through his pockets. There was a well-lined wallet without any identification, a gold lighter set with gannets, a gold cigarette case, keys, a gold pencil and knife, the flame-colored handkerchief, loose money, two guns and spare clips for them, and five bindles of heroin powder in the ticket pocket of the tan jacket.
He left it thrown around on the floor, stood up. The Filipino breathed heavily, with his eyes shut, a muscle twitching in one cheek. Delaguerra took a coil of thin wire out of his pocket and wired the brown man’s wrists behind him. He dragged him over to the bed, sat him up against the leg, looped a strand of the wire around his neck and around the bed post. He tied the flame-colored handkerchief to the looped wire.
He went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and threw it into the Filipino’s face as hard as he could throw it.
Tonibo jerked, gagged sharply as the wire caught his neck. His eyes jumped open. He opened his mouth to yell.
Delaguerra jerked the wire taut against the brown throat. The yell was cut off as though by a switch. There was a strained anguished gurgle. Toribo’s mouth drooled.
Delaguerra let the wire go slack again and put his head down close to the Filipino’s head. He spoke to him gently, with a dry, very deadly gentleness.
“You want to talk to me, spig. Maybe not right away, maybe not even soon. But after a while you want to talk to me.”
The Filipino’s eyes rolled yellowly. He spat. Then his lips came together, tight.
Delaguerra smiled a faint, grim smile. “Tough boy,” he said softly. He jerked the handkerchief back, held it tight and hard, biting into the brown throat above the adam’s apple.
The Filipino’s legs began to jump on the floor. His body moved in sudden lunges. The brown of his face became a thick congested purple. His eyes bulged, shot with blood.
Delaguerra let the wire go loose again.
The Filipino gasped air into his lungs. His head sagged, then jerked back against the bedpost. He shook with a chill.
“Si … I talk,” he breathed.
ELEVEN
When the bell rang Ironhead Toomey very carefully put a black ten down on a red jack. Then he licked his lips and put all the cards down and looked around towards the front door of the bungalow, through the dining-room arch. He stood up slowly, a big brute of a man with loose gray hair and a big nose.
In the living room beyond the arch a thin blonde girl was lying on a davenport, reading a magazine under a lamp with a torn red shade. She was pretty, but too pale, and her thin, high-arched eyebrows gave her face a startled look. She put the magazine down and swung her feet to the floor and looked at Ironhead Toomey with sharp, sudden fear in her eyes.
Toomey jerked his thumb silently. The girl stood up and went very quickly through the arch and through a swing door into the kitchen. She shut the swing door slowly, so that it made no noise.
The bell rang again, longer. Toomey shoved his white-socked feet into carpet slippers, hung a pair of glasses on his big nose, took a revolver off a chair beside him. He picked a crumpled newspaper off the floor and arranged it loosely in front of the gun, which he held in his left hand. He strolled unhurriedly to the front door.
He was yawning as he opened it, peering with sleepy eyes through the glasses at the tall man who stood on the porch.
“Okey,” he said wearily. “Talk it up.”
Delaguerra said: “I’m a police officer. I want to see Stella La Motte.”
Ironhead Toomey put an arm like a Yule log across the door frame and leaned solidly against it. His expression remained bored.
“Wrong dump, copper. No broads here.”
Delaguerra said: “I’ll come in and look.”
Toomey said cheerfully: “You will—like hell.”
Delaguerra jerked a gun out of his pocket very smoothly and swiftly, smashed it at Toomey’s left wrist. The newspaper and the big revolver fell down on the floor of the porch. Toomey’s face got a less bored expression.
“Old gag,” Delaguerra snapped. “Let’s go in.”
Toomey shook his left wrist, took his other arm off the door frame and swung hard at Delaguerra’s jaw. Delaguerra moved his head about four inches. He frowned, made a disapproving noise with his tongue and lips.
Toomey dived at him. Delaguerra sidestepped and chopped the gun at a big gray head. Toomey landed on his stomach, half in the house and half out on the porch. He grunted, planted his hands firmly and started to get up again, as if nothing had hit him.
Delaguerra kicked Toomey’s gun out of the way. A swing door inside the house made a light sound. Toomey was up on one knee and one hand as Delaguerra looked towards the noise. He took a swing at Delaguerra’s stomach, hit him. Delaguerra grunted and hit Toomey on the head again, hard. Toomey shook his head, growled: “Sappin’ me is a waste of time, ho.”
He dived sidewise, got hold of Delaguerra’s leg, jerked the leg off the floor. Delaguerra sat down on the boards of the porch, jammed in the doorway. His head hit the side of the doorway, dazed him.
The thin blonde rushed through the arch with a small automatic in her hand. She pointed it at Delaguerra, said furiously: “Reach, damn you!”
Delaguerra shook his head, started to say something, then caught his breath as Toomey twisted his foot. Toomey set his teeth hard and twisted the foot as if he was all alone in the world with it and it was his foot and he could do what he liked with it.
Delaguerra’s head jerked back again and his face got white. His mouth twisted into a harsh grimace of pain. He heaved up, grabbed Toomey’s hair with his left hand, dragged the big head up and over until his chin came up, straining. Delaguerra smashed the barrel of his Colt on the skin.
Toomey became limp, an inert mass, fell across his legs and pinned him to the floor. Delaguerra couldn’t move. He was propped on the floor on his right hand, trying to keep from being pushed flat by Toomey’s weight. He couldn’t get his right hand with the gun in it off the floor. The blonde was closer to him now, wild-eyed, whitefaced with rage.
Delaguerra said in a spent voice: “Don’t be a fool, Stella. Joey—”
The blonde’s face was unnatural. Her eyes were unnatural, with small pupils, a queer flat glitter in them.
“Cops!” she almost screamed. “Cops! God, how I hate cops!”
The gun in her hand crashed. The echoes of it filled the room, went out of the open front door, died against the highboard fence across the street.
A sharp blow like the blow of a club hit the left side of Delaguerra’s head. Pain filled his head. Light flared—blinding white light that filled the world. Then it was dark. He fell soundlessly, into bottomless darkness.
TWELVE
Light came back as a red fog in front of his eyes. Hard, bitter pain racked the side of his head, his whole face, ground in his teeth. His tongue was hot and thick when he tried to move it. He tried to move his hands. They were far away from him, not his hands at all.
Then he opened his eyes and the red fog went away and he was looking at a face. It was a big face, very close to him, a huge face. It was fat and had sleek blue jowls and there was a cigar with a bright band in a grinning, thick-lipped mouth. The face chuckled. Delaguerra closed his eyes again and the pain washed over him, submerged him. He passed out.
Seconds, or years, passed. He was looking at the face again. He heard a thick voice.
“Well, he’s with us again. A pretty tough lad at that.”
The face came closer, the end of the cigar glowed cherryred. Then he was coughing rackingly, gagging on smoke. The side of his head seemed to burst open. He felt fresh blood slide down his cheekbone, tickling the skin, then slide over stiff dried blood that had already caked on his face.
“That fixes him up swell,” the thick voice said.
Another voice with a touch of brogue to it said something gentle and obscene. The big face whirled towards the sound, snarling.
Delaguerra came wide awake then. He saw the room clearly, saw the four people in it. The big face was the face of Big John Masters.
The thin blonde girl was hunched on one end of the davenport, staring at the floor with a doped expression, her arms stiff at her sides, her hands out of sight in the cushions.
Dave Aage had his long lank body propped against a wall beside a curtained window. His wedge-shaped face looked bored. Commissioner Drew was on the other end of the davenport, under the frayed lamp. The light made silver in his hair. His blue eyes were very bright, very intent.
There was a shiny gun in Big John Masters’ hand. Delaguerra blinked at it, started to get up. A hard hand jerked at his chest, jarred him back. A wave of nausea went over him. The thick voice said harshly: “Hold it, pussyfoot. You’ve had your fun. This is our party.”
Delaguerra licked his lips, said: “Give me a drink of water.”
Dave Aage stood away from the wall and went through the dining-room arch. He came back with a glass, held it to Delaguerra’s mouth. Delaguerra drank.
Masters said: “We like your guts, copper. But you don’t use them right. It seems you’re a guy that can’t take a hint. That’s too bad. That makes you through. Get me?”
The blonde turned her head and looked at Delaguerra with heavy eyes, looked away again. Aage went back to his wall. Drew began to stroke the side of his face with quick nervous fingers, as if Delaguerra’s bloody head made his own face hurt. Delaguerra said slowly: “Killing me will just hang you a little higher, Masters. A sucker on the big time is still a sucker. You’ve had two men killed already for no reason at all. You don’t even know what you’re trying to cover.”
The big man swore harshly, jerked the shiny gun up, then lowered it slowly, with a heavy leer. Aage said indolently: “Take it easy, John. Let him speak his piece.”
Delaguerra said in the same slow, careless voice: “The lady over there is the sister of the two men you’ve had killed. She told them her story, about framing Imlay, who got the pictures, how they got to Donegan Marr. Your little Filipino hood has done some singing. I get the general idea all right. You couldn’t be sure Imlay would kill Marr. Maybe Marr would get Imlay. It would work out all right either way. Only, if Imlay did kill Marr, the case had to be broken fast. That’s where you slipped. You started to cover up before you really knew what happened.”
Masters said harshly: “Crummy, copper, crummy. You’re wasting my time.”
The blonde turned her head towards Delaguerra, towards Masters’ back. There was hard green hate in her eyes now. Delaguerra shrugged very slightly, went on: “It was routine stuff for you to put killers on the Chill brothers. It was routine stuff to get me off the investigation, get me framed, and suspended because you figured I was on Marr’s payroll. But it wasn’t routine when you couldn’t find Imlay—and that crowded you.”
Masters’ hard black eyes got wide and empty. His thick neck swelled. Aage came away from the wall a few feet and stood rigidly. After a moment Masters snapped his teeth, spoke very quietly: “That’s a honey, copper. Tell us about that one.”
Delaguerra touched his smeared face with the tips of two fingers, looked at the fingers. His eyes were depthless, ancient.
“Imlay is dead, Masters. He was dead before Marr was killed.”
The room was very still. Nobody moved in it. The four people Delaguerra looked at were frozen with shock. After a long time Masters drew in a harsh breath and blew it out and almost whispered: “Tell it, copper. Tell it fast, or by God I’ll—”
Delaguerra’s voice cut in on him coldly, without any emotion at all: “Imlay went to see Marr all right. Why wouldn’t he? He didn’t know he was doublecrossed. Only he went to see him last night, not today. He rode up to the cabin at Puma Lake with him, to talk things over in a friendly way. That was the gag, anyhow. Then, up there, they had their fight and Imlay got killed, got dumped off the end of the porch, got his head smashed open on some rocks. He’s dead as last Christmas, in the woodshed of Marr’s cabin … Okey, Marr hid him and came back to town. Then today he got a phone call, mentioning the name Imlay, making a date for twelve-fifteen. What would Marr do? Stall, of course, send his office girl off to lunch, put a gun where he could reach it in a hurry. He was all set for trouble then. Only the visitor fooled him and he didn’t use the gun.”
Masters said gruffly: “Hell, man, you’re just cracking wise. You couldn’t know all those things.”
He looked back at Drew. Drew was gray-faced, taut. Aage came a little farther away from the wall and stood close to Drew. The blonde girl didn’t move a muscle.
Delaguerra said wearily: “Sure, I’m guessing, but I’m guessing to fit the facts. It had to be like that. Marr was no slouch with a gun and he was on edge, all set. Why didn’t he get a shot in? Because it was a woman that called on him.”
He lifted an arm, pointed at the blonde. “There’s your killer. She loved Imlay even though she framed him. She’s a junkie and junkies are like that. She got sad and sorry and she went after Marr herself. Ask her!”
The blonde stood up in a smooth lunge. Her right hand jerked up from the cushions with a small automatic in it, the one she had shot Delaguerra with. Her green eyes were pale and empty and staring. Masters whirled around, flailed at her arm with the shiny revolver.
She shot him twice, point-blank, without a flicker of hesitation. Blood spurted from the side of his thick neck, down the front of his coat. He staggered, dropped the shiny revolver, almost at Delaguerra’s feet. He fell outwards towards the wall behind Delaguerra’s chair, one arm groping out for the wall. His hand hit the wall and trailed down it as he fell. He crashed heavily, didn’t move again.
Delaguerra had the shiny revolver almost in his hand.
Drew was on his feet yelling. The girl turned slowly towards Aage, seemed to ignore Delaguerra. Aage jerked a Luger from under his arm and knocked Drew out of the way with his arm. The small automatic and the Luger roared at the same time. The small gun missed. The girl was flung down on the davenport, her left hand clutching at her breast. She rolled her eyes, tried to lift the gun again. Then she fell sidewise on the cushions and her left hand went lax, dropped away from her breast. The front of her dress was a sudden welter of blood. Her eyes opened and shut, opened and stayed open.
Aage swung the Luger towards Delaguerra. His eyebrows were twisted up into a sharp grin of intense strain. His smoothly combed, sand-colored hair flowed down his bony scalp as tightly as though it were painted on it.
Delaguerra shot him four times, so rapidly that the explosions were like the rattle of a machine gun.
In the instant of time before he fell Aage’s face became the thin, empty face of an old man, his eyes the vacant eyes of an idiot. Then his long body jackknifed to the floor, the Luger still in his hand. One leg doubled under him as if there was no bone in it.
Powder smell was sharp in the air. The air was stunned by the sound of guns. Delaguerra got to his feet slowly, motioned to Drew with the shiny revolver.
“Your party, Commissioner. Is this anything like what you wanted?”
Drew nodded slowly, whitefaced, quivering. He swallowed, moved slowly across the floor, past Aage’s sprawled body. He looked down at the girl on the davenport, shook his head. He went over to Masters, went down on one knee, touched him. He stood up again.
“All dead, I think,” he muttered.
Delaguerra said: “That’s swell. What happened to the big boy? The bruiser?”
“They sent him away. I—I don’t think they meant to kill you, Delaguerra.”
Delaguerra nodded a little. His face began to soften, the rigid lines began to go out of it. The side that was not a bloodstained mask began to look human again. He soppeci at his face with a handkerchief. It came away bright red with blood. He threw it away and lightly fingered his matted hair into place. Some of it was caught in the dried blood.
“The hell they didn’t,” he said.
The house was very still. There was no noise outside. Drew listened, sniffed, went to the front door and looked out. The street outside was dark, silent. He came back close to Delaguerra. Very slowly a smile worked itself on to his face.
“It’s a hell of a note,” he said, “when a commissioner of police has to be his own undercover man—and a square cop had to be framed off the force to help him.”
Delaguerra looked at him without expression. “You want to play it that way?”
Drew spoke calmly now. The pink was back in his face. “For the good of the department, man, and the city—and ourselves, it’s the only way to play it.”
Delaguerra looked him straight in the eyes.
“I like it that way too,” he said in a dead voice. “If it gets played—exactly that way.”