Quadruple bingo–and then some.
The man who had to be Miller Treadwell was sitting in an overstuffed chair, his pants down, moaning, “Guddamn, guddamn.” I could see a woman’s left hand bracing the chair arm, but nothing more of the woman herself. Agent Stensland was trussed up, lying on his side on the floor, next to the entranceway into the front room. He was working his wrist bonds against a wall grate, his breath expanding and contracting against the fabric tape crisscrossing his mouth.
Miller moaned with his eyes shut, then a pretty blonde head popped up and spoke to him: “Sugar, let me talk to you for a sec.”
“Guddamn, girl, don’t stop.”
“Miller, you have to make him tell you where he put the money.”
“We got ours, girl. He ain’t gonna tell us; he knows I’ll kill him if he does. We got ours, and we can trade you again.”
“Daddy’s too cheap to pay more. We could have twice as much, Sugar. We could go away and be together and just forget about Daddy.”
“Sugar, don’t talk nonsense. We got plenty, your papa’s got plenty more, and I ain’t able to talk so good in this state you got me in. You wanta. .
The head disappeared again; Miller went back to moaning. I wondered where Evans was and watched Stensland move his bound wrists against the grate. The kidnapper-killer’s ecstacy was reaching a crescendo when I saw my partner, inside the pad, tiptoeing over to the entranceway. He was just a few feet in back of Stensland when the G-man got his hands free and ripped the tape from his mouth. He went flush at the pain, and I followed his eyes to a .45 automatic on the armrest beside Miller’s right hand.
Pawing at his leg restraints, racing against the Okie’s release, Stensland banged his elbow on the grate. Miller jerked out of heaven and aimed the .45 at him just as I wedged my gun through the window crack. He fired at the fed; I fired at him; Davis emptied his piece at the chair. There must have been a dozen explosions, and then it was all over except for Jane Mackenzie Viertel’s record-length scream.
* * *
A shitload of Hollywood division black-and-whites showed up, and the meat wagon removed Miller Treadwell and Special Agent Norris Stensland, D.O.A. A detective lieutenant told Davis and me he wanted a full report before he contacted the feds. We kept the Viertel girl in handcuffs on general principles, and when the commotion wound down and the crowd of rubberneckers dispersed, we braced her on the front lawn of the courtyard.
Unlocking her cuffs, I said, “Come clean on the money. What happened? Where’s the dough Miller was talking about?”
Jane Viertel, backlighted by a street lamp, rubbed her wrists. “The money was in two packages. When it got crazy, they were dropped. Miller and Leroy got one, and it ripped open. The FBI man dropped his and Leroy ran with me, then Miller took off. The FBI man took Harwell to his car, then came back and grabbed the last package so Harwell wouldn’t know he had it. But Miller saw him. He had some loose bills he picked up, and he hid the rest of the money from Leroy. Miller and Leroy gave the loose money to these dreadful slobs to hide us out, and Leroy thought that was all there was. Then Miller and I got cozy, and he told me there was forty thousand for us.”
I looked at the girl, nineteen-year-old pulchritude with whorehouse smarts. “Where’s Miller’s money?”
Jane watched Davis lovingly eye the Auburn speedster. “Why should I tell you? You’d just give it back to that cheapskate father of mine.”
“He paid a hundred grand to save your life.”
The girl shrugged and lit a cigarette. “He probably used the interest from Mother’s trust fund. What’s wrong with fatso? Is he queer for cars or something?”
Davis walked over to us. “She needs a complete paint strip, new paint job, new upholstery and some whitewalls. Then she’s a peach.” Winking at Jane Viertel, he said, “What’s your goal in life, Sweetheart? Pussywhipping killers?”