We went up the steps as if we were afraid they would break under our feet.
The rumbling voice had stopped. There was something else in the air. I didn’t know what. Maybe a voice not quite loud enough to be heard, if that means anything.
I had counted nine steps when a voice spoke clearly above us. It said:
“Sure, I killed the bitch.”
A gun said something, the same thing four times, roaring like a i6inch rifle under the iron roof.
The first voice said: “All right.”
By that time Mickey and I had put the rest of the steps behind us, had shoved a door out of the way, and were trying to pull Reno Starkey’s hands away from Whisper’s throat.
It was a tough job and a useless one. Whisper was dead.
Reno recognized me and let his hands go limp.
His eyes were as dull, his horse face as wooden, as ever.
Mickey carried the dead gambler to the cot that stood in one end of the room, spreading him on it.
The room, apparently once an office, had two windows. In their light I could see a body stowed under the cot–Dan Rolff. A Colt’s service automatic lay in the middle of the floor.
Reno bent his shoulders, swaying.
“Hurt?” I asked.
“He put all four in me,” he said calmly, bending to press both forearms against his lower body.
“Get a doe,” I told Mickey.
“No good,” Reno said. “I got no more belly left than Peter Collins.”
I pulled a folding chair over and sat him down on it, so he could lean forward and hold himself together. Mickey ran out and down the stairs.
“Did you know he wasn’t croaked?” Reno asked.
“No. I gave it to you the way I got it from Ted Wright.”
“Ted left too soon,” he said. “I was leary of something like that, and came to make sure. He trapped me pretty, playing dead till I was under the gun.” He stared dully at Whisper’s corpse. “Game at that, damn him. Dead, but wouldn’t lay down, bandaging hisself, laying here waiting by hisself.” He smiled, the only smile I had ever seen him use. “But he’s just meat and not much of it now.”
His voice was thickening. A little red puddle formed under the edge of his chair. I was afraid to touch him. Only the pressure of his arms, and his bent-forward position, were keeping him from falling apart.
He stared at the puddle and asked:
“How the hell did you figure you didn’t croak her?”
“I had to take it out in hoping I hadn’t, till just now,” I said. “I had you pegged for it, but couldn’t be sure. I was all hopped up that night, and had a lot of dreams, with bells ringing and voices calling, and a lot of stuff like that. I got an idea maybe it wasn’t straight dreaming so much as hop-head nightmares stirred up by things that were happening around me.
“When I woke up, the lights were out. I didn’t think I killed her, turned off the light, and went back to take hold of the ice pick. But it could have happened other ways. You knew I was there that night. You gave me my alibi without stalling. That got me thinking. Dawn tried blackmailing me after he heard Helen Albury’s story. The police, after hearing her story, tied you, Whisper, Rolff and me together. I found Dawn dead after seeing O’Marra half a block away. It hooked like the shyster had tried blackmailing you. That and the police tying us together started me thinking the police had as much on the rest of you as on me. What they had on me was that Helen Albury had seen me go in or out or both that night. It was a good guess they had the same on tile rest of you. There were reasons for counting Whisper and Rolff out. That left you– and me. But why you killed her’s got me puzzled.”
“I bet you,” he said, watching the red puddle grow on the floor. “It was her own damned fault. She calls me up, tells me Whisper’s coming to see her, and says if I get there first I can bushwhack him. I’d like that. I go over there, stick around, but he don’t show.”