“D’ya suppose you could get me a quart of whisky?”
“Sure. What kind?”
“Maybe UDL.”
I gave her five dollars and she looked at it and said: “Anything you want, mister, is yours. Is there anybody you don’t want to see?”
“Hell, yes.” She nodded that she understood and turned and went down the stairs. She was back inside of five minutes with the whisky, took a drink with me, then said:
“Now I don’t know. But if I didn’t want to see any of the bunch that runs around with Rucci, I’d stay in the room when my buzzer rang two longs and a short. Understand me, it isn’t any of my affair.”
I said: “Sure, I know. If I didn’t want to run into any of that bunch I’d certainly stay inside.”
She hesitated a moment at the door, said: “I’ve known Len Macintosh for twenty-two years. I used to have a place in Silver City and he was Marshal there.”
“Did he smoke the same kind of cigarettes then?”
She grinned and said: “Yeah! They damned near ran him out because of it. You can’t change a man; I’ve found that out.”
Lester came up with my bag and with high blood pressure from excitement. He said: “There were two more cops came, right after you called. One of them was named Ziggy something; I heard the other one call him that.”
“That right?”
“Yeah! And Gahagan called and said Wendel had been down at the office. That he said he was coming up here. With Joey Free. That he was leaving right away.”
“How’s he coming?”
“She didn’t say.”
“You get back to the hotel in a hell of a hurry and put in a call and find out. Quick, now.”
“And, oh yes, Shean. The girl you were with last night called and wants you to see her right away.”
“What about?”
“She didn’t say. Just said to call her.”
Rucci had introduced me to her and I wasn’t sure whether she was planted on me or not. I didn’t think so but I didn’t know. I said: “Here’s her number. You call her back and say you heard from me and that I was leaving town right then. Get it?”
“Sure. Find out how Wendel is coming and tell your girl you’ve left town.”
I said: “You call that wench my girl and I’ll beat you black and blue. I may have no morals but, by God, I’ve got a musical ear.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
I said: “You either have it or you don’t. You haven’t, or you’d know what I mean. Now get back and get busy. Just call the place here and ask for 217 and tell me. I’ll get in touch with you if I want you; if anything comes up call me here. Get it?”
“Sure!”
“And if you can’t get me, get in touch with the Chief. Tell him who you are. He’ll know about it, probably. But don’t go to the station and don’t talk to him on the street. He’ll tell you what to do.”
Lester looked worried and said: “I don’t like this, you having to hide around like this. It’s serious.”
“You dope! Murder’s always serious. I’d rather hide around like this than take a slug in the head, like I almost did. Or end up in the alley like that poor French gal did, with a shiv in my neck. What the hell; d’ya think I like it?”
“Well, no, I guess not.”
He took off his glasses and started to polish them, which meant he was thinking hard about something. I said: “Well, get going, pal.”
He put them back on, said in a quivery voice: “Shean, if anything happens to you do you know what I’m going to do?”
I said I didn’t.
“I’m going to kill Crandall. He’s back of this whole thing.”
“How would you do it?”
“Well, ugh, I guess I’d shoot him probably. I’ve practiced, you know that.”
He’d tried, down at the shooting galleries, and he’d been pitiful. His glasses didn’t help him much and all he had was ambition. I said: “You forget that gun stuff. That’s bad medicine. I won’t come up missing.”
“I’ll do it, Shean.”
I said: “Maybe this will make you feel better. The last I saw Crandall, he was flat on his fanny. He was growing a lump on his jaw that’ll be as big as an egg by now. You see?”
I showed him the skinned knuckles on my hand and he though that was swell. He told me where he’d left my car, and started back to the hotel, and I took another little snifter of the UDL and thought I’d done better than a green hand on the Crandall job at that. The only way I could have hit him any harder would have been to have been bigger. I only weigh a hundred and ninety and that limits how hard you can sock.
Chapter Thirteen
There was some connection between the French girl’s murder and Crandall and Mrs. Wendel, and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure what it could be. And couldn’t. I could see why Crandall would try to keep the woman in the notion of divorce... that was easy. He made money that way; probably some percentage of what he could wangle for her on a settlement. I could see Rucci in the picture as a friend of Crandall’s. Undoubtedly, Crandall and Rucci had been together in other deals and Crandall had cut him in this.
But I couldn’t see why Rucci had hired me as he had. The firing part was easy; Crandall had spotted me in some way and tipped him off and naturally Rucci didn’t want me around the place.
That was another thing. How had Crandall spotted me? The way things had worked out, or rather hadn’t worked out, it was a cinch that neither Kirby or Macintosh had spilled any information and somehow I just couldn’t imagine the kid had let anything go to his big blonde mama.
Even if he was drunk I didn’t think he’d have talked. He was too proud of playing the secretive private detective part. He dramatized himself too much to let slip anything like that, or I was wrong.
But somebody had found out and done the tipping; there was no doubt about that.
The whole thing was screwy and getting no better fast.
I couldn’t figure why I’d been shot at when I was. That hadn’t been any warning; I still had my sore ear to prove the guy had really tried. It gave me a funny feeling to think that somebody I didn’t know was running around the town and trying to see me over the sights of a gun. It was another reason to think the French maid’s death was concerned in the Wendel affair in some way. People don’t shoot other people over little things. Not that a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar settlement was a little thing, but, after all, Wendel would give his wife the divorce and more than a fair settlement if he was convinced she really wanted it. There was no reason for adding murder to the thing, that I could see.
Crandall had poor Wendel cold, anyway. He’d picked some little bum, probably some once nice kid that had gone to hell, and fixed a solid rap against Wendel if Wendel bucked at the divorce. It must have been a once nice girl or the judge wouldn’t have known her since her childhood. A trick like that would be simple; there’s plenty of good kids go wacky when they’re still too young to realize what it’s all about. I gave Crandall credit; I figured he’d have that part of the frame air tight. He’d take pains with it; he’d have to. It was his ace in the hole, in case Wendel wouldn’t go for the divorce settlement.
There wasn’t a way in the world I could trace down the girl and try to break her story, either. If it wasn’t a frame that would be a cinch; but I had absolutely no way of knowing who he’d pick out to work with on the thing. It probably was some little bum that hung around Rucci’s joint, but that didn’t help; in the little time I’d worked there I’d seen a dozen that would go for larceny like that.
Crandall was smart enough to bring the frame right from the blue sky if he wanted to use it. It was just a question of keeping him from using it.