The room was racketing with echoes from the guns and the girl was screaming through the din. Her voice wasn’t so loud but it cut through because it held such fear. She was trying to crawl to the side of the room and she was dragging Lester with her.
Kirby started to slump down to the floor then, and I got the rest of the way to my feet and started toward him. And got halfway there when another man stood in the doorway.
I’d never seen him but I would have known who he was if I’d met him on the street instead of in Crandall’s office. He had Rucci written all over him. The young one, Luigi Rucci, and no mistaking him. He and I shot at the same time but I got up and he didn’t. I took mine through the leg and he took his through the face. His slug didn’t even touch the thigh bone and mine took the whole back of his head away with it.
Things got hazy then but I remember Macintosh howling at me for killing that particular Rucci and not saving the guy for him and me howling back about how I wouldn’t stand up and play clay pigeon for him or any other son of a bitch on earth.
We were both excited.
Kirby, whom Barney had got in the shoulder with the first shot, and I, went to the hospital in the same ambulance.
Joey Free rode by himself in another but he was always one for attention He even had a policeman with him all the time after they’d patched him up. My slug had caught him just below the knee and ranged up the whole length of his thigh. They dug it out up by his hip but they had to cut off his leg to find it The leg wasn’t any good to him, anyway; that flat-nosed .45 had pulverized the bone during its trip.
Lester rode to the hospital with Kirby and Macintosh and I rode to the jail with Crandall and the gal.
Altogether everybody took a trip, but it was a one-way ride for Barney, Barney’s pal, and the young Rucci.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wendel came to see me about noon the next day. He sat down by the cot and said: “Joey didn’t break, but Crandall did. He’ll testify against Joey and save himself that way. State’s evidence. The District Attorney seems satisfied so I guess it’s all right.”
I said: “Let me tell it. Joey, on that trip East he made a while ago, saw your wife and realized she was a dead ringer for this Madge Giovanatti whom he knew in San Francisco. He got your wife’s maid in the frame, then. They got your wife out of the way and the thing was started. Right?”
He said: “Right!” in a sick way.
I said: “I hate to ask; I know how it makes you feel. What did they do with her?”
“They... they killed her there in my house. They... weighted her body with wire and iron and put her in the river. My God, how can people do things like that.”
He took a cry for himself, then braced.
I said: “Joey knew he couldn’t handle it by himself and he’d known one of the Ruccis in San Francisco. So he tied in with Gino, who put him in with Crandall. Crandall was the front man; that’s all. Right?”
He nodded.
“That was a mistake. Macintosh had been laying for that Rucci family for years and he was taking any angle that might help him get them. Of course Joey couldn’t know that. I knew there was something wrong with Joey from the start.”
“How? That’s what I don’t understand. How you knew Joey was back of it. Why he even introduced you to me in the first place and influenced me into hiring you.”
“That was so he’d know what was going on all the time. Cinch. I’d naturally tell him how I was doing. He had Rucci and Crandall warned about me before I ever got here; Rucci gave me a job for the same reason. Just to watch me. That was self evident. And then, as soon as this Madge Giovanatti saw me with two guys that had known her in the city they got panicky and tried to kill me. Who did that shooting?”
He said mechanically: “The man you killed in the doorway. One of the two guards. Free was in town at that time, though he was supposed to be in Los Angeles, and hired the man to do that; Crandall claims he didn’t know anything about it until after it had happened.”
“Maybe he didn’t. That was the tip-off about the girl being the ringer, though I didn’t realize it at the time. What put me wise was her not talking to you. Any woman that leaves her husband will talk about it to anybody that will listen. Even to him. Hell, she’ll talk to him about it quicker than anybody else.”
He grinned a little faintly and said that seemed reasonable.
“And that ringer theory fitted in with the maid’s death. They had to kill her because she realized what she was mixed up in and got cold feet.”
“Crandall claims he didn’t know anything about that, either, until it was done.”
“The same man that shot at you, did that. Crandall didn’t know about it he claims.”
“He would. Well, I guess that’s all of it. I knew Joey was wrong all the time. He tagged me to the Palace and tried to get me knocked off there, too. He was the only one logically to suspect, the way the play came up. He was tipping Crandall and Rucci all the time and I played him for it.”
“Why did you figure he was back of it in the first place?” I laughed and said: “Hell! When a guy with the money he was supposed to have, puts out a rubber check for a hundred bucks and has a time making it good, it’s time to figure he’s not in the dough. You were. He wasn’t. He’d naturally be trying to dope out a way to screw you out of it, wouldn’t he? His playing drunk all the time was just a gag; it gave him a chance to meet them and talk.”
He said: “I should have realized you were trying to protect me and given you more cooperation. But I’ll confess, frankly, there was a personal feeling back of that lack of cooperation. It’s a hard thing to say, but you grated on me. I’m sorry about it.”
“What the hell! Your life and mine have been a bit different. That’s all. You did more than grate on me, mister, you damned near drove me nuts at times.”
He grinned and handed me a check and said: “If it isn’t satisfactory, just say so. I know you will; you’re very plain spoken, I’d say.”
I looked at the check and he said: “It won’t come back to you, like Joey’s did. I’ll promise you that.”
“Swell,” I said. “I hope you keep your promises.”
We shook hands and told each other how much we admired each other for our good qualities and the rest of that kind of talk and he left. He was getting the two o’clock plane for the East. I felt sorry for the poor duck; he was taking his wife’s murder like a man, which was more than he’d done his fake wife’s divorce case.
I’ll always think hurt pride had something to do with that.
Lester and Spanish came up at four; the doctor was shortening me on visitors until I got back some of the blood I’d lost. The crease on my neck had bled plenty and the slug through my leg hadn’t helped. They came in and Spanish flopped on her knees by the bed and grabbed my hand and said:
“Oh Shean! Shean! I’ve been almost crazy since I heard about that terrible thing last night.”
I said: “Nuts, lamb! I’m practically well right now.”
Lester said: “Did Wendel pay you? He’s left.”
I said: “He paid, and how,” and Lester lost his worried look and said that was fine. I told Spanish to act like a lady and sit in a chair like one and she gave me a dirty look but minded. I asked Lester: “What’s happened at the station?”
“They sent that one poor girl back to her folks. The other one paid her own fare back to Sacramento. Mr. Macintosh and a bunch of other Government men are arresting a lot of men and taking them to Carson City. On the same charges he was going to arrest Rucci for.”