“Then who was it?”
Sheffold didn’t speak. They had left the front door open, and a man was leaning against the jamb, a gun held carelessly in his hand. He was medium-sized, but short-coupled and tough, suspicious as an alley-cat — in a two-hundred-dollar suit.
His blond hair was smooth and shiny. Probably he could still get by with shaving twice a week. It was almost a baby-face but ferocious as a baby’s could never be. He studied Rhoda and Sheffold lazily, his pale eyes an open insult.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he said thinly. The gun made a languid gesture about the room. “Cosy. Very cosy. It isn’t quite what I expected to find.”
Sheffold’s eyes were as empty as a sleepwalker’s.
“I followed you here, you know,” the gunman told him. “From Julian’s. It was no trick.”
“Danny Pantera,” Sheffold said abruptly, as if coming awake. “I thought I knew you.”
At his side Rhoda made a brief, startled movement. Everybody on the Strip knew the name, if not the face. It was the coming name in the rackets. Young and tough, a little more ruthless than the present order of hoodlums, he would soon be top man, if a tendency to be trigger-happy didn’t short-circuit a promising career.
“And you’re Bannerman’s strong-arm boy,” Pantera returned easily. “Now if you’ll introduce me to the lady, we’ll all get cosy.”
Sheffold didn’t speak. Rhoda studied the polish on her nails.
A slow flush tinged the fair skin of Pantera’s face, writing his thoughts there. Nice people weren’t introduced to the Danny Panteras. Even power and money and two-hundred-dollar suits would never let him forget completely what he was — what he had always been. And he’d become a proud, bitter young man.
“Throw that purse here,” he barked through thinned lips.
Rhoda disdainfully tossed her evening bag on the coffee table. She knew how to handle most men, and Pantera was one of them. His eyes murderous, he snapped open the bag and spilled the contents.
He found a card that bore her name and address. “Mrs. Malcolm Richards,” he read aloud in a voice that was a leer. His lips moved silently over the address and he shot a quick, almost startled, look at her. “Brentwood!”
Wealth and position, those were the things the address meant to him. He was impressed. “So now, where’s Bannerman?”
Sheffold shrugged one shoulder. “Not here. You wouldn’t have expected him to stay around when you started shooting.”
Pantera’s eyes wrinkled at the outer corners.
“Says which?”
“You were taking quite a chance throwing a bullet into a dark room. Or was that the idea?”
“Somebody shot at you?” His eyes were slightly shocked. “Not me,” he said fervently. “You think I’m crazy? This gun hasn’t been fired. Not tonight. You can tell that by smelling it.” He put the barrel to his own nose and sniffed it himself. “Not this gun!”
Rhoda said: “Then it was Harley! A nice subtle way of telling me that it’s over.”
“Now this thing is beginning to add up.” Pantera looked at Rhoda. “So you knew all about this little hideaway, eh? You came looking for Bannerman and brought the bouncer along just, for laughs. Or for the rough stuff, maybe.” He shook his head in wonderment and repeated, “Brentwood.”
“It wasn’t Bannerman,” Sheffold stated. “I identified myself before we came in and that shot came too close to have been only a warning. Somebody didn’t care what it hit.”
“Look!” Pantera growled. “I don’t know what gives here, but I don’t like it. Harley Bannerman owes me dough. Quite a lot of dough. And in case you hadn’t heard, nobody makes a patsy out of Danny Pantera.”
“Your petty little economics bore me,” Rhoda said icily. “And so do you.”
Pantera smiled suddenly. “Don’t try to swank me, sister. Let’s see how you like these apples. Either Bannerman pays off or I’ll be coming out to Brentwood. Maybe somebody out there will take care of it.”
Rhoda’s white skin had a gray look. The threat had shaken her.
“And for you, big moose, if I had fired that shot, you wouldn’t be around now. And not just because you’re a big target. Remember that!” He made a cynical gesture of good-by with the gun and walked out. A car motor throbbed quietly and then the silence overpowered it.
“So now we know,” Rhoda said. “He’s hiding from Pantera. But where?”
“There was a hat-check girl,” Sheffold said. “She dropped out of sight three days after Bannerman turned up missing — quit in the middle of checking a hat. I thought of her but I couldn’t buy it. She didn’t have enough class for him. But if it was just a hideout—”
Rhoda said bitterly, “He could have come here. No one knew about this place. Instead, he went to her.”
“Does that surprise you?” Sheffold asked. “You know the guy.”
“Yes, I know him,” she said wearily. “He’s a rat. Are you going to see him?”
He nodded. “Alone.”
“Then tell him something for me. Tell him to pay his debts. I don’t want Pantera coming around to my place. My husband is a broadminded man but he wouldn’t understand this. I don’t care how Harley handles it but tell him to keep me out of it.”
Sheffold regarded her somberly. “If he could have paid off, why would he have run away? And if you’re thinking Julian will bail him out — don’t count on it. Understand this, Mrs. Richards: You’re a good customer — maybe you’re a fine person, too, I don’t know. But you don’t mean anything to me. And you don’t mean that much to Julian. So if it comes to a choice as to who gets hurt — protect yourself, because I won’t protect you.”
She snapped out the light and her voice was husky and all the arrogance oddly missing. “You seem less like a bouncer all the time,” she said thoughtfully. “As soon as this is over — let’s have another long talk.”
Like chloroform, Pete Sheffold thought. It takes more for some, but anybody can get enough to go under. The Street got everybody, sooner or later; even invincibles...
Chapter Three
Red-Hot Tomato
It was now two o’clock in the morning. Julians had closed, but an inner restiveness kept Pete Sheffold from going home.
The reason for Bannerman’s absence was clear now, and his whereabouts reasonably assumed. But the whole explanation had the thin, unsatisfying feel of being far too simple. All evening Sheffold had known an alien dread, most strongly felt in the cottage on the hill. Clairvoyance was not a quality usually associated with a man so big, and Sheffold did not consider it that. But in that moment before he’d opened the stall shower he’d been overwhelmed with the conviction that Bannerman was dead.
Now he had to verify, with no further delay, that Bannerman was really hiding out in Alyce Rowland’s West Hollywood apartment. He’d gotten the address from Julian’s desk, and now, standing in the apartment house foyer, he swore with weary frustration. The outer door was locked for the night and there was no night bell. From the brass mailboxes, set in imitation Florentine tile, he knew Alyce’s apartment was number 21. But that was all he knew.
A man got out of a parked car on the far side of the street and briskly crossed over. As he came up the steps his eyes flicked casually at Sheffold. He was thin and fair and he wore a black double-breasted suit and a finely-knit black sweater with a turtle neck.
“Forget your key, mister?”
Sheffold nodded, saying nothing.
The man reached for the door, looked again at Sheffold, doubt in his eyes. “No offense, mister, but what apartment are you in? Kind of late, you know, to be letting in people who have — forgotten keys.”