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Even as he spoke he knew his pleas were futile. There was a sharp report as a small-caliber gun went off and Jimmy Legg slowly tumbled forward — as if carefully choosing the spot of ground on which to die.

Chapter Two

Rendezvous

Cellini Smith worked his feet back and forth, trying to get the sleep out of them. Finally, he yawned and stood up. He decided that he might as well get around and see what that Jimmy Legg business was about. Detectives who live in rent-due offices can’t be choosy about clients.

Some twenty minutes later, Cellini turned off Wilshire at Rossmore and parked his heap of scrap iron opposite the Hamilton. He remembered that Legg had asked to meet him at the back entrance and he crossed the street and padded down the length of the alley on the north side — then stopped short. His face was a bored blank as he said: “Hello. Haenigson.”

Ira Haenigson, detective-sergeant of Homicide, stood up from his examination of Jimmy Legg’s corpse and made a wry face. “Why don’t they draft you or something, Smith?”

“A killing?” asked Cellini disinterestedly. “Anyone I know?”

“Anyone you know!” The detective-sergeant seemed to swell like a blow-fish. He turned to a porcine rookie. “Our friend wonders if it’s anyone he knows.”

The rookie laughed uncertainly.

“You’re bloody well right it’s someone you know!” Ira Haenigson suddenly shouted.

“How do you figure that?”

The Homicide man calmed himself, substituting irony for anger. “Now, I’m only a cop that goes out on homicide calls, Smith. Just a dumb cop from Homicide. Do you understand?”

Cellini’s brows furrowed as he gave the appearance of concentration. “You’re a dumb cop from Homicide. I think I understand. Go on.”

“That’s right, Smith. And then I get a call to go out on a killing. Where is it? On Hollywood and Vine? On Wilshire and La Brea? Any place where it would be reasonable for you to show up? No indeedy. The corpse is hidden in an alley by the rear door of an apartment building. Then by sheer coincidence you happen to show up in a place a quarter-hour later and you ask me if the body is anyone you know. Come, Smith, let me pinch your cheeks. You’re so goddamned cute!”

The photographer finished taking his pictures of the body and chalk marks were made on the concrete outlining the position and angle at which it had fallen. Jimmy Legg was lifted on a stretcher and carted away. Then the fingerprint experts, sighing hopelessly as they regarded the stucco walls and the dull metal finish on the fireproof door, set about their jobs.

Cellini said: “I happened to be passing outside, Haenigson, when I noticed the department cars and I just came in here out of sheer curiosity to find out what had happened.”

“Now that’s entirely different, Smith.

I shouldn’t have left our cars on Rossmore right plunk in front of the apartment, eh?”

“I guess not.”

“You great detective,” said the detective-sergeant witheringly. “It so happens the department cars are not on Rossmore because I don’t like to advertise my arrival. The cars are in back of this building. Anyone but a moron would have noticed that the body was just carried down the alley through to the street on the opposite side.”

“That’s what I meant,” said Cellini smoothly. “I was passing through the other street and figured you were stopping at the Hamilton here so I came around the front—”

“All right,” snapped the Homicide man. “Wrap it in Kleenex. Were you supposed to meet James Legg right here?”

Cellini Smith was a picture of innocence. “What’s a Legg?”

“If you didn’t show up here to meet Legg, then you came to meet his murderer. Which one was it?”

“I get it, Haenigson. Have I stopped beating my wife? Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?” Cellini demanded.

“James Legg muscled his way out of court on a burglary rap this morning. An hour later he’s garbage. A two-bit homicide, Smith, but the kind that makes good headlines. Can the underworld make a mockery out of our courts? Get what I’m driving at?”

“Sure,” nodded Cellini. “If you don’t crack it quick you need somebody to throw to the wolves — and I’m handy.”

“Exactly, Smith. This happens to be the wrong kind of case to play button-button with the police. So you better open up and say what you’re doing here and who you were supposed to meet.”

“I was driving by and saw the department cars,” began Cellini, “and I figured I’d see what was cooking—”

Ira Haenigson’s bulky figure slowly advanced on Cellini. “Get out I Quick!”

Cellini didn’t move. Other than a narrowing of the eyes, his face was infuriatingly calm But the tapered body was braced with catlike tensity to meet the Homicide man’s elephantine rush.

Haenigson suddenly thought better of it and halted. “That’s better,” said Cellini, “—and safer.” He wheeled and walked out.

Cellini Smith sat in his parked car debating with himself. His client had been murdered. It would be little better than sucker stuff to try and nail the killer out of charity. Besides, whoever mayhemmed Jimmy Legg didn’t do mankind any disservice. But there was Ira Haenigson and his threat could not be regarded idly. He could make much of Cellini’s appearance at the scene shortly after the murder — and he would certainly refuse to accept the true explanation for it. Haenigson would never believe that a gunsel of Legg’s caliber would hire a peeper.

Cellini sighed and got out of the car. He had no alternative but to follow through — and to do so before Haenigson began wondering what Legg was doing in these parts.

He passed through the palm-studded doorway of the Hamilton and approached the desk. He asked: “Does Mr. James Legg live here?”

The clerk, a delicate, lavender specimen, flipped through his files. “Now let me see. That should be under L. No, sir, I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of Mr. Legg.”

“You’ve heard, all right. That’s the guy who was shot outside in your alley an hour ago.”

“Oh, you know of it?” said the clerk brightly. “I’m so glad. I’m such a poor liar.”

“Fine. But did Legg have an apartment here?”

“Certainly not.” The clerk sounded offended. “We don’t lease apartments to such rowdies — such, such potential corpses.”

Cellini leaned, over the desk. “Listen, my androgynous friend. If Legg didn’t park his shoes here then he visited somebody and the chances are you know who it is. Now why don’t you open up and dish out an intelligible remark?”

“Fine, sir! I’m glad you asked that because we like to bruit about the idea that we supply no information about our lessees. And it’s no use glowering because I know you’re not from the police and I simply refuse to be intimidated by—”

Cellini didn’t trust himself to linger longer. He walked out and circled around to the alley where Jimmy Legg had met, in rapid succession, his destroyer and his Maker. Haenigson hadn’t even bothered to post a cop. Murderers, he well knew, rarely return to the scene of their crime.

Cellini passed by the tradesmen’s entrance and pushed through a smaller door beyond. He found himself in the cellar. The janitor, a grimy individual in overalls, was laying out a game of solitaire on a side-turned wardrobe trunk.

Cellini dropped a dollar bill on the trunk. “I’ll bet you that buck you don’t know how many cards there are in that deck.”

“Fifty-two,” said the surprised janitor.

“It’s yours. Now, what do you know about Jimmy Legg?”

The janitor palmed the greenback. “For a moment I thought you was Santa Claus. Well, all I know is some dame found this Legg guy and started screaming like she lost her virtue so I run outside and called the cops. That’s all.”