A fist thumped the door. I got up and unlocked it. Keever, the Villa Morocco house dick, lumbered into the room. I closed the door, leaned my back against it and watched him peer around.
“Cozy,” he said. “You are, that is.”
I didn’t answer him, or move.
“Conscience bothering you, son?” he asked.
He gave the room’s lone chair a brief doubtful glance and decided to sit on the edge of the bed. The bedsprings agonized under his bulk, but nothing let go. Thin knuckles tickled the door. I opened it, about six inches. The pimplyfaced bellhop held up a paper bag with two bottles in it.
“Couldn’t get no ice,” he said, sulkily. I reached for the bag, looked at the bottles, one whiskey, one soda.
“Old Plaster, huh?” I grunted. “I ought to send this back and buy some radiator fluid instead.”
“It was the best they had, best I could get.”
“I’ll bet.” I reached out and gathered the front of his uniform coat and pulled him close to the door. “That’ll be about nine bucks in change I’ve got coming, huh?”
“Seven bucks,” he wheezed. “Two-fifty for the booze. Four bits for fizz.”
“All right, you young bandit,” I snapped. “Hand it over.”
“I ain’t got it,” he whined. “Lemme go. I’ll yell.”
“Yell, and I’ll throttle you. Where’s the dough?”
“Down in the locker room, in my regular clothes.”
“Get it,” I rapped. “Bring it up or I’ll be down.”
I let go of him and slammed the door in his face.
“Mean bugger, ain’t you?” Keever chuckled. “A buck says you never see your seven again. I know these kids in joints like this.”
“Uh-huh. I wish I didn’t,” I said wearily. “Drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “Neat’s O.K. by me.”
There was a water tumbler on the dresser. I dusted it out and looked around for a good sharp edge to open the soda bottle on. Keever pulled a heavy key ring out of his pants. You could have burgled any house with the flat metal gadgets it held besides the keys. I made some crack or other.
“Tools of the trade,” he chuckled. “The gumshoe trade.”
I half filled the tumbler with whiskey and gave it to him. Then I poured about half of the soda water out on the window sill and reloaded the bottle with whiskey.
“What’s the matter?” Keever asked. “Can’t you take it?”
“Not this crap. Here’s how. What’s on your mind?”
He polished off his drink in manly style. I nibbled a little of the mixture in the soda bottle. I was afraid to light a cigarette near it. Keever sat there holding the empty glass. Amusement shone in his eyes, but not the nice-clean-fun kind of amusement.
“I been kind of wondering what’s on yours,” he said. “I asked you, is the old conscience bothering you, son?”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said. “No, it isn’t.”
“Something is,” he said dryly. “I dropped by your apartment, this afternoon, to see you. I figured it might be kind of interesting for you and me to chew over this Costain case and see if we couldn’t figure out something that maybe we could toss to friends downtown.”
“Providing either of us had any friends downtown.”
“Yeah. Well, like I say, I stopped by your place — just in time to see you legging down the street with a suitcase. So I kind of tool along behind. I follow you out to the airport and see you leave your crate in the garage out there — just like you was going to New York, or Chicago, or someplace. But you don’t take no plane. You get into a taxi and come right back to town and register under a wrong name in a flop like this. Wrong name registering is against the law, son.”
He cocked a heavy eyebrow at me, grinned and reached the bottle off the dresser and poured himself another shot. He downed the shot and put the bottle back and set the glass beside it.
“You know how to tail,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
“I ain’t gumshoed twenty years for nothing,” he smirked.
I took another pull at the soda bottle, just to be doing something while the big coppery-faced man trimmed a cigar. He got it smoldering, ruining the last bit of breathable air in the room.
“Looks to me like you want somebody to think you skipped town,” he said. “After looking for a week or so and finding your crate at the airport, that is.”
“That could be,” I said.
“Cops want you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Since you are one of of the boys, I’ll tell you something. All in the strictest confidence, of course.”
He sat there, screened by oily blue smoke, and didn’t say anything. I said: “After I talked to the Tremaine girl this morning, I talked to this client that I told you about. Talked enough so’s she’s forgotten all about Gail Tremaine. But she still thinks friend husband is a heel, so I have to work a new angle for her. But I’m working alone — get that. No chiselers. Personally, I still think my client is nuts.”
“Maybe she is,” he said calmly. “I ain’t. Not nuts enough to believe you are working for any such rich and mysterious client. What’s my silence worth to you now?”
Somewhere, in one of the rooms off the air shaft, a fight started. A woman’s voice argued with a man’s voice. The words didn’t mean anything. The bitterness behind them did. The woman’s voice got shriller. The thud of a fist clipping a not so solid jaw stopped the fight.
“There’s a guy,” Keever chuckled. “He won’t never get took.”
“He’s a wife beater,” I sneered. “That doesn’t help him any.”
He worked his cigar across his mouth and stared up through his heavy black eyebrows at me. After a long moment, he grinned unpleasantly again and revolved a thumb around on the tips of two first fingers. I hauled out my wallet.
“Got a gun?” I asked, suddenly.
He looked surprised. “Yeah.”
“I’ll buy it off you,” I said.
“For five C’s,” he said gruffly.
“Hell, I haven’t got that much.”
“How much you got?”
“Less than two hundred, and I have to eat.”
“How much can you get?”
“I’ll pay one C. That’s final.”
He thought that over and nodded. I slid five twenty dollar bills out of the wallet and put the wallet away and laid the money on the ratty bedspread. He reached for it. I snatched it away.
He chuckled, deep in his throat, and dug up the gun, a thirty-two special with the barrel sawed off just ahead of the cylinder, a belly gun. He snapped out the cylinder and shook the cartridges into his hand. He polished each cartridge with his handkerchief, very carefully, and let them fall out of the handkerchief onto the bed. Then he polished the gun and dropped it the same way. I gave him the money and picked up the gun and reloaded it.
“I might be planning to murder somebody with this,” I said.
“Go ahead,” he said. “It ain’t registered to me. I took it off a mug, years ago.”
“I could hold you up now and get my dough back.”
He frowned, stood up, shook his head slowly. “Naw,” he growled. “You ain’t gonna do nothing like that. I gotta go now, son. One thing — lay off that kid. I may have some use for him.”
“Better tag me from here yourself,” I said. “I could lose that kid in a phone booth.”