Lennox said: “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Now I’ve got to run. I’ve a very swell date.” They rode down in the elevator together.
Payman said: “I’ve got a cab. Can I drop you somewhere?”
Bill thanked him. “I’m walking. Be seeing you.” He watched the reporter’s taxi pull away, then turned and walked up the street.
Allen Harker was young, twenty-eight or nine, with black hair and a thin, firm mouth. He looked like a professional man, a doctor or lawyer. He was a lawyer, one of the first of Hoover’s schoolboys, as gangland had derisively called them when the department was first formed.
He worked quietly, without publicity. In the year that he had headed the local bureau his name had been in the papers but once. He ducked publicity, but he got things done. Lennox had met him twice, liked his quiet efficiency. He said: “Spurck called you and told you I was coming.”
Harker nodded. “I’ve been expecting you.” He closed the door and led the way to the living-room. “Now tell me about it.”
Lennox told him everything that he knew. “The girl’s missing,” he ended. “I have reason to believe that Zimm has her, but I can’t prove it. I can’t prove much that I’ve told you.”
Harker nodded. “Frankly, I wish that Spurck had kept out of this. I admire his stand, but we’re working on the same thing from a different angle, and I’m not sure but that this will complicate our plans.”
Lennox watched the Federal man through the smoke which curled up between them. “Are you after Zimm?”
Harker took time to answer. “The number or policy racket is one of the strongest and most vicious in existence. It’s not as strong here as it is in the East, but it’s growing. We’ve been watching Zimm for some time. One of my men, Dan Lawton, was killed about six weeks ago.”
“By Zimm?”
Harker shrugged. “If we could prove that, then we’d be getting somewhere. Thank you for coming over. That’s all I can say now. If you were anyone else I wouldn’t have said as much, but you’ve made a nice record out here, Lennox. I wish I had you in the bureau. Do you think this little singer was kidnaped?”
Lennox shook his head. “Not in the usual sense of the word. I mean that if Zimm did get her it was to keep her from talking, not to hold her for ransom. She knows something, but some of the gang have a hold on her and she won’t talk. You can always reach me through the studio if I’m not at my apartment.” He rose. “I won’t take up your time. I’d like to see Mrs. Spurck before she starts East.”
He shook hands, went through the door, and down in the elevator. As he reached the street he thought he saw a man disappear around the corner of the building. He raced towards it and stared up the empty concrete drive. There was no one there, and he went back to his cab, told the man to take him to Spurck’s Beverly Hills address, and climbed in. He was almost certain that he had not been followed to Harker’s, but he couldn’t be sure. As they went out Wilshire he lit a cigarette and thought things over. Harker had not told him much, but the Federal man was certainly interested in Zimm.
Spurck’s sedan was in the drive when Lennox paid his cab and went up the walk. He saw that the front door was open, saw Rose Spurck in the big two-storied hall, her hat on, her bags piled inside the door. She turned and gave a little cry of gladness as she saw Bill. Her short arms extended as she came forward. “Bill, mein knabe.” Her arms were around him, gripping him tight.
“Is this the way for a respectable lady to act, even in Hollywood?” Bill’s tone was chiding, but there was a lump in his throat.
She said: “I knew you’d come, Bill. Please, for me, make Sol see he should go too.”
Spurck was behind her, patting one plump shoulder with a short-fingered hand. “Nonsense, Mama. Positively, I’m telling you that there ain’t no danger. Is it that you would have me run from a lot of loafers, yet? I’m surprised at you. If it weren’t that your own sister Irma is sick with gall trouble and she can’t get well in the best hospitals even, I wouldn’t want you should go.” He looked at his extremely thin watch. “Come. Planes don’t wait for no one, not even when they are important.”
Rose managed a smile, but her brown eyes were moist as Bill helped her into the car, nodded to the chauffeur, and followed Spurck in. Sol said: “Remember this car, Bill? We bought it for that Arkin picture where Bob was a gangster. Remember? The car it has bullet-proof glass, all of it, even the windshield. Frankie Cane owned it before he was shot in St. Louis.”
Rose shuddered and snuggled closer against Bill’s shoulder. The car moved down the drive and swung into the street. Lennox was talking to Spurck. He did not see the cheap sedan which swung in from one of the side streets until it was almost abreast of them. Then he cried a sudden warning and threw his body forward to protect Rose, tugging at his gun. But there was no shot. Instead, a package was tossed from the other car as it pulled ahead, a square package which landed on the running-board of the Spurck car.
Lennox shouted a warning to the driver, tried to get the door open, but he was too late. There was a blinding flash. The car rocked, seemed to be coming to pieces. Then something struck Lennox, and everything was black.
When consciousness came back he was lying on the grassed parking, an ambulance surgeon bending over him. He tried to sit up, saw the crowd of people held back by the uniformed police. There was a buzzing in his ears, but he muttered, “How’s Mrs. Spurck, and Sol?”
The interne said: “They’re suffering from shock, but they’re all right otherwise. The chauffeur is dead.”
Lennox sat for a moment feeling his head, then climbed unsteadily to his feet. Spurck was standing beside Rose, his face, white, set, his arm strapped to his side. “Bill’s all right, Mama. Look. He’s all right.”
Rose was rocking back and forth. “Poor Eddie, olav hasholom.”... Lennox guessed that she was hysterical. Eddie was the chauffeur. He stepped out of the way while they helped the Spurcks into an ambulance, answered the questions of the uniformed policeman, refused to go to the hospital, recognized an electrician from the studio, and had the man drive him to his own apartment.
The electrician said: “I was ten blocks down and saw the explosion. When I found it was you and Mr. Spurck it was terrible.”
When the car pulled up before his apartment Lennox got out.
The man said: “Anything I can do? Can you get upstairs okey?”
Lennox nodded. “I’m all right. See you tomorrow.” He turned and went into the building. The clerk’s eyebrows rose when he saw Bill’s torn clothes, his bloody head. “Miss Hobbs is in your apartment, Mr. Lennox. What happened?”
Bill said: “Little accident,” and went on to the elevator.
Nancy was standing in the middle of the room when he pushed open the door. At sight of him she caught her breath sharply, and the color drained from her face.
“Bill?”
He said: “I’m okey, kid. Nothing to worry about. They tried to blow up Spurck’s car. Killed the chauffeur. Sol and Rose are all right.”
“Zimm?”
He shrugged, and took a look at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t nice looking. “Must be Zimm. Who else?”
She was helping him out of his torn coat. “You should be in the hospital.”
He grinned. “That’s what the doc thought, but you’re both wrong. I’ve got things to do.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Bill, you’re going to quit this right now. Think I want you in little pieces?”
He said: “Haven’t forgotten Maria, have you? Listen, Nance. We can’t take this lying down. If we do, we’re licked. We might as well get out of town. This burg is the most beautiful spot for chiseling games that ever was invented. The only reason there aren’t more is because we fight them all the time. We’ve got to fight this, and we’ve got to find that girl. If she hadn’t talked to me last night, she wouldn’t be in a spot now. They weren’t afraid of her until I jumped into the picture, and I would be a swell heel if I ducked out and left her sawed off, wouldn’t I?”