“Get up.”
Slowly, May climbed to his feet, all the fight gone out of him.
“Ready to talk?” Lennox still held the gun.
The man whined, “They’ll kill me if I do.”
“You can get out of town.”
May’s laugh wasn’t pleasant. “What with? I haven’t a thin dime.” He was arguing with himself. “I’d be crazy to leave. I’ve got a good thing here and you can’t touch me. Bring on your damn Feds.” His courage was returning.
Lennox’ eyes narrowed. Time was essential. Every hour that passed added to Spurck’s danger, to everyone’s danger. He knew that if May talked to Zimm, the racketeer might move again. He said: “How much do you want?”
May’s eyes lighted. “Now you’re talking. Ten grand.”
“You’re screwy. I’ll give you five hundred.”
May said: “I’m laughing, and it hurts. I know plenty, Lennox, even something which your damned Feds could use.”
Lennox shook his head. “There isn’t five thousand dollars’ worth of information in the world, let alone ten. I’ll give you a thousand and that’s tops.”
May licked his lips. Lennox weighed the gun in his hand. “Come on. We’ll go down and talk to them.”
May backed away. “Try to take me. Two grand. I know where the girl is.”
Bill hesitated. “Fifteen hundred,” he said, finally, “or not a dime. Take it quick, before I change my mind.”
May was studying his face. “Okey, chiseler. You win.”
With his free hand Bill pulled out his check book. The man said: “Ixnay, Cash on the line or the deal is off.”
“You’re nuts,” Lennox told him. “Where would I get fifteen hundred on Sunday?”
“That’s your grief. Take it or leave it.”
Bill’s voice snapped. “I’ll take it. You wait for me here and lay off the liquor. I want you sober enough to talk when I get back.”
The man said: “What the hell would I drink? You broke the bottle, and I told you I haven’t a dime. Snap it up. I want to get the night plane.”
Lennox was backing towards the door. “I’ll be back in half an hour.” He raced down the stairs and to the coupe. At the first drug-store he called Nancy Hobbs. “Listen, bum. I’ve got to raise fifteen hundred in twenty minutes. Call up everyone you can think of. I’ll be over there in about fifteen minutes. I’m buying May off.”
“You’re what?”
He said: “I know. I don’t like it either. But I haven’t a thing on him except numbers selling. I tried to run a bluff and it didn’t stand up. Get going.”
He replaced the receiver and returned to the car. He was in Hollywood in seven minutes, making the rounds of every restaurant where he could cash a check. In twenty-three minutes he brought the car to a stop before his apartment. Nancy was waiting at the curb. “I’ve got seven hundred. I had them send it around by messenger.”
He took the money from her hand. “Swell work, kid. Be seeing you.”
She was already crawling into the car. “No you don’t. This is one time that I go along.”
He did not stop to argue, but shot the coupe away from the curb. She said: “Think May will play it square with you?”
Lennox’ voice was grim. “He’d better. He made the mistake of telling me he was taking a plane out. If his story doesn’t check, he’ll find coppers waiting when his plane lands.”
He was silent, pushing the coupe fast. At the apartment he did not stop to park but slid out, leaving Nancy to find a parking space. She called, “Be careful,” but he did not hear her. He was already through the door and racing up the stairs. No one answered when he knocked at May’s door. He swore, knocked again, then tried the knob. It turned under his hand and he went in.
May lay in the middle of the rug, lay on his back, his eyes staring. Someone had cracked the side of his head and struck too hard, or had they? Perhaps they had meant the blow to kill. Lennox bent above the man, listening for heart action which wasn’t there. Then he saw a piece of white paper, stuffed into May’s stiffening fingers. He pulled it out, saw it was printed crudely in pencil, read: “Get smart, Lennox. You can be next.”
He swore again, turned and went to the door. May had been dead minutes only. The assailant must have come in almost immediately after Bill had left. There could be only one answer to that. He’d been followed.
Bill went slowly down the stairs and along the sidewalk to where the girl had parked the coupe, half a block away. She said, her eyes widening, “So soon? Did he talk?”
Lennox told her soberly: “Dead men never talk.”
“You mean...”
For answer he passed her the penciled note. “This was in May’s hand. You can figure it for yourself. They’re so damn’ sure of themselves, Nance. This scares me. It beats anything I’ve been up against. There’s more money in it, a hell of a lot more, and money means power. We’ve got to crush it or it will crush us.”
“So where do we go now?”
“Back to the apartment, I guess.”
Without a word she kicked the motor into life and turned the car north. Neither spoke until they reached the apartment hotel. As they walked into the lobby Ben Houser rose from one of the leather seats and came forward. His face was drawn and white. “I tried to call you. Didn’t get an answer, so I came over. Any news?”
Lennox shook his head. “Sorry, but there isn’t.”
Houser said: “This is all my fault. I should have warned her against Zimm. I shouldn’t have let her make that phone call. I’m going to have a talk with Zimm.”
Lennox said, sharply, “You’re not. You keep out of this. It’s gummed up enough the way it is.”
“But...”
“Do as I tell you, and don’t argue. Keep away from Zimm.”
Houser still hesitated. “I read about Spurck’s car being bombed in the paper.”
“What paper?”
For answer Houser pulled a folded Tribune from his pocket. “They got their bulldog out early, an extra.” He handed it over.
Lennox took the paper. “Thanks, and Ben, do me a favor, will you? Go on home and sit on your hands. I’ve got plenty on my mind now.”
Houser hesitated, then turned towards the door. “All right. But if you hear anything, let me know.”
Bill said: “Sure,” and opened the paper.
Nancy said: “You’re a little rough on Ben, aren’t you? He’s pretty well gone on that girl, Bill.”
Lennox looked up at her. “He’d better get over it, then. She was in love with May.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He shrugged. “You women! Wasn’t she worrying about May, about his losing his job? Just because he happened to be a heel is no reason why a woman wouldn’t fall for him. They fall for birds who aren’t worth kicking into the gutter.”
She stared at him. “All right. But you don’t know as much about women as you think, Bill Lennox.”
He snorted and looked back at the paper. Banners screamed. “Producer’s Car Bombed. Spurck Escapes Death. Chauffeur Killed.” Almost the whole of page one was devoted to the bombing. There was a three-column picture of the wrecked Rolls, a paragraph telling that the car had been the property of a former St. Louis gambling czar... Lennox read the whole thing, his brows drawing across his eyes in a puzzled frown. “I don’t get it.”
She asked: “You don’t get what?”
He said: “The Tribune is Mike Pay-man’s sheet. Say what you will about the bum, he’s a good reporter. It says here that the police are at a loss to account for the bombing. There’s not a word about the numbers racket, not a line.”