That’s when she had run her finger down the list of so-called detectives in the phone book and had picked me.
“The simplest thing to do,” I said, “would be to take out your grand and hand over the rest of it.”
She was on her feet right away. “I will not!” she said. “They’re not going to make me. And if that’s the best you can do—”
“Sh!” I said. “I didn’t say it was the best, just the simplest. These muggs mean business. They’re just playing, so far. When they really get rough, what then?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why I came to you. I didn’t go to the police because — well, I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me and they might make a scandal of it and people would be asking what was I to Gus Markey and all that. Well, I was just the girl who sold him cigars with a smile. And besides, I thought the police might impound the money or whatever you call it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “they might. They might do worse than that. Well, I’ll throw little Pete out the window and then we can go somewhere. I know a place—”
Somebody was pounding on the door.
“—but I don’t think they’ll let us get there,” I finished. “You wait.”
I glanced at Pete. He was still out. I closed the door in the partition between my office and where my secretary would have been, if I had had one, and went to the hall door.
“What do you want?” I said.
“Open up, shamus,” a hard guy said. “I’m tired of waiting for Pete and the doll. I’ll settle this right now.”
“Is that a fact? Suppose I don’t open up, pal?”
“I’ll kick the door down — and don’t think I can’t.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put you to all that trouble,” I drawled. “I’ll let you in.”
I snapped the lock and stepped back as he crashed in. I had my hand on my gun in my pocket, but it didn’t do any good. All I saw was a big guy, wearing a dark suit and a black hat, and something sailing through the air at me. I ducked and it went over my head. I heard Peggy scream as the partition split wide open. Ducking and slipping gave the big guy plenty of time. He swung his right hand, and I couldn’t get out of the way; and his gun caught me on the side of the head.
When I came out of it, I saw what the big guy had thrown at me — a mop-pail with a wringer attachment on it that the janitor must have left in the hall. Peggy was gone, but Pete was still there on the floor. Only there something funny about him.
When I looked at him again I saw what it was. Pete was dead, with a bullet hole in his head. The big guy had got tired of waiting, all right. Maybe Pete had told him he could bring Peggy around, for a split of the take. But the big guy was through fooling. He wanted fifty grand. Or maybe little Pete, seeing Peggy treated rough, had gone noble and had tried to stop his pal. Whatever it was, Pete was plenty dead.
And I had to report it to Inspector Joe X. Swayne, a guy who would be very happy to hang a rap on me.
No, I didn’t, either. Because while I was getting up and staggering around, I heard a siren and in a minute the cops were in.
Joe X., in person looking meaner than the last time I had seen him. Joe was tall and lean and white-haired; he had a nasty way of talking.
“So now you’ve killed a guy,” he said to me.
“Yeah,” I snarled back. “In my sleep. While I was unconscious, I dreamed I had a gun in my hand and I popped this fellow. Know him?”
“Why wouldn’t I know him? I’ve arrested him a dozen times. But just because he was a lousy little crook doesn’t give you the right to bump him.”
“Listen, stupid. I was in here talking to a client and—”
“He’s got a client, boys,” Joe said sarcastically.
“—and this guy came in. He started getting rough and I hit him. Knocked him over. Then I went on talking with my client. We were just going out, when another guy — a big one — crashed in. He threw the mop-pail at me and hit me over the head. Feel this bump! I was out for quite a while. When I came back, the little guy was dead, the big guy was gone — and so was my client.”
“And who was your client?” Joe asked.
“That’s none of your business,” I said. “And now I’m going out to see if I can find the big guy.”
“Suppose I take you downtown?”
“What good will that do you? Listen, Joe, be smart. You want the big guy for murder. I’ll help you get him. I want him because he’s getting tough with my client. I’ll play ball with you.”
“I know how you play,” he growled.
His men went over the place. They took a look at my gun, saw it hadn’t been fired. They felt the bump on my head, sized up the mop-pail destruction, and so on. Finally, Joe X. got the janitor in. He was the one who had called the cops. He said he had seen the big guy in the hall, near my door. He had heard the shot — he was down in the basement and had come up the back stairs — and when he opened the door, I was lying on the floor, out, and so was Pete. Joe X. shrugged.
“O.K.,” he said. “You can go. But don’t think we can’t pick you up. Now who’s your client?”
I was through the door. “You guess,” I said, and ducked.
Finding the big guy was not going to be a cinch. All I had to go on was that he had been close enough to Gus to have a claim on the fifty grand and he had known Pete. I hadn’t even got a look at him. All I knew was that he was big and dressed in dark clothes. I’d know his voice, though, if I caught up to him. Meanwhile, he had Peggy and he would try every way he knew to get her to give up the dough. I knew where I could pick up a few rats who had trailed along with Gus. I might learn something.
I headed for a poolroom, not far from the Imperial, where one of Gus’s boys made a book. The first guy I saw when I walked in was my old pal, Rufus Sloan, who had done me out of that job with the Western Jewelers’.
“Nice dumps you play around in, big shot,” I said.
Sloan was a big, red-headed guy with a freckled face and a temper to match.
“Get out of my way, louse,” he said. “I’m working.”
“This is my side of the street, big boy. I stay here. Go peddle your papers. And, speaking of lice, there’s one dirty member of that species that did me out of a swell job. Like the elephant, Tim Ryan remembers.”
Rufus swung at me — a wide one. I got under it and inside. I jolted one up to his jaw. While he was rocking on his heels, before he could get his thick arms around me, I jumped back.
My mistake. Something hard jabbed into me, and a tough-voiced lad said, “Take it easy. Walk out the side door. Move! Stay out of this, Sloan. This guy belongs to me.”
Sloan stepped back against the wall, his mouth open, rubbing his jaw. Then he began to laugh.
“Take him, Dutch. It’s jake with me. Take him for a long, one-way ride. I don’t like him in my scenery.”
“What you don’t like, don’t count see?” the guy said. “Keep your big trap shut or you’ll take a ride yourself.”
Sloan sobered quickly. “Okey, Dutch, okey. It ain’t my funeral.”
“It could be,” Dutch said, and there was plenty of meaning in it.
I was moving to the side door. There was no one in the way. Nobody was paying any attention to us. Dutch had his gun in his coat pocket, but he kept prodding me with it.
I had him now. He was Dutch Schiller, an out-of-town boy who was wanted lots of places. And if half of what they said about him was half true, he was bad. Not a guy to fool with.
We got outside. There was a car at the curb. The motor was purring smoothly. A man was at the wheel, another standing on the curb.
“Get in,” Dutch said.
The fellow on the curb went over me with big paws. He took my gun and shoved me into the back. Dutch got in, too.