“I don’t fit in at all, stupid,” Karen protested. “I think I told you once I’d cooled off about Bert. But that had nothing to do with it, I still liked the guy. He was in trouble. I thought he was up to his ears in that mess at Tolliver’s. They were real sharp. I thought Bert was public enemy number one. Bert thought I was public enemy number one. Neither of us went to the police or anything. Vito had us over a barrel.”
“Vito isn’t the boss,” I said.
“Well, someone had us over a barrel. And darn you, Gideon, I still couldn’t go to the cops.”
“Why in hell not?”
“Because you’re in on this thing. Sometimes I wish men were never born, not men I could like and get weak all over, anyway.”
I laughed. It wasn’t a pretty laugh, but it served the purpose. I went on laughing until Karen squeezed the wet rag over my mouth and made me gag.
“What’s so funny?”
“You were doing the same thing all over again, that’s all. I was trying to protect you after I found out.”
Karen should have known I was still weak, but it didn’t bother her. She leaped on me and I wasn’t sure if she was applying hold number five in a wrestling primer or demonstrating her affection, but she started kissing me and sobbing and when she began to blubber I did the holding and the kissing and then got up and lit a cigarette.
“We’re not exactly a couple of geniuses,” Karen snuffled.
I went to the door and turned the handle. Locked. I said, “Was there any rumpus downstairs after they brought me in here?”
Karen shook her head, knuckled her wet eyes like a little girl, kissed the tip of my nose and started crying again. “What are they going to do, Gideon?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I—”
There was a scratching outside the door as someone sought the lock with a key. Karen tensed against me and our hearts did a quick, uneven dance together.
King Kellum’s battered puss was the best thing I ever saw in my life.
“Kellum,” I said, grinning. “You old son-of-a-gun. I knew we could count on you. How’d you manage it, old boy? Damn, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Kellum grunted and waved a pistol. Mine. Or Billy Drake’s that is. “Shut up and get back on the bed. Lay down. You too, Miss Tanner.”
“What the hell,” I said. Me and Sherlock Holmes. I was beginning to realize I couldn’t even hold his violin.
“You’re a dope, Frey. It wasn’t hard to see you hadn’t called the cops. Not the way you were sweating. But neither Vito nor me nor anyone else wants to spend some time in jail courtesy of you or Miss Tanner here.”
“Both of you,” I said. “You were both go-betweens. I should have realized Vito was right away. I should have tied him with Allison Tolliver sooner. He’d told me himself. He said Allison had hot-pants. Excuse me, Karen. I knew it was like that with Allison and it didn’t click when Vito told me. It meant Vito knew Allison.”
“Forget it,” Kellum told me. He could act, all right. He knew this place and he was only too glad to drive me here and wind things up. It was all planned. Maybe they figured I’d come back to Funland for one last look before I lit out.
“Goddam,” I said. “Vito took Karen here and you both knew I would follow.”
“If you put two and two together you’d follow,” said Kellum. “If not, what the hell. We could get you when we wanted.”
“You knew I wasn’t from the boss because the boss told you. That must have hurt.”
There was a knock on the door. “Hey, Kellum.” Vito’s voice, muffled. “The boat’s ready.”
I wished I’d never met Allison. I didn’t care if she was a nympho or cold as the outside of an igloo. She was going to have us killed, me and Karen. I wondered how she’d managed to get Gregory out of the way for the evening. Gregory hardly went anyplace.
I was down deep in a funk. I wasn’t wishing for much, not now, not when it didn’t look like anything I’d wish for would ever be granted. I wished I had a chance to tell off Allison, that’s all. She had plenty. She had everything a gal could want, at least a gal like her — except for eyes. She liked eyes to look at her. Aside from that, Gregory had placed the world at her feet. But it all added up to goodbye, Karen, and goodbye, Gideon.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THEY LED US DOWNSTAIRS, Vito first, walking backwards with what looked like a German Luger. Then Karen, then me. Kellum bringing up the rear with Billy Drake’s .38 Special.
At the bottom of the stairs, at the entrance to the dining-room, we met Allison. I sneered, but it was too dark. Vito stood at the foot of the stairs. Karen was on the second step, I was right behind her. I could feel Kellum breathing down my neck. They were going to take us out in the Allison I, a long way out, more than halfway to Connecticut, probably, and drop us. We were dead ducks and it was foolish to fade out without trying. If I dropped quick and whirled and grabbed Kellum’s legs, maybe. Just maybe he wouldn’t shoot anybody. But then there was Vito. Karen stood two steps above him. Lovely angle. She was athletic. She could kick him right in the teeth. We had to get coordinated, that’s all.
I whirled and dove at Kellum’s knees and yelled, “Kick him!” A gun roared and another. Something slammed against my shoulder and I thought I’d been hit, but it w«s Kellum, thrashing and kicking. I straightened up and heaved and saw him go over the bannister headfirst, waving his arms frantically and dropping the .38. A section of the bannister crashed down with him and on top of him and I dove after it, bringing my legs up under me. I landed that way, feet first, on his back. He made a loud gargling noise, the closest he could get to a scream under the circumstances. I clutched a chunk of bannister as big as a baseball bat and whacked him across the base of the skull with it. He clawed the carpet once, shuddered, and subsided. His skull looked oddly flattened in the half-light, and unless there was an awful lot of space between bone and brain he was dead.
I scrambled around the base of the stairs on all fours, climbed to my feet and saw Vito fighting a woman for the second time. He was doing all right but he’d done better the last time. He had Karen down on her back and he was choking her, but his mouth was a bloody ruin and a couple of teeth dangled loosely and bloodily from slack lips while he cursed.
The Marquis of what’s-his-name would have turned over in his grave, but our only audience was the Grim Reaper, still undecided which way to let his scythe fall. I called Vito’s name and he turned around. I brought my club up like a chipping iron, in a short, brutal arc. It caught Vito under the chin and smeared his face crimson as he twisted grotesquely and flipped over on his back. I’d made the decision for the guy with the scythe.
I wanted to go to Karen, but she could wait. Instead, I stalked toward Allison, dropping my club and flexing stiff fingers.
“They shouldn’t electrocute no-good whores like you,” I said. “They ought to tear you apart one limb at a time.”
Her mouth hung open. She stared at me and wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come. She stared at the ruin that was Kellum and the worse ruin that was Vito and still she didn’t say anything.
“They’ll get you,” I said. “They can give you a trial and electrocute you or do whatever they want. But first I want you.”
Allison’s mouth opened and closed. She was talking. She thought she was talking, but the words didn’t come. I was going to beat her black and blue and then call myself a louse. It would be worth it.
There was barking close by. A door opened. A breeze stirred. Shamus pawed his way across the carpet, Gregory Tolliver’s restraining hand white on his harness. “Lucca?” Tolliver called, staring sightlessly. “Lucca, where are you?” Silence. Gideon Frey had struck out long ago as a detective.