“There is no right side of the tracks in Porter,” Rebecca said slowly. “I know where to get cheap things. I knew where to get you.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m cheap. But I’m not sloppy. All this vaudeville, and how were you thinking of selling it to Burri? If Scarpa wanted to kill you, Halliday, he’d get Burri’s blessing in advance. Burri’s not giving you Scarpa’s territory. Burri thinks you’re an animal. He wouldn’t give you your own watch as a graduation present. Jesus, I feel sorry for you two. You’ve both flopped at everything you ever tried since high school, and now you’re flopping at this. And you know it. And all you could think of to do, honey, is take me to bed and hope I’d quit asking questions. I practically had to push you out the door tonight, but I figured if I gave you half an excuse, you’d go see your brother.”
“Why’s that?” Halliday said.
“You were lonely for each other. You hadn’t seen each other in days.” I shrugged. “You were lonely for each other.”
It was quiet again, except for the ticking of the projector. Halliday was massaging the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. All the hoods watch gangster movies, and that’s where most of them get the bored and weary bit, but he really did look beat. I guess we were all pretty tired. “We’re the second and third of six,” he said dreamily. “And you know? The others turned out straight as a goddamn die.”
He looked over at Rebecca. She was watching the movie.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, “will you turn that crap off?”
I stooped obediently and reached for the power cord. Halliday said, “Not you,” and Rebecca screamed, “You’ll break it,” and I yanked on the cord, sending the projector teetering on its stand.
They still weren’t that far from Porter, and one of those Bell & Howells costs money. For a moment, it’s all they were looking at.
Then I was behind Rebecca, hugging her hard around the ribs, her gun hand in mine.
She woke up when the projector hit the floor. She was a hundred and twenty pounds of wildcat then. But she was only a hundred and twenty pounds of wildcat, and I had a good grip on her by the time Halliday came round the bed. I knew he wouldn’t risk a shot. A .44 goes right on through. He held my gun by the barrel, ready to club. The projector was grinding against the rug, lighting our legs and the dust ruffle of the bed. Our faces were shadows. When Halliday got next to us, I spun Rebecca around, brought her gun hand up, and pressed her finger down on the trigger.
The muzzle was against his ribs. The shot was no louder than a book slamming shut.
Halliday looked at me, as if he wanted to ask what I’d just done, but didn’t know quite how to put it. Then he looked at Rebecca and his lips moved, and his eyes seemed to want to reassure her.
Then his knees went, and his face dipped forward onto her breast.
He slid down her body to the floor.
I spun Rebecca around again and shot out the window. “Help!” I screeched, “Police! Help! Help!” It wasn’t very good, but it didn’t have to be. I fired into the ceiling, floor, walls, and bed until the hammer clicked. Then I let her go.
Rebecca stared straight ahead, still holding the gun, a black streak of blood down her belly. Gradually, she lowered her shadowed face and looked down at her brother. She looked at him for maybe a minute. Then she looked back up at the wall again and gazed at that little sailboat sailing past the lighthouse.
I elbowed the bedside lamp onto the floor. Rebecca didn’t seem to hear it smash. I sat down on the bed and twisted around on my rear, to get the covers mussed, and then I got up and took hold of Rebecca’s shoulders and shook her. She dropped the gun. I took hold of a shoulder strap and ripped it down. She blinked and stopped looking at the little sailboat. Palms isn’t Beverly Hills, but if you call the police, they come, and I heard sirens now, very faint in the distance.
Her hair still didn’t look right, so I ruffled it with my fingers. She was looking at me now.
“You,” she said. “You’ve.”
She licked her lips and blinked.
“I don’t,” she said.
She reached out slowly with both hands, as if she wasn’t sure where I was, and found my chest. She sort of petted it.
“We,” she said.
She ran out of breath and licked her lips. “We could... “
I once saw a cat half-squashed on the side of the road, the front half still trying to crawl. I turned from her and went over to the projector, which was grinding away on the floor and smelling hot. I nudged the cord with my foot until the light went out. I didn’t want a fire. The room seemed very quiet now. The sirens were faint, but getting louder. “I know,” I said, not looking at her. “I know you weren’t just acting the other night. The night that Shade, the night you killed him. I kept telling you. Murder isn’t a lark. I guess you know now. I know, I know it was difficult.”
I had no idea what I was talking about, and I stopped.
I turned and, without looking at her, went over and knelt by Halliday’s body. I started taking off his rings.
“You were robbed,” I said, keeping my eyes on what I was doing. “You’re very beautiful. And you’re, you’re a good actress. You could’ve made me think you loved me, could’ve done it easily. But you didn’t. Thank you for that, anyway.”
I stopped again. I was sweating pretty badly.
She hunkered down and began petting my back, clumsily, with both hands.
I got up and she flinched away from me. Her eyes were wide and senseless. I took her by the shoulders and led her over to where she’d been standing. The sirens were getting louder. I pulled off my right glove and started to put on Halliday’s rings.
“All right,” I said. My mouth didn’t want to work properly. I was trying to keep in mind which order he wore his rings in. “I think that about does it,” I said. “The police’ll be able to tell someone else was here, if they look hard enough. I don’t think they’ll look too hard. Between Halliday’s record, the movies, the match between the bullets in Shade’s body and his, the mark of his rings on your face... “
“... my face... “ she said.
“Maybe you can sell them on the idea of looking,” I said. “It’s possible. You’re a good little saleswoman.”
She licked her lips and set her hands on my chest.
“You’ve got a fighting chance,” I told her. “That’s more than you gave Lorin Shade. It’s more than you were going to give me. Goodbye, Rebecca.”
By then I’d worked the last of his rings onto my right hand. I made a fist and drove it into her jaw.
I’d meant to just let her drop, but I couldn’t stop myself from catching her halfway and easing her down. I looked at her lying there and decided I hadn’t spoiled it. The way the gun had fallen looked about right. I bent over Halliday again and put the rings back on his fingers, giving each one a wipe as I did. I tugged his lapels around a bit and cuffed his dead face hard, frontways and backhand. The sirens were pretty loud now. I picked up my own gun and flashlight and had a last look around. It all seemed okay. Halliday was right: it’s best not to get too fancy. I slipped out the back door, locking it behind me, and was in my car, pulling out onto Remsen, by the time the police turned onto Shippie. It all went about as well as you could have hoped for.
26
The Special
The guy with the load of avocados was nice to me and went a few miles out of his way to let me off at a diner he knew outside Gault, Nevada, where it was cheap, he said, and they treated you all right. I thanked him and got down, and he started up again with a roar like you’d pressed all the keys on a church organ at once. He made a big U-turn that took him way off the shoulder on either side and headed back the way he came. Then there was nothing but the smell of diesel exhaust. It was a smell I knew. The diner wasn’t the kind gotten up to look like a railroad car. It wasn’t gotten up to look like anything, and I couldn’t help noticing the shape the roof was in. I was tired enough that everything I looked at seemed to be grainy and crawling. It was just past dawn, and the desert was cold. The cold felt clean. I picked up my toolbox and suitcase. My typewriter was still on my desk at the Harmon Court. Round Head could give it to his kids to play with. The door jingled as I pushed through, awkwardly because of my bag and toolkit, and the waitress looked up. It was just me and her in the place.