Beery went to the telephone. He said: “We’ve been a Bellmann paper — I’ll have to talk to the Old Man.”
“You god-damned idiot! No paper can afford to soft-pedal a thing like this. Can’t you see that without an editorial OK?”
Beery nodded in a faraway way, dialed a number. He asked for a Mister Crane; when Crane had answered, said: “This is Beery. Bellmann has been shot by a jane, in her apartment, in Hollywood... Uh huh — very dead.”
He grinned up at Kells, listened to an evident explosion at the other end of the line. “We’ll have to give it everything, Mister Crane,” he went on. “It’s open and shut — there isn’t any out... OK Switch me to Thompson — I’ll give it to him.”
Granquist got up and went unsteadily to the door. She put her hand on the knob and then seemed to remember that the door was locked. She looked at the key but didn’t touch it. She turned and went into the dinette, took a nearly empty bottle out of the cupboard and came back and sat down.
Beery asked: “What’s your name, sister?”
Granquist was trying to get the cork out of the bottle. She didn’t say anything or look up.
Kells said: “Granquist.” He looked at her for a moment, then went over to the window, turned his head, slightly toward Beery: “Miss Granquist.”
Beery said, “Hello, Tom,” spoke into the telephone in a low even monotone.
Kells turned from the window, crossed slowly to Granquist. He sat down on the arm of her chair and took the bottle out of her hand and took out the cork. He got up and went into the dinette, poured the whiskey into a glass and brought it back to her, sat down again on the arm of the chair. “Don’t take it so big, baby,” he said very softly and quietly. “You’ve got a perfect case. The jury’ll give you roses and a vote of thanks on the ‘for honor’ angle — and it’s the swellest thing that could happen for Fenner’s machine — it’s the difference between Bellmann’s administration and a brand-new one...”
“I didn’t do it, Gerry.” She looked up at him and her eyes were dull, hurt. “I didn’t do it! I left the snaps and stuff in the office downstairs when I went out — the bag was a gag—”
Kells said: “I knew they weren’t in the bag — you left it in the chair when you went into the bathroom.”
She nodded. She wasn’t listening to him. She had things to say. “I ran back here when I left Fenner’s. I picked up the stuff at the office — had to wait till the manager got the combination to the safe out of his apartment. Then I came up here to wait for you.”
She drank, put the glass on the floor. She turned, inclined her head toward Bellmann. “He was like that. He must have come here for the pictures — he’d been through my things...”
Kells said: “Never mind, baby — it’s a set up...”
“I didn’t do it!” She beat her fist on the arm of the chair. Her eyes were suddenly wild.
Kells stood up.
Beery finished his report, hung up the receiver. He said: “Now I better call the station.”
“Wait a minute.” Kells looked down at Granquist and his face was white, hard. “Listen!” he emphasized the word with one violent finger. “You be nice. You play this the way I say and you’ll be out in a month — maybe I can even get you out on bail...”
He turned abruptly and went to the door, turned the key. “Or” — he jerked his head toward the door, looked at the little watch on the inside of his wrist — “there’s a Frisco bus out Cahuenga in about six minutes. You can make it — and ruin your case.”
Outside, sultry thunder rumbled and rain whipped against the windows. Kells slid a note off the sheaf in his breast pocket, went over and handed it to her. It was a thousand dollar note.
She looked at it dully, slowly stood up. Then she stuffed the note into the pocket of her suit and went quickly to the chair where Kells had thrown her coat.
Kells said: “Give me the pictures.”
Beery was staring open-mouthed at Kells. “Gerry, you can’t do this,” he said. “I told Tommy we had the girl—”
“She escaped.”
Granquist put on her coat. She looked at Kells and her eyes were soft, wet. She went to him and took a heavy manila envelope out of her pocket, handed it to him. She stood a moment looking up at him and then she turned and went to the door, put her hand on the knob and turned it, then took her hand away from the knob and held it up to her face. She stood like that a little while and then she said. “All right,” very low.
She said, “All right,” again, very low and distinctly, and turned from the door and went back to the big chair and sat down.
Kells said: “Okay, Shep.”
About ten minutes later Beery got up and let Captain Hayes of the Hollywood Division in. There were two plain-clothes men and an assistant coroner with him.
The assistant coroner examined Bellmann’s body, looked up in a little while: “Instantaneous — two wounds, probably thirty-two caliber — one touched the heart.” He stood up. “Dead about twenty minutes.”
Hayes picked up the gun from where Kells had replaced it under the table, examined it, wrapped it carefully.
Kells smiled at him. “Old school — along with silencers and dictaphones. Nowadays they wear gloves.” Hayes said: “What’s your name?”
Beery said: “Oh, I’m sorry — I thought you knew each other. This is Gerry Kells... Captain Hayes.”
“What were you doing here?” Hayes was a heavily-built man with bright brown eyes. He spoke very rapidly.
“Shep and I came up to call on my girl friend here” — Kells indicated Granquist who was still sitting with her coat on, staring at them all in turn, expressionlessly. “We found it just the way you see it.”
Hayes glanced at Beery, who nodded. Hayes spoke to Granquist. “Is that right, miss?”
She looked up at him blankly for a moment, then nodded slowly. “That’ll be about all, I guess.” Hayes looked at Kells. “You still at the Ambassador?”
“You can always reach me through Shep.”
Hayes said: “Come on, miss.”
Granquist got up and went into the dressing room and packed a few things in a small traveling bag.
One of the plain-clothes men opened the door, let two ambulance men in. They put Bellmann’s body on a stretcher and carried it out.
Kells leaned against the doorframe of the dressing room, watched Granquist. “I’ll be down in the morning with an attorney,” he said. “In the meantime, keep quiet.”
She nodded vaguely and closed the bag, came out of the dressing-room. She said: “Let’s go.”
The manager of the apartment house was in the corridor with one of the Filipino bellboys, a reporter from the Journal and a guest. The manager was wringing his hands. “I can’t understand it — no one heard the shots.”
One of the plain-clothes men looked superiorly at the manager, said: “The thunder covered the shots.”
They all went down the corridor except Beery and Kells and the manager. The manager went to the door, smiled weakly at Kells. “I’ll close up Miss Granquist’s apartment.”
Kells said: “Never mind — I’ll bring the key down.”
The manager was doubtful.
Kells looked very stern, whispered: “Special investigator.” He and Beery went back into the apartment.
Beery called his paper again with additional information: “Captain Hayes made the arrest... And don’t forget: the Chronicle is always first with the latest...” He hung up, lighted a new cigarette from the butt of another. “From now on,” he said, “I’m going to follow you around and phone in the story of my life, from day to day.”
Kells asked: “Are they giving it an extra?”
“Sure. It’s on the presses now — be on the streets in a little while.”
“That’s dandy.”