“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Listen, sister, Lee Fenner’s been a damned good friend to me.’ I said—”
Kells said: “Sister?”
“Yeah. It was a broad.”
They got up and went through the semidarkness to the little room, out and downstairs to the street. It was raining very hard. Dickinson said he had a car; Kells paid off the cab and they went into the vacant lot alongside the building.
Dickinson’s car was a Ford coupe; he finally found his keys and opened the door. Then a bright spotlight was switched on in a car at the curb. There was a sharp choked roar and something bit into Kells’ leg, into his side. Dickinson stumbled, fell down on his knees on the running board; his face and the upper part of his body sagged forward to the floor of the car. He lay still.
Kells lay down in the mud beside the car and drew-up his knees and he could taste blood in his mouth. His teeth were sunk savagely, deeply into his lower lip, and there were jagged wires of pain in his brain, jagged wires in his side.
He knew that it had been a shotgun, and he lay in the mud with rain whipping his face, wondered if Dickinson was dead, waited for the gun to cough again.
Then the spotlight went out and Kells could hear the car being shifted, into gear; he twisted his head a little and saw it pass through the light near the corner — a Cadillac.
He crawled up onto the running board of the Ford and shook Dickinson a little, and then he slowly, painfully, pushed Dickinson up into the car — slowly.
He pressed the knob that unlocked the opposite door and limped around the car and crawled into the driver’s seat. He could feel blood on his side; blood pounded through his head, his eyes. He pried the keys out of Dickinson’s hand and started the motor. Dickinson was an inert heap beside him. He groaned, coughed in a curious dry way.
Kells said: “All right, boy. We’ll fix it up in a minute.” Dickinson coughed again in the curious way that was like a laugh. He tried to sit up, fell forward and-his head banged against the windshield. Kells pulled him back into the seat and drove out of the lot, turned east on Santa Monica. Dickinson tried to say something, groped with one hand in the side pocket. He finally gave it up, managed to gasp: “Gun — here.”
Kells said. “Sit still.”
They went down Santa Monica Boulevard very fast, turned north on La Brea. Kells stopped halfway up the block and felt in Dickinson’s pocket for the bottle, but it had been broken, the pocket was full of wet glass.
They went up La Brea to Franklin, over Franklin to Cahuenga, up Cahuenga and Irish to Cullen’s house.
Kells’ side and leg had become numb. He got out of the car as quickly as he could, limped up the steps. Cullen answered the first ring, stood in the doorway looking elaborately disgusted, said: “Again?”
Kells said: “Give me a hand, Willie. Hurry up.” He started back down the steps.
“No! God damn you and your jams!”
Kells turned and stared at Cullen expressionlessly, and then he went on down the steps. Cullen followed him, muttering; they got Dickinson out of the car, carried him up into the house.
Cullen was breathing heavily. He asked: “Why the hell don’t you take him to the Receiving Hospital?”
“I’ve been mixed up in five shootings in the last thirty-two hours.” Kells went to the telephone, grinned over his shoulder at Cullen. “It’s like old times — one more and they’ll hang me on principle.”
“Haven’t you got any other friends? This place was lousy with coppers yesterday.”
“Wha’s the matter, darling?”
Kells and Cullen turned, looked at the stairway. Eileen, Coin’s girl, was standing halfway down. She swayed back and forth, put her hand unsteadily on the banister. She was very drunk. She was naked.
She drawled: “Hello, Gerry.”
Cullen said: “Go back upstairs and put on your clothes, slut!” He said it very loudly.
Kells laughed, said: “Call Doc Janis — will you, Willie?” He limped to the door, looked down at his torn, muddy, bloodstained clothes. “And loan me a coat. Willie — or I’ll get wet.”
A black touring car with the side curtains drawn was parked in the reserved space in front of the Knickerbocker. Kells had been about to park across the street; he slowed down, blinked at it. The engine was running and there was a man at the wheel. It was a Cadillac.
He stepped on the throttle, careened around the corner, parked in front of the library. He jumped out and took the revolver out of the side pocket, slipped it into the pocket of Cullen’s big coat; he turned up the deep Collar and hurried painfully back across the street, down an alley to a service entrance of the hotel.
The boy in the elevator said: “Well, I guess I was right — I guess it’s going to rain all night.”
Kells said: “Uh huh.”
“Tch tch tch.” The boy shook his head sadly.
“Has Mister Fenner had any visitors since I left?”
“No, sir — I don’t think so. Not many people in and out tonight. There was three gentlemen went up to nine little while ago. They was drunk, I guess.” He slid the door open. Ten, sir.
Kells said: “Thank you.”
He listened at the door of ten-sixteen, heard no sound, rang the bell and stood close to the wall with the revolver in his hand. The inner hallway was narrow — the door would have to be opened at least halfway before he could be seen.
It opened almost at once, slowly. A yellow-white face took form in the darkness, and Kells stepped in to the doorway. He held the revolver belly-high in front of him. The yellow-white face faded backwards as Kells went in until it was the black outline of a man’s head against orange light of the living room, until it was the figure of a short Latin standing with his back against the wall at one side of the door, his arms stretched out.
Beyond him, Fenner and Beery kneeled on the floor, their faces to the wall. On the other side of the room O’Donnell stood with a great blue automatic leveled at Kells’ chest. O’Donnell was bareheaded and a white bulge of gauze and cotton plastered across his scalp. His mouth was open and he breathed through it slowly, audibly. Except for the sharp sound of his breathing, it was entirely still.
Kells said: “I’ll bet I can shoot faster than you, Adenoids.” O’Donnell didn’t say anything. His pale eyes glittered in a sick face and the big automatic was glistening and steady in his fat pink hand.
Fenner leaned forward, put his head against the wall. Beery turned slowly and looked at Kells. The Mexican was motionless, bright-eyed.
Then Beery said, “Look out!” and something dull and terrible crashed against the back of Kells’ head, there was dull and terrible blackness. It was filled with thunder and smothering blue, something hot and alive pulsed in Kells’ hand. He fell.
There was light that hurt his eyes very much, even when they were closed. Someone was throwing water in his face. He said: “Stop that, damn it — you’re getting me wet!” Beery said: “Sh — easy.”
Kells opened his eyes a little. “The place is backwards.”
“This is the one next door, one across the airshaft where Fenner’s stick-up men were stashed. Fenner had the key.” Beery spoke very quietly.
“God! My head. How did I get in here?”
Beery said: “Papa carried you.” He stood up and went to the door for a minute, came back and sat down. “And what a piece of business! You were out on your feet — absolutely cold — squeezed that iron, one, two, three, four, five, six — like that. One in the wall about six inches above my head, five in baby-face.”
“That was O’Donnell.” Kells closed his eyes and moved his head a little. Beery nodded. “Who hit me?”