“Rose.”
Kells looked interested. “What with — a piano?”
“A vase...”
“Vahze.”
Beery said: “A vase — a big one out of the bedroom. I don’t think he had a gun.”
“Would you mind beginning at the beginning?” Kells closed his eyes again.
“After you left, Fenner and Gowdy sat there like a couple bumps on a log, afraid to crack in front of me.”
Kells nodded carefully, held his head in his hands.
“After a while, Gowdy got bored and went home — he lives around the corner. I was sucking up a lot of red-eye, having a swell time. Then about five minutes before you got here the bell rang and Fenner went to the door, backed in with Rose and O’Donnell and the spiggoty. O’Donnell and the spick was snowed to the eyes. Rose said, ‘What did Kells get from that gal that bumped Bellmann, and where is it?’ Fenner went into a nose dive — he was scared wet, anyway. They made us get down on the floor—”
Kells laughed, said: “You looked like a couple communicants.”
“—and Rose frisked both of us and started tearing up the Furniture. Some way or other I got the idea that whether he found what he was looking for or not, we weren’t going to tell about it afterwards.”
Beery paused, lighted a cigaret, went on quietly: “Rose was sore as hell, and O’Donnell and the greaser were leaking C out of their ears. The greaser kept fingering a shiv in his belt — you know: the old noiseless ear-to-ear trick.”
Kells said: “Maybe. They popped Dickinson and me outside Ansel’s. If they’re that far in the open maybe they’d want to get Fenner too.”
“And Beery — the innocent bystander...”
“I doubt it, Shep. I don’t think Rose would have come along if it was a kill.”
“Well, anyway — he’d got around to the bedroom when you rang. He switched out the light and waited in there in the dark. You came in and went into your Wild West act with baby-face, and Rose came behind you and took a bead on your skull with the vase — vahze. Then he and the greaser scrammed — quick.”
Kells reached suddenly into his inside pocket, then took his hand out, sighed. “Didn’t he fan me?”
“No. I grabbed O’Donnell’s gun when he fell — anyway, I think Rose was too scared to think about that.” Kells said: Go on.
Beery looked immensely, superior. “Well, the old rapid-fire Beery brain got to work. I figured that you had to be out of there quick and I remembered what you’d said about this place next door. Fenner was about to go into his fit — I got the key from him and talked about thirty seconds’ worth of sense, and carried you in here — and the gun.” He nodded at the revolver on the couch beside Kells.
“Where’s Fenner now?”
“Over at the Station filing murder charges against Rose and the greaser.”
Kells said: “That’s swell.”
“The house dick and a bunch of coppers and a lot of neighbors who had heard the barrage got here at about the same time. It was the fastest police action I’ve ever seen; must have been one of the radio cars. I listened through the airshaft. Fenner had pulled himself together, told a beautiful story about Rose and O’Donnell and the Mex crashing in, O’Donnell getting it in an argument with Rose.”
Beery mashed out his cigarette. “He’s telling it over at headquarters now — or maybe he’s on his way back. You’ve been out about a half-hour.”
Kells sat up unsteadily, said: “Give me a drink of water.” He bent over and very carefully rolled up his trouser leg, examined his injured leg.
A little later there was a tap at the door and Beery opened it, let Fenner in.
Fenner looked very tired. He said: “How are you, Gerry?”
“I’m fine, Lee — how are you?” Kells grinned.
“Terrible — terrible! I can’t stand this kind of thing.” Fenner sat down.
“Maybe you’d better take a trip, after all.” Kells smiled faintly, picked up the revolver. “Things are going to be more in the open from now on, I guess — I’ll have to carry a gun.” He looked down at the revolver.
“By God, I’ll get a permit for a change,” he said: “Can you fix that up?”
Fenner nodded wearily. “I guess so.”
“And Lee, we made a deal tonight — I mean early — the twenty-five grand, you know. I’m going to handle the stuff, of course; but in the interests of my client, Miss Granquist, I’ll have to consummate the sale.”
Fenner looked at the floor.
“A check’ll be all right.”
Fenner nodded. “I’ll go in and make it out,” he said. “Then I’ll have to say goodnight — I’m all in.”
“That’ll be all right.”
Fenner went out and closed the door.
Kells sat looking at the door for a moment and then he said: “Shep — you’re the new editor of the Coast Guardian. How do you like that?”
“Lousy. I don’t carry enough insurance.”
“You’ll be all right. A hundred a week and all the advertising you can sell on the side.”
“When do I start?”
“Right now. I parked Dickinson up at Bill Cullen’s. I’ll drop you there and you can get the details from him — if he’s conscious. I’ll turn the, uh — data over to you...”
Beery rubbed his eyes, yawned. He smiled a little and said: “Oh well, what the hell. I guess I’m beginning to like it.”
Kells looked at his wrist. “The bastards smashed my watch — what time is it?”
“Twelve-two.”
Kells picked up the telephone and called a Hempstead number. He said: “Hello, baby... Sure... Have you got any ham and eggs?... Have you got some absorbent cotton and bandages and iodine?... That’s fine, I’ll be up in about ten minutes... I’ve been on a party.”
Doctor Jams looked wiser than any one man could possibly be. His head was as round and white and bare as a cue ball; his nose was a long bony hook and his eyes were pale, immensely shrewd.
He jabbed forceps gently into Kells’ leg, said: “Hurt?”
Kells stuck out his lips, shook his head slightly. “No. Not very much.”
“You’re a damned liar!” Janis straightened, glared.
Bright sun beat through the wide east windows; the old instrument case against one white wall glistened. Kells was half lying on a small operating table. He stared at the bright point of sunlight on the wall, tried not to think about the leg.
“God deliver me from a sadistic doctor,” he said.
Janis grinned, bent again over the leg, probed deeper. “That Was a dandy.” He held a tiny twisted chunk of lead up in the forceps’ point, exhibited it proudly. “Now you know how a rabbit feels.”
“Now I know how it feels to be a mother. You’re as proud of a few shot as a good doctor would be of triplets.”
Janis chuckled, jabbed again with the forceps.
At a little after eight-thirty, Kells left Janis’s office in the Harding Building. It had rained all night; the air was sharp, clear. He limped across Hollywood Boulevard to a small jewelry store, left his watch to be repaired and asked that they send it to him at the hotel as soon as possible. He went out and bought a paper and got a cab, said, “Ambassador,” leaned back and spread the paper. Then he sat up very straight.
A headline read: WOMAN IN BELLMANN KILLING ESCAPES.
He glanced out the window at a tangle of traffic as the cab curved into Vine Street; then leaned back again slowly, read the story:
Early this morning, Miss S. Granquist, alleged by police to be the self-confessed slayer of John R. Bellmann, prominent philanthropist and reformer, was “kidnapped” from Detectives Breen and Rail after the car in which they were taking her from the Hollywood Police Station to the County Jail had been forced to the curb near Temple Street and Coronado, crashed into a fire plug. Officer Breen was slightly injured, removed to the Receiving Hospital. Rail described the “abductors” as, “eight or nine heavily armed and desperate men in a cream-colored coupe.” He neglected to explain how “eight or nine” men and a woman got away in a coupe. Our motor-car manufacturers would be interested in how that was done. It is opportune that another example of the inefficiency of our police department occurs almost on the eve of the municipal primaries. The voters...