Kells folded the paper, knocked on the glass and told the driver to make it fast. They cut over Melrose to Normandie, out of the heavy traffic, over Normandie to Wilshire Boulevard and into the big parking circle of the Ambassador.
Kells told the driver to wait, hurried up to his room and changed clothes. He called the desk, was told that Mister Beery had called twice, called Beery back at the Hay ward Hotel downtown. The room line was busy. He took a long drink and went back down and got into the cab. It took twenty-five minutes to get through the traffic on lower Seventh Street to the Hayward. Fenner opened the door of the small outer room on the fourth floor; they went through to the larger bedroom. Kells said: “You’re down early, Lee.”
Fenner glanced at the rolled newspaper in Kells’ hand, nodded, smiled wanly.
“Where’s Beery?” Kells took off his hat and coat. Fenner sat down on the bed. “He went over to the print shop about an hour ago. He ought to be back pretty soon.” Kells sat down carefully. Fenner asked: “How’s the leg?”
“Doc Janis picked eleven shot out of it like plucking petals off a daisy. It came out odd — he loves me.” Kells unrolled, unfolded the paper, looked over it at Fenner. “Do you know anything about this?”
“I do not.” Fenner said it very quietly, very emphatically.
“What do you think?”
“Rose.”
Kells stared at Fenner steadily. He moved his fingers on the arm of the chair as though running scales. He said: “What for?”
“She’s crossed him up all the way — he’s the kind of a crazy guy that would take a long chance to get even.”
Kells sat staring blankly at Fenner for perhaps a minute. Then he said slowly: “I want you to call Gowdy — everybody you can reach who might have a line on it...”
Fenner got up and went to the phone. He called several numbers, spoke softly, quietly.
After a little while the other door opened and someone came through the outer room. It was Beery. He said: “We can’t get it on the newsstands before noon.”
“That’ll be all right.” Kells was still sitting deep in the big chair. Fenner was at the telephone. Beery took off his coat and hat, flopped down on the bed.
“Maybe I can get a couple hours’ snooze,” he said.
Fenner hung up the receiver and looked at Kells. “You might pick up something at the Bronx, out on Central Avenue. It’s a nigger cabaret run by a man named Sheedy. Rose is supposed to be a partner — he was seen there last night.”
“Who’s Sheedy?”
Beery said: “A big dinge — used to be in pictures...”
“You know him?”
“A little.”
“Get on the phone and see if you can locate him. He wouldn’t be at his joint this time of day.”
Beery sighed, sat up. “The law’s looking for Rose too, Gerry,” he said. “You’re not going to get anything out of any of these boys.”
Kells half smiled, inclined his head toward the phone. Then he stood up.
“If that son of a bitch got her — which is a long shot” — he looked sideways at Fenner — “he’ll give her everything in the book. I got her into it — and by God! I’ll get her out if I have to turn the rap back on Lee and let the whole play slide.” He turned, went to one of the windows. “And if Rose did get her and lets her have it. I’ll spread his guts from here to Caliente.”
Beery got up and went to the phone. “You’re getting plenty dramatic about a gal you turned up yourself,” he said.
Kells turned from the window and looked at Beery, and his eyes were cold, his mouth was partly open, faintly smiling.
He said: “Right.”
Sheedy couldn’t be located.
Fenner got Officer Rail on the phone and Kells talked to him. Rail said he couldn’t identify any of the men who had taken Granquist; he thought one of them was crippled, wore a steel brace on his leg. He wasn’t sure.
Kells called Rose’s place on Fifth Street; there was no answer. He called the Biltmore, was told that Rose hadn’t been in for two days; Mrs. Rose was out of town.
Beery napped for an hour. Kells and Fenner sat in the outer room; Fenner read a detective-story magazine and Kells sat deep in a big chair, stared out the window. Hanline stopped in for a minute. He said he’d speak to one of the bellboys downstairs, send up a bottle.
At a little after ten-thirty the phone rang. Fenner answered it, called Kells.
A man’s high-pitched voice said: “I have been authorized to offer you fifteen thousand dollars for the whole issue of the Guardian, together with the plates and all data used in its make-up.”
Kells said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” hung up.
He told Fenner to hurry down to the switchboard, try to trace the call; waited for the phone to ring again. It did almost immediately. The man’s voice said: “It will be very much to your advantage to talk business, Mister Kells.”
“Who s your authority?”
“The Bellmann estate.”
Kells said: “If you know where Miss Granquist is and can produce her within the next half-hour, I’ll talk to you.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then the man said: “Wait a minute.” After a little while a woman’s voice said: “Gerry! For God’s sake get me out of this!...” The voice trailed off as if she had been dragged away from the phone. The man’s voice said: “Well?” Fenner came in, nodded to Kells. Kells said: “Okay. Bring her here.” He hung up. The phone rang again but he didn’t answer. He sat grinning at Fenner. Fenner said excitedly: “West Adams — about a block west of Figueroa.”
“That wasn’t even a good imitation of the baby.” Kells stood up. “But maybe they’ll come here and try to do business on that angle. That’ll be swell.”
“But we’d better get out there, hadn’t we?”
Kells said: “What for? They haven’t got her or they wouldn’t take a chance faking her voice. They’ll be here — and I’ll lay ten to one they don’t know any more about where Rose and the kid are than we do.”
Kells went back to his chair by the window. “I told Shep to plant some men at the print shop in case there’s trouble there. Did he?” Fenner nodded.
There was a knock at the door; Fenner said, “Come in,” and a boy came in with a bottle of whiskey and three tall glasses of ice on a tray. He put the tray on a table; Fenner gave him some change and he went out and closed the door.
At twenty minutes after eleven a Mister Woodward was announced. Fenner went into the bedroom, closed the door.
Woodward turned out to be a small yellow-haired man, wearing tortoise-shell glasses; about thirty-five. He sat down at Kells’ invitation, declined a drink.
He said: “Of course we couldn’t bring Miss Granquist here. She’s being sought by the police and that would be too dangerous. She’ll be turned over to you, together with a certified check for fifteen thousand dollars, as soon as the issue of the Guardian, the plates and the copy are turned over to us.”
Kells said: “What the hell kind of a cheap outfit are you? The stuff’s worth that much simply as state’s evidence — let alone its political value to your people.”
“I know — I know.” Woodward bobbed his head up and down. “The fact of the matter is, Mister Kells — my people are up against it for cash. They’ll know how to show their appreciation in other ways, however.”