The room was small. There was a round table with a red-and-white tablecloth in the middle of the room and there were six or seven chairs and a couch. Gilroy pressed a button near the door.
Borg and Faber sat down and Kells stretched out on the couch. Beery studied the photographs — mostly clipped from “Art Models” magazines — on the walls.
A waiter came and Gilroy told him to get Sheedy.
Sheedy turned out to be a very tall, very yellow skeleton. Dinner clothes hung from his high, pointed shoulders as though the least wind would whip them out like a flat black sail. He nodded to Beery. He said: “I am very happy to meet you, Mister Kells.” His accent was very precise. Kells guessed that if the name meant anything special to him he was a remarkable actor.
Gilroy asked: “Was you at the fight, Vince?”
“Yes... I lost.” Sheedy smiled easily.
Gilroy giggled. “Hot dawg! It serves you right — nex’ time you know bettah.”
Sheedy raised his brows, nodded sadly.
“Hash us up a load of champagne—” Gilroy made a large gesture. “An’ send some gals back to sing us a song.”
Sheedy said: “Right away, Lonny” — bowed himself out. He was back in about a minute, asked Kells to come into the hallway. “Some fellows just came in” — he inclined his head toward the front of the place — “asked if Lonny was here. I said no.”
“Who are they?”
“Man named Arnie Taylor — a Negro — and three white boys. I don’t know them.”
Kells said: “Who’s Taylor?”
Sheedy shook his head. “I don’t think he’s a — particular friend of Lonny’s.”
“Where’s Rose?” Kells spoke very softly, quickly.
Sheedy looked surprised. Then he smiled slowly. “I’m afraid you’ve got some wrong ideas.”
Kells waited; Sheedy went on: “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Kells looked at him sleepily, silently.
Sheedy said: “He was here last night — I haven’t seen him since.”
“Thanks.” Kells turned to go back into the room.
Sheedy caught his shoulder. “Rose and I do a little business together,” he said — “that’s all.” He was smiling slightly, looking very straight at Kells.
Kells said: “Liquor business?”
Sheedy shook his head.
“White stuff?”
Sheedy didn’t say anything.
Kells looked at the door to the cabaret, said: “Tell Taylor Lonny’s back here.”
Sheedy said: “I’m under one indictment here, Mister Kells. If there’s any trouble and it gets loud I’ll lose my license.”
“It won’t get loud.”
The door to the cabaret opened and a very light-colored Negro with straight blue-black hair came into the hallway. There was a white man behind him, and the white man took a stubby revolver out of his coat pocket.
The Negro said: “Sorry, Vince.”
Sheedy put his hands up.
Kells clicked a button-switch on the wall with his elbow but the lights in the hallway stayed on.
The white man stayed at the end of the hallway about ten feet away from them. He was short, with a broad bland childlike face. He held the revolver close to his stomach, pointed indiscriminately at Kells and Sheedy.
Taylor came up to them, felt Kells for a gun.
Sheedy started to speak, and then the room door opened and Gilroy stood outlined against darkness.
He asked: “Wha’s the mattah with the lights?”
Taylor turned his head, jerked an automatic put of his belt, swung it toward Gilroy. Kells slammed his open left hand down hard on Taylor’s arm and then he got his other arm around Taylor’s neck and hugged him back close to the walls so that Taylor was between him and the short white man.
The white man turned swiftly and disappeared through the door to the cabaret, Sheedy after him. Then Borg came out past Gilroy and clubbed his gun, tapped Taylor back of the ear. Taylor went limp and Kells let him slide down awkwardly to the floor.
Gilroy said: “Well, fo’ goodness’ sake!”
They turned off Whittier Boulevard and drove a long way along a well-paved road. The road ran between fields; there were a few dark houses and occasionally a light at an intersection.
Kells sat on the left side of the tonneau and Borg sat on the right side and Taylor was between them. Gilroy and Faber were in front. Gilroy had insisted on coming. Beery had gone home.
Kells said: “Where is Rose?”
Taylor made a resigned gesture with one hand. “I tell you, Mister Kells — I don’ know,” he said. “If I knew—”
Borg swung his fist around into Taylor’s face.
Taylor whimpered and put his arms up over his face. He tried to slide farther down in the seat, and Borg put his arm around his shoulders and held him erect.
“Where’s Rose?” Kells pursued relentlessly.
“I don’ know, Mister Kells... I swear to God I don’ know...” Taylor spoke into the cloth of his coat sleeve; the words were broken, sounded far away.
Borg pulled Taylor’s arm down from his face very gently, held his two hands in his lap with one of his hands, swung his fist again.
Taylor struggled and freed one of his hands and put it over his bloody face. “I tell you I got orders that was supposed to come from Rose,” he panted — “but they were over the phone... I don’t know where they was from...”
They rode in silence for a little while, except for the sound of Taylor’s sobbing breath. Then they turned into a dirt road, darker, winding.
Kells said: “Where’s Rose?”
Taylor sobbed, mumbled unintelligibly.
Gilroy turned around and looked at Taylor with hurt, softly animal eyes. Then he looked at Kells, and Kells nodded. There was a little light from a covered globe on the dashboard. Gilroy kept looking at Kells until he nodded again and then Gilroy tapped Faber’s arm; the car stopped, the headlights were switched off.
Kells took the big automatic out of a shoulder holster. He opened the door and put one foot out on the running board, and then he spoke over his shoulder to Borg: “Bring him out here. We don’t want to mess up the car.”
Taylor screamed and Borg clapped his hand over his mouth — then Taylor was suddenly silent, limp. His eyes were wide and white and his lips moved.
Borg said, “Come on — come on,” and then he saw that Taylor couldn’t move and he put his arms around him and half shoved, half lifted him out of the door of the car. Taylor couldn’t straighten his legs. He put one foot on the running board and his knees gave away and he fell down in the road.
Gilroy got out on the other side, said: “Ah’m goin’ to walk up the road a piece.” His voice trembled. He went into the darkness.
Taylor was moaning, threshing around in the dust.
Kells squatted beside him. Then he straightened up and spoke to Faber: “Pull up about thirty feet.”
Faber looked surprised. He let the clutch in and the car moved forward a little way.
Kells squatted beside Taylor in the darkness again, waited. He held the automatic in his two hands, between his legs. The dim red glow of the taillight was around them.
Taylor rolled over on his back and tried to sit up. Kells helped-him, held one hand on his shoulder. Taylor’s eyes were bulging; he looked blindly at the redness of the taillight, blindly at Kells — then he said very evenly, quietly: “He’s in Pedro — Keystone Hotel...” Fear had worn itself out, had taken his strength and left him, curiously, entirely calm. He no longer trembled and his voice was even, low. Only his eyes were wide, staring.
Kells called to Borg and they helped Taylor back to the car. They picked up Gilroy a little way ahead. He stared questioningly at Taylor, Kells.
Kells said: “He’s all right.”