He came back halfway to the elevators, sat down in an open space where there was a pair of windows on the court, a glass-topped table and chairs. He lit a fresh cigarette from his stub, leaned back and listened to the elevators.
He leaned forward sharply whenever one stopped at that floor, listening for steps. The steps came in something over ten minutes. He stood up and went to the corner of the wall where the widened-out space began. He took a long thin gun out from under his right arm, transferred it to his right hand, held it down against the wall beside his leg.
A squat, pockmarked Filipino in bellhop’s uniform came along the corridor, carrying a small tray. Toribo made a hissing noise, lifted the gun. The squat Filipino whirled. His mouth opened and his eyes bulged at the gun.
Toribo said, «What room, punk?»
The squat Filipino smiled very nervously, placatingly. He came close, showed Toribo a yellow envelope on his tray. The figures 338 were penciled on the window of the envelope.
«Put it down,» Toribo said calmly.
The squat Filipino put the telegram on the table. He kept his eyes on the gun.
«Beat it,» Toribo said. «You put it under the door, see?»
The squat Filipino ducked his round black head, smiled nervously again, and went away very quicky towards the elevators.
Toribo put the gun in his jacket pocket, took out a folded white paper. He opened it very carefully, shook glistening white powder from it on to the hollow place formed between his left thumb and forefinger when he spread his hand. He sniffed the powder sharply up his nose, took out a flame-colored silk handkerchief and wiped his nose.
He stood still for a little while. His eyes got the dullness of slate and the skin on his brown face seemed to tighten over his high cheekbones. He breathed audibly between his teeth.
He picked the yellow envelope up and went along the corridor to the end, stopped in front of the last door, knocked.
A voice called out. He put his lips close to the door, spoke in a high-pitched, very deferential voice.
«Mail for you, sar.»
Bedsprings creaked. Steps came across the floor inside. A key turned and the door opened. Toribo had his thin gun out again by this time. As the door opened he stepped swiftly into the opening, sidewise, with a graceful sway of his hips. He put the muzzle of the thin gun against Max Chill’s abdomen.
«Back up!» he snarled, and his voice now had the metallic twang of a plucked banjo string.
Max Chill backed away from the gun. He backed across the room to the bed, sat down on the bed when his legs struck the side of it. Springs creaked and a newspaper rustled. Max Chill’s pale face under the neatly parted brown hair had no expression at all.
Toribo shut the door softly, snapped the lock. When the door latch snapped, Max Chill’s face suddenly became a sick face. His lips began to shake, kept on shaking.
Toribo said mockingly, in his twangy voice: «You talk to the cops, huh? Adios.»
The thin gun jumped in his hand, kept on jumping. A little pale smoke lisped from the muzzle. The noise the gun made was no louder than a hammer striking a nail or knuckles rapping sharply on wood. It made that noise seven times.
Max Chill lay down on the bed very slowly. His feet stayed on the floor. His eyes went blank, and his lips parted and a pinkish froth seethed on them. Blood showed in several places on the front of his loose shirt. He lay quite still on his back and looked at the ceiling with his feet touching the floor and the pink froth bubbling on his blue lips.
Toribo moved the gun to his left hand and put it away under his arm. He sidled over to the bed and stood beside it, looking down at Max Chill. After a while the pink froth stopped bubbling and Max Chill’s face became the quiet, empty face of a dead man.
Toribo went back to the door, opened it, started to back out, his eyes still on the bed. There was a stir of movement behind him.
He started to whirl, snatching a hand up. Something looped at his head. The floor tilted queerly before his eyes, rushed up at his face. He didn’t know when it struck his face.
Delaguerra kicked the Filipino’s legs into the room, out of the way of the door. He shut the door, locked it, walked stiffly over to the bed, swinging a thonged sap at his side. He stood beside the bed for quite a long time. At last he said under his breath: «They clean up. Yeah — they clean up.»
He went back to the Filipino, rolled him over and went through his pockets. There was a well-lined wallet without any identification, a gold lighter set with gannets, a gold cigarette case, keys, a gold pencil and knife, the flame-colored handkerchief, loose money, two guns and spare clips for them, and five bindles of heroin powder in the ticket pocket of the tan jacket.
He left it thrown around on the floor, stood up. The Filipino breathed heavily, with his eyes shut, a muscle twitching in one cheek. Delaguerra took a coil of thin wire out of his pocket and wired the brown man’s wrists behind him. He dragged him over to the bed, sat him up against the leg, looped a strand of the wire around his neck and around the bed post. He tied the flame-colored handkerchief to the looped wire.
He went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and threw it into the Filipino’s face as hard as he could throw it.
Tonibo jerked, gagged sharply as the wire caught his neck. His eyes jumped open. He opened his mouth to yell.
Delaguerra jerked the wire taut against the brown throat. The yell was cut off as though by a switch. There was a strained anguished gurgle. Toribo’s mouth drooled.
Delaguerra let the wire go slack again and put his head down close to the Filipino’s head. He spoke to him gently, with a dry, very deadly gentleness.
«You want to talk to me, spig. Maybe not right away, maybe not even soon. But after a while you want to talk to me.»
The Filipino’s eyes rolled yellowly. He spat. Then his lips came together, tight.
Delaguerra smiled a faint, grim smile. «Tough boy,» he said softly. He jerked the handkerchief back, held it tight and hard, biting into the brown throat above the adam’s apple.
The Filipino’s legs began to jump on the floor. His body moved in sudden lunges. The brown of his face became a thick congested purple. His eyes bulged, shot with blood.
Delaguerra let the wire go loose again.
The Filipino gasped air into his lungs. His head sagged, then jerked back against the bedpost. He shook with a chill.
«Si … I talk,» he breathed.
ELEVEN
When the bell rang Ironhead Toomey very carefully put a black ten down on a red jack. Then he licked his lips and put all the cards down and looked around towards the front door of the bungalow, through the dining-room arch. He stood up slowly, a big brute of a man with loose gray hair and a big nose.
In the living room beyond the arch a thin blonde girl was lying on a davenport, reading a magazine under a lamp with a torn red shade. She was pretty, but too pale, and her thin, high-arched eyebrows gave her face a startled look. She put the magazine down and swung her feet to the floor and looked at Ironhead Toomey with sharp, sudden fear in her eyes.
Toomey jerked his thumb silently. The girl stood up and went very quickly through the arch and through a swing door into the kitchen. She shut the swing door slowly, so that it made no noise.
The bell rang again, longer. Toomey shoved his white-socked feet into carpet slippers, hung a pair of glasses on his big nose, took a revolver off a chair beside him. He picked a crumpled newspaper off the floor and arranged it loosely in front of the gun, which he held in his left hand. He strolled unhurriedly to the front door.
He was yawning as he opened it, peering with sleepy eyes through the glasses at the tall man who stood on the porch.
«Okey,» he said wearily. «Talk it up.»
Delaguerra said: «I’m a police officer. I want to see Stella La Motte.»
Ironhead Toomey put an arm like a Yule log across the door frame and leaned solidly against it. His expression remained bored.
«Wrong dump, copper. No broads here.»
Delaguerra said: «I’ll come in and look.»
Toomey said cheerfully: «You will — like hell.»
Delaguerra jerked a gun out of his pocket very smoothly and swiftly, smashed it at Toomey’s left wrist. The newspaper and the big revolver fell down on the floor of the porch. Toomey’s face got a less bored expression.
«Old gag,» Delaguerra snapped. «Let’s go in.»
Toomey shook his left wrist, took his other arm off the door frame and swung hard at Delaguerra’s jaw. Delaguerra moved his head about four inches. He frowned, made a disapproving noise with his tongue and lips.
Toomey dived at him. Delaguerra sidestepped and chopped the gun at a big gray head. Toomey landed on his stomach, half in the house and half out on the porch. He grunted, planted his hands firmly and started to get up again, as if nothing had hit him.
Delaguerra kicked Toomey’s gun out of the way. A swing door inside the house made a light sound. Toomey was up on one knee and one hand as Delaguerra looked towards the noise. He took a swing at Delaguerra’s stomach, hit him. Delaguerra grunted and hit Toomey on the head again, hard. Toomey shook his head, growled: «Sappin’ me is a waste of time, ho.»
He dived sidewise, got hold of Delaguerra’s leg, jerked the leg off the floor. Delaguerra sat down on the boards of the porch, jammed in the doorway. His head hit the side of the doorway, dazed him.
The thin blonde rushed through the arch with a small automatic in her hand. She pointed it at Delaguerra, said furiously: «Reach, damn you!»
Delaguerra shook his head, started to say something, then caught his breath as Toomey twisted his foot. Toomey set his teeth hard and twisted the foot as if he was all alone in the world with it and it was his foot and he could do what he liked with it.
Delaguerra’s head jerked back again and his face got white. His mouth twisted into a harsh grimace of pain. He heaved up, grabbed Toomey’s hair with his left hand, dragged the big head up and over until his chin came up, straining. Delaguerra smashed the barrel of his Colt on the skin.
Toomey became limp, an inert mass, fell across his legs and pinned him to the floor. Delaguerra couldn’t move. He was propped on the floor on his right hand, trying to keep from being pushed flat by Toomey’s weight. He couldn’t get his right hand with the gun in it off the floor. The blonde was closer to him now, wild-eyed, white-faced with rage.
Delaguerra said in a spent voice: «Don’t be a fool, Stella. Joey —»
The blonde’s face was unnatural. Her eyes were unnatural, with small pupils, a queer flat glitter in them.
«Cops!» she almost screamed. «Cops! God, how I hate cops!»
The gun in her hand crashed. The echoes of it filled the room, went out of the open front door, died against the highboard fence across the street.
A sharp blow like the blow of a club hit the left side of Delaguerra’s head. Pain filled his head. Light flared — blinding white light that filled the world. Then it was dark. He fell soundlessly, into bottomless darkness.