Mardonne leaned over and pressed a buzzer on the side of his desk. He said: «I like that one a lot better. I’m wondering if I could make it stick.»
«You could try,» Mallory said lazily. «I don’t guess it would be the first lead quarter you’ve tried to pass.»
NINE
THE room door came open and the blond boy strolled in. His lips were spread in a pleased grin and his tongue came out between them. He had an automatic in his hand.
Mardonne said: «I’m not busy any more, Henry.»
The blond boy shut the door. Mallory stood up and backed slowly towards the wall. He said grimly:
«Now for the funny stuff, eh?»
Mardonne put brown fingers up and pinched the fat part of his chin. He said curtly:
«There won’t be any shooting here. Nice people come to this house. Maybe you didn’t spot Landrey, but I don’t want you around. You’re in my way.»
Mallory kept on backing until he had his shoulders against the wall. The blond boy frowned, took a step towards him. Mallory said:
«Stay right where you are, Henry. I need room to think. You might get a slug into me, but you wouldn’t stop my gun from talking a little. The noise wouldn’t bother me at all.»
Mardonne bent over his desk, looking sidewise. The blond boy slowed up. His tongue still peeped out between his lips. Mardonne said:
«I’ve got some C notes in the desk here. I’m giving Henry ten of them. He’ll go to your hotel with you. He’ll even help you pack. When you get on the train East he’ll pass you the dough. If you come back after that, it will be a new deal—from a cold deck.» He put his hand down slowly and opened the desk drawer.
Mallory kept his eyes on the blond boy. «Henry might make a change in the continuity,» he said unpleasantly. «Henry looks kind of unstable to me.»
Mardonne stood up, brought his hand from the drawer. He dropped a packet of notes on top of the desk. He said:
«I don’t think so. Henry usually does what he is told.»
Mallory grinned tightly. «Perhaps that’s what I’m afraid of,» he said. His grin got tighter still, and crookeder. His teeth glittered between his pale lips. «You said you thought a lot of Landrey, Mardonne. That’s hooey. You don’t care a thin dime about Landrey, now he’s dead. You probably stepped right into his half of the joint, and nobody around to ask questions. It’s like that in the rackets. You want me out because you think you can still peddle your dirt—in the right place—for more than this small time joint would net in a year. But you can’t peddle it, Mardonne. The market’s closed. Nobody’s going to pay you a plugged nickel either to spill it or not to spill it.»
Mardonne cleared his throat softly. He was standing in the same position, leaning forward a little over the desk, both hands on top of it, and the packet of notes between his hands. He licked his lips, said:
«All right, master mind. Why not?»
Mallory made a quick but expressive gesture with his right thumb.
«I’m the sucker in this deal. You’re the smart guy. I told you a straight story the first time and my hunch says Landrey wasn’t in that sweet frame alone. You were in it up to your fat neck!… But you aced yourself backwards when you let Landrey pack those letters around with him. The girl can talk now. Not a whole lot, but enough to get backing from an outfit that isn’t going to scrap a million-dollar reputation because some cheap gambler wants to get smart… If your money says different, you’re going to get a jolt that’ll have you picking your eyeteeth out of your socks. You’re going to see the sweetest cover-up even Hollywood ever fixed.»
He paused, flashed a quick glance at the blond boy. «Something else, Mardonne. When you figure on gun play get yourself a loogan that knows what it’s all about. The gay caballero here forgot to thumb back his safety.»
Mardonne stood frozen. The blond boy’s eyes flinched down to his gun for a split second of time. Mallory jumped fast along the wall, and his Luger snapped into his hand. The blond boy’s face tensed, his gun crashed. Then the Luger cracked, and a slug went into the wall beside the blond boy’s gay felt hat. Henry faded down gracefully, squeezed lead again. The shot knocked Mallory back against the wall. His left arm went dead.
His lips writhed angrily. He steadied himself; the Luger talked twice, very rapidly.
The blond boy’s gun arm jerked up and the gun sailed against the wall high up. His eyes widened, his mouth came open in a yell of pain. Then he whirled, wrenched the door open and pitched straight out on the landing with a crash.
Light from the room streamed after him. Somebody shouted somewhere. A door banged. Mallory looked at Mardonne, saying evenly:
«Got me in the arm, — ! I could have killed the — four times!»
Mardonne’s hand came up from the desk with a blued revolver in it. A bullet splashed into the floor at Mallory’s feet. Mardonne lurched drunkenly, threw the gun away like something red hot. His hands groped high in the air. He looked scared stiff.
Mallory said: «Get in front of me, big shot! I’m moving out of here.»
Mardonne came out from behind the desk. He moved jerkily, like a marionette. His eyes were as dead as stale oysters. Saliva drooled down his chin.
Something loomed in the doorway. Mallory heaved side-wise, firing blindly at the door. But the sound of the Luger was overborne by the terrific flat booming of a shotgun. Searing flame stabbed down Mallory’s right side. Mardonne got the rest of the load.
He plunged to the floor on his face, dead before he landed.
A sawed-off shotgun dumped itself in through the open door. A thick-bellied man in shirtsleeves eased himself down in the door-frame, clutching and rolling as he fell. A strangled sob came out of his mouth, and blood spread on the pleated front of a dress shirt.
Sudden noise flared out down below. Shouting, running feet, a shrilling off-key laugh, a high sound that might have been a shriek. Cars started outside, tires screeched on the driveway. The customers were getting away. A pane of glass went out somewhere. There was a loose clatter of running feet on a sidewalk.
Across the lighted patch of landing nothing moved. The blond boy groaned softly, out there on the floor, behind the dead man in the doorway.
Mallory plowed across the room, sank into the chair at the end of the desk. He wiped sweat from his eyes with the heel of his gun hand. He leaned his ribs against the desk, panting, watching the door.
His left arm was throbbing now, and his right leg felt like the plagues of Egypt. Blood ran down his sleeve inside, down on his hand, off the tips of two fingers.
After a while he looked away from the door, at the packet of notes lying on the desk under the lamp. Reaching across he pushed them into the open drawer with the muzzle of the Luger. Grinning with pain he leaned far enough over to pull the drawer shut. Then he opened and closed his eyes quickly, several times, squeezing them tight together, then snapping them open wide. That cleared his head a little. He drew the telephone towards him.
There was silence below stairs now. Mallory put the Luger down, lifted the phone off the prongs and put it down beside the Luger.
He said out loud: «Too bad, baby… Maybe I played it wrong after all… Maybe the louse hadn’t the guts to hurt you at that… well… there’s got to be talking done now.»
As he began to dial, the wail of a siren got louder coming up the long hill from Sherman…
TEN