He smiled faintly again.
«Listen, Marlowe, there are lots of ways to play any game. I play mine on the house percentage, because that’s all I need to win. What makes me get tough?»
I rolled a fresh cigarette around in my fingers and tried to roll it around my glass with two fingers. «Who said you were tough? I always heard the nicest things about you.»
Marty Estel nodded and looked faintly amused. «I have sources of information,» he said quietly. «When I have fifty grand invested in a guy, I’m apt to find out a little about him. Jeeter hired a man named Arbogast to do a little work. Arbogast was killed in his office today — with a twenty-two. That could have nothing to do with Jeeter’s business. But there was a tail on you when you went there and you didn’t give it to the law. Does that make you and me friends?»
I licked the edge of my glass, nodded. «It seems it does.»
«From now on just forget about bothering Harriet, see?»
«O.K.»
«So we understand each other real good, now.»
«Yeah.»
«Well, I’ll be going. Give the guy back his Luger, Beef.»
The derby hat came over and smacked my gun into my hand hard enough to break a bone.
«Staying?» Estel asked, moving towards the door.
«I guess I’ll wait a little while. Until Hawkins comes up to touch me for another ten.»
Estel grinned. Beef walked in front of him wooden-faced to the door and opened it. Estel went out. The door closed. The room was silent. I sniffed at the dying perfume of sandalwood and stood motionless, looking around.
Somebody was nuts. I was nuts. Everybody was nuts. None of it fitted together worth a nickel. Marty Estel, as he said, had no good motive for murdering anybody, because that would be the surest way to kill chances to collect his money. Even if he had a motive for murdering anybody, Waxnose and Frisky didn’t seem like the team he would select for the job. I was in bad with the police, I had spent ten dollars of my twenty expense money, and I didn’t have enough leverage anywhere to lift a dime off a cigar counter.
I finished my drink, put the glass down, walked up and down the room, smoked a third cigarette, looked at my watch, shrugged and felt disgusted. The inner doors of the suite were closed. I went across to the one out of’ which young Jeeter must have sneaked that afternoon. Opening it I looked into a bedroom done in ivory and ashes of roses. There was a big double bed with no footboard, covered with figured brocade. Toilet articles glistened on a built-in dressing table with a panel light. The light was lit. A small lamp on a table beside the door was lit also. A door near the dressing table showed the cool green of bathroom tiles.
I went over and looked in there. Chromium, a glass stall shower, monogrammed towels on a rack, a glass shelf for perfume and bath salts at the foot of the tub, everything nice and refined. Miss Huntress did herself well. I hoped she was paying her own rent. It didn’t make any difference to me — I just liked it that way.
I went back towards the living room, stopped in the doorway to take another pleasant look around, and noticed something I ought to have noticed the instant I stepped into the room. I noticed the sharp tang of cordite on the air, almost, but not quite gone. And then I noticed something else.
The bed had been moved over until its head overlapped the edge of a closet door which was not quite closed. The weight of the bed was holding it from opening. I went over there to find out why it wanted to open. I went slowly and about halfway there I noticed that I was holding a gun in my hand.
I leaned against the closet door. It didn’t move. I threw more weight against it. It still didn’t move. Braced against it I pushed the bed away with my foot, gave ground slowly.
A weight pushed against me hard. I had gone back a foot or so before anything else happened. Then it happened suddenly. He came out — sideways, in a sort of roll. I put some more weight back on the door and held him like that a moment, looking at him.
He was still big, still blond, still dressed in rough sporty material, with scarf and open-necked shirt. But his face wasn’t red any more.
I gave ground again and he rolled down the back of the door, turning a little like a swimmer in the surf, thumped the floor and lay there, almost on his back, still looking at me. Light from the bedside lamp glittered on his head. There was a scorched and soggy stain on the rough coat — about where his heart would be. So he wouldn’t get that five million after all. And nobody would get anything and Marty Estel wouldn’t get his fifty grand. Because young Mister Gerald was dead.
I looked back into the closet where he had been. Its door hung wide open now. There were clothes on racks, feminine clothes, nice clothes. He had been backed in among them, probably with his hands in the air and a gun against his chest. And then he had been shot dead, and whoever did it hadn’t been quite quick enough or quite strong enough to get the door shut. Or had been scared and had just yanked the bed over against the door and left it that way.
Something glittered down on the floor. I picked it up. A small automatic,.25 caliber, a woman’s purse gun with a beautifully engraved butt inlaid with silver and ivory. I put the gun in my pocket. That seemed a funny thing to do, too.
I didn’t touch him. He was as dead as John D. Arbogast and looked a whole lot deader. I left the door open and listened, walked quickly back across the room and into the living room and shut the bedroom door, smearing the knob as I did it.
A lock was being tinkled at with a key. Hawkins was back again, to see what delayed me. He was letting himself in with his passkey.
I was pouring a drink when he came in.
He came well into the room, stopped with his feet planted and surveyed me coldly.
«I seen Estel and his boy leave,» he said. «I didn’t see you leave. So I come up. I gotta —»
«You gotta protect the guests,» I said.
«Yeah. I gotta protect the guests. You can’t stay up here, pal. Not without the lady of the house home.»
«But Marty Estel and his hard boy can.»
He came a little closer to me. He had a mean look in his eye. He had always had it, probably, but I noticed it more now.
«You don’t want to make nothing of that, do you?» he asked me.
«No. Every man to his own chisel. Have a drink.»
«That ain’t your liquor.»
«Miss Huntress gave me a bottle. We’re pals. Marty Estel and I are pals. Everybody is pals. Don’t you want to be pals?»
«You ain’t trying to kid me, are you?»
«Have a drink and forget it.»
I found a glass and poured him one. He took it.
«It’s the job if anybody smells it on me,» he said.
«Uh-huh.»
He drank slowly, rolling it around on his tongue. «Good Scotch.»
«Won’t be the first time you tasted it, will it?»
He started to get hard again, then relaxed. «Hell, I guess you’re just a kidder.» He finished the drink, put the glass down, patted his lips with a large and very crumpled handkerchief and sighed.
«O.K.,» he said. «But we’ll have to leave now.»
«All set. I guess she won’t be home for a while. You see them go out?»
«Her and the boy friend. Yeah, long time ago.»
I nodded. We went towards the door and Hawkins saw me out. He saw me downstairs and off the premises. But he didn’t see what was in Miss Huntress’ bedroom. I wondered if he would go back up. If he did, the Scotch bottle would probably stop him.
I got into my car and drove off home — to talk to Anna Halsey on the phone. There wasn’t any case any more — for us. I parked close to the curb this time. I wasn’t feeling gay any more. I rode up in the elevator and unlocked the door and clicked the light on.