“And take a beating when I get in?” she snarled.
I saw the hatred she couldn’t quite keep masked in her eyes. And the greed, too, I saw that. Greed for pleasure, excitement, for riches around her. For that she stayed married to Dash Smith.
“I promise — no beating. Because it happens I don’t care where you go.”
Her eyes went icy. For an instant there was a deadly challenge unspoken between us. Then, with a toss of her hair, she turned, left the room.
Alone in the apartment, I prowled it. Nothing brought back memory. There were no records of Dash Smith’s protection rackets.
The buzzing at the door brought me back to the living room. I opened the door. A short, stocky man in a rumpled gray suit let a look of contempt grow on his face as he brushed by me into the living room. He had a heavy, tired face, but his eyes were cold, reflecting strength and purpose.
“Alone, Smith.”
“Do I know you?” Something stirred in me, I knew him! But it remained just beyond the rim of consciousness!
“Don’t hand me that, wise guy! As Detective-Sergeant Saul Levine, I’m calling officially about the disappearance of Lieutenant Les Quincy. Better you should have fried in that cottage, Smith. Because you’ve tangled with something too big this time. Always before it’s been dirty nightclubs, crooked gambling, protection rackets, and numbers rackets milking the poor. You got a nice new face — you should have stayed hidden behind it, Smith — and run for your life!”
He moved up to me, his eyes so cold they were burning, and jabbed his words at me with a finger in my chest. “You think you’ve played it smart. Les Quincy was working on you, and disappears, like that!” He snapped his fingers sharply. “But we know you killed him, don’t we, Smith? Just as you killed a lot of other guys that got in your way. Did you plant him in the river? Bury him deep someplace?”
“Stop it!” I was shaking all over.
Saul Levine laughed coldly. “You’re going soft, Smith! You don’t look like yourself, hairless and changed with that new skin. Maybe that fire did something to your insides. Maybe I should run you in and grill the truth out of you — but your crooked lawyer wouldn’t let you stay in five minutes, would he?”
Sergeant Levine strode toward the door. “But I’ll be back, Smith! I’ll be back and when I get you, no lawyer will be crooked or smart enough to get you off!”
When the door had slammed behind the short, heavy cop, I sank slowly in a chair. Dash Smith, racketeer, murderer. I buried my face in my palms. The skeins of the web were too many, too strong. I must never see Sally Blanchard again...
The group that gathered in my apartment the next day might have been smooth business men. Strange faces to me, mention of strange places and strange names. I mumbled greetings, shook hands, mentioned I was still woozy from the long hospitalization. As they spoke to each other, I gradually learned to identify the three or four key men.
Tony Morales who spoke of the profits of the Gilded Lily Club. Brian Connell who boasted of the speed with which he could obtain a writ of habeas corpus from old Judge McCloud. Blackie, a little man who mentioned having hired two more out-of-town men on the protection squad. And Felix Varden. He was very much there, speaking in a whisper to Marlene in a corner.
I let Varden do all the talking. It was easy. He enjoyed taking over. He chuckled with understanding when I said, “I’m naturally behind on things. I’ll listen until I get up to date.”
I listened, sickened to the things these men had been accomplishing in my name. Saul Levine had spoken the truth — and Marlene and Varden were guessing it. Thousands from the numbers. More from the protection rackets of Blackie. A young man beaten when he accused the Gilded Lily of running crooked gambling.
I wondered how long before all of them knew that Dash Smith was going soft. What would happen to me then? It must be mighty lonely at the bottom of the river, your feet in a tub of cement...
When there was a lull, I said directly to Blackie down the table from me: “On this Blanchard killing, Blackie. I want restitution made to the widow. In full. I don’t care how you do it.”
I heard sharp gasps along the table. Blackie came forward on his chair. “Boss, are you crazy?”
I tried to remain cold. “It’ll take the heat off,” I said. “That thing never was done right.”
“There are easier ways to take the heat off than payin’ out money!”
I came up out of that chair and snarled down the table. “Lay off that stuff, Blackie. Whatever you’ll do, you’ll do when I order it, and not before.”
My anger was real enough, because I knew I had said too much. Now, I’d put Sally in danger. If Dash Smith’s name still stood for anything, I was going to use it for her protection. My anger had the effect I desired. I could see it in their faces. Even Varden looked a little white, and he sank back in his chair, watching me. I knew he was thinking, the old Dash Smith is back, and he’s still on top as boss...
“All right, Boss,” Blackie said soothing, “Okay, Dash. What you say goes.”
I nodded. I sat there while business was concluded. There was respect in their voices when they filed out. But I was trembling down in my gats. I knew something was going to break and it was going to break fast.
“Coming to the cocktail party?” Marlene said. Varden was waiting, coat across his arm, at the door.
“I’ve had all of them I can stand for a little while,” I said. “You go ahead — with Felix.”
I could feel their eyes wondering and uncertain as I turned my back on them and walked to the window. I heard the door close and click locked. I stood looking down at the wide street below.
Standing there, with the last rays of the sun bathing the street below redly, I felt a memory beating against the dark wall of my mind. I clenched my hands, trying to will the memory into my conscious mind. I closed my eyes, and felt sweat break across my forehead. I could sense the memory of a dark alley, feet running, panting of breath. Then the memory was gone.
I sank on a chair, shaken, exhausted. Dr. Maddigan had tried to cheer me up when I left the hospital, but I sensed from his words that he was thinking of amnesia victims that remained that way for years, for life.
I left the apartment. I began to walk along the darkening street, moving without direction, I told myself. I knew I had no right to see Sally...
It must have been the way the black sedan cruised slowly past me that was the warning. I felt the hackles rising along my neck. I stepped in closer against the wall, and took longer steps. Instinctively, I felt in my pockets. I was unarmed.
I kept moving. I turned a comer. It was Eastland Street. At the end, near the park, was the apartment where Sally lived with her daughter and her aunt. I told myself savagely I wasn’t carrying any more horror to them, and I wheeled about on the walk.
At that instant the big car pulled into the curb, and two hoodlums leaped to the sidewalk. As they came in upon me, they tried to conceal their automatics against their sides.
“All right,” I said evenly, “who’ll be first?” I had backed against the brick wall in the darkness. I had shoved my hand in my topcoat pocket. I was pulling a bluff. But suddenly, with the blood pounding in my veins, I wasn’t afraid. I felt nothing for these two gunsels but old contempt — contempt that came from somewhere deep inside me.
They stopped. With the guns in their hands, these hoods stopped. The squat dark one moved a little to the left. I could see they were trying to crowd me, and yet neither wanted to make the first move.
“Now wait a minute, Boss,” the slender one said. “We just got a message.”
“From Blackie?” I said, watching them still edging toward me.
“Yeah. Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s it, a message from Blackie. He said—”