“Banghart, please give me a break,” I said. “I’ll get your dough. Just give me a little more time.”
“How old are you, Johnny?” he said, and I heard him laugh softly.
“I’m twenty-nine.”
“It seems to me you’ve had plenty of time,” he said.
“Banghart, please—”
“I’ll give you a break. By my clock it’s nine-thirty. I’ll give you until noon. Fair enough?” I heard him laugh again.
He didn’t want his money now. He wanted to step on me like he’d step on a bug, so he could tell everybody how tough he was, but he wanted to let me run around a little just for kicks.
I could hear his soft little laugh as I put the phone back on the hook. The room was quiet and dark and hot. How long could I live up here?
I walked around the room for a while and then I started drinking. There wasn’t anything else to do. I was strung up so tight that my mind wouldn’t work.
I just knew I was in too deep for anybody to help me and the fear of what was going to happen was sending icy shocks through my whole body. My hands were shaking and my insides felt like they were being twisted and squeezed and torn.
After two drinks I got back in bed and pulled the covers over me trying to get warm. I was sweating in a little while but I was still cold.
Maybe it was the liquor, but while I was laying there my mind started working again. I’ve lived all my life by playing the angles and now my mind was starting to work automatically, trying to find some loophole, some way out of this mess.
There had to be a way out. I was too close to what I’d gambled for to lay down and quit.
Frank was out of the way and Alice was mine. With the blonde taken care of, everything would be set. Banghart was the only thing in the way.
I pushed the covers off and went in and got under the shower. I turned the cold water on and stood under it with my head bent down and let it drive into the back of my neck. I must have stayed there for fifteen minutes, but when I got out the fog was out of my head.
There was only one thing I could do and that was run. I had a car and a thousand bucks. That was an angle. I’d take Alice and clear the hell out. The coppers had nothing on us, and I knew places on the West Coast where they’d never find us anyway.
I dressed, then called the switchboard.
“Don’t let anyone up to see me,” I said. “Do you understand? Nobody.”
She said all right and I put the phone down and walked around the room for a while thinking about what I had to do. I couldn’t bother with the blonde. That was too risky and there wasn’t enough time. I knew she might get Harrigan after me when she started squawking, but I had to take that chance.
Banghart was the one that stood in my way. I had to get past him and it had to be done fast. There wasn’t any time to play Ground because when he started after me it would be quick and final.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and put a cigarette in my mouth. A lot of ideas and angles went through my head. Finally they clicked together and I almost grinned. Banghart might get himself a little surprise.
I picked up the phone and told the operator to get me the house dick, a guy named Morrison. He’d been a city copper for six years before he got bounced for taking too big a cut on the pay-off on his beat. He’d taken a plenty big cut from me ever since I’d been in the hotel and I knew I could ask him for a favor.
When I got him on the wire I said, “Morrison, this is Johnny Ford. Listen there’s a guy in the lobby that’s been on my tail for the last couple of days. I want to talk to him. Will you bring him up here for me?”
“I heard you’re in trouble, Johnny,” he said.
“So what? Will you get this guy for me?”
“All right. What’s he look like?”
“He’s a little guy with red hair. He’s wearing glasses. He’ll be sitting on one of the chairs where he can watch the elevator. Take his gun away from him and bring him up.”
I hung up and got my gun out of the dresser. I made sure it was loaded and the safety was on. I dropped it into my pocket and sat down to wait.
Morrison showed in about fifteen minutes with the little redhead. He shoved him into the room and said, “He’s clean, Johnny.”
Morrison stood there, a sloppy looking guy who drank too much beer, waiting for a handout. I gave him a fin and closed the door.
The redhead was standing in the middle of the room. He was watching me with a little grin and not looking at all nervous.
I said, “Sit down. Maybe we got something to talk about.”
“I don’t think so, buddy,” he said, but he took a seat and fished through the pocket of his suit for a cigarette.
I took the gun out of my pocket and went over and stood in front of him.
“What’s the interest in me?”
He blew smoke at me. “I don’t know anything. I was minding my own business in the lobby, punk.” He grinned at me and put the cigarette in his mouth and let it hang there.
I slapped him across the face with the barrel of the gun. The cigarette went flying out of his lips. He cursed and ducked down and then I jerked my knee into his face and straightened him back in the chair. He sank back away from me and he had a mad, scared looked on his face.
“Who put you on my tail?” I said.
I had to hit him some more. He was stubborn but after a while the mad look was gone from his face and he started to get soft.
He said, “Banghart.”
I knew that, but I had to start somewhere. “What’s the idea?”
“He just told me to keep an eye on you. I don’t know what the idea is.”
“You got to do better than that? What were you supposed to do if I took a powder.”
“Let him know, that’s all.”
“That what was going to happen?”
“Christ, I don’t know. He never tells me anything.”
“Let’s try it again. What’s going to happen if I try and blow town?”
“I don’t know.”
I had to work on him again and this time I worked hard. When he was blubbering and trying so hard to talk that he sounded half crazy, I stopped.
“Let’s have it all.”
“He’s going to get you. When I know where you’re going tonight, I’m supposed to let him know.”
“When did you last talk to him?”
“About an hour ago.”
My watch said one. He’d waited until twelve, right on the dot, and then he’d started to put his foot down on the bug. Well I still had a way out.
“How was he going to do it?”
“I don’t know. You gotta believe me. He just wanted me to tell him where you were going this afternoon or tonight.”
I sat down and lit a cigarette and tried to think. The little redhead just sat there, all the toughness gone, mopping at the blood on his face with a handkerchief.
“Want a drink?” I said.
He didn’t believe I meant it, but he bobbed his head. I made two drinks and gave him one. I sat down and sipped at mine and kept thinking.
The thing came to me in one piece. Like the first idea about getting rid of Frank. It was just there, all neat and perfect. I turned it around a few times and it looked okay from every angle.
This would take care of everything. The blonde and Banghart and the heat that was on me. It would leave me and Alice in the clear to get out, and get out fast.
I said to the redhead, “What’s your name?”
“Kiley,” he said.
“Okay, Kiley, you’re going to call Banghart. You’re going to tell him just what I tell you.”
He started to whimper. “You’re going to get me killed. He’ll kill me if I do that.”