“I suppose you’ve been talking to Dolly?”
“To Dolly and...”
“And who?”
“None of your goddamn’ business.”
“And who?”
“I’m not telling who. I promised.”
I motioned toward the gun in his hand. “I’ve got you dead to rights on an attempted murder charge. That costs twenty years in Florida.”
“I don’t give a goddamn’.” His lips twisted up into a boyish snarl of defiance. “I’d be just as well off in Raiford I guess. I’m nothing but a goddamn’ bungler.”
“You’re that all right. And you’ll be the biggest kind of fool alive if you don’t trade me the person that sent you here for my promise to forget what happened.”
“No! I’ll be goddamned if I’ll play stool pigeon.”
“That’s very heroic. Little Lord Fauntleroy couldn’t have said it any nobler.”
“Why don’t you call the police?” he flared at me. “I’ll do some talking when they come for me, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. I’ll tell them plenty about you. If I do twenty years in Raiford, you’ll be doing forty.”
That gave me something to think about. I took a drink and thought about it. I’d be in a hell of a mess if he went blabbing to the police now — just when I had things about sewed up. But I needed to know who had filled him full of the idea of coming to my room with a loaded gun. That was important. Someone who wanted me out of the way pretty badly.
“I haven’t got anything to hide,” I told him at last. “Any shooting off you do to the police will be your own hard luck.”
“All right.” He was all wrought up and defiant. “We’ll see. I just dare you to lift the phone and call them.”
“You’re acting,” I told him, “like a two-year-old.”
“And you’re acting like a man with plenty on his conscience,” he gibed.
I started to take another drink — decided to lay off until I thought up some answers. This was going to take a lot of figuring. I couldn’t turn him in, and I couldn’t let him out of my sight in the shape he was in. He had a pretty bad case of the jitters coming on if I wasn’t badly mistaken.
But I couldn’t keep him in that damned hotel room. One yell would bring someone who wouldn’t be as easily satisfied as the porter had been.
I walked back and forth while I looked through the mess for an answer. He sat in the chair and watched me with a smirking air of triumph.
The cognac bottle was less than half-full. I took it up and hefted it with him watching me. He didn’t know I was calculating how hard to swing it without killing him. I didn’t want to swing it too hard. Dead, he wouldn’t be any good to me.
I swung it and caught him just above the left ear. He toppled over without a groan and with a surprised look on his face. I got some adhesive tape from a drawer, taped his mouth and arms, found his heart was still beating, and called Pete Ryan at his rooming house.
He sounded grumpy and sleepy: “Who the hell is it now?”
“Ed. And I’m in one hell of a jam.”
“Oke.” He came awake like that. “Where are you and what do I do?”
“In my room with a body that may come back to life any time. Know a good place to take a man to make him talk?”
Pete thought a minute and then said, “Sure.”
“I’m going to get him down the back stairs. Meet me in your flivver at the alley entrance in ten minutes.”
“It’s a date,” Pete said blithely, and hung up.
I put a bottle of liquor and a loaded automatic in my pocket, bundled the still unconscious Benton over my shoulder like a drunk and dragged him down the rear stairway. Pete was waiting for me with an anxious grin and no questions. We got Benton in the front seat between us and Pete drove away.
Chapter 20
Benton had more guts than sense. Pete had to go out twice to vomit before I gave up and admitted that Benton was a better man than I.
I sat down in a rickety chair and looked at him disgustedly. He lay on the rough board floor of the waterfront shack Pete had taken us to. His face was battered but his eyes were still defiant.
“What,” I asked him, “is all this getting you?”
He licked the blood off his upper lip and didn’t answer me. A swinging lantern above threw a shadow back and forth across his face. His knees were contortedly drawn up near his chest. The heavy sound of his breathing and the soft swish of waves outside were the only sounds.
Pete came in and closed the door behind him. He looked like the end of a bad night. Greenish-white around the gills. He gave me a sickly grin and didn’t look at Benton.
“Got the fishes all fed?”
He shuddered and lit a cigarette. Drew two puffs on it and threw it away as though it tasted bad. I picked up the butt and said:
“That’s one thing I haven’t tried yet. I’ve heard that between the toes is the tenderest place.” I squatted down and began unlacing one of Benton’s shoes. He kicked at me feebly and I sat on his legs.
Pete moved around in front of me. He said between his clenched teeth:
“Lay off, Ed. I can’t stand any more.”
“You can’t stand any more?” I laughed up at him, pulling off Benton’s shoe. “And you’ve been passing yourself off for a tough guy all these years.” I tossed Benton’s sock after his shoe and lifted the glowing butt Pete had thrown away.
Pete stiffened and said: “Goddamn it, Ed, I’m not going to let you do it. You’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll regret this like hell tomorrow.”
I put the butt in my mouth and puffed on it to make it burn better. I took it out and spread Benton’s second and third toes apart.
Pete said: “No.”
I looked up at him with the cigarette poised. He was trembling. His fists were balled up at his side. Pete’s a big guy. Outweighs me at least forty pounds. And a hell-cat in a rough and tumble. I’d had him on my side in plenty of brawls. This was the first time he’d ever lined up against me.
I rocked back on my heels, still keeping enough weight on Benton to hold him steady.
“I haven’t told you what this is all about, have I?”
“You haven’t told me a goddamned thing. I haven’t asked any questions. But by all that’s good and holy, I can’t stand here and watch you torture that poor devil any more.”
“Does it mean any thing to you that he tried to kill me tonight? That he’s got information that may keep me from getting bumped tomorrow?”
Pete shook his head doggedly. “That doesn’t mean a damn to me, Ed. It wouldn’t to you except that your stubborn streak is aroused.”
“Are this guy’s toes more important than my life?”
Pete shrugged his shoulders. “You never set such a hell of a store by it before now. Why has living suddenly got so important to you?”
I got up and threw the cigarette butt across the room. Benton groaned and relaxed. Maybe I was glad Pete stopped me. After all was said and done, I was beginning to have a secret admiration for Benton. There must be some good in a man that refuses to squeal.
“What can I do with the guy?” I asked Pete. “He’s got to stay out of circulation for a day or two at least.”
“Leave him here,” Pete offered quickly. “No one comes here. I’ll send a man to guard him until you say the word.”
“Then let’s get going.” I turned away, glad enough to get out of the shack into the night air. Benton wasn’t in any shape to break loose and make his getaway.
Pete followed me to the car and drove me back to town. Neither of us said anything until I told him to let me off at a corner near Dolly’s apartment. He drummed on the steering wheel as I got out, and said suddenly:
“I hate to go back on a pal. But beating that guy up wasn’t in your line, Ed.”