He turned to the front page and stared at a two-column cut of Winfield, read the accompanying account, turned back to page two and finished it. There was another cut of Winfield, and a woman. The caption under the woman’s picture read: Elma O’Shea Darmond, well-known screen actress and friend of Winfield, who was found unconscious in his apartment with the automatic in her hand.
Doolin yawned and shoved the paper aside to make room for the eggs and toast and coffee that the sour-faced waiter carried. He devoured the eggs and had half finished his coffee before he saw something that interested him on page three. He put his cup down, leaned over the paper, read:
Man shot in Glendale Mystery. H.J. (Jake) Coleman, alleged gambler, was shot and killed as he came out of the Lyric Billiards Parlor in Glendale yesterday evening. The shots were fired from a mysterious black roadster which the police are attempting to trace.
Doolin read the rest of the story, finished his coffee. He sat several minutes staring expressionlessly at his reflection in the mirror behind the counter, got up, paid his check and went out into the bright morning.
He walked briskly down Hill Street to First, over First, to the Los Angeles Bulletin Building. He was whistling as the elevator carried him up.
In the back files of the Bulletin he found what he was looking for, a front-page spread in the Home Edition of December 10th:
MASACRE IN NIGHTCLUB
Screen-Stars Duck for Cover as
Machine-Guns Belch Death
Early this morning The Hotspot, famous cabaret near Culver City, was the scene of the bloodiest battle the local gang war has afforded to date. Two men who police believe to be Frank Riccio and Edward (Whitey) Conroy of the Purple Gang in Detroit were instantly killed when a private room in the club was invaded by four men with sub-machine guns. A third man, a companion of Riccio and Conroy, was seriously wounded and is not expected to live.
Doolin skimmed down the column, read:
R.F. Winfield, prominent motion-picture executive, who was one of the party in the private room, said that he could not identify any of the killers. He said it all happened too quickly to be sure of any of them, and explained his presence in the company of the notorious gangsters as the result of his desire for first-hand information about the underworld in connection with a picture of that type which he is supervising. The names of others in the party are being withheld….
Under a sub-head Doolin read:
H.J. Coleman and his companion, Miss Mazie Decker, were in the corridor leading to the private room when the killers entered. Miss Decker said she could positively identify two of them. Coleman, who is nearsighted, was equally positive that he could not….
An hour and a half later, Doolin left the Bulletin Building. He had gone carefully through the December file, and up to the middle of January. He had called into service the City Directory, Telephone Book, Dun & Bradstreet, and the telephone, and he had wheedled all the inside dope he could out of a police-reporter whom he knew casually.
He stood on the wide stone steps and looked at the sheet of paper on which he had scrawled notes. It read:
People in private room and corridor who might be able to identify killers of Riccio and Conroy:
Winfield. Dead.
Coleman. Dead.
Martha Grainger. Actress. In show, in N.Y.
Betty Crane. Hustler. Died of pneumonia January 4th.
Isabel Dolly. Hustler and extra-girl. Was paralyzed drunk during shooting; probably not important. Can’t locate.
Mazie Decker. Taxi-dancer. Works at Dreamland on Sixth and Hill. Failed to identify killers from rogues-gallery photographs.
Nelson Halloran. Man-about-town. Money. Friend of Winfield’s. Lives at Fontenoy, same apartment-house as Winfield.
Doolin folded and creased the sheet of paper. He wound it abstractedly around his forefinger and walked down the steps, across the sidewalk to a cab. He got into the cab and sat down and leaned back.
The driver slid the glass, asked: “Where to?”
Doolin stared at him blankly, then laughed. He said: “Wait a minute,” spread the sheet of paper across his knee. He took a stub of pencil out of his pocket and slowly, thoughtfully, drew a line through the first five names; that left Mazie Decker and Nelson Halloran.
Doolin leaned forward and spoke to the driver: “Is that Dreamland joint at Sixth an’ Hill open in the afternoon?”
The driver thought a moment, shook his head.
Doolin said: “All right, then—Fontenoy Apartment—on Whitley in Hollywood.”
Nelson Halloran looked like Death. His white face was extremely long, narrow; his sharp chin tapered upward in unbroken lines to high sharp cheekbones, great deep-sunken eyes; continued to a high, almost degenerately narrow forehead. His mouth was wide, thin, dark against the whiteness of his skin. His hair was the color of water. He was six-feet-three inches tall, weighed a hundred and eighty.
He half lay in a deeply upholstered chair in the living room of his apartment and watched a round spot of sunlight move across the wall. The shades were drawn and the apartment was in semidarkness. It was a chaos of modern furniture, books, magazines, papers, bottles; there were several good but badly hung reproductions on the pale walls.
Halloran occasionally lifted one long white hand languidly to his mouth, inhaled smoke deeply and blew it upward into the ray of sunlight.
When the phone buzzed he shuddered involuntarily, leaned sidewise and took it up from a low table.
He listened a moment, said: “Send him up.” His voice was very low. There was softness in it; and there was coldness and something very far-away.
He moved slightly in the chair so that one hand was near his side, in the folds of his dressing-gown. There was a Luger there in the darkness of the chair. He was facing the door.
With the whirl of the buzzer he called: “Come in.”
The door opened and Doolin came a little way into the room, closed the door behind him.
Halloran did not speak.
Doolin stood blinking in the half-light, and Halloran watched him and was silent.
Doolin was around thirty; of medium height, inclined to thickness through all the upper part of his body. His face was round and on the florid side and his eyes were wide-set, blue. His clothes didn’t fit him very well.
He stood with his hat in his hand, his face expressionless, until Halloran said coldly: “I didn’t get the name.”
“Doolin. D—double o-l-i-n.” Doolin spoke without moving his mouth very much. His voice was pleasant; his vowels colored slightly by brogue.
Halloran waited.
Doolin said: “I read a couple of things in the paper this morning that gave me an idea. I went over to the Bulletin an’ worked on the idea, an’ it pans out you’re in a very bad spot.”
Halloran took a drag of his cigarette, stared blankly at Doolin, waited. Doolin waited, too. They were both silent, looking at one another for more than a minute. Doolin’s eyes were bright, pleased.
Halloran finally said: “This is a little embarrassing.” He hesitated a moment. “Sit down.”
Doolin sat on the edge of a wide steel and canvas chair against the wall. He dropped his hat on the floor and leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees. The little circle of sunlight moved slowly across the wall above him.
Halloran mashed his cigarette out, changed his position a little, said: “Go on.”