“Put a cover on that typewriter, gorgeous. You’re going to take a trip.”
“Me—?” Elsie gasped.
Delaney laughed, then explained. “You’re going to Tucson this afternoon. Make your reservation on American Air, Flight 12.”
“But why—? What do you want me to do?”
“I want a complete run down on that Uncle Jim Kennedy Eunice mentioned. I want to know his business, his bank, what property he owns. Also I want to know his standing in the community and, if you can find out, his relations with the Blairs in Benson. I’ll meet you at the airport at five.”
“Five o’clock—?” Elsie squealed.
“Sure,” Delaney laughed. “I’ll—”
“My hair—!” Elsie wailed. “What’ll I wear?”
“You’ve got time to go home, pack and get to the airport by five. This trip should take only a couple of days. You won’t need many clothes. I’ll have some money for you at the reservation desk.”
Delaney stepped out of the booth and stopped with a curse. The gray Ford was parked alongside his Chrysler and the two men were out of the car. They were smarter than he had given them credit for. Apparently they, too, had cut back to the boulevard, after losing him, and had spotted his car in the gas station.
One was tall and lean and the long bladed switch knife in his hand glittered in the hot sun. He had a long, sharp boned, swarthy face under dark, duck-billed hair. His expression was impassive but his eyes were as sharp and coldly calculating as the eyes of a cobra.
The other one was shorter, heavier and the brass knuckles glinted on his right hand. He had a wide, slavic face topped with a blond crew-cut. He looked as poised and as competent as his companion — but not as impassive. His lips were parted in a grin of anticipation.
Delaney angled to his left, away from the booth, towards his car. As the two men converged on him, Delaney dropped to the pavement, landing half on his side, on hip and shoulder as the swarthy one made his lunge. Delaney’s foot came up under the knife thrust in a savage, driving kick. The toe of his shoe landed solidly in the knifer’s groin.
In an almost continuous motion, Delaney rolled and pushed from the pavement, coming up inside the vicious hook of the brass knuckles. He caught the right wrist of the man and twisted it behind the man’s back, forcing the arm up, forcing the big body to jack-knife as muscles and tendons were wrenched and torn. At the same time, Delaney cupped the back of the man’s head with his free hand.
Delaney’s face twisted in a grimace of ferocity as he threw his whole weight against the man, rushing him across the pavement, shoulders and head down to slam into the nearest gas pump. The pump clanked and gave off a dull, sickening crump under the impact. The thug’s body sprawled grotesquely at the base of the pump as Delaney stepped back.
Two gas station attendants, who had deserted the nearby grease rack when the action started, stood ten feet away. They stared at Delaney, at the thug lying by the pump, at the other writhing on the pavement. Their eyes were wide and scared, their mouths open in shocked amazement. One of them drew a long, unsteady breath and asked, “Jesus, mister, where did you go to school?”
“In a place too rough for these jerks,” Delaney snapped.
The big blond hadn’t moved. His head was broken and his face lay in a slowly widening pool of blood. He would lie there, Delaney decided, until the cops picked him up for a free ride to the morgue. The knifer was on his hands and knees, his arms rigidly braced, his head hanging between them, his body wracked with pain. His face was the color of wet cement and saliva drooled in long, elastic threads from his open mouth as he breathed in hoarse, agonized gasps.
A woman on the sidewalk, who had watched the action with unbelieving eyes, began to scream. Her voice rose in a thin keening sound above the traffic noise to break and rise again.
“You better call the cops,” Delaney said. He walked to his car and drove out of the station. Nobody tried to stop him.
The building was on the east side of Cahuenga, and Delaney looked it over as he drove slowly past. It was painted a dark, decorators gray, and the large windows on each side of the entrance had been replaced with glass brick. Next to it, on the north, and separated from it by a narrow passageway, was a vacant building. Beyond that, and extending to the end of the block, was a drive-in restaurant. Delaney parked his Chrysler in front of the vacant building and walked back.
The lettering on the door read FILM ENTERPRISES and inside was a small lobby filled with cheap reception room furniture. A counter faced with combed plywood ran the length of one side.
Behind the counter was a sallow face with a receding chin above a prominent adams apple in a scrawny throat. The face owned a pair of spaniel eyes, separated by a knife-blade nose, and red, over-ripe lips. The face was topped by black, kinky hair plastered to an under sized head.
Delaney rested his elbows on the counter and rolled a wad of paper back and forth between the palms of his hands. He leaned forward confidentially and said:
“So I’m in a hotel room in Phoenix, and this guy’s showing me some pictures. Girlie pictures.”
Spaniel eyes wet his lips nervously and looked at Delaney. He asked, “Are you fired?”
“Girlie pictures,” Delaney repeated firmly. “Hot stuff.”
“You must be off your rocker,” spaniel eyes was watching Delaney’s hands.
The wad of paper began to get unwadded. It was green and it had a pattern with a greenish white border. It was like a conjurer’s trick: an edge of the pattern showed, then a little more. Then a numerical figure in one corner — only the figure couldn’t be read because the paper curled back over itself to show more pattern. It was tantalizing.
And spaniel eyes was fascinated.
Delaney said, “High class, too. Not like the trash that comes out of Nogales or Tia Juana. Beautiful stuff.”
Spaniel eyes could read the figure on the paper now. It was slowly emerging from between Delaney’s hands — rising tenuously above them, turning and twisting. Spaniel eyes nervously wet his lips again. He swallowed, and his adams apple bounced in his throat threatening to choke him. He asked hoarsely:
“What’re you trying to say, mister? Whatcha want?”
“I try to buy the pictures off the guy, but he won’t sell,” Delaney’s voice was soft. He kept his eyes on spaniel eyes while his hands slowly stretched and ironed the ten spot on the counter. “So we toss the breeze some more, and I say I’m coming to L.A. Then the guy tells me he got the pictures here.
“ ‘Film Enterprises on Cahuenga,’ he tells me. ‘There’s a sharp cookie on the counter who knows the score,’ he says.”
Spaniel eyes shook his head regretfully. Then it seemed he owned a pair of hands. They appeared on the edge of the counter with softly white, spatulate fingers which crept towards the bill, then retreated. Only they wanted to creep out to the bill again, and their owner had to pull them back. He said:
“The guy gave you a bum steer. He sold you a three dollar bill, mister.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Delaney protested quickly, pained surprise in his voice. “He was a right guy.”
“Look, mister,” spaniel eyes interrupted flatly, “we don’t sell nothin’ here. This is a processin’ plant. We develop negatives. Print positives. Black and white, or full color.”
Delaney grunted. He turned the bill over and began to iron the other side. He said, “What d’you take me for — a square?”
White, spatulate fingers did an adagio along the edge of the counter while spaniel eyes tried to read Delaney’s face, then watched Delaney’s hand move back and forth over the green pattern.