One of the dicks, the gray-haired one, had a split lip. The young one with hair as blond as Targo’s had a black eye. They both looked mad, but the blond one looked madder.
Carmady straddled a chair against the wall and looked sleepily at Jean Adrian, near him in a leather rocker. She was twisting a handkerchief in her hands, rubbing her palms with it. She had been doing this for a long time, as if she had forgotten she was doing it. Her small firm mouth was angry.
Gus Neishacker leaned against the closed door smoking. «Now wait a minute, boys,» Cyrano said. «If you didn’t get tough with him, he wouldn’t fight back. He’s a good boy — the best I ever had. Give him a break.»
Blood dribbled from one corner of Targo’s mouth, in a fine thread down to his jutting chin. It gathered there and glistened. His face was empty, expressionless.
Carmady said coldly: «You wouldn’t want the boys to stop playing blackjack pinochle, would you, Benny?»
The blond dick snarled: «You still got that private-dick license, Carmady?»
«It’s lying around somewhere, I guess,» Carmady said.
«Maybe we could take it away from you,» the blond dick snarled.
«Maybe you could do a fan dance, copper. You might be all kinds of a smart guy for all I’d know.»
The blond dick started to get up. The older one said: «Leave him be. Give him six feet. If he steps over that, we’ll take the screws out of him.»
Carmady and Gus Neishacker grinned at each other. Cyrano made helpless gestures in the air. The girl looked at Carmady under her lashes. Targo opened his mouth and spat blood straight before him on the blue carpet.
Something pushed against the door and Neishacker stepped to one side, opened it a crack, then opened it wide. McChesney came in.
McChesney was a lieutenant of detectives, tall, sandy-haired, fortyish, with pale eyes and a narrow suspicious face. He shut the door and turned the key in it, went slowly over and stood in front of Targo.
«Plenty dead,» he said. «One under the heart, one in it. Nice snap shooting. In any league.»
«When you’ve got to deliver you’ve got to deliver,» Targo said dully.
«Make him?» the gray-haired dick asked his partner, moving away along the sofa.
McChesney nodded. «Torchy Plant. A gun for hire. I haven’t seen him round for all of two years. Tough as an ingrowing toenail with his right load. A bindle punk.»
«He’d have to be that to throw his party in here,» the grayhaired dick said.
McChesney’s long face was serious, not hard. «Got a permit for the gun, Targo?»
Targo said: «Yes. Benny got me one two weeks ago. I been getting a lot of threats.»
«Listen, Lieutenant,» Cyrano chirped, «some gamblers try to scare him into a dive, see? He wins nine straight fights by knockouts so they get a swell price. I told him he should take one at that maybe.»
«I almost did,» Targo said sullenly.
«So they sent the redhot to him,» Cyrano said.
McChesney said: «I wouldn’t say no. How’d you beat his draw, Targo? Where was your gun?»
«On my hip.»
«Show me.»
Targo put his hand back into his right hip pocket and jerked a handkerchief out quickly, stuck his finger through it like a gun barrel.
«That handkerchief in the pocket?» McChesney asked. «With the gun?»
Targo’s big reddish face clouded a little. He nodded. McChesney leaned forward casually and twitched the handkerchief from his hand. He sniffed at it, unwrapped it, sniffed at it again, folded it and put it away in his own pocket. His face said nothing.
«What did he say, Targo?»
«He said: ‘I got a message for you, punk, and this is it.’ Then he went for the gat and it stuck a little in the clip. I got mine out first.»
McChesney smiled faintly and leaned far back, teetering on his heels. His faint smile seemed to slide off the end of his long nose. He looked Targo up and down.
«Yeah,» he said softly. «I’d call it damn nice shooting with a twenty-two. But you’re fast for a big guy … Who got these threats?»
«I did,» Targo said. «Over the phone.»
«Know the voice?»
«It might have been this same guy. I’m not just positive.»
McChesney walked stiff-legged to the other end of the office, stood a moment looking at a hand-tinted sporting print. He came back slowly, drifted over to the door.
«A guy like that don’t mean a lot,» he said quietly, «but we got to do our job. The two of you will have to come downtown and make statements. Let’s go.»
He went out. The two dicks stood up, with Duke Targo between them. The gray-haired one snapped: «You goin’ to act nice, bo?»
Targo sneered: «If I get to wash my face.»
They went out. The blond dick waited for Jean Adrian to pass in front of him. He swung the door, snarled back at Carmady: «As for you — nuts!»
Carmady said softly: «I like them. It’s the squirrel in me, copper.»
Gus Neishacker laughed, then shut the door and went to the desk.
«I’m shaking like Benny’s third chin,» he said. «Let’s all have a shot of cognac.»
He poured three glasses a third full, took one over to the striped sofa and spread his long legs out on it, leaned his head back and sipped the brandy.
Carmady stood up and downed his drink. He got a cigarette out and rolled it around in his fingers, staring at Cyrano’s smooth white face with an up-from-under look.
«How much would you say changed hands on that fight tonight?» he asked softly. «Bets.»
Cyrano blinked, massaged his lips with a fat hand. «A few grand. It was just a regular weekly show. It don’t listen, does it?»
Carmady put the cigarette in his mouth and leaned over the desk to strike a match. He said: «If it does, murder’s getting awfully cheap in this town.»
Cyrano didn’t say anything. Gus Neishacker sipped the last of his brandy and carefully put the empty glass down on a round cork table beside the sofa. He stared at the ceiling, silently.
After a moment Carmady nodded at the two men, crossed the room and went out, closed the door behind him. He went along a corridor off which dressing rooms opened, dark now. A curtained archway let him out at the back of the stage.
In the foyer the headwaiter was standing at the glass doors, looking out at the rain and the back of a uniformed policeman. Carmady went into the empty cloakroom, found his hat and coat, put them on, came out to stand beside the headwaiter.
He said: «I guess you didn’t notice what happened to the kid I was with?»
The headwaiter shook his head and reached forward to unlock the door.
«There was four hundred people here — and three hundred scrammed before the law checked in. I’m sorry.»
Carmady nodded and went out into the rain. The uniformed man glanced at him casually. He went along the street to where the car had been left. It wasn’t there. He looked up and down the street, stood for a few moments in the rain, then walked towards Melrose.
After a little while he found a taxi.
SIX
The ramp of the Carondelet garage curved down into semidarkness and chilled air. The dark bulks of stalled cars looked ominous against the whitewashed walls, and the single droplight in the small office had the relentless glitter of the death house.
A big Negro in stained overalls came out rubbing his eyes, then his face split in an enormous grin.
«Hello, there, Mistuh Carmady. You kinda restless tonight?»