He spread his hands and looked down at them. A faint metallic smile showed at the corners of his lips.
Francine Ley said: «I didn’t have anything to do with it, Johnny.» Her voice was as dead as the summer before last.
De Ruse said: «The guy that rode in the car before I did probably didn’t have a gun. He was Hugo Candless. The car was a ringer for his car — same model, same paint job, same plates — but it wasn’t his car. Somebody took a lot of trouble. Candless left the Delmar Club in the wrong car about six-thirty. His wife says he’s out of town. I talked to her an hour ago. His car hasn’t been out of the garage since noon … Maybe his wife knows he’s snatched by now, maybe not.»
Francine Ley’s nails clawed at her skirt. Her lips shook.
De Ruse went on calmly, tonelessly: «Somebody gunned the Candless chauffeur in a downtown hotel tonight or this afternoon. The cops haven’t found it yet. Somebody took a lot of trouble, Francy. You wouldn’t want to be in on that kind of a set-up, would you, precious?»
Francine Ley bent her head forward and stared at the floor. She said thickly: «I need a drink. What I had is dying in me. I feel awful.»
De Ruse stood up and went to the white desk. He drained a bottle into a glass and brought it across to her. He stood in front of her, holding the glass out of her reach.
«I only get tough once in a while, baby, but when I get tough I’m not so easy to stop, if I say it myself. If you know anything about all this, now would be a good time to spill it.»
He handed her the glass. She gulped the whiskey and a little more light came into her smoke-blue eyes. She said slowly: «I don’t know anything about it, Johnny. Not in the way you mean. But George Dial made me a love-nest proposition tonight and he told me he could get money out of Candless by threatening to spill a dirty trick Candless played on some tough boy from Reno.»
«Damn clever, these greasers,» De Ruse said. «Reno’s my town, baby. I know all the tough boys in Reno. Who was it?»
«Somebody named Zapparty.»
De Ruse said very softly: «Zapparty is the name of the man who runs the Club Egypt.»
Francine Ley stood up suddenly and grabbed his arm. «Stay out of it, Johnny! For Christ sake, can’t you stay out of it for just this once?»
De Ruse shook his head, smiled delicately, lingeringly at her. Then he lifted her hand off his arm and stepped back.
«I had a ride in their gas car, baby, and I didn’t like it. I smelled their Nevada gas. I left my lead in somebody’s gun punk. That makes me call copper or get jammed up with the law. If somebody’s snatched and I call copper, there’ll be another kidnap victim bumped off, more likely than not. Zapparty’s a tough boy from Reno and that could tie in with what Dial told you, and if Mops Parisi is playing with Zapparty, that could make a reason to pull me into it. Parisi loathes my guts.»
«You don’t have to be a one-man riot squad, Johnny,» Francine Ley said desperately.
He kept on smiling, with tight lips and solemn eyes. «There’ll be two of us, baby. Get yourself a long coat. It’s still raining a little.»
She goggled at him. Her outstretched hand, the one that had been on his arm, spread its fingers stiffly, bent back from the palm, straining back. Her voice was hollow with fear.
«Me, Johnny?… Oh, please, not.»
De Ruse said gently: «Get that coat, honey. Make yourself look nice. It might be the last time we’ll go out together.»
She staggered past him. He touched her arm softly, held it a moment, said almost in a whisper: «You didn’t put the finger on me, did you, Francy?»
She looked back stonily at the pain in his eyes, made a hoarse sound under her breath and jerked her arm loose, went quickly into the bedroom.
After a moment the pain went out of De Ruse’s eyes and the metallic smile came back to the corners of his lips.
SEVEN
De Ruse half closed his eyes and watched the croupier’s fingers as they slid back across the table and rested on the edge. They were round, plump, tapering fingers, graceful fingers. De Ruse raised his head and looked at the croupier’s face. He was a bald-headed man of no particular age, with quiet blue eyes. He had no hair on his head at all, not a single hair.
De Ruse looked down at the croupier’s hands again. The right hand turned a little on the edge of the table. The buttons on the sleeve of the croupier’s brown velvet coat — cut like a dinner coat — rested on the edge of the table. De Ruse smiled his thin metallic smile.
He had three blue chips on the red. On that play the ball stopped at Black 2. The croupier paid off two of the four other men who were playing.
De Ruse pushed five blue chips forward and settled them on the red diamond. Then he turned his head to the left and watched a huskily built blond young man put three red chips on the zero.
De Ruse licked his lips and turned his head farther, looked towards the side of the rather small room. Francine Ley was sitting on a couch backed to the wall, with her head leaning against it.
«I think I’ve got it, baby,» De Ruse said to her. «I think I’ve got it.»
Francine Ley blinked and lifted her head away from the wall. She reached for a drink on a low round table in front of her.
She sipped the drink, looked at the floor, didn’t answer.
De Ruse looked back at the blond man. The three other men had made bets. The croupier looked impatient and at the same time watchful.
De Ruse said: «How come you always hit zero when I hit red, and double zero when I hit black?»
The blond young man smiled, shrugged, said nothing.
De Ruse put his hand down on the layout and said very softly: «I asked you a question, mister.»
«Maybe I’m Jesse Livermore,» the blond young man grunted. «I like to sell short.»
«What is this — slow motion?» one of the other men snapped.
«Make your plays, please, gentlemen,» the croupier said.
De Ruse looked at him, said: «Let it go.»
The croupier spun the wheel left-handed, flicked the ball with the same hand the opposite way. His right hand rested on the edge of the table.
The ball stopped at black 28, next to zero. The blond man laughed. «Close,» he said, «close.»
De Ruse checked his chips, stacked them carefully. «I’m down six grand,» he said. «It’s a little raw, but I guess there’s money in it. Who runs this clip joint?»
The croupier smiled slowly and stared straight into De Ruse’s eyes. He asked quietly: «Did you say clip joint?»
De Ruse nodded. He didn’t bother to answer.
«I thought you said clip joint,» the croupier said, and moved one foot, put weight on it.
Three of the men who had been playing picked their chips up quickly and went over to a small bar in the corner of the room. They ordered drinks and leaned their backs against the wall by the bar, watching De Ruse and the croupier. The blond man stayed put and smiled sarcastically at De Ruse.
«Tsk, tsk,» he said thoughtfully. «Your manners.»
Francine Ley finished her drink and leaned her head back against the wall again. Her eyes came down and watched De Ruse furtively, under the long lashes.
A paneled door opened after a moment and a very big man with a black mustache and very rough black eyebrows came in. The croupier moved his eyes to him, then to De Ruse, pointing with his glance.
«Yes, I thought you said clip joint,» he repeated tonelessly. The big man drifted to De Ruse’s elbow, touched him with his own elbow.