Parisi made a whistling sound with his lips and teeth and went quickly to De Ruse and stuck the gun he was holding in De Ruse’s face, pushing his head back. He felt in De Ruse’s pockets with his left hand, took the Colt, felt under his arms, circled around him, touched his hips, came to the front again.
He stepped back a little and hit De Ruse on the cheek with the flat of one gun. De Ruse stood perfectly still except that his head jerked a little when the hard metal hit his face,
Parisi hit him again the same place. Blood began to run down De Ruse’s cheek from the cheekbone, lazily. His head sagged a little and his knees gave way. He went down slowly, leaned with his left hand on the floor, shaking his head. His body was crouched, his legs doubled under him. His right hand dangled loosely beside his left foot.
Zapparty said: «All right, Mops. Don’t get blood-hungry. We want words out of these people.»
Francine Ley laughed again, rather foolishly. She swayed along the wall, holding one hand up against it.
Parisi breathed hard and backed away from De Ruse with a happy smile on his round swart face.
«I been waitin’ a long time for this,» he said.
When he was about six feet from De Ruse something small and darkly glistening seemed to slide out of the left leg of De Ruse’s trousers into his hand. There was a sharp, snapping explosion, a tiny orange-green flame down on the floor.
Parisi’s head jerked back. A round hole appeared under his chin. It got large and red almost instantly. His hands opened laxly and the two guns fell out of them. His body began to sway. He fell heavily.
Zapparty said: «Holy Christ!» and jerked up his revolver.
Francine Ley screamed flatly and hurled herself at him — clawing, kicking, shrilling.
The revolver went off twice with a heavy crash. Two slugs plunked into a wall. Plaster rattled.
Francine Ley slid down to the floor, on her hands and knees. A long slim leg sprawled out from under her dress.
The blond man, down on one knee with his .45 in his hand again, rasped: «She got the bastard’s gun!»
Zapparty stood with his hands empty, a terrible expression on his face. There was a long red scratch on the back of his right hand. His revolver lay on the floor beside Francine Ley. His horrified eyes looked down at it unbelievingly.
Parisi coughed once on the floor and after that was still.
De Ruse got up on his feet. The little Mauser looked like a toy in his hand. His voice seemed to come from far away saying: «Watch that panel, Nicky…»
There was no sound outside the room, no sound anywhere. Zapparty stood at the end of the desk, frozen, ghastly.
De Ruse bent down and touched Francine Ley’s shoulder. «All right, baby?»
She drew her legs under her and got up, stood looking down at Parisi. Her body shook with a nervous chill.
«I’m sorry, baby,» De Ruse said softly beside her. «I guess I had a wrong idea about you.»
He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and moistened it with his lips, then rubbed his left cheek lightly and looked at blood on the handkerchief.
Nicky said: «I guess Big George went to sleep again. I was a sap not to blast at him.»
De Ruse nodded a little, and said:
«Yeah. The whole play was lousy. Where’s your hat and coat, Mister Zapparty? We’d like to have you go riding with us.»
NINE
In the shadows under the pepper trees De Ruse said: «There it is, Nicky. Over there. Nobody’s bothered it. Better take a look around.»
The blond man got out from under the wheel of the Packard and went off under the trees. He stood a little while on the same side of the street as the Packard, then he slipped across to where the big Lincoln was parked in front of the brick apartment house on North Kenmore.
De Ruse leaned forward across the back of the front seat and pinched Francine Ley’s cheek. «You’re going home now, baby — with this bus. I’ll see you later.»
«Johnny,» — she clutched at his arm — «what are you going to do? For Pete’s sake, can’t you stop having fun for tonight?»
«Not yet, baby. Mister Zapparty wants to tell us things. I figure a little ride in that gas car will pep him up. Anyway I need it for evidence.»
He looked sidewise at Zapparty in the corner of the back seat. Zapparty made a harsh sound in his throat and stared in front of him with a shadowed face.
Nicky came back across the road, stood with one foot on the running board.
«No keys,» he said. «Got’em?»
De Ruse said: «Sure.» He took keys out of his pocket and handed them to Nicky. Nicky went around to Zapparty’s side of the car and opened the door.
«Out, mister.»
Zapparty got out stiffly, stood in the soft, slanting rain, his mouth working. De Ruse got out after him.
«Take it away, baby.»
Francine Ley slid along the seat under the steering wheel of the Packard and pushed the starter. The motor caught with a soft whirr.
«So long, baby,» De Ruse said gently. «Get my slippers warmed for me. And do me a big favor, honey. Don’t phone anyone.»
The Packard went off along the dark street, under the big pepper trees. De Ruse watched it turn a corner. He prodded Zapparty with his elbow.
«Let’s go. You’re going to ride in the back of your gas car. We can’t feed you much gas on account of the hole in the glass, but you’ll like the smell of it. We’ll go off in the country somewhere. We’ve got all night to play with you.»
«I guess you know this is a snatch,» Zapparty said harshly.
«Don’t I love to think it,» De Ruse purred.
They went across the street, three men walking together without haste. Nicky opened the good rear door of the Lincoln. Zapparty got into it. Nicky banged the door shut, got under the wheel and fitted the ignition key in the lock. De Ruse got in beside him and sat with his legs straddling the tank of gas.
The whole car still smelled of the gas.
Nicky started the car, turned it in the middle of the block and drove north to Franklin, back over Los Feliz towards Glendale. After a little while Zapparty leaned forward and banged on the glass. De Ruse put his ear to the hole in the glass behind Nicky’s head.
Zapparty’s harsh voice said: «Stone house — Castle Road — in the La Crescenta flood area.»
«Jeeze, but he’s a softy,» Nicky grunted, his eyes on the road ahead.
De Ruse nodded, said thoughtfully: «There’s more to it than that. With Parisi dead he’d clam up unless he figured he had an out.»
Nicky said: «Me, I’d rather take a beating and keep my chin buttoned. Light me a pill, Johnny.»
De Ruse lit two cigarettes and passed one to the blond man. He glanced back at Zapparty’s long body in the corner of the car. Passing light touched up his taut face, made the shadows on it look very deep.
The big car slid noiselessly through Glendale and up the grade towards Montrose. From Montrose over to the Sunland highway and across that into the almost deserted flood area of La Crescenta.
They found Castle Road and followed it towards the mountains. In a few minutes they came to the stone house.
It stood back from the road, across a wide space which might once have been lawn but which was now packed sand, small stones and a few large boulders. The road made a square turn just before they came to it. Beyond it the road ended in a clean edge of concrete chewed off by the flood of New Year’s Day, 1934.
Beyond this edge was the main wash of the flood. Bushes grew in it and there were many huge stones. On the very edge a tree grew with half its roots in the air eight feet above the bed of the wash.