He said out loud: «Too bad, baby… Maybe I played it wrong after all… Maybe the louse hadn’t the guts to hurt you at that… well… there’s got to be talking done now.»
As he began to dial, the wail of a siren got louder coming up the long hill from Sherman…
TEN
THE uniformed officer behind the typewriter desk talked into a dictaphone, then looked at Mallory and jerked his thumb towards a glass-paneled door that said: «Captain of Detectives. Private.»
Mallory got up stiffly from a hard chair and went across the room, leaned against the wall to open the glass-paneled door, went on in.
The room he went into was paved with dirty brown linoleum, furnished with the peculiar sordid hideousness only municipalities can achieve. Cathcart, the captain of detectives, sat in the middle of it alone, between a littered roll-top desk that was not less than twenty years old and a flat oak table large enough to play ping-pong on.
Cathcart was a big shabby Irishman with a sweaty face and a loose-lipped grin. His white mustache was stained in the middle by nicotine. His hands had a lot of warts on them.
Mallory went towards him slowly, leaning on a heavy cane with a rubber tip. His right leg felt large and hot. His left arm was in a sling made from a black silk scarf. He was freshly shaved. His face was pale and his eyes were as dark as slate.
He sat down across the table from the captain of detectives, put his cane on the table, tapped a cigarette and lit it. Then he said casually:
«What’s the verdict, chief?»
Cathcart grinned. «How you feel, kid? You look kinda pulled down.»
«Not bad. A bit stiff.»
Cathcart nodded, cleared his throat, fumbled unnecessarily with some papers that were in front of him. He said:
«You’re clear. It’s a lulu, but you’re clear. Chicago gives you a clean sheet—damn’ clean. Your Luger got Mike Corliss, a two-time loser. I’m keepin’ the Luger for a souvenir. Okey?»
Mallory nodded, said: «Okey. I’m getting me a .25 with copper slugs. A sharpshooter’s gun. No shock effect, but it goes better with evening clothes.»
Cathcart looked at him closely for a minute, then went on: «Mike’s prints are on the shotgun. The shotgun got Mardonne. Nobody’s cryin’ about that much. The blond kid ain’t hurt bad. That automatic we found on the floor had his prints and that will take care of him for a while.»
Mallory rubbed his chin slowly, wearily. «How about the others?»
The captain raised tangled eyebrows, and his eyes looked absent. He said: «I don’t know of nothin’ to connect you there. Do you?»
«Not a thing,» Mallory said apologetically. «I was just wondering.»
The captain said firmly: «Don’t wonder. And don’t get to guessin’, if anybody should ask you… Take that Baldwin Hills thing. The way we figure it Macdonald got killed in the line of duty, takin’ with him a dope-peddler named Slippy Morgan. We have a tag out for Slippy’s wife, but I don’t guess we’ll make her. Mac wasn’t on the narcotic detail, but it was his night off and he was a great guy to gumshoe around on his night off. Mac loved his work.»
Mallory smiled faintly, said politely: «Is that so?»
«Yeah,» the captain said. «In the other one it seems this Landrey, a known gambler—he was Mardonne’s partner too. That’s kind of a funny coincidence—went down to Westwood to collect dough from a guy called Costello that ran a book on the Eastern tracks. Jim Ralston, one of our boys, went with him. Hadn’t ought to, but he knew Landrey pretty well. There was a little trouble about the money. Jim got beaned with a blackjack and Landrey and some little hood fogged each other. There was another guy there we don’t trace. We got Costello, but he won’t talk and we don’t like to beat up an old guy. He’s got a rap comin’ on account of the blackjack. He’ll plead, I guess.»
Mallory slumped down in his chair until the back of his neck rested on top of it. He blew smoke straight up towards the stained ceiling. He said:
«How about night before last? Or was that the time the roulette wheel backfired and the trick cigar blew a hole in the garage floor?»
The captain of detectives rubbed both his moist cheeks briskly, then hauled out a very large handkerchief and snorted into it.
«Oh that,» he said negligently, «that wasn’t nothin’. The blond kid—Henry Anson or something like that—says it was all his fault. He was Mardonne’s bodyguard, but that didn’t mean he could go shootin’ anyone he might want to. That takes care of him, but we let him down easy for tellin’ a straight story.»
The captain stopped short and stared at Mallory hard-eyed. Mallory was grinning. «Of course if you don’t like his story…» the captain went on coldly.
Mallory said: «I haven’t heard it yet. I’m sure I’ll like it fine.»
«Okey,» Cathcart rumbled, mollified. «Well, this Anson says Mardonne buzzed him in where you and the boss were talkin’. You was makin’ a kick about something, maybe a crooked wheel downstairs. There was some money on the desk and Anson got the idea it was a shake. You looked pretty fast to him, and not knowing you was a dick he gets kinda nervous. His gun went off. You didn’t shoot right away, but the poor sap lets off another round and plugs you. Then, by — you drilled him in the shoulder, as who wouldn’t, only if it had been me, I’d of pumped his guts. Then the shotgun boy comes bargin’ in, lets go without asking any questions, fogs Mardonne and stops one from you. We kinda thought at first the guy might of got Mardonne on purpose, but the kid says no, he tripped in the door comin’ in… Hell, we don’t like for you to do all that shooting, you being a stranger and all that, but a man ought to have a right to protect himself against illegal weapons.»
Mallory said gently: «There’s the D.A. and the coroner. How about them? I’d kind of like to go back as clean as I came away.»
Cathcart frowned down at the dirty linoleum and bit his thumb as if he liked hurting himself.
«The coroner don’t give a damn about that trash. If the D.A. wants to get funny, I can tell him about a few cases his office didn’t clean up so good.»
Mallory lifted his cane off the table, pushed his chair back, put weight on the cane and stood up. «You have a swell police department here,» he said. «I shouldn’t think you’d have any crime at all.»
He moved across towards the outer door. The captain said to his back:
«Goin’ on to Chicago?»
Mallory shrugged carefully with his right shoulder, the good one. «I might stick around,» he said. «One of the studios made me a proposition. Private extortion detail. Blackmail and so on.»
The captain grinned heartily. «Swell,» he said. «Eclipse Films is a swell outfit. They always been swell to me… Nice easy work, blackmail. Oughtn’t to run into any rough stuff.»
Mallory nodded solemnly. «Just light work, Chief. Almost effeminate, if you know what I mean.»
He went on out, down the hall to the elevator, down to the street. He got into a taxi. It was hot in the taxi. He felt faint and dizzy going back to his hotel.
I’LL BE WAITING
At one o’clock in the morning, Carl, the night porter, turned down the last of three table lamps in the main lobby of the Windermere Hotel. The blue carpet darkened a shade or two and the walls drew back into remoteness. The chairs filled with shadowy loungers. In the corners were memories like cobwebs.
Tony Reseck yawned. He put his head on one side and listened to the frail, twittery music from the radio room beyond a dim arch at the far side of the lobby. He frowned. That should be his radio room after one A.M. Nobody should be in it. That red-haired girl was spoiling his nights.