‘Now you’ve told me, you don’t have to worry,’ I said. ‘Forget it for the time being – if anything happens, I’ll let you know.’
CHAPTER FIVE
An hour later I was pressing the buzzer outside her apartment. I had my fingers wrapped around her gun in case Cielli was there. She opened the door and threw her arms around my neck. ‘Darling!’ she cried, ‘you’re alive! I couldn’t let them do it last night – I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying like that!’
I pushed her back into the apartment and closed the door behind me. ‘You double-crossing little heel!’ I said. ‘You put that actress into my office to kid me she was Mrs Brent! You started the whole damn thing! I ought to take you apart!’
‘But I didn’t!’ she screamed. ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about!’
‘She told me over the phone this morning,’ I said wearily. ‘There’s no point in lying about it.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, ‘I swear it!’
‘The description fitted you like a glove – a beautiful brunette,’ I said.
She threw her hand to her forehead. ‘I’m the only beautiful brunette in this city, I suppose!’
‘You’re the only beautiful brunette who has anything to do with the carnival ground,’ I said, ‘and that’s enough for me! Who else would there be in the…’ My voice trailed away suddenly as I remembered.
‘Have you quite finished?’ she asked coldly.
‘Listen, honey,’ I said as I backed towards the door, ‘there’s just a chance I could be wrong.’
‘Just a chance you could be wrong.’ Her eyes flashed fire. Then she picked up a bottle of rye from the liquor cabinet. ‘Just a chance!’ she screamed. The bottle hurled through the air towards me. I ducked and it thudded against the door, then dropped to the floor.
I opened the door quickly and shut it after me just in time. Another bottle thudded into the panels a second later. I made quick time to the elevator and out of the apartment block. I went home.
I left my apartment just after eight and had to get a cab down to the carnival ground. I wondered how Cielli was treating my car or whether he’d run it over a cliff. I hoped not – the insurance was overdue.
I paid my quarter and went inside the tent to see Mollo’s magic for the second time. I waited until the show was over and the customers had departed. I had stayed in the back row and I didn’t think Mollo or Ivy had seen me. I went up on the stage and ducked between the curtains. It was pretty much the same layout that Tyson’s tent had at the back.
I went down the steps and there they were. Mollo was sitting on a camp-stool, lighting a cigarette. Ivy was sitting on another stool, with her feet up on a packing-case. ‘Hi!’ I said brightly.
Ivy jumped. Mollo looked up casually. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Your admirer is back, Ivy!’
Ivy stood up. She smiled at me. ‘Hullo, Rex, it’s good to see you!’
‘It is?’ I asked her.
‘Of course!’ Her smile grew a little uncertain.
‘You heel’ I said. ‘You two-timing female heel!’
‘Rex!’ She looked hurt. ‘What’s come over you?’
‘To think I pulled you out of a peddling rap once before!’ I said. I jerked a thumb in Mollo’s direction, ‘Is he in this, or would you prefer I talked to you alone?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she said.
‘Oh, yes you do!’ I sneered. ‘Poison Ivy!’
She turned her back on me and started to walk towards the door. ‘I’m not going to stay here and be insulted!’ she said.
‘You don’t know the half of it!’ I told her. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back. ‘Brother!’ I said. ‘I wince when I remember just how dumb I was – spilling the lot to you over a cup of coffee and asking you for help!’ I pulled her closer. ‘I had a nice long cosy chat with Lucinda Bray this morning!’
‘Oh!’ She looked startled. Mollo was watching interestedly.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘you’re in real trouble now Cielli’s on the warpath and it won’t take him long to figure out who’s behind all the trouble – who started it in the first place. So you’d better come clean. It’s dope again, isn’t it?’
She nodded dumbly. ‘And Cielli brings it with him in his launch?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘it’s dropped in watertight containers from the big ships at a certain rendezvous. Cielli picks it up.’
‘Then it goes to the Green Dragon and Gatt breaks it down into pellets?’ She didn’t answer. I shook her arm vigorously. ‘Doesn’t he?’
‘Yes!’ she squealed. ‘Stop it, you’re hurting me!’
‘I’m only just starting if you don’t answer the questions quickly,’ I told her. ‘Johnny Brent was the contact between Gatt and the carnival ground?’ She nodded.
‘Two main sources – two avenues,’ I said. ‘One through the Harem Girls’ Hall and the other through you?’
‘Yes, damn you!’ she said sullenly.
‘That’s why the people stayed here even though they weren’t making any dough through legitimate carnival?’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘What about the honest ones?’
‘Cielli paid them two hundred bucks a week to stay – Johnny Brent made the payments,’ she said.
‘What was the idea of that?’ I asked her.
She took a deep breath. ‘Because if the carnival ground had been half empty, even the cops would have been interested to know why the other half stayed on. We had to keep them all here.’
‘You weren’t frightened they might talk?’
‘When they were getting two hundred bucks a week for nothing?’ she sneered. ‘Don’t be stupid!’
I gave her another shake to mend her manners.
‘What happened? You got ambitious?’
‘We knew the whole set-up,’ she said. ‘There were too many in it. Gatt was all right, but Cielli took too big a cut for himself – and we could distribute Tyson’s lot as well as our own.’
‘Then I came along?’
‘Then you came along,’ she agreed. ‘When you told me what you were looking for, I thought it was too good a chance to miss. So we coached that actress and she did a good job – sold you on it completely. We figured that the more you went around asking about Johnny Brent, the more worried Cielli and the rest of them would be. They’d start to distrust each other – particularly Johnny. That way, it would be much easier for us when the time came to take over.’
‘You were doing all the work for us. You were taking all the risks. We gave the actress those clues to give to you. You aren’t too bad a private eye,’ she said reluctantly, ‘so we knew you’d keep adding it up and eventually come up with the right answer. By that time they would either knock you off or we’d have to – it didn’t matter much.’
I resisted an impulse. ‘What about Johnny? He was killed because he was going to tell me that he never had a wife. Is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed.
‘Who killed him?’
‘Why, Mr Kaufman,’ Mollo said smoothly, ‘that’s a question easily answered – I did!’ I looked down the barrel of the automatic he was holding firmly in his right hand.
He glanced quickly at his watch. ‘Ivy, my dear,’ he said, ‘it’s nearly time for the next show.’
‘You can’t put it on now,’ she protested.
‘We must,’ he said, ‘it’s one of the specials’ He smiled at me. ‘For your information, it’s at special shows that we sell the stuff. Done up in popcorn packets, with some genuine popcorn on the tray for those who really want it.’
Ivy looked at him sourly. ‘That’s all right,’ she said, ‘but what are you going to do with big-eyes?’ She pointed her thumb at me.
Mollo looked at me coldly, ‘You may realise that I have a silencer on this gun,’ he said. ‘You will do exactly as I say. First, give me the gun I can see bulging in your pocket.’
I gave it to him. ‘Now get in there,’ he said, ‘quickly!’ He pointed to a wooden box mounted on a stool. I got into it awkwardly. My head protruded from one end and my feet from the other. He screwed down the lid tightly and I was helpless. ‘One yelp and it is the last!’ he said.