Neilan opened the door and McNulty and I went out into the hall. It was very cold there after the intense heat of the room. Then Neilan closed the door and the three of us went downstairs.
There was a small touring car at the curb, with the side-curtains on. There were two men whom I had never seen before in the front seat, and another man standing on the sidewalk. The engine was running.
McNulty opened the door and got in the back seat, and then I got in, and then Neilan. There wasn’t anything else to do. I sat between them, and Neilan said: “Let’s go.”
We went down the street slowly. The man who had been standing on the sidewalk didn’t get into the car; he stood there looking after us. I turned around a little and looked at him through the rear window; as we turned the corner, he went on back up the street, the other way.
When we got out of town a ways we went faster. It was very cold.
I said: “Hurry up.”
Neilan turned and grinned at me. I could see his face a little as we passed a street light. He said: “Hurry up — what?”
“Hurry up.” The cold was beginning to get in to the pit of my stomach, and my legs. I wanted to be able to stand up. I wanted it standing up, if I could.
Neilan glanced out the rear window. He said: “I think our tail light’s out.”
The car slowed, stopped. We were pretty well out in the country by that time and the road was dark.
Neilan said: “See if we’ve got a tail light, Mac.”
McNulty grunted and reached up and opened the door and heaved himself up into the door. He stooped and put one foot out on the running board, and then Neilan reached in front of me very quickly. There was a gun in his hand and he put it close to McNulty’s back and shot him three times. The explosions were very close together. McNulty’s knees crumpled up and he fell out of the car on his face.
The car started again and the man who sat next to the driver reached back and slammed the door shut hard.
Neilan cleared his throat. He said: “Frank’s number has been up a long time. He’s been tipping our big deliveries, South; we haven’t got a truck through for two months.”
I could feel the blood getting back into my arms and legs. I wasn’t so cold and I could breathe without pain.
“McNulty was in it with him. McNulty was in the outfit downstate. We found out about that last night.”
We rode on for a little while and nobody said anything.
“If the dame sticks to her beef,” Neilan went on, “the scarcer you are, the better. If she doesn’t, Gus’ll stand it. You can’t do yourself any good around here any more anyway.”
Pretty soon we stopped at a little interurban station where I could get a car in to the city.
I had to wait a while. I sat in the station where it was warm, and thought about Bella. After a while the car came.
One, Two, Three
I’d been in Los Angeles waiting for this Healey to show for nearly a week. According to my steer, he’d taken a railroad company in Quebec for somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty grand on a swarm of juggled options or something. That’s a nice neighborhood.
My information said further that he was headed west and that he dearly loved to play cards. I do, too.
I’ll take three off the top, please.
I missed him by about two hours in Chicago and spent the day going around to all the ticket offices, getting chummy with agents, finally found out Healey had bought a ticket to L A, so I fanned on out there and cooled.
Pass.
Sunday afternoon I ran into an op for Eastern Investigators, Inc., named Card, in the lobby of the Roosevelt. We had a couple drinks and talked about this and that. He was on the Coast looking for a gent named Healey. He was cagey about who the client was, but Eastern handles mostly missing persons, divorces, stuff like that.
Monday morning Card called me and said the Salt Lake branch of his outfit had located Healey in Caliente, Nevada. He said he thought I might like to know. I told him I wasn’t interested and thanked him and then I rented a car in a U Drive place and drove up to Caliente.
I got there about four in the afternoon and spotted Healey in the second joint I went into. He was sitting in a stud game with five of the home boys and if they were a fair sample of local talent I figured I had plenty of time.
Healey was a big man with a round cheery face, smooth pink skin. His mouth was loose and wet and his eyes were light blue. I think his eyes were the smallest I’ve ever seen. They were set very wide apart.
He won and lost pretty evenly, but the game wasn’t worth a nickel. The home boys were old-timers and played close to their vests and Healey’s luck was the only thing that kept him even. He finally scared two of them out of a seventy- or eighty-dollar pot and that made him feel so good that he got up and came over to the bar and ordered drinks for the boys at the table. He ordered lemonade for himself.
I said: “Excuse me, but haven’t I seen you around Lonnie Thompson’s in Detroit?” Lonnie makes a book and I had most of my dope on Healey from him.
He smiled and said: “Maybe,” and asked me what I drank.
I ordered whiskey.
He asked me if I’d been in town long and I said I’d just driven up from L A to look things over and that things didn’t look so hot and that I would probably drive back to L A that night or the next morning.
I bought him another lemonade and had another whiskey and we talked about Detroit. In a little while he went back to the table and sat down.
That was enough for a beginning. I had registered myself with him as one of the boys. I went out and drove a couple of blocks to the Pine Hotel and took a room. The Pine was practically the only hotel in town, but I flipped the register back a day or so and found Healey’s name to make sure. Then I went up and washed and lay down to smoke a cigarette and figure out the details.
According to Lonnie Thompson, Healey was a cash boy-carried his dough in paper and traveler’s cheques. I couldn’t be sure of that but it was enough. The point was to get him to L A and in to one or two or three places where I could work on him.
I guess I must have slept almost an hour because it was dark when I woke up. Somebody was knocking at the door and I got up and stumbled over and switched on the light and opened the door. I was too sleepy to take Healey big — I mumbled something about coming in and sitting down, and I went over to the basin and put some cold water on my face.
When I turned around he was sitting on the bed looking scared. I offered him a cigarette and he took it and his hand was shaking.
He said: “Sorry I woke you up like that.”
I said: “That’s all right,” and then he leaned forward and spoke in a very low voice:
“I’ve got to get out of here right away. I want to know how much it’s worth to you to take me down to Los Angeles.”
I almost fell off the chair. My first impulse was to yell, “Sure,” and drag him down to the car; but he was scared of something and when a man’s scared is a swell time to find out what it’s all about.
I stalled. I said: “Oh, that’s all right,” sort of hesitantly.
He said: “Listen... I got here Saturday morning. I was going to stay here long enough to establish residence and then apply for one of those quick divorces, under the Nevada law.
“My wife has been on my tail six weeks with a blackmail gag,” he went on. “She’s here. When I got back to the hotel a little while ago she came into my room and put on an act.”
I thought then I knew who Card’s client was.
“She came in this afternoon. She’s got the room next to mine.”