Healey had ducked out of Chi and they’d tailed him, first to Salt Lake, then to Caliente. Monday night, Raines had helped Mackay put on the act in the hotel that Healey had told me about.
Raines hadn’t got off the train with her or checked into the hotel with her because they didn’t want to be seen together in case anything went wrong, but he ducked up that handy back stairway and they’d given Healey the act, showing him exactly the color and size of the spot they had him on.
Then, when Healey came down to my room, Raines had gone down and planted across the street in case Healey tried to powder.
Raines hadn’t been there five minutes before Mrs. Healey and a man rolled up in the blue Chrysler. Raines recognized Mrs. Healey because she’d spotted Healey with Miss Mackay and Raines in a cabaret in Chicago once and crowned Miss Mackay with a beer bottle. It seems Mrs. Healey was a nice quiet girl.
They parked in front of the hotel and the man went in a minute, probably to buy a cigar and get a peek at the register. Then he came out and talked to Mrs. Healey a little while and went back in the little alleyway that led to the side door. He was only there a minute; he probably found out that it was practical to go into the hotel that way and came back and told her.
Along about that time in Raines’ yarn I woke up to the fact that he was referring to the man who was with Mrs. Healey as “this guy.” I opened my eyes and looked at him and he was looking at Card.
Card had stayed in the car while Mrs. Healey went back through the alleyway and into the hotel. After a couple minutes he got nervous and got out and walked up the street a little ways, and Raines went across the street and went upstairs to find out what it was all about. That must have been about the time I was checking out.
Card must have been coming back down the other side of the street and he saw me come out and finagle with his car and get into mine, and he stayed away until hell started popping upstairs and I went into the hotel.
Raines stopped a minute. I got up and went over and rolled Card over on his back. He groaned and opened his eyes and blinked up at me and then he sat up slowly and leaned against the wall.
Raines said Mrs. Healey must have tried Healey’s door and then waited till Healey came up the front stairway after he left me, and she ducked around a corner and watched Healey go into Mackay’s room. By that time Raines was at the top of the back stairway and he watched Mrs. Healey take a gun out of her bag and go down and listen at Miss Mackay’s door. When Healey opened the door after whittling Mackay, she backed him into the room and closed the door. Raines said she probably told him a few pertinent truths about himself and relieved him of what was left of the hundred and fifty and then opened him up with the .38.
It was a swell spot for her, with the Mackay gal there with a knife in her heart. Raines said he figured she’d intended to rub Healey from the start, before he could divorce her — Healey had said she’d sworn to kill him, before he left Chicago. A nice quiet girl — Mrs. Healey. A lady.
She’d dodged Raines on the stairs and he’d chased her down to the car, but by that time Card was back in the car with the engine running and they’d shoved off fast. Then Raines had come back up with the sheriff and his gang to look things over. That’s where I’d seen him.
He’d taken the midnight train for L A and it had taken him all day Tuesday to locate Mrs. Healey. He’d been putting the screws on her and Card for a split of the important money and Card had gone into a wrestling number with him just before I arrived.
By the time Raines had got all that out of his system Card was sitting up straight with his mouth open and his hands moving around fast and that dumb, thoughtful look on his face as if he wanted to say something. When Raines stopped to breathe, Card said that the lady had talked him into driving her up to Caliente because she said she was too nervous to wait for Healey in L A — she said she had to see Healey and try to make their scrap up right away, or she’d have a nervous breakdown or something and Card — the big chump — fell for it.
He said he was the most surprised man in the world when the shooting started, and that when she came galloping down and they scrammed for L A she’d told him that she’d walked in on Mackay ventilating Healey, just like the sheriff said, and that Mackay had shot at her as she ran away. Card had fallen for that, too. She had the poor sap hypnotized.
Card knew I’d been up at Caliente, of course — he’d seen me; so when I walked into his place in the morning he’d figured I had some kind of slant on what it was all about and he’d taken me over to her place so they could put on their “comfort her in her bereavement” turn for my benefit. Then, Tuesday night, when I’d walked in on the shakedown and knocked Raines out, Card, who had had a load of what Raines had to say to Mrs. Healey and who half believed it, calculated that his best play was to take the air with her. He was too much-mixed up in it to beat an accessory rap anyway, so he’d sapped me with a bookend and they’d tied Raines, who was coming to, and he’d helped her pack her things. They were going to light out for New Zealand or some quiet place like that; only she’d sneaked up behind him and smacked him down at the last minute. A lovely lady.
We all stopped talking about that time — Raines and Card and me — and looked at one another.
Card laughed. He squinted at me and said: “You looked silly when I clipped you with the bookend!”
Raines said: “You didn’t look particularly intelligent when our girl-friend let you have it.”
Card snickered on the wrong side of his face and got up and went out into the kitchen for a drink of water. He found a bottle out there — almost a full fifth of White Horse. He brought it in, I untied Raines and we all had a snort.
I was thinking about what suckers we’d been. I’d popped Raines and Card had popped me and Mrs. Healey had popped Card — all of us. One, two, three. Tinker to Evers to Chance — only more so.
I think we were all pretty washed up with La Belle Healey. It was a cinch Card wouldn’t want any more of her. I don’t know about Raines, but I know I didn’t.
We finished the bottle and Raines snooped around and found a full one and we did a little business with that.
I didn’t find out I had a concussion till next morning. I was a week and two days in the hospital at twenty dollars a day, and the doctor nicked me two-fifty. He’ll get the rest of it when he catches me.
The whole Healey play, what with one thing and another, cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a grand. I got a lame skull and about two-bits’ worth of fun out of it. I pass.
Murder In Blue
Coleman said: “Eight ball in the corner.” There was soft click of ball against ball and then sharper click as the black ball dropped into the pocket Coleman had called.
Coleman put his cue in the rack. He rolled down the sleeves of his vividly striped silk shirt and put on his coat and a pearl gray velour hat. He went to the pale fat man who slouched against a neighboring table and took two crisp hundred dollar notes from the fat man’s outstretched hand, glanced at the slim, pimpled youth who had been his opponent, smiled thinly, said: “So long,” went to the door, out into the street.
There was sudden roar from a black, curtained roadster on the other side of the street; the sudden ragged roar of four or five shots close together, a white pulsing finger of flame in the dusk, and Coleman sank to his knees. He swayed backwards once, fell forward onto his face hard; his gray hat rolled slowly across the sidewalk. The roadster was moving, had disappeared before Coleman was entirely still. It became very quiet in the street.