«Get off the floor, Johnny,» he said wearily. «Get up and tell a poor dumb dick how to cover this one up — smart guy!»
TEN
The light above the big oak table at Headquarters was too bright. Dalmas ran a finger along the wood, looked at it, wiped it off on his sleeve. He cupped his chin in his lean hands and stared at the wall above the roll-top desk that was beyond the table. He was alone in the room.
The loudspeaker on the wall droned: «Calling Car 71W in 72’s district … at Third and Berendo … at the drugstore … meet a man …»
The door opened and Captain Cathcart came in, shut the door carefully behind him. He was a big, battered man with a wide, moist face, a strained mustache, gnarled hands.
He sat down between the oak table and the roll-top desk and fingered a cold pipe that lay in the ashtray.
Dalmas raised his head from between his hands. Cathcart said: «Sutro’s dead.»
Dalmas stared, said nothing.
«His wife did it. He wanted to stop by his house a minute. The boys watched him good but they didn’t watch her. She slipped him the dose before they could move.»
Cathcart opened and shut his mouth twice. He had strong, dirty teeth.
«She never said a damn word. Brought a little gun around from behind her and fed him three slugs. One, two, three. Win, place, show. Just like that. Then she turned the gun around in her hand as nice as you could think of and handed it to the boys … What in hell she do that for?»
Dalmas said: «Get a confession?»
Cathcart stared at him and put the cold pipe in his mouth. He sucked on it noisily. «From him? Yeah — not on paper, though … What you suppose she done that for?»
«She knew about the blonde,» Dalmas said. «She thought it was her last chance. Maybe she knew about his rackets.»
The captain nodded slowly. «Sure,» he said. «That’s it. She figured it was her last chance. And why shouldn’t she bop the bastard? If the D.A.’s smart, he’ll let her take a manslaughter plea. That’d be about fifteen months at Tehachapi. A rest cure.»
Dalmas moved in his chair. He frowned.
Cathcart went on: «It’s a break for all of us. No dirt your way, no dirt on the administration. If she hadn’t done it, it would have been a kick in the pants all around. She ought to get a pension.»
«She ought to get a contract from Eclipse Films,» Dalmas said. «When I got to Sutro I figured I was licked on the publicity angle. I might have gunned Sutro myself — if he hadn’t been so yellow — and if he hadn’t been a councilman.»
«Nix on that, baby. Leave that stuff to the law,» Cathcart growled. «Here’s how it looks. I don’t figure we can get Walden on the book as a suicide. The filed gun is against it and we got to wait for the autopsy and the gun-shark’s report. And a paraffin test of the hand ought to show he didn’t fire the gun at all. On the other hand, the case is closed on Sutro and what has to come out ought not to hurt too bad. Am I right?»
Dalmas took out a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers. He lit it slowly and waved the match until it went out.
«Walden was no lily,» he said. «It’s the dope angle that would raise hell — but that’s cold. I guess we’re jake, except for a few loose ends.»
«Hell with the loose ends,» Cathcart grinned. «Nobody’s getting away with any fix that I can see. That sidekick of yours, Denny, will fade in a hurry and if I ever get my paws on the Dalton frail, I’ll send her to Mendocino for the cure. We might get something on Donner — after the hospital gets through with him. We’ve got to put the rap on those hoods, for the stick-up and the taxi driver, whichever of ’em did that, but they won’t talk. They still got a future to think about, and the taxi driver ain’t so bad hurt. That leaves the chopper squad.» Cathcart yawned. «Those boys must be from Frisco. We don’t run to choppers around here much.»
Dalmas sagged in his chair. «You wouldn’t have a drink, would you, Chief?» he said dully.
Cathcart stared at him. «There’s just one thing,» he said grimly. «I want you to stay told about that. It was okey for you to break that gun — if you didn’t spoil the prints. And I guess it was okey for you not to tell me, seein’ the jam you were in. But I’ll be damned if it’s okey for you to beat our time by chiselin’ on our own records.»
Dalmas smiled thoughtfully at him. «You’re right all the way, Chief,» he said humbly. «It was the job — and that’s all a guy can say.»
Cathcart rubbed his cheeks vigorously. His frown went away and he grinned. Then he bent over and pulled out a drawer and brought up a quart bottle of rye. He put it on the desk and pressed a buzzer. A very large uniformed torso came part way into the room.
«Hey, Tiny!» Cathcart boomed. «Loan me that corkscew you swiped out of my desk.» The torso disappeared and came back.
«What’ll we drink to?» the captain asked a couple of minutes later.
Dalmas said: «Let’s just drink.»
PICKUP ON NOON STREET
ONE
The man and the girl walked slowly, close together, past a dim stencil sign that said: Surprise Hotel. The man wore a purple suit, a Panama hat over his shiny, slicked-down hair. He walked splay-footed, soundlessly.
The girl wore a green hat and a short skirt and sheer stockings, four-and-a-half inch French heels. She smelled of Midnight Narcissus.
At the corner the man leaned close, said something in the girl’s ear. She jerked away from him, giggled.
«You gotta buy liquor if you take me home, Smiler.»
«Next time, baby. I’m fresh outa dough.»
The girl’s voice got hard. «Then I tells you goodbye in the next block, handsome.»
«Like hell, baby,» the man answered.
The arc at the intersection threw light on them. They walked across the street far apart. At the other side the man caught the girl’s arm. She twisted away from him.
«Listen, you cheap grifter!» she shrilled. «Keep your paws down, see! Tinhorns are dust to me. Dangle!»
«How much liquor you gotta have, baby?»
«Plenty.»
«Me bein’ on the nut, where do I collect it?»
«You got hands, ain’t you?» the girl sneered. Her voice dropped the shrillness. She leaned close to him again. «Maybe you got a gun, big boy. Got a gun?»
«Yeah. And no shells for it.»
«The goldbricks over on Central don’t know that.»
«Don’t be that way,» the man in the purple suit snarled. Then he snapped his fingers and stiffened. «Wait a minute. I got me a idea.»
He stopped and looked back along the street toward the dim stencil hotel sign. The girl slapped a glove across his chin caressingly. The glove smelled to him of the perfume, Midnight Narcissus.
The man snapped his fingers again, grinned widely in the dim light. «If that drunk is still holed up in Doc’s place — I collect. Wait for me, huh?»
«Maybe, at home. If you ain’t gone too long.»
«Where’s home, baby?»
The girl stared at him. A half-smile moved along her full lips, died at the corners of them. The breeze picked a sheet of newspaper out of the gutter and tossed it against the man’s leg. He kicked at it savagely.
«Calliope Apartments. Four-B, Two-Forty-Six East Forty-Eight. How soon you be there?»
The man stepped very close to her, reached back and tapped his hip. His voice was low, chilling.
«You wait for me, baby.»
She caught her breath, nodded. «Okey, handsome. I’ll wait.»
The man went back along the cracked sidewalk, across the intersection, along to where the stencil sign hung out over the street. He went through a glass door into a narrow lobby with a row of brown wooden chairs pushed against the plaster wall. There was just space to walk past them to the desk. A bald-headed colored man lounged behind the desk, fingering a large green pin in his tie.