Dalmas nodded. «Remember the pawnshop where you left it?» he asked. «Or maybe you still have the ticket.»
«No. It was on Main. The street’s lined with them. And I don’t have the ticket.»
Dalmas said: «I was afraid of that.»
He walked slowly across the room, looked at the titles of some of the books on the mantel. He went on and stood in front of a small, folding desk. There was a photo in a silver frame on the desk. Dalmas stared at it for some time. He turned slowly.
«It’s too bad about the gun, Helen. A pretty important name was rubbed out with it this afternoon. The number was filed off the outside. If you hocked it, I’d figure some hood bought it from the hockshop guy, except that a hood wouldn’t file a gun that way. He’d know there was another number inside. So it wasn’t a hood — and the man it was found with wouldn’t be likely to get a gun in a hock shop.»
The blonde stood up slowly. Red spots burned in her cheeks. Her arms were rigid at her sides and her breath whispered. She said slowly, strainedly: «You can’t maul me around, dick. I don’t want any part of any police business — and I’ve got some good friends to take care of me. Better scram.»
Dalmas looked back towards the frame on the desk. He said: «Johnny Sutro oughtn’t to leave his mug around in a broad’s apartment that way. Somebody might think he was cheating.»
The blonde walked stiff-legged across the room and slammed the photo into the drawer of the desk. She slammed the drawer shut, and leaned her hips against the desk.
«You’re all wet, shamus. That’s not anybody called Sutro. Get on out, will you, for gawd’s sake?»
Dalmas laughed unpleasantly. «I saw you at Sutro’s house this afternoon. You were so drunk you don’t remember.»
The blonde made a movement as though she were going to jump at him. Then she stopped, rigid. A key turned in the room door. It opened and a man came in. He stood just inside the door and pushed it shut very slowly. His right hand was in the pocket of a light tweed overcoat. He was dark-skinned, high-shouldered, angular, with a sharp nose and chin.
Dalmas looked at him quietly and said: «Good evening, Councilman Sutro.»
The man looked past Dalmas at the girl. He took no notice of Dalmas. The girl said shakily: «This guy says he’s a dick. He’s giving me a third about some gun he says I had. Throw him out, will you?»
Sutro said: «A dick, eh?»
He walked past Dalmas without looking at him. The blonde backed away from him and fell into a chair. Her face got a pasty look and her eyes were scared. Sutro looked down at her for a moment, then turned around and took a small automatic out of his pocket. He held it loosely, pointed down at the floor.
He said: «I haven’t a lot of time.»
Dalmas said: «I was just going.» He moved near the door. Sutro said sharply: «Let’s have the story first.»
Dalmas said: «Sure.»
He moved lithely, without haste, and threw the door wide open. The gun jerked up in Sutro’s hand. Dalmas said: «Don’t be a sap. You’re not starting anything here and you know it.»
The two men stared at each other. After a moment or two Sutro put the gun back into his pocket and licked his thin lips. Dalmas said: «Miss Dalton had a gun once that killed a man — recently. But she hasn’t had it for a long time. That’s all I wanted to know.»
Sutro nodded slowly. There was a peculiar expression in his eyes.
«Miss Dalton is a friend of my wife’s. I wouldn’t want her to be bothered,» he said coldly.
«That’s right. You wouldn’t,» Dalmas said. «But a legitimate dick has a right to ask legitimate questions. I didn’t break in here.»
Sutro eyed him slowly: «Okey, but take it easy on my friends. I draw water in this town and I could hang a sign on you.»
Dalmas nodded. He went quietly out of the door and shut it. He listened a moment. There was no sound inside that he could hear. He shrugged and went on down the hall, down three steps and across a small lobby that had no switchboard. Outside the apartment house he looked along the street. It was an apartment-house district and there were cars parked up and down the street. He went towards the lights of the taxi that was waiting for him.
Joey, the red-haired driver, was standing on the edge of the curb in front of his hack. He was smoking a cigarette, staring across the street, apparently at a big, dark coupe that was parked with its left side to the curb. As Dalmas came up to him he threw his cigarette away and came to meet him.
He spoke quickly: «Listen, boss. I got a look at the guy in that Cad —»
Pale flame broke in bitter streaks from above the door of the coupe. A gun racketed between the buildings that faced each other across the street. Joey fell against Dalmas. The coupe jerked into sudden motion. Dalmas went down sidewise, on to one knee, with the driver clinging to him. He tried to reach his gun, couldn’t make it. The coupe went around the corner with a squeal of rubber, and Joey fell down Dalmas’ side and rolled over on his back on the sidewalk. He beat his hands up and down on the cement and a hoarse, anguished sound came from deep inside him.
Tires screeched again and Dalmas flung up to his feet, swept his hand to his left armpit. He relaxed as a small car skidded to a stop and Denny fell out of it, charged across the intervening space towards him.
Dalmas bent over the driver. Light from the lanterns beside the entrance to the apartment house showed blood on the front of Joey’s whipcord jacket, blood that was seeping out through the material. Joey’s eyes opened and shut like the eyes of a dying bird.
Denny said: «No use to follow that bus. Too fast.»
«Get on a phone and call an ambulance,» Dalmas said quickly. «The kid’s got a bellyful … Then take a plant on the blonde.»
The big man hurried back to his car, jumped into it and tore off around the corner. A window went open somewhere and a man yelled down. Some cars stopped.
Dalmas bent down over Joey and muttered: «Take it easy, oldtimer … Easy, boy easy.»
SEVEN
The homicide lieutenant’s name was Weinkassel. He had thin, blond hair, icy blue eyes and a lot of pockmarks. He sat in a swivel chair with his feet on the edge of a pulled-out drawer and a telephone scooped close to his elbow. The room smelled of dust and cigar butts.
A man named Lonergan, a bulky dick with gray hair and a gray mustache, stood near an open window, looking out of it morosely.
Weinkassel chewed on a match, stared at Dalmas, who was across the desk from him. He said: «Better talk a bit. The hack driver can’t. You’ve had luck in this town and you wouldn’t want to run it into the ground.»
Lonergan said: «He’s hard. He won’t talk.» He didn’t turn around when he said it.
«A little less of your crap would go farther, Lonnie,» Weinkassel said in a dead voice.
Dalmas smiled faintly and rubbed the palm of his hand against the side of the desk. It made a squeaking sound.
«What would I talk about?» he asked. «It was dark and I didn’t get a flash of the man behind the gun. The car was a Cadillac coupe, without lights. I’ve told you this already, Lieutenant.»
«It don’t listen,» Weinkassel grumbled. «There’s something screwy about it. You gotta have some kind of a hunch who it could be. It’s a cinch the gun was for you.»
Dalmas said: «Why? The hack driver was hit and I wasn’t. Those lads get around a lot. One of them might be in wrong with some tough boys.»
«Like you,» Lonergan said. He went on staring out of the window.
Weinkassel frowned at Lonergan’s back and said patiently: «The car was outside while you was still inside. The hack driver was outside. If the guy with the gun had wanted him, he didn’t have to wait for you to come out.»