“Not yet, but soon.”
Paul Pry ignored the comment, took off his hat and light coat, sat down in a chair, and lit a cigarette.
“Why the danger signal, Mugs?”
Mugs Magoo snorted.
“Because the place was lousy with guns. I spotted ’em from across the street. They were in the shadows behind you. They weren’t waiting for you, or you’d have been dead long before you got the signal. But I figured there was going to be some guns popping, and the innocent bystander usually makes the biggest target. Then again, being a witness to a gang killing ain’t so nice from the standpoint of life insurance risks.”
Paul Pry nodded. His voice, when he spoke, was almost dreamy.
“The girl, Mugs?”
“That was Lola Beeker. She’s in with a big bottle, name of Bill Sacanoni. I think that was him that crawled outa the car an’ got beat up.”
Paul Pry nodded.
“Why didn’t they use guns, Mugs?”
“Wanted to avoid the bulls for one thing, and wanted to muscle Bill away. They’ll hold him for something. The guns had the street cleared. They started turning pedestrians away right after you slipped through. There’s a gangster’s doctor in the block, and I guess they was spottin’ his office.”
Paul Pry reached in his inside pocket and took out the cards he had purloined from the files of the gangsters’ physician.
He looked at the card of Lola Beeker.
It gave her name, age, address, list of symptoms that had to do with a minor nervous complaint. The card bore a notation that Bill Sacanoni would pay the bill. The card also gave the address of Bill Sacanoni.
Paul Pry turned it under, and looked at the card of the man who had been treated that evening, between the hours of eleven and twelve.
The name was Frank Jamison. The address was in an apartment hotel well toward the upper end of town. The card gave lists of various treatments. Once the treatment was for alcoholism. Once the treatment was for gunshot wounds, and the last treatment was for a stabbing wound in the shoulder.
Paul Pry nodded.
That would be the man who had swung the blackjack at the girl, the one who had felt the bite of Paul Pry’s sword cane as it jabbed home.
“Who is Frank Jamison, Mugs?”
Mugs Magoo regarded the empty whiskey glass with judicial solemnity, reached for the bottle, and knitted his brows.
“Don’t place the moniker. Maybe it’s phoney. Know what he looks like?”
“Five feet nine, one hundred and seventy or about that. Has a funny pointed jaw, like a battleship’s bow—”
Mugs Magoo interrupted. “That places him,” he said, “and I remember now he used to use the name o’ Jamison. It’s his middle name. Frank Jamison Kling is the full name. He’s a big shot. They say he makes a specialty of musclin’ people into big ransoms.”
“Is he,” asked Paul Pry, “likely to be the head of his gang?”
“Sure. If he was in that scuffle about the car, he’s the man that was running the show.”
“And likely to be the one who gets the money when it’s over?”
“Sure to,” grunted Mugs.
“How about George Inman?” asked Paul Pry.
Mugs Magoo lowered the whiskey glass. Surprise showed in the glassy eyes that were usually so utterly devoid of expression.
“Guy,” he said, “don’t tell me you’re monkeyin’ with that bird!”
“Why?” asked Paul Pry.
Mugs Magoo heaved a deep sigh.
“I gotta hand it to you. It’s a gift, gettin’ into deep water every time you start wadin’. You don’t ever pick no ordinary dangers. When you start gettin’ into trouble, you wade right in over your necktie.
“That bird Inman, now — Well, there’s talk going around about that baby. He’s one of the upper crust of gangsters, and he’s playing both ends against the middle. Of course, George Inman ain’t nothing but a name. It’s the name this big shot uses when he’s slipping over a fast one.
“He works under cover all the time, and nobody’s ever been able to get a line on him. They know the name, and that’s all. It’s a cinch he’s one of the biggest shots in town. That much they know because they got sort of a line on what Inman knows.
“There’s fifteen or twenty of the big guys that’d give a neat slice of jack to learn who Inman really was. When they knew, Inman wouldn’t last long. If you’re monkeying around with anybody that gives the name of Inman, just gimme the money to go get myself measured for a suit of black. I’ll need it before I get any fatter, anyway; and I may need it as soon as the tailor can get it fitted.”
Paul Pry arose, crossed to the closet where he kept his collection of drums.
He took down a Buddhist temple drum that resembled a huge bronze bowl. This drum was merely rubbed into sound, not struck with a stick as other drums were.
Paul Pry took the leather-covered stick and started rubbing the lip of the drum. His hand moved slowly. At first there was no sound whatever. Then, as the speed of the rubbing stick increased, there sounded a low monotone of sound which filled the apartment, yet which seemed to emanate from no particular source.
“It drives me nuts,” said Mugs Magoo.
Paul Pry said nothing until after the last bit of sound had died away. Then he sighed, raised his eyes to Mugs Magoo’s face.
“Alcohol, Mugs, has robbed your ears of their sense of rhythm.”
“If they’d only rob ’em of a sense of sound, so far as those drums are concerned, so I couldn’t hear ’em, I’d be better satisfied.”
Paul Pry let his eyes rest dreamily upon the drum.
“It soothes the soul, Mugs. That’s why they use it as a preliminary to worship in those temples where the religion is a philosophical rite of inner meditation. It’s a wonderful philosophy, Buddhism, Mugs, and the drum has a tendency to fill my mind with inner quiet, a comparative poise that’s so necessary to concentration.”
Mugs Magoo refilled his whiskey glass.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a great philosophy maybe. But the trouble with them Buddhists is that they don’t wear no pants.”
Paul Pry grinned.
“That’s begging the question, Mugs.”
“The hell it is,” retorted Mugs Magoo, “you’re goin’ heathen, working your mind up to the right pitch with a lot o’ boomin’ drums. One o’ these days you’ll take to smokin’ one o’ these here hookahs, an’ throwin’ your pants away. I’m humorin’ you now, because if you was dyin’ o’ pneumonia, I’d give you your last wishes. You’re just the same as a dyin’ man right now. And if you’re monkeyin’ around with a guy that goes by the name of George Inman, you’re just the same as parked on a marble slab.”
Paul Pry laid down the drumstick.
“I’m glad you mentioned this Inman again, Mugs. It reminds me of a telephone call I almost forgot to make.”
He crossed the room to the telephone, called the number which the clerk at the Billington Hotel had given him.
“Hello,” he said as a feminine voice answered, “this is George Inman, at the Billington Hotel. Was someone calling me?”
At the other end of the room there came a startled gasp, a choking exclamation that was mingled with the sputtering noise of a man who is almost strangling.
The woman’s voice crisped a swift comment.
“Where are you, George dear? In your room?”
It was the voice of the woman who had worn the white fur coat.
“Yes,” said Paul Pry.
“Just a minute, George, there’s a friend of mine wants to speak with you. He wants to give you an important message.”
There came the sounds over the wire of rustling motion, then a man’s voice.
“Yeah, hello,” it gruffed.