I slid my own heap in at the curb and walked up the gravel to the house and punched the bell. Inside there was a faraway sound of chimes and about a minute later the door opened on a chain and a face looked at me waiting to see what I wanted.
You could see why he was called Toady. It was a big face, bigger around the jowls than it was on top with a pair of protuding eyes that seemed to have trouble staying in their sockets.
I said, "Hello, Toady. Do I get asked in?"
Even his voice was like a damned frog. "What do you want?"
"You maybe."
The frog face cracked into a wide-mouthed smile, a real nasty smile and the chain came off the lock. He had a gun in his hand, a big fat revolver with a hole in the end big enough to get your finger into. "Who the hell are you, bub?"
I took it easy getting my wallet out and flipped it back so he could see the tin. I shouldn't have bothered. His eyes never came off mine at all. I said, "Mike Hammer. Private Investigator, Toady. I think you ought to know me."
"I should?"
"Two of your boys should. They tried to take me."
"If you're looking for them..."
"I'm not. I'm looking for you. About a murder."
The smile got fatter and wider and the hole in the gun looked even bigger when he pointed it at my head. "Get in here," he said.
I did like he said. I stood there in the hall while he locked the door behind me and I could feel the muzzle of that rod about an inch behind my spine. Then he used it to steer me through the foyer into an outsized living room.
That much I didn't mind. But when he lowered the pile of fat he called a body into a chair and left me standing there on the carpet I got a little bit sore. "Let's put the heater away, Toady."
"Let's hear more about this murder first. I don't like people to throw murder in my face, Mr. Investigator. Not even lousy private cops."
Goddamn, that fat face of his was making me madder every second I had to look at it.
"You ever been shot, fat boy?" I asked him.
His face got red up to his hairline.
"I've been shot, fat boy," I said. "Not just once, either. Put that rod away or I'm going to give you a chance to use it. You'll have time to pump out just one slug and if it misses you're going to hear the nastiest noise you ever heard."
I let my hand come up so my fingertips were inside my coat. When he didn't make a move to stop me I knew I had him and he knew it too. Fat boy didn't like the idea of hearing a nasty noise a bit. He let the gun drop on the chair beside him and cursed me with those bug eyes of his for finding out he was as yellow as they come.
It was better that way. Now I liked standing in the middle of the room. I could look down at the fat slob and poke at him with a spear until he told me what I wanted to hear. I said, "Remember William Decker?"
His eyelids closed slowly and opened the same way. His head nodded once, squeezing the fat out under his chin.
"Do you know he's dead?"
"You son of a bitch, don't try tagging me with that!" Now he was a real frog with a real croak.
"He played the ponies, Toady. You were the guy who picked up his bets."
"So what! I pick up a lot of bets."
"I thought you didn't fool around with small-time stuff."
"Balls, he wasn't small-time. He laid 'em big as anybody else. How'd I know how he was operating? Look, you..."
"Shut up and answer questions. You're lucky I'm not a city cop or you'd be doing your talking with a light in your face. Where'd Decker get the dough to lay?"
He relaxed into a sullen frown, his pudgy hands balled into tight fists. "He borrowed it, that's where."
"From Dixie Cooper if you've forgotten." He looked at me and if the name meant anything I couldn't read it in his face. "How much did Decker drop to you?"
"Hell, he went in the hole for a few grand, but don't go trying to prove it. I don't keep books."
"So you killed him."
"Goddamn you!" He came out of the chair and stood there shaking from head to foot. "I gave him that dough back so he could pay off his loan! Understand that? I hate them creeps who can't stand a loss. The guy was ready to pull the Dutch act so I gave him back his dough so's he could pay off."
He stood there staring at me with his eyes hanging out of that livid face of his sucking in his breath with a wheezy rasp. "You're lying, Toady," I said. "You're lying through your teeth." My hands twisted in the lapels of his coat and I pulled him in close so I could spit on him if I felt like it. "Where were you when Decker was killed?"
His hands fought with mine to keep me from choking him. "Here! I was... right here! Let go of me!"
"What about your boys... Nocky and that other gorilla?"
"I don't know where they were. I... didn't have anything to do with that! Goddamn, that's what I get for being a sucker! I should've let them work on the bastard. I should've kept his dough and kicked him out!"
"Maybe they did work over somebody. They had Decker's buddy all lined up for a shellacking until he shook 'em off on me. I thought I taught 'em to keep their noses out of trouble, but I guess I didn't teach 'em hard enough. The guy they were going to give the business to died with a bullet in him the same night. I hear tell those boys work for you, and they weren't out after the guy on their own."
"You... you're crazy!"
"Am I? Who put them on Hooker... you?"
"Hooker?" He worked his head into a frown that wouldn't stick.
"Don't play innocent, damn it. You know who I'm talking about. Mel Hooker. The guy who teamed up with Decker to play the nags."
An oversize tongue made a quick pass over his lips. "He... yeah, I know. Hooker. Nocky and him got in a fight. It was when he picked up his dough and cleared out. He was drunk, see? He started shooting off his mouth about how it was all crooked and he talked enough to keep some dough from coming across the board. That's how it was. Nocky tried to throw him out and he nearly brained him."
"So your boy picked him off?"
"No, no. He wouldn't do that. He was plenty mad, that's why he was laying for him. He didn't knock anybody off. I don't go for that. Ask anybody, they'll tell you I don't go for rough stuff."
I gave him a shove to get him away from me. "For a bookie you're a big-hearted son of a bitch. You're one in a million and, brother, you better be telling the truth, because if you aren't you're going to get a lot of that fat sweated off you. Where's these two mugs?"
"How the hell do I know?"
I didn't play with him this time. I backhanded him across the mouth and did it again when he stumbled away and tried to grab the gun on the chair. His big belly shook so hard he swayed off balance and I gave it to him again. Then he just about fell into the chair and with the rod right under his hand he didn't have the guts to make a play for it.
I asked him again. "Where are they, Toady?"
"They... have rooms over the... Rialto Restaurant."
"Names, Pal."
"Nocky... he's Arthur Cole. The other one's Glenn Fisher." He had to squeeze the words out between lips that were no more than a thin red gash in his face. The marks of my fingers were across his cheek, making them puff out even farther. I could tell that he was hoping I'd turn my back, even for a second. The crazy madness in his eyes made them bulge so far his eyelids couldn't cover them.
I turned my back. I did it when I picked up the phone, but there was a mirror right in front of me and I could stand there and watch him hate me while I thumbed through the directory until I found the number listed under "Cole" and dialed it.
The phone rang, all right, but nobody answered it. Then I called the Rialto Restaurant and went through two waiters before the manager came on and told me that the boys didn't live there any more. They had packed their bags about an hour before, climbed into a cab and scrammed. Yeah, they were all paid up and the management was glad to be rid of them.