He grinned and patted the bulge. "That's where I carry my references."
I parked a half-block away and waited. The chauffeur had obviously come to pick Haskell up. Within ten minutes, a rotund man who looked as if he was carrying a watermelon under his coat appeared and got into the car.
When the Caddy passed, I fell in behind it. Our destination turned out to be a swank country club in the suburbs. The fat man was a golfer. I spent most of the afternoon watching him through binoculars. He had a drive like an old woman. I was the victim of an advanced case of boredom by the time he finally trudged back to the clubhouse.
It was time for me to make a move. I put up the binoculars and walked to the parking lot. Moving behind a row of automobiles, I came up behind the chauffeur, who was leaning against the Caddy's hood with his arms folded.
"Hey," I said softly.
He whipped around and I drove a hard right into his solar plexus. I yanked him between two cars so that we wouldn't attract attention and hit him again. His eyes rolled like marbles and his fumbling hand slid limply away from his jacket buttons.
"Let's see your references," I said and gave the jacket a hard pull. Buttons rained against the side of the Cadillac. I extracted the .38 from the holster under his arm.
"Now we're going to wait for your boss," I told him.
When Haskell emerged from the clubhouse, the chauffeur was sitting stiffly behind the steering wheel. His posture was due to the gun I had punched into the back of his neck.
"Max, what's the matter with you?" Haskell asked as he drew near.
"His belly hurts," I said. I shoved the right-hand car door open with my foot. "Get in, Mr. Haskell."
The fat man peered into the back seat at me. He had a smooth golf course tan, but at the moment he looked a little pale. "This doesn't speak well for your judgment," he blustered. "I am a man of some influence."
I had been waiting a long time and impatience was prodding me. "Get into the car, Mr. Haskell, or I'll spill some of your chauffeur's blood on these expensive leather seats."
He eased into the car and settled back with a grunt. Lacing his pudgy fingers together, he said, "You'd better have a very good excuse for this impetuous action."
"Success breeds overconfidence, Mr. Haskell," I said. "I'm not a cheap hood and I don t give a damn how important you think you are."
His small eyes shifted uneasily, but he maintained his poise. "I assume you're the man who claims to be a friend of Edward Jones."
"I didn't say I was his friend. I said I knew him. What I want from you is some information on where to find Mr. Jones."
"We never exchanged addresses."
I saw no reason to handle Haskell with kid gloves. Despite the chauffered Cadillac and his carpeted office and his country club membership, he was no more than a sophisticated mobster. I brought the barrel of the revolver down on his kneecap. The sharp blow drew a gasp of pain.
"Who the hell are you?" he wanted to know.
"I'm the man who asked you a question about Edward Jones."
"He hasn't been in L.A. in months. I haven't had a deal with him in longer than that."
"Who works with Jones? He has a couple of friends he uses on his jobs. I want to know their names."
He grimaced and rubbed his knee. "If you were as well acquainted with the man as I am, you wouldn't be interested in finding him. He isn't completely right upstairs. He likes to kill people."
"That's the reason I'm looking for him."
"I can't tell you about his friends because I dealt with him alone. He was very careful about details like that. He stopped coming to me for financing because he found another backer. Someone in the Organization, I think."
I got out of the car. Another zero. A wasted afternoon except for the pleasure of getting to know Mr. Haskell a little better, which I could have done without.
"Aren't you going to tell me who you are?" Haskell asked.
"Why should I? You didn't tell me anything."
I threw his chauffeurs gun into a garbage can down the street.
That night, I called Hawk from my motel room. "Let's compare notes," I said when he came on the line.
"I have some information on the man who tried to kill you in the hotel in Bonham. For one thing, his name actually was Coogan. He had a police record. He was a gun for hire, one of the best. The FBI seemed a little surprised that you were capable of taking his measure." There was noticeable satisfaction in Hawk's voice.
"Who gave him his orders?"
"He was an independent contractor. For hire to anyone who could pay his fee, which was high. The FBI says he was not on the mob's regular payroll."
"What about Valante?"
"He was Frank Abruze's closest friend."
"I'm afraid I don't have much. Moose is not in Los Angeles."
Hawk cleared Ms throat "And what about Trudy? Did she live up to billing?"
There was no doubt about it. My boss had a streak of the dirty old man in him.
Six
I went to bed early and slept until dawn. A hissing sound awoke me. Eyes slitted, I lay listening, my fingers curled around the butt of the Luger. Then I felt a sudden burst of heat against my face.
Kicking off the sheet, I twisted and hit the floor in a crouch, Wilhelmina in my hand. Orange tongues of flame licked up the wall of my motel room. The hissing sound I'd heard had been the curtains at the glass doors to the patio catching fire. Already they were curling into black tinder and the fire was catching on the wall.
I grabbed the extinguisher off the wall in the hall and as I reentered the room I flinched at the heat. The extinguisher made quick work of the flames. I won out, but if I had slept five minutes longer, the story would have been different.
I dropped the extinguisher, picked up the Luger again, and tore down the charred curtains. Someone had cut a neat hole in the glass door and reached through to set the curtains ablaze. It was a fine professional piece of work. While I stood admiring the hole, a bullet pierced the door near my head. I heard the slug go past and thud into the far wall. An instant later I was flat on the floor.
The gunman was hidden behind a short brick wall on the other side of the enclosed patio and pool. In the pale light I could see the snout of his rifle as he poked it over the wall. Since I hadn't heard the shot, the rifle must be equipped with a silencer. The man was a pro all the way, except that he had missed my head by six inches. Maybe I had moved just a little as he squeezed the trigger.
I didn't return his fire because I couldn't see him clearly. He couldn't get a bead on me, either. We played a waiting game, each of us hoping for an opening. His patience outlasted mine. I decided to move. Hugging the floor, I began to wriggle backward.
When I was well away from the doors, I stood up. I stepped into my trousers. Moving quietly on bare feet, I trotted along the carpeted corridor and climbed a flight of steps to the second floor of the motel. With a little luck, I could get a shot at him from above, I thought. But by the time I reached the railing of the second-floor balcony he had vanished from his hiding place.
Clumps of shrubbery on the motel grounds provided plenty of cover, but the rifleman had to dart between them. Sooner or later I'd spot him. I waited, shivering a little in the cool air. Besides my trousers, all I was wearing was the bandage on my chest.
Finally I glimpsed a crouched figure scuttling away from me. Before I could fire a shot at him, he had leaped behind the far corner of the building.
Quickly I descended the steps, ran past a row of coin-operated drink machines and out the door into a parking lot. My man was in retreat. He had scaled a wire fence and was springing into a car parked on the shoulder of the road beyond the motel property. He started the motor and sped away.