“I guess Pete softened you up more than I figured,” he said. “Maybe we should refresh your memory, pal?” He gestured with his gun toward the bedroom door. *’In there, huh?”
In there was the bedroom and it contained all the things you expect to find, including a bed. The unexpected lay on the bed, flat on his back, legs neatly together, fully dressed, one arm outflung, the other in a crooked position, the hand near the head, the gun on the pillow, and the bullet hole two inches above his right ear.
In death, Willie Byers looked even less impressive than he had in life, which was saying a hell of a lot. The graying brown hair looked like chaff the cattle had rejected a couple of weeks back, and the vacant expression on his face was a memory to keep even a morgue attendant awake nights.
“You think I killed him?” I said incredulously.
“Who else?” Marty said flatly.
“I wish I could remember what it was I ever did to you, that you hate me so much?” I said feelingly.
“It was real neat,” Marty said. “If the phony address worked, we’d be gone long enough for you to figure a way out of that bathtub. If we were smart and found the real address, we wound up with a corpse—so we’d beat it fast and keep right on running. Or you could have pulled a switch, called the cops and let us be taken right here with a body in the bedroom.”
I took another look at the mortal remains of Willie Byers. “Don’t you think he suicided?” I asked cautiously.
“Like I said, real neat,” he repeated. “You told us the whole bit, remember? Louise and Byers pulled the job between them. Then he knocks off Louise for all the reasons you said—his nerve cracks and he puts a slug into his brain. Real neat. Only one thing missing, pal, and that’s the ice. Where’s the tiara, huh?”
This time there was nothing I didn’t understand and it made me feel kind of nervous. Marty had me figured as the mastermind who double-crossed his girl, took the tiara away from her, then killed her—and this was only a starter—then knocked off Willie Byers and made it look like suicide. Yeah, there was one more thing— maybe I’d intended to stick him with a murder rap if the cops wouldn’t buy the suicide bit.
“You mind if I have a cigarette?” I asked him.
“Yeah—” he nodded “—I mind. I got other plans for you, pal. Like we’ll go back into the living room and you tell us what you really did with that ice?”
His wish was the .38’s command, so we went back into the living room. “Sit down,” Marty told me, and Pete cuffed my shoulder a second later, sending me backwards at a fast rate until the edge of my knees hit the couch and I was sitting down already.
“Let’s keep it simple,” Marty said. “You tell us, or Pete takes you apart, like before. Only this time there’s no dame—only you.”
There was no chance of convincing him I didn’t know where that damned tiara was, so all I could do was play it cagey. “What’s the percentage in it for me?” I asked him. “What happens if I do tell you where the ice is stashed?” I figured it might help a little if I spoke his language for a while.
“You save yourself a whole mess of grief, pal,” he said. “If you don’t tell me now, you will pretty soon. Nobody can stand up to a workout from Pete for too long without spilling their guts—trouble is you maybe won’t be able to put them back by that time.”
“This I dig,” I said fervently. “But what happens then?” “I owe you for a whole lot of trouble, Boyd.” The side of his face twitched violently. “Like you killed my broad and heisted the ice from under my nose—you know just how much trouble you caused me already. So I pick up the gun from in there” —he nodded toward the bedroom—“use it on you, wipe off the prints, stick it in your mitt, and we walk out.”
“The cops won’t buy it,” I said in a sneering voice. “They’ll have the same problem you got, Marty. Where’s the ice? Where’s the red tiara all this time?”
“It won’t worry me too much if they buy it or not, pal,” he said flatly. “But I think they will—my bet is that’s the gun you used on Louise and the three slugs will match up. So maybe you dropped the tiara over a cliff or something—who’s to know?”
He glanced at the heavy, oversized watch on his wrist. “You got five seconds before I tell Pete to go, pal. And once he starts, I’m not about to stop him even if you’ve told where the ice is stashed five times already!”
In a tactical situation, I didn’t have much advantage with Marty standing directly in front of me, his gun pointing straight at my chest, and Pete standing to one side only six feet away.
“Okay,” I said nervously. “You win, Marty. Now can I light a cigarette while I talk?”
“What difference? But don’t stall, pal!” For the first time there was the faintest animation in his voice.
“I’m not stalling,” I told him, while I slid my right hand gently inside my coat.
“Hold it!” Pete shouted. “Boss—maybe he’s got a gun?”
“Sometimes you’re so stupid I wonder how you ever learned to eat all by yourself!” Marty said bitterly. “What was the first thing you did when he walked into the broad’s apartment?”
“I slugged him!” Pete said triumphantly.
“Okay—so I boobed,” Marty said flatly. “After you slugged him—what then?”
“I frisked him, of course,” Pete answered in an injured tone of voice. “In case he was carrying a—oh, yeah! I see what you mean.”
My fingers wrapped around the butt of the .38 in a loving but firm grip. “That painting of Louise up on the wall in back of you, Marty,” I said. “You take a real good look at it?”
“I got no time to waste with paintings!”
“Right in back of the painting is a wall safe,” I lied. “And that’s where I stashed the ice.”
“Here?—in Byers’ apartment?” The doubt showed in his eyes, but the impulse to find out was irresistable. “Pete! Take a look.”
The giant lumbered across to the painting, got both hands under the massive frame, and gave it a sudden upward jerk. It moved fractionally and the veins stood out in his forehead as he tried again. This time it moved all right. There was a sound of ripping plaster as the supports tore away from the wall, then the whole damned thing came crashing down onto the floor. It was the noise, I guess, that made Marty turn his head away.
“He’s lying, boss!” Pete stared at the blank wall not long enough, then swung around in time to see me pull the .38 out of its harness. “Look out!” he bellowed frantically.
Marty Estell moved faster than any guy had a right to move, throwing himself sideways so the two shots I fired at him missed and plowed more plaster from the wall. Then I didn’t have time to worry about him any more—Pete,was lumbering toward me, moving real fast and only six feet away. His large and brutal hands were extended in front of him, reaching for me in lusting anticipation. I knew if once those squat obscenities of fingers got hold of me, he wouldn’t stop until some time after I was dead.
It was like shooting at the side of a house from maybe four feet away—I just couldn’t miss. The first shot hit him squarely in the chest and I relaxed my pressure on the trigger. He kept on coming and I fired again and hit him in the chest a second time. He still kept on coming and sudden terror engulfed my mind. The third shot took him in the throat and for a moment of sheer insanity it was raining blood. Then the lights went out.
I didn’t think—the compulsive reflexes took over, hounded by a flood of adrenalin. I went off the couch in a froglike leap the moment before it shuddered with a splintering sound as Pete’s huge bulk cannoned into it. When I started to think consciously, I found myself on my hands and knees, straining my eyes in what I vaguely figured was the direction where I’d last seen Marty Estell heading. It seemed like reckless suicide to think even, in case he heard the sound, never mind breathe.