*‘I don’t care too much whether you hear me or not, baby,” Estell rasped. “I just had to figure out why you hated Louise that much, and that’s the reason. So now we all know, right, Boyd?”
“Right,” I said.
The side of his face twitched again. “So I owe you, doll.” His voice had smoothed out again into a monotonous dirge. “I owe you for Louise—for the tiara I never got—and for conning me into knocking off Byers. It’s just the way Boyd said it was.”
Patty’s hands dropped to her lap as she suddenly lifted her head and stared into his face. “Marty?” The apple in her throat jumped convulsively. “You wouldn’t—” “You’re kidding, doll?” Again the sudden nervous spasm disfigured the side of his face. “With all I owe you— and after Byers, I got nothing to lose!”
“Danny!” The black terror-stricken eyes were riveted on my face for the brief instant it took for hope to swing back to despair.
“You’re asking him?” Estell laughed briefly, with a weird cackling sound. “Baby—he set it up!”
Slowly she came onto her feet and started to walk toward him with careful, mincing steps—like a ballerina about to step out onto the stage. “Marty?” She breathed his name reverently, like it was etched in stardust around her heart. “This is so stupid—I mean, for us to quarrel. I can be another Louise to you, if you let me, or maybe even more—”
“Tell Louise hello for me, huh?” he said easily.
The gun in his hand bucked suddenly, and the room was suddenly engulfed in a cataclysm of exploding sound and flame. He fired four shots into her body at close range and the impact drove her backward onto the couch. The violence and the fury died away slowly, while her body sprawled grotesquely across the couch, the head hung down over the edge, her mouth gaping open. The staring eyes still mirrored that last split second of absolute disbelief.
“You know something, pal?” Marty Estell looked at me with no expression on his face at all. “You bother me.” “How’s that?” I asked.
“Like I told the broad, you set this up—you figured I was hiding out isu.the bedroom for sure and I’d hear whatever you said, right?”
“That’s right, Marty,” I agreed.
“You figured this would happen—or something like it, huh?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it happened, anyway.”
“So you let me jump you,” he went on easily. “You had it all doped out so good up to here, I’d kind of like to hear the rest. What do you figure will happen now?” “I’m going to take you, Marty,” I said confidently. His face twitched. “Axe you crazy? I’ll gun you down before you got a chance!”
“I can take you any time, Marty,” I said, with the same confident tone. “You want to know why?”
“So tell me?”
“Remember last night in Byer’s apartment—when I pulled a gun?”
“I remember,” he said laconically.
“You chickened out, Marty.” I grinned at him. “When you saw Pete had gotten it—or he was about to—you quit. You ran the hell out of there before it could happen to you.”
“I wasn’t taking any chances!” he snarled. “You think I’m stupid or something?”
“Not stupid—just yellow,” I sneered. “I got that same thirty-eight in the shoulder harness, Marty, right now. You’ll get the first shot in, sure, but then we’re even.”
“All I got to do is squeeze the trigger, Boyd,” he said tightly, “but 1 like to hear you talk—for a little while.” “I got a crazy idea that now 1 know where that tiara is,” I said. “But I don’t plan on telling you, Marty.” “You—” His jaws clamped tight. “So it won’t do you any good where you’re going, Boyd!”
“It’s someplace where you wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting at it, anyway,” I said. “You want to know where? You’ll die laughing, Marty, it’s—”
I jumped—lately I was getting good at it. I jumped sideways toward the couch in a giant, convulsive leap that carried me maybe six feet away from where I had stood the moment before. Marty’s reactions were slow— too slow by maybe one-fifth of a second—and that was because he’d been listening too hard. So the slug aimed for me hit only the space where I’d been, and plowed on into the far wall. By the time Marty was lining up for a second shot, I had the .38 out in my hand and I pressed the trigger before he did.
My shot took him in the chest. The gim spilled from his hand while his eyes contemplated eternity. Then, rath- | er than fall to the floor, he seemed to melt away like an iceberg drifting into the Gulf Stream.
After I’d made real sure he was dead, I picked up the phone and called police headquarters.
Lieutenant Schell wasn’t exactly enthusiastic when he heard my voice. “The hell with you, Boyd,” he said sharply. “I’m busy right now.”
I had a sudden inspiration. “With Rutter?”
“Yeah,” he growled reluctantly.
“He’s there with you right now?”
“Yeah!”
“Lieutenant,” I said quickly. “Give me two minutes conversation with him, then come back on the line and I’ll wrap up the whole deal for you.”
I listened to his heavy breathing for a few seconds. “All right!” he said finally. “But if you’re kidding about this, Boyd, I’ll have your hide!”
“It’s on the level,” I assured him.
I waited a little while and then a frantic babble of sound broke loose in my eardrum.
“Boyd? Is that you, Boyd?” the voice babbled. “This is Rutter—you were goddamned well right in everything you said about that lieutenant. They’ve had me down here for over an hour already, and they keep asking the same questions over and over and it doesn’t seem to matter what the hell I answer, they won’t believe me!” His voice climbed half an octave. “Boyd! You’ve got to do something about it—they’re going to crucify me!”
“I think I can help you, Mr. Rutter,” I said in a polite, respectful voice, befitting an employee addressing his superior.
“You can?” He sounded pathetically grateful. “That’s wonderful—marvelous!”
“Do you have your checkbook with you?”
“Have my checkbook?” he repeated in a bewildered voice. “Why, yes, I do, but how—”
“You write me a check for five thousand dollars, Mr. Rutter,” I said briskly. “Put it in an envelope and give it to the Lieutenant. Ask him to give it to me when he sees me. Then put him back on the phone and I guarantee you’ll be a free man within five minutes.”
“Five—five thousand dollars?” His voice shook slightly. “What is it for?”
‘That was the price we agreed on,” I reminded him. “Once I know the lieutenant has your check, I’m sure I can lead him straight to the real murderer.”
“Well,” he said, and gulped noisily. “That’s wonderful, Boyd. You’re sure?”
“You can always stop payment on the check if I turn out to be a liar!” I reminded him.
“I’ll make it out!” he said hastily. “Right now. You hang on, Boyd, don’t go away!”
“I’m not going anyplace, Mr. Rutter,” I said gently, “and neither are you until the lieutenant has that check.” This time I waited maybe thirty seconds, then Schell came back on the line. “I think maybe this Rutter has flipped,” he said sourly. “He just wrote out a check, shoved it into an envelope, and insisted I take it, with his instructions to give it to you the next time we meet.
If I didn’t do it, he’s babbling something about you won’t tell me who the real murderer is.”
“He’s got his wires crossed on that one, Lieutenant,” I said quickly. “But the rest is fine. Please bring the envelope with you when you come.”
“I’m not going anyplace!” he roared wildly. “What the hell makes you think I’ll leave—”
“I’m calling from Patty Lamont’s apartment,” I told him. “Whatever you say is okay with me, Lieutenant, you know that. But what will I do about the two bodies in here?”