“Who are ‘they,’ or is that a family secret?”
Nemo turned from the wheel to peer into my face. His breath was sour, his look incredulous. “Christ, don’t you know who Nick is? Didn’t he tell you?”
“He’s a lemon-grower, isn’t he?”
“He is now.”
“What did he used to be?”
The bitter beaten face closed on itself. “I oughtn’t to be flapping at the mouth. He can tell you himself if he wants to.”
Two hundred horses yanked us away from the curb. I rode with my heavy leather bag on my knees. Nemo drove as if driving was the one thing in life he enjoyed, rapt in silent communion with the engine. It whisked us along the highway, then down a gradual incline between geometrically planted lemon groves. The sunset sea glimmered red at the foot of the slope.
Before we reached it, we turned off the blacktop into a private lane which ran like a straight hair-parting between the dark green trees. Straight for half a mile or more to a low house in a clearing.
The house was flat-roofed, made of concrete and fieldstone, with an attached garage. All of its windows were blinded with heavy draperies. It was surrounded with well-kept shrubbery and lawn, the lawn with a ten-foot wire fence surmounted by barbed wire.
Nemo stopped in front of the closed and padlocked gate, and honked the horn. There was no response. He honked the horn again.
About halfway between the house and the gate, a crawling thing came out of the shrubbery. It was a man, moving very slowly on hands and knees. His head hung down almost to the ground. One side of his head was bright red, as if he had fallen in paint. He left a jagged red trail in the gravel of the driveway.
Harry Nemo said, “Nick!” He scrambled out of the car. “What happened, Nick?”
The crawling man lifted his heavy head and looked at us. Cumbrously, he rose to his feet. He came forward with his legs spraddled and loose, like a huge infant learning to walk. He breathed loudly and horribly, looking at us with a dreadful hopefulness. Then he died on his feet, still walking. I saw the change in his face before it struck the gravel.
Harry Nemo went over the fence like a weary monkey, snagging his slacks on the barbed wire. He knelt beside his brother and turned him over and palmed his chest. He stood up shaking his head.
I had my bag unzipped and my hand on the revolver. I went to the gate, “Open up, Harry.”
Harry was saying, “They got him,” over and over. He crossed himself several times. “The dirty bastards.”
“Open up,” I said.
He found a key ring in the dead man’s pocket and opened the padlocked gate. Our dragging footsteps crunched the gravel. I looked down at the specks of gravel in Nicky Nemo’s eyes, the bullet hole in his temple.
“Who got him, Harry?”
“I dunno. Fats Jordan, or Artie Castola, or Faronese. It must have been one of them.”
“The Purple Gang.”
“You called it. Nicky was their treasurer back in the thirties. He was the one that didn’t get into the papers. He handled the payoff, see. When the heat went on and the gang got busted up, he had some money in a safe deposit box. He was the only one that got away.”
“How much money?”
“Nicky never told me. All I know, he come out here before the war and bought a thousand acres of lemon land. It took them fifteen years to catch up with him. He always knew they were gonna, though. He knew it.”
“Artie Castola got off the Rock last spring.”
“You’re telling me. That’s when Nicky bought himself the bullet-proof car and put up the fence.”
“Are they gunning for you?”
He looked around at the darkening groves and the sky. The sky was streaked with running red, as if the sun had died a violent death.
“I dunno,” he answered nervously. “They got no reason to. I’m as clean as soap. I never been in the rackets. Not since I was young, anyway. The wife made me go straight, see?”
I said: “We better get into the house and call the police.”
The front door was standing a few inches ajar. I could see at the edge that it was sheathed with quarter-inch steel plate. Harry put my thoughts into words.
“Why in hell would he go outside? He was safe as houses as long as he stayed inside.”
“Did he live alone?”
“More or less alone.”
“What does that mean?”
He pretended not to hear me, but I got some kind of an answer. Looking through the doorless arch into the living room, I saw a leopardskin coat folded across the back of the chesterfield. There were red-tipped cigarette butts mingled with cigar butts in the ashtrays.
“Nicky was married?”
“Not exactly.”
“You know the woman?”
“Naw.” But he was lying.
Somewhere behind the thick walls of the house, there was a creak of springs, a crashing bump, the broken roar of a cold engine, grinding of tires in gravel. I got to the door in time to see a cerise convertible hurtling down the driveway. The top was down, and a yellow-haired girl was small and intent at the wheel. She swerved around Nick’s body and got through the gate somehow, with her tires screaming. I aimed at the right rear tire, and missed. Harry came up behind me. He pushed my gun-arm down before I could fire again. The convertible disappeared in the direction of the highway.
“Let her go,” he said.
“Who is she?”
He thought about it, his slow brain clicking almost audibly. “I dunno. Some pig that Nicky picked up some place. Her name is Flossie or Florrie or something. She didn’t shoot him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You know her pretty well, do you?”
“The hell I do. I don’t mess with Nicky’s dames.” He tried to work up a rage to go with the strong words, but he didn’t have the makings. The best he could produce was petulance: “Listen, mister, why should you hang around? The guy that hired you is dead.”
“I haven’t been paid, for one thing.”
“I’ll fix that.”
He trotted across the lawn to the body and came back with an alligator billfold. It was thick with money.
“How much?”
“A hundred will do it.”
He handed me a hundred-dollar bill. “Now how about you amscray, bud, before the law gets here?”
“I need transportation.”
“Take Nicky’s car. He won’t be using it. You can park it at the airport and leave the key with the agent.”
“I can, eh?”
“Sure. I’m telling you you can.”
“Aren’t you getting a little free with your brother’s property?”
“It’s my property now, bud.” A bright thought struck him, disorganizing his face. “Incidentally, how would you like to get off of my land?”
“I’m staying, Harry. I like this place. I always say it’s people that make a place.”
The gun was still in my hand. He looked down at it.
“Get on the telephone, Harry. Call the police.”
“Who do you think you are, ordering me around? I took my last order from anybody, see?” He glanced over his shoulder at the dark and shapeless object on the gravel, and spat venomously.
“I’m a citizen, working for Nicky. Not for you.”
He changed his tune very suddenly. “How much to go to work for me?”
“Depends on the line of work.”
He manipulated the alligator wallet. “Here’s another hundred. If you got to hang around, keep the lip buttoned down about the dame, eh? Is it a deal?”
I didn’t answer, but I took the money. I put it in a separate pocket by itself. Harry telephoned the county sheriff.
He emptied the ash trays before the sheriff’s men arrived, and stuffed the leopardskin coat into the woodbox. I sat and watched him.