We nearly ran into a tree and I had time to reach in and knock that cannon out of his hand. He stepped on the brake, and reached for the gun, but I beat him to it by a hair and stuck it in my overcoat pocket and got in beside him.
I said: “Shame on you — almost crashing an old pal like me.”
He sat tight in the seat and got a weak grin working and said: “Where to?”
“Just away.”
We went on through the mud and rain, and turned into a slightly better lighted street.
I said: “How did you know Ben shot Lowry?”
The kid kept his head down, his eyes ahead. “Lowry and me have lived together for two years,” he said. “He used to be in the hack racket too, till he got mixed up with McCary...”
“Lowry won a lot of jack in one of Ben’s crap games a couple days ago, and Ben wanted him to kick back with it — said everybody that worked for him was automatically a shill, and couldn’t play for keeps. But Lowry’s been dropping every nickel he made in the same game, for months. That was okay with Ben. It was all right to lose, but you mustn’t win.”
I nodded, lighted a cigarette.
“Ben shot Lowry tonight at the joint on Dell Street. I know it was him because Lowry’s been afraid of it — and that’s why he said ‘McCary’.”
“Did you know it was Lowry when you picked us up?”
“Not until I used the light. Then, when we got to Ben’s I saw him get out of his car and go in just ahead of you — then I was sure. I took Lowry up to his pa’s after you went in.”
The kid drove me to the next town south. I forget the name. I got a break on a train — I only had to wait about ten minutes.
Parlor Trick
I knocked on the door at the end of the hall. It was cold in the hall, almost dark. I knocked again, and Bella’s voice said: “Come in,” faintly; then she said: “Oh — it’s locked.” The key scratched in the lock and the door opened and I went into the room.
It was very hot in there. It was dark, with only a little light from a gas heater. There was a little more light that came through a short corridor from the kitchen, but it was pretty dark.
Bella closed the door and went over to the davenport and sat down. She was near the heater and the yellow light flickered over the lower part of her face.
I took off my coat and put it on a chair. Bella kept scraping her teeth lightly over her lower lip. Her teeth were like a little animal’s and she ran them over her soft lower lip rapidly, like an animal. The light from the heater was bright on the lower part of her face.
I went through the short corridor to the kitchen. The bathroom door was open; I glanced in as I passed and Gus Schaeffer turned his head and looked over his shoulder at me. He was standing at the basin with his back to the door and when he turned his head to look at me his face was awful. His skin was damp and gray and his eyes had something leaden and dying in them.
I said: “Hi, Gus,” and went in to the kitchen.
There was a man sitting on one of the benches at one side of the narrow breakfast table. The table was set lengthwise into a niche, with a bench at each side, and the man on one of the benches was sitting with his back in the corner of the niche, his knees drawn up, his feet on the outside end of the bench. His head was back against the wall and his eyes and mouth were open. There was a thin knife handle sticking out of one side of his throat.
Gus came out of the bathroom and stood behind me in the doorway.
There were several nearly empty glasses on the table. One had fallen to the floor, broken in to many glittering pieces.
I looked at the glass and I looked up at the man again. I think I said: “Christ,” very softly.
“I did it. I did it and I didn’t know it. I was blind...” Gus was clawing at my arm.
Bella came through the corridor and stood behind him. She looked very scared, very beautiful.
She said huskily: “Gus was terribly drunk. Frank said something out of turn and Gus picked up the knife and stuck it in to his neck. He choked — I guess—”
She looked at the dead man, and then her eyes turned up white in their sockets and she fainted. Gus turned around and almost fell down trying to catch her. He said: “Oh, baby — baby!” He took her up in his arms and carried her back into the living room.
I followed him in and switched on the lights. He put Bella on the davenport. I watched him bend over her and flick ice water across her face with his fingers, from a pitcher; he rubbed her hands and wrists, and tried to force a little whiskey between her clenched pale lips. He kept saying: “Oh, baby — baby,” over and over. I sat down. He sat on the edge of the davenport and looked at me while he rubbed and patted Bella’s hands.
“You better telephone,” he said. Then he looked at Bella a long time. “I did it — see — I did it; only I didn’t know about it. I was cockeyed—”
I nodded. I said: “Sure, Gus,” and I leaned forward and picked up the telephone.
Gus was looking at Bella’s white beautiful face. He bobbed his head up and down mechanically.
I said: “What’s the best play — self-defense?”
He turned suddenly. “I don’t care — no play at all.” He dropped her hand and stood up. “Only I did it myself. She didn’t have anything to do with it. She was in here.” He came towards me, shaking his finger at me, speaking very earnestly.
I said: “Maybe I can get Neilan. The longer we let it go, the worse it’ll be.”
I dialed a number.
Neilan was a short chubby man with a strangely long face, a high bony forehead. He and Frank had been partners in a string of distilleries for almost five years. He said: “When did you get here, Red?”
“Bella called me up and told me something had happened — I live around the corner.”
I was sitting near the door that led in to the kitchen. Bella was sitting in the middle of the davenport, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, staring vacantly into the brightness of the heater. Gus was sitting in a straight backed chair in the middle of the room.
Neilan had been walking around looking at the pictures on the walls. He sat down straddling an arm of the davenport.
“So you were so drunk you don’t remember?” Neilan was looking at Gus.
Gus nodded. Bella looked up at him for a moment and nodded a little and then looked back into the fire.
There was a light tap at the door and it opened and a big man came in quietly and closed the door behind him. He wore glasses and his soft black hat was tilted over the back of his head. I think his name was McNulty, or McNutt — something like that. He said: “Ed’s downstairs with a couple of the boys.”
“They can wait downstairs.” Neilan turned his head a little and looked at Bella out of the corners of his eyes. “So Gus was so drunk he don’t remember?”
Gus stood up. He said: “Goddamn it! Pat — I was so drunk I didn’t know any better, but I wasn’t so drunk I don’t know it was me. Lay off Bella — she was in here.”
“She didn’t say so.”
Bella said: “I was nearly asleep and I could hear Gus and Frank talking in the kitchen and then they didn’t talk any more. After a while I got up and went out in the kitchen — Frank was like he is now, and Gus was out — with his head on the table.”
Her chin was in her hands, and her head bobbed up and down. Gus was sitting down again on the edge of the chair.
Neilan grinned at McNulty. He said: “What do you think, Mac?”
McNulty went over to Bella and reached down and put one big finger under her chin and jerked her head back.
“I think she’s a liar,” he said.
Gus stood up.
McNulty turned as if that had been what he wanted. He hit Gus very hard in the face, twice.
Gus fell down and rolled over on his side. He pulled his knees up and moaned a little.