Beery took a long envelope out of his inside coat pocket, turned it over several times on his lap. “If this doesn’t square any beef they can figure,” he said, “I’m a watchmaker.”
The porter came back into the room and took up the last of the hand luggage. He said, “Shall I put these things into a cab, sir?” Kells nodded. They all finished their drinks and went out to the elevator, down to the cab stand.
They took two cabs. Kells and Beery got into the first one. Granquist and Borg got into another, and all the hand luggage was put in with them. Kells told the driver of the second cab to keep about a half-block behind them when they stopped downtown.
Then he went back to the other cab and got in with Beery and said: “Police Station.”
Beery signed the affidavit and pushed it across the desk to Kells.
Captain Larson blew his nose. He said: “You understand you both will be witnesses for the state when we get Fenner?”
Kells nodded.
“An’ this Granquist girl — she’s a material witness too.” The captain widened his watery blue eyes at Beery, leaned far back in his swivel chair.
Kells read the affidavit carefully, signed.
Larson said: “What do you know about the Woodward business?”
“Nothing.” Kells put his elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand, stared at Larson expressionlessly. “I lost Fenner’s confession shortly after it was signed — before I could use it. Woodward evidently got hold of it some way and was trying to peddle it back to Fenner.”
“If Fenner was in his place at the Miramar when Woodward was shot, how come he left the confession there?” Larson was looking out the window, spoke as if to himself.
Kells shook his head slowly.
Larson said: “I suppose you know you’re tied up with all this enough for me to hold you.” He said it very quietly, kept looking out the window.
Kells smiled a little, was silent.
Beery leaned across the desk. “Fenner killed Bellmann,” he said. “That’s a swell break for the administration. It’d be even a better break if all the dirt on Bellmann that the Coast Guardian published was proven to be fake — wouldn’t it?”
Larson turned from the window. He took a big handkerchief out of his pocket, blew his nose violently, nodded.
Beery took the long envelope out of his pocket and put it on the desk and shoved it slowly across to Larson.
“Here are the originals of the photographs and a couple letters. You can burn ’em up and then defy the Coast Guardian people to produce them — or you can have ’em doctored so they’ll look like phoneys.”
Larson looked down at the envelope. He asked: “Who are the Coast Guardian people?”
Kells smiled, said: “Me — I’m them.”
Larson slit the envelope, glanced at its contents. Then he put the envelope in the top drawer of his desk and stood up. Kells and Beery stood up too. Larson reached across the desk and shook hands with them. They went out of the office, downstairs.
Kells said: “It looks like MacAlmon hasn’t squawked — maybe he got away with the junk after all.”
They passed the Reporters’ Room and Beery said: “Wait a minute — maybe I can find out.” He went in and telephoned and came out, shook his head. “Nothing yet.”
Their cab was across the street. Kells looked up First Street to where the cab that Granquist and Borg were in had been parked on the other side of Hill Street. It had gone.
He stood there a moment looking up First, then he said, “Come on,” and they crossed the street. “What happened to the other cab?” Kells asked the driver.
The driver shook his head. “I don’t know. It was there a minute ago, an’ then I looked up an’ it was gone.”
Kells got into the cab, stared through the open door at Beery. His face was hard and white. “We were going to an auto-rental joint over on Los Angeles Street and hire a car and driver to take us down to San Bernardino. But she didn’t know the address — they couldn’t have gone over there.”
Beery said: “Maybe they were in a ‘no parking’ zone and had to go around the block.”
A short gray-haired man came out on the steps of the Police Station and called across to Beery: “Telephone, Shep — says it’s important.”
Beery ran across the street and Kells got out of the cab and followed as fast as he could. That wasn’t very fast; his leg was hurting pretty badly. When he went into the Reporters’ Room, Beery was standing at a telephone, jiggling the hook up and down savagely, yelling at the operator to trace the call. Then he said: “All right — hurry it. This is the Police Station,” hung up and looked at Kells.
The man who had called Beery to the phone glanced at them and then got up and went out into the hall.
They looked at one another silently for a moment and Beery sat down on one of the little desks. He said: “They’ve got her.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know — Crotti and MacAlmon I guess. You’re supposed to do business with MacAlmon...”
“What do you mean, business?” Kells was standing by one of the windows, his mouth curved in a hard and mirthless grin.
“They want their hundred and fifteen, and they want it quick. I don’t know who I talked to — I couldn’t place the voice. He said the price goes up twenty-five grand a day — and they’ll send you one of her teeth every day, just to remind you...”
Kells laughed. He looked out the window and laughed without moving his head, and the sound was cold and dry and rattling. He said: “To hell with it. Where did those saps get the idea that she means that much to me? All she’s given me is a lot of grief — I don’t want any part of her.”
Beery sat staring at Kells with a very faint smile on his lips.
“I’m in the clear — I’ve got mine. I’m going.” Kells went unsteadily towards the door and then he turned and held out his hand towards Beery. Beery stood up and took his hand and shook it gravely.
Kells said: “Why, goddamn it, Shep — she’s double-crossed me a half dozen times. How do I know this isn’t another one of those trick Scandinavian gags of hers? She was Crotti’s gal in the first place...”
Beery nodded slowly. He said: “Sure.”
Kells turned again towards the door. He took two or three steps and then he turned again and limped wearily over to one of the desks, sat down. He sat there for a little while staring into space. Then he said: “See if you can get MacAlmon, Shep.” Beery smiled, picked up the phone.
There were six men in MacAlmon’s big living room at the Villa Dora. Crotti sat sidewise at a desk against one wall, leaned with one elbow on the big pink blotter that covered the desk. His thick red lower lip was thrust out, curved up at the corners in a fixed and meaningless smile.
There were two men sitting in straightbacked chairs on the other side of the room. One was Max Hesse. He was fat, ruddy-cheeked, blond; his suit looked like it might have been cut out of a horse blanket. The other man was dark and slight. He fidgeted a great deal. He had been introduced simply as Carl.
Kells sat in one of the big armchairs near the central table and Beery sat on the edge of the table.
MacAlmon paced from the door to the table, back again.
Kells said: “Certainly not. You haven’t got Granquist here — I haven’t got the dough. Turn her over to me in the open and without any haggling and you can send anyone you want to a spot I’ll give them, with an order from me. They can call you with an okay when they get the money. Then we’ll walk.”
Crotti moved his fixed smile from MacAlmon to Kells. He said: “You are very careful.” The soft slurred impediment in his speech made it sound like a whisper.