The driver looked blank for a moment, then said: “Uh-huh — only we don’t get along very well.”
Kells smiled faintly in the darkness. “Maybe you’d get along better if you took her for a little vacation down to Caliente — or Catalina.” He held out four crumpled bills and the driver reached back and took them. He held them in the dim light of the taxi meter and whistled, and then he stuck the bills hurriedly in his pocket and said: “Yes, sir.”
Kells said: “I want you to remember that you took us up to Lankershim and that we transferred to another car there and headed for Frisco. Is your memory that good?”
“Yes, sir.” The driver nodded emphatically.
“If it isn’t,” Kells went on — “I give you two days. My friends here would be awfully mad if anything happened to me on account of your memory slipping up.” He lowered his voice, spoke each word very distinctly: “Do you understand what I mean?”
The driver said: “Yes, sir — I understand.”
Kells got out and stood at the curb until the cab had turned down Beverly, disappeared. Then he went to the drugstore on the corner and called the taxi stand at the Lancaster, asked if Number Fiftyeight was in. He was on a short trip, was expected back soon. Kells left word for Fifty-eight to pick him up on Beverly near Normandie, went out of the drugstore, west.
His leg didn’t hurt so badly now. He wasn’t quite sure whether it was a great deal better or only momentarily numb. Anyway, it felt a lot better — he could walk fairly comfortably.
The cab detached itself from northbound traffic at the corner of Normandie, pulled into the curb. Fifty-eight, the stubby, baldheaded Irishman, stuck his head out and grinned at Kells.
Kells climbed into the cab, asked: “H’ are ya?”
Fifty-eight said: “Swell — an’ yourself? Where to?”
“Let’s go out to the apartment house on the corner of Yucca and Cahuenga first.” Kells leaned back.
They went over Normandie to Franklin, west on Franklin to Argyle, down the curve of Argyle and west two more blocks to Cahuenga. Kells got out, said, “I won’t be long,” and went into the apartment house on the corner. He asked at the desk for the number of Mister Beery’s apartment, went into the elevator and pressed the third-floor button.
Florence Beery was tall — almost as tall as Kells — slim. Her hair was very dark and her eyes were big, heavily shadowed. She stood in the doorway and looked at Kells, and her face was a hard, brittle mask.
She said slowly: “Well — what do you want?” Her voice was icy, bitter.
Kells put up one arm and leaned against the doorframe. He asked: “May I come in?”
She looked at him steadily for a moment, then she turned and went through the short hallway into the living room. He closed the door and followed her into the living room, sat down. She stood in the center of the room, staring at the wall, waiting.
Kells took off his hat and put it on the divan beside him. He said: “I’m sorry about Shep—”
“Sorry!” She turned her head towards him slowly. Her eyes were long upward-slanted slits. “Sorry! This is a hell of a time to be sorry!” She swayed a little forward.
Kells said: “Wait, Florence. Shep wouldn’t be in the can if he hadn’t come in with me. He wouldn’t be ten or twelve grand ahead, either. The dough hasn’t been so hard to take, has it?”
She stood staring at him with blank unseeing eyes, swaying a little. Then she sobbed and the sound was a dry, burnt rattle in her throat, took two steps towards him blindly. She spoke, and it was as if she was trying to scream — but her throat was too tight, her words were low, harsh, like coarse cloth tearing:
“God damn you! Don’t you know Shep is dead — dead!”
The word seemed to release some spring inside her — sight came to her eyes, swift motion to her body — she sprang at Kells, her clawed hands outstretched.
He half rose to meet her, caught one of her wrists, swung her down beside him. The nails of her free hand caught the flesh of his cheek, ripped downward. He threw his right arm around her shoulders, imprisoned her wrists in his two hands; then he took her wrists tightly in his right hand, pressed her head down on her breast with his left. She was panting sharply, raggedly. She gasped, “God! God!” over and over again. Then she relaxed suddenly, went limp against his arm — her shoulders went back and forth rhythmically, limply — she was sobbing and there was no sound except the sharp intake of breath.
Kells released her gradually, gently, stood up. He walked once to the other side of the room, back. His eyes were wide open and his mouth hung a little open, looked black against the green pallor of his face. He sank down beside her, put his arm again around her shoulders, spoke very quietly: “Florence. For the love of Mary! — when? — how?”
After a little while she whispered without raising her head: “When they were taking him to the Station — from a car — they don’t know who it was...”
Kells was staring over her shoulder at a flashing electric sign through the window. His eyes were glazed, cold — his mouth twitched a little. He sat like that a little while and then he took his arm from around her shoulders, picked up his hat and put it on, stood up. He stood looking down at her for perhaps a minute, motionlessly. Then he turned and went out of the room.
It was ten-fifty when the cab swung in to the curb in front of a bungalow on South Gramercy.
Fifty-eight turned around, said: “You’d better be wiping the blood off your face before you go in, Mister Kells.”
Kells mechanically put the fingers of his left hand up to his cheek, took them away wet, sticky. He took out a handkerchief and pressed it against his cheek, got out of the cab and went towards the dark house.
After he had rung the bell four or five times, a light was switched on upstairs, he heard someone coming down. The lower part of the house remained dark, but a light above him — in the ceiling of the porch — snapped on. He stood with his chin on his chest, his hat pulled down over his eyes, watching the bottom of the door.
It opened and Captain Larson’s voice said: “Come in,” out of the darkness. Kells went in.
The light on the porch snapped off, the light in the room was snapped on. The door was closed.
It was a rather large living room which, with the smaller dining room, ran across all the front of the house. The furniture was mostly Mission, mostly built-in. The wallpaper was bright, bad.
Larson stood with his back to the door in a nightshirt and big, fleece-lined slippers. He held a Colt .38 revolver steadily in his right hand. He said: “Take a chair.”
Kells sat down in the most comfortable-looking chair, leaned back. Larson pulled another chair around and sat down on its edge, facing Kells. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees — he held the revolver in his right hand hanging down between his legs, picked his nose violently with his other hand, and said: “What’s on your mind?”
Kells tipped his hat back a little and stared at Larson sleepily.
“You gave me a free bill this afternoon,” he said, “in exchange for some stuff that would have split your administration — your whole political outfit — wide open.” He paused, changed his position slightly. “Now you clamp down on me because somebody gets the dumb idea I had something to do with the Crotti kill. What’s the answer?”
“Crotti’s the answer.” Larson spat far and accurately into the fireplace, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He leaned back and crossed his legs and held the revolver loosely in his lap. “There’s a lot of water been under the bridge since I seen you this afternoon,” he went on. “In the first place I didn’t give you no free bill, as you call it — I told you that you and your gal would probably be wanted for questioning in connection with a lot of things. An’ I hinted that if you wasn’t around when question time came we wouldn’t look too far for you.” He took a crumpled handkerchief from the pocket of his nightshirt, blew his nose gustily. “Crotti’s something else again.”