Kells said: “Turn off right, at the next side street.” He was deep in the dark corner of the cab, watching the coupé narrowly. Then the driver of the coupé put up his hand and Kells saw that it was Borg. They turned together into the side street, drove up about a hundred yards to comparative darkness. Borg parked a little way ahead of the cab.
Kells got out and went up to the coupé. He said. “That’s the way people have accidents,” unpleasantly.
Borg was silent.
Granquist was sitting very low in the seat beside Borg. She straightened, said: “Your other driver spilled his guts an’ the tip went out on the joint we were at—”
Borg interrupted her: “That’s a swell invention, the radio. I don’t know what we would’ve done without it.”
“Then while we were getting out,” Granquist went on, “the call went out to the car in Larson’s neighborhood to go and pick you up — we got the address from that. Fat couldn’t find a car so we hired this one at a garage—”
“An’ damn near busted our necks getting to Larson’s,” Borg finished.
Kells asked: “Where did you pick me up?”
“We were turning off Third onto Gramercy when you turned into Third.” Borg lighted his stump of cigar. He bent his head towards Granquist. “Miss Eagle-eye here thought she spotted you in the cab — an’ I thought she was nuts. She wasn’t.”
“Did you know I was following another car?”
Granquist said: “Sure.”
“That was one of Rose’s cars.” Kells put one foot on the running board, leaned on the door. “It was planted across from Larson’s to smack me down when the cops brought me out.” He hesitated a moment. “That’s what happened to Shep when they were taking him in.”
Borg swallowed, started to speak: “They...” He was silent.
Granquist said: “Gerry — for God’s sake, get in and let’s get out of here.” Her voice was low, almost hoarse; she spoke very rapidly. “Please, Gerry, let’s go now — we can make the Border by three o’clock...”
“Sure. In a little while.” Kells was looking at the black and yellow sky.
It began to rain a little.
Borg said: “So what?”
“That car stopped at Ansel’s.” Kells jerked his head back towards Santa Monica Boulevard. “Ansel runs a crap game that’s backed by Rose — I’ve been there. It’s a pretty safe bet that Rose is there — that his carload of rods went back there to report to him.”
Borg said: “Uh-huh. So, what?”
Kells stared at Borg vacantly.” So I’m going up an’ tell Rose about Beery — about Beery’s wife.”
Granquist opened the door suddenly, got out on the sidewalk on the other side of the car. She held her arms stiff at her sides and her hands were clenched; she was trembling violently. She walked up the sidewalk about thirty feet — walked as if she was making a tremendous effort to walk slowly. Then she turned and leaned against a telephone pole and looked back at the car.
Kells watched her. He could not see her face in the darkness, only the dim outline of her body. He turned slowly to Borg.
“You can wait here,” he said. “Or maybe you’d better wait down at the first corner this side of Ansel’s. And stay with the car — both of you.”
Borg said: “All right.”
Kells walked up to Granquist. He stood looking down at her a little while, asked: “What’s the matter, baby?”
Her voice, when she finally answered, was elaborately sarcastic. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” Then her tone changed abruptly — she put one trembling hand on his arm. “Gerry, for God’s sake, don’t do this,” she said. “Let it go — please — this time...”
He was smiling faintly. He shook his head very slightly.
She took her hand from his arm. Her voice was suddenly acid, metallic. “You — and your goddamned pride! Your long chances — your little tin-horn revenge!” She laughed shrilly, hysterically. “You’ve seen too many gangster pictures — that’s what’s wrong with you...”
Kells was staring at her expressionlessly. He turned abruptly, strode back towards the car.
She was behind him, sobbing, trying to hold his arm.
“Gerry!” Her voice was blurred by tears. “Gerry — can’t you think of me a little — can’t you let this one thing go — for me? For us?”
He shook her hand off his arm, spoke briefly to Borg: “An’ stay with the car this time — I’ll be wanting it in a hurry, when I want it.”
Borg said: “Okay. First corner this side of the joint.”
Kells went back to the cab, got in, said: “Take me down to Gardner, about a half-block the other side of the Boulevard.”
Fifty-eight grunted affirmatively and swung the cab around in the narrow street.
Kells glanced back through the rear window. Granquist was standing motionlessly in the middle of the street, silhouetted against the glow of a street light on the far corner.
It began raining harder, pounded on the roof of the cab. Fiftyeight started the windshield wiper and it swished rhythmically in a wide arc across the glass.
They stopped in the shelter of a wide palm on Gardner. Kells got out.
Fifty-eight asked: “Can I help, Mister Kells?”
Kells shook his head. “I’ll make out.” He peeled two bills off the roll in his pocket, handed them to the little Irishman. He turned swiftly and went into the darkness between two houses, heard Fiftyeight’s “Thank you, sir,” behind him.
The driveway ended in a small garage; there was a gate at one side of it leading to a kind of narrow alley. Kells crossed the alley and walked north along a five-foot board fence for about a hundred feet. Then he climbed over the fence and went across a vacant, weed-grown lot towards the rear end of the building that housed Ansel’s.
It was a three-story business block, dark and forbidding in the rain; no light came from the rear, and the side that Kells could see seemed entirely windowless. He remembered that at one time it had been a scenery warehouse.
It was raining hard by now — he rolled his coat collar up, pulled the brim of his soft hat down.
He slipped once in the mud, almost fell. In righting himself he remembered his wounded leg suddenly, sharply. It was throbbing steadily, swollen and hot with pain.
He went close to the building. It was very dark there, but looking up he could see the vague outline of a fire escape against the yellow glow of the sky.
He smiled to himself in the darkness, put the back of his hand against his forehead. It was hot, dry.
He felt his way along the wall of the building until he was under the free-swinging end of the fire escape. It was almost four feet beyond his reach. He went back the way he had come, to the fence, went along it until, in the corner the fence made with a squat outbuilding, he found a fairly large packing case. He stood on it and found that it would hold his weight; he balanced it on his shoulder and carried it back into the shadow of the building.
Standing on the box, he could just reach the end of the fire escape; he put his weight on it, slowly. It creaked a little, came slowly down.
When the bottom step was resting on the packing case he crawled slowly, carefully up to the first landing. He lay on his side, held the free-swinging part so that it would come up noiselessly. Then he stood up.
Two windows gave on the second landing. One was boarded up snugly, no light came through. Kells put his ear to it, could hear only a confused hum of voices. The other window had been painted black on the inside, but a long scratch ran diagonally across one of the four panes. He took off his hat, put his eye close to the scratch.
He was looking into the office that ran almost the width of the building, was partitioned off from the big upstairs room by a wall of rough, unpainted pine boards.