Then, for some oblique reason of her own, she asked, "Your wife, was it?" and when I nodded curtly she made a universal grimace, the superior smile of those who know. She thought, too, she knew why the fin and why my questions and said quickly, "She gave quite a party, mister, I'll say that. There were cigar butts around and the room was all pulled apart."
I said thanks and let it drop there. I couldn't have said more because my throat was tight with a cold fear. I went back inside and opened the drawers of the dresser. Her things were there, carelessly thrown around, showing all the signs of having been hurriedly searched. Deliberately, I checked every spot in the room, but the things I was looking for, her mother's personal effects, weren't there.
Terry was gone. Why? There had been men here. Why? Yet, I knew some of these things. Like the men. It's surprising how great a force the unlawful comprise. They had men to do the legwork, money to buy pieces of knowledge, experience to follow up the slightest detail. And they had a motive. Mannie Waller's men had been here, all right. I let the picture of it run through my mind, then it stopped being quite so grim. They were here and left, but not with Terry, otherwise there would have been no cigar butts or careless searches.
I picked up the phone, settled the whole thing on my lap, and lifted the receiver. And even as I was giving the desk clerk Dan Litvak's number I saw the note. She had stuck it under the phone base itself and all that time it had stayed there, hidden until now. Very simply it read:
Darling, I was contacted at the Sherman and the arrangement is almost the same as before. This time I was to carry mother's personal items in the identifying suitcase, but rather than that I'm leaving them in your hole in the wall. Don't worry. I'll be all right. Love you.
Terry.
The idiot? What the hell gets into women that they think they can walk head-on into men playing guns and walk right out again! My hands shook so that I could hardly hold the phone and when Dan finally came on the same shake was back in my voice.
I said, "Terry's gone. Rhino made his contact."
"You sure it was Rhino?"
"That's what I'm calling for. You have anything on Castor?"
"Not yet. Now what about Terry?"
I gave him the picture quickly as far as I saw it. "Suppose I pass this on to Cal. He'll want to go all-out on it."
"Go to it. I'll see if I can find Terry."
"How?"
"She said the arrangements were almost the same as before. Rhino is someplace in my neighborhood and she's to meet him there. There's nobody I don't know around home plate and, if Terry has been there, somebody would have spotted her. If she goes through with this contact and comes out of it, she'll try to reach me either here or at my pad on the street. Give me two hours and we'll all meet at my place. Got that?"
"Yeah, but how about you taking some help along."
"No dice, kid. A team would be spotted too fast. Me those people will talk to. Anybody else, nix. And if they think I'm working with cops they'll clam up on me, too. We have to play it like this."
"Okay then. If that's how you call it. See you later. Watch it."
I said I would and hung up.
Once it began, night came on with a desperate rush. Over the city the belly-rumbling of the storm to the west closed the shops early.
I had walked the street from Seventh to the river, then back again, questioning those who would know if anyone would, asking them, in turn, to question others. Yes, Terry had been seen, all right, by two persons next to my own building. She came to my place, stayed a few minutes, and left. Where she went to, or where she was now, nobody could tell me.
There wasn't any sense going to my apartment now. All she did was leave those meaningless things of her mother's in my trick closet, the hole in the wall she first hid in. How long ago? Years . . . months? It hardly seemed like days.
So I kept on asking, people in doorways, the paperman on the corner, the kids, the hack drivers waiting just off the avenues. They were nice, they were sympathetic, but they couldn't help.
And when the rain started I turned up my collar and gave up. Inside me I had that terrible disjointed feeling that comes with a hangover and your nervous signals get all crossed until you're ready to scream with despair. I walked back to my apartment, went in, closed the door and reached to switch on the light.
I needn't have bothered. Somebody else did it for me.
Mannie Waller, fat and ugly-looking, squatting on the couch, said, "We only had to wait, wise guy. Sooner or later you'd come back to your hole in the wall, all right." The three with him just smiled. Big smiles.
He glanced around, his nose wrinkled in disgust. I followed his eyes, looking at the wreckage of the place, the broken chairs, the upturned drawers, the litter from the pillow and mattress. I couldn't help grinning, though. It was a lousy joke, but still a joke. Mannie was thinking about the wrong hole in the wall.
What a sucker I turned out to be. Sure, Mannie had seen Terry's note. He had even left it there for me to see too, and if I had, I would have come roaring over like a white knight and been roasted in my own armor. The cleaning woman in the hotel had probably covered up Terry's note inadvertently, and I had assumed that only I saw it.
"It's funny?" Mannie asked. "Show him it ain't funny, Ruby."
I tried to cover up but I wasn't quick enough. A gun barrel raked the back of my scalp and I went down on my knees with the sticky warmth of blood soaking into my collar.
"Where is it, wise guy?"
"Like . . . what . . ."
Mannie nodded sagely. "I spell it out just once. What the kid has. The stuff. Rhino's stuff. She left it here."
My breath was coming in hard. The guy called Ruby nudged me with a toe and said, "Another one, Mannie?"
I shook my head. "Wait: I'll . . . tell you."
"Give him a minute, Ruby."
How long? How long did I have? I managed to get a foot under me and poised there breathing deeply, in a runner's stance. The blood from my head ran down and dripped off my chin making it look better still. Then when I had milked it as long as I could I came off the floor with a wild shriek stinging my own ears.
My fist caught Mannie flush in the face and I felt bone and teeth go into a splintery mess. The one beside him reached for me as I turned and I almost put my foot through his genitals. Someone swung a gun again and missed, smashing it into my shoulder. My entire side went numb, my knees collapsed, and even on the way down the fists and the feet started their torture. I rolled on one side, gagging on the blood in my mouth, the sudden retching clearing my head, and for one second I cursed myself for a damn fool because all that time I had Lafarge's gun stuck under my belt and never thought to use it.
But thinking of it then was enough. The one hand under me snaked it out of its own volition and when I rolled over my face was exposed and the one called Ruby laughed and brought his foot back to kick it off.
Then I pulled the trigger and it was Ruby's face that disappeared and the last thing I saw was his hat flying toward the ceiling as his head exploded. A foot shocked me almost senseless and my eyes closed.
Mannie's voice was far away, a horrible mumbling, swearing at the other two. Dimly, I heard one say, "How the hell could we know?"
"You jerks," Mannie sobbed. "I should kill you. Look at Ruby."